Coffee heat rising

Dishwasher Redux

by

So the Phoenix area’s actual, real employee of Bosch showed up to inspect the ailing dishwasher. He managed to moot the service call charge by changing out the control panel on a recall (which already had been done, but we won’t mention that…). He thought the late, great repairman’s scheme to “solder the connections” in said control panel — don’t think I told you about that refinement, it being too absurd even to discuss — was pretty hilarious.

However, he did agree that the thing needed a $350 repair: not to fix a spurious “impeller” but to replace the circulation pump. Further research in the Giant Encyclopedia of the Internet (i.e., Google) appears to confirm that.

This guy said he did not feel it’s worth putting $350 into a nine-year-old washer. Because, said he, the cost of dishwashers has dropped since I bought the one in the kitchen. Retail price for a perfectly fine machine of any brand is around $500, but he thought I could find one for significantly less at Sears or Lowe’s. He added that machine’s three pumps have approximately the same lifetime, so when one has to be replaced, there’s a good chance another one will die soon — to the tune of a similar repair bill. He also said his company would be happy to sell and install a new one, but he recommended looking at local retailers, which usually do better on the price.

And he’s right: Sears is advertising a comparable Bosch, online, for a little under that price — absent the usual array of discounts and scams you can extract from that outfit. Soooo…tomorrow I’ll have to traipse to the Sears Outlet, where sometimes one can score a true smokin’ deal (sometimes not), and then if they don’t have what I want, trudge around the city in search of a new washer.

Like I have nothing else to do with my time and money. 🙄

w00t! New Car SCORED!

by

Ford_Escape_XLSMy son’s, that is. Over the weekend, M’hijito drove up to Wickenburg, a small tourist trap about 55 miles from town, and bought himself a Ford Escape. And yesh, I was amazed that he went for an American car, since his tribe has been burned enough times by the things to make us all leery.

However, it’s a beautiful car, and he got an incredible deal, making it possible to afford a passel of bells and whistles, including leather upholstery(!). And I have to admit that Ford and Chevrolet are getting much better reviews than they used to — Edmunds and the other big reviewers do like the Escape.

Amazingly, he managed to wangle a 0%, no-money-down loan on the thing!

The beauty of this is that he’s been setting aside the equivalent of a car payment for the past few years, hoping to accrue enough to buy a vehicle in cash before his clunk craps out. Said kitty is invested in a Vanguard fund. What this means is that he’ll be able to withdraw just enough to pay the tab each month, while the balance of his car savings continues to earn interest.

This will allow him to continue investing that amount out of his cash flow. By the time the car is paid for, he’ll have at least as much in hand and probably more.

Probably more, because this is type of guy who’s likely to use whatever windfalls that come along to prepay principal, thereby accelerating the loan payoff.

Okay, that’s good, eh?

Well, it gets even more amazing.

With a printout of the Kelly Blue Book valuation, he actually managed to make money on the clunk!

Said clunk was falling apart and needed $1700 worth of repairs just to keep it running. Its previous owner wrecked it not once, but twice; owner’s dad and insurance company had it repaired, but still… 🙄

Its paint was pocked in the hailstorm we had a couple years ago and never repaired. M’hijito collected from the insurance company and pocketed the money…or, more likely, stashed the money in the car purchase fund.

It had something else happen to it — can’t remember what — for which M’hijito pocketed another insurance payment.

The car came to him through one of his dad’s law partners, whose son drove it through high school and then left it behind when he went off to college. Dad’s Partner wanted the unsightly thing gone from his driveway and so practically gave it away.

The dealer, of course, tried to lowball him on the trade-in. But when M’hijito waved the Kelly Blue Book printout in the air, voilà! To get him to drive that Escape off the lot, they offered him top dollar for the clunk!

So he figures that, in balance, he made about $2000 on the thing over the altogether too many years he’s been driving it.

And what about my own schemes to buy a new car?

Oh…I don’t know…and of course, when in doubt, don’t.

The Dog Chariot is still running well. Chuck the Wonder-Mechanic thinks it will go at least another 30,000 to 80,000 miles, relatively trouble-free. It’s so old, the registration gouge is now practically nil, and insurance premiums are also very low. It has a six-banger under the hood that goes a long way toward keeping me marginally safe on the homicidal streets of Phoenix, and the mileage said six-banger gets is not significantly worse than any other cross-over’s, even the now ubiquitous four-bangers.

All of these factoids make my craving for a new crossover or pickup look a lot more like a want than a need.

But given that I can afford a “want” — and if I could wangle a 0% loan myself, I could more than afford it — that Escape is pretty attractive.

The Honda CR-V, whose interior is even nicer and which really is a very pleasant vehicle, comes only with a four-banger. No upgrade is available, and a little four-cylinder engine…well. Not around here, thanks. KJG’s daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are engineers, bought one of the things and then thought better of it. They both have to commute on the freeways, and they found the CR-V underpowered for the purpose. They traded it in on a vehicle that would give them a fighting chance in the traffic.

I’m a fairly assertive driver, even in my old age, and I do not like being shoved around by the SOBs who populate the local roads. A car has gotta have enough power to give me some action when I need it.

The Escape also comes equipped with a four-cylinder engine. However, Ford has two turbo-charged versions that, according to Edmunds, provide acceptable power — one will crank out 240 hp — with little damage to the mileage ratings.  Price is comparable to the fancified versions of the Honda.

So that makes the vehicle a lot more attractive.

The only thing, really, that takes away from it are the letters F-O-R-D:

Fix

Or

Repair

Daily

1967 Ford Lemon
The Car of My Nightmares

Hey! Bosch Has Got REAL Service Reps!

by

And — get this! — Bosch service representatives actually answer the phone!

Readers Elissa and Jestjack remarked that they thought the dishwasher repairman I described yesterday — the one with the side gig where he peddles cut-rate appliances to his employer’s customers — sounded a shade on the sketchy side.

Well, come to think of it, so did I. And when I went online to try to learn more about the worn-out “impeller” he claimed was the problem ($350, + …maybe not worth it if he could come up with a new Bosch for $450 or $500), a great deal more suspicion was cast upon “Richard” and his line of bull.

A Google search with terms combining “impeller,” “Bosch,” and “dishwasher” in various creative ways comes up with next to nothing. The most intelligible post I could find on the subject claimed that if the “impeller” isn’t working, the washer won’t drain. But this washer drains just fine. Otherwise…scarcely a mention. Eventually it occurred to me to call the customer service number glued to the side of the dishwasher door, on the same tag that reveals the model and serial numbers.

So having remembered that customer service number in the middle of the night, by light of day I called Bosch and asked the owner of the male voice that answered if he could please tell me what an “impeller” is, what it looks like, and how the washer would behave if it’s not working.

He said, in short, “Huh?”

I explained that I thought a repairman was trying to scam me and recited the story.

He said, “Maybe the guy defines an ‘impeller’ differently than I do, but … take a look on the inside of the tub.”

“Yeah?” from inside the washer.

“See that pipe going up the back?” I’d have called it a small duct, but yup, I saw the pipe going up the back.

“The impeller is what pushes water from where the lower spray arm is, in the bottom of the tub, up  that pipe to the top spray arm, the one that’s attached to the upper rack. All it does is get water to the upper spray arm.”

“Uh huh…”

“What’s your washer doing? What’s wrong with it?”

I explain that it fills with water fine but then the wash cycle doesn’t kick in. He says probably the problem is the circulating pump, which is what causes the water to slosh around inside the machine to wash the dishes. A new one costs $138. Plus of course the cost of labor.

Bosch has one, count him, (1), authorized service man in this area. He says the guy will charge me $99 to walk in the door. I say I’ve already paid $90 to get a crook in the door but I don’t object to paying about the same to lure someone who’s not going to rip me off. He says Bosch will eat the “diagnostic charge” if I will pay the parts and labor. I remark that I have no objection to paying for the replacement part or for the guy’s work, since a man has to eat, after all.

In the course of conversation, I say that repairmen have told me all appliances on the market today are engineered to give out in seven years, and the Bosch in question is about nine years old. So I’m not anxious to do repairs on something that’s going to fall apart like the minister’s one-hoss shay.

He now says that a dishwasher is a surprisingly simple device. It basically consists of a couple of pumps, a water heater, a couple of spray arms, and a control board. As long as the tub doesn’t rust out — an unlikely event given that mine is made of stainless steel and does not get banged around — the thing should run practically forever on the strength of an occasional replacement part. Forever, or until Bosch quits making the parts, which isn’t happening anytime soon.

The Bosch CSR’s attention now turned to Accredited Appliance and its service dude, Richard. He wanted their phone number. Expressing considerable interest in Richard’s sales tactics, he took the time to look the company up in Bosch’s records. It appears that Richard is about to land squarely in the dog house.

LOL! Nothing like the hive mind, is there?

😀

Bosch Customer Service:
1-800-944-2904

Discounted Appliances: Nifty Little Side Gig!

by

The appliance repairman was just here, going on about the choices between spending $350 to repair my nine-year-old Bosch dishwasher and buying a new one. In the course of chatting, he revealed that he’s built an incredibly cool side gig, one that seems so obvious and yet not one that I, at least, had ever thought of.

As part of his job, he goes around to various retailers who sell appliances. Many, especially Sears, regularly discount kitchen and laundry appliances — sometimes deeply. Very deeply — about three weeks ago he found a dishwasher, brand-new, marked down 85 percent!

When he finds a serviceable, new appliance (note, these are not used machines), he buys it. Then he turns around and sells it for a profit on Craig’s List. He said he made $500 on the last one he peddled that way.

How about that? If you have a truck or service van that you can use to haul the things around, voilà! A handy-dandy resale business!

Chase, UPS, and Credit Card Application Fraud

by

DebitCardWhile I was spending half the day on Monday dorking around with the latest identity fraud moment, it did occur to me to wonder why on earth a person would apply for a business credit card under a fake name and then fill in the business’s correct address. Wonder-Accountant speculated that the form may have had a mailing address as well as a street address. But if that were the case, then Chase would have sent the letter asking for more information to that mailing address. Instead, they sent it here. I had about concluded that what appeared to be application fraud was really more like a prank when I came across this amazing report, detailing an alleged collaboration between insiders at Chase credit card services and UPS.

Now, I have no way of knowing whether what this guy says is true. But it would explain why the perp would ask to have his fraudulent credit card sent to my business’s real address.

JoshEAC, the post’s author, describes learning that a credit card had been ordered from Chase, supposedly by his wife. After considerable argument, in which a Chase customer disservice representative suggested that his wife was lying to him when she denied ordering a card, he managed to obtain the UPS tracking number for the card Chase claimed to have sent. At this point he began to proactively track the package wending its way toward him via the Brown Trucks. In the middle of the afternoon, he saw that the package had been diverted from home delivery to the pick-up counter at a UPS station. Three hours later, the tracking system reported that his “wife” had changed her mind and asked to have home delivery after all.

And lo! A day or two later Chase calls to inquire about the fraudulent charges being racked up on the “wife’s” new credit card!

Two possibilities presented themselves to JoshEAC: gross incompetence on Chase’s part — altogether credible given the outrageously ridiculous interactions he had with the bank’s customer disservice reps and their supervisors — or organized fraud committed by insiders at Chase and UPS.

If you buy the second scenario, someone on the inside at Chase creates a fraudulent application. He arranges to have the fake credit card sent to the mark’s real address via UPS. He has access to the passwords for this account. The card is shipped off to the mark.

A few hours later, his co-conspirator at UPS arranges to stop delivery to that address and then, shortly afterward, to have the card delivered to her, only this time on the UPS crook’s truck. The card, of course, never arrives at the mark’s home. With the stolen password, the perps start charging thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise on the hot credit card.

Well. This conspiracy theory could, no doubt, be nothing more than a figment of its author’s imagination…EXCEPT that it explains, to a “t,” why the identity thief would enter my S-corporation’s address on his application for a fraudulent card. Presumably, once the card was diverted through UPS, the crook inside Chase would simply change the address in the bank’s records, thereby diverting the future statements, too. Or set the account not to deliver paper statements at all.

My monthly dues payments to the Scottsdale Business Association are paid by check and deposited to the group’s account at Chase Bank. The checks are printed with my business’s name and address only. That would explain why the perp didn’t have my name. And, since this is evidently an inside job, it explains why the fraudulent account was set up at Chase and not anywhere else.

JoshEAC described this episode in December, 2011. If he’s right, it means that two years later Chase has done nothing to bring a stop to this caper. Whoever’s responsible for it presumably continues to collect a paycheck and at the same time, no doubt, collects payment from “customers” who put him up to issuing fake credit cards.

By now, though, what’s happened is that the thieves have developed the sophistication to realize that small businesses are even more vulnerable to application fraud than are individuals, because the major credit bureaus give short shrift to business credit-card users. Identity-theft protections are set up to serve individuals. As a business owner, I’ve run into a wall — about my only recourse is to report the episode to the police and pray for the best.

Doing battle with Apple consumed most of the afternoon on Wednesday, and yesterday I was in business meetings or teaching all day. I’m out of food and gasoline, today being the first of the month, and so will have to spend this morning driving around the city by way of restocking the larder. So, the soonest I’ll be able to call the police again will be this afternoon, and presumably I’ll miss the guy again, since they’re not in any hurry to deal with this thing.

But if and when I actually meet with a police officer, you can be sure I’ll hand him a printout of JoshEAC’s post.

 

 

Annals of Fraud: Can You Steal a Corporation’s Identity?

by

Day from Hell #1,247,679: The Editor struggles to get through 80 pages of the MOST arcane prose imaginable, written in Chinglish (no rudeness intended: Client  hires Editor with the express purpose of please translating her one-helluva-lot-better-than-my-Chinese English into Academicese, which is not English either but which is amiably incomprehensible to native speakers of any language known to earthly humans).

This elicits a number of Actions from the Gods, led mostly by the jolly Zeus (“jolly” is in the eye of the beholder: earthly humans think he has a warped sense of humor):

1. Apple’s fragile and frikkin’ e-mail system crashes. Again. For the third time since the whole lash-up was transferred to the endlessly annoying iCloud.

2. Apple’s frikkin’ update to iTunes DISAPPEARS all my music and (goddammit) also disappears my selection of radio stations, some of which might be expected to emit the type of noise desired to break up the blizzard-like Brain White-Out occasioned by trying to edit the above Chinglish, so that maybe I can stay awake long enough to finish the job, which is now beginning to run unduly late.

3. Recourse to the various forums that substitute for help in the Apple universe reveals that a) these are known issues (i.e., they’re happening to other customers) and b) no one else is getting a meaningful answer either.

4. This means I have to interrupt an already difficult day by making an appointment at the local Apple store, whereinat I will have to fly into ANOTHER STRATOSPHERIC RAGE to get these issues (especially the e-mail) fixed.

Thinking of buying a Mac? Helpful hint: If, when unhappy with the latest stupid stuff, you make noises that are loud enough for other customers to overhear your yelling and stamping your dainty little foot, you WILL get the issue fixed. It’s amazing.

5. Last night after dark (as usual) the mail carrier delivers a notice from Chase Business Card Services informing me that some dude I’ve never heard of has tried to open a credit card account for The Copyeditor’s Desk. This means I have to spend a good half the day in the following enterprises:

a) Get Human at Chase. Discuss.
b) Get Human at one of the three major credit bureaus. At length one is found, in Bangladesh. He has no clue what I’m talking about.
c) Try to Get Human at FTC. Heeeee!
d) Try to Get Human at Dun & Bradstreet. SNARK!
e) Get Human at credit union. Mission accomplished, to rather little avail.
f) Get Human at American Express. Mission accomplished, and useful advice received.
f) Try to Get Human at Experian, the credit bureau from which Chase pulled CE Desk’s credit report. Mission partially accomplished after calling FIVE DIFFERENT GODDAMN PHONE NUMBERS: fraud alert emanated to all three major credit bureaus, but because this is a fraud on a business and not on a person, the effort is probably for naught. Human advises
….1) calling the police, and
….2) reporting fraud to Dun & Bradstreet.
g) Try again to report fraud to Dun & Bradstreet. Exercise in futility.
h) Call police. Talk to nice lady at police station. Agree to wait around all day for officers to show up and take report.
i) Call police-lady back later in day; explain need to schlep computer to Apple Store as unplanned emergency business meeting (which it sorta is); receive explanation from police-lady as to the unholy reason her officers have been detained elsewhere, Gawd help us. Inquire as to safety and well-being of officers; receive semi-assurance that they seem to be OK, we think.
j) Drive to Apple store. Find route closed where cops are still dealing with aftermath of (i) (see above).
k) Raise Hell and put a block under it. Get e-mail fixed on one computer but (as it develops) not on the other. Get explanation of absolutely STUPID AND INFURIATING new iteration of iTunes. Want to fly down the throat of Apple upper management goons and throttle the bastards from the inside. Move on.
l) Return to Funny Farm. Figure out, on own, how to fix Apple Effing Mail on desktop iMac, largely because Apple Genius has fixed whatever-the-Eff he fixed on flicking iCloud.
m) Devise a series of new excuses to clients and friends; make new business and other appointments.
n) Continue to try to figure out how or if to cope with attempted S-corporation identity theft. How do you steal a corporation’s identity, anyhow?

6. Seek advice from Accountant, most of whose practice consists of small businesses. Receive intelligence that the three major credit bureaus (Experien, Equifax, and Transunion) are no longer the only major players spying on our every move.

When it comes to reporting and evaluating business credit histories, Experian, Transunion, and Equifax also have small business divisions that are devoted to tracking the business credit histories for every business and corporation.

Experian is one of the three primary consumer credit reporting agencies who has also begun to provide credit evaluations for businesses and corporations. BusinessExperian offers a wide range of services, including Business Verification, Business Credit Scores, Business Credit Reports, Business Credit Monitoring, and Business Public Records. Experian’s Small Business Services also offers Consumer Mailing Lists and Business Leads.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Experian for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
EXPERIAN
P.O Box 9532
Allen, TX 75013
Website:http://www.experian.com/small-business/index.html
Phone: (800) 520-1221

TRANSUNION is another of the primary consumer credit reporting agencies who also provides business and corporate credit histories. In addition to Business Credit Reporting, Transunion also provides assistance to small business owners through Marketing Services, Fraud and Identity Management, Risk Management, and Collections Management.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Transunion for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
TRANSUNION
P.O Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
Website: http://www.transunion.com/corporate/business/business.page
Email: contactdesk@transunion.com
Phone: (800) 813-5604

EQUIFAX SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE is the business division of one of the primary consumer credit rating bureaus. Equifax Small Business Enterprise provides business credit histories and evaluations for over 22,000,000 small businesses and corporations. In addition to Business Credit, Equifax offers assistance to small business owners related to Data Management, Data Reporting, Fraud, Marketing, and Risk.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Equifax for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
EQUIFAX SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE
P.O Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Email: businessreports@equifax.com
Website: http://www.equifax.com/commercial/en_us
Phone: (888) 202-4025

In addition to these three agencies that have their origins in personal consumer credit reporting, there are also several other business credit reporting agencies that are devoted solely to business credit reporting and evaluation. These business credit reporting agencies include Dun & Bradstreet, Credit.net, AccurintRBusiness, and ClientChecker.

DUN & BRADSTREET (D&B) is, without a doubt, the most well-known and established business credit reporting agency. D&B has compiled business credit profiles on hundreds of millions of global companies and corporations. In addition to Business Credit information, D&B can also assist small businesses collect debt from customers, find new customers, and research new opportunities.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Dun & Bradstreet for questions related to business credit:
DUN & BRADSTREET
Website: http://smallbusiness.dnb.com
Email: sbssupport@dnb.com
Phone: (800) 333-0505

CREDIT.NET – Credit.net is a division of InfoUSA that generates credit reports on over 14,000,000 businesses and corporations. 6,000,000 of the reports in their database have been completed on small businesses with four employees or less. With a Credit.net business credit report, you can make better decisions on extending small lines of credit, locate data on small, privately-owned businesses, verify the existence of a business, and identify headquarters and lines of business credit.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact Credit.net for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
CREDIT.NET
5711 S. 86th Circle
Omaha, NE 68127
Website: http://credit.net
Phone: (800) 993-5323

ACCURINTRBUSINESS – This is a new business that is a combination of forces between LexisNexis, one of the leading providers of business services and information and the Better Business Bureau (BBB). With a business credit report from AccurintRBusiness, you can get all the information you need on over 150,000,000 small U.S. businesses in order to make better decisions on vendors, partners, customers and competitors. In addition to Company Profiles (including addresses, phone numbers, DBAs, etc.) you will also receive credit and payment data, public record data (such as bankruptcies, judgments, tax liens, and UCC, associated businesses and principals, and a Better Business Bureau membership report.

Here is the pertinent information you will need in order to contact AccurintRBusiness for questions related to business credit:
Mailing Address
ACCURINTRBUSINESS
Website: www.accurintbusiness.com
Email: accurintbusiness@lexisnexis.com
Phone: (866) 528-0776

ClientChecker – This is a credit reporting bureau that started in 2003 and specifically targets small businesses, freelance professionals, and contractors seeking information to help them determine which other businesses they should do business with. ClientChecker Business Credit Reports provide a comprehensive summary of users’ trade payment experiences with their clients. Business Credit Reports are created when the users of ClientChecker and BillingTracker invoicing software report that their clients have paid on time, late, or not at all. The data from each user is combined to produce a business credit report of average days paid late, number of incidences of non-payment, and a PayQuo™ score.

To coin a phrase: Holy sh!t.

And so, to choir practice…