People have been talking for months about the next royal heir. Experts have been saying they think she is carrying a girl and the rules were changed in case it was a girl.

WELL………..

They had a boy, His Royal Highness The Prince Of Cambridge!

 

Now I am American but this is a very big deal for my family. As we are Scottish and have ancestors and extended family still in England and Scotland.

 

Congrats and enjoy every moment of you can privately with your new bundle of joy.

I found out I was the recent victim of a scam that has been going around. If you have worked with Pinecone Research than you probably have heard about it or been part of it.   Pinecone Research is a marketing company that sends you emails with surveys to take and they pay you $3 per survey.

So when I got the email from my contact, that I trusted having worked with them for 4 years. I thought the survey was legitimate. I was to cash a check and do a Western Union Secret Shopper survey.   I didn’t really look into it or think anything of it. Like I said I worked with this company for 4 years. After I cashed the check and did the transfer, the check bounced 3 days later. I would find out a few hours later that it was a scam after contacting Pinecone Research, the BBB, and local authorities.

I am devastated, I lost a lot of money and that was the money to catch up on bills, and take my kids out to do fun things this summer.

I guess I have to chalk it up to a lesson learned. I am still actively pursuing every available option to catch these thieves.

I blame a little bit of everyone for this, specially myself for being so dumb when it came to this. I also put a little blame on Pinecone research for not doing more to stop this afterall this person is using their company name.   The only thing they have done is post a note on their site, which I don’t think has been there that long. That is not good enough for me. They never sent a email around about this.

This is one of the emails I was sent

Dear Brandy,

The check meant to cover the expenses for the survey should be delivering soon, you are required to cash the check and proceed with your first assignment.

Your Immediate Assignment:

Carry out a Secret Survey on the nearest Western Union outlet in your location by forwarding a fixed amount { $1550.00 } to a “Mystery Consumer” in another region who’s conducting the same survey at the “Recipient” end.

Recipient’s Western Union Information:

Names: ADAM IVEY
City: SUGAR LAND
State: TX
Zip Code: 77479

Amount: ($1550.00)
MTCN: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Your income is $150.00 for the survey.
You’re to deduct another $150.00 to cover the transfer charges (Money in Minutes) at the Western Union outlet.

How to rate the Western Union Outlet’s Service:

You’re to simply rate the Western Union outlet’s service by simply observing and recording the parameters below:

Outlet store Address:
Appearance of Agent:
Time taken to complete Transaction:
Service:
Friendliness:
Efficiency:
Future improvement you would like to see:

Western Union Details After Completing the Survey:

Senders Name:
Senders Address:
MTCN:
Amount Sent:

Upon completion of the survey, you are to Immediately send us an E-mail with your rating of the outlet and the 10-Digit MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number) Nos of the transaction at Western Union which would be needed by the mystery consumer to complete her survey.

Thanks in advance for your participation.

Have a great day!
Karen Scott
Email: [email protected]
If you wish to opt out from receiving future emails from PineCone Research, please click the link below:

Opt Out

If you wish to unsubscribe from PineCone Research, please enter your email address below, followed by the reason(s) for your discontinuation and the click, “opt-out.” We are sorry to see you go and appreciate the time you spent with us.

END

Now everything looks exactly like the emails you get with surveys

I contacted Pinecone and they said it is a scam and that it had been happening a while. First off if this has been happening and tehy know about it, why not contact the authorities? why not contact every single person doing surveys for you to let them know?

I am still trying to figure all this out. The emails were from the exact same email address I get all the surveys from everything.  Plus another thing I don’t understand I never gave my address out to anyone else. So how was the check sent to me?

I also put a little blame on my bank for not realizing sooner that the check was fake and just cashing it without putting a hold on it or anything. I tried to get my money back but they said they cashed the check on good faith that it would be paid. So in reality they really don’t protect their customers against check fraud.

So please don’t fall for this. I have a long road ahead to make this up to my family.

Please do not make hurtful comments as I know what I did was stupid enough and don’t need to be put down anymore.

Have you ever been the victim of fraud?

Happy Earth Day

My son has been learning about the enviroment and recycling at school, and asked if we could clean up out front of our house. Sounds weird right? Where we live we really don’t have a front yard it’s like a walkway and then the driveway. We live in a duplex on a hill. The thing is though there is a wooded area in front of our gated walkway, and we live between a middle school and a 7-11. Plus there is a gas station/service station across the street.

So there is a lot of garbage in the wooded area, from the students and people going to 7-11 and then walking back.

So our Earth day project today was to pick up the garbage outside and if we see any garbage throughout the day. There really is no reason to litter, it’s bad for teh earth and there are garbages everywhere.

The garbage:

I am thinking a lot of this never got cleaned up after Hurricane Sandy, because we found clothes, political signs etc. Very Weird?

We collected two grocery bags full, plus there is still more out there. It is either stuck in the ground, or to steep on the hill to get.

What are you doing for Earth Day?

Please Spring show your face. This winter has been a crazy one and I am so over the snow. After Nemo bringing 29″ inches to my town, and Saturn bringing 9 inches I can’t do it anymore.

It s snowing right now as I am writing this. Even though the first day of Spring is only a few days away, we still have a few days of snow in the forecast.

So I am begging the weather to please show Spring, I am tired of freezing, shoveling, and most of all having my little car get stuck in the snow.

 

I’ve neer seen snow stick to the water, it was amazing.

There was so much snow at the school and no where to put it, so there are really big snow piles everywhere.

 

Now that everything is starting to get back to normal, we can see the grass and ground. LOL

This storm has been eventful, I got stuck in the snow driving 3 times. The last time my kids and I just abandoned the car and walked home.

Nemo! LOL!

The snow is so heavy it pulled my bushes down

I tried to see how deep it was to me, this is as far as I got and my feet were still not touching the ground.

My backyard