PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Masks haven't been mandatory at my work for like 2 years...

 

Do you work in a healthcare facility?

 

That is nice to see.
I hope Toyota chose a good one.
Since the release of of the 2nd Gen, the Manual Trans offered in the 6 cylinder trucks haven’t been too impressive. No pilot bushing, chattering, chirping ……
Not that they are bad, but just good enough. And “good enough” isn’t always ideal.

 

Yep. In fact we r still required in our neonatal ICU.

 

@6 gearT444E
@98tacoma27
@ABA180
@BkerChuck
@ColoradoTJ
@Just_A_Guy
@RustyGreen
@Squatting Pigeon
@steelcity2
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

I previously told @shakerhood about the first half of this fiasco via text message...

Somebody tried to scam me last month; I will never know whether it was Amanda's ex's mother, or the storage place where that whole group was keeping their stuff, but I threw a fit and got my money back, so I will not be pursuing the matter any further. It all started on Tuesday, March 7th...

I drove @Stitchgirl90 to a very important appointment at her OBGYN because the only vehicle in the group was in use. We decided to get as much of her's and her friend's stuff from the storage unit that we could fit in my truck, since the storage facility wasn't particularly far from the doctor's office.

Amanda had approximately $155 in cash that her ex's mom had given her to give a friend who was carrying for their cats. We showed up at the storage place in the Mount Pocono area about half an hour before the office closed; Amanda punched in the code numerous times, and it didn't work, so she went into the office while I waited in the truck...

Several minutes passed, and it was really cold out, so I had the heat cranked and was obviously burning gas in the process; I became rather annoyed, shut off the truck, and went inside to see what the hell was taking so long.

The ex's mother has been gaming the system in one way or another for her entire life, and was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier to begin with. She is in her late 50s, and in addition to numerous health issues (COPD, diabetes, bipolar, etc), we believe she is in the early stages of dementia. She forgot to pay rent for February, and that's why we were locked out of the storage unit...



Amanda called her up and was given permission over the phone to use the $155 cash. Unfortunately, it was $11 short; I only had a single dollar bill in my pocket, and there was no ATM, so I contributed the dollar. Not wanting to drive back to the apartment in Jersey emptyhanded, I paid the remaining $10 with my credit card, knowing full well that I would likely never get paid back...

 

I previously discussed in this thread how I contributed a dollar bill and put ten bucks on my credit card, but I cannot find the original post...

Anyway, I put ten dollars on my credit card and paid it online the very next day; I thought nothing of it until March 31st.

We gained access to the storage unit and crammed the bed of my Tacoma to capacity, brought the stuff back to New Jersey, and I went home...

Fast-forward to the end of the month; I was told that the ex's mom had paid the rent for March, a total of $137.60, and thought nothing of it. This was when I borrowed the 16-foot Ringo trailer from work to carry Amanda and her friend's belongings down to the new apartment; I had no idea that I had paid the rent for the month of March until I happened to glance at my online credit card statement on the night of March 31st.

I saw a charge for $137.60 from North Pocono Self Storage and called up Amanda absolutely furious; Amanda in turn immediately started cussing out the ex's mom...

I figured out fairly quickly that the storage place had saved my credit card info, and then it started to fall into place. The ex's mom checked her account and found that she had exactly $130 in it. When asked if she wanted to use the card on file, she said yes, without bothering to check which card it was; Amanda and her friend/roommate are convinced that she knew exactly what she was doing, but I am still not entirely sure and think it was all on the storage place...

I cancelled the credit card that night and filed a fraud claim. My dad's theory, along with several people on TW, is that the storage unit knew this woman was a deadbeat and saw my credit card as easy money...

I called the storage place the following morning (Saturday, April 1st) and was very polite. In return, the woman I talked to was also very polite; I explained the situation and said that "some woman with a Subaru" had been working when I paid the $10 balance. She knew exactly who this was and said that the woman with the Subaru had saved the card when she should not have. The woman told me that I had complicated things by cancelling the credit card and that she could have easily refunded the money or just written me a check; I believed that I would be getting credited by my credit card company and didn't think was was necessary, but said I would call back if any issues arose. We ended the call on good terms...

 

You brought this up previously.

My opinion that they saved your card on purpose stands. They want the money, don’t care where it comes from.

#merica

 

More than two weeks later, I got a notification that my credit card company did not consider it fraud and would be refunding the money; I flipped out. My plan that day had been to drive Amanda to my mechanic's to look at a 2007 Volvo he was selling; I called the storage place from Pete's and explained the situation...

It was the same woman I talked to on April 1st, and she said there nothing they could do; I remained civil, but threatened a lawsuit at some point during the conversation and ultimately ended up hanging up out of pure frustration.

I then called my mom and immediately lost my shit, saying some things about what I would like to do Amanda's ex and his mom, which probably would have gotten me arrested it people who didn't know me well overhead me; Amanda called up her roommate and the mother, and the mother agreed to pay me back when she got her next social security check. I couldn't find the storage place on Yelp, but found a profile on Google Reviews, and immediately nuked them, calling them a bunch of con artists...

A day or two later, the mom had the nerve to ask for physical proof that she owed me nearly $140, and wanted me to show her the credit card statement; Amanda and I were in the truck and my friend Helen was on the phone. I blew my stack and referred to the ex's mom as a "fucking cunt" if I remember correctly; I later apologized to Helen for using this language in front of her.

I took screenshots of my credit card statement and sent them to Amanda, who in turn sent them to the mom, with the message from me that I would be taking them to court if I didn't get my money back immediately. She accepted the screenshot as sufficient proof...

The next morning, I checked my credit card statement in the app and found that it had been credited $137.60! I have no idea what happened, but I think that threatening to sue and calling the storage people con artists in an online review played a role. Shortly after, the mom's bill for the storage rent increased to about $300; I removed the angry review of North Pocono Self Storage from Google Reviews and, needless to say, I will only helping out people in cold hard cash from here on out.

 

I got my money back a couple days after writing a nasty review of the storage place online, and the $137.60 was immediately tacked onto the mom's balance. She can go fuck herself as far as I'm concerned!

 

Yeah, I would have probably called the storage company before canceling the credit card.
I would have told them the situation, and that I never authorized reoccurring payments to be made on that card. I would have asked for a refund. Id also tell them that as far as I was concerned, they can take the rest of the stuff in the storage unit and do with it as they please. As none of it was mine.

 

Who knew that @TnShooter had ice in his veins.

 

I was freaking out because I thought that @Stitchgirl90's ex's mom had my credit card number, she is chronically broke and has knowingly written bad checks before, and I didn't want there to be any chance of her using it again; Amanda thinks she was feeling vindictive because I essentially stole Amanda from her loser of a son, but I think it was more the storage place. That said, looking back on it, I probably should have waited 12 hours (the place had closed and would open on Saturday morning) and contacted the storage place before cancelling the credit card; I still have absolutely no idea what prompted the storage place to credit the money back to my account, but I think my negative review calling them "a bunch of con artists" helped...

 

If I were to bet, they didn’t get paid by the due date.
They had a card on file and used it. Worst case, they have to refund the money.
If you never noticed or called, they got a $137.60.
Is it right? No. But it happens.

 

@TnShooter

In 2015-2018, I would regularly drive to the Wawa in Doylestown to buy cigarettes for my coworkers (when I worked at a bar/music venue called Puck); I don't smoke, and I think the staff at Wawa knew this. They became especially suspicious when I bought multiple brands of cigarettes at one time. One time in 2015, I was buying cigarettes for one of the bartenders, a woman who was in her early 40s at the time; I made mistake of saying that the cigarettes were for a coworker and not for me, and they refused to sell them to me. I ended up having to go to CVS to buy the cigarettes...



The general manager (my boss), a good number of the bartenders, a couple of the barbacks, and one of the bouncers all smoked. This was a year or two after the incident where I let it slip that I was buying smokes for Charlene (the bartender/bar manager), so there's no way in hell these people recognized me. They knew I wasn't buying three or four different brands of cigarettes for myself, but I had learned from the 2015 incident where I was buying them for Charlene. The youngest coworker I bought cigarettes for was a barback who was like 24 or 25, and the oldest was the bouncer who was in his 40s, so nobody was underage; I started working at Puck when I was 25 (almost 26), and Puck closed a couple months before my 30th birthday, so I was plenty old enough to buy tobacco products.

Every time I walked into Wawa to buy smokes for my coworkers, they would look at me with suspicion and try to pry into my business. There was this one girl who knew me, but insisted on asking for my ID every time I bought cigarettes. I flipped out at another girl, probably in her late teens, because she made me take off my sunglasses even though I was clearly the guy in the picture on the driver's license I'd just handed her.

At one point, I believed that Wawa was selling my personal info to telemarketers, because instead of merely looking at my license they would swipe it through a scanner; I became so paranoid that I would hand them my military dependent ID card (which could not be scanned). They initially refused to take it, but I stared the cashier down and gave them a "don't fuck with me" look.

 

Amanda's ex's mom had $130 in her account, so her debit card got declined over less than eight bucks. The aforementioned "woman with the Subaru" saved my card. Whether or not this was an accident, I will never know. What I would like to know is why the other woman initially refused to refund my money, but then they did a couple days later...

 

I bought a lot of beer once. The guy behind the counter told me to be careful.
When I asked what he meant, he said “You just turned 21, and I know all this isn’t for you”. Looking back, he was actually trying to give me advice.

 

If they hadn’t refunded my money. I’d demand access to the storage unit. They wouldn’t charge me next month. Because there wouldn’t be anything in there. Unless someone, somewhere came up with some money.

 

I was tempted to help myself to some of their belongings, but two wrongs don't make a right...

 

I wouldn’t have kept any of it.
I would have hauled to the dump.
I have no problems throwing away perfectly good stuff.

 

Annoying definitely, though it could be the local authorities or the company driving it. My sister carded me at age 23 for cigarettes at her job every time.