Mobile phones (Cell phones in US speak) and the 'Why don't you use the app?'

[KitaYama]

Kita, sometimes I think people should be required to take courtesy lessons from the Japanese. Two very important people in my life were born and raised in Japan and they are real treasures. One is married to my nephew.

We have our prolems too. No one is perfect. West cultures are very rich too and have a lot of surprises. You also have a lot of aspects which we have to learn.

 

[KitaYama]

Particularly those folks who give us a typical USA name with an accent straight from the Middle East.

A while back, I was listening to a radio station and there was an episode where someone in UK had purchased a PC and had some troubles with it. So he called the support and the guy in help center was in India. I've never heard something as funny as that conversation in my life.

 

[AccessBlaster]

I do find it strange people carry mobile telephones around everywhere, but never use them as a phone. They will take the obligatory selfie or messaging but not a phone call.

Generally speaking I like phone calls, it makes me feel like I'm still part of something real, whereas a text is cold and detached.

I think a lot of confusion can be had with text messaging, just look at these threads. If we were all on a zoom or conference call there would be little misunderstanding because we could judge things like tone and tenor.

 

[Pat Hartman]

@KitaYama I have a cell phone because it has become a necessity. Up until about 20 years ago, there was a pay phone in every business and practically one on every street corner. The cell phone has killed the pay phone making it a practical necessity for everyone to have a cell phone in case they need to make a call when away from home. I got one back when everyone was getting them because I had a long commute and spent a lot of time travelling and had had a few occasions where I broke down or had an accident. So, it is a means of summing help. And I've used it to call AAA (the auto club) if I got a flat tire and needed roadside assistance. For that type of thing, the cell phone is a life saver. But I don't want to be tethered to it. My grandchildren carry them around so that they are always in the same room with them. They aren't as bad as some people who never let go. At least they aren't constantly checking the phone when we are talking. I've been in restaurants where there were four people at a table and all four were immersed in their cell phones and not interacting with the people around them. This is truly a sickness that has been foisted on us by Big Tech. That leads me to social media. You are correct, this website is my only social media. I don't use FB (permanently banned but that's another story), or anything else. They are time suckers. Every time I look at a video on YouTube, I end up looking at 3 more and have wasted an hour minimum. This is the total raison d'état (French phrase) of social media applications. They do everything they can to suck you in and keep you there and YouTube is a master at it. Do you know that the people behind social media, the Silicon Valley (California area) tech moguls send their children to private schools and the schools do not allow cell phones or other high tech devices? They don't let their children get hooked but they sure want to hook ours and have pretty much succeeded.

The no financial transactions is my way of rebelling (and attempting to keep my finances from being hacked). I do not like the way the world is moving away from actual money. You are OK with this. Most people are. But being a programmer gives you at least some knowledge of what they are doing so I don't actually know many programmers who have handed over their life to a phone no matter how convenient it would be. Every piece of software you interact with wants to collect data from you so they can sell it. Anything that is "free" means that YOU are the product. They are giving you something for "free" so they can collect your data and sell it. You say you have nothing to hide. I don't either. Most honest people don't. But I still don't want to be tracked every minute of every day. It makes me feel like I am living in 1984. This book was required reading in high school in the 1960's. I don't think it still is because my grandchildren never read it. I should have made them read it so they can see what is going on around them. Freedom is a precious thing and the younger generation has no clue what communism is all about and how close we are to the point of no return.

Not giving my cell phone to people keeps them from calling me on it. It isn't that I don't want to talk to them. It is because I don't want to have to carry my phone from room to room. My close friends and family all have it. But if I'm home they can reach me any time or leave a message and I'll call them back. They also know that in an emergency they can try my cell but I won't check the messages. I went to join truth social recently but they insisted on getting my cell phone so I didn't join. I never give my cell phone to businesses. That is just a license to suffocate you with ads from them and everyone they sell your contact info to.

I get enough junk email. I absolutely don't want the junk cell phone calls and texts. At least we have a "do not call" registry for "land lines". That keeps the junk to a minimum. The problem is that if you have ever done business with one of these pests, they get the right to ignore your "do not call" request. My husband was a sucker for the "police" and "fire department" and "veterans" people and generally gave them small amounts of money. I finally looked up these "charities" and the intended recipients never got more than 5% of the money donated so I finally got him to stop. These "charities" are nothing but scams.

Never forget how the Canadian government froze all financial accounts of the protesting truckers. They literally couldn't eat unless someone gave them cash. That was the plan to break the strike and it succeeded because it not only affected the truckers, it also affected their families who also couldn't eat once they ran out of cash. Yes, it is very convenient to not have to carry cash. That is also a way to get people to overspend. I'm not sure what the actual number is today but I think the average American is carrying $10,000 in credit card debt at 25% (or higher) interest per month. There are other reasons then the convenience of using credit cards for that but if you don't pay your cards off every month, you are spending yourself into oblivion. The current credit card rates are considered usury and are banned in most states. Because we are a country of 50 states, different states have different rules and so all the credit card companies have moved their "headquarters" to South Dakota where these usurious rates are allowed. So there are buildings in South Dakota and Delaware (another state with favorable incorporation rules for companies) that house thousands of "headquarters".

I know how all this sounds. If I sound paranoid, maybe I am but maybe I'm right and I hope you will at least think about what I and some of the others have said. I don't know any way to protect myself or my family from the people out there who are trying to control our every thought but I will not go down without a fight. I have friends who have fled Communism and Socialism and understand the hell they lived in and why they had to leave and now we are so close to a tipping point that it is hard to see a way back if we go over.

 

[DickyP]

It only goes back to what real life is.

Agreed.
And I understand now about bills - to Brits they are notes.

 

[DickyP]

To make it clear, in UK, if you pay cashless, you don't receive a receipt?

Yes you do but sometimes vendors don't want to or try and just send electronic one. I don't stand for it. The actual law is that for £5 or more they have to offer one, and for less they have to give one if asked.

The real surprise is those people who don't want one! The law applies irrespective of how paid.

However, what the law requires and what people do is somewhat different unless you stick for you rights.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

So he called the support and the guy in help center was in India. I've never heard something as funny as that conversation in my life.

I can imagine, because I've had a few of those myself and was saddened to learn that I probably knew more about computers than the guy on the other end of the line. Of necessity in college, I learned how to understand folks with heavy accents, because at the time, Univ. of New Orleans had a top-level Chemistry department, one of the reasons I went there. The 2nd and later-year doctoral graduate students were asked to help the newcomers. Because of its reputation, we had Chemistry students from nearly every time zone. (A couple of zones are mostly water, so have lower odds on having students from there.) At one time, I had to deal with folks from Pakistan, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Egypt, the Philippines, ... and Texas.

When I was working with the U.S. Navy we had a support contract with COMPAQ and later, with HP (who bought out COMPAQ). In it, we had the right to demand USA-only support staff. I cannot tell you how often I ran into folks with Middle-East accents who wanted to help with a USA Department of Defense computer. But I was within my rights to request a USA support person and usually did so. But I never made that call on a cell phone - because we were not allowed to use them in the building. It house Secure servers and wi-fi is an absolute no-no in Secure facilities.

 

[ColinEssex]

There are a lot of new words for me and I couldn't understand it all.
To make it clear, in UK, if you pay cashless, you don't receive a receipt?

In the UK, if I pay cashless, I am always offered the option of having a receipt or not, I have never paid cashless without first checking the amount for accuracy.
Col

 

[Isaac]

It's a waste of time for both

BUT, it's still not necessarily a waste of time for other listeners/readers, because we can now see 2 points of view and be educated and enriched by reading them. Thus I value even the most determinedly non-open arguer.

 

[KitaYama]

In the UK, if I pay cashless, I am always offered the option of having a receipt or not, I have never paid cashless without first checking the amount for accuracy.
Col

Seems that I have to take a holiday and step outside of the walls around me to see how the world is.
Here, if you buy anything even 1 yen, you receive a receipt. It's not something you ask for. It's something they give you.
If you pay cashless from a pre-charged app, you receive two receipts. One from store, one that shows deducted price from your charge.
If you pay cashless from a unchargable app, you receive three receipts. One from the store , one for the amount deducted from your app, one for the details for the amount of withdrawal and date.

The real surprise is those people who don't want one!

well...again, I'm one of them. They give me the receipt and there's always a trash box in front of the cashier for those who don't need the receipt. I throw the receipt there. In most of our convenient stores, the receipt comes out and they have put the trash box exactly in front of it. The receipt comes out and falls into the trash box. I've never seen anybody purchase from a convenient store and keep the receipt.

I can't understand why do I need one. Most of things here works on trust.
What do you do with your receipts?

 

[KitaYama]

If I sound paranoid,

Not at all. I agree with most of what you explained. The only difference between me an you is, how much of our privacy do we sacrifice for convenience.
You respect your privacy and don't bargain it for convenience, I sacrifice a part of it to have more comfortable life.

I told you that I can not live without my phone for 5 minutes. It's true, but it doesn't mean it's glued to my hand. Rule No1. Never look at your phone when you are with someone. Here, it counts as a very disrespectful acts. Teenagers and even young generation up to their early 20s, are how you explained. They sit at a table, and instead of enjoying being with each other, they are on their phone. But it's only their youth. People understand it. Once they're employed and start their adult life, they really stop that kind of behavior.
While in train or other public transportation, EVERYBODY is on their phone. We don't talk on public areas. Or if we do, it's very short. If you come here and ride a train, I think you will hate us for ever. But, here, we believe a public area, belongs to everyone. So we try not to disturb each other. Well, if we want to keep silence, what's better than checking our phones?

At home, I don't know where my phone is. If I need to use it, I may use my wife's, because it's always on the table.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I can't understand why do I need one. Most of things here works on trust.

Your culture is very different from that of the rest of the world. Japan is one of the only two countries (outside of China which has multiple ethnic groups and no one wants to emigrate to there anyway) that maintain racial purity. North Korea is the other and that is because no one wants to go to North Korea. In the case of Japan, Japan does not allow immigration except if you are pure Japanese. I don't know how far back they go to check so some foreign blood may end up in the mix. They allow work visas and temporary residency but not immigration. My brother's partner wants them to retire in Japan but since he is only half Japanese, even he can't get permanent residency let alone citizenship so I doubt they'll end up moving there. Too bad. Both would be assets to your country.

Given the homogeneousness of your population, most people are educated and socialized with the same values so you have an implicit trust. Your values (as I understand them) are admirable. You have a reverence for your elders (good) and by default authority figures(less good). You have a reverence for education and beauty. Japan's beauty and sense of orderliness has always captivated me. There is nothing quite as beautiful and serene as cherry blossoms and a temple with Mt Fuji in the background. I love old Japanese architecture. I find it very interesting that in Japan, old houses are discarded in favor of new ones. I went looking at homes for sale when my brother told me they were thinking of moving and was flabbergasted at how inexpensive old homes were.

In the US we look at strangers as benign. Not a threat but not a friend either. I don't think everyone I meet on the street is out to get me but our ethics are not what they once were and also, people make mistakes. So, I look at the receipt, not because I don't trust the clerk but because people make mistakes. Personally, I tend to talk to strangers and I've had some interesting chats with them. My husband and I met the Smucker's (the jelly people) back in the 70's. We were in a department store and they were trying to buy something with a check and the clerk wouldn't take the check because it was out of state (remember those days?). My husband always carried more cash than I liked so he stepped in and offered to cash the check for them. They were grateful and asked for our address which he gave them. A week later we got a package with a few jars of jam and a cutting board with their thanks. You just never know

Please don't think I judge you harshly for your immigration policy. You have every right to retain your culture. Too many Americans think we don't have a culture to preserve because we don't have people wearing quaint costumes dancing for the tourists. So, to them, it makes no difference how many people who just want to suck of the teat of our welfare system that we import. People who will never learn the language and never bother to assimilate. They're here to take what they can get and because they come from a bad place we're supposed to suck it up otherwise we're racists.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I've never seen anybody purchase from a convenient store and keep the receipt.

In the USA, we have learned from various news stories to always take the receipt and dispose of it in a less public place. For instance, I have a cross-cut paper shredder at home and have had one for at least 35 years. If we dispose of a receipt in a store's trash can, we don't know where else it goes, and we have a phrase - "dumpster divers" - to describe people who look in trash to attempt to exploit careless disposal of printed receipts. The correct SECURE way to dispose of receipts is to have a fireplace or barbecue pit or some similar place where you can burn the receipts.

Further, with my yearly Navy security refresher courses, we learned to always look at what ELSE is on the receipt. Many receipts include part or all of the credit card number. Since some of us sometimes carried government credit cards when on "away" assignments, we were always told to bring ALL receipts back for analysis and verification. And bookkeeping, of course. Navy auditors - got to love them.

You would ask... why so cautious? Because when a person can track you AND track electronic cash receipts, they can associate your card with your name and get enough info to fraudulently use your card number. Even if all they have is the last four digits of your card number, they know the prefix codes for all the major cards (first four digits of the number). With eight of the sixteen (or fewer) digits in hand, and for someone who taps the transactions over wi-fi, careless businesses that don't encrypt their wi-fi make it possible for someone to harvest all sorts of transactions easily. The problem there? Some businesses are keenly internet-aware; some are lucky they can reliably turn on light switches three times out of four. And people don't always appreciate just how thoroughly our environment is polluted by wi-fi carrying secure or not-so-secure content.

In our culture, we have a phrase to describe people who exploit this kind of thing... "They will steal anything that isn't nailed down and will bring a pry-bar for any victim who didn't use enough nails."

 

[Pat Hartman]

@KitaYama I have an update. I talked to my brother's partner and found out that he can get permanent residency but not citizenship. His mother was living in Tokyo during the war and came to the US later. She met Scott's father when he was stationed in Hawaii in the 50's and they got married. She became a US citizen and that required that she give up her Japanese citizenship. That is why Scott didn't automatically get Japanese citizenship at birth. I guess if Scott had been born before she gave up her Japanese citizenship, she could have "registered" him. I didn't ask what that meant but it might mean that Scott could have chosen when he was 18.

It seems that the US position on dual citizenship changed in 1978 and so now you don't have to give up your birth citizenship to become a US citizen unless of course your home country requires it as Japan does. Too bad. I don't think dual citizenship is appropriate. Your loyalty will always be split.

 

[Cotswold]

There are a lot of new words for me and I couldn't understand it all.
To make it clear, in UK, if you pay cashless, you don't receive a receipt?

If you ask for one you'll obviously be given one but, if it is for something that cannot be returned, what is the point in having one?
If it is a supermarket I'd take one in case they've charged more that the shelf price. Or many items on the till receipt.

 

[KitaYama]

If it is a supermarket I'd take one in case they've charged more that the shelf price.

I'm sorry for this stupid question. But since it's the second time it's been mentioned, I can't help it.
Don't they use barcodes when checking out? Here, Every item has a barcode and the clerk or staff, just reads the barcode. So how it's possible to be charged more than the real price?

 

[KitaYama]

Because when a person can track you AND track electronic cash receipts, they can associate your card with your name and get enough info to fraudulently use your card number. Even if all they have is the last four digits of your card number, they know the prefix codes for all the major cards (first four digits of the number). With eight of the sixteen (or fewer) digits in hand, and for someone who taps the transactions over wi-fi, careless businesses that don't encrypt their wi-fi make it possible for someone to harvest all sorts of transactions easily. The problem there? Some businesses are keenly internet-aware; some are lucky they can reliably turn on light switches three times out of four.

Doc, I don't want to negate anything or prove you're wrong. Just passing some info.
With recent digital life (the one that DickyP believes is not a real life) these kind of problems are vanishing.
Recent credit cards come with a planted IC chip.
Here, when you use a credit card, either for online purchase or in shop purchase, you insert the cared in a reader and push your 4 digit pin security password, and open a security app on your mobile. The reader contacts with the organization that has issued the card (bank, businesses, etc). They send you an encrypted one time password to your app. This password can be used only for 30 seconds. You input the password on the reader and pay the fee. You're late and don't enter the passcode in 30 seconds, you must ask for a new passcode.
We call this system "3D security", you may have a different name. So having the receipt really is not helpful. If you want, I can send you any of my cards full number. Each bank or organization that issues a credit card, has its own app with its special method. They are not all the same.

One more step over it, We have a insurance on our cards. (possibly you have too). Last year there was a huge unknown fee on our company's corporate credit card. There was an extra $3000 on our payment. We called the bank and per their investigation, there was 12 times of purchases with our card in Australia. (mostly shampoo and bath items). The insurance paid for $3000 and it was done only with one call and 10 minutes of our time. Of course they banned the card number and sent us a new one.

 

[AngelSpeaks]

I'm sorry for this stupid question. But since it's the second time it's been mentioned, I can't help it.
Don't they use barcodes when checking out? Here, Every item has a barcode and the clerk or staff, just reads the barcode. So how it's possible to be charged more than the real price?

Not a stupid question. A store can put an item on sale (a short term special lower price) and forget to update their computer.

 

[Isaac]

I'm sorry for this stupid question. But since it's the second time it's been mentioned, I can't help it.
Don't they use barcodes when checking out? Here, Every item has a barcode and the clerk or staff, just reads the barcode. So how it's possible to be charged more than the real price?

Meaning that when you are shopping the sign on the shelf by the item says one price but then you get charged another price it has to do with the systems in the store not matching the advertised price.

Happens all the time here

 

[The_Doc_Man]

@KitaYama - regarding your post #57 above:

In the U.S. Navy that would have been called "three-factor authentication." What you don't recognize is that requiring three factors means that someone in authority must have thought two-factor identification was inadequate - which probably means it was imposed on you in response to misuse / abuse of stolen credit cards. What will be next? FOUR-factor authorization?

Having the credit card is one-factor authentication. Knowing the PIN (that isn't visible anywhere on the card) is two-factor authentication. In the USA (and probably elsewhere), there is a bank-related security app for most banks that, when your credit card gets used for a big purchase (you set the limits on "big" in the app), it sends you a text that asks if you just used the card for an $xxxx purchase at MyOverPricedGoods.COM, and you can say Yes or No. That app and the ability to respond is three-factor authentication. So we often do something similar to your "3D" methods.

Switch to cultural factors: It is entirely possible that this is a generational thing, but in the USA, everyone wants "instant gratification" and so would be reluctant to introduce that third factor. In fact, many are reluctant to employ the second factor. When I shop online for software I will usually run into the 2nd factor when filling out the payment section of the online shopping cart setup. Often, the company will send a short numeric or mixed password to test the accuracy of my information's e-mail, but some of the places do that even before I'm allowed to put anything in the cart. I have therefore seen and used variations on 3-factor verification.

The exact flavor of 3-factor therefore may differ from place to place but some of us are actually aware of using it. And then we have citizens who are barely aware that they are still breathing... but my cynicism is acting up again. Time to wish you a good day.