Just my review of the weird pointless, plot lacking, movie Skyline.

In other news we are suppose to be moving out of this God forsaken apartment into a house this week! I cannot wait to get out of here. I am tired of this place! The heat makes a loud banging  noise when it comes on. – It sounds like prisoners in chains, banging against the bars with them. Literally, that’s how loud it is.  On top of that, there’s this loud popping noise that I have to try to sleep through that happens from time to time over and over again. Of coarse we have the mice issue which we can hear them scurrying through the walls and on top of that I’m getting really sick and tired of someone leaving boxes of unwanted food outside my door like we’re some charity case or something! We have a fridge full of food and people have the nerve! It’s quite insulting! The food is usually just crap they don’t want, expired cans of stuff, and or stuff thats opened already! Why would I use your left over salt! Or sugar you tied in a food storage bag? Do I look that stupid or desperate to say the least? If it was that bad here, I could easily go up the hill(a few blocks) and ask my mom and dad for help before I ever feed my family the left over scraps out of someones cabinet! Seriously I can’t wait until we move out. I’m considering putting a note on our door stating:

Please do not leave food here, we are not a charity case! Thank you.

At first I thought it was just a nice gesture even though we didn’t need it, but when it started becoming an ongoing thing it’s really irritating and embarrassing! It gives people the impression that we don’t have anything and that we’re just this poor family, struggling just to put food on the table!!

Anyways, we wanted to go someone and there wasn’t any other good movies showing so “Precious” it was. The movie was a good movie overall. Monique played the hell out of her role. She should get an Oscar for that because she did a “damn” good job. She played her character so well, I wanted to jump into the movie and bash her with that cast iron skillet she had. I almost cried on certain parts of the movie, and even though it was extremely intense, I still say it was a good movie, but due to the intensity and sick subject of it I can’t say I’ll be purchasing this movie when it comes out. BTW: Mariah Carey isn’t that bad of an actor. I was thoroughly impressed!

In April of this year(2009) I applied for services with Supportkids Inc. because my eldest sons father hasn’t paid any childsupport in over a year and I was desperate to get some assistance. He owed over $5000 in unpaid childsupport and I really thought SupportKids could assist me in collecting it. After first applying for information, I was immediately sent all sorts of letters and received phone calls from Supportkids trying to encourage me to sign up for their services. As soon as I decided to sign up I received a contract stating that a $475 fee would be taken out of the initial payment received from my sons father, and it would be a 34%  fee every check there after.

I was very desperate as I stated earlier and I felt this was the only way I could collect because the agency in my county worked slow and sometimes they just seemed to be really dumb when it came to located my sons father and finding out where he worked. Out of my desperation for help I signed up with them without researching further. As soon as I signed up with them and submitted all the necessary information, all that communication I was getting beforehand ceased to exist!

I first called Supportkids to ask questions on the status of my case because it was the beginning of April when my case was accepted and I hadn’t heard anything. To my surprise I wasn’t talking to real people anymore. There wasn’t even a customer service option. I had to listen to a recorded message about cases being transferred and then I was disconnected. I then emailed Supportkids on May 28th, 2009 about my case and received an automated response. I didn’t get an actual response until June 5th, 2009 that stated the exact recorded message I heard on the phone:

Hello,

We apologize for the delay in our response.

Your case is ready to be sent to an Enforcement Specialist, but in order for case to be sent we need to have confirmation from your state agency that the change of address is in place. We have yet to receive this confirmation from your state agency. Once we know our information is in place with their office the case will be released to Enforcement.

Recently, a limited number of Supportkids cases were transferred to another collection agency. Your case was NOT transferred, but this change has caused a slight disruption to our operations. During this time we ask that you continue to utilize our email address, website, or automated system for updates on your case. We are working towards resolving these issues as soon as possible.

If your case is paying, you may experience a temporary delay in your child support payments.

Thank you for your patience as we work through these issues.

Supportkids, Inc.
Email: clientline@supportkids.com
Website: www.supportkids.com
Automated client line: 512-437-6025

Now I was just completely frustrated so I called the SupportKids sign up line to get some answers. Of course a “real” person answered, but then they told me I had to email Supportkids or call the automated client line again.

I waited a few weeks and I decided to see if I could find independent reviews on the Supportkids. What I found was nothing, but negative feedback about them:

http://www.xomreviews.com/supportkids.com

http://www.killerstartups.com/Site-Reviews/supportkids-com-get-help-collecting-child-support

http://singleparentsunite.blogspot.com/2008/09/supportkidsread-before-you-sign.html

I then emailed SupportKids on July 23rd asking for information on my case once again:

Hello,

I’m trying to figure out why it is taking so long for an update to my case or to receive some payments. I can’t even call and talk to a real person and after reading some reviews about your company I’m beginning to get worried. I was told you had some good info on my case so what’s the hold up?

Please email me ASAP. I need to know what’s going on with my case.

Case# [case # removed]

Samara Bowling
[email removed]

I waited a week and I received no response. I then emailed Support Kids again on July 30th:

To whom it may concern:

I will like to start the process of closing my case with your company and ending my contract. I do not like the lack of communication with your organization. I can’t call and speak with anyone and when I email you I get no response. I emailed you 6 days ago and still no response. You didn’t have an issue calling and mailing me to hassle me into signing up with you and as soon as I do all the communication ends. I will not be changing my mind at this point. At least when I deal with my county I can actually call and speak with a real person. I will seek the advice of a private attorney to end my contract with you and I am having my forwarding address changed with the county from yours to mine immediately.

Samara Bowling
Case#[case # removed]
[email removed]

It is now August 15th and I still haven’t heard from Supportkids. I also did my own investigation with the BBB and look at the information that I discovered on this company:

http://www.bbb.org/central-texas/business-reviews/child-support-enforcement/supportkids-in-austin-tx-42874

This didn’t even make my situation any better, especially after finding out the terrible score that the BBB gave them. I immediately filed my own complaint against them for failure to respond to emails and/or calls. I have also notified my county child support enforcement agency about the situation because from what I gather, SupportKids is just a scam! They prey on single parents that are financially desperate and they do nothing to enforce or collect. More than likely they wait until the county actually collects the money, but because they have set up direct deposit with the county the money will go directly to them first. After they take their fees for doing entirely nothing they forward the remaining balance to the custodial parent.

Do not fall for this scam like I did! Either seek out the help of an attorney or stick it out with your counties child support enforcement agency. I’d rather not collect and wait for the county, than to not collect, wait for the county, and have fees taken out of my check by a scam company for doing totally nothing!

So I’ve been using Google Adsense for about 10 months now and so far I’ve only made a total of $17.35. Google doesn’t disperse any checks until you reach a minimum of $100 and at the rate of $17 every 10 months it will be about 6 years before I get that check, but I won’t be wasting my time with Google that long to even see that check.

I’m going to give Google 6 more months from today. To me you have to be a really big website with lots of traffic and people clicking on ads to make money off of them and people don’t come to my site to click on ads at all so right now I’m second guessing myself as to why I even wasted my time putting their ads on my site.

According to Google I’ve given 23,556 ad impressions since March 2007 and I’ve had 75 clicks and 164 search queries with 16 clicks, but I only got paid in total is a lousy $17.35. Man that sucks.

I remember when I first decided to add Google to my site. My plan was to just use these ads to pay for my site every month, but in 10 months Google Adsense has only paid for one month of service and I’m $2.60 away from paying for 2 months of service. Hmmm… I think I’m really wasting my time with these stupid ads, but we’ll see in 6 months.

If nothing works out I’ll just sell my own ad space to anyone whom wants to advertise. Even if it is just 5 bucks for a whole year. At least I wouldn’t have to wait on getting the 5 bucks.