Screen Time!

The smart phone has replaced television, books, magazines, the radio, stereo systems, newspapers, gaming consoles, computers, and even movies.  Oddly enough, some people even use it as a telephone!

Screen time has become a big issue these days.  People complain they are addicted to the smart phone or that kids are spending too much time staring at screens.  This sounds to me like an echo from an earlier time when people worried so much about how much television they watched - and their kids watched.  Average person, back then, watched 4 hours or more a day!

If you add in the time spent reading books, magazines, and newspapers, well, it pretty much equals the amount of "screen time" people spend on their phones.  Remember when "flip phones" first came out and the cashiers at WalMart would spend all day on the phone, even while checking out your groceries?

The point is (and I did have one) that we have simply transferred our obsessive-compulsive behavior from one type of technology to another.  Spending four hours a day staring at your phone is no worse (or no better) that gaming for four hours a day, or watching banal network teevee for the same time period - or any activity that consumes large portions of your "free" time or even encroaches on your not-so-free time.

In a sense, the smart phone has merely consolidated all of our "time-wasters" into one device.

But something else is afoot.  Some are calling it "the dead internet" - going online these days is as unfulfilling as humping one of those inflatable sex dolls.  It just isn't even close to real satisfaction.  Similarly, the Internet these days seems to be one giant shilling machine, trying to sell, sell, sell you something, as if buying stuff was the answer to all of life's little problems.

I wrote before how tourist attractions always have a gift shop that you have to exit through, and how tourists feel obligated to buy junky tchotchke whether they need it or not.  To most people, vacation means a series of spending opportunities, and people will eagerly queue up to buy things or get tickets to an attraction.

The people running the Internet (and they are running it, now) realized this and turned every Google inquiry into a sale opportunity.  Pretty soon - if not already - the Internet will be reduced to merely AI-generated superficiality and "sponsored content" links.

Even - or especially - the "News" is all about selling - selling your eyeballs to advertisers or your soul to a political party.  News articles are no longer informative, but just click-bait and rage-bait to get you to watch some ads.  Even "mainstream" news sources preface article titles with phrases such as "You'll never believe..." (you will) or "Is it true that..." (no, it is not) just to get you to click.

I am done with articles that have titles like, "You'll never believe what outrageous thing Trump said/did today!"  Let me guess - something outrageously stupid, right?  Saved us all a click.

I have been trying, instead, to read more books, preferably the real kind you hold, or failing that, the thousands stored on our pad device.

Rather than read the news or look at social media, I have found an entertaining and educational alternative.  I go on Wikipedia and hit "random article" and read about some obscure British politician, a soccer (football player) who died in 1996, a long-dead English cricketer, a famous Bollywood actor, an obscure township in Minnesota, or a random train station in Japan.  There is nothing to sell or buy - although Wikipedia does whore for donations about once a year.  There is little in the way of a political agenda, despite the claims by the GOP that reality has a left-wing bias. Best of all, no AI-generated spew or sponsored content ads.

This is not to say all the articles are unbiased.  The wiki nature of the site allows people to edit articles and often people try to "spin" an article with a certain slant, or merely vandalize a page if they don't like the topic.  But usually such vandalism is cleaned up in short order, and it isn't hard to spot a political white-wash job on some other pages.  Since I am reading random articles, well, there is little in the way of click-bait or rage-bait on the agenda.

It feels good  to learn something new, even if it seems like useless information at the time.  One quickly realizes that there is a lot that most all of us don't know, which gives me (at least) a feeling of awe and wonderment about our world.

It isn't the solution to the screen time problem, but it beats Facebook, Tick-Tock, or Reddit!

Warning Signs!

There are some things to look out for when dealing with online vendors!

My search for the microwave/convection oven/air fryer that will fit the 20" x 13" cabinet hole in our camper continues.  I found a "Furrion" microwave that might fit, but it was over $400.  A site called "nomadicsupply.com" had it for $299 and the mounting bracket for another $32.  More than I wanted to pay, but the best price I could find.

Their prices were slightly higher than those listed on the Furrion website, but sadly, it appears that consumers cannot order directly from the manufacturer.  The first thing that made me cautious about using these folks was this mandatory ToS that you had to agree to:

 Nomadic Supply Company is in business to protect our planet by directly funding donations to conservation nonprofits. Our dedicated & hardworking employees enable us to further this mission, so we do not allow anyone to compromise the wellness of our staff with entitled behavior, bullying, or mistreatment. If you wish to be a customer & a part of our community, you agree to be kind, compassionate, & patient with the staff at Nomadic Supply Company & our partner brands. Anyone who isn't capable of being kind & compassionate should simply shop elsewhere. Checking this box is a legally binding agreement indicating that I have read & that I agree to the terms and conditions, the Code of Ethics, the Order Cancellation Policy, & the Return Policy, & I consent to receive both email & SMS order updates. 

I doubt any of that is enforceable, quite frankly.  But it says volumes about the people running the company and they way they view their customers. It also implies they have a lot of angry customers, too.

The next thing that I noticed was "Route" rearing its ugly head - wanting $9.99 for "shipping protection" which you have to uncheck.  Never do business with anyone who slaps "route" on your purchase.

The default payment method is ACH debit, which requires you to cough up your bank routing and account numbers.  Might as well give them your Social Security number and Mother's maiden name while you are at it!  It also means that, if there is some dispute about the product, you cannot dispute the  purchase with your bank (chargeback).  If you do use a credit card, they charge a 2.9% fee with "Stripe" to process the card (something that used to be against the ToS of the credit card companies!).

But wait, there's more.  If you pay by credit card, your order may be "flagged" for fraud:

If you choose to pay via credit card, Stripe Payments will charge you a non-refundable 2.9% transaction fee. You can avoid the transaction fee by paying via ACH Bank Transfer (eCheck). If you choose to pay by any method other than ACH (eCheck) Bank-to-Bank Transfer your order may be held for review and you may be required to complete a credit card authorization form to prevent fraud.

What does this mean?  I suspect it is an attempt to foil charge-backs from angry customers who never received their goods or received the wrong item or damaged goods.  When we look online to scam reporting sites, we start to understand why. The BBB (ordinarily worthless) reports several people complaining about damaged or never-received goods as well as problems contacting the company. Tellingly, Nomadic Supply did not bother to answer any of the complaints.  If a company doesn't have their phone number and other contact information readily available on their site, walk away.

After seeing all that, I decided not to do business with them.  Maybe prices may be higher elsewhere, but internet commerce is based entirely on trust.  And it is clear that "nomadic supply" has some trust issues - going both ways.

Why not just buy a regular microwave/air fryer/convection oven and then shove it in the hole?  Well, a cabinet-mounted microwave needs to be vented and this means a duct leading out the front through the faceplate.  The faceplate, in turn, keeps the microwave from falling out of the cabinet as you go down the road.  If not vented, the heat from the convection oven or air fryer (same thing, really) will burn down the camper.

Why not just buy from Amazon?  Good question.  As these are a niche product, Amazon doesn't carry a large selection - not one small enough to fit through a 20"x13" hole, anyway.  But we'll keep looking!

Time was, you could buy from small companies like this and get better prices and good service.  An individual could set up a quick e-commerce site on eBay and sell product. Today, it is all about arbitrage or drop-shipping.  Just put up a website (or eBay store) offering other people's products for 10% more than what they are selling for elsewhere.  Use SEO to make sure your listing appears first, and then just drop-ship to the buyer.

Problem with the arbitrage model is customer service, which is messy and time-consuming.  The people selling to drop-shippers are probably happy to foist this burden onto these arbitragers. The drop-shippers are just Mom&Pop operations (often just Mom OR Pop) and get overwhelmed with customer requests.  If you read between the lines of the text quoted above from the Nomadic Supply site, well, it tells a story.  They even admit, on their "contact" page that they are overwhelmed with e-mails on a daily basis.

You hire more people to deal with customers and you lose your profit margin. This is why arbitrage simply doesn't work.  Retail is a tough business of razor-thin margins. Mark-ups might be good, but overhead swallows up those "profits" before they are even earned.

Maybe some folks shouldn't be in business.  Arbitrage sounds like an effortless way to make money, but the reality is, being a merchant is a cut-throat business and takes a lot more time and energy than the "make money online through arbitrage!" promotions imply.

In fact, like anything else, the real money isn't in doing the thing, but in selling seminars and kits instructing others how to do the thing.

RV Parts Scam Site?

When you see something for sale for 1/4 the normal price, beware!

Mark wants to replace the microwave in the van with a combination microwave, convection oven, and air fryer.  I was looking at microwaves at Walmart and the cheapest ones are $65.  I remember only a few years ago, they were selling for the startlingly low price of $25.  But someone told me there is now a "microwave shortage" (read: price gouging). Oddly enough, there were several dozen stacked up at Walmart.  So much for the shortage!

And yes, they had a combination microwave, convection oven, and air fryer for about $225.  And that is for a tabletop model, not a built-in unit with forward venting.

Anyway, we measured the opening and found a Furrion FR77AD microwave that seems to fit our existing opening in the cabinet.  With the mounting bracket (faceplate) it comes to over $400 (!!).  I searched online for cheaper alternatives and found most people were selling them for about the same price.

Then I found this.  Not only was it less, it was a startlingly amount less - less than 1/4 the ordinary sales price!  $87.80 - what an odd number.  Who was "premiumrvparts.com" and why were they selling so cheaply?  Going out of business?  Well, it turns out the domain name is only a few months old, and the "trustmeter" on "scam detector" gives it a 5.7 - a very low score.  I look at other products on their page and see that everything is selling for a quarter or less of ordinary retail prices. They are fighting inflation!

Notably missing is an address or phone number for the company.  If it looks like a scam, smells like a scam, and sounds like a scam - it even tastes like one! - it probably is one,  If these prices were real, someone could make a lot of money arbitraging these items on eBay and then having them shipped directly from this (apparently nonexistent) company.

And I was inclined to get reeled in, too.  I was looking for a Genie, and Genies can be deceiving.  There it was, like a mirage in the desert - a microwave combo that would fit the opening, cost less than a cheap tabletop model!  Free shipping to boot!  But Genies lie - there are no Casita trailers for $1957 or Harley Davidsons for $1500 - as you see (or used to see) all the time on Craigslist.

But why such penny-ante cons?  Sure, they can cheat me out of $87.50 but is it worth the hassle?  On the other hand, they probably pasted the code from some other RV parts site, and it took some third-world computer genius less and a day to set up the site.  And once shut down, a matter of minutes to move the site to a new domain and start all over again.  In the meantime, they can sell credit card numbers on the side.

UPDATE:  I skimmed the site and saw dozens of products for sale for less than 1/4 of retail price (and I know pricing in the RV world!).  E-Trailer lists the same items for far more money, often by a factor of four or more.  They also put an "E-Trailer" logo hidden in all of their product pictures.  Hey, guess what?  Guess whose logo appears on the pages of "premiumrvparts.com"?  Yup, the photos were "scraped" from E-Trailer.  

I will have to revisit that site in a few months and see if they are still around.  I am guessing that once they "sell" a few items, they will vanish like the wind.

UPDATE:  Apparently my suspicions were correct.  The same site is resurrected from time to time under different names, such as "getrvparts.com" or the like.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

UPDATE:  A message appears in my SPAM box today from "mail@order.xinwushop.xyz" offering an additional 20% off on the microwave combo with free shipping!  Only five bucks more than the cheapest model from WalMart!

Oops! Looks like you left something behind

Hi Robert Bell,

We noticed that you added some great items to your cart but didn’t complete your purchase. If you got distracted or had any trouble, no worries—we saved everything for you.

To make it even better, here’s a little thank-you from us: 20% OFF your order if you complete it by 2025-09-28.

Subtotal	USD 87.80
Discount (20% OFF)	− USD17.56
Total	USD 70.24

Wow!  What a deal!  Sounds too good to be true! (It is!).

UPDATE:  Same e-mail, a few hours later, this time from "order@order.ordershops.xyz"

The xyz domain is cursed!

New Scams?

You have to be vigilant with money, even if it isn't fun to do!

I bought some parts for the new camper today - a thermostat kit for the hot water heater.  The heater works great with only one problem - it won't shut off.  There is no temperature adjustment on this model, and with an aluminum tank, no zinc required, either.  But two "thermostats" (disc  type temperature switches) are provided, one to cut off at 60 degrees (C) for hot water, and the other to shut it down at 80 degrees (C) as a safety.  Neither are working.

I used Amazon, as when I checked eBay, they had the same kit for $5 more, no doubt an attempt at arbitrage.  The parts kit was cheap - only $14.  Anyway, the usual Amazon "soft" scams at checkout - you want to sign up for prime?  Oh, and we default to paid shipping, even if free shipping is available.  The usual Amazon soft scams.  But credit to them, they don't charge your credit card until they ship and they have a generous return policy and usually deliver the goods.

We took the Hamster in to town to get groceries.  We stopped to wash it and I noticed that after a decade, the floor mats were looking a little shabby.  I was scrolling online while we waited for tacos at our favorite Mexican dive, and saw a set for $50, factory OEM.  I clicked on it and they offered four levels of shipping, starting at about $11 and going up to $117 (!!).  I clicked on $11 and it sent me to PayPal to pay.  "Congratulations!  Your charge for $167 went through!"  WTF??

I checked the "invoice" and sure enough, they upgraded me to overnight shipping without me asking.  Plus, they added "Route Package Protection" for $1.95 (without asking) which I wrote about before.  Basically, "Route" just sends you the same tracking information that USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc. will send you for free.

UPDATE:  The "Route" charge is automatically entered and you have to uncheck a box to make it go away.  Easy to do on a computer, but on my phone, the invoice page conveniently appears half off the screen, so you don't see this check box.  Convenient - for who?

So I try to cancel the order, but there is no cancel link, just a phone number, and they close at 4:30 (!!).  Looks like I will have to dispute the charge.  Never do business with a company that only accepts PayPal.  Or uses "Route."

Anyway, I felt beaten down at this point.  So off to Walmart "Ghetto Gourmet" (Neighborhood Market) to restock the house after being gone for several months.  Mark gets food, I get beverages, and we check out separately.  I used to self-serve scanner and it is acting up.  I won't take my credit card unless I swipe it.  It checks out and I pull a suspiciously long receipt out of the machine.  I am charged over $300 for beer and wine (mine) and ham and bacon and $150 worth of groceries (not mine!).

I call over the cashier and show her my cart - no ham, no bacon.  What gives?  Well, the people ahead of me at scanner #9 rang up about $150 in groceries and when their card didn't read (as mine didn't) they went over to customer service.  Somehow, the charge then went through - on my credit card!  Is this a new scam to get other people to pay for your groceries?  I dunno.

Anyway, the nice cashier, who was going off shift and was looking forward to going home, had to manually enter each item code and issue a credit for about $150.  What a pain in the butt.  Meanwhile, the manager is on the phone to corporate trying to figure out what happened.

It makes me wonder if this hasn't happened before, and perhaps on purpose.  When I approached the scanner, it said "Enter your phone number or start scanning to begin."   There was no listing of $150 of groceries on the screen. By the way, whose bright idea was it to have recently scanned items appear at the TOP of the screen?   In a cash register, the last item scanned appears at the bottom of the register tape, not the top.  Be consistent, people!  And use a larger screen that doesn't require scrolling down after you've scanned five items!  Sheesh!

Anyway, it is all fixed, I guess.  But it made me realize how important it is to get receipts and to look at them.  If I had merely stuffed the receipt in my pocket and went home, it would have been a lot harder to prove I was overcharged.

I was at a gas station once and the clerk asked (nicely) why baby boomers always ask for receipts.  I told her I keep receipts so if I am ever accused of murder, I have a paper-trail to prove I was out of town that day.  Just kidding.  But it pays to keep those bits of paper, particularly when you have to return something.  And retailers are getting more and more strict about "no receipt, no refund."

Sorry not to post more often, but it is hard when traveling to type on a laptop in a cafe with sketchy wi-fi.  Plus I don't have the energy I used to have.  Off to the doctor tomorrow and then Mayo next week.  Meanwhile, Mark is having new teeth installed.  Getting old isn't as fun as it looks!

Fail-Safe

If cars were made like RVs, we would all be taking the train to work!

Yes, I am still alive, but busy with travel and such.  Prior to our Spain trip, we went to Ocala, Florida to an RV show to check out van campers.  We were appalled by what we saw.  One camper had an open-able "pop-out" window located behind the sliding door.   If you slid open the heavy steel sliding door, it would instantly demolish the open window into a shower of glass fragments.  Poor design!

I asked the salesman about this, and he replied, "There is a sticker next to the window reminding you to close the window before opening the door."    Of course, elderly owners and their spasmodic grandchildren would never forget this simple precaution - right?

Think about it - would you buy a car or SUV or minivan where if you "forgot" to close the window in the back door, it would be instantly demolished when you open a front door?  Of course, not.  There would be a huge hue and cry, demands for a recall, and lawsuits galore.   But in the RV world, a sticker saying "do not press!" located next to the "self destruct" button is deemed an adequate precaution.

There are other, less perilous examples.  The van we rented in Spain had a high-tech "Truma" hot water and furnace system that ran on bottle gas.  The vent for the furnace was beneath one of the open-able windows.  Next to the window was a sticker advising you to close the window before running the furnace, lest carbon monoxide fill the coach and kill everyone inside.

Our European friends, not being complete blithering idiots like their American cousins, also installed an interlock switch so that if the window was opened, it killed power to the furnace.  Sadly, if this switch was tripped, a convoluted reset procedure was required.  What puzzled me was why they didn't merely relocate the furnace to another location in the van where there were no windows.  There was, after all, a huge compartment in the back.

She sure is pretty, though!

Our "new" (10-year-old) Mercedes/ERA/Winnebago "touring coach" has some similar foobars.  Winnebago spent a ton of money painting the black bumpers and rub strips (and wheel arches) to match the silver paint job - and spend even more installing decorative stainless trim. They installed chrome-plated aluminum rims, but the chrome plating all wore off.  Nice looking, but for my dollar, I would rather they spent it on better construction and layout. And this is a good quality coach, too.

With only 18,000 miles on the clock now, the "Mercedes" part seems to be working well, although I swore I would never own an old German car again.   German cars, like any car, depreciate over time, and as they age, repairs become more often and more expensive.  Parts cost more and finding talent who won't make things worse is always problematic.  There is a "sweet spot" of ownership, where a substantial part of depreciation has already taken place, but before the car depreciates down to nothing, as they tend to do around the 20-year mark.  You can't give away an old 7-series BMW with six digits on the odometer and a host of broken toys, a check engine light and the accompanying litany of OBD-II P-codes.  Only a dedicated BMW mechanic or nut would buy such a thing.

And I swore I would never be that nut! (again!)

But the old gal gets 17-19 mpg and seems to run like a tank - so far.  But some RV conversion issues crop up.  For example. the Winnebago people installed swivel bases on the front seats, so you can turn those seats facing backward and form a conversation pit (not while driving! - again, a sticker!).  Problem is, modern airbag SRS-equipped cars have seat switches to determine whether you put on your seat belt, whether you are in your seat, and some even have small explosive devices to cinch your seat belt tight in the event of a crash.

With our E36's (1997 BMW 328iC), it was a common occurrence to get an "airbag light" after someone rode in the back seat.  The wiring harnesses for the front seat were loosely attached under the seat, and rear seat passengers would kick the wires, causing them to briefly become unplugged.  If continuity is lost, even for a millisecond, the SRS computer kicks out an error code and lights the SRS light, which cannot be reset unless you have an SRS reset tool.

Well, sure as shit, the van pops the SRS light and the instrument cluster display advises us to take the van to a "workshop" for repairs.  I am envisioning old-world craftsmen and cuckoo-clocks here.  This went off while Mr. See was driving, putting him in a panic.  I told him to relax - it was likely a seat switch.  And sure enough, that evening, Mr. See rotated the driver's seat and said, "what's this loose wire?"  The seatbel switch wire was chopped clean off - sliced by the seat swivel as cleanly as by guillotine.  The wire was just hanging there, waiting to be chopped - not secured properly or armored with a corrugated wire loom.  Again, people wouldn't put up with this in cars, right?  Although I guess I put up with it for a decade or so with my BMWs.  But I have a high threshold of pain.

All that being said, we love "Aunt Helga" and hope she gives us many miles of enjoyment.  But like with any RV, she has a continual punch list of things that need fixing, adjustment, or re-working.  But that's RVing for you.  Read the stickers!