Reviews by a Loquacious Consumer

On this page I intend to rant about good and bad experiences I have had with various products and their companies. I am obviously powerless to affect change myself, but my naive hope is that I can influence other consumers (friends etc) through my writings. If successful, this would hopefully lead to increased accountability in and of itself. Feedback is always appreciated!

[2007.04.10] HORRIBLE: Continental frequent flier program (OnePass)

It's unfortunate that it comes as no surprise to anyone that frequent flier programs provide poor customer service. We've simply come to expect it. My experiences with Continental, in particular, have been only slightly better than a root canal. I have bought multiple NYC-Paris round-trip tickets in the past 12 months, in addition to a cross-country flight, and I have informed them that I intend to purchase many more intercontinental flights in the next calendar year. They have already made thousands of dollars off of me, and they could make thousands more by securing my loyalty. But do they see it that way? Obviously not. I need to jump through one unreasonable hoop after another in order to get the points I have rightfully earned. I have emailed them multiple times, sometimes without getting a response for weeks; I have been promised to be forwarded to management, and I have been told to call their customer service line where the wait is over 15 minutes; I have bitched and moaned, but all I have to show for it is a larger ulcer. I have spoken to Freddi Brooks, Lakisha Mays, and who knows how many other OnePass representatives, all to know avail. So if you've read through my rant this far then I strongly recommend that you take your business elsewhere: Continental couldn't care less. Thank God for Kayak/Sidestep/etc.

[2006.06.14] HORRIBLE: YouTube customer support

I have emailed them on multiple occasions complaining about receiving spam through their system even though I have never registered for an account with them. In response they send me their FAQ and tell me to email them back if it doesn't answer my questions. When it obviously does not, I email them again, only to receive another copy of their FAQ in my inbox.

[2006.06.14] BAD: UPS France

I'm too tired of dealing with UPS France to express my frustration, so perhaps the following table will provide good insight. It was a simple envelope that should've arrived within a day, but ended up being a nightmare. I think a complete purge of the UPS Paris office could not worsen the situation much.

[2006.04.04] HORRIBLE: Amazon.com rebate returns

Amazon.com used to have a reputation for solid customer service (which is partly why one might forgive them for their awful margins ;-), but times have changed. I requested phone rebates for three cell phones bought through Amazon around mid-December, but have yet to receive them all. After complaining once, I received my first rebate in mid-February. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you that Amazon now out-sources the handling of rebates to Continental Promotion Group (see rebatestatus.com), so one could debate whether to blame Amazon, CPG, or both for this initial delay. In any case, complaining to CPG did not work, as my emails were bounced and there were no phone numbers listed (curious that a company founded in '89 still cannot manage their email). I then complained to Amazon who promised that the matter would be taken care of. A month went by without a peep and the status of my rebate requests was unchanged at rebatestatus.com. This time my emails were not bounced by the CPG server, but they responded by saying that they needed me to call them. And so I called them, only to find out to my great frustration that CPG was not managing my rebate requests any longer. Apparently whenever you complain to Amazon about the delay in a rebate request, they yank the responsibility away from CPG without informing you...

Long story short: it is now April, I have complained multiple times, but I have received only one more rebate (not two, for some bizarre and unknown reason). Over three months have passed since my initial request. On two occasions I have called Amazon to inquire about the reason for the delay and been told that I need to call back later because they are undergoing system maintenance. It's inexplicable how a company that spends so much money on their computing infrastructure (see aforementioned terrible margins) can have such bad uptime. In conclusion: Amazon customer service sucks.

P.S. In case you were wondering, the "unlisted" Amazon.com phone number is 1-800-201-7575.

[2005.12.21] GOOD: VAIOSoft Recovery Manager

Most people who own a digital camera have or will experience the trauma of accidentally deleting photos. The first time one might think that all is lost, but after asking some geeky friends one realize that many flash drives utilize a log file system and that recovery should be trivial in most cases given the right tool. It turns out that there are oodles of freeware/shareware tools on the web that attempt to address this exact problem. You quickly learn, however, that most of these programs are garbage. And since I have gone through quite a long list of them, I thought I would save you the hassle. Below are programs that didn't work for one reason or another:

In the end I did find the program I was looking for: VAIOSoft Recovery Manager v1. My comment I jotted down after trying this program was "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH," which I think pretty much covers it. It is not perfect, but it works, is free, and is reasonably efficient. At this point, it's all you need!

[2005.06.22] BAD: eBay feedback forms

Poorly designed feedback forms appear to be a growing trend, but eBay's is the worst one I've come across thus far. Upon trying to contact the company, you are faced with a sub-tree of finite topics that you may wish to address. The growing popularity of this tree-based approach is understandable, as it allows the company to minimize the number of middlemen who must parse your query before it is delivered to someone able to reply. Unfortunately, after traversing the higher levels of this tree at eBay (and lack of organization here is an unnecessary hassle) you often find yourself stuck because eBay does not necessarily have a "catch-all" leaf node that you can select if none of their listed options captures the topic of your query.

Moreover, if you are lucky enough to find a listed topic that adequately corresponds to your question, eBay often requires you to list the item number(s) that your query pertains to in order to proceed. What if the user does not have the item number - is her question then unimportant? eBay truly wants to prohibit me from reporting fraudulent behavior for an item whose item number I cannot retrieve? If you're lucky enough to have the item number, eBay does not allow you to add additional text explaining your issue/complaint, which must mean that eBay has psychics that can - from possibly inaccurate topics and an item number - discern exactly what I would have set if they had offered me that luxury.

eBay also has character limits on one-sentence summaries of your query - they would apparently rather have an 80 character sentence than an accurate sentence. PayPal also claims to be unable to confirm "Authorized Shipping Addresses" from credit cards because they have a hard limit that each credit card can only confirm one address (the logic of this rule eludes me). These are only a few of the many aspects of eBay/PayPal that have annoyed me lately. I appreciate that there are legitimate challenges in designing feedback forms, but a company of eBay's stature ought to be able to do much better that this.

[2005.06.21] GOOD: American Express customer service

[2005.06.21] HORRIBLE: WFNNB (Eddie Bauer Credit Card)

WFNNB is the private-label credit card banking subsidiary of Alliance Data Systems. WFNNB stands for World Financial Network National Bank. The name alone should be enough to arouse suspicion. What does it mean - how can it be 'world' and 'national' at the same time? Supporting the contention that this is a sketchy front company is the fact that there are no websites for WFNNB itself that I am aware of - you cannot even contact the company.

I shall not detail all my bad experiences with this company, partly because I have attempted to repress the memories. Some of the highlights include: inability to pay the bill with my Citibank checking account, terrible automated phone system (incorrect information, insufficient time to respond to questions, restarts from beginning when you type in correct information that it does not recognize, no direct option to talk to a representative), broken promises by customer service representative ("sure, we'll waive your finance charge"), slow or unresponsive to feedback or questions, and a slew of other points that I'm neglecting.

My experiences with ADS are the worst of any company. I am rarely vengeful, but I think it would be better for all involved if they went bankrupt ASAP. The last time I checked their system, they still had not waived my $5 finance charge - I have tried to contact them numerous times about this but to no avail. I am now unable to log onto their system, and thus left praying this does not destroy my credit history.

UPDATE 2005.05.22: Heather Ward, a WFNNB Consumer Relations Specialist, contacted me to inform me that my balance is indeed $0. The nightmare is therefore over - thank you Heather!

[2005.06.20] BAD: renewing T-Mobile cell phone contract

As my cell phone plan recently expired, I was looking to see what deal I could receive for binding myself to a cellular carrier for a year. I was also seeking to upgrade my phone (mainly because I like tech-gadgets). I have been a T-Mobile customer for nearly two years, holding two plans concurrently for the past year. I have had mainly good experiences with their customer service department, and I find that their $/minute ratio is the best. As I have been a long, loyal, and profitable customer for T-Mobile (never having defaulted or incurred late fees) I figured they would be eager to extend with me and offer me a good deal on both phone and plan. In addition, I was planning on renewing both plans at the same time, which in my mind should make T-Mobile even more inclined to reward me for my continued business.

It turns out, however, that the cellular carrier industry does not abide by these reasonably well-established business practices where you are rewarded for loyalty - in fact, the status quo is quite the contrary. That is, new and unproven buyers are given substantially better deals on phones than supposedly valuable existing customers. If I had opted for a Cingular service plan through Amazon, I could've received Motorola's new RAZR V3 (a phone I became increasingly enamored with) for *free*, but T-Mobile wanted to charge me over $150 for the much older V330. T-Mobile itself offered phones at a much steeper discount to new customers than returning ones (e.g. the V188 is listed as FREE on their website, but they charged me close to $50 for it).

Unfortunately (for the consumer) switching carriers is not as trivial as it ought to be yet (supposedly it is not even supported in all counties). Otherwise this aspect of the industry's practice would inspire customers to swap providers at the conclusion of every contract, which seems to be a bad business practice. And I would have been a Cingular customer at this point with a fancy new phone and the same number that I've always had.

My frustration with the situation was exasperated by several factors. First, I received numerous different offers from various salespeople - some even said that the offer I "claimed" to have received from others could not be verified (or legitimate) and would hence not be honored. Second, one saleswoman made claims about the retail price of various phones that exceeded even what T-Mobile's website stated (e.g. "we'll give you a special deal of $30 for phone X which retails for $60" when the website states that it retails for $50).

There were also contradictory claims made as to the reason for the price differential between phones for new and returning phones. One salesman claimed that T-Mobile bought the phones at full retail. This is a preposterous claim given the volume of phones that T-Mobile must purchase (i.e. they would get them at a steep discount). Another salesman claimed that new customers *actually* buy the phones directly from the cellphone manufacturer. The manufacturer provides the steep discounts in order to gain popularity among the customer base, while T-Mobile itself buys phones for returning customers at a loss. As far as I know, this could be true, but I doubt that Motorola is giving away V188s to customers for free and I still suspect T-Mobile gets their V188 for cheaper than retail.

Clearly T-Mobile is not the only carrier who has this frustrating and illogical business practice. Oddly enough one seller claimed that T-Mobile, despite appearances, treated returning customers better than the other carriers (a claim I was unfortunately unable to verify). The practice cannot last, however, as customers will become increasingly adamant in their demands that they must be able to easily take their phone numbers with them to a new provider. At that point I look forward to getting a brand new phone, but until then I have to settle for my boring old Samsung or trying my hand at ebay in hopes of landing a RAZR. *sigh*

UPDATE 2005.05.22: A T-Mobile Customer Care Specialist by the name of An'Tonio informed me they are unable to assist me via email and that I must contact heir Media Relations Team. Funny how I must jump through additional hoops on account of their flaws.