Dude! Joe's Jottings, Mostly Junk

I just fired the following off to the North Carolina DoJ:

There is a scam originating from this phone number. You are called (in this case, my wife was but they were asking for me) and informed you have been sued and must call this number 704-464-1068 (a Charlotte number, hence my reporting it to North Carolina). When you call, you are told about some credit card debt, usually a negligible amount (in this case, about $668) and that they have been trying to reach you for years (in this case, since 2009 going to 2011).

They may have some personal information on you but in my case it was almost 20 years out of date.

They also claim the client* is Wachovia, but Wachovia has been Wells Fargo for several years now**.

The main part of the scam is that they are willing to settle 'pennies on the dollar' (typical scam catch phrase) provided you give them your financial data. I of course did not. If I was really being sued, the settlement would still go through a proper collections agency that's BBB certified or directly through the bank itself.

After failing enough 'sniff tests', I googled and found others harassed by the same operation: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-704-464-0168/1 . At no point did I give them any new personal information other than the city I live in.  As I did not lose any money, I have no need of 'resolution' - I just think this likely illegal operation should be stopped.

Subsequent googling finds they may be associated with an Atlanta company, "Velocity Payment Solutions".

* in spite of being a lawsuit, they did not use the word Plaintiff

** most of their credit card accounts were sold off to Chase or BoA in order to make the deal get past the FTC and SEC.

The other 'sniff test' failure that I caught was that, in trying to figure out if this was a case of identity theft, I kept trying to pry out of them the date the account was allegedly created. They couldn't give me that. Thing is, that's trivially found because all of that type of data (company, start, end, credit, and debt) is on every credit report around, which would include up to date addresses (especially for someone who has owned a home and refi'ed several times in the last decade). If Wachovia really wanted to find me, it would have been trivial to do so, and if I had a debt of this age and nature (granted, peanuts to my current income), I sure as hell wouldn't have the credit rating to get the refi rates I got).

Any JMU grad on my f-list will know what I mean.

If you've been by the campus recently, you'll have seen the construction on the end of the Quad.  If you've been by VERY recently, you'll have noticed the old 3 story row houses across from the Quad are gone (note: I haven't seen this yet, but a coworker has).

At first I was worried they were building a new building that would enclose the Quad and lock out the open view, much as GMU did years ago.

Actually, no.  It's just to build an underground viaduct (much that was talked about YEARS ago), not for access to Anthony-Seeger, that former elementary school we all took Comm and Psych classes in.  It's for access to the new Music and Arts performance center.  That new building complex is going on top of the old row houses, next to A-S.

Click the link in the upper left for the PDF with some of the schematics and details.

And no, I'm not going to "name a seat" (not at $1000, even with the tax deduction), though the idea to name one in honor of "VAX 1" is VERY tempting.