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GUEST OPINION mn What to do to avoid being ‘crammed’ By ROY COOPER You open your phone bill to discover that your long distance ) service is now being provided by a phone company you've never heard of. Or, you notice that you've been charged for voice mail service when you didn’t sign up for it. What happened, and what can you do about it? These practices are known as slamming and cramming, and they happen to con- sumers all too often. In fact, complaints about telephone service and telephone bills are some of the most com- mon complaints my office receives. Slamming happens when your telephone carrier is changed without your per- mission. In some cases, slammers switch your phone service without even contacting you. In other cases, a telemarketer work- ing for the slammers tries to trick you into changing to a different long distance carri- er. For example, a telemar- keter may claim to be call- ing from your current tele- phone company and offer to sell you a special new call- ing plan. When you agree to sign up for the new plan, they instead switch you to an entirely new carrier. Cramming occurs when a company tries to sneak unauthorized charges onto your phone bill in the hopes that you won't notice extra items slipped into the mid- dle of a lengthy and compli- cated bill. Like slammers, some crammers bill you without ever contacting you. In other instances, you might be tricked into sign- ing up for a travel club, voice mail or pager service by a telemarketer who promises that you can try the service for free and then cancel it at anytime without being charged. The charge may show up on your bill “just once or it could start to appear on your bill monthly. Follow these tips to avoid getting slammed or crammed, or to solve the problem if you've already been hit by one of these scams: -Read your phone bill carefully every month to make sure your service has not been switched without your authorization. Review it as closely as you would your bank statement or credit card bill, looking out for any strange charges. - Use caution when talk- ing to telemarketers. Be wary of answering ques- tions you don’t fully under- stand, because the company may later claim that you See Guest, 5A LOOKING BACK I OPINION... GS SR Cs Thursday, August 7, 2003 ~ Editor: Gary Stewart ° 739 7456 RY, ( BACK The Optimist team won the 1963 Little League Playoff Championship by defeating Bur-Mill 6-3. Front, left to right, Junior Lefevers, Ronnie Payne, Kenny Bridges, Dana “Pancho” Sarvis, Jerry Ruppe and Corky Fulton. Second row, David Bolin, Barry Rikard, Mickey Floyd, Billy Early, Steve McNeeley, Brad Gregory and Bobby Peterson. Back, head coach Jim Connor, Larry Gantt and base coach Nelson Connor. About Pagan Road, Little Switzerland and the log cabin “Working on mysteries without a clue,” the Eagles sing. They're not the Andie Brymer only ones. This small town reporter has a gtaff Writer few she can’t solve either. did Where are the pagans on Pagan Road. On my first ever trip to Grover, I spied the green road sign to my left, just outside Kings Mountain. I had visions of a long road winding toward a farm house. An old woman who grew herbs and knew some secret incantations would live there. Or maybe not. Maybe, the inhabitants would be young hippy types way into nature. Finally I got up my nerve to drive down Pagan Road. It was shorter than I expected and came to an abrupt end. As best I can remember, the end of the road was blocked by earth and a guard rail. To my left was a fairly modern looking brick house. It appeared to have fallen victim to both disrepair and some vandalism. Was the road named after the house started to go down hill? Was that why it was so named? Okay fellow Sherlocks, on to the next mystery. Why would people from Switzerland visit the North Carolina mountains. I'm not making it up, they really do. My husband was at the Mt. Mitchell Restaurant selling his nature prints last week. He overhears folks talking about being from Switzerland. I know Mt. Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi, but they are from the land of the Alps for crying out loud. Mt. Mitchell is a foothill, a little bump in the road to these folks. Why, I repeat, why did they spend their vacation looking at our relatively small mountains. Did they snicker and whisper to one anomherd in Swiss, “Look at the cute little hills, oh, aren’t they quaint. Those silly hikers even think they are tired.” Then they jump in their rented car and yodel with glee all the way down the parkway. Okay, on to the next mystery. Why is the Herald located in a log cabin? When I drove up for my interview, I was amazed. I assumed the building had once been home to a steak- house. After I'm on the job and its safe to start asking question, I inquire. No such culinary history here. I'm told the building was designed for a newspaper. I'm not complaining. It’s got character. Certainly beats the sterile environment created by one past paper's ultra modern building. Another paper was housed inside an old building. It had no character, just lots of mold. See Andie, 5A The real Mayberry may just be our own hometowns There are many legendary places in the world. Some of these spots include Paree, Alan Hodge foggy London Town, Timbuktoo, Guest QUES Th Shangri-La, Shuffletown, and Mayberry. I went through the supposed ‘real’ A Mayberry recently, and found it to be decidedly lacking in resemblance to the town on TV that spawned the name. Let me explain.The Mayberry I passed through on the way to Laurel Hill, Virginia is actually Mount Airy, NC, the birthplace of Andy Griffith. If you don’t know who Andy Griffith is, or that the town he was sheriff of in TV land was named Mayberry, then you must have no doubt been born too late or not at all., , Mount Airy bills itself as Mayberry. Ads to on effect are all over town. There is a real barn on Highway 89 as you come into the city with “Welcome to Mayberry’ splashed all over the side. Just past the barn and all along through town are many strip shops and convenience stores and a few nice older homes but little or nothing that looks like the town still seen on TV re-runs...that is, a quaint, tidy little town with nice sidewalks and folks strolling along and some whistling like Andy and Opie do as they saunter down to the old fishin” hole and maybe a dog wagging its tail etc. & etc. Well, let’s not beat around the bush any more. I think local towns are a lot more like the legendary Mayberry in tone and look than Mount Airy can every hope to be. That's my opinion and since this is my opinion column I can say it, so I did. There is more to Mayberry than the ambience. The peo- ple who live there make it much of what it is. Immortal indeed are the characters that populate the town. Stereotypical are they in some ways, yet each is a distinct personality that may be found in many small towns across the nation. If you look closely enough, there are many local folks who resemble characters in the TV Mayberry. I think it is safe to say that both Goober and Gomer types are well represented in our region. There are also may ladies like Aunt Bea, though I heard a person recently referred to as such who in no way, shape or form resembles her. Cast your eyes across the local landscape and you will see many Opies running around. Go to a city council meeting and see Howard there, go to the local schools and scope out the Helen Crumps. Barney can be found as well. Reeee, Reeee, Reeee 10-4. Oh what would we do without our own Otis Campbell. Perhaps you know one See Alan, 5A US New doctors in KM, Grover in August ‘63 From the August 8, 1963 i edition of the Herald: The Kings Mountain : Optimist Club recently purchase property on N. Carpenter Street for their proposed club house and recreational area for youth. Football season tickets go on sale in Kings Mountain Wednesday. Tickets for six home games will be $7. Dr. Francis John “Frank” Sincox will join Dr. John C. McGill and Dr. Charles Adams in the practice of medicine here Monday. Dr. and Mr. Lewis R. Beam were welcomed at an open house Sunday at the Grover Clinic. Bethware Progressive Club barbecue, which her- alds the opening of the Bethware Fair, will be held Wednesday at Bethware School. Sixteen lettermen will be on hand when Kings Mountain's Mountaineers open football practice on Wednesday, August 15. The KMHS JV football squad will open its regular season under freshman coach Bobby Hussey Sept. 17 at R-S Central. School secretaries Wanza Y. Davis and Shirley B. Valentine have returned from Cullowhee where i they attended a five-day workshop. Mrs. E. C. Cooper of Kings Mountain and her son, Lutheran minister Rev. i Edgar Cooper of Pottstown, Pa., have gone to Hellsinkie, Finland to attend the meetings of the Lutheran World Federation. “We're pushing as much as we can on both the structural work and on detailing,” Architect Fred Van Wageningon said Wednesday concerning the new Kings Mountain dis- trict high school. Fashions of 1851, some 150 years ago, and the mode of transportation prevalent of that era were emphasized at the sesqui- centennial celebration Sunday of Antioch Baptist Church. Mrs. Rebecca Roberts, Miss Vera Hardin, Mrs. Ed Love and Mrs. Eugene Connor were among members of the church who came dressed in the Sunday finery of the 1800's. Veteran cemetery Supt. Sam Suber, 78, is resigning effective March 1. Mr. Suber, who came to America from Lebanon in 1906, has been employed by the city for 22 years. SIDEWALK SURVEY BY ANDIE L. BRYMER THE HERALD Should the government have released —, | | and the media “Yes. Because we killed “We ought to because “I think so, so people “Yea, to let the people “No. Death is a personal Sg them. We can show our Saddam Hussein pho- would know.” know they are dead.” thing that should stay publicized troops theyre getting tographed their dead. within the family.” some headway.” They killed their own.” Gwen Smith Robert Strong photographs Kings Mountain Shelby Alene Williams of Saddam Kings Mountain nab ont Hussein deceased sons? + Se re. ——) 2 A ——— ee ——— ee —d |
The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.)
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Aug. 7, 2003, edition 1
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