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Alex from Time Warner Cable writes in to confirm that it’s TWC’s policy to waive charges in the event of a disaster. (For example: If a tornado hits your house and destroys your cable boxes, they will waive the $2,000 charge.)
I found this on Amazon’s video outlet. No wonder it’s on sale.
We’re not, like, Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa or anything, but yeah. Something seems a little off.
Dawn writes to tell us that she and her husband both received the $100 iPhone credits last fall, but when she tried to use them on December 4th she discovered one of the credits had a zero balance. An Apple CSR told her to go ahead and make her purchase without it, and the $100 would be credited immediately to her Visa. Unfortunately, she took his advice.
THE QUOTE: “Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers,” said Paul Van Sickle, director of operations for McDonald’s Florida Region. “This was an isolated incident which we take very seriously. We always strive to give our customers an enjoyable and pleasant restaurant experience in a clean and safe environment.”
Rachel’s stepsister passed away last April, but when she called to cancel her pre-paid mobile account Virgin told her that instead of sending in a death certificate, she should just shut off the phone and ignore it. After 90 days of inactivity, it would automatically be canceled. “I asked if they wouldn’t take a death certificate to close the account, but I was assured that it would be faster to simply let the account run out.” Instead, they added some sort of extra minutes promotion to the account that extended it to the present, so ten months later, it’s still active.
My girlfriend and I had a layover at JFK last week. While I was waiting for her in the bathroom I started reading a poster that seemed to be prompting me to get a JetBlue American Express card.
Reader James saw the above “free shipping” promotion on Target.com and decided to order the entire “collection,” only to find that just one part of the “collection” qualified for “free shipping,” and he’d need to pay a $154 shipping charge.
Dreamhost is busy cleaning up the mess after accidentally overcharging their customers by $7.5 million dollars due to a typo. The process is not going smoothly and we’ve been receiving a mix of complaints and praise.
Here’s a story that makes you wonder what sort of tools the workers at Mattel’s factories use. A “shank” (a blade wrapped in electrical tape, to be exact) was found inside a sealed Polly Pocket toy purchased at Walmart.
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When 5/3 Bank acquired another bank, a computer glitch in the records merging splooged incorrect information into thousands of customer accounts, in some cases totally fudging up their credit reports and credit histories. The bank says it’s fixed everything but one customer says that’s not true and lost three loans due to the errors. [Orlando Sentinel via U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog]
Look, Wisconsin. We weren’t kidding around last time. We really did mean it when we said that it wasn’t cool to print people’s Social Security Numbers where anyone can see them. How can people who are smart enough to sell sausage shaped like beer (above) not able to figure out that the SSN is a secret?
Dreamhost would like you to know that its very very sorry for accidentally billing its customers $7.5 million it wasn’t actually owed. You see, someone typed 2008 when they really meant 2007 and their billing system decided to charge all of their customers in advance for the entire 2008 calendar year. This included debiting huge amounts of money from people’s checking accounts and all the “worst possible scenario” situations you could possibly imagine.
On 1/8/08, 10 years after he placed a call to Microsoft tech support, they called Brian back to see if his problem had been resolved. Are they just that backed up? Latent Y2K error? Phishing attempt? The truth is much more banal, and potentially, more frightening. See if you can figure out the solution before continuing on to the answer…
Here is an account of the horror I went through with Overstock.com. I post this in hopes of helping others avoid their company, and their atrocious customer service. I apologize for the length/grammar, but I’m kind of writing this in a hurry.
Reader Alex says, “That’s a pretty hefty discount!”
What the hell, Wisconsin?! The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that for the second time in just over a year, the state of Wisconsin has printed mailing labels that display the social security numbers of the recipient.
David Lereah was the chief economist for that National Association of Realtors before he left to become an Executive Vice President of Move, INC. During his tenure as chief economist, he published several books. One of them, released in 2005, was titled Are You Missing The Real Estate Boom? Why Home Values And Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through The End Of The Decade—And How To Profit From Them. The cover depicted a nice enough looking family staring up at tiny little house that was hovering in the sky above their heads, out of reach, but still tantalizingly close. If only, if only they’d just read Mr. Lereah’s book!
I took this photo at Fry’s Electronics last night in Anaheim, California- And here I was thinking Best Buy was the only company to price their open box items at a premium. This Sony Ericsson data cable costs $29.90 unopened at Fry’s Electronics. If you’d like the ‘pre-used’ variety, it’ll cost you $17.59 MORE.
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