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.