Wonder Why American Auto Manufacturers Are In Trouble? Shame on Ford Motors

This is a repost that I did on another blog dealing with paint issues on Ford and Mercury vehicles. The web site is lemonlaw.com and here is a direct link to subject dealing with Ford Paint Defects on 2000-2005 vehicles.

"Ford has issued a Technical Service Bulletin that shows a major paint defect in many large 2000-05 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars, trucks and SUVs that used aluminum body parts (hoods and fenders) to reduce vehicle weight. Affected models are the 2000-04 Crown Victoria, Taurus, Expedition, F-150, Ranger; Mercury Grand Marquis, Sable; Lincoln LS, Town Car Navigator and the 2000-05 Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer.

According to the TSB, “Some vehicles may exhibit a bubbling or blistering under the paint on aluminum body parts. This is due to iron contamination of the aluminum panel. . . . Ford’s Scientific Research Laboratory has performed a number of tests on vehicle body parts returned for corrosion related concerns. Testing has revealed that the aluminum corrosion was caused by iron particles working their way into the aluminum body part, prior to it being painted.”

CAS Executive Director Clarence Ditlow said:
“This is a very expensive defect to remedy. The TSB requires “extreme care to be taken” including special tools and segregated work areas to remove the corrosion by blasting, repriming and repainting. This repair is so difficult that CAS recommends the best fix is to replace the corroded part with a primed steel part and paint it. Ford cannot guarantee this repair will eliminate all the iron corrosion or prevent other areas from bubbling or blistering in the future.”

If you have a Ford or Mercury now and it is under warranty, be sure to check to see if you have any paint bubbles or other paint defects now as it will only get worse and once over their warranty you will be on your own. Although this specific bulletin only deals with models through 2005, with Ford, who can tell if it isn't an ongoing issue.

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Here is my post on the other web site....





I have a 2005 Mercury Mountaineer purchased on 7/14/2005. Vehicle only gets driven about 5,500 miles each year and has 20,700 miles on it now. Of course it is over the 36 month warranty and now I have peeling paint on my roof.





You get the circle jerk from the dealer who tells you to call Ford Customer Care, who of course turns you down on any repairs. Called again today to let them know I am a journalist and wanted to get further information on their policy and they said since it is not a safety issue there was no recall on the vehicles and nothing they would do.

Called my dealer back and told him I just wanted to know if the dealer was going to help and that I wanted to write an article on this issue and once he heard that shut me down completely and told me he wouldn't say another word and I should contact Ford media relations.

Apparently these guys know all about these issues and because they are in such sorry shape will not address them or offer any support. I suppose it is just easier losing future sales from all of us then to pay to fix the problems and still most likely lose us anyway.

Generally no problem with the vehicle other then this, but from what my body shop tells me this can be a major problem as the paint can begin to peel off from other parts of the vehicle as well. To fix the roof, it would cost $800 because they must first strip all the paint off down to the metal and repaint the entire roof again. He showed me that the undercoat paint was shinny and said it looked like it was never sanded down to accept the top coat of paint. It just isn't sticking to the undercoat.

I would never buy another American made car again. I had a Jeep Cherokee before this one and one before that one. The first one was a lemon and was taken back after one year under the Lemon Law and the second one had its share of problems as well.

Never Again, these car makers should go out of business, they simply don't know how to make a decent product and their service and customer care is horrid to say the least.

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I know that there may not be anything I can do about this, but intend on writing a letter to Alan Mulally (President and CEO) and possibly to our government officials letting them know not to help these companies out of the mess they got themselves into.

Keep checking back to see if I have any success. I also filed a complaint with the NHTSA and their office of Defects Investigation, but since it is not a mechanical issue and only a cosmetic one, I can only hope some class action attorney's get on this one. I will see if I can find any class actions and see if I can join them too.

Forum Bullies, They Can Attempt To Destroy You If You Don't Watch Out

I have been having a problem with one individual name Ted Dillard who I first met on LinkedIn back in December 2008. Ted is an author of a few books on dealing with Smart Object Raw files in Photoshop and tips on working with your images. I am sure an intelligent guy and Ted even teaches digital imaging as well. But from his own admission he is a geek and I have the feeling he just is an angry guy from his posting and his bullying on the forums.

I have joined a couple of photo groups at LinkedIn in hopes of meeting other talented photographers and people in the industry, like Ted. Since I was not that familiar with how LinkedIn worked, as I wasn't with FB when I first started, as a newbie there, I wasn't quite sure about the sites etiquette. I tried to use their invite system which allowed me to send an invite to a number of people from one of the groups I joined. I did the invite with a little note explaining who I was and the process was similar to what we do on Facebook.

I got a number of turn downs because people didn't know me and I suppose LinkedIn is a business oriented networking site where Facebook and MySpace aare social oriented networks. After sending some of these invites out, I received a message from LinkedIn that I should make sure I know the people before inviting them because they might consider your invitation spam.

I still wasn't sure how to do this, especially if I wanted to expand my personal connections. I decided to start a discussion on two of the groups I joined, asking the best way to invite new contacts without getting in trouble with LinkedIn or the members. Well Ted Dillard, got all over me about that and a few other matters that didn't seem to upset or bother anyone but him (and one of his friends).

There were a number of positive tips including one that said, simply send out a message, not an invite to those you would like to connect with and explain how you feel that you would have something in common with them and would like to know if it was OK to send them an invite. This was a great tip that enabled me to add close to 100 new and valuable connects to my account.

Unfortunately, Ted Dillard, the self appointed forum cop, decided to Flame me on this forum and began to climb all over me and not for just this posting, but because I posted it to both groups he belonged to. He also didn't agree with just about anything I posted to anyone else regarding discussions etc. and continued to taunt me that I was also now guilty of Self Promotion. Now in every other group I have been with, when you usually join it was customary to introduce yourself to the group. I have had a few in the past on Yahoo and thought this is a good idea. Say hello, fill the members in on your background and invite them to connect with you if they liked. Well Ted, once again went literally crazy and he and a friend decided that Self Promotion or even a mention of your company or web site was a no, no, on this forum.

I soon realized that he and his friend were what was termed as a Forum Bullies. So I decided to call them out for what they were and posted a link to a wonderful article I found about this issue. Please take some time and read it and then you can come back, it won't take long.

Ted and his friend finally stopped, maybe because they were the only two that would pick on me in the discussions and he really couldn't convert others to join in his aggressive behavior. I was able to stop both of them and all was quiet again. Ted and I decided to have a truce and stop boring the other members.

I had thought everything was fine until I found he had also posted his story about the horrid Len Rapoport who he liked to refer as "This Rapoport Guy" on another photography forum for professional photographers and photojournalists. He started his post with the fact that I had spammed him on LinkedIn and I also was a very evil person indeed.

You can actually read all the posts on the thread for yourself. Of course you have to understand that Mr. Dillard has had full editorial control over the thread and his comments, which have been deleted and edited and then put back up. Nice way to tell a true story, one sided of course.

He claimed that IPA, my company, sells press cards to poor unsuspecting individuals who could get in harms way if they used it to go to a fire or report a war in Iraq.

Of course nothing could be further from the truth and he knew it because he admits he went to my web site. If he did then he already knew that our members are not cleared to cross police or fire lines, you must obtain a Working Press ID from the police and you need to prove you cover these events and are working full time in the media.

Our members receive press ID only good for covering trade and consumer shows, lifestyle events, sports, concerts, movies, parades, public events, etc. they do not cover breaking news, we leave that to the pros that make a living doing that.

He was really just trying to cause a stir with photojournalists on this forum and he did. Apparently the people on this forum are working photojournalists and with Ted's evil spin on IPA and "this Rapoport guy" they bought into it and all hell broke lose.

So Ted started out with his attack this way..."First, this Rapoport guy asks to connect with me on LinkedIn. (By the way he did) Then, I get spammed by him, and he not only spams me but he doesn't even have the sense to BCC, so he CC's everybody on his contact list" Actually on LinkedIn you can send out about 20 messages to your connections at one time. I have 250 so that was not the case. He was one of my connections and as such a message should not have been considered spam. I also apologized that I didn't realize on LinkedIn at that time how to BCC. Hell after spending 15 years on this computer and running 7 web sites, wouldn't you think I know how to BCC a list in an email? Talk about an angry guy. Hey Ted, do what I do when I don't want to read an email, TRASH IT, don't you know how?

So here is just a small sampling of what these guys put me through. Now remember, most have never been to my site and simply followed Ted's lead on this thread and posted their comments on what he fed them.

"Don't you know how this can undermine all photojournalists"

"You are putting these wannabe's out there and they could get hurt"

"A REAL Press person DOES NOT pay for their credentials they EARN them. I earned mine" " if photography is your hobby, enjoy it. But understand that there are people out there who count on getting that shot to pay the bills, people who have had to sell their own equipment to pay those same bills, and people who are insulted by you standing there with that $5,000 camera, and $4,000 lens just to past the time, and brag to your buddies."

"If IPA was so great how come none of their members posted anything on this forum thread"

Actually I told a few of our members about the thread and one wrote this lovely email to their forum support address.

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I am not a current member of Lightstalkers.org, but have read some of the recent criticism of the International Press Association posted on your site.

As an active member of IPA, I find the blatantly critical remarks of Ted Dillard and others rude, uninformed and essentially irrelevant to the IPA and its valuable work and accomplishments. You members of the "universal press" bearing various names should know that "bullying" is against the ethics of any legitimate press group--no matter what its agenda (political, social, or otherwise). Also, it's been my experience that bullies are not the sharpest (or most successful) crayons in the box. -- And, really, fellas -- if you're still concerned about being "kicked to the curb" at this point due to the popularity of your press badge, maybe you should repeat "Journalism of the Streets 101," -- or join the IPA and get legitimate press credentials.

I have found the IPA and President and Chief Editor Len Rapoport to be extremely helpful and valuable to the ongoing work and careers of serious photojournalists.

The International Press Association Web site itself offers complete examples and strong evidence of the organization's versatility and excellence in all areas of press activity and publishing. As to the IPA Press Badge -- I can honestly say it does wonders, even for new members, in opening doors and providing legitimate access to myriad events, locations and areas of immediate importance to photojournalists which would otherwise be inaccessible.

Len Rapoport is truly a person of high personal and professional integrity who leads a highly acclaimed, successful, serious and excellent press organization. I think you can tell that I am a very enthusiastic and supportive member of the IPA and will continue to be for the future.

Thanks for your ear -- always keep one open.

Ellen L Gilmer
Correspondent, IPA

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Don't you know, they ripped her apart too. How dare they! Can you imagine a group of wolves like these presenting themselves as professionals. In all my years in business and as a corporate communications consultant, I have never seen a group of people quite like this one. Funny, on one post they claim no one from IPA has come to our defense and when they do, they proceed to flame her too.

What is wrong with these people? I discouraged other members from doing the same, because I knew what they would do to them as well. I have decided to put up a Testimonials page with contact information so anyone in doubt about IPA could actually see what our members think and even contact them.

Hey guys did you ever hear of those that don't have press ID and have thousands of dollars in equipment shooting celebrities, they are called Paparazzi, don't see you worrying about them, how come. They are in peoples lives, they stalk them, they cause accidents (remember Princess Dianna).

Well you get the idea. These pro's that are not making a living, feel threatened by anyone else that might also have access to some of these events or have the ability to learn how to be a member of the media through IPA.

I understand getting annoyed if someone shows up with a totally bogus press card that he bought off the internet,or produced on his computer, but that is not what IPA does and they just wouldn't accept that no matter how I tried to explain what we do.

So here is part of one of the answers I gave this group of these uninformed and some arrogant "professionals" who had smart answers to everything I had to say.

This is only a small part of the response, which ended up being around 30 printed pages when I copied it to my computer. I posted this to explain what IPA does and why our members are happy to be part of our organization. To date, after being on the internet for about 10 years or longer, there is not one complaint from any members, past or present, nor any complaints about us from anyone.

Read this answer to one of the Forum questions.

1. If you were talented and wanted to build your portfolio and display it on a legitimate web site that didn’t look like a networking site or a photo library you might want to use your Members Profile on our site to display your best works. We even limit the number of photos a member can display at any one time to force them to edit their portfolios and only show their very best work. They can rotate and change the images at any time, but anyone checking their work doesn’t want to have to go through hundreds of photos.

2. Our web site receives anywhere from 1 million hits per month plus and according to Alexa we receive as much as 6 million or more page views each month. So the chances of getting exposure is very good.

3. IPA is a relatively small organization that started years ago in the State of New Jersey as a local organization offering photo seminars and workshops. When we discovered the internet we began to change our mission and about 5 years ago built the web site you see today. Being small and only having about 350 total staff members meant we could get to know all of our members and take lots of time working with them and helping them improve their work and their portfolios.

4. We never went after the working press or photojournalist working full time, it was not our interest, nor did they need our help, so being pulled apart here for catering to the beginner in many cases is actually quite true. We do not take advantage of them, rather we are a school of sorts for them giving them the tools they need to learn and earn some money in this business. Our members are photographers, videographers and journalists. They don’t get lost on our web site, it is their home and many don’t feel they even need their own web sites now.

5. If you view our mission statement you will see that our mission is to level the playing field for the many individuals that work for or own web sites, publications and media companies. These individuals and companies must compete with the major media corporations in gathering their photos and stories for their respective publications, both digital and traditional and at times, this can seem like an impossible task.

6. In order to gain access to many local and public events, trade and consumer shows, get a press position at parades and public events, you either need to qualify by being part of that industry or be a member of the media. Our press credentials authorize our staff members to cover these events for publication on our web site, which as you can see is a digital publication.

We offer these people that offer our members this access a tremendous amount of support and promotion in the form of listing their events at no cost on our web site

We then cover the events and write a full review, that for me can take as much as two days work. Remember, I don't get paid to do this, it is part of what we do to teach our IPA members how to cover these shows.

7. Our members get to network with many other members of the media at these events, get to know their way around a press room at a show or event, meet the PR people running the shows and of course get to meet all the people they interview at the show or event.

One of our members reported last week he was in New Orleans trying to cover the Mardi Gras parades and couldn't get a good vantage point to take his shots. The police stopped him from gaining a good position and didn’t know who IPA was. He called me and I suggested he show them the letter of authorization we sent him. He went back the next day and was given the access he needed with no problem. He was able to get the photos he wanted and will publish them in his profile on our web site, thus building his credentials and reputation for doing this type of work.

Now I was asked, " isn't this then a contradiction in your statements that our members are not permitted to cross police, fire lines or enter into security sensitive areas" the answer is NO.

This was a simple situation dealing with crowd control and was not considered a security sensitive area otherwise the police would not have given him the access he requested. It is stated on every piece in our members Press Identification from the press cards to our letter of authorization. Hope this answers any questions regarding this matter.

8. Some members, as I do, will print some of the pages from our web site and create their own book, showing our site and their work on our site. When they do travel abroad or to places that may not be able to check out who we are they can present the book. I recently went to Budapest, Vienna and Prague and was not only given access to every attraction, bus tour, boat rides down the Danube, but received a VIP tour of the stables where the Lipison Horses are kept.

You can actually see some of my photos either on our YouTube profile or on our web site in an article I wrote about the trip.

9. Our members are not looking to cover current breaking news as members of this forum are. They are not cleared to get into security sensitive areas and this is printed on all the material including their press cards from us and in the letter of authorization. They are cleared to cover events to be published on our web site.

The reason of course is one of security and we do not want to issue ID to anyone we feel might present a security risk to others or to IPA. We cannot do background checks on our members, but we do have the right to void a membership at any time and refuse to renew a membership if we feel a member has stepped over the line. Read our Terms of Membership and you will understand we do not take approval of members lightly.

10. We have a problem with bogus IPA press ID being sold on the streets In Thailand,


a company in California and others including one fellow who attempted to take our Logo art and PPA logo and make his own. Of course he was reported to us by the company he went to, to have the card printed. Both PPA and IPA stopped him immediately.



11. If you go to our article on the bogus press ID, I think you will have many other answers to your questions.

12. Now even though IPA is a small organization you can see there is quite a bit of confusion and in our case “Imitation is not the nicest form of flattery” On this thread alone people have thought we were the people with the 4 page web site in California using our name or similar to IFPO, a company that has been around a long time selling all sorts of ID including ones to be a Model Agent, Talent Scout, Freelance Press cards, and much more.

Now understand IFPO is a legitimate business and I don't mean to infer they are doing anything wrong, I am just stating facts that we are not them and should not be confused with these other companies.

Anyone can see visiting their web site what their business is, it is selling all sorts of "educational items" to amateur photographers only to find out that their Freelance Press Card has little if any merit in the real world.

On the other hand, once companies check our web site and see our members profiles and their published works, in most cases, they will offer them press access to their event. Actually even I, have to send links to my reviews and my profile to prove that I can cover the event properly before they will grant me the access.

So it isn't about the Press Card itself, anyone can print their own on their computer today. It is showing these people you can offer them the review or coverage they expect and help their business. In every email we send to new members and all over our forum we keep stressing the importance of doing the work you promise those that give you access to their events. We tell our members over and over to build a professional profile on our site to enable them to gain that access.

I tell potential members that after 9/11 security is tighter and more people attempt to gain media access today then ever before, but the smart people at these companies will want to see their published work. Frankly, many won't even allow me to attend if I simply tell them I am the president of the company. They want working media, those people prepared to give their event press coverage.

But let me not digress, this is not about the others and I only use these two as illustrations of how people can confuse IPA with others. You can certainly understand our concerns about this confusion.

IPA has registered our IPA logo and name with the US Trademark office and IPA is a registered trademark of our company, but that doesn't stop the fakes using our name and others trying to do the same.



13. We have a list of countries we consider hot countries and will not accept any members from these countries, again as part of our security issues.

If we simply SOLD PRESS CARDS, then we would simply accept anyone that would pay for them. The reality is our press identification package is free to all of our qualified members and remember all of our members in order to stay with us must have a valid profile on our site.

We do reject any application that we feel is not legitimate including one recently from a Palastinian web site that promoted the killing of all Jews. I suppose they didn't realize that Rapoport is a jew. As it turns out, we also reject residents of Israel as well, because it would be hard for us to determine who they were. Remember we do not cover breaking news and certainly we don't need anyone in Israel of Palestine to cover the local trade show on the latest weaponry.

14. We will not ship any press identification to a PO Box or to a second party. The members usually pay on Pay Pal with confirmed mailing addresses and accounts. We know who they are and where they live. Another security issue.

Over the years most of the bogus cards or verifications we have received in our offices have come from law enforcement authorities. They usually contact us because they confiscated the Press ID from someone that has attempted to beat a traffic ticket, get into a place they shouldn’t be allowed into or other issue. I have never, I mean never, had any calls of complaint about any of our staff members and I think that goes to prove our guys and gals really want to learn and be part of our group.

I hope this gives you and others a more complete idea of who we are, our goals and our member base. I could publish all the thank you letters from companies I have worked with but if you simply go to the Alienskin web site or others you will see our logos there, and links to our reviews of their products.

If you visit my profile on LinkedIn you will see 250 connections and many are friends. The President and CEO of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, the countries leading hospital for orthopedic surgery is there and many other executives from the major photo industry as well as PR people who have known me over the years.

My background is not as a photojournalist per se, it is much more. I have been a marketing executive, a business owner dealing with the major film studios, a corporate communications director for leading clients like the New York Palace Hotel, Kinney Systems in New York, New York Waterways and many others. and an internationally published writer and photographer.

Being a communications, marketing and business owner and a photographer and writer for so many years makes me the ideal man to run IPA. You don't have to be an artist to own an art gallery, but you need to not only know about art, you need to know how to work with artists and their potential clients while running a successful business.

I am not simply a photographer although, photography was always my passion and an important part of my life. After serving my country as a commissioned officer in the NY National Guard, I worked for an executive recruiting firm and decided to start my own, which was called Opportunities Plus. My job was not only to hire and train our staff but to interview and place sales and marketing people on high level positions. This helped teach me the skills to communicate with individuals and motivate them so they could take a good interview and obtain those positions.

I finally ended up in sales and marketing and worked for some years in the women's clothing industry where I traveled around the world to work with manufacturers we used in Bangkok Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other countries. I have always had a camera in my hands and you will see some of my early photos I shot on some of my business trips. All the commercial advertising my companies needed I either shot or produced for them. That includes the many catalogues we produced.

My wife is a travel professional and owns her own agency. We have had many wonderful opportunities to travel around the globe, including Africa, Thailand, China, Eastern Europe, the Amazon,Egypt and lots of other exotic locations and many of the photos I shot were purchased for use by some of the travel operators we dealt with over the years.

Later, I opened a company that dealt in movie related licensed merchandise and met with may of the major motion picture and video companies to obtain licenses to produce our products. Movie Tee's was the first company to advertise our movie related products on the back of the video tapes. I was also one of the early pioneers in the video industry and taught video stores how to sell movie related merchandise and not simply rent videos.

As a communications consultant, I worked with some of the leading companies in the country. They included CBS Fox Home Video, Disney, Paramount, NY Palace Hotel, Kinney Parking Systems, NY Waterways and many others. I also attended many trade shows as an exhibitor and also as a attendee so I am an expert on these shows and still cover many in the NY area for our web site.

My photos have appeared in many national magazines and publication world wide and I have always shot catalogues, press release photos, etc. for all the companies I owned or worked for. I was Neil Diamond's first photographer in the 1960's and shot his first and a couple of other album covers for him.



Many of those early photos of Neil, that have defined him over the years, I shot. Of course over the years these early photos of Neil have appeared in millions of album covers, books, sheet music, concert books and many leading publications like Rolling Stone, Life and hundreds of others.



My album cover for Neil's album "In My Life Time" which included a book inside with many of my photos was part of a discussion between Neil and David Letterman during one of his many publicity appearances.



At my age, IPA is is not about making money, hence we do not accept any paid advertising on our site. We do not sell mailing lists to anyone, we do not sell all sorts of up sell products once a member joins. The only item other then some logo merchandise in our store is some business cards for member that want them. What does this all mean? We don't owe anyone anything other then our members. They are the people that support IPA with their small yearly membership dues.

IPA is simply the culmination of my life’s work and not about the money. I enjoy being able to help others, I enjoy writing and meeting new people at the shows and events I attend and I bring my experiences from all parts of my career now to IPA. I now love networking with so many others on LinkedIn, Facebook and the other sites we now have groups on and I love corresponding with you all and reviewing your web sites and portfolios. I have always been a giving individual and from the many years of experience teaching companies how to communicate with their customers, I think I know a thing or two about it.

I hope this history and explanation will help you understand what IPA is all about and what I am all about, or at least explain why I feel we serve a valuable service for many companies and individuals who have supported us for these last 20 years.

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It has now become my mission to let others know about forum bullies and how they are no different then those bullies we met back at school when we were kids. They are the same insecure individuals with very sad lives that thrive on torturing others. I think they should be understood for what they are and ignored if at all possible.

This is one of the reasons that the only forums I belong to are the ones that are monitored closely and have strict rules about Flaming others and vicious attacks by these bullies. I wrote to the support team of this site days ago but only received a response that they don't get to the emails too often and it could take some time to answer. Heck, if you can't run these forums properly then why bother putting them up? You just know that people will abuse them and their is no way to stop it.

Definition...Flaming

Note: Please do not comment about Mr. Dillard unless you are willing to login with your name or username. I have received a number of comments that were, well, not very proper and I don't want to become a Ted myself by allowing these comments. I have also received some that frankly, I believe might have come from Ted from the style of the writing and the fact they were all either annonymous or today from a person named Nick :-) that has no profile posted.

If you have an opinion I am happy to hear it or if you have had a similar issue, please let us know about that as well. It is hard for anyone to defend themselves including myself from what might be considered personal attacks without any proof, anything I have stated in this blog posting is true to the best of my knowledge and I would like the same should you state any facts or comments. If you just want to post a comment about people like this or a similar experience that is fine.

Thank you for understanding that I would prefer to take the high road both here and at IPA.

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Just in from Lightstalkers.com....

From: support@lightstalkers.org
Subject: Re: Offensive Posting Follow Up
Date: March 21, 2009 6:15:22 PM EDT
To: lenrap@internationalpress.com

Thanks for this, that's what we needed. We're giving them one opportunity to resolve this politely, and we'll then take direct action if necessary. Thank you again for cooperating with this process and do let me know if I can help with anything else.

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After supplying them with proof that Mr. Dillard's statements were untrue by sending them copies of LinkedIn postings and emails, they agreed with IPA that this was not the type of posts they will allow on their forum.
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Ted was kind enough to share they email to him:

On Mar 21, 2009, at 6:13 PM, Lightstalkers wrote:

Hi Ted -- it's been brought to our attention that you've made factually incorrect assertions in your IPA discussion here:

http://www.lightstalkers.org/international-press-association

I'm not trying to get involved in your grievances, and we do respect your opinions. However, our Terms of Use do specifically forbid members from making false statements about another person (or organization); it falls under our prohibition against libel. In this case, the subject of your comments has disputed your assertions, and we are required to respect that.

I'm writing now, in good faith, to give you the opportunity to either remove or edit your comments yourself; we would sincerely prefer not to be forced to do it on our end. Again, we're not trying to get involved; we're just applying the Terms of Use equally to all members.

Thanks for your support and understanding,

Shinji Kuwayama
support@lightstalkers.org

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You can see that when someone makes false statements on a public board, in print or over the airwaves, they must be based on fact and not ones based on emotion of anger, hate or revenge.

This article hopefully will serve others should they also find they are the victims of a malicious or libelous posting on a forum or web site as I have. You can fight back and stop it.

Packet8 Voip Gets Into My Hall of Shame!

If you have been following my plight with Verizon and their Fios install mess and a subsequent mess dealing with their porting my number to them before they did the install, then you have only read half of the problems I have been having over the past 3 months.

The second part of my problems were with my Voip provider Packet8, owned by a company 8X8.

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Packet8 Internet phone service was introduced in 2002 by publicly traded 8x8, Inc. (Nasdaq: EGHT), a 20 year old telecommunications company with more than 68 multimedia and VoIP technology patents. Since then, 8x8 has applied this expertise to the development and provision of reliable, high quality voice and video Internet phone services for both residential and business users. When you subscribe to Packet8, you can feel confident you have chosen one of the VoIP industry’s most respected and admired service providers.

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I originally went to Packet8 believing that I would save tons of money on my long distance calls and the lower monthly service charges. I have been with Packet8 since 2006 and for the past two years have suffered with poor quality, poor tech support and a very poor experience with them porting my number over to them from Verizon. See the below history of problems I reported to them. Each one took months to resolve if they were resolved.



Recently I was going to switch to Verizon Fios on their triple play deal but after Verizon failed to show up for two days of appointments and a number of screw ups there, I decided to cancel my order with them and stay with Packet 8.

Unfortunately my business (second phone in my home office) number was now at Verizon and we had to now port it back to Packet8. To make a long story short, I spent over 10 solid hours and 2 months attempting to get the number back. Their customer service kept giving me the old standard answer it could take 6 weeks. I knew this was not true since Verizon seemed to get me to them in 6 days.

After 9 weeks of calling, faxing authorization forms, explaining the Verizon mess with so many of their customer reps, I decided to call it quits and had Verizon install a hard line back so I could keep my valued number. Having a good phone number and having it for 15 years and on every piece of stationary, web sites, listings etc. is a major deal, especially if you lose the number due to some dopes mistakes.

I finally found out that you can't port a number if is is not currently on a working phone. Well, after I cancelled my work order with Fios, this number went into Verizons number pool, ready to be picked up by the next customer. When I discovered this, I called Verizon in a panic, asked to speak to a supervisor and asked if I could put in a new order for a new phone line to lock up that number. We would put in an installation date a month later, to give Packet8 a chance to port the number back.

After many more calls almost daily to Packet8 on when they thought I would be whole again and my number would be back with them, each rep gave me another answer.

• It can take 6 weeks be patient

• Did you complete the request form? I will email you one, complete and and fax it back to us.

• We can't seem to locate your form. Can you fax us a copy of your phone bill? I explained I didn't have one since Verizon hadn't installed the phone line yet and was holding the number for me.

• Finally 2 months later one rep figured it out..."You can't port over a number on an installation, it has to be a working number and that is why it is not coming over"...Duh...didn't anyone know this at Packet8? After all I spend so many hours telling my grim story to each and every one of them and each time asking for a supervisor and being told "I can help you with this", but they couldn't.

Last week I spoke to a nice rep, who assured me they would issue credit for the past few months that I didn't have full phone service or wasn't able to receive any calls to my proper phone number. She would also check to see what was going on and get back to me. She never did and I had to explain this entire story over again 3 more times.

On Monday of this week, I decided I had enough jerking around. I called Verizon and asked if I could push up the install date on my work order and get the line installed sooner. To my shock, I was told for some reason that order was cancelled and not in their system...Here we go again. A new order was entered and thank god, the number had not be snatched up by someone else.

Now the new install was only two days later. I opted for the tech to come out between 10 AM and 1 PM. Why was I not surprised at 1:15 PM when no one called or showed up. Once again on the phone with Verizon and guess what, the order I placed on Monday was also screwed up and they didn't have me down for the install on Wednesday.

At last I found a guy who was kind enough to call the install center in Maryland (they handle New Jersey installations, no wonder there is a lack of communication) and promised me that someone would show before the end of the day. Better yet, the installation tech arrived and told me the number they gave him to install was not my number but another one. Just when you think you have control of a situation you find out you are out of control again. I was lucky today because I had a great installation guy who took the bull by the horns, got on the phone and got my number for me.

Finally, we got the line back in. They also allowed me a $10 per month credit for one year to help with the mess and now I would be paying just about what I paid for the Packet8 line. Of course there is no comparison with the quality of the sound and calls I make on my hard line compared to the internet phone, it is so much better.

When I called Packet8 to see what they would do for me in terms of refunding my payments for the past couple of months, their answer was I used their service, so I had to pay for it. I would think they would say, "Mr. Rapoport, we are so sorry for your problems, we are sorry to hear that that any one calling you was told your phone was disconnected. Let us do something to compensate you for the trouble" This was not the case, I spend an hour again on the phone with Eva another customer service rep who made me go through the entire story again with her, went to a supervisor and came back with a one month refund (December) and she would cancel my account with them. I tried to reason with her that it is only the 8th day in the month and I was really only getting an 8 day allowance on this account not a month.

No matter what I said, no matter how I promised to write the sales manager of the company Huw Rees, or write the story in my blog or my web site, no matter how I explained that they should compensate me for at least the few months my phone was not working, it didn't matter. I finally gave up and decided to do what I must now do to prevent others from going down this dark, dank road to Packet8.

Packet8 is either right behind Verizon or ahead of them in their inability to get things right and offer the service they promise. Both companies need to really examine their customer service issues and understand that we are in a bad economy and if you don't have loyal customers and take care of them, you will lose them forever. Didn't they ever hear about negative publicity, especially in the internet age when everyone now has a blog and a loud voice, a voice that can reach millions of people with a simple google search.

Of course I will be calling AMEX to put the past few months charges in dispute. If you are not aware, when a seller gets a dispute from a credit card company they are charged a fee, much like a bounced check fee at a bank. They then have to prove that they deserve the payment or they will be charged back the amount and the buyer will receive that as a credit. So they would rather play this game, get a charge back fee, have to assign someone to answer the complaint and hope they win...instead of giving me a $90 allowance instead of a $30 allowance. Can you imagine their thinking?

I suppose many customers threaten to do something and never follow through, but I can assure you I will seek satisfaction no matter what it takes. I am like a pit bull, once I am wronged, no matter what the financial importance, I will hang on to their pant leg like a pit bull, until I win the fight.

I wouldn't advise anyone thinking of going to Packet8 to stop, take a deep breath and read this story again. Hell, two years ago hard lines were expensive compared to the Voip providers, but now you can get Verizon for only $39.95 per month with unlimited local and long distance calling and if you need overseas, you can always use Skype at 2¢ per minute, so what is the great advantage now of a VoIP?

Frankly Verizon gave me a better deal at only $29.95 includes the extras like caller Id, etc. Now Packet8 is only $5 per month cheaper and for the first time in over 2 years I can hear people talk to me on that line. The volume and clarity is unreal compared to what I had become used to on Packet8.

Check the deals in your area with the phone company and the cable companies and stay clear of these Voip companies. They are not regulated as are the other companies and you don't want to have to depend on them if your phone is important to you.

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Update...12/14/2008

Review the below Notes Correspondence of Case ID 578868

Note Created Date: 12/12/2008 10:48AM

Note Summary: Customer Support/Packet8

Note Detail: Dear Packet8 Customer,

Thank you for contacting Packet8 Customer Support.

Your refund for $33.04 has been processed. Please allow 5-7 days for the refund to reflect on your credit card.

Thank you,

Packet8 Customer Support


Note: They also allowed me another $7.37 for what I think is my toll free number. I had two accounts with them one was a regular phone line and the other an 800 number.

==============================================

Considering that anyone trying to reach my business line was told the phone was disconnected for over 2 months because they never gave me the correct information about porting this line back to them and the problems dialing out on this line, I would think they might have wanted to be a bit more generous.

Packet8, Shame On You!

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December 19, 2008 - Update

Today I received a call from Packet8's LPN Department to let me know they can't port over my phone number without a bill from the other company. Duh...I had to tell him the whole story and let him know I had already cancelled my service with them a couple of weeks ago and had the phone installed again with Verizon.

I also received an email stating that they first received the forms I completed on November 18, 2008 to port the number back over to them. A month after the form was faxed...and now they say that it can take 4-6 weeks to port that number. Unreal...

Do you wonder why companies in the United States are in trouble. Wonder why they are going offshore for their customer service. Verizon and Packet8 both have the worst customer service I have seen in years. There is no dedication to getting the problems fixed and no follow through to make sure the job was done and the customer is satisfied. God Bless America, if this continues we are all doomed.

Facebook A Great Place To Network With Others...

As president of International Press Association a web based organization with international members of the independent media, photographers, photojournalists, journalists and others, I do quite a bit of networking. This means going to trade and consumer shows, media events, travel destinations and many other places, but I have found the internet one of the best places to network with others.

Check out this video: Harolds NY Deli - Humongous Portions



I first started to network on LinkedIn and you can even see a link to my profile on this blog. I also joined YouTube which gives me an opportunity to post my little video productions, grab the code and then simply paste it into my profile page on my web site. I also went over to MySpace and opened an account there, but frankly, I think MySpace is more for the kids and haven't done anything there other then upload some videos because I have found their compression scheme on uploaded videos much better then the one YouTube uses. I tend to use MySpace as a free storage unit that can serve my videos, slide shows and images on my web site without my server getting bogged down and using my bandwidth to serve the content myself. I have included some samples of a MySpace video and slide show to show you what I mean.



Now back to Facebook. Facebook is a wonderful social networking site that encourages you to invite your friends and family to your "Friends" network so you can share many aspects of your personal life with them. This means your photos, videos, profile, your current mood, your interests, what you are doing now, links and so much more. They offer companies like mine two ways to set up a presense on Facebook, the first is meant for the musician, artist, photographer, small business to have a "Page" on Facebook. Unlike a group the page lets you invite people to become a "Fan" of your page. You can usually find these pages set up by individual fans of a singing star or actor/actress. Many models amateur and professional will also set up a Fan page and IPA now has one as well. You can view our page by clicking here.

On our page we can include fans photos, videos, topics to discuss, wall postings and much more. It also allows us the ability to send out a message to all our fans. We can invite them to a party, meeting or if you are a singer, the next performance of your act in their town.

Now the Group page is a bit different and can only be set up by the entity that owns that group or company. So you will see our International Press Association Group on Facebook that looks a bit like the page, but again has its own special features.

On our group we have similar features to upload photos, videos, wall postings, links, etc., but we can't send a message out to part of or all of the group members. The difference is that one is a company page and the other Fan Page is just that a fan page and tends to be a bit different.

We ask all of our members and friends to join both and if they want a personal relationship with me to simply invite me to join their Facebook network. All they need to do is a simple member search using my name: Len Rapoport.



Now remember, you can use these sites to take advantage of many free services that other site will charge you for including Classmates.com, Friend Finders, and others and they probably have more members on a Facebook or MySpace site then many of those paid sites. Give it a try, it is not hard to learn how to use and you will find a great way to keep in touch with old and current friends and relatives too.

Gotta Love Scotts Lawn Products - Best Guarantee

Well, as you know I just love companies that believe in their products and are "willing to put their money where their mouth is." The Scotts Miracle-Grow company, the folks who produce the garden and lawn products is a company that optimizes this statement.

I have purchased their products almost exclusively for my garden and lawn with the exception from time to time on a sale product from another company. The reason I give them most of my business is not only because I like their products and have the best lawn and garden in my neighborhood, but because this is a fine American company that makes a quality product and gives you a no questions asked satisfaction guarantee on all their products.

Now understand a normal guarantee usually covers a manufacturers defect in the product and then they may replace a part that you would install or you might have to return the item to their factory service center. In some cases they want you to send them the balance of the unused product. Well all of those guarantees for me is just about worthless because in dealing with this type of product the cost to return a $40 spreader would be more then it would be worth.

Secondly, how would you ship a used bag of fertilizer back to them? What would the cost and effort be? So Scotts lets you know up front on every hang tag and label that they offer a Satisfaction Guarantee and that like the Costco Guarantee means if you are not happy with the product for any reason, let them know and they will refund your full purchase price.

I had occassion in the past to call them about one of the lawn chemical products that didn't seem to do what I had expected and they gladly sent me a refund after I sent them a part of the lable (usually a UPC proof of purchase tag). Now a number of years later I had one of their rotary spreaders and the gear box on the underside split open and I couldn't repair it myself.



I was getting ready to throw it out, after all it was only around $40 and I had it for 2 seasons. Of course I only used it maybe a dozen times in that period, but I had the original store receipt an their guarantee label in my files and pulled them out. I decided to call their toll free customer service number and had a very sweet lady offer to either send me replacement parts, which I declined for fear it could take me too much time and effort to fix it myself (if I could) and asked if they could simply refund my money.

She agreed to do so with no hesitation and asked me to remove the wire that goes from the handle to the hoper and send it to them with a form she emailed me. I took my wire cutter out, snipped the cord and rolled it up and mailed it to them with a copy of the original store receipt.

Within a couple of weeks I received this letter of apology and a check to cover the full amount of my original purchase. Who does this today? Companies that believe in their products and appreciate their customers, Scotts Miracle-Grow is just such a company and I can assure you and them, that I am a customer for life.

Hell, if you figure the costs in advertising and getting customers to purchase your product, I suppose offering this type of service and support to build loyal customers comes out to be a fraction of what it would cost to get another customer to buy their products.

Scotts, once again you have given us all faith in the American manufacturers that understand what it takes to do business in this troubled economy.

Verizon Fios...Fawgetaboutit!!! - Verizon a Big Failure

Verizon Fios keeps sending me their offers in the mail and I have even had a guy knock on my door to try to sign me up. So with the horrible economy and all my cable bills going up, I decided to make the switch. Hell at $94.99 a month for a year, no installation costs and their boxes included with high speed internet, Extreme HD TV, and their Freedom Essentials telephone, how could I resist. After all I am paying Comcast $150 per month and my Voip phone costs me another $30. I would save over $1200 my first year and even if they raised rates on my second year, I was sure it would still be lower overall.

So I signed up over the phone, nice rep took my order and we set up an install date of 10/14/2008. They tell you that they will show up between 8 AM - 12 Noon, so I got up nice and early, moved some of my furniture as they suggested so they would have access and was ready to go.

The rep showed up around 10 AM and walked around my home shaking his head about my wiring. My electrical inbound wires were near the front of the house, the telephone lines on the left side of the house and the cable connections from Comcast on the right side. I have 7 outlets for TV and one for my computer. He told me that I might not be able to get great service in all of my TV's because of the wiring. I said I couldn't take a chance of not having equal or better service because I work from my home office and own an internet based business.

Finally after an hour and a half, he admitted that this job would take 8 hours and would be a two man job and that he really couldn't do it himself. I asked if he could get a supervisor out to look at my situation to assure me that it could be done properly. Apparently that is not possible from what I later found out. So after he left and told me he would have them note that it was a two man job, I received an email with a new install date of 10/30/08, 2 weeks later. Now there were issues with paying Comcast for another month which starts on the 25th of each month and my phone bill. The reason for the 14th as an install date was to avoid that extra months bill.

Well, I called their retention line, you know when you want to cancel a service they send you there to try to save the customer...well the guy there promised once I was set up they would reimburse me for the cable and phone bill for that month. OK, I thought that was fair, so I waited until the next install date. I got a dozen recorded calls on the phone to remind me of the install date and a few emails as well.

On Oct. 30th, once again I was up at the crack of dawn, cleaned up the house, my office and was ready for the installation. As the hours passed, I was concerned and finally at 11:30 AM called their retention office because I didn't know who else to call. You see you can get lost or have your call dropped if you go through their main toll free line. For a company supposed to offer superior service and be in the communications industry, their phone system is the worst circle jerk I have ever seen. After a number of options that never really fit, you can't seem to get to any human. When you do and find out it is the wrong department ("oh, you need our Fios team") and they attempt to transfer your call, you get dropped and once again enter the world of automated phone answering systems as you call back in and again have to explain why you are calling.

To shorten the story, I won't go through all the calls to Verizon on the day of my promised install, but needless to say they never showed, they never set it up for a two man install and at 3 PM that day I decided I was just wasting my time with Verizon and asked them to cancel my order. I decided to wait for their retention people to speak to their supervisors and let me know if there was anything else they could do for me, especially since they screwed me up now two days. The best they offered was a $180 discount, $30 per month for the first 6 months of service. I felt it wasn't enough now and the next morning when they called me to set up a third date for another 2 weeks later, I decided to simply cut my losses and cancel the order.

I got another call about an hour later to inform me that my telephone number was already ported over to them and no longer would work for me since it wasn't hooked up to any companies service. So now I lost my number, would have to have Packet 8 my Voip service get it back and deal with people trying to reach me and finding the number had been disconnected.

So now, Packet 8 told me they would give me a temporary number so I could make outgoing calls, but I would still have the incoming call issue until the number ported back over to them from Verizon. Two weeks passed and the number was still not working, so I called Packet 8 who told me it could take 6 weeks which I argued it should not. Verizon told me they do these very quickly and would only take a few days.

Packet 8 wasn't much help either and I couldn't get to a supervisor there either. So once again, with them, I spoke to a half dozen people until I found one that told me that the number must have gone back into the pool of available numbers once Verizon canceled my order.

He was right, so once again back to Verizon now in panic that my 15 year old business number would be given away to some one else. The number was so good, 888-2777 that I didn't want to lose it. All my stationary, business cards, web site, web site registrations and listings, etc. would have to be changed and you know how hard that could be when you own a media company and have tons of web pages on the net.

So I got on the phone with Verizon because Packet8 told me that number wasn't available in their pool of numbers. Sure enough it was in the Verizon pool and was still available. I explained what needed to be done. I told them that I had to place a new phone line order and grab that number until Packet8 could port it back over. I pleaded with them and told them I didn't want to lose thousands of dollars reprinting stationary, etc. and wanted to avoid a law suit against Verizon. I certainly have grounds if I could show financial loss.

She told me they would have to run a financial check, I told her this was a second line in my home and that should not be necessary. I suggested we set up the new order with a long installation date. This then would lock the number, give me time to port it over to Packet8 and then we could cancel the new line install.

She was very nice and really wanted to help me and did in fact take my phone number, told me she would go to a supervisor and set it up and call me back. Well, she did it just right and the install date was set for late in December, so that should be sufficient time to regain my number.

Now I have to stay on top of Packet8 to make sure they will do it. I faxed them a request to port the number over so they have my written permission and have to deal with people calling my business number only to hear a message that the phone has been disconnected with no forwarding number.

I have asked them why their service was so poor and so messed up and the answer was they are very busy. I can guarantee that they are overwhelmed with new installs and probably aren't adding any new staff to handle the action. Frankly, now that I know they have to put a huge box in my home where the lines go in and out, I an not sure I would even want this service. They said they could put it in my garage, but frankly with all my shelving and wall space taken, there isn't much room to put this box in. If I wanted a big ugly box on the outside front of my home they could do that, but it would be seen by anyone entering my home, not a good option.

I am thankful that I decided to cancel before the installation because I know if I had a problem, their service would not be very good and I might be out of business while waiting for a tech to either call me back or show up.

Stay away from Verizon Fios for now, they are not ready for Prime Time and although their marketing team would have you believe they are, their install and support team will tell you "they are just too busy."

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December 19, 2008 - Update on this story

If you read this story, you should also read my posting on Packet8 as the story continues there.

The short story is that I couldn't get my number back from Verizon and over to Packet8 and Verizon almost lost my number that I have had for 15 years. I decided to finally give in and had Verizon install the line and left Packet8. It is more then two weeks now and because of faulty installation and issues on the "Pole" I have not had phone service on that line.

I will keep you updated on this very long and frustrating journey.

Levolor, Limited Lifetime Warranty, Another Great Company

Wow...you would think that a blog named dont get me mad, would be a blog with tons of postings on companies or people that piss me off. What a surprise for some when I invite them to view my blog and they see that most of the posts really deal with the opposite, companies that prove they deserve my business and my loyalty.

I found another such company, Levolor, yes the folks that have been around for more years then I am old and a company that offers a fine product backed by a Limited Lifetime Warranty.

OK, here is my story about some cellular blinds I purchased about 13 years ago from a local blind store here in New Jersey. I hung one of the blinds on a bedroom window and two matching blinds on a set of glass doors leading out of the bedroom onto my patio.

The room was at one time our master bedroom, but when we added a floor to our home, we moved upstairs and used this room for my son and later as a guest room. I noticed a couple of week ago that the one window blind had an open gap in the middle of the blind.

I didn't even think of a warranty so I attempted to fix it myself by taking the blind off and spraying the open seam with spray adhesive and clamping it closed to allow it to dry. I then hung it back up and noticed it started to split in other areas as well, so I realized it was obviously a defect in the glue they used when they made these blinds.

After all it hung on the window with very little use for many years in this guest room and the other ones on the doors were just fine. I decided to take them into Home Depot to see if I could find a close match to replace the one blind. I happened to ask the rep in the blinds department if Levolor had any sort of Limited Lifetime Warranty on this item, frankly not expecting a positive answer. To my surprise she told me they did and that they were a great company to deal with.

Bingo...hope springs eternal....and my hope for the best was confirmed..She then gave me Levolor's toll free number, told me to call them and if I needed them to do anything to receive the new blinds or order them for me to come back. As I said, love Costco, love Home Depot.

So off I went to try to find the original receipt for these blinds, contact Levolor and work on getting a new blind to replace the old one. Since it was so long ago, I was able to get all the information about the purchase from the tag on the blind itself. On the top of the blind on the back, there was a tag. As you can see in the photo, it shows when I got these, the size and more.

So I called Levolor and spoke to a nice rep who told me she would send me a Warranty Claim form to complete. I asked if she could email it to me and she did. I realized I didn't have the proof of purchase they asked for on the form, so I called the original store that I think I bought them from. I explained the entire story to them and they weren't very nice about it at all and seemed insulted I went to Home Depot with the problem instead of them.

They also told me that my warranty was void if I attempted any repairs of my own on the blind and that they would send the blind back to Levolor for me at a cost of almost $70. When I questioned the absurd fee, they explained that covers their shipping and handling fees. I told the woman for me to UPS this to the company would be around $7 and why would I even spend any money sending it to them if she told me they wouldn't honor the warranty because I attempted to fix it. She got angry at me and told me that I should go back to Home Depot or Lowes and deal with them...nice huh! Now you understand why small stores go out of business...they just take things too personal and can't look at the bigger picture.

So back to my story...I took a number of photos that you see here and asked Tawanda Hall the Levolor rep if that would do the job. Unfortunately she had issues seeing the photos and even after trying a few times to upload them to my web site she still couldn't work on this claim. I called in cold again and got a wonderful Levolor rep Kim Samples who was really on the ball. I could see she was a pro and must have had years of experience at her job.

Kim was able to get my photos, the claim form and walk me through their process without any problems. I asked her if they could match the pattern, kind of knowing the answer when I asked the question and she told me no. I then told her about the two other blinds I had on the doors and showed her the photo

I asked her what I could do to make them all match and she told me they wouldn't let me have a mismatched room and although they would prefer to replace the one defective blind, in this case they would replace all three...can you believe that...a company telling you that they didn't want you to have a mismatched room and would make it right!

So now the next step was to give Kim all the dimensional information from the blinds in the room. She told me to go into Home Depot and select "Any one of the Levolor cellular blinds I wanted" Any I repeated, because I wasn't sure what this meant and she confirmed any one. "Does that mean no matter what cost or what collection" I asked. She said "Yes...take a look at all of them and let me know which ones you like"

So off I went back to Home Depot. They pulled out the Levolor books and I selected a beautiful Linen Woven Snow White replacement blind from their Designer collection. On the window blind I selected the cordless version (which usually costs more) and on the two for the doors the same continuous cord version.

One of the blinds for the window arrived about 10 days later and the two door blinds followed by a few more days. I now have them up on the windows and they look beautiful. I of course had to repaint the room and moldings now because I was putting in these new Snow White blinds, but that was fine. I even shampooed my carpet, so now the room sparkles again and is ready to welcome family and guests that want to stay over.

I can truly say that Kim and the folks at Home Depot and Levolor have once again confirmed to me that it pays to only buy from companies that offer a quality product, a no nonsense warranty on that product and a company like Levolor that has staff trained that understand how to treat their customers as VIP's and make their lives a bit less stressful during these difficult times.

Kudo's to Kim Samples at Levolor and her wonderful company, you have made me a big fan of your company and your products for life. Hopefully my blog and my web site (I will publish this there as well) will make others aware of your company, products and policies and that helps sell even more Levolor product.

My new window blind above with no cord, simple to use, beautiful to see...

My new door blinds. The new Snow White color makes the room brighter and allows more diffused light into this room. I am so pleased with the way this all turned out.