Doorknob number two writes:
1/28/2006 - Garrett writes:
When it's all over, you think to yourself, "How the hell did I fall for that? Here's how it went down. For me personally, a change in anxiety medication gave me 2nd shift insomnia and severe depression. All I could do was lay there and watch T.V all night and possibly fall asleep by 8 or 9 a.m. Girls Gone Wild, Real Estate Infomercials and Don Lapre all night long, fluttering by me with a blank stare on my end. A recent Nutrition graduate from college, anything related to nutrition draws me in, wanting to learn more. The "Greatest" Vitamin in the World! Wow! And I finally thought to myself, "What the hell, I'm gonna take a risk, $35 or whatever, that ain't nothin'!" I didn't know I opened Pandora's Box at the time. Next, the phone calls came, oh, and they came. And it sounded so great. Only $1200 for the gold bullshit package that will give you your "Guaranteed Traffic" of such and such amount of people, oh Garrett and your website will have 65 characters in it and will be impossible to figure out. And all the great people I talked to. Heath Bebout! Heathy! And don't forget Pepper Jones! These guys were awesome, truly remarkable people! I should say aliases right? I tried to get out of the program a few times. They refunded me $2000 of the $5000 I spent at one time and told me they were going to give me some extra, platinum "**** me in the ass because I'm their bitch" package to compensate for my troubles. Finally, every ounce of me knew I was getting screwed and I stepped up to the plate with Satan himself, who told me vehemently, "What?! How much did you think you were going to sell?!" I guess he thought I had gone past the 30 day guarantee. Oh, "by the way asshole," I thought to myself, then said this, "I'm within my 30 day guarantee period, so I don't want to have to get my bank or my attorney involved here." After that, I went straight to my bank and filed a EFT claim report for these transactions. And you guessed it, my buddies at the "Vitamin shop" were trying to get ahold of me, uh... you guessed it, I didn't answer. My bank took care of everything and were very nice and understanding of me, not a very typical bank. I went there completely broken, so embarassed, so defeated. I can remember just being hunched over and barely being able to say anything. Everything was still up in the air at that point. A lady from one of their claims department called me and told me she would be able to take care of it and she came through (God, I wish I could remember her name, she was so nice) I was so grateful! To see the money come back into my account was one of the best feelings in the world, not the money itself necessarily, but the principal of standing up for myself and not being taken advantage of. I had never really talked about it before much, because it's so embarassing. To tell someone you fell for a Don Lapre scam and almost lose $5000 plus in the process made me feel smaller than I've ever felt in my entire life. You feel so stupid, like you fell in a pile of shit and everyone you despise in life is laughing at you. It was like something else controlled me during that time. Maybe severely depressed, insomniacs do crazy things sometimes and this turned out to be my "wake up" call. I quit the 2nd shift job, got on new meds and actually started working for the same bank that helped me. I like to think that in my tenure there that I lived my gratitude and was one of the most lively tellers to ever live. Maybe I'm a little grandiose too
See! Some good did come out of this debacle. but every once in a while, like a wound that just never heals, I think to myself, "How the hell did I fall for that?"
