Thank you for your recent letter asking that I send $75 to remain in your online doctor directory. I'd put its name up here, but I'm not even going to give you the traffic.
Regrettably, I won't be sending you the $75, and really don't give care if you remove my name.
I'm sure this hurts your feelings, so I'd like to explain why I'm not sending you any money.
1. I never signed up for your directory in the first place. In fact, your letter asking me to renew was the first I'd heard of you.
2. Most companies take credit cards for payment. The fact that you only accept 2 methods of payment is a little alarming. One was for me to do a direct bank-to-bank transfer, and your letter included your bank name, account number, and routing information. This is not a typical way to pay for a medical listing.
3. The other way you accept payment is for me to send a cashier's check to an address in Bucharest, Romania. Nice try.
4. Your math was somewhat concerning, as the letter says that for $75 I get "1 year + 3 FREE months! That's 18 months for only $75." Granted, maybe you use a different calendar than I do.
5. You spelled "doctor" as "docter."
6. You didn't spell my name correctly. Or my street name for that matter. Or even my fucking city. This does not give me a lot of confidence in your ability to provide an accurate listing for my $75.
7. Lastly, as if the above weren't big enough concerns, I was still curious to look at the website listed on your letter. I was suitably impressed to see that it:
- Had nothing on it mentioning a doctor locating service.
- The first link featured said "MEET BEAUTIFUL RUSSIAN GIRLS!"
- The second link was for an online Viagra pharmacy (maybe useful if you click on the first link).
- The third link said "This domain name is for sale! Click here to buy it."
Yours truly,
Ibee Grumpy, M.D.
Hahahahaha!
ReplyDeleteLook, we can see that you drive a hard bargain, what if we reduce the price to $50.
ReplyDeleteSick the NSA on these Eastern European predators, theirs is economic terrorism.
They are the ones who grabbed the Target accounts
"Does our online doctor directory work? We found you, didn't we?"
ReplyDeleteWhat was your first clue that they may not be on the up and up?
ReplyDelete"So here's the deal. Now that mom had a stroke, this is our chance to finally be rid of the old bat and collect our inheritance."
ReplyDelete"Yeah, but, for the sake of appearances, we at least need to LOOK like we're trying to help her."
"So what we need to do is to find her a neurologist. But not just any neurologist. We need one who's a complete idiot, just to make sure she doesn't get better."
"Okay, but how do we find someone like that?"
"I think I have an idea..."
LOL! And then your local medical board (read those with lack of a sense of humor and are full of themselves) would be on your nether regions for "advertising."
ReplyDeleteYou mean you don't have a coterie of beautiful Russian (or whatever nationality) in a back room somewhere,. far from Mrs. Grumpy (NEVER annoy an RN, btw) or the redoubtable Mary?
Tisk, tisk.
The sad thing is that despite the myriad warning flags, some doctors will send them the money.
ReplyDeleteThese are the small time umba$$es, Grumpy, who are not busy robbing one of my 80 something year olds by telling him 1) to send Western Union funds to get his million dollar lotto ticket and 2) go to CVS and buy them a $500 gift card.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, they only got one of these. He asked them to pick up the card in his car parked at the police station in his hometown. Our police called them after hearing the story,and asked local PD to stake out his vehicle to see if the perps would bite on this "offer".
Scumbags...wish you could send them some wooden nickels or better yet, this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/manure-french-parliament-poop-attack-national-assembly_n_4610514.html
My husband brought the French Parliament matter to my attention, knowing that half of my gene pool arises from that fair country..., but as a pharmacist, I had to laugh at Dr. G's story.
ReplyDeleteI work in a hospital and obtaining medical reconciliation at admission is mandatory. Many patients of our wayside small hospital either are involved in traffic accidents and from out-of-town and don't 'just happen' to have their medication histories on them at arrival, or receive their meds via employer-mandated mail order drug repositories.
There are a number of these mail-order outfits, and heaven help the little old lady whose next-door neighbor called our EMS for a ride to the hospital on a Friday night as she is either out of it seriously and lacks necessary wherewithal to provide an accurate drug history or has it on a little tiny piece of paper from 25 years ago written in indecipherable writing in her purse.
So, I end up calling the major mail-order outfits on a Saturday morning.
After several fine warehouser interactions in talking through the phone spaghetti out there (i.e. techs who ask me my NPI number which of course is not registered anywhere because I am not a prescriber---just transfer me to the registered pharmacist; I am a registered pharmacist and entitled to this information!!!; I don't know where you are, but in my state we pharmacists do business with real live registered pharmacists--this is my duty as a pharmacist and I am legally allowed to work on behalf of my patient---it's the law, or the member's number which why would I have if I don't know where the patient gets her/his prescriptions!!!, or have to transfer me to Kingdom Come and back, and easily these calls last 45 mins. or so, and then I find out that the patient does not get there prescriptions filled there, or those places don't have real pharmacists on weekend...), I finally get through to one mail order outfit, and think I'm getting somewhere and ... I have won a free trip to the Bahamas---(my lucky day), just send $50 to reserve the room, and ..., and so I hang up. I call back. I've won another free trip to the Bahamas for the small reservation fee of $50... .
Feel as if I'm in cuckoo-land and not in the most respected profession at all!