Cathedrale Saint-Maclou de Pontoise
SAINT OF THE DAY:
Today I am going to discuss several contract scams and situations that have been wasting my time. They represent a trend that has intensified over the last two years of Covid. I suggest that Covid has caused some economic stresses to which some merchants are responding with dishonest scams and tricks and traps. When they are caught in them, they are so insistent upon retaining the ill-gotten gains that they remind me of Smeagol from The Lord of the Rings.
LET ME CATCH YOU UP!
This is the type of mobility scooter I use.
WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING LATELY:
As mentioned in my last post, I took quite a break from writing this blog. It is starting up again, but I will be doing far less research and other time-consuming writing, and I will be less formal. I do not have the time to edit and streamline, so the posts will be longer, stream of consciousness, and with fewer pictures.
Some posts are written primarily for documentation purposes and for the typical purpose of anyone who writes a diary. I don't even know where that impulse comes from, but I have found it helpful to go back over entries from the past, so I am just doing this without wracking my brain trying to figure it out.
Today, the electricity is out for the second time in the last few days, I did not get much sleep last night, and I am having trouble getting out of my chair, so I spent some time on this post.
I am PROBABLY exhausted because of having to fighting with these mercenaries. Read on!
THE CAREGIVER SCAM:
Whenever I read anything about another religious hermit or solitary, a fleeting wish rushes into my conscious mind that if I was not disabled, I could do a much better job of this hermit life! But perhaps it is better that I am not too inspiring, otherwise there would be too many people in this little apartment.
Anyway, I often wish I was better. Between the mobility issues and the semi-blindness, keeping up with just the daily tidying up around here has gotten to be a huge challenge, especially since there is NO help to be had.
Supposedly, I was to receive caregiver assistance but every single agency that has been approved to supply it tells me they do not have anyone to send and they don't even have a waiting list because their current clients are not getting all their hours. Most of them ask me, "don't you have a relative you could bring?" I have learned that a sizeable percentage of the clients bring their own staff WITH them in the form of family members who would be caring for them anyway. They're glad to get an extra $9 or $10 an hour for something they had been doing for free, but the numerous unrelated people I've asked have ALL demanded cash, which defeats the purpose. Besides - it is illegal and we could ALL get in trouble for that.
The general citizenry believes that the government is supplying ALL the help that poor people need, but it is just a mirage - like so many scams being run at the moment. Covid has exacerbated a situation that already existed 2 years ago when I got approved for assistance.
About three weeks ago, I made my last concerted effort to get some help in here. I called the Blue Cross Blue Shield Care Coodinator. She could not do anything. She and her supervisor think about me every day. I called Medicaid and they said it wasn't THEIR concern that the agencies were not staffing anyone. They suggested I call Blue Cross Blue Shield. Someone suggested I call the Insurance Board (not sure of the name, it is written here somewhere) and THEY said they only get involved in things if there is some fraud or in matters having to do with insurance companies not paying. They said I had to call Medicaid, so I was back at square one. When you call Medicaid, you get put on hold for 45 minutes. I kid you not, but I DID call Medicaid again and they suggested I contact the Governor's office, which I did.
THAT is when people lost their blinken minds. I got calls from all sorts of different people. First it was the Aging and Long Term Services people. They couldn't help me but they contacted someone else who contacted someone else who contacted someone else.
FINALLY, it ended up back in MY lap (predictably!) The Care Coordinator at Blue Cross Blue Shield told me I was to have a meeting with her and the agency director so that they could school me about what services I could expect to receive, even though she knew FULL WELL how terribly well educated I am about this. (This was not her idea. Someone in that demented phone tree told her to do it.)
Then she mentioned that I was not allowed to tell caregivers that they could not use their phones in my home. This was RIGHT ON THE HEELS of the agency having "sent" me a woman who informed me that she had gout and could not stand and that she would be watching Netflix movies and reading kindle books on her phone! Because of the GOUT, she said she was not able to stand very much and when I explained to her that the dishes and the laundry and all that required that she DO stand, she bowed out of the job. I asked her, "are you sure you don't want to give it a try?" and she definitely DID NOT.
Apparently, this caregiver became available because her client had ended up in a nursing home because the caregiver just sat around all day and watched movies unless the client specifically ASKED her for something. The poor woman was lucky to get a sandwich.
I ask you: is any of this my fault?
The task ahead is another phone call to the governor's office because they have not answered my second phone call yet. I do not know if I can face it today, but I will have to do it SOMEDAY because this is not an issue that affects me alone. Anyone who is in my position, i.e., without family assistance, will be moldering away in their apartment with the detritus piling up to their earlobes.
THE VCA PET HOSPITAL SCAM:
Mr. Charlemagne
My charming service dog
A year and a half ago, Charlemagne the Magnificent needed dental work done, so I signed him up for a doggie care program at VCA WEST MESA. The program is called VCA CARES. The first year went off without a hitch, then they sent me an email in September of 2021 telling me that they were renewing the plan starting in November and that it was going to cost me $83.99 a month, which they took from my account for the next six months. Twice after the renewal of the plan, they sent me emails urging me to use the dental benefit of the plan, and I got around to making the appointment for mid April.
The day of the dental surgery, I got up at the crack of dawn and took him down there, after taking him into the office a few days before that for his pre-dental tests. IMAGINE my shock when VCA presented me with a HUGE BILL for the dental, telling me that I did not have dental coverage on my plan! Apparently, some incompetence and/or computer glitch or SOMETHING had switched my dog from one plan to another, without advising me. Yet they had still sent me those emails urging me to use the dental benefit, so the whole thing mystifies me.
To date, I have yet to get any kind of explanation that is not some type of nonsensical word salad.
Now, if they had apologized for their goof and offered to make it right and do the dental cleaning, as promised, I would have been fine with it. If they had, instead, offered to reimburse me for the six months of payments I had made while under the impression that I was under the same plan I signed up for, I would have been fine with that. But they decided that they did not want to be out of pocket for any of their mistake. They expected ME to pay for it. Their solution was that I should pay between $850.00 to $1,250.00 for the dog's dental cleaning. Or I could "eat" the last 6 months payments, buy another contract for more money, and proceed from there.
I never would have signed up for a care plan that did not include dental. Besides which, those ancillary services like vaccinations can be gotten for little to nothing at local charities and low-cost animal clinics, especially for disabled senior ladies.
Fortunately, I have had extensive experience working in law offices, a good portion of which was in a contract law firm so I am familiar with the laws. You cannot indebt a person for a contract they do not know they have. Simple. You cannot make a change to an existing contract without giving knowledge and getting consent from the person being indebted by it. Period.
The office manager for VCA West Mesa was rather arrogant and convinced that nothing and no one was going to make her do the right thing. The people in the Los Angeles office behaved likewise. I filed a complaint with the New Mexico Attorney General's office and some guy at VCA in Los Angeles offered to give me $200 "as a courtesy!"
Criminal con artists have no shame. They are often the most arrogant, self-important, bloviating smarty-pants on the playground.
I contacted my bank, sent them the copies of the emails I received from VCA and they did a charge-back of the full amount. I also put a stop-payment on the monthly charge.
Even though the manager of VCA WEST MESA had agreed to cancel the contract (which really does not need her permission to do, since an agreement did not actually exist), they STILL attempted to deduct money from my bank account on the 4th of this month, on which day I received a flurry of emails demanding payment - if you can believe THAT! Oh...and they were adding a $25.00 charge for their inconvenience!) WHAT NERVE.
SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS LIVING IN A CONVENT
One of the advantages of living in a convent atmosphere, as opposed to going it alone in an apartment, is that the institution stands between the individual and any business people with which the convent has to conduct worldly affairs. It makes it easier. Unfortunately, I have nothing to offer a convent except my prayers because I am both poor and disabled.
Here I am, sitting in front of the swami.
I am in my early to mid 30's in this photo and a
member of the Hollywood "Sarada Convent"
You may not realize it, but most convents have the same rationale as any other business looking to hire a worker - except nuns do not get a salary. At the Hindu convent, we had one lovely older nun who joined when she was 50 - which was 20 years OLDER than the outside limit - but she arrived with a lot of lovely money, and she paid to purchase a beautiful mansion for the nuns. If you do not have money, you have to have physical stamina because of all the physical work that is generally required. On top of that, there are the obvious other requirements. One day I will write about it.
XFINITY MOBILE:
The XFinity agents who spoke to me at the office when I originally signed up for the service lied to me and sold me service in an area where there was a service issue they knew about. I spent months not receiving my phone calls. About 3 out of every 4 went straight to voice mail and the call never appeared on the phone history. It was maddening, especially now when people do not answer the phone in many companies and they tell you they are going to call you back. After months and months of hours and hours of "troubleshooting," including trading in the phone for a new one, resetting the network, etc., they FINALLY admitted to me that that there was a known issue in my neighborhood. Several of my neighbors confirmed they too were having problems making any phone calls at all.
The guy at the corporate office told me that if I paid some extra money he would release the phone so I could go elsewhere, but as soon as the payment went through, while we were on the phone, he immediately reneged! He said, "Oh, gee, it looks like your phone was on a promotion and I have to get permission...." and then word salad ensued. We had an appointment for a few days afterward and he stood me up, then I left messages on his phone every day for a week and he ghosted me. I finally got in touch with him and he was very unpleasant. When I called him on it, he doubled down. Then he denied having made the promise to unlock the phone.
When I told him that we were just going to have to listen to the audio of our conversations, he went nuts. Probably because he knew that the audio would show that he had been lying. He was abusive and I hung up on him and never spoke to him again. I tried to report him for his behavior but they give you the runaround at that company.
I waited on going to a new service for two weeks because I could not afford to buy another phone and I wanted them to unlock the phone I had but they kept refusing, saying I had to wait until another 2 weeks went by. At that point, who really knew what to expect? So I indebted myself for yet another phone with CRICKET, which has GREAT service, very nice agents, and uncomplicated procedures. I just HAD to be reachable by phone. A disabled lady cannot afford to have bad phone service, and the calls were being dropped constantly.
I kept calling XFinity, though, because I STILL needed to get that phone unlocked. I did not want to run the risk of losing the unlock code in the time between leaving that service and using that phone again.
I kept asking them to unlock the phone, per our agreement. They refused to do it for a full FOUR WEEKS. It was maddening. Finally, the last agent agreed to ASK for the phone to be unlocked and I had to wait several days to receive an email. According to him, he had to get permission from SAMSUNG. I don't know what THAT is all about because I got the phone from XFinity!
According to this last person, NONE of the other agents had recorded that I had requested the phone to be unlocked when that was the ONLY reason I had called over the final 4 weeks. It became obvious to me that the agents tell you one thing and then document SOMETHING ELSE so that is why the agent at the corporate office had gone ballistic on me when I suggested that we were going to have to listen to the audio.
Every agent has a different story also. They ALL give you a line and it is impossible to tell what the truth is.
So, there is a lot of lying going on. I am pretty sure they stretch out the time between the day you make the big payment until the day they unlock the phone so they can pressure you to stay. It was a nightmare.
It reminded me of my experience working for MCI when I first got to Albuquerque more than 20 years ago. I was desperate to get a job as soon as possible so I took this telephone service phone sales job and while I was working there, I heard agents lying CONSTANTLY to potential customers. I would report it to their pod manager and the manager would do NOTHING about it. As long as they were selling, the managers did not care. It was shocking to me.
There are some businesses that regularly cheat and connive, and then there are businesses that have become a little shady due to the pressures of Covid. There is a small grocery store in town that removes the expiration date clip from the neck of the bread bag and replaces it with a plain wire from the produce department. I took a chance on one loaf and it was obvious when I got it home that it was stale. I had to put it in the freezer and take it out one piece at a time and toast it.
But regardless of whether the business regularly cheats people or is succumbing to the pressures of Covid, I pray for them all. I pray for the people who are abusive on the phone. I pray for the people who lie, especially because Satan is the father of all lies. When someone lies to me, I almost worry about them, in a sense, because I know the price that we pay, spiritually, when we lie. It is a terrible price to pay.
I encourage you also to pray for those that hurt you, lie to you and try to steal from you. There is a lot of that going on in the world today.
"Silver Rose"
Silver Cottage Hermitage
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