Harry H.

I've used Indeed to search for jobs. They have a great many openings posted, but I personally found a lot of them in my field to be people trying to mislead you into thinking that it's a bigger/better job than it actually is - I know that from being very connected to players in the industry here. I suppose that eventually you could find a job here, but it seems that the really good jobs are not advertised. I sure haven't seen them. Maybe good for temp or seasonal jobs, but they don't seem to be openings that I can't find when I search other common job sites.

Statistically, one has a much better chance of getting hit by lightning, and probably twice, than winning any really big pot from their games. I'm also a little suspect, because one time I got a popup during a game saying I won $10k, and took a screenshot of it for documentation, but when I got no notification, I contacted them and sent a copy of the screenshot containing the message, and they replied back saying it was a 'systems glitch.' So, my takeaway from that is they can cite that an award popup message can be labeled as a 'systems glitch' whenever they don't feel like awarding any money. But, I'm not disappointed, because I played with absolutely no expectations whatsoever, and a skeptical view that these guys might be crooks. As such, my expectations are completely satisfied.

They're good for researching and finding the cheapest fares and hacker fares. I've done ok with them, but I've not bought through them; they refer me to a different site having that price. Depending who that is, just doublecheck that all of the nickel and dime charges if any are shown. For hotels/cars though I lean towards Hotwire.

Monster has one of the most comprehensive job search databases out there. Easy to drill down into areas of specialty, useful email alerts. I've used it a few times, getting my next employment through them.

I used Honey as a browser extension for quite a while, most notably on Amazon. Shopping over a great variety of items, I found that the savings that Honey finds for all of the items is either the same savings as Amazon, Walmart, Target etc, and when it does find a difference, it doesn't seem to be more than 25 to 50 cents cheaper. I believe that Honey takes up some unnecessary computer/tablet/phone system resources, which can slow your device down. Not worth it to me.

I've been a Prime customer for a few years now. As time has gone on, I've found that I can order things that I've bought from other sites, but can also find them on Amazon. There's a lot of good price competition, and the free shipping makes it very worthwhile, saving a lot of money vs shopping at other sites. I don't have to spend $75 or more to get free shipping like on other sites. Delivery has always been on time. Good spread of movies on Prime also.

I used Orbitz for a number of years. It was ok only. Prices were competitive, but I'd always wondered whether they were one of those websites who would display certain airlines first before everyone else or not include very many results from certain airlines because they didn't have any sort of backroom agreement. I never had a cancellation in my plans so can't validate all of these poor reviews. However, once I found Kayak, which seems pretty equal in showing the best fares, I abandoned Orbitz.

I use Hotwire's Hot Deals to shop the cheapest rental car, as it usually doesn't matter who you use as long as it's one of the majors. In cities that I'm familiar with, I'll use the hot deals for hotels, as I'll usually have a good idea what specific hotel it is depending on what part of town it's in. For non-Hot Deal rates, I find that they're really no cheaper than any of the major travel sites, so no value for me there.

I get these as a result of surveys usually. I've had no trouble with their Visa gift cards to date. I wish that they could be used at more than just limited online sites though.

Sure Frys has all these cheap knockoff items and some of the mainstream brands are fairly competitive, and that's great. But If you buy something thru Frys.com, you can't return it to the store. You can only manage it through Fry's.com and it's a huge pain and inconvenience. Their website has always been real bulky to use because of the layout. Since they're a separate business for all intents and purposes from Frys the physical store, why don't they just call the website something else other than Frys in order to avoid confusion?

These guys, who I think are from or have a connection to Hong Kong based on their previous user login info, I believe are Misusing their Microsoft Licenses. Here's the scam; they suck you in for buying Office365 for anywhere between 29.99 and 49.99, a 'lifetime license'. Go do a search for this and you'll see confirmation of my experience. So, I buy this, and then about 6 mo later, when I log in to Office 365 online to look at my OneDrive contents, I get this big banner saying that this license is not a valid one, and that my OneDrive contents and Office365 will STOP WORKING. I notified whoever these guys are, and they simply gave me another login and password to use, but I know that, and others have experienced, that another 5-6 months will pass and this will also be invalidated by Microsoft.

Here's what's taking place. There is NO LIFETIME LICENSE from Microsoft. Ask them. These guys will ostensibly buy an Enterprise License, from 250 user on up, then RESELL each 'seat' or individual user license to anyone in the world. When they get busted, they'll simply change their account and background information, and start doing it again under another name. An Enterprise License is for all users inside ONE COMPANY, and isn't meant to be resold like this, so when MS finds out, they invalidate your account. These guys don't care, so unless you go complaining to them for another login/password, they'll just change their stripes and move on. In the end you get burned.

The websites that expose this racket caution that if you see something like an Office 2019, it's bogus - there is NO SUCH THING as Office 365/2019 Lifetime License, as they will advertise it. As to those who advertise Office2019 for between 29 and 49 bucks, that's the same type of scam. Microsoft's price is $250 for the Home/Business, so you know that they're just reselling seats under an enterprise license that only one co is supposed to use internally. I dumped these jokers after only losing 30 bucks fortunately and got a real license for Office365. MS lets me pay monthly, something like only ten bucks a month so it's affordable and all my cloud documents and OneDrive won't someday vanish mysteriously. Crooked operation. And they try to suck you into becoming a 'reseller', which means fraudulently reselling more of their licenses.

I've been on EH for a while, and although I've seen what looks like plummeting membership (getting matches who've left long ago), I had a new experience with them a couple wks ago. Someone who called themselves Sarah, 51, from Sioux Falls reached out to me. Thru email conversation she looked to write with very lightly broken English, but not quite enough to suspect one of those Nigerian scams. She professed to go on a trip to Cairo Egypt to find some art work for a business she alleged to own, and for 5 days sent daily photos of her posing at this or that artisan's market. Finally on the day she was supposed to leave, she writes and gives me a variant on the old Nigerian scam of being marooned there, hotel mgr holding her passport (they never do) until she settles up and asks for $980. Of course I didn't. But I did say it wasn't appropriate for me to assist. Then, the next day she writes with another even older Nigerian scam that I've seen, saying she'll send me a check to cash, then I'm to cash it and send her the money; in this scam, by the time the bank processes the int'l check, it's 30 days before they discover it's fraudulent, but the scammer's already gotten your money and they move on. I traced the IP addresses of these 2 emails to the Nigeria area, and told EH about it after closing her, but I don't know if they'll do anything or can. There's certain things about the way they write that indicate that they're not from the US or Canada. Anyway, beware! I don't know if this 'Sarah' is actually a blonde or some guy in Nigeria trying to scam EH members.

UPDATE: Get this everyone: I got yet ANOTHER SCAM MATCH. The person wrote to me, a Joan from Los Angeles (probably Nigeria too), who requested EH Mail. I didn't give her any personal info that you can't find on the internet, but five minutes ago EH Customer Relations sent me a msg saying that they've terminated Joan's account because it violated their terms of usage, translated, it was a SCAM ARTIST. My opinion is that EH is getting saturated with scammers now, and I am extremely suspect of all matches unless their public information on the net checks out, like a lawyer, doctor, etc that can be verified.

EVERYBODY BEWARE!

I considered opening an acct with these guys when I first moved to town, but after looking at all of the fees, it looks like they nickel and dime you to death. I assume that dumb looks are still free. And this was before they got busted for all of their fraudulent activity against customers. Based on the fact that they had to get bailed out through TARP in the recession and other banks didn't, my perception is extremely poor management in addition to being crooked.

I don't and don't plan to go thru Edmunds to buy my car. I'll do my research on Edmunds on quality and pricing, then go armed with the info to the local dealer. For research, I don't know of any better place to read about the good, bad, and ugly, without having to pay for it like Consumer Reports. I've not had any website technical or latency issues in the past, so I can't weigh in about problems like that that others have experienced. Could be Internet provider, clogs in the internet core, etc, something other than their website servers.

I recently decided at the recommendation of my mechanic to replace the entire front end suspension of my 99 Accord, since it has more than 300k miles on it and it was all original parts. My mechanic tipped me off to Detroit Axle as having the best prices for these kinds of parts around, about HALF THE COST of what you'd buy at an O'Reillys or Napa. I'm not a mechanic but I do shop with a real detailed eye, so as I was browsing the various front end kits I emailed a lot of questions to them asking about the differences between the kits, whether it included this or that, etc. They were very patient with all of my questions and answered them promptly. Their shipping is free, a big deal when you're getting a heavy set of metal parts. Arrived on time, without packing errors, and they are working well on my car. If I need any more parts to replace my original equipment, I will absolutely come back to Detroit Axle.

This is an update to my original review. I have an outstanding balance from quote refunds that were never responded to, under the old quoting rules. I wrote to Thumbtack and requested a refund of my outstanding account balance to my card. Here is their response:

"Thanks for your prompt response. We're really sorry for the confusion and the inconvenience it caused by the updates and changes regarding on our pricing. First off, I'd like to let you know that we do not process cash refund. Anything refundable will go back to your Thumbtack account."
---------Sooooo, in other words, Thumbtack says they will keep the money that I paid for a quote not answered, even if I were to close out my account. In other words, too bad, I'm hosed?" -Is this a matter that should be reported to the Federal Trade Commission? Feedback from any pros in similar position is welcome.

I've been a professional on Thumbtack for 5 yrs now. Part of my service includes giving online piano/theory/composition lessons to students coast to coast, so I don't limit my quoting to just my home area. Obviously then my rates are location-dependent; for instance, a 60 min lsn in Manhattan will be a different cost than a 60 min lesson in Chanute, KS. Also, if the request was to teach multiple people in the family, I could meet there needs better by suggesting the right length of lesson and give them my family discount. Before, up til April 2018 I could address every quote with a customized message and tell them exactly what they needed to know, and how I could help them with the specific discounts/scholarship, and we wouldn't waste time going back and forth with unnecessary requests for more information. We just hit the ground running, and I could give them a rate that is normally charged in their geographic region. BUT, now in what's most likely an effort to save Thumbtack money, they require that you simply hold out your generic information and pitch; ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SPECIFIC THAT WILL HELP THE CUSTOMER BECOME HAPPILY INVOLVED IN MY SERVICE. I get a box where I'm supposed to fill in the rate. Well, Thumbtack, teaching student-specific lessons with unique needs in almost every case is DIFFERENT from someone to unclog your toilet. I explained in great detail my (and others who teach online coast to coast) situation and how they're doing the Customer a disservice (and eroding their rep in the process), but I'm sure they're not going to bring that choice back. I know that for teaching music lessons, the quote cost structure is going to change soon, i. E. increase a lot. My advice to professionals looking to advertise their services? STAY AWAY! USE ANY OF A MULTITUDE OF STILL FREE QUOTING SERVICES!

Meineke lets me get my own parts (read: much cheaper without the big markup) and they'll install it for me. Yet, I think that their labor rates now are just unreasonably high. I used them for about 10 yrs up until a yr ago. I found another mechanic who does equal quality work and charges much less than I had to pay meineke.

I like the cards on Punchbowl and use them almost monthly. BUT, imagine my surprise today when I tried to send a Christmas card that they now put ADS at the top of their cards, and will not take them off unless you buy the MOST EXPENSIVE subscription level. The ads make it look so incredibly cheap. If I want a cheap looking card I can just go to Walmart. At least their cards don't have dumb ads on them. I'm taking a hike and finding an ecard site that removes ads for any subscription. Does anyone have any recommendations for an alternative?

Craigslist is starting to charge across all categories for advertising, whether it's for professional services of any kind, etc. I've used it for 10 yrs as part of my advertising strategy, and have only gotten 4-5 clients over that time, so for free, it's fine to use. If they're going to charge me, I want to see the metrics of how many people view my ads, where they're from, time of day, day of week, all the professional metrics that a business would expect out of a for-profit advertising platform. Obviously they don't have that and never will release metrics like that to the public. There are lots of other free sites that are used as much as Craigslist now, which has lost its popularity over the last several years. That's where I'm going.

Since Craigslist started to charge $5 every 2 days for your services ad, and Thumbtack.com charges wildly arbitrary amounts for the same services up to $20 for just responding to an ad (not even getting the client themselves), this website is one of the last legitimate, oft-used, FREE, and widely distributed classified ad sites in N. America. The only downside is that if you need to advertise in multiple cities, then you're supposed to wait 2 days before submitting another one. Otherwise they'll go in and delete you ads. But if you can work within their rules, then they give you metrics on how many people have viewed your ad, which is something that the other two above don't have.