Saturday, August 24, 2013

Congratulations Miami Beach Government

Sometimes I tend to be overly critical, so let us give kudos where kudos are due.

Today, I saw that MB government can be very efficient indeed! I was parked at the public parking lot at 72nd and Collins, with a validated sticker until 3:55 PM. I kinda forgot about time, and when I returned to my car, there was one of those US$18.00 parking tickets. Well deserved, after all, I was paid in until 3:55 PM. My surprise was finding that the ticket had been written at 4:05, only ten minutes after my validated time!!!

I was dumbfounded by such efficiency. It took the zealous parking guy (or gal) only ten times to find my violation!!!

On the other side of the story, the same parking lot is full of ticket dispensing machines that work whenever they want, sometimes, never. Apparently, the city is very careful about sending employees to find cars that bypassed the allowed time by a mere ten minutes (having paid for six hours, by the way), yet, nobody obviously checks those dispensing machines, which would not be a difficult thing to do. Placing an OUT OF ORDER sign would be a nice thing, for, at times, I have had to try four different machines to get a ticket, walking around the lot like a zombie.

The non-working machines also sprung up a new industry. Every once in a while one can find a few folks of questionable pedigree hanging around in the parking lot, offering "help" with the machines. After "help" is provided (often telling tourists the machines are not working, duh!), they ask for money. This is obviously adding insult to injury. Plus people that openly solicit right on the parking lot, with open liquor containers, without any police intervention whatsoever.

How about the corner of 71st and Harding? I have seen MB crews working on the storm drainage system there, on and off, and they never get it right! In fact, once somebody hit a sewer line that literally spread feces all over the place. A recent heavy rain caused the whole area to be seriously flooded.

I know. Giving out parking tickets means revenue for the city. Checking out on broker dispensing machines, loitering on parking lots and storm drainage does not. I get it.

Let me rephrase. No congratulations, MB. Shame on you.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Miami New Times, where hipocrisy never stops

A recent edition of the Miami New Times had an article signed by Michel E. Miller, entitled "Porky`s Revenge". This was a follow-up to an article published in 2012, concerning an American who had been jailed in Panama.

In the third paragraph, the author says "Galeota admits he's done bad things, such as running Miami`s most infamous strip club, Porky`s, for years before moving to Panama and opening a brothel".

So, while the article says that strip clubs and brothels are "bad things", the New Miami Times is undoubtedly the largest promoter or smut in Miami EVER! The last pages of the paper are filled with ads of "bad" strip clubs plus tons of smaller ads for Oriental Massage spas, which a lot of people say, are nothing more than mini-brothels. Thus, we assume that the paper cares very little about bad things in the community, in fact, it might be highly responsible for a large share of condom sales and STDs in Miami!!!

The problem is that the NMT spends tons upon tons of paper uncovering all types of corruption that happens in this area. Maybe, by taking paying ads from "bad things", the paper lacks moral standing, if I dare say it, to criticize corruption, another bad thing, at all levels. After all, even the most stringent protector of civil liberties will not say tons of strip clubs and massage parlors are good for a community!

I do not at all recall the paper running an expose on such massage parlors or even the activities of such strip clubs, although it takes direct hits on political corruption, business in general, not for profits, religion, card readers, car dealerships, gambling, universities, criminals, sports franchises, artists, celebrities, real estate developers, police, etc.  

Sure, the paper and the author might actually say that Galeota was the one referring to brothels and strip clubs as bad things, that this did not reflect the paper's view. Or they might say running strip clubs and massage place advertisements does not mean they condone or support these businesses, that they will take an ad from any legit business. I wonder what would happen if a church attempted to place an ad in the NMT....

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Shame on you Experian

Nothing against credit reporting agencies. I believe they serve a noble purpose in society. Not to say that I did not have problems with them. A couple of years back, I found that my credit report contained a couple of issues (fully resolved, not a cent due for many years) dating back almost 20 years ago,  plus a tax lien that should not have been there, for it was also mistakenly filed by the tax authority, which by the way, was not even federal. Beats me how much communication there is between creditors and bureaus, once matters do get solved. Apparently, not much.

Notwithstanding this contretemps, I do not loathe them as enemies. They help  a smoother running society, I always thought.

The other day, I decided to get my free copy of a credit report, which I am entitled to once a year. I kept on getting calls from a collection agency, calling my name, however, the last four digits of the SS were different. Just in case, I thought I should check.

That site run by the three major agencies was of no help. It kept on asking questions that made no sense, and when I replied them in the negative, I was told I needed to provide more identification for security reasons. That raised a flag, so I went to the Experian site.

On that site, I was told I could get a US$1 Credit Report immediately. Hey, almost for free, good deal. I just went for it. Of course, there was a catch. I would be charged 1 buck for that report, however, that meant I would agree to subscribing to a service they offer for 17 bucks and change a month. I could cancel the subscription within 7 days, though, and nothing would additional be charged.

So I decided to do it. These are the folks that oversee credit in the USA, they would not play hooky, would they? I signed up for everything online. Easy as a breeze, and my credit report was clean, good credit rating so I was happy as Madonna when she says something stupid. All I would need was remembering that I had seven days to cancel the US$204.00 annual additional expense I can do without - yes, 17 bucks a month adds up to about 204 dollars annually.

My memory has not gone to the dumps as much as I thought, and seven days after I signed up, I remembered that I needed to cancel the unwanted subscription.

Then, the first surprise.

As with most companies, signing up for things is easy. 1-2-3, everything on-line no problem. To cancel, though, it is an altogether different story. I needed to call a number, and you know what that means. Waiting on the line for quite a few minutes.

I decided that there was no way I would get stuck with the US$204.00 expense that would probably go on forever, or at least until my credit card expires. So I waited, and waited, then I got this cheerful female voice on the phone.

I explained my intent. Then she started telling me about the advantages, blah, blah, blah, blah. She was very pleasant, so I reconfirmed my intent, once again, and she continued babbling about how my life would be so much better with their service. Once I rejected the offer one more time, then she hit me. "Well, today we are offering nice subscribers such as you at 50 % off, with the same benefits".

That totally outraged me. These are, after all, the sparkling clean folks who are supposed to protect uf from crooks, yet, their flip flop tactic, although not illegal, is a bit immoral if you ask me. If they can make money running this "program", which is not really a program, the information is just sitting there, for 8 dollars and change, why offer it for 17? I do not dream of doing this in my business. I have my price, and I will just negotiate up to a certain extent if the client is extremely pushy, but I never do a switch and bait. This is the stuff of dishonest lemon-car salesmen, not a reputable credit reporting agency.

The one thing that really annoyed me was that she was trying to convince me that I was lucky enough that the offer was available TODAY! She was trying to convince me what a lucky human being I was, right day to call and cancel! Maybe I should recheck my lotto tickets!!!!

Well, the end of story is, I still rejected the offer, and gave the pleasant lady a pleasant piece of my mind, saying this was a despicable marketing technique, blah blah blah.

Is this the stuff MBA's are learning at Harvard?