The mighty EECB (executive email carpet bomb) has brought justice to West Chester, Ohio, says reader Drew. Drew was mistakenly charged a $60 restocking fee on a defective bookcase. He wrote to us and launched an EECB on IKEA. The results? A very nice apology letter, a full refund and a $25 gift card. Looks like it’s Swedish meatballs for dinner tonight.
eecb
Thanks, Northwest, For Flying Me To Chicago Because I Asked Nicely!
By 5.18.08
Contrary to published rumors, I did not spend last weekend trafficking Canadian drugs or performing “community service.” No, I enjoyed a gluttonous weekend in Chicago thanks to Northwest’s generosity. In the age or rising fees, reduced frequent flier miles, and general travel hell, it’s still possible to extract favors from airlines, if you know which levers to push…
Reach Northwest's Executive Management Team
By 5.18.08
Meet Doug Steenland, CEO of Northwest airlines. He and his fellow executives can help fix problems left unresolved by tree-bound call center sloths. Here’s how to reach Northwest’s executive management team…
EECB Scores Direct Hit On Delta's $25 Extra Bag Fee
By 5.12.08
Reader Justin got hit with Delta’s new $25 extra bag fee on the way home from his vacation to West Palm Beach. He turned to the dreaded EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) to get his $25 refund. Let’s listen in:
EECB Results In $6000 Credit From Maytag For Defective Jade Refrigerator
By 5.8.08
If you plunk down six grand for a refrigerator like the Jade Model #RJRS4870D, you expect it work. And if it doesn’t, you expect the three-year warranty on it to cover things like the refrigerator leaking all over the floor, extra ice building up, and exuding the smell of burning rubber. Ron and his parents certainly thought so, but Maytag wanted them to pay for the installation of a new part to fix the problem, even though Maytag admitted it was a known issue with this refrigerator. Read his blog post about how he was able to use an executive email carpet bomb to persuade Maytag to doing the right thing. The end result was more than Ron asked or even hoped for: $6,000 credit towards any fridge they carry from either JennAir or Whirpool, installation included. My favorite line is when he tells them, “If the Whirlpool conglomerate cannot handle all of its customers in a timely matter maybe they should stop acquiring other brands and focus on the ones that they already have.”
Email Addresses For Best Buy Execs
By 4.24.08
Here’s a nifty list of contact info for Best Buy execs, rooted up by one of our determined readers in his quest to get his Rewards account working properly.
Customer's EECB To Best Buy Scores Direct Hit—Rewards Glitch Is Fixed, Plus Here's $75
By 4.24.08
A few weeks ago, Zach emailed us to say that his Rewards Zone Mastercard hasn’t worked properly in the five months he’s had it, and no one at Best Buy had been able to help. We pointed him to our Guide To Fighting Back, and he responded tonight with an update.
Sprint Customer's Number Gets Ported Without Authorization; Email To Executives Gets It Back
By 4.19.08
Robb spent almost two and half hours with Sprint CSRs trying to find out why his phone had stopped working, and eventually he was told that it had been ported to AT&T, and that it would “take 4-5 days to try and get this number back if at all.”
Email Addresses For Qwest Executives
By 4.7.08
Update: Here’s a better list. One good thing about Matt’s troubles with his mom’s Qwest account is he was able to collect and test various email addresses for their executives. Here’s his list of the ones that work and the ones that don’t.
Executive Email Addresses For Guardian Life Insurance
By 4.1.08
Within 24 hours of our reader emailing the addresses after the jup about a bill Guardian Life Insurance Company was supposed to pay but never did, a charge our reader had been fighting for 2 years and had been sent to collections for, Guardian sent a $850 check to the hospital…
How To Find Executive Contact Information Using Google Finance And Your Brain
By 3.21.08
People often write to us and ask “Hey do you have such and such a company’s email address? I didn’t see it on your website.”
DirecTV Secretly Extends Your Contract And Won't Refund Your Money
By 3.20.08
Here is a story that first came to our attention a few months ago, but that we haven’t posted because it just keeps getting worse. Reader Chuck emailed us in January to let us know that his Executive Email Carpet Bomb failed to penetrate the mustachioed walls of DirecTV’s headquarters. Which is surprising, considering DirecTV let Chuck’s dog escape, signed him up for a service agreement without telling him, refused to provide proof of the agreement to Chuck or his credit card company, and billed Chuck for the amount he recovered after a chargeback. Full story, and an opportunity to leave mustache jokes in the comments, inside.
Man Escapes Verizon ETF Via EECB
By 3.13.08
Talyor was able to leave his Verizon contract without paying an early termination fee by launching an executive email carpet bomb loaded with a polite email. In it, he says that customer service reps have refused to transfer him to a supervisor and now he needs some help. In the ensuing email exchange with the executive customer service rep who helps him, he tells her how he wants to leave because of the raise in text message rates. Frequent readers of The Consumerist will remember that when a cellphone company raises its text message rates, it’s a material change to the contract, meaning that the original contract is void and the other party can walk away from the contract without penalty. Taylor wins because he’s polite, professional, persistent, and acts like he’s conducting a business transactions, which is exactly what he’s doing. Read his blow by blow exchange, inside…
Dell Growing Deaf To EECBs
By 3.11.08
Seth wrote in to describe the response he got from Dell recently, and compared it to the response he got four years ago. That was a more innocent time, before rags like BusinessWeek blew the lid on our EECB strategy by printing it in old media that execs would read.
Use Wildcards In Google To Uncover Company Email Address Formats
By 3.10.08
One of the stumbling blocks when launching an EECB is figuring out the company email address format. There is actually a very easy way to do this. Just use wildcards in Google. What are those? We’ll tell ya, inside…
EECB Scores Direct Hit On United Health Care
By 3.6.08
Alexis, who had been fighting for 10.5 months to get United Health Care to pay for her checkup that should have been covered, finally found success after launching an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) with information that we provided her.
A Consumer Advocate named April from the Executive Office left me a message. She said my claim had been “reprocessed appropriately” and that a check was sent to my doctor’s office, OB-GYN Associates of Pittsburgh, yesterday with the remaining balance. She said that the doctor I saw was indeed a UHC contracted doctor (no kidding!), and that my only responsibility was the $10 co-pay that I paid at the time of the visit.
EECB Scores Direct Hit On T-Mobile
By 3.5.08
Reader Rob got some bad information from a T-Mobile sales rep and it resulted in a huge text messaging bill. He launched an EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) and got a very pleasant response:
