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barely a.

2
Level 2 Contributor

Contributor Level

Total Points
1,025

About Me

very imperfect, often incoherent, clueless, not the sharpest tool in the shed, luddite, chronic opti-rectalitis, lover of screwball comedies, not in the center of the bell curve, holds the belief everything is connected, promoter of sustainability, slow food, tiny houses, the Lone Ranger, prayer, real work, sailboats, the rights of bears, bees, and babies, and seeing humans as a young part of an old world

How I Can Help

share memories of when people had patience and honor, and thought we were all in it together

Interests

sacred groves of old trees, poetry that rhymes, women who can drive a truck, breathing

10 Reviews by barely

  • Craigslist

8/20/16

I have used craigslist.org for many years and with pretty good success. (Since they offer the most comprehensive listings and depth of listings of any similar service). They also seem to be pretty pro-active about warning people of possible scams and they seem to be able to keep your email private with their masked system of email replies.

What I wanted to mention specifically was that when I recently listed some furniture items for sale, I got back a text within 5 minutes, almost immediately after I made the listing.

The text had my listing title with, "still up for sale?" amended to it, and when I replied, they came back with,
"okay... I'll be paying with a cashiers check and wait till it clears your bank before pickup is scheduled. Thanks Alex"

I was born at night, but not last night, and I smelled a rat. But I replied- "sure".

Then they said, "kindly send me your name and address so that I can issue out the check for you"
Needless to say I cannot imagine any buyer in their right mind willing to buy something sight unseen, and before discussing any specifics, offering to send you money. Obviously a complete scam. But the point is the crooks are becoming much more sophisticated if they can create some algorithm or software which can pick up a new listing, send off a text to respond to it with their bogus offer, and harvest names and addresses for some yet undefined but assuredly devious purpose.
Actually, I am pretty envious. I wish I was smart enough to do that. Not really. I hope they reap what they sow. We all have to look out for each other if we want a decent world.

Tip for consumers:
So craigslist is still good, but watch out for the scammers.

  • Disqus

4/11/16

I do not have any special experience with Disqus. I somehow joined then a year of two ago and forgot about it. They are holding a half dozen of my comments and seem to be set up a little similar to Facebook-(a little manipulative): no way to really communicate with them, no way to really control the comments you leave scattered across the web, no way to search their own discussion forum, and although they seem to have a strong set of stated values, the way those values are executed is another matter.
I saw some indication that whoever is permitted to become a moderator, sometimes abuses the responsibility of that position, by arbitrarily injecting their personal prejudices into the discussions, or by banning someone from using the service, again somewhat arbitrarily. I, myself, have not experienced that, but perhaps I will put up a test balloon and see what happens.
We should all be bound by the same rules and standards, and if any group has an ax to grind, then they themselves should be called out. We are all in it together and need to use the 'golden rule' if we want cyberspace to be a decent 'neighborhood'. If we allow it to be a fractious pile of discord, we will harvest what we plant.

Tip for consumers:
They clearly state in their terms of service, they are "not responsible" for whatever happens to any personal data they hold on you. Is this the way we want companies to act? I think not.

  • Sitejabber

3/6/16

I have been satisfied with SiteJabber so far; they seem to be a straight up outfit. I have only been with them a couple of months, but I have spent a few hours or maybe a bit more on here, reading other folks' reviews.
I have found them to be pretty good reviews overall. As usual, the quality of the review depends entirely on the quality of the reviewer, just as the forums of the New York Times read a lot better than the forums of the Daily Caller.
We are all only imperfect humans and it is not just a function of the intelligence of the person as much as it is a function of how logical, thorough, and comprehensive their thinking is. (and most importantly, how honest) The caliber of the folks here seem to be good and I have learned quite a bit thanks to their sharing of info.
I continue to rely on Sitejabber for good quality and trustworthy info and hope to be a good citizen of this site and do honor to the original mission they have set before themselves. I personally thank them for providing this venue.

Tip for consumers:
sample as many reviews as possible to get a balanced view of each company, and then pay it forward and share your honest thoughts. The more people are honest and accurate, the better the site will be.

Thumbnail of user jackiev30
Jackie V. – Sitejabber Rep

Thank you for the review. We appreciate you.

  • Amazon

3/6/16

I have found the reviews and the review system on Amazon to be a great help in understanding many products and services. If I take the time to read what regular people have to share, I usually always learn something new and useful. The problem with the internet is that it is a bottomless pit of raw info and has very little context and wisdom is hard to find. Without wisdom, we are all shooting in the dark.

The availability of real user reviews and people's real opinions, as various as they are, is a small ray of light in a dark forest. Since everyone sees things from a different perspective, it is often difficult to weed out the truth about something, but if you read enough comments, sometimes patterns start to emerge. No other company offers as much depth in actual user comments, although this site, sitejabber, is a notable exception.
People have wisdom and most people are decent. If all companies allowed us the freedom to exchange our honest experiences, and the software would allow us to search a little better and also to collate the results, it would be a good day for consumers and a bad day for ruthless companies selling low quality trash. So my Hat is off to Amazon. There is a reason most people use them and that is because they are the most reputable company out there. If other companies followed their example, it would be a better world.

Tip for consumers:
If you give an honest review, it makes Amazon and the world a better place.

  • Mozilla Firefox

3/6/16

It is a confusing world out there, but mozilla's browser "Firefox" and their organization has been solid as a rock and giving good service to me for over a decade. You can synch all your devices from the browser and have the same stuff on all of your devices. Like android, mozilla firefox has many addons to make your browsing experience safe, pleasant, and capable. This is a great organization and a great browser.

Tip for consumers:
I think they were the first browser to offer Tabbed browsing which everyone quickly copied.

  • Fair Fax Underground

3/6/16

I wanted to let everyone know about this website for several reasons.
After reading reviews of 'citydata' on sitejabber, I was reminded of fxunderground and all the trolls and racist rhetoric that haunt that site.
It is a forum style of site, not a company, and you can find a lot on it, somewhat like reddit, except even more wild west. You have the option of posting anonymously or under any name you choose to use at the moment and starting any topic you feel like starting. As a result there is a lot of good topical info but also flaming in the most horrible ways you can imagine or worst. On one hand it is honest but brutal. On the other hand, it seems to foster the worst instincts of certain very hateful people, like citydata is reported to do.
There may be some value in letting people say whatever they want online and getting it all out on the table. At least you know where you stand. At another level, the fact that people make racist comments, is really not so healthy for our public discourse. People spewing negativity is not very productive, not to mention not a very adult type of behavior.
It is a mob mentality, a cowards' mentality, and contrary to our American spirit.
Thomas Jefferson said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom". And it has also been said, "the only thing that allows evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing".
Wake up, America. Toleration of belief and religious freedom is the rock America is built on. But tolerating belligerent behavior and blatant racism will undermine all that America has achieved to promote humans living peaceably together. Dave Chappelle had a skit on what if the innernet was your neighborhood, well, guess what, folks, it is.

Tip for consumers:
You can put anything you want on Fxunderground, but be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

  • Yelp

3/6/16

If you had a friend that told you the truth half the time, would you allow him or her to remain your friend? That is essentially what yelp does, except they hide most of the negative comments down low on the page under "unrecommended reviews". I never noticed until I went back to check out a business that I dealt with and did me dirty. Sure enough, there were some reviews there that could have saved me a lot of grief, but they were buried. Is this the kind of world the internet is helping us to create? We rely on companies that we know lie to us, so we can pretend to be well informed and judicious people. Let's stop the deceit.

Tip for consumers:
Only spend your money with moral businesses.

  • Weebly

3/6/16

I started one free site on weebly a couple of years ago and it has been running ever since so that is the good news. I tried to start another site recently and their site builder seems clunky and hard to use. I am still looking for a hosting company which can give you a clean, well-organized, and straight-forward website builder, but that seems pretty rare.
Wordpress seems to be the most widely used and well regarded software for making and maintaining a site, but the learning curve is steep and I am a bit of a dolt. Weebly has a lot of options for a free site, but it's drag and drop builder does not really let you do much.

It did not want to accept any photos because I run a linux os and I am assuming my photos, even though they are from smart phones, do not conform to the weebly software.
I do not recall having that problem before, (when I setup the previous site). Also it is impossible to resize anything on a new page, and their text editor only gives you very basic options. If you are putting some "brochure-ware" up on their free site, it is probably adequate, but do not expect much.
I do not know how easy it is to do e-commerce or to move or upgrade your website, but it feels difficult to do the simplest things, and I do not think it has to be that way. But I am not very adept at any of these things so it may work for you. I am just not very impressed with their website builder.

Tip for consumers:
Seems reliable if you can get past it's basic clunkiness.

  • Wigoclinic

2/22/16

Clueless escapees from ADD clinic with no sense of empathy for your problem and a total lack of integrity-need I say more. If you go to yelp and click 'unreccomended' reviews at the bottom of the page, you will find over a hundred horror stories of lost data, lost phones, no refund of your money after unsuccessful repair attempts, and countless delays. Serious lack of accountability from owner 'Rob L.' and an "F" rating with the BBB.
I could go on, but why bother.

Tip for consumers:
Rob L. the owner consistently says the customer did not respond to my attempts to contact him or her. really? After 20 or 30 phone calls, emails, and in store conversations, most just give up.

  • ConsumerAffairs

2/21/16

I stumbled upon 'consumer affairs', a very clever name, during a search for reviews of Bosch appliances. I was captivated by the slick interface and their 'irreverent and seemingly no-nonsense' attitude. I followed many of their links, faqs, and then explored their help wanted ads, thinking I might be able to work for a savvy outfit like this as a content guy.

After a brief duckduckgo search, I found a link to
http://truthaboutpetfood.com/consumer-affairs-threats-of-lawyers-to-truthaboutpetfood-com/
A tale about correspondence sent to the editor of truthaboutpetfood from 'consumer affairs' trying to bully them,.
After reading many of the comments by the pet lovers and supporters of truthaboutpetfood, (who are only interested in getting decent food for their pets) and following a link provided there by one commenter to Sitejabber, a more complete picture emerged.
I almost fell for this company's line of patter, but thanks to all the reviews on both Sitejabber and truthaboutpetfood, I realized what a subtle scam they are running.
I think they represent the worst propensity of the computer age; selling snake oil in the guise of helping people, but really doing just the opposite. Also, their whole business model reminds me of a mafia shakedown racket, as noted by one previous reviewer.

Thank God for the good sense and critical faculties of many good people who have taken the time and effort to express their experiences and their take on 'consumer affairs'. Isn't it ironic that this website cloaks itself with the mantle of an often used title of government agencies, promises aid to consumers, but sells (extorts) 'reputation control' to other companies? Trusting people are reminded to be diligent and look beyond glib promises and slick facades. I almost applied for a job with them!

Tip for consumers:
Don't be deceived by this site. They subvert your intention to report a real issue and only are there to get blood money from companies to suppress real freedom of information-very anti-democratic and contrary to the real spirit of America.

barely Has Earned 25 Votes

Barely A.'s review of Yelp earned a Very Helpful vote

Barely A.'s review of Disqus earned 2 Well Said votes

Barely A.'s review of Weebly earned a Very Helpful vote

Barely A.'s review of ConsumerAffairs earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Barely A.'s review of Disqus earned 9 Very Helpful votes

Barely A.'s review of Wigoclinic earned a Very Helpful vote

Barely A.'s review of Craigslist earned 4 Very Helpful votes

Barely A.'s review of Sitejabber earned 2 Very Helpful votes

Barely A.'s review of Mozilla Firefox earned 3 Very Helpful votes

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