Working at Home on the Internet

Work at Home Mom Could be Fined $10 Million for eBay Business

New Here? You may want to Subscribe to my RSS feed for daily updates. Or if you prefer, Subscribe by Email Thanks for visiting!

 Well, Former Work at Home Mom. You see, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has driven her out of business. (Now she works as a Dental Hygienist and it’s possible she could lose her license to practice because of this fiasco.)

Although there are no laws on the books in Pennsylvania (or any other state as far as I know) governing online auctions, the Department of State has decided it needed to set a precedent. It chose Mary Jo Pletz.

Picking on the Little Guy?

The Peltz’s daughter, 6 months old at the time, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2004. Mary Jo knew she couldn’t work full time outside their home and take care of the baby, but she still needed an income. That’s when she decided to start D&J Virtual Consignment selling things on eBay.

It seems she got very good at it and would sell things for friends, neighbors and eventually built the business into something to help small onetime sellers who had no online presence for a fee.

She even declared the income from the business on her taxes.

In Comes the DOS

A couple of days after Christmas in 2006 a guy from the Department of State paid a visit to Mary Jo and told her the business was being investigated for violating state law. It seems she didn’t have an Auctioneers License and each violation was a $1000 fine.

With 10,000 sales through eBay it’s easy to figure out, even without a calculator: $10,000,000.

She shut down.

What’s the Point?

I don’t really know. Figure 10k in sales at a 30% fee couldn’t equal very much money over 2 years, at least not enough to attract the ire of the Government. Especially when she paid taxes on the income. I doubt it was even enough to pay for the baby’s medication, doctors visits and tests (she seems to have stabilized  now).

I guess there are really two point to be made here…

1. A perfect reason to become a Work at Home Mom
2. When the Government gets involved, you’re screwed.

What do you think?

Mary Jo, if you happen to read this, I’d love to do an in-depth interview with you to make sure we all get the story straight from you, with no middle guy.

As of this writing the Department of State has Not dropped the complaint.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

January 30th, 2008 at 05:10pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Rants, Work at Home | 9 reader remarks | Print This Post

Why Does WordPress Always Break Things That Work When Updating?

Beware: Rant Ahead

Why is it that EVERY time that there is an upgraded version of WordPress they SCREW THINGS UP?

On one of the previous upgrades they took away my Post Preview and now it takes extra clicks to look at a post while in draft mode. Unless you do what I did (which you have to fix with every new version) or get the plugin (which works, but not as well).

The last update I did to v 2.3.1 wasn’t quite as drastic a change (so far) but Now I’m missing the list of my drafts in the Manage/Posts tab. Now, I have to go into WRITE a POST just to see what drafts I have in the wings. What a pain in the ***

If I have a Flat Tire on my car, do I change my oil to fix it? No. But if I forget to put all the lug nuts back on the tire will Fall Off. That is what seems to be happening with WordPress. The tires are all falling off and the car is about to crash.

I have no idea why WordPress keeps doing “ugrades” and keeps breaking the things I like about them in the process. All of this, not to mention hoping that plugins you are using still work.

I’m almost afraid to do the newest update for fear of losing another feature I use and depend on.

Have you found anything else that seems to be missing from WP? Does it get worse with v 2.3.2?

January 17th, 2008 at 02:42pm | Posted by Joe | Rants, WordPress | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post

Pop-ups Are As Bad As SPAM

 Pop-ups, Pop-unders, Glaring Blinking Ads, Blaring Sounds… SPAM

Personally, if I visit a Website or a Blog more than likely I am looking for information or a particular product that I think should be contained within the site. That is all I want.

I don’t want a bunch of junk popping in my eyes and hurting my ears. It serves no purpose but to distract me from my original intent.

If I visit a site, I want it to be inviting, give me what I want and be quiet about it. If I like what I find, I’ll probably be back for more of the same content. If something pops up unexpectedly, even something as unobtrusive as a Newsletter Subscription, you will not only lose me as a Subscriber to your Newsletter, you will definitely lose me as a potential customer. I’ll just click away, never to return.

It is beyond me why some “business people” persist in the assumption that if you put something in front of a consumer, they might buy into it. I have found through personal experience, that the opposite is true. Especially in this day and age of consumer skepticism. They think that everything you do is to make them opt-in on your ads.

Are they right?

Don’t Be a SPAMMER of Your Own Site. Let your readers and customers enjoy their experience on your site. They are more likely to return if they can find what they are looking for without a lot of Junk Thrown in Their Face.

December 5th, 2007 at 03:03pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Rants, Spam | 2 reader remarks | Print This Post