I visited the Toyota Canada website.  I filled out a credit application for pre-approval to purchase a Toyota Vehicle.  I received this response from the website:

Pre-Approve Me for Credit

Thank you, your credit application has been sent for processing to Toyota Financial Services.  Your application will be reviewed and a decision reached within 24-48 business hours. To view the decision, please return to www.toyota.ca after 48 hours, enter the financial services section, click on the “Application Status” button and enter the following code in the space provided.  Your application code is:  E1143A00Axxxxxxxxx78Dxxxxx

Upon return to the site on several occasions and from three different computers and three different web browsers to check the status, I received a page loading and no response to my inquiry.

I contacted Toyota Financial Services @ (905) 513-8200 to inquire as to the status and let them know the site is down.   I was informed that I would have to visit a dealer to find out the status of the application.  They adamantly refused to provide any information or answers.  They claimed they do not deal with the public and a dealer could provide an answer.  This is not what I signed up for!

I did not indicate any dealer preference or permission for my information to be shared.  I expected a response directly that could be accessed by a dealer once I gave permission upon purchase of a vehicle if I so chose.

A Little over a week after my application, I received a message from a Toyota Dealer that I did business with 4 years go inquiring about my visit to the Toyota Website.

So if I want an answer to my credit inquiry I must visit and dealer?  I have no concern about approval, however from a consumer point of view, this could is unacceptable.  They loured me in by promising an online response and then the website convienently does not work, and they refuse, rudley I maight add) to provide any assistance.

Is Toyota a little to big for it britches??

Here is what our Premier has done for Ontario in the past seven years. Remember…he had a no tax increase election message/campaign.

• He has increased all the licensing fees from your car to your boat including fishing and hunting.
• He introduced the health care premium (not called a tax) and some couples pay as much as $1,500.00 a year.
• He doubled the price of most lottery tickets. (Not called a tax).
• He has put an ECO tax on aerosol and paint cans, hand soap, light bulbs. window washer fluid – all in all about 5000 products – people still don’t realize it until they see the bill – he kept that one real quiet. Even the Official Opposition were not aware of it’s implemntation as of July 1 – same date as when the HST started.
• He put a disposal tax on all electronics.
• He put the disposal tax back on tires.
• And now he has passed the HST tax – the largest tax on the province ever and the only other tax in Ontario , and, thousands of additional taxes on items you probably never heard of being taxed before!

He passed this bill even though 76% of the people in Ontario were against it. This HST will provide the Province with an additional THREE BILLION dollars a year.

• Soon we will all have our S.M.A.R.T. meters that we will have to pay rent on and will end up doing our laundry in the middle of the night. We are also going to pay big time for air conditioning from now on because when we need it the most it will be in the prime time of usage.

• Let us not forget the E-health scandal with 1.2 billion dollars wasted and paid out to friends and relatives.

What was Mr. McGuinty’s answer to this? Well, if the people of Ontario don’t like it, they can show it in the next election. Nice attitude. This after he fired the CEO and then gave her a severance package of $300,000 – not bad for only being on the job for seven months.

• And what about the SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS windmill power plant contract that he awarded to KOREA ? One would think there was some place in Canada or North America that could have built these.

• He also closed the emergency rooms in Port Colburne and Fort Erie because there is not enough money.

There have been two deaths since then because by the time they got to St. Catharine’s it was too late. But he then awards a hospital in Toronto three million dollars – of course, that was in the riding where there just happens to be a by-election to replace George Smitherman!

• He has taken the richest most prosperous province in Canada down to one of the poorest and has created a deficit of TWENTY SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS and he still has a year and a half to go. And don’t forget his nice little salary increase of $40,000.00 a year – millions of people in the province don’t earn even half of that.

• Have we forgotten all the MPP?S who also got a 14% increase? And now that they’ve had their increases he comes out with a new budget to freeze all provincial employees wages for two years – a bit late don’t you think.

• He increased the hydro tax by 10% in April of 2010.
• He has increased the tax on liquor and wine by 10% in May of 2010.

But, Mr. McGuinty will retire with his nice comfortable pension and all his benefits paid. I hope this gets passed around the province of Ontario and everybody remembers the way we got screwed by Mr. McGuinty and the Liberal party and – remember – NOT one Liberal MPP had enough guts to vote against
any of the above.

Don’t be the usual complacent Canadian……stand up and be heard for a change!

Squinty McGuinty has done it again!!   HST applies to the resale of vehicles.  However, traditionally only RST/PST @ the rate of 8% was applied to the private resale of a vehicle.  HST does NOT apply to private resales of vehicle, however, to make it fair for the Automotive Industry, a 13% RST/PST will be applied withing the HST.  This means you will no pay 5% more for your vehicle when purchasing at a fair price from a private seller.

There is a note attached to this on our government website:

Private Resale of Vehicles (including Registration)
Ontario will maintain the PST on private transfers of used vehicles at a rate of 13 per cent to help ensure a level playing field between sales by dealerships and private sales.
Tax changes to 13% (Was 8%)

ARE THEY SERIOUS???  Level playing field????  WTF are you talking about???  So do we get a rebate on the vehicle we sold to effectively “trade in”?  If so, then you have a level playing field.  Private sellers have always had a disadvantage as the tax savings form the trading of the old vehicle was not there.

New Car Dealers traditionally mark up used/pre-owned vehicles by 20% with a minimum of $3000 profit.  So when trading in a vehicle you are given a value that is 20% below market value plus the estimated cost on reconditioning.

I recently purchased a new vehicle.  The trade value of my old vehicle was so low that I was be better to sell it privately.

Let’s do the math on an example:

New Vehicle outright purchase $42,000plus GST & RST 13% ($5460) = $47,460

Trading an old vehicle: New Vehicle $42,000, Trade-in value $14,000 plus GST & RST 13% ($3640) = $31,640 (for the purpose of comparison New vehicle plus tax, plus value of trade = $45640) a savings of  $1820 (basically taxes on the value of the trade)

OK, now let’s sell the old vehicle privately!!

Take the outright purchase price total of $47,460 (including taxes) and then subtract the selling price of the old vehicle minus any expenses.

Selling Price:  $17,000 ($3000 difference compared to trade-in value)
Costs: Advertising $0  Ontario Safety Certificate and Emissions test: $500
Net Value for old vehicle: $16,500

Now lets do the math:  $47,460 – $16,500 = $30,960

Difference:  $30,960 (net cost of new vehicle considering sale of old vehicle – $28,000 (net value of new vehicle minus the trade in value) = $2,960

Add to this the fact that prior to July 1, 2010, the purchaser of my private sale vehicle did not have to pay GST, 5% savings for him, plus the vehicle price was likely less than a dealers sale price.  A savings of $850 GST

In the last scenario that saved the consumers an estimated $6,525,  our governments were paid:

GST:  $2,100 New Vehicle Purchase + $25 for vehicle repairs = Total $2,125

RST/PST: $ 3,360 on new Vehicle purchase + $40 tax on repairs + $1,360 on the old vehicle sale = $4760

Total TAX paid:  $4,760, none of which is recoverable due to the trade clause a dealer has.

So, lets see the tax revenue from the dealer sale: (Considering a trade value of $14,000)

GST:  $1,400 New Vehicle Purchase

RST/PST: $ 2,240 on new Vehicle purchase

Resale of trade @ $17,000 = GST $950  PST $1,360 = $2310

Total TAX paid:  $5,950

Dealer Profits on trade: $17700 – trade value $14,000 – repairs $500 = $3200*

This does not include the dealer administration fee which is nothing more than added profit margin.  This “fee” ranges from $99-$699

So let’s review:

We needed to make this a level playing field for dealers??  Or the dealers need to be able to gouge consumers more then they do today?  This is ALL about increased tax revenue for the Ontario Government.    McGuilty promised no additional taxes!

Remember this when you vote at the next provincial election!

These bastards never seise to amaze me.  I can’t even cancel Auto-renewal?   Last time I wrote I had changed my expiry date so they failed to get my money.  Then they sent me notices of an outstanding amount owing.  Then after I responded, they canceled my account.  10 days later they billed my credit card by guessing at the new expiry date!!!  WTF is up?  prosecuted

Next summer (2010) the Ontario Government is set to put into force its
new harmonized GST/PST sales tax which will apply a 13% sales tax to
everything we purchase.

Things That Were Not Subject To The Current 8% PST Will Be Now Taxed
As a result, things that were not previously taxed under the current Ontario
Provincial Sales Tax (PST) will be taxed at 8%.

The new 13% tax will therefore apply to things like your electric bill, your
gas bill, your water bill, condominium fees, insurance premiums, and every
other good and service you purchase. There are almost no exemptions.

The current Ontario PST tax does not apply to services, nor does it apply to
the purchase of certain goods. The new 13% tax will therefore extend the old
8% PST tax rate to the purchase of all goods and all services.

The New 13% Tax Will Apply To The Purchase of All New Homes
The new harmonized GST/PST will also apply to all purchases of all new homes.
If a person were to purchase a new $1 million dollar home in Toronto , they
would have to pay roughly $200,000 in taxes as a result of the Ontario land
transfer tax, the new city of Toronto land transfer tax, and the new
harmonized 13% GST/PST.

Think about that and what that would do to real estate values in Toronto ..

It will cause property values to fall and kill the new home construction
industry and the jobs it creates.

And it won’t be long before you’ll hear our elected representatives telling us
that, because of the harm that has been inflicted to the new home
construction industry by the new 13% tax, it would be “fair” to extend the new
13% tax to sales of existing homes.

The New 13% Tax Is An Assault On Your Primary Residence
Canadians have had two things that they have always been able to count on as
being tax free – things that they could use to save money and accumulate
wealth. They are your: (a) primary home; and (b) RRSP. That’s it.

The extension of the new 13% GST/PST to homes is simply a tax assault by the
government on your primary home. They want to tax your primary home and you
will suffer because of it.

Why? Because if a purchaser has to pay almost $200,000 in taxes to buy your
$1 million dollar home, the purchaser is going to pay less to you for your
home. The purchaser will reduce the amount he or she is willing to pay to you
in order to pay all the taxes.

The New 13% Tax Will Effectively Raise Your Income Taxes
Currently, the combined Federal/Ontario income tax rates are roughly 25% on
the first $20,000 of taxable income, 42% on the next $40,000 of taxable
income, and 46.5% on each dollar of taxable income over $60,000. On top of
that you have to add the “Fair Share Health Tax” of up to $1,000 each of us
has to pay.

If the Ontario Government gets away with implementing their new harmonized
GST/PST sales tax of 13%, the top effective income tax rates in Ontario will
be as follows (since you can’t spend any of your tax paid dollars without
paying the new harmonized 13% GST/PST tax):

38% on the first $20,000
53% on the next $40,000
59.5% on every dollar over $60,000

On top of that, you have to pay your Ontario Fair Share Health Tax, your city
realty taxes, your city garbage fees, your city water fees, your city street
parking permit fees, your annual Ontario and new city of Toronto vehicle
license plate fees, your Ontario land transfer tax, your new city of Toronto
land transfer tax, your gasoline taxes, your liquor taxes, your air departure
taxes, your entertainment taxes, and so on.

OF ALL THE MONEY YOU WORKED HARD TO EARN, WHAT PERCENTAGE ARE YOU REALLY
KEEPING FOR YOUR OWN USE?  25%? 20%? 10%?

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – FIGHT BACK
THIS HAS GOT TO STOP HERE OR WE WILL ALL SOON BE WORKING FULL TIME FOR THE
VARIOUS LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT IN ONTARIO .

YOU CAN ALREADY SEE HOW ARE LIFESTYLES ARE DECLINING BECAUSE OF THE ENORMOUS
TAX LOAD WE BEAR.

AS A RESULT, I URGE YOU TO TAKE THIS ISSUE SERIOUSLY AND TO FILL AND AND SIGN
THE PETITION AT  www.unfairtaxgrab.com AGAINST THE NEW HARMONIZED GST/PST
TAX SET OUT BELOW.

I WOULD ALSO ASK YOU TO SEND THIS E-MAIL ON TO OTHERS THAT YOU KNOW AND ASK
THEM TO DO THE SAME.

IF WE DON’T WORK TOGETHER ON THIS ISSUE THE NEW HARMONIZED 13% SALES TAX WILL
BECOME A REALITY NEXT SUMMER.

THANK YOU.

To sign a petition go to www.unfairtaxgrab.com

Thousands say “no” to the HST

Dalton McGuinty claims “no one is complaining” about his unfair tax grab. You
proved him wrong this week. On Wednesday we sent out a request asking you to
send a message to the McGuinty Government about the HST. Almost instantly our
email box began to fill. By the end of the day we’d received nearly 2,000
messages.

New Democrat Members of Provincial Parliament did their best to read them
into the record in the Legislature, but they simply ran out of time. The good
news is: there are more debates to come and we’ll be sending you details about
how to keep up the fight against this unfair tax grab. In the meantime, you
can read a transcript of the debate here .

Together we can stop the HST.

PS – Urge your friends, family and other concerned citizens to sign the
petition at www.unfairtaxgrab.com . Join the Facebook fight too .

This an email from the NDP.  The link to click on is at the very bottom:

Friend,

Dalton McGuinty’s unfair tax grab will make life less affordable for people like you – raising the price of everything from gasoline, hydro, home heating, haircuts and more by eight per cent. More people are learning about this unfair tax grab every day and the movement to stop the HST is growing. But we need to keep up the pressure.

Premier McGuinty said the HST is about ‘tax fairness” – even while a report says the HST will hit consumers hardest.

Dalton McGuinty needs to know that you are opposed to his HST. I encourage you to write your local newspaper, whether it’s a big city daily or a local community weekly. Let the premier know that you don’t support the HST and that you want it stopped.

If there is a call-in show on a local radio or television station – call them and make it clear that you are opposed to the HST.

In addition to writing your local newspaper or calling your local radio station, you can even write the Premier. Simply click on this link and you’ll be taken to an e-mail form which will let you tell Dalton McGuinty that you don’t want the HST.

The Premier says he hasn’t heard an outcry against the HST. Sounds like it’s time to raise the volume a few decibels.

Together, we can stop this unfair tax grab.

Sincerely,

Andrea Horwath, MPP
Leader, Ontario’s NDP

PS – Encourage your friends and colleagues to join the fight. Visit our website at www.unfairtaxgrab.com

https://www.premier.gov.on.ca/feedback/ … sp?Lang=EN

St. Paul’s Midtown Riding sends message to Liberals, HST is OK!  They send message to Ontarians, Screw you!

Dr. Eric Hoskins, a former adviser to Lloyd Axworthy, won the by-election in the midtown riding of St. Paul’s which was held by former cabinet minister Michael
Bryant for a decade before he left politics in June.

Protest vote hopes were crushed on Thursday as residents elected instead to maintain the status quo,  voicing support for the HST.

This time around, Hoskins beat out Progressive Conservative candidate Sue-Ann Levy, a feisty city hall columnist at the Toronto Sun, and NDP candidate and lawyer Julian Heller.  Maybe the PC and NDP could have given St.Pauls a choice!

Labatt Breweries of Canada Ltd. gave the largest donation of $10,300 to the Liberals. Other contributions included $6,500 from Bruce Power L.P., which operates a southwestern Ontario nuclear power plant, $5,000 from Paul Martin and $250 from former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Janet Ecker.

St. Paul’s has a population of 112,449 including 82,505 eligible voters, the majority of which are stupid people.  We can only compare them to Floridians. The riding has a mixed-income population with some high-end neighborhoods and some middle-class to low-income residents as well.  Unfortunately is has a high immigrant population who do not understand that “Liberal” does not stand for freedom.

Many grocery stores in Ontario have started charging a five-cent fee for single-use plastic bags.  The City of Toronto has mandated a five-cent fee for plastic bags at retail stores in an effort to cut down landfill volumes. The city has said it wants to reduce plastic bag use by 70 per cent by 2012. The retailers get to keep the nickel under the Toronto law.  However, there is no Ontario law and the retailers are charging because they make 400% return!  Actually its 500% because it was an expense with no direct revenue.

Metro, Loblaws and Sobeys  have instituted a five-cent charge for all of Ontario (some national).

Loblaws has reported that 75 per cent fewer plastic bags than normal have been used since it started charging fees nationwide on April 22.

Many regions in Ontario recycled stretchable plastic, including grocery bags.  Many of the “single-use” bags are used multiple times for all kinds of household uses including;

1 ) Re-Use as a grocery bag
2 ) Sorting recyclables
3 ) Re-Use as packing material. Wad the bags up and pack around the materials to be packed.
4 ) Re-Use them as trash bags.
5 ) Storage bags. Simply store and hang items you need to put away.
6 ) Shoe Liners for those wet days
7 ) Emergency Rain hats.
8 ) Emergency Diaper (nappy) cover. In a pinch a plastic grocery or bread bag makes a nice emergency disposable cover!
9 ) Dog poop picker uppers

This is a classic case of big business gouging the consumer disguised as a corporate good citizen.  If they truely wanted to help, they would offer paper bags for free.  The same ones they changed from when they found plastic bags for a fraction of the price.

I hope we have all read the stories about Natural Gas resellers and there fraudulent practices of signing people up to a new NG provider without a signature from the home owner.  “If I could see your gas bill, I can show you how to save money”  Then they would write down the account # and information needed for the form to transfer you to their supply, for which you pay a premium.  All this without your signature.

If the price of Natural Gas were to continue on the rise, then you could win with a fixed price.  The truth is, that while prices did go up, the resellers could not afford to sell you your NG at a loss and they went out of business.  The larger resellers are still around because they have contract and many homeowners are paying a premium for their NG.  Based on today’s pricing at a 7 year low, the resellers are winning and the consumers are losing.

For the education of consumers, I just wanted to share the latest news, although it has been a trend for a while.

Wall Street Journal –  Natural-gas futures fell to a fresh seven-year low as a glut of the fuel and tepid demand outweighed diminishing concerns about storms in the Atlantic….. marks the ninth consecutive trading day of declines in gas futures.

“We’re oversupplied, and these storms aren’t causing a disruption…….overabundance of the fuel, resulting in a market that relies less on Gulf output”

There is no way out of the contracts, Union Gas or Consumers Gas will not help you.

You have no choice….  BOHICA

So yet another company feels that they have the unconditional right to charge your credit card over and over. They call it the convenience of auto-renewal, when in truth it is customer retention by force. I do not think the auto-renewal feature is bad, providing I am asked if I would like to enable it when I subscribe and I have an easy, convenient way to disable it.

So without my knowledge (probably found in fine print) Globalstar held my credit card info, including my CVV code and was ready to renew me for another year of service. Fortunately I was able to put a bogus expiry date in the billing information section. By entering incorrect information I have saved myself the painful time consuming phone call to Globalstar Customer Service.

Is this not the same as the banned practice of negative billing? Is this not a tactic used by porn sites and other internet based services that border on fraud and often have the term scam associated with them?

I say yes!

Globalstar’s SPOT is for the active outdoor enthusiasts such as hikers, boaters, snowmobilers, pilots, riders, remote workers and travelers. I highly recommend this service, although take caution for undesirable billing practices.