psychology of bad customer service,laziness of bad customer service,bad customer service and incompetent,bad customer service and unprofessionalism,bad customer service and dishonesty,bad customer service and mentally handicapped,phenomenon of bad customer service,tired of bad customer service,costs of bad customer service,remedies for bad customer service,reporting agencies for bad customer service,lawsuits for bad customer service,
This editorial product/services review web page contains and
includes my opinions, suspicions, hunches, best recollections, etc.
All content contained herein is cleared by my First Amendment attorney.
Would you like to sue me?
Go for it.AnytimeMailbox.com
Postnet.comThe very worst virtual mailbox services on earth
How to find a Good, Reliable, Dependable,
Honest Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service.
Or not.EMAILS ARE NOW POSTED
Printing, Shipping, and Design Services — PostNet
How to Find / Choose a Reliable / Best Virtual Mailbox Service, Reviews, Top Two Worst:
PostNet.com, AnytimeMailbox.com, Lauren A. Chamberlain, Carson City, sucks,
Criminal complaints and lawsuit; bad, dishonest, unreliable, businesses.
PostNet NV187, Carson City, Nevada, Owned by Lauren A. Chamberlain, Sucks,
and You Can Take
That to the Bank. This website describes my experiences with
Lauren A. Chamberlain,
PostNet.com, and AnytimeMailbox.com
Best Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, or not!
Illegal Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, Yes!
Great Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, or not!
Criminal Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, Yes!
Honest Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, or not!
Reliable Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, or not!
Dependable Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, or not!
Professional Virtual Digital Private Mailbox Service, or not!
THIS SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION:
This website is a work in progress as of February 17, 2019.
I expect it to be in flux for several years.
AnytimeMailbox.com is part of this problem
More Unhappy Customers (victims)
More Unhappy Customers (victims)
Oh My God -- why didn't I Google these idiots first?
Now that I see just how bad this company is (above), it ignites a fire in me. I really, really, truly don't like bad businesses. It's time this one got the attention it obviously so richly deserves. I will commit all the money I can to advertise this page.
Services typically offered by various Virtual Private Digital Mailbox Services around the country, including PostNet, Postnet-NV187, AnytimeMailbox, etc.: Forms, Trade Show Displays, Banners, Packaging Services, Newsletters, Notary Public, Menu Printing, Shredding Services, Door Hangers, Packing Supplies, FedEx Shipping, Laminating, Custom Greeting Cards, Direct Mail, Binding, US Postal Service, Live Scan Fingerprinting, Postcards, Calendars, Labels, Stationery, Passport Photos, Flyers, UPS Shipping, Brochures, International Shipping, DHL Drop Offs, Canvas Wraps, Packing Services, Posters, Blueprints, Invitations, Business Cards, Vehicle Graphics, UPS Drop Offs, Packaging Supplies, Stickers, Envelopes, Mailbox Rental, Carbonless Forms, DHL Shipping, Virtual Mailbox Rental, Copies, Letterhead, Every Door Direct Mail, Computer Rental, Scanning Services, Promotional Products, 3D Printing, FedEx Drop Offs, Presentation Materials, Signs, Crating & Freight, Yard Signs, Fax, Graphic Design -- but beware; complaints about shoddy, unreliable, dishonest work are legion.
I didn't personally have any trouble with PostNet.com stealing from me (above), but then they didn't have time to get around to it, so we will never know if they would have. They simply sent my mail back to the sender. Or somewhere. Fine outfit -- NOT. Oh wait a minute! Postnet.com (Lauren A Chamberlain) mysteriously neglected to refund my unused money after she terminated my account -- wow! How, oh how, could she have "accidentally" forgotten that? Hmmm... I had to file a VISA chargeback to recover the funds (2/8/2019 BUGO LLC HENDERSON NV $13.53). Is that technically stealing? Yes, I believe it is. If you charge money for a service you don't provide, I see that as plain old theft. What a fine, upstanding company this is! Simply stunning! The revelations just keep coming. How many more to go before we get to bedrock? Lauren A. Chamberlain promised numerous times, in writing, to swap my account off to another vendor rather than simply cancel my account and leave all my mail out there in the ether -- but she simply never did it. Did she lie? Or is she simply incompetent? It's one or the other. Or maybe it's both? Why am I SO DAMNED ANGRY about this? Because I don't like bad businesses; I don't like incompetent businesses; I don't like dishonest businesses. And because this business caused me great inconvenience and possibly great hardship, depending on what mail ultimately goes missing. They did this not for any good or noble reason, but because they didn't like me threatening to file against them with the BBB and government agencies and they wanted to retaliate like a damned five year old. I find that a great many people are tired of being treated badly by virtual mailbox services -- I'm certainly not alone. The fact that these types of companies are doing this to "the masses", with apparent impunity, really, really ticks me off. It ticks me off enough to create an entire website about it.
How to choose a virtual address provider (this guy is far more optimistic than I am!)
PostNet franchise owners have an alarming 30% SBA default rate.
What does this mean? It means there's an extremely high probability
the "service" you contract with and depend on for a critical part of
your personal and business life -- namely, your ADDRESS -- stands
a very high probability of simply vanishing off the earth and leaving you
hanging, especially if that virtual private digital address service is PostNet.
If you rely on a service like this, Be afraid. Be very afraid.The apparent drop in PostNet franchises in recent years is also a cause for concern.
PostNet Franchise PostNet U.S. franchises in 2008: 415 PostNet U.S. franchises in 2011: 314 Growth in franchise units 2008 – 2011 (#) -101 Growth in franchise units 2008 – 2011 (%): -24% SBA loans granted since 2001: 121 SBA loan failure rate: 30%
All interactions with this company/person (Postnet.com and Lauren A. Chamberlain) will be detailed here. All court records and transcripts will be disseminated here. The more material that's added to this page, the higher it will rank in Google. It's like whale blubber -- the more you chew it, the bigger and harder to swallow it becomes. Too bad this outfit didn't nip this while they still could, but I think the reader will glean an excellent insight into how this person, Lauren A. Chamberlain, thinks and conducts business -- then it will be the public's turn to decide if they want to take a chance on this "service" (nightmare) in the handling of an extremely critical part of their lives and businesses -- namely, their address. If you want this company to treat you as they've treated me, by all means give them your trust. Or if you expect a service to be vastly more professional and competent, look elsewhere.
How to find a Reliable Virtual Private Mailbox Service. Or not.
There is one thing the reader must remember when deciding whether or not to engage in business with these loons and it is this:
All I wanted to do was change my billing plan from monthly to yearly.
Let's try that again:
All I wanted to do was change my billing plan from monthly to yearly.
One more time for the record:
All I wanted to do was change my billing plan from monthly to yearly.
When you see how this company responded to this dog-simple request, you'll be stunned.
I know I am.
If you need a RELIABLE virtual private address service, run far and fast from PostNet.com
If you need an HONEST virtual private address service, run far and fast from PostNet.com
If you need a COMPETENT virtual private address service, run far and fast from PostNet.com
If you need a RESPONSIVE virtual private address service, run far and fast from PostNet.com
If you need a PROFESSIONAL virtual private address service, run far and fast from PostNet.com
PostNet International Franchise Corporation
143 Union Blvd, Ste 600
Lakewood, CO 80228Tel: 303.771.7100
Toll Free: 800.841.7171
This page will detail my experiences with
Postnet.com, Mailbox Services,and
Lauren A Chamberlain
Carson City, Nevada, franchise ownerNote: Latest developments always appear appended to the bottom of this page.
Postnet.com Sucks
How to find a Reliable Virtual Private Mailbox Service
Or not.
What is this page about?
The way I see it is this: A customer (me) asked for and paid for, but didn't receive, a good or even usable service from Postnet.com in Carson City, Nevada (Lauren A Chamberlain). I finally called them out on their supremely crappy service. The owner, Lauren A Chamberlain, seeing that she and/or her staff really screwed up, had two choices: She could (a) apologize and fix the most current problem, which would have required about 25 seconds of her time and not only would not have cost her any money, but would have put substantially more money in her pocket. Done deal at that point; end of story. Or (b), she could decide to double-down and "stick it to me" in any way she could, as "punishment" to me for calling her out, and in so doing let her fat ego blind her to all common sense and good business, and try to turn the problem back onto the victim/customer. Remember "Little House on the Prairie"? Remember "Nellie"? That's the human way, left over from the primate way -- I see it every day in the gangs of monkeys that roam the Cambodia jungle all around me -- and when caught, humans (and actually monkeys too, if you watch closely enough) try to make the victim look bad. Unfortunately, some people take issue with this, and expose it. We see this problem in stupidly-run businesses all across the country. I've always felt that wanna-be parents should be required by law to undergo training in the raising of a child BEFORE they hatch one. I also think wanna-be business owners should be required by law to undergo appropriate training (legal, psychological -- hell, we even sent our restaurant people to "Manners School" out of state for two weeks to train them how to act like proper Ladies and Gentlemen who were engaged in doing business with the public) BEFORE they're allowed to open and run a business, especially when that business provides a critical product or critical service which, if faulty, can have extreme consequences for the customer/victim when it's botched, mishandled, screwed up, not rendered... Individual, private business owners very often choose option B, while large corporations often know better, and will choose option A -- which puts more money in their pockets and promotes their reputations, which in turn puts even more money in their pockets. Good business is good business; good business begets good business. Bad / stupid / unprofessional / incompetent / dishonest / nasty /off-putting business practices and attitudes beget more bad business and a litany of incensed, angry customers, and it causes businesses to fail. PostNet.com seemed to be a "big" company -- I didn't research it properly or enough to see that it is simply a hodge-podge collection of local mom-and-pops who probably never received 30 minutes of training -- It looks to me as though the entire corporate business of PostNet.com worldwide could be carried out on a single laptop in someone's basement. I should have done better research, as you are doing now. I wrongly assumed I would be dealing with an educated, crisply professional corporation, and not some old small-town gal with little more than a $20 business license. To find another vendor is a matter of clicking your mouse. Anyway, Lauren A Chamberlain chose option "B", and so here we are.
Summary:
I signed up for a virtual private post office service with these people.
I used a particular credit card and left it on file so it could be used to pay the service every month.
The card was successfully charged for the first month, AND for the stunning $85 "notary" fee. During the second month, this company simply blocked my address without notification or grace period. When I accidentally caught the problem later and contacted them, they replied saying the card could not be charged. No warning. No grace period. Was incoming mail being refused and turned back? I'll never know how much mail I lost. Business offers? Job offers? Notices of illnesses/deaths of my friends? Who knows?!
I thought the card problem was odd since the same card was successfully charged the first time -- and also charged for their connected, absurd and seemingly scammy "Notary Service" needed to set the account up. I expected about $9.95 to be charged for that, which was done over the phone. Or, if they were really, really going to stick it to me, maybe, I thought, they'd hit me for something like $19.95 for that preparatory service. I was stunned when they nailed me for $85 AFTER the service had been rendered. Does PostNet.com get a kickback on this? USPS says it's necessary to protect the security of America. Bullshit. It's just another scam to bilk citizens and I believe the private postal services lobbied hard to instate this. But in any case, that's not the focus of this complaint. I mention it only to demonstrate that the card was fully working and obviously chargeable. The card was empty when they tried to charge it for February, 2019 -- it had $5000 remaining credit.
I checked and tripled checked and quadruple-checked the card data as it appeared on their website and everything was correct. Nothing had been changed since the first charges were made a month prior. Still, however, they couldn't get the card charged. I racked it up to some glitch in the way they configured their merchant account, and I simply input a new card, and that was charged successfully. Done deal. No problem. These things happen.
But I didn't want to be fighting this problem every month. This company had already convinced me that it was shady, maybe even dishonest (i.e. the scammy little notary song and dance). So I wanted to only wrestle with the billing problem once a year -- not once a month. I wanted no more unannounced cessations of my service. To that end, I started fishing around their website to find the button I needed to click to have Postnet.com switch to charging me annually, instead of monthly. Simple, right? Sure it is. Surely there was a button somewhere to do this. My own commercial websites can do this and it took about eleven seconds to set it up in my storefronts. Certainly Postnet.com included this easy feature in theirs, right? If I could do it, they could do it --
But they apparently couldn't do it, at least not that I could find. Their website said one must contact a real, live person and have them change it. WTH? Seriously? Really? Can't we all just move on up to the 21st Century? After all, it's been going on for NINETEEN YEARS now.
But no matter. I still foolishly thought this would be a simple matter -- just change the billing term on their end. Right? To that end I sent off an email to ask them to do that, or show me some way I could do it. I thought this would be something that they'd jump on -- after all, I WAS TRYING TO GIVE THEM MONEY! A business should ALWAYS try to make it easy for the customer to GIVE IT MONEY! That's what business is all about. But maybe not so much for Postnet.com, because they didn't reply. They simply didn't reply. They answered some other questions, but they didn't reply to that one, which was the most important one.
Finally, frustrated at something that should have required, literally, five seconds, I emailed again and asked them again to reply and answer the question which was, clearly and specifically, "How do I change my billing plan to annual?" I think my ferret could grasp this.
I emailed a third time, asking the same question, and I advised that the BBB and Attorney General's office would be my next stop if no reply was forthcoming. By then I wasn't just frustrated; not merely exasperated; I was becoming angry with what I assumed to be yet another stupid, incompetent California business.
I didn't have time for this game, whatever it was, and I asked a fourth time, advising AGAIN, pretty testily, that I was ready to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Consumer Affairs Division of the Nevada Attorney General. Why was I testy after three tries? Read more here.
Ah! That did it!
I INSTANTLY got a reply saying that they had already answered my question. TWICE! But they hadn't. They had sent no answer that I could find anywhere. The complete contents of all exchanges were right there in the gmail thread. There was no answer to my question, telling me how to change the billing plan. None. Zip. Nada. Did they simply lie?
But the company's response seemed now caustic and rude (rather like mine). Still, they wanted to argue, instead of simply saying, "Oh, we're sorry, we understand you want to change your billing to annual -- we can help you with that right now."
And I would have said thank you, and they would have clicked a box, and all would have been well with the world.
But Lauren A Chamberlain, owner, Just. Couldn't. Do. That. Instead she wanted to bicker about whether they had answered the question previously. I assured Lauren A Chamberlain, owner, that I had no reply in my email thread regarding that question. It wasn't there. Period. But Lauren A Chamberlain, owner, got testier and testier, and so did I, and she then vowed to cancel my account in its entirety, thereby forcing me to find a new address, and to go to the extreme trouble of submitting changes of addresses for all of my business and financial dealings all around the world.
I said I would sue and I meant it. She essentially said go for it -- including some stupid threat about suing ME for defamation (please, please, I beg you, try).
You'd think that would be the end, or the beginning, of a bunch of legal stuff and that communication between us would serve no further purpose, right? I resolved to just getting on with the case, preparing the steps to be taken if she did, indeed, terminate my mail service.
Ah, but we're dealing with Lauren A Chamberlain, owner. She then sent me a message saying she could not find my question about changing the billing. I was stunned. It was right there in the email thread, a few inches below all her threats to sue me. She had apparently never seen it, never even read it -- but she was loud and clear and obnoxious while telling me that she had responded twice to my question -- a question she had never seen?.
If she didn't know where the question was, and had not read it, how could she have responded to it? Supposedly twice?
I copied and pasted the original question and sent it back. There was still no advice on how to change the billing -- just an obnoxious reiteration that my account was being closed.
So there you have it as of February 15, 2019. In my opinion, this person is just another crackpot who probably never should have taken on the burden of being in business, especially with the public. This endeavor is, I believe, utterly and completely beyond the capabilities of Lauren A Chamberlain, owner.
Now we begin the process of researching this person and the company, finding out what problems others have had with it and Lauren A Chamberlain, owner, and beginning to compile those into a web page that endeavors to give folks everything they might ever possibly need to know in order to make a decision about trusting their identities to this company and this person. If you're a corporate or business entity, I submit you need far and vastly more professionalism and horse-sense in a company than this.
Initial completion of this page will take a week -- maybe several weeks. Appending court docs will likely continue for years. I will seek to recover my time and expenses in re-submitting my address to countless dozens of institutions and business contacts around the world. I am currently in SE Asia so it may take time to get around to dragging these fools into a courtroom -- but it will be done. You can't let outrageous stupidity this egregious go unchallenged. You just can't.
I'll update this page as time allows -- sometimes, near the Cambodia border, Internet is hard to find. Conversely, mosquitoes are not. But no one on earth could ever let this go, and I won't either. I'm weary to the bone of stupid people in business -- especially businesses that people and other businesses must depend on for their financial lives. A whole slew of financial docs, including renewing credit cards, are already en route to this postal box -- I assume it will all get turned around and sent back, which will require a great deal of interaction with all of these entities to get the stuff sent to a new address, and that will take time, and time is money (I only earn $55 an hour, but I'll bill for every second of my time).
Lauren A Chamberlain, owner, says she has the right to refuse business to ANYONE she doesn't like.
Not so fast.
Let her tell her story to the court. In the meantime, I suggest she start Goggling cases like this.
All I wanted to do was change my mailbox billing!!
--Amazing how this devolved into chaos
UPDATE 2-16-2019
The entire thread of the emails are here
At this point, given what appear to me to be the outright lies by Lauren A Chamberlain, "owner", (to be included as time allows) I find myself wondering if we can pursue actual criminal charges of fraud.
UPDATE 2-17-2019
I have suddenly begun receiving alerts from my identity theft protection service that my email address (particularly) and other data has been compromised -- that is to say unknown people are TRYING to get into my services; they haven't yet succeeded that we know of. I find it an incredible, stupendously implausible coincidence that this mailbox company, Postnet.com, has access to a good deal of very secure data (mine), and I have engaged in a major dispute with these folks, and suddenly my security dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree. I would not in the least be surprised if these people are behind this -- they certainly seem to me to be of this caliber. I may never find out who initiated this attack -- or, maybe I will. You just never know. I come from a Federal Law Enforcement background. Retired now, and I no longer have access to the networks, but....maybe someone I worked with does. Are the culprits ultimately "knowable". Yes, of course. Virtually ALL wannabe hackers can be traced; the cost of success is a matter of how sophisticated they are/were. Teenage punks can be found for about a hundred bucks. Russian hackers are significantly more difficult to trace; Terrorists can be the most difficult of all, but nearly all can be ultimately found if the will (and the money) is there. Let's see how this shakes out over time. Personally, my money is on entities within PostNet.com, or friends of, or family of.
UPDATE: 2-17-2019:
Beginning to get a handle on who this person is -- this will take months to complete and will probably be moved to a satellite page:
LAUREN A CHAMBERLAIN Manager LACCRB, LLC LACCRB, LLC
New Search Manage this Business Calculate List Fees Printer Friendly
Business Entity Information
Status: Active File Date: 5/2/2018 Type: Domestic Limited-Liability Company Entity Number: E0217332018-4 Qualifying State: NV List of Officers Due: 5/31/2019 Managed By: Managers Expiration Date: NV Business ID: NV20181318471 Business License Exp: 5/31/2019
Registered Agent Information
Name: AMERICAN CORPORATE ENTERPRISES, INC. Address 1: 123 WEST NYE LN STE 129 Address 2: City: CARSON CITY State: NV Zip Code: 89706 Phone: Fax: Mailing Address 1: Mailing Address 2: Mailing City: Mailing State: NV Mailing Zip Code: Agent Type: Commercial Registered Agent - Corporation Jurisdiction: CARSON CITY Status: Active View all business entities under this registered agent
Financial Information
No Par Share Count: 0 Capital Amount: $ 0 No stock records found for this company
Officers Include Inactive Officers
Manager - CHARLA RENEE BARNETT Address 1: 123 W. NYE LANE, SUITE 129 Address 2: City: CARSON CITY State: NV Zip Code: 89706 Country: Status: Active Email: Manager - LAUREN A CHAMBERLAIN Address 1: 123 W. NYE LANE, SUITE 129 Address 2: City: CARSON CITY State: NV Zip Code: 89706 Country: Status: Active Email:
Actions\Amendments Click here to view 2 actions\amendments associated with this company
Action Type: Articles of Organization Document Number: 20180202992-65 # of Pages: 4 File Date: 5/2/2018 Effective Date: (No notes for this action) Action Type: Initial List Document Number: 20180202993-76 # of Pages: 1 File Date: 5/2/2018 Effective Date: Business entities under registered agent "AMERICAN CORPORATE ENTERPRISES, INC."
UPDATE February 20, 2019:
I have now done a significant amount of research into "private virtual mailbox and mail-forwarding" services. I have yet to find one I would trust. I am reminded of the practice years ago of government agencies who assisted ex-cons, especially burglars, in setting up small businesses of their own, in hopes of keeping them from re-offending and ending up back in jail. What was the con's number one preferred new vocation? Locksmithing, of course. I see many parallels in the private mailbox industry. What's a top choice among people who might be of marginal intelligence and/or non-existent competence and devoid of any semblance of professionalism? It's a dog-simple occupation to break into with almost no capital. Lots of folks retire or are otherwise pushed out of cushy government jobs -- then they don't know what to do with themselves. They often get a little nest egg of a settlement, so they start a private mailbox service. I've had three acquaintances start them up -- and screw them up -- and not one of them had the sense God gave a crowbar. These mailbox folks are really something; I've always known that. But I'm now learning just how bad they really are. I'm beginning to think I simply can't afford the liability of doing business with them at all. I actually do believe there may be a good one out there somewhere, but they're going to be extremely difficult and time consuming to find. I had one in another state that I used for about 25 years without the slightest hiccup, so it's technically possible a good one exists. I'm trying to do business with a new one in Reno now, but it is beginning to look like this one might also be an unprofessional, lazy louse. I'll report it here if that turns out to be the case. I'm told there has been contact between this new one, and Postnet's prize, Lauren A. Chamberlain, in Carson City. Let's see if that turns out to be true. Conducting the easiest, simplest, most basic bits of business with these outfits seems to be completely beyond their capabilities. I want to say that little girls running corner lemonade stands do better and you might think that would be a joke -- But I now mean that absolutely literally. UPDATE: I now believe that there was probably no communication between Lauren A. Whatever, and the virtual mailbox outfit in Reno. They bombed and failed the professionalism test all on their own -- after assuring me they were consummate professionals. Good grief.
UPDATE: February 22, 2019; I think this, almost better than any other piece of this case, demonstrates the mentality we're dealing with in this woman. Bear in mind as you read the exchange below that I am over 8000 miles from her, and she knows it; I have not been in the USA for many years (soon a decade) and I have no plan to ever return to the United States (largely because of human beings like this). This is a little window into this woman's soul:
We have just received the following from Lauren A. Chamberlain:
On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:16 AM PostNet NV187 <nv187@PostNet.com> wrote:
Mr. Neil:
I was made aware of your website http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/badder_business_bureau/postnet_mailboxes/index.shtml on Monday the 18th of February. After going over the contents of your website I had no other choice but to file a Temporary Order of Protection against you. We are scared of you.Sincerely,
Lauren A. Chamberlain | Owner
PostNet of Carson City
Aside: I rode a particular white horse for years on rustler patrol for a 704,000 acre ranch (PS, white is the wrong color for that job). He was utterly terrified of dark colored stumps. Should he have been granted a protection order against dark colored stumps? I think Lauren A. would say yes. I'm beginning to form a notion of what her political affiliation may be -- Hint: it's the party devoid of common sense and logic.
Reply back to Lauren A. Chamberlain:
Cease and desist. Previously, you were advised, twice, in writing, that further communication from you to me would be considered instance(s) of criminal harassment. You ignored those directives twice -- now three times. For the record, once again, cease and desist contacting me for any reason at any time via any means. I view you as quite insane. If, indeed, you filed for a protection order, then you have broken the first rule of that order, namely, to not have contact with the other party. Again, I see you as the instigator of numerous problems, and I believe you are quite insane. You may file anything you want, and tell the judge you are scared of anything you want. You may endeavor to convince a judge you are scared of the very air, if that is your desire. But one thing you cannot do, and must not do, is contact me again. It seems you simply cannot stop, because it is your desire and your life mission to continue to inflame this situation. And this communication, too, shall be submitted to the courts. Now, cease and desist; this is the third time I have advised you of this. I now have enough documentation to file with the Ormsby county prosecutor for criminal harassment. Cease and desist. (Posted publicly on 2-22-2019)
I have no way to know if she actually did this. She has stated, in the past, in writing, that she would do or had done certain things, but it turned out she hadn't -- she had bold-faced lied. So who knows what she's done? Who knows what lies she might have told a judge? We don't get sustained Internet here on the border (Cambodia/Laos)(not even in the outer provinces of Thailand) and phone calls are a bloody nightmare. Two cans and a string would be more reliable. But if it turns out she actually pulled this dirty little stunt, I will have an attorney take her to task for it in Ormsby County, Nevada, and as long as I've gone to the trouble to hire and bring an attorney up to speed on this case, there's nothing to lose by having that attorney continue on with a formal lawsuit and to pursue criminal harassment charges. This damned fool just keeps digging herself a deeper hole.Will Lauren A. Chamberlain show my reply (above italics) to the judge? Any judge? Ever? No. I can guarantee she will not. But I will.
So let's try to analyze this -- let's try to get inside this woman's head for a moment, to try to understand where her insanity is coming from, and to try to predict what harebrained, illegal, criminal stunt she might pull next -- and mark my words, she WILL continue with this crap. She can't stop. It's in her DNA.
She says she has filed a temporary protection order. I am well familiar with them - I was thoroughly schooled in protection orders when a man who had kidnapped my wife 36 years earlier, and whom I stopped in the middle of that kidnapping, sought her out over three decades later and began harassing her by telephone, saying he was going to take her again. We went through five months of working with the courts to obtain protection orders and get the situation under control. One deputy suggested I take the man into the woods and --- but of course he was joking, right? Sure he was. In the end the legal solution worked, and that was gratifying. Did I say the courts worked? No, the courts left us flat. But another perfectly legal remedy did work and we never heard from the SOB again.
Let's talk about protection orders for a moment. At the time of the problem with the kidnapper, my attorney said he had two clients whose cases amazed him. One was a guy who was having some sort of friction with his co-workers. I believe it was a factory environment but I can't remember for sure. One day, as he sat alone in the cafeteria eating lunch, one of the problem co-workers came and sat at his table. The co-worker asked him this: "If you and I ever had any kind of problem, would you physically hurt me?" The other man thought the question was so patently absurd that he never uttered a word -- didn't smile, made no facial expressions, and the little turd never claimed that he did. The guy just left the table and went out of the lunchroom. The little turd had been trying to instigate a problem for months, and nothing had worked. This was the best he had, so he took it to a judge and claimed the man's LACK OF A RESPONSE had "scared" him, and he wanted a protection order. The judge granted it. The victim then was prevented from going to work; he lost his home, then his family. This is a true story. I watched it unfold all while we were pursuing an order against the wanna-be two-time kidnapper.
I watched another case unfold through that same attorney. Another man had obtained a protection order against another guy who appeared to be innocent. I don't KNOW that he was innocent in that case and it doesn't matter. What happened later was travesty enough. One day, several months later, the man found himself diagonally across the intersection from the man who had obtained the order. He was about to turn and walk away, but the man who had obtained the order waved at the other man. The other man, thinking that the petitioner was signaling to him that the problem was over, and there were no hard feelings, felt it was appropriate to wave back, to signal that he, too, felt that the problem was over and there were no hard feelings. After he waved he walked the other way. This was the man's story, and it was precisely the petitioner's story. The petitioner then filed a complaint saying the man (let's call him the victim at this point), had broken the protection order. The police then charged the victim and arrested him. What was the charge? Breaking the safe-distance zone? No. They charged him with ASSAULT. Assault? But that would be madness, surely? Yes, of course it was madness, but madness is far too often the SOP of America's law enforcement and judicial system now. It's a crazy place and I am thankful every single day that I haven't lived there for many years. The assault charge stemmed from a very loose interpretation of a very loose statute that said no physical contact was required for one individual to assault another -- it could be an "emotional condition brought on by proximity". The man was convicted of "assault". That's our system, folks. Be afraid; be very afraid. I cannot imagine any circumstance that would ever cause me to return to the USA. I see a lot of bizarre stuff in the Third World countries of SE Asia and Indonesia. But I don't see petty, chickens-shit, insane crap like this.
If Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet.com has actually filed a temporary protection order, then it is as it's represented, namely, temporary. It will have been granted for a period of probably 14 days, without the recipient ever being notified. That's kind of a flaw in the system, but kind of not -- it tramples on the rights of decent people if the order is sought frivolously and without cause, as this one has been, but it also serves to protect good people from bad people on a spur of the moment basis. Have a better idea regarding how this process might be structured? Tell the courts -- because they don't have a better idea, and neither do I. In any case, Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet says she has ALREADY filed for the order, and she then INSTANTLY broke that order by harassing me by email. All orders in every state decree that the grantee of the order MAY NOT have further contact with the recipient of the order. If the grantee of the order did further contact the recipient, that would show the court clearly that the grantee of the order has no intention of trying to calm the waters and be left alone, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE GRANTEE INSULTS THE RECIPIENT WITHIN THAT CONTACT as the grantee (Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet) has done in this case. It's clear to me, and it will be made clear to the courts, that she DESIRES to inflame this disagreement, She WANTS the attention. She LIKES to insult, demean and ridicule the recipient of the order (me) and she has ZERO respect for the recipient's repeated written demands to be left alone. In short, Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet, LIKES trouble, and when no trouble is coming her way, she will struggle to CREATE more trouble. I'll be quite interested to have my attorney speak with her ex-co-workers in her various past and present jobs. I wonder if there's a pattern in her behavior.
Perhaps Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet, thought --- well, hell. There is no point in speculating further. I don't speculate on the motivations of snakes other than to understand that they are driven by hunger. I think Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet, is also driven by hunger -- a hunger to jerk customers around, and to then keep the friction alive by incessantly contacting them with insults and craziness, even when they demand that she stop. Quite a piece of work, our Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet. And by necessity, this site just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Maybe THAT is what she wants -- maybe she craves the attention, even when it's negative.
Is it possible to sue for frivolous protection orders? Oh you better believe it! It's a concerted, coordinated attempt to strip a victim of his/her civil rights. It's huge. It ain't Small Claims Court.
Lauren A. Chamberlain, owner of PostNet NV187 at nv187@postnet seems to me to be a person bent on picking at a scab. She does this via repeated instances of criminal harassment. She simply cannot shut her pie-hole. My advice to her and all people like her is to sit back, shut up, let the process run through the courts, and accept the verdicts. But she won't. I can virtually guarantee she will contact me again and again and again, or she will have friends and family do it. Time for a protection order of my own -- and mine won't be frivolous.
I wonder if Lauren A. Chamberlain went to an attorney and discovered that she couldn't successfully sue for this website, and that drove her to a state of apoplectic rage. She then concocted the plot, or maybe her lawyer suggested it, to attempt a form of "legal harassment" by filing a protection order. After all, judges now hand them out like candy to kids. It almost doesn't matter if there's any shred of a threat to the applicant -- judges just hand them out, like needles to junkies in downtown San Francisco. I'll be curious to know her attorney's name.
To the notion that Lauren A. Chamberlain was only "made aware" of this website on Monday the 18th of February, no, in TRUTH she was notified in writing of it on Thu, Feb 14, at 1:36 PM, and she replied back to that notification almost instantly, so it's easy to prove she received it. There are a plethora of instances like this in this case, in which Lauren A. Chamberlain either accidentally or intentionally misstates facts. In some cases she appears to blatantly make up communications that never ocurred. Fortunately emails have header data to expose these kinds of lies. I'm not sure what she thinks she gains by this. These instances are easily set straight, which makes her out to look either incompetent, or dishonest, or both. Has she been doing this her entire life? Stick to the FACTS, please. I believe she thinks she has something to gain by misrepresenting the date she was made aware of this site (by me!), but I cannot at this time imagine what that is. Maybe in time we'll know, or maybe she's simply psychotic and we'll never know, and neither will she.
Lauren A. Chamberlain is in charge of a staggeringly critical service to the public -- THEIR MAIL. An incompetently run business, causing legally addressed and sent mail to be "misplaced", can wreak havoc on lives and that's a fact. Maybe you applied for a job or to attend a university and that response is never received because some rogue, poorly-run "virtual mailbox" service lost it, or mis-forwarded it, or sent it back -- and YOU LOSE. There's no consequence to "the service". All the warm poo slides directly down on top of you and your life. You might lose out on a college scholarship, or a refund check, or a critical communication from some government agency, or a letter from a long-lost loved one, or a notification of fraudulent activity on some Online account of which we all have too many -- these things and a million more can truly throw a life into chaos. It can even ruin one. As mentioned previously, I've now done an extreme amount of research into these types of "services", looking for a competent one, and I am slowly coming to the conclusion that there are so few in existence today that are worthy of this trust, that perhaps society would benefit MORE by not having them at all. We're seeing more and more crackdowns by USPS to reign in these outfits, to make them provide better service, to try to make them reliable, but the industry of virtual mailboxes is what it is -- it's run by people with virtually no training at all. How much training did Lauren A. Chamberlain receive? As much as a fry-cook at Burger King? I doubt it. As much as a checker at 7-11? I doubt it. I'm beginning to think these services should go away. I think logic and reason might be best served by compiling a few million complaints of bad service in the virtual mailbox industry, and presenting that to USPS and Congress, state's attorney generals and a host of other agencies, so they can begin to get a handle on just how pervasive the problems are with these companies. It seems to be a bloody nightmare out there. People have a right, and a NEED, to know what they might be unwittingly getting themselves into by signing up to trust these outfits with the most critical parts of their lives. How much mail have "I" lost? How many correspondences will I never receive? How many critical documents has this woman caused to be "vanish"? We'll never know! THAT is why this is a "big deal". I was honestly beginning to think that little would be gained by suing this woman. After all, she has demonstrated time and again that she is incapable of learning. It would cost me ten times what I would recover to sue. And I would much rather invest my time and energy interacting with and helping some of the most lovely and deserving little kids on earth. Maybe it would be better to just finish out the website and be done with it. But this woman just won't stop, and that gives me the energy to continue. I said it before and I say it again: Lauren A. Chamberlain is some piece of work and the potential civil suits and criminal actions against her are mounting. Maybe we won't be able to get all of them into a courtroom, but I guarantee we can get some of them into a courtroom.
I mentioned before that this page is like whale blubber -- the more you chew it, the bigger it gets. I'm sorry Lauren A. Chamberlain has chosen this route. My advice to her would be to STOP CHEWING IT. But of course she won't take that advice. Remember, all she ever, ever needed to do was send one email which said, "I'm sorry you are unable to change your billing plan Online. I will take care of that for you now. Thank you." Done deal. The end. No problem. She gets the money. I get the service. Everyone is happy. But Lauren A. Chamberlain just wouldn't do it. So be it.
UPDATE February 22, 2019:
A possible explanation has been suggested to me re Lauren A. Chamberlain's "little error" in stating that she was only made aware of this website on the 18th. It is this: PostNet corporate may have contacted her and said, "Hey! What the heck is this website about? Why didn't you tell us about it?" Lauren A. Chamberlain probably had no logical explanation -- after all, she was hoping against hope that PostNet NEVER saw the website. So she said, "Uh, gee! I never saw that before! What the heck! Wow!" But of course, if she said that, it would be a LIE.
Update, February 22, 2019:
I am now beginning the tedious process of selecting a competent attorney in western Nevada. I have great attorneys in other states, particularly my beloved First Amendment lawyer, but I've been out of Nevada so long all my reputable contacts have died off! I generally do an attorney search by emailing every single one in an area with a brief description of the case. This will usually entail dozens of contacts -- even a hundred. Of those who reply favorably (about ten percent), I'll ask a few questions. Of those that answer the questions well (about 40%), we'll do a phone interview. We interview EACH OTHER. It's easy to randomly choose a real scum sucker. That's like falling off a log. It takes time and diligence to choose a good one. Unfortunately, good ones are few and far between. I won't use one unless they can convince me they BELIEVE in the case. Anyway, that process is beginning now. I will then send a criminal complaint to law enforcement and to the appropriate prosecutor(s). I think it's also time to bring this case to USPS. Clearly this industry is rogue and unreliable and needs reigning in. I'll provide a link to the BBB and Attorney General complaints page soon.
And all she had to do was change my billing plan...
In reading over the email chain I do realize that I was testy and hard on these people. I may or may not apologize for that, depending on what I see when I put them all in sequential order and in context. But regardless of how demanding a ticked off customer is, that's never, ever a license to lie. THAT is what truly set me off, and what fuels my anger to this day.
UPDATE February 23, 2019:
UPDATE February 23, 2019:
A new page detailing complaints to various agencies is here.
UPDATE February 24, 2019
This page is being developed as a repository of complaints by Postnet and/or anytimemailbox customers (usually ex-customers) from around the world, which tend to mirror our own experiences.
UPDATE February 24, 2019:
Probably no updates for awhile as I am back to "the bush" on the border (Cambodia Laos -- pronounced Camboosha and Lao here). I hate the bush but I love the kids. I'd give my life for these kids -- but hopefully not by Cobra bite! If I had the money of Gates I'd buy every one of them a home and a University education and security teams to protect them from the animals that caused them to be orphans. But I don't have that money -- what little I have keeps getting pissed away to shysters like PostNet.com and Anytimemailbox.com and their lying, conniving minions. In any case, I'll certainly continue to evolve this website on the laptop and will upload all new additions in five to seven weeks -- or sooner if I can get a glimpse of Internet access. Do NOT be tempted to think this site is finished or has been abandon -- far from it. Based on new, putrid, dishonest, possibly perjurious and dishonorable stunts by Lauren A. Chamberlain, I am just getting started. Repeat: I am just getting started. Would Lauren like to pour even more gasoline on this fire? Go for it. Why not cause this website to become bigger and bigger and bigger for your friends at PostNet.com and Anytimemailbox.com. I'm sure they'll appreciate the trouble you continue to instigate for them. One of the items on my chore list on this recent trip back home to Thailand was to obtain a simple mailbox in the USA. I remain forever stunned that despite all the efforts you can see on the email page of this website, this easy task was not attainable, due only to the stupidity, dishonesty, laziness, unprofessionalism and incompetence of a handful of people working under the umbrella of PostNet.com and Anytimemailbox.com. I suggest to both these entities that vastly better vetting is required before selling a franchise. But of course they would probably sell a franchise to OJ Simpson if he had the bucks. Bye for now folks -- I'm off to an infinitely more pleasant and logical world, at least for awhile.
UPDATE:
Criminal complaint(s) now being prepared
UPDATE:
Attorney selection has formally begun. This, all because a stupid damned woman couldn't be bothered to change my billing plan on a virtual mailbox. It just boggles the mind. No wonder the USA is tearing itself apart from the inside. Hell, ISIS doesn't need to invade -- America is killing itself....through stupidity. All they need do is sit back and wait.
UPDATE:
Beginning the research on this lawsuit:
If you have been keeping up with news headlines, you have likely noticed the issue of a business’s “right to refuse” service come to the forefront. From the Masterpiece Cakeshop case before the Supreme Court of the United States, to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ being refused service at a Red Hen, the issue is on America’s mind. While “right to refuse service” signs are legal, they do not give an owner carte blanche to refuse to serve a patron.
No Unrestricted Right to Refuse
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 expressly prohibits establishments from refusing service to patrons based on a protected class. These include race, color, religion, and national origin. Beyond this, courts generally do not allow businesses to refuse service to a patron based on an arbitrary reason. Furthermore, even if a “right to refuse service” sign is posted that does not mean a court of law will not find the refusal to be discriminatory or against the law in some other fashion. In other words, an establishment that has a “right to refuse service” sign is still subject to the same laws as one that does not have a sign posted.
While many may think that a private business should not be subject to anti-discrimination laws, this is not the case when the business is considered a place of public accommodation. Simply put, when the primary purpose of the business is to provide a good or service to the general public (think restaurant, hotel, airline, etc.) courts have determined that this requires it be governed by equal protection laws. In short, the simple fact that a business is a private one on private property does not excuse an unjustified refusal of service.
This fits precisely with our training from years ago. Lauren A. Chamberlain has expressed the notion that since she has some "right to refuse service" clause in her TOS (which I never saw and didn't willingly agree to and still can't find), she has carte blanche to refuse service to absolutely anyone for absolutely any reason. In point of fact she does not. She needs this either explained, or demonstrated to her. I have tried to explain it to her but all I get is a smart mouth in return -- probably just what her mother got as she was growing up. Now we demonstrate..
(1) I didn't see, nor did I knowingly agree to any such clause, nor would I have.
(2) The service she provides is not one that can be terminated on spur of the moment without significant hardship to the customer (in Postnet's and Anytimemailbox.com's cases, victim). The consequences to the customer of a rogue business owner terminating this service are not even remotely like the consequences of a restaurant patron having to postpone a meal for 15 minutes while they walk down the street to another restaurant.
(3) I did nothing but ask for, then demand, normal service, and when that failed again and again and again and again, threaten to report them to the BBB and Attorney General. That is NOT, I promise, sufficient grounds for terminating a critical service.
I strongly suggest this spoiled air-head consult a competent attorney. But if not, oh dern....
It's a shame neither PostNet.com nor AnytimeMailbox.com didn't have the bloody horse-sense to (1) vet their franchise owners better and (2) train them according to THE LAW. --Fly-by-Night every step of the way. Remember that actors and bankers were, up until the early to mid 1900's, regarded as bamboozlers and general low-life ne'r-do-wells. I always saw "virtual mailbox" services in the same sleazy light, and now, even more so. The bankers and actors (theater groups originally) mostly overcame their bad public rap not by becoming more valuable human beings, but by erecting and sculpting their elaborate facades. Well, Hollywood still has some work to do but I digress. I submit that the back-alley, strip-mall virtual mailbox crowd has done the same thing. They aren't intrinsically trustworthy these days, never were, and the people who are attracted to owning those businesses are often not fine human beings -- but they have manipulated the public's perception to make it seem like they're fine human beings. I have come to learn, mostly through this experience, that these folks are far too often the absolute scum of the earth. Not all! But most.
I find that my drive to pursue this issue is fueled almost completely by Lauren A. Chamberlain's continued stupid bullshit.
Keep it up, I might advise. Let's see where it goes.
I enjoyed a splinter of Internet tonight-- the trick here is that you must walk out of the compound about .4 clicks, and then go off the path about 15 meters (Where the Cobras live! Seriously, I'm terrified of them! I think I'll file for a protection order against them! That's sound logic, right? Of course it is, to a Californian!). Then, if you contort your body to look like and upside down jelly fish, only then can you get a sliver of bandwidth through a hotspot on your phone. Though the signal still ebbs and flows, seemingly on the wind, if you try enough times, you can sometimes upload a page. The local kids figured this out. And by the way, to Lauren, I wish her good luck on her self publishing endeavors. Yes, people she might least suspect, are beginning to talk to me. Maybe if her eventual buyers leave poor reviews, she will refuse them service and file protection orders against them. What a piece of work. See our Lauren A. Chamberlain / Farmer's Insurance tale here.
Good night.
UPDATE:
My hunch is that Lauren A. Chamberlain has been misled into thinking she might find a judge to whom she can stretch the truth a bit, or a lot, as seems to be her habit, and feign "fear" at having her nasty deeds exposed for the world to see, and that judge, she hopes, will issue a prior restraint order against the website. Bad people and stupid judges try this all over the country and it never, ever works. But let's let Lauren A. Chamberlain give it a try. Here's a good read on the subject. Plenty more where that came from. Some people don't grasp that when they try to pull outrageous stunts, such as petitioning for prior restraint rulings, they open the door to liability for even ATTEMPTING to strip a citizen of their civil rights. That's usually a shocking realization to them.
UPDATE:
A few thoughts from here, where I am now (Lao / Cambodia Border) -- Photo (below) from my first visit here. Only some in this group are orphans, although their home life could be considered pretty close to being orphans. Most live in the bush, in huts made of corrugated tin, scavenged from old French military installations. Dirt floors. No electricity. Their land is not owned or even rented -- they just squat in the jungle. They eat fruits and vegetables that they find in the bush, and fish and other critters from the mighty Mekong (a river I hate, but that's another story). Cooking, if the family is higher class, is done on a burner that's mounted to the top of a five or ten gallon propane tank -- I mean mounted directly to the nozzle/valve. Sometimes they blow. Refilling is done only occasionally, and they are often out of gas for six months at a time. If the family can't afford a propane bottle, cooking is done on a raw fire outdoors. Doctors? Vaccinations? No. Simply no. A high percentage are missing limbs from land mines leftover from the Vietnam war -- the mines are absolutely everywhere, in every field and alongside every path. They seem to never become inactive -- maybe they'll last a hundred or two hundred years before the weather gets into them. Couldn't the USA have made them to self expire in time? Three years? Five years? Twenty years? Yes, they could have, for pennies per unit, but they just didn't do it. A friendly group of kids walking down a path, some jostling, fun, someone pushes someone, a stumble two feet off the path, and BAM -- a leg or an arm or a torso goes flying. Crews, mostly women, work every single day clearing mines left from 1969. They will never finish. I tried to join in that effort. The ladies laughed and said no, men don't have the patience for this -- especially white men! The anti-American sentiment runs fairly high. I usually tell strangers I am from Canada. I wish I was.
I was invited into a lean-to not far from here years ago. It was a family's home and business, the "business" being that they had stacked three boards, maybe 2x12 planks, against one wall, four levels high, and on those "shelves" they placed anything and everything they had found and scrounged in the area, with a few items they has actually purchased in a village somewhere. They tried to sell those things at a profit, which might have equaled ten dollars US per year. This was the local "store". I try to impress upon outsiders how poor these people are; no one gets it. The place had two walls and a roof. None of us spoke the others' language but I had a Lao guide that time. We ate some soup and had several cups of their home-grown coffee -- they couldn't spare the soup but they insisted on it. They had maybe three rai of land out back, all coffee trees (coffee bushes?), which they harvest and bake under mounds of hardwood coals which must be tended 24/7 for several days to properly roast the beans. Then they bag them and hope to find a seller. Since EVERYONE has coffee plants (some only three or ten), buyers are scarce; the market is flooded. I tried and tried to help them understand that, with my help, we could market those beans around the world on eBay, but I could never, ever get them to grasp the concept. My guide tried as well, even though even she knew it was futile -- and it was and she gave up. The poverty and my constant inability, often, usually, to make it better, is a truly sorrowful thing. They invited me to inspect their coffee orchard, so I wandered around, not knowing what I was looking at. They invited me to try a raw coffee bean off the bush -- my God. It was scrumptious. As was the next, and the next. Maybe in 30 minutes I ate 40 or 60. Then I began to float off the ground and I didn't touch down for, I swear, a day and a half. It probably knocked the stuffing out my my liver or my kidney or my gizzard -- you KNOW that kind of overdose takes months off your lifespan, but my God -- who can resist?
Back in their home we had more soup, and after awhile I noticed that everyone at the table was looking past me, out through the open space behind me. When I finally figured this out it made me a little nervous. I turned and there was a crowd of about 25, just standing there, ten feet away, watching my back. It was absolutely everyone who lived within walking distance; word had spread like bloody wildfire. A white man was in the area and everyone had to come and see one. No one had spoken a word. They had just appeared, one by one, like ghosts, quietly, reverentially. Conscious of the healthy anti-American sentiment I asked my guide if we should be concerned. She scanned the crowd, looking for frownie-faces, and said no, "they just want to see one". One farang. Me. I asked if we should "do" something; she said no. Just eat. So I ate, though I felt that was profoundly rude. Still, that was plenty of entertainment for the spectators. I was tempted to jump up and do a chicken dance or something. THAT would have been entertaining. But I decided not to shock them; they would have all run in terror and that is no exaggeration. Presently there was a bit of a commotion and as I turned around again I saw the village pushing a young girl to the front. She was rail-thin, Ethiopian-thin, deathly thin, carrying a baby that was just as thin. It couldn't have weighed more than a leaf. I was stunned. How could it still be breathing? I asked if she was sick -- the Mom or the baby. My guide said no, but her boyfriend had left her and she had no food nor means of support. She lived on the ground, under one panel of corrugated tin. The villagers gave her a little food, but they barely had enough for themselves. All were hungry. She stood there, about eight feet behind me, head down, weeping softly. --Never once looked at me. She was stone-shy and hadn't wanted to be pushed up to me like that. I asked my guide what was expected of me. She shrugged and said "up to you; she has no food at all." I had a wallet-full of Laotian kip and Thai baht and US dollar. I asked if I could give her money. Guide nodded yes. I asked how much. Guide said "up to you". They love that phrase. I had no clue what was appropriate -- this was my first trip to that region many years ago. I just opened my wallet and allowed the guide to take out what she wanted. She chose US dollars, about 15 bucks. I said I didn't think that would help the girl much -- she needed months of good food. My guide said that would feed her well for three months.
Later, I rooted around in the coffee orchard again and found a pristine US Army jeep buried under tarps. There were no roads at all. It looked like it had dropped from a parachute and never been started up. I was excited to find it but I asked about it but was quickly told by my guide to shut up-- So I did. Travel is mostly done by old, rusty motorbike, smoking and rattling and wheezing, and of those who actually care enough to wear a helmet, many wear old American GI ground-troops helmets. Hot and heavy.
I was wandering alone in that region in later years, near the Lao/Vietnam border, a place I was unfortunately familiar with from another lifetime, on a horrible smoking motorbike that had no working lights -- every light hung down by its wires, but that was normal. I stopped at a roadside seller to buy two bananas -- maybe two cents each. There were banana trees fifty feet behind them, but these bananas had actual cash value because someone had already climbed up and harvested them and knocked the bugs off -- But my Lao sucked and they gave me about two dozen. I tried to push them back. They pushed them forward. So I paid. There were two "stores" there, which were just scraps of wood resting on sticks that had been driven into the ground. It was the crossroads of two "major highways" according to the map, which were just severely rutted dirt roads, lined, occasionally, with buffaloes, and barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. Not an abode for miles in any direction. I was eating one banana when a little turnip about four started eying my haul. He was from the neighboring seller's booth and was clearly hungry. I gave him one off the bunch and he scarfed it. I gave him another but a young girl, maybe 14, snatched it and gave it back to me. I tried several times to give it to her but she wouldn't take it. So I walked over and placed it on her wood-scrap seller's bench. She went and stood at the far end of her table and wouldn't touch it. I figured, OK, she'll take it when I'm gone. I munched another banana and sneaked another to the kid. He ran away and swallowed it whole, I swear. I finally got that the young girl was his mom, and she had absolutely nothing to sell. I then got that the woman I'd bought the bananas from was her mom. I took one bunch and set it on the young girl's table. She didn't take it but she didn't move away from it. I think I ate three or four bananas, taking my time, just watching. Finally the young girl took the bunch and set them in the center of her table, so as to formally and officially signal that they were for sale. But since there wasn't a customer for miles, she moved away from her table and moved to within about three feet of me. I didn't know what the significance of that was. But she stayed right there. If I moved a little, she moved same same, like a shadow. And after about ten minutes of this her mother came and braced the girl by her shoulders, and then pushed her so she was virtually touching me, and when the mother walked away, the girl stayed like that. My slow, dumb brain was trying to figure out what was going on, but eventually I did get it. The Mom began motioning for me to get on the motorbike, and for the girl to get on the back, and for the kid to get in the well between me and the handlebars. Then I was directed to ride away. The girl and the kid did as they were told, but there was no way on earth I could take a 14 year old girl and her kid. It was an utter impossibility. I gently took them off the bike -- pried them, actually. The girl was red faced and crying silently. The mother looked at me like she hated me. The father had said nothing throughout. I took the opportunity to just ride away. I'll never know how I should have handled that. These are the kind of quiet, desperate people I interact with every day here, and the reader may glean an insight into why specimens like Lauren A. Chamberlain are so starkly contrasted with these people.
This is a group of kids, shown below, who have NOTHING. Often not even food. They're not technically starving, but you'll never see a plump one. They show up to "school" every single day like the tough little troopers they are, rain or shine, 109f. and 99% humidity and monsoon winds -- it doesn't matter. No air conditioning -- Hell, no electricity even for fans (which is one reason they only have one wall -- they want all the breeze they can get). Their school looks like a clubhouse from "The Little Rascals". They beat whiny, spoiled, arrogant, argumentative, smart-mouth, insolent American kids hands down. I literally stumbled on this group while lost in the jungle, trying to find the Mekong River (seems easy, but...not all adventurers can be brilliant adventurers). Since they have ZERO possessions, they are allowed to bring to class their only belongings, which are also their friends. Almost every desk has a critter on it, or under it, or beside it, all through every class. Rabbits, cats, kittens, snakes (only constrictors and other non-venomous slitherers allowed -- even the smallest the kids know how to handle the constrictors when they get "too friendly" because they grew up with them), goats pigs, dogs, puppies, lizards, and things I'd never seen before -- they wrestle them up and down the two meter ladder leading into the classroom every day and every lunch hour. There is only one teacher and she teaches all classes to all ages. I don't know if she has any formal training at all. I think she probably does this in exchange for food. They have NO budget. They rely on whatever things the people living nearby in the bush can bring them. I almost said what the "villagers" can bring them, but there is no village per se. It is simply "the bush". No roads, really, just paths leading off willy-nilly to shacks and sheds nestled under huge, dripping banana leaves. When I stumbled into this clearing the first time, I thought I was seeing an old Vietnam war-era lookout, and maybe it was. I find old US military junk rusting away all through that jungle. Class immediately stopped and all the kids rushed out, down the bamboo ladder, and ran toward me, then stopped dead in their tracks. I wasn't Laotian! Maybe I was the first "farang" (white, western European -- or Martian, depending) they had ever seen. They stopped and stared, and the teacher finally caught up to them, and regarded me, and them, and me, and them, and she was at least a little bemused by their shock. She smiled and invited me in to "school". The school is built on a platform to both cut down snake incursions, which helps only marginally because many snakes love to climb, and to keep the open shack out of the flood waters that come frequently. If it floods too badly, the kids sleep on the floor of the elevated school shed until the water recedes (maybe a night, maybe a week), watching for snakes who are also trying to escape the floods. I noticed that there was a bit of a "store" a hundred meters away, tucked into the bush at the apex of some trails. Their roof was blue tarps, shredded and ragged from years of overuse. All their goods were contained in old US Army and ancient French military crates, resting on stones on the ground. When it flooded, what did they do? I had a Lao interpreter with me and she was delighted at this setup. She didn't ask me -- she just started snatching everything out of the crates until we needed several people to carry it all. Snacks, bread (the French taught them about baking), fruits -- we took it all back to the makeshift school and the students politely waited while we allocated everything out to 41 kids. Each ended up with more than they could eat at one sitting. They weren't amazed -- they were stunned. Shocked. Wide-eyed. Speechless. The whole thing cost me about $35us. The teacher cried and the kids sang me a song. I have a video somewhere. They had never had anyone do something like that -- they never imagined it was POSSIBLE for anyone to do anything like that. This particular place is damned hard to get to. It's eight hours in the back of a truck with general livestock, then a two kilo walk on a path that I'm POSITIVE is lined with Cobras, then many hours in open longboats, then another hour walking on a worse path that I'm POSITIVE is lined with Cobras. But it's in my top three favorite places in the whole world. I just hang out, and fix whatever things I can fix (difficult without tools), buy treats and snacks and fruits that they can't get from local trees, and try in an almost completely ineffective way to teach a little English. I speak NO Laotian and they speak NO English, but we manage perfectly well. When I walk ANYWHERE there are five or twelve kids hanging off my shoulders or hanging on my belt. They laugh and joke and we make faces and we chase each other around. I taught them all how to shake hands as opposed to wai and they remain completely bewildered, even after four or five years, as to why anyone would want to do that. They had never seen such a weird thing. They love to examine my skin and it doesn't matter if I can't answer when they speak, they chatter incessantly, pouring out their lovely little life stories, concerns, fears and dreams. Sometimes I answer their Lao with Thai, and that always stops them cold because it kind of, sort of, MAYBE sounds like some kind of retarded form of Laotian, so they cock their heads and try to figure out what the heck I'm talking about, or if I'm really talking at all or just making chicken sounds. It's an absolute blast, and when I'm at these places I forget all about evil imbeciles like Lauren A. Chamberlain. At least I almost forget. I give almost all my money to these places because, well, you just can't help it. I dare you to try. But now that I must fight this disgusting specimen of a human being, Lauren A. Chamberlain, that money has dried up for awhile. I need to pay attorneys instead. Thanks Lauren. I've said it before and I say it again: She's a real piece of work. She disgusts me to the core. All I wanted from her was a reliable virtual mailbox. I find myself asking myself this question pretty often these days: Given certain situations, what would Lauren do?
UPDATE:
The Philosophy and Morality of BLANK_SUCKS Sites
UPDATE March 5, 2019:
My Reno attorney has determined the following:
(1) If Chamberlain has NOT filed for a "protection order" then her claim to have done so is another instance of criminal harassment. I have not been served with anything.
(2) If Chamberlain HAS filed for a protection order, the facts that (a) I live 8000 miles away and have for many years, and (b) she has not been threatened in any way, shape or form, at any time, not during any edit, version, iteration or edition of this website, and this website contains no threats, not even vague insinuations, not veiled threats, nor any passage, past, present or future, that could be remotely construed as threatening by reasonable humans or even stupid, mentally handicapped unreasonable humans, indicate that her filing could also be construed as yet another instance of criminal harassment. Such a filing by Chamberlain would be viewed by the court as utterly frivolous and without merit. Again, I have not been served with anything, but if I am, then it's instantly game-on.
(3) My attorney has determined that if Chamberlain serves me with a "protection order" for this website, it can be easily quashed and ATTORNEY'S FEES CAN AND WILL BE RECOVERED. I hadn't actually thought of recovering attorney's fees, but I am assured that, based on the content of this website, such a filing would be considered so outrageously frivolous that the court WOULD award attorney's fees. I would also ask for real and punitive damages at that time, or, if need be, in a later civil suit. THAT is one area where punitive damages would positively be on the table and would be almost automatically awarded. In a way, I hope she hasn't filed such nonsense, or that I am not served, so anything she did file will expire naturally in a few weeks and maybe she'll have time to consult with a COMPETENT attorney and to learn a bit about current law, and common damned sense. On the other hand, this miserable, bull-headed witch of a woman is so over the damned top, so obnoxious, so criminal, so putrid, that I hope she has filed or will file so we can get on with this in a very, very public way. This website as of early March, 2019, only has half a dozen pages; I can envision it going to 300 or more if we get into a court war. At that point we bring in the media and we hire people in sandwich boards and flier distributors. Chamberlain is working as a representative of PostNet.com and AnytimeMailbox.com, and as such they share some degree of liability. Yes, she's an independent contractor, but she still operates to some degree under their umbrella -- she was approved by them and presumably trained by them -- and that keeps them in this loop of liability, whether they like it or not.
If Chamberlain has filed this "protection order", or files it in the future, I will add that to her instances of criminal harassment. Of course the fact that she SAID she filed it figures into the criminal complaint as well, as another instance of criminal harassment all by itself. She made sure to message that to me WELL AFTER (read the emails page) she was told that further unwanted contact from her would be considered criminal harassment. It seems Chamberlain feels she can harass and insult folks with complete impunity, but if anyone comes back at her, it's off to the court to try to stop them. What a prize of a woman. I submit she's a damned spoiled brat. She's so spoiled she knows (KNOWS) she is above the law. Well, let's see if that's true.
My attorney advises that he can bring a civil suit against these three defendants on grounds of illegal termination of service, for perhaps $15,000, give or take. Attorney's fees in that case are probably not to be awarded. Can we win? Hands down. It's a no-brainer. But what would we win? Absolutely we would win real damages -- compensation for the time it took me to re-route hundreds of addresses around the world, to search out and try to recover missing mail, credit cards, etc.. But that's probably under $1000. Punitive damages would be the only hope of recovering the investment. One benefit to suing her outside of Small Claims court would be in simply shoving her rank obnoxiousness back down her throat, to show her, to PROVE to her that she's damned dead wrong. There's gratification in that. The question is, how much is that gratification worth to me? And is this sociological prize of a woman even capable of understanding that she's wrong, even after a court dramatically judges her wrong? Look at OJ for God's sake. He STILL thinks he's right! He believes it in his heart! How much time and energy do I have to invest in a civil suit? If Lauren A. Chamberlain has or does file for a protection order, then it's no-holds-barred from that moment on. That will provide me with all the energy I need to take it to the Nth degree. No human being on earth can be allowed arrogance of that staggering magnitude. Evil must be stopped. Period. One can't say they just don't feel like fighting, when confronted with evil that black.
In the meantime, I know that some states allow filing in Small Claims court by proxy. I've actually done it. I'll research whether Nevada allows it or not.
And, in the meantime, I will continue to work up a criminal complaint against Lauren A. Chamberlain for the Carson prosecutor.
I strongly suggest that Lauren A. Chamberlain bring the following data to the attention of her "attorney". Read more about Nevada's Anti SLAPP statute here (and a hell of a lot more to come). This is one of the dumbest, most arrogant, most belligerent, bull-headed women I have ever come across in my life -- and that's perfectly fine! She is entitled to be all those things and I will fight to protect her right to be an incompetent, dishonest, unprofessional jackass. What I won't abide is when she engages all those profound shortcomings to try very hard to screw over innocent people, and then when called on it, she doubles-down! It's just G--damned amazing! Then it's legal war, and I will win.
And now I'm back to the kids.....and heaven....
UPDATE April 25, 2019:
I have confirmed that at least two banks sent replacement credit cards to this Postnet address in Carson City, Nevada. Both disappeared. I suspect that Postnet NV-187 either (a) threw them in the trash, or (b) opened them and saw they were credit cards with pins and sold them, or (c) opened them and saw they were credit cards with pins and gave them to family or friends so they could try using them at some later date. I believe that is exactly how this outfit operates. I believe they are the absolute scum of the earth. It's extremely rare that I run across any business this bad -- maybe only twice in my life.
UPDATE April 27, 2019:
USPS Rules governing Private Virtual Mailbox services
There are some VERY interesting regulations in here with regard to blunders by PostNet, AnytimeMailbox, and NV-187. We will be compiling a list of broken rules to submit to USPS and to our appeal to Congress at a later date.
Updates always appended here...
UPDATE June 9, 2019:
Back from Laos. I hate the jungle.
The "lawsuit page" has been completed, tentatively. "Other" remedies, including but by no means limited to the following, will now be pursued.
Also, I need to very thoroughly document the person we're discussing here (Lauren A. Chamberlain) as it appears there's more than one Lauren A. Chamberlain in Carson City, Nevada. To that end I'll do a public records dump soon and link to it here.
Formal, thorough appeals to USPS (Postal Inspector) and Congress seem, at this point, to offer the best bang for our buck. The USPS is already actively considering simply taking over this service (mail services like Postnet.com and Anytimemailbox.com). I'm thinking a healthy shove in that direction, in the form of a well documented report on the outrageous, unprofessional, incompetent, criminal antics of third party virtual mailbox services will either provide a hard bump in that direction, or may, if delivered at the right time to the right people, completely tip the cow and cause Congress and the USPS Postal Inspector to actually take hard, concrete steps to get these miserable sons of bitches OUT and replace the services with official USPS services. I'm not a big fan of the USPS, but they are light years more professional and reliable than the fools and imbeciles running businesses like Postnet.com and Anytimemailbox.com. Rather than spread my efforts out in ten different directions, I think that's the potentially most effective route. To facilitate that I have begun researching and documenting complaints about all virtual mailbox services, and those complaints comprise uncounted reams, and I'll deliver that data to the USPS and to Congress when appropriate so that they have a good starting point for understanding just how screwed-over the American public has become under the ongoing horror of these criminal enterprizes. The raw data that will be used to document the report to USPS and Congress is here.
UPDATE June 27, 2019:
I've had my Reno attorney check records in Carson City -- actually three counties in western Nevada. He says he can find no record that this piece of human garbage (Chamberlain) ever filed anything against me. That's an eminently lucky development for Lauren A. Chamberlain. -Lucky beyond my ability to describe. She will perhaps never understand or comprehend how lucky. I am currently working up an appeal to be forwarded to Congress and to the US Postal Inspector, and others. I have many other activities in Laos and Cambodia, and soon to be in the Philippines where poverty is at a level that stuns even me, but I will be relentless, albeit slow, in this endeavor. There's no way on earth any decent human could let the actions and misdeeds of these blatant scammers go without retribution. These types of things (appeals to large government agencies re wrongdoing by businesses) are often ignored by such agencies. Mine won't be. Has this escapade cost these three entities, namely Lauren A. Chamberlain, and Anytimemailbox.com, and Postnet.com, any hard cold cash? Yes. -How much will never be known for sure; I believe it to be currently in the thousands. Over time, I expect it to run six figures. If the USPS ultimately shuts them down and replaces them, their losses, collectively, will be millions. All they had to do was conduct business honorable, professionally, and honestly. But not only did they fail on all counts, Chamberlain actually doubled-down on her lies. Real class act. Let's remember how this all started: I asked that my billing plan be changed from monthly to yearly. Aw, say it ain't so! It couldn't possibly be that simple, could it? Yes, in point of fact, it is. Let's try it again: I asked that my billing plan be changed from monthly to yearly That's it! That's absolutely all that was asked of them, yet they effed it up so profoundly and repeatedly that it came to this. Unfortunately, my research into finding a professional replacement for this ship of fools has shown that virtually all of them are nearly as bad. I did have one in another state that I used for 25 years without any major incident. After this fiasco with Lauren A. Chamberlain, I did more checking on that service. I wasn't the box holder on it -- I was merely signed on as a user under the umbrella of the corporation that actually held the box. They eventually informed me that their experience with that service was nearly as deplorable as my experience with Lauren Chamberlain and Postnet.com. Because of that, I know of NO such virtual mailbox "service" that might be even marginally, remotely reliable, operating in the USA today. Not one. I can virtually guarantee that if you use any "service" like this in the USA today, you will have trouble. You will. Period. The USPS must take this over.
UPDATE: Sept 10, 2019:
Our appeal to Congress and other agencies is nearing completion. If you've been screwed-over, defrauded, bambozzled, etc., by a "Virtual Private Mailbox" provider, please add your experiences to the growing mountain and submit them to Congress as follows. We suggest sending a copy of your data to every single contact point on this list, by email if provided, and by fax. We will also send ours to some select recipiencts by Registered Mail, so they can never claim they didn't see or receive it:
UPDATE: December 12, 2019:
Our material has been sent to Congress. Actually, it was delivered nearly a month ago but I didn't have time to update this page. Our "report" and complaint is 109 pages and includes some of the material on this website. I'm not including the report in this website at this time because I don't want to give this sickening industry (virtual private mailboxes) any heads-up. I don't WANT them to correct their incompetence. I want Congress to be able to go see it for themselves, in real time. What will this report accomplish? It will plant many seeds in the minds of many members of congress regarding the corruption and incompetence that makes up most of this industry. They'll talk about it. They'll research it. They'll mull it and consider it. Not all of them -- but some. I've also sent this to the United States Postal inspector who has already expressed an interest in replacing these fly-by-night scammers with regular official postal service services. All this take time. It takes a lot of time. But in the end, reform will come and many of these sons of bitches will be put out of business. Are you the owner of a rogue virtual private mailbox outlet, or even a franchise? I've thrown a few hundred little monkey wrenches into your businesses, because you deserve them. You've earned them. You've screwed this up so astonishingly, you've screwed over so many customers, you've provided such stunningly unreliable services to your victims, and now you'll begin to pay the price that stupidity always, always extracts. If you're a good virtual mailbox provider and you don't like the scrutiny and ridicule your industry is now beginning to see, you can thank idiots like Lauren A. Chamberlain. As a pilot, I know that stupidity in the air extracts a price pretty damned quickly. As a commercial diver I know that stupidity at work under water extracts a price pretty damned quickly. Stupidity in those and other critical areas usually costs you your life. Stupidity in business also claims a price -- usually bankruptcy and financial failure. It just takes longer.
I have two more basic pages to complete in this website. I'll provide links to them below, as they are completed.
UPDATE: January 5, 2020:
We've now sent our material to the FTC as follows. Unfortunately we have been receiving a good deal more new material, so it appears that at some point we must make up a new report and submit it to these agencies again:
Headquarters
Federal Trade Commission 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20580 Telephone: (202) 326-2222Constitution Center
Federal Trade Commission 400 7th St., SW Washington, DC 20024 Telephone: (202) 326-2222 NOTE: Send mail only to the 600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW (Headquarters) address above.For Individual Consumers
Complaints about fraud, scams, phishing, identity theft, unwanted telemarketing, credit or debt issues, or other unfair business practices may be submitted to https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.govFor Journalists
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: (202) 326-2180 Email: opa@ftc.gov
The FTC Complaint mechanism is here https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#crnt&panel1-1.
Updates always appended below. Two more major sections will be added to this website as time allows.
