Category: product complaints

DIE Continental Airlines DIE

On By Rick McIn product complaints, travel3 Comments

I flew Continental from Los Angeles to Halifax, the fare quite good.

Airfare Price Total( CAD Dollars): $356.40 + $25 for a suitcase

Sunday May 22, 2011

Airline: Continental Airlines 40
Departs: Los Angeles – International (LAX) at 6:45am on Sun May 22

Airline: Continental Airlines 2274
Departs: Newark – Newark International (EWR) at 6:10pm on Sun May 22

… Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. It was my worst airline experience since RYAN in Europe.

Somebody please BUY Continental and put those employees out of their misery.

Amongst other things they bungled, Continental lost my suitcase. It was about 48hrs late getting to me.

I’m eligible to apply for compensation for baggage delayed that long. But here’s how that works (PDF)

I must fill out overly detailed PAPERWORK and snail mail to Houston, TX with all sorts of photocopied support documents, including Driver’s Licence.

I’m not going to do it. The hassle exceeds the payback.

I assume it’s deliberate on the part of Continental not to allow claims online. Nor to offer them automatically to customers they’ve screwed.

I’ll never fly Continental again. And advise you to avoid them too, if you can.

car rental insurance

On By Rick McIn product complaints, travel2 Comments

Renting in the USA can be incredibly inexpensive. I have a vehicle right now in California that cost only $115.49 / week, including taxes.

Yet AS ALWAYS I was faced with the dilemma of what additional insurance to buy.

Should I buy none, counting only on my VISA card’s promised collision/loss damage insurance?

Or should I get one of the three different options available from the rent-a-car company:

$10/day
$12/day
$30/day

Reading this article in the Globe and Mail doesn’t answer my question:

Do I really need car rental insurance?

Leave a comment if you’ve any advice for me.

Is Your Dentist RIPPING You Off?

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, product complaints, product endorsements, travel, travel Mexico5 Comments

Your brain surgeon should be very well paid.

But why should a dentist be a millionaire?

by Sarah Lorge Butler for CBS MoneyWatch.com:

Cost of the (2) crowns: $1,395 apiece. Cost of foundation fillings, or “cores” to put the crowns on: $326 apiece. Total bill, if you’re scoring at home: $3,442.

His dentist sold him membership into an office savings plan for $319 for the year. So that saves him 20% on all dental procedures and gives him two free cleanings. Knock off 20% (but add back in the $319) and we’re down to $3072.60 on this bit of drilling.

When I look at this bill, I wonder why I obsess about the weekly price fluctuations of Cheerios or the shrinking size of a can of tuna. All the economical choices a family makes in a year can be wiped out by a trip to the dentist. No wonder people are going to Thailand and Mexico for dental work. …

read more

Is $3000 over-priced for 2 crowns?

What is the cost for the materials?

How much are those working on your crowns paid?

How much does the dentist pocket?

If we knew those numbers, I’m guessing that we’d agree our dentist is ripping us off.

There are over 1000 comments on that post, most feeling ripped off.

A stranger recently contacted me for advice on my dentist, Dr. Lorenia Estrada, in La Paz, Mexico. I enthusiastically recommended her.

If you suspect your dentist is ripping you off, get a quote from Mexico. … The only down side is that you have very little recourse if unhappy with the work there.

Thanks Dana.

#hotmail sucks WORSE than ever

On By Rick McIn product complaints1 Comment

Each new feature added seems to further ruin the user experience for me.

Last year they made it impossible to page back. How can that be good for anyone?

Today I received a perfectly normal email … and could not open the attachments. Some sort of improvement in how you view photos resulted in this:

Now images cannot be opened in a new tab. And these wouldn’t display in Firefox on a new Mac. Nor could I close that blank black box.

I finally forwarded to Gmail where it opened perfectly.

People would abandon Hotmail by the hundreds of thousands … if only they’d let us forward our email.

#HotmailSucks

how to tweet the Canadian election

On By Rick McIn government, product complaints1 Comment

Warren pointed out how backward and dense are bureaucrats responsible for Canadian election results:

Facebook and Twitter users are being advised by Elections Canada to use caution on election day when communicating and posting voting results on May 2.

In every vote, strict rules prevent any instance of what Elections Canada calls “premature transmission of results” until the last polls have closed in every electoral district in the country.

“No person shall transmit the result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the public in another electoral district before the close of all of the polling stations in that other electoral district,” Elections Canada says on its website. …

read more on CBC

They aren’t savvy enough to synchronize the election over all time zones. Nor even to withhold results in Newfoundland until after the polls close on Vancouver Island.

Perhaps if we paid higher taxes we could offer more attractive government union salaries and attract smarter employees … who might correct this problem.

Since it’s not allowed, you won’t need any of these …

Glossary of Canadian Politics/2011 Canada Federal Election Twitter Hash Tags

Note: #cdnpoli, #elxn41 and #cv11 are (in my observation) by far the most popular English-language Twitter hash tags for the 2011 Federal Election.

#canpoli Canadian politics
#cdescom French-Canadian political discussion
#cdnleft Canadian left
#cdnpoli Canadian politics
#clsh Conservative leader Stephen Harper
#cpc Conservative Party of Canada
#ctvelexn CTV election coverage
#cv11 Canada vote 2011
#demreform Canadian democratic reform
#elxn41 41st Canadian federal election
#emayin Social media campaign to get Green Party leader Elizabeth May a place in the leadership debate
#fed2011 French-language Canadian election tweets
#gpc Green Party of Canada
#ignatieff Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff
#layton NDP Leader Jack Layton
#lpc Liberal Party of Canada
#momthevote Discussion of family-related election issues
#ndp New Democratic Party of Canada
#p2ca Progressives in Canada
#pmharper Prime Minister Stephen Harper
#pmsh Prime Minister Stephen Harper
#poli politics — append it to another term to localize it, eg, #niagpoli (Niagara), #canpoli (Canada)
#ppca Pirate Party of Canada
#ptndp New Democrats
#pttory Canadian Tories
#roft Right of Twitter (Canadian Conservative bloggers)
#votecompass CBC Vote Compass
#votemay2 Vote on May 2nd
#votepirate Vote Pirate Party of Canada

David Rattigan

Google finally downranks eHow

On By Rick McIn product complaints1 Comment

Google on Thursday announced a change to its search algorithm that reduces rankings for low-quality sites.

The changes, implemented in the last few days, impacts about 11.8 percent of Google’s queries,

… low-quality sites as those that are a “low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.” …

Often cited as a ‘content farm‘ is eHow. (I’ve blocked that domain from my search results.)

Why does the parent company of eHow, Demand Media, make as much revenue as The New York Times?

Click on the infographic below to find out.

Demand Media Breaking the Bank
[Source: OnlineMBA.com]

Hey Kate … that’s $15 / article. … Just sayin’

disappointed by Greg Mortenson

On By Rick McIn books, product complaintsLeave a comment

If you saw the 60 Minutes piece (VIDEO) on author Greg Mortenson, you’ll be saddened and disappointed too.

… Krakauer, and others, say that Mortenson has embellished some of the details of his story to make them sound more dramatic and impressive. That some of the things he claims happened to him in his books are, at best, stretches of the truth, and at worst, outright fabrications.

There are even some indications that the funds that are raised by CAI are not being spent properly and that the organization lacks transparency in how it operates. …

I’m not at all convinced by Greg’s response to the charge as published by Outside – Greg Mortenson Speaks

Greg Mortenson is finished. What a setback to a great cause.

(via The Adventure Blog)

Why hasn’t someone replaced Craigslist?

On By Rick McIn product complaints1 Comment

Good question:

There are so many things that Craigslist could do better; so many ways it has stopped innovating; and so many social and network features that a competitor could leverage. Why hasn’t anyone disrupted and replaced Craigslist?

Quora

Having posted something on Craig’s List lately, I can confirm it’s pretty crappy. And not improving.

Kijiji is quite a bit better.

Andrew Parker says that competitors have eroded Craig’s List on a category-by-category basis.

Leave a comment if you’ve any thoughts on online classified ads.

nobody telephones any more

On By Rick McIn product complaints, things getting worse1 Comment

Kate explains why:

THE New York Times has declared that nobody telephones anybody any more. In a recent story by Pamela Paul called Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You, it said that we’ve all given up on the telephone in favour of texts and e-mails. …

“Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward,” wrote Paul. …

I’m not the only one who chooses to respond to a work-related message on my telephone with a conversation-avoiding e-mail; according to Paul, that’s the norm. …

Kate of Late – Not so alone in the no phone zone

worst judge in America – Amanda F. Williams

On By Rick McIn ethics, government, product complaints9 Comments

If you ever have to go to court, don’t go to court in Georgia.

If you ever have to go to court in Georgia, here’s the worst case scenario:

Judge Amanda F. Williams

This woman is symbolic for everything that is wrong with the American ‘tough on crime‘ trend.

I heard the awful story on This American Life – VERY TOUGH LOVE

This listener was moved:

…I am asking you to listen to the story. It takes a while, but listen to it. And then I am asking you to do something about it. I am asking you to please send an email to the Office of National Drug Policy asking them to please investigate this judge who is unfit to be on any bench.

Also, please send a letter or fax to the GA Judicial Qualifications Commission (they don’t accept email, apparently). Here is the contact information and a sample mock up.

Judicial Qualifications Commission
P.O. Box 191
Madison, GA 30650
Phone: (706) 343-5891
Fax: (706) 342-4593

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to bring up a concern that I was recently made aware of by Ira Glass from This American Life. He gave an in-depth account with strong reporting about a particular Drug Court in Glynn and Camden Counties of Georgia. I am very concerned about the job that the Judge Amanda Williams is doing. The information presented in the news story about the manner in which Judge Amanda Williams is conducting herself is frightening. I live in metro Atlanta so I am not one of her constituents but I feel strongly that something should be done.

Travesty of Justice: Judge Amanda Williams, Glynn County, GA

Or email this judge directly – amandaw@glynncounty-ga.gov

Or send a message via her website. (Update. Her sites have been taken down.)

Or post this to Facebook. And Twitter.

Amanda F. Williams must be removed from the bench. She’s worse than Judge Judy, … and that’s saying something.