Smelly sets, license to steal, hung out to dry
Most blog readers love rants, here are a few.
So today’s gym news wasn’t anything I saw or heard, it was something I smelled. The entire place smelled like sewage. There is nothing like the smell of shit to get you pumped up for a few extra reps. I asked one of the employees if the awful smell was coming from the bathroom(s). They said no, they aren’t sure where it is coming from. Well I certainly hope they track it down, poop is bad for business.
On a side gym note, that young girl that was responsible for turning the place into a mind numbing rave concert a couple weeks ago has been MIA for the last 10 days. I am wondering if I indirectly contributed to her getting blown out. Hopefully not, I was just trying to avoid taking anti-depressants just to get through my work outs.
So I had contacted UnderArmour.com last week to see if I could get information regarding where the fraudulent $600 order that was paid for with my CC was sent to. I was told I would be contacted by somebody in their fraud department. Well of course, I never was.
So I call back today and tell the girl on the phone that I was never contacted. She looked in the notes of my case and it says the fraud department must have overlooked contacting me but that they have marked the transaction as fraudulent. “Ok great, what exactly does that mean?”, I asked. She said that it meant that if the bank contacts them they will clear the charge.
I told the rep that I suspected the charge could be connected with a local transaction and that I wanted to find out the address the merchandise was shipped to to assist in the investigation. She said they were not allowed to do that. I said to her, “So even though the items were paid for with my credit card, you won’t tell me where they were shipped?” “We aren’t allowed to. That information could only be requested by the bank in certain situations”, she replied.
Well this is asinine. After thanking the woman for basically telling me nothing I hung up annoyed. The reality that the person charged $600 of shit on my card and more likely will see no punishment for doing so really pisses me off. More than likely the bank will just write off that $600 as the cost of doing business in a world where CC fraud is the norm instead of the exception. There has to be a way to pursue these scammers.
So I might be heading up to the Orlando area for a long weekend next month. I thought maybe I would try to take advantage of the timeshare arrangement Ali and I bought into a decade ago. My thoughts about our purchase of that timeshare and my dealings with the points program provider, RCI, have been well documented in the blog over the years. The timeshare purchase is number two in the all time worst purchases list behind the investment land we bought during the boom which I will be paying for until I am dead.
So anyway, one of the small perks the place used to offer owners was a discounted rate on units if they were just staying up in Orlando for a few days. I remember it was very reasonable, something like $30-$40 a night. I was hoping they still had the plan in place despite ownership of the resort changing hands a year or two ago.
So I call the place up and ask about discounted rates for owners. The woman said they no longer offer that benefit to owners. If you want to stay there you pay the same rate as anyone else. Wow, how nice. Glad my thousands of dollars spent are so well appreciated by the new resort management.
Not only do you get no discount, they won’t even tell you the rate on the phone. The only information you will get is if there is any availability on a certain date, if you want to know what they will charge you, you must go to a website to get a quote.
So I go to the website, punch in some dates and am presented with prices no better than local hotels. What a crock of shit. It seems to me that there should be some sort of legal recourse when you enter into a contract with a facility and they change the rules after they have your money. Unfortunately it is easier and less expensive to just shrug your shoulders and say “they fcking blow”. Exactly what they are counting on.