Important Society Issues | Steve Tilford

I’ve spent most of the morning on the phone with American Express concerning an email I received saying something about activating a new card for Linda Smith. It wasn’t my card number on the email and I thought that it was a fishing expedition. But, I decided to call American Express anyway, just to make sure nothing weird was going on.

As it turned out, they did issue a card connected to my account for Linda Smith. Also for Irene somebody too. So, the guy from American Express says he has to read me a statement for him to cancel those cards. The statement is sort of long and one part was that I’m personally responsible for all the charges on the cancelled cards.

I interrupted him and told him I didn’t agree to that. He said I had to agree if he was to cancel the cards. I had a short conversation about how I was doing him/American Express a favor because I wasn’t planning to be responsible for illegal charges. He told me that there were no charges, so I should just agree so he could cancel card.

Then he cancelled them and asked me if there was anything else he could do, saying he was all done. I said yes, I’d like to know how this happened. How a new name was added to my American Express account, actually two names. I asked to talk to the fraud department.

So then I was on hold for a long time and finally a super nice guy answered. I had to give all my information again and start all over. He told me to look over my statement and make sure I made all the charges. I had the statement up on my computer and everything was mine.

He said he was cancelling my account and sending me a new card. So I was going to have to get a new online account and re-enter all the auto pays, bank accounts, etc.

Man, what a hassle.

I’ve had a couple credit cards stolen during my lifetime. Once, I was racing in Europe and had a few credit cards. When I got back to the US, I was looking for a card and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in my wallet, so I checked my backpack. Not there, so I looked through my jersey pockets. (Sometimes I carry a credit card in my jersey pocket, especially riding in Europe.) Not there.

Finally I realized I lost it. So I called the credit card company and told them I had lost the card. The representative told me that I had close to $5000 worth of charges on it, all for Belgium and Holland.

And they were weird charges. Beauty parlor, shoes, groceries, not big charges, just lots of small ones. So I had to go over each and every charge and say that I didn’t make it. It took a while.

I guess someone at one of the hotels must have went through my wallet, while I was riding, and took out one credit card, assuming I wouldn’t miss it, which I didn’t. Pretty good crime really.

Anyway, I’m getting a new card tomorrow. The American Express fraud guy told me I should probably change all the passwords to all my accounts, including email. That is nuts. I can sort of understanding how a card can be ordeed under my account number, but have a hard time figuring out how that would have anything to do with my email account.

But, I guess he probably knows better than me, so I should just do it. The guy was super knowledgeable. Could take a while. Didn’t expect this morning to go this way.

There have been some pretty strong winds the last couple weeks. I look forward to that because if the wind is going to be blowing over 15 mph, then there are burning bans. By that I mean that farmers/ranchers and such can’t lite their grass on fire and let it burn.

I hate this. I understand all the issues involved, but no one seems to be in charge of the whole process. I’ve been riding back and forth to Lawrence on gravel, the last week, and all the burning along this road is people burning ditches and other grass that has nothing to do with cattle.

Burning permits shouldn’t be issued for ditches. That is just laziness, plus most of the time, no one goes through the ditches first, so many plastic bottles burn too, which is really bad air.

Yesterday, in Kansas, a semi truck driver from Oklahoma, a 39 year old man, died of smoke inhalation when he drove into a fire, stopped, got stuck and tried to turn around. This was on pavement. It is so sad. Obviously, there should have been something in place to change this outcome.

Since our new “president” has proposed big budget cuts for the EPA, this is probably only going to get worse. I was thinking about it yesterday, as I was riding.

Nearly every stream and pond I ride by is full of algae. This is from fertilizers and livestock waste. These creeks run into the Kansas River, where all the cities along it gets their water. This includes both Topeka and Lawrence.

I don’t get the whole plan. I assume that both republicans and democrats alike, want clean water and air. For themselves and their children. We obviously need someone to ride shotgun over us to attain this. People, left to their own, will not take personal responsibility for this. So why cut the funds to manage these things. So stupid, as Mr. Trump might tweet.

Anyway, it is going to be 70 again today. And windy. The burning ban, Red Alert Day, is only from 11am to 6 pm. so it is going to be a little smokey. Like I said above, no one seems to be regulating it.