New Hampshire Real Estate & Consumer Resources

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

It came a bit later this year than last, but once again, N.M.E. or “National Magazine Exchange” has invaded my mailbox with the latest version of their deceptive mailings. And this time this important message comes to us not from our old friend Pat Haines, but from someone calling his or herself “E. Scanlon.”

Although they are not using the familiar “pink nightmare” envelope this year, there are the usual deceptive tactics in use that are designed to get the recipient to open the envelope rather than simply tossing it in the trash.

As you can see on the front of the envelope (click to enlarge), the paragraph in the upper left corner is intended to make the recipient believe that they may have already won some kind of prize or sweepstakes. And of course, the ominous “deadline” date of July 3 shows through the little window on the lower right with the rather humorous “DEADLINES ARE ENFORCED” warning just beneath it.

On the back of the envelope, the sender’s return address is revealed. Across the top, where most people would probably look first to determine the origin of the letter, they include just and address with no company name.

The company name is printed vertically on the left side of the envelope with “NOTIFICATION SYSTEM” printed in large letters and their actual company name printed in smaller letters below that. Again, they want to make it look like it is some kind of notification that the recipient has won something.

The letter contained within is the typical effort to entice the recipient to call a telephone number. In this case, it is 800-420-5478. Their efforts to make the recipient believe they have already won something is toned down a bit and they have to admit that this is simply a chance to enter a sweepstakes when they begin the second paragraph with “If your prize is selected…” which gives the whole thing away.

If my experience with N.M.E. is any indication, calling 800-420-5478 will connect you to a very friendly-sounding sales person who may engage you in small talk about the weather or your home town. Then they get down to business.

They are peddling magazine subscriptions and they don’t take no for an answer very easily. The woman I spoke with when I was tricked into calling them was quite pushy with her magazine pitch and I ended up hanging up on her when she would not take no for an answer.

The back of the letter has the usual page of legal mumbo jumbo about the sweepstakes rules and whatnot. What is kind of interesting is that next to the last sentence, where they offer you the opportunity to have your name and address removed from future mailings. Whether this is due to some consumer law or simply N.M.E.’s chance to save a little money that would be spent on postage and materials by sending this stuff out to people who are not interested. Personally, I think I’ll just let them keep on sending them since they do give me something to rant about here.

I am left wondering what happened to our beloved Pat Haines? A reader commented last year that she was a known scammer, but I have never done any research on that so I would have no idea.

At any rate, E. Scanlon seems to have taken over for Pat at N.M.E. Is Pat on a beach somewhere sipping a Pina Colada or did she perhaps end up in a less pleasant locale? We may never know.

While watching Channel 9 News the other evening I saw one of those stories that I just have to comment about. This is a perfect example of the kind of story that can get me cursing and making obscene gestures towards the TV.

The story is set in Hampton, NH, where cats and other small pets are apparently turning up missing in numbers that are considered in excess of the norm. Many of them seem to be disappearing when they are let out to roam around the neighborhood after dark.

The town’s animal control officer strongly suspects that coyotes are to blame for the missing pets and Channel 9 dutifully provides some menacing footage of coyotes roaming in residential areas, no doubt planning their next evening meal of kitty cats and Chihuahuas.

Then comes the part of the story that gets my attention. A woman who owns a Dachshund is obviously worried about her pet winding up on the menu and she would like something done about it.

The reporter on the story says that this particular resident would like the town or the state to do something about the situation. The resident is then given a chance to speak for herself on the issue.

“I’m not for killing anything, so let’s relocate them to where they can live their lives not in a residential area,” she proclaims.

OK, that’s where it hits the fan for me.

Can she possibly be serious? She wants the town or the state to come in and spend taxpayer money to relocate coyotes because they are a threat to her dog? Which is probably more of a nuisance to the neighborhood than any wild critter ever was, with barking and droppings deposited about and whatnot.

This is exactly the kind of nanny state mentality that strongly influenced my move out of Massachusetts and into New Hampshire. Oh mighty big government, help us with our every little problem! Is it any wonder that freedom in this country is being gradually eroded? It’s because people like that don’t want freedom, they want to have their every little want and desire taken care of for them. Lord knows, you don’t want to get your hands dirty!

As far as I know, coyotes are in their native territory here in North America, while our domesticated cats and dogs are not. It’s long been known that domesticated cats are a big problem for the native songbird population, so I find it a bit ironic that nature is beginning to turn the tables a bit and now coyotes are learning to prey on the cats that have been preying on songbirds and other native species of small animals.

I’ve had my share of problems with wild critters on my large, rural property. I’ve had skunks digging up my grass in search of grubs to eat, chipmunks stealing strawberries from my garden, wild turkeys roosting on my back porch and leaving large collections of droppings and moles tearing up my field.

Guess what? I solved these problems on my own with no help from the town or the state. I don’t normally like to kill critters either, so I purchased some live animal traps and relocated a few skunks and chipmunks. I’ve been chasing the turkeys away whenever I see them around the house and they are showing up on my porch far less frequently. I also managed to work out a plan that allows me to “ambush” moles and unearth them with a good, sturdy pitchfork and dispose of them. Critter problems pretty much solved.

If you want to keep your pets safe from wild critters either keep them in the house, put a fence up around your property or go outside with them to keep an eye on them. Don’t be whining that you want the government to send out some $90,000-a-year biologist to solve your problems for you and cause my taxes to go up. Or even a $25,000-a-year part-time Fish & Game intern or whatever.

The Hampton animal control officer summed it up perfectly at the end of the story. He said something to the effect that we will just have to learn to live with these wild critters. At least someone’s got the right idea.

Grow up and take the initiative required to solve your own little problems like this. If you want the state to do every little thing for you, move down to Massachusetts or move to the city where there aren’t so many wild critters. Then you may have to worry about them being run over as a result of all that city traffic. But take heart! Maybe you can lobby the city or the state to build a little doggie or kitty bridge or tunnel so your pets can cross the street safely!

Living in New Hampshire, all the recent hubbub about small town police chiefs arresting illegal immigrants on charges of trespassing has me pondering the situation. If you are not sure what I am talking about, do a Google search and include the words: New Ipswich, Hudson and illegal and you’ll find all you ever wanted to know about it.

What has me a bit worked up is the fact that our government seems intent on clamping down on trivial issues and letting the important stuff slide. The reason, in case you are not familiar with the situation, that these small town police chiefs have been arresting illegal immigrants on trespassing charges is that they have been not been able to convince the feds to come out and do their job when the cops happen upon illegal immigrants in the normal performance of their duties.

My attention was directed towards this issue lately since I run another web site which is used to sell a modest number of products to a small, very narrowly focused market. We do all of our own product creation and shipping and have used the U.S. Postal Service for all our shipping since our outgoing packages are quite small, and we don’t ship a high volume. Besides, with a post office in just about every town, it is quite convenient.

The vast majority of our orders come from within the U.S., but occasionally we get international orders, and that is where this story ties in with illegal immigration. I bet you were wondering, weren’t you?

When we ship an international order, we are required by the postal service to fill out a special form each time. This form, called a ‘Customs Declaration’ is required even though the only international orders we ship are to Europe and Australia ‘ you know, countries that are long-time friends and allies of the U.S. I mean it’s not like we are shipping items to Afghanistan or Iran.

We were told by our friendly post office personnel that these forms are a new requirement that were mandated since the attack on 9/11/01. The particular version of this form that I have in front of me is dated January, 2004, and it requires that we fill in what the contents of the package are, the weight, approximate value, senders address, addressee and of course, it must be dated and signed — in two places, no less.

I’m not sure what these forms have to do with fighting terrorism, but like so many other things after 9/11/01, ‘fighting terrorism’ makes a great excuse for filling out an extra form or surrendering your fingernail clippers prior to boarding a commercial flight.

It’s not the form, or the fingernail clippers, that have me worked up however. It’s the fact that we are expected to accept things like filling out extra forms to send a small package to England or giving up our nail clippers at the airport while calls from local police to the feds regarding the apprehension of people in this country illegally go unanswered.

Yeah, that’s right. The local police who made calls to the feds after taking illegal immigrants into custody were told that it was not worth their (the feds) time to come out and take custody of the illegals. That’s not an exact quote, but that was the message that was conveyed when these local chiefs called expecting the folks from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to come out and do their job.

So, while I fill out extra forms to send products to Australia and Joe Air Traveler dutifully surrenders his nail clippers at the airport, the feds obviously have better things to do than come out and take custody of people who are in this country illegally.

I’m sure it will be explained away as a manpower or funding shortage, but with all the manpower and billions being poured into our efforts to ‘fight terrorism’ in Iraq, it would be hard for me to believe that we don’t have the resources to fight terrorism right here in the homeland. Compared to what is being poured into the war effort in Iraq, I’m sure the cost for a few thousand extra ICE personnel would pale dramatically in comparison.

Not that I expect much in the way of logic when something is coming from the direction of Washington, D.C., but for heaven’s sake, if you are going to fight terrorism, it seems to me that securing the borders and dealing with illegal immigrants should be rather high on the list of priorities.

Maybe the folks at ICE and USPS who sit around and dream up new forms for us to fill out could better serve their country stationed along the border somewhere with a pair of binoculars. After all, where terrorism is concerned, shouldn’t we be a tad more concerned with who is coming into this country than we are about what is being shipped out?

Previously, this space was occupied by the “New Hampshire Real Estate Blog.” It is now called the “New Hampshire Real Estate & Consumer Resources Blog” due to the fact that I have widened the scope of this entire web site.

In addition to real estate information, I will begin to include more consumer information. I hope to include things like product reviews (probably infrequent), expanded information on local dining establishments and other business, computer and internet resources and general comments regarding other subjects I think are worth mentioning.

I am likely to add other topics that I cannot even speculate about now. I do spend a lot of time researching various subjects on the Internet and will expand this site into other areas as I conceive of them. In other words, I don’t even know what kind of other stuff will be showing up here as time progresses.

I’ll do my best to keep it interesting!