So, as we are all aware...Rent-A-Center, while a VERY lucrative organization, is a sucky business. My goal for this blog post is that I say Rent-A-Center so many times that when people Google it - my blog pops up first...so here goes.
We rented the rent-a-fridge from Rent-A-Center after not having the refrigerator left with our new house. I mistakingly thought that it would be cheap to rent a fridge - but that was just not true. So when I got to the Rent-A-Center, I told the worker that I would pay a month upfront because I do not have the time nor the want to visit the Rent-A-Center store once a week. He was 'impressed' by this...I know, I'm rollin' in it. So I asked the Rent-A-Center worker the question that if I decided to turn the fridge in before the month was up, would I get a refund for the money that I paid that was not used. His response was Yes.
So, we keep the fridge for about 2 1/2 weeks and then decide to buy the great stainless steel side-by-side that you see in the pics below...Love it, by the way! So I call Rent-A-Center and ask for my rent-a-fridge to be picked up on Tuesday (7/8). The Rent-A-Center workers come by, tell me that they didn't bring their handtruck to take it out the front door - so they will NEED to use my handicap ramp. The handicap ramp is already a sore spot with me...let's not act like you really need to use it for a 20 pound fridge. My puppies could carry this thing on their back all the way to the Rent-A-Center...but I digress. So they are rolling down the ramp and I ask 'Hey, do I need to sign anything?' 'Nope, you're good - have a good afternoon!' 'K! Good riddance!' And it was done.
Fastforward to the following Thursday...I receive a call from Rent-A-Center reminding me that my next payment was due that day and that I needed to be at the Rent-A-Center before 7 p.m. to make my weekly payment. I'm immediately thrown into a fit of rage - so I call them back. I tell the Rent-A-Center worker that the fridge was picked up the previous Tuesday, but that I was glad that he called, because Rent-A-Center actually owed me money. He does the 'oooohhhhh...let me check' and then comes back and tells me that they don't do refunds. I ask why and his response was...(drum roll please)...that isn't Rent-A-Center policy. So I tell him that when I came up there and paid for the fridge I specifically asked that question and was told that I would get my money back if I didn't keep it for a month. He tells me to hold on, and then comes back and says that his manager says no refund. So I tell him to let me speak to his manager...which was standing at the same counter as the other Rent-A-Center worker when I was renting the monstrosity 4 weeks ago. He tells me that it was in the contract that I signed...okay, well who really keeps their Rent-A-Center contract?? Mine as well had been written on a bar napkin in my opinion...He then tells me that he pulled up my contract and there was a section that said "There are no refunds if you choose to return the property before the end of the term." So what is the term? You wanted me to pay weekly...which in a way I did, I just paid 4 weeks upfront. He couldn't tell me what the 'term' was...And I'm not a lawyer, but the 'term' is not stated anywhere in the contract...which seems like a really loose contract.
So he finally tells me that he won't be able to give me my money back...he said that he totally agreed with me (yes, he did!) but that his manager would have to give me my money back. Okay, so tell me your manager's name and give me his number...he then proceeds to rattle off 1-800-blah blah blah...press option1 for customer service. Okay, so your manager is a customer service operator?? 'No, that is just the best way to file a complaint.' I didn't say this, but I was thinking it really hard, 'So you just lied to me again? First I can get a refund - and that was a lie. Now - you are going to give me your manager's name and number and you direct me to a customer service center...probably in India.' No thanks. So I eventually get a regional office number - which I haven't called. Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center.
In all actuality, they owe me $18.23...in the grand scheme of things - this is a trivial amount - I know. But in the minutia that I like to live in - this is my money and I want it back. In this day and age, people that work for company's can say whatever they want to sell a product, but are never required to pay for their actions. I'm getting my money back...it might just be after I get back from Cabo. :) Sianara for a week!
Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Look and Feel of Stainless
Many thanks to Jimmie Carlisle and Debbie and Manny Llerena, who have made this blog post possible.
Sit back and admire the new stainless...and W/D...
Sit back and admire the new stainless...and W/D...
Friday, July 11, 2008
Bugs...Ewww.
So, I was reading back through my previous blog posts and saw that I mentioned bugs. I also posted the funniest Orkin commercial to the right - but then never addressed it. So here goes...
Once upon a time, there was a very beautiful girl and her very handsome boyfriend who thought that it would be a fabulous idea to buy a fixer upper in a beautiful wooded neighborhood. They greatly admired all of the foliage in the backyard, including the 100 year old oak tree, the Japanese maple, and over abundance of monkey grass (there must have been a special at the landscape store because the previous owners put it EVERYWHERE!). So they move in...and then all of the earthy stuff just became a little too earthy.
Rewind to four years ago, the beautiful girl moved into an apartment during college. It was great...doing whatever her and her roommate wanted, beer and cockroaches in the fridge, eating pizza topped with silverfish...yeah that's right. The apartment was infested with cockroaches. The silverfish was just visiting, but the roaches were there for the long haul. Well, 3 or 12 bug bombs later we realized that our apt. was infested with German cockroaches - the only infesting cockroach in the southeast. Luckily these are not the huge ones, but they are the little ones that can lay on your plates, cool off in the fridge (because they can fit through the sealing), and wait in your bathtub to scare the living bejesus out of you. My roommate and I pretty much retired to eating, sleeping, and hanging out on the back porch. Our apartment was treated for pests weekly (probably not healthy) and we never really got rid of the roaches. We fondly referred to it as Joe's Apartment (the old show on MTV where the roaches were Joe's friends and they talked...disturbing.)
Now, fastforward back to the present. The first instance, of course, was when I had Gretchen come stay with me when Shane was out of town. We get home from dinner and a palmetto bug (not a roach, but they look like one...) is sitting on the door handle to get into my house. Good thing that we hadn't taken the trash out, because there was a little 1x2 peice of lumber in my trash (random?) and we thought that that would be a good extermination tool. So I hit the handle and it just crawls on the windows of the door. Then crawls down to the bottom where the sealing is...oh, good old sealing. About the only thing that sealing does is keep the wind out...because it certainly doesn' t seal the grossness out. Gretchen takes the lumber and tries to kill it, but what we inevitably do is show it the gateway to the interior. So it gets in. We go inside and it is just chillin' by the back door....on my new tile. I don't want to squish it because I just ate and don't really want to hear that crunch - so I go for my safest option...bleach. It won't like it, it will poison it, and it will clean my floor at the same time! So I bleach that little bug out the backdoor.
Next time I see one, Debbie, Katie, and Maria are over to look at the house. The dogs are playing under the couch, Katie is trying to referee them, and another palmetto bug just comes strolling out from under the couch. Then the dogs see him, and that looks fun to them. Katie screams 'Ewww! A cockroach!' Stacy has a flashback to her apartment, and then wonders if she has a minor case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...and contemplates getting into the fetal position. I totally wussed out and couldn't kill it - I just can't handle the crunch. So Katie mans up, good thing for the brave 11-year-old, and steps on it and cleans it up. Embarassing for me - all the way around.
And then one more occassion, this is when I realized that my palmetto bugs were quite the social butterflies. We have the repair man over to fix our microwave, and what happens? Oh, well that little bug crawls right out of the sink and makes his presence known! Again (this is becoming a pattern) I freak out, freeze, and so the microwave repair man had to kill it and Shane had to clean it up. Absolutely mortifying...they only come out when people are at my house and then I act like it has 5 foot fangs and a fully loaded pistol. Ridiculous.
So...the funniest part was that I was all the while doing research on pest control. I wanted to make sure that I was getting the best service for the best price. After the microwave man left, I just called Orkin. As I'm sweating and breathing like I have just ran a marathon, I agree to whatever price, whatever date, just get out here! I make it sound really dramatic, but it was a good price and I have only seen one more since. He was outside - and I only saw him through the window. But I could tell that he was afraid...and he probably was only there to get the last of his things before he moved out.
So now they are gone...but I won't say that loudly or confidently because these things can smell fear. And I've got enough of that for everyone...
Once upon a time, there was a very beautiful girl and her very handsome boyfriend who thought that it would be a fabulous idea to buy a fixer upper in a beautiful wooded neighborhood. They greatly admired all of the foliage in the backyard, including the 100 year old oak tree, the Japanese maple, and over abundance of monkey grass (there must have been a special at the landscape store because the previous owners put it EVERYWHERE!). So they move in...and then all of the earthy stuff just became a little too earthy.
Rewind to four years ago, the beautiful girl moved into an apartment during college. It was great...doing whatever her and her roommate wanted, beer and cockroaches in the fridge, eating pizza topped with silverfish...yeah that's right. The apartment was infested with cockroaches. The silverfish was just visiting, but the roaches were there for the long haul. Well, 3 or 12 bug bombs later we realized that our apt. was infested with German cockroaches - the only infesting cockroach in the southeast. Luckily these are not the huge ones, but they are the little ones that can lay on your plates, cool off in the fridge (because they can fit through the sealing), and wait in your bathtub to scare the living bejesus out of you. My roommate and I pretty much retired to eating, sleeping, and hanging out on the back porch. Our apartment was treated for pests weekly (probably not healthy) and we never really got rid of the roaches. We fondly referred to it as Joe's Apartment (the old show on MTV where the roaches were Joe's friends and they talked...disturbing.)
Now, fastforward back to the present. The first instance, of course, was when I had Gretchen come stay with me when Shane was out of town. We get home from dinner and a palmetto bug (not a roach, but they look like one...) is sitting on the door handle to get into my house. Good thing that we hadn't taken the trash out, because there was a little 1x2 peice of lumber in my trash (random?) and we thought that that would be a good extermination tool. So I hit the handle and it just crawls on the windows of the door. Then crawls down to the bottom where the sealing is...oh, good old sealing. About the only thing that sealing does is keep the wind out...because it certainly doesn' t seal the grossness out. Gretchen takes the lumber and tries to kill it, but what we inevitably do is show it the gateway to the interior. So it gets in. We go inside and it is just chillin' by the back door....on my new tile. I don't want to squish it because I just ate and don't really want to hear that crunch - so I go for my safest option...bleach. It won't like it, it will poison it, and it will clean my floor at the same time! So I bleach that little bug out the backdoor.
Next time I see one, Debbie, Katie, and Maria are over to look at the house. The dogs are playing under the couch, Katie is trying to referee them, and another palmetto bug just comes strolling out from under the couch. Then the dogs see him, and that looks fun to them. Katie screams 'Ewww! A cockroach!' Stacy has a flashback to her apartment, and then wonders if she has a minor case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...and contemplates getting into the fetal position. I totally wussed out and couldn't kill it - I just can't handle the crunch. So Katie mans up, good thing for the brave 11-year-old, and steps on it and cleans it up. Embarassing for me - all the way around.
And then one more occassion, this is when I realized that my palmetto bugs were quite the social butterflies. We have the repair man over to fix our microwave, and what happens? Oh, well that little bug crawls right out of the sink and makes his presence known! Again (this is becoming a pattern) I freak out, freeze, and so the microwave repair man had to kill it and Shane had to clean it up. Absolutely mortifying...they only come out when people are at my house and then I act like it has 5 foot fangs and a fully loaded pistol. Ridiculous.
So...the funniest part was that I was all the while doing research on pest control. I wanted to make sure that I was getting the best service for the best price. After the microwave man left, I just called Orkin. As I'm sweating and breathing like I have just ran a marathon, I agree to whatever price, whatever date, just get out here! I make it sound really dramatic, but it was a good price and I have only seen one more since. He was outside - and I only saw him through the window. But I could tell that he was afraid...and he probably was only there to get the last of his things before he moved out.
So now they are gone...but I won't say that loudly or confidently because these things can smell fear. And I've got enough of that for everyone...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Plans have changed...
So, the rent-a-fridge is officially gone! Good riddance. Shane are I are the proud new owners of a new stainless steel side by side refrigerator and a stackable, front loader washer and dryer! We are so proud...never have I been so excited to do laundry! Probably because I didn't have any clean clothes...but nevertheless excited! No pics yet....my camera batteries are still dead. I really don't have an excuse for why I haven't changed the batteries...that must just be linked to laziness.
We have also changed some plans as far as the TV mounting goes. Like I mentioned, I don't know that I am quite ready to sacrifice $1000 and one of my kidneys, so we have decided to just have it mounted on the wall. But by doing that we have to get a new sofa. And yes, we HAVE to. We will need an L-shaped sectional...check out the poll on the right and vote on which one you like the best! I haven't gotten updated pricing on mounting the TV on the wall, but I'm sure that it must be cheaper. Maybe Shane could even do it...dun dun dun! :)
Other new topics are that I have decided to Venetian plaster the hallway. Unfortunately, even after all of the plaster and evening out on the walls (remember the layers of wallpaper that had to be stripped?) the walls are not even enough for just paint. They are showing every single flaw in the drywall. So Venetian plaster seems like the most difficult and annoying task - you know that's why I picked it! Always shooting past the stars...aiming more for Pluto. Here is a pic of Venetian plaster for those who may not be familiar....
Pretty, right?
Well, no more updates for now...I'll take some pics (I swear) of our new appliances, the guest bedroom, and the master. We moved some furniture around in the guest and master and it looks much better than before! Stay tuned...
We have also changed some plans as far as the TV mounting goes. Like I mentioned, I don't know that I am quite ready to sacrifice $1000 and one of my kidneys, so we have decided to just have it mounted on the wall. But by doing that we have to get a new sofa. And yes, we HAVE to. We will need an L-shaped sectional...check out the poll on the right and vote on which one you like the best! I haven't gotten updated pricing on mounting the TV on the wall, but I'm sure that it must be cheaper. Maybe Shane could even do it...dun dun dun! :)
Other new topics are that I have decided to Venetian plaster the hallway. Unfortunately, even after all of the plaster and evening out on the walls (remember the layers of wallpaper that had to be stripped?) the walls are not even enough for just paint. They are showing every single flaw in the drywall. So Venetian plaster seems like the most difficult and annoying task - you know that's why I picked it! Always shooting past the stars...aiming more for Pluto. Here is a pic of Venetian plaster for those who may not be familiar....
Pretty, right?
Well, no more updates for now...I'll take some pics (I swear) of our new appliances, the guest bedroom, and the master. We moved some furniture around in the guest and master and it looks much better than before! Stay tuned...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Different Look
Looks different, huh? I figure that since I can't get any immediate results at my house - I can make some quick, free fixes on my blog...so there.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be TV installers...
So, what seemed to be a simple task of having our TV mounted is turning into a major initiative.
When you walk into a new home these days, a standard has become the flat panel TV that hangs above the fireplace, right? Well, I know that those people didn't sell their first born, one of their kidneys, and pay $1000 for it! I may be exagerating, but that seems to be about what they are asking!
I've had three quotes, and they go a little something like this:
#1: Well, it could be a whole day job and cost $750, or I could be done in 2 hours and it cost you $250. Not sure. So Stacy asks, well do you want to come out to my house and take a look? Contractor replies, no, I wouldn't know until I started cutting holes. Yeeaaahhh, no. Anyone who has seen the movie 'The Money Pit' knows that I am not looking to hire The Shirk brothers....
#2: Yeah, we can knock that out for $350. Really? You want to come out and look at it? Naaahhh. And then the contractor proceeds to call me twice a day, every day and schedule the service. Whoa Nelly...unless you want a bad check - back off! We aren't exactly rollin' in it right now!
#3: Well, I could hang the TV, but I couldn't move the cable or install the electrical. Well, perfect - because I actually just wanted to idolize the actual television by placing it above the fireplace - not watch it...What kind of crazy idea is that?!?
So, another problem to roll up into what I like to call 'Home Ownershi*.' Along with: appliances, bugs (oh, that is a totally separate blog post), yard stuff, boxes, lack of storage, over abundance of decorative knick-knacks (We could seriously open our own Hobby Lobby), so on and so forth, etc., etc., etc.
When you walk into a new home these days, a standard has become the flat panel TV that hangs above the fireplace, right? Well, I know that those people didn't sell their first born, one of their kidneys, and pay $1000 for it! I may be exagerating, but that seems to be about what they are asking!
I've had three quotes, and they go a little something like this:
#1: Well, it could be a whole day job and cost $750, or I could be done in 2 hours and it cost you $250. Not sure. So Stacy asks, well do you want to come out to my house and take a look? Contractor replies, no, I wouldn't know until I started cutting holes. Yeeaaahhh, no. Anyone who has seen the movie 'The Money Pit' knows that I am not looking to hire The Shirk brothers....
#2: Yeah, we can knock that out for $350. Really? You want to come out and look at it? Naaahhh. And then the contractor proceeds to call me twice a day, every day and schedule the service. Whoa Nelly...unless you want a bad check - back off! We aren't exactly rollin' in it right now!
#3: Well, I could hang the TV, but I couldn't move the cable or install the electrical. Well, perfect - because I actually just wanted to idolize the actual television by placing it above the fireplace - not watch it...What kind of crazy idea is that?!?
So, another problem to roll up into what I like to call 'Home Ownershi*.' Along with: appliances, bugs (oh, that is a totally separate blog post), yard stuff, boxes, lack of storage, over abundance of decorative knick-knacks (We could seriously open our own Hobby Lobby), so on and so forth, etc., etc., etc.
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