BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)

Subject: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 01:14 PM

It looks as though they may not be needed, but I almost had to call out the Strong Arms of Mudcat Folkies in the Toronto area, this week (you do know who you are, right?**bg**) to do some sleuthing and *attitude adjusting*!

A naive relative, not Mudcatter bet, almost got taken in by those notorious Toronto loan scam artists who take people for a lot of dough with nothing in return. Thank heavens the Toronto BBB had an online article about it, so that I could convince my relative it wasn't just me being a "non-believer" in "miracles!"

I had visions of Rick, Heather, and entourage with deceptively peaceful looking Weapons of Mass DMajor (WMDMaj), supplemented by Auxiliary Folkie Lutes and Concertinas (AFLAC) breaking down doors of young punk cyberscammers and subjecting them to tortuous passages from over-used and abused "pop-folk" in order to break them down and make them confess to their crimes. Fortunately, I think we are past the crisis and this won't be necessary.

Watch yer wallets, though, and be vigilant! **BG**

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 01:20 PM

Sounds like a major emergency, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 01:42 PM

Yeah, LH! I figure you and me could bombard them with Steady Healing At Them Now Eternal Rays (SHATNER) to cover the more esoteric end of things, thus giving our compatriots a much needed boost, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 02:38 PM

Yup kat, for YEARS some of the most bizarre scams have originated in Toronto. It simply boggles my mind how some folks can be taken in so easily. They must never read newsparers, listen to radio or watch TV.

Why would ANYONE give a bank account number or credit card info over the phone....or net for that reason?

A huge amount of phone sex also comes from here (really goes against our image doesn't it?)

Much of it is really simple though. rent an office....fill it up with phones, get a bunch of people so broke and down on humanity that they simply don't care anymore..and.....SCAM SCAM SCAM. Real Estate, Condos, Diamonds, Church construction, simple account theft, time shares, and whatever. In two months they're gone.

Believe me, I used to have a LOT more sympathy.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 05:58 PM

kat,
Have you considered getting Power Of Attorney over this relative? That or smack him/he this side of the head.
Mary, who has an old bridge in Brooklyn to sell - today only...cheap!

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 06:23 PM

Way too much involvement, Sins! I am working on saying "no" a lot more often and staying out of the insanity! *bg*

Yeah, Rick, that's what I figured and I don't have much sympathy anymore, either. This one really torqued me because they were this close to playing on the sympathy of another and borrowing the money to send to the scam assholes!!

How much are the paying the phone sex workers? **BG** JUST kidding, really!!

Thanks, ya'll...kat

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 06:47 PM

kat. I actually KNOW the answer to that.....or at least I did a while ago.

Minimum wage.....and double that for a 'call-back'. That's someone who calls back and specifically asks for you (or your persona actually)

A friend of mine who was a chef did it for a while between gigs. She didn't last long because a staple of that kind of clientele, simply want to gross out the "sex worker". They'll ask her to fantasize having sex with her own children , siblings or parents.

I know about this, 'cause I dropped by her place for a visit one evening and she let me listen on the extension for a few minutes. I ended up feeling even worse about my fellow 'men' than I had before. (which took some doing!)

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto!
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 07:10 PM

That's what I've heard, Rick. We had a beuatiful young girl in our girl scout troop in CT who had had a tough upbringing with a father who became a mother and moved out, leaving the girl to be raised by very embarrassed, very strict New England grandparents. The mother was South American who lived in her native country. Anyway, it was sad, she was smart, beautiful and talented. The last I'd heard she'd joined her "mother" in Vegas and was working the phone sex lines.

I wonder if it is something every single, out-of-work mother has thought about doing?

There was a really well-done, but creepy movie a few years ago about that. Can't remember the name of it. Do you recall it?

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 11:59 PM

It's amazing what people will do when they're short of money. And pathetic. If I was in government I would have absolutely no mercy upon the managers of such scam operations as are described in Kat's article. I would teach them a thing or two about honest work...busting rocks with a hammer on a chain gang for a couple of years. I'd also make them pay back everyone they ever scammed, if it took them the rest of their natural lives to do it.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 10:38 PM

Well, the biggest scam that this town has seen in years is the Toronto Maple Leafs defence taking their paycheques after last night's seventh game loss to Philly. Belfour should have had them arrested for abandonment. Damn, once the Leafs are out I don't care about hockey any more. So, to repeat the mantra that we have been chanting since 1968, there's always next year.

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: Peg
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 02:17 AM

Shortcuts (Robert Altman) starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as a phone sex worker; she'd make calls at home with her baby and husband in the room...Leigh apparently researched the part by observing some real phone sex workers.

I think there was another one called Girl 6, more recently.

A few years ago I worked as a dispatcher for one of these businesses (needed some extra money so wanted to work nights at something).I thought it would be interesting, having worked in another branch of the sex industry (stripping) for a little while.

Dispatchers answer phones, hook callers up with "entertainers", get their credit card info, tell them the rules, etc. etc.

I only stayed on for three weeks or so. It was a sham operation, I only got paid half what I was supposed to, the manager was CRAZY (she actually made some prank calls to me at home after I quit if you can believe that) and some of the stories I heard about certain callers were so disturbing or disgusting I was worried I'd get sick and despressed if I stayed on much longer. The women who worked the phones used to like to "unload" about their evenings (some worked from home but some worked in offices in the same suite I was in), so I was a captive audience unfortunately.

The thing about it is: some of the guys who are addicted to phone sex do it because they can't find (or even pay) a real live woman to do the thing they want...think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 09:35 AM

Yup. It's a sad old World in some respects, isn't it? I was wondering why anyone would spend money on phone sex...but that has to be the reason.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 10:07 AM

I am sure, though, that some do it because they are unable to function physically and are embarrassed or are to inept socially to know how to go about finding someone in the 3D world.

That first movie you mentioned doesn't ring a bell, Peg, nor the other. This one had women in see-through cubicles and eventually one of the callers stalked one of the women, if I remember correctly?

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: Peg
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 10:36 AM

Being "inept socially" I think is the emain reason, kat, and unfortunately the ability to conduct one's sex life thru the phone or internet without having to leave one's house exacerbates this problem...

the film you describe does not sound familiar...

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 12:09 PM

That's true, their staying at home would exacerbate the problem, unless maybe it is a physical disablity?

I just had a look at a review of Girl 6 which was by Spike Lee and it sounds likely. I know I've seen that one before, just not sure if it's the one I was thinking about.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 12:34 PM

I don't think physical disability equates to needing phone sex or other e-sex.... relationships in the flesh are not precluded, and a dependence on sex or friendship at a distance probably calls for some tough thinking to sort out. I wonder sometimes how many of us beat up on our MudPal Matt for what we were doing, ourselves, possibly to an even greater degree.

There are a lot of things that "seem" to make sense at the time, that with hindsight, don't make quite so much sense. I was, for all practical purposes, homebound for two years. My cyberfriendships were intense but not sexual (although there were temptations). The funny thing is, I thought I really needed those cyberpals at the time, and I can see that I was doing the best I could.... but I can also see the number of people accessible to me IRL who would have been only too glad to come see me.... I kept them from doing that, because at the time there was a bunch of stuff I had not worked through about closeness in general. And because my e-life was full I did not have to notice the need to work on that, for a long time.

Some of the time spent in the e-world may have helped me work through these issues, but if I had given in to the addictive pull of these relationships, and stayed stuck there, I'd have been giving up on myself.

There was one friendship in particular that I could have given up much sooner than I did, in favor of real-life activities; I'd have gotten well a year sooner if I had done that when I realized how much of the good stuff was tied up in the addictive side of it. While I do not beat myself up over it, I wish I had that year back, and that I was a year farther along in rehab than I am now. Because from hindsight I can see what it cost me, I recognize the addictiveness of closeness at a distance and do not regret breaking it.

I believe people are always donng the best they actually can at any given moment-- if they could do something different, of COURSE they would. But I also have seen, as a counselor, how many people carry recordings of things such as powerlessness and hopelessness, which lead them to not always expect as much of themselves as might move them forward faster.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 12:59 PM

I was thinking of specifically physical disabilites which preclude any "getting out and about." No reason such folks should be kept from sexual outlets.

Also, it is quite possible for people to have a balance of cyber and 3D life.

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: Mudlark
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 10:17 PM

And speaking of the handicapped and sex...what was that great movie with Kenneth Branagh and Helen Bonnam Carter...she did an incredible job of playing someone with MS or something similiar, that had destroyed her ability to move much except in a wheelchair and had to speak thru a sort of voice activator. Such movies give me hope for humanity!

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 02:16 AM

No reason such folks should be kept from sexual outlets.
AMEN SISTER!!!!
I truthfuly thought this thread would be about the strong arms necessary to carry the dead bodies of theSARS infected TORONTO tourists

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:07 AM

kat, I'm talking specifically about physical disabilities, too, and how tempting it can be (blaming one's decisions on the disability) to accept substitutes for the real thing.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Strong arms may be needed in Toronto! :-)
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 04:00 PM

World Health Organization stated today that they would not lift the health advisory for Toronto for at least another three weeks.