Sam J.

On their Web site, Sur la table list a regular phone number to call, but make their toll-free number almost impossible to find. In fact, I didn't even know they had one!

Using the non-toll-free number, I called them up recently, and at the beginning a message said that my wait time would be "over 2 minutes." Well, after staying on hold for a good while, I finally just gave up. On another site, one customer said they were waiting for over 40 minutes and still no one picked up!

Anyway, I decided to submit a ticket instead. And in their automated response, they listed their toll-free number! I was shocked.

So... I wasted some of my own good money calling them (though they never answered) instead of using the toll-free number that they try so hard to conceal.

Very sneaky, deceptive company.

If you want to read real news, this is a great site for it. In fact, it's one of the few sites left on the Web where you can actually learn the unvarnished truth about stuff. This is what true journalism looks like in a world swimming in fake news.

A couple of weeks ago, I placed an order with Grubterra. But I never got an e-mail confirmation. In fact, I received ZERO communication from them. So, I contacted them a couple days ago to find out the status of my order. They told me that, because of inventory issues, my order would not ship until about two more weeks—that is, about a MONTH after I first placed it. Sorry, but that's crazy. So, I told them to just cancel my order.

In addition, this company has no telephone number, so you can never talk to anyone. Please stay away from this joke of a company.

Citi is the worst credit-card company ever.

A few months ago, I ordered a product that turned out to be defective. So, I contacted the company that I ordered it from TWICE to let them know that it didn't work. Well, they never responded. As a result, I opened up a dispute with Citi.

Citi gives merchants 45 days to respond, and this merchant responded with a very vague, general response on day 44--and lied about not being contacted by me. Nevertheless, Citi immediately ruled in favor of the merchant!

Shocked, I appealed the verdict, but this time the merchant didn't even bother to respond to what I wrote. And guess what? Citi STILL sided with the merchant! Why? Because I didn't return the defective item on my own dime. Tell me—have you ever heard of a credit-card company that expects the CUSTOMER to pay to return defective items? Until now, I certainly hadn't.

Anyway, I called up Citi and told them what I thought. The woman I talked to was actually pretty nice, and said that the merchant was being extremely difficult and "didn't want to accept" a chargeback. HUH? Who actually controls the purse strings—Citi or the merchant? But at least she said that she would issue me a "goodwill credit" because I'd been a customer for so long.

While I appreciated the credit that the agent gave me, Citi should've never sided with the dishonest merchant in the dispute. Sadly, it seems that Citi's policy is: "The merchant is always right!" It didn't seem to matter what evidence I brought to the table—Citi basically just ignored it.

After paying off my final balance, I canceled my Citi card for good and haven't looked back. Please learn from my story and stay FAR away from this joke of a credit-card company.

The Probiotic Jar offers equipment to help you ferment vegetables. While their products do seem of high quality, the company itself appears to be kind of shady.

For instance, I bought a 1-liter jar from them, and they inflated my shipping by about $8! How do I know? I went and checked the rates over at FedEx. Not only that, their products are very expensive, so inflated shipping just makes things even worse.

Then I had a question about how to use my purchase. First, I e-mailed "customer support," but never got a response. Then I decided to call the phone number on their Web site, which appears to be for the owner of the company, whose name is Karen. I left her a message with my question, but she never called me back.

While I like their products, everything else about this company is a turnoff. Sadly, they seem to care nothing about their customers.

This site was started less than three years ago to discuss the theory that many top tennis players—including and especially the legendary Roger Federer—are in fact heavy users of performance-enhancing drugs. The biggest sell of this site is that it's UNCENSORED. In other words, topics that might get you banned from more popular tennis forums are totally allowed here. So, say whatever you want!

Other controversial topics are discussed too, such as evidence that Serena and Venus Williams are in fact biological males who have completely cheated their way to 30 Grand Slam titles. In fact, that thread is the most popular one on the forum.

There are also "current events" threads, discussing things like corruption in government (such as the stolen 2020 U.S. election), the dangers of the Covid jabs, and other "controversial" ideas.

Since this site is so new, there aren't a lot of active participants yet, but there's still a lot of great information to find there—along with plenty of humor too. So, if you like to go against the mainstream and learn about edgy stuff that isn't being reported by the mainstream media, be sure to check it out.

Tennis Discourse is a small Web site that was started a few years ago by a technically savvy guy in Europe. It's meant to be an alternative to larger, more popular tennis forums. Even though it doesn't have a lot of traffic (yet), it has a lot of technical frills. Besides tennis, there's discussion about various other topics as well, including music.

If you enjoy tennis, it's worth checking out.

About six weeks ago, I visited my local Subway. According to the hours displayed in the window at the store, it was supposed to be open. But it was completely closed and dark inside.

So, I contacted Subway's "digital" customer service (you can't talk to a live person) about this matter. Well, even though I got an automated e-mail receipt, no representative ever contacted me--even after six weeks!

Apparently their "customer service" is permanently out to lunch.

I bought a Plainville organic young turkey for Christmas. Although the quality of the turkey was good overall, they really gyp you on the giblets.

A full set of giblets includes a heart, a liver, and a gizzard. Well, my turkey had a heart... but nothing else! Like many people, I actually use the giblets for a recipe, so I really need them.

Since Plainville's organic turkeys cost almost four dollars a pound, wouldn't you at least expect a complete set of giblets? Anyway, if you do decide to buy one of their organic turkeys, please just know what to expect.

I used to think Real Raw News was a valuable source of information. But now I'm skeptical.

About a week ago, a friend of mine sent the author of this Web site, Michael Baxter, an e-mail asking him if his news is actually real or just parody, and also where he gets his information from. And guess what? He never responded.

So, yesterday I posted a comment on his Web site telling others about this. I then asked, "Has anyone else e-mailed Mr. Baxter, and does he ever reply?" Well, within a few hours, Baxter DELETED my comment! I'd never had any of my comments deleted before.

What's more, now I can't post on there at all without my posts going into moderation, even though I'd been posting occasionally for months without my posts EVER having to be moderated first.

So, what's Baxter trying to hide? And does this really sound like an "honest" Web site to you? Besides, apparently "Michael Baxter" is not even the owner's real name—it's actually "Michael Tuffin."

I think Mr. Tuffin is mainly after money. I believe that some of his stories are true, while others are probably fabricated—whatever will attract the most viewers. In addition, Tuffin is the only "journalist" on this site and a rather poor one at that, someone who routinely makes spelling and grammar mistakes.

It's also interesting that many people post comments with lots of vulgarity and explicit sexual content, but Tuffin never does anything about those. However, he immediately decides to delete an honest, polite comment like mine. So, it seems he's definitely just after money and views.

In terms of his "news," many of his stories are contradictory. For example, a few months ago, he wrote that Biden had had a massive stroke on June 1 and was hospitalized at Walter Reed for it. But then about a week ago, he said that Biden had had his stroke in "early February" instead. And when readers asked questions about this inconsistency, he never responded.

Now in his latest stunt, Tuffin has set up a GoFundMe page, citing censorship from Google/YouTube. This supports the idea that all he seems to care about is MONEY. Interestingly enough, he's actually using his real name for this page.

In a nutshell, Tuffin seems to be very shady, so please either stay away from his site entirely, or else take anything you read there with several grains of salt.

I ordered some extra-virgin avocado oil from this company. The package said "12 fluid ounces," but when I weighed the actual oil on my digital kitchen scale, it came to only 11.4 ounces.

Since this oil was very expensive, I called up customer service and told them about this. The guy I talked to was Tom. First, he told me that since the density of avocado oil is different from that of water, it won't weigh 12 ounces, but he couldn't give me the exact density. I told him that he should be able to provide such information to customers. Then he became nasty, stating he wasn't going to "argue" with me about this. I said that I wasn't going to argue with him either, and that I could easily take my business elsewhere. His response: "PLEASE DO." I was shocked at his rudeness.

Anyway, I eventually called customer service back and talked to Norma, the supervisor. She apologized several times for Tom's rudeness, indicating that they've had problems with him in the past. She promised that this would never happen again, and also sent me two complimentary products to make up for my inconvenience.

Incidentally, while Tom was technically correct that the density of extra-virgin avocado oil is not the same as that of water, he was wrong in saying that they didn't shortchange me. It turns out that 12 fluid ounces of this expensive oil should weigh about 11.85 ounces, not 11.4 ounces. Well, that's a difference of almost 60 cents!

Anyway, since Norma was so nice and apologetic, I will stay a customer for now. They do have excellent products, but just be careful that they don't shortchange you.

I placed an order for a printer, but a few hours later they sent me an e-mail CANCELING my order. So, I called them up to ask why. After I spent a whopping 30 minutes on hold (I was transferred several times), they STILL couldn't give me an answer! So, I took my business elsewhere.

Then I learned that, last year, they fired an employee for voicing opposition to the violent Marxist group Black Lives Matter on social media. And in 2016, they donated 17 times more to the Clinton campaign than to the Trump campaign.

Please stay away from this terrible company.

I wrote a review on this site about five months ago, but it's STILL listed as "pending." I guess they should just change their name to Out_to_Lunch_NonProfits!

First off, this site does offer some helpful information, and I visit occasionally to get advice on certain health and food topics. Unfortunately, the site owner, Sarah Pope, is rather shady:

1) Pope is on the board of the corrupt Weston A. Price Foundation, run by Sally Fallon. In fact, she's such a fan girl of Fallon that she even named one of her kids "Fallon"! No joke. Sadly, this foundation has been promoting rancid fermented cod-liver oil, and has also covered up serious sexual harassment by Fallon's husband, Geoffrey Morell. According to popular Cheeseslave blogger Ann Marie Michaels, Pope once told her, "When Sally says 'Jump,' I say 'How high?'" Again, no joke. By staying silent about this organization's corruption, Pope is in fact enabling it. So, she's complicit in their corruption.

2) Pope has a lot of affiliate links on her Web site. As a result, she's going to have serious bias on certain topics, such as fluoride in kombucha. It's all about MONEY. And the last time I submitted a comment to her Web site, she edited out 50% of it, with no explanation whatsoever. Why? I believe it's because I mentioned a brand name. Maybe that product clashed with some other product she's promoting? Not entirely sure, but that explanation seems the most likely. Anyway, I've decided that I'm NOT going to comment on her site again, because I will not put up with perfectly normal comments being censored.

Those are the two big problems with Pope and her site. Here are a few smaller ones:

1) Many readers ask questions in their comments. Sometimes she responds to the questions, but more often than not she just ignores them. Another turnoff. I guess she thinks she's too important to respond?

2) No matter how many times you comment on her site, she ALWAYS moderates your comments. Frankly, she sounds like a big control freak. What's she so afraid of?

3) In her bio, she brags about having graduated "summa cum laude" from Furman University. Well, if you're in your late 50s and still bragging about something like that, then not only do you have a huge ego, but you're also very insecure. Like anybody really cares about your GPA from 35 years ago? And I don't think she's nearly as smart as she seems to think she is.

In a nutshell, be cautious about visiting Pope's site. Some of her articles are worth reading, but just be sure to think for yourself. And please think twice before commenting—you never know if she's going to censor you. LOL.

I ordered a pound of pine nuts from this company. They cost $60 (not including shipping).

Well, when they arrived, I put them on my digital kitchen scale, and guess what? They weighed only 14 ounces. That's almost $8 short!

So, I called the company to let them know. You couldn't talk to a live person, so I had to leave a message. Guess what—the woman who owns the company never called me back. This implies that she KNOWS she's cheating customers, but just doesn't care.

As a result, I had to file a dispute with Visa--and won! At least the owner lost all the money and had to pay a chargeback fee to boot.

Please stay as far away from this crooked company as you can.

Mario Murillo, who is a Christian minister, writes an interesting blog. I had been commenting on his blog periodically for months, with no problems.

Then one day, I dared to criticize his sacred cow Billy Graham, who was apparently a Freemason and member of the Illuminati. (You can do a Web search and read all about how corrupt Graham was.)

Anyway, since he's a huge fan of Graham, Murillo promptly REMOVED my post, and then no longer allowed me to make any more comments on his Web site without them being moderated first! This kind of behavior—intolerance of healthy, respectful criticism—is a classic sign of spiritual abuse. Also, people only censor something when they fear the truth.

What's interesting is that, while he won't tolerate honest disagreement, Murillo allows another poster on his blog to routinely bully others. One woman wrote a message complaining that she has tried to respond to the bully, wondering why he attacks other posters, but Murillo won't approve her comments! She said that she's puzzled why Murillo doesn't seem to allow "freedom of speech." Well, maybe the bully gives a lot of money to his ministry? Who knows? Anyway, it seems that Murillo is threatened by genuine freedom of speech.

Sadly, Murillo is a big hypocrite. He (rightly) attacks the Left for the way they censor people, but then does the very same thing to people who respectfully disagree with him! He seems to be threatened by smart individuals, surrounding himself with yes-men instead.

He's also been divorced THREE times, completely violating the Bible's commands about divorce and remarriage. So, his current "marriage" is most likely an adulterous one. Not only that, he named his ministry after himself (a sign of a huge ego). And on his blog posts, he never posts pictures of Jesus or anything, but instead is always posting huge pictures of HIMSELF. Sadly, like most modern Charismatic ministers, he seems to be continually engaged in the sin of self-promotion.

In addition, as president of his own "ministry," Murillo is accountable to no one in the Church but himself, which is also unbiblical. Furthermore, he lives in a huge home in Lafayette, Tennessee—over 8,000 square feet! I mean, why would anyone ever want to give their hard-earned money to this super-wealthy guy? And while he frequently speaks about how corrupt Facebook is, he won't ever delete his account and move to an alternative site instead—I guess because he's afraid to lose followers, which equal MONEY. Does that really sound like a humble servant of God to you?

Sadly, Murillo's actions seem to indicate that he's serving himself, not Jesus. Even worse, he's spiritually abusive. Please stay far away from him and his "ministry."

I was recently looking for an older article by Dr. Mercola (who is outspokenly against the Covid-19 "vaccine"), and guess what message I got:

"This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."

So, if you run a popular Web site but are not gung-ho about vaccines and masks, then the Wayback Machine will BAN you.

Pathetic.

Just ban the Wayback Machine from your life instead.

This appears to be just another "bias-rating" site that pretends to be neutral but is in fact extremely liberal. The owner of the site even says that she considers herself "moderately liberal." Well, that means she's probably as liberal as it comes!

Anyway, I looked at their so-called reliability and bias ratings of several news sources. Predictably, they rated extremely liberal sites like CNN and MSNBC as being highly reliable and fairly low in bias, but rated solid conservative sites like Townhall, the Gateway Pundit, and the Epoch Times as being mostly unreliable and highly biased.

It seems that the "ratings" given by this company are nothing more than the subjective opinions of its liberal owner. So predictable!

Here's some helpful info from an online article: "[Ad Fontes Media has] a lack of concise language in the methodology, some grammatical errors (suggesting it has not been reviewed by many people), and the existence of a merch page. But even if all these factors were to be set aside, it remains possible that engaging in such analysis is a largely fruitless endeavour, a point outlined... by Tamar Wilner in the Columbia Journalism Review, in which the Ad Fontes Media Chart is harshly assessed."

Another online article, called "Leftists Now Have an Infographic to Tell You What's 'Fake News'" by the Federalist Papers, also points out what a joke Ad Fontes Media is.

Please stay away from this site, and decide for *yourself* how reliable and biased news sites are. You're smart enough. Don't let these liberal "fact checkers" and "bias raters" think for you!

My nephew sent me a Christmas card on December 18, and he generously decided to send it by Priority Mail so that it would arrive by Christmas. He ended up shelling out $7.75, and the "expected" delivery date on the enclosing envelope said "December 21." Well, his card didn't arrive until December 29—ELEVEN days after it was mailed! I actually sent him a card too, but with only a regular stamp, and it arrived one day sooner!

Priority Mail should be renamed Glacial Mail, because it's nothing but a scam now. They just grab your money, and give you nothing for it.

So many other problems with the postal service too. I mean, where do I begin?

1) I sent someone a Christmas card on December 9 who lives less than 100 miles away from me. Well, she didn't get the card until NINE days later!

2) A friend in New Zealand mailed me a Christmas card on November 29. Normally his cards arrive in about 10 days. Well, this one took THIRTY days!

3) I ordered a book that was (supposedly) sent out to me on December 10. I have no idea where it is, and the tracking information hasn't been updated in THIRTEEN days. Who knows when—or IF—it'll ever arrive?

I could go on and on. Anyway, FedEx and UPS have their share of problems too, but I'd go with them any day over the totally incompetent U.S. Postal Service, who just take your money—and then offer nothing but excuses.

Please avoid the U.S. Postal Service like the plague, because that's exactly what it is!

Michael Brown is a Jewish Christian, and he has a radio show and writes several columns a week. I think he's sincere about wanting to speak the truth about the gospel and political matters.

Unfortunately, he should stick to what he's good at. He excels at defending the faith and discussing scholarly matters (since his Ph. D. is in linguistics, I believe). But his political commentary is mostly inept. After over a month's worth of shocking evidence, he STILL doesn't seem to be completely convinced that fraud occurred in the U.S. presidential election! And he gullibly seems to believe that Dr. Anthony Fauci is honest and trustworthy. He also thought that Mitt Romney was sincere in voting for Trump's impeachment. In a nutshell, Brown seems incredibly naive, and completely lacking in common sense and discernment.

If all that weren't enough, he also seems to have a huge ego. On both his Web site and his social-media accounts, he seems to love referring to himself as DOCTOR. However, Jesus gave stern warnings about referring to oneself with titles (see Matthew 23:10).

And worst of all, Brown lives in a 6,000-square-foot house, yet asks for DONATIONS on his Web site. How hypocritical is that? Besides being sinfully extravagant, his huge house also backs up the idea that he has a huge ego. Apparently with Michael Brown, MONEY talks!

Anyway, some of his stuff is worth reading, but sadly, most of his "political commentary" is a joke. So, if you do choose to read his articles, just use great caution and discernment—and don't swallow everything he says whole.