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Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

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I used to work for rescuecom. It was really bad!. You don’t want to work for them, nor to buy a franchise from them. As a field technician, I had to drive everywhere (many hours of driving) which weren’t paid at all. Then, I had to pay $120 monthly for a handheld, plus the expenses based on the usage of my own cellphone minutes (was a total of $300 a month).

Dispatch (System I) is group of people NOT trained, who lack skills and don’t know anything abt computers . They used to call me 24/7 (morning,late at night,even when I was using the toilet)they would call me more than 10 times a day.It really drove me crazy. You absolutely have time for nothing but answering calls, driving for hours, and being available 24/7. It was just really insane!. You don’t have free time at all, since your contract would mention you have to be avaliable 24/7. Unless, you are single, like driving statewide, answering phonecalls, handheld beepings, wish to pay $300 for services plus gas, and you lack goals and aspirations in life, don’t ever sign a non-compete agreement with rescuecom. The only thing you will get out of that, It’s a high blood pressure, you will wear you car down, you will be spending more money than you make,you won’t have any peace at all and time to do some other things with your personal time.
For all the above, not one in the right mind would work for them, so they hire “anybody” willing to work at all as in
“Technicians without skills and certifications”, and Customer service representatives who don’t even know what they are talking abt.
If you do a search for the bureau of consumer affairs online, you will find that one guy tried to quit,and his last paycheck was withheld from him for no reason.

Topic

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In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

Another dissatisfied worker

In reply to .

Dave, I am another very dissatisfied technician that briefly worked for Rescuecom under Eric F. from the Secacus office. I suffered the exact same treatment described by others describing Rescuecom’s horrendous working conditions. However, I have taken the liberty of leaving you a message and hope to hear back from you after June 4th 2007.

David!!

In reply to .

I was applying at Rescuecom and my interview was tomorrow but I cancelled it. Mainly b/c I saw your post and how you posted personal info on someone’s background. There is no reason for an ex-employer to post such personal info on the internet. No matter what an ex-employee says about your company.

The worst service and worst customer service

In reply to .

I have sent you a letter, to which you have never responded, so I’ll tell my story here. I attempted to use this service in January. I work from home and rely on my computer. First of all I called at 10 a.m. hoping to get service in the promised “hour”. No one showed up until 3:00p.m., then they left to get parts, but did not return until 7:00 p.m. The computer repair only lasted about 12 hours. I lost a day of work due to the incompetent service. I called to have another tech come out to fix my computer again, but no one responded. I found other help to fix my computer. I have asked for my $98.00 service fee back, and am still waiting. I will contact consumer reporters at the television stations because yours is the absolute worst service I have ever encountered.

Don’t hold you breath for a refund…

In reply to The worst service and worst customer service

It is a scam, it’s all a scam. I worked there as the “office manger”. What a joke the whole company is. Every time I requested a client refund due to an error on our end, I was ignored and pretty much told we don’t don’t make mistakes and we don’t refund money. I would take it up with your credit card company and dispute the charge. Tell everyone you know that they should stay away from the place.

He treats his employees like trash and has no ethics to speak of. I have to say the employee turnover rate is 100%.

A local Syracuse, NY news station did a series on Rescuecom on how he is robbing people. I can’t believe he has not been shut down by the Department of Labor or the Attorney General’s office by now.

All I can say is what comes around goes around and in my perfect world he will get his…

stay away

In reply to Don’t hold you breath for a refund…

Hi,
I worked for them for 18 month and covered in huge area (some part of MD, DC, VA)the management is sux at all, they don’t care you are experienced tech or not, they hire 100% of applicant, junior, kid’s, high school, if you know how to turn ON the PC, that’s enough, by the way the didn’t pay my last check $430 and I opened the case on Small Claim Court on Syracuse, just waiting for court.
This company also leased the Geek Squad 800 number and took most the Best Buy customers,when customer call 1-800-geek squad, they picked up the phone and if customer ask them for geek squad, they will say Yes, and obtain the information, I’m wondering why geek squad not sued them yet.

its comming

In reply to Don’t hold you breath for a refund…

From the very place you mentioned.
The US Department of Labor.
A federal agency that for the 1st time in my life has responded to a need.
this is a real live bull dog, dont get a lawyer before talking to them 1st.
Im suprised how fast this agency reacts to complaints, and the attention level you get.
Two thumbs up for the US Department of Labor.

Is there a reason you’re editing all your posts?

In reply to .

Is it just to keep the Rescue.com name in front of the membership? Based on the comments about your firm, I would think you’d like these to settle to the bottom instead of stirring them back up.

He is hiding some

In reply to Is there a reason you’re editing all your posts?

of the personal attacks and not so nice answers. Cleaning the trail. 😉

It gets weirder every day. EDITED – and weirder still!

In reply to He is hiding some

After going to the trouble to edit them all, now he’s asking Tammy to remove his messages.

“How bizarre, how bizarre!”

Edited: After Tammy entered the usual “Post removed by moderator” text, somebody (David? Tammy?) edited the posts a third time to leave only a period ‘.’ in the title and body. Rampant paranoia, anyone?

rescuecom sucks

In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

I have been employed by them for 2.5 months. when i signed up i was told 20-30 hours a week no problem and i turned down jobs to work for them. Well in 2.5 months i received 7 service calls and all 7 calls were 60-130 miles round trip and you do not get paid for travel time. i was terminated for refusing to take a call and now they are holding my check (new policy. You are told to stretch a service call for as long as you can. Basically they are ripping off their customers. They promise you will make good money with them but they are the only ones making any money out of this.

Be careful of Rescuecom

In reply to rescuecom sucks

Their business practices are ‘shady’, at best

I was hired by David to work in their Syracuse office. I had an issue with the contract which they would not budge on, so we shook hands and parted ways. Almost one month later they finally sent me a check for the (short) time I had worked for them. The only problem? They decided in retrospect to pay me MINIMUM WAGE. This was not the amount David promised me nor was it the amount in the contract.

One of my web development clients also used their services to have a virus removed from her business computer. $1200 later the virus was removed. From a $599 Dell. Thanks Rescuecom!

.

In reply to Be careful of Rescuecom

Out side view

In reply to .

I was about to work for rescuecom for some much needed money before I reviewed your contract. I saw what some people are saying 24×7 with no company phone which was the 100% reason I didnt sign. I have also found that there arnt many companys out there that screen there service personal well enough before they get put in the field. Geek Squard, Rescurecom, Firedog. You know the one’s you pay an arm and a leg for a service that should be dirt cheep.

What is a person worth now in days 24×7 and low pay seems to be the thing. Take more from the tech’s you employ and give less then they deserve. Hire people that know what there doing. Screen them right after all certs dont mean jack if they cant think.

Well I guess it is pantomine season

In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

Oh no he isn’t! Oh yes he is! The owner thinks they are great and now for another unbiased and completely objective opinion, we have two disgruntled ex employees.

My Experience Working For Rescuecom

In reply to Well I guess it is pantomine season

I have to say my experience working for Rescuecom has been much more favorable than the previous posts. As a matter of fact, I just made the most I’ve ever made before in a two week stretch. As for being on call 24/7, that’s up to me. I set my own hours and I choose to be available from 8am to 7pm Tuesday through Saturday. I’ll take emergency calls 24/7 though. At first I was alarmed at the length of the contract, but I came to understand that they can’t have me starting Rosscuecom and taking their clients. Every IT business I’ve ever worked for had me sign a non-compete. I have not had to pay for a hand-held. And I don’t rip any of my Rescuecom’s customers off. I simply don’t have it in me to do that. I only sell them what they need and do the work that needs to be done in a timely manner. I’ve never been one to like being in an office all day, so it’s a perfect fit. Always something new. And I also got to set my coverage area. Maybe the market in Southern California lends to working more. Anyway, that’s my point of view.

Still with Rescuecom?

In reply to My Experience Working For Rescuecom

Ross,

I am considering Rescuecom as an employer in the SF Bay Area and since you are in Southern Cali, I was hoping you might be able to comment again on your time with RC. Are you still there? Did your experience remain positive throughout your tenure?

I hope you’re still getting responses to this thread sent to you as I would very much like to know how it all turned out and whether or not I should pursue a position with them. All signs point to no, but maybe you feel differently still.

My Experience Working For Rescuecom

In reply to Well I guess it is pantomine season

I have to say my experience working for Rescuecom has been much more favorable than the previous posts. As a matter of fact, I just made the most I’ve ever made before in a two week stretch. As for being on call 24/7, that’s up to me. I set my own hours and I choose to be available from 8am to 7pm Tuesday through Saturday. I’ll take emergency calls 24/7 though. At first I was alarmed at the length of the contract, but I came to understand that they can’t have me starting Rosscuecom and taking their clients. Every IT business I’ve ever worked for had me sign a non-compete. I have not had to pay for a hand-held. And I don’t rip any of my Rescuecom’s customers off. I simply don’t have it in me to do that. I only sell them what they need and do the work that needs to be done in a timely manner. I’ve never been one to like being in an office all day, so it’s a perfect fit. Always something new. And I also got to set my coverage area. Maybe the market in Southern California lends to working more. Anyway, that’s my point of view.

WOW – for an unsolicited opinion

In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

although I was only made aware of this “company” from a discussion on DICE forums … and having NO personal experience with any poster on any of these threads / I will state one curious thing I have noticed – all ex-employees that voice your experiences with this place/employer/company have then suddenly become felones or have a multitude of felony convictions?? That seems the over-worked response this fella David A. Milman
has for everyone.

Interesting information

In reply to WOW – for an unsolicited opinion

I received an e-mail expressing interest in aquiring my skill set for the company. Right now I am keeping my options open and was considering RESCUECOM for part time non-business hour work, however from reading these responses it seems like the company demands quite a bit of work from you and also it seems like they would never be able to meet my salary requirements. I was also under the impression that RESCUECOM did more than PC repair. After 8 years of working my way to Network Engineer status, I don’t think I will be going back to installing sound card drivers and troubleshooting the issues that arise from people don’t know how to use the computer, using it. If anyone has any truly unbiased information on the company, such as Average hours/ week, average pay scale, complexity of issue, let me know Via this board

Welcome to The FUTURE of field service!

In reply to WOW – for an unsolicited opinion

Having been a Field Tech in the glory days of
OEM company provided everything, the future is not Bright for that end of the food-chain.

As the for-profit-at-any-cost synergy model grew the real worker in the field have become a contractor element that needs to be trimmed.

If this were a real”contractor/subcontractor”
arraignment each call should be independent, with recoverable costs like milage-cell phone-consumables(cleaning supplies)-needed parts (cost plus markup) all paid for by the
client, with RescueCom being the biller!

I just finished “the Month of Hell” shagging
top level calls for a national labor provider
to some of the business ISP providers not unlike David’s company. I spent more time on my cell phone with the TACs and Call Centers
than doing the on site work! No they do not pay for my cell time, but these calls were to client’s Internet based connectivity providing both WEB and VoIP layer service! The client called a service priority ONE because they had no Voice Phone Service, so I
really had no way to interact with the TAC people and resolve any issues, a “catch22” with no options.

There are serveral “Nationally” recognised companies moving onto the DFW region and all
pledge fast response times? Ever attempt a run from Hall St./Dallas,Tx. to McKinney,Tx.
in the middle of lunch, without speeding,
unreasonable at best, unsafe for sure!

I gave up on RescueCom based on research and just plan gut feeling. I got no straight answers and have asked my name be removed from any futher activity. And yet the Emails
keep coming to complete my registration, or
phone messages I won’t even respond to!

Use your own judgement but I would error on the side of being caucious when dealing with
nationally based, remote managed call centers.

I’m calling them for an “interview” today 9/10/07. Hmm.

In reply to Welcome to The FUTURE of field service!

I was contacted by Rescuecom.com last week and took one of their tests and passed. The $$$ that they “quoted” me per hour sounded too good to be true. Also, I would have to “pay” them $45 per week for a phone or “upgrade my current phone” to met their needs. To me thats not fair!! You should never have to pay someone for a job….

I’ll make my call this afternoon and tell you of the outcome. Another thing, They give you 5 of their shirts with thier logo on it but, If you need a “new” one you have to pay $50 bucks! Thats plain BS.

Thanks for listening, TK

most places

In reply to I’m calling them for an “interview” today 9/10/07. Hmm.

charge you when you lose company property, e.g. our place gives you employee badge but charges you if you lose it.

$50 sounds kind of unreasonable.
$200/mo for cel phone sound pretty unreasonable too.

If you decide to take the job let us know how it works (or doesn’t work).

My call is at 1:10PM EST

In reply to most places

I have a nice list of questions for them…

TK.

My call is at 1:10PM EST

In reply to My call is at 1:10PM EST

Its now 1:19PM and after leaving a message for them to call me back its looking kind of “bleak”….Oh well…their loss…

TK.

Update: Rescuecom.com

In reply to My call is at 1:10PM EST

I was just called by the young lady who I spoke to yesterday. Mind you its 1:51PM EST right now, my phone interview was for 1:10PM

Supposively he was in a “meeting” all morning and is still in there. B*llS**t makes the grass green! The young lady re-schedualed me for a 2:30PM appointment for Tuesday afternoon. What erks me is that I have to call them, not them calling me! Still sounds hokey to me! He might call me back, maybe! I’ll let you know tomorrow. Update: Because of very poor Customer service I told them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.. Nothing but, LIES, LIES and more LIES!!

TK

Don’t get sucked in, D Milman is hoping you will fail!

In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

I am a former franchise owner. What corporate and the CEO will not tell you is that last year they lost in court with challenges to the franchise agreement we were all stupid enough to sign, the end result about 30 franchise owners are now out on their own and finally making money. Do yourself a favor and don’t get involved in the scam called Rescuecom. As a franchise owner they take 20% of every sales call you perform, 50% of profit you make on hardware, charge you $100+ per week for “software” to run on your phone so you can GET the calls, plus thousands per month for their public relations company, internet advertising (which does nothing for you) and franchise escrow. Basically you will loose 6-8 thousand per month per franchise you own, but hey, they will get you 9k worth of calls so what do you have to complain about. Just stay away, the company is imploding but Davids’ ego will not admit it, you don’t have over half of your franchise owners leave if everything is rosey. The other franchise owners are simply waiting out their contracts and will not renew. Once corporate has to start paying for it’s own advertising there will be none, they rely on the bankroll of a franchise owner to maintain advertising. It’s been a year now since the franchise owners left and the advertising has not been renewed in those markets, try to get a straight statement from them why they have only a few people answering the phones now, it’s because we suckers are no longer paying for advertising for them and they are not getting calls. They are so desperate that they keep trying new domain names and company names to operate under. Just start your own company, network and work word-of-mouth. Your growth will be slow but won’t cost you much and at least you won’t have competition from RC. RC has been getting burned by customers backing out due to pressuring sales people that new customers have to provide a credit card up front. If a company is truly providing a valuable product they don’t have to be so paranoid about loosing a sale.

Ripoffreport.com

In reply to Don’t get sucked in, D Milman is hoping you will fail!

I checked ripoffreport.com and found only 1 report from Houston. Normally if a company is a scam there’d be 100s if not 1000s of reports.

I don’t know what to think.

I almost applied for a job

In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

Hi folks
I almost replied to and email i received for a pc tech position with this company. The email i received didn’t look right so i decided to check the company out.

I found this list and did a quick google search myself and found enough information for me to agree that this company is not worth the time.

one thing i would like to pass along is this news report from CBS 5 in Syracuse, NY dated March 12, 2008 ( http://www.wtvh.com/programming/specials/13876742.html.)

Now i have my own feeling about “news” org but this seams to confirm what been stated here. but make up your own mind on that.

I know i will not be working for this company.

The Interview tipped me off!

In reply to I almost applied for a job

I am not surprised by the general tone of most of the
comments here. I work full time in the tech business, but
after being off work for some months. I thought I would
give this a shot for some extra cash to make up for lost
wages and stash money in the bank. I noted on my cover
letter – which obviously was never read – that I had
unique Mac support skills and could work some evenings
and weekends.

When I had my phone “interview” the woman who called
me didn;t speak enough English to communicate with me!
The anticipated 20 minutes the call was supposed to take
was used up with my trying to understand what she was
saying. I really got hung up on the phone issue, she said
that I had to have a specific PDA phone before the second
interview… which with my current service, would be
another $500 plus… uh, I am trying to make money, not
spend it. Besides, I have an internet ready phone (Apple’s
iPhone), so if they require techs to carry these, they
should supply them.

When I told this woman that I wasn’t going to buy a new
phone for an interview (who ever heard of such a thing),
she proceeded to tell me that I could buy one and return it
within 15 days for a refund. That really sent off a steady
supply of warning bells! Who legitimately would tell
someone this?

The difficulty of trying to understand what she was saying
was aggravating, to say the least, so I asked to speak to
someone else. She ignored my request. I then asked to
speak to her supervisor, to which she responded that she
was “I am just interviewing for you to do” and asked did I
think she had a supervisor. I swear, I had no idea what
she meant and thought just more language issues, but she
repeated that same statement about 4 more times.

Finally, the frustration apparently was too much for her as
well and when I repeated that I couldn’t understand her,
she told me that she couldn’t understand me either and
hung up. Yeah… like this is some place that I want to
work… NOT.

Thank God for the internet, so that we can research
companies before using their services or signing contracts
for employment.

Thanks to everyone who posted here!

Rescuecom is SUX

In reply to The Interview tipped me off!

Hi,
I worked for them for 18 month and covered in huge area (some part of MD, DC, VA)the management is sux at all, they don’t care you are experienced tech or not, they hire 100% of applicant, junior, kid’s, high school, if you know how to turn ON the PC, that’s enough, by the way the didn’t pay my last check $430 and I opened the case on Small Claim Court on Syracuse, just waiting for court.
This company also leased the Geek Squad 800 number and took most the Best Buy customers,when customer call 1-800-geek, they picked up the phone and if customer ask them for geek squad, they will say Yes, and obtain the information, I’m wondering why geek squad not sued them yet.

Rescuecom is a scam – Dont deal with them

In reply to Rescuecom contract and policies are unreasonable

As a tech who recently quit, I can say I should have listened to my inner feelings when i was getting hired. lots of red flags such as that ridiculous and powerless employment non-compete agreement, Having to get a certain expensive PDA phone before even getting hired, and the content of their hiring exams … these gave me pause, but being the positive, optomistic, team player who beleives in success by hard work I should have just avoided it altogether.

I really did appreciate the job offer, and was prepared to fight tooth and nail to make the arrangement work for both of us.
Look, i didnt expect rescuecom to hold my hand or provide any support for that matter. That was my job, to support rescuecom and make them profitable by simply going to calls on time and kicking its ass sideways, never leaving a job incomplete or a customer that wasnt happy. I expedited the completion of jobs by obtaining parts locally myself and took every effort to make sure the customers experience with rescuecom was a good one.
I feel stupid for even caring now.
When you goto this effort to do your part, you at least expect to be paid.
I have yet to receive a single damn penny from them for any one of the service calls I made. Now after being lied to and getting the run-around about why My wages havent been paid, I have contacted every single client for a statement. Two were overcharged beyond what the invoice stated. The rest were still happy campers ( thanks to ME obviously )
Rescuecom never pulled the stunt of claiming my work was unsatisfactory. That would have been their biggest mistake yet. But even still, they claim that their payments to techs are based on this PDF file you must send in each night after works is completed.
This PDF file doesnt work right, calculates percentages and tax and hourly rate completely wrong, and thus makes it unusable.
i even went through the steps of filling out this broken form ( with its incorrect totals ) and sending it to them several times in order to get my 1st paycheck.
Now they are just not responding to my requests for help on this matter.

In a nut-shell, I have a case pending with the US department of Labor, and they were very very happy to take my case and help me.
I suggest other Rescucom techs who have been burned to contact the Us department of Labor as well… just dont mess around with any other route, go for their throats.

This company had me charge 330.00 dollars to a residential client for a network configuration fix for a router.
Another ticket was over 200 dollars to configure a remote control for a TV set ?!?!
I felt guilty leaving my clients with these totals, but few complained as the work WAS done right and they were actually happy.
Blew me away though how much money people can charge for jobs I wouldnt charge 1/2 that amount for. Good for Rescuecom, thats their buisness , not mine.
But goddammit I deserve to eat and pay that GD phone bill I would never ever have gotten otherwise.

Their “system one” software technicians are required to use on their phones is the biggest peice of junk, poorly written and error prone software ever released for any PDA, ever. It beats programs written expressly to cause malfunctions.
I swear they are using your phone to send spam email or perform denial of service attacks … because your phones output is intense, your phone will heat up hotter than anything, and your battery life is 4 hours max … all on a phone that does well all day otherwise.
The faults it creates all day requires the tech to constantly re-boot his/her phone all day to stay connected to their spam or DoS operation (whatever the hell they are doing with your phones)
It was so bad I recorded the packet activity and the RF output readings from the phone for a prolonged period, in case I decide to provide this as evidence of fraudulent or criminal activity.
I guess Rescuecom assumes all its tech candidates are stupid. they should consider that once in a rare while, a real technician
might get hired and be able to understand more than they want you to understand.
In this case If they are using our phones for more than dispatching calls, they stand federal prosecution by several different agancies, most notably the FCC.

Oh another thing i didnt like,
During the examination process you are forced to download and install a Citrix application that serves as a back-door on the PC you use for the exam.
I didnt appreciate this at all.
I have the registry settings to reverse this and will offer them to anyone wanting to undo what they did to your PC.
Uninstalling the citrix program alone doesnt remove the back door. Reinstall the last major service pack for your OS when you are done also.
Very Rat-like they are.

No matter how bad you need a job, do yourself a favor and just dont deal with them at all.

Im not only going to prosecute them for what they owe me, Im going after damages, and they will be significant.

Re:Rescuecom is a scam – Dont deal with them

In reply to Rescuecom is a scam – Dont deal with them

This is very helpful information to me because they are calling me now for an Interview. I did see the Job Ad and have signed the document sent to my email.
I am going to ignore this company due to the numerous adverse comments relating to this activity.
The Internet Rules…
Thanks

Thanks for the warning

In reply to Re:Rescuecom is a scam – Dont deal with them

I just got a call from them and they want to set up an interview. First thing I did was check here. Thanks for the warning; yes the internet truly rules. While I’m at it guys also beware Preplogic for tech exams, they are also a big scam.

Can be what you make of it

In reply to Rescuecom is a scam – Dont deal with them

I guess there is always some good and bad to every company. What was the typical pay like for service calls? I know it might be hard to say based on various reasons but how much does a typical tech make working for rescuecom?

Crooks they are

In reply to Can be what you make of it

I dont have anything to add except that I finally got a paycheck (63 dollars) from them 5 months after telling them to stop calling me, and after I filed against them with the US department of labor.
I charged their clients over $2100.00 dollars total on 9 invoices before quitting.
The check didnt even come from rescuecom, instead came from something called “flawless computing”. I guess they have to play a shell game with their names like some crook.
Oh let me add more text about this company…
Stinking lying theives that hire you and try and send you on as much work as you can take on while you are a fool, then leave you hanging with bullshit excuses like “you didnt fill out the form correctly” or “we didnt get that in the mail yet”.
I was amazed at the charges for doing silly stuff like configuring a home theater remote control (outside my job description) for 250 bucks!
I actually felt sorry for the customer a couple times when I saw what the invoice totaled out to.
If they wouldnt rip-off their techs they would maybe have a viable workforce, and succeed. I can see how their buisnes model would work and work very well, so by all means a company with this model will work.
But they are as un-ethical as they come, and I could sense how cheezy and fake during the hiring and screening process.
The 1st hint was their companys employee blog, it was like 2 years behind, and nobody obviously stays with them long enough to post anything. I bet they removed all the bad posts too, accounting for the lack of posts within the lats few years.
They are dirtbag snakeoil tech salespeople and I cannot beleive they are still in buisness… or are they?

Thanks before I made a mistake

In reply to Crooks they are

I got the paperwork last night for them and started to read over it. I got down to the 4 different cell phones and turned me off right away. I g read through a few more things not even to the contract, and not wasting my time doing it now. Thanks for all the posts before I made a huge mistake.

Thank You!

In reply to Thanks before I made a mistake

I was also about to apply, received the Applicant Info via e-mail and started going through their non-disclosure agreement when things started to feel fishy. After reading everything posted here, I am throwing it into my spam folder!

[Author]

Replies