This is not a spam blog

Bizarre. I go to do an entry into my blog this morning and there is word verification turned on for the submission of an entry.

Why? Automated systems have determined that my blog has the characteristics of a spam blog.

A what?

A spam blog.

On the one hand, I'm a bit bemused, since I fight against spam comments all the time, and I have to put up with massive crap from spammers who not only flood my e-mail mailboxes, but also hijack my domain name as a return address to the point that cityoflegends.com has, from time to time, been blocked by well-meaning but fuzzy-logic'd tools sold to prevent spamming.

On the other hand I am offended, as no one likes to be suspect (Yes, I know, the innocent have nothing to fear...the same logic used by police when they want warrantless searches approved).

And, finally, I am relieved, as this gives me a topic for today's blog. I am just glad I didn't try and do a submission via email (mailing it in sometimes is a necessity when I am not at my desk)...as it would have probably been rejected. Sigh.

Yesterday I got in the mail a collection notice from a company name Afni Collections. They were loking for money on a Verizon bill I never owed from almost a decade ago. Funny, I paid that bill off when I switched carriers. How can I be so sure, I mean, that was a while back? Because four years later, Verizon allowed me to get a new contract with them, something they would not have permitted if I had still owed them money.

I went to the web and looked up the collection company. Thousands of claims have been filed against them by people claiming they were harrassed for past Verizon and Sprint bills, all of them from the distant past, further back than most people keep records, making argument difficult. Bills they say they know they didn't owe. I have seen a lot of information recently about bogus collection agencies, which acquire dubious debts, even manufacture them. I am not sure if these guys at Afni are frauds, or if they were sold bad files (I worked, for a while, for a collection agency, you don't want to know how sloppy the evidence they require of a debt before going psycho on a debtor).

But I am resolute that I am now just one of the thousands, even millions, being threatened with collection action for something I do not owe. And I am furious.

Which was going to be my topic this morning, before the "spam blog" automated police jumped me.

And it is a pain, being "The Romantic Poet of the Internet" and on the day before Thanksgiving, having to write about crap like these things.