Category: product complaints

hate rent-a-car companies

On By Rick McIn product complaints, things getting worse, travel2 Comments

Fox is the cheapest national brand in the USA, it seems.

For many cities you can get a vehicle for $50/week. Or even $6/day. … At least that’s what their website claims.

So why was my bill — still cheaper than the competition — more than double what I saw online:

$82 / week
$3.61 SEA Concess
$8.13 Tax SEA
$6.59 WA Rental Tax
$.26 WA MotVehTx

$35 CFC … (explained to be some sort of new building fee)
$3.36 VLF

Of course you are hassled with a scary up-sale of insanely expensive daily insurance options.

All in all, a terrible customer experience. Like this guy had:

On a recent trip to the airport rental counter I marveled at the ability of the Avis/Budget representative to make me feel like a criminal, a moron, and an irresponsible lout gambling with my life all in the space of about eight minutes. Welcome to modern car rental. …

Renting a car sucks

Are there any rent-a-car companies who actually tell you the entire cost? …

Canada must have more rules against deliberately obfuscating prices. The same company prices online are about double in Canada for the same vehicle as in the States.

more Fox complaints on Yelp

25 biggest POP hits mashup

On By Rick McIn music, product complaintsLeave a comment

My prediction – this will be the worse Popular music decade in my lifetime.

DJ Earworm just dropped his latest annual edit:

… “World Go Boom,” combines 25 of the year’s most-successful pop songs from artists such as Adele, Britney Spears, Foster the People, Lady Gaga, LMFAO, Maroon 5, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… pretty lame, I’d say.

What was the great Pop hit of 2011? … Adele?

(via Mashable)

you need a virtual body

On By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

If you want to model for H&M, you need a body exactly like these young ladies.

Exactly.

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted.

H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women …

Jezebel

(via Kottke)

NO on the “Yes Inn”, Hong Kong

On By Rick McIn product complaints, product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

Worst hostel in many years.

Yes Inn, one of the many cheapos in Hong Kong.

Not friendly. Not much helpful. Crowded. No instructions on how to get the shower hot. Bad.

I’d gone there because of this offer on their website:

That was posted on this page.

Seems to be a ‘bait and switch’. At least that was the experience of me and a couple from Utah. No response to the ‘inquiry’. And then a renegotiation on the 7 night cost once you get to the desk.

I was happy to move over to another cheapo — the Ah Shan Hostel (reviews) in Mong Kok. Better — only 1 giant cockroach sighting … but I still left after 2 nights.

From the same desk they run Dragon Inn / A-Inn hostels. All the private hostels in Hong Kong are crappy I’m hearing from other travelers. Now I’m happily ensconced at Mt Davis hostel, my hangout many times in the past.

That photo is from 1983 … but not much has changed since. They’ve added high speed WiFi.

“online backup” is SLOW

On By Rick McIn Apple, product complaintsLeave a comment

I paid for 1yr of Carbonite online back-up storage. Then quit as it was WAY TOO SLOW to be practical. (I’m back to using external hard drives.)

Now Apple is building in similar cloud back-ups. Will it work?

… I have not had the best experiences when experimenting with Lion Internet Recovery. One attempt to use it on my MacBook Air during the week when iOS 5, iCloud and the iPhone 4S launched resulted in a recovery, just for Mac OS X Lion, that was going to take well over nine hours to complete! Ouch. …

… recovering and restoring a computer to full working order could take up to two days …

Cult of Mac – The Reason Why The World Isn’t Ready For Lion Internet Recoveries [Opinion]

Dana bought a ROKU

On By Rick McIn product complaints, product endorsements1 Comment

In Las Vegas:

… (Dish Network) bundled with our phone and internet has been costing us around $170 per month, for terribly slow internet. Of those 300 channels, we use perhaps a maximum of 15 of them. …

Yeesh. Why hasn’t traditional TV improved options for consumers?

She dropped Dish and got this digital video player, instead, the ROKU.

Channels available via the internet include Hulu Plus (U.S. only), Netflix (U.S. and Canada only), Disney.com, TWiT.tv and dozens more.

Dana:

… made the leap and bought a ROKU. It’s brilliant.

… In addition, switching to a better internet provider will allow for high speed everything. So it’s official – done with traditional cable/satellite TV.

Tweet the Streets – Quit TV! You can Too!

Tweet the Streets, by the way, is news from the people, for the people. Bloggers working together to create something like an online news magazine. Dana has volunteered to write for them, when inspiration strikes.

Will Roberts is one of the founders, a friend of Dana’s.

related – TechCrunch – The Four Big Steps To Cutting The Cord

tech gurus

On By Rick McIn Apple, audiocasts, Google, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

The most popular Geekcast is TWIT, This Week in Technology.

I’ve actually become less attached to that show, preferring MacBreak Weekly and This Week in Google as audiocasts from the same network.

But the most recent episode of TWIT was excellent: There’s An App in my Lap

Leo Laporte, Om Malik, Robert Scoble, and John C. Dvorak

The first 3 are respected tech gurus. Dvorak’s there as a comic, contrary counterpoint. Here’s their advice:

• iPhone 4S is a winner — first as a replacement for you point-and-shoot camera. Still a great phone for regular folks. Tech geeks will be happier with the high end Androids. Look for the Nexus Prime with Ice Cream Sandwich to be launched next week.

• iPhone 4S Siri voice controller is “the future”, but works inconsistently so far

• Kindle Fire (coming Nov. 15th) likely to be a loser, a poor competitor to the iPad. Instead get a $79 Kindle e-reader, the low end. A perfect Christmas present.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It costs $109 if you want NO ADS on that same cheap device. … I’m not sure how well it works around the world. Check first before you buy one if you’re not living in the States.

• huge fight looming between Facebook & Google. Many already spend most of their time in Facebook … when they can SEARCH and WATCH TV / Movies in Facebook, they’ll never need to leave.

• the future of watching what you want, when you want, online is still up in the air. Another looming battle.

• Microsoft bought Skype. The gurus have no confidence that’s going to work. Competitors could beat Skype.