The first of several comments concerning DriveTime Commercials, you can be sure of that.

 

How does this stupid wall of noise convince anybody to use this service to buy a car?  How does it convince anyone to do anything other than make a mad lunge for the remote and the mute button?

Oh, right- this is all about convincing people with crap credit and no money that their crap credit and no money does not necessarily translate into No Car.  Sometimes, it can translate into Car That Will Hang On You Like Lead Weights As You Struggle To Remain Afloat.  Oh but it's so fun to imagine your phone vomiting money and building a "money man" or whatever the hell that stupid woman says as the other stupid woman does a stupid little dance.  For the stupid audience.

Meanwhile....comments are turned off for this video.  That means you KNOW its bad, because YouTube is where people with no taste and no sense of humor go to tell the world how rib-spitting funny and awesome every commercial out there is.  And to ask what the music in the background is called.  Because Stupid People.

How to file a claim with Car Shield in Seven Easy Steps!

 

Step One:  Call our convenient toll-free number.  It's free!  It's the only part of our service that's free, so you might as well use it.  For free!

Step Two:  Wait on hold for a minimum of twenty-five minutes while our Dedicated Operators deal with other frustrated, worried customers who are dumb enough to think that they are actually going to benefit from the "insurance" and "peace of mind" they think they've been paying for for months if not years. Enjoy the tinny music running in an endless loop periodically interrupted with messages like "your call is very important to us" and "did you know that you can save us even more money by not bothering our operators and just filing a claim which we'll totally ignore online?  You get the same non-service online as you'll get if you keep waiting on the phone, stupid!"

Step Three:  Actually file a claim which will be carefully filed in the circular file container next to the operator's desk which looks suspiciously like a trash can.

Step Four:  After three weeks or so, call back to be told that your claim was rejected because the damage done to your car includes items that are not included in the All Covered Parts are Covered covered list.  Should have read the fine print, stupid.

Step Five:  File an impotent complaint at the Better Business Bureau website, which you think will do something because you think that the BBB is some kind of government watchdog agency when in fact it's just another private company that has done an extraordinarily good job convincing people that it's some kind of government watchdog agency.

Step Six:  File an impotent complaint with Ripoff Report.com, which will accomplish exactly as much as that BBB complaint accomplished:  it will help you blow off some steam about the money you wasted.  

Step Seven:  Admit you paid the Stupid Tax and never, ever buy into Car Shield, Home Shield, or any of these BS "extended warranty" scams again.  

All of these car "warranty" scammers use the same script.

At least three or four times a week, someone calls my mother's land line to "offer" an "extension" of her long-expired car warranty, and having chatted with these disgusting scammers (scambaiting is kind of a hobby of mine) I can anticipate the script with almost 100 percent accuracy.  They all offer an extension of the same warranty mom had when she bought the car brand-new.  They all offer exactly the same "coverage," and they all offer a caveat that she must accept or decline during the phone call "because people might decline and experience car trouble and then try to get coverage"- never mind that none of these bottom-of-the-barrel scum-suckers require a pre-coverage inspection but instead are willing to take the customer's word for it that no warning lights are on, there are no current problems with the vehicle, etc. etc. etc.  They do vary widely in how much money they want to steal from you- we've been offered "coverage" of anywhere from three to five years in length, costing anywhere from $99 to $350 per month.   Other than that, though, all of these people seem to be using the exact same script they picked up from EasyScammer.com (if such a service exists.)  

I've noticed that recently these companies are using Indian call centers to make the initial calls and then transferring us to American "salespeople" to "complete" the transaction once we express interest.  I'm assuming that this is done to cut Scam Overhead costs while increasing the likelihood of pulling off a successful scam (certainly an American is more likely to trust someone who doesn't speak in broken English with a thick Indian accent while claiming an obviously fake English name.)  This phenomenon certainly makes ending the call more interesting- when Indians realize you are scambaiting them, they usually just hang up or at the very most curse you out for a few seconds before cutting off the call.  Americans are more willing to get involved in insult-hurling contests, as if I can be judged, let alone shamed, by a guy who chooses to make his living by trying to rip people off.

Anyway, I guess that this particular company has amassed enough income to buy commercials on low-viewership channels, competing with endless ads for Nutrisystem and BS "Medicare" deals that dominate airtime between crap movies and reruns of the Andy Griffith Show.  But they are basically just more expensive versions of what you can hear over the phone if you swipe right for Scam Likely. 

(BTW, I do appreciate the generic fees included in the receipt shown in the ad and especially the way the "total" amount is circled in red followed by Sales Tax, as if the customer isn't at all concerned about the Sales Tax.  I guess maybe I wouldn't be all that concerned either after paying all that money for Shop Fees and Oil.  Hysterical.)

Picking on BMW Again

 

Just back from a week at Hampton Beach New Hampshire- which is most definitely not The Hamptons, but is in fact just one of the more popular of the hundreds of beaches in New England featuring Arcade-littered boardwalks offering culinary delights for any palette as long as it's limited to fried dough, hot dogs, cheap pizza and ice cream, cramped cottages a five-minute walk to the beach renting for $1000 or so a week, and tinny bar music mixed with the sounds of those arcades you can't quite ever get away from (if you were indifferent to the song "Sweet Caroline" when you first visit a New England beach, you are guaranteed to loathe it a week later.  Seriously, it's the freaking National Anthem of this region.)

And my very first day back, I'm greeted with...this.   A reminder of how awesome it must be to own a palace in Hawaii with a marble driveway to park your tricked-out BMW in.  Uh huh.  I'm as sure that this is 100 percent accurate as I am that it is 0 percent relatable.  Where's a devastating typhoon when you need one?  Isn't Hawaii due for a volcano eruption?  Give me SOMETHING here. 

Navage is just gross

 

The radio version of these ads has been the bane of my existence this summer.  They show up at least eight times an hour on SiriusXM and there's been only one version running since late spring.  I've got in memorized and I'm pretty good at jumping up and hitting mute or changing the channel before the guy manages to get to the word "nose."  

I get that this product is probably a worthwhile thing to use, and I get that it only makes sense for Navage to use The Current Situation to pitch it, but enough already with trying to get me to pay close to $100 for a freaking nose water vacuum.  If I had money to burn I suppose I might actually head over to CVS and pick one up, but I don't have money to burn so I guess I'll just have to keep washing my hands with soap and water and wear a mask when I'm in crowded areas and use Flonase when I get sick as I inevitably will because I'm not buying one of these things.  Please stop trying to sell it to me.  I've had enough of your stupid smarmy voice and and being forced to visualize the workings of this device and it's ruining my summer and my life.  Stop now.  Right now.  Please. 

(And on that note, I'm off to the beach for a week.  See you all next weekend- and until then, please enjoy the archives and keep that View number up!)

WageSlave-- err, ZipRecruiter, et. al. can seriously take a hike now

 

Just between you and me, with those obnoxious Indeed commercials on the radio and these Zip Recruiter ads on TV,  I am so over the endless whining of small businessmen struggling to hire people so they can keep raking in the cash.  Don't care about your problems, Mr. Heartbeat of America.  Having trouble finding great candidates?  Offer more money.  Problem solved.   Ah, but that's not the solution you're looking for, is it?  You'd rather pay a headhunting agency to flood your inbox with well-qualified but also appropriately desperate and subservient laborers who would like to make a living but at the moment are willing to work for enough money to put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads once eviction moratoriums come to an end and maybe- if Boss Man is feeling generous (or desperate) enough, get a little of that Sweet Sweet Health Insurance Coverage which is tied to employment because America is Teh Dumb. 

This Summer: BMW is still Just a Car

 

Here's yet another commercial for a luxury automobile which rides on the message that if you own a particular car you'll be able to travel places and see things.  But not just travel places and see things- do all that while driving really, really fast in a car that makes you feel Important because Listen to that Engine as I Hit the Gas. 

In a few days, I'll be heading to the beach for a week in an 11-year old Honda Civic.  It will take exactly the same amount of time to get there as it would if I were driving a 2021 BMW, Audi, Lexus, or whatever.  Because regardless of what all these commercials imply, driving one of these overpriced Overcompensation Toys doesn't make the traffic part like the Red Sea or grant you a special exemption from speed limits.  Nor does it open up vacation spots unavailable to the Unwashed Masses who have to get from Point A to Point B in 11-year old Honda Civics.  Seriously, Luxury Car Manufacturers:  get over yourselves.  Your products are nothing special no matter how many epilepsy-inducing images and VROOOM VROOM noises you throw at us.