Green Dot Cards- proving once again that it's very expensive to be poor

(First, I'd like to point out that comments are blocked for this YouTube commercial.  After reading a number of reviews of Green Dot, I'm not the least surprised.)

Browsing through RipOffReport.com, I encountered page after page of complaints concerning this thing called "Green Dot Prepaid Cards."  The most common issue involved accessing money placed on the card by the customer.  My immediate response was "why would you exchange cash for a piece of plastic which may or may not give you access to the money you used to buy the piece of plastic?  Does this make sense to anyone, anywhere?"

Then I did a little more research and learned about the customer base for Green Dot cards (the common "I got mine at Dollar General" was my first clue.)  It seems that Green Dot provides a service for a "specific market"- the "underserved customer" (more alarm bells going off, as "underserved customer" means "poor"- rich customers are never, EVER underserved.  Check out tomorrow's post if you don't believe me.)

People who don't have credit cards or bank accounts- like the well-dressed, home-owning suburban white woman in this ad (uh huh, sure)- can easily transfer their cash to a prepaid (by them) plastic card which can then be used anywhere credit or debit cards (or cash) are accepted.  If this sounds like circular stupidity, wait there does seem to be a benefit- when you get paid, your paycheck can INSTANTLY be added to your Green Dot prepaid card balance, "just in time for the weekend," so you can get your money when YOU need it.  Because without a Green Dot card there's no such thing as "Direct Deposit," you know. 

Also with Green Dot you avoid "interest fees" (and "interest") and credit checks and the annoyances of dealing with a bank- you know, like FDIC protection and and actual people you can talk to in person instead of an India-based phone bank.  Sure when something goes wrong and you can't access your money you might find yourself in deep trouble dealing with people on the other side of the planet for whom English is a second language, and sure these cards come with their own monthly fees (averaging $4.95 per month)  but hey that's the cost of convenience, right?

It sure looks like Green Dot and other "prepaid" cards are just another example of how big corporations just love squeezing the people living on the margins, the people who can least afford to lose any part of their cash flow.  I wonder if they are partners with Rent A Center and Payday Lenders, making up a financial Axis of Evil.  I know I'm preaching to the choir and I sure as hell don't want to sound like Dave "Just pay cash, just spend less, just make more money" Ramsey here, but I bet most people who use these cards are perfectly welcome to open accounts at their local bank but have been talked into thinking that they can't by their equally disconnected friends and neighbors.  I'll settle for urging all of them to just pop in to one of those banks next Saturday morning and check out what they have to offer. 

Samsung's Upgrade Every Year Because You Can BS

When you buy a Samsung Galaxy for yourself and a friend, you can upgrade every year!

Every year? Yes, Every year! But just in case you need to be reminded- every year- from now until your worthless life comes to an end, don't worry, the Samsung Phone Monkey at your nearest mall is totally willing to do that.  At least, until he goes insane and lazers your fool head off.

Meanwhile....upgrade every year! Which means three things:

1.  Samsung is telling you in advance that the brand-new, totally tripped-out new phone it just sold you is going to be ancient technology twelve months from now, and if you want to continue to show well for your friends, you're going to want to "upgrade."  And don't worry, Samsung is just going to keep making "upgraded" phones, forever and ever and ever.....

2.  Every year, that landfill is going to leak more toxins from more "ancient" (more than a year old) phones and their lithium batteries (because if you're going to upgrade your phone, why would you want to keep last year's perfectly good but now totally uncool and pointless battery?)  Don't worry, the next generation will deal with the cleanup.  They'll also deal with the culture of disposability we've passed on Just Because.

3.  Despite that culture of disposability, in which nothing is valuable and everything can and should be replaced every single year, SOMEONE will be producing better and better tech for us to consume like greedy starving jagoffs who just want more more more.  SOMEONE will keep producing new shiny things for us to grab at and cuddle with and "need."  As long as that's profitable, it will keep happening.  So yes, we can expect holograms and AI and spacecraft - you just won't be producing it. You'll be too busy playing with your shiny new phone.  And trying to remember that friend you gave the original second one to.

Project Mc2- 'Cause girls can Science too, if you just dress it up right!

Oh, this is so clever!  Girls hate science (and math, and engineering, and all those other professions that are exclusive to guys) but they just adore pink and pretty things and they ESPECIALLY love jewelry!  So this is a really cool way to trick all those silly girls to put down the frilly dresses and Barbies and get involved in science without even realizing it!

My only real criticism is in the name of the product- it includes the word "science," which is totally going to scare off little girls.  I don't like the word "kit," either- that implies that there's some building going on, which might also imply mess, and those are male things.  I'd cut those parts out and replace them with "Awesome" or "Pretty" or "Sparkle" or "Princess" or something like that.  Wait, how about "Magic Princess Sparkle Jewelry Maker?"  "Maker" might make them think of cooking, which would naturally appeal to them, right?

Oh, and I'd be a little concerned about the jewelry being edible, too.  These girls look like they are going to be ten years old in the near future, so they have to start thinking about keeping their weight down so they can attract a mate.  It's not a great idea to encourage girls to eat as they approach their dating years.

How to waste your life properly, the Verizon Fios way!

We start with this woman celebrating the fact that she's got this awesome entertainment system which makes her house the absolute must-place-to-be for "binge watching."  We'll get back to that disgusting concept in a minute.

Some sort-of-humanoid creature who happened to be inhabiting her kitchen suddenly launches into a critique of her cable setup.  I think that this bizarre, misshapen, ugly thing- which may be a rat, or a ferret, or even a homo sapiens if he was born near a toxic waste dump- has decided that its goal in life is to set the middle-aged woman he's encountering straight on what makes a good electronic cocoon /zombie containment system.  My only response to this thing would be to squish it with a shoe or at least open the screen door and chase it outside.*

Ok, back to the whole "binge watching" thing.  I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me the attraction of "binge watching" if you don't have a severe illness or for some other reason have been rendered immobile and a good candidate for quarantine.  Otherwise, how freaking sad do you have to be to even WANT your house to be the place people camp out to watch hour after hour of brain-numbing, life-sucking television?

Even if I was confined to my house by illness, I'd much rather do some binge-reading than binge-watching.  It's cheaper and better for my brain, though it probably wouldn't win the approval of any warped little gnomes living in my kitchen.  And if I wasn't sick?  I'd rather be binge-hiking or binge-museum browsing or binge-talking-to-friends.  Binge-watching?  I guess that's great for losers with oatmeal between the ears who think they've got an infinite amount of time left on Earth.

Sound judgemental?  Good.

*Seriously, was this kid born a block from Chernobyl, or what?

Because you can't spell America without Can-Am. Sort of.

The description of this video focuses on the paint job on the all-terrain vehicle.  It celebrates the "Break-up Country Pattern" which I imagine is supposed to make it invisible to turkeys, deer, immigrants, black people and SJWs.  Technically, the design was chosen to "provide cover on our machines" (make it difficult for Hillary and the Socialist Bernie-crats to find when The Time Comes) and "relies on shadows to achieve added depth." 

Oh but wait, we aren't done yet.  These shadows painted on to "Can-Ams aggressively forward-thinking designs" (forward-thinking?  Sounds like a liberal plot to me) help their machines "to blend into whatever sort of nature you're in" (deserts, deep woods, burned-out urban areas created by the Inevitable Race War, etc.  You know, all that stuff.)

I guess the point is that when you drive one of these machines (after donning that "I'm a soldier" costume you used to wear only during your Saturday night Aryan Nation get-togethers or while playing Call of Duty in your mom's basement) after reflecting on how Manly and American and Not at all Gay Shut Up Where Did You Hear That you are while you go off to stalk whatever animal happens to be in season, you're going to feel much closer to the nature you're about to terminate.  And that's what being Free is all about.  That and guns and attending the Protestant Church of your choice and making damn sure people use the right bathrooms goddammit.

Don't forget the beer.  Prey has an annoying habit of taking it's time wandering into the area you've picked out to park your sorry ass and wait to kill it.

Two Boost Network ads in one blog post. You're Welcome.

In the English version of this commercial, the guy whining like a pathetic little brat about his cell phone coverage- which only allows him to stream video that stutters and has to reboot every few seconds, I guess- is super-upset that what would have seemed downright miraculous a decade ago is now oh so very lame.  The salespeople are naturally in total sympathy with the spoiled doofus and encourage him to switch to Boost so he can keep his eyes glued to the screen and for certain won't notice that truck bearing down on him until it's way too late.  I totally concur.



The guy in this ad beats his wife and kids regularly for infractions like not stacking the soup cans in the pantry properly and upsetting the crease on the sports page.  Fortunately for them, he's only a few months away from suffering a massive, fatal stroke when he's cut off in traffic on the way home from work.

Coast on paying your taxes, ask us to understand and celebrate with you? Pass!

Let me say this straight from the opening: I bet you that every single one of these people thinks that the government should get it's act together and do something about that growing national debt.  The government really, really needs to start living within it's means, that's all they gots to say.  Now on to their stories about how they think it's ok to personally add to that debt:

"Are you seeking tax forgiveness and a fresh start?" Translation:  "Did you avoid paying your fair share of the money required to keep society functioning and want a do-over courtesy of the people who diligently paid their bills year after year Just Because now that you've been caught?"

"For the fresh start you deserve."  Why do you "deserve" it?  Never figured that one out.  You didn't pay your taxes.  You got caught.  Our team of attorneys think- as, no doubt, you do- that you "deserve" a fresh start.  We aren't going to say why- because there really is no why.  If you had any level of introspection, you'd agree.  But the important thing here is to keep money in your pockets, so....

Michael R. tells us his story- see, he just finalized his divorce and faced a tax lien of $113,000 (I don't know what either of those things has to do with eachother, but whatever.)  Coast One was able to settle his debt for $2200, allowing him to "maintain his lifestyle."  He tells us this as he stands in the middle of a golf course.  We were really pulling for you, Michael.  Glad we could help. 

Caroyln B sits on the couch with her robot/puppet husband to tell us how her decision to retire a few years ago came back to bite her in the butt and she had to liquidate her retirement savings, resulting in a big tax penalty.  So, Carolyn- you retired before you hit 65 and suddenly realized that you couldn't live on nothing.  This isn't something you considered beforehand.  And instead of going back to work, you cashed in your 401(k) and took that deferred tax hit.  You didn't pay taxes on those investments because you agreed not to cash in, and then your broke that agreement, and then you were stunned the government wanted you to pay your tax liability.  Thanks to Coast One, you managed to screw over the United States twice.  And then you pulled the string on the back of your semi-conscious husband so he could bleat his line.  Well done, Carolyn B- you saved enough money to maybe pay your bills another year.  What's next year's scam?

Evan D. seems to think that because he managed to get away with tax evasion for 14 years, it's totally unfair that the IRS wants to come after him now, like there's some kind of statute of limitations on continuing tax fraud.  Coast One turned a $300,000 debt into $1500 which - get ready to have your heart warmed- "allowed me to keep my family business."  Seriously, WTF?  You were defrauding the people of the United States.  Who gives a fat rat's ass if it was a "family business?" 

Shelby D.  (no obvious relation to Evan D) explains that he fell behind because it "wasn't easy" being a self-employed truck driver.  Seriously, I don't give a damn if you're going through a divorce, retired, running a family business or driving a truck- if you can't spend an hour with H&R Block once a year to make sure you are paying your taxes, I have no sympathy for any of you scumbags.  Pay your freaking bills. 

That's it.  I'm done.  We finally got a snow day, btw.  Looks awesome!

Out of patience with Apple, the iPhone, and the world in general

Somehow the idiots in this commercial managed to "get serious" despite f--ng around with their phones and doing virtually nothing else.  They go from finding an apartment with those phones to taking selfies with themselves in their new apartment to finding a house that fits their stupid dogs and then making stupid faces into their damn phones again.  I guess we're supposed to be happy for them but seriously, why would anyone give a flying care?  It's another phone ad in which nobody makes a call or uses their $1000 phones for much of anything other than taking stupid pictures of their fool grinning extremely punchable faces.

And if the YouTube comments are any indication, the "message" of the ad- which I guess is supposed to be that $1000 for an iPhone isn't so very much 'cause look you can get one free when you buy one- is totally lost on the audience, which is too busy doing it's usual obsessive "what is that song" bit.  One winner asks about the song two weeks after it's title has been revealed, demonstrating that YouTube commenters are far better at asking questions than they are at reading answers.

Oh, this may be a mixed-race couple, which I guess iPhone thinks is super progressive or daring or something.  Hey Apple, want to impress Progressives?  Pay the people who actually put together your pricey electronic drugs for zombies a living wage.  Until then, f--k off.

So much stupid in this Samsung Ad

1.  Why is this woman spending a dinner party looking at her stupid phone instead of actually interacting with her fellow human beings?  Is this just something that always happens at dinner parties these days?

2.  How did this woman get the guy's phone number so she could send him the message?  If they already know eachother, why are they sitting alone at the beginning? 

3.  This guy is sitting literally ten feet away.  Why doesn't she walk over there and sit down next to him, or ask him to join her with, you know, her lips and her actual freaking voice? 

4.  Can you tell I'm getting really ticked off around now?

5.  Why does this "communicate entirely through technology" thing continue after the party, even as they seem to be forming an....um..."relationship?" 

6.  Is it safe to assume that this couple has their first actual conversation somewhere around their fifth anniversary? 

And finally....

7.  What the F--- is the matter with you YouTube commenters?  Are you all mentally ill, or what?  You LIKE this?  What is your problem?

Allstate's Stupid Sexism

This one's short and to the point- just another commercial which passes muster in 2018 because it's the guy being chopped down and body shamed by the woman.  Reverse the genders in this ad and you've got digital pitchforks going after Allstate with a vengeance, and rightly so.

There's nothing wrong with this guy physically- he isn't fat, so we can assume that his wife's little dig doesn't come from a place that cares about his health.  No, this is all about sticking a knife in him for absolutely no reason- and the "punchline" leaves him suitably shamed and shrunken, standing at a refrigerator which I assume he'll now close without taking out any food because his wife* decided she could not simply exit the room but had to leave him with some more emotional scar tissue.  He might not use that gym membership, but at least won't be eating any of the food he paid for which is stored in the refrigerator he paid for which is in the house he paid for.  I wish this commercial had ended with him taking the rest of the leftover pizza and a beer out of the fridge and heading down to his man cave to spend a few hours with the tv. 

Like this ad?  Again, just reverse the genders.  This is pointless, nasty crap.  Thanks, Allstate

*who is skinny and pale and not at all healthy looking, but it's the husband who has the problem because she got the great insurance and he wasted money on a gym membership he doesn't use.  Hey, here's an idea, lady- how about joining the gym so it's something you and hubby can do together that doesn't involve grinding him down with your digs?  Just a thought.

Free Peter Popoff (Limited time offer, Shipping and Handling extra!)

Peter Popoff used to make a living by appearing before huge audiences of Bible-thumping yokels and claiming to receive "messages" from "god" that gave him "secret" information about certain individuals in that audience.  He'd walk up to one slack-jawed semi-literate hick after another and totally wow them with "knowledge" about their darkest fears, hidden pains, and cherished dreams.  Then he'd get them to open their wallets to support his "ministry," claiming that if they gave with open and generous hearts (and empty brains- that was the easy part) the money would be returned to them a hundredfold because "god" wanted them to be rich, they just had to believe it would happen strongly enough.

In 1986, Peter Popoff was exposed as the sleazy huckster fraud he is and always has been- it turned out that he was planting his own employees in the crowd to start conversations with the sheep and pick up information Popoff could use in his act.  Popoff's wife would then feed her husband this information via a hidden earpiece worn by Popoff, making it look (to the desperate and desperately stupid, at least) as if the Good Reverand was reading minds- or being told by god what to say about the person standing in front of him.  Popoff's assets were seized- or at least they would have been if god didn't tell Popoff (through his attorney) to declare bankruptcy and fall off the radar for a while.

Well, guess what?  Within a few years Popoff made a comeback by using the magic of late-night infomercials to pitch "miracle water"- little bags of water which, when sprinkled around and/or consumed in the right way, will bring someone money.  That someone is not the person doing the sprinkling or drinking, of course- their job is to send back the empty bag along with a donation.  The only person actually receiving money is Peter Popoff.  As god intended, no doubt.

Nowadays most of Popoff's ads run on Black Entertainment Television, and most of the people we see crying that they ordered the water and prayed for money and got it Gawd Be Praised are black.  Popoff's figured out where the Desperate Stupid Undereducated Christian money is these days.  And who is least likely to check out what The Evil Google (or believe it because it's just The Devil Talking anyway) says about Peter Popoff before ordering their bag of water.

I'm just going to say two things about Peter Popoff and his current hustle.  First, what's with the "extra large" bag of water bit?  How does he sell that?  Does extra water mean extra money falling from the sky courtesy of god?  Why not just go with the Additional Bag of Water Free Just Pay Extra Shipping and Handling bit?  Could he be any more cynical?

Second- and this is going to sound strange- I don't want the government to go after Peter Popoff.  I want law enforcement to leave him alone to buy tv ads and sell bags of water to the suckers.  Because I don't want a dime of my tax money going to the hopeless cause of saving people from themselves.  If anyone wants to take money they don't have and send it to this carnival barker, that's their business.  Society slapped him down in the 1980s, at considerable cost in time and money to the Justice System.  The story is all over the internet.  It's out there, for everyone to see.  All you have to do is check for yourself.  If you fail to do that before you sell your Miracle Coin collection and 9/11 Commemorative plates so you can buy bags of water through the mail, well, fooled you twice, shame on you.  Tell your story to Ripoffreport.com.  I'm not interested anymore.

Principal presents maybe the darkest commercial we'll see this year

Dad didn't tell Mom that he had purchased life insurance, so when he passed, she freaked out and spent weeks wondering how she was going to keep herself and her son in their house, pay for his college education, etc. etc.

Son didn't tell Mom that he saw her stress and responded by sneaking out of the house to find and engage in employment of some kind (he got paid by check, so I guess drug dealing is out and Principal Insurance decided that their ad was dark enough.)  Enough time has passed since Dad died for Son to get a job and get his first paycheck- which means enough time has passed for Mom and Son to have a heart-to-heart about the future.  But that's not how this family rolls, clearly.

The "happy ending" comes when Mom gets a check from Principal Insurance, a check which is clearly her first hint that Dad took steps to take care of his family before he died.  Gee, good thing she didn't just toss that unexpected check in the garbage, huh?

This is so screwed up.  All of this could have been avoided if Dad had acted as if he actually loved and cared for his wife and kid while he was still breathing.  What kind of asshat buys life insurance and then keeps it a secret from the beneficiary?  Was Dad afraid that his wife would bump him off if she knew of the financial windfall coming down the road?

And "the rebel" in this commercial- I guess his "rebellion" came in the form of not comforting his mother in any way but instead causing her more stress by sneaking out into the dark streets every night.  I know he's supposed to be the noble one here, but again- COMMUNICATION, PEOPLE!

A Test of Endurance, YouTube Whining, and Verbal Contracts

I'm sorry, but I just gotta share this guy's sob story about Endurance Car Warranties, which I'm quite certain are a scam.  I've gotta share it because I'm also quite sure that this is a case of two scammers going up against eachother, and I found it too funny not to include in this blog.

You know right off the bat that this is going to be fun when this idiot tells us he came to a verbal agreement on a warranty for his 17-year old car with engine problems over the phone (he'll later repeatedly use the phrase "take my word for it" and "I'm an honest person" and "they promised me.")  This is followed by two throwaway lines about getting a five-page email "which I didn't bother to read because it's five pages and I already talked to him on the phone" and a five-page contract on PDF "which I didn't bother to read because why should I was talking to him on the phone."  These written agreements are never mentioned again throughout this idiot's whinefest, never mind that he later threatens a lawsuit and you'd think that his best evidence would be that contract.

He tells us that his car's engine broke down but it was after the "1,000 mile grace period" so the fact that it had a pre-existing conditions didn't matter because, you guessed it, "that's what they told me over the phone."  If you reach this guy's age and you haven't figured out that 1.  Verbal contracts are worth the paper they aren't written on and 2. "His word against mine" isn't especially helpful when you are the one seeking the money and you've got a written contract you haven't bothered to look at.

The last two minutes of this nonsense is this idiot ramping up the anger- the cursing starts to fly as he seems much more interested in letting us know how angry he is than in proving that he's in the right.  He talks about the price he was quoted (again, no paperwork to back this up) and how he's going to have to pay for his engine out of pocket because Endurance says it "technically" isn't required to pay (AGAIN, what does your contract say, moron?)  In other words, the video devolves into a total pity party and I'm actually surprised it doesn't link to a GoFundMe account.

He wraps up by telling us what we already know- Endurance (and I'll just add, all extended insurance warranties) is a ripoff and you're far better off just saving money for the inevitable car repairs you'll have to pay for if you have to drive around in an ancient car.  But I'd like to add a postscript:

You can't be ripped off if you have a written contract that you are willing to read.  If you are satisfied with a verbal contract, you're just asking to be cheated and you have no business whining about it afterwards.  I have no idea how the conversation between this fool and Endurance went, nor do I care, because there's a written contract that is never addressed throughout this rant.  So congratulations, idiot, you vented your stupidity and laziness to the world and gave me something to use on my blog.  And provided a life lesson to people smart enough to learn it.  I hope someday you are one of them.

Sprint, Hulu, and the further destruction of society

After watching this ad several times and failing to pick up what this pathetic stupid woman was saying, I finally just read the damn caption and learned that she was bleating about having 2018's version of a social disease- FOMO, or "Fear of Missing Out."  I guess it involves being afraid that everyone is watching a certain program- or, more likely, every fricking program- on Hulu and because you don't watch television 24/7 you might not be able to join the gabfest about some crap show you really ought to be watching on your phone except you are SUCH a loser you don't have Sprint.

The "cure" for FOMO is to get Sprint which now comes with Unlimited Supplies of everyone's favorite Addiction of the Moment, Hulu.  So now instead of reading or taking a walk or (giggle, snort) having an actual conversation with someone which might result in human bonding but will NOT allow you to keep up with your fellow Hulu zombies, you can just keep your eyes glued to your phone and endlessly stream crap into your atrophied brain.  It's time you'll never get back and it won't do a thing to make your life even one iota more productive or valuable, but it will help you fit in the next time your fellow walking dead co-workers start yapping about how if you can just get to Episode 9 you'll see that The Handmaid's Tale isn't the most stupefyingly boring and slow-moving thing ever intentionally produced by Man, it's actually entertaining and interesting, really you just have to stick with it.

And you'll no longer "suffer" from FOMO.  Because you'll never "miss out" on anything on Hulu ever again.  The rest of life?  Oh yes, you're going to miss out on a LOT of that.  But who cares, 'cause Television?

Not sure how Wayfair is any different from Amazon, but that's ok because I don't care, either.

I guess the idea behind this incredibly stupid nub of an ad is that it's super-easy to buy stuff using Wayfair if you don't care how much things cost and you just want it right now.  And it's also super-fun to get stuff really fast, because look how all these jackasses are dancing around their new furniture.

Oh, but if you're a guy and you get "caught" dancing by your wife, you can fix that problem really quick with flowers.  Because buying a furniture set and dancing about it is Affair-Level bad, I guess. This makes sense to someone.

Even if this commercial didn't have a caption, I'd suspect that the whole point is to do the whole "Drop the Mic," because I guess that's a thing now.  Even when there are no mic's in the ad and people are instead dropping (and in one case throwing) expensive smartphones. WTF-ever, Wayfair.

And to repeat a common theme - please don't read the comments below.  These people are just really pathetic unless they are getting paid to post this drivel.  And then they are still really pathetic, but they're at least getting paid for being pathetic.

Wix.com buys itself some love

It's almost unbelievable, but these two shmucks manage to be even more cloying and cringe-worthy than that Karlie Kloss idiot we usually see peddling Wix.com.

But that's not anywhere near the worst part- never mind the ad, it's just two jackasses who seem to be famous among internet-obsessed weirdos, some of whom practically lost control of their bowels when they saw their heros on a commercial.  Instead of watching this 66 seconds of absolutely nothing of value (it's not the extended version, be thankful for small favors) be prepared to get VERY depressed and scroll down to read the comments. 

I'm going to be super-charitable here and just assume that 99 percent of the posts in the comment section are the  fake, nickle-per-reply stutterings of unemployed college kids looking to make a few extra dollars pretending to be madly in love with the product of the company paying them.  I mean, some of these posts are really over the top- "I adore these two," "Awesome product Wix!" "LOL these guys are just too funny," "I almost died when I saw them on my tv," "what is that song" (I didn't even hear a song) etc. etc. etc.  I don't think I could go on if I believed these posts were from real people expressing real- um- "thoughts." 

I'm guessing that Wix.com looked at the comment section from the Karlie Kloss ad and said "we can't let this happen when we make our next ad featuring two insufferable dweebs with nothing to say, so we'd better just buy us a bunch of likes."  They can't Pull A Chevy by just putting gushing idiots into the ad itself, so they have to pay the soulless to sell out in the comment section.  That's the only explanation I can think of that doesn't leave me really, really sad.

American Residential Warranty- for all your non-Rent A Center Appliances!

A few years ago I wrote a blog post concerning American Home Shield, the largest of these "home warranty" grifter companies which specialize in scaring people living on the margins into purchasing garbage insurance for their appliances using money they don't have.  At the time I posted a link to Ripoffreport.com's extensive library of complaints about AHS, which consistently focus on the same issues- refusal to pay for repairs that seem to be covered by the contracts, insistence by the insurer on using certain contractors who are never available to do the work, etc. 

Well, it seems that American Home Shield doesn't have a monopoly on the Prey on the Vulnerable by selling Empty Promises industry, because here comes American Residential Warranty offering the same thing- for "as little as a dollar a day," you "can" protect your wallet when all your major appliances need very, very expensive repairs.  We hear the usual key phrases- along with "as little as," we get the magic "plan options include" and while there's "no obligation," they can't help but remind us that our kitchens are about to explode and then we'll really be screwed, just sayin'."

These carnival barkers sound so very sincere, don't they? Well, before you decide to throw your money away on what are basically extended warranties wrapped in a shiny package called "insurance," check out some of these posts:  https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/American%20Residential%20Warranty

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if this isn't just American Home Shield with a fresh coat of paint hiding the corruption underneath.