Damn Scammers

Beware, for I am: Pissed off

A couple of months ago I was over at Chibi’s house, and I was saying how I wished I could get Corel Draw, but I didn’t have enough money for it. Chibi mentioned that she’d stumbled across this site that was promoting their graphics editing by selling it for dirt-cheap to the first 100 people who signed up. I considered it, mulled over it, then hurried bought into it. I got four CDs with the first one that I ordered. They were crummy, but you get what you pay for, right? Then we got a second set of CDs with cames on them and such. Mom was happy because she’d run out of games to play. So we kept those too, and I just took another $5 out of my account (that’s how much the shipping is supposedly).

I just looked at my bank statement to find a $49.90 charge on it from these people. Well, naturally I called my bank and asked if they could block any future charges from these people. The lady said that the only way they could do that would be to cancel the card completely (sounds kinda stupid if you ask me). She suggested that I try contacting the seller/merchant and asking them if I was signed up for something automatically without my knowing it and ask to be removed from said list and for reimbursement. So I try to find their web site. The first thing Google spits out at me is this. /sighs Just figures. It’s a scam. This Think All Publishing thing is a huge scam. They tell you they’re gonna send you these things just for the cost of shipping, but what they don’t tell you is that if you don’t send it back within ten days, you get charged more for it. So now I’m pretty pissed, and I’m gonna be calling that nice lady at my bank back and kindly asking her to do whatever it is she has to do.

...Now I remember why I wanna be a hermit...

MM

And this is how the week's starting?

Beware, for I am: Drained

Thank God that today is ending. /Sigh I've gone from anger, to frustration, to depression, to resignation, to sardonic humor, and at this point, I’m just too damn tired to feel anything. So. And update from when I last left you. I finally got in touch with this Think All Publishing place. Turns out, I’ve been billed at least 3 times a month since November. So all-in-all, I’ve lost about $180 to these people. It’s times like these when I wish I could just forget all about my Christianity. But then I remind myself that I walked right into this scam and there really is nothing I can do but be resentful. And what good would that do me in the long run? So, aside from being extremely disappointed in myself for allowing myself to be duped (Paul did say to work hard that no one should deceive you after all), that crisis is pretty much averted. On the good end of the spectrum, I did get my income tax checks in, and they were enough to make the Think All disaster virtually ineffective on my account. During my call to the Think All people, I politely requested that they cancel my subscription (or whatever it is they call it), and have received an e-mail verifying said cancellation. That doesn’t mean I won’t be looking for these people on my next bank statement, but at least I have an e-mail as proof now that it should be canceled.

After dealing with that unpleasant matter, I settled in to watch Robotech. A full start-to-finish thing ending whenever I should finish the Invid saga. I was interrupted half way Mom. Sees Bub (my brother in Oklahoma who’s in college) has found this new thingy called a Green Dot card. Basically he has this card that he bought from Wallgreens, and you can put any amount of money on the card and it only cost like $4.95 to reload it. So, he figures if we get a Green Dot card, and load it, then transfer the money he needs for rent and tools (usually a once-a-month expense but lately, who can say?), it’d be easier than sending said cash in cards. Mom likes to get encouraging cards and send the cash in those. The cards are thicker so they hide that there’s money in them and all that. Plus it’s just sentimental. Well, Mom’s very dubious about the whole thing. Why? Because Bub said three little words…It’s Really Easy. Any time someone remarks on how easy a process is, it will invariably become a troublesome process when my mother tries it. It’s not really her fault. She’s just not very inept when it comes to learning new things. She forgets everything too, so when it comes to doing something she hasn’t done recently, she forgets that too.

So, we head on down to Walgreens and we pick up the card right away. We ask the cashier about the whole process and she flippantly tells us that it’s easy and it’s outlined on the back of the card. We shopped a bit for some other things that we needed. Nothing big, just little things, you know. Then we headed to McDonnalds. Mom wanted a vanilla ice cream cone. The nearest one said their ice cream machine was down, so we went all the way on the other end of town to get one. Their ice cream machine was down as well. Turns out they clean their ice cream machines all on the same day. Today. So they were all down. Aggravated Mom to no end, I tell you. So we ended up going to the Snow ball stand not two streets over from our own. I got a snow cone (Coffee flavored with condensed milk) and Mom finally got to have her ice cream cone. We came home, turned on the watering hoses so the flowers could get a good drink, and set about the arduous task of this ‘easy’ Green Dot card.

...

Don’t you know...it wouldn’t work. We tried doing it over the phone. We tried doing it on the net. We tried putting in several different numbers (they gave us 2 receipts with numbers, maybe those were the correct numbers) we put in Bub’s card number, we put in our card number. Finally Bub calls. Mom tells him the situation and says she’s gonna call the store manager and see what he thinks. He tells us to come down to the store (again) and he’ll do it right from the store.

...

He couldn’t do anything with it. That made me very happy. It only aggravated Mom more, but I found it very refreshing that we were not the problem. So I called Bub (because by them Mom was so upset about the whole thing she didn’t want to talk to anyone), and I told him that the manager told us to come back in the morning and talk to the head manager, because he couldn’t make a refund on a purchase that big.

The whole problem with my Mom is that she feels stupid. She always feels like she doesn’t know what she’s doing and she’s stupid. Everyone else can do things so easily and she just feels inadequate because when she tries they’re terribly hard. My brother is a know-it-all with a tendency to talk down to others. Throw these two together in this situation, and you’re gonna have some hurt feelings. She started going on how she wish she could just never do anything on the computer again, because if she didn't then she wouldn't have to feel stupid. I told my mom that I thought she was a great woman before she got to e-mail and technology and I thought she'd be just fine without it if that's what she prefered. If all she wants for her computer is a glorified game box, then that's all it has to be for her. It's fine with me. /sigh she was sullen and quiet for the rest of the evening...make me sick. I hate it when things come and take the light right out of her eyes.

The only good points about today: 1) We got some Hershey’s Cookies ‘n Cream candy bars (my new favorites). 2) CSI: Miami was very good. 3) The day is over, and soon I can sleep.

I hope tomorrow is better...It just has to be /sigh. Goodnight.

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I'm an Evening Sky.



Cool and comforting, you're a brisk evening sky. You figure you've got the same number of hours every day, why waste them sleeping late or hitting the bed early? The most active hours of the day your comfort zone; morning and night are simply time to warm up and cool down.

What sky are you?

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MM