Motorola Customer Service Failure

Last spring, I purchased a Motorola S11-HD Bluetooth headset that was great for a couple months, but then the left channel died.  After some pretty bad experiences with the online "chat" support (kept me in queue for 20+ minutes and then said "oops, nobody here now."), the headset was finally replaced under warranty back in late September or early October.  Things were great for another couple of months, and then once again, the left channel died.

So I tried the online chat again, starting last Thursday, January 15.  Somebody actually responded this time, and after giving a lot of information, I was told to try a reset procedure that ultimately doesn't work with the model I have (the Motorola site lists only the "S11 Flex", and makes it seem like the S11-HD never even existed).  Before trying that reset, I had to charge the headset, so I finished the chat session and said I'd get back to them if necessary.

Motorola sent me an email on Monday morning saying that they'd marked the incident as resolved, since it has been more than 72 hours.  Nice of them to have told me there was a time limit on the response.

In any event, it turns out that the headset is now completely dead - won't even power on.

So even though Motorola thought things had been resolved, I went back to online chat to try to get things actually resolved, one more time.  I chatted with one guy, gave him the two previous incident numbers and all the information that I knew he'd ask for, but he still asked me to repeat myself, asked me about the S11-Flex (again, I do NOT have the Flex model) and then he connected me to somebody else, whose first question was "how can I help you?"  Seriously, you can't read what's already been said?

Then this happened:

Aina: Thanks! May I know when did you receive the replacement headset?
Larry Mac: Approximately October 1, 2014.
Aina: I see. I'm sorry to say Larry but we do have 3 months warranty for the replacement devices.
Larry Mac: That's BS
Larry Mac: You have a one year warranty on the original device, and I haven't even gotten to that point yet
Larry Mac: Also, that alleged policy was not disclosed to me at the time of the replacement,
Larry Mac: You can't make up policies and not tell your customers
Larry Mac: Because after all "here in Motorola we make it right for our customers."

(earlier in the chat, Aina had said "We do apologize for the inconvenience on your part but not to worry I'll be more than willing to help you because here in Motorola we make it right for our customers."  Apparently not at all true!)

Aina: Apologies Larry. I understand that.
Larry Mac: So fix it
Aina: I'm sorry but it is not under the warranty. We will just give you a 10% discount for you to purchase a new one.
Larry Mac: Unacceptable
Larry Mac: "here in Motorola we make it right for our customers."
Larry Mac: I received, in replacement, a brand new, sealed package.  There was no indication that the warranty as described in that package did not apply.  I have it right next to me
Aina: I know how you feel about it Larry. I'm sorry but that is what we can offer you.

 [snip]

Larry Mac: You know what, fine, I can tell you are not actually going to "do the right thing".  Give me today's incident number and I'll get this straightened out by somebody who will
Aina: Okay Sir. I will send an email after this chat to give you the incident number.
Larry MacGregor: Just type it here.  I don't trust Motorola to follow up
Aina: I can only have the incident number after saving this chat session Larry.

It's been about 30 minutes.  That email hasn't arrived, to nobody's surprise.  I should also point out that last week, in the original chat session, the representative gave me the reference number without hesitation.

So yes, "here in Motorola we make it right for our customers."  Except when we don't because of undisclosed policies,  And the not actually making anything right at all.

I really liked this headset when it worked.  It was great to not have a cord getting in my way all the time when I was at the gym, or working in the yard.  But ultimately, despite the pithy slogan, it seems that Motorola doesn't stand behind their products or their customers, so I'll be shopping for something from a more trustworthy company.

Blow Me

I had to buy a new leaf blower last week.  Unfortunately, since my budget is constrained these days, I had to go with cheap, not necessarily frugal, and bought an electric Black and Decker unit.  Having had bad luck with these in the past, I am determined to make sure that, if it does not last through the full two year warranty period, I have everything lined up so that I can get it fixed or replaced.  To that end, I decided I would "register" the warranty.  I know that doing so is generally not required, but I want to make sure that there is absolutely no question if (or more likely when) the need for service arises.

A quick glance at the registration card revealed far more questions than seemed necessary, so I thought I'd take the "easy" way and register online.  Off to BlackandDecker.com I went, only to immediately be met with a demand to "set up an account".  Then I could get email newsletters every week!  I don't want a fucking account or your SPAM, I want to make sure I can get warranty service on this cheap Chinese-made POS when necessary.

Back to the hand-written registration card.  Immediately after my name and address (reasonable information to provide, I think), they want my date of birth.  Then marital status.  Further along, they want the gender and age of everybody in the household, including children (!).  Occupation.  Income.  Own or Rent?  What type of internet access?  Etc.

What the hell, Black and Decker?

No, you can't have all that personal information, you can't have my email address, and no, I don't want you to share my information so that I can "receive important mailings and special offers from a number of companies whose products and services relate directly to the specific interests, hobbies and other information indicated."

And I just love this line "Please check here if, for some reason, you would prefer not to participate in this opportunity."  (emphasis added).  Oh my yes, for some reason, maybe I don't want you to sell my personal information to the highest bidder.  What ever could I be thinking, turning down such an opportunity?

Here's a crazy idea.  Build a product that's sturdy and will last for a decade or more.  Even better, build it in the United States.

Sprint Fail

Remember back a few years ago, when Sprint had those ads with CEO Dan Hesse in noirish settings, talking all sincere and stuff about how dedicated they were and all that crap?  And then he offered up "his" email address.  Now anybody who doesn't know that those emails were routed to a foreign country for useless responses probably also believes in unicorns, but I went ahead and sent Danno a message anyway:

Mr Hesse -

The other day, my trusty HTC EVO 4G stopped working and I had to find a replacement phone quickly.  I've been happy with my Sprint service overall, and have been a customer for over ten years, but in purchasing a replacement phone,  Sprint has done everything to make me reconsider my loyalty

- I had to purchase from a third party to get a reasonable price.  The price I got was $50 less than the best price offered to me on the Sprint website, despite my long tenure, and it was a real price, not a price computed after figuring in so kind of bogus rebate.

- The deal I got from the third party site also included a free accessory kit, something I've never seen offered by Sprint.

- The deal I got from the third party will also credit the (ridiculous and bogus) $36 "activation fee" that you insist on charging.  Do you think customers don't recognize pure profit-taking when they see it?

- Once my purchase had been made and processed by the third party, I received a stupid email from Sprint telling me "As of 10/07/2013, the Everything Data 450 plan was added to your account and the Everything Data 450 plan was removed."  Any programmer worth his salt could have supressed that email.

- And then for some reason, Sprint disconnected my mobile number from Google Voice.  Since my current phone is dead, it was very important for me to have the calls go to Google Voice, so I could at least check the voice mails, and I would also have been able to receive and send text messages as necessary.

Despite my 10+ year relationship with Sprint, I am seriously considering cancelling this contract immediately and going with one of your competitors - and trust me, because you are costing me real money by effectively disconnecting my phone due to the Google Voice fiasco, there would be no chance of you receiving an ETF.

Major failures Dan, from start to finish.

Stupid Sprint is Stupid

I sort of broke my phone the other day, and the best deal I found on getting a replacement was via Costco. WHY?  Why can't Sprint give me the best possible deal, since I've been a customer for ten years???  Topic for another post, I guess.

So anyway, last night I logged in to my Costco account and filled out all the information and so on.

Today I received an email from Sprint, helpfully informing me that:

As of 10/07/2013, the Everything Data 450 plan was added to your account and the Everything Data 450 plan was removed

Boy, that was informative.

. 

Wherefore Art Thou?

Tivo introduced some new boxes today, all named "Roamio".  And in so doing, they continue their apparent campaign to alienate existing customers.

Let's start with the very announcement itself. Sure they put out the press releases and had coverage on all the tech sites, but not a peep in email to a long-term customer.  Barely a mention via their official Twitter account, except for some retweets of other coverage.  Then finally a single post at around 12 noon EDT.  Maybe there was something on Facebook, I stopped following them there because of the nearly negative signal-to-noise ratio.

Along with not giving any heads-up to paying customers, there is, of course, no incentive for existing customers either.  Want a new box?  Full price for everybody.  No trade-in, no service discount, nothing.  It's bad enough that the Series 3 box I have, with "lifetime" "service" hasn't received any significant software update in years.

And then there's the website.  I logged in on tivo.com the other day, and I know I checked the box that said "keep me logged in for 45 days."  But with the new hardware comes a new website, and not only am I not logged in, but that checkbox doesn't even appear.  The new sign on screen has just two fields, email address and password.  Since I've logged into tivo.com dozens of times in the past, I double-clicked in the email field so that Chrome could fill in the box for me.  No dice.  It's a different URL completely.  OK then, I'll just type in the email.  As soon as I type the first letter, an error message appears above the input field --

Invalid: This is not a valid e-mail.

Nice.  That error message stays in place until I get to the "o" in ".com".  Good to see that whoever programmed that completely unnecessary validation routine recognized a TLD other than com.  For a company that's celebrated for the device UI, they sure bolloxed up that bit of user interaction.

I think I'll stick with my ancient TiVo HD and the even ancienter Series 2 DT in my bedroom, at least until all the early problems (and we know there will be problems) get worked out.

Don't even get me started on why only the base model offers an ATSC tuner.  I'm sure there must be some reason, but I'm not interested enough to figure it out at this point.

SWM ISO ...

I got my Gmail address way back when the service first started up.  As such, it's a fairly short name, and didn't require a lot of customization.  As time has passed, I have started getting more and more email that should be going to somebody else, because other people seem to think they own my email.  I've gotten wedding plans, "Mom's" electric bill, contract information of various types, and so on.  I also started getting more and more spam, on an account that initially didn't get any.  With all those various mis-addressed emails coming in, sometimes I'd just ignore them, sometimes I'd reply to the sender stating that they had the wrong person.  There's a woman in Australia who never would believe that I wasn't the person she was trying to reach, and sometimes when I look at my spam folder, I still see jokes that she's forwarded.  A couple weeks ago, I got an email about renting a theater in Vancouver, BC and tried to tell the sender that she had the wrong person.  Her first reply insisted that I had indeed been the one to email her.  I replied again, saying "hey, I was just trying to let you know that you had the wrong person, but if she just wanted to argue, then she should just go ahead and rent the theater to somebody else.  Her reply to that?  "FU".   So yeah, I'm less and less inclined to help people reach the right person.

Anyway ... yesterday I received an email welcoming me to one of the larger online dating services.  It wasn't for me, in case the preceding paragraph didn't make that clear.  That email provided "my" username, password, date of birth and ZIP code.  Good gravy, I'm halfway to stealing somebody's identity and I haven't even used the credentials to log in to the dating site and see what else I can find!

I'm sorely tempted to log in and change field that says "looking for women" to "looking for men".  I am gay after all.  Or perhaps to change the profile text to say "Hey ladies, I'm too stupid to even know my own email address, so you'll probably want to keep looking."

But back to that initial email.  The PASSWORD?  In plain text?  In Two Thousand Freaking Thirteen?  Clearly that means the site in question is not encrypting their records.  Is it time to name and shame them?  Should I actually log in and see what other information is available to me?

"Make" Your Own Time Machine

Serveral years ago, I signed up for the "Premier" subscription to Make Magazine.  This is supposed to provide automatic renewal at a preferred rate.  The first couple of years were rough, but I thought everything was working OK finally.

Until I used my powers of smart-assery to stir up the hornet's nest.

Here are the emails, starting with one from them, then my reply, then alternating...

2/16
Dear Larry Macgregor,

We hope you have been enjoying your subscription to MAKE. We will be sending your next issue to the printer shortly. Per your request, your subscription was automatically renewed for another full year on 3/9/2012.   [....]

2/16
So my subscription "WAS" renewed on a date that falls over three weeks into the future?  Care to explain how that works?

2/21
Hello Larry,

Thank you for your email.

No, your subscription has not been renewed yet.

Would you like me to remove this feature?

2/21
No, I don't want the feature removed, I want emails that make sense.

Such as "Because you are a valuable subscriber using our Premier feature, we'd like to remind you that your subscription WILL BE renewed on March 9.  To manage your subscription options, please go to .  Thank you for being a Premier Maker".

See how that works?  It communicates the information clearly without resorting to telling the customer that something has happened in the future.

This isn't rocket surgery.

[oops, there's that smart-assery again!]

2/12
Hello Larry,

Thank you for your email.

I understand what you are saying.

Will let the appropriate department know.

Is everything else okay with subscription?

Should I add the account back onto automatic renewal?

2/21
Wow, you took it off auto renewal?  The first reply you sent me ASKED if you should do that, and I replied NO.

How was that unclear?

DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT MY SUBSCRIPTION

2/21  (actually received as I was writing this post)
Hello Larry,

Nothing has been changed on your account and everything is in its original standing.

Have a marvelous evening!
-------------------------

I can't wait until I notice that I've strangely stopped receiving the magazine, even though I'll probably still get charged.  Yeah, I shouldn't have replied to the first email, but dammit, it was a stupid message.  If and when I get my time machine, I'm sure as hell not going to waste it on trips into the near future to renew magazine subscriptions.

Eat me

Last night I went to the nearby Kroger to pick up a few groceries, and since I was tired from working in the yard all day, I thought I'd check out their "hot bar" for potential dinner items. It still looks like a bad day in your junior high cafeteria, but I went ahead and grabbed a couple egg rolls, some lo mein and some fried rice. When I got to the end of the counter and placed my stuff on the scale, I got ... nothing. The scale was either turned off or unplugged or otherwise dead. No sign saying "please use the other scale next to the salad bar" or anything. Of course not. Nonetheless I walked over to that other scale, put my plate with the ill-fitting lid on top, entered the secret PLU and hit Print. Chunka chunka chunk. OUT OF LABELS. CALL ATTENDANT.

Um, OK, what attendant? Surely not the two Japanese sushi dudes. I stood there for a bit. Waved my arms around a few times. Watched a few store employees venture nearby but not actually make eye contact.

Left the food sitting there. I hope Kroger enjoyed eating the $6 they would have gotten from me. I found my dinner elsewhere.

All Your Coupons Are Belong To Us

I have a love/hate relationship with coupons. I save the coupon sections from the Sunday newspaper, and clip and use various coupons from there. On the other hand, I think that individual stores that have customer loyalty cards ought to just give me the damn sale price. Yes Walgreens, I'm talking to you. Is it really worth the time it takes for a cashier to reconcile a register with all those slips of paper, and for the store to process them at the end of the day or week?

Now, as a member of Costco, I get coupon books in the mail every month or so, and it does kind of suck to have to tear out the coupons. They made it slightly less annoying though, by programming their cash registers in an interesting way. This morning, I had five coupon items, along with the rest of my order. When the cashier took my coupons, he hit some magic button and the register immediately gave me credit for every coupon-eligible item in my order. OK, it's not perfect, and I still had to tear out a few pieces of paper. And the cashier probably still had to reconcile the register to allow for the coupons. But as a customer, it got me out of the store a bit faster, so good for that.

Guilty until proven innocent? Nah, just guilty all around

SC Johnson is showing a TV ad for their "Off Clip-on" mosquito repellent, in which they tell viewers to go to a website to get a buy one get one free coupon. I was peeved to have to install some mystery coupon printing program to get my coupon, but uninstall and rollback took care of most of that. Still don't know what personal information they encoded into the barcodes though.

Today, I was going to use my coupon at the local K-Mart. But lo and behold, there's a big sign on the door saying they won't honor any "free up to a certain price" coupons, nor any internet or home-printed coupons of any kind.

I stepped up to the "courtesy" desk to ask, just on the off-chance (ha ha, "off" chance) that they'd take my coupon. My greeting was "Didjoo need sumfin?" I asked, got denied, said "guess I won't ever shop here again" and left.

I really resent the concept that all customers are fraudsters, trying to cheat the pathetic Sears Holding Company.

When I got home, I went to the K-Mart website to try to find a contact email or phone number. Not as easy as it should be. But you know what's funny? At the K-Mart website, they offer . . . . coupons. To print at home. From the internet.

Yeah.

So anyway, I spoke to somebody who said that since there was a sign posted, there really was nothing she could do. She refused to say whether this was corporate policy, but the manager will call me within two days, and it's up to him whether they'd honor my coupon. Ooooh, a sign. Anybody can print up a sign. Especially a sign that says that all customers are lying liars and cheating cheaters.

I told her that was unacceptable and as previously mentioned won't be darkening their doors again.

Market Share drop in 5, 4, 3, ....

This post is regional - it's about the Richmond VA area's loss of a grocery store that prided itself on customer service.

If you live (or have lived) in the Richmond VA area, you of course know about Ukrop's Supermarkets. A chain that nearly defined "customer service" for years. Sure, there were things that people didn't like about Ukrop's - closed on Sunday, no beer or wine, that nagging "let's all go to church this weekend" sign in every store. But they knew how to treat customers right.

Most of us were sad when it was announced late last year that the family had decided to sell the chain to Dutch conglomerate Royal Ahold, operators of Giant supermarkets. The sadness was tempered by knowing that at least Ukrop's Kitchen's would continue to produce that tasty chicken salad, those white house rolls, and other yummy items that were worth the price.

The remodelled and restacked stores were to be called Martin's, and I visited one of the first ones to open nearby, nearly a month ago. I had a few problems, and of course went to the website to send a message.

A week went by, then most of another. I'd gotten the dreaded automated email reply, but nothing substantive. I stopped in at another newly opened store the next week and found some of the same issues. I replied to the auto-reply and again, nothing. This past Monday, I went to yet another store and still was not impressed.

I fired off one more email, saying "hey, you know how to lose a customer? Ignore him completely!"

Let's take one single complaint that I had. On each of my three Martin's visits, I took my own re-usable bags. I never got a bag credit like Ukrop's offered, as does Kroger and Target and many other local stores. At least on my third visit earlier this week the cashier tried to give me a credit. Unfortunately, the cash register programming was stupid, I never got a discount and I'll leave it at that.

Today I finally got a response to my three emails to Giant/Martin's/Ahold ... among the other primarily useless information in the reply, I was told that they "never offer a bag credit."

Umm, then what was that poor woman trying to do on Monday? Alternately, I'm led to believe that this big new chain came to town without any plans to offer bag credits, even though it's fairly standard in this market. No matter what, I'm left with an impression of Martin's that is a whole lot less than favorable.

I admit I am holding them to a high standard - they bought that standard when they bought the Ukrop's chain.

Sadly, it looks like they have no interest in even coming close.

When a store makes me look at Food Lion as a viable option, then I think there's a real problem.

Challenged by dates

Dear Lowes,

I want to thank you for the offer of "No Interest if Paid in Full within 12 Months" which I received in today's mail. Today is April 26th, 2010.

Your offer states that it is valid "April 21 through April 26, 2010".

Yes, thank you so very much. Perhaps next time you could arrange for it to arrive the day after it expires just to make it completely useless, rather than almost completely useless.

This is almost as good as the coupon I got that expired on "September 31" last year.

Upgrade?

I've been banking with People's United Bank in CT for years. I even kept them as my primary bank when I moved to VA 15 years ago, and I've never had any major problems. Sure there's been a couple hiccups along the way, but nothing that wasn't quickly and easily resolved.

Even though they don't have any local presence, their phone and online systems (which they've had forever) have made it simple to do almost anything I need to do.

When they recently announce that they'd be updating the online banking system, I was interested, but not at all worried. After all, the existing system was a little long in the tooth and a refresh couldn't hurt.

So what did they deliver? Visually, the new site looks worse than the old one, but if that was the only problem, I wouldn't be writing this post. The whole online banking system has been outsourced, and that's not good. I like my browser to stay at the site that I logged in to, especially when it's my bank!

But even those things are minor. My first hint of something rotten was an email I got on Wednesday. It showed the details of the online payments I'd made via the new site on Monday. I'd never received such an email before, and I certainly didn't request any such email. I logged on to the new system and struggled to find out what setting I had to change. Finally I found it. Or should I say "them". The option to receive email about payments made is set on every payee that I have. The only way to turn off those emails is to go into each and every payee and flip the setting. So without my permission or any prior notification, People's is now sending details of my payment activity out over unencrypted email. No Thanks.

I used their in-system message function to complain about this and got no response until I looked at my email this morning (three days later). Of course it wasn't actually a response, it was just a notification that "A secure message is available for viewing. Please sign on to online banking to view the message." Fair enough. I logged in and went to read the message, only to see "Thank you for contacting People's United Bank. We will reply to your inquiry as quickly as possible. In the interim many of our customers have found the information available in the Frequently Asked Questions section of the people.com Upgrade site very helpful. " [note that it really does say people.com not peoples.] So they have no problem with sending my payment information out over email, but to send me an automated reply, they use their secure messaging system?

Since I was logged in anyway, I looked at my accounts. One of the things lost in the transition to the new system was the display of a running balance column. People's sent an email on February 18 saying "this feature will be available by February 24". Well my calendar tells me that today is the the 27th, and there's no running balance. They also seem to have lost the ability to show me any holds that might exist on my checking account, so even though there's a current balance and an available balance, if they're different I have no way to tell why. (I happen to know why in this case, but that's not the point).

So I used their wonderful secure messaging system again and complained about 1) the fact that an automated response took three days, 2) the missing running balance and 3) the missing hold information. Then I logged off.

This time they managed to get me an automated response in just a couple minutes. I got the same email about a "secure message" being available, so logged back in just to see what it said. Interestingly, they'd used some sort of message parsing magic to determine that I'd asked about the running balance. Their response to this? "Your running balance will be available online as of February 29th."

Great, only two years from now!

People's United Bank online banking upgrade?

FAIL!

Making The Geek Squad Look Good?

In hindsight, I should have turned and walked out before I even dropped off the computer. But I'd been strung along my another local service outfit and I really just wanted things taken care of. Still, partially my fault.

Let's back up. Although I'm pretty good with software issues, my business partner's notebook computer needed a to have the DC input jack replaced, something I thought was a bit beyond my skill set. The first guy I'd contacted was tremendously bad at returning emails and phone calls, co-mingled his business and personal posts on Twitter (which is how I knew that he wasn't even in town when we first wanted to get this computer fixed); it just didn't seem like it was going to work out.

So I took the notebook to a nearby place that is literally around the corner from my house. I asked when I walked in "can you replace the DC input jack on this?"

And that's when I should have walked out. Yes sure, they could do that, but I had to pay at least $99 for a diagnostic procedure, of which $20 would be applied to the actual repair cost. Again, my rush to get the thing fixed clouded my judgment. I declined the additional charges to backup the data and to "jump to the front of the line" ($70 and $60, respectively, IIRC), but went ahead and paid the $99. This was on a Wednesday, and I was told I'd probably get a call by Friday, so I figured we'd have the computer back by the next Wednesday.

The first call I got was the day after dropping the computer off. The technician had received the computer, but really all he wanted to do was try to upsell me the backup service once again. I said no, and I didn't think the data should be in any danger when all I needed was a DC jack replaced. I did get an email with information about logging in to their web-based tracking system, so that seemed like it would be useful. The next call didn't come until almost 6PM on Friday - it was just a guy telling me that the technician was looking at the computer and would call me the next day. Truthfully, I hadn't even thought about it too much, I figured since I didn't pay the line-skipping fee I was just in queue still. I didn't get a call on Saturday.

Monday morning, I got a call telling me about the same thing -- the technician was looking at the computer and would call me by the end of the day. Guess what didn't happen?

Finally, Tuesday morning the technician called me and confirmed that yes, the DC jack needed fixing (for an exorbitant cost!), and then went on to tell me about some extremely minor software - tracking cookies and such - and a "clean up" would cost $249. TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE DOLLARS!!!!??!! Just fix the hardware issue, I said. The online tracking entry said "Larry seemed annoyed and said all he wanted was the DC jack fixed." Annoyed? Really? You think?

I spent the next few days checking the tracking system every once in awhile. Nothing new. Finally, at 10 to 5 on Friday evening, I got a call saying the computer was ready to be picked up at the 'round the corner location. "Great," I said, "what time do you open tomorrow?" Oh, they're not open on Saturday. OK, if I'd been home, I could easily have run out to get the damn thing, but when I got the call I was about to board an airplane in Kentucky. Still, if they'd told me earlier, or maybe updated their stupid tracking system, I could have arranged for somebody to get there on Friday afternoon. Especially since the invoice I received indicates a date range that ended on Thursday.

OK, so Monday at lunchtime I got to finally pick up the computer. The guy grabs it and hands it to me and says "you're all set." How could I be all set, I wonder, when I haven't yet paid for the repair. Oh, they just went ahead and charged the card I'd used for the diagnostic. WITHOUT prior notice or permission! OK scratch that, there's a bit at the bottom of the sixteen inch long receipt I got at drop off that lets them do this. Something that should have been pointed out more clearly? Hell yes. That same receipt says of the diagnostic service "Upon completion, RCG will provide a detailed report fo the analysis and suggested upgrades to increase performance." Still looking for that report.

The "power cleaning" included in the price I paid apparently doesn't extend to the outside case of the computer. For the three Benjamins (plus) that I spent, they couldn't spare a paper towel and a squirt of 409? I did turn on the computer to make sure it was operational before returning it to my partner; it was, but the battery was partially depleted. Again, they couldn't have charged it up fully, especially since it was taken in for a power problem?

Seriously, if I wanted to pay too much and jerked around, I could have gone to the Geek Squad. (No, not really; I would never do that).

But Richmond Computer Guy? Not recommended at all.

Worst of 2009

I've been thinking about this for about a week. What store/company/website/etc gave me worst customer service this year? Without a doubt, it has to be American Family Fitness.

I'd been a member of this gym for almost 15 years (with a brief interlude when I lived in Georgia in 2004/5). When I joined, the local branch was a storefront in a nearby shopping center. They moved to a larger location a little further away, and then in 2008, opened a facility that was H-U-G-E (and even further away).

From the first time I went into that location, I had trouble with the exercise bikes - they'd go haywire after about 13 minutes, without fail. I tried to bring this to the attention of various people, but nothing was ever done.

When the time came to renew my membership this year, I asked again about the problem, and was given lots of different stories, but still, they have what seems to be faulty equipment that could cause injury and they refuse to do anything about it.

After dealing with the membership salesman, the fitness manager and the location general manager, and not getting anywhere, I chose not to renew.

I also wrote a letter to president of the company detailing the specifics. A letter that was not acknowledged in any way.

You know, a gym has to be the greatest business in the world. You lock people in to contracts and get the monthly payment even if you completely ignore customer comments and complaints.

American Family Fitness of Richmond, VA -- worst customer service of 2009.

No Really, VERY Seriously.

Right-o, so pursuant to this post, I received a couple emails from Ford/SYNC. One of them was from "Tier 2 SYNC Support" and they promised me " we will take the appropriate measures to resolve the privacy breakdown with this situation."

So imagine my surprise when my inbox held the following this morning:

Dear Larry McXXXX:

The mobile phone number XXX-477-XXXX is no longer Active in your SYNC account.

The mobile phone number XXX-477-XXXX has been made Active in another SYNC account, and therefore is no longer the Active mobile phone number for your SYNC account. You will not be able to access Driver Services with this mobile phone number during the time it is Active in another account.

Please log in to your account, and add or select another mobile phone number as Active in your SYNC account. Please make certain that call blocker is turned OFF on this phone in order to access Driver Services.

If you did not request this change to your SYNC account, please contact a SYNC representative today at: http://www.syncmyride.com/Own/Modules/PageTools/ContactUs.aspx
We hope you are enjoying your SYNC.

Ford takes your privacy seriously. Read our complete Privacy Statement at http://www.syncmyride.com/Own/Modules/PageTools/Privacy.aspx.

Now, I have to assume this was related to having the LarryMac usurper fix his account. But once again, Ford decided to send me that guy's mobile phone number. OK sure, they haven't (so far) sent me his SSN and mother's maiden name. But I wouldn't put it past them at this point.

Yep, VERY seriously. They said so. Just ignore what they've actually done. They are taking Mr. McXXXX's privacy very seriously. See, it says so right up there.

Does this bug you? Does this bug you? Does this bug you?

I am probably 50% at fault here. Maybe more, maybe less, but certainly not 100%. Dozens of times I've been checking out at Kohl's and just told them "no" when they asked for my email address. Earlier this month I guess I had a weak moment and gave it up.

Yeah, I got a $5 coupon, but I also got email after email after email. In fact I got ten emails within ten days.

I thought I'd get occasional emails from them. Not something every freaking day!

So I hit the link to unsubscribe. Seems simple enough, but I'm told it will take 7 to 14 days. Dear Kohl's, Perhaps you have heard of these new-fangled "computers" which can update databases in less than a second? They're amazing!

I'm also told that I can resume getting my inbox bombed by going to "My Account." When did I get an account? I don't want an account. I don't want my email to be in their records anywhere.

So I decide I'll try to email them to vent my frustrations. I hit the "Contact Us" link and the page displays an email address, but it's not an actual email address link, it's a link to another webpage. Like so -- customer.service@kohls.com. Dear Kohl's, When a piece of text display as an email hyperlink, then it should contain a standard "mailto" link. Period.

Anyway, on the webpage I'm sent to, there is a form to fill out with my name, email, and what it is I'd like to contact them about, which I dutifully fill out and hit GO and end up right back at the same page, with my information cleared.

Dear Kohl's, It's really very simple -- annoying customers is NOT a good way to increase business. Your ex-customer, Larry Mac


I just don't understand what marketing departments are thinking. They beg for your email address and then act like a kid in a candy store with a bottomless pocket full of change.

Yeah, you guys, it bugs me. It bugs me enough to not ever want to support your bottom line again.

Oh, and by the way, Kohl's. Get out with the everything on sale crap. I'm sure some people are fooled, but eventually even the most gullible are going to catch on. Just mark the prices reasonably and people will shop at your stores. Not me, of course, I'm done.

Taking it Seriously

Taking it very seriously

Not that I have any regular readers, but if I did, I might refer them to this post for background.

It's happened again. From syncinfo@ford.com to me:

Dear Larry McXXXX,

We're writing to confirm that you have successfully created a SYNC account at http://www.syncmyride.com.

This email goes on to give me Mr Mc's mobile phone number and ZIP code. It also says "If you did not create an account, please contact us immediately" with a link that goes to a quite generic Contact Us page. I filled in their form, saying "hey I'm not that guy" and sent it along. Meanwhile, within three minutes of the first email, another one came in from Sync, this time giving me that guy's "Preferred Ford Dealership." So in case I hadn't looked up the ZIP code in the first message, I really could zero in on the guy's location.

Then another email eight minutes later, this one without so much personal information, but I did notice the line "Ford takes your privacy seriously."

Well, gee, no, Ford, you don't. With a little luck and guesswork, I'm sure I could already have taken over this guy's account if I wanted to. I filled out another form and sent it, and as I was doing so, noticed a link offering contact telephone numbers. I called in and navigated the menus and got somebody on the line who seemed to understand and who said he'd contact Mr. McXXXX and get things straightened out.

But come on, Ford! Taking it seriously means you DO NOT sent out private information to a non-confirmed account. You DO NOT put a link that says "Contact Us Immediately" if you don't have something on the other end of that link that will allow me to contact you, immediately.

I did get a response to one or the other of my form submissions (forty minutes later ....) -- it says "Your SYNC inquiry has been received by the Customer Relationship Center. We will reply to your inquiry within two business days." Two days? So much for "immediately."

But hey, you guys keep on taking it seriously. I'm just going to sit here and laugh.

And a time to every purpose under the heaven

G'day mates.

Oi 'ad a stike dinna las noight at the Outback.

And I'm going to stop typing in a horrid Ozzie accent now.

Anyway, I like The Outback. The decor is very last century, but I usually get decent service and a decent plate of food. I've only eaten there about four times in the past year, but the funny thing is that every time, the side order of "fresh" "seasonal" vegetables that gets served up consists of yellow squash, broccoli, snow peas and carrots. Since my visits there have spanned all the seasons, I can't help but wonder just how "seasonal" these vegetables are. And "fresh"? Yeah, not so much.

It might not be as noticeable if the list of side orders didn't say "potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, fresh seasonal vegetables, potatoes." Don't get me wrong, I happen to like those veggies, and they're cooked nicely - no mush there. But really guys, don't lie to me on the menu. Just call 'em "steamed vegetable medley" and we can all be happy.

Cheers.

Cookie Wars

A few months ago, for better or worse, I started playing "Mafia Wars" on Facebook. I knew better than to "purchase" any points or other in-game items for real cash, I simply played the game and slowly moved up through the rankings.

A few weeks ago, the internets were abuzz with copies of a video showing Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga (the company the created Mafia Wars). One example is here, where a partial transcript shows Pincus saying "scamming users was part of Zynga’s business model from the start."

Lovely.

Still, I figured I was OK by not downloading any add-ons or paying any real money to anybody.

Yesterday morning I tried to play MW for a bit and got a poorly crafted message telling me "cookies are required". Like many many somewhat savvy web users, I have my browser locked down pretty tightly; specifically disallowing third-party cookies. I wasn't about to change my privacy settings for a game, especially since I had no idea what site I was supposed to allow. And of course there's that whole skeevy feeling that I have about Zynga now. I tried to access the game a few more times during the day, but the message didn't change.

This morning, I tried again. A new message showed up, which gave specific instructions for my browser on how to "allow all cookies."

Um, yeah, no.

So, for the sake of advertising and tracking, Zynga is willing to lose thousands of players. Great business decision there, guys.