The Consumer Complaints Blog

I was very happy to find your Blog… Here’s my story, hope it will help other consumers avoid such experience in the future:

I hired the moving company Rockbrune Bros. Ltd. to move our home from Toronto to Albany, NY. The scheduled date for receiving our content in Albany was July 19th.
On July 19th, no truck or local movers arrived and no one contacted us to provide inforamtion on the whereabouts of the truck. After numerous calls and emails I was finally able to learn (late in the day) that the truck would not arrive until the 23nd. We were left in an empty house in a new town.

Rockbrune bros. suggested we either go to a hotel or buy the basic things we needed to stay in the empty house until the 22nd. Having a child and 2 pets we opted for the latter and purchased an inflatable mattress, some towels and kitchen utensils (mostly plastic), three bar stools, and a doll for our daughter. The total cost was approx. $600, slightly less than we would have spent on a hotel and restaurants for the four days.

After the move was completed we contacted the company for a refund of our expenses. We were surprised to learn that the company will not reimburse us for the full amount. The owners claimed that our expenses were not justified and they would only provide $200 as a “gesture of good will”. This is despite their earlier promise to reimburse us for our expenses! We refused their offer of $200 and requested that they reimburse us in full.

The owners further claimed that we should not be reimbursed since we get to keep the things we purchased. We notified the company that we are happy to give them these items (mattress, chairs, etc) since we really had no need for them and were forced to buy them because of the delay in shipment. The company did not respond and to date did not refund us for our expenses.

As a consumer, in situations like this I am left frustrated with my inability to do anything (other than perhaps a small claim but who has the time…). I hope that by posting my experience on your blog people may be able to avoid the services of Rockbrune Bros or at least be aware of the potential issues that my come up.

Sincerely,

Dorit Nevo

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

I usually don’t go in for the whole protesting thing. I really see it as nothing more than an opportunity for the media and higher ups to manipulate the public while the rest of us feel like we’re making a difference by blowing off steam and screaming. The truth is that unless there is a mass movement, protest don’t really seem to accomplish much.

I’m a much bigger believer in the grass roots organization movement and voting with my dollar rather than screaming in the cold or something. But to each his own. The point I’m getting at is the video below. The part about the boots was really kind of amusing. It’s nice to know that Joe Public is so easily manipulated into a riot situation for a good old fashioned ass kicking. The host is kind of slow like he’s speaking to a room full of 5 year olds. Anyway, watch the video and let me know what you think.

Before you get all excited, there is no real way to beat the system. But there are things that you can do to help yourself from being completely shafted.

1. Never pay the fine outright.
If you pay your ticket without going to court, your conviction will register immediately and you’re pretty much screwed with your insurance. So even if you get a ticket for 10 over, don’t pay it. Take it to court. Why you ask? Because your conviction will only register after you have been found guilty. With the state of the court system today, that can be up to a year or more before you go in front of a judge.

So let’s say you got charged with not stopping at a stop sign even though you did stop. You can’t fight it because they’ll always believe the cop in court but you can limit the insurance penalty.

Even if you’re found guilty in court, the points will go on your record only after the conviction so they may only stay on your record for 6 – 8 months if the courts are jammed enough. This is because the points are based on the offence date and not the conviction date.

2. Go to court and look and listen for the cop.
The prosecutor will check in with all the cops. It helps if you can memorize the cops face when he stops you but he’ll say his Officer Number to the prosecutor to check in so listen carefully. If he’s not in court, your charges will be dismissed. This has worked for me 7 times in the past. Cops don’t always come to court. Sometimes they are busy or have to work and so on. If you’re really polite when they stop you, they may note it down and not bother to come if it’s just the one case.

3. When in doubt, bargain.
The prosecutors are lazy. They just want the conviction for their stats so they’d rather not sit there actually doing their job. They want to bargain with you and go to lunch early. You can usually get minor secondary offences dismissed and reduce your charge if you agree to plead guilty.

4. Stay away from those ticket services.
If you hire one of those “We’ll get you off for any violation” people, they really won’t do much for you but take your money for doing what you could basically do yourself.

5. If you have time and friends, stall.
If you have an agent that is willing to go in for you, you can try stalling by having them tell the JP that you are really sick with diarrhoea or something else disgusting and believable then ask for a new date. Stalling not only adds more time from your offence date to the conviction but it also increases the chance that the officer won’t show up. But don’t have your agent talk to the prosecutor in this case or he/she will know what’s going on. There is always the chance that the JP won’t believe your agent in which case he’ll have to say that he is not prepared to proceed and you may get convicted anyway. In that case, take the time it took to get to court as a bonus and be happy with that.

6. It’s your Worship not your Honour.
Apparently they get very testy about this. The traffic court has a Justice of the Peace (JP) and you refer to them as Your Worship. The criminal courts have judges and they are Your Honour. Holy crap talk about an ego trip. In any case, you won’t get a fair shake from either because in my experience, they always believe the cop over you. So no point in pissing them off further. Just remember to call him Your Worship and you’ll be fine.

7. An excuse is not the law.
If you have an excuse for doing what you did, it won’t matter so don’t waste your breath. They just go by the law like some kind of idiot robot. There is no room for humanity in the court so even if your baby was dying, they’ll convict you because you technically broke the law when speeding to the hospital. It’s best to try to prepare based on the actual law if you plan to fight the charge.

To sum it up. Basically, just go to court for any offence. The $20 extra for court fees and so on are well worth the insurance premium over a year with points on your record.

If you have a serious conviction like DUI or something, go talk to a lawyer right after your AA meeting. I only intend this advice for minor traffic offences. Good luck.

In stark contrast to the Highland Farms meat incident a little while back, I found a couple of sites today that were fun and useful. The first is a spoof on the Matrix and has won some awards: The Meatrix. It’s just a quick look into the meat industry and the shitty way in which the large farming corporations are growing our meat and mistreating the animals in the process. No I’m not an animal activists. I fully endorse eating meat but I don’t believe that any creature should be immobilized in pens and made to stand in its own shit just so we can save a buck or two.

Is cheapness just as bad as corporate profits? If we keep sending the message that cheaper is better, won’t the big companies always try to cut costs at the expense of everything else? Maybe we should be saying that better is better.

From that site I came across this one: Eat Well Guide. The really cool thing about that site is that you can enter your postal code (or zip code) and find stores, farms, and restaurants in your area that offer naturally raised and organic foods. I’m in Toronto, Ontario and it seemed to work well for me. At least for the stores. It’s not perfect but what a great find for anyone that’s looking at eating healthier. It’s too bad the media continues to brainwash people into thinking that eating healthy means eating low fat food. Why do all the fat people always eat low fat and diet foods? If they actually worked, shouldn’t they be loosing weight?

Anyway that’s a whole other blog post. If you’re one of the people that has figured out that eating healthy means non poluted and naturally raised food, you can check out the Eat Well Guide. Use it to find a store in your area that offers an alternative to the same old shit from our supermarkets inferiormarkets today.