When was the last free thing Meh has given out for VMP?

@ConAndLibrarian It was like a DIY stand holder thing. It didn’t work very well.

@ConAndLibrarian the holder was a box, inside the box was keychain charger for lightning or usb. Keychain was useful to me a few times.

@thewynner that sounds sick

@therealjrn I like that one better than the one I had in here a few months ago.

@therealjrn That goat does not appear to be fucking, or being fucked, by anything! You’re a goat-porn-teaser, you are.

@mbimeh The other side is posted over at mehafterdark.com

@therealjrn I never got a goat badge. Wear it with honor!

@sohmageek Indeed? You have never been the goat? hmmm.

@therealjrn dis you forget the great toilet paper caper of meh hq 1?

@sohmageek I can not remember that of which I never knew.

@therealjrn search the forums for toilet paper. Back in 2015 something like meh needs to accept toilet paper apparently. https://meh.com/forum/topics/meh-must-accept-toilet-paperapparently I guess it was more of a toilet papering meh than a caper.

@sohmageek Can’t remember all the details but I do know I sent a roll of TP. I didn’t want to go to the post office so I put a boat-load of postage stamps on the box and put it in my mailbox.

@therealjrn YOUR FAULT that link you posted for the other side of the badge is broken!!

@Kidsandliz You need to enable super user turbo mode to see it.

@therealjrn WHAT? You mean the rockets strapped to my feet won’t help?
/giphy turbo foot jets

@ruouttaurmind
/giphy tell us how you really feel

@ruouttaurmind Wait what? I’m VMP and had no idea this existed.

@patti Srsly? Well, when there’s a popular product for sale, meh implements this “circuit breaker” system. There’s a quantity allocation for the first offering at midnight for the old school regulars and westies. Once the allocated amount is sold to the latenight crowd, this circuit breaker trips and sales are suspended until… uh… dunno, like 8am ET or something when the bulk of stock is made available. However, they hold back some token quantity of stock until 4pm as a VMP exclusive. At 4pm ET VMP members have the opportunity to fight to the death to purchase this reserve quantity.

Although I personally find the circuit breaker system objectionable, many here like it because easties (east cost residents) can get their beauty sleep and wake up all refreshed in the morning, secure in the knowledge that whatever meh had offered the night before is still available to them.

Another VMP benefit you may be aware of… lesser popular offerings, those that do not sell out, are offered for sale for a period of time after midnight for VMP members. IIRC, items from the previous day which did not sell out are offered from midnight ET to 8AM ET to VMP members. This offering is usually posted on the right hand column on the main sale page (meh.com).

@ruouttaurmind OHHHHHH, ok, right. Sorry, I was unclear what you were talking about - I know what you are talking about now.

I love the circuit breakers but that is because I am VMP and don’t stay up late. Am eastie here as well.

@patti

Am eastie here as well

I figured. That’s why I tried to minimize the use of multisyllabic words.

No, please, I’m just kidding. Don’t take offense. Just fueling the flames of the friendly ol’ E/W rivalry. Don’t wanna wind up like Tupac.

/giphy gangsta rap

@ruouttaurmind My heart feels like you said mean words. They made my eyes rain. “multisyllabic words” right back at you.

@gymbrall
/giphy hug it out

@ruouttaurmind You don’t want to continue to publish music from beyond the grave?

@dkaine I don’t publish any music now (I do print publishing) so I can’t imagine I’ll be making any more music from the grave. Unless it’s harp music?

/youtube harp music

@ruouttaurmind Do you also have a harp?

@alphapeaches It comes in the package with the wings when you take a dirt nap.

@ruouttaurmind I see.

@kevinbeijing yeah, they’re the best…

@kevinbeijing I couldn’t bear to disembody that cleaver sock packaging.

They sit in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. Underneath an article of gifted clothing that didn’t fit and should have been donated to Salvation Army long ago.

@kevinbeijing my feet are far too large so I had to give them to my dad. No complaints from him yet though

@kevinbeijing I got a good 3 uses out of them before they became my holy socks!

@r4lfclover Same here, for both pairs we received. My son likes them (I didn’t like the material feel)

@kevinbeijing
Hubby still has (and wears) his. He got a new pair in his September Fuko which proves they still have some. (I claimed the rest of the stuff.)

@2palms We did? I somehow missed out on those…

@2palms we got to buy a shirt.

@Ignorant Yeah I remember getting to BUY a shirt, just not a free one. And I’m pretty sure they ended up offering the shirts to people anyway.

@2palms Yes, this and the socks is about all I remember getting. The chance to buy a shirt might have been the time I bought a meh shirt (American Apparel) that was about sized for a plump toddler. Nothing else other then the chance to spend more money buying meh junk that didn’t sell or buy something on morningsave.

@Pat4ever It was a dollar so a pretty good deal.

@2palms I think I vaguely remember the shirt, which they didn’t have in my size, and I’m pretty sure wasn’t free.

All I ever actually got was the socks.

@Raider Is that really true? That’s a shame, I would think they would want to reward people who stayed on with it.

@Pat4ever If they wanted to reward people, they probably wouldn’t have ended the program

@Pat4ever - They do! VMPs have advantages both here and on MorningSave.

@Raider except they didn’t actually end VMP.

There’s still a V logo next to my name and my credit card is still rigorously being hit for $5 each and every month.

@RedOak They turned off sign ups but let us suckers keep paying them. VMP is dead, and long live VMP

@callow I’m well aware new VMP sign ups aren’t available. I was one of the commenters on that page.

@Trufs same here!

@Trufs Same here. Never received a giveaway, never actually got past getting a Fuko in my cart, and still i am subbed. Hmm…poor life choices are starting to make themselves known…

@Trufs “VMP since 1/2017”. How many years?

@sammydog01 credit card problems leading to subscription interruptions are fun

@sammydog01 back when you could turn VMP on and off, the smart (cheapo) strategy was to turn it off just after midnight before your card was charged for the next month’s VMP if you didn’t want that night’s deal… and then turn it back on only with the next thing you bought. Rinse and repeat.

I saved at least $10 ( ) per year doing that in the early - lots of great deals - days.

@sammydog01 @jbartis I’ve been VMP since the very beginning but my “since” date probably doesn’t reflect that either.

I would buy something, let the VMP ride for 30 days, then cancel until I was ready to buy the next item. I could get a few extra free days that way. Probably saved a total of $5 with this technique. Now I have to let it ride every month because once you’re out of the club, they don’t let you back in.

@cengland0 I starred you even though you misspelled my name.

I had kinda forgotten about that tactic but you’re 100% correct that there are several means by which people may have differing dates from their original sign up which was the main point.

@jbartus Yeah, I got the socks and didn’t realize I had been wasting my time with you guys for so long. I apologize @Trufs.

@Trufs If memory serves, you had to claim the free items. Next to that, they had VMP exclusive specific items that were significantly discounted. I remember one being a shirt that was discounted, though they didn’t have my size so I passed. But I remember free items up for grabs - first come first serve of course.

@cengland0 You do understand that gaming the system like this is likely one of the reasons it was closed right? I mean it takes a team of folks for behavior like this to matter, and $5 could either be the world or nothing to a person, but…

I don’t know. Everyone here is a bargain hunter of some sort, so I get the mentality. That being said i think VMP was meant to be a type of loyalty program, and this completely goes against that spirit.

Now the folks that seriously have billing issues are out of luck I suppose. I am dissapoint.

@festercluck It wasn’t any secret. Staffers used to talk about how to “best” the system.

@RedOak Lmao exactly, that many years. I haven’t tried to turn it off since then because a notice came up saying I wouldn’t be able to rejoin due to no more space so I stayed

@sammydog01 At least 5 or 6, idk exactly. I would turn VMP off & back on again when that was actually allowed & then when it wasn’t I would just suspend my account & deactivate it, but that was before spaces filled & joining wasnt an option anymore. Last time I did it was clearly in January lol I thought it was still going on back when you joined in 2014 but I guess not, unless you didn’t know about it.

@pfarro1 if Meh wants to deliver me a free pallet of disfigured rubber ducks they are welcome to send them I would even take two pallets.

@bleedmichigan disfigured rubber ducks play a role in my recurring nightmare. It is not pleasant.

@pfarro1 Okay, so the opposite:
/giphy disfigured tvs

/giphy broken ducks

@emt305

Cheeze-Whiz Whining is a High Art Form around here.

@f00l Well, the Meh community must be made up of quite a few Van Gogh’s and Rembrandt’s, lol. In my humble opinion, as long as I order at least one item a month or so, the VMP has paid for itself. Anything over that is extra icing on the cake!

@stienman evidence says otherwise. While email is far from a perfectly reliable means of communication, Meh did send out notices of failed charge attempts.

While there might be oddities in the night, as the holders of the credit card, when the card we dedicate to online purchases gets hit with fraud (typically once or twice a year) and gets reissued, we consider it our obligation to update the various places it is saved.

I’ve even got the list of sites saved in an Evernote. Wouldn’t be fun losing our Internet service due to an expired card.

@RedOak I hate it when my card gets canceled by the issuing bank for something I didn’t do.

I have one credit card for all my recurring charges: Gym, Satellite, Ooma, Internet, VMP, Newgroups, Web Hosting, etc.

If the bank cancels the card, I can easily look at a previous statement to see all the companies I need to contact.

@RedOak you get hit with fraud once or twice a year?!¿¡?!¿¡

You might want to review that Evernote list and consider who on that list probably has shit data security and shouldn’t store your card number anymore.

@jbartus you’d be surprised if I shared the list. We don’t buy from unproven sellers. And it isn’t a huge list. And unless it is a frequent buy merchant like Meh, we don’t store. We also hide that card behind PayPal when merchants allow. Our recurring utility bills get paid that way so we earn rewards.

It seems these days, everybody gets hacked.

When law enforcement discovers lists of stolen credit card info, they often have no clue of the origin of the theft - they simply forward the stolen numbers to the respective issuing banks, who automatically close the card and reissue.

We have text alerts turned on for every transaction on that “internet” use only card.

I discovered the latest fraud when getting a text for a boat supply item (we don’t own a boat) bought where the criminal had my name, address, as well as credit card info. I know because the merchant kindly emailed me the invoice for the attempt after I called them up.

The merchant said they were losing $5,000-10,000 per week to credit card fraud (the issuing bank of course simply charges the merchant back) before changing to a smarter credit card processor.

Welcome to the e-age.

@RedOak
Ouch.

@cengland0 not all our internet purchases happen every bill cycle - therefore the Evernote list. (Evernote is actually one of the payees, ironically.)

It can be painful to forget a merchant so we are careful.

@RedOak I don’t want to ask your age but my mom regularly gets her credit card info stolen. She’s 89 and I think she gets targeted.

@RedOak Perhaps they did eventually implement it, but back in 2014 they said “jont: @stienman that would be a nice feature to have, but it’s not something that’s currently implemented. There was definitely an issue charging the card that we had on file for your VMP though, so you should contact us at https://meh.com/support and we can figure it out.”

Glad to hear it’s been corrected!

Never did get the USB thingies they handed out back then (The subsequent support inquiry was meh), but if they felt bad about it they’d at least sweep the warehouse floor and send me the dirt and whatever fell to the floor that had so little value nobody’s bothered to put it back on the shelf.

@RedOak Good point. My web hosting bills quarterly but I remember that one easily. They also send me an invoice about a week before charging the credit card. Makes it that much easier to remember.

@cengland0
@The Prism app (ios/Android)
wants to connect to your banks and ccs and so forth and have you pay bills thru it.

But you don’t have to do that. You can set things up manually with no link or login to a payee, and get a nice calendar reminder of events, with push notices.

You can, obviously, code the payee names to make them meaningless to anyone but you.

And the whole thing seems to use decent encryption. Banks etc trust it.

@f00l No thanks. I’m not going to give a single company access to all my accounts. I have them spread out amongst several banks for a reason. There is no single point of failure with this method.

The other day, I tried to make a simple $74 purchase at Walmart and my card was declined. I tried it several times and it did not work. I used another card from a different bank and the transaction went through fine.

I called the bank and they went through their regular questions about which charges I made and if I didn’t recognize something. I recognized them all so she released the temporary lock they put on the card. That was annoying as hell. My card was not lost or stolen but they still put a block on it.

I frequently make online purchases and many of them are from out of state and out of country. But I suppose it was a sequence of events like going to the gas station prior to buying something over $20 that set off an alert.

I was really embarrassed at Walmart. Huge line of people waiting to buy their crap behind me. I would be even more embarrassed if I didn’t have another form of payment as a backup.

@cengland0

embarrassed at Walmart

Doesn’t that kinda go hand in hand with entering Walmart?

@sammydog01 I’m past the mid-fifties. But very well aware of smart security and financial management. Perfect credit score.

We even segregate life functions/relationships into separate email addresses dedicated to those purposes.

We buy a fair but not crazy amount of stuff online and unlike many folks a bit older, do not fear online and mobile banking. The only checks we write are to our churches and kids’ school events.

I know how to evaluate the risks of a prospective merchant. It they don’t look completely clean and don’t offer PayPal then we don’t buy.

@stienman those USB phone connector thingies were every bit as crappy as the silly phone stand boxes they came in… no loss, I assure you!

@RedOak True. I always watch the other customers and hope I don’t become “The People of Walmart.” http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

@cengland0

The point is that you can use the app with dummy manually entered data meaningful only to you, and not let it sync with, or know anything real.

Then you still get the calendar and, if you wish, the push reminders.

@cengland0 haha - already by being aware of collections of Walmart photos like that, you’ve separated yourself from the subjects of those collections and into the “normal” pile of folks.

However, this Meh affliction on the other hand…

@RedOak There’s already a “people of Meh” forum. I was stupid enough to post my photo back then.

https://meh.com/forum/topics/show-yourselves

@cengland0 yah, I recall that page back in the @JonT days. Also recall the page to be a bit too uncomfortably familial and transparent for the safely, comfortably, anonymous Interwebs.

@RedOak I think I’ve had to have my card replaced one in my life over fraud concerns and transactions number in the dozens on a regular weekly basis. I wonder at the disparity. O.o

@jbartus With the dark nature of hacking, it could be one or two vendors that make the difference. They might get hacked regularly and be completely unaware of it. Look at the number of merchants who discover a hack long after it happened… and don’t disclose it until even later.

Note also that Banks never disclose hacks. They make the issues go away quietly and always protect their clients in doing so. Banks can’t afford to have confidence in them shaken.

Count yourself lucky. It isn’t fun to have fraud on a credit card, but at this point it feels so routine…

@jbartus while I haven’t found anything we wanted/needed on Morningsave.com, I tend to agree - shitty swag doesn’t get the job done.

The V logo T-shirt was a nice touch.

And for those folks foolish enough to want a Fuko, it seems Meh could occasionally come up with a VMP’r odds improving, put their finger on the scale, method of favoring VMP’rs at minimal incemental cost to them.

@RedOak

Try 4pm ET hour.

Only way I’d ever land that fish over cellular.

And for those folks @f00lish enough to want a Fuko, …

<Smile>

@RedOak The V logo shirt is the only Meh shirt I don’t like. The printing picks up lint.

@f00l good thought - unfortunately, life is happening at 4pm around here.

@sammydog01 haha - what’s lint? I wouldn’t know or even realize since it tends to be my jammies top or around the house/yard work or camping shirt.

@RedOak

Pro tip.

Try at 4:50 ET/3:50CT.

Ps that Pro Tip might be fucking worthless. Just saying.

I’ve heard of this life/work thing. I might go out and find me some about now.

@teresita even if it’s not free

@Pantheist agreed. I’ll add another one below…

@Pantheist

@stienman
/youtube too long johnny laurie

@Pantheist

This thread could be said to be a Free VMP-related thing that Meh has given out.

@f00l The most personal yet.

@RedOak Was that last year? Sounds like I probably missed it.

@Ignorant true, but the activity/volume/frequency factor needs to be pumped up over there.

Can non-$2 Morningsave.com payers and non-VMPrs at least view the Morningsave.com forum even if they cannot post?

If not, 'seems like it might be a worthy experiment to at least tease them with view only capability.

(I keep typing morning’star’ as in the meatless company rather than Morning’save’. Have vegetarians in household.)

@Ignorant, does that work with our Meh login? Because it’s not working for me…

@RedOak nope can’t see them unless you are a paying member.

@haydesigner same login. Not sure why yours isn’t working.

@haydesigner you do have to login again at Morningsave.com - the Meh.com login device cookie doesn’t carry over.

@mikibell those hearts sucked, just like I remembered them from elementary school. Meh must have gotten a going out of business deal on them.

@mikibell Thought those valentines and candy hearts only came in the Valentines Fuko. I didn’t get any just because I was a VMP.

@mikibell @cengland0

If you mean:

The cards were sent to others (not just those who got the Valentine’s fuko and possibly VMPs).

@mflassy I was a VMP then and never got one. Meh doesn’t love me.

@cengland0 same

@cengland0 I am sorry… I thought it was a VMP perk… I never ate the hearts… as @RedOak said – I remember them being terrible, so I skipped that experience I also got them in a fuko.

@mikibell I’m VMP and I never got Valentines and candy hearts. I would have gotten a big kick out of them because Valentine’s Day is my birthday.

@Pamela I think they sent them to a few people who said how sad they were to miss them in the forums. They read that stuff.

@cengland0

was a VMP then and never got one. Meh doesn’t love me.

But meh loved your $5. That’s good, right?

@Pufferfishy I know, right? I haven’t made an order since February, I’m just handing them money every month. xD

OK - I lied. I do recall getting the Valentimes and the shitty candy hearts.

/giphy valentimes

@Pufferfishy I remember them

@xanny you can’t, it’s been depricated

@Yoda_Daenerys Exactly what I came here to say.