Category: product complaints

Amazon gift certificate e-mail scam

On By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

angry guyI love Amazon — but their gift certificate by email program REEKs.

gc-orders@a2zgiftcerts.amazon.com

I just received one. It ended up in my HOTMAIL junk mail and I nearly deleted it. The e-mail address looks like some SPAM mishmash.

On a lark I searched Google to see what was up with this new phishing scam. It turned out the email was REAL.

Gift certificates must be a gold mine to Amazon. What happens if I delete the email? What happens if I forget to claim my gift certificate?

Amazon keeps that cash, after 6 months.

I am disappointed with Amazon and posted a complaint on their website.

Are all other gift certificate programs as bad? What percentage of gift certificates purchased go unredeemed?

spam – SBRX .gif

On By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

angry guyMy spam filters catch almost everything.

But the last few days one has been getting through. Different email addresses pushiing Stonebridge Resources Exploration, Ltd. with a .gif image file.

I expect that company to apologize and help track down the spammers, no doubt shareholders.

Boulder Pledge (1996) Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.

I complained directly to the company, as well.

Internet Explorer 7

On By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

I downloaded the new IE on to a Windows computer. Looks great. Worked well. A huge improvement.

But IE6 was gone!

IE7 replaces IE6. There is no supported way for IE6 and IE7 to install side-by-side. We know this is an issue and hope to address it in a future version of IE.

– Tony Chor, Group Program Manager, Internet Explorer

Warning. Don’t download the new version unless you are completely sure you want to upgrade. You need some time to figure out the new features and key commands.

Google in China

On By Rick McIn economics, government, product complaintsLeave a comment

Here is a lengthy NY Times article digging into the Google compromise in China:

Google’s China Problem (and China’s Google Problem)

comic logo

It is a complex story. I think Google is doing the right thing.

Yahoo was first into China. But Google was far more successful when they first entered the market.

Suddenly, Sept. 3, 2002, Google results disappeared in China. Shut down completely by the government. Many concluded that the action was instigated by Baidu, a Chinese competitor to Google.

A quarter of Baidu’s traffic comes from searching for unlicensed MP3’s — illegal in the USA.

After much consideration, Google opened Google.cn in January 2006. Try it yourself. Search for “Human Rights” and see what you get. The results are self-censored in compliance with Chinese law.

Google.com is still open in China. The same search results as we get here. But when you try to click on a “banned” link, you get an error page. All of wikipedia.com is unavailable, for example.

One Chinese dissident in the article ranks Google best. Then Microsoft. But calls Yahoo! a sell-out.

So, should Google have simply dropped out of the Chinese market? (That’s what Apple is going to do in France, unwilling to modify their service to comply with French law.)

What do you think? (Do you own stock in Google?)

consumer complaints

On By Rick McIn product complaintsLeave a comment

Top complaints, by industries, to the Better Business Bureau of Southern Alberta 2005-06:

1. Advertising and marketing (primarily scam-related)
2. Auto dealers — new cars
3. Moving-storage
4. Plumbing contractors
5. Furniture design

angry guyMy long held theory that plumbers are the worst tradesmen, supported.

Roofers, claims my brother, in the industry, are more often the bad boys of the construction site.

Consumer complaints rising across Calgary

TV – informercials “info” or just crap?

On By Rick McIn product complaints, TVLeave a comment

Many years ago the first infomercial I watched was for Bowflex. (They still do a convincing job.)

A ripped young guy was unbelievably defined — supposedly by the machine. Later his coach told me that kid had never seen a Bowflex before the shoot. He was a gymnast, of course, from MAC (Multnomah Athletic Club) in Portland.

Based only on the infomercial, Madonna’s representative phoned him for a “date” … before learning how young he was.

I should file this story with InfomercialScams.com

Your source for uncensored complaints about infomercial products.

Justin Leonard runs this site. (No, not the golfer.)

loyalty programs are dead to me

On By Rick McIn dead to me, product complaintsLeave a comment

In general, I am loyal to merchants who have no loyalty program. I shop for groceries only at The Great Canadian Superstore in my town where I am not penalized for NOT having a loyalty card.

Safeway? Forget it!

“Air Miles?”

I’ve almost lost interest in airline frequent flyer programs as points become harder to get, harder to redeem.

Rewards programs are their own punishment – CNET reviews

can I sell your contact details for $1?

On By Rick McIn bad news, product complaintsLeave a comment

Jigsaw.com wants me to upload your contact information: address, work phone, fax, email address. They pay me $1 — or is it really only $.10 ?? — for every contact I give them.

Some have uploaded information on tens of thousands of people!

TechCrunch » Jigsaw is a Really, Really Bad Idea