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Archive for the 'Rants' Category
28
Aug
11
Feds raid Gibson guitar factory…
I would appreciate everyone’s assistance in sharing this blog post. I will share to my Facebook wall when completed, and if everyone would click share and pass it on, I would be most thankful. Perhaps SOMEONE affiliated with U-HAUL will have a Google Alert set up for their company name and see this. –Thank You!
THE LONG STORY:
A few years ago, our daughter and her boyfriend were residents of Vancouver, Washington. When a promising new job opportunity presented itself in Las Vegas, our daughter and her boyfriend placed the bulk of their personal belongings in a storage unit operated by U-Haul - located at 2460 NE Andresen Rd in Vancouver, WA – and moved to Nevada.
As will happen from time to time, the happy couple experienced some financial difficulties – and on a few occasions in 2010 we paid their storage bill for them.
On 3/5/11 an unexpected new charge appeared on our bank card from U-Haul Storage in the amount of $677.83. It turns out that not only did U-Haul retain our bank card information from a previous payment we had made, but opted to charge our card without authorization.
I called the storage facility and spoke to a man who knew nothing about the charge, and by all appearances seemed uninterested in discussing the matter with me. I told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to do whatever it took to insure no further unauthorized charges be made on our card, and that our bank card information be purged from the system.
We contested the unauthorized transaction through our bank and attempted to have the charges removed from our account with no success. I wrote to U-Haul’s corporate offices via the main website (through both the Public Relations Link and the online Contact Us Form on this page) to protest the charges, and my correspondence was never acknowledged, let alone replied to.
At this point we decided to let it go. The money was going towards our daughter’s storage unit after all, and she had promised to pay us back. We would be reimbursed in either case. Although it did not sit well with me, it wasn’t the end of the world – but it certainly was harbinger of our next dealings with U-Haul.
Our happy couple eventually parted ways but remained in touch. He moved to Colorado, and she moved back home to our hometown. She started college while working part time as a barrista and all was well for a while.
Our daughter lost her job after being injured (off the job) and asked us again for help with her U-Haul storage bill, which had become delinquent after she had lost her job. Needless to say we did not hold U-Haul in high regard by this time, but agreed to help our daughter. She was concerned about losing her personal property.
On July 20th or 21st I called the U-Haul facility on Andresen Rd in Vancouver, WA and spoke to a woman by the name of Karen. I explained the situation, but did not bring up the previous issue regarding the unauthorized charge. I asked Karen what our daughter owed, including any late fees, to bring her current.
Karen told me that $763.79 would bring the unit current again. I asked Karen how much time we had to get this done. Karen told me the storage unit was, “In lien status, and scheduled to go to aution on 8/2/11.” Karen said a notice had been mailed on 7/12/11, and again that very day, advising of this.
–I know this is a l-o-n-g post. Thanks for hanging in there with me!
At that time I confirmed that our daughter had authorization to come down, pay for the storage, and remove the contents. This was a bit of a gray area, as the storage unit was rented in the boyfriend’s name, and he was now living out of state. Karen told me yes, so I reserved a 17′ U-Haul truck for the following weekend. We made the necessary plans to drive 150 miles, pay off the storage unit, pick up the rental truck, load the contents and bring them back to our house for safekeeping. Our only other option was to allow the storage unit to go to auction. That week I reorganized our basement to make room for all the stuff.
Upon arrival at U-Haul we were initially, “Helped” by a Mr. Brent Pelky, who held the title of Field Relief Manager. When we shared with him our daughter’s situation he told us that no auction date had been set for our daughter’s storage unit! When we attempted to share with him what Karen had told us on the phone, he abruptly and rather forcefully stated, “I SAID A DATE HAS NOT BEEN SET!” He then added, “…of course if you don’t pay it will eventually go to auction, but there has been no auction date set.”
We were dumfounded. At this point Mr. Pelky said he could offer us a 50% settlement on the storage bill to close out the unit. All he needed was the boyfriend’s permission, since the storage unit was in his name. We explained that he was in Colorado, and that this weekend he was in the mountains in an area of no cell phone reception…but that we would try to reach him.
Mr. Pelky then said we had 24 hours to reach him, and to just have him fax a copy of his ID and permission – and gave us their fax number. We explained to him that we had already driven 150 miles to get there, arranged for extra labor (we had brought 2 extra people and our daughter), and that we could not spend the night in Vancouver.
Mr. Pelky then informed us we could pay the whole bill and access the storage unit now, or wait on the boyfriend to fax his permission to accept the 50% settlement offer and get in then. With that Mr. Pelky started to leave. We asked him where he was going, and he said “I’m off for the day.” We told him we would keep trying to reach the boyfreind.
We were next assisted by Ms. Heather Suhama, with the title of Assistant Moving Center GM. Facing at least 4 hours of truck loading and having no intention of staying over in Vancouver (our helpers needed to return home that night), we felt we had no other option at that point but to pay the bill in full so we could gain access to the unit and start packing - hoping that before we finished, we would reach the boyfriend. We gave Heather $430 in cash and a check for $299.80 for the storage unit. We also gave her a bank card for $168 plus $9.95 for the truck rental, bringing the grand total to $907.75.
Then we were told that since Tara did not have a key it would be another $50 to have the lock removed.
We were about at our wit’s end by this point. Ms. Suhama said that’s just the way it was…unless we could convince one of the yard hands to do it for us.
We made arrangements to have the lock removed and began loading the truck. Shortly after this we were quite relieved to hear from the boyfriend who was back in cell phone range. He said he was on his way back from the mountains, and said he could be at a fax machine in 90 minutes - well before U-Haul’s closing time! The boyfriend said he would send whatever was needed, no problem.
We returned to the office and spoke to Ms. Suhama. “Good news!” we said. “The boyfriend is on his way back from the mountains, and can have the papers faxed over well before closing time.” Ms, Suhama said ok (she had been present during our discussions with Mr. Pelky and was familiar with our situation). She said all she needed to do was to call Mr. Pelky and get his permission.
We thought it rather odd for her to need to ask Mr. Pelky for his permission to honor the offer that he himself had made us - but we stood by while she called him.
When she got off the phone she informed us that Mr. Pelky said “You were given a choice: Choice A or Choice B. You took choice A. The offer is no longer available.”
We were stunned.
We finished loading the truck and left for home.
A couple days later I was able to reach a lady by the name of Lori who I believe was in the corporate regional office. I shared the entire story I just made you suffer through. I then said that, ”In light of the unauthorized charge to our bank card, the misrepresentations made as to the storage unit going to auction, and the offer extended us by your Field Relief Manager, I am requesting this offer be honored and that we be reimbursed 50% of the $763.79 storage bill.”
Lori started to say, “If you can get the boyfriend to fax…oh wait, can you hold while I check on something?” I said yes.
About 5 minutes she came back on the line. She said that U-Haul had violated their own policy and should have never released the contents of the storage unit to anyone without the signed permission of the contract holder. And she said there was nothing more she could do for me.
This brings us to an interesting place, doesn’t it? Seems to me U-Haul has openly admitted that they may have put themselves in a position of legal liability in an amount far exceeding the $381.89 I was asking for.
I have no intention of recommending to the boyfriend that he initiate legal action. I do intend however to do whatever I can to insure that U-Haul will lose at least $381.89 in lost rental business and loss of reputation, hence this blog post.
There are plenty of other self-storage facilities out there, and plenty of other truck rental providers - including Budget Truck Rental, Ryder and Penske to name a few.
Please help me spread the word by clicking the “Share Button” which appears beneath this blog post in the “Comments” section. If you’ve read this on Facebook, please share and post to your wall – and encourage your friends to do the same. If nothing else, we can spread the news and I’ll feel satisfied that I took $381.89 in business from U-Haul even if it doesn’t end up in my pocket.
Thanks for your help, and letting me bend your ear :-)
ps: and one final message for U-Haul…if by chance you decide to do the right thing, I too will do the right thing and update this post with the good news. You can reach me through the ESARSEA tab at the top of this blog.
Written by, and reprinted with permission from Anni Piper…
“When I tell people how I spent the Queen’s Birthday weekend this year, the most common reaction is ‘What the heck is “Slutwalk”?’ Read on if you’d like to know……
Slutwalk is a protest against our legal system’s treatment of those who are sexually assaulted. Alongside a large group of others in their fishnets and corsets, I strutted through the streets of Sydney, figuratively giving the finger to those who would judge us on our manner of dress.
The first Slutwalk was organised earlier this year in Toronto, Canada, after a police officer told a group of female university students that they could avoid being sexually assaulted if they “didn’t dress like sluts”. This ignorant attitude is perpetuated daily, and it’s high time we turned it around. Research clearly shows that sex offenders do not target victims according to the clothes they wear, but rather by their vulnerability. Sex offenders target victims when they perceive an opportunity to manipulate them, by force or coercion, into a situation where they will be uninterrupted by witnesses.
I myself am a survivor of childhood sexual assault. In a trial earlier this year, the alleged offender (someone from outside the family) was found not guilty of over 30 counts of child sex offences. There was overwhelming evidence, found by police in this pervert’s bedroom, to prove I was telling the truth & justify the police prosecution. He confessed to police, and his legal team even offered a diminished guilty plea. We chose not to accept it and the case went to trial. What they were offering would have amounted to slap on the wrist and a very short custodial sentence, if any. This “man” should be spending the rest of his life in jail, where he can’t perpetrate against anyone else’s children. But of course, to ensure a “fair trial”, the jury couldn’t hear about his offers of a guilty plea, or of his prior criminal conviction for violence against women (and, of course, the intrinsic design of our wonderful legal system ensures that he did not even have to take the stand, nor be questioned in court in any way about any of the offences)
Before this I had always had faith in the legal system; I believed in the concept of justice. But after ten days of giving evidence, all my faith in our legal system was gone. Shamefully, the defence barrister was allowed to question me about “how provocative” my manner of dress was as a fourteen year old girl. I was questioned about my album ‘Jailbait’ and its associated logo. I was questioned about whether professional photographs of me from my website were provocative. I was portrayed as a sexually precocious thirteen year old who willfully seduced a man in his forties. What a load of bullshit! I was outraged, not only for myself, but for the 1400 other survivors who go through this every year in NSW alone.
Sexual assault is an especially heinous crime. It’s also the easiest crime of all to get away with, and the predators that commit these crimes know this. Currently, in the NSW District Court, 80% of ‘alleged’ child sex offenders are found not guilty.
As a parent, I find this an alarming statistic. Our police do not press charges in this type of crime unless they are absolutely certain an offence has been committed. Keep in mind that only a small amount of victims ever come forward, and only a fraction of these cases ever go to trial. There is only one way to explain it; sex offenders are getting away with their crimes. The legal system is failing us all – survivors, parents, and our community as a whole.
My song ‘Jailbait’ is based on some of my experiences as a child. Little was I to know that art would imitate life, as per my lyrics:
Judge just set you walkin’ free, when he took one long look at me
As it turns out, in reality that’s exactly what happened. That the jury has very strong belief of guilt is simply not good enough under the current system. Juries are instructed by Judges that they must, beyond all reasonable doubt, be able to prove that each & every charge can be proven beyond all reasonable doubt….something astoundingly difficult to do when physical evidence is often not freely available.
I’m on a mission to end this appalling treatment of sexual assault victims in the legal system. We must stop blaming the victims and start punishing the offenders. How can you help? More details to come soon…..”
For more information about Slutwalk, including upcoming satellite marches in your area, visit Slutwalk’s website here. – SRC
03
Jun
11
!@#$%^&*()_+
Greetings from Washington State – home of 41 Las Vegas-style tribal casinos, countless other non-tribal casinos and card rooms, legal horse race betting, and state administered gambling such as Daily Keno games, Pick 3, Hit 5, Lotto, Mega Millions Lottery, Power Ball Lottery, and scratch tickets ranging in price from $1 to $20 each.
However, don’t get caught playing 5-cent/10-cent stakes poker on the internet. It’s a felony here. That’s right, a felony. Washington State prohibits online poker with laws that are over and above the applicable Federal statues.
Residents can spend unlimited amounts of money on state-operated gambling (on games that are pure luck), but cannot compete in an online game of skill that contains an element of risk.
More accurately, it’s only ok to gamble in Washington State when said gambling generates revenue for the state. I am so tired of the fucking hypocrisy and ignorance here. Washington State laws have nothing to do with the issue of gambling per se. In this case our state laws are little more than cattle guards, fences and barricades designed to heard gamblers and card players to the troughs that feed state coffers.
It’s the equivalent of having state-operated brothels within a jurisdiction that prohibits at-home masturbation under penalty of law.
A Washington State high school football referee wears a pink whistle to help promote breast cancer awareness last fall. (KIRO Radio/Jeff Pohjola)
Jeff Pohjola, KIRO 97.3 FM, has reported on MYNorthwest.com that one hundred and fourty-three high school football referees have been severely disciplined by the Washington Officials Association; having the majority of their playoff games revoked for the next two years, loss of pay for those games, and being placed on probation for the next three years.
What did these officials do to warrant such a penalty? Last Fall, for one week, the officials wore pink whistles to help support breast cancer awareness, and donated their game checks to Susan G. Koman for the Cure.
It is the position of the Washington Officials Association that the pink whistles were a violation of the Uniform Code. So instead of admonishing the officials, or perhaps issuing written reprimands with a warning that future violations of the Uniform Code could result in more severe disciplinary action, the WOA has summarily taken away 2 years worth of playoff games from the officials – and the related compensation the officials would have received.
Todd Storhahl, WOA Commissioner has been quoted as saying, ”They chose not to ask for permission, not to go the right route. It sends the wrong message to kids that are playing the game.”
News of the delayed disciplinary action just came to light this week.
Well Todd, you’re right – this has sent a message to the kids playing the game. I’m not sure it’s the right message, but it has been sent. From this blogger’s perspective, the message is that the Washington Officials Association and its, “Uniform Code” are more important that raising awareness for breast cancer. You could have easily taken a formal stand in regards to your position on following the rules with lesser penalties.
Frankly, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.
On behalf of my blogging partners here on the BS BLOG I would like to enlist the assistance of our visitors. Please click the “Share” button below this post and email this to your friends and family – and ask those who receive it to pass it on as well. Post to Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. If you have a WordPress blog, use the “Press This” feature to post a link back here.
HERE IS A LINK TO THE WASHINGTON OFFICIALS ASSOCIATION WEBSITE AND THEIR CONTACT INFORMATION PAGE. On this page are email addresses for the WOA President, Vice President, Executive Board Members, Members At Large, and WOA Staff including the WOA Commissioner, and the WOA Director of Operations.
Please send them an email and let them know what you think. If enough of us follow through, maybe they will get our message.
Thank you.
RBGH – Eli Lilly Buys Monsanto’s Artificial Milk Hormone Business – The Daily Green.
The above link was posted to THE BS BLOG using the share feature on The Daily Green. It’s an article from 8/20/2008 that discusses pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly’s purchase of Monsanto’s rBGH business for $300 million.
In the article the author questions the wisdom of Eli Lilly’s purchase of the controversial hormone manufacturing division, noting that, “The artificial hormone, sold as Prosilac, was given to 22% of dairy cows in 2002, and 17% in 2007, a decline of 22%.”
The article closes by saying:
“Eli Lilly is not helping its shareholders by buying a product that the marketplace is already abandoning,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “Consumers don’t want to drink milk produced with artificial hormones, retailers don’t want to sell it and fewer and fewer dairy farmers are using it.”
So the question is, Why?
Well, here’s why. Prosilac and rBGH has been linked to prostate and breast cancer. Eli Lilly also manufactures breat cancer treatment medications, and a pill that lowers the risk of breast cancer.
So the profit circle is complete. Own the cause, and own the treatment. According to Think Before You Pink, Eli Lilly’s cancer drugs made $2,638,000,000 for the company in 2008 alone.
Click the preceeding ”Think Before You Pink” link to read about “Milking Cancer” and to watch a short video on the topic.
24
Mar
11
Another WTF
If you Google, “Monsanto Milk Labeling” or anything similar, you will likely receive hundreds of thousands of results. The battle has been ongoing since 2003 when Monsanto sued Oakhurst Dairy of Portland, Maine for labeling their milk as being free of artificial growth hormones. I won’t take the time to link to various articles and publications.
The FDA, long in Monsanto’s back pocket, does not require dairy products containing rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) to be labeled as such. In fact, the FDA doesn’t require any genetically modified foods to be labeled.
However, it appears the FDA is now worried about the popcorn you eat at the movie theater. In this article, the LA Times is reporting that the FDA has proposed new rules which would require cinemas to post the caloric content of popcorn, hot dogs, pretzels and other prepared foods.
At first glance it would not seem a big deal that the FDA wants consumers to be informed about the nutritional value of the foods they eat. Similar to the nutritional charts one might see posted at a fast-food restaurant.
However, the FDA does not require labeling of meat and dairy products that contain Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone, even though rBGH has been banned in Europe and Canada.
The United States General Accounting Office (the investigative arm of Congress) previously recommended the FDA not approve bovine growth hormone for use. The Consumer’s Union (Publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine) has warned of the potential hazards to human health caused by consuming products derived from rBGH-treated cows.
Yet we still unknowingly ingest rBGH in our milk, cheese, yogurt and meats (old dairy cows are frequently used for hamburger). Unknowingly because Monsanto doesn’t want us to know – and what Monsanto wants, Monsanto gets – with the help of our own Food and Drug Adminstation.
You know the FDA…that government agency who (from there very own website) are , “Responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, and products that give off radiation.”
Thank God the FDA has their priorities straight. The dangers of not knowing how many calories are in movie theater popcorn certainly outweigh any potential hazards presented by genetically modified foods and rBGH.
At least we still have the press looking out for our best interests…
02
Mar
11
For Becky
I wanted to establish a thread somewhere other than on the “Contact BS” page to discuss what’s happening in Wisconsin. As a public school teacher, our very own Becky (long time BS BLOG contributor) is directly impacted by the union busting efforts of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
I have an interest on a number of levels. I am the past President and Charter Member of an AFL-CIO affiliated Union Local. I’m married to a public school teacher, who is part of a collective bargaining unit. I was a public employee at the time of my union affiliation, as is my wife now. This topic does hit close to home for me.
Although Becky has been hesitant to really talk about it here thus far, maybe we can show her some support with our comments.
In the interim, check out this Fox News video. You’ll see PALM TREES in the backgound of a news clip used to show the protests taking place in Wisconsin. That’s right…palm trees. Nice job, Fox.
By Mike Ludwick, t r u t h o u t
“Just two weeks before the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) fully deregulated Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa, a senior soil scientist alerted the department about a newly discovered, microscopic pathogen found in high concentrations of Roundup Ready corn and soy that researchers believe could be causing infertility in livestock and diseases in crops that could threaten the entire domestic food supply.
Dr. Don Huber, a plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor, wrote in a letter to the USDA that the pathogen is new to science and appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably humans.
“For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks,” Huber wrote in his January 16 letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.”
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