How Trump Will Try To Stay In Office Indefinitely

Among the very, VERY few instances of actual voter
fraud uncovered in last November's election was this woman
who voted for, yes, Donald Trump twice because she really,
really wanted him to win. 

I know, I know, it's like this blog is turning into all Trump, all the time, but you have to hand it to the guy, he sure knows how to dominate all aspects of one's life.

Kind of like a nasty flu bug.  

The latest, of course, is Trump's Big Plan to investigate his whackadoodle premise that he lost the popular vote through voter fraud.

His insane claim is that he lost the popular vote in the election by three million people because the election was marred by up to 5 million illegal voters.

Everybody knows that's hooey, of course, and the first impulse is to chalk it up to Child Trump's super fragile ego and the need for adoration.

It's that of course, but he knows what he's doing.

I know I sound conspiratorial, but this "investigation" is part of his big plan to make sure he stays in office for eight years (and either continues on beyond that or one of his evil minions does.)

Everthing Trump does is stagecraft and this is, too. The big investigation will "reveal" widespread voter fraud, but it will be, forgive me, trumped up, bogus allegations against lots and lots of people who have had the gall or will have the gall to vote while black. Or vote while Hispanic. Or vote while poor. Or Muslim.

You get the picture.

So, his compliant GOP Congress creatures will go along with this and come up with all kinds of new laws to ensure blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, gays, the poor who tend not to vote for the likes of Trump won't be able to vote at all. Meaning Trump will take millions of potential votes away from any would-be opponents of his.

This isn't just me coming up with this conspiracy theory. I'm seeing it from a lot of observers.

One example is the New Republic, which points out that Trump's "investigation" will "reveal" the reality (really! not alternative facts!) that there are indeed outdated voting rolls and people who are registered to vote in two states.

Voting districts have ways of making sure these outdated voting rolls don't result in fraudulent voters, or that somebody who is registered in one state doesn't go back to the other state and vote again.

I'm all for bipartisan efforts to make sure voter record keeping is correct and that things be kept up to date in voter precincts, but that's not what's happening here.

Republicans will use the outdated voter rolls, et al  to say that voting fraud could occur, so they'll pass laws to make sure people who usually cast ballots for Democrats,  like I said, racial minorities, etc.) can't vote and thus hand a re-election to Trump.

As the New Republic notes: "That's ultimately what Trump's investigation will be about: surfacing just enough information to destabilize the truth, which is that practically nobody voted for Clinton illegally. At the same time, it will give Republicans at the state level and in Congress the ammunition to try to make sure Trump doesn't lose the popular vote again in 2020."

I can see the GOP heading that way already, with their voter suppression moves in places like North Carolina and Texas.

And it's really telling that Republican congress creatures, when asked about claims by Trump there were three to five million illegal votes in November, would not agree the idea is absurd, and just mumbled a bunch of well, maybes.

Of course, if we really wanted to make everything as small-d democratic as possible, we'd make voting easier for everybody, not harder.

That won't be the case because a bunch of cruel, delusional, throw back old white men want to cling to power.

Is Kay Jewelers Stealing Diamonds From Customer?

Do some employees of Kay jewelers steal, or
at least do incredibly clumsy work?
A growing drumbeat says yes. 

Every kiss begins with cubic zirconia, apparently.

CBS Money Watch has a disturbing story about allegations that Kay Jewelers is taking expensive diamonds and gems from jewelry people bring in for servicing and replacing them with chief knockoffs.

Aimee Picchi (a fellow Vermonter!) writes that a number of people have reported the thefts. There's even a Boycott Kay Jewelers Facebook page. 

The Facebook page consists mostly of people complaining of shoddy work on jewelry at Kay's and other chain jewelers owned by parent company Signet Jewelers.

CBS Money Watch cites a report in BuzzFeed News about one woman, Chrissy Clarius, who took her $4,300 engagement ring to Kay Jewelers every six months as part of their gemstone guarantee program.

When nobody could find the diamond's certification number at one trip to Kay's, Clarius grew suspicious, took her ring to another jeweler and found the diamond had been replaced by moissanite, a cheap stone.

I really hope employees at Kay's are not stealing diamonds. According to CBS Money Watch, Kay released a statement saying they have "rigorous processes in place to help ensure this won't happen." The jewelry chain said it is "actively reviewing this issue."

BuzzFeed News also reports Kay is facing an onslaught of consumer complaints from people who bring in their jewelry for repairs and get them back looking worse than before the repair.

To me, all this sounds like a retail chain cutting corners with inexperienced workers, cheap goods and crappy customer service, all in the name of maximizing profits.

Like many (but not all!) companies, I suspect Kay is burning themselves with short term, quarter-by-quarter thinking. That sometimes temporarily results in ever increasing profits.

That is, until consumers get the memo on how people think the stores are crappy. Then there's a cascading series of financial troubles that can bring down these types of retailers. I noticed Picchi cited stock prices falling as much as 11 percent last week due to disappointing earnings for Signet Jewelers

The CEOs and top mucky-mucks tend to come out of this type of situation with huge bank accounts from their sky high executive pay, leaving a trail of unemployed former workers, angry customers and angry shareholders when things go south.

There outta be a law....

Virginia Ticketing/Municipal Revenue Generating Scam Being Broken Up

This cop in Fairfax County, Virginia spent
a lot of time ticketing cars in auto repair shop
parking lots for expired inspection stickers.
The cars were in these parking lots
because their owners were trying to get
these cars inspected.  

One of my pet peeves is municipalities who derive revenue from fines against people in ways that are total scams.

I highlighted one of these last year, when it turned out Fairfax County, Virginia were ticketing cars that had expired inspection stickers.

Ticketing people for expired inspection stickers is fine by me, except when the cars they were ticketing were in repair shop parking lots, awaiting required state inspections. 

In a rare dose of common sense, the Virginia legislature has stepped in and banned this practice.

Says the Washington Post:

"State Det. James M. LeMunyon (R-Fairfax) investigated the situation after reading about it in the Washington Post in October. He introduced a bill in December to prohibit ticketing cars awaiting state inspection, and it passed both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed the bill into law, his spokesman said."

I'm certainly glad Virginia lawmakers did this, but the whole thing still smells like a scam between the industrial park condo association where the repair shops were being targeted, and local police.

Nobody has formally accused these parties of doing this, and I have no proof that I'm right. Still, the whole thing  stinks to high heaven.

The industrial park management and board gave Fairfax police a letter about seven years ago giving police permission to enforce traffic and vehicle ordinances on their private property.

So, police had a field day ticketing the cars there awaiting inspection. I'm pretty sure that the police department reaped oodles of money on fines, and maybe, just maybe kicked back some of these profits to the property managers and condo board.

No proof of that, but what else could it be?

Tellingly, the condo board is not talking to the press.

Fairfax police said they were merely responding to calls for service in the area

Riiiiggght.

A particular parking enforcement officer, Jacqueln Hogue, would always show up and start ticketing like crazy. (Bet there were bonuses in her paycheck!)

Shop owners would hastily move cars inside repair shops whe they saw Hogue.

Hogue one day had the balls to go inside a shop owned by Bruce Redwine to write a ticket on a car in the buidling.

Redwine snatched the ticket out of Hogues hand and admitted using colorful words to describe her. Who wouldn't?

She brought Redwine up on trumped up felony assault charges, but after several court appeals and such a jury took a grand total of 20 minutes to acquit him.

But the legal proceedings cost Redwine thousands of dollars in attorneys fees. That was the message from Hogue, and Fairfax County Police and the condo association. Mess with us, interfere with our scam and it'll cost you big time.

Here's why I care so much about this local case: Corruption like that exhibited by Fairfax, Virginia county police, with the collaboration of the rich guys in the condo association, is why faith in government has collapsed.

Corruption is rampant, people are pissed, and they turn to whoever  can channel their anger. The people who are best able to channel this anger are strongmen, fascists, and in their own right corrupt.

In other words, people like Donald Trump.

In their big get rich quick scheme, Fairfax police and the people around them contributed to this dangerous shift in American government toward more crookedness.

Which makes me doubly grateful to the Virginia legislature and governor for putting a stop to this mess.

Here's a quote from the Washington Post:

"One would think you don't need to legislate common sense, said Dickson Young, Redwine's attorney who won his acquital. "If the Fairfax police had exercised common sense, legislation wouldn't have been necessary."

Yeah, but common sense flies out the window when there's money to be made through a municipally run scam, right Fairfax County, Virginia police?

Virginia County Tickets Cars Awaiting Inspection At Repair Shops For Not Being Inspected

Why is this Virginia car enforcement officer
writing so many tickets for cars parked waiting
for new inspection stickers at repair shops?
I smell a scam.  

Is parking and car safety enforcement a tool to make sure everybody is complying with the law, or is it just to raise revenue easily off a bunch of what certain county governments regard as suckers.

The money  making schtick is what seems to be going in Fairfax County, Virginia.

 According to the Washington Post, a car enforcement gal named Jacquelyn D. Hogue has been going to repair shops and ticketing cars for expired inspections stickers. The cars are parked there because their owners are getting new inspection stickers.

There are several repair shops in the Mariah Business Center, and all of them have been seeing traffic enforcement ticket soon-to-be inspected cars.

The Washington Post says repair shop owners "don't understand why Fairfax police have zealously sought to enforce laws on expired tags or inspections, mainly on drivers who are making the effort to get their cars into compliance, while on private property. Hogue's appearance in the industrial park often set off a scramble to hide customers' cars inside the shops, the shop owners said."

The Post article explains that Fairfax pollice are only on the property because a letter issued by Mariah's property management firm specifially ranted police permission to enforce county traffic, parking and towing ordinances.

'Why aren't they barking up their property manager's tree?....That is their business. Without that letter, we have no authority - none - to be in that parking lot,' said Fairfax Police spokeswoman Lt. Brooke Wright.

Here's where it gets (intentionally?) confusing. The property manager declined to answer the Washington Post's questions. The repair shop operators rent from owners of individual buildings in the park, and the owners claime they can't change or withdraw the authorizing letter because they are not members of Mariah's condo association board of directors.

Murky? You bet. Which means I really smell a rat. I have no proof or evidence of this, but I bet the condo association is taking kickbacks from inspection ticket inspections. The condo association board wins financially, as do Fairfax Police.

And probably Hogue, who is the one who is always writing the tickets. She declined the Washington Post's request for comment. Surprise!!

It's all about revenue generation, not public safety.

This is all just one incident, but I wonder how many other swindles are going on in Our Fair Nation between police or other authorities and land owners.

I know I'm sounding paranoid and conspiratorial, but something is amiss, I'm sure.

I hope somehow this scam gets broken, but I'm not holding my breath.

Everything That's Wrong With Major American Business

JetBlue is going to a fee system that other airlines use
to torture us. Because Wall Street wants JetBlue to make
bigger profits for them. The American Way I guess.Add caption

A few weeks ago, Wall Street analysts said they were not all that crazy about JetBlue.

The problem? They are "overly brand conscious and customer focused."

JetBlue is making money hand over fist. But not to the extend of other airlines, and not to the extent of what fat cat shareholders want. They want more money to add to their billions.

To do that, they have to make flying for us minions as rough as possible. And as expensive as possible.

It's not good enough to be profitable and treat people like human beings, i.e. fairly. You must, MUST screw them as much as possible.

Apparently, it's the American Way.

The fee system that airlines have horribly imposed on us is designed expressly to given us the most unpleasant flying experience possible while maximizing profits to the extreme.
Here's how the New Yorker describes this evil system:

"If fees are great for airlines, what about for us? Does it make a difference if an airline collects its cash in fees as opposed to through ticket sales?

The airlines, and some economists, argue that the rise of the fee model is good for travellers. You only pay for what you want, and you can therefore save money, if you, for instance, don't mind sitting in the middle seats in the back, waiting in line to board, or bringing your own food.

That's why American Airlines calls its fees program 'Your Choice' and suggests that it makes the 'travel experiencce even more convenient, cost-effective, flexible and personalized.'

But the fee model comes with systematic costs that are not immediately obvious. Here's the thing: in order for fees to work there needs to be something worth paying to avoid. That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as 'calculated misery.'"

In other words, the more horrible the airlines make flying, the more they torture us, the more they insist on trying to make a 200 pound person like me sit in a seat designed for a 75-pounder, the more we will pay to accept escape from the torture and the more money they'll make.

Where will this trend end? "Hey, pay a $300 'no whipping' fee and we won't give you 100 lashes before you board."

I think airline executives would go for that, if aggravated assault wasn't still illegal. But don't worry. Congress will make it legal. If it contributes to corporate profits, which means they get more campaign money from the corporations.

This gets us back to JetBlue. That airline was trying to treat its customers with a basic level of respect. But nope, the Wall Street overlords will have none of that. Not of more profits can be squeezed out so they can buy that third beach house in the Hamptons.

Of course the free market types say if we don't like it, we can just go to the competition. But all of the so-called competition is under orders from Wall Street to commit exactly the same abuse on customers. So there really is no "competition."

As the New Yorker put it:

"When an airline like JetBlue is punished for merely trying to treat all of its passengers decently, something isn't right."

Look, I'm totally on board with one basic concept of capitalism.  Corporations must make profits. They provide a service we want, we pay for it, and they make money. Investors are happy, we're happy for getting the service we want, and live goes on wonderfully. Awesome! I love it!

What I don't love is the ethos that has taken over Corporate America. Instead of having us pay reasonable prices in exchange for goods and services, and have us coming back for more, the larger corporations by and large treat most of us with contempt.

That the 1% regards the rest of us as the enemythat has to be crushed, taken advantage of, left penniless and then discarded.

Of course, with that business model, how do they expect to make money once we're all spent?

 

My Least Favorite Day Of The Year, Black Friday, Expands And Spreads Overseas

Really? This is supposed to be fun?  

I'm most of the way through Black Friday, far and away my least favorite day of the year.

I don't participate in the madness, of course.  Even so, the frenzy puts me in a foul mood.

The foul mood spread this year. Or at least Black Friday did.

First of all, as many of you know, a lot of stores opened on Thanksgiving, because we have to make these doorbuster sales earlier and earlier!

Let's take a quiet holiday and turn it into a frenzy. I guess a lot of people hate their families, because according to news reports, more than 40 million people shopped on Thanksgiving, I guess to escape their mean Aunt Louise sitting at the dinner table, or something.

I guess its younger people who hate sitting around a Thanksgiving table, as surveys say they, in particular, like the idea of shopping on Thanksgiving.

WHUT-Ever!

That number of Thanksgiving shoppers took the wind out of the sails, or sales of Black Friday a little bit.

I suppose that's a good thing, because the smaller crowd meant fewer stampedes, violence and fights and such that marked past Black Fridays in the United States.

The bad news is we exported the Black Friday riots and stupidity to other countries.  Retailers, through their advertising cunning, have created the kind of Black Friday fights in Britain that we long had in the United States.

The result is that across the pond, lots of people have been getting hurt and arrested over brawls to grab big screen TVs or something.

I'm sure the Brits just love this American export to their country.

New York Magazine has an excellent summary why Black Friday is a scam, that cunning marketers have taken advantage of the way our brains are wired to screw us over.

After all, you seldom actually save money on Black Friday, but the psychology of Black Friday makes you think you are.

Here, according to New York Magazine, is what they are doing:

Doorbusters: It's the cheap big ticket item like a big screen TV that's on sale big time. But the retailers know you will also buy the fancy cables, fancy wall mount kit with a hefty installation fee and the Xbox that catches your eye across the aisle.

Fake scarcity: The store will say "limited quantity" or "maximum two per customer" on a deal to make you think they're running out, so you'd better, hurry, hurry, hurry to grab the stupid thing. Usually, though, the item is not any more scarce today than it is any other day, but the fake scarcity makes it seem like an emergency, so you irrationally buy.

Wasting money in other areas: The Black Friday items might be on sale, but think of the money you're wasting stuck in traffic, burning gas, paying for warranties, dealing with rebates, and wasting time in line at the store when you could be doing something more productive.

Stuck there, might as well. Once you get up at a ridiculously early hour and wait in line in a freezing, windy parking lot for hours, you don't give up because you've invested so much time in this mess. So you go ahead and buy, buy buy.

I suppose people say they like the event, so that's why they go to Black Friday. And I suppose they're not harming me much by going, so knock yourself out if you enjoy going to this silliness.

Still, I can't help but be irritated by at all, because it feels like so many people are being taken advantage of. Especially the retail employees who are paid a sub-poverty level pittance to deal with these surging, awful, sick crowds, and must work on Thanksgiving, too.

At least things aren't as bad as what's depicted in the Onion. At last check, 42 million people have actually not died in Black Friday sales today.

Well, at least things haven't gotten that bad yet. But give it time.

Online Store Practically Threatens To Break The Knees Of Customers Who Complain

A scummy online retailer threatened this woman
Thankfully, she's fighting back.  

Consumerist, that web site full of stories about retail and service businesses that don't quite understand the concept of customer service, has really topped itself this time.

They're telling us about an outfit called OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com which has a terms of service rule demanding customers not even threaten to complain about it, or they'll pay, pay, pay and pay. 

That's a new level of ridiculous, and probably unenforceable tyrannical terms of service rules.

Here's the "best" part of OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com's rules:

"You agree not to file any complaint, chargeback, claim, dispute, or make any public foru post, review, Better Business Bureau complaint, social media post, or any public statement regarding the order, our website or any issue regarding your order, for any reason, with this 90 day period, or to threaten to do so within the 90 day period, or it is a breach of the terms of sale, creating liability for damages in the aount of $250, plus any additional fees, damages, both consequential and incidental, calculated on an ongoing basis."

That's right, even if you casually threaten to post something whiny about OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com on Facebook,  or something,  and not even bother to post the complaint, they'll still go after you for $250.

This goes beyond some of the other ridiculous terms of service I've written about.   At least those tried to collect only when somebody actually complained, and one of these businesses backed down when the publicity hit, saying the rules were just a joke. 

Unlike some other outrageous terms of service fine print from other companies, this one from OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com apparently isn't a joke or an empty threat to make people think twice about complaining.

OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com went after a Wisconsin customer, Cindy Cox who was unhappy with them.

Says Consumerist: "The company told her in an email that not only would she be hit for the $250 penalty but that her account would be sent to a collections agency, which would 'put a negative mart on your credit for 7 years and will also result in calls to your home and/or work."

They also threatened her with further billing on an hourly basis. The customer said she had the right to contact her credit card company about the purchase, and these jerks responded that she now owed them unspecified monetary "damages" above and beyond the $250.

The customer also got a threatening email that read in part: "You are playing games with the wrong people and have made a very bad mistake given the legally binding contract we have in place. One we have successfully enforced on many individuals, the same we will do with you."

Gawd, this is worse than a plot line in "The Sopranos."

I have no idea wither OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com has actually gone after people like they said they have, but boy is this company stupid.

You know inevitably one of the customers the company abused would go to the media, or the media would find out, as happened here. This negative publicity can't be helping this bad outfit.

Plus, as they often do in cases like this, Public Citizen is helping the customer sue OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com, which will only drag out the misery for the company, and maybe with any luck, drive them out of business.

Scumbags that they are.

Says Public Citizen: 

"The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Cox doers not owe Accessory Outlet a debt because the terms of sale were hidden on its website, are unreasonably favorable to Accessory Outlet and were never presented to or accepted by Cox when she made her purchase."

I'm not a lawyer, but it sure seems to be Public Citizen and their client have a strong case.

Here's more evidence of how bad OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com is, according to Consumerist.  The company  claims to have endorsements from the Better Business Bureau and Angie's List. However, both organizations say uh-uh.

The Better Business Bureau actually gives Accessort Outlet an "F" rating, and Angie's List doesn't give them any props, because they have no reviews of this outfit to begin with, Consumerists says.

So I think this might be the beginning of the end for OnlineAccessoryOutlet.com, which would be a very good thing, based on what I'm reading about them.

That might be happening already. I couldn't get into their Web site Friday morning. An error message said their site was "undergoing maintenance."

Scam Alert For Those Dumb Enough To Order A Penis Enlarger

A not very self confident guy in Malaysia responded to one of those scammy ads that promise men they can enlarge their penis.

 

He got what he paid for.

In short (ha!), he got a magnifying glass.

Technically, then, he wasn't scammed, because holding the magnifying glass to his, um, equipment, makes it at least look bigger, no?

And the magnifying glass came with some very helpful safety instructions: Don't use it in the sun.

Doing so would surely be more painful than falling for a scam.

The lesson from all this: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Clever Scammers Are Making This Year's Tax Season Even Worse

Just in time for tax season, we have one of the biggest tax scams yet, and this time the criminals are so sophisticated they figure out things like the last four digits of your Social Security number, where you live, where you work, what your telephone number is, and all that stuff.  

Information is power, after all. If the scammers know a lot about you, you might be led into falling for the scam.

According to Politico, the scammers play hardball, calling people up, armed with the information and telling them if they don't send money -- lots of it -- you will be arrested, freeze your accounts and have your paycheck docked to pay them.

Halah Touryalai, A Forbes staff writer, got a call from somebody she thought was an Internal Revenue Service agent telling her to pay up $5,000 now if not sooner, or else, says Politico.

The financially sophisticated Touryalai caught on to the scam quickly enough and didn't part with any of her money. But many other people have fallen victim to this, losing a total of perhaps $1 million to the crooks, according to IRS investigators.

There've been at least 20,000 instances of this kind of fraud, according to Politico.

In addition to the last four digits of Social Security numbers and other hints at targets' identities, the scammers are able to spoof call ID systems so it looks like it's really the IRS calling. They use fake names and fake IRS badge numbers.

They even know what kind of car the victims drive and the color of their houses, details that trick victims into thinking it's really the IRS calling them. But the information probably came from Google Earth.

The IRS says that if were really in trouble with them, they'd send you letters and documents by snail mail, and not call or email you or anything like that. And there's a legal process involved if they think you're involved in tax fraud. They don't just take your paycheck away from you without a bit of a heads up.

Still, the whole scam, and the details the crooks know about their targets, is just more evidence that everyone can come up with a dossier about you, and use it for no good.

The scary thing is, we're powerless to stop it. Yes, they give us tips on how to protect our identities and all that, but that seems so stopgap. The crooks, the marketers, the governments all seem to find pretty easy ways around the roadblocks we throw up.

It's enough to make you just want to hide for the rest of our lives in a cave.

Medical Device Scammers Steal $13 Million From Elderly, Deserve Worst Place In Hell

All criminals deserve punishment. We know that.

The FTC is cracking down on
robocall scams, but if
you get such a call, hang up
right away.  

For some reason, I have a special, extra hate for those outfits who scam elderly and/or defenseless people of their life savings through fraud, and out of horrible greed.

According to the Federal Trade Commission and the Florida Attorney General's Office, some horrible medical device fraudsters did the following: 

"A U.S. District Court has temporarily halted and frozen the assets of an Orlando-based operation that used pre-recorded telephone calls, commonly known as robocalls, to pitch purportedly "free" medical alert devices to senior citizens by falsely representing that the devices had been purchased for them by a relative or friend.

The defendents also allegedly led consumers to believe that the devices were endorsed by various health organizations and that they would not be charged anything before the devices were activated."

If the person receiving the call was duped into wanting more information, they were told to press "1" on their phone where the deception continued.

The FTC says the Orlando ompany operated under several names, including Worldwide Info Services, Absolute Solutions Group Inc, and Global Service Providers Inc.

So the people at those so-called corporations ought to just have a torturous death or something.

Instead, the FTC is planning on trying to recover money from these outfits and return it to defrauded people. Which is great, but doesn't go far enough.

Why doesn't the FTC put the names, photos, and addresses of the chief fraudsters at these companies on line. Yes, I know vigilante justice isn't a great solution, but this makes my blood boil so much I can't help myself.

Some of the names have surfaced. Courthouse News Service published some of the federal complaint against the company, and they list officers associated with the fraud scam. 

The three named defendents, Michael Hilgar, Gary Martin and Joseph Settecase, are of course innocent unless proven guilty, but I hope if they are found guilty, they don't just get fines, but a sentence in some horrible jail somewhere.

This isn't the first time scammers have targeted the elderly on a large scale

According to Consumerist:

'"On June 2013, the FTC scolded a Brooklyn-based company for using deception and threats to trick the elderly ito paying for unordered medical alert systems. Around the same time, the Better Business Bureau warned seniors of deceptive telemarketing calls offering free medical alert devices." 

So this type of scam is pretty common.

Of course, anyone who gets a call out of the blue from one of these outfits should just hang up, but that's hard to tell a desperate, lonely, or adled elderly person to do.

Buyer beware!!

Latest Money Making Scheme: Charge Fire Victims $20,000 To Fight Blaze

Here's a money making business idea:

Justin Purcell was charged nearly $20,000
by a private fire fighting company
for not putting out the blaze that destroyed his home.  

Start a private fire department serving rural areas that don't have fire protection, and don't tell people that they have to pay a $400 annual subscription to have fire protection, and when a homeowner who didn't know about the subscription has his house burn down, charge him $20,000 because he didn't buy the subscription.

This happened to the owner of a mobile home in Surprise, Arizona that was destroyed by fire.

Since Justin Purcell didn't pay the fire protection subscription that he didn't know about to an outfit called Rural Metro, the sleazy company sent him a $19,825 bill.

Here's how television station Fox 10 in Phoenix describes the situation in the rural town of Surprise:

"Residents living in the area pay a fire district assistance tax. The name alone implies it goes towards fire service in their area, but it doesn't. It's a county-wide tax to help fund volunteer fire districts.

The people in Purcells' neighborhood have no fire coverage, but they say they didn't know that until after Purcell's house fire.

'Coincidentally, we all received a bill from Rural Metro fire informing us we have no fire coverage in our area, so they highly suggested we finally begin paying some fire coverage that we didn't currently have said,' said Miller ( a local resident)

Thinking they were already paying for fire fire coverage, residents were skeptical that Rural Metro, who just filed for bankruptcy, was trying to make a buck marketing their fire subscription.

'I can categorically reject that as it being somebody's concern, however it's in no way a means for us trying to generate revenue, said (Rural Metro Spokesman Colin) Williams."

Yeah. Of course not.

Williams told Fox 10 that when a business provides a service, they generally don't do it for free. There is a fee, he said,

Purcell  responded: "Whey you do a service for someone, you usually tell them how much it's goin to cost before you do anything." Purcell told Fox 10 he would have paid the yearly subscription had he known about it.

Oh, and Rural Metro wasn't even that good at putting out the fire. The municipal fire department for the town of Surprise got there first and knocked down the worst of the fire. Rural Metro got there later and put out the hot spots.

Doesn't seem to be worth the $20,000.

I often hear of conservatives who want to privatize government functions because it would make things more efficient and less costly.

As we can see here, that's not always the case.

Man Denied Lifesaving Treatment Over 26 Cent Payment Error

A New Jersey man's life is apparently not worth 26 cents.

Especially if that life affects the bottom line of his former employer and an insurance company, it seems to me.

Sergio Branco in this image from
The New Jersey Star Ledger. Insurance
snafus almost killed him.  

According to the New Jersey Star Ledger, Sergio Branco came down with leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. They found a good match for him, but it's an expensive treatment, costing maybe $500,000.

He took a leave from work, then was canned after Branco's illness left him unable to do his job. He could still get insurance through COBRA and the family was informed on how to make payments and for how much.

A May bill came to $518.26.  Branco's wife wrote a check for $518, accidentally leaving off the 26 cents.

For that mistake, the former employer and Paychex, a third party benefits administrator basically imposed the death penalty on Branco. They would not cover the transplant, according to the Star Ledger. 

You'd think the matter would be handled simply. Paychex, or whoever is running the show could have contacted the Brancos and said, "Hey Dufus! You forgot the 26 cents. Pay up now." If they wanted to be mean, they could have imposed some sort of $10 stupid charge on the Brancos or something.

I'm sure they would have gladly paid up. Nobody would let them, though.

Nope, despite the pleadings of the family, his doctors, it was no go. It was only after the New Jersey Department of Labor, the lawyers and media outlets like the Star Ledger began "meddling" in this situation did it appear Branco's transplant will be covered.

Yes, yes, the parties involved are blaming the whole thing on administrative errors, strict governance rules and that kind of thing.

To be honest, I don't buy it. I smell a big, fat rat.

I have no proof and I could well be wrong. (Please set me straight if I am missing some information here), but here's what my conspiracy-addled mind thinks what happened.  And to be fair, some of the parties might be innocent. Paychex might be under orders from an insurance carrier. Branco's former employer might have their hands tied by an insurance company. Or the employer might have mucked things up with the insurer.

But somebody's to blame.

And somebody would have had to pay for Branco's transplant. Maybe his former employer, or some insurance company thought the price was too steep, that it would cut into profits. Maybe piss off a shareholder or two.

If Branco had the common courtesy and just die of his leukemia and not make a big stink about it, everybody would be happy, goes the logic. Branco's family excepted, of course.

Once again, we have one of those cases where some bureaucrat trying to impress his or her boss with his budget consciousness to save the bottom line was willing to kill somebody with a pen or a stroke of a computer key to do it.

This seems to happen a lot. Often, the cases get media attention. Bad PR is even more expensive than high medical bills, or whatever, so once the journalists start to poke around, things get "resolved."

Have we come down to this? The only way to save an innocent man's life is to threaten somebody with bad press?