I know it’s been a while since my last post.  A lot has happened since December.  And, I know, most people that read this don’t care about anything I have to say.  They just want to see pictures of my girls.  So, for those people, here are a couple of pictures:

Big Sister

Little Sister

So there you go.

Even though both of those pictures are a great pick me up, I did have something else to say that caught me completely off guard today.  No…we’re not pregnant again.  That would be wild.  New job and new pregnancy in a month.

Oh, yeah.  I forgot to mention that I got a new job last month.  I’m now working at Acxiom in Conway.  Shorter commute and it seems to be more in line with what I want to do.  So far, so good.  I’m working with some really great people.

Man, I get distracted easy.  Anyway, for the pick me up.  Have you ever reached into your pocket and found 5 bucks that you forgot you had?  That’s awesome, isn’t it?  To know that you have money that you didn’t know you had.  Not much else is as satisfying as that.  I mean, you just made 5 bucks for reaching into your pocket.  I wish all jobs were that easy and rewarding.  That happened to me today.  Except it wasn’t my pocket and it wasn’t 5 bucks.  I reached into my email and found 240 bucks that I didn’t know I had.  Yeah, that’s right.  Two hundred and forty dollars.  WTF?!?!?!

Let me explain:  About 2 1/2 years ago, I ran the 2007 Chicago Marathon.  The exploits of that weekend can be found in great detail in this post.  You’ll notice in that post that Amy made up some shirts for the family.  Iliana’s said, “My Dad just ran 26.2 miles…What did your do?”  I thought they were really cute and fun. So, when I got back to AR, I made up a couple of designs for CafePress.com and SpreadShirt.com.  And promptly forgot about it.

Well, I was checking my email this morning, like usual, and came across another CafePress.com email and I automatically deleted it.  Well, as soon as I hit the delete button I noticed the subject line said something about a CafeCash balance.  So, I went to my trash folder and looked at the email again.  It said that I had a balance of $241.00 and that I need to log on and update my payee information so that they could send me payment.  My first thought was, “Phishing scam!”  Here’s a little web tip for you:  If you get an email requesting you to click a link to update financial or account information, hover over the link and look in the bottom left hand corner of your browser.  The actual address of the link will be shown.  If the link goes to an address that looks like a bunch of gibberish, then it’s a scam.  If it points to the actual website, you should be safe.  But you should actually just open another window and manually type the website address so that you know you are going straight there.

Okay, little bit of ADD going on there.  Anyway, so I go to my CafePress.com account and sure enough, I had a balance of $241.00.  There was also a message asking me to update my account information so that they could send me my commission check.  I thought, “No way!”  So, I started looking at all of the sales.  That was nuts.  The sales reports only go back 3 months.  But in the last 3 months, my stores have sold 28 items.  The commission averages about $1 to $1.50 per item or 10% of the cost of the item.  So, that means in the past 2 1/2 years, I’ve sold about 200 items and didn’t even know it.  How’s that for reaching into your pocket and pulling out some change?

So, what’s your best “I just found some money” story?

I know I haven’t posted in a while and this is not my return, just yet.  But I couldn’t help passing this along:

Enjoy!

If you’ve read my blog in the past, you know that I do online offers for free* stuff. The reason I use the *, is because, yes, you have minimal costs involved, but when you get a $900 check for spending $43, that’s free enough for me. I’ve been working on getting a Mac Mini for the last couple of months. Well, as I was about to leave for work last night, I noticed a package by the front door. This is what I found:

Granted, it wasn’t sitting out there like that. It was nicely packaged. I was absolutely giddy. I couldn’t be happier. I’ve always wanted a Mac. And since I only paid $40 for it, that makes it all the better. Actually, it’s not really mine anymore. Amy has been wanting a computer for all of her hobbies. So, here ya go, sweetie.

You may be asking yourself, “How the heck can you actually get a Mac Mini for $40?” Very easily, my friend. I learned everything I know from a guy named Josh Clark. Go to his site and join his forum. You will be able to talk to a lot of people that have been doing this for quite a while. Josh finds the offers that are legit, because, let’s face it, there are a lot of scams out there. He reviews them and tells you which ones he endorses. The mods on the forum are extremely helpful and knowledgeable about the “freebie” industry.

Unfortunately, this particular offer has expired. So, jaunt on over to joshclark.com and read over his “Free Stuff” section. Below is a list of items that I’ve gotten so far:

[TABLE=2]

Right now, I’m working on a few different things:

iPhone
$400 Gift Card
Xbox 360 Elite

These links will take you to a site that will let you pick either a gift or cash. Great stuff!!! You can have a referral based account or a points based account. I’m going to fast. Just jump over to Josh Clark and do a little research.

IMPORTANT: If you decide to do something like this, you need to be organized! If not, you may end up spending way more than you wanted. Also, let me know if you want to try this out. I’ve got a spreadsheet that I got from Josh Clark that will help you keep track of all of the offers you do!

Well, the drama that was my Xbox 360 is now over. I officially returned it last night and got my money back. Let me break it down for ya:

December 24, 2007

My Christmas present to myself through my in-laws was an Xbox 360. They decided to just give money for presents this year, and I was like, “Sweet! I can use this and add a little bit of my money to get a 360. Finally!” So, I had to work on Christmas Eve, so I picked up a Refurbished Xbox 360 at Hastings that night. (I work there so I got about a $40 discount.) I got it home and immediately hooked it up. It worked okay for about an hour and, since I didn’t have any 360 games, I played a movie. It froze up before the opening credits. Okay, here is the toy I’ve been wanting for a long time, and it is defective. I was rather upset to say the least. But, I thought, hey that’s why they have a 60 day warranty for all of the refurbs.

December 26, 2007

Knowing that the store I bought it at would refer me to the warranty company, I call them first. They tell me that I can either take it back to the store I bought it from or I can start the return process and get an RMA. I tell them I’ll call them back. I immediately call my store manager and ask if I can bring it back and exchange it, he says no and that I’ll have to go through the warranty company first. I say, no problem. I get the RMA # and send my system off to be serviced.

January 7, 2008

The warranty company, Encore Tech Support, receives my Xbox 360 and says that it should be processed that week.

January 10, 2008

Since I need Xbox 360 games, I have been doing offers for free games. If you’ve read any of my Free Stuff blogs, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Well, this day marks the day that I completed and was processed for my free* copy of Halo 3.
(*It actually cost me a dollar. Fifty dollar game for a dollar. Maybe not free, but as close as I’ll get to getting a brand new game for free.)

January 11, 2008

I receive my system back from Encore Tech Support. I decide to hook it up. I don’t have a lot of time because I have to be at work in an hour. I’m still waiting for my copy of Halo 3 to come in. I put in a movie and it works. I’m pretty happy.

January 13, 2008

After about a total of 5 hours of movie and game play, my 360 red lights on me…again. This means hardware failure. I’m a bit upset again and email Encore Tech Support, and they tell me to send it in again. I ask as to what assurances I have that it’s going to work when I get it back and they send back a generic response of please send your system here and use this RMA #. Starting to get upset again.

January 16, 2008

While at work at Hastings I mention to the Assistant Manager, that my Xbox is messed up again and asked if I could return it or exchange it. She says no and that I have to send all defective merchandise to the warranty company. I tell her that she just asked me to process a refurbished Xbox 360 exchange for a customer. She told me that since I was an associate, I had to go with the warranty company. This upset me a little because, yeah, I may be an employee with the company, but I am also a customer that dropped $280 on a system that I haven’t been able to enjoy yet. And it looks like I’m about to spend another $10 to have it shipped back to Encore. That will make $20 total for shipping back and forth with Encore. Just in case Encore doesn’t believe me and they can’t reproduce the error, I send in a DVD with video footage of my Xbox red lighting.

January 21, 2008

Encore receives my system in their system. They tell me it should be processed that week.

January 22, 2008

I receive my $1, brand new copy of Halo 3 from amazon.com. I’m pretty happy with this one.

January 25, 2008

I receive my system back from Encore. Same scenario as January 11. I don’t have time to play my new game but, I hook it up and it works. We watch movies on it off and on through out the weekend. Saturday night, I put in my copy of Halo 3. I have been wanting to do this since it came out. I get 3 minutes into the opening cinematic and it freezes up. I get a bit concerned, but no red lights. I go to bed and pout because I can’t play my game.

January 27, 2008

I turn on my 360, and lo and behold, I get the red lights. Not a lot of events in my life have gotten me as mad as I was that night. I send an email to Encore letting them know how upset I was and that they need to take care of this. I didn’t care if they had to go down to Wal-Mart and buy a new one to send me, I wanted results. And the thing that bugged me was that I kept getting the same console back every time. I wrote down the serial number each time before I sent it back and got the same one back from Encore every time. I then turn around and send an email to Hastings customer support. I knew I was taking a gamble when I did this, because I knew it would more than likely make my store manager mad at me. (More on that later.) I proceed to tell them everything and ask for advice on how it can be resolved. At the end of the email, I write this:

P.S. Incidentally, (this will probably nullify my complaint) but I am also an associate at store 9697 where I purchased this console. I feel that this should not disqualify me from receiving customer service for my problem. I am a Front Counter Team Leader at that store and have witnessed and help process refurbished Xbox 360 returns in store when the managers have told me that since I am an employee, I can’t return mine. I feel that this is discrimination. Please inform me of my options.

January 28, 2008

I call Encore. Long story short, they are a complete waste of time and could not offer any support. They send an email with RMA and they have agreed to send a call tag so that I wouldn’t have to pay shipping this time. Thanks…thanks so much.

January 29, 2008

I get an email in the morning from Hastings customer service. This is what it says:

Thank you for your email. We apologize for the inconvenience your purchase has caused you. Please not that we greatly appreciate you contacting the Encore RMA Company to get your system fixed. If you still have your purchase receipt and all the boxes and equipment that came with your console when you purchased it, you may take it back to your local Hastings and we will be glad to exchange it for a working console. The refurbish are 100% guaranteed and if not the store may exchange them for another unit. We apologize for the inconvenience. We value our relationships with our guests. If there is anything further that we can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact us.

I’m starting to feel better. Then around noon, I get a call from my store manager. Let’s just say the tone of the conversation was not good. As I said earlier, I knew the email to corporate was going to get some people mad at me, but hey, I spent $280 and got zilch. He proceeds to tell me that I never told him it was messed up. I told him that I called him the day after Christmas and he said that I never told him about the second time. I said, “Hey, I told your assistant manager.” He’s all, “Well, you didn’t tell me.” To which I replied, “Your assistant manager is an extension of you.” This goes back and forth and he keeps telling me, “You didn’t have to contact corporate.” To which I say, “Well, Todd, I didn’t feel like I had any other options.” Truth be known, if I hadn’t contacted corporate, I wouldn’t be getting this call right now offering me a refund. He tells me that the next time I come in I can get a refund.

January 30, 2008

I got to work at Hastings, with my 360 in tow, and decide to wait until later in the night to process the refund. Getting there at shift change would involve new drawers and there wouldn’t be enough cash to do a refund. I ended up calling Todd later that night asking him questions about the store and he asked me if I did my refund yet. I told him no and he said that we had gotten a couple of refurbs in if I wanted to exchange it. I told him that I might. I was very tempted to do this all night, but in the end, I just felt burnt on the refurb systems, so I got a refund.

So, that’s it. To sum up, don’t buy a refurbished Xbox 360. Especially if they were manufactured before July 2007. Horrible experience and now I have a copy of Halo 3 that will never be used. Oh well, at least it only cost me a buck!

Well, I think I mentioned a few months back that I was trying for some free stuff through the online offers. If you remember from last spring, I tried getting an Xbox 360 from these offers. Jump over here or here to refresh your memory.

Anyway, I set out to get a 42″ Samsung Plasma TV. And I succeeded…sort of. I got together with a bunch of people from JoshClark.com in a “conga” to get a TV. Deal was, we each had to do 12 offers and refer 1 person that did the same. That’s where the “conga” comes in. It was a line that we all paid 10 bucks to get into. That way, when someone signs up, they pass their referral link to the person below them in line, and they pass it to the next person, and so on. This way everyone has a referral. The last person in line will be the only one that doesn’t get a referral, so they get the money that everyone paid to be part of the conga. Pretty good deal. Well, after about 2 months of going back and forth with a company that started out legit and quickly went to not recommended, I got my gift. Not exactly a Plasma TV, but a check for $900. The company that stuck it to us was a company called I-Deal. In the end, they just couldn’t handle all of the people fulfilling their part of the deal, so they (the company) tried to get out as easy as possible. So, now instead of getting a TV, which would encourage me to sit on my butt, I am going to buy a road bike that will enable me to do triathlons again. So, in the end, it worked out pretty good. Although if they were going to send me a check, I wish they would have sent me a check for the amount that they said the TV was worth ($1500). That would have gotten me a bike and a TV.

But, there’s more. Just when you thought it could get any better. About a month into the Plasma TV offer, they started another conga for a MacBook Pro. This gift required us to do 10 offers and 1 referral. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it. Afterall, the TV was 12 offers and this one is 10. Plus the monetary value of a MBP is about $2000. Plus, I-Deal was doing this offer as well. It was still a reputable company in our mind (we just didn’t know yet, because a few people had already received actual TVs from them). We jumped on it quick. Around that time, some website ran an article about getting free stuff online. They even linked Josh’s site in the article. Well, the board was overrun with people wanting to get their MBP. The conga grew to a few hundred people and we eventually had to split it up into 5 different congas due to size. Fast forward a couple of weeks. I-Deal’s sites are being overrun by people actually fulfilling their obligation.

Let me take a moment to describe how these companies make money. They have you sign up for trial offers to various websites and products. These trials could be free or inexpensive. For every person that signs up through I-Deal’s sites, I-Deal gets a cut. A lot of these offers are legit sites like Netflix, Blockbuster, BMG, Columbia House DVD, and Scholastic Book Clubs. The goal I-Deal and the offer companies is to entice the user with a big ticket gift. But to qualify, you have to jump through some hoops. This alliance wants you to forget that you signed up for the trial so that they can slap you with a monthly membership fee. These fees range from $20 a month to $80 a shipment (depending what you signed up for). So, you can see where the money is to be made. If you aren’t organized, you can loose a lot of money and never get your gift. Back to our story in progress.

Well, I-Deal is being hit by a lot of organized people. They never expected this many people to fulfill their end of the bargain. So, their site (where you check the status of your account) starts having glitches. Suddenly, offers that were approved are showing pending again. Luckily, there was a huge support group in the conga. We found out that a certain level of offers (you have to do 3 levels) was showing pending for everyone. I-Deal’s response was that it was just a glitch and would be fixed soon (it took over a month for them to fix it). I can’t say for sure, but the way it looked was that I-Deal was trying to scare people into thinking that they needed to do more offers for that level. And I’m sure a lot of people did. This was just one of the many ways that I-Deal tried to scare people into quitting. And it worked for a lot of people. But those of us who hung in there got our gifts… which were nothing close to a MBP. Instead of forking up the money to those of us who jumped through every hoop for the MBP, they shafted us. We all got checks for $600, the value of an HP Laptop. Granted, that was $600 I didn’t have, but we all fulfilled our end of the bargain for the gift that we applied for. I-Deal’s response was a quote from their Terms of Service:

“WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SUBSTITUTE THE Laptop WITH A GIFT OF EQUAL OR LESSER VALUE DUE TO INTERNAL INVENTORY STOCK. THIS SUBSTITUTION MAY INCLUDE MONETARY COMPENSATION EQUAL TO THE VALUE OF THE ACTUAL Laptop. THE DETERMINATION OF THE ACTUAL VALUE OF THE GIFT ITEM WILL BE AT THE SOLE DISCRETION OF MYGIVEAWAYCENTRAL.COM. DECISIONS BY MYGIVEAWAYCENTRAL.COM REGARDING THE VALUE OF THE GIFT AND/OR SUITABLE ALTERNATIVE GIFTS ARE FINAL.”

So, there was nothing we could do about it but go and cash our checks before they all bounced. The MBP was going to be a gift for Amy, so I just gave her the check and said, “Merry Christmas.”

All in all, I spent the following on the offers:

Plasma TV – Spent $43, got back approx. $60 in gifts/merchandise and the $900 check.
MacBook Pro – Spent $65, got back approx. $50 in gifts/merchandise and the $600 check.

So, it turned out pretty good. I did learn a lot about internet offers this time around and who to use and not use. If you are at all interested in doing any of the sites, let me know and I give you some more info or just go over to JoshClark.com. Just do me a favor, if you do a referral site, sign up through me. Have fun!