There is some use crying over spilt ice cream, though Best Buy won’t shed too many tears over it. That’s just as well. The resulting mix would leave a bad taste in your mouth, just like their customer service, as Nikki found when trying to get her refrigerator repaired.
complaints
Update: Canceling Fax Service Like Passing Gallstones
By 6.15.06
Surprise, surprise, it’s hard for others to cancel J2 as well. Not only that, but their chat-based CSRs definitely have robotic paragraphs they insert into the conversation. Compare the chat log after the jump with our previous post on the same matter, you’ll find that Amy R. says the exact same lame retention spiel as Sharon. W.
Canceling Fax Service Like Passing Gallstones
By 6.14.06
L.S. writes that she had a devil of a time trying to cancel her service with J2, an online fax and voicemail service. The cancellation info was buried deep in the website and several links and phone numbers were only dead-ends bedecked with red herrings.
Jaws Of Comcast
By 6.13.06
Just when you thought it was safe to connect your computer to the internet, Comcast customer service rears its crappy head again.
The Best Thing We Have Ever Posted: Reader Tries To Cancel AOL
By 6.13.06
This is the best thing we have ever posted. It’s so good that we almost don’t want to comment on this mp3 that Consumerist reader Vincent Ferrari recording him trying to cancel his AOL account. [More]
Taxi Driver
By 6.12.06
Reader Nick Denton sends us word that the taxi lines in laissez-faire America are rubble. However, in the fascist dictatorship of London, the livery runs with a ruthless efficiency that would make Fredrick Winslow Taylor cream his galoshes.
CompUSA Unaware of So-Called ‘Internet’
By 6.12.06
Rick CC’d us on a letter he wrote CompUSA after trying to get them to price match Linksys NSLU2 network storage drive. He could get the drive at Newegg for $84, versus CompUSA’s $100, but kinda wanted it that day instead of waiting for shipping. The clerk said they only price-match competitors in the area. As in, the geographic space surrounding the physical store.
Monday Morning Reminder: Your Stories Are Better Than Ours
By 6.12.06
Due to gross incompetence in tagging last week, we’re leaving off our usual bullet point list of reader stories: either the site’s tagging system has suffered a thrombosis along with last week’s quadruple Movable Type heart attack or both Ben and myself really spaced out on tagging reader stories last week. Considering we both spent the vast majority of it drunk in NYC, the latter is as distinct a possibility as the former.
UPDATE: Oh Bun Pain!
By 6.9.06
Remember that crumbling, soggy, disgusting Au Bon Pain letter we made you eat last month?
Bitchin’ Round the Blogosphere
By 6.9.06
• This billboard contains a logical fallacy and we mean that in the most non-sexual possible. [ANIMAL]
UPDATE: 1-800-GOT-JUNK Hires Punks
By 6.9.06
Remember Ryan from yesterday? He wasn’t pleased with his treatment by a junk removal service. The guys who showed up threw around curses, mocked his pitiful possessions and also charged higher than their estimate. Some of you weren’t too happy with Ryan either.
Update: Boston Macy’s Removes Gay Mannequins
By 6.9.06
A customer complained to Macy’s about their removal of gay mannequins from Boston window displays in response to a campaign by an anti-gay religious group.
Belmont Lounge Scrounges for Tips
By 6.9.06
Tommy and his friends went out to the Belmont Lounge in NYC last night. The establishment tacked on a 20% gratuity, out of policy, making the bill $174. When they left, they only paid $170, to make a point. The manager and bouncer and waitress called them back from the street afterwards to get them to cough up the extra dough. Tommy ain’t so sunshine about the whole affair.
Blog Hugs of Death
By 6.8.06
• Dovetail on the Vicodin reporter story: The company he bought the drugs from didn’t like his story so they posted his yahoo email address and password and told people to fuck with it. People did. [Romenesko]
1-800-GOT-JUNK Hires Punks
By 6.8.06 — Updated: 10.12.12
Ryan was stressed. A lotta stuff’s been going down in his life and he needed to bust out of Cali to go to a new University. He considered just leaving the crap in his storage locker to rot but didn’t want the credit dings. So he called 1-800-GOT-JUNK. He just wanted some guys to take the junk out of his storage locker. He didn’t need the gangsta rap music or his pathetic student possessions being insulted by the homeslices, just the beginning of a miserable experience.
Cingular CSR Admits Service Sucks, Keeps Customer
By 6.8.06
It’s strangely refreshing to get a casual and honest CSR on the other end of the phone. Instead of binder-read lip service that always translates to “We appreciate your concerns, so go fuck yourself” the opposite approach is placating. A lot of time, people who call customer service lines just want an admission that there’s a problem, for someone to listen to them: outside of that, they tend to be pretty patient about resolution as long as they don’t feel like they are being given the cold shoulder or patronized.
