We are REALLY sorry, now about that hard sell?

Some weeks ago I received the attached message and new credit card form Citicards: Security Notice I was not happy to hear that my personal data may have been compromised, but at least I live in a State that requires that a company tell me when such an event happens. In too many places that is still not the case and such an event can be quietly forgotten, more than six years after California became the first state to require such disclosure. … If one of my clients is ever in that situation my advice is to apologize, be contrite and ask what the company can do to make amends. … And to add insult to injury, I can no longer download transactions from my Citicard account into Quicken which I use for my business and personal finances. 12 weeks later, I still can’t.

KQED the last word?

It’s interesting how much I enjoy the programming of NPR and how much I abhor the commercial / process side of what has become a large, impersonal, disconnected corporation. I keep ‘making allowances’ and finding excuses on KQED’s behalf, and then they work extra hard to show that they are totally disconnected. This is my…

The eFax experience

Email, Adobe’s PDF, messaging and devices like the Fujitsu Scansnap make fax – plus the fax spam that I get – a medium of the past…. Maybe eFax has a nice ‘annuity’ revenue I stuck with eFax for the same reason many customers do with such services: – it was easier to just renew than to fill in complex forms about the spam, or to cancel for that odd time when I DID use fax.

United we ???????

Then after I reserved the only seats available, in the back, they abandoned the seta reservations and refused to do anything about it…. They moved me over at the same status as I had with United (I just showed my mileage statement) and I have been there, happily, ever since.

Bait and Switch at its worst….

Whilst quality is OK on my MacBook, I wanted the best I could get on business calls, and that means a handset. I researched and USRobotics do a USB handset AND – critically – provide Mac compatible drivers – most manufacturers don’t.So I order the handset via Amazon – it’s actually a merchant called Amperor Direct, but no matter.

KQED – the tale continues…..

But every time I have the slightest doubts, they manage to reinforce that they are at least as bad, if not worse, as I portray them.After my previous two experiences (documented earlier in this blog), this week I got a letter…. I open the letter.“Dear Mr. Graham BirdOn behalf of all of us at KQED, I want to thank you for your continued support.

When you have a choice……

The email arrives and gives a working alternative, so I have my working product and have used it ever since.My request to the Rbrowser support (it looks like a single individual) and get the most amazing response:”Written by Vendor:U3293 Robert Vasvari at 86.101.64.246 on 15 Nov 2006 13:53:03Sir, you have agreed to the license terms before purchase…. When you bought the license it was explained to you on the confirmation page that SPAM filters often eat the license email, so if you do not get it on the same day, please alert us and we will resend it to you.To request a refund now is against the license terms you have agreed to, and it is grossly unfair, it amounts to an attempt to steal the software.