Fires, Funerals and Scammers

The fire burning out of control in SA has a fire perimeter of some 240 klm. Fortunately it is well away from us, but even so it was a dangerous and deadly fire. Two people are confirmed dead, one is still missing and  many people injured. The property losses are high and the  livestock losses have been very heavy.  We had fire crews come over from New South Wales and Victoria to help bring the fire under control. The high winds didn’t help. I know, driving back from Adelaide  last Wednesday, the wind was fairly strong and pushed the car about a bit, which made the driving a bit tiring.

I was only just home, had a coffee and Annabell told me that the husband of one of our friends died suddenly.  Annabell suggested that I get changed and go visit, so that’s how I spent my afternoon.  Poor Benji -daddy  just got in and now he’s gone again.  Everything has gone to the Coroner in Adelaide and  all she has to to do now is wait until the Coroner makes his/her decision and hands down his/her report. Then the family can make arrangements for the funeral – which they hope will be next week sometime – in Adelaide.

After talking with herself I decided to  take the coach to Adelaide for the funeral.  It means that I can go down Wednesday morning, go the funeral and be home on Wednesday night.  Tell you what – the “best laid plans” thing is fairly accurate. I was planning not to be  away again until February at least,  but life has a way of upsetting plans.  There are reports that the lowest of the low have been at work in the fire devastated  areas. By “Lowest of the low” I refer to the trash known as looters. There have been reports of looters raiding the damaged property that had to be evacuated in haste leaving everything behind. I’m sure I read somewhere that we used to shoot looters. Honestly, I don’t know what is more devastating, to lose your house and everything in a major fire, or to come back and find the house intact, but broken into and your valuables stolen by looters.

My mail system is still down and although I am getting some limited mail through the browser, it’s not ideal. My son is coming over tonight and we will download and install a new mail program, so by the end of the day we should have everything up and running. I have stripped most of the MS programs from the old machine but I have kept it active because my photograph programs are in there and  the difficulty of downloading and installing them again is not really  worth the trouble. Better to leave them where they are.

To be cheated (scammed) gives one a sick and empty feeling and, unfortunately that’s what has happened. I thought the  site I was using to download Microsoft Programs was a genuine site – it

even has a Google Certificate – but it was not and not only did I not get the program, I lost the cash I paid for it. Not a happy person since my bank said they could not block or stop the payment since I had paid  voluntarily and there was nothing they could do except advise me to open a paper trail by writing to them and then, if there is no response or no program forthcoming, I can, in the fullness of time, open a legal dispute claim and attempt to get my money back. And that, it seems to me, is how they succeed with what they are doing – it’s a long and expensive procedure so people just either don’t go through with it, or never start. So from that, you can understand that my email system is still not working correctly. The site, by the way – and to all intents and purposes, it is a sponsored site by Google – is still up and running and I have been advised not to name it as this could create legal concerns.