True Story©… Credit Repair

 

     If I could use these powers for good, I am not all the way sure I ever actually would…
Wait, put a pin in that.  It will come back up on the final exam.

 

     My city has spent the last few years basically criminalizing homelessness.  The able cannot feed them of their own free will unless they have an organization or church allowed to do so.  They themselves cannot have signs specifically requesting money when standing on the corners and the most insidious is that they have to go downtown and get a PERMIT to stand on the corners with the signs!
More recently, there have been signs going up on signs in medians that there is to be no standing there.  This was presented as a necessity to keep traffic safely and unobstructedly moving.

     In that last point, I saw an opportunity…
The “opportunity,” as it were, involved a newly minted lack of competition for eyeball equity on the corners where drivers become a captive audience.

WHAT?!!?

Thank you for asking.

 

     Given that now there is no longer a body standing on the median at the intersection vying for the drivers’ attention, there was now a chance for someone else to move in with better ideas.  Since I cannot – and would not – STAND on the median at the lights around the city, I printed 45 laminates.  At 2am, I ventured out into the city where I would ostensibly have the unobstructed time and access to ziptie the placards to the now-visible posts.
Oh, the sign?  Here you go:

 

     I know what you’re thinking…  “What in the entire actual fuck, Phlip!?”
Look at it like this.  If we’ve learned nothing from politics in the last 50 years, it is that people won’t take time to ask “why?” even when the “what” doesn’t even make any damned sense.  It is a placard that says “credit repair” and a price and a Cashapp tag and nothing more.  No contact information, no actual name or anything.  To the average human being, this seems like some ol’ bullshit and it absolutely is.  But the “average” human being, if we’re being honest, is sadly below average in terms of swiftness on the uptake and have usually already sent a complete and total stranger twenty five bucks for what-the-fuck before the super power of common sense has intervened.  To get ahead of the inevitable super sleuth who would catch my real name and find me on other social media, I removed my real name from CashApp and replaced it with Moe Phillips.

     So how did it go over?
In a word, AMAZINGLY!  Imagine it this way…  A light cycle sits people at the median in front of my sign, three cars on average at a time for two minutes at a time all day every day.  That is 20 light cycles an hour with 13 hours of daylight.  On average, a car sees my sign every minute of every day for that 13 hours, if ONE car every third cycle sends me the $25 then I am making $2,166 per day just on daylight hours alone EVERY day.  I hadn’t expected shit to take off so easily so quickly.  With the money coming in, however, came the notes from CashApp users asking what the fuck they were getting for their funds.  No problem, I simply ate the small fee for immediate withdrawal of funds as each transaction rolled in and then BLOCKED the user that sent it so as to not have to hear from them again.

     In a weekend, I cleared enough to pay off the rest of my car and ALL my credit card accounts with balances, as well as pitch in quite nicely into my wife’s without her being any the wiser, not at least until they send her statements next month.  I swung by my daughter’s school and dropped a file on ALL the lunch accounts they would allow me to and I began my plans to buy my new lawn mower and a small truck to officially start my money laundering operation lawncare business.

     I got a CashApp from a girl I knew and did not like from high school.  I got one from a dude from an old job who I also did not like.  I got one from a member of the city council who I have seen dropping off street walkers from his suburban before.
… I got one from one of my ACTUAL lawn clients.
Oh shit…  This is someone already sending me $40 every other week from April through October and ostensibly recognizes the ID.  Needless to say, I found myself expecting a phone call at any--…

     *Phone rings*

Me: “Moe Phillips Lawn Repair, Moe Speaking…  How may I help you?”

Caller: “Cut the shit, Phillip, what the fuck are you doing?”

Me: “Whatever do you mean?”

Caller: “I just sent some rando 25 bucks for credit repair and it went to the same address as my lawn guy!”

Me: “That is for credit repair!”

Caller: “WHAT?!!?”

Me: “Enough people send me money, I then use said funds to bring ALL of my credit accounts into a good credit-usage range and--…”

Caller: “Get the fuck outta here!”

Me: “… and thereby further repairing my credit.”

Caller: “So you out here scamming people?”

Me: “I wouldn’t call it a ‘scam,’ I mean I tell people they are repairing credit and giving them a direction with which to send to do so, and--…”

Caller: “Am I getting my money back or do I have to come to your house?”

Me: “Good thing I moved last year.”

Caller: “I’m being serious, I could put you on blast on BookFace and Instagram!”

Me: “See now you just being petty.”

Caller: “Well?  And it sounds like I am getting half off my lawn next season.”

Me: “No, it SOUNDS like you mad you didn’t think of this shit first.”

Caller: “Well…  yeah, but.”

Me: “You can have your $25 back, but the price of my hard labor is still the price.  Especially when there was never a promise as to WHO was getting their credit repaired.”

Caller: “Fine.”

 

     They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  I disagree, I’m more of the mind that it is paved with the bones of those who meant ill.  Perhaps my refusal to use these powers for good is why the road is to be paved with MY bones.