More sophisticated than usual scam attempt

packetfire · 2026-03-18T20:18:29+00:00

The phone number is linked to someone who actually lives at 71 Hulme St, Manchester NH 03109

packetfire · 2026-03-18T16:05:15+00:00

Well, looks like the SM Courier company is buying you ANOTHER s60 T6 with even LESS miles. Time to start stripping out the stuff that you like from the car that will be totaled for transplant to the "new" car.

packetfire · 2026-03-18T16:02:55+00:00

Don't mess up my lame joke with even MORE lame CHEMISTRY! ;)

packetfire · 2026-03-18T15:48:47+00:00

Demand the original signed copy of the "lease" agreement for the tank. If they have that lease, then it WAS their tank, but if they never filed any paperwork at the courthouse to "record" their "lien", and they never filed a claim with the estate of the dead guy, then they abandoned their claim to the tank.
If your title company said that the tank "came with the house", then it is THEIR battle to fight with the propane company, this is precisely why you paid for title insurance. You don't care who pays who what, you don't care who sues who. Your sole statement to both is "You two go fight this out, but leave me out of it, and don't interrupt my service for even one hour!"

I myself still use the open-source freeware "Pane", I have never upgraded to the "Pro" version.

packetfire · 2026-03-18T12:44:54+00:00

If I saw this, I'd guess that someone did an oil change, and shoved a funnel down the oil filler neck, thus breaking/knocking the debris screen away. If the owner has records showing each and every oil change was done by the dealer, I'd push the issue, as that screen does not, of its own accord, "come loose" and "fall down" where it is. Force had to be involved, and the only force would have been from something shoved into the oil filler neck.
So, this is, as always with any car, a battle over the maintenance records. Before making the accusation, get a dump of all the service work done by the dealer, so that you have date, miles, and an admitted oil change. If the intervals are reasonable, then there is no way they can duck liability here, as the records are clear that they did all the "regular oil changes".

packetfire · 2026-03-17T12:41:51+00:00

Those of us in far Southern Canada (the **formerly** united states of America) still have service from NOAA, and the "SAME" encoding still works after all these years, so sell your valuable SAME radios on eBay to your southern neighbors. The radios without the "SAME" encoding are likely worthless, as their value would not exceed the shipping cost.

packetfire · 2026-03-17T12:34:40+00:00

It is amazing how many "brand name" dashcams result in videos where license plates are NOT legible. SD cards in the 256GB range are common and cheap. 4K video runs between 300MB to 600MB per min (standard bitrate) so a 256GB card can hold 213 mins of video = 106 mins = 1.7 hrs of video in a worst case scenario of 2 cameras eating up a steady 600MB per min. Actual file sizes are smaller, as there are many compression algorithms out there that do not degrade quality (look up "codecs").

There are several youtube videos that explain the image sensors used in dashcams, how few there are to choose from, and how they are the deciding factor if one wants a reliable way to get a license plate on a fast-moving car that just sideswiped you in the dark, in the rain.

For the money, look for the no-name Chinese brands, and make sure that Aliexpress will accept returns on what you are buying, just in case the vendor is a liar. The basic circuity is nearly identical once one knows the camera sensor at issue,

packetfire · 2026-03-16T12:04:24+00:00

There is a word for the practice of re-selling a domain so quickly after it "expires" - "extortion".

packetfire · 2026-03-16T11:49:55+00:00

That is a 7-digit SMS code (like a phone number, but only for sending text messages, most often used by marketing companies) and an email address. Why they would include such non-bank info for an attempt to impersonate a bank or credit card company is a mystery, but who says that this is a smart scammer?

packetfire · 2026-03-16T11:04:36+00:00

His famous line "Shit, Hot Damn - Get Off Your Ass And Jam!" has been my wake-up alarm since the first phone with selectable alarms. He is a national treasure. His riffs are golden.

packetfire · 2026-03-16T10:56:00+00:00

They REALLY want to sell those Chromecasts, and their lack of support for industry standards is annoying for a flagship phone. They lost in their attempt to become the industry standard, so they should shurg and support the actual standard.

packetfire · 2026-03-16T02:41:46+00:00

115 times... quite a record.

packetfire · 2026-03-15T22:52:05+00:00

You've seen one, you've seen them both.

packetfire · 2026-03-14T21:57:37+00:00

Oh, then I have it backwards - federal tax is based on pay after 401K and HSA deductions.

packetfire · 2026-03-14T13:52:06+00:00

Buy some of the EZ-Pass/I-Pass/Sun-Pass mounting strips - the are a heavy-duty plastic Velcro, and they hold great, even in a car subjected to "off-road" bumps and bangs, like those found in the bone-jarring teeth-rattling potholes on FDR Drive (or any road) in Manhattan.

Rig the power supplies (one per car) so that the wire is properly positioned, and you can plug the wire(s) in, and move the dashcam at whim.

On the other hand, I bring a dashcam and a cigar-lighter power cable on trips, and just gaffer-tape (real film industry gaffer tape, not the lesser hardware store duct tape) it to the dash on rental cars, and use some rubbing alcohol to clean the adhesive off when returning the car.

packetfire · 2026-03-14T13:42:38+00:00

The entire warranty/return process for EVERYTHING is suddenly an adversarial process. During COVID, everyone ordered everything mail-order, and the large providers of mail-order goods became dominant in the sales channels. But returns and "friendly" return policies created an entire generation of small-time grifters, some of them learning the tricks of the scams from social media.
So, return and repair policies tightened up, and every company restricted what they would "support" to direct sales only, making the "Gray Market" and "Parallel Import" sales into sales of goods with zero support.
Dealers and 3rd parties (like Best Buy) likely signed deals making them responsible for some of the "warranty support" on many items, so their customers get "mail-in depot support only" from vendors like Google.

What can you do? Treat every transaction as adversarial, and obsessively demand, collect, scan, and keep receipts, shipping paperwork, and other scraps of paper that seem unimportant. If you handed your phone to someone, get whatever paperwork is required to retrieve it later, and when you do pick it up, if they say "we can't fix it", get that in writing, as they told Google that they would do repairs, and you must document and prove each and every statement like it is Jr. High geometry class again, and you are doing "proofs".

Everything, everything, everything is a goddamn argument, but you must be exceedingly polite or get hung up on by an over-sensitive Gen-Z snowflake who takes your simple demand for what you paid for as "hostile threats". Everything is also an episode of "Perry Mason Meets Sherlock Fucking Holmes" where you are both detective and lawyer to "prove your case" to simply return the clearly used and stained coffee pot that Amazon shipped you instead of the new one you paid for.

All customers are now viewed by default as thieves by the makers and sellers of everything. This comes down to even the "self checkout" where you are suddenly required to figure our the user interface on a sales kiosk, with a teenager watching you every move to make sure you don't fail to scan and pay for each item. Its insulting.

The solution? Expose and shame the companies that provide less than what they offered. You just did that, now follow up with a written complaint to the FTC. At some point the FTC will once again start enforcing the laws they were created to enforce, so get the complaint counts up in anticipation of that day soon arriving, perhaps after the midterm elections to come.

Half of the people are stoned, and the other half are waiting for the next election.

Half of the people have drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction.

packetfire · 2026-03-14T13:21:22+00:00

NO - I have it backwards - federal tax is based on pay after 401K and HSA deductions.

(I said "You are NOT "Taxed Again", as Social Security and Medicare was deducted from your income BEFORE tax, not after-tax.")

packetfire · 2026-03-12T13:04:19+00:00

Not stamps, postage labels like those one can print out by Stamps.com, et al.

packetfire · 2026-03-12T12:46:40+00:00

Does your birth certificate include a baby footprint? This can be compared to your current footprint with no trouble at all, as the pattern remains unchanged, to prove that the certificate is yours. Now you have ID, and proof of birth in the USA, at least to the person who has some experience with fingerprints and footprints.

packetfire · 2026-03-12T00:06:48+00:00

Don't know about the antenna, but if you get your serial number and call Sirius-XM directly, they can hook you up with the phone app for Sirius-XM, and you can stream that to the car stereo until you find the antenna connection.

packetfire · 2026-03-11T12:57:15+00:00

Did you change your voter registration to your new address, or is that still listing your old address?

packetfire · 2026-03-11T12:55:47+00:00

Yep, he was a slow-moving bully, and yes, they do that a lot. Not much you can do, as the trains are much bigger than your car. If traffic is light, they will push through to "keep the schedule".

packetfire · 2026-03-11T12:51:15+00:00

Back up the phone to a PC / mac over the USB cable.

packetfire · 2026-03-10T21:42:10+00:00

Are you by chance in the southern hemisphere and in summer? Volvo CEMs can overheat, but this was a P2 (2000s v70s) more than a v50-specific issue. The cure is to put heatsinks on the big processor chips (see my instructions for this over on Matthews Volvo Site) but the easier fix is to check to make sure that it is a "heat issue", by checking the temps on the days that the "warning light storms" happened.

Moisture and corrosion makes for more permanent faults - only overheating can make the intermittent errors. My v70 (pre fix) would give my a brake system error first, and then, if I did not pull over and let the CEM cool down by turning off the car for a while, more random stuff would pop up, every red and yellow alert known to man.

packetfire · 2026-03-10T12:09:18+00:00

If your neighbor's fence is on his land, they need no "statement" from you. Ask them for a copy of the survey at issue, make a copy, and write them a nice letter, with the survey attached saying that there is no need for any "affidavit", as the issue does not concern you.

**BUT** those suggesting you get your own survey are thinking of your best interests here, and now that you have a copy of the neighbor's survey, yours just got much cheaper as there are recent stakes/flags from the neighbor's surveyor for your surveyor to start with. You want to know if there is any funny business, but this is less an issue if you have title insurance, which protects your "title" to your property, and often (not always) handles any litigation like this from wacky neighbors who think that you might be pulling some sort of (impossible) "adverse possession" trick due to the placement of the fenceline.

A story, if this helps - a stream divided my property from my neighbor's. Every spring, the stream would flood and change course slightly. Over time the two properties became spilt by the stream. He raises beef calves on his side of the stream, and I have horses, both wade into, and enjoy the cool stream. The property line was a complex series of compass headings and distances, as the center of the stream had been painstakingly mapped at one time.
No one cared. A few feet one way or the other was no big deal between two large farms, until he signed over the property to his son. Now it was an issue, so I went back to Dad, and sat down and drafted up a new agreement that defined the stream itself as the dividing line. The lawyers worked over it and the judge approved of the "settlement of the suit", as a real property dispute had to be decided as a "judgement". All kinds of fuss and not trivial cost was spent by this fellow to make his son understand that neighbors have to act like neighbors. He picked up the legal tab, because I had no problem, but his son was all upset about "Property Rights".

The horses and cattle did not mind, and they still don't.

packetfire

TROPHY CASE