A Target insider writes:“Starting next year, guests will no longer be able to return items without a receipt. This means that if you accidentally lose your receipt, or if your cashier doesn’t give you one, you’re SOL.
insiders
Leaks: How Geek Squad Investigated Its Own Porn Thieves
By 11.30.07
Best Buy launched a nation-wide internal investigation after we published a video sting op capturing one of their techs stealing porn from our computer. A fired Geek Squad supervisor tells how it all went down…Innocents fired… Liars kept jobs… Store hard drives seized… Pants shat…
The start of the internal Geek Squad investigation began this summer as all of the locations throughout the country were entered through remote connection and scanned for violations. The Geek Squad “precincts” that had bench machines containing serious violations had their hard drives removed and shipped to the corporate office. All of this was done rapidly and under the watchful eye of salary managers who had their jobs threatened if this was not executed properly. My store was lucky enough to have scored well enough on the remote scans to keep our hard drives. I knew at this point that there was serious cause for concern if Best Buy was willing to spend the kind of cash necessary to execute remote scans throughout ALL of its stores in one day.
10 Secrets Of Primary Care Physicians
By 11.29.07
The latest SmartMoney list of insider secrets and unpleasant truths is just as bleak as every other news item about health care these days, starting with the fact that a primary care doctor—”someone to coordinate your health care, help choose your specialists and be the first to diagnose just about any problem”—is getting harder to find, and fewer med students are showing any interest in the (comparatively) low-paying profession: “the number of primary-care internal medicine residency positions dropped by more than 50% in the past decade.”
Call Center Supervisors Are Sometimes Fake
By 11.21.07
We all know in our heart of hearts, but sometimes when you call customer service and ask for a supervisor the person who comes on isn’t really a supervisor. We spotted these comments over at an online call center magazine where agents admit that they routinely have other agents pose as supervisors instead of actually escalating the call…
45 Direct Phone Numbers For Comcast Departments
By 11.19.07
Here’s 45 direct-to-department phone numbers for Comcast, because sometimes reaching the right person at Comcast is so maddening you want to start swinging a hammer in the local branch office. This isn’t to say these people will magically fix your problem, but at least they can leapfrog you past the three-headed watchdog of low-level customer service reps (the heads’ names are Incompetence, Sloth, and Apathy). The escalation and retention numbers, which might be of particular interest for people with big complaints, are marked with an asterix. We tested about 1/3 of these, let us know in the comments if any disconnect….
Tmobile Introduces $18 Phone Upgrade Fee
By 11.12.07
Starting today, Tmobile will charge existing customers $18 when they buy a new phone. In an email shared with The Consumerist by an inside source, Tmobile told dealers that the new fee will help underwrite the cost of selling subsidized phones to new customers. Tmobile told dealers that acting positive when mentioning the fee would help to discourage customers from raising objections. Oddly enough, if an existing customer upgrades their phone without extending their contract, the fee will not be assessed.
Email Addresses For 19 Dell Executives
By 11.11.07
Computer on fire? Video card ruined? Don’t let Dell’s Indian CSRs tell you it’s your fault. When escalating fails and all normal channels of recourse are exhausted, send an email to Dell’s top executives. After the jump, 19 email addresses for Dell executives that you can use to launch the mighty and feared Executive Email Carpet Bomb. [More]
Comcast Mole Starts Blog
By 11.7.07
The Comcast insider who leaked the BitTorrent memo promises to tell all of Comcast’s dark secrets at Shortnamenowitsgettinglong.com.
28 Confessions Of A GameStop Shift Supervisor
By 11.6.07
Comcast Hunts BitTorrent Memo Leaker
By 11.1.07
According to an inside source, Comcast is trying to hunt down who leaked the internal BitTorrent memo to us last week. The rumor is that they’re interrogating supervisors and then customer service representatives. Memos regarding the dire consequences of providing internal information to the press are being distributed.
It's Your Responsibility To Get Properly Valued Homeowner's Insurance
By 10.27.07
Speaking of disasters, our resident claims adjuster wants to remind everyone,
….the insurance company is not at fault if someone doesn’t obtain the full value of their home from insurance. Knowing the value of owned property, and properly insuring that for the correct value is the responsibility of nobody but the insured.
LEAKS: Insider Tells Us There's Proof Comcast Contracts BitTorrent Sabotaging To Sandvine
By 10.26.07
In the reports about Comcast’s disruption of traffic between customers using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, it’s alleged that Comcast outsources the traffic meddling to a third-party company called Sandvine. Publicly, and in an internal talking points memo leaked exclusively to The Consumerist, Comcast refused to comment on having any relationship with Sandvine.
Comcast's "We Don't Throttle BitTorrent" Internal Talking Points Memo
By 10.26.07
You may get customers who are contacting us with regard to several articles which were published recently, accusing Comcast of blocking or otherwise filtering customers’ Internet traffic. An in-depth AP story suggests Comcast is hindering our customers’ ability to use BitTorrent, a peer to peer file sharing program. If a customer contacts us to inquire about this, please use the following talking points.
Washington Mutual Refunds Fees To Wildfire Victims
By 10.26.07
A Washington Mutual insiders tells us that the bank will refund overdraft fees for victims of the California wildfires, if they couldn’t get to an ATM, as well as ATM surcharges if they were forced to use non-WaMu machines. WaMu customer service confirmed the report. Victims can claim their refund by calling or visiting a branch location. A small but noble gesture, certainly better than AT&T | Dish asking customers if they remembered to pick up their receiver on their way out of the house and charging them $300 for not.
US Bank Courtesy Overdraft Protection Demystified
By 10.18.07
The insider who tipped us off about US Bank allowing customers to opt-out of courtesy overdraft protection wrote in again. He further describe how overdrafts and courtesy overdraft protection works, and why he thinks you should avoid them both and their stupid fees too…
If FiOs Man Doesn't Show Up, Make Sure You're Not Without Phone Service
By 10.16.07
Apropos of, “Verizon Harasses You For 3 Months To Switch To FiOS, Then Never Shows Up To Install It,” if you sign up for FiOS and they don’t show or they have to reschedule, don’t forget to call your current phone provider and get them to change the disconnect date. Otherwise you can find yourself without phone service because they’re still going to use the same disconnect date they have written down.
US Bank To Let You Opt-Out Of Courtesy Overdraft Protection
By 10.12.07
An insider tells us the US Bank will let customer opt-out of courtesy overdraft protection. This would mean that if you bounce a charge, you just get charged an NSF fee instead of your account going negative, incurring additional fees, and increasing the likelihood of more checks and charges bouncing. Other banks may offer this already, call to find out.
Comcast's Official Angry Customer Policy
By 10.10.07
This is an internal Comcast document entitled, “So you have an angry customer?” It’s a guide for technical support and customer service representatives for when unhappy customers call. It’s actually very good, full of plain talk and ways to think about the situation to help solve and defuse it. Apparently none of the Comcast customer service reps our readers complain about have ever read it.
