Slate columnist Mark Gimein takes a closer look at New York's Monroe College and argues the school seems to be predicated on giving students very little education for a lot of dough.

The college charges nearly $6,000 per semester for out-of-state students and $2,300 for in-state, which the story says is more than local community colleges. Monroe doesn't require SAT scores for admission, isn't listed in U.S. News list of 1,400 colleges and Gimein couldn't find a list of publications by Monroe faculty.

Gimein argues that Monroe is a trade school disguised as a college:

The very point of an institution like Monroe is to improve its students' standing in the work force, but the irony is that in comparison with traditional institutions, Monroe seems to do quite badly at helping graduates make a living. One measure of the cost-effectiveness of Monroe versus other institutions is the number of graduates who wind up defaulting on their loans. At Binghamton University, the flagship campus of New York's public system, 1.5 percent of students default on their loans. At Lehman, a school with average SAT math plus verbal scores around 870 (well below the national average for college freshman), the number is 3.2 percent.

At Monroe the numbers are much worse. Of the students who were to start repaying their loans in 2006, 9.5 percent are already in default. That's three times higher than at nearby Lehman and 80 percent higher than the national average of 5.2% (a number that is itself elevated by the dismal record of for-profit schools like Monroe).

Does all that justify Thompson's lawsuit? Maybe not, but it should give prospective Monroe students pause before they enrolll.

Sue this school: Should a college pay when a grad can't find a job? This one should. [Slate]
(Thanks, Joanne!)

As we noted yesterday, Metrolink technically did nothing wrong, but the way they described the monthly pass program was confusing enough that one of our readers earned himself a hefty $250 fine despite a good faith attempt to follow the rules. What do you think of Metrolink's suggested revision? Too much? Personally, we like their inclusion of examples.

Here is some proposed new language for our website that I hope will clear things up:

Valid for unlimited travel between the origin station and selected destination during a calendar month. PASSES CLEARLY STATE ON THE FRONT THE CALENDAR MONTH THEY ARE VALID FOR. Passes can be purchased in advance.

MONTHLY PASSES ARE VALID FOR THE CALENDAR MONTH FOR WHICH THEY ARE PURCHASED. THEY ARE NOT VALID FOR A 30 DAY PERIOD FROM THE DATE ON WHICH THEY ARE PURCHASED.

These passes are sold from the 15th of the current month to the 14th of the new month.

EXAMPLE I: If you purchase a monthly pass from March 1 through March 14, it will only be valid for the balance of the month of MARCH from the date of purchase. It will expire on March 31. THE PASS CANNOT BE USED IN APRIL.

EXAMPLE II: If you purchase a monthly pass on the 18th of March, the pass will only be valid for the month of APRIL. It CANNOT be used until APRIL 1 and will expire on APRIL 30.

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Got the iPhone back now and went to the AT&T store and now activating it via iTunes. Phone seems to be working just the pictures in the camera roll were deleted along with recent calls.

Thanks again to the Consumerist and all their crafty readers.

Case closed!

PREVIOUSLY: Missing iPhone Mystery Solved By Consumerist Readers In 55 Minutes
UPDATED: "My iPhone Is Missing, And Some Guy Is Taking Pics Of Himself With It!" (Photo: Vincent J. Brown)

OMG you guys are the best. Guess what? The guy called and will give my dad his phone back tomorrow. He saw this blog and asked to take down the pictures. Thank you very much for your help. The power of the internet is amazing. I will take down his pics on Flickr. I am glad this guy is doing the right thing and returning lost property. Thank you very much Consumerist! You have made my dad's day.

Dino adds, "He said he found it in a parking lot, which is probably what happened... possibly fell off a belt holster my dad uses." But here's something that's more interesting, especially in light of the kid's "I was going to return it" defense:

My dad also had a sticker on the back of the phone with his home phone number on it. But looks like the kid removed it before he took the self pics (something that someone who was going to return a phone from the get go wouldn't have done).

Anyway thanks again for your help, i was telling my dad he's famous now. But i'll let you know once my dad get the phone back tomorrow.

(Photo: aka Kath)

Gothamist writes that "Joey Calco, the man who made a name for himself when he turned on the Bonanno crime family and ratted out consigliere Anthony Spero in 2001, has been living in Florida and running a pizza place under the name Joseph Milano." We wonder if competing pizza joints in the area will start placing signs in their windows that read, "NOT affiliated with the mob!"—or if that would just invite more pistol whippings.

"Mob Turncoat's Identity Outed After a Fight Over a Calzone" [Gothamist] (Thanks to Alexa!)

You may remember a few weeks back you posted my blog about being stuck on I-25 in Wyoming and the dismal failure that was Verizon Roadside Assistance. I thought I'd drop you a line and give you an update.

I just got off the phone with a Latrina Jackson, she called to apologize for the troubles I had that day. Apparently someone high up at Verizon Wireless reads The Consumerist. Based on that blog, they have reviewed the call tapes and according to Ms. Jackson, "That call did not go the way it was supposed to." She claims the operator I spoke to that day is no longer taking calls and is being put through their training program again.

In an attempt to make me feel better about the whole ordeal, they took my mailing address and are issuing a check to cover the cost of the fuel delivery. This was way more than I was expecting. I don't know if you guys post updates on these stories, but perhaps your readers would like to know that while I still consider the words, "Can I connect you to Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance?" a death threat, but at least they can admit when they made a mistake.

Congrats, Jason! We're glad that Verizon Wireless stepped in to make things right, and that they're retraining the CSR who failed to grasp the meaning of "roadside assistance."

Vickie writes:

I have used the Delta PermEnamel Products for several years with marvelous results. This was an isolated incident which I would not expect to recur. This isolated incident has been resolved to my complete satisfaction. Thank you, Delta Creative, Inc.

Vickie Silcox/Artist
A Painted Setting

(Photo: Getty Images)

Meredith writes:

An end! 8 hours, 07 minutes, 40 seconds. I heard a female voice click onto the line (had it on high volume, but not on speaker) and before I could stumble across the room to reach it, they hung up. Photo of the screen attached. (I damaged the screen on my phone—the number listed is RCN's tech line, 1-866-832-4726)

As a sidenote, this was sent to me as part of the customer bill of rights by the DC Office of Cable Television:

5. Consumers have the right to speak with a customer service representative by telephone within a reasonable amount of time or in person and receive courteous, professional and knowledgeable assistance from such representative.

Compare that with what Jason at RCN had to say yesterday:

I'm the Sr. Director of Operations here at RCN. I can assure you by no means would this be intentional. I had the engineers check the call queue and at this time we don't even have any calls in queue. Most likely what happened was (although) very unfortunate was this customers call caused some sort of technical glitch and the call was lost in limbo on the support tree. I whole heartedly apologize for the inconveniance but assure you this was not by design but rather a technical glitch if indeed this is a valid claim. I hope to reach this customer and based on her call originating number we can certainly track down where the call ended up. Should you need to reach me, we are always tracking the pulse of the RCN forum at DSL Reports.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rcn

But your best bet is to hang up and call back as I'm sure you will get an answer.

We want to believe Jason's account, but we're curious about that female voice that Meredith heard before her call was disconnected. Since she didn't disconnect the call herself, it seems likely that either:

1. RCN disconnected the call
2. Her phone company disconnected the call

We don't know what would prompt a carrier to break into a call and disconnect it, but if the call was truly lost on the RCN side of things, then Meredith should have never heard a live voice or been disconnected by RCN. So what happened here? Theories?

Now it reads,

Your questions and concerns are very important to us.

In an effort to provide a faster response, and to ensure your personal security, we ask that you please use our online chat (available on most pages in the upper right corner), call or visit us at one of our retail locations. This will ensure the most complete and timely response to your questions and concerns.

Well, at least now they've provided an explanation (and there's at least one reader who agrees with them).

Remember, if you've tried to resolve a problem with your Qwest account and haven't had any luck, you can always try one of the people listed in their corporate directory.

(Photo: Getty)

Jim at Circuit City's consumer affairs division wrote,

I have some follow-up information on this matter to share with you.

Thanks to your Web posting, we have been able to determine that a few employees at one of our stores incorrectly charged a customer for work that our firedog techs did on the computer that he purchased. The manufacturer notified us that the PC in question did need a repair and we coordinated the repairs with the manufacturer. The customer should NOT have been charged.

We have reached out to the affected customer to apologize to him for any inconvenience and to make sure a refund is provided. We have also taken steps to ensure that our associates are aware of company policies on this issue.

I hope this information is helpful,
Jim

Frankly, we were suspicious that Circuit City was taking advantage of the faulty PC inventory to make a little extra money, so we're happy to see the company step up and correct this oversight so quickly.

I'd just like to follow up with you guys after you were nice enough to post my story and get me help (incredibly quickly!). You guys were able to connect me to Lonny Paul at CompUSA who was able to support my warranty directly. I have my new adapter for my laptop (which I'm using now!), and everything is back to normal. Now, I am very satisfied by the level of support provided by the new CompUSA, however I feel Assurant Solutions is lacking. I would have a expensive Toshiba paperweight if it weren't for you guys, and I really appreciate all the help you guys have given me. Keep up the good work!

Remember, if you can't get anywhere with good-for-nothing Assurant Solutions on your TAP agreement, and you've got a legitimate repair, call CompUSA. From their director of e-commerce:

The All-New CompUSA would like to help ANYONE having issues with service and we hope they will contact our customer service department at 1-800-COMPUSA if they cannot have their issue resolved directly by Assurant.

(Photo: Getty)

Timothy, our hapless eBay seller who kept having problems listing his laptop on the auction site, was contacted by a Real Live Human from eBay the day after we posted his story. "Garrison" apologized for the frustration, and said he'd be making a note on Timothy's account to keep it from getting shut down by other agents. He also suggested several listing options that were pretty well-covered by our commenters in the original thread.

Here's Tim's email:

Just FYI: I have listed the auction for a sixth time (mostly because I think it’s funny now to watch eBay have to refund my listing fees repeatedly). About 15 hours after you posted the story, I got the following email from a human being at eBay:

Dear Timothy,   Thank you for writing eBay in regard to the issues with the laptop computer you have tried to sell.   I have taken the time to review your account and would first like to apologize for the frustration this has caused you.  It is very understandable that you would feel upset with the current activity and circumstances on your account.   Your auction was removed because there were concerns that a third party was potentially accessing your account and attempting to list the laptop for sale.  Please understand that the precautions that were taken were with the intent of protecting your account.   I will be adding documentation to your account to alert eBay agents that you are the legitimate owner of the account and are the one listing the laptop for sale.   I would like to share some recommendations with you about some features that could possibly assist you if decide to list your laptop computer for sale again.  First, you may want to use a feature called a bidder block.  To find out more about it and how it works, you might want to consider looking at the information in the eBay Help pages, at this link:   http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/manage_bidders_ov.html   You could also do a search for "bidder block" in the search field and that would bring up more information about the process as well.   Another feature that I would like to recommend would be the "Requiring Immediate Payment" feature.  Detailed information about this feature can be found at:   http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/immediatepayment.html   This feature requires that a person make payment immediately after clicking on the Buy It Now button.  The payment must be made with PayPal, and your auction will remain open until the payment is made.   Although this is not available for an auction-style listing, if there is a set price you would be willing to sell your laptop for it could help with the problems you've mentioned.   Please consider these as options if you decide to list any merchandise with eBay in the future.   Your trust and confidence is valued by us.  We want to earn that trust and confidence once again.   It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.   Sincerely,   Garrison eBay Customer Support

 
Thanks for your help getting a real response from them!
Tim

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(Photo: Getty Images)

Saw your GoPhone post. I work with AT&T Corporate Communications, and wanted to clarify our policy related to this.

There is no activation fee with GoPhone. Customers can buy the GoPhone and activate but they cannot use service until they add airtime to their account. Customers can buy airtime for as little as $15 in over 200K locations. We do offer a promotion where if you buy $25 worth of airtime to start we will give you $10 in bonus airtime.

Customers also have an option if they are looking for a replacement device for postpaid to buy a Nokia 2610 for $39.99 in COR and not sign a contract extension. That program launched in mid-January.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Brad

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