Amazon Help Chat Session

Our Amazon account was hacked and for the last couple of months I have called 4 times to customer service to try and straighten it out. The first time the front line rep took my info. Two days later I got an email from amazon saying things were fixed. They were not. The second time I called and elevated it to the next level. Same email, same results. The third time, with a better understanding of what my problem was, I got bumped up a level to a native English speaker. They seemed to understand and directed me to a third person. Two days later, same email, same results. The forth time, I asked for a refund of my prime membership fee, they don’t do that, but this time I got a different person who directed it to the Fraud Department. A week later I got the same email and still had a problem. Today, not wanting to listen to the crappy music while on hold, I tried a chat session.

Initial Question: I have attempted 4 times to try and clear up an unauthorized access to my account without success. Someone gained access on March 6, 2019 and changed the account email. They promptly created a trade-in order for 3 x-boxes, received an amazon gift card for their value, which they turned right around and spent on ps2 gift cards, leaving me with a bill for the non-existent x-boxes. Every time I get a customer “service” rep on the phone they fill out a form to the fraud department. Two days later I get an email saying my account has been fixed, when in fact it is not.

Mohammad (Amazon): Hello, my name is Mohammad. I’m here to help you today.
Brian: hello
Mohammad: Hello Brian
Brian: Did you read my initial chat text?
Mohammad: Yes Brian
Please allow me 2 minutes to check this for you and assist you with this.
Brian: OK

…3 minutes later…

Mohammad: Thanks for waiting
Brian: OK
Mohammad: I have checked this here and I see that the reps did inform to the accounts team about the unauthorized access in your account to our fraudulent department
and hence they have put all the orders on hold, Disabled the password to your account
as well
Brian: And I received an email overnight saying that everything is fixed…But it is NOT! the trade-in account still shows I owe 3 x-boxes.
Mohammad: Brian do you have the order ID of the trade-in ?
Brian: wait one.
Mohammad: Sure
Brian: TRN-4909xxx-6896xxx
Mohammad: Thanks
Mohammad: Thanks for waiting

…2 minutes later…

Mohammad: I have checked this here and please do not worry as we shall surely take care of this here as I see that the lead has already mentioned on this trade in order that the account was hacked with all the necessary details
Please do not worry as this shall surely be taken care of
Brian: Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are the 5th person to tell me that in the last 2 months, so I remain skeptical.

…4 minutes later…

Mohammad: Yes I can understand your concern here however and I am sorry about the delay in the process however to speed up the process I request you to please go ahead and dispute the charges with the bank
Brian: The bank (credit card) has never charged me. They recognize it as an unusual purchase and flag it. I tell them I did not approved the charge. And I end up with a new charge card.

…3 minutes later…

Mohammad: Brian in this case I can see that the trade in order from the lead has been marked as unauthorized order as per the information you have provided to us
However I request you to wait for the investigation to be completed from the team here as this has already been forwarded to them and also again I am escalating this issue with them so that this is resolved at the earliest for you
I
Brian: I have been waiting for at least the last month. In the meantime I am unable to purchase items from Amazon with a charge card so I am unable to take full advantage of my Prime Membership.

…3 minutes later…

Mohammad: Yes I can completely understand your concern here
and I am very sorry about the delay in the process however I can see that the order is under investigation and also this has been marked on the order
I request to please wait for the investigation to be completed by the team here as I can clearly see that the trade in order has been marked for you with all the details
Brian: OK, I just hope that it will be completed sometime soon.
Mohammad: I’m forwarding your feedback to the concern department and the right people in my company as well so that they’ll come to know about the problem.
Now they’ll be able to check for the source of the problem and get this resolved at the earliest for you
Mohammad: Brian I’m confident that they’ll check in this issue and resolve for you as soon as possible as the order has been marked with all the details
Brian: Thanks for your time
Mohammad: I highly appreciate your patience, co-operation and understanding in this matter.
You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Brian: nope.
Mohammad: It was a pleasure to assist you with this. Thank you for contacting Amazon.com. We hope to see you again.

This took over thirty minutes, about the same as a phone call to them, but I got to listen to my music. Anyway, I’m not holding my breath this will ever get resolved.

Where’s That Confounded Blimp? Act II

Two weeks ago we missed out on the Goodyear Blimp that was covering the RBC Heritage Golf Tournament in Hilton Head Island because we didn’t know what airport it was based out of. This time we knew exactly which airport it would be at.

Wingfoot 3 was scheduled to provide TV coverage for the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, NC. The official Find the Blimp page didn’t list the golf course like it did for the Hilton Head Island event, it listed the town of Chester, SC. As it happens there is a Chester Catawba Regional Airport just north of town. Donna searched Facebook for “Chester Catawba Regional Airport blimp” and there were pictures of the blimp there in May of 2016 and May of 2018.

We got up this morning, loaded some snacks in a small cooler, had breakfast at Dunkin’ and headed north. We dodged rain showers for most of the 100+ mile drive, even putting the top up for a stretch and arrived at the airport at around 10:30 AM. I pulled up to the spot that was clearly where those Facebook photos were taken and…

…No #%$&ing Blimp!

May the 4th Be With You


Our previous Miata was named The Emperor and this little “action” figure adorned its dash top for several years. The car may be long gone, but the figure still resides with us on a shelf in the computer room.

Coincidentally, I just noticed today that The Emperor’s twin brother is for sale on Bring a Trailer. Poor thing has been locked away for nearly its entire 16 year life, it has less that 7,000 miles on it. It listed for $26,195 new and right now the high bid is only $6,600 with 2 days left.

I was half tempted to bid on the thing, so much so, that I actually created an account on the site, but then figured the sale price would probably be more than $10 thousand in the end and it just wouldn’t be worth it. I am still going to keep an eye on the auction out of curiosity though.

Track 18 – House At Pooh Corner

I was cleaning up the Desktop of the Desktop PC and found a text file labeled “quintessential burn” and instead of deleting it, I opened it and thought, “Hmmm, haven’t done a music video in a while. I wonder when the last time I did one?”

When I started from my December 2004 Quintessential Burn mix CD in 2013 I posted five videos. Then in 2015 I posted just one. Three and a half years later it is time for another don’t you think? Out of the 19 song on the list I have posted 6 of the and all have started with odd track numbers, so here is one that has an even track number…

Adding Insult To Injury

We arrived home from our failed blimp finding mission in Hilton Head, in the late afternoon after driving about 350 miles. Donna walked into the laundry room (it’s at the back of the garage) to empty the little car “litter” bag. The light didn’t come automatically on, we have a motion sensor switch in there so you don’t have to flick a switch while holding a full laundry basket. I said, “The light bulb probably burnt out. I’ll check it in a minute.”

The first thing I noticed when walking into the house was the desktop computer was off. I looked into the spare bedroom and the LED alarm clock was dark. Donna noticed the microwave clock was blank too. The power must be off. But wait a minute, the ceiling fans were spinning, the power can’t be off. Besides, the garage door went up on demand…hmmm. A quick walk through the house and saw that the LED alarm clock in the middle bedroom was blank. The one in our bedroom was dark too, but the clock in the Ipod charger/player was on though. The LED clock under the TV was dark as well and the cable modem/router was flashing a bunch random lights instead of its usual compliment. TV came on, but no programming, the cable must be off.

We must have had a power failure. We went outside to ask a neighbor what had happened and that’s when we noticed a fairly large tree branch down on the far side of the front lawn. As we walked over we noticed another bunch of tree debris in our neighbor’s driveway. Donna said, “Good thing the neighbor had his truck on the lawn because that is right where he normally parked.” Took a closer look at the truck and we could see that it had been hit by a falling branch and moved after. We looked up and spotted a place on one of our trees where the offending may have come from. I went to their front door and rang the bell.

Neighbor came out and said, “Neat, huh?” As we walked back towards the driveway he described what happened. “At about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon they heard a loud bang and came outside. There was a tree branch laying on the hood of his truck, but more alarming was the live power line laying on his lawn that had been ripped from the side of our house. He called the power company and within an hour they had restored power to our house. He said the reason the TV cable isn’t on in your house is because it came down with the power line, it is coiled up at the bottom of the pole on the other side of the street.” When I said, “I’ll be calling our insurance company because we have a bunch of electrical devices that are toast in our house and I’ll tell them about your truck.” “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “I’ve already called Geico for the truck because when I looked up I could see where the branch came off my tree, so I took care of it.”

Sure enough, looking up I could see where it might have fallen off his tree. But directly across his driveway in our yard you could see a spot where it might have fallen off our tree. If we had a bucket truck or either one of us had a 40 foot vertical leap we could get a definitive answer on whose tree it was. The neighbor said, “You take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine.” “Fine with me,” I replied.

Further investigation around the house netted a passel of damaged stuff. The aforementioned 4 LED clocks, the microwave, the Kuerig coffee maker, the desktop PC’s speakers, the charger for the Dustbuster, the transformer for the sprinkler system, the 30-year old boombox in the garage, the electric pencil sharpener, the LED light bulb over the front porch, the LED bug light in the same location and the biggy, the dishwasher. There was a smell of ozone in the middle bedroom, but only the one LED clock was bad, the other three items plugged-in in the room were fine.

One of the EFI outlets on the screened porch had tripped, so I reset it. Later in the evening when we went back out it had tripped again. I went out to the breaker box and turned off the power to the porch, I then went under the house and checked the wire run, but (in my inexpert opinion) couldn’t see anything wrong. With discretion being the better part of valor, I added calling an electrician to my Monday morning phone call list to go along with State Farm, the cable company and an appliance repairman.

Where’s That Confounded Blimp?

In this year’s Motoring Challenge the two big point earners, worth nine each, are the Wienermobile and a Blimp. We snagged the rolling hot dog back in February, so now we needed the blimp.

Turns out there are 3 active Goodyear Blimps, each with their own home base. The first is just where you’d expect it to be, Akron, Ohio, Home of the Goodyear Company. The other two are on opposite costs of the country, Carson, CA (AKA Los Angeles) and Pompano Beach, FL (AKA Miami.) Akron and Pompano are around 600 miles away, neither would be an attractive drive, and LA, forget about it. Our best bet would be to catch one in its travels.

Unlike the Wienermobile, there is no smart phone app to keep track of Goodyear’s 3 airships, but you can find out where they are going to be appearing right on its very own web page. And as it turns out Wing Foot 3 would be providing aerial coverage of the RBC Heritage Golf Tournament in Hilton Head Island, SC (a mere 130 miles away) on April 20 & 21.

We had a Miata Club event on Saturday, so we planned a day trip down to HHI on Sunday. Knowing they wouldn’t fly the blimp back to its home base for one night it would have to be parked at an airport overnight. But, which one? The small airport on the Island or the bigger one near Savannah, GA. A blimp would be too big to put in any old hanger, so it should be visible by driving by. We would leave early in the morning, take a picture and be back home by mid-afternoon.

Because HHI is sort of on the way to Savannah the plan was to check there first. Plus an early Sunday morning arrival on the Island would make the normally busy traffic somewhat lighter. We plugged the airport location into Google and made a bee-line there. The road leading to the terminal had several places where we could see onto the runway, but no blimp sightings. Pulled into the small parking lot out front and walked into the terminal. We could see through several of those windows onto the runway too, but no blimp. We cruised more of the roads surrounding the one runway getting a few more peeks, but never saw a blimp.

We did spot a vintage VW Beetle in a parking lot of a small business park near the airport. This fits one of the Motoring Challenges, My First Car, because Donna’s first car was a 1971 Super Beetle. After watching us park near his car in two different spots and taking pictures, the owner of the car came out and asked if we needed any help. After explaining what we were doing, I asked, “Have you seen the blimp?” He said it wasn’t at this airport, it was at Savannah International.

That airport is north and east of the city of Savannah and it is easily accessible from Hilton Head in about an hour. The longer, but only slightly quicker way is US-278 to I-95, yuck, so we took the shorter route along scenic coastal back roads that took 5 minutes longer. We circled the perimeter roads around the airport, including a dead end road that led to the Gulfstrean factory where we passed a couple of private jets having their jet engines tested. No blimp. I then circled back and drove near the terminal to see if we could get a view on that end of the airport. As I slowed at a crosswalk near the departure gates there were a couple of women in yellow vests that read SECURITY. I asked them had the seen the blimp. Both responded with, “What blimp?”

It was now nearing noon and by now we should have been heading home. CBS’s coverage of the final round of the tournament wasn’t supposed to start until 3:00 PM. I suggested we head out to I-95 and find a lunch place before starting back to Aiken. Donna countered with, we should drive back to Hilton Head and get lunch there, kill some time shopping and then hunt the blimp in the air. So we re-traced our back road route the HHI.

On our way back through Bluffton, SC we stopped into a little restaurant that we ate at about 28 years ago called Squat ‘N’ Gobble. Probably the only thing different since that last time were the waitresses. Donna had Crabby Benedict and I got a Western Omelet. We did try and eat here a few years back, but it is so popular there was a 30 minute wait (and we don’t wait.)

Our big problem in capturing the airborne blimp would be we couldn’t get close to it. The golf course they were using is in Sea Pines Plantation that takes up the whole end of the island. It is a gated community and any old Joe can’t just drive in. Normally you can buy a day pass for $5 to go to the shops and restaurants in the Harbour Town area, but not during tournament time. Even spectators with tickets had to park on the other end of the island and get bused into the plantation.

When we got back on the Island we took the Cross Island Parkway, which is a toll road that by-passes the congested US-278 to go from one side of the island to the other, because there is an elevated bridge on the end closest to plantation and we figured it would give us a nice view of the sky. It did but there wasn’t a blimp in sight. We still had an hour and a half before the TV coverage was to begin, so we parked and wandered the shops of Coligny Plaza, had some ice cream, decided to toss in the towel and head home.

We decided to drive back across the Cross Island Parkway to get another skyward peek. When I rolled to a stop to pay the toll I asked the women inside if she had seen the blimp. “I can’t see nothing in here,” came the reply. we half repeated the trip to Savannah in hopes that the blimp might come that way, but no blimps were sighted.

We will have another chance at seeing the blimp because it will be covering another golf tournament in Charlotte (about 160 miles away) the first weekend in May…

32,000 + 73,000 = 8 Day Blogging Hole

Somewhere in the last eight days on one of Donna’s trip’s to the gym the Lady Bug passed the 32,000 mile mark.

This past Sunday afternoon on the way home from the South Carolina coast the CTBNL passed through the 73,000 mile mark.

In that same time frame we have taken 8 Motoring Challenge photos worth almost 20 points, but we missed out on the big one (a separate post that will happen sooner than eight days from now.)