April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Debra

Virgin Mobile Canada Has Lost Me As A Customer

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In August of 2009 I bought my daughter a cell phone through Virgin Mobile Canada. It was a cute little phone – an LG Rumour she could use to text, browse the web and phone home. 2 year plan which seemed pretty good as cell plans go. Unfortunately, the phone got broken in her backpack on the bus.

Rather than throw good money after bad we went to the Virgin kiosk and got a cheap candy bar phone, Nokia 2730. This phone had a sim card unlike the CDMA phone originally on the contract. I asked, as is my want, “will this cost anything extra or change the contract”. He said no and so it seemed as no extra charges were incurred.

Fast forward to Nov. 2010 when the screen on the Nokia started to seem faded, this worsened over the course of weeks and in December my daughter took the phone to the Virgin kiosk to see if they would send it away for repair as it was still under warranty. She was all but told to f off. Came home nearly in tears. No effort was made even to look at the phone let alone look up that it was in fact still under warranty. I then called the call centre and asked that her plan be reduced to calls only as the screen was no use for anything else.

I found a phone the next day, that I had when I had a previous contract with Virgin Mobile Canada and phoned the call centre to see if that phone could be put on her plan. I asked again, “will this cost anything extra or change the contract in any way”. I was told that the only change would be that her friends plan would include fewer people as we had dropped that featured and the original was a promo. Fine no problem.

Wait. Big problem. January’s bill includes an extra 179 dollar charge!

I spent one hour and forty-seven minutes on the phone to the call centre to try to sort it out and apparently this is a charge for changing from the candy bar sim card phone to the Samsung Vice CDMA phone. CDMA the same type of phone the plan started with. And seriously a 179 dollar downgrading charge!

When I asked if they have no legal obligation to full disclosure of charges – see above I did ask – I was told the charges still stood and that I should have read the contract if I wanted the information.

And to add insult to injury if I want to just cancel that will be another $160 to $180.

I was so frustrated with this ridiculous nonsense I told the call centre rep I was hanging up as I could no longer be polite. I was in tears by the end of it.

It is really unfortunate that the company has sunk to this level. My very first cell was a Virgin pre-paid and unlike other companies I had heard stories of they treated their pre-paid customers well. I then had a contract with them and their service was good but not the kind of service they had before. Now in my opinion if you want a cell plan look anywhere else but with Virgin Mobile Canada.

From this experience – Virgin Mobile Canada does not honour their phone warranties, does not require their employees to tell you the truth about added charges you may incur and will refuse to give you a number to higher authority with which to take up the matter. At this point the over 400 dollars it will cost to remove Virgin Mobile Canada from my life seems well worth it, though it would have been nice if any attempt had been made to recognize the mistake on their part and the charge for their error.

Virgin Mobile Canada – a name you can’t trust.

The Koch Brothers Billionaires Club

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Isn’t it great when a few friends can gather together for a couple of beers, shoot the shit, bitch about class warfare and control an entire country?

the two-day event is not just “fun in the sun”. This will be a meeting of “doers”, men and women willing to fight the Obama administration and its perceived attack on US free enterprise and unfettered wealth.

As the invitation says: “Our goal must be to beat back the unrelenting attacks and hold elected leaders accountable.”

The reference to the accountability of America’s elected leaders is ironic, bearing in mind that the gathering has been convened by two brothers who have never been elected to public office and are among the most unaccountable and secretive political players in the country.

David and Charles Koch enjoy a combined fortune of $35bn (£22bn), run the second largest private company in the US, Koch Industries, and are increasingly using their fabulous riches to push their special interests within America’s political process. Nobody knows precisely how much they spend on influencing elections and lobbying Congress, but it is thought to be scores of millions of dollars.

By similar vein, the guestlist for their gathering on Sunday is unknown. Past attendees at the twice-yearly event include supreme court judges, rightwing media celebrities such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, prominent governors of southern states such as Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) and Haley Barbour (Mississippi), as well as leading figures from Wall Street and energy companies, and titans of industry.

But you can be sure there won’t be any of them there elites in attendance! Just us regular folk nothing to see here..

A Musical Memorial for the Arizona Shooting Victims

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Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik speaking about the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and those who had come to see her who were wounded or killed;

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,’

‘The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.

‘And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.’

‘That may be free speech. But it’s not without consequence.’

December 6th

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In memorial of the 14 bright young lives extinguished this day at Ecole Polytechnique and all the other women and girls who have lost their lives to violence simply because they were women.

Health Care – Or How I Spent The Year

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It’s been an interesting year for me health wise. There was a possibility of ovarian cancer and as I have a family history of ovarian cancer and watched my mom go through painful chemo treatments for 5 extra years of life, I was not in a good place emotionally.

In August I went in for a total hysterectomy. Even with a possibility of cancer my surgery was scheduled for March of 2011, however, my doc put me on a cancellation list. The pre surgery process was great, everything explained. every effort taken to put me at ease.

The morning of the surgery I was in a room where you change, the IV is put in your arm and you have a chance to try to relax. Then you walk down to the OR waiting room. At this point those involved in your surgery come and talk to you, doctor, anesthesiologist, interns in this case as also as it was a teaching hospital. Again every effort was taken to make me feel at ease. Everyone in the OR was great. It was the first time I was laughing even as I was being put under sedition

The floor experience was not as good. Not any fault of the nurses, most of them are wonderful, caring people who really try to do their best with the system they have been given. I recovered well from the hysterectomy, got sprung sooner than expected and followed all the admonitions not to lift, push, pull, do housework (woohoo!). A few days later I got my staples out and that night my incision opened, completely… all the way down to the fascia (holds your insides in) which also had a hole in it. Really not a good thing. Got a cab to the ER and spent about 36 hours there because there were no beds on the ward.

Sept. 2nd I had my second surgery. This time I was not sewn up as the tissues were not healthy enough. This left me with an opening approx. 8 inches long, 4 inches wide and 5-6 inches deep which required being packed with a special gauze everyday. This was to enable the wound to heal from the bottom up. Needless to say I was not able to do much of anything and required a lot of care and nutrition. Both of which were sadly lacking.

There are far too few nurses and they just can’t tend to everyone and do all the admin work they are required to do. So patient care suffers. Meals come in microwave trays and for the most part are inedible. I went 3 days without eating anything as the food made me gag just from the smell. A far cry from the days when hospitals employed cooks who made each meal and nutritious soups and well-rounded main courses were available providing for the nutrient needs of those whose bodies were trying to heal.

After release from my second surgery I required, and still do, daily nursing care at home. The nurses have been great, but again overworked with high patient loads.

I am very, very happy that I am not dealing with chemo treatments, but I am getting tired of a having wound in my stomach and not being able to do anything. I can’t shower because of the risk of infection so only bird baths. Who knew I would one day long for the luxury of a shower!

At first not being able to do housework is pretty cool but it gets old quickly. The latest estimate of when things might be healed up is christmas but even then I will still have 4-6 weeks of healing.

Anyway that is why AR has been silent for so long. I hope to be up and running again soon.