Palisades Collection is offering Jeremy a great deal: he can pay half off his debt of $237.64 and get the account settled! Small snag, though, Jeremy never ordered the Verizon service they’re trying to collect on, the debt has passed the statute of limitations, and he got it expunged from his credit report years ago. Still, Palisades persists in sending collection notices for him to his grandma’s house. What’s a boy to do? Read on and find out.
complaints
BB&B Responds To Customer Complaint Over 911 Debacle
By 9.10.08
Appalled by the events described in, “Bed, Bath & Beyond Will Not Let You Use The Phone To Call 911,” one reader sent a chastising email to their public relations division. In particular, he took aim at their statement that they were using it as a “training opportunity,” which sounds pretty antiseptic and corporate considering that a child’s life could have been in danger. Their VP of customer service responded. Their correspondence follows.
Office Max Apologizes, Actually Apologizes, For Snooty Manager
By 9.9.08
The condescending store-manager, irked that your request for them to fulfill their contractual agreement has forced them away from a high-scoring session of Snood. Long have consumers suffered under his reign of caprice and indifference. No longer. A weakness has been discovered. The EECB, a modern version of “taking it to the top.” Jim used it and got not only the rare and magnificent personal apology, but a $30 gift card and he was allowed to make the return he wanted to do in the first place. His story follows.
3 Days Late? BoA Jacks Rate To 29.99%
By 9.9.08
Many of you know that if you’re late on your credit card bill payments they can raise your rates as high as 29.99%, but that’s just for scalawags, right? Nope. JLP at All Financial Matter’s brother was late twice on his Bank of America bill, once by three days, and once by one day. That was enough to make Bank of America say, OMG, this guy is way too risky and we need to penalize him and send his rates as high as they can legally go!
BBB Warns Consumers: Stay Away From TicketsMyWay
By 9.9.08
[Parent company] Event Tickets LLC has an unsatisfactory rating from BBB due to its performance, which includes nearly 100 instances of non-delivery of tickets, nearly another 100 complaints involving refunds and exchanges, and on about 200 occasions, the company has failed to even respond to BBB or consumers to resolve issues.
"Studies Recommend Surgery For You" (But The Studies Can't Be Found)
By 9.8.08
Seth Robert’s doctor discovered he had a tiny hernia and referred him to a general surgeon, who recommended surgery. Seth, a psychology professor at UC Berkely and author of The Shrangri-La Diet, asked why. “It could get worse,” she said. “Why is it better to have surgery than not,” asked Seth. “Surgery is dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming.” The surgeon said clinical trials showed the benefits of this surgery. “Just use Google, you’ll find them.” Seth tried to find them. His mom, who does medical searching as her job, couldn’t find any completed clinical trials.
BoA Reopens Credit Card Closed 10 Years Ago
By 9.4.08
At Bank of America, your accounts are Buddhist. As in, undergoing “eternal return,” where accounts that have been closed and passed on will reemerge, rejuvenated, reopened, even if you closed them long, long, ago. Reader Chip writes:
Amazon Closes Accounts En Masse
By 9.3.08
Slickdeal forums members are complaining about a mass-closing of Amazon accounts. The reasons cited vary from having too high a percentage of returns, shipping to too many different addresses, and having too many different Amazon accounts. Guess they’re trying to tighten their bottom line and prevent loopholes from being exploited, but the net may have been cast too wide; some of the adversely affected users say the action was unfair and unwarranted. Couple this with the online retailer dropping the post price guarantee at basically the same time and you have to wonder if the boys in the Amazon backroom spent Labor Day Weekend earning their Six Sigma certificates.
Update: Orbitz Sent Reader To Collections For Ticket They Never Sold Him
By 9.3.08
Here’s some updates on the post about reader Josh, whom Orbitz wanted to make pay for a ticket they never sold him and he never used. Turns out that between when he sent his original letter to us in February and when we posted it, Orbitz sent him to collections. But now that his story got on here and Digg, Orbitz’s ass-covering machine has been activated…
Customer Battles Lowe's Online Over $3500 Fence, Wins
By 9.2.08
Last year, Lowe’s horribly botched Allen’s $3500 fence installation (see picture, left). When he complained, the installer and Lowes dodged responsibility, but still demanded $3500. Allen refused to pay and they sent his bill to collections. So Allen put up Lowes-sucks.com with pictures, correspondence and phone recordings of his customer service debacle. Instead of fixing Allen’s problem, Lowe’s sent him a cease-and-desist to get him to take down the website, claiming “trademark infringement.” That’s when our site picked it up, along with Ars Technica, Digg, and others, driving lots of traffic to Lowes-sucks.com That was a year ago. Now it seems Allen has won his fight.
Complete Medical History Required For Manicure
By 8.29.08
In a dime-a-dozen business like nail salons, you need to have a hook or a gimmick to be unique. At the The Bella Aqua Spa in Laurinburg, North Carolina, they seem to have settled on requiring a copious amount of personal and medical history from you before you get to have a manicure as their little way of standing out.
Movers Turns Musicians' New Zealand Adventure Into Fiasco
By 8.28.08
Ah, New Zealand, the land of kiwis and hobbits. Daniel and his girlfriend went there to set up a studio and get paid to do recording sessions. They’re musicians. They hired Morton Van Lines to ship their equipment from LA to NZ, but after over seven months of struggle, they got it, or their money back.Turns out the equipment was shipped to the wrong country and then returned to the USA. Maybe if Morton Van Lines ever returned a phone call or an email it could have been straightened out. But nay. Here’s Daniel’s story…
WaMu's Inability To Mail Letters Costs Man $3,400
By 8.27.08
Wamu’s fraud department has a problem sending letters. Just like another reader, Kristin, we posted about, Rob is having trouble disputing fraudulent charges on his account. He followed their every instruction, except to respond to the second letter WaMu sent out. How could Rob do such a foolish thing? Because it never showed up in his mailbox, a point, WaMu seems to think, is owing to, not their incompetence, but Rob’s general lassitude and weakness of character. Or something like that. Here’s Rob’s story…
Wells Fargo Forces You To Pay Off Loans Costliest Way Possible
By 8.26.08
According to reader Caleb, Wells Fargo seems to have recently crippled their loan repayment system in a way that makes it impossible for borrowers to pay off loans the way they want to. That is, unless you prefer to let your highest-interest loans ride for as long as possible while you pay off your lower-interest loans…
EEEPC Return A Recursive Hellhole
By 8.26.08
In the battle for customer satisfaction, if Mike’s letter is any indication, it appears that ASUS is (still) under siege attack by General Incompetence.
PayPal Refunds $50 Defraud, Sics Collections On You
By 8.26.08
Last year, Gpotato.com fraudulently took $50 from reader Adam’s Paypal account. He disputed the charge, Paypal agreed it was fraud and returned the funds, and Adam closed the account. Now all of a sudden Paypal’s internal collections agency is calling up Adam and making rude and insistent demands that he pay this $50 immediately.
Circuit City Firedog Charges $40 To 'Fix' Computer You Just Bought
By 8.22.08
Update: Circuit City says the repair should have been free. Here’s their response. Travis writes that a friend of his just bought a new computer from Circuit City, and after turning down all of the Firedog’s “it won’t work unless you also buy this” offers, he noticed a $40 fee on his receipt. Turns out the associate claims he had to flash the computer’s BIOS or Vista wouldn’t work. Travis writes, “Regardless of the fact that Vista booted up just fine with out the update, he was more disturbed with the fact that Circuit City would sell him a computer that they knew didn’t work, or so they say.” So does Circuit City sell computers that don’t work without a preliminary repair, or do they lie in order to generate extra fees?
