The Great Gas Panic of 2008

On October 31st, 1938, people turned on their radios and heard that Martians landed in New Jersey. They believed what they heard and paniced.

On September 12th, 2008, people turned on their radios and heard that the gasoline would run out that very day. They believed what they heard and paniced.

The highest gas price gouge I saw was a 70 cent increase by BP. The lowest was 20 cents by Wilco/Hess. On my way back from lunch today, stations were already lowering their prices.

I hope that the tens of thousands of fools who paid over premium price for regular gas learned their lesson. As it is the damage already has been done. These gullible wusses spoke in actions louder than words to the big oil companies, “Go ahead rasie gas prices to whatever level you want. WE WILL PAY ANY PRICE TO GET OUR GASOLINE FIX.” If there is any argument against more oil dependancey this is it.

The stampede of the stupid clarified my position on off-shore drilling. I used to support it only if accompanied with a tax on gasoline to be used for alternative fuel research. Now I still hold the same position, but the new rigs must now be capable of continuing operations in a Category 5 hurricane.

Airline Industry in General

American Airlines – $15 to check the first bag. I guess that’s to make up for all the revenue they lost when the FAA grounded thousands of their flights for failure to comply with safety regulations.

US Airways. Want an aisle seat? Only $10 more!

It seems that the airlines are learning how to nickle and dime us (or $5  and $10 us) from the phone company?

Waht next? Pay toilets? How about replacing the in-flight movie with end-to-end advertizing played over the loudspeakers? Emergency oxygen mask rental fee.

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. 

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.

Microsoft

It was only a matter of time.  My problem with the evil empire today has to do with its latest download.  Microsoft has been known to release upgrades that do more harm than good. Because of this I opt to download upgrade but not to install them automatically. I let a day or two go by and then I check the boards to see if anyone is having problems with it before I install it.

The download-but-don’t-install option is no longer an option. Now when you download the upgrade, you have the option to install it immediately or Microsoft will install it for you AUTOMATICALLY when you shut down the computer. You’re getting the upgrade whether you want it or not.

It’s typical Microsoft; you, the user, are too stupid to run software and they will go to all lengths to keep you from doing harm to yourself. Of course, they keep you from doing anything useful too.

It started with DOS. Delete a file? ARE YOU SURE? Of course I am! I grew up with Unix. If you wanted to cd / and then rm -r *, the computer assumed you had a good reason for doing so. I hear Vista is the same way; you can’t run a command without verifying it.

Netscape

I use Netscape in addition to IE because I don’t want all of my favorites available to every application on my machine. Also while on the road, my IE is set up for the company’s network, and Netscape is set up for hotel network browsing.

Starting with Netscape 9.0 a couple of weeks ago there is a disturbing change in the way they do updates. You are now asked, do you want to update Netscape now or when you launch it next? The option of NOT installing an update is NOT available.

Given the fiascos that sometimes happen with updates, I usually wait a day or two and probe the net to see if there is any reason why I should not apply the update. In the case of OS updates from Microsoft, instead of a day or two, I usually wait a service pack or two. . 

How American Airlines Tried to Kill My Family (Part I)

The first attempt was personal as the whole family was on board. It was a flight from Denver to Seattle that started with a high-speed abort on the runway due to an improperly secured cargo door. When we arrived at SeaTAc, there was a severe cross-wind. We made three missed approaches before diverting to Boeing Field.

Other airlines were already at Boeing field, and they sent busses  to pick up passengers and baggage and cart them to SeaTac. American Airlines chose to refuel and try it again. Most passengers bolted and boarded cabs at their own expense, especially after a uniformed crew left the aircraft

As a pilot myself, I realize that they might have been scheduled to fly the next day and needed to get into crew rest, however the rest of the passengers were asking, “What do they know that we don’t know.” So much for exhibiting confidence and leadership.

The now-exhaused crew, on command of someone at a desk at American, took off from Boeing Field for another attempt at a cross-wind landing.  As a pilot, I am used to making as decision like this from the cockpit and not be told what to do by some “ground weenie.” Unfortunately, the ground weenies at AA determine if you stay employed after exercising good judgement.

In the event, we made it. However, it was a bad call all the way around.

American Airlines

Ok, it’s time to go after one of the biggies. I am a frequent flyer of American Airlines, definately not by choice, but it’s the only reasonable way to get between GSO and DFW. American Airlines is a cargo operation. First they load the cargo, then they decide how many passengers they have to bump (after they’ve checked in and are at the gate) to accomodate the extra weight.

On one of these trips they bumped 15 people off a 47-passenger aircraft. I got bumped, flew to RDU and rented a car (at company expense) to drive to Greensboro. It’s of no concern to AA that it would have been cheaper to fly to RDU to begin with, so the fact that you pay extra to rent a car is of no concern of theirs. After all they automatically booked you for the next available seat on a flight on the following afternoon.

On this particular flight they held the plane for an additional 45 minutes and then three deadhead aircrew got on. So three more passengers were bumped after they were already strapped into their seats.

By getting bumped I could have recieved $100 “AA bucks” (to be used before they expired) if I waited until the plane gated out. Of course I would have missed my flight to Raleigh had I waited for that. I would have used my $100 to buy inflight snacks. “Hey flight attendant, you got change for 100 Monopoly bucks?” 

So at American Airlines passengers are their primary concern, right there behind deadhead aircrews and cargo.

What’s it all about?

This is a blog about companies that use unethical, doubious or just plain incompetent business practices when dealing with the public. If you happen to work for one of these companies, I pity you, but I am not looking for internal “dirt” on a company.

 So if you have been cheated, swindled or otherwise just plain abused by a company, I’d like to hear about it. So would the rest of the world!

10-21-07: I decided to make this a forum for the good the bad and the ugly. If you have comments about a good company, there is a category for that too!