Posted on 07/14/2008 5:59:07 PM PDT by WoofDog123
Over the years I have read stories on FR about reports of muslim males buying huge numbers of pre-paid cell phones, often triggering calls to law enforcement. While I don't generally discount reports from local media outlets (remember the OU bombing?), it seems crazy that this would be going on with nary a peep from other sources. Here is my odd story about this.
~3 months ago I was in New Orleans, and purchased a prepaid cell phone at a story on Royal street almost at canal (quarter-side). The store proprietors were obviously muslim, don't know if pak. or arab. While the salesman was very helpful, and I paid (cash) and got my cards and phone, I then asked another 40'ish employee some questions, which he totally and completely ignored - no eye-contact, nothing. He did talk to and answer questions to a latino (in accented and somewhat broken spanish, which I am fluent in) with no apparent issue. Note that I am white (anglo-american, whatever) and clearly from the US by speech.
I then asked him more questions, such as why he ignored me, which he continued to do. I then told the original salesperson that I would like to know why this person would not speak to me. He made an apology and said other people had made the same complaint. I told him that if they did not already have my money (cash) I would certainly have walked out (it is a fact that I needed a phone immediately and would have been pressed to find the time to argue or call the police (the NOPD, mind you, though they would possibly look out for an apparent tourist in the quarter) for a refund, since the phone cards I had bought had already been loaded into the phone by the ignoring-me employee, while he ignored me.)
Then, after leaving the store, I began using the phone, and realized from the call history it had been used 3 times previously, *6 months before*, in oct 07, to 3 different numbers, 3 different area codes (one was miami, one i think was nyc, don't remember the other but geographically distributed), and then not used again.
This made me remember the stories about masses of these phones being bought up by muslim groups of men. What if they are being used as one-time numbers, then reboxed and sold via such outlets?
Phone: Call our toll-free helpline: 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357);
TTY: 1-866-653-4261
Mail: Write to:
Federal Trade Commission
Consumer Response Center
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20580
Federal Communications Commission:
Maybe it's just me but, why didn't you just ask somebody if you could borrow their phone or find a public phone?
“Maybe it’s just me but, why didn’t you just ask somebody if you could borrow their phone or find a public phone?”
I was traveling in the US (I am usually overseas), but my (young) son lives overseas. It would be hard for his mother to call me on either of the above. I have not traveled in the US for years and had never had a need for a US cell phone before.
How would you have handled this?
The original point was that you don't buy phones at flea markets or any seedy establishments. Especially a place where they won't look you in the eye.
Also, if they sell multi-colored cell phone cases with embossed skulls and dragons alongside the ninja swords and wizard shaped candles? Keep your wallet closed and go find a pay phone instead.
circumstances were not as you describe, but in any event we see things differently. The cell phone was my *ONLY* means of being reached on that trip, and until I got it, I was completely unreachable.
“Also, if they sell multi-colored cell phone cases with embossed skulls and dragons alongside the ninja swords and wizard shaped candles? Keep your wallet closed and go find a pay phone instead. “
1) Perhaps we shop at different stores?
2) Ok, I need to go to a payphone to use a phone card for overseas calls which will eat my phone card at 20x the normal rate?
You can always send an e-mail... Or get them a FreeRepublic ID and converse with them as we are doing now.
“You can always send an e-mail... Or get them a FreeRepublic ID and converse with them as we are doing now.”
LOL they could live in the jungle where the only comm was the local payphone and you would have an answer as to why me having a cell phone was not a necessity.
Well? Do they live in the jungle?
next to it. email wasn’t an option, though I think you will find many parents find the idea of leaving communication with very small children/parent to FR or other email while out of country to be rather impractical.
Do you have children? Did you ever speak to them by phone when they were young?
Yes. But if Daddy is “traveling” (I assume it’s business related) then he will call when he gets the time; i.e. back at the hotel. And I also showed them how I can write them letters and send them postcards and how they can save those “conversations” in a memory book that would last forever.
Different eras, I suppose. I don’t walk around with a phone growing out of my ear and if you call me, be ready to state your business in two or three sentences and be done with it, because that’s about all I’m good for on a cell phone.
Cheers... And happy traveling!
Interesting.
“Different eras, I suppose. I don’t walk around with a phone growing out of my ear and if you call me, be ready to state your business in two or three sentences and be done with it, because that’s about all I’m good for on a cell phone.”
Note that the original poster (me) does not own a cell in the US, even in Florida where he spends some time, and has owned one only a few active months over 20 adult years, most of them in the US, and that was direct work necessity. I believe this says a lot about my perception of the utility of a phone in this particular case.
Unfortunately, a confluence of circumstances made access to on-demand comnunication better than all of the alternatives over this 3-day period.
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