Customer Disservice: Oy!

 I find it hard to believe I have not dedicated a post here to whining about shitty customer service, but I couldn't find such a post.  Yea! A chance to write something new!

I subscribed to the web version Toronto Star to get access to their coverage of the various Canadian military controversies.  But I found that I was not reading much over there anymore.  So, I tried to cancel my subscription.  Funny how they make it easy to subscribe but very difficult to unsubscribe:

• there is nothing on the website to change one's account settings.  The page for managing one's account is mis-titled since I could not manage my account.  No hint of how to unsubscribe.
• No phone number for managing one's subscriptions on the webpage.  The only phone number is the general one.
• What happens when you call the general number?  I kept getting disconnected.
• I emailed a while back to the electronic support to ask to be cancelled and they gave me a phone number that is only staffed in the mornings.  Oh, and it is not an 800 number.  Luckily it was staffed today.
• So, the guy (from far, far away) on the phone first couldn't find my info as I assumed he could spell Steve... my bad.  
• Then he kept wanting to know how he could fix the situation other than unsubscribing.  I was losing my temper... so nope, no fix.  You make it hard to unsubscribe, that just hardens my need to unsubscribe.
• Then he wanted to know why I wanted to unsubscribe to fill in the boxes on his form: your paper sucks.  Sure, the coverage can be ok, but I have let this bad experience with customer disservice color my view.

In between, I tried to get my credit card company to stop the automatic payment, and they refused.  They said the only option they had was to cancel the card, which is pretty damned inconvenient.  Why can't they just enter into their computers not to accept charges from a specific company?  They can enter autopayments so why can't they stop specific autopayments?  

It should not be this hard.

 So, that is my rant du jour.  That the move to online has made things easier to sign up but not to sign out, that they resist, hoping that you give up, and that credit card companies sure make it hard to change who I am paying.

Fuck.

 

When Bargaining Is Easy

IR theory has never really helped me that much when buying a car.  Sure, I learned about bargaining and incomplete information, but I rarely have practice.  Meanwhile, the car people do this everyday. 

So, today, we bought a used car so that I can be stuck with just one set of car payments (our other car).  The lack of a need for financing made the bargaining easier but not easy.  They claimed to have already marked down the car enough.  I got a decent price, I think.

But then the bargaining got easier and yet less pleasant.  At the end of these processes, you always have to deal with another person for the contract, and they like to bargain more.  But this is where it is easy:

Extended Warranty?  NO. 
Car service package?  NO!!  Hey, but cars are complex these days and service elsewhere might void the warranty.  HELL NO!.
Emergency service?  NO, got CAA (Canadian version of AAA).
How about rustproofing. NO!  Come on, cars rust without rustproofing.  NO.

By the time you get to this guy, after all the test driving and bargaining, you, or at least me, well, I was pretty tired and cranky.  So, it was easy to say no even before the guy would finish his song and dance.  Then he played a new card: this car is for your wife, so let her speak and decide without your interference.  Oh, really.  So, Mrs. Spew go to say HELL NO! NO,NO & NO.

So, long afternoon ended with success but cranky folks.  We will only know if we made a good deal if the car manages to hold together for another seven years or so.  Oy.

Over-Confidence Will Be Your Un-Doing

I am mighty miffed right now about a 21st century problem that really should not be that big of a deal.  I almost could not check out of the grocery store this evening because my credit cards with chips were not working well.  A new policy means that the store cannot swipe the magnetic strip (why have one anymore if you are not going to use it?).  I had to resort to my debit card, which I don't like to use for groceries. 

What frustrates me is that the chips in the cards have yet to reach any level of reliability that would make me think that they should be REQUIRED for a purchase.  I have two cards with chips, one has never worked and the second one worked until today (although it could be the new chip readers at the store).  So, I get to call the card companies and get new cards,  and we shall see how long the new chips last.

Just very frustrating that the banks are overly hopeful that their technology works so well that they eliminate flexibility/discretion.  I almost left a cart full of groceries at the store--which would have done the bank and the store no favors.