So it turns out there really is an iTunes gift card scam. But I don’t really think that this strange but interesting woman was going that way. It is kind of fishy, but I think she was just testing me for sugar daddy tendencies. The scam seems to be that you receive an urgent phone call saying that you owe back taxes or somesuch debt. The only way to pay it, teh caller says, is to go to a retail store and buy an iTunes gift card, then read the 16 digit number from the card to the caller. Can people possibly be so stupid as to fall for something like this? Apparently so. I guess if they happen to call someone who really does owe then the element of fear could make them do anything.
So scammers are getting people to buy gift cards which, as best I can tell, can only be used at the iTunes store. So the scammer does not even get cash. Seems like a long way to go to download some music. Maybe they resell the card number? That might be it.
I knew a very smart and intelligent guy who said he fell for a phone scam. They said his Amex card had been stolen and that they needed him to verify that the card was in his possession by reading off the number to him. Bingo. He did it. Very smart guy and all, not that that really matters. It’s a theater thing.
When I had my identity stolen the first word I got about it was from a call from Chase bank. I was skeptical but as she spoke I checked my accounts online and saw that these strange transactions in Houston had actually been recorded on my account. And she never asked me for a card or account number, though I can’t necessarily say how I might have reacted if she (or someone) did. Calls like that, legitimate or not, put you into a panic mode, making you vulnerable to do stupid shit.
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So the joy of this day is that phone booths are back in Times Square. An artist procured from Citybridge three of the four metal Airlight phone booths that used to inhabit West End Avenue. Those booths were replaced last year with Canadian models, a move which puzzled and even perturbed me. The project is a little hard to get into for me. The phones have been wired to play back recorded stories from immigrants who came to America from other countries. Many of the stories are told in non-English languages, and the phone booths are hot as hell when the doors are closed. It actually looks like there is a magnifying glass on top where the overhead light and fan used to be.
But it is cool to see the booths, and people’s reactions to them. I didn’t stay too long but the booths looked familiar to me on account of the pictures I have of them on my web site. The graffiti looked familiar, but the doors did not. That’s because the artist retrofitted the booths with new doors. They open outward. Real phone booth doors open inward A pesky detail, no doubt, but it’s interesting to remember that phone booth doors were designed to open inward so as to save floor space. That’s a design change from the earliest days of booths, when they were mostly found indoors. That opening inward thing was one of the many things that made exiting phone booths both annoying and even dangerous.
