Hauser Decoy Mail Service SUCKS!

I was a mail decoy for Hauser Track Mail Service for several years. It's very easy to do, just input the data on the day you received the mail, then keep it for six months in case it's needed. After that, discard the oldest month and start another month. It paid .25 per piece of mail, paying 3 months at a time. Sometimes you had to mail something back to Hauser but you were reimbursed for the postage when you got paid the next time. Sounds like easy money and it was,. The only problem was getting paid. At the beginning, Dave Hauser was pretty good about paying. Then checks started being a few weeks late, then months. Dave was full of excuses - the checks were always 'on the way', he was waiting for a line of credit at the bank, he had a new bookkeeper, and on and on. I had to repeatedly ask for the money I had earned. More excuses were made and I still waited. Finally, I said enough and told them I was quitting at the end of the  pay period which was about 2 weeks away. They wanted me to keep going until they could clear my name from their list. I said no, I'd had enough. Then they asked me to keep the mail that was still coming and send it back as one bundle. I said no. I was quitting for lack of payment but they wanted me to continue working for them. Why would I continue doing something that I wasn't getting paid for? At that time my payment was behind several months. The last check I received was on May 20, 2011 and it was for payment through August 2010. I have emailed Dave Hauser and his bookkeeper several time since asking to be paid and they don't even reply. I'm still getting decoy mail (two pieces just today) and I quit 5 months ago. I just throw it in the trash. Hauser Track Mail Services SUCK!

My advice to anyone wanting to be a mail decoy - go with someone other than Hauser!

If you have experience dealing with Hauser Mail, I'd like to hear about it.  Please leave a comment here.  Thanks.

Prejudice (not a book)

I got into a little discussion on a Facebook page the other day. It was a public site where local people and school alumni can reminisce. Someone was talking about a problem at their job and one thing led to another and finally someone else blamed everything on those towel heads. I didn't say anything right then but as the afternoon wore on, I kept thinking about the term he used and it bothered me more and more. I finally went back to the site and that post and I told him I found his use of the term towel head to be offensive. He apoligized at that time but came back later to ask if the terrorism acts of 9-11 hadn't bothered me. I don't see how one thing has to do with the other but I responded by telling him that I was as patriotic as the next person. My brother fought in both Desert Storm and Operation: Iraqi Freedom. I told him I had had the priviledge of having Korean, German and American Indians in my immediate family and blacks and latinos in my extended family. I told him I was a very tolerant person but I didn't tolerate intolerance. He never did get my point. He finally told me I was entitled to my opinion and he was entitled to his. (The next day that entire post was deleted.)

 

These day we all know not to use the 'N' word when referring to blacks. We don't call Asians chinks or slant eyes or Italians wops. (At least I hope not!)  How is calling the Iraqis towel heads any different? It's referring to a whole nationality in a very derogatory way. I know that their entire country was raised to hate the Americans. Are we going to raise our children to hate them in return? In my opinion, that just brings us down to the level of the terrorists. I never questioned his right to hate the ones who terrorized New York or the ones who continue to injure and/or kill our soldiers. I was only objecting to his use of the term towel heads. A couple of other people spoke up but no one really sided with me. One said that the other poster was free to say what he wanted on his own Facebook page but probably should watch what he posted on a public page. Someone said we should only make comments pertaining to the site. Someone else said they'd had job training to be more polically correct which his term wasn't. Only one told him he was entitled to his opinion even if it was wrong. I'm sure most people just didn't want to get involved and in my opinion that's a major part of the problem with predudice....people won't speak up. Maybe it's because I'm older now but I do speak up more often and I'll continue to do so. I hope you will, too, when you see someone doing or saying something that just isn't right. Speak up!

 
On a slightly different but related subject, we all talk about how patriotic and all-American our soldiers are (and I'm not saying they aren't).  But did you ever stop and think that those same soldiers bring a LOT of non-Americans into our country by marrying the people they meet in other countries? They certainly do their share in diversifying America even as they help protect it and spread democracy. As Martha Stewart would say, "It's a good thing."
 
........climbing down off my soap box now........

Claim of Innocence

Written by Laura Caldwell

© 2011 by Story Avenue, LLC
438 pp.

From the book cover: “ Forbidden relationships are the most tempting. And the most dangerous.

It was a crime of passion – or so the police say. Valerie Solara has been charged with poisoning her best friend. The prosecution claims she’s always been secretly attracted to Amanda’s husband . . . and with Amanda gone, she planned to make her move.

Attorney Izzy McNeil left the legal world a year ago, but a friend’s request pulls her into the murder trial. Izzy knows how passion can turn your life upside-down. She thought she had it once with her ex-fiancée, Sam. Now she wonders if that’s all she has in common with her criminally gorgeous younger boyfriend, Theo.

It’s Izzy’s job to present the facts that will exonerate her client – whether or not she’s innocent. But when she suspects Valerie is hiding something, she begins investigation – and uncovers a web of secret passions and dark motives, where seemingly innocent relationships can prove poisonous….”

Lawyer Izzy McNeil goes from civil court to criminal court when her friend Maggie needs help. Valerie Solara has been accused of poisoning her best friend while teaching her how to cook a Mexican dish. The grieving husband says he saw her put something blue in the mix. Another friend says she asked her about poisons. . . why? Valerie’s own father was convicted of murder and executed years ago. Is she following in his footsteps?

The characters in this story are normal, everyday people with normal problems. Izzy is 30 with an ex who, although engaged, thinks he may want to get back with her. She also has a 22-year-old hunk of a new boyfriend.  Maggie is a partner in her grandfather’s law firm and he’s starting to show his age. Valerie is a widow with a 19-year-old daughter she’ll do anything to protect. How these women all come together to try and save Valerie from a murder conviction makes an interesting story. The story takes an interesting twist at the end after the verdict is in. Is she guilty or innocent? Read the book and see. Easy to read, short chapters, and good dialogue.

I won this book from one of Book Trib’s weekly contests.

The Map of Time

© 2008 by Felix J. Palma

© 2011 English Translation by Nick Caistor

Published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster
609 pp.

From the book jacket: “Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H. G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence.

What happens if we change history? Felix J. Palma explores this questions in The Map of Time, weaving a historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting – a story full of love and adventure that transports readers to a haunting setting in Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.”

I put off reading The Map of Time because of its large size. However, once I started reading it, I hated to put it down. In the story, H. G. Wells writes a book about time travel that fascinates 1880’s London. Imagine his surprise when an acquaintance opens a business supposedly taking people to the future world of 2000 where they’re able to secretly observe a battle between humans and automatons (robots) that are destroying the world. One thing leads to another and ‘future’ and present people get involved in numerous ways. It was sometimes hard to follow the twists and turns as different characters would try to explain what would happen if they would do this or change that, would the other still happen? What would happen if they were to run into themselves in the future or past? Could they travel to the past and change things for the better or would the world be better off left as it is? The book really made me think as I was reading it.  Here's just one example from the book - if you could travel to the future to arrest a person who had killed in the past, have you prevented the murder, and if you did, was a crime still committed? If the crime wasn't committed, why would you need to arrest the person?  It's just one big circle that never ends!

In places I thought the story was a little wordy but I just skipped ahead a few paragraphs when that happened. It was written in 3 parts and the author did a wonderful job tying them all together. Some of the characters were real authors including H. G. Wells and Bram Stoker. It was fun reading how the author wove them into the story. If you like Jules Verne or H. G. Wells you’ll enjoy this book. For more information you can visit http://www.mapoftime.com/ .

I received this book unexpectedly from Simon & Schuster; I think it came from a contest I entered.

Judas Kiss

A Taylor Jackson novel by J. T. Ellison
© 2009, Published by MIRA Books
395 pp.

From the book cover: “SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE. It was a murder made for TV: a trail of tiny bloody footprints. An innocent toddler playing beside her mother’s bludgeoned body. Pretty young Corinne Wolff, seven months pregnant, brutally murdered in her own home.

Cameras and questions don’t usually faze Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but the media frenzy surrounding the Wolff case is particularly nasty….and thorough. When the seemingly model mommy is linked to an amateur porn Web site with underage actresses and unwitting players, the sharks begin to circle.

The shock is magnified when an old adversary uses the sexy secret footage to implicate Taylor in a murder – an accusation that threatens her career, her reputation and her relationship.

Both cases hinge on the evidence – real or manufactured – of crimes that go beyond passion, into the realm of obsessive vengeance and shocking betrayal. Just what the networks love.”

Lieutenant Taylor Jackson finds her hands full with the murder of a young, pregnant mother. Who beat the woman to death and then left her baby daughter alone with the body for 2 days? The husband/father was supposed to be working out of town but his alibi doesn’t add up. A secret room is discovered in the basement where home movies have been made – but not the ones you would show your friends and family. And to top it off, secretly filmed sex videos of the Lieutenant and an ex-lover show up on the internet. Someone is out to destroy her. How is she supposed to do her job if she’s suspended? She’s also being stalked by an international assassin who wants to kill her in order to hurt her boyfriend. She’d better keep looking over her shoulder!

Great story that kept me guessing until right close to the end of the book. Jackson was a likeable person who just tried to do her job the best she could despite all the obstacles thrown at her. She has a great team working with her and they do a good job solving the murder. The deeper they dig, the more involved the crime becomes. Well-written, good dialog and interesting characters.

The story continues in the next Ellison book, Edge of Black.

I bought this book at a garage sale.