Consumer Report

Today's post is largely a public service announcement to encourage you to be very careful about what you trust in your inbox.  I have an American Express account that I use as my main credit card and therefore I'm very accustomed to seeing emails from them on a regular basis.  They email me with an account snapshot whenever I make a charge.  They email me special offers for "valued cardholders".  Sometime I even get emails from them encouraging me to use my rewards points.  Today though, I got an email that concerned me.  It was an email (in the usual Amex email format) asking for my feedback about my recent call to them.  This call that they claimed I made was to activate my new card...  This made no sense to me as I (1) didn't call them recently, (2) don't have a new card, and (3) don't need a new card until 2015!  My first thought was that someone got a hold of my information, requested a card be sent to them, activated it, and I was about to be in for my own fraudulent card nightmare.  I called Amex customer service to detail this incident and find out just exactly what was going on and it turns out that the email was fraud.  COULD'VE FOOLED ME!  It had an opt out option, my full name as it appears on the credit card, and several links for me to click to respond as I saw fit.  (Luckily, I didn't click on these links.)  I suppose it's possible that whatever page I went to would have asked for all of my information and then my original suspicions would have rang true.  Anyway, the Customer Service Representative asked that I forward the email I received to their security dept so they could follow up and that's what I did.  I'll keep you all posted on what happens.

The point?  BE CAREFUL!  I consider myself very internet savvy and I was almost tricked by this. 

Stay careful my fellow Americans. ;)

(Photo: Courtesy of http://www.expandmywealth.com)

California, here I...am!

Nope, not on vacation this time.  This time I actually LIVE here.  For those of you who don't know, I took a medical leave of absence from school this past February and about a month and a half later made a cross country drive with my love ("Lefty" from former posts) to live with him in beautiful Southern California.  His home....SCRATCH THAT...Our home is a three bedroom, two bathroom house in Anaheim, CA.  There's a nice, spacious kitchen for cooking and a huge comfy couch for lounging.  Not to mention a wonderful man who invited me to be a part of it. 

Living in CA has certainly had it's ups and downs, though I'll admit it's mostly ups. =)  The main downer has to do with my job situation.  I got here (safely) on April 3rd and had a full time job with a 2 hour (round trip) train commute waiting for me the very next day. I was EXHAUSTED from the four day cross country drive, but thrilled to have reliable employment ready to go.  Sad thing was that the pharmacy I had gotten a job at was super shady.  They were paying me cash out of the register, never verified my HIPAA certifications, and were just letting me chill (unsupervised) next to vicodin without ever doing a background check or drug test on me.  I knew it was weird from the start and it turned out my hunch was right.  After about a week they were like, yea we needed help catching us up, but we're good now thanks.  They then handed me my pay and that was that.  =/  Since then, I've been searching for jobs like crazy.  There's not a whole lot available to me here, but I have gotten 2 weekly babysitting gigs and I'm teaching piano to two kids weekly.  It's not the M-F 9-5 that I was hoping for, but thankfully it is getting me by.  Also, Lefty is able to take care of me while I look for a job and do these spot babysitting jobs. =)

The ups.  Well for one, there's Lefty.  Now there's a man that any girl would be insane to let out of her life.  His kindness and care for me was something that I wasn't good at accepting at first as it was so unprecedented in my life.  I never knew that there was someone like him in the world for me.  He can tell by my eyes whether or not I'm genuinely happy and  if I'm not he does everything in his power to fix it.  He brings me flowers from the Farmer's Market some Friday's for no reason.  Just to show he cares.  Even though he knows it means I'm going to pay less attention to him...he encourages me to study.  He makes me want to make something of myself.  He makes me want to be selfless.  If you're reading this, Lefty, I love you babe. =)

Other ups, there's my crew!!  Yep!  I'm living within 45 minutes of The Designer, The Director, The Politician, The Filmographer, and The Baker.  I've gotten to see them fairly often and it's been wonderful.  Parties, game night, poker night, you name it...we do it.  It's nice to have a piece of home with me here in this foreign area. Of course, I'll always have Lefty, but it's nice to have something else of my own here.

The only other down I can think of: I miss my friends and family.  A lot.  In fact, I'm looking for cheap tickets now to go back at the beginning of June!  Yay!

Finally....we'll end on an up....I've met a ton of nice people here.  Lefty's friends have now evolved into my friends as well.  We can joke, laugh, and chill....even without Lefty.  (Although it's always better when we're together.)  =)

I still feel like this is just the beginning of my California adventure.  I'll keep you guys posted on the ride.