Although the comments are full of the self-congratulatory jerking that we bloggers do so well, there are some interesting points raised in response to a post by Mike Sansone about a bad experience at CompUSA. Specifically, “Does complaining about an employee online do anything besides push down cloying training materials from the PR and sales departments of large retail operations?” (Actually, that’s our question.)
complaints
Renters Speak: The Cockroaches of Central Park
By 1.19.06
Despite the great response we got from our request for bad rental experiences, we can’t get enough horror stories about awful living situations—especially ones in New York.
Renters Speak: Lead Paint Chips and Sweatpants Lawyers
By 1.18.06
From ‘Saralegal,’ the girl with the best lawyer-to-be nickname ever:
Here is my tragic tale of woe from an apartment in Baltimore, MD.
Apple Adds iTunes Ministore Opt-In
By 1.18.06
not the software, just the Tuesday morning, new-music-has-dropped update.
Consumers Speak: Overstock.com Rug Burns
By 1.17.06
Dean writes:
My wife and I ordered a large rug from Overstock.com on 10/31/05 and received it a week later. The rug was very nice, but not the color we ordered. We requested an exchange for the right color, but were told that due to “warehouse issues” they could not make an exchange, but they would give a refund once the rug was received and we could then purchase the correct rug. Since that time, we have spent over two months attempting to return the rug and receive a refund.
Contest: Your Worst Starbucks Experiences
By 1.16.06
We’re going to keep this short and sweet. Send us your best (aka ‘worst’) tales about your dealings with Starbucks as a customer. Do this because we say to do this and we exert a gym teacher-like capitulation over your judgement, but also because we will be giving a price of high irony to the person with the story dubbed most awful: a $500 gift card to Starbucks Coffee.
Shophacks: Track Down a CEO (‘And Torture Him’ Optional)
By 1.16.06
When you’re down and out and all alone, who can you turn to for satisfaction? When it’s cold and dark we look to the man that showed us that we weren’t too old to learn to love again: The CEO.
Everyday Hogwash: Oh, That Life!
By 1.13.06
VOIP provider SunRocket has launched Everyday Hogwash, a contest site where bloggers can submit their complaints about niggling problems for a chance to win cash prizes. SunRocket’s marketing tag line is “the no-gotcha phone company,” from which they are stringing a tenuous line to the theme of the website . (We have yet to divine what Commander Sisko on ecstacy has to do with life’s little problems, but we aren’t in marketing.)
Consumers Speak: Circuit City and PNY’s Awful RMA
By 1.13.06
t resist. I picked up the PNY 6800GT video card. Well on my 2^nd day of owning the card the first contact point on the AGP bus managed to burn to a crisp. Since there is not a Circuit City anywhere near my town of Bumsville, KS I was forced to start making calls. Circuit City happily obliged that it would be much easier and quicker if I just went through PNY for my warranty. Well those assholes lied. Two months later I had myself a brand new refurbished replacement card.
Sprint Canada’s Free Service Worth Every Penny
By 1.13.06
Joe M. writes:
Sprint Canada provides the toll-free service for the company I work for and has been for as long as I can remember. As a value-added service, they provide flexible call routing features which they call “Time of Day” and “Day of Year”, which allow us to vary the terminating number depending on the date and time. We use this to roll the toll-free number over to a cell-phone that alternates between our service staff, and it is handy for holidays.
Consumers Speak: More Omni Technologies Hassles
By 1.13.06
I was perhaps the first to get this treatment from Omni back in 2003:
Amazon Listens: Fixes X-Rated ‘Anime’ Search Snafu
By 1.13.06
We won! Maybe! At least, we’ll take the credit! Good ol’ Amazon listened to our complaints about mixing x-rated hentai when doing searches for hentai and has quickly fixed the problem. Performing a search for anime now returns only the most wholesome of results, while searching for ‘hentai’ returns all the tentacles and demon incest that we hold so dear.
Omni Technologies Responds
By 1.11.06
Omni Technologies’ Customer Service Director Cary Janssen wrote regarding the Michael G’s complaint about the company we posted yesterday.
Greetings!
Eco-Furniture Sells Mass Produced Beds
By 1.11.06
We’re not sure which of these mass-produced bed are “exemplifying symmetry, balance, and harmony with the natural world,” but we’re assured that the “peace & tranquility” are much more abundant when you buy from GreenCulture Furniture. On GreenCulture’s EcoFurniture.com the ‘Sensay’ bed is made of “kiln-dried sustainably harvested solid merbau” with “rails … constructed of plywood with merbau veneer.” Every other retailer that sells the bed calls it the ‘Edo.’
More AT&T Wireless Customers Boned by Cingular
By 1.11.06
Since first we spoke of troubles with Cingular, many of you have taken the time to write us with your own stories—especially stories about the troubles since the Cingular and AT&T Wireless merger.
A Brief Moment of Western Union Logic
By 1.10.06
Offering a friend a bit of a slump-time bump, today we sent some money via Western Union. Since it was the first time we had used their service, they requested that we call their call center to confirm something. They didn’t state what.
Consumers Speak: Half.com Reseller Issues
By 1.10.06
Reader Paul writes with this story of buying from a third-party through Half.com:
I’ve had no bad experiences buying from Half.com in the past, so when I spotted a great deal on two rare CDs I’ve been coveting, right in time for a nice birthday present to myself, I pounced. I noticed that the seller, tenone, was here in my home town, so first I emailed him/her to ask if I could pick up the CDs in person to save on shipping. When there was no response after a day or so, I just coughed up the postage and placed the order online anyway. He/she was a Power Seller or whatever. That was mid-October.
