D_A's Spammery

I like samurai, I like drawing, I like otome games, I like magical girl/boys transformation sequences. Buy Me a Coffee

[mrsd-writes]

PSA: Credit Card Phone Scam

(Or, how Tumblr just saved my ass)

I saw a PSA recently about a scam going around with spoofed official numbers calling and asking for information, and how you should hang up and call back using the correct number rather than just go along with what the caller is telling you. But this is Tumblr, so I'll never be able to find the post again.

I decided to make my own, because this literally just happened to me an hour ago. Hopefully my story can spread some more awareness and save other asses the way mine was saved.

Around 7:30pm tonight (Friday), I got a phone call from a 1-800 number. I almost didn't answer it, then I saw it was 1-800-465-4___, and I recognized that as the start of the CIBC phone number, so I picked up.

Me: Hello?

Guy: Hi, is this [MrsD]?"

Me: Yes.

Guy: Hi, [MrsD], this is _____ from CIBC, how are you tonight?

I thought, okay, this is a sales call. Right before I'm about to sit down for dinner. Typical. Mentally, I'm already putting together an exit strategy, preparing to say no to everything and get off the phone ASAP. But then—

Guy: We've just flagged suspicious activity on your CIBC Visa card. It was an online BestBuy transaction for $980.00. Was that your transaction?

Me, flustered: Uh. What? Sorry, how much?

Guy: $980.00 at BestBuy, was that you?

Me: Oh. At BestBuy?

Guy: Yes, your card was used at a BestBuy in [town nearby]. Was that you? Did you go to [town nearby] today? You don't live in [town nearby], right?

Me: Uh. No?

Guy: Okay, so I need some information to verify this transaction.

By this point, my brain had caught on that something about this was hinky. First of all, I thought he said it was an online purchase, then he said it was in person. But maybe I'd misheard, he was talking fast. My second thought was that every other time there was a suspicious transaction, I got an automated phone call and a text message with instructions to call back. I've never had a person call me directly.

My third thought was, well, the phone number on the caller ID was right....

THEN! I remembered a Tumblr post I saw recently, and I remembered what it told me to do.

Me: I'm skeptical about this call. I'm going to call CIBC myself and look into this.

Guy: What? Ma'am, you can just tell me, I can verify—

Me: No. Thank you, but I'll call the number on the back of my card.

Guy, getting more agitated: Ma'am, if you look at the number on your card, you'll see it's the same number.

Me: You know that can spoofed, right?

Guy: Uh— but ma'am—

Me: Sorry, but I need to make sure. I'm going to call CIBC directly.

The guy kept sputtering, but I hung up on him. In that moment, I really didn't think that he was a scammer. In fact, I thought I was being paranoid and was maybe kinda rude to the guy. I wondered if I was being overcautious, and I felt a bit guilty.

I called the number on the back of my credit card, waited 15 minutes for an agent, and told him what just happened.

IMMEDIATELY—

Agent: You didn't tell him anything, did you?

Me: No. I said I wasn't in [town nearby] today, but that's it.

Agent: Good. You did the right thing by calling us, let me look into the transaction for you.

Then, a minute later:

Agent: I'm not seeing any transaction like that. There's no flags on your card, nothing suspicious at all.

Me: So it was a scam?

Agent: Yep. Entirely fake.

I was honestly surprised. I really thought that there was some kind of mix-up and that I would be apologizing to this guy for being rude to his colleague.

Looking back on it now, I can see all the telltale signs of it being a scam call:

Time of day. Early evening on a Friday, chances are people are either sitting down for dinner or in a hurry to get somewhere. In this situation, a lot people probably wouldn't think twice about giving "the bank" some information just to get off the phone. (Joke's on them, I have no life!) But the way that I reacted to his introduction did evoke the desired reaction of Ugh, what now? Leave me alone! that the scammer was banking on (pun intended).

Sense of urgency. The scammer spoke fast, threw details at me quickly, and made sure I knew that I had to give him my information right away. This honestly threw me off. It was overwhelming, and I felt concerned and a bit frantic for a few seconds until I thought about what I know about scams and what I'd just read in that Tumblr PSA.

Complete lack of empathy or understanding about my skepticism/anti-fraud precautions. The last time I had to get a new credit card number due to fraud, the agent I spoke to said things like "I know this is frustrating", "I'm sorry this is a hassle", etc. And of course the CIBC agent I spoke to tonight was immediately grateful that I'd called them directly and reassured me that CIBC would never ask for information. By contrast, the scammer was outright dismissive of my concerns and got agitated when I wouldn't just trust him right off the bat.

Emotional provocation. Similar to #2 & #3 above, the scammer was very good at making me feel things. Worried and fearful at first, then guilty about being suspicious, to the point where I actually apologized to the guy. (Granted, I am Canadian, but still!)

And finally, I cannot stress enough: the spoofed phone number. I am a pretty well-informed person. I keep up with news about scams and whatnot. I know that phone numbers can be spoofed. I've been in front of my phone when it just starts to ring and I can see the auto-dialler number appear briefly before it gets replaced with a number that has my area code. But tonight—early evening on a Friday—I was cooking dinner and my phone was across the room. It had rung several times by the time I got to it. I only picked it up because I recognized the CIBC number. And when the scammer started his spiel, the fact that the number was the same was enough for me to give him just a tiny moment of trust. Had he actually gotten past that first barrier and started requesting my information, I think I would have caught on, because people asking for sensitive information over the phone is a huge obvious red flag. I like to think I would have caught on, anyway. But maybe not! That fake number almost had me.

TL;DR: No matter what the number on your caller ID says—that it's your bank, your energy company, your internet provider, whatever!—if the person on the other end is requesting sensitive information urgently, don't panic. Stop. Think. Then tell them nothing, hang up the phone, and call your service provider yourself using a verified phone number.

[daeva-agas]

That "default Nobunaga face" on that "lord from isekai world" is so funny to me, it's sending me straight to 6th heaven LMAOOOO.

He's a guy with ruthless tendencies, but despite being wary and menacing he's actually fairly earnest and very principled. Like in that scene with the nonhuman tribe, he was basically thinking "HEY WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING ME WHAT IF I KILLED YOU" the whole time.

That was probably setting up some backstory about "OMG everyone betrayed me" type. Which is like... okay, man. This feels... familiar (Nobubu trope 101).

Dear author, just between you and me, did you actually want to make a LOL Nobubu romance but didn't dare to write an actual Sengoku story so you made this expy set in a Western fantasy isekai to vent it out? 😭😭😭 Since "generic ojisan romance" in fantasy or modern day do still sell, but specifically "old Nobubu romance" might be a bit wonky for Japanese audience.

You can't tell me that he just looks like by coincidence. This is how basically 90% of all the Nobubu in Sengoku games look like, if they go for a "classic old man" look and not "shounen animu youngster" design. I don't believe he just looks like this because he's meant to be a generic "scary ojisan" type of look. I read a lot of fantasy isekai, and I've never actually seen secondary scary ojisan types that look like this. Even in stories inspired by Bluebeard or Vlad Dracula or whatever.

Like, that's just how it looks like to me, that someone wants to be like "Uhhhh after Nohime died Nobu falls in love with someone else yey!" but was worried it won't sell because Old Man Nobubu is usually not what people want in a Sengoku romance.

Old Man Nobubu is for war and blood and gut and politics, and the publishers don't dare to try to sell old man Nobubu for a shoujosei manga because they worry romance readers won't like it if their Sengoku bushou don't have sparkly ikemen faces.

I would love to see someone try that with a straight face TBH. Like maybe on Twitter or Pixiv or something. Low effort/no risk short manga.

[odaclan]

Hideyoshi's mummified body was apparently dug up when Emperor Meiji wanted to restore the shrine he was buried in, and then it crumbled from the exposure and poor handling.

Toyokuni Shrine was reestablished at a new site in 1880, several hundred meters down the hillside. A new mausoleum was also constructed at the summit of the hill. During the construction process, the naturally mummified remains of Hideyoshi were discovered in a seated position facing towards the west, the direction of the Buddha Amida’s Pure Land paradise. The fragile remains were reinterred in the new monument, a five-storied pagoda designed by the famed architect Ito Chuta (1867–1954) in 1898.

After the fall of Osaka, the shrine Hideyoshi was buried in was almost demolished, but eventually the Tokugawa shogunate agreed to leave it be neglected until it becomes ruined naturally.

In the Meiji era, the emperor then wanted to restore the shrine, and in the process of preparing the construction they dug up a massive jar which contained a mummy believed to be Hideyoshi's body.

Had it been discovered in modern day, I'm sure they would have been able to handle the body better to preserve it. At the time, they probably didn't know how and the mummified body fell apart. The pieces were then gathered up in a box, and reburied.

I wonder if the government can allow scientists to still do autopsy on these remains in the future. I mean, I just think this is insane that nobody had ever been given the permission (or maybe nobody even bothered to ask) to examine the body. I remember there was a big fuss many many years ago over discoveries made based on DNA testing on Hideyoshi's blood thumbprint left on a letter, and this whole time we actually had his whole body stored up in a box?

With modern technology, people were sometimes still able to identify disease from mummified remains. There were theories that Hideyoshi went insane in his last years because of some kind of illness, so maybe if they examine the body they can figure it out. Or maybe if there's enough data, maybe doctors and forensics can identify whether or not he was really impotent and put to rest the rumous of Hideyori being not actually his son.

I had assumed that there was no body to examine because of cremation, but no. He was buried and there were remains. Did the people/government not dare to examine the remains because of cultural taboos about tampering with dead bodies?

[daeva-agas]

What if they DNA test that body and it comes out actually being a girl?

(I still more or less jokingly maintain my crack theory that Hideyoshi is secretly a girl)

I wonder if the news would be like "BREAKING NEWS, UNIFIER OF JAPAN IS ACTUALLY A GIRL" or if they'd try to justify it with "Oh maybe that was actually one of his consorts, wellp Hideyoshi's body is gone I guess".

[daeva-agas]

Speaking of Ichigo Hitofuri, the red and gold sheath design was based on this display that once existed, not just made up by the Touken Ranbu artist, so that's why I was using it as example for the design rant.

This was from a post from somewhere around 2011-2013, and I wasn't sure what display was this from. The blog that had this picture seems to have disappeared since.

I've seen a bunch of Ichigo Hitofuri-inspired items that just had plain lacquered sheaths, so it seems like this is not an official museum display. This picture is so hard to track down, and a lot of people must not have known about whatever this display is (maybe it's a theme park display, or a time-limited Hideyoshi exhibition that had replicas).

[daeva-agas]

Full set of "human Haku AU" house items.

I made it to be exactly like the official ninja house gacha items, so I had to kinda give him a pet too. In this case it's a frog because I just like frog items, honestly. Frogs probably aren't very useful for ninja-ing, but I dunno, maybe in this WTF universe the ninja animals can use ninja skills too.

Or maybe Haku just keeps the frogs to eat.

I mentioned in a previous post I'm considering to make a second set of items where Haku is still-Hanzo's-snek-somehow, so he wouldn't have his own "pet". Still looking for item ideas, we'll see..

Edit: Snek-Haku version of the house done. The painting and manju are the same, just snek instead of frogs. But instead of the frog pond and food, Haku has a murder list and travel gear. Also magic ofuda papers because Magic made him hooman.

[daeva-agas]

A while ago there was a Haku event where Haku is just a human ninja (Hanzo's underling or something)

[daeva-agas]

WHEN THE GIJINKA IS A SEVERE DOWNGRADE COMPARED TO THE ACTUAL OBJECT

I AM SO ANGRY AT HOW BORING NIHONGOU LOOKS LIKE IN TOUKEN RANBU, WHEN HIS REAL "SELF", THE ACTUAL SPEAR, IS THIS BRAUTIFUL.

(you can look at it for yourself here, btw, HD photography, you can also zoom in to see the details)

Nihongou's character art seems to me like the artist completely had no idea what the actual Nihongou looks like in person.

Like, in the artwork that the spear shaft is black with some gold, which made me think that the artist had tried to look for photos, maybe from museum visitors, but they just can't see the details properly. I've seen visitor comments saying that amateur photography cannot capture the mother of pearl well, and it just doesn't show as clearly in photos due to the lighting. Even in today's HD-quality attendee photos it just looks black with some shine.

Plus the description did say that in older time periods Nihongou had a black lacquered shaft and black fur sheath. Maybe the artist saw the photos, assumed the shine was gold patterning on an otherwise black shaft, so that's why the art looks like that.

Like, the game staff probably just didn't want to restrict the artist about the design, so maybe that's why they didn't bother giving specific references/instructions to the artist, but I refuse to believe the artist would have designed Nihongou to look so boring like that if they'd known how beautiful the actual spear is.

"The handle is newer" is not an excuse. It's not current-day-new. The story says that many swordsmiths tried to copy Nihongou down to the spear's mother of pearl shaft. It's got to be at least Edo or Meiji-era, then, and it's still part of the spear's "history".

A number of the other swords had designs based on its current appearance in museums anyway, and not necessarily how it's supposed to look like in the past (for example Ichigo Hitofuri's red and gold sheath).

(even if the sheath was not modern either, the original Ichigi Hitofuri was burned in the Osaka Castle war in 1615 and reforged later, so this red sheath can't be any older than that)

Even with maintaining Nihongou's "drunken bum" vibe in connection to his lore, if the artist had taken into account that brilliant inlay, I would wager his design would probably end up being more like a "peacock drunk" type. All fancy and dressed up but a drunk bum regardless. He's not a Shōsanmi for no reason.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: How I created this visual magic (cr 阿梓蔗)

[daeva-agas]

The new slbp story event is here and wow it's up for 24 days?? Was it the same for the jap ver? Was it adjusted so players could have more time to finish stories (with the adjustment of love points in place)? With an event running this long i hope players dont get too drained. Also, i am excited the street fair is back, but i wish they'd included some short stories like before, feels more rewarding than a closet item.

I apologize if i seem to be ranting i just dont know where else i could talk about this. I wanna know your thoughts, too.

We never had this in Tenka/JP app. The monthly schedule is always 3 story events + 1 battle. Typically the split is 10-ish days for one long Hana (Radiance) event, 1-ish week each for one Tsuki (Shadow) event and a second Hana event (usually a rerun of old events or events with less characters), and 1 week-ish for the Battle.

Even for anniversaries they still keep the same schedule for the most part, give or take 1-2 days.

My assumption is that SLBP is covering for an event that they cannot include, such as the collaboration event with other IPs. Like we had a couple Sanrio events, or other special mascot characters. Maybe they don't have enough resources to make an SLBP-exclusive event to replace it so they just had to rearrange the schedule.

[daeva-agas]

Has west taken over the lead in the BE? Thanks for always indulging us!

Wow sorry I didn't see. I've been out all day and wasn't on here.

You know when in doubt, just pick your favourite lord's team, betray and betray again. You will recover the 3 pearls you lost by submitting the items. Or if you really need it, get a new spare account using an emulator.

Because while I'm always happy to answer, sometimes I'm just not Tumblr/busy, so I might not see asks for hours

[daeva-agas]

PAPA SANCHOU WELCOME BACK

[daeva-agas]

The manga version has a better composition for the cover (because the main character is the dad), but the art is such a downgrade LMAO.

Like, this is a matter of style, not because "oh solo illustrations can afford to be more detailed than a manga series". I wonder if Takeuchi Mick-sensei would've been available for work or if they're busy with another series LOL. Takeuchi-sensei's manga style is so good.

[daeva-agas]

Would you mind sharing who is winning the BE? 🙏

East is winning but the difference isn't overly big this time.

[daeva-agas]

SENDING PAPA BIRB OFF TO KIWAME~~~!!!!!!

SO EXCITED

[exxos-von-steamboldt]

[delicatefury]

I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Thank God someone bothered to check.

[beardedmrbean]

>I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

Sources beyond dude just trust me, for the skeptics.

Scientists shocked to find lab gloves may be skewing microplastics data

Scientists may have been unknowingly inflating microplastics pollution estimates, and the surprising source could be their own lab gloves. A

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/scientists-lab-gloves-may-be-causing-an-overestimation-of-microplastics-411138

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics, U-M study reveals

Nitrile and latex gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny poll

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics - Phys.org (it’s a pdf)

An Embarrassing Mistake May Have Skewed Microplastics Research All Along

Researchers discovered a standard piece of lab equipment has added thousands of microplastic ‘false positives’ per each square-millimeter un

Ordinary Lab Gloves May Have Skewed Microplastic Data

Ordinary Lab Gloves May Have Skewed Microplastic Data: That doesn’t mean microplastics aren’t a problem, though

That should be enough

[daeva-agas]

Crewel-sensei's English dubber kind of sounds like he's going for a Snape vibe or something, LOL, the tone of it sounds different than the JP dub 😂😂😂

Which reminds me of how I captioned my first drawing of him ages ago, LMAO:

[daeva-agas]

See? Nobu's face just always never look right until he has his moustache.

I don't get why NHK keeps insisting to use the same actor to play characters from youth to old. Most of the older actors simply don't look great in Sengoku outfit without beards. You need to actually get a younger actor to play young characters, unless the actor is the kind of person with a super young face. Not just Nobu, TBH, but he's the most noticeable.

Like, Danjūrō XIII is one of those guys who looks really young for his age, so he was totally fine playing as younger Nobu himself in the Okehazama movie even though he was 40+ years old at the time. Most of the other actors in dramas/movies that I saw are not like that.

Oguri Shun was fine back in 2016 in Nobunaga Concerto. He was in his 30s, I think, but he still looks alright as "young Nobu". Here in Toyotomi Kyoudai it just doesn't work anymore. He looks too visibly old to pull off the young Nobu look properly.

Another example is Kimutaku. Back in his 20s he looks fine, but looks terrible trying to do the same in the Legend and Butterfly during the "young Nobu" segments, because he clearly looks old. It just rarely ever works.

[daeva-agas]

Agas! Would you be willing to share who's winning the BE? Thank you!

East (blue) team is winning