Amazon Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

What retired people do

Naps, for lack of a better word, are good.

Several folks have asked me what retired people do. Aside from church stuff, library stuff, a little genealogy, and, it is hoped, a daily blog post, they fall into two categories for me.

One is doing stuff that wasn’t on my calendar for that day. It could be a phone call from a friend, a text from my daughter, or the like.

Sometimes, it’s tracking down a package. I ordered four items from Amazon in two different orders. I got one item, eclipse glasses, on April 2. Two of the other items were combined.

March 31: The package left Stockton, CALIFORNIA, US

April 1: 6:40 AM Package arrived at an Amazon facility. Erlanger, KENTUCKY US. 4:40 PM Package arrived at an Amazon facility. Windsor Locks, CONNECTICUT US

April 5: 1:02 PM. The delivery of your package has been rescheduled based on your shipment instructions for the carrier. Except that, I gave no such instruction.

It arrived in Latham, NY, US, in Albany County, then to East Syracuse, NY, US (13th), New Stanton, PA, US, and Lexington, KY, US (15th). It was delivered, presumably to me, in Lexington on the 16th.

I didn’t notice until the 17th and called Amazon at 888-280-4331. Their bot required that I call on my cellphone so it could verify me. In the end, it could not help me because two different invoices were involved, so I had to talk with a real person. They eventually resolved the issue after putting me on hold five times; I feared being disconnected. They sent one item and refunded the other.

But the bot DID solve my issue concerning the fourth item, a compact disc of the studio recording of SIX: The Musical.

At rest

The other thing I tend to do regularly is take a nap. It’s seldom on Tuesdays when I have library stuff. But on a Wednesday, if I don’t have a medical appointment, it’s snoozetime.

Since the clocks changed to Daylight Saving Time in mid-March, I’ve stayed up later. Meanwhile, my wife gets up early to pack her workday. Also, my allergies are attacking me.

I get up, link my blog post to Facebook, and make oatmeal. My wife and I eat, she goes out, I watch TV for 15 minutes, then realize I’m exhausted.

It’s usually the same: I lie on my left side (away from the window), then my right side, and sometimes on my left side again, convinced that I’m not going to fall asleep. Then I do.

I wake up in 60 to 90 minutes and always have vivid dreams. For instance, my wife and two of my former work colleagues, neither of whom she was close to, bought a school bus. I complained to my pastors about this. (I think what this dream is about.)

Racial Profiling in the Marketplace

Racial Profiling and Social Justice

Every once in a while, I think this blog is useful.

I received an email this month reminding me – and it had slipped my mind – that I had granted permission for the inclusion of my ESSO post to a book. The link was included along with a paragraph from the text in Racial Profiling and Social Justice in the Marketplace. The subtitle is An Inside Look at What You Should Know But Probably Do Not Know about Shopping and Racial Profiling.

I had written: “Esso had quite a positive image, at least with many people of my father’s generation. For there was a time in the United States when many African American travelers were uncertain where ‘they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor…or go out at night… without [experiencing] humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong.'”

You can read what was included on the Teachers Pay Teachers site here; it involves free registration. A lesson is arranged, not just from my piece but links to other sites, with the students required to answer why Esso was so progressive in an era of Jim Crow, and other questions.

It is only one of several lessons available in the book, which is available for $30 at the Teachers Pay Teachers site here. (I should note that I was not compensated for this plug.)

The blog

Also, check out the Racial Profiling and Social Justice blog. “Mission: Provide insights to students; useful information that may be valuable in their lives. For students, independent learners, parents, and youth educators with an interest in supplemental lessons for ethnic studies and social justice topics.

“As a former plaintiff in a six-figure profiling case, Dee Adams writes about often overlooked issues regarding racial profiling in the marketplace, race, pop culture, entrepreneurs, and social justice.”

Lamphered LLC by Amazon scam

I’ve received over 40 comments to my post entitled Lamphered LLC by Amazon scam. Some people wanted verification that the emails THEY received subsequent to my post were as spammy as they suspected. Others were initially terrified they’d been hacked.

People thanked me and promised to contact Amazon. Many included the versions they received, which differed slightly but were essentially the same premise.

How things work, or don’t

Observation

I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how things work or don’t, whether it be machinery or systems.

At a complicated, five-way intersection nearby, I know that at one crossing, the Walk sign won’t light up unless one presses the Walk button. But the subsequent crossing changes automatically at the appropriate time.

ITEM: Sometime in November, there was a package on our porch. I picked it up and noticed it wasn’t for us but for a neighbor across the street and down a couple of houses. I carried it over there and discovered in that entryway a package for my wife.

About two weeks later, I received an email notification of delivery. I went downstairs, snapped up the envelope, cut the package opened and discovered content that wasn’t anything I ordered. Then I looked at the package; it wasn’t for me but for another neighbor. Yep, my package was on that other porch. I slipped the neighbor’s package behind the screen door.

Now if I had bothered to LOOK at the photo that came with the email, I would have noticed, “That’s not my porch!” The two packages, in this case, were the same size, unlike my wife’s actual product from earlier, which was much larger than the one we exchanged.

The boom boxes

ITEM: I still play compact discs. One boom box that I had purchased in June 2020 started skipping; I knew it wasn’t the CDs. So I got a different player in December 2020. Nine months later, it too began to skip. I bought the exact same machine, which started skipping only two months later. So I switched back to machine #2, and it plays fine. Maybe it just needed a rest?

ITEM: Some folks complained about one of our local absentee landlord’s hedges, clearly a hazard. A few of them contacted the city’s SeeClickFix site. Now the hedges are severely cut back; they’re hideous, so they were probably cut by the landlord. But at least they are not an obstruction.

Oddly, I noticed the change well before my wife and daughter, both of whom are more visually focused than I. Maybe it was that I was looking through the prism of the glass door we have and saw light through the bushes where none had existed before.

ITEM: I won’t even get into the blow-by-blow of hooking up my new printer. Back in the old days, I ould just plug it in and it took 10 minutes, including taking it out of the box. This one, which operates on WiFi, and ended up requiring software to be loaded both on my phone and my laptop, took an hour and a half.

Lamphered LLC by Amazon scam

I got this email recently:

Thank You For Your Recent Purchase With Lamphered LLC by Amazon.

Your account has been set for Auto Debit from your saved billing on the account in the next 24 hours.
The items will be shipped in 48 hours and you will receive a confirmation email once they are shipped.
You will receive another email with the Tracking Number.

If you want to cancel/modify your order, get in touch with us before it gets delivered @ 1 (877) 312-5085/1 (888) 364-02818
Please find your order information below:
Order Number: BH-OKM98KL
Order Date: 26-October-2021
Order Name: Sony Bravia MK-A56 G8 56 inch Full LED Ultra HD Television
Delivery Mode: Express Free
Amount: USD 2278.81
Paid via Amazon Credit : USD 1376
Balance to be paid on Shipping : USD 902.81
Mode By: Billing on account
Payment Mode: Auto Debit

Immediately I knew this was a scam. No, I didn’t buy a TV for two grand. And I don’t have an Amazon credit card.

I noticed straight on when I tried to cut and paste the phone numbers that there were additional digits. The above numbers were actually 12(877)231285085562/85215(888)936430281879564867

AWS

I found this article, suggesting that “Lamphered LLC” wanted you to reply to scam you out of your actual Amazon password. And this YouTube video is the source of the visual.

Amazon itself writes, broadly about the issue: “If you receive an email claiming to be from Amazon that seems suspicious, it may be a phishing email. A phishing email appears to be from a reputable source, but in reality, it is sent from an outside party attempting to access your personal information by getting you to open an attachment containing malware or click on a link that redirects to a potentially dangerous website.

“Some phishing emails may even contain a link to a website that looks like Amazon.com, but is not a legitimate site. The website may ask for your Amazon username and password or try to install unwanted software on your computer. If you receive a message like this, you should delete it without opening any attachments or clicking any links.

“If you wish to report a suspicious email claiming to be from Amazon that you believe is a forgery, you may submit a report. You may also forward phishing emails and other suspected forgeries directly to stop-spoofing@amazon.com.”

Reply

So I did:

Thank you for writing to Amazon.com to bring this to our attention.

Your message has been forwarded to our security department, and we will investigate the situation. Please note that you may not receive a personal response.

In all likelihood, the message you received was not sent to you by Amazon.com. We strongly advise that you not send any information about yourself back to this individual (especially your credit card number or any personal information).

If you have already submitted any personal information to this person via e-mail or on a potentially fraudulent web site, you may wish to contact Customer Service for assistance. To send an e-mail to Customer Service, please visit https://www.amazon.com/contact-us

In the future, if you are ever uncertain of the validity of an e-mail, even from us, don’t click on any supplied links–instead, type our web site address “https://www.amazon.com” directly into your browser and follow the regular links to Your Account. Many unscrupulous spoofers mislead consumers by displaying one URL while taking the visitor to another.

By typing in a well-known address you can avoid this trick.

Also, please be assured that Amazon.com is not in the business of selling customer information. Many spammers and spoofers use programs that randomly generate e-mail addresses, in the hope that some percentage of these randomly-generated addresses will actually exist.

If you are trying to contact us about something other than a spoofed e-mail message, please contact Customer Service for assistance. To send an e-mail to Customer Service, please visit https://www.amazon.com/contact-us/

If you encounter any other uses of the Amazon.com name that you think may be fraudulent, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Thank you again for taking the time to notify us of this situation.

Time: movie documentary review

60 years

Time is a black and white documentary film put together by the New York Times’ Op Doc folks, which I saw on Amazon Prime. It starts out as a series of snippets of home videos by Fox Rich, about her and her husband Rob, pursuing their American dream to start a clothing store.

Then things went south, financially. We discover Rob and a cousin decide to rob a bank, with Fox as the getaway driver. They are caught and both are given jail time. Fox, who was pregnant with twin boys, received a few years. But Rob got 60 years, without a chance of parole.

So the bulk of the film is about Fox trying to make sure her six sons remember their father while working unceasingly over two decades to get her husband out of prison. As the tag suggests, “this bears witness to the power of one woman to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds with the aid of her faith and family.”

Time was one of fifteen films that were considered in the “Documentary Feature category for the 93rd Academy Awards. Two hundred thirty-eight films were eligible in the category. Members of the Documentary Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.”

I’ll admit that it took me a while to see where the film was going. Once I picked up on the narrative direction, I found it fascinating and inspiring.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received 98% positive reviews from the critics. But only 46% of the general audience felt the same. And I understand why, I believe.

This is NOT a story about persons falsely accused. These people clearly did the crime. Ought not they do the time? Perhaps. But 60 years?

Why is life so complicated?

Here’s a paragraph from an IMDB review from ferguson 6, 7 out of 10 stars. “There are some mixed messages delivered here, which is understandable given how complicated life can get. Perhaps the most vivid message is the impact incarceration has on a family.

“Fox is an extraordinary woman devoted to raising her sons as strong and smart young men. But she also decries that her boys have never had a father and don’t even know the role one plays. While Fox displays the ultimate in polite phone decorum despite her frustrations with an uncaring, inefficient system, we do see her sincerity as she stands in front of her church congregation asking for forgiveness of her poor choices.”

If you watch Time, please be patient. It probably won’t grab you at the outset. It’s only over the course of the film that you get to see the effect that lengthy incarceration has on a family.