AT&T customer caught in 'spam-22' [Red Tape Chronicles] (Photo: afagen)

Michael Dell 'Friends' his customers [FORTUNE]

A number of readers chimed in on the Best Buy-branded wishlist browser add-on post with the alternatives they prefer instead. They were: 1) Amazon's Universal Wishlist, 2) Del.icio.us, 3) Wishlist.com, 4) Wishlistr.com. Got any others? As far as what most Consumerist's thought of the Best Buy add-on, commenter dragonfire81 probably captured it best...

(Photo: heyu1021)

The funds are FDIC-insured and deposited in West Bank, which has been in Des Moines, Iowa since 1893.

If you decide you need the cash and want to stop saving up with SmartyPig, you can close your goal ("break the piggy bank") and withdraw or transfer your money.

If you're looking for something with built-in restrictions and tools that will both help and force you to save up for specific purchase goals, instead of whipping out the plastic, SmartyPig could be worth a shot.

Smarty Pig [Official Site]

The site has been around for a bit, here's a few other people who've written reviews about it worth checking out:

Get Rich Slowly [Get Rich Slowly]
SmartyPig Review: With Less Fees, Are Piggy Banks Back? [My Money Blog]
Social Networking Meets Savings Accounts: SmartyPig Launches this Week [NetBanker]
Some people had trouble with the sign-up, but I was able to clickity-click and get rolling within minutes.

Here's a welcome reprieve from all those "free" file hosting sites with countdown timers and restrictions and flashing ads. FileSavr is running a special deal promote their normally pay to use service: free file hosting for life (well, at least until 2038). 10gb limit per upload, with a 250gb per account max. Just sign up via this link and you're uploading in a snap. Jay from FileSavr told us...

We owe our success to the social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble, Reddit and Delicious. As a thank you to the social sites we are offering free accounts on FileSavr.com to all bloggers as well as members of all social sites. This is a lifetime membership for absolutely FREE. There is no catch, we simply hope this will create good buzz and people will also donate to us if they like our service.

It seems snag-free. Let us know in the comments if you discover some fell purpose lurking behind the smiles.

Free Accounts for Bloggers and Digg Users [FileSavr]

That stinks, the policy was neat. If you bought something from Amazon and its price on the site dropped within 30 days, you could contact them and get a refund for the difference.

Now according to emails people are getting, the policy is no more and only items bought before September 1st will be eligible. Must be the economy, stupid. We're waiting on a confirmation/explanation from Amazon, but here's the email Jason got...

Hello from Amazon.com.

Thank you for contacting us to take advantage of our Post-Order Price Guarantee.

I've confirmed that we now offer a greater discount on item than at the time you placed your order.

Since your purchase shipped within the past 30 days, I've requested a refund of $5.78 to the original payment method used for your order.

This amount reflects the difference between the price you were originally charged for the item and the current price offered by Amazon.com. This refund should be processed in the next few days.

Only orders placed before September 1, 2008 are eligible for a price difference refund under the Post-Order Price Guarantee policy. As of September 1, 2008 we are no longer offering discounts if prices change on our website after you make a purchase.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com—we hope you'll visit us again soon.

RELATED:
amazon no more post-order price matching??? [High-Def Digest]
Amazon Dropping Post-Order Price Guarantee Effective Sept 1st [SlickDeals]
No more post-order price matching!?!? [Amazon Forums]

(Photo: nedrichards)

It will take some time for the economic impact of Hurricane Gustav on New Orleans to be calculated, unless the journalist or statistician in question is a fan of daily gadget deal site Woot! As part of the forums area, the site throws out various data, like how many units did people buy, percentage of sales per hour, and a Woots per capita map. The map clearly shows that basically no one in Louisiana is buying jack from Woot right now, and, no doubt, from any else. How will we know when people have returned to Louisiana and are buying again? By watching the delta on the Woots per capita map!

Sep 2 [Woot]
Aug 2 [Woot] (Thanks to Cy Guy!)

Comcast is a horrible tangled mess of utter crapitutde, as reader Andrew's story aptly, if not concisely, illustrates...

I'm sending this mail as a last resort. Comcast has been giving my wife and I the runaround concerning our bill since we moved our service from one apartment to another around May 18th. In that time we've been on the line with Customer Support, sent e-mails to Executive Customer Support, and talked on the phone with representatives of Executive Customer Support, and none of it has helped. I'm going to try this last attempt to contact someone who can help at Comcast, and I'm also forwarding this to Consumerist as the level of support that we've gotten from Comcast up to this point has been atrocious.

My wife and I were married last October, and we'd been living together and enjoying our Comcast cable tv with no trouble since June of '07. We sent in a request to change my wife's name from her maiden name to her married name in early November after getting back from our honeymoon and it was never processed. I finally went in to the local office a few days ago and they changed it on the spot there, but we had asked via phone several times for the name change to go through and it never happened. This isn't something that I should have had to go down to the local office to address.

We recently signed up for a new two-year contract so that we could continue to pay a special rate rather than the full price for the premium package we're signed up for. Comcast told us that they would send out a new contract for us to sign and send in. It's been almost a month since we went with this new contract and we still haven't received anything to sign and send in, though we have been billed at the new rate at least. Eventually, after receiving a call every few days from a Customer Service Representative asking if we'd received the contract, she called back to tell me that we were on a one year plan rather than a two year plan and didn't need to sign any sort of contract. It would have been nice if we'd been told this the thousand other times that we dealt with Customer Service and they told us that we were going to be locked in for two years at this special rate.

Our cable television was recently screwed up to the point that it couldn't be watched for two weeks. It started on May 22 and wasn't resolved until June 3. This was nearly two weeks where we couldn't watch cable in our living room because of this service disruption. I tried to get someone out to look at the service, but we were going to be out of town on the only day they could get someone out and we ended up having to set a date two weeks ahead. Like I said, the problem eventually fixed itself. A comcast repairman called me the morning that he was supposed to come out for a service call and asked if we were still having the problem, explaining that there had been an issue with the apartment complex that he had fixed. Since we were no longer having the issue I told him that he didn't have to stop by.

The last time we had a service disruption of several weeks we were given a credit of $50. I complained about this service disruption while I was in the local office and was stonewalled. First the lady told me that we couldn't be compensated for that time unless we made a call as soon as the disruption took place. I told her to check her records as I had called the day that the trouble started, and after looking again she admitted it was the case. She then said that we'd only had a service disruption for a few days, and I counted up the days and pointed out that it was closer to two weeks than a few days. Finally she said we couldn't get a refund for lost time because the service technician hadn't actually come to our house. I explained to her that we had someone scheduled to come to the house, but I had told him not to come out because the problem was with the apartment complex and that it had been fixed. It seemed silly to waste the technician's time and my time when the problem was already solved.

Eventually they agreed to give us a $20 credit, which doesn't seem like nearly enough given all the trouble that I had to go through, all the hours that were spent on the phone with technical support, and that I had to finally go down to the local office to get all of these problems addressed.

We started having trouble with the box again towards the end of the month. I contacted Customer Service and they said it was most likely a problem with the set top box and not with the line going into the apartment. By this time we had done our patriotic duty as Americans and spent our tax rebate on a new HD television, so I told them that on a service call they could just switch us out for an HD box to replace the old malfunctioning box. Comcast scheduled a service call to have someone check the connection at our apartment just to make sure there wasn't a problem there and to bring the HD box at the same time.

Two days later I got a call from the technician and he told me that he was ahead of schedule and would be at our apartment in a few minutes. An hour passed and I got a confused call from the technician asking if I was at home. It turns out that Comcast sent the technician to our old apartment's address instead of the new apartment we'd moved into a month before. I asked if he could come to the new address and he said he would have to call me back. Another twenty minutes passed and he called me back and told me that he couldn't come to the new address because the account that he was on a service call for wasn't the account that we had at the new apartment. Evidently when we moved they closed the account at the old address and opened a new one at our new address that used the same account number but had a different phone number associated with it. It made no sense to me, but the Customer Service Representative I talked to seemed to think that it was business as usual.

After another hour on the phone with a CSR we discovered the problem. The phone that I used to call in was still associated with the old account, our new account was associated with our Comcast phone number and not my cell phone despite me giving my cell phone number as the primary contact for the new account, and the CSR who scheduled the service call never bothered to verify the address and instead decided it would be a good idea to send a service technician to a vacated apartment to add a new HD set top box to an account that had been closed for a month. Then I discovered that it wasn't actually a service call at all, they were just sending the truck out to swap the boxes and they were going to charge us $30 for this. When I called it was to set up a service call to see what was wrong with our service, and the HD box was being brought out as a convenience. At this point, disgusted, I told them that I was perfectly capable of connecting a cable box to my home theater system without a technician coming out and charging for it, and I just picked up the box at the local office myself. It turns out that the problem was a faulty box and not a problem with our connection, which is a good thing since Comcast seems incapable of actually sending someone out on a service call.

At this point I figured that our troubles with Comcast were over, but I was wrong.

When we switched to the new plan, supposedly two years (later changed to one year) at $160/month, we were told that our account would be credited $50 and the customer service representative gave us a different amount to pay that was $50 less than the amount on our bill. Then at the next billing cycle that $50 showed up on our bill again buried deep in a bill so confusing that we had to sit on the line with a CSR looking into our account for about twenty minutes before they realized what the problem was. Evidently our account was credited the $50, but that credit was supposed to be applied to our next bill and the original CSR shouldn't have told us to pay the lesser amount. Due to this confusion and since the CSR we were talking with had to spend a half hour digging through the billing system before figuring out what was wrong, she offered to give us a $30 credit to our account for all the trouble. We said that was fine. She told my wife to make a payment of $158.69 for our June bill and everything would be okay. At this point we thought that we were in the clear.

That is until this month when we received a bill for $267.30. Evidently none of the credits that we were promised went through, and the amount that the CSR told us to pay was flagged by the system as incorrect despite the fact that she claimed she was making a note on our account and adding a credit. In addition to this the billing system added a $10 late charge.

Now at this point we are being charged a late fee and told that we were in the wrong for doing what a CSR told us to do back in June. We paid the amount that she told us to pay, supposedly because our account was to be credited for that amount, and now we're being slapped with late fees and treated like delinquent customers. We have been with Comcast for over a year now and have never made a late payment, but now we're getting the runaround. My wife is on the phone with Customer Support right now trying to resolve this problem, but so far she's talked to a very rude CSR who told her there was never a $30 credit, transferred to someone in Internet Technical Support when she asked to talk to a supervisor, and sent back to the main menu to listen to your lovely on hold music and start from square one.

Needless to say we are not happy with the level of service at Comcast. At the moment your company is the only option for cable television and broadband internet in our apartment complex, but Verizon should be coming to our area in the next few months and we will be looking into giving our money to them or just cancelling our service outright if you don't fix these problems.

-Andrew

Andrew blasted off the email to about 25 Comcast executives. He used the Comcast email addresses we posted here, and a technique known as the Executive Email Carpet Bomb. Another technique for specifically escalating things with Comcast is to send a note to the customer service czar, Frank Eliason, at We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com. He actually fixes stuff. We wish Andrew luck and godspeed to his missive missile exploding in the email boxes of Comcast executives right now.

(Photo: Getty)

1. Employer e-mails are rife with grammatical and spelling errors
2. E-mails purporting to be from job posting Web sites claiming there’s a problem with a job hunter’s account
3. An employer asks for extensive personal information such as social security or bank account numbers
4. An employer offers the opportunity to become rich without leaving home
5. An employer asks for money upfront
6. The salary and benefits offered seem too-good-to-be-true
7. The job requires the employee to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram

Most of these are common sense, yet, somehow, they still keep working on people desperate for work.

Look for Seven Red Flags when Searching for Jobs Online [BBB]

(Photo: Getty)

Dear Sarah X XXXXXXXX

RE: Amazon order #XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX
Invoice #XXXXXXX
Item title: SAM M300... Car Charger

Thank you for your recent purchase with Eforcity on Amazon.com.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. We would like to offer you a refund, if the negative feedback is removed.

Please reply to this email directly and let us know. As soon as the feedback is removed, we will go ahead and process a refund.

Please follow the below instructions to remove feedback on Amazon:

1. Go to http://www.amazon.com/your-account.
2. Find the pull-down menu next to View by Order. Select ORDERS PLACED IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS, and hit the GO button.
3. After you sign in, you'll find a listing of your recent orders. Select the relevant order and click the VIEW ORDER button.
4. You will find a feedback section 2/3rds of the way down the page. To remove feedback, click on the REMOVE link in the feedback section of the order summary.
5. You may only remove feedback if it is 60 days or less since you left the feedback.

We appreciate your business, and again would like to extend our sincere apology. Please feel free to let us know how we may further assist you with your order.

Sincerely,

Salina

Customer Service Team

Getting good service shouldn't be contingent on the customer taking down reports of a product that doesn't work. This kind of quid pro quo approach to customer service is dishonest and shameful.

How much money do you think they're losing every second? Well, Cnet says, "Based on last quarter's revenue of $4.13 billion, a full-scale global outage would cost Amazon more than $31,000 per minute on average." However, that won't be happening as the international Amazon sites are still up. An Oct '07 Bloomberg article says US and Canadian sales account for 55% of revenue, so based on that, they're losing roughly $17,050 per minute. The stock market seems to have taken notice; Marketwatch says, "Shares of Amazon were down 2.7% to $82.25 in early afternoon trading."

A post on an online forum for Amazon sellers says, “Engineers are actively engaged in resolving this issue and we will provide an update once the issue is resolved...We appreciate your patience during this time.”" Does anyone have a spare paperclip? Time to hit the reset button.

UPDATE: 4:04 -It's spluttering back from the dead. Pages load very slowly and clicking around may still lead to dead pages.

UPDATE: 4:31 - It's alive! A bit slow, but now once again you can buy everything in the world without leaving your house! Huzzah!

(Thanks to fivecentnickel!)

1) Members of the Howards Forums cellphone message boards have discovered a URL hack that lets users add the "Unlimited Shared Night & Weekend Minutes at 5pm pack" for free to their account.

2) If you take this URL and replace the phone# at the end with the phone number of someone who hasn't set up the PIN on their account, you will see the last 4 digits of their social security number. Not a huge deal, we give out the last 4 of our social over the phone all the time, but it seems a bit odd to broadcast these numbers unnecessarily.

PREVIOUSLY: Flawed Sprint Security Worse Than We Thought
Flawed Security Lets Sprint Accounts Get Easily Hijacked

All these steps add up to a matrix that can either reassure you or make you want to run the other way.

• Do they have a toll free customer service number and published hours of operation?
• Do they take credit cards? It is no guarantee of quality if they do, but it is one step up. I think you should generally avoid any place that only takes Western Union money transfers.
• Do they have a security/hacker prevention or testing certificate?
• Does the checkout process use an encrypted HTTPS page?
• Are the company Privacy and About pages blank, or do they look like they are from a default template for an online shopping cart that was just set up the day before?
• Search Google for the store name and words like "scam" and "customer service." It is not a good thing if all the entries are for people asking if a site is a scam in Yahoo Answers.
• [www.google.com]
  [answers.yahoo.com]
  [wiki.answers.com]
• Check the Whois to see what the website registration looks like. It is not a good sign if it was just registered last week. It should not look like someone is trying to hide the fact that they are running a business out of their parents basement.
• [www.geektools.com]
• Check the Traceroute to see what network it is running on. It should match the WhoIs info to some extent.
• [www.opus1.com]
• Check if the company has a yellow pages listing and street address. If you have a phone number, a company with a street address is a lot more reassuring. Check the address on Google Maps to see if it is a vacant lot or an address in a housing tract.
• [www.411.com]
• See if the site has a warning listed on McAfee SiteAdvisor.
• [www.siteadvisor.com]
• Check fraud and scam report sites. Some of them also list sites that have allegedly scammed other people.
• [edsbandwagon.com]
  [www.fraudbureau.com]
  [www.ripoffreport.com]
  [www.scambusters.com]
  [www.scamclub.com]
  [www.cybercrime.gov]
  [www.fraud.org]
• Beware of "Online Review" sites. Some are little more than a site for scammers to post fake positive reviews, and the owners to make money on banner ads. Here are some you can trust:
• [www.epinions.com]
  [reviews.pricegrabber.com]
  [www.bizrate.com]
  [www.resellerratings.com]
• BBB online. Lots of places do not have entries because they are small and treat their customers well enough to not get a complaint.
• [search.bbb.org]

  What techniques do you use to see if a site is legit? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  (Photo: Strobist)

dmichler wrote: Thu Feb 21 at 2:13 PM

im david michler. i had feces all over myslef the other day and this tide works great! i dont know how i got it on me but when i woke up 3 guys ran out my room. and it was all over my shirt and pants. i used tide about 3 days after the incident and it got it out with very little stains left over. thank you tide. i love you.

josie01 wrote: Sun Mar 30 at 10:09 AM

Unfortunately, I have narcolepsy. There have been a few times where I wake up with my undergarments soiled. I live in a rural area and if I hang them up to dry outside, all who pass by see my dirty underwear. Instead, the most affordable way I found was to take the origional package and return them back to wal-mart after all the fecal matter has dried (that way they can not tell from the smell). Being from a rural area, these people know who I am and I am afraid that one day they will know that the soiled panties are from me. Plus, I am really tired of returning these underwear. Does anyone have ideas how I may wash these in the comfort of my own home?

tammyampersand wrote: Thu Apr 3 at 12:50 AM

I have found that tide is a good douche for "private areas" (both back and front, for the ladies!) if diluted at a 20:1 ratio, with a few tablespoons of white vinegar added. Don't use "Mountain Fresh," though, as it attracts birds.

Their research revealed that most phishers use ready-made kits which made by a small group of people and then sold and traded online. All you have to do is fill in a few form fields, give it an email address to send people's bank account info to, and deploy it on a compromised server. Boom, insta-phishing scam. What's more is the kits, servers and programs all routinely have backdoors built in, so the phishers are phishing the phishers. It's amazing to think that the greatest threat to the modern banking system is being perpetuated by a network of average people whose only unique talent is their capacity for immorality.

Interview with Nitesh Dhanjani and Billy Rios, Spies in the Phishing Underground [Net Security]
(Photo: Getty)

The self-policing marketplace and blogosphere, combined with vigilant scrutiny from policymakers, provides an ample check on the reasonableness of such [network management] judgments.

Comcast: The Blogosphere Will Keep Us Honest [IP Democracy] (Thanks to Ninja of the DC!)
Comments Of Comcast Corporation (PDF)

ISPs create tangled Web of sneaky fees [Red Tape Chronicles]
(Photo: Getty)

It began the beginning of Oct. 2007. My credit card expired, and I contacted all of my utilities to update my credit card information. It was an annoying process, but it went smoothly. That is, until the notices started coming.

A month after updating my credit card information, I started getting those "you haven't paid your bill" notices from Verizon in the mail. My credit card company would also call my house to inform me that Verizon kept trying to bill me for my internet usage, but was using the wrong expiration date and it wasn't going through. Curious. I called Verizon Online to see what the deal was, only to be told that everything on my account was fine, and that "sometimes those notices are sent by mistake." Sure enough, I got another one two weeks later. I called again, and explained to the person on the line that there must be another account because my credit card company is calling me as well saying Verizon is trying to bill me.

The person didn't believe me, said the situation I was describing was "impossible," and that my bill was paid. She even confirmed the credit card on file with me, and it was the correct one. Her advice: "Just ignore it, they will stop coming eventually."

Well they absolutely did not stop. For twice a month in November, December, and January I got these stupid notices and calls from my credit card company. With every notice and every call, I would contact Verizon Online and waste another hour of my life, only to be told again and again that the situation was "impossible" and that I was crazy. This time I demand to speak to a manger who tells me she will do "some research" and call me back. Yeah, I'll be waiting for that phone call until hell freezes over.

Finally, about a week ago, I get an email from Verizon telling me that my internet will be shut off because I haven't paid my bill. I place the 7th call to Verizon online and ask to speak to a manager immediately. The customer service agent blatantly ignores me. Instead of transferring me like I requested, she forces to me to tell her the long drawn out story, and then proceeds to inform me that I am wrong and nuts. She insists that my internet is active, my bills are paid, and nothing is amiss. When I ask her about the email she says "It must be spam."

Low and behold I get home to find that my internet is cut off. Sur-fucking-prise! I call back, ask to speak to a manager, and am again ignored. I try to tell them there has to be another account somewhere, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise. I told the woman about the cut off notice, I told her that I was getting a screen on the computer that said I had been disconnected because I hadn't paid my bill, and she STILL tried to connect me to "tech support," telling me that I had a "modem problem." How much of an idiot can you possibly be? Meanwhile, my fiancé printed out the screen that was appearing, including the account number, and we discover on our own that the account number on the screen is the the same account number they have been giving me. Why pray tell could that be? BECAUSE THERE ARE TWO ACCOUNTS AS I HAD SAID FOR THREE MONTHS!

When I give the woman the account number, it pops up magically. Apparently, when I updated my credit card information someone opened another account in my name that was collecting debt. To "make up" for the last three months of hell, they said they would credit my account with $200, but (here's the kicker!) I am still responsible for paying off the debt on the second account that I didn't open, which was $150. So really, Verizon is giving me 50 bucks, because they are taking $150 out of the $200 they are "giving" me.

Such bullshit. I hate these people.

And now, to top it all off, our internet has stopped working. My fiancé is calling them today to see what the problem is, but he suspects that they cut off the WRONG account.

Any advice? I want to write horrible angry letters and I really want to keep that $200.... I think my time is worth more than one month of free service....

Best,

Faith

Mark D. Reddick
Executive Customer Relations
140 West St.
Manhattan, NY 10007
Mark.D.Reddick@verizon.com
212-321-8457 (office)
212-321-1047 (fax)

There's also a Cassandra Flippin in the same office, her number is 212-321-8458 - so it looks like the base number for Verizon Executive Customer Service team is 212-321-845*, where you can replace * with any number.

You can also try calling 1-800-483-7988 and press 3 to reach the Verizon Customer Advocates for landlines and DSL.

Should those fail, here's contact info for 14 executives:

Verizon Executive Contact Info

Bob Barish
Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
robert.barish@verizon.com
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
ph: 908-559-1629
fx: 908-696-2156

William Barr
Executive Vice President & General Counsel
william.barr@verizon.com
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
ph: 212-395-1689
??: 908-766-3836

Bruce Beausejour
Vice President & Associate General Counsel
State Regulatory, NY and New England
185 Franklin St, 13th Floor
bruce.p.beausejour@verizon.com
??: 607-743-2445 (Brenda?)
fx: 607-737-0648

Maura Breen
Senior Vice President
General Manager
New York Region Rm 3108
140 West Street
New York, NY 10007
maura.c.breen@verizon.com
ph: 212-321-8170 (alana picks up)
fx: 212-964-4072

Mike Hassett
Senior Vice President
Business Solutions Group
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
michael.k.hassett@verizon.com
ph: 908-559-2505
fx: 908-766-5194

Holyce Hess Groos
Vice President & CFO
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
holly.hess@verizon.com
ph: 908-559-5507 (direct)

Suleiman Hessami
Vice President
Pricing & Contract Management
22001 Loudon County Parkway
Ashburn, VA 20147
suleiman.hessami@verizonbusiness.com
ph: 703-886-2017 (Pam picks up)
fx: 703-886-0116

John Hoey
Vice President
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
john.p.hoey@verizon.com
ph: 908-559-4760 (Robin picks up)
fx: 908-766-3965

Jerry Holland
Vice President
CLEC Operations
175 Park Avenue Rm 125
Madison, NJ 07940
jerry.holland@verizon.com
ph: 973-350-5111
fx: 973-660-1065

Bob Ingalls
Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
robert.e.ingalls.jr@verizon.com
ph: 908-559-1112 (Shaw? picks up)
fx: 908-696-2210

Virginia Ruesterholz
President
Verizon Telecom
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
virginia.p.ruesterholz@verizon.com
ph: 908-559-1069 (Diane picks up)
fx: 908-696-2135

Joseph Russo
Vice President
Service Assistance Support
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
joseph.j.russo@verizon.com
ph: 908-559-2266 (Robin picks up)
fx: 908-696-2175

Tom Tauke
Executive Vice President
Public Affairs, Policy & Communications
140 West Street, 29th Fl
New York, NY 10007
thomas.j.tauke@verizon.com
ph: 212-395-1032
fx: 908-696-2036

Doreen Toben
Executive Vice President & CFO
One Verizon Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920-1097
doreen.a.toben@verizon.com
ph: 212-395-1057 (Doreen Thompson picks up)
fx: 800-295-5136

And finally, you can always try pitching your case to the office of the CEO

Ivan G. Seidenberg
140 West St
New York, NY 10007
(212)-395-1000

(Photo: Meghann Marco)

An MSO talking 100 Mbit/s out of one side of its mouth and usage caps out the other is like a bi-polar buffet restaurateur. They continue adding more entrees to an all-you-can-eat spread, and then reduce the size of the plates and tell diners they only have 10 minutes to chow. It's a recipe for dissatisfaction. The buffet looks bigger and tastier - so the patron's hunger grows - and then they are asked to practice portion control.

Talking About AT&T's Internet Filtering on AT&T's The Hugh Thompson Show [Boing Boing Gadgets]

Salar Kamangar, VP Blogger Product Management
650-253-0000

Urs Hoelzle
650-930-3507
urs@google.com
Google Inc
2400 Bayshore Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043

FCC to Probe Comcast Data Discrimination [AP]
(Photo: AP)

In it, he says, "Is it coming? Why shouldn't I be able to say, just by a little switch on my phone at home that's wired, I'm going off on the wireless now, I want to use this as I ride my motorcycle...I'm bad. Pardon me."

We feel bad because you know he's really trying (and for once, completely right) but a guy who can't understand the difference between carburetor and a router shouldn't be on a committee overseeing the internets, but we guess that's just part of our government's interest in appointing the least competent people possible in oversight positions.

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Ted Stevens Wants To Switch Between Phones "As I Ride My Motorcycle"
Liveblogging The Senate Commerce Committee Hearing On Number Portability