vrwDown

I Suck(ed)

Over the past year and a half or so, I have battled to bolster my internet search score and, more importantly, my name and online reputation.

I have succeeded in removing from the internet certain unnecessary, certainly unwarranted "warnings" about me personally ... Offensive digs, insulting lies about "Jeff Glovsky", the person (as opposed to the registered, licensed business which the person happened to own once in Miami, Florida, and which failed).

Yet over the past several weeks, I (the person ... the 'real' Jeff Glovsky) have lost ground to a particularly nasty bear of a website ... a disgusting online purgatory, where the abused stand permanently defamed and damaged, having no control whatsoever over libelous, one-sided or downright false information dumped there by angry, aggrieved-feeling, perceived slight sufferers, who might be having a pissy day.

They might also have valid, justifiable complaints ... but once they take their concerns destructively, personally and permanently public, there is, or should be, no further discussion with them.  There is certainly no need for the extortionate "arbitration" offered so generously by our gracious(ly cackling), purgatorial hosts ...

The seeds of damage incited and encouraged to be planted, have already turned to cement and been fanned!

But despite this ground recently lost in my battle -- instead, keeping in line with the overall, more or less V-shaped march of my campaign at large -- one such terrible online dumping ground, another place for the frustrated to attack and call names under the pretense of providing the world with "reviews", is now offline.

The "Vacation Rentals Watchdog" website (vrwd) and its unattended, unmoderated space to trash and malign individuals and businesses, is down.  Hopefully for good.

Good riddance.

I want to believe I had something to do with this, by contacting the legal team of that website's hosting service, and pointing out that the horrible joke of a site was not providing a "consumer service" to anybody at all, but rather, it was quite literally, an unattended, unmoderated space to trash and malign ... and if the contact information provided at the site, as well as the website's registrant, were BOTH unresponsive, then there must be a Terms of Service violation somewhere, regarding compliance.

Apparently, there was.

V R W D

R.I.P.

A Year in Review

If you've searched me by name ... chances are you've wound up here. - Jeff Glovsky, "What's in a Name?", June 26th, 2013

Sometimes when I wake, sometimes in the dead of night, I ask myself, "Am I better off now than I was last year?"

This has been going on for decades.

I remember turning twenty, and bemoaning the fact that my teen years were behind me ... literally feeling "old".  At twenty!  But asking myself then, as I toiled backstage at a Rhode Island summer theater, Am I better off now than I was the previous summer, lifeguarding at a camp in the Berkshires ... sleeping with insects and rocking an orange tan?

Though the jury in my head is still out on that one ... I will say that the summer I spent doing theater nonsense did introduce me, through a production of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, to a lifelong significant other in jazz.  Oh, would that I could play something!  The day (or night) I wake up and think to myself, Last year, I couldn't play an instrument ... is the day I'll relax, maybe stop assessing.

Or when it no longer needs to be a question.  When the current of my life, and each 365 days prior, in particular, are clearly moving forward, and not laterally (or back!) -- so I don't need to ask myself, "Am I better off now than I was last year?" --

Then I'll have achieved something.

In the meantime, I'll just keep obsessing ...

Last year, in 2013, I finally woke up from a 3-year coma.  In 2010, my name and reputation were destroyed ... maliciously, I'll maintain.  Needlessly.  Prematurely.  Criminally; for defamation -- calumny, vilification, traducement, libel, blasphemous slander -- is a crime.  If I'd known then how to protect myself from it happening ... with just the press of an "Enter" key:  with NO form of outreach, fact-checking or "rebuttal" offered until AFTER the damages already get done ... I would not have kept silent, shell-shocked from the bullying ... comatose, bent over and raped for three years.

I would not have played dead, "hiding" in plain sight, while my name and reputation, friends and lovers, innocent family members suffered, then became destroyed and flat-lined like I pretended to ...

No, I would've risen and fought back, then.

In 2013, I started fighting back now.  Enough became more than enough, and to all the bandwagon jumpers, lazy strangers, simple googlers, problem tenants and out and out troublemakers who think asshole behaviors are somehow justified ... despite never even meeting me, let alone knowing what the situation may have been in 2010, and what you're talking about when you add insult to injury; when you reject, refuse, deny and/or extort out of hand, 'cause you think you can ...

"WANTED" ... Really?

Fuck you.  That's all I have to say to you, still.  Can't express myself differently than I've already done here, and here and here and here, over the past year ... Even flailing, coming close to admitting defeat, I am resolved to keep fighting, providing some balance.

... There are others, though.  Those of you who know me, and have known me, for many years.  Have done business with me, again and again.  Have entered into new business ... Have worked with me at Tier 1 financial institutions (where, obviously, I never would be if I were a "lifetime criminal and scam artist!" END QUOTE).

There are those of you who have chosen to be / stay connected ... Have rented apartments I own without incident, have swapped apartments, wholly and mutually on trust.

There are website owners who are not extortionate; there are people of reason, who have recognized the foulness and long-lasting damages of a false and defamatory online attack, and taken steps to help me restore my name - the name "Jeff Glovsky".

To all of you, I say Thank you.  Though to be honest, I shouldn't need to run around thanking people (however sincerely appreciated they may be) ... for doing their jobs, or not publicly defaming me!  To paraphrase Chris Rock, that's what's SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!

If you're on the fence through all this, or have no idea what to think ... after all, you don't know me.  Why should you think anything?  You've only 'stumbledupon' this post and might think I'm some wack job -- assuming you've even read this far --

I invite you to know me ...

The 'real' Jeff Glovsky

* * *

Tell Me ...

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"Dead to You", ©Jeff Glovsky

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What Does It Take, Really?

As a corollary to my previous post -- in fact, an addendum, of sorts -- concerning fading humanity in the United States, I would like to add my acknowledgement and sincere appreciation of the following individuals and businesses which, against prevailing current and a nation changing for the worse, still offer dignity and customer service.  Off the top of my head, there are:

- the super motel in the lakefront northern Wisconsin town I grew up in, and come home to to roost every now and then (although not nearly as often as I should, or would like to), and day manager (high school classmate), Lisa.

- US Airways' gate agent, Gaby, working at Fort Lauderdale International Airport (FLL) this spring.  Gaby, you made my night, by smilingly, professionally changing my flight up the east coast to Boston, so it wouldn't need to stop in Chicago (?) first.  THANK YOU.

- the AirTran gate agent in October 2013, working at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL).  When I missed my connecting flight to FLL there, you shrugged, said "Why not?" and, again, so rare as to be noteworthy, professionally did your job by allowing me to get on a flight to Orlando.  No raping "change fee", no blather about "city pairs" ... I needed to get to Florida, you allowed it to happen.  Why not, indeed?

(True, I had to take a Greyhound bus to get from Orlando to Miami that trip, and that sorta sucked ... but you know what?  I thought of you on that six hour ride, my love!  Your proud, solution-driven face and vaguely admonishing, motherly smile, stayed with me each tropic mile...).

- the Enterprise car rental agent at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), the following month.  You accepted my debit card to rent the vehicle.  You treated it like a credit card -- as really, it should be; because otherwise, what's the point of having the Visa or MasterCard logo there??  These confusions don't exist in other countries, where a bank card is still just a bank card, and may only be used at an ATM ... or for point of sale purchases, but using electronic chip and PIN technology, having nothing to do with Visa or MasterCard.

For these are credit cards.  If their logos are on my bank card, I expect my bank card to be treated appropriately: as a Visa or MasterCard!  Not as a debit card ... so then I'm prevented or disallowed from using the Visa or MasterCard features.

What is the point of that??

Anyway, you, Enterprise car rental agent at EWR in November 2013 ... You accepted my debit card to rent the vehicle.  You "authorized" no amount -- nothing was held on my card in advance -- allowing me to get where I needed to go.  I'm sorry I didn't get your name - but THANK YOU.

To some of you others -- you airlines and car rental agencies and hotels in the U.S., clawing for superfluous "deposits" and charges ("authorizations", sorry!) ... adhering so rigidly to ridiculous "policies", without any kind of case-by-case examining or human level -- you should move back toward respecting your customers.  Not inconveniencing, hassling and, literally in some cases, stranding your customers.

You should rethink, and all be ashamed of yourselves.

Zero Humanity + Daily Indignity =

Not Ann

I spoke last week with a friend of mine in Istanbul.  Ann has been living in Turkey for the past ten years or so.  Having just become a part-time expatriate myself, I was happy to catch up with her ... but decidedly less happy that our conversation kept returning to our country, and the stresses which lead to madness in America.

Every week, there's a pent-up release of bloodshed, a new "latest shooting" which makes the news.  Seventy-four school shootings in the U.S. since Sandy Hook.

...How many???

Seventy-four school shootings in the past eighteen months.  Doing some quick math, that's about four shootings per month ... or a deadly, public shooting each week!

One can only imagine the daily horrors ... the actual "latest" killings, updated on our collective akashic record, but otherwise ignored by the breathless who show up on TV for the 'big ones':  to furrow their brows and look "concerned", and gesticulate, holler, emote with weird voices and burp about gun control (... or not.  Too often, protecting our children falls by the wayside, with "fair and balanced" demands that we protect our 18th century right to bear arms.).

Though this sorry, and particularly American, state of telejournalism -- and its attendant looks, movements, voices, inflections, cackling, guffaws, fake camaraderie and endless transparency -- is in itself, a painful horror to watch ... the real daily horror, the every day pain Americans tend to inflict on each other -- the killings; the psychological need to harm or take life in America -- is not an "event", and therefore goes largely unreported.

What causes it?

My friend Ann and I were discussing this.  Neither of us will ever know, fully understand, live and breathe like second skins, our adopted cultures and imposed new languages - hers, Turkish, mine German.  The best that we'll be able to do, at this point in our mid-lives, is to try and comprehend our own ...

That is, American.

To be an American in this century, particularly, this decade, is to be slapped and assaulted and abused at each turn; to face zero humanity, suffer daily indignity ... To be stripped of privacy, financial freedom or any expectation of same.

Wait, let me explain:

From the "deposits" sucked off of your credit card balances -- to stay in a hotel room or rent a vehicle, say -- to being told you can't stay, or drive, if you don't have a "deposit".  Though your room, and your vehicle, are fully prepaid, the "deposit" may prevent you from staying or driving.  Unable to check in, then, you're out on the street!  Or unable to get where you're needing to go.

(And then you're insulted with semantics:

"It's only an 'authorization'.  You are not being charged, sir."

Oh.  That's OK then.  I don't have access to the $250 that you're "authorizing" in addition to payment -- I can't use it or buy anything with it, since it's being "held" -- and although it's been "authorized" from me immediately (not by me, mind you, but from me), it will take up to seven business days (!??) until it's returned to my credit or debit card and I'm able to spend it again.

Because you haven't CHARGED the amount, of course, thank God!  You're only "authorizing" it, correct?

I understand.  I'll just wait a week.)

... to being told, "I can't help you.", when you ask if the airline really needs the $30 fee for your carry-on bag.

"Why don't you ask the CEO?" you're actually asked, snidely in response, by a monstrous dismissive who can't give a fuck.  Clearly, this creature doesn't want to be there dealing with you, any more than you do, her ... Except it's her job to deal with you.  Courteously.  Professionally.

She fails at it daily.

When you try to complain, speak to anyone, someone ... You're only met with telephone "options" (all of which, "recently changed", of course!).  No human being to hear you screaming...

No common sense arguments need apply.  Just tap-tap-tap, computer says "NO!".

It's enough to make a grown man cry.  Or ...

What Can I Say?

Goodreads, anyone?

I didn't like it.