thread for middle age to older Christian women.
Comments
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Nancy, the comment, "I'm sorry you feel that way" sounds like a cop-out to me! It's a way of saying they did nothing wrong, and you're the one with the problem. I'm SO sorry. I wish I had some magic cure for your issues. I will just continue to pray for wisdom and peace for you.
I'm in limbo-land with both my radiation and my new med I'm supposed to start. Insurance is denying everything. I don't get, yet in another way, I do get it. I have an appointment with my MO today. Hopefully she can help get the ball rolling on some of these. I know they're working on the med issue. I was able to schedule another EEG for tomorrow.
You are all dear to me!
Carol
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Nancy, the data monitoring service provided to me is Experian IdentityWorks. Their notification system alerted me about the insurance breach.
Are you a member of AAA? A friend has an identity theft protection plan (ProtectMyID) through her AAA membership. She's had her plan for years and really likes it. Also, check with your credit card companies. They may offer protection plans as well.
It's important to let your mobile carrier know of suspicious activity regarding your phone number. It doesn't matter if your plan is prepaid or a contract. All carriers have support and tools for dealing with identity theft and phone spoofing.
It may be wise to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). You are the victim of a spoofing scam that tried to steal your money, and that is a federal crime. If you're so inclined, here is the FCC's online complaint form.
I don't like the "I'm sorry you feel that way" comment. I agree with Carol; it's a non apology and shifts responsibility to you (the victim). I would have liked to reply to the woman bank employee, "Why are you apologizing for the way I feel? My feelings are valid given what I've experienced."
Hopefully I've not added more stress by giving you a "to-do" list, Nancy. I just dislike it when people are taken advantage of, cheated, or scammed (especially my friends!).
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Carol, I will be praying for your MO apt. I am praying she will help cut through all of this bureacracy. It makes me so angry that you have to deal with this on top of everything else you are dealing with. I just got off the phone with my church as I reached out for prayer. I have only done this a very few times and I spoke with the same person I did when I called a couple months ago about my knee and my surgery complications which by the way I am still having. Her words were so powerful and could have applied to your situation as well as mine even though our circumstances are totally different. I am praying for you.
Hershey,
This is not my cell phone but my internet phone that was hacked. I had planned on calling the church and then calling the fraud dept of my internet provider and then I was not sure I wanted to do that. After reading your post maybe that is the Lord telling me to contact them now. I did try to retrieve my police report and I had to file a request (FOIA) which will take days to get. I am not a member of AARP but should be. I tried to copy my phone log and it automatically xxxxx out the phone numbers. When I printed it directly from my computer (another way) it is so light I can barely make out anything. The disturbing part is I found another phone number that it says I called just yesterday that I know I didn't. I found other suspicious numbers that were again numbers it said I placed the call which I didn't. These were also multiple calls. I can see the writing on the wall which is I will probably have to change my phone number but I am not entirely sure that will solve anything because if my info is on the dark web then it would already be there. I wanted to contact the FCC so thank you for that link. Trying to carry on my other responsibilities like cleaning before I leave for Christmas is just becoming so difficult because each of these calls takes up so much time. Did you find that you still had to do a lot of leg work even though you had this data monitoring service? That has to be very frightening to know that but also comforting to know you have a company looking after your affairs.
Thanks again for your concern and your information.
Love,
Nancy
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Hershey,
I did file a complaint with the FCC. I had the whole thing filled out and then there was a place to add files. The only written files I had were emails from my bank and I could't save them in a format that worked. In my attempt I lost the whole FCC website…………….so I started all over again. I was finished and hit submit and it did not like the format of the time of day or of my phone number which for the record was correct. I kept hitting submit and finally it sent. Whew. There was no time to talk to my internet provider regarding my phone. I have an HOA meeting coming in a few minutes so tomorrow is another day.
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Oh Nancy, I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this spoofing scam while preparing to visit your sister for Christmas. This time of year should be a joyous one celebrating the birth of our Savior, not protecting your data and identity.
Getting a new phone number is likely the last thing that you want to do, but it may be necessary if your phone number is being heavily spoofed. In the meantime (if you haven’t already), create a password or security PIN for your voicemail or change the one you currently have just in case the scammer has also gained access to your messages.
Before the Equifax data breach, I did not have any data monitoring service. My Experian IdentityWorks membership was awarded after a settlement was finalized. I have the IdentityWorks premium level, and my husband uses a monitoring service through his credit card. If you're interested, USA Today gives a nice overview of the various IdentityWorks protection plans.
I am glad that your FCC submission was successful and hope the HOA meeting is productive.
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Hi Hershey,
Our HOA meeting was one of the most difficult I have been a part of. One of our best board members said she is finished. Our meeting abruptly ended without without discussing any other issues I needed to know in the role I played getting bids for landscaping. Oh my.
So I did have a chance to look at your link. That was very helpful. I just emailed an attorney friend of my fiasco a couple of days ago and she mentioned having Identity Guard which I had never heard of. I had been leaning toward Lifelock but knowing they don't deal with the darkweb I may not go that route. Your company doesn't offer monetary relief so that boils down to Identity Guard as far as what they offer. I see I have more homework to do on this. Aura has the best customer satisfaction and scoring from what I have researched already.
Thank you so much for the time to help me out. I REALLY appreciate it.
Carol, I hope you got some news from your MO that will help you manuever through the insurance issue. I have found that a call from a doctor can move mountains when dealing with my Mom when she was in the hospital and the billing dept tried to pull a fast one on us. I pray the same good outcome for you.
Have a good night dear sisters.
Love,
Nancy
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Hi Nancy,
I am not familiar with the Identity Guard or Aura products. Both of the paid IdentityWorks plans include up to $1 million in identity theft insurance, though. Hopefully neither one of us will ever need the coverage, right?! :)
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Thank you Hershey. I have been researching plans but still haven't made a decision yet. I am hoping to get my money back first which hasn't happened yet. I did have a sargeant from our police department call me and he had some info which I needed to hear but didn't want to hear if you know what I mean. He mentioned how important it was to get the credit freezes which I told him I already had done. He did admit, which I already knew that it is not fool proof. He did say some people buy the extra protection but he didn't want to give out any recommendations on that. He did say that once the thieves are done with their "info" that they used against me that it will be sold back on the dark web for any other thief to buy and expect that this will happen again. After I hung up I had more questions to ask him. I read an article just today from a columist from CA who said I thought ID theft would never happen to them as they took all precautions online and it did because their wallet was stolen. In this article the chilling thing they said was practically everyone probably has some of their personal info on the dark web. That was really frightening. He said this will unfortantely never go away for me.
So if anyone is reading this it takes maybe 15 min of your time to call Experian, Equifax and Transunion to put a freeze on your credit as the most proactive thing you can do to help prevent ID theft. I don't have their numbers handy but you can look online. If you want to take out a loan or get a new credit card or something of that nature then you will have to unfreeze your freeze and then put it back on. Believe me you don't want to go through what I have gone through in emotional turmoil to hours on the phone. Do this as a Christmas present to yourself and your family.
Take care.
Love,
Nancy
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Nancy, it's impressive that the police sergeant called to follow up with you. Many police departments are understaffed and overworked, so victims may or may not receive any communications after reports are filed. I am glad that the sergeant took the time to contact you and hope that he alleviated some of your fears.
I've learned that the insurance data breach involved a company which has committed numerous HIPPA violations going back to at least 2020. It's troubling how lax some companies can be in protecting data security and privacy.
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Hershey, he called the first time when I was sitting at the dealers getting my car serviced. I didn't recognize the number so I didn't answer. I could barely hear him for the noise around me but I called right back and got voice mail. When I got home my caller ID said our city had called and it was the same number so he really went out of his way to reach me. He then called me the next day. I really do love our city. It grew by 100,000 since I moved here 42 years ago. With the population boom things are not the quite the small town feel as it used to but I still love living here. My experience with the polic officers here has always been positive. BTW I did sign up for Aura. I was so fired up to put as much protection around me as possible that I signed up after 10 PM. last night. Oh boy was that a mistake. It took a long time to just get some of it up and running and I am not near done yet. I am really hung up on passwords. My password manager is not working properly which is causing me much grief because I was trying to use their suggested passwords which is a jumble of letters and symbols etc. So I have wasted a lot of time spinning my wheels on that issue. I did initially see that one of my passwords was leaked but then later it said no passwords were leaked. You can be sure I am trying to get all of these changed but have ended up getting locked out of some of my accounts where I couldn't contact anyone on the weekend because the password manager didn't work right. Did I pray for patience at some time in the past? LOL Maybe that is the problem. I could not sleep all night.
The Geek Squad person told me to change my passwords every 30 days. That seems extreme. In your shoes I would definitely be changing passwords but I imagine you are already on top of all of that. Setting up this Aura has been challenging. I am pretty tech savy and it had me do things that I really didn't have a clue if I was doing right or not. I will probably reach out to them at the start of the work week. I have found several youtube videos on how to set up different parts of the account.
I hope we both can be safe and do all we can and then trust the Lord to work behind the scenes for us fighting for us when we can't see what is going on. Have a good weekend.
Love,
Nancy
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Nancy, DH and I were talking about passwords as we drove home from the desert on Sunday evening. Here's his latest: He picks a scripture, let's say Gen 1:1 and uses the first letter of each word in the scripture. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…His password would be ItbGcthate followed by a symbol and 4 numbers. Interesting idea.
I spent an hour on the phone with my insurance company today trying to find out the status of my radiation tx. It's still "pending" but it's been a month which is outrageous. She's going to get to the bottom of it.
On another note, after denying the new medication, Truqap, I now have been sent TWO bottles of the pills from two different pharmacies. Will probably call someone tomorrow, but just don't have it in me to do right now.
Love to all,
Carol
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Carol, I have been hours on the phone as well and it is so draining and I am not dealing with all the things you are. No wonder you don't have it in you to deal with pharmacy issues too. It does sound like you can start on your new med though. That is good. What is so puzzling to me is that I don't believe your doctors would have you go through rad. mapping if it had not been approved by your insurance. None of this makes any sense unless they are intentionally running out the clock on the year as I remember you saying you had reached your maxiumum out of pocket expenses. That would be a crime in my book. I am just so very sorry that you are dealing with all of these battles. I wish I could do something for you but I do pray for you every day.
On the password issue I have heard of that strategy. That is great as long as you remember your sentence or phrase. I am struggling with passwords as my usual password manager is now intertwined with my new ID protection I bought and now it is such a hassle for me to get into anything. I have not had time to deal with it as I am still spending a lot of time on the phone with my other issues. The passwords that this new company wants to insert are things that would be very hard to crack in my opinion. They are just not easy to access and that may require time spent with the Geek Squad which I don't have right now.
I am almost hesitant to say much on this public forum but maybe you can read my code. The big issue I had has been refunded to me and now waiting to see if my transfer to another institution will not warrant a red flag. I am still waiting for another issue to resolve along the same lines.
How are your hats coming along? Have you felt up to continuing with those?
Take care and know that you are loved and prayed for.
Love
Nancy
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Thank you, Nancy. I first want to say I almost choked on my coffee after seeing the picture. That made my day.
With regard to passwords, I recall setting up an account or maybe it was a laptop for the church treasurer, and I made the password something like, "Godlovesacheerfulgiver." I do use phrases like scriptures or lines from movies.
I'm still working on caps, although I have enough for everyone at Christmas. I'm determined to finish up some washcloths I started and am continuing to work on a baby blanket. Our kids just found out the gender and it looks like it's going to be a GIRL! We'd be thrilled either way, but at least I can start making stuff in pink or girly colors.
This is weird, but I got a FedEx Door tag left under our Christmas wreath. I almost didn't see it. It said they had left a package at Vons. So, I went to Vons, not knowing if this was just a flat envelope or a gigantic box that DH would have to carry. Turned out to be a second bottle of the new meds I'm going to be taking, but from a different specialty pharmacy. Both the same med, both with my name slightly misspelled. Guess I'll be making some more phone calls to get to the bottom of the issue.
I'm feeling less tired today. We're planning to drive to Utah on Friday and will stay about a week. DH has a good truck and he's OK driving in any winter conditions we might encounter.
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This is one of the highlights of our church Christmas program. This lady is incredible. Unfortunately I think you will have to cut and paste as it didn't format as I had thought it would.
https://www.google.com/search?q=megan+tibbets+mary+did+you+know+on+youtube&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1051US1051&oq=megan+tibbets+mary+did+you+know+on+youtube&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyBwgDECEYqwLSAQg4ODU0ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f0951915,vid:PqVJpCQkF44,st:0
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Carol,
I am glad you enjoyed the dog and tree. LOL I am sure your family will LOVE their caps made with love. I guess you got your meds but not in the way you had planned. I am not particularly happy with whoever delivers in our neighborhood from that company. They can't seem to find my front door so they just leave packages in my driveway for anyone to take or for me to accidentally run over as I am backing out of my garage. My front door is totally obvious. Oh well.
I am glad you are feeling less tired. Enjoy making all things pink😊
Love,
Nancy
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Nancy and Carol, your delivery people sound a bit like my USPS mail woman. She tries to stuff all our packages into the mailbox. I'm reminded of the Allstate ad, "It's not going to fit."
Nancy, what a relief that you've received the balance from your previous bank. I will pray for a smooth transition to the new institution.
Carol, a month's delay getting an insurance authorization is unacceptable. I wonder if the clinic social worker or a patient advocate would be able to run interference for you. Prayers that the delay is sorted out quickly.
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As Christmas nears we look for the light, just as the wisemen went in search of Him. Jesus has been our guiding light ever since, once we realized He was born to save the world. He was born to save us. We thank God for this glorious miracle of Jesus birth.
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Wishing everyone a joyous Christmas filled with peace, love, and hope!
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Merry Christmas dear sisters. Praying that joy can be felt in each of our hearts as we celebrate our savior's birth.
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Merry Christmas everyone. We are in the middle of a blizzard…Brrr… but my DD got home safely this morning from her night shift at the hospital. God bless our nurses! She works at Children's Hospital and says the wards are packed right now. It is a major children's hospital and kids get sent there from all over the state and even from Mexico. I wish I could just go in and cuddle some of those sweet babies, but I can't anymore. So I pray for them and the nurses who help them.
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Chris, that would be a wonderful thing to do, to be able to cuddle those little children! But you are right we can always be praying! So glad you are all safe from the snow storm, we had 10 inches yesterday and are just starting to move around now.
Nancy, continuing in prayer for the major problems you have had and all those hours spent on having to straighten everything out again.
Carol, praying for you feeling better, the insurance and meds to be cooperating.
Praying for you all and thank you for the banners!
Love, Wheatfields
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Chris, kudos to your daughter and the nurses, doctors, and specialists who work on holidays. I'm glad that your daughter made it safely home from the hospital and hope you all are warm and cozy.
My husband is covering for two colleagues at work, so our Christmas has been quiet and reflective. I hope everyone is enjoying safe travels and wonderful times with friends and family.
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Hi everyone. I am catching up on posts. I just got back home this evening. We had a good Christmas but unfortunately my niece who had driven from Iowa on Sunday started feeling very sick so she was pretty much down for most of Christmas day after trying to eat the wonderful meal we had. She had many symptoms of Covid and I had brought a Covid test just in case. She had temp last night but this morning was feeling much better with no temp and she tested negative for Covid. She was planning on driving back to Iowa this evening but my sister texted me and said she is laying down sleeping again so I hope she calls in sick and I hope none of us get what she has especially my sister and BIL as they both have serious health issues.
Cammie was so glad to see me and was loudly meowing at the door while I was coming in. She romped all over the livingroom acting like a kitten again which made me very happy. My neighbor did a good job looking in on her.
We had rain all day on Christmas and it was in the upper 50's. I guess some of you had a white Christmas and then some!!!!! Wow, Wheatfields. 10 inches is a lot of snow. Chris, I am glad your daughter made it home safely from work. Yes, God bless the nurses indeed!!! I hope you are both feeling better.
Hershey, sounds like you had a quiet Christmas. I am sure some families were very happy your DH covered for his coworkers.
I had a scare about 40 min into my 3hr drive on Sunday. A light came on on my dashboard that I had never seen before. BTW I just had my car serviced two days before I left. The sun was trying to peak through and I was so glad to see the sun and then my happy time turned into a very tense time not knowing for sure what I should do. The light was an exlanation point which made it even more scary. I finally got a chance to look in my owner's manual when I made my pit stop. It was something about monitoring the tires. I know that was part of my maintenance. I totally forgot about it as I made it safely to my sisters until I got on the road coming home. Then it was a lot of praying for wisdom. I felt like I would be okay driving all the way home and I did and I had no issues. I will be taking it tomorrow back to the dealer to check things over again.
I hope you all have a restful few days before New Years.
Love,
Nancy
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Hello ladies! I hope everyone had a nice Christmas! Mine was good but then I went on a short walk and ever since my foot has been hurting ever since. I'm on vacation now but have to go back on Jan 2. I'm trying not to worry, but failing. I just ordered some new shoes from zappos, and will order some supports from Amazon. Scheduling with ortho would be a last resort because the foot guy there has been rather useless in the past.
I've noticed it's better when I massage my calf muscle. I'm extremely tight. Maybe I will try to bump that up over the next 4 days. I switched to chair zumba via YouTube. Not the same, but my foot is too angry to do anything else.
The good news is they dumped our insurance benefit manager at the last minute. Same plan, but it will be managed by bcbs directly instead of thru the intermediary. Yay!!!
Please pray for my foot. :-( Healing or that he'll pluck me from the depths of despair. I need to be able to walk around work.
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Hello dear sisters. I’ve been off the boards for a week. Went to Utah for Christmas, caught a bug from my niece (or someone else) and have been trying to get well.
we were going to drive home Friday morning, leaving at around 8 am. Ended up leaving at around midnight due to DH not being able to sleep. He had a bad case of the hiccups starting at around 6 pm and felt like he’d rather get on the road than just lay in bed.
It was a relatively easy trip but I couldn’t wait to get home and crawl into my own bed. Last night I slept over 12 hours! Unheard of for me.
i hope everyone had a peaceful and happy holiday.
Will update more when I get to my computer.
Love to all,
Carol
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Carol,
If I hadn't known it was your post it could almost have been mine except for the Utah part. My niece got sick on Christmas Day and was supposed to leave on Tues when I did but didn't leave until Thursday. I started like she did with a really bad headache. Mine kept getting worse and today I realized I am sick. So I stayed in my Lazy Boy all day. My temp has been all over the place. I hope we both get well soon,
GB, I hope you can enjoy your vacation for the next few days. I don't know if I told you about Orthofeet.com. I buy most of my shoes from them now. They list foot conditions and then match shoes to help with your issue. I have bought quite a few pairs from them and I have like all of them but one. They have a 60 trial and you can send them back. I already wear orthotics and they fit in all of the shoes I have bought. I have bought from Zappos years ago too. You might want to check this place out but if you find something that works from Zappos go for it. This one place I used to go to had a pedorthist but that place closed. Plantar Fasciitis is my issue and the calf muscles can come into play with that as well. I hope you can find something that will work.
I hope with a new insurance manager things will go very smoothly for you. Take care.
Love,
Nancy
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GB, I hope you are seeing improvement with your foot. Nancy makes a good point that tight calves can aggravate foot pain. Keep up with your self-massage and stretches. Hopefully those techniques, your new shoes, and the arch supports bring a change for the better.
Nancy, I hope there was a simple explanation for your car's indicator light. That must have been scary for you, especially since the car had just been serviced. I'm thankful you made it home safely.
Carol, your 12-hour slumber sounds luxurious!
Wheatfields, it's nearly time for your trip to Arizona. No doubt you are very much looking forward to seeing your sister. How is your dear nurse friend doing?
Mods and Teka, thank you for the well wishes.
I hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve. Our neighborhood fireworks started around 7:30pm and lasted until after 2:30am. It will be a very early bedtime for us this evening! Happy New Year, everyone! :)
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