The Risks of Buying on Facebook: My Experience

For those of us that use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family through it, you might have also noticed that there are a lot of adverts these days appearing on your screen on Facebook, advertised all sorts of things fronted by people and business that have set up pages to pay Facebook to advertise their products on.

I purchased 2 t-shirt’s from Facebook from a website that was advertising its items from a USA website called Soulisfree and the T-shirts arrived and fit as the correct size as sold and I really liked them, one was a black t-shirt with a full sun equinox taking place on the front of the T-shirt and the other as pictured below was called ‘Wandering into the digital world”. The image was one that looked like Alice in Wonderland lifting up a curtain to reveal the code from the matrix in her reality. I thought both T-shirts were cool and looked great. I was so pleased when they both safely arrived with me back in September.

The buying of the T-shirts gave me a false sense of security that buying on Facebook might actually be ok and could have improved since the bad old days of items turning up wrongly sized or misadvertised. So back in September I started getting a lot of adverts promoting advent calendars and one that caught my eye was entitled ‘The Lord of the Rings Christmas Advent Calendar – Collector’s Edition’. I have never bought an advent calendar for myself, don’t own a Christmas tree or decorations but thought it might be a nice idea to buy the calendar and possibly even use the advent calendar items as Christmas decorations and even get a Christmas Tree.

I thought the little figures looked great and what could go wrong trying to buy them on Facebook too, Facebook is a big company with a multimillion pound slick business operation what on earth could go wrong. so I purchased the calendar from a chinese company advertising its shop on Facebook.

Well that was the middle of September when I tried to buy the above item and I don’t think anything is on its way. I had a confirmation of purchase and confirmation of postage sent to me but everything else has gone wrong. The (none Facebook, website crashes when I try to click on it to get an update on my order or ask them when it might arrive). The company has also stopped advertising the calendar on Facebook although they still have some other active calendar adverts on Facebook.

I have tried contacting Facebook asking the to remove the advertising page from their site and shut down the businesses advertising pages on Facebook to stop more people giving this business money for goods that do not arrive. It took me about 4-5 hours to work out how to make a complaint on Facebook and I did this with the help of google search, but its very difficult to complain about past adverts, unless you know what your doing on Facebook.

It’s almost deliberately difficult so that people just don’t bother reporting past fraudulent sites and pages on Facebook which is a huge con by the companies and criminal entities pretended to sell stuff through Facebook shopping windows. Facebook are not stupid and incompetent they are complicit with the the criminal activity taking place through their pages.

Fortunately for me I purchased the imaginary calendar through a PayPal payment and so PayPal have already refunded my purchase and so I am not out of pocket. But for those that end up handing their account details directly to criminal entities operating on Facebook I do feel sorry for those potentially mis sold customers as you just don’t know what they will do with those account details once they have them. I also don’t know why Facebook make it so easy for people to be ripped off through their site, very poor customer practises which they must profit from considerably.

What if 24 hour satellite television news had existed in 1945?

When Hitler invaded Poland and started World War 2 would the news stations have been beaming around the world his justification for going to war and would we have been relying on journalists cleared by or operating within the rules of what the Nazis deemed as appropriate to broadcast to ‘inform’ us of what is going on in Germany and the countries being conquered by the Nazi regime. What a question to consider you might say.

But it really does feel in Russia, Israel and to some extent news from the White House in the USA, it is very much in a one directional form of information presentation. Which we are handed on a plate and if unpalatable then tough luck sucker this is the perspective we are telling you is truth today.

For example Russia entered a righteous war in Ukraine and did not invade a sovereign state for its strategic advancement. You think the fascists in Russia are bad you should watch the videos about the fascists in Ukraine their much much worse than the Russian ones or so the propaganda machine journalists of the Russian state would have people believe as some conspiracist lap this up as so called food for thought.

In Gazza there is an outright genocide through starvation and bombing which our satellite television channels keep on tuning into Israel governments propaganda machine very much like if during World War 2 a Nazi spokesperson explaining live on TV the importance of workcamps to set people free and house jews within them and completely denying the gas chambers as malicious gossip.

In the USA millions of dollars of oversee life saving food, aid and healthcare programmes have been stopped overnight which will lead to the death of citizens across the globe whilst ICE’s US deportation teams kick people out of the country or detain them within the country with out due legal process if not costing lives certainly severally impacting on lives and the big lie reported live on satellite TV by the US governments team is that illegal immigrants are all rapists, murders and drug dealers and therefore need to go.

Its never been easier to report bullshit as fact and facts as bullshit on the TV. Truth is still truth though and facts are still facts, it just so happens I seem to spend more time these days trying to tune out the lies and bullshit than I do tune into fact and truths.

I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore! Speech from Network (1976)

Blocking the rivers of trade

Stopping the flow of money & watching some rivers of finance run dry, all for an experiment that will fail and a crash and burn to the US economy.

If we were still in George Orwell’s 1984 novel then the great trade war has begun and if it was up to Trump no matter what damage he does he will be reporting this war as a victory. No matter how many jobs are lost he will be reported as improvements and gains and no matter how much money people loose they will be reported as having increased and gained.

The normal rivers of Economic trade being blocked and dammed by Trumpian probable failing economic policies will cut deep. Damaging both economic systems across the globe and Trumps ego and people’s perception of him as an intelligent and knowledgeable business man. Trump likes to see himself as a brilliant business man and an assumption of this brilliance should be a keen understanding of international economics and trade is unravelling before his eyes and stock markets around the world and recessions are on the horizon while his attempt to block flows of trade fails for the USA and rest of the world. Trade and flows of trade will likely find a way even if this is further away from the USA rather than directly to it. Yes, Trump it will be a painful transition for many but what no one can really predict with and clear insight is what the change will look like and what that change ultimately leads too. Will it result in more or less jobs and money in the USA in the long run is yet to be seen.

Economic policies and trade from country to country can be viewed as flowing of goods and services to and from places across the globe. These flows are natural and part of economic cycles. Where there is financial clout to purchase goods and services and where there is an ability to produce and design, market and provide excellent goods and services and then transport them across the globe then these flows of products and services are natural economic eco systems that take place. It’s a consumers market and Trumps policies go completely against the free flow of consumption and he fails to allow the flow of trade and consumption and in my opinion Trumps policies will ultimately fail just like many of his other policies.

But the fact that he sees himself as such a great business man means that this failure will likely hurt him the most as well as his own country the place he is in fact trying to make great again. With the shocks to share and trading markets and likely continued break down in flows of trade and consumption this will be a damming of the river of financial, goods and services trade. Jobs will be lost, goods will go up in price and business will go out of business.

Trump says that the USA has been treated unfairly, what he is really stating is he does not agree with the economic flows of finance and he is conducting a global experiment that will likely fail for him and cause more damage to USA and global business than good for goods and services. Trump cannot buy rivers of flow and Trump can not force the USA consumer or businesses to by USA goods and services. Freedom of consumption is natural to human markets and trade he’s peddling ideas and views that will fail and meddling in economic markets and trade flows he simply just does not understand. Like a bull in a china shop its likley there will be a crash or two of the economy.

Oddschecker.com is it really worth paying for a subscription to have a bet?

Next week is the Cheltenham horse racing festival in the UK – it is the BIG celebration of horse racing in the UK and for those that enjoy watching horse racing and having a punt and putting a bet on that is the week to do it. But there are so many horses at so many different odd to bet on that it’s very easy to not know which horses to bet on and see who will win or who will lose.

There are websites out there that have people that recommend the horses that they think are most likely to win on the day of each race, but even when you follow the tip of a good tipster there is no guarantee that any horse they say might win a race will win. The Cheltenham festival is a week when if I try to have a bet I make sure I set a limit to how much I bet because chances are I will lose most bets and it is likely I will lose money and so it’s important to only bet what I can afford on my budget to lose. Betting should really be looked at by me as a bit of fun, a challenge a gamble and not in a any way a way of making money or profiting from.

I tend to place 1 or 2 £3 bets on four horse known as a lucky 15, 10 pence each way bet, each day during the Cheltenham festival and use sites such as Oddschecker.com to help me decide which horse to bet on. Last March in the week before the Cheltenham festival the Oddschecker.com website started charging people £10 to view all the tips on it’s website concerning which horses to bet on. This was incredibly annoying at the time as this service has been free for years with tipsters such as Andy Holding recommending which horses to back during the Cheltenham festival. I kind of assumed and hoped the site would always be free to view tips on.

So to start charging the week before the the Cheltenham horse racing gold cup festival seemed really harsh back in 2024 but I though £10 a month to pay to see what horses Andy Holding recommended was not too bad. So I paid my money and took my chances and placed my bets. I don’t remember if I won or lost last year which meant I did not have a big win but likely did not loose that much either and probably broke even betting for the fun of it and not for the win.

Well it’s now Sunday 8^th March 2025 and my subscription to get bets for £10 a month has just today stopped working suddenly even though I’m still paying Oddschecker.com my subscription of £10 a month for what now appears to be a complete waste of money and no tips. Oddsecher.com are now asking for a subscription charge of £34.99 per month for what was once £10 if I still want to get tips from Andy Holding for next week’s Cheltenham festival, which does feel extortionate.

Considering I normally only spend £3.00 to £6.00 a day on bets and there now asking me to pay an extra £34.99 a month to see tips so as to be able to place a bet. It feels like an excessive rip off and out of my budget and will not increase the amount of winners I back if I start paying £34.99 for a subscription tipping service that was recently completely free. I would like to cancel my subscription of £10 month but they also offered me a share in a horse called Unknown Journey so I am going to decide later whether to cancel my current subscription of £10 a month for what now is just for a share in the owning of a horse with no horse racing tips with it and the tips were my main reason for agreeing to a subscription in the first place.

There are other sites to consider in order to be able to gain tips from tipsters that are good at picking horses that sometime win. The best site that is still free for tips is attheraces.com Hugh Taylor is a person I follow on this website that offers good tips but there are disadvantages to following his tips. Firstly he does not always have tips every day and also when he backs a horse the odds then narrow and so you don’t always get good odds on the horses that he backs because lots of other people are tipping the horse too, so you don’t get good odds on the horses he chooses and just because the odds are lowered does not increase the chances of a horse winning. On the attheraces.com website there is also Lawrence Taylor’s speed ratings tips and I like theses as these are six good tips everyday on race horses that he recommends to put a bet on, but one downside is you do not know what the odds are on the page and have to go to a new page to look up the odds for betting on his choice of horses.

If you are able or willing to want to pay for tips then there is also another Andy Holding website that is expensive it’s called andyholdingspeedfigures.co.uk and costs £39 per month to see the horse he recommends placing bets on. To be honest I signed up years ago on a trial discount rate for Cheltenham week festival tips and it looked and felt like they overly gave you lots of stats about horses to back but the site was very confusing and complicated and did not help me know which horse to pick to place a bet on. It’s too expensive for me to have a yearly subscription but I am tempted to try it for a month when the Cheltenham Gold cup week takes place and just see what the site looks like now.

My final thoughts are if you have an addictive personality, a small income or gamble money that you cannot afford to lose, please just don’t do it. Betting on the horses is no way to make, earn or win money. Know your limits and if you not betting to play a game or you try to chase money you have lost or need it’s potentially dangerous and just not worth it.

I bet you don’t make money or win a lot but the fun of watching the races and betting small amounts on bets you can afford to lose is a lot of fun. I don’t think the paid sites are worth there subscription fees and just because you pay a company website to tell you which horse to place a bet on does not guarantee that a horse will win. Best of luck though whatever you do.

Keywords across site

The Importance of Truth

Truth matters, both to us as individuals and to society as a whole. As individuals, being truthful means that we can grow and mature, learning from our mistakes. For society, truthfulness makes social bonds, and lying and hypocrisy break them.

Teaching Donald Trump on Ukraine!

President Trump is leaning towards and learning more from Putin than he is from Zelensky. This reasoning sheds light on various aspects of his political behaviour and rhetoric.

Firstly, he’s a proven liar, often distorting the truth to suit his narrative and support his positions. This continuous pattern of misinformation creates an environment where trust becomes difficult to establish, not only with the general public but also with international allies.

Moreover, he does not accept that the war in Ukraine was an invasion by Putin’s Russia. This denial can be seen as a troubling alignment with Putin’s narrative, which ultimately undermines the sovereignty of Ukraine and the reality of the conflict at hand.

His lies must be supported by his allies, suggesting a need for a closed circle of support where dissenting opinions are unwelcome. This creates an echo chamber that amplifies falsehoods rather than fostering constructive dialogue or critical examination of facts.

In addition to misleading statements, he’s a proven bully. His brash demeanor and aggressive tactics in both personal and political arenas demonstrate a tendency to intimidate those who oppose him. Coupled with this is an ego that appears to need constant validation and massaging, further complicating his interactions with both leaders and constituents.

Furthermore, he often speaks out on matters that he does not care to understand fully. This lack of depth in comprehension can lead to misguided policies and decisions that have far-reaching implications, not just for the U.S., but for global stability as well.

Trump offers up taking resources off Ukraine, resources that do not belong to him and should be reserved for the needs of the Ukrainian people and their fight for independence. This approach reveals a troubling disregard for international norms and the principles of sovereignty.

Additionally, he accuses Zelensky of being a dictator, a claim that reflects more on Trump’s understanding of democracy than on the reality of Ukraine’s leadership under Zelensky. This kind of accusation showcases a broader tendency to mislabel opponents and allies alike, often for political gain rather than based on actual governance.

Finally, it seems Trump wishes for a world where the United States does not play an essential role. This sentiment, although echoed by some who are weary of entangling alliances, can lead to a dangerous isolationism that disregards the importance of U.S. involvement in global matters. Ironically, while many people share a desire for peace and self-sufficiency among nations, the path to achieving that vision lies through collaboration, not withdrawal.

Quotes for our time – Victor-Marie Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables

‘The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor’, There had been in modern times an attempt to help people out of poverty through the wealth of others trickling down to the poor – I fear if Trump has his ways there won’t be much wealth actively tricking to the poor or to anyone else for that matter. With the stopping of aid across the US and internationally and calling out aid projects as wasteful, fraudulent and corrupt, that the US must somehow be saved from and free of, whilst increasing tax breaks for the most wealthy does not bode well for the poor across the globe. The poorer and more desperate you make people the harder they will fight to reach your shores and to break all rules of laws to survive.

There seem to be a considerable swell of people speaking out at present, like I have never seen before against President Trump not so much from politicians or the mainstream mass media but more so on a grass roots level – I hope it’s not too little too late.

The human soul can endure what is real and live through many forms of reality in the hope and sometimes expectation of something better and something pure.

Also heaven does not reward the wicked

Trump’s War on the Poor – The Rest Is Politics

What would a political coup d’état look like in the USA?

The definition of a political a coup d’état on Wikipedia is ‘stroke of state’, or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership A self coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.

I am not 100% sure of a definition of someone coming to power lawfully and then illegally enacting laws to suit their best interest while acting against the interest of the people that those laws then impact on.

I hope Trump is just a businessman or salesman just asset stripping the US and globe in order to make some money and save some dollars over the next four years but if it is an unlawful power grab and something deeper then that then it will not be good for anyone.

So This is How Liberty Dies, With Thunderous Applause (4K HDR)

The Veils – Sit Down By The Fire

Trump offering a sweet treat to Putin

“Would you like a slice Mr President I hear it’s very good”. Trump is offering a slice of Ukraine on a plate to Putin, with no guarantee that Putin will not be tempted to come back for more and more. Ukraine are not sitting at the table as instead they are being served up on it.

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