#126 Trust and ex felons...again (new)

Trust and Ex Felons…again

It is just after 2:30pm as I start blogging this, and this is based on something that happened today. I had been answering some emails from new readers who asked about my blogs, and my projects, but an outside situation had me thinking about the idea of whether you can trust an ex felon like me or not.

This is important to me because I am trying to create prison encouragement certificates, cards and I have self-published books that I am trying to do in order to make a living, and help people in the process. But for every one that believes in me, there are likely 10 that don’t, simply because I am an ex felon.

The idea here is that you can’t trust an ex felon….meaning what, that you CAN trust people who are NOT ex felons? With that in mind, let me share with you a recent situation:

Tomorrow (Saturday) I am supposed to go out of town with a couple of people to enjoy a wrestling event. I don’t get to get out much mainly because I am always broke, but the tickets are paid for so I get to go with them. In order to make plans, we decide to rent a car for 3 days. We go online to Enterprise Rent-A-Car and look up the info for renting a car. We find one, and make an initial reservation, and print out the info.

On that receipt, it says that the fee for renting that car will be just over $98.00. I think it was more like $98.18. Ok, fine, we know how much it’s gonna cost, so we need to pick it up.

Yesterday (Thursday) we get a call from Enterprise saying we need to call and verify the reservation…no prob, although I thought we already did that. Still, no problem, we do that and all we need to do now is go down to Enterprise, pay the fee and pick up the car on Friday by 10am.

But here comes the problem….

We get there, and before we get the car, they add on some additional fees and a $100 deposit. The car we initially agreed to pay $98 for has now spiked to about $418...for the same 3 days!

Outraged, we refused to get the car (mainly because we can’t afford it), and came back home. We’ll have to use my brother’s car, which is decent, but it would have been better if we had a more conditioned car for the trip. But because of these foolish hidden fees, we were not able to do business with Enterprise.

The problem here is the hypocrisy that we as individuals have when it comes to trust. We assume that every ex felon is out to con you out of something, and thus won’t place a grain of faith in any of them. Yet corporate America fleeces consumers DAILY and we act like that’s just the way it is. You tell me where you can go and buy a product or service, and get charged three or FOUR times the original price and that is cool.

If you go buy a pair of shoes for $50, do they add on hidden fees and taxes and then charge you $200 for that same pair?

If you buy a car for $25,000, do they add on hidden fees and taxes and then charge you $100,000 for that same car?

If you bought a cheeseburger for $2, do they add on hidden fees and taxes and then charge you $5.50 for that same burger?

No!

But the average person doesn’t complain about it, as if what they are doing must be legal…I mean, after all, it’s not like they are convicts!

But those same people will get uptight when I talk about trying to create a revenue by helping folks with loved ones in prison. Some people just don’t want to trust me when I talk about my cards and things, and they CERTAINLY don’t embrace the idea of supporting an ex con!

This is the hypocrisy we live in, where we can be cheated daily in the consumer market, and let it slide because those guys in corporate America are not cons…but an ex felon trying to get his life back on track can’t get the time of day because “we just don’t trust ex cons”.

Some people have criticized me on some posts because they felt that ex cons deserve to be judged that way because, as one brainless person said, “they made a choice”… well, Enterprise Rent-A-Car made a choice to charge multiple times more for a price that was originally agreed on. Many airline companies charge ridiculous fees for the smallest things, like if you have an extra bag, or things like that. Anything to get another dollar from you.

They made a choice too…to get every dollar from you that they can. And you made a choice too… to accept it or not.

Look folks, I am not trying to sit here and say that ever ex felon has a halo around their head, and is perfect and good and all that…we KNOW better than that. But for every ex con that you can point the finger at and accuse him or her of being a “con”, I can point one at a person who has never set foot in jail or prison and accuse them of “conning” people too.

There are few totalities when it comes to these issues folks. If you assume that every ex felon is out to get your last dollar, then you are blind. No less than if you think every business out there is there to “serve the consumer”. One example is this weekend…with this being Easter Weekend, how many businesses out there have said that they would be open Easter Sunday…for YOUR convenience?

A bigger lie cannot be said…they are open to get your money… it has nothing to do with Easter or respect to God…it’s about seeing how much money they can get from you. That means somebody has to WORK on Easter Sunday for a convenient store… but don’t worry, it must be cool, after all, these are not ex cons.

People have asked me recently if they can support my blogs, I have different ways of answer that. I do not encourage anybody to send me anything until they are ABSOLUTELY sure of what I am doing. If you really, really believe what I am blogging, and believe that what I am doing is helpful, AND if you have it to spare, then feel free to support me. But if you have any reservations, don’t. I want to win you over as a person, and as a sincere writer before you consider supporting my blogs.

Those that do support me know this, and they trust me because I have helped them, or they have read enough of my blogs to know that I am not just fooling around… I really do want to help. These people recognize that although I am an ex felon, my efforts to help are sincere and honest…sure I would love to make a million dollars, or more. I still have a college debt to pay and there are things I really need. But it has to be done the right way, I have to earn that trust from you. And the only way I can do that is to share parts of me by blogging, and making cards, encouragement certificates and the like.

I realize that when it comes to trusting an ex felon, most people are going to immediately turn their heads, but often times we do this with so much prejudicial thinking that we never sit down to think if that person is trying to redeem himself or herself to society. If you have read all my blogs to this point, and don’t trust me, I suppose that is your belief…but if so, I ask that you also don’t bother me with your problems…if I don’t matter to you as a person trying to help…then don’t ask me to matter about your problems.

That sounds kinda rude…but isn’t it just as rude to continue to condemn a person when you have no grounds outside of his past? Its very easy to say you can’t trust me, but we blindly spend millions of dollars on businesses that are itching to find cheap ways to get every dollar you have… in the name of business. Aren’t they just as much of a con man as the perception of every ex felon?

I remember when McDonalds here in our town used to use a slick trick to get the consumer to pay more for a drink. They changed their value menus and took out the drink. You all know how those value menus usually work; you get a sandwich, fries and a drink for a certain price, right? Well, McDonalds took out the drink, so the “value” was only the sandwich (burger) and fries.

But when you order, they always ask either if you want a drink with that, or what kind…they don’t tell you that the drink is EXTRA. And after you order the “value”, you look at your receipt and see that they charged you about $1.75 for a drink…regardless of size.

I was burned up about this, and promised myself to never order a drink from McDonalds again…a few weeks later they started running commercials about their “$1 drinks”. Its funny they did that because they fleeced their customers by overpricing their sodas and not telling them.

Who says all cons come from prison?

So I say this to my readers, I understand if you read my blogs with a cautious eye, wondering what I am really up to. If you feel that way, then keep reading, or stop reading, but please, don’t ask me to help you if you don’t believe in me. I can’t be sincere with you if you are not with me. But if you have read enough of my blogs and think that maybe this guy on the other side of this computer does care, then take some time to make a nice comment or email me. I try to answer my emails as soon as I can; lots of readers are actually surprised that I answer so fast.

If after this you see that I do care and want to do my best to help, then consider placing a little trust in me…as an ex felon that is asking a lot, but as a person, it should not be too much to ask. Anyway, gotta go, until then….