After many phonecalls, United informed Steph via email that they will pay $3,174.20 of the claim. They will let Steph know in 60 days whether they are going to continue looking for her gear or not.

"I was a hell of a lot safer tossing myself off a cliff in a nylon squirrel suit. It's awfully hard to base jump with no parachutes though. Thanks United! You're the best!" wrote Steph on her blog.

Here's a video of Steph climbing and jumping off the 400-foot Castleton Tower, in Moab, Utah.

Guitars, the luggage of people with broken guitars, rock-climbing equipment... United seems to have a problem safely delivering valuable baggage, or owning up to its mistakes.

So, next time, if you're flying with a lot of expensive gear, make sure to have it insured, or send it FedEx.

United Loses BASE Gear [High Places] (Thanks to Mark!)

TD Bank says Chase has it. Chase says TD has it. Oopsies!

Greg and Dmitry write:

Dear Consumerist,

We've been having a real nightmare with TD Bank in the past week, not to even mention the basic delays we've experienced since late September. We don't know what to do.

We are a small web design company. We don't have thousands and thousands of dollars in the bank. But we work hard and expect our money to be protected.

We wrote a check to one of our employees on October 12th. He deposited it on October 13th. On October 14th he received a letter from his bank (Chase) saying that the money was being held. He can see the money in his account, but cannot access. The $1800 has left our account.

We've called our bank (TD Bank) to see where the money is, they tell us Chase has the money. Our employee calls his bank, they tell him TD Bank has the money. We've spent hours on the phone talking to employees who can't seem to think of anything besides what's displayed on their computer screen.

The banks won't talk to each other because Chase will only talk to the account holder, and they refuse to do a 4 way call to get us all on the line.

Yesterday, my business partner and I went into our branch to find out there was a 2 hour line to speak to someone. We had to leave.

Today we came back and noticed there was no line. Why wasn't there a line? Because the computer system is down.

We then noticed that the LCD screens displaying promos for the bank had an interesting error in the middle of the screen. Their Norton AntiVirus subscription had expired

This is all so frustrating. We don't know what to do. We want to close our account with TD Bank, but feel we can't because then they really won't help us retrieve our lost funds.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Greg & Dmitry

Is this yet more fallout from the TD Bank and Commerce Bank data merger leaving massive amounts of transaction backed up? Or something else? The last reader we posted about a href="http://consumerist.com/5382687/td-bank-mans-100000-misplaced">had $100,000 in limbo, and it took him walking into the bank and mentioning how he was thinking about filing a police report to clear things up.

Though banks are within their rights to place holds on the funds, and can take up to 11 days (this email was sent to us on the 11th day after the check was cashed), simply saying "the other guy has it" is not a valid explanation.

Are there no words in the Canadian language for "customer service?"

RELATED: TD Bank: Man's $100,000 Misplaced

(Photo: Sister72)

Jim Weeder
Corporate Escalations
National Customer Service Deployment Center
720-268-8800 ext. 53233
1-800-718-7419 ext. 53233
M-F 6AM to 2:30PM MTN

(Photo: flaimo)

Zach IM'd me and emailed me this morning and those six figures jumped out quite plainly. I told him that he should think about filing a police report and then I emailed a TD Bank PR person for him. Here's what happened next.

Zach writes:

I just returned from the 32nd & Park branch of TD Bank, and I'm pleased to report that the $100,000 has been posted to my CD account. The assistant manager, Angela, made several phone calls (probably over a dozen) after I arrived threatening to file a police report. I had previously met with her on Monday, when she filed a "Vector Request" to search for my deposit. Luckily I was able to present my CD certificate, along with withdrawal and deposit slips from when I opened the account on 10/2 (I opened the account after 6 PM so the slips and CD were dated 10/5). Before this incident, I never held on to deposit slips for more than a day or two, but now I definitely plan on keeping very detailed records of all of my banking transactions.

I first contacted TD Bank on 10/8, when I discovered that one of my CD's had a $0 balance. They informed me that deposits had been delayed for many customers, but told me not to worry, that my account would be up to date "by the weekend." When Saturday came and my account was still displaying a $0 balance, I visited the 101 Springdale Rd. branch (Cherry Hill, NJ), as I was home visiting my parents for the weekend. The branch filed a "Vector Request" for the second time (the first had been filed by the first CSR I spoke to on the phone), and told me that it could take anywhere from 24 hours to a week for my transaction to post, but that most of the delayed transactions were posting in 24 hours. I became rather frustrated and informed the manager on duty that I wished to withdraw my funds and close all of my accounts, and she told me that I could close my accounts but would not be able to make a withdrawal from the CD, as it was reflecting a $0 balance. I left and decided to go to the branch where I opened the account on Monday instead.

I noticed that the "Public Relations Specialist" claims that all of the accounts are now up to date, and that my issue was "most likely" unrelated. That conflicts with claims from all of the TD Bank representatives that I spoke to from 10/8 on, who stated that there were many other customers that were still affected. Just today, I spoke with Angela at the 32nd and Park branch, who said that my account was one of "a hundred thousand or so, from Florida to Maine" that was delayed. Later, Larry, who identified himself as the manager for the midtown Manhattan branches of TD Bank, informed me that as of this morning, there were "roughly 1000" accounts in Manhattan with transactions that have yet to post, but that mine had been resolved because it was "moved to the top of the stack." He said that my delayed posting was likely taking longer than others because it was a CD account, and so the bank had likely determined that it was not as urgent as other customers' accounts, because many of them need those transactions to be corrected so they "can buy food" and that that didn't seem to be the case for me. This is obviously a legitimate concern, and I'm certainly glad that the bank is treating these customers as a higher priority.

Larry and Angela offered me a $100 gift card for my troubles (Angela had originally offered the standard $25 gift card before Larry arrived), but I didn't feel that my lost time and frustration was worth $100, so I decided not to take the cards. I'd prefer to take advantage of the $100 promotion offered by other banks, when I open my accounts there after closing my six accounts at TD Bank.

Again, I thank you very much for your concern. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help, and I hope you're able to inform other customers that their money is likely not lost, but that the bank may need to pull some strings to have it posted immediately.

Regards,
Zach

I'm going to have to start to use the phrase "vector request" more often.

William writes:

I have actually been pretty happy Verizon Wireless until very recently.

I have one regular cell phone line with Verizon, and one of those nice little usb broadband modems. I have had both since about 2004. The great thing was that I had the unlimited broadband plan on my modem. They do not offer it anymore so I was proud of being able to keep my unlimited broadband plan.

Earlier this year, my wife and I got divorced. Among the thousands of matters to attend to, was to split our Verizon account into his and hers. I called up Verizon and explained that I needed to remove her from the account and have the account only in my name.

The rep said this was no problem, and it was quick to do. I asked him specifically to ensure there was no changes to account, and if the broadband account would remain the same. He ensured me that this would be the case, and even commented on how cool it was that I had the Unlimited plan. He told me I needed to make sure I kept it. Wise words.

I kept getting bills in the expected amount so I did not verify further at that point. This month I did read my bill, and I notice that my broadband plan has changed from Unlimited as expected to their new 5GB plan. This was clearly an error so I call up VZW to have them correct the error. I spoke at that time to rep number. 322590. She assured me that she would put in a request to have my account updated back to the grandfathered plan and I would get a call back the next day.

3 days passed and I received no notification so I called VZW back. This time I spoke to rep 319729, who was a supervisor she said.

She looked at my account, and said that VZW had refused to put the unlimited plan back on my account, and there was nothing they could do. I requested that because they had failed to provide me with what I was contractually entitled to, that they should release me from the termination charges on the account and allow me to close the account.

Rep 319729 said that it was impossible for VZW to give me the plan and I wanted, and it was impossible for Verizon to release me from my early termination. Now they are charging me $59.99 per/month for a service I did not sign up for, and do not want.

Rep 319729 said that there was a website that listed the terms and conditions that apply when VZW makes a change to the account, and it was my duty to read this mythical piece to understand what they were allowed to do, when they make changes to the account. Rep 319729 did not say what the Url for this document was.

What can I do? They took advantage of me, in a very trying time in my life, and they refuse to fix it, and they even rub my face in it, with this mythical website I am supposed to have read before calling to change my account.

Not cool, Verizon.

(Photo: daysofthundr46)

Seems that some faulty meters were installed back then and now PG&E has figured out they underbilled the house. Problem is, Josh's parents didn't buy the house until 1986.

Josh writes:

My mother lives in a house in California that was built in the 40's. PG&E installed a meter sometime in the early 70's. As far back as I can remember we had to use the little meter cards, or a tech would come and read the meter personally. Now with the advent of the "smart meter" they dont have to read cards or check the meter. They can just check it remotely.

Here's where PG&E gets dicey. They have decided to start charging my parents an extra $800-$1000 dollars per month because they say that the meters that were installed in the 70's were faulty. When we bring up the fact that tech would read the cards or the meters themselves, they shrug it off and say that they were improperly trained. So now we are stuck paying the difference for power that was used in the 70's (before we even moved in in 1986 might I add!). So now what do my parents do? They are content letting PG&E charge them outrageous prices for power that we didnt use, but I am a bit more up to date on consumer rights and whatnot, so I need your help on the best course of action.

Thanks a bunch,

-Josh (an aggravated PG&E customer)

Whodjawhutzit? How can that be right? What the heck is going on?

Sounds like a case for the California Public Utilities Commission, 1-800-649-7570 or file a complaint here.

(Photo: oskay)

You may have seen Ben Stein hawking Freescore.com on your TV in recent months. (It's why he was fired from the New York Times in August, in fact, because of a perceived conflict of interest.) It's no different from any other "free" credit report nonsense out there in that after a short trial period—7 days in this case—you have to pay for what you can get for free once a year from annualcreditreport.com. The company exists to lure in people who don't mind paying unnecessary fees, as well as people who don't read fine print, as well as those who do read fine print but forget to cancel within that 7 day window. Freescore.com is even more obnoxious in that it will charge you $1 to access your "free" initial results; the fine print says that if you choose to cancel within 7 days, "remember to ask for a refund of your $1 processing fee."

For those reasons, Reuters blogger Felix Salmon called Stein a "predatory bait-and-switch merchant" in July, and someone called "Flâneur de fraude" added to the claim in a blog post, where he showed that Freescore is ultimately owned by Vertrue Inc., a company that has a BBB rating of "F", mostly due to complaints that Vertrue's various membership companies enrolled customers without their knowledge or permission.

Somehow, that spurred Freescore to retaliate with legal action. But what's weird is although they're making a lot of noise about defamation and trade libel, and they've filed a suit with Yahoo to get Flâneur's real name revealed, they haven't actually argued that anything Flâneur posted was false. They haven't even gone after Felix Salmon, the original blogger at Reuters.

So is Freescore.com planning on suing Flâneur if they can find out her real name? If so, for what? As you can see from her blog post, the original content she added to the story was all about tracing ownership and pointing out the history of complaints against Freescore's parent company.

The happy ending (at least so far) is that Flâneur has brought bigger guns to the fight:

At that point, Flâneur sprung into action, and got the Public Citizen Litigation Group involved. They have now filed a monster 43-page brief with the Connecticut court, and after reading it one has difficulty imagining that any judge will compel Yahoo to unmask Flâneur. Public Citizen's press release is here, and the headline sums it up: the blogger who criticized freescore.com, it says, has the right to remain anonymous.

Adaptive has never complained to Flâneur, to me, or to anybody else, as far as I can tell, about any of our characterizations of their business. They never asked for any of our blog entries to be updated or edited, and they were conspicuous by their absence during the brouhaha over Ben Stein. If they had any problem with the blog entries, that was the time to say so - not now, when the whole episode is already half-forgotten.

Instead, knowing that Flâneur values her anonymity, they decided to try to unmask her in Connecticut court. I hope and trust that now, with the intervention of Public Citizen, they will fail miserably.

"Ben Stein's sleazy paymasters" [Reuters]

RELATED
"Developments about Adaptive Marketing's suit to identify critical blogger" [CL&P]
"Ben Stein steals your money" [flâneur de fraude]
"Ben Stein, predatory bait-and-switch merchant" [Reuters]

Sample Complaint Letters [Gotcha Capitalism] (Photo: Andrea_F)

He writes:

I'm been having a battle with HP over getting my laptop fixed. I have one of those dv6000 models that are totally junk.

It broke down, I sent it back. The day I got it back the laptop was still broken, so I haggled with HP. Finally they sent me a box to send it back.

They said the board has water damage and refuse to replace it. I've filed a complaint with the B.B.B. but so far this has gotten me no where. Could you recommend a good lawyer? Do a google search on the dv6000 and you'll see how many people are being taken advantage of over these models. I'm stumped at how a company can get away with ripping off its customers like HP is doing to me. I am considering a class action lawsuit if I can get enough dv6000 owners on board.

Filing a BBB complaint is good, because it helps build a record of customer dissatisfation with a company. The BBB is in no way a regulatory power, however, and can't force a company to do anything.

If you really want to try to assemble a class action lawsuit against HP over this, we suggest you contact a lawyer in your town and ask for a consultation. Maybe she can point you in the right direction. Remember, though, that frequently class action settlements benefit the legal firm more than the aggrieved parties, and barely nick the company. At least that's our take on it after posting so many stories about stupidly low class action settlements.

That's why we think small claims court is where it's at for things like this. It's cheap, you don't need a lawyer, and it's the one place in our court system where the odds are frequently in the little guy's favor.

Here's a post about a guy who took HP to small claims court an won. It's probably a good place to start.

And here is a post by a Real Live Lawyer on how to take your case to small claims court.

If you're really in an info-gathering mood, just do a search for in the box at the top of the page for the term small claims, which will provide a list of inspiring stories and tips on how to make it work for you.

And of course, if you go through with this and win, please email us all the details so we can pass them along to future HP customers. Good luck!

(Photo: kate.gardiner)

FoodSafety.gov

The problem comes from dealers who improperly authorized rebates, in some cases because of unnoticed state regulations that would invalidate an application.

Asking for repayment if the rebate is rejected is something dealers are not allowed to do, says Lena Pons, policy analyst for Public Citizen.

"The onus was on the dealer to verify the paperwork before they completed the transaction," says Pons. "Many people would not have gone through that process if they knew they were going to be on the hook for additional money."

And Pons says the government needs to do more to ensure consumers aren't defrauded - for example, by being asked by a dealer to repay a rebate that the government had approved and paid.

"There's a large number of sources of fraud we're concerned about, and we're trying to gather information on that," she says.

If you were denied a rebate, particularly after already being approved, you can share you story with Edmunds by visiting this page, where you can post to their forum or email them directly.

"Were you wrongly denied your CARS (i.e., Cash for Clunkers) rebate?" [Edmunds.com]
"Consumer groups try to protect buyers in clunker deals" [USAToday]
(Photo: Arnoooo)

First, here's a story of Wells Fargo delaying the verdict on a loan modification approval until the last minute, then offering the homeowner an $11,000 loan, with interest, instead.

Our loan is currently held by Wells Fargo. When entering the loan we were perfectly capable of making payments but, like many Americans, when the economy was damaged by questionable financial practices we found that the income from my wife's business lowered and maintaining payments became a struggle (I am employed by the government and therefore my income is static – fortunately). We are in a situation where we are making the decision to pay bills or buy food for ourselves and our child.

It was with a great deal of excitement that we entered into the loan modification process provided by the makinghomeaffordable.gov program. From our viewpoint we meet all the criteria for this relief program. Regrettably that excitement has turned into anger, disappointment, and despair. The relief program as implemented by Wells Fargo has been a parade of what is in my opinion incompetence and miscommunication. We never speak to the same person twice. Paperwork was lost by Wells Fargo twice, forcing us to resubmit the paperwork overnight via fed-ex at our expense. We would wait weeks to hear any news, then finally call to ask what the status is only to be told that they need us to fax additional information – this after being assured that Wells Fargo had all the information that they needed. One wonders why we had to initiate this communication, and why Wells Fargo did not call us to ask for this information. When we asked the Wells Fargo rep. if we could speak to the person handling our case we are told "no one handles your case, we all look at it". When we ask to speak to a supervisor we find that none apparently exist. We come to the end of this process to be told that we do not qualify, but that they would like to offer us a "loan" for $11,000 and we are asked verbally (not in writing) not to pay or mortgage for three months to pay down other debt. I use quotes because the documents we received clearly indicate that this is a loan but there are none of the usual trappings of a loan like term, APR, etc – so we are not sure what we are looking at. After the three months, the money is to be repaid in accordance to the terms set forth in our agreement, but no terms have been set forth and none exist on the "contract" for the "loan" they sent us. They are clear that there are to be no grace periods on this additional loan and if we miss a payment there will be repercussions. Taking a family that is in financial distress from a loan soured by the economic situation…and offering them a loan seems like bad policy at best, profiteering at worst. In any event, it seems an unwise solution to our problem.

In closing I have three questions for you and those wise ones in your organization:

Who can we appeal this decision to?
Who can we contact to complain?
Who can we write to that has oversight of this specific branch of Wells Fargo?

TARP Oversight? Attorney General of our state? makehomeaffordable.gov?

Because I would like to keep my home.

This second story involves CitiMortgage, which approved a loan modification, but then 3 months later increased the monthly mortgage payment so that it's actually $90 higher than the borrower's original payment.

I am a mortgage holder of a CitiMortgage loan. My current 1st mortgage with Citi seemed to fit every criteria for the government home loan modification. It was a long process but I finally was able to get set me up with my 3 month trial payments for the government loan modification in June.

Effective July 1 my mortgage payment was lowered from $1727 to $1503 a month to reach the 31% of my gross family income. In early July we sent Citi all of our financial information needed to verify we were eligible for the modification. Just today we received a letter in the mail raising our mortgage from the initial $1727 to $1817, an increase of $90 from my initial mortgage payment!!! The $90 a month is to cover what they said was a low escrow account, for an increase to our homeowners insurance. I understand the increase for our insurance, but there was no explanation as to why we did not receive the loan modification. If we qualified for the modification there actually shouldn't have even been an increase with the higher homeowners because taxes and insurance are included in the reduction percentage to 31%.

I spoke with a person in the loan modification division and they said that because we just filed bankruptcy (another story) that they don't know if they can process our modification. I know in all the literature I've read about the modification I haven't seen anything about bankruptcy making you ineligible, I would think that people going through a hard financial time should be more in need to be eligible. What concerns me is that one of the largest mortgage companies has no idea if I am eligible for this modification. Who can I contact, who can I reach out to? Lowering to $1500 made my house affordable again to us but if our mortgage does go back up to $1800 we're surely headed to foreclosure. $325 is a big difference for a my family with 3 kids under the age of 5.

I am hoping beyond hope you could help me get this story out and get some attention to find me help.

We contacted one of the loan counselors at Making Home Affordable (the official government website for the program) and asked what these borrowers should do. The counselor told us that they hear complaints like these all the time from frustrated borrowers, and that if you're having problems getting your bank to cooperate you should call one of their counselors at 888-995-HOPE. She says you can authorize them to act on your behalf and talk to the bank for you. It may not solve the problem, but it would at least give you a chance to have someone with more expertise on the program talk to the bank's loan modification people.

Note that if when you call you're given an option to speak to someone in your area or to a counselor, choose "counselor" to reach someone immediately.

Find a Counselor [Making Home Affordable]
"Judges' Frustration Grows With Mortgage Servicers" [New York Times]
(Photo: 111 Emergency)

Michael and his girlfriend were on the 4th floor of the U-Haul storage facility at 1015 S 12th Street in Philadelphia, PA. They'd hired movers to carry down the contents of their storage room, but they decided to help by carrying smaller items down the stairwell (to leave the elevator free for the professional movers).

Once they stepped through, however, they realized they'd made a huge mistake:

We followed the exit sign to the flight of stairs and realized right away that it wasn't the greatest idea. Just the clarify, the sign said EXIT and there was no indication whatsoever that anything was wrong with going through that door and exiting like a normal building. It was one of those stairways that has balcony-ish areas on every floor that opens up to a view of the street...except the openings were very badly covered with wire mesh that was filled with holes. As a result, the ground was covered in bird droppings since birds had gotten in. The door was locked from the inside so once we got into the stairwell and closed the door, there was no way to go back in.

I told my girlfriend to stay there as I headed downstairs to see if there was a way out, and saw dead, decaying birds/rodents on the way to the first floor. Finally the exit door that opened up to the street on the first floor was blocked by scaffolding. So we were trapped in the stairway of the U-Haul facility during normal business hours.

My girlfriend called the office (while I tried to call one of the movers), and since no one picked up the phone there it was transferred automatically to corporate. We told them of our situation, and we were not happy. They said they would transfer us to the office and we told them that we just called there and that no one picked up. We asked if there was a direct manager's line we could be connected to because we needed someone to open the door to the stairwell where we were trapped. They transferred us to the store, no one answered, then we got transferred again back to the corporate office, then when they transferred us to the office again someone picked up and let us out of that horrible place. All in all, we spent 15-20 minutes on the phone trying to get out of there. I was about to call the police.

We told the employees what happened and they kind of disregarded it. The movers were finished and we wanted to get out of there, plus the movers were being paid by the hour. Lets just say that we won't be using that facility again.

We looked up the address on Google Maps and called the U-Haul to ask for their side of the story. The man who answered told us simply "No" when we asked if the ground floor door was blocked by scaffolding. Then he hung up on us when we offered to share details of Michael's complaint.

We're not sure what the fire codes are for Philly, but blocking an exit door seems like it would interfere with an emergency exit should the need arise. Michael, we suggest you lodge a complaint with U-Haul's corporate office, as well as with the Fire Marshal's Office (215-686-1362 or 1363).

(Photo: waltimo)

NAAG's list:
1. Debt Collection
2. Auto Sales
3. Home Repair/Construction
4. Credit Cards (tie)
4. Internet Goods and Services (tie)
6. Predatory Lending/Mortgages
7. Telemarketing/Do-Not-Call
8. Auto Repair
9. Auto Warranties (tie)
9. Telecom/Slamming/Cramming (tie)

NAAG writes that credit card and predatory lending complaints are new entrants on the list, reflecting the current economic times. We're confused why telecom issues, slamming, and cramming are joined as one category; we assume this is a reflection of problems with cable and internet providers, and not some massive phone slamming epidemic that we weren't aware of.

Top Ten List of Consumer Complaints of 2008 [National Association of Attorneys General]
(Photo: onlymefairmay)

Hello Consumerist,

Your post has created a great deal of traffic on our Consumer Information Site (CIS) and unfortunately the demand generated seems to have crashed our system, several times today. Please share our sincerest apologies to your readers and invite them to try again later if they are unable to get the data they seek.

In addition we can address some of the comments:

Extremely large or small complaint ratios can occur for a number of reasons, all very technical, all very boring. However, the CIS does include actual complaint counts along with reports on complaint codes which provide information about complaints by type. The CIS also provides financial and licensing information about the company, and allows users to check ratios for any state.

In addition: If you are an insurance consumer and have a complaint, please contact your state insurance department (www.naic.org/state_web_map.htm) and file it.

Complaints can also be filed through CIS (when the system is working). The complaint filing process provides important information to state regulators. They may be able to assist you directly and use the information to determine whether further market conduct examination is warranted.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) reminds all consumers to shop around and contact their state insurance departments to be sure that they are dealing with licensed carriers and producers.

For insurance tips and information we invite consumers to check out: insureUonline.org.

RELATED
"Find Out How Much Your Insurer Sucks"
(Photo: gumuz)

When you're shopping for an insurance company, check the insurer's complaint record — especially if it's a small insurer that's offering a good rate, but you haven't heard much about its reputation. Saving a few dollars per year in premiums can backfire if the insurer hassles you at claim time.

To access this information, go to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Consumer Information Source. Type in the name of the company, the state where you live and the type of insurance. (Under "statement type" and "business type," click on "property/casualty" for home and auto insurance or "life, accident and health.") The site then provides the insurer's national complaint statistics.

We tested it with a sample health insurer:

Ohh, you got busted United HealthCare! Hmm... somehow that doesn't actually make me feel triumphant.

"How to Check an Insurer's Complaint Record" [Kiplinger]
NAIC Consumer Information Source
(Photo of cat: Pink Sherbet Photography)

Here's what one woman said happened to her and another bridesmaid:

When the work finally was done, just days before the wedding, she said she noticed multiple problems. Stitches were coming out or "popping open," the hem was coming undone and the dark brown dress was sewn with light brown thread, she said. She said the dress of another bridesmaid was so poorly altered that she could not even get her arms in the arm holes. The woman said the wedding was rescued only by the last-minute heroics of the mother of one of the bridesmaids who was a seamstress.

Another woman said she ended up paying double the price of the dress:

She said at the time of her original order, she had tried on a size 10 dress which was too large. But when the dress arrived, it was a size 18 and alterations from I Do I Do made the $170 dress not wearable. She said she had to pay $160 for emergency alterations.

Another bridesmaid ended up with a very modern, deconstructed look (we don't know what "deconstructed" actually means, but they used it a lot on Project Runway so we know it's fashion-related):

But when she tried on her dress after the shop had completed alterations, she discovered several problems. The neckline, which was supposed to be horizontal instead was at a "20 or 30-degree angle." She said four inches of the inside lining of the dress were hanging below the bottom of the dress. She said the hem looked like it had been cut by "a 2-year-old" with scissors. The woman said an outside seamstress "had to rip out every seam and remake it."

And here's what the store's owner had to say about the charges against her store: "Some people, you just can't make happy."

"Chesterfield bridal shop causes wedding chaos" [KSDK.com] (Thanks to Pete!)
(Photo: rocksee)

I did almost all of my banking in New Zealand with local banks, but I still needed a card for a handful of internet transactions. Unlike here, the Kiwis don't freely hand out credit cards. Everyone uses debit, and it's almost everywhere.

HSBC knew that I was abroad, and all of my transactions screamed "traveling customer!" Bus tickets, Skype credits, stuff like that. I only used the card about once every month, but HSBC religiously flagged each and every transaction as fraud. Whenever they did, I'd call international collect and verify that the transactions were legitimate. The fraud alerts were annoying but bearable, and even a little amusing. By the third month, I offered to send postcards.

I didn't that notice that they canceled the card until I logged into my account and saw that, surprise!, I had a new credit card number. When I called to ask why, the customer service representative responded with: "Oh, you didn't get our letter?" Sure enough, HSBC canceled the card due to fraudulent activity (there was none,) and sent a new card to my address on file, creating the potential for actual fraud. Whoops!

It took almost an hour to sort out the mess since HSBC's CSR didn't realize that the card she was going to send to New Zealand probably shouldn't have the same number as the one sent to my U.S. address. Afterwards, I spoke with a supervisor and explained that my troubles with The World's Local Bank warranted a courtesy credit. She offered $25, which I accepted. I also asked her to write into my account notes that I would ask for a credit every time HSBC's security department interrupted my trip by flagging clearly legitimate transactions. Problem solved? Not quite.

HSBC's security department called the very next morning to ask: "Was I really in New Zealand?" Sigh! After verifying that I was, in fact, as promised, yes, really in New Zealand, I again asked for a supervisor and got another $25.

All told, HSBC ended up paying me $100 to apologize for their over-eager fraud detection system. I would have preferred to enjoy my trip without the bother, but hey, as long as they paid a reasonable rate, I was willing to chat with them.

If I had been traveling in Russia, and not living in New Zealand, I would have been far less accepting of the bank's failures. This is why a backup card is so vital. If your bank does screw up, don't let them off the hook with a simple apology. Demand the service you deserve, and if you don't get it, make them pay—literally, if need be.

PREVIOUSLY: BoA Strands Customer In Siberia With No Money

A place where the postal systems are so unreliable that "many Russian offices have their mail sent to Finland, where it is then privately couriered to Russia." Shannon attempted an EECB on Bank of America and had her mother, who is listed on the account, call BoA as well, to no avail. Anyone know how to say "I haven't yet booked a stay at your hostel but would like to have a package sent there, can you hold it for me" in Russian?

Here's her letters:

"Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 12:47 PM

To Whom it may concern:

Bank of America on July 28, soon after I arrived in Irkutsk, Russia, for a 2-week trans-Siberian vacation, deactivated my debit card after I withdrew about $400 from an Irkutsk ATM. This was quite unexpected since I had called Bank of America before my vacation to inform them that I would be in Russia. My boyfriend, who banks with Citibank, used every ATM I did and experienced no problems. I am very thankful that he is a Citibank customer and had access to his money, because Bank of America literally stranded me in the middle of Siberia with no access to cash and a limited window of time to get out of the country before my visa expired and I became subject to enormous fines.

Being in Irkutsk, Russia (I have included a map for your convenience) and having had trouble communicating to hostel management that I needed to call Bank of America's toll-free number, I e-mailed my mother, Valerie O., to ask that she call BoA and have my debit card reactivated. My mother, who spent several hours on the phone with various representatives, was told that my account was "compromised," and the only option for me was to have Bank of America mail a new ATM card to a hostel in Russia where we were staying. At this point it became glaringly apparent to me that Bank of America does not often do business in Russia. The Russian postal system is famously unreliable, as are courier services there. In fact, many Russian offices have their mail sent to Finland, where it is then privately couriered to
Russia. Also, we had not booked many of our hostels and hotels in advance, and explaining the situation to a hostel or hotel over the phone with my 30 words of Russian would have proven frustrating indeed.

In closing, I would like to know why I should continue to bank with Bank of America after it has proven completely incompetent at handling my affairs while I am abroad. This is not the kind of account "protection" I signed up for. I would like to be compensated for my extreme inconvenience, and the inconvenience my distraught mother went through while futilely attempting to right the situation on the phone. If Bank of America does not rectify the situation to my satisfaction
within two weeks, I will close all three of my accounts and move my money to Citibank, and urge my parents to do the same.

Sincerely,
Shannon O."

2nd email:

"Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 5:13 PM

Hello, I spoke with Max White concerning the incident below, in which I was literally stranded in the middle of Siberia with no cash flow because Bank of America did not heed my notification that I would be abroad for two weeks. Ms. White informed me that there was nothing Bank of America could do for me because I myself was in error for not contacting Bank of America from Russia, upon receiving an e-mail notifying me of my account being frozen. This despite the fact that my mother, whose name is on my account, called to try to rectify the problem from the U.S. I was told that because my mother had called, the situation had actually become *more* suspicious; apparently Bank of America thinks my own mother was trying to defraud me.

I insist that my complaint can be escalated further, because I am quite outraged over being stranded in Siberia with no money and for the rude treatment I received upon escalating my complaint. How was Bank of America supposed to help me even if I had reached them from Russia? More offers to send me a new card through the infallible Russian postal service? I was told repeatedly throughout the episode that the card in my possession *must* be closed.

Sincerely,
Shannon O."

Bank of America has used super-science security technology and policy-making to determine the following: not reactivating a card used in Russia prevents fraud, but sending a new debit card to an unverified address is A-OK! Luckily it turns out that Shannon has a backup credit card she can use. But what if she hadn't? Future international travelers take heed of this tale and protect yourself accordingly.

It was only announced by an email that said they had changed their Terms of Service, and then you had to go read the ToS page to find notice of the increased fee. Sneaky. When PC World blogger Jared Newman complained to them about the lacking notice, Paypal said,

"We didn't want to make a huge formal communication out of this pricing change, because we weren't really adding any fees, and we were hoping it would be a more useful experience for people," Hill said.

AKA we really hoped no one would notice. I guess the thing to do is have senders mark it "eBay purchase" or click the "personal tab" and choose one of the radio buttons there.

PayPal Adds Fees, Sneakily [PC World] (Photo: frankieleon)

Call it in!

If they have digital cable and their box flips channels on it's own for no reason (or says EAS on the front, if they have a model of box with an LED on the front), or if the channel randomly changes for no reason, they can call in and say hey, my EAS doesn't work, and we can try and correlate an issue with the local video engineering folks.

Most people don't bother to call the company, but that's the first step towards fixing any Comcast problem. If that still doesn't resolve the issue, then contact our Tipline, the FCC, or start tweeting—but always call first.

PREVIOUSLY: Comcast: In Case Of Emergency, Remain Calm, Watch QVC
(Photo: Elsie esq.)

Bonnen, a tenant, posted an update that said, "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

Now she's being sued. The management company says it has been greatly injured in its reputation as a landlord in Chicago because of the Tweet, and seeks an excess of $50,000 in damages.

You can read the complaint here.

Update: Horizon responds.

Uptown Resident Sued For Twitter Post [CBS 2 Chicago]
(Photo:TarikB)

The Carterton man, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Herald that when he and his wife noticed the Auckland purchase they called BNZ to ask what went wrong.

He said he was "astounded" when a staff member denied the bank was responsible and then gave him Mrs Hansford's home address, work address, mobile phone number and private email address so he could sort the situation out himself.

"We were advising them of a fraudulent transaction and they couldn't care less," he said.

"I was incredulous and surprised and wondering why the bank didn't do basic checks like the person's name and address before the transaction. Their basic response was 'tough - if you don't like it - tough'. Which was when we cancelled the account."

Bank of New Zealand offered the woman $2,000 to apologize for sharing her personal information. She turned it down and canceled her account.

Customers' anger as bank passes on personal details [New Zealand Herald]

John writes:

I have recently started hitting the gym daily and trying to work healthy food into my diet. Everyday I leave the gym and get a small sub from subway and a diet soda to carry me over until dinner time. I've been going every weekday for about 2 months now. Yesterday I ordered the usual, a six inch turkey and ham on wheat bread with extra olives. The woman at the counter turns to her coworker friend and says "I don't know how anybody could eat this stuff everyday. It's disgusting and it will make you fat."

I took my sandwich, ate it, then threw my subway card in the trash on the way out. I'm so glad that subway worker had the good sense to let me know how disgusting their food was, or I'd still be going there every day for lunch.

We wouldn't put too much stock in the musings of a single employee, but the truth is that Subways is as healthy or disgusting as you choose. It's one of the better fast food options if you stick to the basics, but if you load up on the sides and slather on the mayo, then yeah, it's going to make you fat. Decide for yourself by looking at their nutrition information.

Nutrition Information [Subway]
(Photo: Mr. T in DC)

Lelah writes:"Dear:

Mr. Ivan G. Seidenberg

Mr. Robert E. Ingalls Jr.

Mr. William Barr

As President of my own company, I have to say, this is the first time in my career that I have gone so far as to send a letter to the top of the food chain regarding the unbelievable service I have received from Verizon. Let me say that if I had this type of service in my company, I would have fired the lot of them and held my head in shame as their leader. Verizon has taken customer no-service to a whole new level. Allow me to share with you my story. I am sure you will be as appalled as I am once you read through the nightmare.

THE VERIZON MELTDOWN:

Saturday, May 30, 2009:

2 door to door salesman wearing Verizon shirts arrived at my door on the morning of Saturday, May 30, 2009. The main salesman, Vadim Kushnirov announced that he was with Verizon and wanted to discuss the possibility of switching my Comcast service to Verizon. The other young man was in training. I didn't get his name however he was very inquisitive. A regular Q & A session that was so out there I had to really question who the heck interviewed him for this job in the first place. "So are you still married, he asked?" "Boyfriend?" "Your daughter is cute, almost as cute as her Mom." "Why did you get a divorce?" "Do you still love him?" "Does he pay child support?" "What do you do for a living?" "Do you make lots of money?"….HUH?" Ok…a little weird. Most would have asked him to leave, however, past the questions, he seemed like a nice kid. After Vadim offered a better deal than Comcast, (so I thought), I decided to switch services. I asked both inside my home for iced tea while Vadim proceeded to contact an office somewhere in the Midwest to get the set up started. While he was in the process of arguing with a gal over her misunderstanding of what needed to be done to get the order in place, the intern went to the couch in my living room, picked up my guitar and started playing it…a little singing went along with it. By the end of the very long session I was ready to smash the guitar over his head just to make him stop. Rude and annoying. Over at the counter, Vadim, obviously frustrated with the new gal on the other end of the line, went through several people to try to get the service set up. When the new gal got back on the line, she repeated the order back to me. It was incorrect and we started the process over and over again. This entire order entry took over 3 hours. I was patient but extremely annoyed that my Saturday was now completely shot due to incompetent customer service. When the order was finally placed, I was told by Vadim that the service would be installed on Friday, June 12. 2009. He left me his number to call if I had questions or problems. (503) xxx-xxxx. I must say, of all of the people in this entire process, he is the only one that really had enough integrity to get anything done. He did his job well, however, most of what you are about to read was completely out of his control.

Between May 30 and June 8, 2009, 3 different contractors (that I knew of) showed up at my home, unannounced, without appointments and to my knowledge, began a pre-set up for the Fios.

Monday, June 8: At approximately 10AM, a gentleman contracted by Verizon showed up at my home, unannounced. without an appointment, and knocked at the door. As no one answered the door, he proceeded to begin a set-up function that was connected with the Fios install. I happened to be at home (prior to going to my work appointment) and noticed someone in the yard. After about 10 minutes, I went outside and asked him what he was doing. He said he was with Verizon and doing some pre-set up. I went back inside and was trying to answer a few emails on my computer. Suddenly, the internet access was unavailable. I figured it was temporary but proceeded to contact Comcast as I thought the problem might be with them. The phone was dead also. I went to the neighbors home where their Comcast service was working fine. I contacted Vadim and mentioned that I thought whoever was here from Verizon, must have knocked out the Comcast Service. He asked me to turn on the TV to see if it worked. It was down also. I told him that I needed the service back up immediately. We have several users in the house and having the service down was not an option. I cancelled my appointment and stayed home from work as I thought someone would be back to connect the service. No one called or showed up until 4:00PM in the afternoon. It was someone from Comcast checking the lines. They asked me when Verizon was at the house, I told them that morning. He proceeded to tell me that whoever was there, cut all of the Comcast lines, left wires lying everywhere exposed and I wanted Comcast to reconnect, I would be charged to reset everything and re-install the lines. He was unable to do anything that evening but said he could come back the next morning and start the re-install. I told him I would call Vadim to see if we could move up the install date with Verizon. That afternoon at 4:35PM, I received a call from someone named Kirt (503) xxx-xxxx who scheduled the installs for Verizon. He told me he would have the install team at my home at 8AM sharp the next morning. Someone over 18 had to be there and it would take about 5 hours. I agreed and took Tuesday, June 9 off from work.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009:

…9AM, 10AM, 11AM….I call Vadim… "What's up, I ask?" "Where's the Network?" He's on it…. I get a call about 3PM…they are coming in the next few hours, (my thought is hurry up and wait)!

5:18PM, another lost day at work, the first of the Network makes an entrance. He has no service order and being Union, can't get started until the order comes in. "What do you want done, he asks." I explain the 6 rooms of cable connections, 2 phone lines and 300 channels of digital. He seemed annoyed and less than impressed considering it is now 5:30PM, he hasn't eaten all day and he is now on overtime. The rest of the Network shows closer to 6PM, about 5-6 of them. Still no service orders from Verizon. They all beam in on me and start discussing charges I don't remember ever hearing about. (connections, installation charges, etc). I call Vadim again as I feel like I have a bunch of guys coming up with their own set of rules and charges…Vadim shows up armed with electronic leash, headset and already patched into headquarters…He's on it, making the adjustments while arguing 2 hours in my driveway about the install charges with the Network. On with the install! 9:35PM…. I am trying out the new Fios! Wow…this is super fast…only 45 seconds to get Google launched. Who would have thought you could go faster than dial up? (I am kidding…considering I had a perfectly good high speed connection with Comcast prior to this install)! I called in the roommate to show off the new system! She was as impressed as I was! We immediately called in the Network to praise the fine work that was less than acceptable! We were told it wasn't the Fios, the awesome no-speed was due to the computer having issues? Hummm, funny how it worked just fine when it was on Comcast prior to 10AM, and since I switched back to Comcast, we are back to full speed. I made a note on Brian's (the technician) paperwork that stated the internet was less than acceptable. He left, he was on overtime, never heard back! Dennis, the phone guy is going on 4+ hours of OT…phones are not cooperating…no dial tone. "Perhaps a little CPR would help, is it dead, I asked?" He's done…no dial tone, it's time to go home…did I mention no dial tone….???? "I'll be back at 8 in the morning to get the line working, said Dennis." I suppose if I needed to call 911 for any reason, the neighbors are just 3 minutes away! In the mean time, I was supposed to be enjoying my new phone service with jimmied lines and splitters everywhere! Nice!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009:

Wednesday morning I noticed the trampling of some of my outdoor plants…basically where the lines went through the property. Not happy. I took the day off from work as I had to be at home for the set up at 8AM. Still no phone service and no technician to fix the problem… it's 9am….going on 3:41 PM…no sign of life from the Network and still no dial tone. Phone wires are lying all around my den. I call Vadim again…Vad, this is now out of your control…I need a Supervisor to call me right away. WAITING! 7:15PM, I get a 3-way call from Vadim and a Supervisor in Tech Support named James, no last name, no phone number. James assured me that someone would be out at 8AM on Thursday to set up the phone lines and make sure everything else was working correctly. It seems to me we have already had the 8AM conversation 3 times now. I told him I was done. I no longer wanted the service, Verizon or any part of the Fios experience. I would contact Comcast and have them re-connect the service in the morning which would in fact, cost me another day off at work to deal with the mess Verizon created. I also didn't want them to install because apparently, Comcast still held the phone numbers that were to be transferred to Verizon. Officially, these numbers were not going to be released until Friday, the original install date. I would have had my service reinstalled right away as I was still paying for service with Comcast. After 17 minutes and 27 seconds of conversation and making sure everyone understood that I didn't want Verizon service, guess what happened on Thursday morning?

Thursday, June 11, 2009:

Thursday morning my phone lines were full speed…guess who connected? (Verizon…after I specifically told them not to connect). Not only were the lines connected, they all went to the same phone number and gave anyone who called a fax signal! How special! Half the time the dial tone didn't work, other times people calling in would get a message that said the line was not in working order. Working order???? Was it ever? Another day off from work to deal with the nightmare. I called Comcast. They said unfortunately since Verizon took control of the numbers, It would take up to 2 weeks to get the numbers back. I was livid. Now I had to wait until June 18 to get normal phone service back. I had been using a cell phone throughout the week to contact Verizon…on hold most of the time or shifted from person to person. No one at Verizon seems to be able to make a decision, no less fix anything.

Friday, June 12, 2009:

I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to get everything back on track. It didn't happen. The phone lines were still recovery after the surgical mess left on both the inside and outside of my home.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN:

Many Calls between: Friday, June 19, 2009- June 28th!

I called the 888 customer service line early in the morning to make certain my Verizon Service was cancelled. To cancel the service, the entire process took 57 minutes, 42 seconds (I have a timer). Let me engage you in the cancellation process. It begins with prompts that send you to new prompts, that offer additional choices that make absolutely no sense considering all you want to do is cancel service. I eventually got to someone named Karen in Damage and Claims, told her the whole story. This went on for about 8 minutes. Guess what, I was transferred, surprise…. Repeat conversation…see above! 9:10AM…new supervisor, no luck, another transfer! Now I have someone named Mamour over in Dallas, the supervisor's Manager. A few order numbers thrown at me ON9xxxxxx and ORDROxxxxx…what this means is beyond me? They are all convinced that insulting me with an offer of a $25 performance guarantee reimbursement should do the trick… WOW…I'm impressed! That's some offer! Please…. It cost me more to write you this letter! I asked Mamour what I should do with the equipment that Verizon still has at the house. He informed me I would have to take them to a drop off station for credit. Hummm…Verizon left it here, now I am expected to drive it somewhere to get credit? One thing I found very interesting, I was told to call 2 numbers to get the closest drop off location. Ok, here we go 800-209-4455 (We're sorry, we can not continue to process your call, please hang up and try again)! I gave #2 a try, 800-436-1300…It's the HOME SHOPPING NETWORK… Am I now on the hook to sell this stuff at a discount? Frustration sets in as I do not want another 57 minute phone conversation with a Verizon female computer voice recorder that actually has attitude built into the voice when you don't give her the answers she wants.

One day a gentleman named Adam Brooks showed up on my doorstep. I opened the door. He was with Verizon. He wanted to know if I was pleased with the install? Does Verizon not communicate? For a communications company, I am a bit surprised that no one there does! Back to the story, one more time. He makes notes and tells me someone will be calling me. Actually, Adam was a really nice guy and seemed to have compassion for the situation. I have to give him credit for being very professional and following through. (503) xxx-xxxx. He said he would have the contractor that installed the lines contact me. I got a call from the contractor a week later, however, it appears that the cut lines were caused by Verizon when they installed the boxes on the wall. The contractor came out and showed me where everything took place and where the problems occurred. The contractor gave me a check for $43 to compensate for damaged plants on the property. I was told that someone named Dan Ferguson would contact me from Consumer Relations with Verizon, however, I never received a phone call from him.

Well now that everything was cancelled, I was told there would be no charges! Oh look, on June 25th, I was sent a bill in the amount of $157.50. Swell! Here we go, more phone calls.

July 16, 2009: I still have a balance of 157.50 on my billing. I contact Verizon again to have the charges removed. I spoke with Chris I think (not sure, a little confusion, see July 22 notes) who after 15 minutes of repeating the story again so that I could be compensated, she informs me her computer is down (it happened the day before as well-seems to be the norm there…If I can't get working internet service from a company who provides and charges for it, why should their customer service have access to working internet)? Go Figure! She said she would call me back…never did.

On Tuesday , July 21, 2009, 9:50AM. I contacted Customer Service and was connected to someone by the name of Neil 888-xxx-xxxx. Nice guy and he seemed to have it together. He read his notes and said that I talked to Angela on Thursday, she sits close by so he will talk to her and get the scoop on the billing problem and call me back. Angela? Well ok Angela, Chris… I've been through so many people at this point, I guess it doesn't matter because no one there can make decisions that make sense anyway. I get a call from Chris…she very firmly advised me that she was right and I was wrong in a very righteous way repeating statements from her notes that she perceived to be things that I said (considering her computer went down and she had to re-construct the conversation, I suppose anything goes…She also informed me (very directly I might add) that she left a message on my voice mail stating that the charges were reversed. I suppose if I had a message on my voice mail it makes all the sense in the world for me to call customer service and find out why no one called me to inform me of a credit…If I knew I had one, would I be calling??? I really have nothing better to do with my time. I am told that as far as additional compensation I could receive the really great performance guarantee check of $25…seems everyone there has the magic check to hand out. (I lost 5 days at work and about 11 days of phone service along with trampled plants in my yard. Did I mention Comcast has to rerun all of the lines again and bury them due to the cutting of the cables)? Ok, so the $25 again is a slap in the face. Chris tells me her supervisor will give me a call…she can't give me his number but assures me he'll call…Waiting…I talked to Chris around 10AM… Matt the Supervisor calls me at 11AM. Matt is not willing to work with me…he too wants to offer the $25 slap in the face and says he can not accommodate my 5 days of work missed due to Verizon not showing up when scheduled…although it's a different compensation when I was expected to wait for contractors that didn't show up as scheduled. I explained to Matt that if I didn't show up for the appointment, I am sure that Verizon would charge me…or would that be Frontier Communications that is taking over Verizon in the NW? By the way, no one ever informed me that my service provider would be Frontier Communications…I found this out from one of the Comcast contractors.

Now let me throw out a few more one liners that were fascinating to me:

Matt: I asked him for a supervisor. He was quick to tell me she was unavailable (how did he know that without even taking a breath to ask her, does he man the Supervisor calendar)?

Matt: I asked him for the supervisor's name, Kim he replied. I asked for a last name…He refused to give me the last name, stating that for security reasons, he is not allowed to give out last names.

Matt: I asked for Kim's phone number, he stated she didn't have one! (I am becoming amused)!

Matt: He also told me Kim would not be able to give me any answers that were different from his… Why have a Supervisor if her subordinate can always make instant decisions and answer for her? Glad we cleared that one up!

Matt: I asked him where the corporate office was. He said St Petersburg FL

Matt: I asked for the Corporate phone number: Classic response, "They don't have one!"

I am seriously amused at this point!

My response: "Wow Matt, A communications company that provides phone service all over the country and they doesn't have a phone of their own?" "No wonder my phones never worked!" "They haven't figured out how to hook up the first one over at headquarters! "

Matt: "I can give you an address, you can write to them!" PO Box ya da ya da ya da! Thank you, so helpful.

Matt: I asked for a physical address, he wouldn't give me one.

Matt: I told him I wanted compensation for the 5 days I took off from work to accommodate Verizon's necessity for me to be home, although they didn't show up when promised. His response…The $25 performance guarantee. I told him I make no less than $65 an hour and that's what I expect as compensation….8 hrs x 5 days even though I have spend endless additional hours trying to get this mess straightened out. He told me that he can not just whip out a check. It's against Verizon guidelines. I asked him to send me a copy of the guidelines. He said he couldn't do that. He told me that it is against policy to compensate for work lost or send out a copy of the guidelines! I asked him for a copy of the policy… No, he can't do that either. He also told me, and I quote "It was against FCC rules." That's a new one!

Well…he told me he would have Kim call me sometime between noon and 5PM! Nice… I wasn't sure how that would be possible considering Kim didn't have a phone! Am I missing something here?

1:30: Kim leaves a voice mail…with no return phone number! She must have borrowed a phone from AT & T! She said she would call me sometime the next day! So, do I wait for the call? Maybe sometime between 8AM-5PM!

Wednesday, July 23: Kim calls the other phone number that I rarely answer at 11:30AM. She is not willing to offer more than $25. As I mentioned to Matt, if I was going to hear the same song and dance each time I hear from another Manager, then send me to someone else. I told Kim the same thing. At least she didn't make any decisions for the next Manager in line. That would be James. He is supposed to call me sometime between now and 5:00PM. Hurry up and wait some more. I get the call from James at 3:30PM. Amazingly, he is one of the few at Verizon that is allowed to have a phone. I guess security isn't an issue for him and going against Verizon policy is ok, because he did give me his last name (Hobson) and a phone number where he could be reached. 636-xxx-xxxx. I did ask for an employee ID#, but he said he couldn't offer that as it was an internal number and policy not to give it out. (Lots of policies)! Of course I was offered the usual $25. I think if they keep offering the $25 dollars, I suppose it would add up each time and eventually I could collect a lot of checks for $25 until I got the compensation I deserve. I let James know that $25 is not acceptable and, like Matt, asked him if he would work for $25 a week. Of course he said no. I asked him why than should I be any different? As you can imagine, we wasted another 20 minutes on the phone going nowhere. I did ask for the Corporate number. He put me on hold for at least 5 minutes and came back with a "We can't seem to find it." He informed me that someone would call me within 24 hours with the number.

Well, as you can see, it is now Friday, July 24 at 9:35AM. No phone call from anyone, at Verizon Corporate if there is such a thing!

July 23, 2009: I received a call from Wendy Allen…somewhere in Texas. She proclaimed to be the Manager of the entire building, as she put it. She said she was in control of Texas, California and some other state (not mine). Twice she repeated these states, Oregon was never included. I asked her why she was calling me as she was not in my state. She corrected herself at that point and told me she had the west coast. Of course, $25 was her best offer and not acceptable to me. I am now frustrated. I told her I would locate someone on my own that could make decisions. Wendy's offered her number at 972-xxx-xxxx. So, I guess the policy doesn't work here either cause I got both last name and phone number. Different rules for different schools!

Next step? I will continue my quest and just keep adding to my list of notes from May 30 and send this letter out to anyone who will listen. My next step (consumer advocates who are receiving a blind copy of this letter), the FCC, government officials (I am well connected), who may have more contacts than I do. Eventually someone will listen but I would like to see Verizon do the right thing and just compensate me for the 5 days I missed from work. They expected me to be here, I lived up to my end of the bargain. It will be interesting to see what happens next!"

Leo writes:

I just got a visit from a friendly neighborhood ADT salesman who freaked the hell out of me.

My dogs went nuts when they saw him approaching the house, but I didn't get to the door fast enough to drawn the shade and hide in my closet, so when he rang the bell I was forced to open it. I saw his big ADT yard sign and T-shirt, so I knew what was coming. I opened the door to tell him buzz off when my Jack Russell blew through the front door and into my yard, barking at him incessantly as my bigger dog barked from the door. I smiled and retrieved my dog, saying 'Well I guess I don't need you since I have them." I offered a meak smile for politeness sake and headed back inside.

"You know what they are doing to dogs now, don't you?" He yelled back at me. I figured some side-show horror story was coming and didn't want to hear it, so I said 'Not interested buddy' and kept walking. "They're spraying oven-cleaner into their face, killing them in 20 seconds!" he screamed back. What the @#$%!

This guy was soooo ready for me to use my dog excuse to get out of talking to him, and freaked me with something I have never heard of and now will never forget. He was obviously trained to respond this way because he didn't stop talking even though I said I wasn't interested. Sweet holy crap what kind of company allows its people to say such horrible things to potential customers. I know times are tough and everybody is just trying to survive but come on...they're gonna spray my dogs in the face with oven cleaner?

I told him I didn't want to hear anymore and shut the door in his freaky face. Consumerist, two questions. (A) Have YOU ever heard of breakins by theives bearing Pam, and (B) am I the only one really disturbed by what this guy said? I mean he said it so non-chalantly is was clearly rehearsed. I'm a corporate trainer and I spend my days teaching people who not to sound like that.

I don't own any oven cleaner because cleaning sucks, and after today, that's the way its staying...

Um, well, no, now that you ask, this is the first we've heard of Pam-wielding thieves. Does Pam even clean ovens? We use it on cookware, not dogs, but it's that sort of inside-the-box thinking that keeps us from being thieves.

The pushy retort is less surprising. Salesmen often pack snappy answers to common objections, and sometimes, like with ADT's salesman, they go way over the line.

(Photo: OakleyOriginals)

Ari writes:

I recently flew out of SFO with my girlfriend for a weeklong vacation. We had checked in one suitcase with a bunch of her clothes and a makeup case.

When we arrived at our destination, we found a notice from our TSA screener indicating they had opened the suitcase. The makeup case, which had been nicely packed before, was bulging at the seams, and when we opened it we were greeted with pieces of glass from the mirror which had been seemingly jammed down to close the makeup case.

My girlfriend was understandably a bit peeved at this, but we still had the receipts from the purchase of that case, so it didn't seem *too* bad. Later that evening she went to go take a shower and took out a bag from the suitcase containing her underwear/bras/socks. There was one problem... all the underwear was gone (8 nights)! (Including one pair of socks)

Looks like our vacation will include a trip to the local Walmart...

Are there any tips from Consumerist readers on how to make a claim for this? We've been calling Covenant Claims for the last couple of days, but no one has answered, and the website requires us to print out a form and mail/fax it in. Oh, that's not including the photographic evidence and receipts that they want us to mail in. (Who keeps receipts or takes photos of underwear they've purchased???)

The TSA has complaint forms for lost and damaged items, but they don't cover the ten airports using private security screeners. That doesn't mean you can't ask the TSA for help. The folks from the TSA Blog left a comment on a reader's website suggesting that they use the TSA's feedback system to reach the customer support manager at San Francisco International. Since Covenant has an abysmal record responding to complaints, it's certainly worth a shot.

Got Feedback? [Transportation Security Administration]
Claims Management Branch [Transportation Security Administration]
(Photo: kaibara87)

Ari writes:

I've been a loyal Vonage customer for over a year now and sing their praises all the time. I think its an incredible bargain and I have been a very satisfied customer. That changed this morning when my wife's name was called as a winner as part of a promotion on a local radio station here in Washington DC. She had 10 minutes to call their 1-800 number to claim $1000. She tried calling from our Vonage line and got a busy signal. She tried calling from her cell phone and got a busy signal. She repeated this well past her allotted 10 minutes to no avail. The $1000 prize was gone, but we did not give up. Prior to the 10 minutes expiring, she emailed the DJ of the show saying she had won but could not get through. Around 30 minutes later, a producer wrote her back, and that led to several emails back and forth and they guaranteed us there was no way the phone lines were busy at that time.

After a little bit more investigation on my part, I identified the problem was actually our Vonage line. The radio station was blocking non-local numbers from calling their 800 number, which explained why our cells were getting busy signals, but our Vonage number was a local number and should have worked just fine. An email to Vonage Executive Support and a subsequent return phone call explained all. "Calls to 800 numbers," the representative told me, "are all routed through New York...so it makes perfect sense your call was blocked by the station." All Vonage offered me was 2 free months... which leaves us $936 short of the prize that should have been ours.

Certainly an odd situation, and not one that is necessarily unique to Vonage since we can easily see other VoIP providers routing 1-800 calls through a central office.

What do you think? Is it Ari's fault for relying on services with inherent limitations, or should the radio station pay up if he can prove that his wife was trying to call during the giveaway window? Dispense your justice in the comments.

(Photo: TheGiantVermin)

According to the press release from the Iowa Office of the Attorney General, customers have had a whole bunch of problems with the behavior of DISH Network over the years:

The states alleged that DISH Network: Refused to accept responsibility for misconduct by its third-party retailers and installers; violated do-not-call rules; failed to disclose all key terms and conditions of their customer agreements; did not disclose that purchased or leased equipment was previously used and/or refurbished; charged customer credit cards and debited bank accounts without providing adequate notice and obtaining appropriate authorization; and committed other violations. The company denied any wrongdoing.

If you filed a complaint with DISH Network since January 1st, 2004 that is still at least partially unresolved, or if you file a new complaint over the next 150 days "concerning conduct by DISH over the last two years," then you can participate in the payout. The complaint must be in written form, and sent directly to DISH Network or "through a third party such as an Attorney General's Office, any state Consumer complaint-handling agency or Better Business Bureau."

They'll mail you a letter with an offer, as well as a claim form that you must fill out if you reject the offer. You can then either accept DISH's offer of restitution or other relief, or reject it, at which point DISH must send your complaint to an independent third party Claims Administrator who has to be approved by the state Attorneys General.

You can get all the details of the restitution part of the agreement by downloading it (pdf) and jumping to page 25.

The agreement is called an "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance" and it explicitly spells out what DISH will and will not do moving forward, including how it will handle disclosures of programming limitations, electronic fund transactions, third-party installers, and so on. If you're a DISH customer or plan to be one, you might want to save a copy (pdf) for reference—it's like your own fine print agreement for how the company must behave in any dealings with you. (In fact, it even says that DISH can't use fine print or "an inaudible broadcast" to hide important details of any agreement with you.)

Sadly, the settlement includes customers in all states except for the following:

Not included in settlement
• California
• North Carolina
• Illinois
• Ohio

    and also the
• District of Columbia

"DISH Network Agrees to Resolve Consumer Complaints and Avoid Unfair Practices" [Iowa Office of the Attorney General]
(Photo: cote)

You can read the full letter here, but here's the gist of how Andy's Delta experience went:

You see, our flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem on our plane. Over the course of the next 13 hours we sat in the terminal at Richmond as flight after flight after flight all departed on time to Atlanta. Except, of course, ours. An entire airplane full of people – all of whom had gotten up early to catch the first flight of the day - watched helplessly as every other plane departed incident-free.

And since our bags were on the plane (we had all already been seated, before we were asked to de-board) we couldn't even get our luggage off the plane and go home. Also, we kept being told our plane was almost fixed.

I took the initiative at noon to book us on the 5pm flight to Atlanta. I called Delta (five times in fact – you can check) to confirm and re-reconfirm again. I was continually reassured that my family had guaranteed seats on that 5pm flight. I was, in fact, on the phone with you as the Delta employees at the gate refused to give us our seats - on a flight we had already been confirmed on. And I never even heard an "I'm sorry."

Consequently, I missed a few things in Atlanta: The Direct Marketing Association's conference – of which I was the guest speaker. It was a paid event and the DMA was understandably shocked, mortified and embarrassed by the situation. They had to offer refunds to all their attendees.

I also missed my Wall Street Journal interview.

I also missed my meeting.

What's worse, he said, was that his children spent the day crying and stressed out, wondering why they couldn't go see their grandparents or go back home. Do you think these kids will want to be Delta customers in the future (provided Delta is around)?

I had to promise my children that I would not make them fly on an airplane anytime soon. They used to LOVE to fly. They simply cannot understand why things are so unfair.

The good news is, Delta has lost thousands of dollars in what are most likely business-class flights from Andy for the time being. Maybe competing airlines can provide some minimum of customer service and keep his business for the rest of 2009 and beyond.

Since returning on June 21st, I have flown 5 round trip flights to Las Vegas, Atlanta and New York. None of those flights have been on Delta.

I am now prepping my travels for the next three months, which include multiple flights to Los Angeles, St Louis, New York, Orlando, London, Berlin, Singapore and Shanghai.

In fact, I am literally flying MORE than I ever have in my life!

But until I receive some sort of apology, I will continue to adjust my schedule to avoid Delta.

"Letter to Delta" [AndyAzula.blogspot.com]

I ended up just calling the 1-8SPEAK-TO-US number to voice my complaint. I specifically did not want to call the actual store (the number printed on my receipt) because there is no guarantee I would be speaking to the store manager and many times, the store manager's behavior is what influences his subordinates.

I was put through to a customer service representative who was very polite and courteous and seemed to legitimately care about my frustrations. I explained to them that I did get a full refund for this improper transaction, but the fact that this transaction happened in the first place was why I am calling now.

She did not offer any compensation for my troubles (I was not expecting any to begin with, nor was that the reason I was calling), but she assured me that this issue would be raised to the district manager and that the cashier (or "associate" as she referred to) would be reprimanded accordingly. I also asked if I could be notified regarding what transpires afterwards, but I was told that information was confidential.

Ultimately, I hope this serves to better the conditions at my local store, but honestly, I am still a bit skeptical about the store and the chain in general.

Also: clarification on my original email. Yes, I did mean "three dollars" instead of "two." Also in the comments there has been some confusion regarding my return. No, I was not only refunded exactly $22.99, I was refunded $22.99 + $14.99 + tax. My point was that on the return, there were only 2 items instead of 4 item from the original receipt, which is why I suspected foul play.

Furthermore, both games were marked on the sticker as $19.99 and $14.99 (or $13.49 with their membership) respectively. I do check prices before I make purchases. :)

Thanks,
Lu

Later, Lu gave us an update on Game Crazy's response:

2nd update: I just received a call from the district manager, and we discussed my experience at the store. He was very courteous and sincere, told me that actions will be taken (nothing specified), and assured me that I will never experience such sort of behavior at my local store. He also offered me a free copy of Dead Space, the game I was trying to purchase. I politely declined the offer, but the gesture was more than appreciated. My hope is that this was an isolated incident, and that my local store will only improve from this.

3rd update (last one, I promise!): I received another call from the district manager, informing me that they reviewed the security tapes to confirm my story (in my favor). He apologized again, said that my story checked out 100%, and asked if I'd be willing to accept a gift card and try out one of their other locations. I reluctantly said yes this time, but I do plan on checking out another location.

Unfortunately the next closest one is in Seattle so I can't just drive by when I want to, but I'll try to make a stop if I'm ever in the city.

All in all, I am surprised at the seriousness that the higher-ups gave this. They contacted me, got my statement, reviewed security tapes, and got statements from OTHER customers from that Game Crazy just to make sure this wasn't happening all the time. All this within 24 hours.

Impressive, I thought.

Thanks for all the help,
Lu

We're glad things were resolved quickly. If you have any problems with Game Crazy in the future, give their 1-8SPEAK-TO-US number a try and see what happens. Hopefully they help everyone out as much as they did Lu, whether you get your story on Consumerist and Twitter or not.

"Game Crazy Cashier Caught Sneaking Gameguard Fees Onto Sale"

The clerk on duty at this time was Phil. Phil seemed pretty annoyed at my intrusion. "There's a problem with my room, I need to check out." I said. "*Sigh* what's the problem with the room?" He said all annoyed.

"Well." And I admit I was pretty snippy and angry and assholish. "Here, let me show you what I found under my mattress." and I showed him the photos (still on the camera's tiny LCD screen)

Phil squinted and looked and puffed and huffed, and said he couldn't tell what he was looking at. I tried showing him a couple of different ones. He said one definitely looked like some hypodermic needles.

I told him that was pretty crazy and that I wasn't staying there again, and asked him what he can do for me. He said nothing, and that I would have to speak to a manager, and that the next time a manager would be in would be at 9am tomorrow. I told him to call the manager. He said it was too late and that he couldn't do that. I told him well how about I call the police? He said to go ahead and call the police and that they would just say they couldn't do anything and that it was a civil matter.

He said something about how you can even find needles and bed bugs and all that in 5 star hotels and blah blah blah. I told him oh yes, I definitely have found bed bugs in nice hotels.

At this point I was pretty much beyond upset. "You know," I said. "You haven't even apologized to me."

"Oh I see," he laughed. "Is this a test? You're testing me?" I pretty much lost control verbally at this point and told him to fuck off or something like that. I'm not sorry about that, I was pretty upset. I couldn't take any more and left to go sit in the rental car, and he yelled something out about "Oh now you can apologize to me for saying ‘fuck you'!" Feh. So I fled that horrible nasty pee smelling syphilis dart factory, and came out to the suburb of Beaverton, and checked into a room that costs not quite twice what the bed of needles did.

Xmitter acknowledged that he might have been blowing things out of proportion, but we really don't think it's unreasonable to expect your hotel room to be free of hypodermic needles.

Update: Xmitter later added:

OK this morning I spoke with Mr Karia, the manager of the Thriftlodge (I incorrectly called it the Budgetlodge, I've fixed that.) He said they've cancelled any charges and nothing should appear on my bank statement. I thanked him for that and asked what else he could do for me. He said there wasn't anything else he could do. I told him that I had to find something at the last minute and he should cover the difference in cost for my room that doesn't smell like pee or have needles in it. He told me that was my decision to go elsewhere and that he didn't make me do that, so he wasn't going to pay up."

Travelodge Sucks. Also the Portland Thriftlodge sucks real bad. But you probably already know this. [Xmitter]

This is from the BBB in Buffalo, NY, so all four businesses are New York Based. Two of them, AC Design & Construction and Black Tie Catering, will probably only matter to locals.

FFEMAX.com, also doing business as ElectronicsAvenue.com, has a couple of web presences, but they're both down as of this post and the company may be out of business (which may explain partly why they earned the F rating to begin with).

FireplaceEssentials.com is still up and running though, so watch out. The "F" in "fireplace" stands for BBB FAIL in this case.

BBB page for FireplaceEssentials.com

Hector writes:

On Tuesday June 23 I went down to my local bank to deposit some money. Things started out weird right away with the teller I got, as she didn't seem to have a working computer, and as so she had to go into the back to place a money. She also ended up putting my funds into my checking account, instead of a savings account but hey, no biggie. When she came back with my deposit slip she informed me I was approved for a 3, 500 credit line. The interest she quoted me was actually lower than the one I had in one of my credit cards, so I was kinda interest. I asked her how long the interest held up for and what the interest would be after the initial offer. She couldn't give me that answer, so she waved a personal banker over to answer that.

The personal banker gave me the information I needed, and I told her I would think about it and would come back I I decided to take up the offer. Please keep in mind that at no point did I agree to anything, nor did I sign any paper or such. The total time I spent discussing this credit line was about five minutes.

I didn't think about BOA and their offer until Thursday evening when I logged into their website to check my funds. This is when I found a powermaster visa card now under my name, with a 3,5000 credit limit. To say I was surprised was an understatement.

I instantly called up BOA customer support, who told me that the card was opened by the bank location on June 23. I then I asked about filing a complaint and wanting to find out how exactly this happened. The woman on the phone was more than happy to take my complaint, but told me that the only answer I would receive would be through mail two to three weeks from now. I asked if I could have anyone phone me or email me, as I didn't want to get some sort of form letter and she told me that there was no way to do that.

On Friday morning I headed to the bank and asked to speak to a manager. I ended up speaking with a Tony, who sat me down on the personal banker side of the location. I gave him all my information and he once again verified that yes, a credit was opened under my name. I told Tony not to do anything with the account yet, as I needed to find out whether this would affect my credit. I also told him that I wanted someone to contact from their location to provide me with some answers.

I have not heard from anyone yet, but I just logged into my BOA website and see that the card is no longer there. I'm slightly bothered by the fact that they just closed the card even though I told them I first wanted to be contacted and find out whether this would affect my credit.

Alison writes:

I know Jiffy Lube gets a bad rap but I've never had any problems with them and have been taking my car in for regular oil changes there for years. That is until a few weeks ago when my husband took our '94 Corolla in for an oil change at a local Madison, WI Jiffy Lube before a big trip. They suggested flushing the transmission fluid. I don't think we'd ever looked at the transmission fluid and we figured it could use some attention, so my husband agreed. The next day we drove to Chicago to visit my parents before driving on a few days later to Louisville, KY for a wedding. My mom immediately noticed something leaking under car. We were able to get our car in to see a mechanic who told us that the transmission drain pan plug was completely stripped and we were just a bump or two away from losing it, losing our transmission fluid, and having catastrophic car damage. He repaired the damage and we were on our way, although miffed about all the money we just spent. When we finally returned home I drafted a complaint email and submitted it via Jiffy Lube's website. I actually submitted several emails over a period of about a week because we never heard back from them, or so I thought. We did find out later that they were trying to contact us via our landline phone fairly regularly (we don't use it and it's not hooked up to an answering machine). Their phone calls were showing up as Heartland Automotive and after reading about car warranty robo-callers on your site we didn't answer, thinking it was one of them. Doh!

Another couple weeks go by and I start getting ready to craft an EECB. I do some research and find that Jiffy Lube's CEO, Rick Altizer, has done a YouTube video on Jiffy Lube's commitment to service which lists his email address. I also find out that my Jiffy Lube is actually owned by Heartland Automotive Group "America's Largest Jiffy Lube Franchisee." The email addresses for CEO's at Heartland Automotive Services were relative easy to find with a Google search. I sent my email out and that night we get a call (coincidentally or not) from the manager of the Jiffy Lube store (this time we realize who's calling from Heartland Automotive and pick up the phone). He was polite and spoke with my husband about the situation with our car. Not surprisingly they denied all damage and gave an excuse that is too lame to repeat here. After confirming with our mechanic that his excuse made no sense, I re-sent the EECB with a follow-up regarding the phone conversation and expressing my continued disappointment with how the situation was being handled. That was this morning and by this afternoon I had a reply email from the CEO of Heartland Automotive Services assuring me that they were taking this matter seriously and apologizing for what happened. They also will be reimbursing me for the original transmission fluid flush, the repair for our car (that's about $250 total) and throwing in a coupon for a free oil change. I've already had someone contact me about getting the reimbursement rolling. I couldn't be happier with their response to this matter.

Thanks Consumerist for helping empower me as a consumer—EECB's totally work!

Learn how to craft your own Executive Email Carpet Bomb by reading this post.

(Photo: Gregg Sperling)

Alex isn't really sure what happened, and UPS isn't saying much. He writes:

Back on the 15th, I shipped two packages from a suburb outside of Boston to a single address in SF. On the 21st one of the packages arrived at the destination address, but the other did not. Figuring that it must have just ended up on another truck, I waited, assuming it would soon arrive. And it did! Only.... it was delivered to the return address back here in Boston, and believe it or not, it had arrived via Fedex Ground with no accompanying explanation whatsoever.

Shipped via UPS, returned via Fedex?

Baffled, I called the UPS customer support line. I didn't figure that they would be able to explain what had happened, but I did assume that they would easily be able to either reship the package or refund my money. Unbelievably, they claimed that they could do neither.

Although I wasn't aware of this fact before now, apparently UPS the shipping company and UPS the store are not run as a seamless entity. The customer support operator explained to me that because I shipped through a UPS store, I am am now a "third party" to the shipping transaction. I hired the Store to ship the package for me, making them the shipper, not me. She further claimed that her part of UPS could neither provide me a refund nor explain to me what happened, and that only the specific store that I used to ship the package could help.

Confused, I explained to her that my problem wasn't with UPS the store but with UPS the shipping company. I had both of the receipts for the packages in front of me, and both showed identical addresses on the ship-to field. Since one of the packages had arrived, and since the UPS tracking system couldn't locate the other (because it was in front of me!), my problem was with the shipper not the store.

At which point things got worse. Not only are the Store and the Shipper separate entities, but each Store is separate from every other Store. So I couldn't just go to any Store to get help - I had to go back to the original shipping location to get a refund!

I explained to her from my perspective as a paying customer, this was like being told by the Post Office that each individual USPS location was its own unit, and that if I had problems I had to take it up with whatever branch I had used to mail my letters. It didn't matter that all of the signs said "Post Office," or that a single centralized entity took care of processing all of the mail behind the scenes, because that just wasn't how they were organized. She laughed, apologized, and told me there was nothing she could do.

By the time I got off the phone with her, the manager at the UPS Store had left for the day, so I now have to wait another day to get this resolved. In the meantime, I've shipped the package with the Post Office, and will never - ever! - ship with a UPS Store again.

All of which is a long, round about way of suggesting that you warn your readers about the UPS Store. They have a common name, but don't let that fool you! If something goes wrong, UPS 1-800 Customer support will not be able to help.

Its back to the Post Office for me!

It's not unheard of for companies to use their competitor's services, but this is especially strange. If UPS won't refund your money or reship the package, ask if they would instead be willing to pay FedEx to ship it to San Francisco.

I have a major problem going on with my WaMu credit card. I had thousands of dollars fraudulently charged in California and now they are saying I owe this money because the call came from the telephone number associated with my account. Do you have any advice? I just don't know where to start. Each time I try, I hit a dead end.
For instance, I've tried to get the telephone records to prove the call was not made from the phone number on the account because this is what WAMU requested from me before they will ever reinvestigate this case with there fraud department. The phone company will not release that information without a subpoena. I've gone to the police but they say there is nothing they can since the crime happened in California. Please help me if you think there's anything I can do im at my wits end.

This is a credit card but they did used a pin number to withdrawal cash from the card in addition to using the card for purchases at Target. The charges happened around November 22 and I reported them as fraud to WaMu in December when I saw them on my statement. It took about a month to process the fraud investigation and they took the charges off my account for January. This month I got a letter claiming I am responsible for these charges because, according to their records, the pin request to withdrawal cash was made from my parents number in Arvada, which is the number on the account. All these fraudulent charges were made in California. My guess is they had my information and made the call from a some type of web site that disguises the actual number they are calling from and makes it look like it's coming from another number (my parents' number in this case).

I called executive customer service and they would patch me over to Rosita saying she couldn't help me but I explained my case to them again, asking to l re look this over. They said they would call me back in two days and its been about two week with no call so I wrote this letter and send it with my last bill:

"With reference To card number ending in

This is to inform you that I have no intentions of paying any charges, interest or penalties incurred in California on my WaMu visa. All these charges occurred over a 2 day period. November 23-24, 2008. The card was and is in my possession. I live and work in Colorado including the dates in question. I have never requested nor used a PIN number. How could this have ever been verified by a phone call? I do not know anyone in the Los Angeles area.

Since August 2008 I have not used that card at all. This is to be reported as identity theft, already reported locally. You as a creditor are entitled by law to report to the collections agency of your choosing as identity theft.

Enclosed is payment in full for all charges for which I am responsible including current accrued interest, consider this my stimulus gift to your troubled institution.

Why did this occur the Monday after your November 21. 2008 layoff of 1600 employees? Certainly your new owners, Chase, and Obama USA, need to be apprised of your sloppy security measures as well."

I'm betting that the takeover has something to do with the WaMu's non-responsiveness. A should try kicking this up the CHASE corporate ladder. For privacy reasons, Chase, which owns WaMu, declined to comment on A's case, but said they would look into and have someone get in touch with A.

(Image: Elton Lin)

Sean writes:

In March, we (my girlfriend and I) made our normal monthly payment and never thought about it again (I know, our bad for not following our banking close enough). Turns out, Chrysler didn't want our money and it changed from "Pending" to "Returned" on their website. For whatever reason, again, my fault entirely, I did indeed forget to make a payment in April. I'm perfectly willing to pay any associated fees due to my inattention. May 1st, I get a letter stating that my payment is past due and that it can affect my credit rating. I go online to their website to see that I owe them for March and April, and it was still before the May due date. I paid the total amount for all three months, using the same stored checking account information that I had used the entire time for the last 12+ consecutive/on-time payments. It shows the submission as successful and the status as "Pending."

One week later, an email arrives stating that the payment didn't go through and that the checking account information was incorrect. I go back to the website, re-enter my information and submit the total payment again. Again, says it went through and changes to "Pending."

One week later, the same email comes back. I go back again, re-enter the information a third time, and submit just the May payment to see if it goes through at all. Again, status shows "Pending" after it submitted.

Strangely enough, it changes from "Pending" to "Submitted" during the week, meaning that they actually took their money this time. A week after we made the May payment, they repo'd the Jeep. No letters saying that it was coming, no phone calls, no messages-just the first letter on May 1st stating that I was past due.

Needless to say, I was a wreck, I had the first toothache (and the most painful at that, had an infected abscess…blech) that I've had since I was 12 all day, and then they took my Jeep away, catching me completely off-guard.
Friday morning, I call the repo center (Certified Auto Recovery Inc) since that's what I was told to do to ask about getting my car back. The guy I spoke to had no idea why I was calling him and instructed me to call the bank to clear it with them first. He then gave me the number to call Chrysler for their "Recovery" department. I put a call into Chrysler and spoke with Dawn, a fairly nice rep who explained the process and said that I owed the back payments and $370-$400 in recovery fees for the repo. I had to call off Friday (no way to get to work) so I was hoping I could have it resolved and pick up the Jeep that day. I also wanted to see a dentist ASAP as well as head to Ohio for a wedding on Saturday. She told me that no matter what, it would take 24-48 hours and the earliest I could pick it up would be today (Monday).

I proceeded on Friday to fax in all the information I needed to send in and Dawn let me know that when I call in Monday, I could pay with my debit card and it'd be about 45 minutes until they could release my Jeep to me. After faxing the info, a call to Dawn confirmed that they did indeed receive our faxed documents. Here the waiting starts for the mysterious "processing" portion.

That brings me to (Monday). At around noon (Dawn said that all paperwork should be processed by 1PM), I called in to make the payment. She takes our information and informs me that one of the pages didn't come through the fax properly and I'd have to resend it. Why I wasn't told Friday, I have no clue. She said I could email it to her to make it easier for me. An option I would've loved from the start since it cost me $6 to fax from the only local place that offers outgoing fax services. I called soon after I emailed the document and she confirmed that she had it and said it would take just a little bit longer for it to process and that she would call us back. From here, there were about 4 phone calls from me to Chrysler and to Certified Auto Recovery Inc. to see if the release was processed, being met repeatedly with "Not yet" and "Just a little longer." Finally, at about 3:25PM, Dawn let us know that I could wait 20 minutes before calling Certified Auto Recovery Inc. to get info on how to pick up the Jeep.

Upon calling Certified Auto Recovery Inc., I'm then informed that I need $210 in cash to pick up the Jeep (storage fees) and that I'd have to wait until tomorrow to pick it up since they stop releasing cars at 4PM.

I was livid at this bit of information. I did all I could to get this resolved as quickly as possible, hoping to get it all done Friday, only to be forced into dragging it until tomorrow, plus this new fee was a delightful surprise.

I called Dawn back and she insisted that during our first phone call, she let me know that there would be additional "agent fees." From what I recall and noted when we spoke, that was the $370-$400 added on to the past due balance. She said I could try to haggle with the garage to get them to lower it, but Chrysler wasn't going to do anything about it. I explained that I was very angry being essentially extorted into paying these extra fees because of the speed that they handled it and she said that it wasn't her fault and that I could take issues up with customer service. She also enlightened me and said that some of her friends in the customer service department have said that online payments don't work when accounts are past due, which forces you to call in to make a payment. This would be fine with me if it actually said that instead of appearing to work, only to fail a week after submission. Not to mention I hate paying the associated fee when paying over the phone as opposed to paying online.

So here's the breakdown:

2 Months of Owed Payments + Late Fees = I'm ok with this. While I still need answers from Chrysler as to why my March and May payments were returned, I know that I should've followed up with it more. BTW, I spoke to my bank (PNC) and they said that they have no record of Chrysler ever attempting to take the money during those submitted payments.

$370 in recovery fees = I'm assuming this goes to pay the repo guys

(Those 2 items were paid directly to Chrysler)

Now, $210 in cash only are due to Certified Auto Recovery Inc. upon pickup for "Storage Fees" thanks to this 24-48 hour period for processing, stalling all day today, and of course their inability to have anything done over the weekend.

You'd think a company that's gone bankrupt wouldn't have such a hard time taking someone's money.

UPDATE: Sean paid the fees and got his Jeep back.

(Photo: bucklava)

Joseph writes:

I ordered a Dell Studio from Dell (My first mistake, I know). After I placed the order, where there were tons of helpful people eager to take my credit card number, I saw the Dell outlet center with some refurb laptops.

I called and cancelled my initial order, asked the lady on the phone (Name escapes me, but I KNOW they can find out who by my click to chat IDs) and asked her to compare, line for line, the two laptops. She assured me they were identical, component for component.

I then asked her about certified reburbs vs scratch and dent, which I did not want.

She says "Cert refurbs are conditioned to factory specification, the cases look just like a new laptop". I pointed her to the description online that hinted at some damage visible, she says "oh they just say that, I have never seen a refurb with any damage on it.

I place the order. It is a gift for my father in law.

I get the order.

It looks like a bear clawed the front of the cover. Someone took a flathead and gouged the bezel in the front. It is not line for line the same laptop, missing features, wrong OS, etc.

Best thing was the "present": a burnt .rar of Office 2007 corporate edition in the cd tray. It had a text file with the Warez site it was downloaded from as a reference. Yes folks, they sent me illegal software from a warez site. If this was refurb'd, where is the QA department? No one noticed a cd in the laptop?

I called corporate using Consumerist guidance, no help. I sent an email to corporate and CC'd Michael@dell.com, Got someone who honestly seemed to want to help me but "had hands tied"

Their compensation for a laptop that I cannot return (I was asking for a tech at least to come out and replace the case, drop off the OS I wanted, I was willing to eat the non-backlit keyboard) was this:

No restocking fee, return the laptop and get assistance ordering another.

I assure you, this was not "certified reburbished" but very much "scratch and severly dented".

I cannot return it as it was a gift to be presented in front of about 20 folks, one of them my future employer. The future is suddenly not so bright.

This worth a letter to BBB?

Thanks a lot Dell. Any advice from consumerist? Seems like Dell is considering this a "case closed".

Joseph doesn't need assistance ordering a new laptop. He needs is the laptop he ordered delivered at the price Dell quoted. They should provide a system of equal or greater value, free of charge. An apology note wouldn't hurt either.