This week's media feature - Dealing with the Car Warranty Calls...
Just like most people, I get a lot of calls about how my car warranty has been expired and this is the final chance to get an extended warranty before they close the file.
Sometimes the people that call me don't know what car I have. They expect me to "give" them the information by verifying my car make and model.
Remember: When they ask to verify information, they are really asking you to give them information.
This call ends with me getting the exact car miles and calling them back with the info:
Oh, I can't call them back, because they spoof the phone number. Stop calling me with spoof numbers tricking me to think it's an important call.
Today I had to drive into Boston for work. I decided to hook up my GoPro Hero 9 camera to the dashboard and record a time-lapse of my morning and evening commute.
The video starts at Temple Street in Framingham and ends at the Christian Science Center Parking garage. The evening commute starts in the Christian Science Center garage and ends on Route 9 in Framingham.
The traffic wasn't all that bad as many people are still working from home. In a few weeks, more people will be going back into the office.
This week are four classic commercials that aired in the late 1980s. These have been available on the Real Audio pages. However, the real audio player isn't available for mobile users, so I thought I make some of the popular clips available.
This week we are featuring another clip from "The Morton Downey Jr." show. This is another segment from the 1989 Predictions show. This was recorded on December 20, 1988. This is episode 122188.
This segment features "Doctor Fad" (Otherwise known as Ken Hakuta) talking about the latest fads in 1988.
Audio is pretty bad in this clip - not sure what happened. It could be the VHS tape slowly dying or just a bad digital encoding.
On July 12th, I blogged about the various phone calls for the Student Loan forgiveness program. These are obvious scams - I never applied for student loans. If these were legitimate organizations, they would know this.
Instead these are cold calls looking for people who are desperate enough to fall for their bait. Even the Federal Government has issued a warning about the scam in an article posted on the Federal Student Aid website.
The funny thing is, I get these calls around the same time I would get the Medical Services and the Final Expense Insurance calls.
More Calls
Here is a voice message and a call where I actually talk to a person.
Here's another great collection of commercials. This is from a couple of my VHS tape collections. The quality of audio on a couple of these commercial clips is pretty bad. I think it was something to do with the digitalization. I'll take a look and see if I can do a better job importing the audio.
Once every few days, I get a message in my voicemail about my Student Loan. The thing is that I took out a student loan.
Clearly these people are phishing for people with student loans. Any legitimate business would do their research to know a bit more about the people they are talking to.
The other thing about these calls is that they always get to voicemail. They found a way to call a number and go directly to voicemail. There have been many times when I would get these calls and it would alert the iPhone that a call is coming. Before the caller ID clicked in, the call would get disconnected and minutes later I would be notified that I have a voice message.
Today's Media Monday clip features a sound byte from the "50 Ways to Get Hired." by Harold Max Messmer (narrated by David Hartley) This was created in 1994.
At the time of the recording, Harold Max Messmer was the chairperson for Robert Half International. Robert Half International is a global human resource consulting firm. It is credited as being the world's first and largest accounting and finance staffing firm.
This audiotape was part of a series of recordings that were done to inform the general public on what good talent looks like for Robert Half.
Listen to some of the tips that Harold gives about writing a resume. Try to think if that information still applies 27-years later.
Morton Downey Jr. was a loudmouth talk show host. He was one of the extreme talk show hosts of the 1990s. He is most notably known for frequently yelling at his guests to "Zip It."
In December 1998, Morton Downey Jr. did a TV special with a focus on predictions for 1989. In this episode, there were many crazy predictions. The audience was very loud and very responsive to Morton Downey.
Watch the Show
Here's about 10-minutes of the 1989 New Years Eve episode. This clip features Linda Waldron, and Leroy Montana - both Trans Medium Clairvoyant.
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