Northwest Airlines

I received a mailer for discount tickets if I booked travel between 2/27/08 and 5/28/08. I expected some blackout dates. There are two - I mean in the entire 3 month period there are only two days NOT blacked out.

So you can fly on May 7 and return on May 7th or you can return on May 28 or fly out and back on the 28th. Why bother? I’ll toss the next flyer into the recycle bin as soon as I get it.

Got a much better deal on Continental with straight booking

American Federation of Police and Concerned Citizens

Same kind of scam. I couldn’t find significant information on them other than:

They refuse to answer Better Business Bureau routine questions about thier operations. You have to register with them to see their Form 990.  CharityNavigator.org gives them a one out of four stars for a rating. There are other police related charities with 4-star ratings.

Also if you donate, you must contact them to opt-out of having your name sold to advertisers.

The seem to be active in supporting the death penalty, gun ownership and other conservative causes. (It doesn’t matter what I think of these issues, but doing it under the guise of charity is nothing short of deceipt).

FEATURE/WORTH Magazine list the top 100 charities and the 12 to avoid. AFPCC is in the latter group.

ARKANSAS A group known as the American Federation of Police and Concerned Citizens Inc. agreed on Oct. 17 to repay a total of $21,500 and more accurately describe its solicitation efforts. Attorney General Winston Bryant said the group, which solicited money by mail, had led consumers to believe their donations were going to aid widows and orphans of slain police officers in their local area. (http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len/96/15dec/html/nation.html)

For more info see http://weblog.ceicher.com/archives/2002/10/police_charities_fraud.html

Police Protective Fund

A friend of mine got a call from the Police Protective Fund. This is a non-profit organization that allegedy raises money to pay death benefits for police officers killed in the line of duty. This they do. They raised almost $5,000,000 and paid out $13,000 in benefits. I’ll spell that out. Raised 5 MILLION paid 13 THOUSAND.

This information is from thier form 990 at http://www.policeprotectivefund.org/ppf_990.pdf.

American Oil Companies

Benazir Bhutto is assasinated on Thursday.  Since this sets off turmoil in oil-rich Pakistan, the price of a 55-gallon barrel of oil rose $0.55. According to my calculator $0.55 / 55 gallons is an increase of 1 penny a gallon. According to the calculators used by the oil companies it’s 10 pennies a gallon. Except for the good folks at Exxon/Mobile where it calculates out to 19 pennies.

I think I need to go back to school and learn math. I also need to go back to school to learn economics. According to what I learned about the law of supply and demand, the only logical explanation is that someone pulled the plug on Saudi Arabia and all the oil ran out.

But we have not seen anything yet. A one cent increase in the price of a barrel of oil from $99.99 to $100.00 will be reflected with an immediate increase of 25 cents or more at the pump. 

Microsoft Genuine Advantage

Gee, my copy of Office 2003 suddenly doesn’t validate any more. It did for the past couple of years. I wonder why all of a sudden Microsoft wants me to repurchase it. Of course, Microsoft owes nobody any explanations, even the DOJ. So should I complain. Why bother.

Oh well, though luck me! So my next computer will be a MAC.

Direct TV

I’m watching the “Searching for Signal” picture. I called Direct TV. They told me it “must be the weather.” I wasn’t buying it. There’s a thin cloud layer. So I pressed Vicki (I always get the person’s name) for more information. Then she told me that I needed to reset my receiver. I told her that I would do it to humor her, but the likihood of all 4 receivers going out simultaneously were small.

I asked her to check my account to make sure that they have not terminated service (see my post on the New AT&T about my 6-month-long battle to get my billing straight). My account is in order.

She finally admitted that there was a probelm in “the Greensboro area” which if I know anything about sattelite communications probably includes about 1/4 of North America. I asked her if they had an estimated time in service. She said the comments said “they are working on it.”

I told her thanks. She asked if she could do anything else for me. I told her that I don’t suppose she’d don a space suit and go up there and fix the sattilite? At least with cable, they can send a guy out with a truck.

At least this time I got reasonable servce from the service center, although I did have to prod her a little to get the answer I needed and put up with the standard, “It’s not our fault, it’s somebody else’s fault, and there is something wrong on your end”) before getting the truth.

My final question was, “You’re going to get a lot of calls on this one. Is this outage posted on the web site?” She did go out and check. Nope. Not there. If I were Direct TV, I wouldn’t want my failures out there for the world to see either.

The New AT&T

The “New AT&T” used to be BellSouth. I was impressed with my service with BellSouth, however, things have changed.

Since becoming The New AT&T service has gone down and costs have gone up.

I made a big mistake signing up with a bundled package with The New AT&T and DirectTV in June. I was supposed to get Telephone, Internet and Satellite for $80 a month.

Problem 1 – Ooops we didn’t tell you that you have to rent the receivers for an additional $20 a month?

Problem 2 – To get your $35 rebate (for 6 months) simply log onto the web site and fill out the form. I spent 8 hours on the phone on this one. Getting shuttled from one hold queue to another and getting dropped twice. It seems that the surly agents at DirectTV had no idea about the promotion. The promotion simply wasn’t on the web site.

The New AT&T told me I had to talk to DirectTV. DirectTV told me I had to talk to The New AT&T. I love it when companies point fingers at one another and play “monkey in the middle” with the customer.

So the first letter to the CEO of The New AT&T was sent. I asked for a response in writing. I get a call from the regional center in Atlanta informing me that the problem will taken care of., but it might not show up until the September bill. It wasn’t.

So the second letter to the CEO of The New AT&T was sent. I asked for a response in writing. And I got anther phone call from the regional center. What ever happened to replying in kind? I write a letter, I want a letter in return. Companies hate letters. It’s a paper trail. So I do memos for the record.

In my third letter I asked for written confirmation of the alleged corrections. I asked for a response in writing from the headquarters and not a call from the reginal center since the regiional center was obviously not empowered to handle this probelm. I got another voicemail from the regional center. I gave up and did not call back to get put on hold again. “Your call is important to us …”

Problem 3 – Ooops didn’t we tell you that the “extras” like voice mail and those other services aren’t included.

Problem 4 – International calling. Oh yeah, the price went up for the package. It’s didn’t matter, instead of charging me the 9 cents a minute, they charged me full rate. So a call that should have cost a couple of dollars cost $75. My wife called and we got an adjustment. She had to make this call three months in a row. It was fixed … at least on last month’s bill.

Problem 5 – Internet. Well, you existing service isn’t the one in the package you signed up for. So instead of charging you $42 as we used to for this service it’s $85. I called on this one and got it fixed, but not until after I paid the first $85 charge.

The rebate is allegedly in effect. I got a voicemail to this effect. I still have not seen a bill that confirms this. According to the robot on my account, they say I have a $210.01 credit. This is due of course to my having to overpay them for the past 6 months.

Problem 6 – Installation. Our existing cabling was not adequate for the service so they ran all new cables: all over the outside of the house including two cables running up the front of the house, and one across the front steps. The New AT&T has refused to address this issue and insists I talk to DirectTV about it. I contacted them on Nov 28th. I talked first to Jamie who told me she couldn’t help me and gave me another number to call where I talked to Kiana. As of Dec 5th they still had not called back. So I called them again. this time I talked to Dawn who told me. “Did you sumbmit a damage report?” I asked her “What’s a damage report?” Well, it turns out there is more work I HAVE TO DO, as a customer before they can consider my claim. I’ll keep you posted on this one.

I used to spend $185 a month for internet and two telephone lines (legacy from dial-up days and a home office), and $55 for cable. Now I pay $140 for internet and one telephone line (the addition $60 a month is “fees”) and $75 for DirectTV. That’s $250 per month, a far cry from the advertized $80.

I had time to compose this blog piece during a recent The New AT&T is “region-wide problem.” I did get a recording that informed me of this and the fact that I could expect a 60-mintue wait to talk to an agent. They said that the agents didn’t know what was going on. Given my experience with the New AT&T I believe them.

E-Gold Money (Part Time Position) Transfer Agent.

I got the attached email and I just had to follow up. First thing to notice that the mail comes from Cherylsfla352@aol.com but I am directed to respond to A.Karenina.job@gmail.com. OK, so when is the last time you saw a respectable company using AOL, Hotmail, GMail or any other non-commercial email account. Heck even I have my own domain name!

The email says nothing about what a transfer agent is, what the job description is, or what the duties and responsibilites will be - a lot like those work at home ads on TV.

I eventually got a response directing me to a Russian web site to buy and sell gold. I think I’ll pass on this one.

Message Follows:

From: Alexandra Karenina [Cherylsfla352@aol.com] TO: Dan Flak Subject: Part Time Position Hello Dan Flak  We’ve found your resume at monster.com and would like to suggest you a “Transfer manager” vacancy.

I’m the Chief Manager of Department of employment We have thoroughly studied your resume and are happy to inform you that your skills completely meet our requirements for this position. Our company buy, sell, and exchange digital currencies, like E-gold and E-bullion. This is a part-time position. Your schedule will be flexible. You will need to spend on average 1-2 hours per day, Monday-Friday. This is a work-at-home position. All communication will be online. General requirements: *     Applicants must be at least 21-years-old *     Good communications skills *     Honesty, responsibility and promptness in operations;  A position within our company on a trial period for one month starting from the beginning of the work will be offered to the successful applicants. During this trial period you will be receiving training and online support while working and being paid. Employees on a one month trial period are evaluated at least one week prior to the end of their trial period. The supervisor can recommend termination, during the trial period. At the completion of the trial period, the supervisor can recommend continued employment, extension of trial period, or termination. During the trial period you will be paid $1,500 per month. You will also be keeping 8 percent commission from every payment received from our customer. With the current volume of clients on average your overall income will add up to $3,000 USD per month. After the trial period your base salary will go up to $2,250 USD per month, plus 8 percent commission. After the trial period you may ask for additional hours or proceed full-time. If you are interested in this position, and would like to know more, please e-mail me: A.Karenina.job@gmail.com We will contact you within 24-hours.

Marriot Hotels

I just came back from vacation visiting the grandchildren in Vancouver, U. S. of A (just north of the Oregon border in Washington State. Not to be confused with Vancouver, Eh? Just north of the Washington border in British Columbia.)

The stay was paid for with points earned during numerous business trips. Redeeming the points took two phone calls. I changed my reservations: no sweat. We checked out and there was an issue about the points dates not matching the stay dates. The person at the counter clicked a couple keys on the computer and said, “There shouldn’t be a problem. If anything comes up, we’ll call you. Have a good trip back.”

That’s what I like; being treated like a customer. They provider does the work, and I do nothing except reap the benefits. Too many companies nowadays isolate themselves from their customers hiding behind telephone menu systems and web sites. It’s become a self-help world and if you have a problem, it’s your responsibility to fix it.

The stay? The people were courteous. The facility was great (the wife and I liked the mini-fridge … wine, cheese and crackers before bed always goes over well). The grandkids loved the pool and my only complaint about the hot breakfast was that they have what has to be the world’s slowest toaster.

Bank of America

No, not for the reason you think. They do NOT issue credit cards to illegal immigrants. You just don’t need a Social Security number to get one. They don’t care WHY you don’t have a social security number. As the saying goes, if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question.

My beef with them is that they claim that this is a benefit to the Latino community. They are just helping the poor working class man and woman out by providing a credit card with a $99 deposit up front, $500 credit limit and 24+% interest rate. They are fairly certain their customers won’t complain.

Bank of America - friend of the working man with or without a Social Security number.