Close Encounters of the Cheap Kind

All of the headlines recently about economic troubles have a lot of people asking what they should do now? While most of those questions seem to revolve around where to invest to guard against further losses, I think it is also worth considering what else you can do to prepare for a general economic depression.

Here is my only slightly educated take on what could possibly happen (my degrees are in accounting and finance, not economics): this $700 billion bailout package, along with recent moves by the Federal Reserve to pump more liquidity into the market, will greatly increase the money supply. If the money supply is greatly increased, the likely result is inflation, likely at a pretty drastic rate. In other words, things will cost more now than they do in the future, and if recent trends are any indication the rate you could get in return for cash in the bank will likely not keep pace with inflation, meaning you will lose purchasing power on the money you already have.

With that possibility in mind (and I stress it is only a possibility), I would argue that this would be a great time to find good deals and stock up on items that you know you will use. I wrote about this concept as it relates to food inflation here, but this would really apply to all types of goods. I write quite often about my love of chasing deals at Walgreens and CVS when I get items for free but even better, and I think now is a great time to make sure you are making the most of those deals.

For instance, I purchased 8 Oral-B toothbrushes from Walgreens last week, which each produced a Register Rewards coupon for the purchase price. With the coupons I collected, I will then go and purchase the various items that are free after rebate this month in the Walgreens rebate catalog, or maybe on a similar coupon deal if one comes up before the coupons expire in a couple of weeks. Now, do I really need 8 toothbrushes now? Of course not. However, toothbrushes don’t go bad, so I will have a stockpile for the future. If times get tough and I wouldn’t otherwise have money for toothbrushes, I have a stash I can draw from. The same concept would apply to many other items you can get on the cheap by just being a smart shopper.

Of course you shouldn’t act as if it is a certainty that economic doom is around the corner. Continue going to work, investing and saving money, and shopping wisely. Stockpiling is a cornerstone of a frugal lifestyle, but make sure that your actions would make as much sense if there is no economic downturn at all.

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A while back I posted about a scam being perpetrated by Sears and Dockers on a recent rebate promotion. The issue I had was that instead of a “$10 reward card” as promised in a Sears press release, I received a crappy $10 off $50 men’s apparel coupon that was loaded with exclusions. Well, I’m happy to report that after a strongly worded complaint to the BBB, Sears refuted my argument but still offered to exchange the coupons for $10 gift cards. I sent in the coupons, and have since received the gift cards and even spent them. In my case, case closed.

However, it seems my post solicited numerous other comments about other issues in getting even the $75 gas card sent. Reports here and in the thread over at SlickDeals report issues with denials due to missing birthdates, purchases over multiple receipts, and even denials even though the required amount of merchandise was purchased. It has been noted that because of numerous issues they are now accepting resubmissions of the rebate at the following address:

Dockers Shell Promotion
Attention: Judy
1105 SE 8th St
Grand Rapids, MN 55744

If this doesn’t work, I would certainly recommend a BBB complaint. It certainly worked for me.

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OK, this is totally in the “don’t try this at home” department, because people a lot smarter than me have tried to do this and failed miserably. With that disclaimer out of the way…

I recently made the decision that I needed to rollover the funds in my old employer’s 401k plan (not the one I just got laid off from, the one I quit four years ago). After careful research, I actually went against my previous advice and opted for a target-date retirement fund from Vanguard. I was very impressed with the asset mix and expense ratio of the fund, and in an effort to simply my holdings a bit I deemed it a good investment option. The one wrinkle in my plan to transfer the funds to a rollover IRA was that my old custodian, Fidelity, would only send the funds via a check made out to the new custodian mailed to my home address, which I would need to mail in to Vanguard once I had received it. Believing I could turn the check around quickly and I wouldn’t miss that much market action in the process, I went ahead with the rollover and had the check sent.

Well, mother nature had other plans for my rollover timeline. I made the request to withdraw the funds on September 10, three days prior to Hurricane Ike making landfall here in the Houston area. A result of the hurricane was that we were without power for nearly two weeks, meaning I could not go online to complete the application for the new account at Vanguard and print the necessary paperwork to mail in until September 26. Adding in the time required to ship the paperwork, the check was not received until today, September 29. Per Vanguard’s policy, the new investment would be purchased based on the closing price on the day the check is received.

Luckily for me in this instance (and not considering the damage done to the rest of my retirement funds that we didn’t rollover into this account), this means the investment will be purchased after today’s horrific 7.59% decline. Assuming that I had been able to invest the funds on the same day of the withdrawal request, I would have been able to purchase shares of the Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 fund at a price of $12.97 per share. Purchasing after today’s close I am purchasing at a price of $11.81 per share, meaning that I was inadvertantly able to avoid a loss of 9.10% simply by not being invested for about the last two weeks. Considering the amount of the rollover, this means I was able to avoid a loss of over $4,200.

Like I said before, do not try this at home. This was purely dumb luck. A lot of really smart people have tried before to time the market and guess high and lows and have failed badly at it. As stomach-turning as it can be, the best strategy is just to stay in the market. Yes, you may suffer losses, but the historical trend is for long-term gains, which you are likely to miss out on by trying to time your trades just right.

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As our loyal readers may have noticed, there have not been any updates to this blog in some time. What you may not realize is that this humble blogger lives in Houston, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike we lost electrical power. Well, after nearly two weeks in the dark (from about 2am on Saturday Sept 13 until 8:04pm tonight Thursday Sept 25), I am happy to report that we are once again in air conditioned comfort, complete with lights and an internet connection.

We have quite a bit to do to get plugged back into modern life, however over the coming weeks I will be posting various thoughts about the experience of being disconnected for so long as well as highlights of the huge stack of magazines I read through while the lights were out. Stay tuned!

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Sorry for the off-topic post, but watching the news coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav (or lack thereof) is really getting under my skin. As a service to my readers, I want to share with you the real story the national media isn’t bothering to tell.

Listening to news coverage, you would believe that there were virtually no effects of Gustav. They are delighting in the fact that damage in New Orleans was minimal. However what they are bothering to tell you is that New Orleans is not the biggest city in Louisiana, and the damage in Baton Rouge (which by the way is Louisiana’s largest city post-Katrina) was extensive. The highest wind speeds ever recorded in Baton Rouge were recorded during this storm, which is impressive considering the city has also taken blows in the past from Hurricanes Andrew and Betsy, just to name a few.

I rode out the storm with my in-laws in Baton Rouge, and can tell you first hand of the damage I saw as my family made our way back home to Houston after the storm. Trees were down - everywhere. Trees blocked roads, demolished homes, and downed power lines throughout the area. Area rivers were rising from the massive amounts of rain the area received, with many rivers cresting well above flood stage. The electric power infrastructure was so badly damaged that 1.2 million Louisiana residents lost power. While about 200,000 had been restored at this point, estimates for others are as long as 4 weeks due to the need to repair transmission lines (think the big cancer-causing lines) as well as distribution lines (lines that go to individual neighborhoods and streets). Lines for necessities such as gasoline are massive and are reported to be several hours long. Essentially the largest city in the state of Louisiana has been thrown back into the dark ages, but I’m glad the national media seems to think this is a non-event.

If you want a true picture of the aftermath of Gustav, I would recommend looking at some of the local media sites such as 2theadvocate.com, wafb.com, and wjbo.com.

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I posted previously about my decision to protest my property tax assessment, and my time to present my case to the appraisal district finally came this past week.

Being the obsessive-compulsive accountant type, I diligently put together my protest and evidence for my meeting with the appraiser. My protest for a lower appraisal was based upon three points:

• Actual sales for comparable properties in our neighborhood in were much lower than the appraisal they provided for our property.
• The appraisal district overrated the condition of our home due to previous foundation issues, cracks in our sheetrock, the need for repainting, the age of the roof, and other factors.
• The area around our neighborhood has seen a major increase in crime after Katrina, with a large concentration of low-rent apartment complexes, several of which have now been condemned and are homes to squatters and criminal activity.

So I went in for my meeting with the appraiser armed with a typed summary of my case, a copy of the previous seller disclosure form and pictures to evidence the defects to the property, the listing of recent sales in the neighborhood with what I thought were the most comparable properties highlighted, and a map showing the number of apartment complexes around us and several recent stories from the newspapers discussing the crime issues and the condemnation of these properties.

So what was the result? I was able to get the appraiser to reduce the taxable value by nearly $28,000, which out here where our tax rate is about 2.52% of the appraised value results in a tax savings of nearly $700! The appraiser used the pictures and seller disclosure I provided along with one of the comps to justify the reduction.

So what lessons did I learn from this experience? Let me share a few:

1. Take the time to do the protest yourself! I used a third party to protest last year under similar circumstances and they were only able to get a reduction of only $7000, and I still had to pay them a commission of half of the projected tax savings.
2. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and probably a few thousand dollars of valuation! Part of my argument was that the condition was overrated, and the pictures I provided definitely helped prove the point. I took about 30 pictures, and the appraiser looked through all of them and retain about 5 for their evidence file.
3. Arguments about the issues in the area did not help. The appraiser dismissed this as justification of a lower valuation on the basis that lower values on this basis would be reflected in the comps.
4. The comps were important, but the appraiser would not consider several of them. At least in Harris County, they would not consider sales that were related to foreclosures or estate sales. The argument was that these are valid comps since they involve a motivated seller, however I would argue that these properties compete with others on the open market.
5. In Texas, house sale data is NOT public information. Realtors can pull the information, however it is not publicly available. However since the appraisal district must provide you all the evidence they had related to your valuation, they will provide a listing of the sales information as part of the evidence package to use in your protest. Because the sales data isn’t public and the appraisal district will provide it to you, I would recommend protesting even if you don’t know what other area properties sold for. There may be great evidence of a lower valuations in the evidence they provide you don’t even know about, and if not you can always just not bother following through on the protest.
6. While the appraiser would consider defects to the structure itself, they would not consider defects to items like the fence and driveways. According to the appraiser, the guidelines for appraisals in Texas do not allow this to be considered.

So overall I am very satisfied with the experience. I spent probably about 12 hours filing the paperwork and putting together and presenting the protest, and that time resulted in a savings of $700. It really isn’t that difficult of a process and I would certainly recommend to anyone pursuing a protest.

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In the third installment and final installment of Scam Week, we will discuss another rebate scam, this time at the hands of Office Depot. Earlier this summer, I purchased an HP LaserJet 3050 printer from Office Depot. The printer was on sale for $199.99, and there were two rebates of $100 each advertised in the store, which would make the printer free after the rebate. As this was an amazing deal, I jumped on it and submitted my two rebate requests.

One of the rebates came as promised, however it was clear from the beginning that there would be issues with the second. Once the rebate showed up on the rebate processor’s website, it sat in the processing stage for weeks with the notation “Error: Pending Verification”. After several weeks I called the rebate center and was told they would escalate the issue and to call back in a week. After a week in which the status changed to noncompliance, I called the rebate center back and was initially told again that they would escalate the issue and to call back in another week. Of course I wasn’t satisfied with that and when I escalated to a supervisor I was given a BS story that it was a system issue that would be resolved in a couple of days.

A week later when I receive a postcard stating that the rebate is in noncompliance and that I have until a certain date resolve the issue if I would like the rebate to be paid. So of course I call again, and again I am told by the first representative that they will escalate the issue and to call back in a week, and then I escalate to a supervisor who tells me that they aren’t sure I can claim two different rebates on the purchase of a single printer and that they will escalate the issue to the account manager, and finally I speak to the floor manager who flatly states that their policy is not to honor two rebate offers on a single item purchase and that although the rebates were advertised together only one would be paid. I asked for the address for their principal place of business (the rebate processor, not Office Depot), and they refused to even confirm what rebate fulfillment company they were and would only give me an address for the Office of the President of Office Depot. They also refused to escalate me to the next level supervisor and the manager I spoke to told me he was the highest authority I could speak to.

I contacted Office Depot customer service about the issue, however I have never received a reply. I used to consider Office Depot to be one of the best in terms of standing behind its advertised rebates. About four years ago I had a rebate offered through a manufacturer for an item sold at Office Depot that Office Depot was willing to pay after the manufacturer refused. However in the last two years or so there has been a definite change in the culture at Office Depot with regards to customer service and now if you do a rebate for a purchase from them you are pretty well assured that Office Depot will not help if something goes wrong. And in this instance the rebate was offered by Office Depot itself and not by the manufacturer. How disappointing!

At this point in my SlickDealing career I have only had three rebate deals that did not come through, and sadly two of them have been through Office Depot.  That is why I am so thankful that we are finally getting Staples here in Houston, so we can finally have an office supply store that provides good customer service unlike Office Depot and OfficeMax.

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In our second installment of Scam Week, we go into the seedy underworld of abusive collection agencies. Now let me say that I fully support the collection agencies that act in an ethical and legal manner. In this country I feel a lot of times we discount the concept of personal responsibility, and legitimate collection agencies serve the valuable purpose of holding people accountable for their debts and helping businesses with legitimate claims to recover at least a portion of what they are owed. Unfortunately this company falls outside of the bounds of ethical and legal practice.

Our experience began a couple of weeks ago when we receive a call early on a Sunday morning. Being early we let the machine answer and the caller left a message for a family member that has never lived here and even has a different last name. The caller identified themselves as an investigator named “Morgan Stevens (Stephens)” representing a company referred to as NSP and was calling regarding a supposed civil complaint that was going to be filed against the family member. She left a callback number of 678-916-5965 and a case number. Knowing that the family member had never lived here and that any valid claim would need to be communicated in writing, we simply ignored the message.

Unfortunately this is not the last we would hear from this outfit. About a week later one mid-week evening they call us again, at which time my wife answered the phone. The caller again identified themselves as an investigator named “Morgan Stevens” with NSP and asked for our family member. When my wife informed them that the person did not live here, the caller was extremely pushing and inquired as to whether we knew the person and then whether we could give the person a message. After a few questions from my wife it was noted that the full name of the company was “National Service of Process” and that they would supposedly be filing a complaint in civil court if the underlying matter was not immediately resolved. The next night the same person called again and left a message on our machine asking for the family member and claiming that they would be filing their civil complaint if they were not contacted within 24 hours.

After discussing it within the family, we found out that we were not the only family members that had been contacted. And after doing a little bit of research, we found that this is apparently the company’s method of operation. For whatever reason, they get information on very old debts (which in most cases had been previously settled or were well beyond the time limitations to be reportable to credit reporting agencies) and then start contacting family members and associates of the person to pressure them into payment. So what’s the issue? Well, besides annoying us, they are in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act on several points, namely:

1. Debt collectors may not use harassment to encourage payment. For instance, debt collectors may not “repeatedly use the telephone to annoy someone.” Seeing that they have now called here three times and they have called other family members multiple times, they are certainly in violation on this point.
2. Debt collectors may not use any false statements when collecting a debt. Debt collectors may not state that actions, such as a lawsuit, will be taken against you, which legally may not be taken, or which they do not intend to take. That NSP in this instance has never sent anything in writing to the family member in question indicates they have no intention of ever filing a lawsuit as they are threatening.
3. Debt collectors may contact third parties, but only to gather information on how to contact you. They are not permitted to disclose that you owe money, nor are they generally permitted to contact a third party more than once. In this instance NSP did disclose that our family member owed money (indicated by the disclosure that a civil complaint would be filed) and contacted us three times, including once after we told them the family member didn’t live here and asking them not to call back.
4. Debt collectors are not permitted to contact you at inconvenient times or places. Seeing that we were contact before 8:00am on a Sunday morning, this certainly qualifies.

What should you do if you or a family member are being harassed by an abusive debt collector? First, you should be familiar with your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. A great summary of your rights under the act can be found here. Secondly, be very cautious about what level of information you provide to a debt collector or someone who may be a debt collector. You have no obligation to answer any of their questions, and any and all information given to a debt collector can be used to pursue payment on the debt they are collecting. In this instance, I would recommend taking down the contact information and that’s it.

So what are others saying about National Service of Process (NSP)? You can check out their profile with an unsatisfactory rating with the BBB here, which indicates 7 unresolved complaints as of the writing of this post since the BBB open a file on them in June 2008. You can also see some raw comments on them at CallFerret, CallerComplaints.com, WhoCallsMe, PhoneOwner.info, WhoCalled.us, 800notes.com, and a write-up that indicates they are operating under even more aliases here.

There is also a great summary of the scam that was posted by a user on 800notes.com, which shows among other things that they are a just a front working out of a UPS Store mailbox in Georgia:

You have nothing to worry about; it’s a scam.

This scam operation calls from many numbers, most of which have a Georgia area code and have many complaints filed on 800Notes. Here’s all the information on these crooks: http://budhibbs.com/debtcollectorpages/cmc_recovery.htm

As Bud Hibbs’ report indicates, these crooks are actually in Buffalo, New York, operate under many dopey aliases (CMC Recovery, Claims America, RSI, National Service Processors, etc.) and falsely represent themselves as being physically located in Georgia.

There are two Georgia addresses associated with this scam. One address in Georgia — 5295 Stone Mountain Hwy, Stone Mountain, GA 30087 — is actually the location of a Mail Boxes, Etc. storefront. In other words, the RSI/Claims America scam’s Stone Mountain “office” is just a rented private mailbox.

The other Georgia address used by this scam is:

RSI Claims Process Services
2483 Heritage Village, Suite 16-324
Snellville, GA 30278
(404) 287-0204

Unsurprisingly, “Suite 16-324″ is not a suite but another rented private mailbox at The UPS Store in the Heritage Village shopping center:

The UPS Store
Heritage Village Shopping Center
2483 Heritage Village
Snellville, GA 30278
Phone: (770) 979-7011
Fax: (770) 979-5711
http://www.theupsstore.com/locations/locdet.asp?strCenterNum=MBE1063

So don’t let these scammers worry you. It’s a handful of petty grifters hiding out in Buffalo, NY trying to swindle you out of your money. Ignore their illegal threats and report their extortion attempts to the following:

1) The U.S. Secret Service is responsible for protecting the country’s financial infrastructure and payment systems. Call or write your local Secret Service field office to alert them to the details of this attempted extortion. The addresses and phone numbers for the local Secret Service field offices are listed at http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml or in your phone book.

2) Alert the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov Be sure to tell the FBI that you are being targeted by an extortionist over the phone and give them all the details.

3) File a complaint with your local police. Most police departments will take a report over the phone. Be sure to tell them that you’re being targeted by an extortionist and give them all the details.

4) These grifters maintain rented private mailboxes in Georgia and represent themselves as calling from Georgia, so file a complaint with the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs here. 

5) These crooks are operating in New York and are associated with this address: 3835 Bailey Ave, Buffalo, NY 14226, so file a complaint with the New York New York Attorney General at http://www.oag.state.ny.us/complaints/complaints.html or 800-771-7755

6) File a complaint your state’s attorney general, the contact information for whom is at www.naag.org

7) File a complaint online with The Federal Trade Commission at https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

In addition to reporting these thieves to law enforcement, you can also sue them. For more information on protecting yourself from crooked debt collectors and suing them, check out these websites:

http://www.naca.net/debt-collection-abuse/
http://attorneysforconsumers.com/
http://www.fairdebtlawyers.com/
http://www.myfairdebt.com/
http://www.consumercounselgroup.com/
http://www.westcoastlitigation.com/
http://www.theadvocateslaw.com/
http://www.budhibbs.com/First.htm
http://www.creditlawnetwork.com/
http://www.collectionstopper.com/

If these crooks call back, promise them nothing, pay them nothing and tell them nothing other than that you know they’re a scam and that you’ve reported them to law enforcement.

Hope this helps.

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Welcome to scam week here at CheapEncounters.com! This week I will be highlighting several scams that I have recently encountered that badly need to see the light of day. Some of my most memorable and popular posts have been about scams (see the FreeNEzy.com saga and the Reservations Rewards scam), so I thought it would be appropriate to revisit this very important topic.

The first scam I will highlight this week is the current debacle from the recent Sears and Dockers Fathers Day rebate offer. According to their initial press release, consumers would receive a $75 Shell gas card and a “$10 Sears Reward Card” for purchasing $100 in Dockers apparel items during the promotion period after mail-in rebate. Pretty sweet deal: spend $100 and get back $85. Understandably, many consumers took advantage of the deal (including myself), expecting to receive a $75 Shell gift card and a $10 Sears gift card.

Imagine our surprise when we get our rebate back with a $75 Shell gift card and a $10 Sears COUPON! Yes, instead of a gift card good on anything in the store or online and without expiration as alluded to in the press release announcing the deal, consumers received a crappy $10 off $50 purchase coupon. Not only does the coupon require a $50 purchase, the purchase must be from Men’s Apparel and made by 10/15/2008, and excludes “special purchases, Great Price items, Introductory Offers, Lands End merchandise, Levi’s (pretty ironic considering Dockers is a Levi’s brand), fragrances, Celestial Star diamonds, Sears.com, Kmart.com, Landsend.com, Sears Auctions on Ebay, outlet store purchases, catalog orders, gift cards, money orders, wire transfers and protection agreements.” Additionally the coupon cannot be combined with other coupons like a gift card could.

Needless to say I and many others who took part in this deal feel quite deceived by this and are pursuing Sears for our $10 gift cards. Initially some on SlickDeals reported they were able to call Sears Customer Service and get the gift card sent, but apparently Sears has now decided to deny these requests. One person has reported that they had success filing a BBB complaint over the matter, so that may be the way to go at this point. As for me, I am waiting for the submission in my wife’s name to come in so that I can try to take care of both $10 gift cards with one call and one BBB complaint. Also if the rebate doesn’t come it escalates the issue to another level.

Have you been scammed by Sears on this deal too? Leave us a comment here to share your story with the world, and then use the following contact information to let Sears and Levi Strauss know you aren’t taking their crap laying down!

Sears

1-800-549-4505
Email

Sears National Customer Relations
3333 Beverly Road
Hoffman Estates, IL 60179

Dockers

1-800-DOCKERS (1-800-362-5377)

Email form

Levi Strauss & Co.
Attn: Consumer Relations
1155 Battery St.
San Francisco, CA 94111

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