Cutting through Digital Anonymity · 6 May 2008

Me: Are you there?
Gary: Hello. Welcome to Verizon's chat service. How may I help you today?
Me: Are you real?
Gary: How may I help you today?
Me: Gary, this is urgent. About a threatening phone call I just received from an unlisted number. I need the number traced and I don't know how to do this. Can we talk in person please? Internet chat is ridiculous at this point.
Gary: If you wish to speak to someone you can call Customer Service....This is a chat service and we do multiple chats at a time. I can give you the code to trace the last call that called you, but there are charges for that service. We also have an unlawful call center that I can give you the number for assistance with this...
Me: Already did *69 and it’s unlisted. Am a PhD student and not going to just throw money at this to set up weak protections.
Gary: Our Unlawful Call Center (UCC) specializes in calls of a serious nature that include a threat to your life; bodily harm; excessive, obscene, or harassing calls; kidnapping; and Bomb Threats. To use the services of the UCC, you must be willing to take legal actions against the caller. We regularly work with law enforcement agencies to resolve unlawful call complaints….
Me: Verizon might want to know about what happened here. Because the threatening call originated with an automatic sales call then referred me to a call center. It was the person at the call center who harrassed me. He has my phone number (read it to me over the phone so he can see it through his interface at work).
Gary: You can contact law enforcement or use the information for the UCC to report harrassing calls.
Me: I'll use the UCC. One more question for you:
Me: I want to get my number changed. This individual who harrassed me (it was horrible, horrible what he was saying) has my home number.
Me: He may have already traced it to my identity through a reverse directory.
Gary: In order to protect the privacy of your records, we need to verify the last 6 digits of your account before we can place orders or make any changes to your account. Once you provide this information, I will be happy to proceed with your request...
Me: Thank you!  What is the VERY first thing we can do right now to protect me? Not “place orders.” Is there a way immediately to delist my phone number? Or change it?
Gary: Through web support I can change the number but it may not be done right away. It is guaranteed to be changed today....
Me:I know how much dead air there is between me and customer service [by phone]. While i have you live i want to do everything we can immediately to protect me and my family from this freak.... (i'm in the fucking phone book, but if we can erase the listing in whatever online directory, good: anything we can do to anonymize.)
Gary: As I said, this won't be immediate. The due date is sometime today. It could be shortly but we don't know how busy they are at the Central Office. There are charges to make the number unpublished. I will look those up for you. You can go to Superpages.com and submit requests to remove you from the online listings, but please refrain from swearing. That is not necessary.
Me: Sorry. You're right. I'm just scared because of the things this man said to me and trying to act quickly. I will go to superpages and also report this incident to the UCC. Again: you are changing my actual home phone number or just delisting it?
Gary: I can change your number at no charge this time (usually it is $40.25). To make your number unpublished there is a charge of $15.00 and a monthly fee of $1.75. We would be changing your actual number and if you want the non-published that is the costs above.
Me: I will pay the fees to depublish if this includes online publication. Does it?
Gary: No. Non-published means it will not be printed in our printed directory and it will not be given out by Directory Assistance...that is it. It has nothing to do with the online services.
Me: Ok. I'll take what i can get.... How do I ensure that the UCC people can get the number of the company that originally called me and then directed me to the call center where he works?
Gary: I have no idea what they can do, I am web support and can only advise you of the department to call...
Me: Ok. Is there any other way you can help me considering the time-sensitive nature of this situation? Or any advice as i go?
Me: Oh, and i need my new number :)
Gary: Thanks for holding. Your new number is [ahem]. Unfortunately I can only advise you to call the UCC or to contact law enforcement.
Me: Works for me. Thanks for your help man. And thank you for being kind unlike the guy who just harrassed me. Cheers.
Gary: Sorry for the problems! Thank you for using Verizon's chat service.

The call that started this is from a company that rings through to my answering machine every day. I’ve gotten off every list but theirs. I’ve done “press 1 to be removed from our list” several times, so today pressed 2 to speak to a representative. He said he was in Daytona, but the connection quality and language make me think it could have been India or Bangladesh. The way he harassed me was so calmly businesslike, stilted, and so unbelievably obscene that I thought a coworker had smuggled him a fake transcript and he didn’t know what he was saying to me. It took about 10 exchanges for me to realize he did know what he was saying. I did not get emotional—figuring either anger or vulnerability could be turn-ons—but asked him to put himself in my shoes. Said: “Do you really want to be cruel to a stranger?” He said he understood and that he did not want to be cruel. I asked him to promise he would never do something like this again. He said: “I am very sorry Madam. I promise I will not call you. Please forgive me.” I forgave him. Then I hung up and spent the next hour quasi-anonymizing.

So interesting to have the archipelago of my global digital identity shored up like this. The limits of anonymity have less to do with a monolithic national “big brother” than with the breakneck innovations in marketing and digital communication, and the fact that "regulation" and national boundaries are years and years behind them both. Even as ideas of what makes for sexual obscenity--and the emotions that happen when different boundaries get crossed--remain located in particular spaces, cultures, religions, economic classes, genders. It's not like the guy on the line shared my specific, historical concepts of sexual harrassment, women's rights, and professional deference.

But when it came to the notion of compassion... he was both able and willing (at least for a moment) to meet me on that ground.

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: arbitrage , integration , markets-networks-society

Comment

1. I just re-read this transcript. Gary never answers my question about if he is real. At the end of the exchange he says “I am web support and can only advise you of the number to call.”

   Hmmmm….

   Posted by: (0v0) · May 6, 03:22 PM · #

2. Today’s Marketplace story about marketers using cell phones to track your location. In order to send text-message coupons for nearby stores.

   The burden upon everyday Americans to consume at all times is so awesome to me. And it grows with technology even as our financial underpinnings shrink. Less and less RDI, yet more and more opportunity, and quasi-obligation, to consume. Amazing.

   Posted by: (0v0) · May 6, 03:28 PM · #

3. Well just turn it around, see it from their point of view (look into the abyss, if you will). It’s only natural that someone (whom technology lets you identify) would want coupons from what might be their local shopping venues. “How nice! I’ll be sure to do business with LarryCo again!”

   Of course, all of the assumptions are there, the very word (mine) “natural.” I’m nodding insistently at your vision of on the one hand, the massive globalized communication network, and on the other, the much more micro-class-gender concerns locally, and the perversely wonderful way they have coexisted in this encounter. Do you know the famous “rape in cyberspace”?

   Posted by: patrick · May 6, 06:38 PM · #

4. This is really disturbing.

   Posted by: V · May 6, 07:38 PM · #

5. Yeah. I didn’t describe the interaction in much detail because of how disturbing it would be to read. Not something anyone else needs to re-experience through reading this journal.

   People have asked why I tried to get the guy to empathize. I think it was just an educated survival instinct.

   In my secret childhood, I knew a lot of sex offenders who were at different stages of “recovery;” and the ones who experienced any kind of change were those who came to empathize with their victims (and recognize their anger at their offenders). Insofar as what happened today was a kind of sex offense, in the moment it just seemed like the safest thing to do (given the fact that he had my number) would be to talk back and ask to be seen as a human.

   If you believe the most recent generation of (no longer horribly imperalist and elitist) evolutionary anthropology, some version of the golden rule is operating in just about every culture. Research has yet to reveal, however, if such rules operate through cultural connections as thin as fiberoptics. :)

   Posted by: (0v0) · May 6, 08:35 PM · #

6. Sorry for the icky experience.

   Re: technology-mediated consumption, I just read a terrific speech by Clay Shirky who suggests that advances in technology (specifically Web 2.0) which now allow people to create and publish and share their “cognitive surplus” are redefining how we relate to media. Used to all be about consumption of TV, movies, books, etc. But now the production is in OUR hands…

   The thought cheers me up.

   Posted by: karen · May 7, 04:38 AM · #

7. That is so totally nuts! I’m sorry you had such an experience!

   Posted by: LI Ashtangini · May 7, 09:58 AM · #

8. Wow that sounds completely awful!
   The survival response was good in all ways. If the guy is completely pathological there would be no hope, but you planted a seed. And you endured, which plants a seed in you too. Yeh?
   Time for some Eckhart and a hug! :)

   Posted by: Gregor · May 7, 03:58 PM · #

9. The caller tried his best to draw a reaction from you but you responded to him with a simple, polite plea for decency and foiled him. Most excellent! The location-specific text ads must be exactly the same sort of abuse but in this saturated “marketplace,” a majority of people don’t come to understand things that way. Truly, you are a non-consumer.

   The obscene call must have been disturbing but, all things considered, the situation reveals some positives that are at least as worthy of reflection as the negatives. They try to invade your little peace-space but their schemes fall apart before they actually cross boundaries.

   Posted by: Carl · May 8, 11:59 AM · #

10. Hi (0v0)
    wow, I’m so sorry you went through something like that!
    hugs
    Arturo

    Posted by: arturo · May 8, 11:59 AM · #

11. Sorry to hear about the harassment, especially since the people calling you are likely not telemarketers but scam perpetrators (thus, already illegal and not too upset about the no-call registry). I end up doing a lot of research on every unfamiliar number, and have uncovered a lot of unseemlies.

    Still, sounds like you handled it tops.

    Posted by: dailymiltonian · May 8, 12:49 PM · #

12. Hi (0v0)
    The reason you asked the guy to empathize was probably your instinct telling you there was a human behind the monster, and this helped him reach to the humanity within him, letting him change his course. Arthur Jeon in his chapter in “City Dharma” on how to deal with crime in the city cites many examples of this. For example, when his brother was in college he lived in a rough neighborhood. He was once accosted at knifepoint by a drugged out crackpot who demanded his money. He gave him his wallet, which had some large bills and credit cards. But then he asked him, “Could I keep my roll of quarters?” That startled the crack head, “what?”,“This is a difficult neighborhood to get quarters in and I need to do my laundry.” The guy could have killed him, but said, “Sure, keep your quarters, do your laundry.” This reached to the crack pot’s humanity, making him realize this was a fellow human who like him needs to do laundry on a weekend. Arthur Jeon’s brother’s behavior might have saved him his life.
    Cheers, Arturo

    Posted by: arturo · May 9, 03:26 AM · #

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