Category: Consumer outrage

  • Citi AAdvantage card offers are a consumer ripoff

    Update January 15, 2014, The final chapter: Citi called today and the best explanation I could get was, “We had an identity theft concern.” They didn’t exactly apologize — but they did offer that someone didn’t follow their internal procedures. But they did reinstate the account — meaning I can top up my purchases to get…

  • Verizon FiOS support to customers: plug it in, dummy

    I was looking at a FAQ today on Verizon FiOS’s website on 3D TV (which is, apparently, prematurely dead) when I ran across this ditty in the sidebar. Yes, thank you, I did know that plugging the STB, router and DVRs into a power source could fix the problem of them being unplugged in less than…

  • Lenovo does the right thing, but gracelessly

    I know you have all been waiting with baited breath to see how my attempts to get Lenovo to honor an extended warranty are going. Well, the story is over. And I remain oddly unfulfilled. Here’s what happened. The Monday after my post blasting Lenovo for a) refusing to fix a defect under warranty and b)…

  • Suing Lenovo, chapter 1

    Those of you who know me know I’ve been a fan of ThinkPads since the beginning. I was an IBM systems engineer in the early days of ThinkPads and developed an undying loyalty to their tank-like construction and, above all, the keyboards. Like many devotees, I put up with their higher prices and uninspiring specifications. It’s…

  • Welcome to Southborough, MA: third-world city

    Another day, another power outage, courtesy of National Grid. Tonight, we lost power again. While we were out for only about an hour, the astonishingly unreliable National Grid distribution system has me thinking. First, National Grid should be heavily fined and their management replaced. Tonight, when I called “customer service” to report our outage (it…

  • National Grid improved nothing after Irene; continues to tell people nothing during crises

    Since at least Mark Twain, people have accepted that crappy weather and New England go together. Now, thanks to UK-based National Grid (can you picture “British” and “advanced engineering” together or “UK” and “superior service” on the same bill?), “third-world power distribution grid” and New England have come to be linked in people’s minds. In…

  • Verizon: Who designed your websites and mobile apps?

    I’ve just been through a “process” of making my FiOS DVR accessible from Verizon’s website and their mobile apps for Android and iOS. You know what I mean about a “process” and a cable company: thousands of reboots of this thing or that — hours spent restoring my settings on this device or that after…

  • Take THAT, Best Buy

    Just yesterday, as my wife and I were going through the Sunday papers, I ran across an ad for HDMI cables from Best Buy. As you can see from the snippet from their weekly ad, they have a house-branded 6ft “high speed” HDMI cable for $60. I mentioned to my wife that I knew this…

  • Do you use the Internet? Then you gotta read this.

    It’s Memorial Day and a little rainy here, so I pulled out the iPad to catch up on tech news. And I stumbled on to a piece of proposed legislation that scared the bejesus out of me. The so-called PROTECT IP act (S.968), now fortunately placed on hold in the US Senate by the same…

  • Bank of America marketing: how to lose customers on a grand scale

    Well, growing a business ethically continues to defy Bank of America. First, it duped shareholders by concealing girnormous losses at Merrill-Lynch last year — then it agreed to paying ML’s brokers astronomical bonuses, all apparently in exchange for an extra $50B in TARP funding. Next, it pissed off a Federal judge who wouldn’t let BofA…

  • Choose one: New FTC blog post guidelines a) protect you b) kill free speech

    Well, this is one of those times when the government acts and you get to chose your reaction. On the one hand, the emergence of the ‘net as the definitive source of reviews for everything from software to celery has become a bonanza for the shills of the world who review products for filthy lucre…

  • zug.com turns it up to 11 on Verizon over privacy

    Remember the original Spinal Tap movie in which the amplifiers go to 11? Voila! Instant meme. Well, I’ve just read a blog post from zug.com called “The Verizon Prank” in which John Hargrave risks big dogs and angry neighbors to make a point I wish more people were concerned about: lax privacy controls. Maybe we have…