The US experience.... still experiencing - 2

When I was new to this country, there were things that I was very Naive about. So when most others were having "Aha" moments, I was still in the "How dumb could I be" moments. Until I discovered Filters and spam blockers, I have recieved some emails that were part of my laugh and learn experience...

I recieved coupons for Steak, something I never had a craving for. We are "modern" Hindus, so my family doesnt eat steak. Why did I recieve coupons? hmm guess it was a free throw to a wrong email box. The weirdest ones were emails giving me a deal on Botox, hair transplanting, penile enhancement, breast enlargements, Men who are seeking "companions" (made me wonder if I was listed on some singles seeking site without my knowledge), Women who are seeking "funtime"(guess I do have a banner that says I am lesbian, somewhere).

I also won a lottery from Spain and London but being the dense person I was, I forgot to send them my bank account number so the money was never put in my account. I seriously regret it(NOT). I could have beaten Bill Gates for the Multi-millionare position. Someone knew I was an Entrepreneur(NOT) cause I was sought for help by a Nigerian company to set up their very lucrative business in the USA, in which I will have a 70% stake in. Looking back I regret this decision too, if I had just grabbed the opportunity, I would have seen a rain of money.

There was a time I enjoyed receiving calls from salesmen. Guess I didnt know what I was in for. Only after coming to the US did I learn that you could get things for FREE. Buy one get one free deals, Be our customer and you get this(put your name here) Item Free. My dad(and my husband) always said "You get what you pay for, so if the deal seems to be too good to be true, chances are it is". I had to discover that for myself to believe them didnt I. One time, I said yes for a free credit card protection plan. The deal was that at the end of 3 months if I didnt want it anymore all I had to do was call and cancel the plan. So EASY!! right? Of course, when I told my husband what I did, I realized that this was a legal scam. I felt like an idiot for not seeing through the scam. So I kept track and called them a week before the 3 months to cancel the plan. I was put on hold. 5, 10, 20, 40 minutes later I was still on hold. Finally I ended up paying for one month of credit card protection and then cancelled the credit card. Lesson learned - Do not accept anything for FREE, you will end up paying more than it actually costs.

From then on, if anyone said it was free I said NO Thank you, most times it ended the conversation. But there are always exception to rules. One day I recieve a call from a Phone card company offering me 300 free minutes for international phone calls(this was in the 90's). I said "No thank you" , the man at the other end was aghast... he goes "But its 300 free minutes mam', isnt that a good deal when you are paying 50 cents/min for calls to india?" I thought for a moment and decided I am going to use the most un-original psychological answer that I promised myself that I would never use "which part of NO did you not understand?" Well that did put his "sales spiel" to rest.

After a few years, thanks to the inventor of call ID- Kazuo Hashimoto and for the telephone manufacturing companies that had this incorporated into their devices, I stopped picking up the phone for every telemarket call. It saved me a lot of time, energy and annoyances.

P. S. Dear friends, I havent been visiting all your blogs as I want to, I will get around to them. Do excuse my absence as life takes over and forces me to stay away from your blogs. And no, I havent forgotten any of you, keeping you all in my thoughts. Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Keep smiling.