“B” is for Big Fat Liar

** update 12:30hrs ** she's a confirmed liar. But she's also mentally ill so I'm taking her name out of the story.

McCain Supporter Robbed With Knife At Bloomfield ATM

PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh police are still questioning a 20-year-old woman who said she was robbed and assaulted at an ATM in Bloomfield because of her political views.

(name redacted) , of College Station, Texas, said she was using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her and put a knife to her throat.

Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the robber took $60 from (name redacted) , then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using a dull knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.

"She further stated that the male actor approached her from the back again and hit her in the back of her head with an object, she doesn't know what the object was, causing her to fall to the ground where he continued to punch her and kick her and threaten to 'teach her a lesson' for being a McCain supporter," Richard said.

Richard said the woman refused medical treatment after the assault, which happened outside the view of the bank's surveillance cameras. More Here

For those playing the home game, here are some clues:

1) she’s robbed at knife point at an ATM then the guy noticed the bumper sticker on her car and got medieval on her face. Hmmm, why would someone risk a successful armed robbery to go back for seconds?

2) the “B” scratch is superficial. The sort of superficial that would leave a mark but no permanent scar or damage.

3) the “B” is backwards as if done in a mirror

It would be more disturbing if I was wrong but I’m betting my bottom dollar that this woman made up the story.

Reeks of a finger found in Wendi’s chili.

Bastards!

I realize this is a radical move for me but I encourage all friends of The Panic Blog to boycott Telekomunikacja Polska. Yep, I said it and I intend to prevent them from getting any of our hard earned zlotys.

'Phoney' queues used to spur Polish iPhone launch

Aug 22 12:05 PM US/Eastern
From Breitbart.com

Poland's biggest telecoms operator, Telekomunikacja Polska, acknowledged Friday that it had paid young, hip-looking film extras to stand in queues for the national launch of Apple's iPhone.

"It was a marketing move. We thought it was a pretty interesting strategy," TP spokesman Wojciech Jabczynski told AFP.

TP is controlled by France Telecom, which owns the Orange mobile telephone brand.

The iPhone, which had its initial launch in the Unites States in July, went on sale at Orange's Polish stores on Friday after the stroke of midnight (2200 GMT Thursday).

In other parts of the world, Apple fans have stood in line for hours -- and sometimes days --- to get their hands on the new iPhone.

On Thursday evening, apparent queues began forming outside Orange's stores across Poland, with some in the line offering to sell their slot to passers-by for 100-300 zlotys (30-90 euros, 45-135 dollars).

"The aim was to attract attention. The people in the queues told passers-by about the iPhone," said Jabczynski.

Such a marketing ploy is ironic in Poland because queues were a regular and much-loathed feature of daily life until the fall of the country's communist regime in 1989, because of endless shortages of even the most basic goods.

Jabczynski said TP was pleased with the results of the launch but declined to reveal any figures.

"We couldn't have expected the same kind of fever as in the United States given that Apple's products aren't that well-known in Poland and in central Europe in general," he said.

"A total of 38,000 people signed up on our website to be kept up to date about the iPhone before the launch," he said. "Interest for Apple's phone is growing all the time."

The iPhone was also launched on Friday in Poland by one of the country's other four mobile operators, Era, which is controlled by Deutsche Telekom.

This is some incredible bullshit. Not the fake enthusiasm necessarily but the people in line offering their spots for money.

If you try to trick me into bribing someone extra to buy your stupid-ass product I guarantee I’d tell all my friends to stay away from your company.

Which I just did.

FU Telekomunikacja Polska.

FU running.

although you've now warned me against ever standing in line for any product for any reason so serdecznie dziękuję for that.

ShoeBuy.com + TLG*GREATFN = I'm still angry

What really pisses me off about being suckered by TLG*GREATFN, Trilegiant, GreatFunonline.com, or whatever they call themselves is that we walked into a transaction with clean hands and were burned.

It would be different if I was buying, for instance, used panties online. After all, if one traffics in used panties one can expect some shitty service.* Similarly you cannot expect great customer service and integrity from your drug dealer or favorite prostitute.

But my lovely bride was buying SHOES! Not even some kind of crazy expensive Sex in the City shoes, just plain ol’ Skechers knock-around shoes.

So it’s especially off-pissing** that it would be a shoe distributor www.ShoeBuy.com who would try to screw the citizenry by sneaking in a shady deal by TLG*GREATFN, Trilegiant, Greatfunonline.com, or whatever they call themselves.

Can you tell that this irritates me to no end?

Bastards.

*I’m not even apologizing for this pun.

** “off pissing” is probably not grammatically correct but it should be

TLG*GREATFN = Sneaky Sons of Bitches, part 2

Yesterday Kelli called Trilegiant Great Fun to cancel the bogus monthly membership fee foisted upon her when she attempted to buy shoes at Shoebuy.com and boy howdy was it fun.

She reached a lovely woman who identified herself as Rachel. Evidently Bangalore, India Television must carry reruns of ‘Friends.’

‘Rachel’ asked Kelli why she wanted to cancel her membership. Kelli said that it was because she was tricked into it, don’t want it, never wanted it, and believes it’s a scam.

“Bearing that in mind,” read ‘Rachel’ from her computer-prompted sales script, “do you realize that by continuing your membership that you can save 50% on blah, blah, yadda, yadda, eep op ork ah ah…”

“I realize it and still don’t want it,” Kelli replied.

“Bearing that in mind,” ‘Rachel' continued undeterred, “we’ll continue the membership, okay?”

Kelli paused just a second, gobsmacked by the incredible gall of these people.

“No. No, I don’t want to continue the membership. I called to cancel the membership so I want the membership cancelled and I want that $11.99 charge refunded to my card. And I’d like that done now, thank you.”

At that point 'Rachel' agreed to cancel the membership and refund the money. But still…

Avoid these folks and avoid the companies that are affiliated with them, which I now understand include: deepdiscount.com, deepdiscountdvd.com, buy.com, shoebuy.com, cheaptickets.com, and possibly priceline.com and orbitz.com.

Oh and say you want $20 in free gas from Exxon / Mobil :

Simple & Secure Enrollment with Continuous Savings, Easy Billing, and a Money-Back Guarantee. Try the service with the first month, for $1. Your membership will be extended automatically for an additional eleven months at the $119.99 annual membership fee, and automatically renewed annually at the then-current fee, billed to the credit or debit card you provide unless you call toll free during your 1 month trial to cancel. You can call any time to cancel and get the unused portion of your then-current annual fee returned. The $20.00 ExxonMobil Cash Card is yours to keep.

Fuckers

TLG*GREATFN = Sneaky Sons of Bitches

Kelli was balancing her checkbook Sunday and came across an $11.99 charge on her debit card from a company called TLG*GREATFN posted 1/02/08. Since the 2^nd was a Wednesday and we run a lot of errands on Wednesdays, she was only curious at first which one of the couple of stops we made bill their charges as TLG*GREATFN. We conferred and couldn’t think of anything. She called the 800 number listed on the bill but only reached a recording saying that Great Fun was not open on Sundays.

By then we were a little concerned about credit card fraud so we looked up TLG*GREATFN on the internet. Bingo. It turns out many people have found charges ranging from $8.99 to $111.99 on their cards and have tracked it back to buying products online from Buy.com, Shoebuy.com, et al.

Kelli ordered a pair of shoes from Shoebuy.com in November. Several weeks later they emailed her saying that the shoes were out of stock and they order had been canceled.

Upon further review she remembered that after her order had been completed on Shoebuy.com there was a pop-up window offering a $10 rebate on her shoes. Had she opted out of this offer there would have been no problem but the fine print, which she admittedly didn’t read thoroughly, said that the $10 rebate was courtesy not of Shoebuy.com but of this company called Trilegiant. By leaving the opt-in box checked on that pop-up, Kelli agreed to try out a membership service which offers discounts on blah, blah, blah – certainly nothing in Alaska – and that while the first month was free there would be a monthly charge and they would use the SAME CREDIT CARD SHE USED ON SHOEBUY.COM.

One little checkbox authorized them to take the credit card info from one company and use it for theirs.

Is this fraud? Probably not. There was some fine print and we could have opted out.

But is it ethical? No Fucking Way. They obviously count on people not canceling their subscription and not noticing such a small monthly charge. Fuckers. If you Google TLG*GREATFN you’ll see how many loudmouthed people they’ve taken. I can only guess there have been many many more that haven’t posted online about their difficulties. The only positive comments I’ve read mention that they remembered to cancel in time so it was worth their effort for the $10 rebate.

How’s that for a ringing endorsement of a product? “I didn’t mind because I canceled their service immediately. “ That should be their company motto.

We immediately disputed the charge and are in the process of contacting Trilegiant to cancel the service which we never used and didn’t want.

Sooooo. Two lessons learned:

1) We’ll both be very careful that when buying products online we are only ordering the product in question and not some added “service” at a monthly fee. Those rat bastards at Trilegiant are not going to get any money from us.

2) Neither is Shoebuy.com, Buy.com, or any other e-merchants who have any relationship with Trilegiant. If we see a pop up offering us anything after the fact, we’ll cancel the original order and find another place to buy our products even if it costs us more money.

And one lesson reinforced:

Check your bank statements and question yourself about those little charges.

Don’t let the bastards win!

Told you so

According to the AP, police have arrested the woman who claimed to have found a finger in her bowl of Wendy’s chili.

This would all be pathetic but it begs the question: where did she get the finger?

Also: did she actually put the finger in her mouth or did she do a little sleight of hand? If she put it in her mouth then yick.

She deserves harsh punishment.

This is definitely a NHI incident.