Life Perspective: Reviews & More

  Xfinity is Comcast, and if you know anything about Comcast, you know they have an outrageous and decades-long history of egregious disregard for customer service. It’s what they are known for. They tried to dress up the pig and put makeup on it by calling it “Xfinity,” but it’s still the same old pig.  Xfinity charged me for a year for a service I rarely got. Every time I called in, every week or so, to tell them my WiFi wasn’t working, they would make me wait 10 minutes while they tested the line and usually they found trouble on the line. They sent people out with new modems three different times. It never made any difference. When I got WiFi at all, I got it in a 6 foot radius from the modem. Towards the end there wasn’t any data usage showing up at all for several months, but they kept billing me.  Then when I finally canceled the service the end of  September 2025, they told me to bring the last modem in. I explained that I have a physical disability and don’t...

~ Best Buy West Nashville Fails on Multiple Levels; Call Center Is Worse ~ Remember the good ole days when you could walk into Best Buy and a knowledgeable sales clerk would answer all your questions, and if you had a customer service issue or other problem you could call the store and talk to someone who could help you? Those days are long gone. Now you will go to the store and find NO ONE on the floor (which was my experience last Friday evening), or you will stand waiting for help while SEVEN different employees walk past you without stopping to ask you if you needed any help (which was my experience at Best Buy Nashville West today.)  And heaven forbid you call the number listed for the local store! That “local” number connects you directly with Bangladesh or Central America where Suniti or Javier will jabber rehearsed talking points over you before telling you it’s not their department. Can you hold please? They are transferring you now.  If they don’t switch to yet anoth...

Photo of squirrel by Shane Young for Unsplash Earlier this year, I contacted Trapper Jack about a hole in my soffit caused by squirrels and another small hole in a different spot. I have no issue with the man they sent out, but the price quoted was 3 times as much as the person who referred me thought it should be.  I went ahead and paid the 50% deposit, and they put 2 traps on top of my house. Then we had a couple of major wind storms, and my roof, gutters, trim, spotlights, and a couple of windows were pretty severely damaged, including quite a bit of damage around both areas where the holes had been.  My insurance company said it would take care of the damage, so I contacted Trapper Jack about getting a partial refund since they had done no repair work yet.   I had to keep leaving messages—both phone and text—and got the run around for weeks until I mentioned leaving a bad review and the possibility of retaining an attorney to help me get a refund if I didn't hear...

 I recently had a very bad experience with a clothing manufacturer whose ads all said the company was based in the United States. The promo posts told the story of a mom and pop operation who made all their unique clothes by hand but were closing their doors to spend time with their grandkids. I liked the pictures of the clothes, prefer dealing with US-based companies and was touched by their story, so I ordered a garment--a Van Gogh top. For the next several weeks I was strung along with "tracking reports" that indicated my purchase was slowly making its way across IRELAND. But wait! There's more!  Wait a minute. If this was a mom and pop operation where they made all the clothes by hand in the U.S., why was my package crawling across Ireland? I wrote the company--Continuety-- and asked. A representative replied that they had wawrehouses around the world. Huh? Mom and pop based in the US who make all the clothes by hand produce enough to have distribution centers around ...

~ BEWARE: Many companies advertising on social media claim to be mom-and-pop businesses in the U.S. but really ship poor-quality, mass-produced goods from Chinese Sweat Shops ~ List of Chinese Companies Selling the Same Mass-Produced Clothes & Claiming to be Based in the U.S. Continuety Revnuhalter Ellipticaly Elelandy Bozuc Pappaya  Arfym Hutyr Panrila Keppal Vivchic Vyjak Brezzey Continuety/Revnuhalter/Ellipticaly (and Many Others) Clothes a Con from China China is not just buying up farmland and politicians, they are conning us online. The latest con is the “Made in the USA” scam where a Chinese company will tell a fake story on social media about their American family’s small business. If you are gullible enough to buy it… and I was… TWICE… you will not be taken to a website that says it is based in the US, and shown great photos of a very nice looking product.  But when you order and pay for it, you won’t receive a real TRACKING NUMBER. No, you will receive weekly upd...

  ~ Bigalow Variety Pack Teas Stayed Fresh for 13 Years ~ In May 2010, we had the Flood of the Century in Nashville. I watched the water pour into my crawl space but had trouble convincing my insurance company, which back then unfortunately was Farmers, that there was a problem. They didn’t investigate crawlspaces. It wasn’t until an issue with a washing machine leak a few months later that they finally looked under the house and discovered I had moisture wicking up into the walls from the May flood. My house was subsequently gutted for repairs and I was sent to live in the local Microtel for 9 months while my house was repaired.  There were not a lot of perks to living in a tiny hotel room for so long, but I did enjoy the little refreshment station where they served hot chocolate and the Bigalow Tea Variety Packs. It provided a small space outside my room to visit daily and sometimes socialize, but mostly enjoy a warm beverage.  I grew very fond of my daily tea or hot ch...

About a month ago, I purchased a khaki Boonie sun hat from Walmart.com. It was cute and provided nice sun protection for my face, but was missing its decorative bow. This was disappointing since the bow matches the strap and trim and would be a cute embellishment  but the hat is for working out in my garden, so the bow isn’t really necessary   The option of getting another color was appealing, so I ordered on in blue. This one arrived with its decorative bow, but the strap that goes under the chin was horribly sewn to the point of being defective.  The strap is a simple construction where each side is folded in and stitched down the middle to create a uniform edge and prevent fraying. However, the blue hat I received had the stitching down the middle without catching either side in many places. It was already unraveling and couldn’t easily go through the buckle, because the strap was too wide with its sides flared out.  The hat would not stay on my head easily since ...

  Some of the Bad Experiences We Have Had as Airbnb Hosts Are the Reasons I Do Not Recommend Becoming an Airbnb Host A few years ago, my husband ran an Airbnb in Tennessee for a few months. We were dating at the time, so I helped with hosting. We met some interesting, polite guests who took good care of his home. When he purchased a home in Oklahoma, he had two rooms he could Airbnb with the help of his brothers who also rented rooms. For the most part, the guests were polite and respected the house rules. A year ago, after we were married, I traveled with him to Oklahoma several times a year to visit and help improve the Airbnb experience for our guests. I added improved furnishings, art and decorations. But while we were improving the property, the quality of our guests began to go down. For the most part, we still had good experiences, but there was Boot Girl who arrived with one man in tow and left with a different man. When I washed the sheets, I discovered blood and boot stai...