My response to a letter from Glen Murray's office in Toronto...(about how huge the loophole is that the banks are given to sell insurance without an insurance license!)

7/18/2012

 
Hello & Thank You...

  The incidental exemption, or enrolling activity by the banks, is actually quite massive...

 Estimates are 2 million dollars a year per bank to administer, with a 20 million dollar profit per year...

 This is for the incidental enrolling...

 So the banks ARE selling insurance...

 That little afterthought exemption took $3,000.00 dollars out of my pocket...During the worst decade of my self-employed business life...

 There are probably tens of thousands of people like myself in Canada who were missold this exempted insurance by the bank, over the phone...

 Once you say yes over the phone, the money is automatically taken from your credit card without another word or any signed confirmation at all...

 Statistics on insurance state quite factually that in insurance "enrollment", the vast majority, over 90 per cent, of people who say yes to an insurance policy over the phone, do not or are not able to read or thoroughly understand/comprehend any written documentation that may or may not appear 10 days later in the mail...People who can say yes over the phone are not necessarily qualified to read or give informed consent to complicated & obfuscatory written insurance policies...

I have been through the entire ombudsprocess with the agencies mentioned...I have also attempted to use other intervention with other agencies not mentioned below...

 The insurance industry is making HUGE money on balance protection insurance...

As are the banks...

 Which is why I have not gotten my money back yet...They don't want to give it back...Even though they know that it is wrong...

 They all know they have taken money wrongly...But they are hurting too, so they have turned a blind eye...

 I have been in touch with a major Class Action law firm here in Canada...

 They are looking into a Class Action lawsuit against all the banks in Canada who have sold balance protection insurance...

 In The States & England this has happened already & ALL people sold a policy by a bank are getting a refund...ALL...ALL people who have EVER been sold a policy on a credit card by a bank...

 That is how bad this is...

Canada is the last country to correct this wrong...

It should be our government who initiates this action...Not a law firm...

But our government has been slow to act, because they are in bed with the banks...

The answers below sound good don't they?

But they are meaningless when one person attempts to jump through those hoops...

The incidental exemption is key...

Legislation is only regulating licensed insurers...

Nothing about the banks...

That is the loophole...It is a giant black hole loophole...


Sincerely, Sari Grove
grovecanada.ca

One of our art assistants, Jadzia, the intact lady bengal, inspects the sculpture for eco-friendliness...

7/9/2012

 
Picture
I feel like titling this "Good Samaritan"...What do you think? It is made of cultured marble that I made all by meeself & it is on top of two separate no-weld armatures that I made...My first foray into making my own marble!

Essence of daffodil: NOWELD Armature

4/14/2012

 
essence of daffodil armature
  Ok, so in many countries on this planet, they have outlawed the sale of any cement bags that weigh more than 25 kilograms...A 20 kilogram bag of cement, for those who operate in American, is about 44 pounds (lbs)...Most of those countries who ban the sale of a more than 25 kg bag of cement have 20 kg bags for sale, not 25 kgs...Though they could legally sell the 25 kg bags...
  Canada has no such ban...This means that cement companies can make & sell cement here in the 40 kg bag...This means that retailers buy those 40 kg bags legally...88 lbs...This means that contractors are buying those 88 lb bags & that construction workers are forced to try to lift a 88 lb bag of cement...
  Each back injury per year is estimated to cost a company 25 thousand dollars...Now, buying cement in smaller 20 kg bags (44 lbs) will cost a company more money in the very short term...But the reduced incidence of back injury will save a construction company huge in the slightly longer term...Plus, fewer people will have back injuries if maximum weights are enforced legally...
  I spoke to St. Mary's cement in Toronto about this...Frank said that 6 years ago (2006), he produced "BackSaver" cement in 20 kg bags...But there was no legislation to support his bold move...So the retailers didn't buy any of it because they didn't have to...This meant that the cement sat in his warehouse for a year & a half & he ended up taking a huge loss on it by giving it to cement recyclers...
  None of his backsaving cement ever hit the retail market in Canada...None of the retailers had vision...None of the contractors had vision...All they could see was that buying a 40 kg bag of cement was cheaper in total costs than buying several 20 kg bags...So Canadian masons suffer back injuries...Still...While masons in other countries are working peacefully & happily & safely, Canadians are still idiotically trying to lift 88 lb bags of cement & injuring their backs, sometimes permanently...
  Is it because construction workers are disposable people that we haven't legislated about this? Why is Canada lagging behind? Australia, England, Ireland, are three countries who are, as Nickelback says so succinctly, are : "All in, Balls out"...
  When are Canadians going to step up to the plate?
  I write this because I have been working with white cement & I cannot buy a 20 kilogram bag here in Toronto...Because of the lack of laws concerning this, there is NO way to buy a 44 lb bag of white cement here in Toronto...This is not fair...I am a woman...I am very very strong but there is NO way I can dead lift 88 lbs of white cement...No way...Which means I can't source my artist materials for ferrocement sculpture...I have been getting a kind building supply person to break open bags & pour them into smaller sized bags...But he is running out of the smaller size cement bags & I am running out of lack of embarrassment to ask for such a favour for so little money....If smaller cement bags were available at retail stores in Toronto, people would buy them...But they won't become available unless our government legislates about what is too heavy...And every Health & Safety Board on the planet agrees that more than 25 kgs is too heavy...Even Lou Ferrigno doesn't want to lift a 40 kg bag of white cement...Even though he can...