I realize I am a crabby person sometimes. I don't think deception by businesses gets other people riled up. I hate it! I have gotten " second and final" notices from organizations wanting me to buy a membership of some kind. You do a google search for Joan Russell doll pattern, for example, and the first 10 or more results obviously have no idea what you want, but are trying to steer you to buy something. You want to find out who just called you on your cell phone. You'd like to do a reverse phone look up, without joining some business or paying. Lots of free reverse lookups show in the results.... but none of them are free. They try to get you to pay, even once. I once went through my bank records and realized to my horror one of those companies was taking money out of my checking account monthly! I had not recognized what it was because of course they don't want you to! I think it was Intellius. They always show that they found that long lost friend and have all the info. They do not! I had to contact the bank to get it stopped.
Unfortunately, I filed bankruptcy over a year ago after my house foreclosed and I had an accident needing surgery,, and no health insurance. I never got anything final from the court saying it was discharged. However I got something with bankruptcy court , public records, in the return address and wondered, what the H now? It was a car sales dealership wanting to help me improve my credit by selling me a car. I got several "official notices" from car dealers. I'm supposed to then trust them to buy a car from them? The sad thing is these businesses pray on people who are mentally disabled in some way by dementia, stroke or other.
Once the bankruptcy was final I got approximately two offers a week from Capitol One. They had all kinds of variations on my name. They sure want to tempt you into taking out a 23% credit card! After several months of getting very frequent and duplicate notices, I decided to call them and request that they take me off their list. That is your right, after all. I spoke to a woman and gave her all the variations of the names on their solicitations. She said some mailings might be in the works already but within 2 or 3 weeks, all mail would stop. Not so! Two months later I was still getting at least 2 mailings a week from them. I wasn't going to waste my breath this time. So I took one of those postage paid return envelopes and put all the mail from them in it and mailed it back. I made sure to include all the envelopes etc for maximum weight. It took at least 2 more months for them to stop sending me mail. They finally managed to do it when it cost them money!
I went to an optical place to get an eye exam and new glasses. It was a family run business. I paid my copay and for 2 additional exams. Later I got billed another $23 that the insurace company had not paid. I had to call 4 or 5 times over a 3 week period to talk to a billing person. There was never an apology and I never got a corrected billing showing everything had been paid in full. I'm sure many elderly people would have just paid it.
On a far larger scale, there is the whole foreclosure mess that put our entire country into a tail spin. I had a very large former sorority house a block from campus. I wanted to fix it up more to sell it. It had orange countertops for example and some old wallpaper. I paid $300 to $400 for a professional appraisal the refinance company required. It said it was worth $525,000. I questioned him on this. He said he could see what things were in process there, like a new bathroom. So the refinance went through. I hired two handymen and worked daily myself painting, repairing, replacing doors and floors, landscaping and making trips to Menards for over a year. I was unable to sell it for even the value of the mortgage amount. I put $73,000 into it and got nothing out of it. I drive by and see the areas I landscaped full of weeds, untended. Someone bought it and turned it into just rental for students. My younger daughter dreams about this house all the time. We loved it.
The problem I have with this is that they falsified an appraisal I paid for! The refinance company had their own appraisers that they wanted you to go to. They got their money!
I am happy for bills being passed to protect consumers!
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