Corporate Card Offers

Best Buy, Worst Return….?

I just got this e-mail and checked it out. I wanted to give everyone a heads up and see what they think of this:

Normally, I would not share this with others, however, since this could happen to you or your friends , I decided to share it. If you purchase something from, Wal-Mart, Sears etc. and you return the item with the receipt they will give you your money back if you paid cash, or credit your account if paid by plastic.

Well, I purchased a GPS for my car, a Tom Tom XL.S from ‘Best Buy’. They have a policy that it must be returned within 14 days for a refund!

So after 4 days I returned it in the original box with all the items in the box, with paper work and cords all wrapped in the plastic. Just as I received it, including the receipt.
I explained to the lady at the return desk I did not like the way it could not find store names. The lady at the refund desk said, there is a 15% restock fee, for items returned. I said no one told me that. I said how much would that be. She said it goes by the price of the item. It will be $45.00 Dollars for you. I said, all your going to do is walk over and place it back on the shelf then charge me $45.00 of my money for restocking? She said that’s the store policy. I said if more people were aware of it they would not buy anything here! If I bought a $2000.00 computer or TV and returned it I would be charged $300.00 dollars restock fee? She said yes, 15%.

I said OK, just give me my money minus the restock fee.

She said, since the item is over $200.00 dollars, she can’t give me my money back!!!

Corporate has to and they will mail you a check in 7 to ten days.!! I said ‘WHAT?!’

It’s my money!! I paid in cash! I want to buy a different brand..Now I have to wait 7 to 10 days. She said well, our policy is on the back of your receipt.

I said, do you read the front or back of your receipt? She said well, the front! I said so do I, I want to talk to the Manager!.

So the manager comes over, I explained everything to him, and he said, well, sir they should of told you about the policy when you got the item. I said, No one, has ever told me about the check refund or restock fee, whenever I bought items from computers to TVs from Best Buy. The only thing they ever discussed was the worthless extended warranty program. He said Well, I can give you corporate phone number.

I called corporate. The guy said, well, I’m not supposed to do this but I can give you a 45.00 dollar gift card and you can use it at Best Buy. I told him if I bought something and returned it, you would charge me a restock fee on the item and then send me a check for the remaining 3 dollars. You can keep your gift card, I’m never shopping in Best Buy ever again, and if I would of been smart, I would of charged the whole thing on my credit card! Then I would of canceled the transaction.

I would of gotten all my money back including your stupid fees! He didn’t say a word!

I informed him that I was going to e-mail my friends and give them a heads up on this stores policy, as they don’t tell you about all the little caveats.

So please pass this on. It may save your friends from having a bad experience of shopping at Best Buy

To read the policy for yourself:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=page&contentId=1117177044087&id=cat12098

This wasn’t me. I just got the e-mail and thought i’d share the information with others to see what they think and how they would respond to this. I personally would have just asked for an exchange as well. But, i’m not sure if there is a restocking fee for the exchanged item or not.

I have a Weird Income, and Need Help with Saving?

OK< so here’s the deal. I have been working with my family for about 7 years now I’m 30 and have a 1 year old.

Back in 1989 my parents bough an apartment building and I have been running things for the most part since 2004, my dad is 93 and I help care for him with my mom who is still acting CEO, she’s in her 60s. For my day to day work I earn $1,500 a month, I live rent free, and pay nothing but my car insurance, my few credit card bills (currently only about $2,000) and my life insurance.

So While I only earn $18,000 a year, I also don’t pay the usual bills. I have a unique living situation to say the least.

Recently I revolutionized our business which is earning us a lot more income. Basically I took 4 apartments aside and started a corporate housing venture. We are now putting those earnings from that venture into a seperate account.

My mom and I made a savings account in a small local bank, it’s so small and crappy they don’t have debit cards and only have 2 branches, so it’s a great place to keep money without dipping into it.

Currently it only has about $17,000. All of that is from the new venture, and made between August of last year and today, but I started the business last April with just one apartment, and have opened 3 more units for the venture, not to mention we have dipped into that money for some emergency repairs. Hopefully this translates in even greater earnings this year. Perhaps we can make up to $40,000 in just savings from those new units this does not include savings we usually put aside from our regular rentals,

That $16,000 is shared with my mom and we are thinking of putting it into a money market, BUT, my own savings are a different story.

I figure I can put $1,300 per month away in savings from the $1,500 I earn into a personal retirement fund.

I just opened a 529 for my son in Chase bank with $1,000 and will be putting about $260 in that every month. I will be going to Vanguard to open a Roth IRA putting the max in every year. Those two savings come to $8,120 plus I have a vacation fund which I’ll be putting $3,500 into every year (just a passbook savings account) which leaves me with $3,980 per year to play around with.

My question is, is this $3,980 enough to play around with so that I can make a nice amount of cash for my future? Or is it a tad anemic? Keep in mind the ROth IRA and the 529.

THanks for any help.
I only have $5,000 in my personal savings right now TOTAL (includes 1,000 in 529), and I will be getting about $4,000 as a refund soon so will use that to open my Roth IRA, hopefully before April 18. And the next 5k little by little over the next year after April 18.

Who believes another great depression is coming?

The feds goosed up the slumping economy in 2002 with history-making inputs of new cash and extra-easy credit. What followed was an once-in- a-lifetime bubble in housing…which lifted up the entire world economy. Americans bought things they couldn’t really afford with money they didn’t really have. And the whole world rejoiced.

But when housing prices got so far out of whack that the average person couldn’t dream of buying the average house, something had to give.

Housing began to fall…taking the mortgage-backed speculative finance business down with it.

At first, few people took it serious; so it took a long time for homeowners to react. But they had to cut spending sooner or later.

In an economy that is nearly 80% based on consumer spending, less spending is bound to cause a recession.

And when businesses take in less revenue, their stock prices are sure to fall.

All that has happened, just like it should.

But what should happen next?

First, we should begin to see some shocking unemployment numbers. It takes time to prune payrolls, but we should be seeing the deadwood on the ground very soon. And then some green wood. Good, young employees will be cut along with the baby boomers.

A new hotel opening in Las Vegas put out a call for employees. It got 67,000 applicants for 500 jobs. And American Express said yesterday that it will cut 7,000 employees.

Unemployment is officially at about 6% now. It will pass 10%…and keep going up.

Then, we will begin to see a big increase in bankruptcies, defaults, and foreclosure. Even after layoffs and cutbacks, businesses will be unable to pay their bills. Laid-off workers will find it tough to find new jobs; they will declare bankruptcy too. Corporate bonds will become worthless. Billions in automobile and credit card debt – along with mortgage debt – will become uncollectible.

What else will happen?

Globalization will walk backwards. This time, there will be no need for Misters Smoot and Hawley. Mr. Market will do their work for them. Global trade will collapse as the consumers of first and last resort – Americans – stop spending.

We’ve already seen this happening in the capital equipment area. Volvo got orders for 41,970 of its big trucks in the 3rd quarter of 2007. In the 3rd quarter of 2008, meanwhile, Volvo got a total of 155 orders.

Who’s behind ASDCASHGENERATOR?

ASD Cash Generator is a “profit/revenue- share” type internet advertising company that allows you to generate money by viewing websites. I’m using ASD to advertise 5 of my sites and have received real traffic and leads from it.

Each day a paid member views ads, they get a share in the profits of the company paid directly to their accounts until the member pockets 25% more than they spent. At the time of this writing, their current daily interest rate has been averaging about 0.50% – 2% per day, and is primarily based on the total the number of ad package sales for the previous day. The daily rebate rate will vary and is not fixed.

All you have to do is view 24 web sites each day for 15 seconds each to receive your daily rebate that equals to about 6 minutes.

Who’s running the show?

The company was founded over a year ago by CEO, Andy Bowdoin. In doing my due diligence and searching over 9 pages of information on Google on him (all positive), I found that he has quite an extraordinary reputation, not only as a career Advertising man, but as a man of exceptional integrity.

He has over 40 years experience in sales and marketing, and has had success in everything he’s done. He started his sales career working with the Dale Carnegie Courses in the early sixties and later worked with the Napoleon Hill Leadership Program. Andy has trained thousands of sales people during his career and started several companies.

He expanded a 60-minute dry cleaning franchise throughout the Southeast and Midwest. He developed a company that sold wireless communication franchises throughout the U.S. and then started a company to market credit card processing for merchants.

In 1999, Andy did research and discovered a need for GPS Tracking for fleet vehicles and GPS Tech was created. In 2006, Andy again saw a new opportunity – the need for a new way to deliver advertising to the masses and Ad Surf Daily, Inc. was born.

He modified his marketing strategies for the internet and attracted over 5,000 members in 120 days and sold over $1,200,000 in services. He now teaches his ASD members his strategies to help them build their internet businesses.

ASD has a physical office located in Quincy Florida, a state of the art online support ticketing system and real telephone support where customer service reps handle all support questions or inquiries.

One of the big perks with this program is they have an account with Bank of America where you can make direct deposits. They withstood a rigorous Verification Process (common sense will tell you Bank of America doesn’t do business with scams).

* Sustainable Payout Structure, NO guarantee of earnings in a set time.
* Daily Payouts fluctuate with daily sales – true Profit Sharing, NOT a Ponzi.
* Daily sales posted each day with your exact payout percentage.
* Zero Cost Membership.
* Structured like a REAL business with CEO, Executive Officers, Chief Administrator
* Full information on CEO, not some ‘anonymous’ admin

How is the company revenue distributed?

The ASD Cash Generator business plan pays 50% of all daily ad buys back to the advertisers, 15% in referral commissions (on two levels) and 25% for expenses and corporate profits.

By never paying out more than they take in, ASD will never encounter the cash-flow problems that have plagued other paid-to-surf programs. You’ll receive a variable percentage daily of that 50% revenue, for surfing 24 sites daily, until you reach 125% of your ad purchase (25% profit), and then you’ll re-cycle.

Members in the US are sent 1099s for any net profits (not advertising purchases) earned each year from ASD, but you can write off anything you purchase in advertising packages, and in turn, save money on your taxes!

Note: ASD Cash Generator is actually the 3rd get-paid-to-surf type program Andy has created. The first two programs were discontinued last year due to programming script problems. All the previous members had their balances transferred over to the new restructured ASD Cash Generator program or were refunded. ASD Cash Generator launched in July 2007.

Speak Spanish?

ASD also has a Spanish version of the English ASD website for those wishing to either view Spanish-based websites or know people who would like to earn money surfing a Spanish site. It’s set to be available for surfing and advertising in the beginning of February.

No sponsoring or recruiting is required, but for those that wish to refer others to ASD, they have a referral program that pays up to a 10% commission from the ad credits purchased that you personally refer, and up to a 5% commission from the ad credits of those referred by your direct referrals for a total of 15% total referral commission paid on 2 levels.

What’s the maximum number of Ad Packages I can purchase?

Twelve thousand (12000). Ad Packages are $1.00 each, so the maximum you can own at any one time is $12,000 USD. ASD requires that you have a product, service, program or opportunity that includes a web site to advertise in order to be an advertiser.

Note: If you don’t have a website to advertise, you can contact me for one to use.

3 Membership Levels: (Optional monthly subscription)

You can join ASD for FREE to advertise your site, or you can upgrade and advertise your business and earn cash-back rebates at the same time. The free membership will always be there and advertisers can get FREE advertising by viewing other web sites on the ASD Cash Generator Web Site.

An advertiser can pay a monthly membership fee and reduce cash out fees, increase referral commissions and decrease the number of sites to view on a daily basis. The amount of your monthly membership fee determines the number of times you can cash out each week, the amount of your referral commissions and the number of sites you must view each day to receive your rebates.

Monthly Memberships:

* $10 per mo. fee = Cashout on Mondays Only and 5% referral commission for 1st level and 3% on 2nd level,
* $25 per mo. fee = Cashout on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays and 7% referral commission for 1st level and 4% on 2nd level,
* $100 per mo. fee = Exec. VIP Plan, Cashout DAILY and 10% referral commission on 1st level and 5% on 2nd level.

Special Promotion through Tuesday, January 22, 2008.

If you purchase $500 – $999 in Ad Package purchases, you’ll receive 3 month Exec. VIP membership level upgrade. For $1,000- $1,999 in Ad Package purchases, you’ll receive 6 months Exec. VIP membership level, and for $2000 or more in Ad Package purchases, you’ll receive 1 year Exec. VIP membership level upgrade.

Do I have to pay a membership fee?

No. If you just want to be a passive member in ASD and receive cash back rebates from your ad purchases, you don’t need to pay a monthly membership fee. It’s primarily for people who choose to refer other advertisers or want to increase the frequency that they can withdraw their profits. If you don’t pay a membership fee and you decide to refer others (optional), you’ll be paid a 3% referral commission on all of your personal referrals only.

What payment processors are available?

Currently Alert Pay, Solid Trust Pay ,direct deposit into Bank of America account, cashier checks and mail in money order. Soon to come will be an International Debit card

What happens if I’m unable to view and rate websites on any given day?

If you miss a day and you’re unable to view and rate ads (for any reason) you don’t lose anything, it just freezes and extends the time line until you come back.

Personal opinion: From everything I’ve researched, Andy Bowdoin is a man of integrity who does what he says he’s going to do. He has a rock-solid business plan and experience based on verifiable and publicly available information. Everything is very transparent.

His business model is a win win for everyone and very lucrative for both passive and active members. Advertisers who simply want to be sure their website get seen, get exactly what they pay for.

Entrepreneurs who want a passive way of growing their money, get the ability of doing so for simply viewing ads daily. They get quality prospects visiting their websites which will ultimately turn into sign ups, sales, or more business partners.

You can get a 25% bonus on your advertising dollars spent for simply investing 10 minutes per day to view others sites. So if you purchase $1,000 in advertising from ASD, you’ll get paid daily until you receive $1,250 back. It doesn’t matter if you purchase an ad for $10 or $500… if you do nothing else but view ads, the results are the same and you’ll eventually earn 125% of what you spend (25% net profit).

If you look at their Alexa traffic ranking in the chart below, you’ll see that there’s tremendous momentum with this program right now.

Here’s how to sign up:

1. Click on this link: http://www.asdcashgenerator.com/?ref=20470, read the FAQ and Terms & Conditions, etc., then click on the link right under the top banner that says “Sign-up.” To become an Upgraded (paid) advertiser, first click on Signup on the Home Page and become a Free Member.

2. When you join as a free member, you’ll be sent a welcome email. Some email carriers such as AOL, Bellsouth, Yahoo and others will treat our emails as spam. Check your Spam folder to see if it ended up there. If you didn’t get the email you may want to go to Google and get a free gmail account, otherwise you won’t be getting any emails from ASD because they’ll be blocked.

3. After you sign up, log in to your back office on the bottom left of the Home Page. Click Login and that will take you to your Account Overview Page. Look to the right of Account Level and you will see (upgrade level) in blue. Click on upgrade level and it’ll take you to your Upgrade Account Page. Select your payment processor and insert the dollar amount of ad packages you want to purchase. Ad packages are $1.00 each. If you want $100 of ad packages put 100 in the window. Click upgrade. Your purchase should show up on your Account Overview Page to the right of Current Upgrade Purchase. You can pay by credit card by calling the home office at 850-627-2206.

4. Once your account is funded and you’ve purchased your ad packages, click on the START SURFING link on the left hand side and do your viewing each day

What should I do about my rude, bossy co-worker?

To help pay the bills while I continue my college education, I’ve begun working in a fast-food restaurant. I really like it, for the most part. Everyone is extremely nice and fun to be around, with the exception of one person.

Our restaurant is part of corporate chain and opened recently. There were a few individuals from the other stores that came to help us out. That’s like 3 or 4 people including the assistant manager and the manager. One of these people was a young woman about my age who has been with the company at another store for about 10 months before coming to this new one. She helped to train me at her home store, but from the first day I noticed something about her was amiss.

For one, her tone of voice with me suggested that she felt I was a total moron. This hasn’t changed since that first day. She constantly uses this cheap, unconvincing sarcasm and has a tendency to call me “honey” when she’s correcting me (which drives me crazy, and it doesn’t usually). She berates, not only me, but everyone when the slightest mistake is made, and uses an extremely harsh, biting tone of voice when it is most unwarranted. (For instance, the other day I had a receipt signed for a credit card and she reminded me to put it in my till. At my last job, we would put receipts through a small slit in the front of the till and it would fall below the cash drawers. I put in there, thinking this was the proper way of doing it. She then said scathingly bitter, “Why would you put it THERE?” and I replied calmly, but not without irritation, “Sorry, that’s where we put them at my last job. I just figured that was how it was done.”)

The problem is, this young woman is in no position to be enforcing this much authority over people, as she is on the same level as me. She’s bossy, rude, and disrespectful of her fellow employees. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve decided just try to accept these negative attributes as quirks of her personality and try to not let them get to me by taking what she says with a grain of salt. I figure that someone this pushy and rude must have some kind of inferiority complex and uses new employees as mediums through which to exercise unearned authority and extract a false sense of pride and/or self-importance.

I want to try to accept these things about her, because I don’t know what else to do. I try to avoid confrontation because it’s not my goal to make as many enemies as possible. I definitely don’t want to be at odds with her, I just would just like for her to get off my back (but because she’s the kind of person who likes to demand her own way, I don’t ever see this as likely). I don’t really want to complain to the manager or assistant manager, either. I’ve never liked bringing inter-personnel issues to the figures of authority because I usually find the matter too unimportant and mundane for them to care about and I also worry that it shows them I’m incapable of working with others cohesively (also, its been a pretty ineffective method for me in the past).

I suppose I’m curious to know what you guys might do in this situation. Should I go ahead and try to execute my plan, or does someone have a better idea?

Besides, most people I’ve seen who act this negatively eventually do themselves in, one way or another. I imagine it will only be a matter of time, especially since I heard our manager speaking critically of her to the franchisee.