UPDATE: 6/18/07:
Thank you for your help! However – I just wanted to let you know that I did finally receive the refund check in today’s mail. While it turned out your help wasn’t necessary after all, it was a great relief just knowing that you were there and willing to look into the situation.
refunds
DISH Runs Away With Refund Spoon
By 6.14.07
Firms Hired To Cajole Websites Into Annihilating Their Own Content
By 6.13.07
We’re in a WSJ article today that touches upon our encounter with Reputation Defender, a company clients hire to go around sending turgid pleas to mean websites for posting factual information already reported in mainstream media publications:
ReputationDefender also sent a takedown request to Consumerist, a Gawker Media blog that had written about a man who was briefly jailed for harassment after repeatedly calling online travel agent Priceline.com Inc. for a refund. The letter asked the blog to remove or alter the archived post, saying it was “outdated and disturbing” to its client. Consumerist editor Ben Popken blasted the request with a profanely titled entry, calling it an attempt at censorship. “It’s not like we’re spreading libel,” he said. “They were trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
Class Action Filed Against XM Over Service Outage
By 5.31.07
Credit For Outage, But You Gotta Call ‘Em…
XM Radio Gives 87 Credit For Outage, But You Gotta Call 'Em
By 5.23.07
XM Radio subscribers seeking compensation for the recent service outage can get a credit by calling 800-967-2346. Noted the Detroit Free Press:
How Guaranteed Are Low-Fare Guarantees?
By 4.26.07
FareCompare tested out different airlines “lowest price guarantee” to see how they match up. That’s when an airline says “if you find a price lower than ours, we’ll refund the difference.” They were able to get a refund from everyone, but it took varying amounts of hassle.
Wait, Why Are We Paying Turbo Tax Again?
By 4.24.07
When a taxpayer files electronically through TurboTax, the information goes first to Intuit’s data center, where the file is batched with others and then sent to I.R.S. computers. The process is almost instantaneous, the company said — when everything goes right. “We are just the transmitter of the return,” said Julie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Intuit TurboTax unit. “In the middle there are no additional steps we are taking.”
Watch Your Mouth On Yahoo! Answers Or They'll Delete Your Email And Website
By 4.12.07
Reader Andrew has been a Yahoo! email paid subscriber for 8 years. He also has a Yahoo! Small Business account for his website and has a paid Flickr account. He also participates in Yahoo! Answers. Sadly, Andrew said something on Yahoo! Answers that Yahoo! feels violated their TOS. The result? They deleted Andrew’s entire account, including his email, Flickr, and website hosting. He was given no warning. Yahoo! says his account was “suspended.” Andrew writes:
Now, lets have a quick look at that word – suspended. If a student get suspended from school that usually means they are back within a few days or a week or so. Yahoo!’s definition of suspended means removed permanently. This included all emails I had saved over the last eight years, my pre-paid Yahoo! Small Business Account, my FLICKR account, IM account – the lot. To top it off, and here is the sweet bit, even though I OWN the domain name transformertattoo.com I cannot move it to another hosting service because the contact email address, yup, you guessed it, was my deleted Yahoo! email address. “
Andrew says this is happening to quite a few people who say something untoward on Yahoo! answers (according to Andrew they claim he said something about harming animals, which he denies, but who knows.) Even if Andrew did say something out-of-line, should that affect other services he’s paid for? Andrew claims Yahoo! will not reinstate his account or refund his money. Read his letter inside.
Florida Customers To Receive $63,000 In Refunds From Verizon
By 4.11.07
During the evaluation, staff discovered that Verizon didn’t automatically issue rebates to customers who experienced more than 24 hours of interrupted service. Human error and programming glitches were part of the problem.—MEGHANN MARCO
Consider Itemizing Your Telephone Tax Refund
By 4.4.07
I found out about the telephone tax refund available on this years tax returns via Consumerist. Would you please encourage your readers to itemize their excise tax charges instead of taking the standard refund amount?
Tax Tip: Cell Phones Qualify For Telephone Excise Tax Refund
By 3.20.07
You may be one of the nearly 160 million phone customers who can request a refund of the 3% federal excise tax paid on long-distance and bundled phone service billed after Feb. 28, 2003 and before Aug. 1, 2006. Federal long-distance excise taxes paid on cell phone, land line, fax, Internet phone service and bundled service all qualify for the refund.
For more information about the telephone excise tax refund, click here.
Cingular To Refund $18.5 Million to California Customers Who Were Charged ETFs
By 3.16.07
If you live in California and canceled Cingular (back in ’00-’02) due to trouble making or receiving calls, this might be of interest to you. From the AP:
Cingular Wireless will refund $18.5 million to thousands of former California customers who were penalized for canceling their mobile phone service because they had trouble making and receiving calls.
Comcast Sends You A $0.63 Check For No Reason
By 3.15.07
I’m not sure what to say about this check I got from Comcast, except that I almost framed it. But then I decided how much I hate Comcast, like many decent people do, and decided if I can take money from them, any amount, then I’d do it… then I’ll print a copy and frame it.
Live Interventions: Help! CheapoAir.com Overcharging Me!
By 3.2.07
A reader IM’d us about getting help with a billing dispute a friend of theirs was having on the phone with CheapoAir.com.
Sprints $3 Rule Is The Average, Not Per Call
By 2.23.07
We’re guilty of spreading disinformation; Sprint’s $3, seven-minute rule is the average customer service reps shoot for, over time. It’s not per call, as we’ve been trumpeting (out our ass, it seems) in our headlines. Kevin writes:
Yep, Sprint Really Only Lets Reps Adjust Billing Up To $3 Per Call (As An Average)
By 2.21.07
Remember how we said Sprint’s customer service sucks because they only let reps adjust bills by up to $3 per call? Well, that wasn’t no hooey-talk.
Why Sprint's Customer Service Sucks: They Only Let Reps Adjust Billing Up To $3 Per Call (As An Average)
By 2.8.07
Sprint has such shitty customer service because they don’t give customer service reps enough leeway to disburse billing adjustments, nor do they provide enough support, asserts our inside source.
Airline Travel Vouchers: Are They Worth It?
By 2.3.07
“Vouchers are a better deal for the airline than they are for passengers. The carrier gets to continue overbooking its flights — which is common industry practice — and then offering compensation that is of questionable value to passengers.
Rollerskates On A Glacier: Verizon's Ability To Fix Billing Errors
By 2.2.07
Joe checks his credit report and sees a ding from Verizon. Calls Verizon. They say, you have an outstanding balance. Which we never told you about. But we reported it to the credit bureaus. No you can’t pay it off. It’s not in our system. Our system doesn’t keep track of outstanding amounts under $50. No we won’t fix your credit report. Let me transfer you to someone who can help… For English, press one. Para espanol, marques dos…
