Marketing Agency Uses Homeless As Wi-Fi Hotspots 267
An anonymous reader writes "Marketing agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has launched a controversial charity scheme at this year's South by Southwest festival, in which homeless people are being used to provide Wi-Fi hotspots. The project, Homeless Hotspots, seeks to address people's need for a high-speed data connection at the festival in Austin, Texas, by issuing the homeless with T-shirts that say 'I am a 4G hotspot.' Passers-by may then pay what they wish either in cash or by PayPal to get online 4G networks via the Wi-Fi device that a homeless person is carrying and the proceeds go to the Front Steps Homeless shelter in Austin."
What!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the do-gooders don't trust the homeless to spend the money the "right" way, most likely.
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Because the do-gooders don't trust the homeless to spend the money the "right" way, most likely.
Yet they trust them to carry what I assume is a very valuable device.
I wonder what the "going rate" will be to "swap shirts". Guaranteed we'll see these hotspot devices (and probably shirts) on eBay.
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Unfortunately, this comment will likely be buried, but I would LOVE to be a part of this.
I'm currently homeless (in LA) and I'm always trying to find decent hotspots that are free, or at the very least require very little monetary investment. If I were walking around as a mobile hotspot, I would never have to worry about it. To top it off, I could get paid by others to do the very same thing!
I understand that there is some concern as to whether or not this is some form of
Re:What!? (Score:5, Informative)
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By your comment I am not feeling very confident about your knowledge of what is and what is not slavery.
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If you aren't coerced or forced to do something against your will, there's a pretty good chance it's not slavery.
Crackhead wifi... (Score:3)
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and be caught by the DAILY audit.
besides why (other than Booze) would a homeless person risk a roof by trying to skim/scam the folks fronting this business??
Re:What!? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's actually a very complex question with a variety of answers. Some people are homeless because they refuse to work within a system. Some are homeless because they're addicted to drugs and alcohol to such an extent that they have ruined their lives. Some because they have mental illness that prevents them from functioning clearly in the modern world. Some because they fell on hard times and had no safety net. For the last one, yeah, they'll be reasonable and try to work within the structure to maintain a roof over their head. The other three, not so much. And if you treat them like they just need a job and a home and 2.5 kids and a dog then you won't get the results you seek.
Mental Disability Stigma (Score:3, Informative)
The assumption that someone who is unable to work due to being mentally ill would be unable to "spend money the right way" is disgusting. Most mentally ill are capable in many aspects of their lives, some just have certain limitations that keep them from working. (eg. PTSD, extreme phobias) Assuming that, just because they are mental ill in some fashion, they will not try and keep food on the table/roof over head is just.. wrong. Would you assume someone who had an arm or leg removed would fall in to th
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And some, like me, are truly high functioning and are very capable in the workplace but struggle mightily with the concept of "no, you don't deserve to eat or sleep unless you can pay for it".
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So, you believe that life owes you something for nothing, eh?
Unless you are truly infirmed, or aged where you can no longer provide shelter and food for yourself, then no....no one owes this to you for free. It all takes effort. Why should someone that works to pay to eat and have good shelter, have to work that bit harder to give it to you so you don't have to?
Re:Mental Disability Stigma (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, just a personal thing...I take pity on those that are disabled, etc...especially if through no fault of their own (congenital problems, retardation, etc)...and the elderly, well, I figure for the most part, they have worked, and put effort and 'worth' into the system...so,
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So, you believe that life owes you something for nothing, eh?
I believe that with our current technology, we can feed, clothe, and provide clean water for everybody on the planet today. And we should, at least for the basics. But we won't, because it isn't profitable.
Re:What!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is doing something voluntarily with no coercion or pressure "slavery"?
I mean, if any of these people find the shirts oppressive and unbearable I imagine they could, you know, refuse to wear them.
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The cashier at McDonald's is paid a wage. This is just slavery.
Slaves don't have a choice. I'm pretty sure these guys do.
Unless you're saying those volunteers at the soup kitchen passing out food are slaves too ...
Re:What!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most likely, taxation. If you paid the person, it would be a job, meaning taxes.
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Re:What!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ooo "risking capital". Forming a limited liability company is about the least risky venture on the planet. For no other activity can one compartmentalise and get into a spiral of debt or misbehaviour while minimising personal consqeuences for debt or tort. Shareholders are even luckier, "owning" the company and creaming the profit while having no obligation to pay debtors in the company folds.
I started a business with a few thousand dollars about a decade ago. Went well. Sold it. Least risky thing I've ever done. Even if I'd invested ten times as much and e.g. mortgaged my house as security, I'd still have more protections than the average worker whose *house and everything else* are risk if he can't find a job. Even though I was working up to 18 hour days, the material rewards for succeeding as a business owner... woohoo... incomparable to every other poor sod who has to work two jobs same hours yet will enjoy a fixed pittance.
Succeeding in business is easy. Building a humane society is hard.
Re:What!? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, surely he is right. No-one would dare to walk away with the property of an LLC, and even if they did, the LLC fairy would swing on down and make it all better with a wave of it's magic wand.
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As both a W-2 employee and a Business owner for 1099 purposes, I find that losses to theft are completely tax deductible. The only question is whether I charge it under my personal or against my business, and I always play with the numbers enough to know which is more advantageous for me.
You must never have owned a business- or either that, you paid somebody else to do your taxes for you.
Re:What!? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Straw man. Anonymous Coward said nothing about shielding from monetary risk. He made it quite clear he was talking about shielding from accountability. Absent gross fraud and the like, the corporation takes the fall and shields the principles. That's what corporations are FOR. A corporation is a legally sponsored mechanism for getting away with things no one could personally get away with.
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,br> The point is that AC doesn't know shit about business, as he is willing to let the least trustworthy people on the planet handle 100% of his capital as though there were no chance that he could tak
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You are conflating about 100 different issues here. The ACTUAL POINT is that if you trust people who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy (in addition to giving them a perverse incentive) then they are likely to steal from you, and no magical LLC fairy is going to drop on by and give you back the money that was stolen. At best, you get to write off the losses against any gains. That doesn't help if you have ZERO gai
Re:What!? (Score:4, Informative)
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This is really nuts. Major clarification is needed here. They talk about "donations" in the same breath as "services", so pretty much anything could be going on here. Whether the homeless person gets to keep the money, or whether he collects it for the shelter (and then whether he is paid for his trouble or not) is a BIG DEAL.
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The recommended donation (according to shortformblog) is $2 for 15 minutes of Wi-Fi access, but BBH Labs says it’s officially pay-what-you-wish. Whatever is paid goes to the homeless MiFi manager — either directly if you pay cash, or every two weeks if you use PayPal.
Right after that paragraph is:
Here is a video of Clarence, one of the Homeless Hotspots managers in Austin, explaining how the program works:
Also if you visit their home page [homelesshotspots.org] you'll see:
All proceeds paid for access go directly to the person selling you access. This is a form of income for them.
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Sort of like when I delivered pizza in high school and they started making us put big lighted signs on top of our cars. Robberies, including armed robberies increased right away. But the pay was good so I put up with it until I left for college. Here, the pay ain't so good.
It's the insanity of our tax and labor system (Score:2, Informative)
It's not just taxes as Luckyo suggested, but also labor laws. Suddenly minimum wage comes into the picture as well. So you have minimum wage, FICA compliance (is the homeless man an employee or "self-employed") and similar nonsense. Pretty soon, a homeless guy who might have been content to just make a few bucks and pass a few bucks on to his homeless shelter is getting to experience the joys most of us go through every year with the IRS.
This is one of the reasons why minimum wage laws hurt the poor. As nob
Re:It's the insanity of our tax and labor system (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure you are arguing that this is minimum wage laws hurting the poor. You're arguing that having to pay people at all is hurting them.
Minimum wage only means you have to pay the guy 10 bucks an hour, and not 2, for 3 days. (Or whatever the numbers are at this festival, minimum wage here is 10 bucks an hour). But if you could pay 2 bucks an hour they'd still have all of the other employment questions that have to be addressed (declaring it correctly to the revenue service).
To argue against the minimum wage you'd need to show how this business could run paying their people less than minimum wage, but can't manage at minimum wage, and then how those people would still be able to live at the price they can pay. When you're on a donation system though (even if the preferred price is 2 dollars for 15 minutes) you don't really know what the viable revenue stream is, and, in this case, because it's for a 3 day festival with the 'proceeds to charity' you can charge a ridiculously large amount of money, but you still have no idea how much take you'll have. It sounds like this is being run as a charity thing because well, it is. 3 days of work isn't going to be enough to meaningfully help someone out of a homeless shelter, no matter how much you pay them. But a few hundred or a few thousand bucks to the homeless shelter can help a lot of people for a lot more than 3 days.
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homeless guy ... on eBay
Um, what?
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Don't you have to have a bank account or something? They don't exactly send you cash. To have that, you need to have a legitimate mailing address?
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Craigslist then :-P
But the thing probably wouldn't be much use to anyone else, I'm sure the firmware is locked down tight.
Re:What!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly .. that was the first thought that I had. It seems that various people in the process of submitting this story don't have a clue of how successful such schemes can be.
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
It's basically an updated version of the street newspapers that homeless people have been selling for decades. Micro-business like this can be the first step and getting out of poverty.
This is actually an excellent idea! It could be even better if it were implemented in such a way that the homeless person could eventually become their own independent business owner. It is news like this that we need to hear more often and it is very uplifting to read on a Monday morning. What if the homeless person could eventually raise enough money to buy the device and a kind of franchise right to do business as x? I disagree with using the term charity here. Charity is simply a free gift without any commitment in return. Ideas like these encourage commitment and integrity which the homless person needs to exhibit! The next step is to let them earn the money to purchase the device and become an independent business owner. This can also spur other forms of creativity on the part of the people vending the service like ways to power the devices and maybe design a rolling portable table where people can sit down for a bit. The possibilities are many
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I can just imagine the lawsuit of the big telecoms against whatever organization was going to provide municipal wifi coverage by enfranchising the homeless, or even better, against the homeless themselves.
I love America.
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the lawsuit of the big telecoms against whatever organization was going to provide municipal wifi coverage
Would these "big telecoms" not be providing the backhaul used here? The interface to users is Wi-Fi, but I'd have thought it was backhauled via the cellular networks to provide the actual Internet connectivity. In effect, the homeless are resellers (or re-casters, perhaps) of their telecom service?
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I fail to see why this would be a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving jobs to those people in need instead of just some spare change is exactly the thing that can help them.
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Now that might seem like an ok deal for the "worker"/slave, as they help to ensure that there will be a place to sleep with warm food, until you consider that they can be kicked out at any time with nothing to show for their effort.
Basically, this is micro-Communism. Fuck that, pay them a wage, or let them keep a portion of the money earned for their labors.
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How is 100%? Is that a fair enough portion of the money earned? Because that's what TFA says. The Slashdot summary is based on the way-off assumption that when it says "The homeless MiFi manager keeps all of the money they received" that the "manager" is the marketing agency or the charity. It's the homeless person carrying the hotspot. They keep all of it. The agency gets
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Perhaps because the solution to homelessness is rarely "a job". Some people wind up homeless because they lack employment for too long, but those are a very small minority. Most of them have far more insidious issues such as psychological trauma, drug addiction or mental deficiency that simply makes them unable to function within the tight confines of "society".
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So what? If you have some spare change, give it to him. If you do not, tell him you do not.
Or do we have a class system wherein people of your type should not have to encounter, acknoweldge the existence of, interact with, or - heaven forbid - directly help out of your ubundance people of lower classes? God made them poor, they should know their place.
Re:I fail to see why this would be a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving change I think is the WRONG sort of help. There are homeless people Im sure who would use the money well, but it seems like a self defeating proposition, not to mention dangerous:
* the more successful panhandling is, the more dishonest panhandlers there will be
* it cannot be ignored that there are many homeless people who are homeless because of drugs; in that case you would only be worsening the problem
* it could well be an attempt to get you to pull out your wallet for a quick mugging (they might not even be homeless)
If you want to help someone in a real, immediate way, and you are in a city, theres a good chance there is a diner or fast food place nearby. Invite them to lunch, get some coffee, whatever. This will address a real need, and it will be a heck of a lot safer (as youre in a highly visible place). If you have the time, sit and chat with them, as it may have been some time since someone actually talked with them.
Throwing money at them seems like a lazy, counterproductive way to address the issue.
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Very well put, and I agree 100%.
More info.. (Score:5, Informative)
Suggest you guys check out the actual blog post, answers a lot of the questions asked.
http://bbh-labs.com/homeless-hotspots-a-charitable-experiment-at-sxswi
Exploitation (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the most exploitative, ignorant, inhuman scheme I've ever heard of.
He is not a wifi hotspot. He is not a thing. He's not something for you to graffiti-tag to market your shitty pay-per-use wifi. He is a human being, and entitled to dignity.
If you're interested in helping, do so. Don't come up with some bullshit scheme to allow you to profit at the same time as you pretend to be helping.
Hey I plan too! Let's use battered women as sparring partners! We'll partner with Golds Gym, give them a t-shirt that says "I'm used to it!". We'll make a fortune off of all the misogynist muscleheads who hang out there. Then give the proceeds to, oh I dont know. We'll make up some "dont beat women" charity or something, make ourselves directors.
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Just to play devil's advocate:
A "hotspot" is not a thing. It's a description for service provided (usually by an access point/ router combo). Or rather the place where you can get that service. It's similar to "I am Jon and I'll be your waiter for tonight."
Re:Exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most exploitative, ignorant, inhuman scheme I've ever heard of.
Clearly you haven't travelled much or read any history.
I AM A 4G HOTSPOT (Score:5, Funny)
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Can I touch your 4G hot spot?
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I don't get it, it's SXSW, not Bonnaroo.
Oh wait, I get it now!!
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American Dream has too much grinding and the leveling makes no sense.
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Cover the 4 and HOT and you're set to become a hide and seek champion
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This will eliminate homelessness. (Score:5, Funny)
Once all the homeless people are put in jail for the torrents that were shared on their hotspots, they won't be homeless anymore!
Hidden agenda (Score:5, Funny)
The wireless antennas will be placed near the reproductive organs and work at full power on as many channels as possible. All that in order to decrease the future homeless population.
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The wireless antennas will be placed near the reproductive organs and work at full power on as many channels as possible. All that in order to decrease the future homeless population.
Yes... homeless people sustain their population by breeding... not by people falling through the cracks...
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First, my comment was a joke. But I wouldn't be surprised if children of homeless people (or formerly homeless) are more likely to become homeless than general population. Some behavioral traits, e.g. alcoholism, are believed to be genetic.
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First, my comment was a joke. But I wouldn't be surprised if children of homeless people (or formerly homeless) are more likely to become homeless than general population. Some behavioral traits, e.g. alcoholism, are believed to be genetic.
I suspected that it was a form of joke. Regardless, indeed, the single greatest factor in how much a child will make is how much their parents make, so I wouldn't be surprised that children raised by homeless parents are more likely to be homeless themselves. However, I doubt that a great many homeless people would raise their own children. It's expensive to raise a child, and not a bill that you can just blow off.
While it is true that alcoholism might be genetic, even if it were 100% genetic, there are ple
I don't see a problem with this. (Score:5, Funny)
Why the worry? (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFA:
I don't get why that's a worry. The homeless are providing a service, which makes the productive members of society, and should provide them with a little self-respect. So what if the program doesn't care anything at all about them or their future? How is that different from the situation that almost every wage slave on planet earth - they're all providing a service for a company that pays them for it, and I don't think there are many employees that are under the impression that the company they work for is doing because the "care about them."
This program just does for the homeless the same thing that almost every company and government employee does to people: turns them into human resources.
This explains ... (Score:2)
seems legit (Score:4, Insightful)
OMG, the horror, the exploitation (Score:3)
Ohhhhh noooooo.
Someone is giving homeless people a legitimate simple job that they can do even while they sleep instead of handing them money for nothing. How dare you make a homeless person productive?
MUST TAG tackyexploitation.
Chick-magnet. (Score:2)
Wearing one of those shirts has to be a real chick-magnet.
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Most likely, yes. Homeless are people used to fairly rugged environment, and lugging a few kilos of Li-ion on their backs isn't going to be much of a problem.
Re:trade for a bottle? (Score:5, Insightful)
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All GP seemed to imply is that there is a high chance at least some of those people would be willing to sell the equipment.
I dont think he said that all homeless people are criminals.
Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
So hell yes it's a legitimate question that they might keep the money or pawn the device. Anything else is political correctness, just as is the term "raising awareness."
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There are a lot more people who are homeless who aren't begging for spare change at your local grocery store than you seem to be aware of. Many of these people actually still have some dignity left to seek out help at a homeless shelter, and to bust their asses to find paying work instead of turning to bumming.
You just don't notice them because they use whatever spare money they can muster up to buy a gym membership and shower there.
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You don't seem to be aware that 90% of homeless people don't show up in your local grocery store. For every 100 people you see on the street, 1 of them is going to be homeless. Doesn't mean they are criminals, I've been homeless myself a few times and know a few people that are homeless right now. Doesn't mean they don't have a roof over their head or that they don't have a job or that they're criminal. I make 65k+ and have been homeless recently.
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It's not prejudice against homeless people: everyone is a potential criminal; it just depends on having the wrong incentives. Homelessness gives a lot of those.
Re:trade for a bottle? (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe because you're making the unfounded assumption that homeless == dishonest.
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Re:trade for a bottle? not an issue of dishonesty (Score:3)
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Homeless often means desperate, with few resources. You then give him/her a device worth $100-200, that brings no immediate benefit to him/her, not unlike giving a $100 watch. Now maybe if you reward him with a full meal and a night's stay for each day he brings back the device, I could see that begin to work. But otherwise, under those conditions, it seems more likely that he will try to trade that device for something much more useful to him, and I WOULDN'T blame him, nor consider it "dishonest". It is no more dishonest than you being in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and rummaging around other people's houses for food, supplies, water, etc. You wouldn't feel it to be dishonest -- not to the point of not doing it... its about survival, not ethics.
Right... and how much do you really think that wifi hotspot is going to go for at a pawn shop? Seriously. If it retails for $100~200, you could probably expect $10~20 dollars.
Selling this thing isn't going to get them off the streets. Meanwhile, collecting tips in addition to the paid access for the hotspot itself would easily make them enough money to cover how much they would get from trading in the device...
The whole matter that you equate this to the zombie apocalypse level of survival is crazy. Homeles
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And why wouldnt these homeless folk try to immediately cash in, sell or trade the hotspot device for money or a nice bottle? They are $100+ devices, nevermind 4g service for a day or so.
There may be a few that engage in this kind of behavior but I'll wager that most will be honest because they are given a ray of hope in a hopeless situation. Rather than just recieving money, they are given a personal stake in their own rise out of poverty and homelessness. When an individual is given the opportunity to not only rise out of the misery of homelessness but have a stake in their own success, said individual is likely to exhibit quite a bit of integrity.
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Some might trade, but the homeless person will find it hard to escape. Homeless folks are limited to where to escape. Police love to improve their arrest record.
In this case, police may be more likely to leave the homeless person alone. Ostensibly, the project has worked with the police and city government to explain the details and the roles of the individuals. Education of the police will prevent such activities. Unfortunately, the police do have a sordid history of "kicking" the homeless while they are down but this can be avoided if the project involved in the outreach educates all facets of society to make this a success.
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Police love to improve their arrest record.
Yeah but homeless people are smelly and need new clothes. It's much easier to arrest a young clean cut suburban dude for posession or some other minor crime than a homeless person. Yuck!
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Most likely they take the money through a browser at the time of login.
At least that's the way I would do it.
(and IF this is sarcasm then you're right on that the first thing the right-winger would say is "smelly," and if you ARE a right-winger then you sure showed your true colors)
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Not sure why this is "flamebait." "Smelly" is a favorite ad hominem putdown.
Re:Ah yes, (Score:4, Interesting)
You get modded informative for an incorrect, stereotypical, insulting generalization of "right-wingers"?
I suppose I should be kicked out of the party for actually caring about homeless people. I imagine all those other evangelical charities, missions, etc should as well, since clearly they all view homeless people as rubbish.
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You *do* have a throw-away CC, don't you. One you use for internet and other dodgy enterprises, not the one that is only used at reputable establishments. You can ask the CC company to put just about any name on a 2nd card.
Give a man a a fish (Score:5, Funny)
"So Mr. Smelly homeless person offering 4G, do you take Via, Master Card, or American Express? It's not like I carry cash around you folk."
As the saying goes:"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to phish, and he'll clean out your bank account. "
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And then you get the WAP password how?