word!

Update **August 31, 2009** These morons are at the Minnesota State Fair. Scamming more Minnesotans out of their hard earned money. Should have went up and blasted the slick salesman for all he was worth. Despicable pond scum!

I don’t think I’m very proud of this, but given the hoax I was pulled into in the sake of a deal being too good to be true, I must out a horrible company and it’s crooked, deceitful, and down right pathetic attempts to literally steal your ‘wedding money’.

The bozos are Associated Consultants Inc, supposedly out of Minneapolis, Mn. What they do is try and bilk young engaged couples into a crooked ponzi scheme idea that by spending $2400 on there average cookware. They use all the tricks in the book to con you into thinking you must buy there product then and there, no questions asked.

Associated Consultants Inc supposedly sponsored a bridal fair in St Cloud, from there they steal your information and while probably selling it off to marketing firms all while letting you know if you visit with them for 2 hours (not the 3.5 it turned into) that you could win all these fabulous prizes and get a chance to purchase a one of a kind product.

The lure was a free camera (film, not digital mind you) and a trip to Carribean destination. Plus throw in a meal (just happen to run this fraud from 5 pm on).

Slick sales guy goes into his mode describing his companies shit and then comparing in every way possible to the competitors all while relentlessly accentuating the positives on his comany’s crap and making the competitors look negatively bad in every possible light, both from the way it’s sold, the way it’s made, what county it may be made in and on and on till you are bludgeoned with negativity about everything but…. the shit they are trying to sell you.

Does some fancy tricks like standing on china cup and throwing plate on floor (reinforced props, no doubt). Cutting away pots and pans to show best of everything in Associated Consultants shit, and worst in all others.

Oh and no water used in cooking system, but when we are cooked up our ‘meal’, which consisted of a few pieces each of chicken, and under cooked carrots/broccoli; water is generously ’sprinkled’ on everything? Odd system. Indeed.

Sorry suckers that stayed at the end got the opportunity to waste their money on this overpriced crap. Out of the 7 couples attending, only 2 left immediately (we took ‘crystal’ glasses instead of trip to crime ridden Carribean…. er Mexico) What a sham, and the dufus/ his company easily got $10,000 that night from the suckers that stayed and bought outrageously priced crapware.

I could go on and on about how shitty this deal was/ wasn’t and how it was a 3.5 hour waste of time. But I don’t want to waste more of my time on such a piece of shit company ~ Associated Consultants Inc.

While Associated Consultants Inc tried to play to every letter of the law, it’s despicable that a company would scam people in such a way to make a buck. As one of my co-workers said after I told her and she had been to something similar, why can’t these people get a real job for a living, instead of suckering fools out of cash?

Obviously there’s enough fools to milk.

Seems as though I have finally found a reason to side with the IRS and be disappointed with WellsFargo. Seems that Wells Fargo has taken it upon themselves to feel special and mail out my 1099s whenever it suits them.

By all indications, Federal law states that tax documents should be mailed out by January 31 for previous year (bumped to February 2 due to 31st falling on a Saturday). Well giving WF the benefit of doubt, I should have had my documents as of this post.

I called WF last night and they stated that 1099s would not be mailed out until the end of February. So I decided to call the IRS to get their take on this discovery. Seems that IRS is already swamped, as it took them a full 15 minutes to get a person on the phone to talk about this. Not real stellar, but I have heard that’s what the government does ~ make you wait. They say I have to wait until the 15th before ‘worrying’ about it. We’ll see.

Personally, I would like to stick it to WF. I had liked them for a while, but they are starting to wear on me. Their policies are wishy-washy and every person you talk to, gives you a different answer.

The bozos are rescinding their executive retreats as tax-payers don’t appreciate giving the poor bastards gobs of bail-out money and all the while the big-shots enjoy the good life.

Good grief.

The biggest reason I am miffed, is that due to the home buyer credit, I am entitled to a fairly hefty refund, which would come in nice for home improvements and/or a upcoming wedding.

Plus the whole fact that we live in a digital world where computers do the banking work for them, it’s stupid that they would get any kind of reprieve.

Plus, they’re screwing with the feds, so you know they are so toast. Probably has something to do with the bailout $$. It makes everything slow to a government like snail’s pace.

Screw you Wells Fargo!

Yuck. Every election cycle gets worse it seems. I was so fed up with every media type outlet in the last month/year, I actually stopped using a few of them. So we have a new President. I can actually say we had a decent choice this cycle for candidates, I didn’t feel like I was choosing between two douche bags the puppet masters danced out for us, like has been done for the last 8 years. A person could feel good about either candidate.

None the less, McCain didn’t win. I think he was screwed over since his initial presidential run in 2000 when his campaign stalled as a frat-boy from Texas noodled his way into the White House. McCain never really recovered from that. His form in the campaign was off, and the administration sure didn’t do him a single favor for torpedoing his run in 2000. Ah, time for a change.

As for the US Senate race in Mn, it was ridiculous. Why didn’t the two main idiots just say they were gonna bash the other in so many ways that it would look more like a sissy fight than a run for elected office. These two took pride,it looked like, in hating the other guy and finding new ‘campaign’ ways to do so. Yuck.

Al Franken got what he deserved. After losing outstate Mn in the primaries to his DFL competitor, he was blase enough to admit that his real opponent was Norm Coleman the whole time. I sure that statement and attitude were enough to convince some couple hundred voters to switch to GOP or even Independence Party, which fared better than may have been expected. It is of note that the Independence Party did play a spoiler of sorts in this election as well. Just goes to show that 3rd party politics may liven up the electoral scene.

As for the citizens of Minnesota, the majority of them took it upon themselves to raise their taxes via a sales tax increase. They bit this propaganda hook, line, and sinker (or art piece, I forget). Little did anyone mention that the arts and parks would greatly benefit from a good chunk of this amendments ‘great outdoors’ improvement plea. Little did the state government have to worry about, because with it’s passage, they passed the buck (no pun intended) and get to bask in squandering my generations taxes on whatever they have to money to.

Where did all that ’state lottery’ money go we Minnesotans were promised a decade or so ago? All I have heard was embezzlement charges against the big shots running that gig. Yuck.

These taxes tend to stay on the books too. Mankato for one, is a city around the area that has had implemented an extra sales tax to pay for a ‘regional’ project in the Civic Center, but now after the initial taxing period has expired, they conveniently found numerous other ‘priorities’ that needed funding. Yuck.

Almost can’t wait for another even numbered year. Yuck.

Browse back a few posts and you’ll see a breath-taking image of our fine township roads this spring. It’s taken the last few months to get over that seemingly endless ‘rut’ of a spring.

But wait, there’s more to this saga.

Seeing as leaving a frost-heaved road to it’s own devices is not sound township governing policy, the local intelligencia has come up with a few marvelous solutions.

Alfsborg Township to the immediate west of us has tried a few different tacts. First wise idea was to put rather large (think knuckle sized) rocks down, to ‘fill in’ the frost heaves and then put new gravel over that. While this has seemed to work, it scares the hell out of you when you’re driving and it sounds as though one of those rocks is coming up through the floorboards at you after you kick up one of these rocks. A tad disheartening. Not sure what to make out of it if one of those rocks were to fly/hit anything with so much as a pulse.

Alfsborg has also been ripping up the middle of some real troublesome spots that were pretty much pure dirt/mud and replacing that with pure gravel. Interesting take, haven’t had a problem with these yet, although a good dousing of rain could hamper things (maybe not this year though).

But the blockbuster, cake winner, hands down idiot award goes to the local township buffoons in good ol’ Sibley Township. Seems that in a effort not to be outdone by the upstarts to the west, Sibley Township came up with it’s own harebrained scheme to rid the township of previously mentioned frost-heaved roads. It started out peculiarly one morning with a fellow, presumed to be in the employ of the township, seen discing up the roadside slope of 481st Avenue. While this seemed like a ill advised attempt to dissuade neighbors from haying their ditch easements, it got wilder. A two mile stretch of this roadway was eventually worked up and left fallow.

In discussions with local governing officials, it seems the plan was to work up the ditches unto the road because they contained so much gravel and redo the road from these slopes.

WHAT THE HELL?

How the hell is putting black dirt on a gravel based, gravel covered road supposed to help? This is the rationale though, because someone somewhere heard that this may have happened somewhere else and worked? Whatever.

So today, these bozos went through with their little plan to screwup the road even worse. As I was coming home my normal route, I notice a completely black dirt covered road with two graders grading gravel on top of this. This effectively shut down this road, with no warning or heads up from the township other than to relay their plan when asked about it.

But they didn’t do all of the road, no. They still have roughly 1.5 mile stretch to go, once again on the main route I take to almost everything in Gaylord on a daily basis. I cannot imagine how this fiasco will end up. No doubt it will rain and create a soup hole the likes no one alive could imagine a township government would pay for. I can only imagine they hoarded all this money away from the last few comparatively mild to blow on the craziest frost-heave suppression scheme ever proffered.

Good riddance!

**UPDATE**
As of 8.21.2007, my complaints have been somewhat resolved. I have contacted the Better Business Bureau in regards to all 3 with mixed results. Crucial.com does not admit that they may have misled me either via their website or in person, BBB closed case. (I begged to differ).

Thrifty indicated via phone call they would send me out coupons for $100. Only recieved $50, which expire in a year, only in my name and again would have to use Thrifty.

Days Inn responded by indicating I was diserviced by a indepedant owner working under Days Inn name. They said they would contant him and he would get back to me in 10 business days. That deadline came and went with fanfare. So DaysInn coporate is supposedly sending check for $45. Will wait to see that money.

**UPDATE**

I am fed-up with companies charging you for their service/product and then not delivering on it.
I have had recent run-ins with Crucial.com,Thrifty Car rental and Days Inn, SFO to prove it.

Crucial sells memory and I used their service to scan my computer for an upgrade. All well and dandy, found out that two – 2 gb memory sticks would fit my system and give me the appropriate upgrade I wanted. Installed it today and found out that my computer can’t use all the memory I bought, only about half of it. Customer service says I should have seen a Q&A section where it would state the XP would have this issue. Thanks, I had bought and paid for the memory already. I could return this and get new smaller sticks, but then I’d be out a restocking fee plus time and effort spent in getting this all in order. Money out: $100

Second business on the list is Thrifty Car Rental. Thrifty was used on the recent trip out to San Fran. I requested a Dodge Charger, but was given a Dodge Avenger, which is a smaller car. This gem of a car also did not have a working cruise control or any type of working interior dome lighting. Plus they get to tack on all these neat little rental fees that they put in fine print without much of any explanation. Called customer service, all they could do is issue a voucher for my next rental. Fuck you, I don’t want to use your service again. Money out: ~$100

Third business is Days Inn. The email I sent them via DaysInn.com

What a joke! This hotel was squalor and scary to visit. First off, the motel is located no where near the airport and after circling the airport for 20 minutes, finally learned that it was on a ‘airport rd’ some considerable distance, and tucked away from 101 as so prominently stated on your site. When we got there, service was lackluster in the cramped lobby. Our room was scary. Numerous holes in the walls were merely pasted over with scraps of wallpaper and all furniture/fixtures were in bad, dilapidated shape. Room was almost unfit for a Days Inn property. Were given a handicap room, but if it was for handicap people, I could not see how they could move about without getting stuck. We booked this room for 2 nights. After our first night, the room was not cleaned or refreshed at all. After requesting new linens, I waited 2 hours with no service to the room, even though I was told they would come. I went back a second time to request them, and was given them after another 15 minute wait. They claim to offer a breakfast, but all it consisted of was cold coffee, watered down orange juice,few pastries and fruit. The pastries had visibly been eat off of and this had to be before we got to lobby which was first opened to myself @ 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Staff barely spoke English and had worse time understanding it. They didn’t seem to know what was going on either. Continuously asked me room number, but did nothing about it.

The neighborhood this Inn was located in was very run down and I was afraid at night. I did not sleep the one whole night because of my fears over this. I believe motel employees were remodeling the room adjacent to ours, but did so after 7 pm at night, when I intended to rest in quiet.

Website states free newspaper, local restaurant in walking distance, 24-hr front desk, wheelchair accessible. It had none of this, or failed miserably to display this.

This was a terrible experience, I am ashamed to have chosen your hotel chain for this trip and all of my previously positive stays with you. This place was a nightmare, I wonder how you could endorse such a shoddy enterprise as Days Inn- Oyster Point.

I expect at least an apology for this and monetary compensation. What a sad, sad business you run.

I don’t know what to think about these businesses. I will be extremely slow to use them again if ever. I urge you to boycott them as well. You pay by their rules and when they fail that, they pay you back in vouchers or saying we’re sorry with out any compensation or such. What a grand system. I always thought the customer was right! Maybe just right to keep paying?!?