An announcement

[jtr1962]

As everyone here may know last year I was scammed out of $260,000. This and the loss of most of my business income due to the tariffs, and someone pirating our device, has caused me to finally run out of liquid funds. Within a few days my electricity, phone, and Internet are going to be turned off. As a result, I may not be able to post here for a long time, perhaps ever if I can't get back on my feet. If I can't continue to pay the real estate taxes the city will seize and auction off the house. I'll face being homeless for the first time in my life. Of course, I'm not going to live like that. I have cyanide tablets for such an eventuality.

I have a few days left with electricity. They have to give 24 hours notice before cutting my power. I haven't received that notice yet.

It's been a great run I had here with everyone. I hope it continues but in case not I wish you all well. I'll check in periodically as long as I'm able to before my power is cut.

 

[Mercutio]

Joe, have you examined City resources for addressing your situation? I do see that there are programs in your Borough and City-wide for helping out older persons as well as programs run by Con Ed. I'm not entirely sure what you might qualify for, but surely it is a better option to consider than your pills.

As I recall, you do have siblings. Are they in any position at all to help you out?

I am not judging you for your decision, and I do suspect that you've looked in to alternative options already, but at the same time I have to hope that you are not quite at the point of catastrophe and that there are still options to consider.

 

[jtr1962]

Here's the problem. I have assets but they're not liquid. My money in my retirement accounts is currently frozen until next January. It's a long story but the short version is I took out a rollover to get the scam site to release my account. Of course they didn't but Chase had a hissy fit that I had to liquidate my brokerage account to cover the rollover. At least I didn't miss the deadline and get stuck paying taxes on $135,000. So they locked the retirement accounts until next year so they don't have to deal with this again. Anyway, the fact I have assets disqualifies me from help from the city, as well as ConEd. It's great NYC has a system of safety nets but you have to be virtually broke to qualify.

My siblings are both living paycheck to paycheck. I only told my brother part of the scamming situation. He thinks I only lost $130,000, not twice that. My sister would go ballistic if I told her so I'm not. How can I explain to either of them that my bank accounts are nearly empty?
My last hope is that I get an order for control boxes and then I'll ask my friend to pay me a few thousand in advance. Hopefully that will be enough for ConEd to keep the power on for a while. They want about $8,000 for that. About half is unpaid prior bills. They no longer trust me to pay monthly, so they also want an amount approximately equal to a year's worth of my normal usage in advance. After that I'll be able to go back to paying monthly. Maybe I can talk them out of paying the advance.

I also need about $75,000 to get current on all my other bills. Unfortunately I borrowed money to keep me going, about $21,000 in total. Now I owe out about $65,000. You can guess the source of this money given the ridiculous interest but it was my only option.

I do have the cryptocurrency investment which is launching within a few weeks. If it does very well then I can easily repay all my debts. The problem is how to survive until then.