DirecTV

DirecTV Installer: You have DirecTV before sir?
Me: I have DirecTV now
DirecTV Installer: You have a dish then?
Me: Yes
DirecTV Installer: Where is it?
Me: In the basement

Signature required on delivery (in person)

Do you ever get home and see that post-it note on your door when you're expecting a fun or important delivery? Post-its are nice, but I really prefer packages. Then after reading carefully your heart drops when you see that the sender included a signature requirement.

I have some serious frustration issues with packages that are sent via UPS or FedEx with a signature requirement for residential deliveries. Today I got just such a post-it for a UPS overnight delivery. They were willing to pay the big bucks to ensure that it got there the next day... at 10:30 AM... at my house. Wait - a better way to say it is that they paid to guarantee that the package would get there the next day with a virtual guarantee (10:30AM M-F ... don't other people work at that time) that I would not be there to get the package, with a guarantee that I actually got it (signature), if I happened to get it. I suppose my frustration should be with the sender - but why is there customer demand for this service.

I called UPS at 7:30 to change the delivery address to my workplace. Because it was after the 7:00 closing time the address change would not go through until Friday (since Thursday is a holiday). Well nobody is going to be at my office on Friday to pick up the package because it's the Friday after Thanksgiving. Since UPS doesn't deliver on Saturday or Sunday my overnight package will have reached me in six short days.

I remember when I ordered my iBook a couple years ago Apple put this same requirement on the package. Shocker I was not there between the hours of 10:30AM and 2:00PM with a smile on my face and pen in hand. I called UPS and there were further instructions on the package that the destination could not be changed and it could not be picked up at the UPS office. So it needed to go through several delivery attempts, then three days back to Cupertino. After calling Apple they would not ship it to my work because that address was not the billing address of my credit card, so I had to call my credit card to get that address added, then call Apple back to schedule delivery.

Perhaps I sit up on a pedestal in my white-collar world, but don't most people work 9-6 type hours like I do? You'd think Apple and UPS would be spinning their wheels constantly because of this issue - but I am made to feel like I am unreasonable by working 9-6 and by not taking a day off of work to accept a delivery. I mean, wouldn't it serve residential customers of UPS, FedEx, and retailers better by choosing different hours?

UPDATE - UPS broke their rules and called me back at around 8:15 with someone who promised to get my delivery redirected to my work for tomorrow.

French Technical Support

People often complain about the poor quality of support they recieve (or more exactly the language barrier) from tech support in India. Language barriers certainly make for a less productive telephone call to support, but why do we focus on those from India? I've found French technical support to be least compatible with my communication method. They tend to make little French noises that are quite distracting when you're trying to explain your problem. I suspect this is done customarily in French to signal to the speaker "yes, I am listening to you" - but to me, a native English speaker, I view this continual interruption as disruptive and rude. To be a little more frank, the accent gives me this feeling of "well, I may be listening to you - but I couldn't care any less about what you have to say".

March Resolutions

I bitch alot about corporate dishonesty. From Sony with their evil root-kit fiasco to Cingular with their rebates - I really would like these companies to straighten up. So rather than bitching, I thought I'd start with what I can control, myself. I will not purchase any Sony products because they've been evil bastards lately. I will not buy any CDs produced or promoted by a major RIAA member label. I will not buy a product with a mail-in rebate because the company wants to make me spend more in effort to get the rebate than it costs them to pay it.

If it sounds too good...

...to be true, they say it probably is. Sometimes though, it actually is that good.

So I recently signed up with Blockbuster online as an alternative to Netflix because I had been throttled. I normally get my movies back in the mail the next day, and while I had pulled in around 16 movies a month from Netflix for a long time, they changed their practices around the beginning of the year and that number dramatically dropped.

Ok, pay attention. I found a bit of a loophole that'll get me some serious bang for my buck from our friends at Blockbuster. How many movies can I get from Blockbuster for the same $$$? Well, this is the fun part. I started my one-month trial on January 26th. As of today I have received 15 movies, two are on their way, plus my two in-store rentals for this month. Blockbuster recently gave users the option to convert their two-per-month in-store rentals to a one-per-week in-store plan. Since they got the timing off a bit, that allowed me to get two more weekly coupons for in-store rentals. For those keeping score, that brings me to 21.

But wait, I'm getting to the good part. When I went to the store tonight I saw some big banner they had in the window about joining Blockbuster Rewards and getting free movies for a year. I picked up a flyer and asked the clerk about the plan. To boil it down, you give Blockbuster $10 for a 1-year membership to Rewards. For your Alexander Hamilton you get a free movie (movie must be over one-year old) for every in-store rental you buy. Buy however is a very loose term, and the movies I pick up with my online coupons will count for Blockbuster Rewards. The catch is that you can only do this on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

So here's what I do. Each week I print out my coupon on Monday, go into the store and grab two movies - one of which is more than a year old. I take it up to the clerk and hand him my coupon and walk out. This brings me up to 8 in-store rentals each month for a year. Throw that onto the 15 movies I hope to get during a normal month and that puts me at 23. That would be 276 movies in one year, or around 82 cents per movie. Compare that to Netflix at about $1.50/movie based on $17.95 3-plan and 12 movies per month. If you're buffering the movies like me, that starts to look like a pretty attractive alternative to cable.

Blockbuster

Continuing on the theme of incomplete reviews, I just wanted to share the fact that I dumped Netflix. Netflix is one of those brands, like TiVo that just ooozes good karma. I espouse the wonders of Netflix to friends and family; but they pissed me off recently. I turn movies around very quickly, and Netflix with their new "short wait" "very long wait" thing was just getting to me. Rather suddenly I was getting less movies each month for the same twenty clams. I've tested the waters with Netflix before and I've always been lured back by a lower price. This time Netflix gave me no such offer and I continued with my cancellation.

Anyway, so Blockbuster seems to be kicking ass. I got the 40 Year-Old Virgin, March of the Penguins, and Cinderella Man right away - those all had a very long wait from Netflix. The web page isn't quite as slick, but when you get right down to it the differences are subtle (no RSS feed from Blockbuster). I think the two in-store movie rentals a month and the couple-a-dollar savings is making me feel less like a Netflix traitor.

Cingular Rebate ...or... How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Get My Money

Theory
Today I contunue to stand on my customer advocacy soapbox. My rant-of-the-week is about mail-in rebates. At this point the rebate marketing trend has been around long enough to have touched the lives of nearly every American consumer. The idea is simple, bank on the laziness of the masses to allow you to advertize dramatic price savings which will only be realized by the most vigalent of penny-pinchers. In and of itself, I have no problem with wealth transfer from the lazy (or as some people might put it - the "smart enough to not work their ass off for a dozen hours for a lousy $20") to the diligent. What I do have a problem with is the dishonest dirty trickery of the whole process. Ambiguous verbiage and long waits are put in place by professionals to strategically minimize the payout from the third-party rebate clearing houses. Today's discussion will focus on Cingular Wireless.

Cingular
Because Cingular chooses to promote their phones with the post-rebate prices I would like to call them out on this process and hopefully share some tips along the way.

Banks are Bad

Customer service sucks, but there are different components to keeping customers satisfied. I think that when the board of directors for a corporation sit down and address the problem of customer service they reduce queue times of the call center and they hire or train more qualified people to answer those phones. In the case of banks, in particular, Citibank, they have it all wrong. The problem that Citibank needs to address is the amazingly complex systems and weak interconnects between different business units. As a customer, I shouldn't need to know that a contributory IRA account has a folder account number, a money market account number, and a brokerage account number. I shouldn't need to know that I need to have each of my accounts in matching region codes in order to "link" them to make transfers. I shouldn't need to know that the Citibank Thank You network has a different password from my Citibank Online account. I shouldn't have to explain to every customer service rep that I had an account that was created online therefore their wack system set me up with a MD region code, then all subsequent accounts needed to be set up with the same region to facilitate linking. I shouldn't have to know that my Equity line of credit is in a DC region code because the collateral property resides in Virginia. I shouldn't need to know that even though they guaranteed me that the equity line could be linked when I got the account and subsequently found out that it could not be linked that I would be charged with a $350 fee to cancel the equity line even though they lied like theives.

Despite my utter outrage and disgust - I still sleep well at night feeling that Citibank is the best solution for me. How you like them apples.

Goodbye T-Mobile, It's Hard to Go

Ohh yeah RAZR. After being worn down by horrible coverage from T-Mobile and the draw of sexy phones like the black Motorola Razr V3, I made the switch to Cingular.

One thing that was driving me nuts about this Razr was the Cingular logo on the external LCD whenever you make a call. It reminds me of the obnoxious dealer license plate frames or CARMAX stickers. After a couple hours figuring it out, I got that hacked now and it's got a purty picture of Stacey.

Hair Cuttery

Following my bimonthly haircut ritual yesterday I strolled into the Hair Cuttery. Now perhaps they aren't known for the most high-quality cuts, but given that my hair is far from a stylistic nightmare they manage the job. When you go into the cuttery you get to type on a kick ass green screen terminal your first name and the name of the stylist (if any) you would prefer to have. I usually exploit this tiny chance for creativity by picking a name like Ichabaud or Beelzebub, but this time I decided to take a different approach. I have christened my series in random nouns with "Tomato". As I sat down to read the 4-month-old copy of Ebony while I waited, I wondered how I would contain my boyish laughter as the stylist called out my name. To my surprise, when she pulled up my name she did not look confused, amused, or anything of the sort. I suspect that because I was the only one waiting there was no confusion as to who was next.

This brings me to my second point about the Hair Cuttery. Take this not as a stereotype, but as an observation of my experiences at low-end hair establishments throughout the northern Virginia area. The more asian the stylist, the better the cut. There, I said it. Now you may ask "how can one asian be more or less asian than another"? Well, I'm glad you asked. Let's say you get a hawaiian dude - that would be more asian than the white caucasian trailer-trash lady. Philipino lady would be more asian than the Hawaiian. An Eskimo would be less asian than the Hawaiian. A Korean dude with silk pinstripe pants and man-heels is even more asian than that - thus you'd go to him. Now, the better cut seems to come from a particular attention to detail which is nearly absent in spanish or mideterranian stylists I have had. They have cared about my hair much more than I do. Again, I am not suggesting that there is some hard or fast rule, I'm just saying what my experiences are - and at this point I feel that I have more than a satistically significant sample size. I have never cared or selected a stylist. The white dude with the kooky lisp and glasses that hosed up my hair three months ago will get another shot if he comes up at random. Anyone else have any kooky theories related to race, height, weight, or hair color as they are related to service in our day-to-day lives? Are short people worse drivers? Is the younger cashier ususally faster? No holds barred, lets hear 'em.

(Insert Wireless Carrier) Sucks!

Although the blogosphere is bursting with dissenting opinions about just about everything, there seems to be a particular hatred for mobile phone providers. Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint all have their advantages and quirks, but for the most part the decision comes down to who do you hate the least.

I have a particularly strong bond with my hard-earned dollars and don't separate myself from them easily. Combine this with an affinity for shiny new fancypants phones, dislike of talking on the phone, and disdain for long contracts and it's not too hard to figure out why I'm on T-Mobile.

The problem of course with T-Mobile is that I'd probably get better coverage with a couple tin cans and a really long string. Since I have no contract at this point, on and off for the past year I've been searching for a new provider that could allow me to make and receive calls. Painfully I decided that with a $150 rebate from Amazon, Cingular would be the way to go. I'd get a new Motorola Razr V3 to play with and I'd only be paying around $10 more each month for a network that actually works (or so I hear).

Unfortunately when my phone arrived and I read the documentation on number portability I found that porting a number to Cingular would make me ineligible for the mail-in rebate from Amazon, meaning I'd have to pay $150 and sign up for a 2-year contract at $10 more each month just to be able to have a wireless network that functions. It was tough to do, but after fruitlessly pleading with the Cingular sales folks to give me a deal in order to keep my business, I decided that the phone would go back.

Damnit T-Mobile - you suck major ass, but you suck ass less for me than others. Sure, you have no network time sync... and sure I get notified about voicemail about 4 days after I get one... but you save me money at least and I have no contract.