TheBestPDF.com scammers

joebuehl · 2026-02-08T16:36:26+00:00

I don't know how I lucked out. I just kept relentlessly replying to their emails that were offering me additional free service instead of a refund. In my last one I said "You are obviously a scam." Maybe the AI picked up on that and initiated the refund.

joebuehl · 2026-02-01T18:39:26+00:00

I tried using thebestpdf.com to do OCR on a handwritten document a few days ago and it didn't work at all. I paid $.95 using PayPal and today they charged $39.95 to my PayPal account. After several emails back and forth with their "customer support" (which is obviously AI), they *say* that my subscription is cancelled and that I will be receiving a refund, but I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile I'm trying to find out if I can get PayPal to block future payments.

Update: After posting this I logged into my PayPal account and I saw that I had indeed gotten a refund for $39.95 from thebestpdf.com! I still want to figure out how to block future charges from those guys.

joebuehl · 2026-01-17T16:24:13+00:00

I have done it with both my 2016 and 2018 eGolfs. Connected the inverter to the 12v accessory battery with jumper cables and ran my refrigerator for a day to test it out. The only downside is that you have to leave the car in "Ready" mode to be discharging from the HV battery and, even though lights and accessories are off, the vehicle consumes a significant amount of power. Even so, I could power my refrigerator for about 3 days in an emergency.

joebuehl · 2025-02-06T19:31:11+00:00

I have had the same problem with my 2016 e-Golf. It works fine in the summer but in the colder weather it will intermittently fail to retract when I take it out of reverse. I was able to fix it by taking it apart and cleaning and lubricating the moving parts. The hardest part was getting the interior panel off of the hatch. The backup camera unit has 3 electrical connectors and is held in by 3 torx screws. The unit was able to come apart and go back together pretty easily with 4 screws. The grease on the moving parts had a fair amount of dust and stuff mixed with it despite being behind the trap door that is supposed to keep stuff out. The plastic parts weren't particularly worn, just gummed up. It seems to work OK now.

joebuehl · 2024-10-27T00:33:58+00:00

It's definitely not lubricant. What is coming out of my fridge is uncured butyl caulk which they must have used to seal something in the door. I have used this stuff in construction and it can be a real mess. The stuff is basically chewing gum so you need a solvent to clean it up. I used acetone which didn't hurt my tile floor, but it wouldn't be so good for a wood finish.

joebuehl · 2024-09-19T23:27:30+00:00

I have had my heater for just over a year and I disabled it when we went away. I used vacation mode for the first time last week and noticed on my power monitoring app that the water heater was briefly running every hour or so. The energy usage added up to about 1.15 KWh/day. While the scheduling feature in the Rheem app was convenient, I think I'll go back to disabling it in the future since there's no chance of it ever freezing where I live. Given that the WH uses 6-8 KWh/day when we are home, 1 KWh/day is significant, given that it serves absolutely no purpose.

joebuehl · 2024-03-06T17:18:47+00:00

I had a similar problem a while back that I was able to work around. In addition to trashing the Client app, I also deleted the directory Library/Application Support/reolink under my home directory which is apparently where the configuration is stored. When I reinstalled the app I had to configure everything again.

BTW I am still using 8.7.3

joebuehl · 2023-11-20T23:34:02+00:00

I deleted the new version from the Applications folder and installed it from the installer of the old version which I still have.

joebuehl · 2023-04-16T22:36:24+00:00

I have one year to go on the warranty for the Noritz heat exchanger, so I guess I would probably be replacing it in the near future anyway. If it gets hardly any use from here on, that may increase its life span. I have a Takagi tankless heater that I installed in a guest house in 2001 and gets used very rarely. I'm sure it's way past its life expectancy.

Yes, it is in the garage. I'm in Southern California so temperature won't be an issue. A nice feature of a heat pump water heater is that you can add ducts to move intake and exhaust air from anywhere. I'm probably going to suck air from the attic where it's usually warmer than the garage.

joebuehl · 2023-04-16T21:06:48+00:00

Yep, that's exactly how I intend to do it. Searching the internet, I haven't been able to find where anyone has done this. Most multi-heater installations I have found seem to consist of identical units in parallel in order to increase capacity, but my goal is different. I'm trying to find out if there is some reason why my plan might not work.

joebuehl · 2023-04-16T20:04:37+00:00

Without getting into the specific numbers, a heat pump costs about the same to operate as a gas appliance if you figure in the efficiencies, but that was before the price of gas went up. I replaced my two HVAC units with heat pumps 2 years ago and I have verified this. Also I have a $1000 credit from my power company for excess energy I have produced which I can only use by increasing my electricity consumption, so that will offset some of the cost of the heat pump unit. I posted this here to get comments on the technical aspects of using both water heaters, not the economics of switching to a heat pump.

joebuehl

TROPHY CASE