Bates Blog

Gina spent two hours making a cake. She was not happy with the results.

I recently awoke to 100 dollars worth of iTunes store files charged to my account which I did not buy.

1) You can’t talk directly to the iTunes store.
2) They will not reverse any charges
3) They are no help at all
4) I was hacked and they told me to file a complaint with the FTC
5) They only respond in form emails
6) So, I wrote the following letter to them

Robert,

I ask you again: please explain how this could have happened to my account?

While I appreciate your company putting the entire onus of the problem on my bank, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Apple has had some part in this fraud, theft, or bug.

I realize that you’re not going to credit my account. Awesome. Expected nothing less. We can deal with that later. But, please — explain to me how I woke up to my itunes downloading a version of High School Musical 3 on my primary PC. I have no children, I have never purchased a full-length movie, and I didn’t download High School Musical 3.

Please do not respond with a suggestion to file a complaint with the FTC. That will hurt my feelings and make me throw my iPhone into the Pacific Ocean.

With no thanks to Apple’s Customer Service (not you personally, of course), I figured out to call my bank, cancel the card and changed my password after searching for other users with similar problems. Since I couldn’t talk to anyone over the phone, I had to figure this all out by myself.

Apparently, I now have to figure out how someone hacked into my itunes store account by myself also, since the info below seemed a one-and-done response to the issue.

The response below, Robert, is unacceptable. The matter is not closed. Please try and help me understand why I should continue to be an Apple, iTunes, iPhone and App Store user after today BEFORE you ask me to fill out your feedback survey.

As of this writing, I have cancelled the card attached to my iTunes store account, alerted my bank (of which I can’t report fraud yet, because the charges haven’t posted), changed my password for the iTunes store and chose NONE under the account info (as you suggested below). What next?

What is your company going to do to deal with my concerns on my account security?

Again, this anger is not directed at you, Robert — just your employer’s policies, procedures, and asinine customer service.

Help me, for the love of everything holy — don’t just tell me to cancel my card and take it up with the FTC.

Best Regards,

Craig

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12182009/watch.html

“The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway”
Obama’s Bug Sellout

Hey, Baxter — There’s something you must know about your mom’s favorite team.  No, it’s not bad, per se…it’s just..well..it’s different.  Sit, we’ll talk about it.  Sit.  I said Sit.  Baxter…SIT…SIT.

[Caption]

Bill Moyers Interviews Wendell Potter, former CIGNA PR exec. 
Wow.  This will blow your mind. 

The AMA, which at the time still included a majority of U.S. physicians, led the opposition to Medicare, but did not prevail.
Single-Payer insurance is the way to go — written by a physician.

Goldman Sachs Execs Dumped Stocks Like Crazy

Cool Optical Illusion

Do Fish Feel Pain?
This one’s for my dad.  We debated this while salt water fishing off Mexico this last weekend.  If you think fish are the only ones that feel pain, let me tell you how my day on the charter boat fishing with my father was.  First, in trying to put SPF 50 on my face, I sprayed sunblock in my eyes.  Twenty minutes later, my right eye turned bloodshot and became irritated.  While this was going on, my transitional lens in my glasses refused to do their job in the hot sun with reflecting Pacific Ocean, and my pupils got sunburned.  REPEAT — My goddamn pupils got sunburned.  Both eyes turned bloodshoot, itchy, refused to dialate, mucus starting running out my nose and every moment looking at anything felt like pain.  This was in the first three hours of a 12-hour trip.  My poor dad just wanted to spend some quiet time on the ocean with his son, wasting away the day catching our nation’s finest aquatic creatures.  Instead, he got this every ten minutes:

ME: I think there’s something wrong with eyes.
DAD: Yeah, they’re red.
ME: Dad..
DAD: {fishing}
ME: Dad?
DAD: {sighs}
ME: Hey Dad?
DAD: Yes, son.
ME: My eyes hurt pretty bad.
DAD: I know.
ME: Hey Dad? 
DAD: {considering getting another beer}
ME: Dad?  Are my eyes red?
DAD: {rewriting the will in his head}
ME: {sniffs} Dad, what side is starboard?

Bill Simmons and Chuck Klostermann on MJ
Loved this. Click the 4th on down or so…it’s 6/29 part 1.  Great discussion on MJ.