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How many of you are sick and tired of your bank? Your phone company? Your TV Provider? Your government? Your insurance company? Your medical provider? Your place of employment? The airline you use? The hotel chain  you used to like? And countless other places where we are not so well represented in corporate America…

I am typically very mild mannered and evenly tempered…but when one of these major institutions backs me into a corner because of their deceitful actions, I come out fighting. I usually start with “this is not about you personally” to the person I am talking to directly before I come out with “all guns blazing.”

Let me share a few stories (some just in the recent weeks)…

I made a purchase with a credit card (a fairly substantial purchase) that was approved ahead of time by the card issuer. Within a week we start getting 8-10 calls/day from this same company. We ignored them for about 10 days. One Sunday morning however, I was so fed up I answered the phone with “you people are incredibly rude…what is your problem?” He said they were calling because I was over my credit limit. I actually had no credit limit on the card ever before and the purchase I made was pre-approved by them. After the purchase they came back and established a credit limit on the card that was substantially lower than the charge made on the card. The payment on this card was not late and it had never had a late payment on it. I told him that I would sue the company for harassment and breach of contract if they ever called even one more time again. Apparently that got through to them because they never called another time. I did not pay the card until the due date (which was still two weeks in the future). They lowered my credit limit below my amount of purchases and the collection department was calling…what is that?

Another one…I went to charge another card for a purchase and it was declined. I called the company and they told me that I was overdue on a payment. I was on my computer and told him the payment wasn’t due for another week. He then backtracked and said it was an internal computer problem and he was very sorry…it was all their fault. Now I don’t know what happened, but they didn’t have the decency of being honest up front.

I deposited a check in one of my bank accounts. I received an email a couple of days later and I was overdrawn. I called the 800 number and they had no idea of what happened. They had absolutely no record of my deposit. I had a receipt for my deposit. I went to the local branch (who I must say were very friendly) they eventually found the check in with the deposit slips. It had never been sent in.

I just recently switched cell phone carriers. What a hassle that was! Anyhow, I was originally billed from my old carrier through the end of the cycle even though I had only gone through about half of it. I was able to work it out with one of the customer service reps and it seemed fine. We started getting 6-8 calls/day from this company. I finally called them back and was told that they had changed their policy and were billing to the end of the cycle whether the service was used or not. I told the gentleman that there was no way I was paying for services not given and that my final bill had already been adjusted but I still hadn’t received it yet. He told me that was impossible because they never waiver from their policy and their policy was billing till the end of the cycle. I finally got him to look up the details and he found out that indeed my bill had been adjusted and all he said to me was that I was lucky. I told him I hadn’t seen the final bill yet and he told me it had been sent. I assumed it was lost in the mail but asked him why they denied me access to my online account because  I would be perfectly willing to pay for it online. He then slipped and said “oh that is why it was never sent to you because you had been signed up for paperless statements.” Caught in more than one lie. They are still calling 6-8 times/day which we ignore.

The federal government wants to take care of everyone who chooses not to take care of themselves by stealing money from me and my friends. The California state government is even worse. They just raised our taxes to be the highest in the nation because they refuse to cut spending on idiotic things. We own some property in Nevada and have a disabled young man who grew up in one of our places. He has cerebral palsy and can’t work. His father died and now he gets about $700/month disability. We helped him apply for rent help from the state. I had previously told him when his father died that he could pay as much as he could afford for rent…if that were zero than that would be zero. I could not kick him out and I could not take his money that he needed to use to eat and so forth. In another couple places we had people living there who were getting help. One of these families with children did not work and had every bit of their lives taken care of by the state and federal governments. I asked them why they just sat around all day everyday and never tried to work. They simply responded “because we can”…unbelievably frustrating. Now this young man with cerebral palsy has qualified for a bit of help…but a fraction of what these other people were receiving. He is genuinely disabled and getting almost zero help. These other folks could work but choose not to. What is wrong with this picture? Our government at its finest!

We have seven children and have birthed them all at home…some by ourselves and some with a midwife or two. Anyhow, because of this we had a 3-4 year struggle getting social security cards (for tax purposes) for a couple of our younger boys. I spent countless hours with the social security administration and through our congressman eventually talked to the regional director of SSA. We were told over and over again (including by the regional director) that since we homeschool and we take care of any health issues at home and because we do a whole host of other things that are not “normal” that there was no way that they could issue cards (numbers) to these two boys. We were told repeatedly that there were only a few things that they would accept for I.D. verification…and we weren’t involved with any of these. I tell you, this was a frustrating experience. I kept fighting though and I eventually met a very nice gal who worked at one of the local SSA offices. She sat me down at their computer and showed me all of the possible inputs for I.D. that they accepted…there were dozens of them. It ended up being very easy to accomplish in the end once I met someone who was honest with me. I was lied to by the Regional director as well as dozens of various customer service reps at various offices. I know I was lied to because when I was able to look at the input screens myself (the same ones all of these other folks were looking at) I could see exactly what they weren’t telling me for the past 3+ years. Isn’t that disgusting?

I have many more stories as well. I hope you get the point and we have friends that have had similar issues.

I for one have never been a corporate fan and believe that individual entrepreneurship is the very best way to make a living so that we can stay out of the corporate sphere as much as we possibly can. We wholeheartedly believe that the home is the most powerful place on the planet and that is why we choose to do nearly everything out of our home. We choose not to incorporate the “bad” energy from these giant corporate institutions and instead focus on the love and beauty that has been given us. I will fight for our rights…but I leave where it belongs. We’ll let the rest of them wallow in the madness. As for me and my family, we walk to the beat of a different drummer.

Keep following and I will talk more about that in the future.

Meanwhile I appreciate your feedback and always remember to…”live the adventure.”

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