What a screwing I got from Northern Leasing.  Finally ended a 4-year lease in February.  Called and confirmed the lease was closed and they'd received the equipment.  I was finally finished.  But no, they had to f*** me one more time.

Today I get an overdraft notice from my bank (I'm closing this account and only left enough in there to cover outstanding checks).  Seems my friends at Northern Leasing "accidentally" took another payment from my account.  Mr. Valerio tells me he's sorry.  They'll get me a check within 90 days.  Huh?  No supervisor to talk to - it's almost 4:00 on the east coast and she's gone home.  She'll call me tomorrow.  Yeah, right.  Seems they've got a negative fan club - please share with your friends so they don't get screwed like I did.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/231465966870/

Lousy Service, Part 2

Somehow my technology let me down. This post should have gone out last week. I guess I'll have to call customer service!

Anyway, my rant here is about Apple Customer Care. Typically I love there guys. They call you immediately upon request (or when you schedule a call). And they've usually gone the extra mile and spent as much time as necessary to resolve my problems. But I recently had a horrible experience with them.

A little background. I haven't been very impressed with Apple's iCloud. PhotoStream doesn't keep up with my uploaded photos, my documents don't always sync. Andthen there's iTunes. Apple has been making changes that sound good, but the xecution has been somewhat bumpy.

A couple weeks ago I was trying to copy some music from my iMac's iTunes library to my Android phone. In doing so, I founda lot of my music wouldn't copy. After researching for about an hour I found that some of my music was marked as "protected." WTF? I purchased most of the music after Apple lifted the DRM protection. At the time I also paid to have my earlier purchases upgraded. Some of the songs that would't copy were even ripped from my own personal collection.

Unable to find a reolution, I went to Apple's Support page. I go through an automated support tree for iTunes that finally spits me out on a page saying I need phone support. I click the option for an agent to call me now. My phone immediately rings. But then the frustration begins.

The person who calls is a screener. She has a hard time understanding my phoenetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, delta) - I have to use simple words like "apple, ball, cat..." Her primary job seems to be to sell me the $170 AppleCare plan for my iMac. I try to politely decline explaining my iMac is fine, I just have a quick question about iTunes. I finally have to get short with the girl. She finally transfers me to someone she assures me can help. Wrong!

The person I talk to tells me she absolutely can't help and gives me a URL for Apple's Express Lane support. Sigh. OK, I hang up and enter the URL. Turn out to be the same page I started on before. I answer the same questions the same way with the same result. Once again a screener calls me back immediately. Before he can start the sales pitch I explain I've been there and done that. I don't want AppleCare, I just want my iTunes question answered. He starts the pitch anyway. Finally, he agrees to transfer me someone he promises can answer my question. But the dude tells me he's sorry, but he ansolutely can't help me. He tries to send me back to the Express Lane. Now I'm frustrated and getting angry. He tells me I must not have done it right. He walks me through the process until I get to the email support page.

Frustrated and very angry, i fill out the email form. Several hours later I get a response from "Kelly" who tells me most questions can be answered on the Web. You guessed it, through the Apple Express Lane. I reply that I've been down that lane twice now. I explain my issue in more detail. I get more unhelpful answers through several more email exchanges. Finally I give up and find an answer on my own. I never did get a follow up email from Kelly or amyone else at Apple. As far as they know I'm still out there with several hundred protected songs in my iTunes library.

So even the best can be the worst. How any company, large or small, can provide this kind of support is beyond me. They try hard to sell me something I don't want or need. The promise to transfer me to some who can help, then shuffle me off to someone else. If they had spent half as much time actually trying to help me, I probably would't be writing this rant.

Demand bette.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Lousy Service, Part 3

My final real life story has to do with my cell phone carrier, T-Mobile. These folks have gone above and beyond. But getting decent customer service has been getting harder and harder.

First of all, when I call 611 the first thing I get is a message telling me to look at my phone's screen and search for answers on the Web. Puh-leeze. If you opt to try to talk to a live person, you get a few challenges from the robot lady, but it's not that hard. Relatively speaking.

My frustration started when the bubbly girl started talking. She asked me how she could help. When I told her I had a question about my bill she launched into this REALLY annoying rant about how she's here to tp provide me with exceptional service and understands how billing questions can be a real concern and she'd certainly want answers and.. (obviously the T-Mobile training manual says she needs to empathize - no matter how phony and insincere it sounds). I finally get her to shut up so I can ask my question.

I tell her I see a charge that listed as "other" but it has no explanation. She launches into another diatribe about how she understands how an unidentified charge would open her eyes to a possible problem and she'd want answers and... SHUT UP!!! - just answer my f***ing question without this insincere babbling.

Finally, after getting my question answered, she starts selling me on upgrading my phone. After she finally shuts up about the upgrade, she launches into another obviously insincere rant about what a great customer I've been for the last seven years and yadda yadda. I hung up on her.

Why can't these companies just focus on basic courtesy? Sincere empathy is great. Ask me if I'd like to hear about deals and savings opportunities. But don't patronize me and waste my time with meaningless babble. But it seems this kind of "service" is more the norm than the exception.

This is my last "rant" post (for now). I'd love to post some raves. Please send me some happy support stories.

Happy Holidays!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Is Lousy Customer Service The Norm? Part 1

 

This post will be in three parts because I'm just so ticked off about the state of customer service these days.

December is only a week old and I've already experienced the lowest possible level of customer service from three major national companies.  I'm talking about companies that I have given a great deal of money to, either monthly (Comcast, T-Mobile) or in big chunks (Apple).  Not only do I pay these folks a lot of money, their service used to be outstanding.  This is an ugly change.  Is this typical?  I hope not.

All of these use the annoying voice recognition robot that never seems to understand what I say, or what I say isn't in her vocabulary.  These folks, like so many, play lengthy recordings advertising services, referring you to their Web site, which delays my ability to get to a live person.  Worst of all - telling you me 20 - 30 seconds how important my business is to them.  And none give me an option to hold without music, and the music is always terrible.

Comcast has instituted an awful phone menu with way too many options.  If you go down the wrong path, which is easy to do, there's no way to get back to the main menu yo you can start over.  You need to hang up and start over.  There are also dead ends that play recordings and then hang up.  When I finally make contact with a live body, I really start to get frustrated.  I was asked for the serial number on my cable box.  The rep told me I needed to look on the back of the box for it.  I explained I'm disabled and can't crawl on the floor (not to mention my box is on the bottom of my stack of electronics).  I later found the serial number is available number is available in a setup menu.  Oh, asnd there was the phone problem.  After much discussion they sent out a tech who said.

Enough for today.  Please share your experiences - good or bad - here or on my Facebook page.

Next post - Apple Express Lane

Track Hurricane Sandy

Google has a site set up with updates, webcams and news regarding this "once in a lifetime " storms hits the North East coast. Ourthoughts and prayers are with the folks in harm's way.

http://google.org/crisismap/sandy-2012

Windows 8 - I Installed It!

Finally!  A Microsoft product that installled without a hitch!

I've been running the Consumer Preview version of Windows 8 on my iMac using Parallels for a few weeks and habe been pretty impressed.  But yesterday I installed the full version of Windows 8 Pro and now I get to play with all the features.

The installation was easy - I simply went to the Windows Web site and created an account, added my credit card, and was able to download the operating system in just anfew minutes.  Much like my latest version of Apple's OS X.  Windows 8 cost twice as much as OS X, but $40 is a far sight less that previous versions of Windows.

It took about an hour to install, but there were no issues.  Once I was finished, I logged in with the Windows Live account I created earlier and was able to quickly connect to my Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts.  I also set up email with my byteslaves@outlook.com account.  Pretty painless.

When you set up Windows 8, you also get a SkyDrive account.  This allows you to save Documents, Pictures and Music to the Web and access them from anywhere.

What I'm really impressed by is that Windows 8 recognized all the programs installed on my iMac.  If I choose to open a Mac program, it's smart enough to take me back to an Apple window and open the program.

I'm just scratching the surface here, but will be posting screen shots, lessons learned, and hopefully some videos over the next week or two.

Corporate Docs Scam

SCAM ALERT! Got an intersting letter from Corporate Records Service asking me to send them my corporate info (officers, shareholders, etc.) along with a check or credit card payment of $125. They'll then file the "documents to satisfy the annual minutes requirement for your corporation." These are documents you file every year when you renew your corporation. This scam has been reported elsewhere:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/directory/Corporate-Records-Service.aspx