Two years ago I sent a box of Birthday and Christmas gifts to my grandchild. It cost me about $12.00. For the first time in my life because of the contents I decided to pay to have it traced. I paid the extra, which I really don’t see as a great deal. You already pay to have your package sent and delivered to the correct address. But now the Post Office wants you to pay even more in case they lose it. Well, they lost it anyway, a lot of good it did me. The package never arrived. I took my handy, dandy little tracer number the Post Office gave me, and all that the Internet site would say was that it’s last known location was the Post Office where I mailed it. The local Post Office had no information, and the Post Office it was sent to, had no information. Two months later, this package miraculously ended up sitting on my front porch. No apologies or explanations from the Post Offices, no refunding of my postage or even the extra I paid to have it traced. I had to reship it to my grandchild, same address that was on the package originally, but I used  UPS this time. Miraculously, it got there with no problem. I learned then that there really isn’t a reason to pay extra just to make sure your package will get there. It doesn’t do any good except to tell you where it once was. Just this last Mother’s Day I had another experience with the good old Post Office. I mailed a yellow cushioned envelope to my daughter with a $25.00 gift in it. I decided to go small and lightweight so I wouldn’t have to pay exorbitant rates. Well it has been over 6 weeks and she still has not received it. When I went to the local Post Office where I mailed it, they asked me for my tracing number, Ha, well I explained exactly how well that worked last time. I am still in hopes this package will show up on my door step in time to send it back to her for Christmas, again by UPS. Why didn’t I learn that lesson the first time. Of course, living in a remote area, it takes me just about as long to get to a UPS office as driving it there myself.

I went to California to visit my family last November, my sister and I took the slow route and drove. The day we were leaving California to drive back to Illinois, we bought Post Cards and sent them to our families and friends here. I sent one to my husband to our address. We drove for 4 days, and when I pulled up to my drive, I opened the mailbox at the end of the lane, and low and behold, what was sitting in there, my postcard to him. It took it 4 days to get here too. Should have saved the postage and ran around putting all the post cards in my family and friends mail boxes when I got here. Ooops, you can’t do that, not supposed to put anything in a mailbox. I remember that from somewhere, maybe the Post Office should also ask Congress, to change that law. Because really, I think I could personally deliver my own letters a lot faster.

The Postal Service in 2006 delivered 216 billion pieces of mail, in 2009 that dropped to 177 billion. The Postal Service feels that is because of the electronic mail systems now on the internet. I believe that probably accounts for a lot of it, but the fact that the Postal Service has done nothing to better their service, and continually raises their rates for faulty services also factor in.

Apparently, by law, the Postal Service is supposed to be self-supporting. It can borrow up to $15 billion a year from the U.S. Treasury,  but it also receives an annual appropriation of $100 million in tax dollars. Doesn’t sound like self-supporting to me. Postal employees are some of the best paid in the country and receive one of the best benefit and retirement packages. I just have never understood how the biggest companies, like the Postal Service and utility companies don’t have to try and run their companies like all of us. You do the job, the very best you can, then out of the profit, you decide what you can pay your employees, CEOs, whoever. But, that is not how it is done for anyone other than the average little guy trying to survive. They pay all extras first, and then sit back and say, well we need more money to pay for the services we were supposed to provide in the first place.

Well, I gotta go, I need to send some emails, never had one of those get lost, and it doesn’t take 4 days to get there. Sure wish the electronic companies could invent a computer with a mail slot so I could just drop my packages into it.

Amazingly, it is called Memorial Day Weekend, but Congress figures that means a 10 day weekend. I also heard that a couple of weeks ago they had worked so hard they decided to give themselves, I am sure an all expense paid by taxpayers, day off going golfing on a Thursday. Yep, my boss would let me do that too. You know boss, I know I am way behind in my work, I know I haven’t accomplished much, I know you pay me a lot to not do much, but I need to get together with my co-workers outside of the office, so that we can interact and give ourselves a jump start so we can come back tomorrow and actually try to do a years work in one day, before our weekend starts. Hey, and just make that check out to the golf course, thanks.

It’s a tough job and someones gotta to do it. This is definitely the job of the century. All you need to do is run around and tell people what they want to hear, make them promises until they let you in. Then just sit back, collect a paycheck, and all the perks you can possibly get away with. Lots of free time, months of vacation time, paid of course. Sit in a cushy, air conditioned room, they feed ya, cater to your every whim. Hey, this is the job. You get to decide when you work, what your pay is going to be, no one tells you what to do. You cast a vote here or there, you don’t really have to read anything, you can hire people to do the grunt work and tell you the short version of what you’re voting on. The only real part of your job description is that you need to work on your retirement benefits. You need to put your feelers out there and try to figure out how well you can set up your retirement. Who can you help out, so that when this cushy job ends, you have another avenue to go.

I’m not saying all of our congressmen think like this, but I think the facts speak for themselves. The majority do look at this job this way. We the people are saps, we sit back and let them get away with it, and keep paying them to take away our rights, and put more money and prestige into their pockets.  Shameful!

There is a $100,000 allotted to overhaul the White House residence and the Oval Office for the incoming President’s family to remodel their living accommodations. First off, that is a ridiculous amount of wasted taxpayer money to refinish and refurnish anything.  Most Americans cannot afford to even buy an empty home for that amount of money.  So any President or First Lady that used that money in that way was already culpable for taking advantage and abusing the taxpayer. I have to give credit to President Obama and the First Lady, on this one, they are one of the first to refuse the money and remodeled their living quarters with their own money.

There is also a time honored tradition that the First Lady is given to choose a new china pattern for the White House. Laura Bush was a master at that one, she enjoyed it so much she did it several times. Laura spent $492,798 on new White House china, even at the last minute Laura couldn’t resist the temptation to waste more money on a $74,000 set of China.  I guess she had to spend all she could before being shown the door.  Although, the Bush China was said to have been paid for by the White House Historical Association, The White House Endowment Trust, and The White House Historical Trust, all (private) foundations, and not the taxpayer, it does lead me to wonder how much we might be paying for these Association’s from taxpayer money just to exist.  Just a question, food for thought, and hopefully time to find out more information on how these (private) foundations really do work.  Is it solely and entirely taxpayer exempt?  All of the past President’s wives had to put their own taste in on China, Nancy picked a red pattern, Hillary picked a yellow pattern and Lady Bird chose a wildflower china pattern.  Oh well, I have Apple’s, but I didn’t even make $76,000 last year so you can take a wild guess how much mine might have cost. Dispicable and disgraceful of all of these First Lady’s who wasted this type of money.  Aside from the waste of money, we are talking thousands and thousands and even more of place settings, I think by now with all of the place settings chosen by our First Lady’s we should have enough to go around for a dinner for just about everybody in the country.

Another waste I find appalling is that the First Family recieves new linens of their own choosing. As of yet, I have not been able to find any information regarding what the Obama family chose to do.  But I honestly hope they had the decency and respect for the American people and their hard earned money that they have also abolished the waste of past administrations.  The policy regarding used linens in the White House, is to cut them up and use them for dust rags.  Well, I have to admit the worn and torn shirts and underwear of my husbands, I do cut up for cleaning rags. I can’t even imagine dusting my table, or wiping up a spill with, who can even quess, a $300 or more sheet.  What kind of imagination and brain does it take to think, duh, donate those linens, or wow, sell them on Ebay, the federal budget alone might come out of the red. This is an absolutely unforgivable waste in the White House. I have been told that the ridiculous reason for this is that any possible DNA from our President could be on the linen. I just can’t find the future problem with this, 20 years from now, when his DNA won’t be so fiercely protected, gets into the wrong hands, and we have a clone. Does this really make enough sense to waste something to protect the DNA of a sitting President so closely for just the years he is in the White House?  I just don’t get it. With just this one little waste of resourses, can you even imagine the total waste and disregard of the American’s of this country of their hard earned money that is thrown away and destroyed each day in just the White House?  Do they recycle aluminum?  Do they recycle anything that we pay for?  In a way that isn’t destroying something that could still be of use to another person in this country?  What about the blankets, they could be donated to the homeless in this country. How can you fix the countries and the worlds woes when you don’t even utilize inteligence and compassion in your own home? As I have said I don’t know what decisions the Obama family may be choosing, but from the previous first families they seem to have disgraced and abused the hard working American that can’t even afford a new discounted set of sheets from Target once a year.

I would love to have a little chat with a white house maid, I am sure she or he would have stories to turn your hair gray, and curl your toes with the waste that she or he, has seen in OUR White House.

I had heard that shortly after the new family took over residence of the White House that the dinner served was some type of fish that was flown in for the occasion from another country.  I can’t remember the details, but recall thinking of all the families going hungry in America, and that this was just a ridiculous waste. I do remember the cost was outrageous but I can’t remember the dollar figure per person. Eat fish from our country, the rest of us do. We can’t afford the cost to fly in something special for dinner, very few American’s can even afford to order in a Pizza, anymore.

The President’s salary was increased from $200,000 a year to $400,000 a year, thanks to Mr. Bush. I can’t recall any one of my past employer’s ever considering doubling my salary to keep up with the cost of living rise. My husband received a 49-cent an hour pay raise this year, he is a coalminer, working in a coal mine is a dangerous job too, he could use a 24-hour paid for protection agency like the highly trained Secret Service. But… then again we are a very concerned employer regarding our elected officials, we want to make sure they get better than anyone else in this country.  We give them the best salaries, best work schedules, every holiday and more off, we require very little work from them, we give them the best health care plan and, of course, we would never consider making them give that up, they should not have to join the health care plan they are voting on for us. They deserve much better than that. We also make sure their retirement plan outdistances any retirement plan that some of us will recieve and a lot will not even get. They gave us Social Security, so we are so thankful, we want to make sure they are fully paid back.

Kudos to George Washington and John F. Kennedy who have been the only two Presidents that declined the executive salary. Herbert Hoover did accept his salary, but donated it all to charity.

The base salaries from 1789 to 2010 for our Presidents.

1789        $ 25000

1873        $ 50000
1909        $ 75000
1949*       $100000
1969        $200000
2001        $400000

I think even back in 1789 it was a well paid salary with all the attached perks, now it is outrageous.  The reason given for doubling the salary in 2001 was because the rest of our overpaid political officials salaries would soon be more than the highest held office of the United States. Guess Congress was over a pork barrel and had to give that raise.  I wish I worked for a company where I could decide when I needed a raise and how much I should get for my performance. Well, we all had the choice to go for the job, but I think most fair minded citizens didn’t like the riff raff we would have had to work with.

The president gets a private jet, driver, security and chef, all tax-free. I think adding up all of these perks to the White House job, monetarily, you would see that a cost of living raise really wasn’t needed. The President also gets a $50,000 annual entertainment expense account.  Wow, most families in this country don’t even make $50,000 a year to pay bills, taxes and for the neccessities of life. One little quirk to this account, is that any unused money at the end of the year mut go back to the Treasury.  Hmmm… I really wonder how many Presidents gave back to that fund.

Two Boeing 747s, constant security details, drivers, country vacation estate and a rent-free 132-room mansion are also on the list of perks that our President receives. There used to be a yacht for entertainment, (but thank you Jimmy Carter,) he actually sold it.

The Obamas pay for all of their own groceries, drinks, dry cleaning and toothpaste, but we pay someone to purchace these items, and then these food items are prepared by a private chef, I can’t even imagine how much that costs us.

The White House is a wonderful home, with everything else you are given for free, you also have your own private bowling alley, putting green, jogging track, billiard room, tennis courts, swimming pool, and movie theater. Wow, just like my home. But if all of that isn’t enough to keep them entertained they can always just fly on over to their cozy (little) private cottage known as Camp David. Since they already have all of this entertainment right at home, I’ve got an idea, let’s sell Camp David, and use it for some of the expense of the Health Care Reform Bill. The rest of us have had to sell a lot of our toys because of the recession, and the rest of our toys will have to go to pay for required monthly health care payments. Let’s also sell Thomas Jefferson’s $100,000 collection of vintage wine. I am sure that one alone would put a dent in the national debt.

The White House has 5 full time chefs that prepare any sort of meal for the White House staff. I say, bring your own lunch, the rest of us do at our jobs. The President can hire over 150 people, 34 for domestic service and administration, 100 assistants for the White House Office, up to 3 people to work specifically at the Executive Residence and also any number of professionals, experts, or consultants as needed. The old how many people does it take to change a lightbulb?

As if all of this other money wasn’t enough, the President’s annual pension is equal to the yearly salary of a cabinet member (currently over $150000). Yep, I am going to recieve 3/4 of my salary yearly after I retire too.

The White House is painted Whisper White, from Sherwin-Williams. The one and only time I saw the White House on a visit, it was being painted, what luck, or, how many times a year do we pay to paint it? The rest of America is lucky to be able to afford to paint their homes twice in a lifetime.  How much waste and who decides, does it just get painted on some type of schedule needed or not? I guess we have to keep all those employees doing something. I actually have a really great picture of the Gray House.

I wonder how much, and how many people do we pay to figure out how to waste the taxpayers money?  I think I will apply for that job.

I just went through my channels, out of 20 channels available in my area, I had 8 with No Signal, and out of my 4 major channels 2 and 4 were fading in and out, and 5 and 11 were NO SIGNAL at all. That definitely in this technologically advanced era causes me to wonder what the real reason behind this change was.

I have always in the past been one to fill out all types of polls and have always participated in the census.  This year I am getting more leery regarding giving out information of any type on myself or family.  The laws of our country are leaning more and more toward taking away our rights than protecting them.  Little by little it seems that the constitution is being broken down bit by bit to remove the rights that this country was built on.  How many rights have been removed from us already?  Everything seems to be out there someplace being questioned as to should we or shouldn’t we.

Guns

There are groups that want to take away the right to bare arms. There have been Senate Bills put under consideration. They haven’t managed to take them away yet, but bills like these would make it financially impossible for most Americans to afford them. This would be the first step in the direction of getting them away from us, legally. Senate Bill 687 was a bill that would require firearm owners to maintain a minimum of $1 Million in liability insurance on ANY firearm they own.  This legislation would make it virtually impossible for the average firearm owner to own, gather or expand their gun collection.  Senate Bill 85 would hold anyone who “unlawfully” sells a firearm strictly liable for any damage caused by the firearm. A technical mistake in paperwork could render a sale “unlawful” and thus subject the seller to strict liability, even years down the road. How could these even have been contemplated?  Stronger restrictions have been put on buying guns, and if you already have them, buying ammunition now has to be logged.  They do want to know where all of them are and who has them. So one day when they do decide to take that right away, they will know right where to go. It is an out and out invasion of our rights.

Health Care

The idea of a health care program to take care of uninsured citizens, in its concept, is a great idea.  But our leaders seem to be more interested in making it so complicated that we have no way to know, is this really going to work, or is it only going to make matters worse.  I just don’t understand how someone who cannot even afford $100 or more just for an office visit once a year for a cold or a much needed test is going to be able to afford a monthly/yearly cost for a health plan.  Most citizens without health insurance just do not go to the doctor.  I know that I went several years without health insurance, and I could not afford to go, not even if I felt I might have some serious condition that would have dire consequences. I couldn’t afford the one visit, much less would I have been able to afford a monthly fee. I have to give credit to President Obama for trying, but with all the members of Congress getting their hand into the mix, I just don’t see how it can work.  Our Senators have shown  time and time again they are interested in their own interests and not ours.  We have to have car insurance, but we have a choice to drive a car or not.  This is an attempt to take away another right.  The government should not be able to tell us we have to have health care, if we can’t afford it, then we should have the choice to opt out.  It is horrible that we should have to decide that we can’t afford it, but, the budgets of most Americans, now a days, we are having enough trouble paying for gas, (a necessity just for a job), utility bills,(by companies that are just in it for the  outrageous profit), and food costs alone.  Health care just doesn’t even enter in to the picture when these few necessities have to be met just to survive.

Smoking

The right to choose to smoke or drink or indulge in any vice, is the choice of each individual.  Yes, you have the right to decide not to be around someone who is smoking or not, so restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, any place you decide to go, should post that it is a smoking or non-smoking establishment. You have that right to decide.  But the right to decide was taken away.  Business owners were told how they would run their businesses.  Their right to run their business as they chose was taken away. I am a smoker, if I were a non-smoker I should have the right to decide do I go there, or do I not go there?  Just as now it is my choice to decide do I go here or do I not go there because it is non smoking.  I choose not to go to non smoking bars, bowling alleys, and if I decide to go to a restaurant, it is for a very short eat and run meal.  Smoking and drinking pretty much go hand in hand, as most vices, if you have one you usually have more. If you want a non smoking bar, go to one, there are far more now, don’t come to mine, and whine and complain that there is smoke in the air.  You have more of a choice of where to go than I.

The list goes on and on, rights here, rights there, slowly being taken away.  One at a time they will keep taking our constitutional rights away. You really won’t even realize it until all of our rights are gone, some of them or still in the constitution, but they get around them in ways that you don’t even realize they are gone. The right for no double taxation.  Well, they got around that one, they don’t double tax us, they tax us on our income, we take what’s left, then we pay taxes for everything we buy, we pay taxes on our utility and phone bills, we pay taxes on our property,  we pay taxes on our cars,  I still haven’t figured out how they managed to get every nickle and dime out of what was left, but they did it.

The last time something like this happened was in 1930 during the Great Depression. I have to give applause to this group of 3,100 contractors. Taking any type of loss during this time is commendable. Although, electricians or among the best paid contractors in the business. I do understand it is a loss to their lifestyle so it is a cost to them in some way. It was said that “one electrical worker estimates his annual wages will drop by more than $11,000.”

It also seems to me that they were under the bullet, Local 1 seems to view this concession as “an incentive to encourage local construction and growth in the aftermath of the recession.” My opinion is that they had their motives, possibly not just for the good of all us poor people out here. The fact that they are giving up $11,000, well, all I can say, is that there are a lot of people out there that don’t even make $11,000 a year. It would be nice to think that even after the recession is over that they will keep that in consideration before charging outrageous fees for their services and wanting that extra pay back.

I am afraid on my list of overpaid professions they are up their with the worst, Doctors Lawyers, Veterinarians ,Plumbers, etc. How any of them sleep at night is beyond me. To be able to take a working mans weekly wage for an hour of their so called precious time is just beyond me.

Ameren is a conglomerate utility company located in Missouri and Illinois.  My question is, why hasn’t Ameren been called in on the carpet?  They make outrageous amounts of profits, their CEOs should be horsewhipped for even thinking about excepting pay increases, and bonuses when there company cannot even keep up their supposedly faulty equipment to take care of their customers.  Every year they make their profits, and keep them all, then every 3  months it seems, they are saying they need multi-million dollar increases in order to do the job they are already being paid to do.  I say that “they” are putting profit above public safety.  How many homes have burnt down because people have had to put small individual room heaters in, because they cannot afford to heat their entire homes anymore?  How many people have died because they can’t afford to go to the doctor for the pneumonia they have because they live in homes that are not kept warm enough in the winter?  How many people have died in the summer from heat exposure because they can’t afford to run their air conditioners? How many people are starving because they can’t afford  to put food on the table because they have to pay the almighty Ameren, the majority of their paycheck every month?  Sorry, I don’t see the difference.

Ameren should not have a profit if they spend and waste their money and use it for anything other than, first, doing the job they were hired to do.  I remember seeing not long ago, 5 Ameren trucks, lights, and engines running just sitting in a parking lot.  Going nowhere, maybe waiting for a call, I don’t know.  But what I was thinking was, who is paying for the gasoline idling away in those trucks?  Multiply that by all the other trucks in Illinois and Missouri, that is just one little way to cut costs.

Ameren hasn’t the slightest clue about how to keep costs down, they just spend, spend, spend, and put their hand out for more money.  I think that is what they feel their job description is.  They should ask their customers how to save money, they could tell them how to cut costs to survive.

The government decided what was a sin and what was not, drinking and smoking were decided to be the two worse offenses, so they devised the wonderful sin tax, an exorbitant tax that they can collect and raise any time more money is needed for a bigger budget. Then they decided that smoking really wasn’t good for you, and have almost banned them completely in all public places. Some towns or cities going so far as to not even allow smoking anywhere inside their city limits, even your own backyard. I can see myself now, shades pulled, hiding in a closet, fans all over the house running in mid-December, smoking a cigarette in the closet.

They devised the FOID card for buying ammunition, first they wanted to know who had guns, then when they found not everyone was going to voluntarily disclose that they already owned guns, they decided to go after the ammunition, obviously if you buy ammunition, and can only buy it with a registered FOID card, you have a gun. I know, I know, it is all for our safety.

Then they decided no carbonated, sugary drinks in school, and now the government has decided Happy Meals are a NO, NO.  I know all of these things they have done are supposed to be for our own good, so our politicians and our government tells us. Taking away our rights to decide what is good for us and what is safe should still stay in the hands of the individual people. When we give the government the power to decide little things such as a Happy Meal for our children, I think they have gone too far, and we just stand back and let them go a step further each time. How long before they take away our right to decide anything for ourselves? How long before they go further and it isn’t even connected to your health and safety? When will they take away every right of ours to decide anything? Well, I think they pretty much have done that already, law after law is passed every year, and we aren’t really asked about these laws. We supposedly get to decide who is put in office, and we are sometimes asked to vote on tax proposals, but more often than not, I recall the majority of everything that happens was never asked of the citizens if they were in agreement or not.  It seems like they put a few tidbits on the ballot, to pacify us and make us feel as if we really have a say, but then thousands of the major issues are decided by the government with no input at all from us, the People.

These miners work with little to no breaks, on 10 to 12 or longer shifts, even sitting down to eat a lunch for 15 minutes is not wanted.  If you really want to eat it is more encouraged that you eat on the run.  They want work, work and nothing but work from their miners.  For this, they get around $20.00 to $25.00 an hour and good health benefits,(of course, in their dangerous line of work, they are going to need them), and a good retirement plan, for their families, because most of them won’t live long enough to enjoy it.  They are so appreciated, that they manage to eek out maybe a 50 cent an hour raise a year, while the CEO pulls in a good 6 to 8 million dollars for his hard work, of never having to go without lunch, or bathroom facilities, or wait for the ceiling to fall in on his luscious office space.

The Coal companies are despicable. I really would like to know how much the CEO might think one of his fingers is worth.  I am sure he would get more than $15,000 for his fingers, miners have all of their body parts listed as to how much each digit or arm or leg is worth.  I am sure the CEOs typing fingers would be worth a lot more than the miners are offered.  There really isn’t anyone truly overseeing the conditions in the mines, federal authorities see what they really are only allowed to see.  The true conditions are never truly caught.  The little fines that they receive, are nothing, compared to what it would cost the coal companies to really try and keep their miners safe, they would rather pay what is a pittance to them, for violations, than actually pay what it would cost to keep the mines safe.  But don’t expect the coal miners to say anything, they know there is someone else out there standing in line to take their jobs and they will lose it if they talk. Coal mines are usually in areas where there is not a lot of work available, it is a job to be had, at all costs.

A local news channel was in the area this week, trying to talk to the coalminers, seems they found only one that would talk, I know my husband refused to, and the one that did, didn’t have anything bad to say about the mines, because he wouldn’t have had a job the next day.  Of course, I have to stay anonymous too, because my husband would not have a job tomorrow either.

The first sign of trouble was when my husband received a phone call from a Credit Card company saying he had an account and that it was past due.  Of course, he told them he didn’t have an account with them.  Then the letters started coming, one from Citibank saying he owed thousands of dollars, one from Chase insisting he owed $13,000.  He got a copy of his credit report and found that there were about 10 accounts on it that he knew nothing about, and they were joint accounts with an ex-girlfriend. He filed a police report regarding the credit card fraud.

This is how it works, the police take the reports, then nothing happens, the police file it, no response is made, they do not even attempt to contact the party you have reported.  Then the harrassing phone calls continue, then you explain the circumstances and then the next call is from someone else and you explain it all over again.

How this all began is that 5 years before this, my husband (now) was living with this girlfriend in his mobile home.  He tried to have her removed from his home several times, the police were called, the first time all that happened is that while they were following her around his home trying to tell her to leave, they found a stop sign on a wall, which, this woman’s son, who also had lived there previously for a short time, had put on the wall.  Of course, the police then became more interested in the sign, than removing the woman. He tried several other times to have her removed but it was a silly game of nothing happening.  He would change the locks and she would crawl in a window, or actually in mid-winter pull up to the end of his mobile home and plug an electric blanket into the outside receptacle after he went to bed at night and when he left for work in the morning she would get inside.  It was an ongoing battle that the police would not do anything about.  Finally, my husband, realizing that there was no way to win, not even the police would help, he left his home, moved out and walked away from his belongings and furniture and everything else.  He figured the woman would never be able to afford to make payments on the mobile home and utilities and she would eventually have to leave.  Well, she found a way.  You know those cute little envelopes you get from the credit card companies that say sign here, and you get a little check for all sorts of different amounts of credit cards.  Well, she signed each and every one that came in, in his name.  Apparently, about 10 of them, some of them were paid off, because she would open up a new one and transfer the balance.  So at the end when the cycle had escalated to the point where she couldn’t keep up, that is when they started coming after my husband.  For 5 years she had been using credit cards in his name he knew nothing about.  He had been told a couple years before this mess when he had bought a truck that his credit rating was exceptional, one of the best they had ever seen.  Back in those days no one checked their credit reports.  When he requested his credit report, he found she had about 10 accounts he knew nothing about and 3 of them were in default for payment.

There the nightmare begins, he hired an attorney who sent letters to the companies explaining what had happened. He doesn’t hear from the credit card companies for a year.  He thinks it is over. Then after we are married it all starts again.  I of course come into the picture saying, that can’t happen, no one can do that and get away with it.  You needed to do this, you needed to do that, oh well, I found out soon enough, he was right, there is nothing you can do, nothing at all.  No one will help you enforce anything like this. The harassment started again, I did as my husband had, explained it over and over again to each new representative, wrote letters, demanded proof of the sales receipts that had been signed.  One interesting thing about credit card companies, even though these accounts were in my husbands name, they would not give him any information about the account or transactions.  When they receive a payment/check with your name signed on it, which his had been forged to all, that makes you culpable for the account.  How can you prove that the payments were not made by you, if the credit card company will not give you copies of those checks?

I contacted the Attorney General’s fraud division and we filled out an affidavit with all the information we had.  I sent copies of every document that we had, from police reports to any forged document I could find, such as life insurance policies that she had taken out on him, copies of every piece of paper that we had pertaining to this.  She had also opened up a joint checking account with my husband, he just accidentally found out about that one.  His bank mistakenly sent one of her deposit slips to his personal account, when he went to the bank to ask what this deposit was, he found she had opened a joint account in his name.  The forged signature was excellent.  He had his name removed from the account.  He was told to check other banks as well.  He went across the street and asked them if he had an account there, they said no you don’t have one, you have two.  One was a joint account with her, and one was a joint account with him and her son.  He had them close the accounts.  Of course, the banks never took any action, and he had at that point filed 3 police reports against her and nothing had been done so he didn’t bother again.  All of the forged documents and paperwork were filed with the Attorney General, their response finally was to contact the States Attorney. The only good thing that they managed to do, is that we did actually get copies of 12 credit card checks that had been forged by her.  She did not do as well forging these, even a layman could tell it was her signature characteristics signing his name.  The State Attorney wasn’t interested, he said that credit card fraud/identity theft is just impossible and too expensive to prosecute.  Strike out again, through all of this, we did manage to convince with our evidence 2 of the credit companies that my husband had no knowledge of these accounts. They closed the accounts, but of course the damage to his credit had already been done.  The big one held on, Chase refused and filed a lawsuit against us for $13,000.  We had to hire an attorney with a $1500.00 retainer, for his few hours of work, he got the case dismissed with the evidence we had.

What is actually unbelievable is that this woman, goes by my husbands last name, she ridiculously claims to have married a man by the same first and last name as his, of course I haven’t been able to track down any evidence to prove she has no legal right to it, so she continues to use it.  But she does legally go by his last name now.  She was arrested for forging precriptions at a nursing home where she worked under that name, she has checking accounts in this name, her license has this name on it, her utility bills, her P.O Boxes, everything now is listed with his name.  No one is interested in that one either, not even the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office General.  It is a federal offense to mess with the United States mail, for everyone but her it seems. I have to check every few months with the local Post Offices to make sure they are still aware nothing in my husbands name is to be put into any of her P.O boxes.   As for the arrest for forgery, it is as if it never happened, as far as I can tell, she must have made a deal, because now there doesn’t seem to even be a record of it ever having happened.  She is good, even the State lets her get away with it.

Of course, it hasn’t ended there, she still uses the address of my husbands property where the mobile home was, which has now been vacant for 5 years.  We received possession of it again, after we let it go to foreclosure.  She had even forged her name to the title of the mobile home, amazingly.  When the repossession company posted notices of the date that they were repossessing it she finally did move out. She moved out, along with every stick of my husbands furniture and everything he had ever owned.  We paid off the loan, and moved the mobile home to the country. But, she still continues to use that address as her legal address. We even removed the mail box on the property. I have notified Post Offices and the County Treasurers Office that she does not live there and she is using it for fraudulent purposes. The State’s Attorney isn’t interested in that one either.

Just last year she forged an application at our bank for an ACH account with my husbands name on it, which, fortunately the bank called and asked us about.  That would have been an online banking account, her checks have my husbands name on them, we have been told you can put whatever you want on your checks, especially if you order them through the mail. We filed another police report, explained to the officer what she has done, showed him all the proof we had, he was bewildered and said he would need to talk to the States Attorney to find out how to write a report up on it.  We told him how nothing had ever been done to her through all of this, and that the police had never even tried to contact her regarding any other of the filed reports.  He swore he would contact her, because we felt possibly if she knew the police knew, she would stop.  Of course, he never talked to her, he never even wrote up the report.  We never heard a thing about it.  A few months later I needed a copy of the report for the affidavit for the Attorney General, I called the police officer and he didn’t have a clue to what I was talking about.  Didn’t remember a thing.  He asked me again about the basic facts and sent me a report he wrote on the spot.  Same as usual, nothing ever happened. Well we at least stopped that ACH account from going through, but we have no way of knowing if she has managed to open another online account somewhere else.  We check our credit report constantly to make sure there is nothing new on them.  We put a block on our credit, so that even if we wanted to open a credit card, my husband would probably have to send in his little finger for proof of identity.  We actually tried to get a cellular phone account a few weeks ago, and we couldnt’ get it with my husbands credit, he would have had to give them his original Social Security Card so that they could copy it.  Well, we don’t carry those around.  We know what happens when anyone has access to it.  Fortunately, we found, that amazingly my credit history has not been merged with his.  I had assumed both of our credit ratings would have been merged when we married. Fortunately, that is not the case.  Of course, she hasn’t been able to ruin my credit, yet, but I am sure she is working on it, and of course if anyone can, she can, and she would get away with it AGAIN.

This woman can do anything, anything at all and get away with it.  If I or my husband had even done one thing that she has done, we would be in jail.  Guaranteed!