Caveat Emptor

[FONT=&quot]Millions of Americans stood on long lines to enter the major retail outlets on Friday, November 27[SUP]th[/SUP] to get the best Black Friday “doorbuster” deals. Apparently, each one of them know where to go and what to shop. Each household has a choice such as Television, furniture, kitchen equipment, mobile phones, other electronic products, etc. Some of them save approximately $100-$500 dollars and may be more during Black Friday shopping in particular and holiday shopping in general. If someone wants to buy something for home in the US, time is now between the day after Thanks Giving to 3-4 days after the New Year.
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[FONT=&quot]It so happened, my son was born on November 30[SUP]th[/SUP] and he wanted a smart phone this time and knew exactly what brand he wanted. Even though we don’t risk shopping on Black Friday, we decided to visit a Verizon Mobile outlet on Saturday. My wife and I have become a fan of Samsung products and Android Mobile platform after flirting for a while with Apple products such as iPhone and iPad 2. My son decided to choose LG V10. Like the regular marketing strategy such as a person who sells dental hygiene products should have clean teeth and those who sell beauty products should look beautiful, this salesman who sells smartphone was really smart and over enthusiastic. When he suggested to my son that he could help him choose the right brand for him, my son replied, “Nope. I know exactly what I want and you can work with my dad to get me my new LG V10”. Jeeze! The new generation of people don’t need smart phones to get smarter. They exactly know how to choose what they want and are well prepared before they show up on the premises.
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[FONT=&quot]I started working with the salesman to buy my son’s phone as his birthday gift. It is just approximately $20 a month for next 24 months. While working on the deal, the salesman asked whether I would like to buy an invisible shield for protecting the glass screen and a case for the phone. When I asked my son, he said, “Nope. I have already ordered both of them from Amazon”. After seeing the salesman’s face after that second interaction with my son, I decided to please the salesman by buying a new Android Tablet to handle puzzles of the neurites that require me to be online other than my sleep time. It is time for me to ask my son to prepare some lesson plans for me to be prepared before I go shopping. I have already digressed a lot what I really wanted to discuss here.
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[FONT=&quot]Consumers like me are not aware what happens to my personal information each time we make a purchase in the US. Most of us will be in shock to learn that our holiday spending habits are being captured and analyzed by a government agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Every month, the CFPB collects data on approximately 25-75 million credit card accounts. The agency even admits that they want to build up their capacity so that they can monitor 95% of all credit card transactions in the country by 2016. CFPB is a product of a big government. Most outside of the US are aware by now about Edward Snowden’s exposure of what are the personal data Uncle Sam is collecting on a regular basis. In my view, he went way too far exposing the security of the nation by providing some classified information to public. But it is time to look at how much of monitoring is happening about our personal data.
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[FONT=&quot]CFPB spends approximately $600 million taxpayer dollars a year and it is not even funded by the Congress thereby evading the normal checks and balances of other agencies. The innocent consumers deserve a closer look at the CFPB and how its actions will impact consumers, because the vast amount of data this agency collects is alarming. Just to provide some history, CFPB was created under the Dodd-Frank Act in 2011, it was purposefully placed outside the purview of the annual congressional appropriation and oversight process. Since then, the CFPB has been collecting credit card information, stockpiling mortgage and car loan history as well as tracking bank transactions of millions of consumers.
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[FONT=&quot]Every month, this agency collects data on an average of 700,000 auto sales, 10.7 million credit reports, 25-75 million credit card accounts and 29 million active mortgage loans. On top of this, the agency also does one time collection of consumer credit scores, bank account data and student loans. No one knows how exactly this data is used by the agency including the congress and all they know is, this agency collects data normally collected by IRS. Considering the data breaches at large American companies and cyberattacks on other federal agencies, the consumers should know more about how this data is stored and used. If this kind of data collection is a must for national security and Dodd-Frank law should remain instead of getting repealed, at least, this agency should be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as other regulatory agencies.
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[FONT=&quot]Next time when the consumers buy something for their children for Christmas, they better know that Uncle Sam knows what is being gifted even before Santa knows about it. It is time for the country to decide where to draw the line compromising privacy of the citizens and what to give up in the national interest. [/FONT]

 

Dear Satchi,

Thank you for your first response. Everyday, privacy is taking a beating worldwide in one form or another. Raising these issues are possible only where democracy exists. We can't even talk of human rights in a country like China leave alone individual rights. Interestingly, Smt.Jayasala listed how tolerant Indians are after the President's announcement to be tolerant. Now more citizens are talking about religious tolerance. When a famous actor's wife expressed her fear, so many talked against it but support came from unexpected quarters including the famous musician from down south.

In the US, after 9/11, privacy of the individual had a grand funeral and occasionally a few raise their voice from time to time under the name of reestablishing this important constitutional right. The courts are 50/50 in favor of the government and citizens respectively.

Viswa

 

Dear Agatha,

Using technology to snatch the privacy of women is the worst outcome of new inventions. It should become the outlets' responsibility to scan the trial rooms everyday to prevent such indecent camera fixing. I have also heard many incidents in the hotels as well. Until such time, decency is restored, the responsibility should be fixed on the outlets and hotels enforced by law.

Viswa

 

Dear jskls,

Thank you for your visit to this post and for your appreciation. Instead of going back to the days of using cash for purchases, I believe we should express our right to have privacy to the government only exception being the national security.

Viswa