Corporate Good, Bad, Ugly List

Corporate Good, Bad, Ugly List
The Good
EarthLink	14-Sep-07: I've used EarthLink for years. It has served me so well that I hardly think about it, which is why I never thought to mention it before now. I think it's a pretty good recommendation when a company simply does what it promises to do so well that one doesn't have to think about it.
eMachines	14-Sep-07: My initial impression of the first eMachines computer I bought was that it was a piece of crap, and I swore I'd never buy another one. However, it was also quite inexpensive. Considering the low price and the long durability - in use over five years now - I'd say that overall the eMachines computer was a great value. I'm actually looking forward to buying another one because the last one was just such a great value. I used to pay staggering sums for state of the art computers, but why do so anymore? The lowliest $500 eMachines appliance-computer, once outfitted with Linux, OpenOffice, and Java, is adequate even for my demanding needs. And if it should die, I can simply replace it with no regrets.
T-Mobile	14-Sep-07: I've been using T-Mobile's prepaid wireless service for a couple of years now and I love it. The service costs a very reasonable 10¢ per minute. There are no monthly fees and no contracts. The only hitch is that the minutes expire in a year, unless I buy more minutes. Then the old minutes are rolled over. It's so liberating, though, to not feel bound into a contract, one that will cost me $100-$200 to terminate. It's also wonderful to not have a monthly bill to pay, especially when I'm not even using the service. Admittedly, this service is not for everyone. I use my mobile phone only a few times per month when I'm home. Mostly I use the mobile phone when I travel, and I keep it for emergencies, such as if the car should break down. But basically the service delivers as advertised, and that's a pretty good recommendation these days.
XM Radio	14-Sep-07: I never used to listen to the radio because I hate commercials. Then a couple of years ago I bought a new car that came with an XM satellite radio, so I figured I'd buy a year of service to see how I liked it. Well, I love it! I highly recommend it. I now listen to the radio about half the time and CDs the other half. The absence of commercials is heaven on earth, well worth the $12 per month, which is cheaper than even the most basic cable television. Plus, whenever I hear new music that I like, the artist and song name are conveniently shown right on the radio's display. No more calling into the radio station to ask the name of the song that played at such and such a time. Sadly, XM and Sirius - the only two satellite radio companies - are trying to merge, which, if it happens, will surely reduce competition and raise prices. Well, it was fun while it lasted. 09-Mar-08: While I'm still a fan of XM Radio, I terminated my service a few months ago. It's a nice service, but it was no longer worth the $12 per month to me because I'm becoming increasingly frugal in my old age. In other words, I'm a stingy bastard. (I don't pay for TV either.)
Dell	08-Nov-02: Dell's computers used to be crap. But I recently bought a high-end system from Dell, and I was quite impressed with the design. I was even more impressed with the service. The computer arrived promptly and was equipped exactly as I ordered it. There were no mistakes or defects.
FedEx	08-Nov-02: It's a pleasure to do business with FedEx. I've dealt with many shipping companies over the years and FedEx seems to me to be the best. Their employees are professional, efficient, friendly, enthusiastic, and reliable. That's a lot more than I can say for most shipping companies. FedEx's rates are reasonable and their deliveries are reliable and on time.
The Bad
Bank of America	14-Sep-07: Bank of America has been on an acquisition binge for a while now. Twice they've managed to suck me back in as a customer by buying my credit card issuer. As banks - and all other industries - continue to consolidate, competition diminishes. So it's not at all surprising that Bank of America just announced that it's charging $3 for people to extract their money from Bank of America's ATMs. That's 50% higher than their previously exorbitant fee of $2. Time for me to look for another credit card issuer. 09-Mar-08: I read a few weeks ago that Bank of America has raised the interest rate on the cards of some of its best customers to 24%, even if they've never made a late payment or done anything to warrant a higher rate. My guess is that they are trying to recover their financial losses during the ongoing banking meltdown from their customers. I sure am glad I canceled all my credit cards and use only cash now.
Panasonic	03-Nov-05: Panasonic must mean "crap" in Japanese, because that's what this company makes. Product debacle #1: I bought a DVD recorder with a built-in hard disk (Model DMR-E85H). It's a wonderful contrivance that has the potential to completely replace my VCR, but it doesn't bloody work! Periodically the machine would behave erratically and I had to power-cycle it, which entailed suffering several minutes of a "Please wait" message (as if I had a choice but to wait for it) while it reset itself. Then a mere six months after I bought the thing the display permanently showed a "U99" error code and the machine wouldn't do anything, not even after power-cycling. So I found a local repair shop that claimed to specialize in Panasonic and took the machine in for a warranty repair. The shop informed me that it would take two weeks to repair it. That was a bit longer than I had hoped, but I didn't have a choice. So I left the thing at the shop. After two weeks the shop informed me that they were waiting for parts from Panasonic and that it would be a few more weeks! I was getting angry, but there was nothing I could do but wait. The short of it is that it ended up taking two months to repair and just a couple of weeks after I got it back the display resumed showing the dreaded "U99" error code, for which the only remedy is a power-cycle. It now periodically displays this error code every few weeks, while it's just sitting there doing nothing, mind you. Product debacle #2: A few weeks ago I got an irrational urge to replace my aging wired telephones with wireless phones. Recalling my unhappy experience with Panasonic's DVD recorder, I reluctantly bought a Panasonic telephone with a built-in digital answering machine and two wireless handsets, all for $52. The low price is what compelled me to take a chance on Panasonic. Nothing else with those features came close to that price. Well, I guess there's some truth to the adage that you get what you pay for. I spent a hour or so installing the new phones, configuring them, testing them out. I was very impressed, until ... I whimsically decided to try out the answering machine. I called the Panasonic phone from my cell phone, it dutifully answered, played my recorded message, beeped politely, and gave all the appearance that it was recording my message. But when I examined the answering machine after hanging up, it showed zero messages. I pressed the "play" button anyway and nothing came out. So I repeated this test about ten more times with the same results. I think I found that leaving a long message (10 or more seconds) would cause the answering machine to record the message. But a short message lasting only a couple of seconds would be "cleansed." While browsing Panasonic's web site I discovered a troubleshooting entry that sounded surprisingly close to the problem I was experiencing: "Answering Machine Will Not Record"; or something to that effect. I followed their unintuitive procedure for "resetting" the answering machine, repeated my tests, and got the same unsatisfactory results. In all, after more than a dozen calls to the Panasonic answering machine, I think I got it to record two of my messages. What astonished me the most about this whole unpleasant experience was that the part I least expected to fail, 30-year old answering machine technology, was what failed. Angry at myself for being seduced by the low price of the Panasonic phone, I disconnected its various parts, reconnected my old phones, and somehow managed to get all the Panasonic parts back into their original box. Then I took the thing back to the store where I bought it for a refund. I will never, ever buy Panasonic products again. If anyone catches me contemplating such a grave mistake, please remind me of my past experiences with Panasonic.
ditech.com	08-Nov-02: My initial impression when I called ditech.com for a home equity loan to pay my income taxes was a favorable one. But I slowly found out that their business model is one of "bait and switch." Their loan terms were attractive enough that I started the application process. I sent them reams of personal documentation: income tax records, insurance declarations, deeds, and so on. I also filled out and signed — and I'm not exaggerating — a 1/2 inch thick stack of forms, three times! I dealt with about ten different people during the month-long application ordeal, and none of them seemed to know what any of the others were doing. I was repeatedly asked the same questions by different people. Conveniently, they appraised my house at a value just a couple of thousand dollars lower than I expected, which bumped me into a higher interest rate category than I was originally offered. Several times they called me and tried to change the loan terms to less favorable ones. Without telling me, they subtracted a portion of the loan funds to pay some property taxes that were not yet due and which I was already planning to pay myself. I didn't find out about it until they came to have me sign the loan documents for the second time. They gave me a stack of about 12 cancellation forms, all identical. I got the impression that they were encouraging me to cancel my loan application. The last straw was when they called me at 8:30 PM, the same day that I signed the loan documents for the second time, to inquire about my intended purpose for the funds. When I told them for the umpteenth time that it was to pay my income taxes, they said they didn't know if they could give me a loan for such a purpose. Nearly a month after initiating the loan application, after signing 1 1/2 inches of documents, they still didn't know if the intended purpose was acceptable? The next day I availed myself of one of those dozen cancellation forms, also demanding that ditech.com return all the copies of my personal documents, which they didn't do. The final insult was discovering that after I had canceled the application, ditech.com appeared as a lien holder on my homeowner's insurance! A few months after my ordeal with ditech.com, I filled out a single-page loan application from MBNA, and within a week I was approved for an unsecured loan for the same amount of money.
National Airlines	08-Nov-02: I purchased a ticket for $300 and didn't use it, giving me a $300 credit for use on a future flight, or so I thought. But when I attempted to use the credit, on two separate occasions, National's policies made it virtually impossible to get any value out of it. First of all, they wanted to charge me a $150 "ticket change" fee. Then there were restrictions on what fares I could apply the credit to. The upshot was that in order to use the credit to fly from San Francisco to Las Vegas — a fare that costs no more than $200 on Southwest — I'd have to purchase a ticket for about $450, then apply the $150 credit, costing me a net price of $300, on top of the original $300 I spent. Not one week after I wrote this entry, National Airlines, which was already in bankruptcy proceedings, abruptly ceased operations. And in a manner befitting of this dreadful airline, they left thousands of passengers stranded and refused to offer them refunds.
The Ugly
Microsoft	08-Nov-02: Microsoft does make some good products, but the company is a classic late 19^th, early 20^th century-style monopoly without a shred of morality. 09-Mar-08: I'm counting the days until I can purge Microsoft products from all my computers. I only use Microsoft products to do work for a single client of mine. Since that client and I are parting ways, as soon as that is finalized, it's bye-bye Microsoft forever. Although I loathe Microsoft today, back in the 1980s I was a huge fan of the company and its products. What has changed my mind about the company is solely its business practices.
Tarbell Realtors	20-Feb-04: I’ve never seen more aggressive door to door selling than from this company. Every week, without fail, they litter my property with their goddamn flyers. I dream about catching one of them and making them eat their flyers. I would never, ever do business with this company on account of their annoying business practices.
UPS	08-Nov-02: UPS has some of the most slovenly, rude, and unreliable delivery personnel in the business. They drive like maniacs in those hulking brown trucks. They leave valuable packages on the doorstep without a signature. They usually don't even ring the doorbell; they just toss the package on the doorstep and run off. They damage packages in a way even the Post Office would envy. I've scheduled couriers to pick up a packages and they didn't even show up. Recently, I rescheduled a delivery that I was expecting to receive. UPS sent me an e-mail promising to deliver my goods by the "end of the business day" of a particular date. On the designated date, having not yet received my delivery, I called UPS to find out if it was scheduled for delivery that day. The person I talked to assured me that it would be delivered by the end of that day. Nobody ever showed up. Ironically, although FedEx has the word "Federal" in its name, it's UPS that seems most like a government agency: disinterested, sloppy, slow, costly. 10-Dec-05: The other day I wanted to return half of a shipment I received from a company back to the company via UPS. The item was originally delivered by UPS at a shipping cost of just under $9. When I tried to ship the stuff back via UPS, they wanted more than $9, even though the shipment weighed half as much! Incensed, I left the UPS store, went home, prepared a FedEx shipping label online, affixed it to the package, and left it at a FedEx dropoff location. The cost? $4.46. Less than half what UPS wanted to charge me. So I can now add expensive to my litany of complaints against UPS.
Verizon	08-Nov-02: How long is it going to take Verizon to offer DSL in my area? I've lived in a brand new housing development for over a year. One would expect — I certainly did — that a new development would be built with state-of-the-art communications technologies. But after more than a year I'm still relegated to dial-up. Oddly enough, the home builder offered an option to wire the entire house with CAT5 network cable. For all the good that would have done. What amazes me is Verizon's apparent willingness to forego the potential revenue from selling DSL in my area. There is currently no competition for high-speed Internet access in this area because we don't even have cable Internet access (the cable company is Adelphia, which should sufficiently explain the cable situation here). In the meantime, Verizon could make a fortune.
Southwest Airlines	08-Nov-02: The sensible airline. Most other airlines try to confuse their customers with a staggering array of prices and restrictions. The fares charged by other airlines are based almost exclusively on market factors, not the airline's cost. Southwest's pricing reflects their cost a lot more than that of other airlines, their pricing structure is a lot simpler, and their ticket credit policy is much more reasonable. If you don't use a ticket, you can apply the credit to a future flight. Even their frequent flyer program is simpler and more generous than that of other airlines. There is also a certain enthusiasm evident among Southwest's employees that seems to be lacking in the employees of other airlines. 14-Sep-07: As a result of Southwest's recent behavior, forcing passengers to cover up political T-shirts and bare shoulders, it has been demoted from the "Good" category.