GeezLouies.net

Apparently our family plan has been cloned by some very sneaky people. Our phone bill says we’ve been making calls to the Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Tunisia, Morocco, and various places throughout the world. I assure you we have not.

This has resulted in over a $1000 in each of our six phones… totaling over $6000 in phone charges this past month.

I’ve been calling our Sprint Customer Service and the Fraudulent Claims, changing all passwords, PINs, reseting ID, numbers upon numbers… Sprint has been very helpful, customer service has been hit or miss since most do not handle fraud cases and have no idea what I’m talking about when I called.

The Fraud department I’ve talked to twice and have been a little bit more helpful since I guess they deal with this on a more frequent basis. 3 of our lines have been contained. I just checked this morning and 3 other lines are still making International Calls. I thought they could just put a block on all international calls, but apparently they either can’t do it or do not understand me when I tell them they need to do it (cuz they blocked both international calls and domestic long distance last week). But one thing Sprint has assured us and re-assured us is that we are not responsible for these calls and won’t be charged.

In any case, I am just not comfortable having $thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent calls made on my lines and showing up on my bill/records. What I did do was canceled our automatic bill pay. I’m not going to accidentally have $thousands withdrawn from my account, even though I have their assurance. Please send me something in writing :).

I’m going to talk to Fraud department every day until this is resolved. This is Day 8 and counting.

For those of you on Sprint, Fraud department is: 888-788-0788

P.S. Even though customer service can direct you there, a lot of times they have don’t know what I am talking about when I tell them “my cell phone has been cloned”, “unauthorize calls made on my cell”, “I DID NOT MAKE INTERNATIONAL CALLS.” Many times they’ll ask me if I made international calls, if I just don’t remember making them, if I lent it to somebody to make those calls.

My suggestion for Sprint: If cases are not resolved, make sure the log is available so that the next customer service rep can see the log history and be able to continue where we left off… maybe that will make things easier and speed up the process.

Thank you! and Lord, give me patience.

Partial disclaimer: Please note I am only publicizing this just as a record to indicate I have been pursuing this issue for the past week starting from Saturday February 27, 2010. I am in no way criticizing Sprint, Sprint’s Fraud Department, or Sprint’s Customer Service Representatives. This is just a record in case the $Thousands of dollars might accidentally be charged to us.

Q: Is it normal for a two month old to have infrequent bowel movements?
A: Yes.

According to “What to Expect”… it is perfectly normal for a breastfeeding baby to not have daily bowel movements. It is even normal for a baby to have them every other day or even once a week. I looked up all these different sources on the internet and found that many other parents had the same issue with their children. So we were some what reassured. It had been about six days since Edith had her last one. Mommy even set up an appointment at Kaiser tomorrow if nothing happened… The only warning they gave was that it was going to be explosive…

They weren’t kidding. After holding up at the “train station” for six days, the train left the station this evening. There was just too much to handle in the size 2 diaper that Edith was wearing. Needless to say, she got a bath right after the incident.

The brown ring around her belly is not part of her shirt nor is it a towel or some special effects of the photo… That, my friends, was the overflow from the diaper. The pants were fine… it was just everything above the waist that wasn’t protected… her stool just overflowed out of the diaper and onto the shirt… it ended up being a two person job to remove her clothes and to wash her down.

I learned this lesson early in life and I’ll share it with you.  This is a sad story that reflects the state of our current economy, however, I should have seen it coming since this lesson was taught me at a very young age.

As a kid, Chuck E. Cheese’s was the place to go.  I’d probably go 2-3 times a year, usually for a soccer party or a birthday party.  That was an attractive and seductive place because of all the games and the possibility of making it big.  Winning that “big” prize.  Now that I look back at CEC, it can be equated to a big economics experiment.

The Goal: Earn as many tickets as possible using as few tokens as possible to trade in for the best prize.

Since this was my goal, I would look down on those kids playing the video games, air hockey, and all those other games that gave no tickets.  In fact I thought it was irrational to even play these games because all you get is zip, nadda, zero tickets after receiving a minute or two of “fun.”  Instead, I looked at games like skee-ball, whack-a-mole, basketball, and those games of skill that not only required great hand-eye coordination, but that rewarded your skill with tickets.  In the whole CEC economy, it wasn’t how many tokens you have at the end of the day, it was all about the tickets.

It was on one occasion that I came up with a brilliant plan.  Rather than purchase some weak prize with my 150 tickets, I decided to forgo the lower end prizes and save the tickets for my next encounter at CEC for something bigger and better. 

The following year, I came back with the 150 tickets thinking I was big time.  I was going to make it big, buy myself a higher end prize.  It was then that I realized that saving might not be the best option.  Not only did they increase the number of tickets for the bigger prizes, they also increased the rewards so that a single game of skee-ball could result in you getting 150 tickets.  My savings of 150 tickets was equivalent to about 15 tickets of a year ago.  The best I could buy was probably some sticker or friendship bracelet. 

The increase in ticket supply only amounted to robbing me of my savings by “rewarding” those kids who knew nothing about savings… those who only knew how to spend.  Well, the system goes on today, CEC continues to make more money, kids continue to play and have fun, and parents, unfortunately, will continue to enable this lifestyle.

This, my friends, is the lesson in economics I learned as a kid (or failed to learn).  Saving is genius… unless what you’re saving is being supplied by CEC. 

Therefore, invest what you earn wisely.

Matthew 6:19-21 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.