I’ve had several phone calls in the past week from someone claiming to be from the Police Athletic League. Normally I joke around a bit with these callers saying that I’m not going to donate until policemen’s wages are raised, or that giving my husband is all the charity I can afford at the moment, and they’ll understand and stop calling, but PAL weren’t, or so I thought.

But it turns out with a bit of digging that this was not actually the real Jacksonville Police Athletic League but an extortionist of some sort. They’re using a number which just pops up saying “St. Johns FL” on my caller ID which may mean they’re actually using a cell phone. 904-547-0514 is the number which shows up when they call me.

Today I asked them if there was anyway I could be taken off the list because with my husband being a police officer, they should realize that we’re too broke to donate, I was told, “Oh, well, my wife’s a teacher, so you should know how broke I am too,” I said, “Touche, but seriously, how can I get off your list so you’ll stop calling me because this is getting ridiculous,” “Send $25 and we’ll stop calling you.” Well, that got my back up, understandably so, I would think. After I hung up on them I realized that was a kin to blackmail or extortion and wondered how many other people they’ve gotten to donate that way, that’s just shoddy business practice and despite his insistence that the PAL was a legitimate organization I figured I would do some digging.

First I tried calling back the number to speak with a manager, but all I was getting was the busy signal. Googling the phone number itself gave me several listings like the one I’ve linked above saying that the number was people saying it was PAL or saying they were other things, but often times when people called back they got a recording saying the number was disconnected.

I wasn’t about to wake my husband up with this so I instead googled the Police Athletic League to check if it was a legitimate place and found the Jacksonville PAL’s main office and called them. I spoke to a lady called Vicky who works there was mortified that someone would be calling me in such a manner. She said that whenever PAL calls someone it’s going to show up “Police Athletic League” or PAL or something like it which makes it clear, and they would never tell someone such a thing. She suggested if I get another call that I tell the person I’m recording the call and will be passing it on to the proper authorities.

I’ll have to check with my husband what the legalities on that are but you can bet I’m going to be a bit more harsh with them from now on because that’s ridiculous. It’s one thing if he was from the charity and just needed to be educated on call etiquette, but to be masquerading…that’s a whole other level of illegal.

Working with the local bead shop might not be too hard. I can make some items with their beads and see if they’ll show them, things like that. I might be able to organize tarot night with a few places, but others…not so much. I can send out promotional flyers, but that’s an expense I really don’t have.

The yellow pages seemed like a decent option but with the move and the phone company screwing up my phone transfer I haven’t gotten any hits from the phone book in some time, other than people trying to sell me things or looking for astrologers, or bath supplies (don’t ask).

I think I might benefit from asking some of the small business owners for tips themselves, not only might it be good to help me, but perhaps I can compile some tips into my next article for Tarot World Magazine.

A friend suggested I get an external drive…but now that I’m having to buy a replacement laptop keyboard that will have to wait until next time I get some cash in.

Ah, well…you live and learn, and you try to avoid the child destroying anything else of value.

As it is for the hypnotherapy I am on a “roving” license which means that I am allowed to travel to people’s homes and do the hypnotherapy for them there but most people would prefer to come to me. Licensing and regulations do make things complicated I’m sure I’ll get things straightened out eventually.

When you have a business that’s actually registered with a license bureau you get a lot of people calling offering you supposedly great deals on things that aren’t all that great. You get credit card machine offers, those are consistently the ones that I get, those and the online yellow pages. They’re always wanting you to upgrade listings that you didn’t even ask for and half the time they don’t even exist.

A gentleman called me just now from local.com wanting to “update my listing” at first I couldn’t tell what the name was he was using it sounded like loco.com and when I googled that given he caught me when I was sitting at my laptop it wasn’t a listing, so that got my ire up a bit and I asked him to spell the name of his company and looked them up. He was telling me that they had me listed under “lodgings” and I told him I was a psychic and a clairvoyant and I googled psychic’s in my area through their service and came up with three listings the first of which was me, but was using my old number from before we moved. I told him I could see that I was already listed, and that he should just edit that listing to reflect the new phone number, rather than putting in a separate listing.

He seemed a little put off that I was looking up the site. I told him that I get a lot of phone calls from companies essentially trying to extort money from me for services which are relatively useless, so I make a habit of checking up on them when they call.

He continued on explaining that they were just interested in putting me ahead of the competition and that if I was able to they could upgrade my listing to help me rise above everyone else. Now I was looking right at the listing for all the psychics within a certain area of my zip code and there’s only three others, and they’re listed alphabetically so I’m actually the top listing. I told him that and hung up.

I understand that he’s doing his job, but it frustrates me that they do these things. I’m already paying $20 a month for a listing in our local yellow pages which is both in the book and online, and you know how many interested client calls I’ve had brought to me by that? One. One call, and I’ve been listed since last October.

Other calls I get are either crank calls from people who think it’s funny to recite lines from Snow White to me, or people who think that I’m some sort of hardware store even though I’m listed under “psychics” and get all huffy when I can’t sell them doors or windows or cut glass for them.

I have an advantage really because I automatically know that they’re not someone whose a client because when they call they ask for me by my first name, and I use my middle name in the adverts I put out, on all my business cards and here on the website. It’s like when people call and ask for my husband by his full first name rather than the nickname that anyone else uses.

I have a vision of having hot tea, that just seems right to me, and it helps that I have some friends who make killer herbal teas. Still I wonder what is appropriate, not everyone likes hot tea, I know I don’t really like iced tea, not everyone can drink things with caffeine in them, not everyone likes Pepsi products or Coke products.

These things are so confusing.

So now I have tiger’s eye, amethyst, carnelian and non-magnetic hematite to add to the rose quartz, moon stone, smoky quartz, garnet and magnetic hematite beads and chips that I can make items with.

I’ll have to post some pictures so that it’s easier for people to see what sorts of things they can have on their necklaces, earrings and bracelets.

I also made some connections with a small local bead shop on Wednesday. They have classes and the lady who runs the place is very nice. So hopefully I’ll be able to go to her for some additional pointers some time in the near future. She has a child who is about the same age as my son so she understands the perils of children and finding “time away” so said that she can coordinate with me if I can’t make it to the specific class.

That’s the sort of personal touch I hope that I can give with my business too.

So, I’ve been looking around for alternatives because I just don’t feel like arguing with the printer, which combines great with the fact that I was asked to check out the logo design facilities at logoyes.com and lo and behold they offer business cards as well!

Check out what I came up with using their nifty demo program:

It was so easy I was able to do it before the munchkin managed to destroy the house, in fact I was able to hold him on my lap and STILL get things sorted out, which is a feat in this household. I was trying to sew something onto my husband’s uniform just now and wound up doing it while running around the house chasing the child because he decided he wanted to WEAR the shirt I was trying to fix.

He’s one of the reasons my usual design efforts take longer because I have to do a tiny bit and save, do a tiny bit more and save, then wait until he’s gone to bed and hope the inspiration is still there otherwise the project is delayed for another day, which is triply hard because it’s important to have your business logo linked to your business cards, so previous to this I’ve been trying to work my red and purple haired girl into the business cards but it makes things too cluttered, a friend had suggested doing something with eyes as my business name is “Look Beyond Mirrors” but other sites have so few choices and I can never find one that appeals to me or is in the right colors.

I’m all about things that make my life easier and mean I can get done what I have to do and go back to teaching my son (or extracting him from the cabinets).

Etsy’s rates are a lot more reasonable than setting up an eBay store, 3.75 percent compared to 8.75% off transaction price and a 20 cent insertion fee for four months instead of $1 minimum insertion fee for only a few days.

More on this as it progresses. Right now I’m trying to wrangle Photoshop onto the laptop but it’s uncooperative and looking for tips on ways to take better pictures of my jewelry items.