Well, I received some evidence that my complaint to the FCC regarding telemarketing calls from companies "on behalf" of CitiMortgage may actually result in some type of action.

An envelope arrived in my mailbox yesterday from the FCC. Basically, it was just a hard copy of the forms I filled out on their website and a little note to let me know that they will be in touch with me if they need any more information regarding the complaint.

I’m not naive enough to expect CitiMortgage to be looking down the barrel of a big fine just yet, but it is encouraging to see that they have not forgotten about me. I hope they do get in touch with me for more information because I’d be happy to cooperate and do everything I can bring a little bit of pain to these jackasses that think they can call people after they have been told to stop.

Nothing has changed as far as the telephone calls here. It’s very quiet except for the occasional call from a family member, friend or appointment confirmation from the dentist or whoever. It kind of reminds me of "the old days" before our mortgage ended up in the greedy hands of CitiMortgage.

Speaking of mortgages, I received a letter in the mail yesterday – hand-written no less! – from a mortgage company with a re-finance offer that sounds pretty good. Rates must still be down below what they were a couple of years ago when we re-financed. I may get in touch with them for more details and see what kind of deal they are offering. The savings they are claiming are quite significant.

I wonder if there’s any way to make them promise not to sell my mortgage to CitiMortgage if we do end up re-financing again. I sure don’t want to go down that road again!

Welcome back!

Well, not completely silent. I still hear from family and friends, but I have not had a single telemarketing call or call that has shown up from someone named “Unavailable” on my Caller ID since I filed a complaint with the FCC back in June.

I had long suspected that nearly all the telemarketing calls I was getting were somehow connected to CitiMortgage. We refinanced our home a couple of years back, and although we did not contact CitiMortgage for the refinance, our mortgage was sold to them soon after we closed the deal.

It wasn’t too long after our mortgage was sold to CitiMortgage that we started getting telemarketing calls. We had signed up for the national “Do Not Call” registry some years earlier and hardly ever got any type of telemarketing calls. Until our mortgage was sold to CitiMortgage that is!

You can read a little about my experiences with telemarketing and CitiMortgage here.

My previous efforts to get the FTC to take action on this were fruitless. As best as I could figure out, they do not actually enforce “Do Not Call” violations, but will make any reports from consumers available to law enforcement agencies if they are asked. Gee, that’s a big help.

Back in June I was prompted to devote more effort towards finding out if the “Do Not Call” law has any teeth at all. We were starting to get phone calls again with “Unavailable” showing up in the name section of the Caller ID. At first we just let the answering machine handle them, which always results in an immediate hang-up by the telemarketer. We thought they would give up after three or four attempts to reach a live person. We were mistaken.

This time I’m in the garage under the dashboard of my truck trying to figure out why the brake lights are not working. The phone rings. Since the old phone in the garage has no Caller ID, I run into the house from the garage after extricating myself from under the dashboard of the truck.

When I reach the telephone in the house, I see a familiar number. It’s the same one that has been coming up with “Unavailable” for the past week or two. It does however display the phone number: 866-266-9317.

This time, after being interrupted in the middle of working on my truck in a rather uncomfortable and awkward position, and running into the house to see who was calling (my wife was out at the time so I more-or-less had to see who it was in case she was trying to reach me) I was anything but happy.

I picked up the phone and the person on the other end asked for me by name. I told him that he has reached the right person, and he then proceeded to tell me he was calling on behalf of CitiMortgage and launched into his spiel regarding home warranties or something to that effect.

This was the same crap I was getting back in January, which made this call the second violation of the “Do Not Call” laws since I informed them last summer that I no longer wanted to be contacted. At that time, I informed the company that called “on behalf” of CitiMortgage as well as CitiMortgage and was told by CitiMortgage that I would not be contacted by phone again.

I informed the caller of this fact and told him that I was going to file a complaint. He quickly ended the call at that point, and I decided to begin scouring the internet to see if I could find an agency that could actually do something about this harassment.

Once again, the FTC site confirmed that they continue to be an agency lacking teeth when it comes to enforcement. I filed a complaint on their website anyway, just to cover all the bases.

After a little more digging, I discovered the “Do Not Call” section of the FCC website. This one seemed much more promising and actually had language that suggested there could be prosecution involved! This is what I had been looking for.

The form on the FCC site required more information than the one on the FTC site and when I was done filing my complaint, I was actually given an official-looking “complaint reference number.” Although the language was a bit unclear about whether there would actually be a prosecution, it was a lot more promising than what I was left with after filing my complaint at the FTC site.

I really don’t know if my complaint to the FCC has anything to do with it, but the phones have fallen silent here as far as telemarketing and other suspicious calls are concerned, which further convinces me that CitiMortgage was behind the sudden resumption of telemarketing calls after years of receiving virtually none.

I’m really hoping that someone is going to be hit with a fine over this one — preferably CitiMortgage. One violation of the “Do Not Call” laws after being told we did not want to hear from them was bad enough, but two is really pushing it beyond the limit.

Perhaps a hefty fine will help them improve their record-keeping where “Do Not Call” requests are concerned. I’m encouraged to see that sometimes action actually is taken with regard to “Do Not Call” violations, so maybe there is hope that my efforts to file a complaint were worthwhile.

If you would like to file your own “Do Not Call” complaint with the FCC, please visit:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/donotcall/

This is the kind of story you just gotta love to hear. Like a lot of people, I’m so sick of spam, I don’t even know what to say. I will say this, however. I’m thrilled to hear about two of these weasels going to jail!

27-year-old Adam Vitale was sentenced to 30 months in jail for sending spam e-mail messages to more than a million America Online Subscribers. Apparently, Vitale figured out a way to get his spam through the AOL spam protection filters and deliver his messages to AOL users. Vitale is also ordered to pay $180,000 in restitution to AOL.

Vitale made the mistake of trying to arrange a plan to spam computer users advertising a computer security program with a government informant.

This Vitale character is no stranger to the legal system. He has 22 prior convictions and was also involved with an online prostitution ring that was advertised through the Craig’s List classified website. He has not yet been charged in connection with that little business venture.

Vitale is said to have apologized and claimed that he has learned a lesson, but that’s a bit hard to swallow coming from someone with 22 prior convictions.

Vitale is said to have worked with another miscreant named Todd Moeller who assisted him with the spam attack. Moeller was sentenced last year to 27 months in prison for his participation.

In this case, the spam attack was launched during August of 2005, proving once again that the wheels of justice turn slowly. I just hope they keep these two jerks in jail for the entire duration of their sentences and not let them out early on parole or something.

We live on a fairly large piece of property with probably about 2 or 3 acres of field that I like to keep mowed and looking neat. It takes time, but I enjoy being outside in the summer.

For whatever reason, after 6 or so years of living here, out of the blue, my property was invaded by moles. At first I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. There were mounds of dirt erupting in my field, not only making it look bad, but also bringing rocks to the surface that don’t agree too well with my lawn tractor.

Before I go any further, I am aware that moles do offer some beneficial services like eating harmful grubs and whatnot. I’ve also heard that earthworms are one of their favorite delicacies, and since earthworms are good for the soil, moles aren’t totally benevolent when it comes to their diet. Don’t forget about the aforementioned ugly mounds of dirt with embedded rocks.

At first I was stymied with regard to ridding my property of these little beasts. First I tried flooding their holes with a garden hose. That, of course, was a useless exercise. I then went to the local farm store and purchased some of those smoke bomb things that are supposed to release poison fumes and kill the moles when you light them and throw them into a mole tunnel. Again, useless.

I then started to think less like a human being and more like an animal. A cat to be specific. These little devils surely kicked up a good number of mounds in my field and I would often come across fresh ones, which were obvious by the moisture level of the soil.

At that point, I wondered if simply observing a fresh mound would allow me to see any activity that indicated where the mole might be at that moment. Sure enough, I did not have to observe too long before I saw little batches of soil being pushed to the surface at the top of the mound. I could tell how close it was to the top by the strength of the push coming from below.

I now knew that I could probably pinpoint their location at a given moment just by observing a fresh mound for a while. Now I’m not saying you must watch the mound for an hour or anything like that, although if you have the patience, it might not be a bad idea. Moles seem to spend some of their time working on their tunnels that crisscross the land just under the surface and some of their time pushing the resulting soil up to form the mound.

When I discover a fresh mound I might observe it for 5 or 10 minutes at the most. If I do not see any sign of activity, I will come back and hour or so later and the process is repeated until I see what I am looking for. I don’t think I have failed to catch the little devils in action one time after locating a fresh mound.

My next problem was how to get at them. I knew how to pinpoint their location, I just needed a way to capture or kill them. Believe it or not, my first attempts involved a shotgun and a .22 rifle. We’re pretty isolated here so it’s safe to shoot as long as you are aiming in the right direction. As you might suspect, the results were less than impressive and I quickly gave up on that method.

I then tried to figure out how I might be able to bring them to the surface. I knew there was no way I could sink a shovel in the ground quickly enough and scoop the critter up. Then I realized that there might be a way. A pitchfork! I’m not talking about the big wide ones they use for pitching hay. I’m talking about the kind made for digging — mine has 4 strong, pointed tines on it, a short handle like a garden spade and it is pretty sturdy. It was time to give this a try.

I watched a fresh mound until I saw activity. I don’t know how wary these critters are, but I suspect they probably are somewhat cautious since I saw evidence in the field one day that a coyote or something tried to dig one up. I always walk very softly and try not to make a sound. I then just sit or stand quietly and watch the mound for activity.

Don’t make the mistake of striking at the first hint of activity. Let the critter work its way up towards the surface a bit, but don’t expect to actually see it. When you think it is close enough to the surface, you dig in with the pitchfork just about as hard and deep as you can and pull up as much of that mound as you can. Try to make it as close as possible as one swift movement. I have discovered that those things can move pretty darn quick when they are in their underground element.

I have had fantastic success with this method and rid my property of a dozen or so moles over the last three or four years. Be warned that sometimes you will actually strike the critter with one of the tines of the pitchfork and seal his fate, so if you are the squeamish type or do not want to harm it, this method is probably not for you.

Assuming you don’t skewer the critter when you drive the pitchfork in to the ground, you must quickly locate the mole that should now be somewhere on the surface. They will try to get back underground so pin it down with the side or bottom your pitchfork or give it a good whack with the pitchfork if your intention is to kill it. Otherwise, you can hold it down and probably pick it up by the tail if you want to take it elsewhere to release it. Be careful handling moles as I suspect they probably have a pretty mean bite.

The keys to success with this method are persistence and patience. You have to keep checking a fresh mound every hour or so for activity and have the patience to stand there and watch for a short while. You’ll also need to be quick and strong with the pitchfork to unearth the mole before he knows what hit him. They can escape quite easily if you are not fast enough.

What you do with the critter after you bring him up from his subsurface world to our world is up to you.

Good luck, but trust me, when done correctly, this method works like a charm.

I can remember my mother buying those “ant traps” when I was a kid whenever we would see a few ants in the house. They were like little tiny tin cans an inch or so high that had holes on the sides so the ants could enter and get access to the bait inside that was supposed to kill them. Apparently, they were supposed to bring at least some of the poison bait back to feed to the queen of their colony, which would kill off the entire colony.

The biggest problem with ant traps is that they do not work. At all. At least they never worked for my mom and the one or two times I tried them in my own house, they were just as useless as I had remembered.

I honestly don’t know if they still sell ant traps since I have not looked for them for many years, but I suspect there’s a good chance you can still get them if you want waste your money on something that does not work.

There are, of course other methods you can employ to combat an ant infestation. There are various sprays such as Raid that is supposed to kill them, but I can’t imagine how you could stop an infestation with spray unless you were able to locate their nest and spray it directly. I never had much luck with sprays either.

Living in a rural area, we have our share of problems with ants every summer. Big black ones, small brown ones, medium sized and probably a few others I cannot think of. Today, however, we had an infestation of the smallest ants I have ever seen in my life. They seemed to be interested in the dog’s food dish which is located right next to a sliding glass door. These were small reddish-colored ants that were so small you almost could not see them.

Figuring it might have been a one-time attack, my wife decided to get out the vacuum cleaner and just clean them up that way. A short while later she checked again and discovered they had returned in force. She vacuumed them up again and sure enough, a short time later they were back again!

It was at this point that we decided to bring out the heavy artillery. There is a product called Terro Ant Killer that I can purchase at my local hardware store. I decided to try it a number of years ago and was surprised to see that the stuff actually works very well.

Apparently, Terro has some other variations of their product these days, but the one I use is a clear liquid that comes in a small plastic bottle that is packaged in an orange box. The liquid is somewhat like the consistency of corn syrup or molasses and apparently is very sweet-tasting, much like the aforementioned food products.

You simply squirt out a little Terro where you see ants congregating or passing through, and give them a little time to find it. Once they do find it, they gobble it up like candy, and presumably bring some home to the queen as well, because after two or three days there are no more ants.

As I understand it, there are ants that prefer sweet-tasting food and others that are referred to as “grease eating” ants. Obviously, being as sweet-tasting as it is, Terro is intended to work only with the ants that prefer the sweet stuff.

I can say, however, that I have not encountered any ants in our house that have refused to indulge when there is Terro to be found. In fact, those tiny ants I mentioned earlier are feasting on a nice drop of it as I write this. Judging by their size, a single drop should wipe them all out within a day or two.

You may be able to find Terro at your local hardware store but if you have trouble locating it in your area, check out the Terro website and maybe you can find out where you can get some.

If ants are your problem, Terro is a solution you really should try. Unless you run into the elusive “grease eating” ants that we have never encountered, I’m confident that Terro will solve your ant problem.

A while back it was unsafe levels of lead showing up on kids’ toys manufactured in China. This time it’s diaper bags, and although the source for this story does not mention whether the diaper bags in questions were also manufactured in China, try to think of the last time you picked an item up off the shelf of your local Wal-Mart or K Mart that did not have "Made in China" displayed on it.

The report, from a Boston television station, revealed some very disturbing news about the levels of lead that were found on some diaper bags that the station had tested at a certified lab.

When paint has a lead content above 600 parts per million, it is considered toxic. Of the diaper bags that were tested, one of them had a lead content of 1489 parts per million on the fabric located near the zipper. The outside fabric of this particular bag was in the same range, around 1476 parts per million.

One might suspect that a baby might at some point come into direct contact with a diaper bag, even though it is something that is handled more by the baby’s caregivers. What the lab tests revealed about two other bags was even more disturbing.

Those two bags contained changing pads that also had high levels of lead contamination. One of the changing pads had a level of 1453 parts per million and the other had a level of 2269 parts per million! I don’t think there’s much doubt about the fact that a changing pad is something that will be in direct contact with a baby’s skin. And what infant does not attempt to put anything in their general vicinity into their mouth?

Clearly there are serious problems with the manufacturing process used to make the bags and the testing that should be performed by government consumer protection agencies when these products are being brought into this country. Makes you wonder if anything is ever going to be done about this kind of thing. Is the availability of all these cheap imported products worth risking the health of our children for?

There was an interesting story on NBC Nightly News tonight about some companies who have decided to end outsourcing practices and have started to hire people here in the U.S. again. Even though these outsourcing deals were saving them money, customer complaints influenced them to bring their customer service and support business back home again.

As a consumer, I surely can relate to this. One of the major reasons I dumped my TracFone service a couple of years back was the customer service. If I’m not mistaken, TracFone is not a U.S. company so it was not outsourcing that was the main cause of the problem but since I had to deal with customer service personnel on telephone lines with terrible sound quality and talk to customer service people that did not speak very good English and seemed adept only at apologizing profusely and not solving my problems, I dumped the service.

The kind of problems I ran into with TracFone are exactly the kinds of problems consumers are encountering when dealing with these overseas call centers that have been hired by U.S. companies to provide customer service and support.

The last thing I want when I call a company for help or support with their product or service is someone on the other end of the line who I can barely understand. All I want to do when I get into these situations is hang up and not deal with it. It’s so frustrating to be trying to solve some kind of problem and not be able to communicate effectively with the person that is supposed to be helping you.

Now some companies are starting to respond to customer complaints about the poor service being provided by these overseas organizations that are hiring themselves out to take over customer service and support for U.S. companies. Some consumers were so fed up that they were making recordings of their bad customer support telephone conversations and posting them on popular video sharing sites like YouTube. Nothing like a little bad publicity to get the attention of a big company!

Let’s hope this is a trend that really gets some traction and we see more customer support jobs coming back to the U.S. As a consumer, this would go a long way towards rebuilding my confidence in customer service in this country.

I’ve certainly had my share of trouble with telemarketers since the unfortunate circumstance that resulted in my mortgage being sold to CitiMortgage. CitiBank and their who-knows-how-many parent companies and child companies and nephew companies has been on my list of companies to avoid doing business with for a long time and these latest shenanigans only serve to validate my decision to include them well over 20 years ago.

For a little background, you can read up on my earlier posts on this subject here, here, here, here, here and here.

Although I was a bit doubtful that CitiMortgage was responsible in some way for some of the calls at the time I wrote those posts, I am now starting to think that indeed they were! And here’s why:

Today the phone rings at 3:14 PM and the caller ID says 866-468-5750 and “Unavailable” for a name. Looks like trouble but I’m in the mood to answer it so I do. Perky female voice says what sounds to me like she’s calling from CitiMortgage and wants to thank me for being a CititMortgage customer. Great, I figure it’s the mortgage company with some kind of legitimate business regarding the mortgage. After all, I contacted them back in August to have my name removed from the telemarketing list and they sent me an e-mail confirming that.

Well, so much for confirmations from scummy outfits like CitiMortgage! The next thing I know the perky female voice launches into a sales pitch about some lame home warranty plan. Got to give her credit for knowing her pitch inside and out and delivering it with hardly a pause to take a life-giving breath of air however!

I keep expecting her to stop so I can say something but she does not. So I stop her and ask her if she is in fact with CitiMortgage. She tells me no, she is calling “on behalf of” CitiMortgage. I then ask her what company she is calling from and she tells me “Cross Country Services.”

I tell her that I was supposed to be removed from CitiMortgage’s calling lists last summer and I should not be receiving this call and I am not happy about it and I want to talk to someone  about it. She asks if I want to talk to her supervisor and I tell her I do. She tells me to hold on and he will be right on the line. Can you guess what happens next?

I hear a few clicks. The a few seconds later I hear some more. Then a few more. Then it starts ringing again and I get the old “If you’d like to make a call” telephone company recording. Apparently she directed my call into thin air, or in other words, hung up on me. In her own unique way, of course!

Keep in mind, CitiMortgage was supposed to have added my name to their list of customers who do not want to receive telemarketing calls. In fact, let me quote the e-mail they sent me back in August: “As requested in your recent email, we have added your name to our list of customers who do not wish to receive calls of promotional items and products.”

Well, CitiMortgage, why did I receive a telemarketing call today from some perky woman selling home warranties who claimed to be calling on your behalf?” Is the mortgage crisis hitting your business so hard that you must resort to violating the law by calling to pitch crap to people who do not want to be called?

Being totally sick of this crap and totally fed up with the lies from CitiMortgage I went to the “Do Not Call” web site that is hosted by the Federal Trade Commission and filed a complaint. Imagine my surprise when I am informed, after filing my complaint, that the information “may” be used by law enforcement or regulatory agencies but no specific action will likely result from my complaint. Gee, thanks a lot for that! Another government law with no teeth? One might make that assumption.

I am not done however. These slimeballs have violated the law and I intend to follow up on this. My next mission will be to try to get in touch with a human being at the FTC and see if I can have something done.

When I worked in real estate we were practically threatened with banishment or execution if we made a call that violated the “Do Not Call” regulations. There are supposedly hefty fines involved in the neighborhood of $11,000 or so and if that is indeed the case I intend to find out how one can file a complaint and make it stick.

Why do they always call when I am relaxing in my chair watching TV? Fortunately, our Dish Network DVR is connected to the telephone line and it displays the Caller ID info right on our TV screen. The number was one I did not recognize and that usually means trouble.

The Caller ID data included the number 602-889-8022 but there was no name associated with it. Since I am expecting a business-related call from out-of-state, I got up from my chair and answered it.

I said “hello” about three times and got no response. Quite typical for a telemarketing or some other irritating call. These outfits use automated dialing systems to dial the phone numbers and then connect them to an operator when it thinks they have someone on the line, but apparently there is not always an operator to take an outgoing call. Nice of them to call and annoy people, eh?

I did a bit of research on the number and it appears to belong to some kind of company that does surveys. Unfortunately for consumers, the “Do Not Call” laws only put a stop to sales calls and that leaves all these survey companies and political organizations free to call us.

Now that I have this number on my list of annoying callers, I will probably just do what I did last time I got a call from some annoying jackass who wanted to waste my time. I just picked the phone up when it rang and set it down on the desk and left it there for a few minutes until the aforementioned jackass got sick of talking to nobody and hung up. I did not get another call from that number after that.

I wish phone companies would give us the ability to block selected number from calling us. I’m sure the technology is up to the task but as far as the business and political aspects of it go, something is probably stopping it from becoming a reality. The phone companies are subject for another day I suppose. I still can’t believe they are charging my more than $7 a month just for caller ID. Those little data bits flying along the phone lines must be quite expensive to transport!

One trick I have to try one of these days is one I heard about quite some time ago. The idea is to get a recording of one of those automated messages from the phone company with the beeps and says “This number is no longer in service.” If you play that when one of these outfits calls, it is said that it puts a stop to it. It may be worth a try.

This is the kind of news you don’t hear about all that often. Today, Dish Network announced that they are freezing prices until 2009 for some of their most popular programming packages, include DishDVR Advantage packages.

I make no secret of the fact that I am a huge Dish Network fan and have been for many years. I have a section on my other site that is devoted to Dish Network.

When companies do stuff like Dish Network did today it really stands out for me because I am usually more accustomed to being angry with some bonehead move by one big company or another.

Not surprisingly, cable TV companies Comcast and Cablevision both said their prices will be going up this year. It’s nice to know some things never change! The all-too-frequent price increases was one of the primary reasons I dumped cable and switch to Dish Network years ago.

If you have been considered satellite TV, hope over to my Dish Network Deals page and feel free to check out all the other Dish Network information that is there as well.