Is there a large conglomerate in your life that is making you miserable? Would you like to warn others about bad companies or offers that you want to tell the world to stay away from?

Is there any way I can end a sentence without using a preposition?

Tell everyone about Bad Company Practices!

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Answers

I cannot go into detail because I will begin to scream, but I've got a few:

1. AT&T, oh yes. The last straw for me was when I found out they were charging me a $5.00 fee for not using my long distance service often enough, even though it was my computer line and I had asked to have NO long distance service on it -- I just automatically got defaulted to AT&T, I guess. It took me forever to get them to stop charging me. I finally told my phone company they could disconnect me or sue me, but I wasn't paying that damn bill. It went away.
   
   
2. Ancestry.com -- this is a recent one, but it's a big pet peeve: "We'll accept your credit card and registration information via the web, but oh, no, we couldn't possibly let you cancel online, because that would be a security risk." AOL pioneered that particular brand of bullshit. What it means is, "We know you'll never actually get through on our 1-800 number, so we can just keep charging you and charging you ..." And nope, I couldn't get through; got a machine. Going to cancel this one via the credit card company, I guess.
   
   
3. Wells Fargo -- it took me six months to get them to close my account. I wrote them every single month. After four months, the letters were starting out, "What part of 'close my fucking account' do you not understand?" The best part was when all the money in the account was gone due to their monthly fees, and they sent me a letter threatening to close my account if I didn't fix the deficit. Bastards. My last letter was cc'd to the Attorney General, and my account was miraculously closed the next week.
   
   
4. No one really wants me to talk about the garbage company again, so I won't. But trust me, it was ugly. Months of no garbage can and double billing and being called Mrs. Boyfriend.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

from civil service on up and on down, the wannabe controllers will fuck it up if they can'

my big gripe now is that it is almost impossible to get a live body on the phone - - - - menus a mile long - - - with still no human there. swithcing from department to department. and when you finally think you are getting through - - - "hello, i am away from my desk (position - whatever) right now, please leave me a message and i will get right back to you - - - - - yeah, in a pig's patootie.

i am still wondering if the biggie's aim to reduce the number of employee's (added thereto their benefits and fairness requirements) has been accomplished ? looks to me that it probably costs these "soulless

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

to finish the previous, after hitting the wrong key.

where was i ? o, yeah, i feel that this robotic communication system is failing both sides. lack of proper and appropriate input to the elite, and sorely frayed temper of the public.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Farmer's Insurance. I was all set to send you a cheery note like, "But, when you're 25, your car insurance goes down! Isn't that great?" And then I remembered: Back when I turned 25, I was all psyched because my car insurance was gonna go down. And after a few months of that not happening, I called the insurance agent to find out what was what. And he was all, "Oh, well, yeah, you're at a lower rate because you're over 25, but we just raised all our rates, so you're at about the same place." Jackasses.

MCI. Pamie, I'm sure by now you're considering switching long- distance companies. Don't go to MCI. I mean it. Once upon a time my boyfriend (now husband) switched to MCI. And they called him, like, every other night for *months* to offering him credit cards, calling plans and to pester him for names of his friends & family so they could call those people to suck them into their little pyramid schemes. And so on.

Until finally, after one of these calls, he said, "and if you call me again, I'm going back to AT&T." And the next night they called him again with some other offer. So he switched back to AT&T.

And the next week, MCI called him *again* to find out why he switched away. So he said, "Because you kept calling me!"

"Oh. So, um... I guess this call isn't going to convince you to come back."

(Note: after he moved in with me we kept my account with Sprint because Sprint never bugged me with stupid telemarketing stuff. I've used them for fifteen years and never had a problem with them, so if you do decide to switch companies, that's who I'd recommend. Yes, I know MCI owns Sprint now. I haven't noticed any changes yet.)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Compass Bank. My bosses applied for and were approved for a Line of Credit. Thereafter, twice a week for six weeks, some guy from Compass Bank called one of my bosses (who is also my husband), and excitedly told him "Congratulations! We've approved you for a Computer Equipment Line of Credit!" He initially responded with "That's nice. We didn't apply for it." By call four or five, he was snarling "LIKE I TOLD YOU LAST TIME, we're NOT interested!" They finally stopped calling after he called their customer service number and gave them Hell.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Seafirst Bank. Oh wait, I mean Bank of America, since Seafirst just sold out to these rat bastards. I just wrote a whole frigging journal entry about this today. I'm still pissed.

So, Seafirst, I mean Bank of America, has this policy where when you deposit your check into an ATM, only the first $100 is immediately available. For the rest, you have to wait for the check to clear.

That sounds sort of reasonable, except that it routinely takes FOUR FREAKING BUSINESS DAYS for the damn check to clear! What the hell is wrong with these people? I have a theory that they're cashing the check, holding the money for four days to get the interest from it, and then depositing into my account.

On three separate occasions, I've had my debit card rejected at various stores because I assumed my paycheck was available to me and it wasn't, because Seafirst took four days to clear the check. I am so very pissed off about this.

Oh, and if I decide to bypass the ATM and deposit it with a real live teller? They charge me $2.50. I'm not allowed to use the teller unless it's for a transaction that cannot be completed with an ATM. I hate them. So very. Very. Much.

Also, you have to enclose a checking deposit slip when you make a deposit, so if you leave your checkbook at home (I never carry my checkbook with me, that's what my debit card is for) and you need to deposit your paycheck after the bank closes, you're SCREWED. At my old bank, not only could you just write your account number on the deposit envelope without a stupid deposit slip, but the money you deposited was instantly available to you.

Why does Seafirst, I mean Bank of America, not do this? I don't know, because they suck? A lot.

OK, I'm going to stop ranting now.

Argh.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

I bought a computer from Circuit City, and got an extended 4 year contract on it. (I KNOW, I know...) I have the computer 2 years, and my modem decides it just doesn't want to dial out... I changed nothing, I did nothing. It decides it doesn't want to have a dial-tone.

So now I'm thinking "Oooh, lucky me!!! I have a contract on my POS, they'll come fix it, it'll be easy as pie!"

I call up the Circuit City I bought it from and explain the problem.... "We, um, don't have record of you having this particular contract" So, I fax them MY copy. Three days goes by, they issue me a NEW contract, because they are dumb and stupid and the computers went down and they could never ever find the original copy. Whatever, I am now all set... they give me a new number to call to get tech support.

I call the new number, wait on hold for two hours... tech support comes on. "Hi my name is _________, how may I help you" I explain the problem... They say, Okee, and have me run my phone line through the computer, so that they can make sure NO OTHER devices are affecting my modem... She gets my modem to make that annoying static-y noise, and says "Well, dumb bitch, your modem is obviously having a software conflict, re-install your dial-up network" I do that (I know it's not the problem, but welll, anyway...) Guess what? Still doesn't work.

I get tech support guy number two.. He decides, he has to get 'permission' for me to re-format my hard drive. As soon as he gets permission, he's all: I'm off shift now, good luck with your sorry ass. I know NOTHING about computers.... so, I take a deep breath and reformat my hard drive from system disks. I reformat the hard drive.. and guess what? THE MODEM STILL DOES NOT WORK

I call back for the 500th time in three days. They FINALLY agree to send someone out to fix my modem (Let me point out Circuit City's tech support is contracted out to someone in NC and I live in the northeast), but it's going to take 10 days. I've spoken to countless supervisors, and all.

So, a month from when this whole thing started, Friendly Tech Guy comes out to my house, reinstalls a new modem in 10 seconds flat.. while I tell him they reformatted my hard drive, and he says: They never had to do that, you got screwed. Gee, tell me something I don't know.

So, yeah, I will never buy another appliance from that damn store again.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

A few months ago I was ready to blow up a local Sprint PCS outlet. Some reps had been out to my company explaining special offers, etc. My husband and I were already with Sprint, but I needed a new phone. They had a deal where I could turn my old phone in for a $50 credit. The rep suggested I do it at one of the outlet stores so I could get the new phone at the same time.

So I went by the closest store. It closes at 6pm, which was before I was even off work. My husband and I went by one weekend. The woman sitting by the door asked if I was buying a new phone or upgrading. I told her it was the latter. She then said they didn't have the phone I wanted in stock, and couldn't tell me when they would have it. "Check back after Tuesday, when we get our shipment."

I called the next week and the next, and they still didn't have it. But something about the second call made me suspicious. When I called and asked about the phone, the woman asked if I was a current customer. I'd said yes, but what would that have to do with the phone being in stock? I contacted my husband and he called back saying he was a new customer. Lo and behold! They had the phone! So I called back, asked for the rep my husband had spoken to, and said I was a new customer. The guy kept trying to get me to set up the account over the phone. Finally I told him I had an account, but wanted that phone, they had it in stock, so could I come get it?

No.

I was livid. I asked for a manager. After going around in circles for a while, he finally told me that that particular phone was considered a promo item and could only be sold to new customers. WTF? I knew I could go to Best Buy and get the phone there, but I had to turn my old phone into a Sprint PCS store to get the credit. So how was I supposed to do that if the store wouldn't sell me the new phone?

He finally said that if I got the phone at another store, he'd go ahead and accept my old phone for the rebate. I got his name and asked him to email my work address for confirmation. This was at 3:30. I heard him typing and he said he sent the mail. I then asked him why his salespeople flat-out lied to me. He made some lame comments that they shouldn't have done that.

Just before 6pm I still hadn't received the email, and I knew my end was working fine. I called the store and asked for the manager. Chick told me they were all already gone. I asked for his email address and she told me they couldn't give that out. Then, as I was in the midst of leaving a message for the guy, my new mail alert popped up. It was the email I'd asked for earlier, with a time stamp of 6:04.

LIARS!!!

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Oh man, just what I needed.

Two words: Liquid Web. Over the past few months, my email has gone down periodically. I didn't worry about it too much, since they'd been reliable in most other ways.

Then, right around the holidays, I stopped being able to FTP from Adobe GoLive. LiquidWeb said it wasn't their problem, that it seemed to be working fine. GoLive kept saying that either the site was down or my proxy settings were wrong. I hadn't changed the settings in months. Adobe finally said that they'd heard the problem before, and they speculated that it was due to all the online holiday traffic... Me and my Amazon wish list. (Turns out they might have been part right...) I'd wiped my hard drive, reinstalled the program, waited until after the holidays. Still only connecting occasionally. Other sites on different servers connect. It's got to be LiquidWeb.

So, after my mail goes down for four days (my site for one), and I can't get anyone to fix the problem, I decide to cancel my service with them. They've even removed their phone number from the site so the only way I can contact them is via their "help desk" thing.

I set up with a new host (www.webaxxs.com woo! 24/7 email AND phone support... way more space for less price, and tons of other features too), and inform Liquidweb that i want my account cancelled at the end of the month. The END of the month, mind.. to make sure there's time for the domain transfer to go through. They cancel me immediately, wiping out my site and my mail for four days. My mail'd been stored on their server, so I lost all my saved mail too.

Apparently they decided to screw me over just because they were tired of hearing me bitch at them. Half the time I knew what was wrong when they didn't.

Bastards.

DON'T HOST WITH LIQUIDWEB, WHATEVER YOU DO.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Oh, I forgot to add that when I went to Best Buy and told the guy working the phone counter about what had happened, he was boggled. Those phones weren't considered promo items for Best Buy, and they had a ton in stock, not just the 'two or three' the Sprint place would receive in a shipment.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

U.S. Robotics. They did a stupid thing with their Winmodems a few years back where the only way to upgrade their 33.6 modem to 56k was to spend $60 and have it do an automatic upgrade online. Sounds great, right? Well, it worked out okay until I took the modem out of my computer and installed it in a new computer. Well, the upgrade disappears and you have to go through the whole thing again, calling them and asking them to issue you a new online password and making you prove that you spent the $60 in the first place

I've never had more problems with a PC device than I did trying to get that Winmodem to work on a variety of different computers. At one point, they had to send me a whole new modem. This is after hours of waiting on hold for tech support, mind you. I ended up spending about $40 on long distance trying to get these problems fixed...

Moral: don't buy an "upgradable" winmodem. Some people bitch about RoadRunner, but at least they sent someone over and didn't leave until the thing was working.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Pamie -- re your telephone problem -- I suggest that you report AT&T to your state public utilities commission (or whatever governmental body controls the telephone in Texas), as well as the agency that deals with consumer complaints. And cc your letter to someone at AT&T. My mother had a similar problem as you with Sprint, by the way, and they said that it was all due to the telemarketers. Well, if they market their service that way, I think they should be held to it. demand that the service charge gets waived. slip in a reference to "your lawyer" (or lawyer friend) demand to talk to more higher ups.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Just thought I'd add AT&T are also shitheads when it comes to providing cable modem access via @Home, at least in my area. Well, @Home in general sucks, if only it weren't the only way I could get a reasonably fast net connection from my house. The phone lines in this part of Olympia are too weak to handle anything faster than 28.8k. Evil.

Anyway, we were majorly fucked for awhile when we first had the cable installed. They cancelled our account and made an appointment to have techies come out to the house and fix it all in one phone call. For a week, I had this thing flashing amber lights (the Universal Sign of Trouble). Eventually, my mom held the most competent techie we'd met hostage in our kitchen until they fixed the sucker. Grrrr. I'm not hosting my website and not giving out my @home address, either, because they have a tendency to go down. All. The. Friggin'. Time.

It's just a four-R 'grrrr.'

When it works, though... ahhhh. Dialpad on a good cable connection is beautiful. Downloading mp3s is beautiful. Web browsing can often be beautiful.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

My story is the reason I will never, ever allow anyone to automatically debit my bank account again.

I signed up for automatic debit with my local utility company (that's Pacific Gas & Electric, for enquiring California residents). When I got my bank statement the next month, I noticed that they had charged me twice: once for my bill (about $40) and again for no apparent reason (about $200). I called and said "you charged me twice." They said, "That's not possible. Someone at your bank typed in the wrong number." The bank said, "Uh uh. They sent a list of account numbers electronically and we never touch it."

After many, many calls and complaints it turned out PG&E had started debiting the bills for a local business on my account. It was their fault, of course. But even after they figured that out, THEY WOULDN'T STOP CHARGING ME. "It takes time." For three months I scrounged for grocery money while they charged $200 a month on my bank account for someone else's bill. "We'll stop those payments any day now." Then they wouldn't credit my bank account; I had to go to a regional customer service center and get my refund in cash (in a very bad neighborhood). Less the service charge.

For this one, I called the California Public Utilities Commission and filed a formal complaint. I also talked to a friend who worked for the company, who called the VP of customer service on my behalf. The VP swore that at least one person would be fired (for telling me that if I filed a formal complaint with the CPUC that "we'll put a mark on your file and you'll never get any service from us again.") Then I cancelled my automatic debits with the water company and the phone company.

Now when people try to sign me up for automatic debit, I laugh like a maniac and then try to punch them.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Long distance plug: they all suck. I've had shitty service from AT&T, MCI, and Sprint.

Someone turned me on to Working Assets, and I will never go back. I figured it was some hippy feel-good service that was going to cost more and allegedly give money back to the community, but it's actually cheaper than AT&T or MCI, at least for me. And they never bother me, except with the occasional donation request for some cause or another in my phone bill.

I don't know if anyone else has had a different experience, but I'm pretty happy with Working Assets.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Uh, there probably aren't enough people reading this in the UK to justify me complaining here, but I won't let that stop me.

If you are in the UK, do not EVER, under any circumstances, deal with microlanduk.com. We ordered a bare-bones system from them (everything but the processor, hard drive and other extras like gfx card, sound card, etc, which we already had) so that my boyfriend could have one machine devoted solely to getting his MAME roms to run at 60fps. But I digress. We tried to place our order over the phone, as IE5 wasn't giving any indication that their e-commerce site was running on a secure server. First, they didn't answer the phone. Then I placed two messages on their voicemail, which went unanswered. In hindsight, we should have said "fuck 'em," but it was a really decent price. So finally I faxed them, we ordered the system and hoped for the best.

I'll leave out all of the techinical details, but the motherboard was obviously fucked. My boyfriend has a CS degree and has built countless machines from scratch, and when he was tearing his hair out over the fact that it wasn't working, his mates came over and confirmed that the motherboard was faulty. So I spent a week trying to get their tech support people to answer the phone (never happened), sending faxes to the head office (which went unanswered), and emailing customer service. A customer service guy emailed me back, saying that tech support had been trying to phone us for the past 2 days, and that there was no answer. Which was basically a crock of shit, as I'd spent the past 2 days moaning about how I couldn't leave the house in case the fuckers called. They never did. So, blah, finally I convinced Ian to return the whole thing to them, as it was causing a lot of stress in our household. He did so (after marking the motherboard to ensure that they didn't switch it), with a cheque for #7.50 ('to be returned if the equipment is faulty'). They promptly sent it back, saying that it had booted the first time. No engineer's notes, in the blank provided for engineer's notes, to tell us what the fuck was up, no nothing. Ian puts it all back together, and the thing is STILL fucked. They don't give refunds for good which aren't faulty, so we were out #7.50 + #15 courier charges. Yay.

Ian, being the wimp British consumer that I'm ashamed to say he is, ended up taking the system to a computer company in town, reasoning that if things went wrong, at least they were close enough for us to go bitching to in person. After testing it, they concluded that the motherboard WAS faulty, and we bought a new one (at no small cost). We put the new motherboard in, and it works like a dream.

All in all, we would have been a lot better off to go to one of those horrible, over-expensive chain stores and buy an entire system from them; not to mention the fact that due to this, I have suffered from increased blood pressure and urges to kill people. Ian is Mr Laid- back, so only really got pissed off when he was trying to make the thing work. Again, due to being British, he's used to bad service. Being American, I'm used to complaining about bad service.

And I'm not even going to get started on our telephone company, but I'll say this: after 4 months of not receiving a bill (but having #100 -- roughly $165 -- a month direct debited from our account), I'm not very happy about the prospect of sitting on their 50p/minute helpline in order to get something done about it. I'd be much more successful travelling 75 miles to their head office, where I plan to cause a shitstorm -- in person -- the next time I'm in London.

Holy shit, I need a Valium.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Microsoft Network. MSN were my very first ISP, and trust me, there are no swear words too inappropriate or harsh to describe them or the quality of the service provided.

http://www.geocities.com/jgwr

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

Vote with your checkbook, Pamie. Why switch to AT&T if they're screwing you? Why not call SWB (or whoever you had before) and beg to come back? Even if it costs you more, isn't it better to pay a company that doesn't jerk you around?

As for telemarketers, here's a script you can use to shut them up. If they don't answer your questions correctly, you can sue them for upwards of $500. And (usually) they know it.

http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/script.html

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Up here there's the BBB -- Better Business Bureau. It's where you complain to after using every four-letter-friend-getter you can come up with towards every scripted message-taker that won't forward you to a person in power. But my all time favorite avenger is "Goldhawk Strikes Back". It's a newshour special that chases down the corner store guy that scammed Mrs Dora Winkley, 85, out of several thousand dollars by insisting that there was a stock-replacement fee for each item she removed from the shop shelves. Or something.

And, CIBC (and most other Canadian Banks) -- you can all go to hell. I'm not paying freaking $25 to switch over an account that was supposed to be changed when I turned adult and wasn't. YOUR FAULT. I don't care if it is $25 Cdn. (like 14 cents US).

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

I've never been with AT&T and I'll never sign up with them after their fucking telemarketers kept calling me. First of all, when I was living with my ex, I noticed we had been switched from Sprint to AT&T. I asked the ex about it, who said that he hadn't done it. So I called customer service and told the rep that we were switched without our consent and I wanted to be switched back immediately. After saying that someone must have authorized the switch (bullshit), we were switched back to Sprint within a couple of days. (I think they dredged up my ex's name from when he was with AT&T years before.)

Another time, when I was with Working Assets (a good company that I'm not with only because I don't make enough long distance phone calls to actually have a long distance company), I got a call from a very pushy AT&T telemarketer. After saying several times, rather nicely, that I was very happy with my current service, the fucker kept after me (what do you like about it, see how much better we'd be, etc.) I told him to shut up, that even if I had ever been interested in going to AT&T I sure as hell wasn't going to now, and that if I ever heard from their company again I would sue them for harassment. Silence on the other end, then a mumbled sorry. You know, I haven't heard from them again.

By the way, if you're sick of telemarketers calling you (especially if it's the same company over and over), just tell them to remove your name from their call list. If they call again, tell them again and threaten to sue. By law (California and maybe even federal, though I'm sure Beth will correct me if I'm wrong) the company has to remove your name from their call list or they will open themselves up for legal action. Anyway, just the threat of legal action will usually do the trick. It's always worked for me.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Pamie, this is your lungs. I know we have been through some rough times. Just a few weeks a go we were flooded with a huge amount of flegm and dealing with that nasty inhaler you got.

But were done now. We don't have anything to do and frankly the lung to my left is getting on my nerves. So you might want to start smoking agian becuase were getting bored with this whole "clean air" thing you got going. Or invite that Mical guy over....his cigarettes always taste funny.

At any rate you might want to just walk by an ashtry or a fire or anything. At this point I could even go for some water down the wrong pipe. Anything....were are so bored.

-lung

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Never mind phone companies - let's talk about the real leeches, LANDLORDS.

In 1996 I moved from Canada to America, which is jarring enough. I ended up living in a fairly crappy part of Boston, right by the VA hospital. The property management company I paid rent to had a nice clean office a long way to the north, in yuppie Back Bay near the Common. At the time, I thought the rent was outrageous. Now I know it's just Boston.

I lived in a row house; about ten of these, with maybe six apartments in each, relied for their laundry services on a single washer and dryer in an incredibly filthy and dungeonesque basement, a few feet away from some Dickensian heating systems, all rusted cast iron and huge boilers.

Then in the dryer broke, making the washer less than useful. Naturally I (and probably about sixty other people) called them up to have it repaired. Weeks and then months went by, punctuated by increasingly desperate and enraged phone calls (it was a long way up to the nearest laundromat), which were met with the usual excuses: the maintenance company was busy, the maintenance company couldn't get parts, the maintenance company wasn't answering phone calls, the maintenance company had been eaten by a shark. Spring turned to summer. Finally it was fixed, about three months after that fateful initial phone call. About a month later the washer broke and the cycle began anew.

I've moved twice since then. Now I live directly above my landlord, who is a human being rather than a management company, and if he's more than a little lackadaisical about maintenance, at least I know where he lives. When the plumbing breaks, it's _his_ problem as well as mine, since he's as much in danger of being flooded as I am.

I still pay a lot in rent, though. Think about it - how much time does your landlord spend maintaining your place? How much time do you have to work to make the rent? It's not all roses being a landlord, but it's sure a better deal than being a worker.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

AT&T will screw you in a heartbeat, but I love their service because I take advantage of every opportunitie they offer.

When I moved to NC from CA(huge, huge phone bill), my stepdad (AT&T employee) told me that AT&T was offering free state to state weekend calling. He faxed me the employee newsletter that showed the offer. So I called up customer service in Raleigh and told the guy that I wanted to be set up on the free weekend calling plan. He laughed at me and took on this "you are really stupid" tone with me and told me that AT&T was not offering a plan like this and that I must be confused. I told him that I was quite certain that they did. He was very rude to me so I asked to speak with a supervisor(after getting his name of course). When I spoke to the supervisor she had no idea what I was talking about. I asked to speak with her supervisor who had no idea what I was talking about. And there I was holding the employee newsletter. I told them it was kind of sad that a customer would be more on top of new calling plans than top level employees.

Whatever. Long story short. It turns out that they were offering this plan but in a no advertising kind of way. They were keeping it on the down low. They only implemented the plan to rival Sprint.

I call my entire family all weekend long for $25 dollars a month.

I am talking hours and hours on the phone from NC to CA. And they can't charge me more than $25 dollars a month.

My mom told me about this 20/20 or 60 minutes that caught AT&T full on lying to their customers. They are shady shady characters.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Gaming companies.

Rather than fixing what's wrong with the systems, and putting out a companion book that has all the fixes in it, they publish a WHOLE NEW GAME SYSTEM. TSR's coming out with the 3rd edition rules this fall. New DM Guide, Player's Handbook, Monster manuals, you name it. This will make the 5th compolete set of D&D stuff I've bought.

Hero Games is coming out with a whole new set of rules for the Hero system, so that's another whole set of books. At least Hero is too poor to pay for hardback books like TSR, so their books don't cost quite as much.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Carol,

What happened to you and your ex (having LD switched without authorization) is called slamming and prohibited by the FCC. Here's a page on protecting yourself from slamming.

Hmm, just came across some other useful websites for consumers: National Fraud Information Center and the Better Business Bureau website. Yahoo has a massive listing for consumer protection.

Renters in Austin should be sure to check out the Austin Tenants' Council. I was surprised at what I learned there. I'm sure other states have similar organizations. It's just a matter of finding them. Yahoo has an extensive listing.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

i'll second the austin tentant's council- AND the free legal services at UT- a perk. as far as getting screwed... remember how my apt. complex was going to evict me for getting married to someone who was rejected from their establishment? well, i didn't pay jan. rent, and wrote a really informative letter (which i cc'd to their owners, who have 17 properties in austin), basically telling them that if i'm not released from my lease and refunded my deposit, i was going to SMEAR the apt. complex all over the city and BEYOND. funny thing- i got a statement in the mail last saturday, and should be expecting a check (deposit less cleaning/damamges). huh- big talk when they're jerking you around, but one little letter... i did send the letters certified, which i think was a good idea- i'm pretty fucking serious if i'm spending almost $3 to send a letter IN THE SAME TOWN. so, the moral is- don't get jerked around, even if LEGALLY, what the company is doing is fine- MORALS are an issue. time for lunch.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

www.icom.com

This is my hosting service. So far, in 8 months of hosting, they have lost approximately 2 months worth of mail. What is worse, is, they know their servers were losing mail, but didn't bother to contact me to tell me about it, so I could give out a different email address.

When I asked for a rebate for this service, as I ended up paying for them to not send me my mail, they denied it, because they don't guarantee their pop3 accounts.

sigh.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Bank United Securities

I had a money market account with them. I also have a checking account with Bank United. Every month I was calling the Securities company to have them send me a check which I deposited in my checking account. I found out I could have the money set up to do an automatic transfer every month. Cool. I fill out the paper work. First month comes around and checks are bouncing all over the place. WTF? Turns out the stupid Securities debited my checking account instead of giving me money. The bank starts paying my bouncing checks and charging me $25 each time.

So I call and yell. Days and days later Security company gives me back the money they stole (no interest), but still owes me the original amount. Bank says they can't waive the bouncing fees because they "aren't the same company" as the Security side. HELLO? You're called Bank United!

Now it's the second month, and time for my second automatic transfer. Guess what, happens again. Now they owe me 2 deposits, and one refund of more stolen money. They send me part of the money, but they screwed up and did an EFT instead of an ACH, and my bank charges me $5 for it.

Long story short because you've all been there. I called and railed and said close the account and send me a check. They did. I then proceeded to spend it unwisely and now I'm broke.

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

Hey Kristin, I saw your post about your email problems and I tried to email you the message below. It bounced back! ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
kristin@sperare.com

Hey, I saw your post on Pamie's forum about www.icom.com's crappy service. If you haven't already switched, you might want to check out OLM.net. They've hosted my domain since April. I've rarely noticed any problems, and the maybe 3 times I have, email sent to them was promptly answered (under 24 hrs, even the Friday night before a holiday weekend). Email support is 24/7 and they have phone support too. They have a wide range of packages. I get 300 megs of space, telnet/ftp/shell access, pop3 accounts (with no mail lost yet), etc. etc.

Good luck!

-- Anonymous, January 19, 2000

I'm a little nervous to say this in here, but I'm an AT&T employee. I work for AT&T Wireless, though, which is practically an independent entity. We do have connections to big AT&T, though, and I sent them the URL for your angry rant (along with a paragraph on how disappointed I was, as an employee, blah blah blah). It's been forwarded to both the Local service and Customer service teams... I'll keep you posted on what I hear back. I expect a response, because I know of a few others who have gotten responses this way.

I don't have AT&T for my long distance, though - I'm a happy Working Assets customer, too, and have been for maybe 5 years. (As an aside, if you like them, I suggest checking out their credit card service. They give 10 cents to charity for every transaction.)

Here's a funny telemarketer story: MCI called my dad to entice him into their international calling plan because he makes a lot of international calls. My dad was willing to see if they had a good deal, so he asked, "What are your rates to Asia?"

After some paper shuffling sounds and a pause, the rep asked my dad, "Where is this country, Asia?"

-- Anonymous, January 20, 2000

Thanks for the info, Pamela. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that now, since the only people I know out of my local range are my best friend and one of my sisters. I talk to them about once a month, so I really don't need a LD service. 10-10-321 works just fine.

-- Anonymous, January 21, 2000

Rants (and I'm sorry to burden)

Insurance companies (Grrr) Warranty service of any kind DMV (Grrr Grrr) Companies who want to advance you credit for money you dont want. (Go TF away) Traffic Court No explanation good enough to repudiate cops opinion) Delivery in a week to 10 days (yeah where next door to the company) But most of all banks, BIG banks, I mean the biggest, grabiest, octopus, life sucking bank this side of hell

B of A And I have never had an account with them!!!!!!!!

Here's the background. Back in Germany I was NCOIC(Guy in charge) of a unit consisting of mainly young new troops. I had to go the First Sargent about three times a month to explain why one of my airmen was bouncing checks. It seemed that if payday were on a Saturday, the only "BANK" the US military contracted with in Europe would not hold a check from the commissary (FOOD) until the deposit cleared even though the account was credited on Friday evening. The Credit union never had a problem with this and all transactions were posted Monday. Kid would get a slap on the hand and be real scared for the rest of his tour. This soured me on B of A. No humanity. My story I had an excellent bank. Small but not tiny. Exceptional customer service. I once ordered a leather checkbook cover and was too busy to go pick it up, teller took her lunch and dropped it off, wow loved those people. Along comes the stinking maw that is B of A and gobbles up my nice bank. I get a letter that this is going to happen. Opened a new account with a western bank and went to see my favorite tellers, commiserate and ask my account be closed. Never thought another second about it. Warp forward to 5 years later, wanted to open an account for my son at a down town merchants bank (not B of A), told me I had an outstanding hold for account fees and could not open the new account until I cleared this up. WTF????? I call the number given and am told I owe that festering, putrid institution about $120US. What?! I have never even been in one of those since I came back to the US much less open an account. Turns out that during the merger some records were (PARTIALLY) lost and they did not show I ever canceled the account. "SO" I say "You can see there was no activity on the account why am I charged, hell I even left about $14 in there so any fees of closing costs would be covered". I was informed that B of A charged a monthly fee for that type of account (My bank never did) and since there was no record of my cancellation could I show proof. "Its FIVE years" I said "Why would I keep records, that long, for accounts that I never intended to use again, for a bank that no longer exists". Reply "my problem". Long and short of it I paid the blackmail to clear my good name and prayed the UNI- bomber would switch targets. Too late now.

On the other hand Tele-marketers; No problem ever since three teenagers and lost messages I screen all my calls they just hang up AT&T; No problems for 15 years, Long distance works, Cards work, bill accurate. Go figure.

Hope this isn't too long, just pushed one of my buttons ?;-)

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2000

HELLO FedEx!!!!!!!

My company ships through FedEx a lot. I mean A. LOT. We are getting a new hub in North Carolina and our head of finance jokes that we paid for it. Anyway.....get this shit.

Last week we shipped a laptop to one of our sales managers in Arizona. We had spent a lot of time loading the laptop with everything he would need. So not only was it an expensive computer, but a lot of time was invested. So he gets the package and signs for it right? Guess what? That's right, no laptop. The box was in perfect condition. The styrofoam, the tape, nothing looked like it had been tampered with. So much so that our office manager drove herself crazy looking all over our building for it. But I know for a fact she shipped it. And FedEx is not responsible to pay anything but $100 dollars. $100 dollars. FedEx is claiming that sometime between him receiving the package and actually opening it, someone must have opened the box and replaced the styrofoam, tape and all. It was his home people.....who would still the laptop? His wife? And someone, no doubt a happy FedEx employee is loving his new Think Pad. Nice, no?

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2000