Category: product complaints

Virgin Blue airlines sucks !

On By Rick McIn product complaints, travel, travelogues6 Comments

When I first heard I would be flying around Australia on the discount airline Virgin Blue, I was enthusiastic.

Richard Branson has his signature on the door of every plane. The company has committed to turning all profits over to improving the environment.

And AirlineQuality.com gave Virgin Blue 4 stars out of 5.

Virgin Blue still sucks.

My problem was extortion pricing on over-weight baggage. Their system simply gouges passengers who carry sports equipment. And the extortion is so embarrassingly bad customer service that many times you can talk baggage agents out of charging you. Over 6 flights I paid between A$130 and A$0 dollars for my over-weight bags. There is no consistency in who is ripped off.

The last straw was on my domestic flight connecting to an international flight on another carrier. Always in the past for me the domestic carrier allowed overweight bags up to the international limit. But one employee of Virgin Blue decided NOT to extend this courtesy to me.

I will boycott Virgin Blue in future and urge others to try the other discount airline, JetStar (Quantas).

airline-wing.jpg

Next travelogue on this trip >> book – In Tasmania

United Airlines stinks (sort-of)

On By Rick McIn product complaints, travelLeave a comment

united.jpgOn an international flight Sydney to San Francisco I was comfortably seated and well treated by United Airlines.

But they had a glitch.

The entertainment system malfunctioned. No music. No TV. No movies.

That’s too bad, but not a disaster.

A stewardess announced that passengers would get compensation for the inconvenience, a surprisingly smart step. Especially for United Airlines which is not particularly beloved. AirlineQuality.com gives UA 3 stars out of 5.

It was later announced that the compensation certificates would be distributed when we landed in the USA.

As I expected, it did not happen. We got nothing. And people were so tired after a long international flight with no movies that no one complained.

Is there any GOOD airline besides WestJet (what! — only 3 stars)?

Next travelogue on this trip >> Virgin Blue airlines sucks !

Tour de France dead to me

On By Rick McIn bad news, cycling, dead to me, product complaints, sport - amateur, sport - proLeave a comment

I want to thank Bjarne Riis. Good on you for coming clean.

What shred of credibility remained about elite pro cycling has disappeared as 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis of Denmark on Friday became the first Tour winner to admit he used banned performance-enhancing drugs.

… Riis said in a news conference Friday he had taken the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) from 1993 through 1998, including during his Tour victory. He also confessed to using human growth hormone and cortisone.

“The time has come to put the cards on the table,” Riis said. “I have done things I now regret and I wouldn’t do again. I have doped. I have taken EPO. For awhile it was part of my life.”

Riis, currently manager of the Danish CSC cycling team, expected to be stripped of his Tour de France title.

“My yellow jersey is in a box at home. You can come and collect it,” Riis said of the jersey worn by the Tour de France leader.

A sport caught in a cycle of cheating on ChicagoSports.com

I’ll never watch race cycling again.

tour2.jpg
source

“you don’t need it” – graffiti

On By Rick McIn humour, philosophy, product complaintsLeave a comment

The Anti-Advertising Agency will mail you free “You Don’t Need It” stickers.

sticker.jpg

I don’t need them.

Defacing property is too high a price to pay to spread the gospel of “voluntary simplicity“.

AAAsticker(red).jpg

you need a visa for Australia – WHAT?

On By Rick McIn product complaints, traveloguesLeave a comment

It cost me $2.25 and an hour exactly to get from home to the third best airport in the world by public transport (bus, train, bus).

Total = 1 man hour.

If someone had driven me it would have cost them an hour, me a half hour, put another vehicle on the congested Calgary roadways — and spewed extra pollutants possibly killing a cute baby seal.

Early at the airport, feeling well (as well as a guy leaving bleak, overcast Canadian arctic winter for Australia mid-summer), I was dumbfounded to learn that I needed a visa for Australia.

Surely not.

I made the same mistake once before. Not allowed to board a flight to Brazil because I had no visa. (Air Canada rerouted me to Canuck-friendly Chile.)

This time Air Canada sold me a visa for Australia ($25), the only national visa they are allowed to sell at the ticket counter.

Whew.

Travel agents are supposed to advise customers when visas are required. Right? (At least the stupid ones.)

And why didn’t Air Canada send me one of those “email reminders” confirming my flight? I get those from other airlines?

Even confirming my flight on line with Air Canada on-line was difficult. I finally had to phone them.

aussitxt.jpg

Next travelogue on this trip >> I could live in Melbourne

want to get even with a “bad” professor?

On By Rick McIn internet, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

This is what I like about the internet.

Who is less accountable to anyone than a tenured University Professor?

logo.png

There is no escaping the scrutiny of the Rate My Professors website. Check the page dedicated to my mentor Keith Russell at University of Saskatchewan.

kr.jpg

Or visit Keith on his far less exciting official web page on the U of S site.

recycling Apple products – works !

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

UPDATE:

Further to my hassles getting Apple to recycle their products as promised …

Once I got the attention of Big Apple and their recycling partner Metech with a critical blog post on Dec. 15th, 2006 — I have been treated very well by both. Personal attention.

Environmentalists have been critical of Apple. I’m not at all sure those complaints are valid.

Is Apple worse than Dell? Than Nokia?

I do not trust any of them. My assumption is that all the “green initiatives” are for PR. Perhaps even meaningless public relations theatre. I hope I’m wrong.

I finally shipped 60lbs of old Apple product (free rather than the standard US$30, courtesy of Apple) to Metech in Massachusetts. (By UPS at a cost in carbon emissions, I know.) Metech promises to properly recycle the precious metals and other toxins. I assume they will — otherwise some other blogger with time on his hands will be posting it.

I had far more than 60lbs. The rest I dropped off at my local computer store. They threw them in a recycling dumpster out back, part of the local electronics recycling program that is far more convenient for me, free, but probably not as thorough.

It took time and perhaps 20 emails to organize the “official” recycling, but Apple and Metech did come through. Thanks to both!

Fact is I have always got excellent service from Apple in the dozen or so times I have needed it.

Apple.jpg

what does Google have against photos? – Picasa

On By Rick McIn Google, photos, product complaints, product endorsementsLeave a comment

UPDATE: Warren showed me how he uses Picasa for Windows. The desktop app (which is NOT available for Mac) works very well. The only downside is that it takes up a lot of hard disk space.

=====

originally posted Dec. 23, 2006

I thought they wanted to organize all the world’s information.

Google has a great product in Google Videos. And also bought YouTube. They are by far the biggest player in internet video.

Google is clearly committed to video.

But why is their photography software so lame? Yahoo is killing them with both Flickr and Yahoo photos.

Google’s photo software is called Picasa:

logo1.gif

Find, organise and share your photos.

… a free software download from Google that helps you:

* Locate and organise all the photos on your computer.
* Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.
* Share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web: it’s fast, easy and free.

Windows XP only
System Requirements
Microsoft Windows 2000/XP

Picasa

Is it XP only? Google has been very confused on this product.

Fact is, Mac users can also store photos on Google though you would not know it from the Picasa home page.

I tried it. And was disappointed.

Flickr had just announced unlimited uploads and storage for photos for US$25 / year.

Picasa gives you only 6Gb for $25 / year.

Warren Long uses both Picasa and Flickr for different things. But between the two, Flickr is far superior.

Free video tutorials on Picasa.

“Don’t Charge Your Phone Overnight” – Gizmodo

On By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

lowbatterylarge.jpg

According to the Verizon tech reps, you should only charge your phone 3 hours a day or so and never leave it plugged in overnight or it’ll die. Now, I’ve heard things like this before, but I never thought it caused such a dramatic difference. And why isn’t it made clearer? As the girl next to me asked, why does the Motorola manual tell you to charge it overnight?

Giz Tip: Don’t Charge Your Phone Overnight – Gizmodo

First time I ever heard this.

Is it true?

(I don’t answer mine in any case.)