Cathy M.

My husband died July 26 of this year. Now for anyone who has been through this, you know that while you're trying to go through the mourning process there is all the legal issues that have to be dealt with. All you want to do is cry because the person you chose to live your life with is gone. You want to curl up in a ball and make the world go away, but that isn't what happens.
Of course, there are the funeral arrangements, family members who are also grieving, and then all the financial and property matters that have to be delt with. You're not at your best for dealing during this time, but it has to be done. Life doesn't stop for you to take a break.
Somehow my marriage license and birth certificate disappeared and that meant they had to be replaced. I had to make a six-hour drive to get copies of my marriage license because they couldn't be ordered and paid for over the phone. OK, the world and courthouses don't change their rules for you.
When I called about my birth certificate, I got one of those 'Oh, thank God moments' when I found out that my birth certificate could be ordered and paid for over the phone with five to seven days wait time. Turns out that the people where my birth certificate put a rush one it and had it out and on its way to me the day I called. UPS came back with a delivery day of August 29. I just had to be at the house to sign for the documents when they got here. By eight o'clock that night the UPS truck hadn't showed up. I check the shipping status and the delivery date was now August 30. For the record I paid for overnight deliver. The package didn't arrive on the 30th either. So, for two days I didn't leave my home afraid I would miss them. Checked the shipping information again on to see that the package was now somewhere in limbo.
I called the place that sent the documents, and they have to go through a process with UPS that takes ten days and after those ten days if the package hasn't been delivered or located the originating company refunds the money I spent on those birth certificates. That's nice of the originating company, I'm deliberately refraining from mentioning the origination company because they haven't done anything wrong, but it doesn't help me now.
I've had to reorder the certificates to try and get them her as quickly as possible and having them sent to a new address.
So here is where the UPS part comes in. I called them. After waiting on hold for a long time I get a young woman, she sounded young anyway, I get a story that the documents were delivered to the wrong address in Oak something, somewhere, and they are going to have to do research to figure out what happened and if they don't find them get them back, they'll reimburse me the cost of the documents. This process could take up to two weeks or longer. If they find them, they will send them on. The problem with that is, I won't be here to sign for them. I told them to find them and change the shipping address, but I wasn't given that option. Oh no, we can't do that but we're sorry for what you're going through. I asked to switch to a manager and the person on the phone said, "Well their going to tell you the same thing." I told her to put her manager on the phone.
After another long wait, I was finally transferred to a manager. She didn't tell me the same thing, however. Now the documents are lost, and they would have to investigate what happened and try to find them. Do what? I told her that I was going to start screaming from every rooftop I could, UPS's image isn't that great right now. Her comeback was, "Ma'am this call is being recorded. What? You are now vaguely threatening me, for what. For telling you I'm not going to sit back and idly accept you're bull crap. I told her I was aware the call was being recorded and I haven't threatened anything but to be heard. That I would be silent.
I don't know how many of you have had bad experiences with U{S, but I know this isn't the first time they've screwed something up for me and this time I'm not going to go silently into the night.
So, UPS, you want to come after a 67-year-old widow who just lost her husband whom she loved with all her heart, go for it. I'll be plastered on every news station across this county and the tears that will be flowing down my face won't be false. Get your head out of your assess and clean up your mess.

Right off the bat let's get something straight. This isn't about one company but all of them, or to be even more precise, the realtors who actually represent the people who are selling their homes. If you are the prospective buyer, don't trust them. Crye-Leike just happened to be the one that the agent worked for that represented the buyer of our house when we bought it.
I'm not saying they're all bad, I'm not saying that Crye-Leike itself or any other real estate company is bad. I don't know what the companies do or do not tell their agents what to do. This is about what a real estate agent may or may not do, but they are representing the seller of a house so don't take their word for anything. These people are trying to sell a home and put money in their packet. Make sure you get an agent who will represent you in the buying process and even then, ask questions, get answers, and when possible do whatever research you can on the property you're interested in. Ask people you know who have recently bought a home and who represented them and would they recommend that person. I know that right now it's a seller's market and time isn't on the buyer's side. You need to take your time to make sure you're getting what you're paying those high dollars for. Yes, it may cost you that lovely dream home you think you've found, but it also could save you loads of money, time, and regret down the road. Remember the staging part. That's for the seller's and agent's benefit, not yours.
Here are a few things you should be looking for when touring a house. Be sure to look at the corners of the walls inside the house. Are they perfectly joined or is there a separation in the walls at that point? Why? Watch for the slightly off colors in the paint on walls and moldings of a house. This could be a sign of a place actually repaired or a sign that something damaged is being hidden from the buyer. Take a large marble with you and place it on the floors of every room and watch to see if it stays where you put it. If it starts to roll on its own, then there's a good chance there's a problem. If doors are closed open them, and watch to see if they stay open. If doors are open, close them and pay attention to how easily they close then open them back up. Check the facing around the door for any damage. Check all windows. Look at the caulking around the windows. Open and close all the windows to make sure they work properly. Are they well sealed? Really inspect tile flooring. Look for cracks in the tile or the caulking between them. Really inspect the outside of the house. Is there's any damage to the siding or wood? With brick or stone, it will be a little harder to spot damage but look hard. Ask why if you find any, then take an even closer look. Check everything in regard to front porches, wood decks, and concrete patios. Again, the marble is a handy little tool when it comes to the concrete. If you have to give it a slight nudge when it comes to the concrete, if it's textured and not a smooth surface, then do so. Here again check for those cracks. Wood decking, you will have to depend on your own eyes to see if there is something off. Now here's a kicker. Pictures and mirrors on the walls. Check behind them: if you have to remove them, do so especially if they seem to be hung in odd places or heights. Pictures and mirrors are a terrific way to hide things by the sellers and their agents, believe me, I know. One more thing to be aware of. Those lovely little candles they may have lit, a large number of plug-in air fresheners, or that just cleaned smell can be hiding pet order, an abundance of lingering tobacco smoke, or even worse odors of even more foul things. Also, if you're not seeing and smelling fresh paint it would be a clever idea to take some disposable hand wipes with you and run it along a wall to see what comes off. Don't get aggressive with this, a slight rub should tell you what you need to know.
Remember this, you can always negotiate with the seller into fixing anything that gives you pause. They're selling their house for a reason, good or bad, and a good potential buyer still has some advantages when it comes to that.
The reason the picture thing is so important. I lost count of the number of bullet holes I had to patch after we bought our house. Several other things we should have taken a closer look at, but didn't, may cost us a little bit of money in the not to distant future, but I love our new home even with the history I discovered about the place before we signed the papers on it. Honestly, the history though horrific, didn't scare me off. The bullet holes might have if I had known about them beforehand. Those things are a pain to fill and smooth out, especially when they are a complete through and through shot. Still working to get the outside part in some places filled in and the paint matched up.
For those of you who are wondering if someone was shot in the house. That didn't happen. At least I couldn't find anything anywhere to tell me otherwise.
Sitejabber ask for proof of purchase, since this is our home that is something I won't do because of the information on that document. Nothing personal Sitejabber, I think you would understand that.

How this company managed to acquire a top rating among anyone is beyond me. My guess is that the only people who participate in the surveys live within large metropolitan areas and never venture out of them.
Let's start with customer service.
I took my phone to a T-Mobile establishment to get the SIM card replaced and the young man who took possession of my phone and proceeded in breaking the tray and destroyed my SD card. It had some valuable information on it. This little arse then had the audacity to blame me for breaking the tray. He did manage to shove the broken tray back into the phone with a new SIM card, but the little piece that covers the outside where the tray sits was now gone. He also broke the little key off in the tiny little hole where you insert the darn thing to get the tray out. I had to buy a new phone when he informed me there was nothing T-Mobile could do to make things right. I ended up buying a new phone, it sucks.
From this we'll go to Customer Service. Customer service my bottom, more like Customer Hell.
I contacted this nightmare service, that would rival any of my books and I write horror, and with that the abundance of lies began. I've talked to five, yes five, reps and with each one the lies poured forth with such abundance I couldn't believe anything anyone said by the end of this four month long endless spouting of bull crap. The first rep told me there was nothing they could do it wasn't their problem. This was when I went out and bought the new phone. Like my phone before, it was a Samsung and when it got updated by Samsung it turned into nothing more than a brick due to my location. I'll get to that part soon, maybe.
The second one I talked to promised me a new phone and, get ready for this one, a temporary tower so I would get better service at my new home. Yes, this is where things get interesting. I spent hours on the phone with the young woman. I was trying to get away from the new place and back to the old one because I had to be at a funeral the next day in another state. Like I said, she promised me another phone. Cheapest they had I might add, and it would be in my hands by April 20,2021. This call took place on April 10,2021. On Saturday, April 17,2021 I got a call from this young lady that I was unable to take when she called so she left a voice mail on my phone. She informed me that T-Mobile had a promotion, and I could get the cheap phone and all I had to do was send in my new phone as a trade in. That wasn't mentioned before and certainly no promotion was mentioned. Now you want me to trade in this new brick that I paid more than twice for to get something cheaper. Stupid I'm not.
I called again. This time I got a young man. After a couple of hours on the phone with him we came to an understanding. Or so I was led to believe. I would trade in my phone for a higher quality phone, and I would pay a one-time bill of $300.00. I had to pay the tax on the phone right then. I did. The next thing I get is an email stating I had agreed to them drawing out a payment plan of 24 months at a price that would have ended up with me paying the full amount on the phone and they would still get the brick. Are you kidding me?
I called again. Another two hours on the phone. I have to say that this young man didn't try to hand me a line of crap. He flat out said what the others had told me wasn't true and he did apologize for how things had been handled. He would try and do what he could, and they would be investigating what had transpired. Thank you Q for being honest.
The next day I got a call from a manager and she handed me the same line of crap about the agreement, but they would credit me six months on my bill and even with this they would still be coming out making more off the phone they were sending than it was worth and charging me interest payment on top of that. My response was "No, I'm done. I'm switching to a new service. Good-bye." And I hung up.
Shortly after I got a new email thanking me for my order and they sent me another agreement to sign.
Third thing regarding T-Mobile and this is the big one.
Regarding whom they get to do their surveys. The reason I made the statement it must be only people who live in large, congregated areas with people who never venture out of them is because once you get outside of a city you loose service. Even if you are on the expressway, you will hit large areas that have no service. You get off the expressway, good-bye T-Mobile. If you don't believe me, pull up their site coverage map. They don't have any coverage outside a city. This was the reason for the lie about putting in a tower out close to where the new house is. Yes, it is in a very rural area. I also know that T-Mobile isn't liked in this area. People do talk. I'm often on back roads because of what I do but when you can't get service on major highways or anywhere else for that matter, how can you be listed as one of the top contenders. The reason for the phone being called a brick, when Samsung updated the phone, I lost even my wireless signal to that phone at the new house. I may have fixed that problem; I'll know when I get back to the new place.
To sum it up, T-Mobile sucks in customer service, following through with what they tell their customers and lying, and unless you want to spend the rest of your life inside the boundaries of a large, populated location and never leave, coverage.
I made my last call today, April 21,2021 to inform T-Mobile that they had 48 hours to credit my credit card. We'll see how that turns out. Anyone want to take any bets on this one?
Oh, one last thing. I started recording my calls with T-Mobile. There is a certain satisfaction in informing the person you're talking to that this call ‘is' being recorded for quality assurance.

I just received another invoice from Nikon, this time for $404.38. They are claiming it was an impact issue. Nope. If that camera had an impact issue it happened once it got to them. I know how I took care of that camera, the two months it worked, and it didn't get knocked around. Don't buy a Nikon. Go with something more trustworthy, like a stone and chisel.

Well here we are mid-July and still nothing from Nikon on fixing my new camera. I wrote the first review back in April after over a month of trying to get some help from them. The last the time camera worked was mid-February and I got the darn thing mid-December. I will buy nothing else from this company.

I'm seriously considering changing to another website, so anyone with a great review of one would be appreciated. Also don't want to get charged out of having a website.

As most of us know facebook has an Algorithm that dictates how many people, and it isn't a lot, and who sees your post. I'm always getting these post pop up on my page
That says hold your finger down on this and yada, yada, yada. It doesn't work, at least not for me. What it boils down to is facebook trying to entice you to buy into their ad campaigns, so they can make money off you. Yes, they all do it, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
And I must admit I've bought into a few. I've stopped. Here's the reason why.

Yes, I know that you have to spend money to make money, but I don't have to be stupid either. You post, and you post, and you post until sometimes you might make your friends nuts. If you're selling a product or in my case trying to get people interested in my books, I've set up not only book pages but character pages. You spread the word anyway you can. Use tags, use URL's when you have them, don't have a website, set one up. I don't know how I can have so many people visiting my website and me not selling more books. I figured part of it out. Same thing. Use those URL's, tag lines, and
Post regularly. Don't be afraid to repost something you have in the past. Not a lot of people saw it the first time around unless you're someone like Steven King or James Patterson. Keep reposting. It doesn't matter if it's a blog, vlog, a short story, a video, or just something you feel you must share with the world, just keep reposting.

I will give you some advice I've given to other writers. Stay away from certain subjects, top of the list politics. Also, religion. Unless you're a politician or a minister of some type or a religious writer targeting certain groups, all you're going to do is alienate a lot of people who might otherwise buy your product be it a book or anything else.

The one thing it is going to take from you is dedication to what you're doing and the belief in what your promoting. Another words, it going to take some hard work on your part. You can try to buy that from others but unless you have an unlimited supply of money that's not going to get you far.

So, you want to beat the algorithms then You are going to have to hit those buttons on your keyboard. I just got my laptop replaced for Christmas because I had worn the keys
Down to nubs. That was because I do write a lot and not because I was spending the time doing the other things I needed to be doing.

If the short cuts work for you great, but for me they don't. I will wear yet another keyboard down I'm sure. I just hope this one last a little longer than the last. Poor baby. It has taken a beating.

After I wrote this review I got another message from Amazon. I had
Order a tip that I liked and it came from one of the companies that
Sells through Amazon. I was given an arrive date and then date came but
The top didn't. Ups handed off the package to USPS and the top never
Made it to me. It got delivered to someone else and my money would be
Refunded. Of course I got asked for a review on the product. You know
How did it fit, was I happy with it, things like that. I responded.
How the heck do I know any of the things you asked when the product
Never made it me. It literally got lost in the mail. They didn't like
That comment and told me that it wouldn't be posted.

Microsoft

Yep I'm going after the big boy. My wonderful hubby bought me a super awesome
Computer for Christmas. Saying he bought it really doesn't do justice to what he actually did. To make sure I got what I needed on my new laptop he had HP build it to my needs. This thing is wonderful. Well almost wonderful.
One of the things I do is make book trailers and videos. Well Microsoft discontinued the video maker I used and then turned around and limited the fonts for paint. You would be surprised at what I can do on paint. Now I can get more for free but it's pretty much more of the same. There's a couple of them you can buy but I'm having issues with that. I don't have to ask why they did it, it was for the money, but the mercenary bull crap of this action blows my mind.
Yes, I got one of those feedback notices and yes, I gave them an earful. They haven't bothered to even respond with an email on that one. I figure they may be looking for an attorney to sue me, no I really didn't say anything I don't think that gives them cause to come after me because I saw no need. I did tell them they sucked. I also dared them to show my feedback to Bill Gates.
Here's the thing. They have taken away pretty much any of the really great script fonts and what they have left is mostly crap. I have other image apps but there was something about paint I loved. Simple to use, true not very advanced but paired with some of the other apps I use I could make a pretty good image or poster. There's one I'm going to share with you when I post this.
Windows Ten is a disappointment to say the lease but I can learn to work around it but when you take the little things away and then offer a few of them back for a few dollars, and I'm talking very damn few where the fonts are concerned, just so you can make another couple of bucks off the people who have to use you because Microsoft is pretty much the only thing offered on computers now. That's so wrong in so many way but I won't get into that because then you are getting off into legal issues.
What is the point of having this magnificent laptop if a lot of the things I had on my old one I can no longer get on the new one? Oh, I'll figure it out, I just have to be careful to make sure I don't get something I don't want on my laptop and I'm not talking some app.
Thanks Microsoft for putting me in this situation. I'll get what I need but if I can't figure
Out where to find it, I've got a husband who can and will. So, will I recommend the Microsoft store to others? Not on your life. Stay away from it as much as you can and try to find other places to get what you need. Talk to people, get recommendations, do your research, whatever it takes to get what you need but try to stay away from the Microsoft store.

If someone doesn't like something now some people turn it into a political thing, but I don't think this has anything to do with left-wing or right-wing. This is more like a bunch of tenth graders deciding who is worthy of their little clicks. When I started spreading out on the social media sites one of them was Reddit. I'm a writer and I'm going to use every media site I can to promote my work.
What I found was this point system and them telling me to 'do this' but when you do, they come back with 'you're doing too much of this.' Do what? I stopped using them. That was two years ago. Recently, very recently, I decided to give it another try. Yes, I forgot why I stopped messing with them. One attempted post and I remembered why I stopped wasting my time with Reddit. Now they have brought bit coin into the whole thing. That alone is enough reason for me to back away but this, you can't post something without gaining points, come on.
Anyway, I was going to play by the rules and go through the feed and see if anything struck me. Actually a few things did. They weren't small things either. They were stories about one thing or the other and I wanted to comment on them. The first one they put on hold and the second one I got the you're doing this too often' message and it told me to wait a minute. Finally it let me post the comment, the story I had read was good and I wanted to express that, and with the point I earned I wrote one of my own. Yes, it went against the rules of the group I posted it to but what the hell.
Once again I've backed away from Reddit and let's hope that I never, ever forget again why I did. Just in case you might be interested in the little story I posted I'm including it. Not because I'm trying to gain readers here but because it expresses the way they made me feel.

You Have To Wait

I looked at the words flashing before my eyes unable to believe what I was reading. I have to wait? Wait for what. I made a comment was all. What am I waiting on?
I decided to take a different route and post something and once finished I was surprised to see that I was only allowed to click the draft button. The post button was unresponsive. Now it says I must wait for a notification. Seriously? Wait for a notification? For a post?
What the crap am I waiting for?
Then I saw it. Oh my stars, surely not. I watched as the hand holding a pistol with a very long barrel pushed its way out of my computer screen. I never even had time to scream. The loud ear-splitting bang was the last thing I heard. Obviously, I didn't have to wait for that.

What I think this boils down to is someone has found a way to turn this site into something that almost has a mafia feel to it and that's scary. I made the mistake of clicking a little button that said give the contributor points. When it popped up asking for my bank info I was shocked as Hell. Sorry but there was no other way to put that. I strongly suggest that you be very careful on that site and read everything you can, including whatever they have on their site, before you get too involved with Reddit. Not much scares me but this site does.

This one is not going to be real easy to write. Back in September of 2015 I published my book Blood Lines Family Ties. Early in 2017 I took a short excerpt from that book and turned it into a video to promote my book. Soon three separate companies
Claimed that I had infringed on their copyrights. I went through the You Tube procedures that took months to resolve but ultimately I won.
Now here it is over a year and a half later and yet again another company has laid claim to my intellectual property on the same video. In each case I was declared the wrong doer against these large companies and big money accounts.
When you do decide to dispute the other party's claims You Tube does everything possible to discourage you from taking any action including very thinly veiled threats such as having your video removed or even you channel blocked. That didn't stop me however. I ploughed ahead taking my chances with the process. Intimately I won out against the first three. I have to say that You Tube did notify me of those three but on this last one, no. I found out when I went three levels in to edit a couple of videos and that's when I found this one. It stated that the owner of the copyright was OK with me using their work but I wasn't allowed to make any money off it however they could and would. Yes I disputed this one as well with the usual discouragement.
The video is now listed as being disputed but this is what it has posted by it, "Your copyright dispute is currently being reviewed by the copyright owner. You'll receive a response within 30 days from when you filed the dispute." Just for the record I am the
Copyright owner. It's been proven three times by You Tube themselves. Yet here we are again.

For me the real kicker isn't just that I'm being called a liar and a thief, and that is what it is, they show me my work that is in question but I never get to see the other parties work.
Well this time I'm not playing by their rules. First I have a lot of people on several sites
Passing the word and of course I did another video. This was a really good one. If I can I will post it for you to check it out and please if you do don't forget to like and leave a comment.
We should have the right to see the other party's material when ours comes into question and not made to feel like we'll be punished if we stand up for ourselves. You want Google aka You Tube to take you just as serious as they do the large accounts the you had better be willing to stand together to make your point. We've all fought most of our battles against large companies alone so maybe now it's time for the independents to stand up together and have one another's back if we want to be taken seriously. We may have only a few dollars to our names but standing together those few dollars can make an awful big wave. No I'm not asking for funds just making a point.
I have now fired off an email to 60 Minutes and I suggest anyone who is having issues with You Tube do the same. Together we have a voice but separately we are mute.
Here is the link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7CTFJrJko8

Below is the image of my book.

If you're having problems with CreateSpace please take it to the BBB. I did. It was amazing how quickly they responded to my complaint once the BBB notified them. I've also presented CS with a bill for the issue they dropped on me. When I first started with CS in late 2014 they were great. They had been bought by Amazon at that point but that company had pretty much left CS alone. Evidently that is no longer the case. Like a lot of you I also have been told that people have bought my books but I certainly haven't seen the revenue from them.
I was surprised to see that CS has an A+ review with the BBB. You can change that. If you want to know more about the issue I had with them please go to my website, cathypacematthews.com
My review. They have no respect for the independent author.
They only got the one star because I had to because yes it does get worse.