WAT?
Can you post a screen shot the next time you see a deal like this?
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Exactly. That’s the problem.
https://x.com/lifehacker/status/1825578556912451668
There aren’t “billions of Americans”. I’m not even sure a billion Americans have ever lived. Why does everyone keep repeating this and not question it? It drives me nuts.
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Unless they are duplicating numbers, there are only 1 billion possible SSNs.
The number of SSNs is only limited by your imagination.
Didn’t you read the headlines when this came out? 2.9 billion identifying #s were hacked across the US, Canada and UK!
And no one thought to ask how that could be when the total population of the three countries is around 500M.
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Our numerous Latin American forum members are livid right now.
I cover that in my book! “United-states-ian” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well sometimes.
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When I check for LAX to Mexico City right now I get $254 as the cheapest ticket and $904 as the cheapest first class ticket.
They used a lossy algorithm and some of the numbers were counted multiple times…
My son is in band and marching band (and maybe a couple others next semester, but that’s neither here nor there) in high school and they did a fundraiser yesterday. We didn’t have much warning about it and then, this past weekend, we got the instructions. It was literally just a phone blitz during marching band practice - the kids literally called people to ask for donations.
On Sunday, we were asked to come up with a list of 10-20 people to call. Of course, we in no way wanted to do this, but we also didn’t want our son to sit there not participating in the event, so my wife and I found a bunch of friends and family who were willing to at least take a call. We told them they did not have to donate, but the vast majority were happy to support our kid and were actually excited to get a call rather than just an e-mail.
So our son made the calls. He didn’t love it, but was ok when it came down to it. So that whole thing was kind of not so great.
BUT…it turned out, unbeknownst to us, that the minimum donation was $25! We told people $5-$10 would be cool if they wanted to contribute because why the fuck would we think it was a $25 minimum (one relative was very generous and gave $100).
AND THEN…remember the discussion a while back (I think in this thread?) about fees? My brother texted me that there was a $4 fee on his $50 donation. Fuck that.
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Thanka for posting this, our band is doing the same thing. My wifr and I dont have a ton of friends and family we can hit uo, and it rrally seems like a scam to get data more than anything so aside from our parents we dont have a ton of others to offer.
Its awful. I understand arts programs needs help. But nobody wants to give away their email address and phone numbers and buy $25 butter even to help a good cause. Just ask for money the old fashioned way. Dont do this “Give me the names/numbers/addresses of everyone you have ever known” bullshit.
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$25 minimum and a $4 fee on a guilt ridden donation request from a child is fucking absurd.
The fees are the most upsetting part imo. I remember my kid had a whole catalogue of chocolates and wrapping paper at massively inflated prices. Then the school gets a cut of the sales, but whatever scam company makes the catalogue gets the lion’s share. I was like “how about I just buy some wrapping paper for $.99 and then donate $20 to the school? Everybody wins except the catalogue company” but then of course my kid doesn’t get to compete for the stuffed animal or whatever. I think I posted about this on 2+2 I was so mad.
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My son did have a sense of humor about it, though. His first call was to my wife and I (though I made him hang up and call others - he can save us for last). He read the script as an homage to this:
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Yeah, while my son was certainly not enthused about making all the calls, he did enjoy the chance to win some prizes. There are prizes for the top “sellers” - Nintendo Switch is the top prize, I believe. And then they get raffle tickets for the money they generate. He entered raffles for Amazon and Chick-Fil-A gift cards.
One of his friends is very introverted - he didn’t even talk to me when he was at our house recently - and I asked my kid if he made calls. I could not imagine it at all. He said he made $1 from a friend on CashApp.
I assume there was a kid or two with a rich uncle (we live in a pretty wealthy area) who donated a few thousand bucks.
If the minimum wasn’t $25 and there weren’t outrageous fees, we would’ve been ok with it all. Everyone we contacted was totally happy to help and some thought it was cute that they’d be getting a call. Still awkward, but whatever.
Now I can’t wait until we have to return the favor for everyone and end up dishing out like $500 in total donations.
Planet Money had an interesting episode on the whole fundraising situation in schools, including the angle of the racket that is the fundraising companies that are used to operate them.
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That was a great episode iirc. The school pep rally assembly things with the over the top MC guy hyping up kids to sell shit to their parents is so cringey.
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When I was in high school we had a magazine sale to raise money. I ended up crushing it because my immediate family bought a ton, and extended family and friends did it as well. I am no salesman, my worst job experiences in my life were sales, but I crushed this. I thjnk I sold more than everyone combined.
My family were voracious readers and we already had a lot of magazine subscriptions but you could extend them out.
I don’t think I got any prize for top sales though.
I always ate more of those stupid World’s Finest chocolate bars than I sold. One old lady in the neighborhood would always buy them, then give them back to us at Halloween, even if it was a year later.