My wife had ordered a pair of sandals from Zappos. When they arrived, she found that they didn’t fit. She tried to order the right size, but Zappos was sold out of her size. So here’s what the company offered: she could return the sandals (for free), Zappos would refund the purchase price and they’d send her a $25 coupon toward her next purchase.
internet
Zappos Has Otherworldy Customer Service
By 5.17.07
The Most Painful Way To Cancel Your AT&T DSL, Ever
By 5.16.07
If you also suffer from this travesty of service, here’s how to get out of your contract:
Farecast Can Save You $50
By 5.16.07
Our favorite airfare-watching site Farecast is finally out of beta and its predictions/recommendations have been certified by an independent firm as being around 74.5% accurate, which is much better than our previous method of just guessing.
Vonage Is Like, "We Are Totally Working Around Those Verizon Patents, OK?"
By 5.16.07
We’re not sure if it’s hip to be on Team Vonage, but to hell with it. We are. At least, we’d like them to stay in business so they can worry about things like improving their crap customer service and not “Oh God, are we going to be able to feed Tiny Tim this Christmas?” We’re pro-capitalism like that. Anyhow, we’re pleased to announce that Vonage claims to be able to work around Verizon’s parents.
Shopping Online: More Revenue From Clothes And Shoes Than Computers
By 5.16.07
In 2006, revenue from skirts, suits and shoes reached $18.3 billion, surpassing that from PCs, printers and word-processing programs, which totaled $17.2 billion, according to a report to be released today by a major trade group.
Ebay Scam: People Still Trying To Sell "Pictures" Of Things
By 5.15.07
Seller “awesome_electronics” (feedback zero) is selling “pictures” of items. Get it. It’s just a picture.. Ha, ha, ha. From ebay:
You are Bidding on a picture of a Apple iPod Video Black 30 gb that is BRAND New In BOX. As you can see in the picture it has never been opened. I Only Ship to the continental United States. I do not ship to PO Boxs. This is an as is sale There will be no returns. Payment is due within 3 days of sale ending. Thank you for looking at my sale and Happy Bidding!
We guess this is what happens when 12 year olds think of scams to pull on the internet. Sadly, according to BoingBoing at least one person fell for it before their post drove the bidding up over $100,000 (for a picture of a HAM radio.) Hardy har har. —MEGHANN MARCO
Walmart To Sell Skype Gear
By 5.14.07
“We think there will be a lot of Wal-Mart shoppers who will not be familiar with Skype,” said Don Albert, general manager for Skype North America, a unit of eBay Inc.
Sears Tells You Your Order Is In Stock, Even If It's Not
By 5.14.07
Here’s a good way to lose customers. Tell them that their order is in stock and ready to be picked up, even though it is not. Hey, at least they came in, right? Maybe they’ll buy some gum on their way out of the store… forever.
AT&T DSL Downgrades Email, That You Pay For, To Include Ads
By 5.4.07
AT&T DSL subscribers who use their ISP email will now have the pleasure of seeing ads in their email service. That they pay for. Did we say that already?
Congressmen Who Took Money From The RIAA Send Chiding Letters To Universities
By 5.3.07
“If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee after sending a chiding letter and “survey” to 20 U.S. universities thought to have the “greatest amount of online piracy.”
Home Depot Considers Middlesex New Jersey To Be Invalid
By 5.1.07
For some reason, and we’re sure someone will figure it out but we’re not going to waste our morning, the Home Depot Tool Rental Search does not recognize Middlesex, NJ as a valid zip code. This irritated our reader enough that he wrote several letters to Home Depot, in a vain attempt to find a location in New Jersey that rented tools. Read his letters and Home Depot’s replies inside.
Vonage: Consumerist! Save Us From Verizon!
By 4.26.07
One of Vonage’s friendly PR guys IM’d us the other day to let us know that Vonage was starting a website with the intention of saving themselves from the tyranny of evil known as Verizon. (Dare we speak its name!) We’ve been following this story for what seems like 12 years at this point, so we figured we’d go ahead and link their site.
Astroglide Generously Provides The Internet With A List of 250k People Who Use Their Lube
By 4.24.07
“Obviously I would be disappointed [by the company breaking its privacy policy], but I’m not worried about that information getting out. I think I just gave them my name, address and phone number. I can see how other people would be concerned about it, though.”
Uh, yeah. According to the Department of Homeland Stupidity blog, the data breach also includes “a spreadsheet containing 4,529 records of people who ordered the company’s Silken Secret vaginal moisturizer product.” The file contains names, ages, email and home addresses, and “why they wanted to try the product”, including options like “Intimate Activity” and “Vaginal Dryness.” Nice.—MEGHANN MARCO
Cingular's Blackberry Users Can Request Credit For Service Outage
By 4.21.07
If your beloved Blackberry runs on Cingular’s network, you may be entitled to a one day service credit. For power users, the refund might be worth up to $2.50. That is not as good as a new girlfriend, but it is something.
Watch Out For Webloyalty and Reservation Rewards
By 4.20.07
I could picture my husband buying tickets online. I could imagine one of those annoying direct-marketing offers popping up. I could even picture him clicking on it. But I couldn’t see him entering a credit card to subscribe.
Why BlackBerry Got Crushed
By 4.20.07
A poorly tested software upgrade withered the BlackBerry email system Wednesday, the device’s maker said last night.
Some Of Our Favoritest AOL Posts
By 4.20.07
This new batch of AOL confessions got us all misty. Here’s a walk down memory lane.
AOL Made Reps Give Out One Piece Of Tech Support At A Time, Making Customers Call Back Again And Again, And Get Upsold Every Time
By 4.20.07
A former AOL tech support rep confesses one of the worst parts about his job. AOL had a policy called “One Call/One Resolution” which basically meant that they were only supposed to dole out ONE troubleshooting step when you called. Then they were supposed to pass you off to someone who tried to upsell you to DSL or some video computer courses. The result was that customers had to call in call in call in, just to get the most basic problem solved.
