SBC - Stupidity is our first name.

Okay, first I will admit, I hate SBC. I have/had their DSL service. The bright kids at SBC would not allow me to cancel my DSL service before the contract was over, even though I understood there was a contract and was fine paying to the end of contract.

What did they do? Raise my rate after I called to the new higher rate, and then of course did not drop me. So I called again. After the contract was up - yes to drop the contract, you have to auto-renew the contract... I got someone who understood the stupidity, said I would be refunded my charges and the DSL dropped (their service is horrid in cleveland ohio).

So of course, do I even need to say it? My service was not dropped, and I was continued to be billed $50 a month for DSL service I hadn't used in 6 months, and had cancelled numerous times. To this day, I am still being billed, still not refunded for that money. And they wonder why people are dropping land lines...

So okay, that is my private battle with the worst customer service on the face of the earth (their fines give them this award). But why mention it here?

Well because, the kids in the rapid deployment team send their email from a certain domain they don't own... can you guess the domain? Or do you need the single note actor Tommy Lee Jones to spell it out for you?

What is up with the Rapid Deployment Team?

They are all out of the office it seems, but they have the bestest names!

Chad Norville was out of the office on the 18th, but no worry, Alex Zamora would handle his emails!

RANDALL B HAUDEK,rh3653@sbc.com was out. Maria Rivera-Heiser was there!

It goes on and on.

So to recap. Idiotic company that the balding Tommy Lee Jones fronts for is screwing me on DSL and screwing me by using my domain for internal emails. What next? Come over my house and use my toilet and then not flush? Aren't tech companies supposed to, you know, KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY!??!?!?!?!?!?

And before you dismiss this rant and sign up for any of their services – why are they using donotreply.com for internal emails so I can see the bounces? I can tell you. Because they are complete freaking idiots.

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Advertise with 180 Solutions? This is what you Bought!

We have a new virus, it uses firefox to attack IE. But why would it do that? That is crazy!?!?! Simple, because they are being paid to. Who in their right mind would pay for such things?

180 Solutions is in the download.

Okay, but that doesn't mean 180 solutions pays to infect people, that is stretching it.

Is it?

Last year I asked them, since their software needs to call home to find what ad to show for what keyword, and since they claim to know who installed what on what system, when they know a distributor is doing drive-by installs, why not shut down the software? Their answer? Because that would then be spyware... yes, that is their logic. Having their software call home and get a reply to serve ads is not spyware, but having their software call home to be told not to serve ads? that is spyware. here is the quote from a 180 rep.

It is impossible for us to deactivate the software on a users computer, that would cause another whole "sypware" thread issue, but we do shutdown that distributor within our network. As I have said before, we provide a straightforward way for users to uninstall the software using conventional add/remove practices. If a user wishes to uninstall the software, then it is definitely their right to be able to do so.

So, this means that people infected with this latest virus, will continue to show 180 solution ads, even though they got the download from a virus. And even though 180 solutions knows who these people are. Because hey, those people could always just simply uninstall the software they never asked to be installed on their system in the first place...

I can think of no single better way to advertise a company than by having a virus install the advertising! So for all you 180 solutions advertisers - JOB WELL DONE!!! Don't worry, that distributor may not be getting paid by 180 solutions, but your ads will still safely be seen as part of a virus being installed on their computers!!!!

Maybe next time you can advertise by an email trojan! After all, it is your choice to advertise through a company who has admitted they will not disable ill-gotten installs. That pretty much says - "We support viruses as a way to spread our advertising". And you know what?

That makes you special.

If you have been infected by this virus and have had any 180 Solutions software installed on your system, file a complaint with the FTC, they listen and they act.

So does 180 solutions pay people to install viruses? I am sure, not even they are stupid enough to do that. But they do profit from those virus installs, and isn't that bad enough?

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