Bastard!

One thing I've discovered in life is that when you meet a bastard that spends most of his time telling you what a good so-and-so he is, generally he is not. So, here I am, stuck in the middle of what I want to accomplish, and what I'm being prohibited from accomplishing, and my best bet right now is a circle-talking, scheming, conniving, under-handed, bastard who in one breath is telling you, "Yeah, I'm a bastard, but I'm telling you up front I'm a bastard so you can't hold it against me" and in the other is explaining that anyone that would be a bastard to you can't be trusted...Oy!

So, if you haven't figured it out, the word for today is: BASTARD! 

I better go do some yoga!

Frustrations

Remember that commercial for Heinz Ketchup where they used the Anticipation song and you had to watch while the ketchup moved like molasses out of the bottle? That's what it's like getting nearly anything done in Haiti. I'm posting this here because this is my Rant and Rave page and I don't want to put it on the other. 

It seems like everything we try do do here is a matter of one step forward, 17 steps back. 

I have been waiting since October 11th for this man to get me my permanent resident documents. He has so far stood me up over 20 times, even refusing to take my calls for a period of two weeks. And when I try to confront him on it, he has absolutely no sense of wrong-doing. 

So here I sit and wait, he is over 2 hours past due. The days just keep passing and nothing happens and there's no way to compel anyone to do anything except for threats of bodily harm. 

Harumph!

Oh how I long for the days when I could just make someone do push-ups when they pissed me off! lol

Keep praying for me. I'm sure to evolve eventually!

RISK FREE TRIAL

This morning Nellie stops me in the cafeteria and asks how I am doing. Now, this is like asking the widow at a funeral home how SHE is doing. We know it's a stupid question. We know the answer before we ask it, and yet we can't help ourselves, can we?

So, I reply that I am doing as well as can be expected. I'm not going to lie to her, but I'm not going to lay it all on her, either. She was really only trying to be polite. It's not like we're pals or anything.

So then I tell her about China and Darfur and all of that. She tells me I must have a lot of courage to be contemplating such assignments. I don't really feel courageous, I just feel like I have the skills needed and nothing to keep me from it, so...

Then she pulls me closer and in hushed tones says, "Maybe you would know how to help me!"

I'm intrigued. So I ask her to elaborate.

She then tells me that she got into some trouble. See, what happened is, she was on the interwebs interwebbing, and she saw this advert for a risk free trial of Acai Berry. It was just $10 for the shipping and handling, so she decided to try it. Five months later, she noticed that she was being charge $79/month for the stuff.

**First of all, friends and family, do yourselves a flavor and check your dang statements EVERY month. Scrutinize those puppies! Every day there are stories in the news about identity theft. With all the technology available, you should be checking this stuff online every few days. You should be able to identify unrequested charges immediately and report them to your banks and/or credit card companies immediately!**

It took her several attempts to cancel, she was either kept on hold for long periods of time or couldn't get thru the links on the Internet web-site.

Finally, she was able to cancel her subscription for the product, but now she wants to know how she can get her money back?

Let me tell you what Ms. Sally always told me,

"If it seems to good to be true, it probably is."

and

"There's no such thing as a free lunch!"


There's this thing called GOOGLE. Learn how to use it and save yourself much heartache and many $$$

There are over 130,000 possible matches on Google for "acai berry risk free trial" and 32,500 for "acai berry risk free trial scam"

Page after page of consumer complaints. There's even an account about how even if you cancel out of the risk free trial order form without ordering, they will track you down and hound you for an order.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU INTERWEB!!!

customer disservice

So, my trusty, crusty old cell phone crapped out yesterday in the middle of a phone call. That darn thing has been to hell and back. It had seen better days. It has been in a river during a canoe trip. Fallen from great heights. Dropped repeatedly. Stepped on a few times. The battery only held a charge for a few hours. But it was a good phone. I had EVERY # I've ever had in there. That phone was better travelled than most people I knew.

So, reluctantly, I set off for the Sprint store to see if they could repair it. Of course the first thing the CSR does is try to convince me that it would be better to let her hook me up with one of the "free" phones. She tells me that since the phone is so old, and because I don't have insurance on it, there will be a $35 fee to fix or replace this one. Duh! I had insurance on my son's first phone. And when he broke it, there was a $50 "co-pay" to get it replaced under the insurance. Mind you, I'd made an $8.99 "insurance" payment on the phone for 19 months. That's a sum total of $171. The phone was only $79 to start with! Ugh! So, I paid the $50 and cancelled the insurance. At this rate, I could have had 2 new phones! So, then when he broke the second phone, It cost me $79 to get him the new one. When he broke that one, I refused to replace it and he talked one of his friends into letting him have her old phone. Then he broke the screen on that one and he's stuck with it cuz I'm not a money tree!

So, when the CSR looked at me like I had a third eye in the middle of my forehead because I would rather pay $35 for a new phone than to get a "free" phone (with a new 2 year activation which will cost you $250 to get out of if and WHEN the phone service turns to crap and you want out of your contract - come on August!) I just laughed and told her that yes, I would like to pay the fee, try and fix the phone and if it can't be fixed, give me a new one.

After about 45 minutes the service girl comes out of the back, tells me she couldn't access anything on my old phone and was the fee explained to me? I said yes, it was and yes, I agree to it and she shows me my new pone and tells me she will bring it back up when she gets it all programmed and that I would need to see the cashier to pay. No problem. $37 and change and I'm ready to start collecting phone # and learn how to use this new phone. Off I go to Panera to steal some interwebs.

I start loading up phone #s and notice I have a voice mail. I try to retrieve it and I get this error message. So, I call the Customer Disservice # and they tell me the phone has to be activated. I say, okay, so activate it. They tell me I have to have another phone I can call them on so they can activate it remotely. Apparently, with all the frikken technology we have, we can't activate phones while they are in use. My only other option is to go to a store and have them activate it there. UGH! I WAS THERE! FOR OVER 1 1/2 HOURS!!!!

Frikkkkkkkkkk........

So, send me an email or give me a call with your new #s. I won't be able to use them, though, til the store opens up tomorrow....grrrrrrrr........