I run and/or host lots of other domains than my own.  This one in particular is for a non-profit organization and the domain ends in an “s” (plural).  A couple of weeks ago I started getting emails from this place called Intrust Domains informing me that the domain without the “s”on the end was soon coming up for auction, or some crap like that.  I deleted the first few, “like, whatever,” but they kept emailing me every.day.  The emails claimed there was a similar domain to mine going up for auction and if I’m interested I should click a link and then “if you don’t want business proposals like this one, click” this link.  I finally figured what the heck, they were emailing me constantly anyway, so I clicked the unsubscribe link twice.  It gave me confirmation that I had been unsubscribed, yet the emails continued.  I started replying to them requesting they unsubscribe me that I do not want the domain and then I even filled out the quote form telling them I’d pay $0 for the domain and please unsubscribe me.  Finally, I filled out the FTC complaint form for spam.

Then I finally got a chance to Google.  Turns out, these guys aren’t just insanely annoying and rude, they’re scammers, too.  Looks like they will  typically sell a “back order” of a domain to people for an amount such as $69 then when they obtain the domain after expiration, will turn around and sell it to the highest bidder, despite people already having paid money on a domain they are not informed that they are not the highest bidder or that other people can also back order the same domain.  I was also reading reports where they have gotten a bit of interest from a potential customer on a domain and after obtaining the domain, despite not being in contract with that person, have started billing them and harassing them for money.  Probably when their “highest bidder” backs out.  Of course, a lot of people seem to have the impression that there’s no real “highest bidder” but that it’s all in company, that they’re just trying to get more money.

So if the inability to unsubscribe from their constant emails didn’t tip you off, by now you should know to stay away, these guys are shady!  The most recent email I got from them was different, too, the guy tells me he knows I’ve been in contact with “Alex” and “Lynn” and that he wanted to remind me that the auction on this domain ends tomorrow.  Yes, I have been in contact with them, telling them to leave me alone!  I hope that the “auction” really does end tomorrow and that they will stop emailing me.

What’s really interesting, too, is that the domain they are trying to push on me is kind of specialized, I don’t know why it would be registered in the first place unless they registered it just in the hopes of selling it to me for an exorbitant amount of money!

Editing to add that the “auction” has now ended and they emailed me again that “good news, you can buy this domain!”  If I click their page, it shows me that I can buy the domain that was supposedly auctioned off today for $400.  Well, woohoo.  I can now buy a domain for $400 that I have told them repeatedly that I don’t want.  Yay.

This year July has 5 fridays 5 saturdays and 5 Sundays. This apparently happens once every 823 years. This is called money bags. So send this on and money will arrive in 5 days. Based on chinese feng shui the one who does not pass this on will have money troubles for the rest of the year…

1. This will happen again in 2016.*
b. Funny, I didn’t know they had email 823 years ago…

* not to mention it will happen any time a month with 31 days starts with the first day on a Friday… just sayin’

SERIOUSLY!?!?

Yeah, THAT makes me want to go into nursing! Where can I sign up!?

And B) What the heck IS that!?

As we speak, Nickelodeon has gone off the air for 3 hours while they just tell you that it’s the worldwide day of play and that you should (also) shut down your computer and go outside and play… “we are, too!”

What a joke. Kids who can and want to be outside playing, they already are! Those that don’t want to, uhhh they’re just changing the channel… like we did. E can’t play outside now, Daddy is out there roofing on the garage. Despite the beautiful day, I can’t take him to a park or something right now, K’s down for her nap and I have way too much work here in the house to do. ALSO, not to mention, he’s suffering from allergies right now. Poor kid.

Really, I mean, sure, encourage kids to go outside and play all you want but going off the air is just ridiculous. I’m sure it’s raining somewhere. I’m sure some kids live in bad neighborhoods or don’t have yards or for whatever other reasoncan’t go outside. Rubbing that fact in their faces just upsets them. But whatever, Nick, whatever you want to do, it IS your station, after all. It just really seems pointless to me. Especially when my kid just flips it to somewhere else for the meantime… (Not to mention, Nick and NickW aren’t coordinated so NickW is going strong.)

Not that he’s going to watch TV all day but he usually does – on Saturday – when K is napping. House is too small, there’s really not much else to do since he can’t go outside today. He’s already spent the morning being creative, I think he deserves some TV if that’s what he wants.

First, I’m highly annoyed that this battery (a 6 cell for my laptop to replace my year old 9 cell that doesn’t really work anymore) doesn’t work. The blasted thing won’t even charge. It started charging and got to 14% then quit. Now it’s stuck at 9%. It’ll go down, of course, but never does it charge up. (My old/current battery, while it doesn’t hold a charge for very long at all, at least it charges.) I emailed the person about this Saturday. And again today, since I’ve had no response despite their claim that they themselves (he himself, whatever) provides a one year warranty on batteries.

And then, they had the nerve to send me this email:

Thank you for purchasing NEW 6-CELL DELL INSPIRON 6400/E1505/1501 GD761 BATTERY. Please leave feedback for me on eBay and I’ll do the same for you. Take this opportunity now and help build a better eBay community.

Is this some kind of automated thing? I really don’t know but I assume that it’s not automated at least to the point that the seller has to say, “hey, send her this email, ’cause I want my feedback.”

I responded that I wasn’t leaving feedback until we worked out the issue that *gasp* the product doesn’t work and I’ve already emailed twice! And then I snidely mentioned how they should have already left feedback for me anyway, after all, I’d held up my part of the bargain: I’ve already paid for the item.

Which brings me to my next point. This has bothered me for years, since I got an Ebay account in 2002.

I hate hate hate hate hate it that power sellers will not leave feedback on a transaction until after the buyer has left them feedback.

I really think it’s downright dirty. Any time I’ve sold something and the buyer has paid up, I’ve left them feedback! Why do these sellers think that they have the right to withhold their feedback until I’ve left them some feedback? Of course, this leaves me wondering on those iffy transactions if I should leave that neutral or negative feedback because what if out of spite they turn around and ruin my 100% rating?

It’s just really aggravated me, apparently, for 6 years now. Just seems to be so dishonest to me.

/rant.

Guess I’ll keep emailing this guy about the battery not working for the rest of the week and then I guess maybe I can take things up with PayPal (supposedly they’re supposed to back you up in situations like this) and then risk it all by leaving him some negative feedback.

It all really turns me off, though. I had hoped to at least get a somewhat decent battery from Ebay — I know I wasn’t going to get something that was “cream of the crop” but something that was worth $60, or so I’d hoped. I really don’t want to buy a brand new one directly from Dell. The 9 cell (which is what I really want) is $300 and the 6 cell is $150. I have paid off all of my Dell bills and I really don’t want to be adding more to it. But there are situations in which I need some good battery power, something to last me at least an hour and a half, preferably 5 hours like my 9 cell did in the early days! Sigh.

Oh! But also, the auction/buy it now says flat out that it is a DELL battery yet the battery is not a DELL battery it’s something else that fits a Dell computer. That’s false advertising and grounds for a claim, right? This guy has exactly 3.5 days before I start filing claims everywhere. :P

Wednesday night I ordered my camera that is coming with two lenses and a couple of other things, also a memory card and an extra battery. The battery and memory card shipped from one location, everything else from another. One in Kansas, one in Georgia. Both shipped earlier on the 17th (Thursday). Both made very good time and met up in Memphis the evening of the 18th. They were due to be delivered Saturday, the 19th.

I waited all day. All day. I was here all day. That is, except for a short half an hour at noon where I ran to the store. Even so, Steve was here then.

I kept thinking, when is it going to get here? In my previous experience with FedEx, they always arrived in the morning. So right around 6pm I finally called. The lady said that the delivery person was still out and I would have them by 8pm.

At 8, there was still no delivery guy, so I refreshed the pages with the tracking. It now said:

5:48 PM — Delivery exception — Customer not available or business closed

And that, in a word, is pure crap.

So at 5:48pm, the driver apparently decided he didn’t care anymore, or couldn’t be bothered to make a delivery for me, or that he just plain wanted to go home.

So I called again and this time, thankfully, got someone who spoke English as a first language. She looked up my tracking number and said that, unfortunately, she didn’t have contact with that center because they closed at 11am. Not to mention, they are closed on Mondays so it’s going to be Tuesday before I get my packages!! She put in a complaint and said a manager would call me Monday or Tuesday.

I know it’s not her fault, so I was really nice to her. But I did say that I hoped nothing was wrong with the packages, I said, “because I know that the longer it stays in transit, the more chance it can get damaged.” I’ve seen that from experience. She agreed and I continued, “I mean, it’s very important, that’s $900 worth of stuff there.” She agreed again and said she had noticed who the shipper was.

But here’s the kicker. What a wrong day for the driver to claim no one was home! Right at about the time he claims he was here and no one else was, the Domino’s guy was arriving. My parents were barely here and my in-laws were arriving. People were entering and leaving the house, there were four extra vehicles outside. Except for our people, there wasn’t much activity at all on our little drive, the FedEx guy never even got close to our house, never even tried to make contact. The driver has no excuse.

Oh, and the lady on the phone asked me if the guy left a thing on the door stating he’d been here and I said no, because there wasn’t one (because he was never here to begin with), and she actually sighed and said to me, “I don’t know why the drivers do the things they do sometimes.”

So, yeah, I’m kinda ticked. This isn’t a case of bad address or something stupid like that. It’s about a lazy driver. And the manager is going to hear about it when I talk to him/her.