Recently, a Consumerist tipster sent in an internal memo from Macy’s explaining that the store was “flipping” 3.5 million inactive store accounts into Citibank Mastercards. The memo reads:
“Approximately 3.5 million inactive (24-48 months) Macy’s accounts have been selected to “flip” to the Citibank Mastercard. That means the customer will be sent a Citibank Mastercard to replace their inactive Macy’s card. “
In today’s go-go economy, savvy companies know it’s important to draft official policies for a variety of circumstances and surprises that can crop up in the middle of a busy workday, clearly communicated and readily available.
Walmart’s everyday low low prices are thanks to department managers sneaking into local competing Kmarts with price guns, scanning everything, and then setting all of their prices 10 cents lower, according to a former employee and current Consumerist reader Altered Beast…
Here’s a direct port from the AT&T/Cingular internal database on how to handle complaining customers. These are the document every customer service rep in their call centers uses to deal with you when you kvetch. If you have an issue with AT&T, you can use this as a guide to see how they’re going to react to your various thrusts and parries, from simple billing and service issues to requests for cancellation and escalations to the Office of the President (gamely referred to by the acronym “OOP”)…
If you love the great porn-stealing and privacy-invading services currently offered by Geek Squad’s in-store and in-home tech support, have cheer: Best Buy is rebranding all its service departments into Geek Squads, according to an inside source. They’re testing it out in the New York metro area in preparation for a possible nation-wide rollout.
AT&T pulled the bait and switch on its own employees. One was repeatedly told that his employee discount would apply only towards iPhone calling plans, but not the iPhone itself, or its associated data plan. The employee twice verified the existence of a calling plan discount – at an AT&T store, and with AT&T customer support. He even called customer support before the 14-day return window closed and again verified that, yes, his discount applied to the calling plan. After the employee received his first bill last week, he sat down and wrote us this letter:
Best Buy is scanning Geek Squad computers for signs of porn infestation, as part of their continuing witch hunt. According to reports from four different Geek Squad employees, an edict was issued from corporate requiring precincts to connect every computer in every precinct to Agent Johnny Utah.
It’s easy to forget that despite infuriating scripts and adherence to dogmatic corporate policies, CSRs are real people. A former call center worker wrote in to describe the extraordinary pressure CSRs feel from management to keep customers from canceling their accounts.
You’d think it was so easy: call to cancel service, and it’s cancelled. And yet, it never is. Here’s why.
Money has a new column written by an anonymous financial planner (and you know how much we love that sort of sh*t), who says that if your financial planner is honest, he or she will tell you how you’re making them money.
According to an insider, these are the tools, programs, and procedures one Geek Squad precinct exploits to snarf up your porn:
Trouble In The Air [MSNBC]
“Hi, my name is Holly Forman-Petersen and I used to be a Special Agent at The Geek Squad. I am eBaying my Special Agent badge.
“I worked for Best Buy 285 several years ago (2003-2005) and was both a Blackshirt and an Agent once the Geek Squad rolled out.
Sprint announced Monday it was canceling the accounts of around 1,000 people who called customer service too much. At first blush, it might sound like a pretty jerk thing to do, have bad service and then punish people who complain, but we spoke with one of our most reliable Sprint insiders, who had a different side to the story: the terminated customers were scamming Sprint, calling in again and again, just to get free service credits.
hashand: I used to work at a computer repair place. All the stuff you’re finding isn’t limited to Best Buy. We had a 2 TB [terabyte] server of mp3s.
Two more individuals identifying themselves as former Geek Squad employees have stepped forward with allegations about the repair company’s employees unauthorized copying of personal information from customer’s hard-drives.
A former IKEA worker tells us how some tips for making your jaunt through furniture Legoland more enjoyable and efficient.
Comcast customer service sucks so much because they outsource much of it to Convergys, affectionately called the “sweat shop” of the call center industry. One disgruntled insider has these four unverified confessions about how they run their customer service hellholes:
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