Tag: complaint

CNN.com – Navarrette – What really bothers immigration foes – Aug 11, 2006

CNN.com – Navarrette: What really bothers immigration foes – Aug 11, 2006

Update to this post.

Aha! This guy agrees with me.  Many of the people opposed to illegal immigrants are using border security as an excuse to hide the fact that they just don’t like Mexicans.  Some people expressed fear that the immigrants were a threat to our security.  But when a proposal came out that satisfied their demands, they came up with new demands.  You’ve made our borders safe?  Now make sure that you give preference to English-speakers and skilled workers.

No, I’m sorry, you can’t do that.  This is America.  This is not English-Speaking-Skilled-Worker Land.  There’s no sign on the Statue of Liberty that says “You must be this Americanized to enter”.  If you want to hate Mexicans, fine, that’s your right.  But stop lying about it, and stop trying to pass laws so you don’t have to see them.  You can go live in your close-minded little world all you want, but stop forcing your racism on me and the rest of the country.

Dont you love the DMV?

How can the customer service line for the Department of Motor Vehicles be busy? I just got a bill for my property tax on the truck I sold last year. I called the county, and they said that the DMV has no record of the sale. So I guess someone forgot to write it down when I turned in my tags. And now I can’t get through to the DMV. I do not want to have to go there in person. Although it might turn out to be easier.

And honestly, how does Virginia get away with a yearly tax on a depreciating asset? They like to talk about how wonderful the car tax relief they offer is, but they fail to mention how stupid the car tax is in the first place. If they want to tax the USE of the car to help pay for roads and such, I wouldn’t be totally opposed. That would place the tax burden firmly where it belongs – on those who drive the most. But a tax on the car itself, above and beyond sales tax, is ridiculous.

Update: I’m currently on hold with the DMV. After a half hour of redial, I finally got past the busy signal and got their automated system. How the heck do I get a busy signal when I’m calling a computer? That’s just a bad system.

Not only that, but when I finally got through, they launched into the recorded spiel about how much you can do on their website. How do they think I got the stupid phone number? So, as I was verbally expressing my disgust at their awful phone system, that very same phone system interpreted my words as me having trouble with their menu system. This is actually impossible, because they never gave me any menu options. At least my supposed difficulties got me straight into the customer service queue, which is where I wanted to be anyway.

Update II:  So it looks like I got it taken care of.  The CSR was completely incapable of answering any questions as to why they failed to take the vehicle out of my name, but at least she took it out.

By the way, if you ever find a Virgina driver’s license, you can do all sorts of things.  They don’t ask any identifying information beyond what’s on the license.  That makes me feel safe.

Competition before I even get off the ground

Sutori: Digg for Consumerists – Consumerist

This site is more or less what I had in mind for Complaint Hub, except I would have skipped the meaningless Web 2.0 name.  Sutori?  WTF is that?  I guess if I want to compete, I’ll have to hook up with the Better Business Bureau and allow people to complain to someone who really listens rather than just their fellow internet nerds.

IE sucks. Why are you still using it?

IE 7.0 Technical Changes Leave Web Developers, Users in the Lurch

Paul Thurrott at WindowsITPro.com says (Link via Slashdot):

My advice is simple: Boycott IE. It’s a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn’t secure and isn’t standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators. Because of their user bases, however, Web developers are hamstrung into developing for IE at the expense of established standards that work well in all other browsers. You can turn the tide by demanding more from Microsoft and by using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Macintosh only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.

I’ve been using Firefox for a while now, and the only reason I still have IE is that it’s too much trouble (If not impossible) to get rid of it on my Windows box. Firefox includes, and has included, many of the features that are new for IE7, Microsoft’s new version of Internet Explorer that’s still in Beta. Microsoft likes to crow about their new tabbed browsing feature, which has been available in Firefox and whatever Apple’s browser is for a while.

Another major flaw with IE is the release cycle. Firefox updates all the time. When someone finds a security flaw, they fix it. If it’s serious, they force you to upgrade. And they respond quickly. Microsoft has never been quick to fix security flaws. By the time they get around to patching something, your computer has been open to who knows what for an unacceptable amount of time.

And then there’s the point of the article I linked – Microsoft isn’t standards-compliant. They use their dominant (though shrinking) market share to do whatever they want. There are standards for building web pages that are independant of whatever it is that the browser manufacturers want, and Microsoft, more than other browsers, ignores these standards.

If you’re using IE right now, I want you to go get a real browser. Firefox, Safari, Opera, all of these are much better options. IE is bad for your computer, and bad for the internet.

Up yours, says American Airlines

Got a reply from American, finally. Unfortunately, it doesn’t address any of my concerns.

August 7, 2006

Dear [Me]:

I am so sorry for your unhappy experience when you traveled with us to Las Vegas. There’s probably nothing more frustrating than having to travel when bad weather conditions play havoc with airline schedules. From your description it certainly sounds as if the delay was aggravating and uncomfortable, and it’s unfortunate we didn’t do a better job of overcoming the many challenges we faced. I am especially concerned that we missed opportunities to mitigate the effects of the weather disruption.

Unfortunately, many times we don’t have too many options to help make such situations less trying. Still, your comments enable us to understand things from our customers’ perspective, which is crucial as we strive for better performance next time.

Although we do whatever we can to minimize weather related problems, our schedules are not guaranteed; there are simply too many uncontrollable factors for us to make such a commitment. For this reason, we cannot assume financial responsibility for our customers’ personal time lost or for out-of-pocket expenses incurred as a result of operational difficulties. Instead, you have my assurance that we will always work hard to get you to your destination on time. I hope you will give us another opportunity to do so.

This is an “outgoing only” email address. If you reply to this message by simply selecting the ‘reply’ button, we will not receive your additional comments. Please assist us in providing you with a timely response to any feedback you have for us by always sending us your email messages via AA.com at http://www.aa.com/customerrelations.

Sincerely,

[Some CSR] Customer Relations American Airlines

So I replied to them via their crappy web form. They tell you not to reply to the email they send you, but then they don’t give you any way to reply via the web form that makes it clear you’re replying to an email they sent you. Here is my reply:

I sent you a letter complaining about terrible service, and you sent me a reply blaming it all on the weather. I should have been more clear in my first letter – the first delay was mechanical. Subsequent delays may have been weather related, but the first delay, the one that pushed my flight from Thursday evening to Friday morning, was a mechanical problem with our plane.

Please contact me as soon as possible. I do not consider this matter closed, although I do appreciate your apology in the email I received this morning.

I suppose my reply might have been a little snippy.  But I was hoping for something a little more substantial from them than “Sorry, we don’t control the weather”.

This is not over, American Airlines.

American Airlines thinks it can ignore me

I still have no response from them.  They didn’t even respond to the online form, although I told them another letter was coming, so maybe they figured they’d wait for that.  I’m not sure they realize who they’re dealing with.  Do they not know who I am?  They will taste the wrath of the Better Business Bureau before long, you wait and see.  They will rue the day they stole 16 hours of my bachelor party.

How does this help the American people?

Senate Rejects Estate, Minimum Wage Bill

The GOP strategy put Democrats in an uncomfortable position. Either they could vote against the bill – thus rejecting a minimum wage increase – or they could vote for it – thus agreeing to cut taxes on multimillion-dollar estates. Most rejected the bill, blocking a GOP victory months before the election.

Never mind that it’s disgraceful that the minimum wage is tied to the whims of politicians rather than some real measure of economic conditions.  That’s a post for another day.  I fail to see who benefits from tying together two unrelated bills.  This is (or should be) an abuse of the system.  If I have a bill that no one wants to vote for, then I tack it on to a bill that everyone wants to vote for, and therefore get my bill passed, that only serves me.  It does not serve the public.

When I vote for Congressmen and Senators, I don’t do it with the idea that my Congressmen and my Senators will fight for exactly what I want at the expense of everyone else.  I vote for them so that they can take some views I agree with into the larger discussions of what’s best for the country.

This particular case is pretty despicable, too.  Bill Frist desperately wants to repeal the estate taxes so that wealthy people can leave more to their wealthy children.  He can’t get enough votes to do it, so he (or someone else, I don’t know) attaches the bill to a raise in the minimum wage.  So, take a bill to help put more tax burden on lower income people, and tie it to a bill that people mistakenly thinks helps some of those same lower income people, and voila!  You have a bill that everyone likes.

Except what we really need is a simplified tax code that treats all income like income, and then makes some exceptions to promote things we want to promote, like saving and investing and charitable contributions.  Then we need to rethink the minimum wage laws.  Yes, I know I said this was for another day, but I’m on a roll.  First, determine what the minimum wage is supposed to do.  Is it supposed to guarantee that a couple on minimum wage can raise a family?  If that’s the case, it’s way too low.  Is it supposed to be a guideline for what to pay a sixteen-year-old kid on his first job?  Well, then it at least needs to incorporate cost of living adjustments.  Whatever it’s supposed to do, it’s broken now, and this bill isn’t going to fix it.

Even now, no one wants to vote

Democrats Scrambling To Organize Voter Turnout

It seems to me that, in the current political climate of 36% approval ratings, if you can’t get Democratic voters to actually get out and vote, then the problem is not with your voter turnout schemes.  The problem is that you have offered no compelling reason to vote for you.  “I’m not a Republican” is not a compelling reason to vote for you.

Maybe if Democrats actually focused on the issues.  For example, I’d love to see a Democrat with a real plan to get us out of Iraq.  But we have to finish what we started, first.  We can’t just leave while the country is still in disarray.  And what about the environment?  Health care?  The economy?  You can’t just claim that the Republicans are ruining everything and leave it at that.

It’s frustrating.  If the Democrats can’t take back the House and Senate now, when Bush and his supporters are so unpopular, then the party should be disbanded.

Its like rats from a sinking ship

CNN.com – UK, Arnie in global warming pact – Aug 1, 2006 First Nick Saban, now the Governator?  Ahnold has now bypassed the President and gone straight to Tony Blair to make an agreement on global warming.  Everyone wants to distance themselves from an unpopular President.

“We see that there is not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment,” Schwarzenegger said. “We know there is global warming, so we should stop it.”

Great.  Stop global warming.  I’m all in favor of being more environmentally friendly.  But this reeks of “Please re-elect me, California” rather than any sort of real step toward anything.

And no matter how much I dislike the President, we can’t let being publically rude to him become a tool to win voters.  It’s like focusing on his poor public speaking – it ignores the real problems (Like his desire to take away all of our civil rights) and focuses on something highly visible, but not that important.

American Airlines update

Just opened my email box this morning to an email from American Airlines!  After all, it’s only been a week, why wouldn’t they have emailed me by now?

But it was just spam about their AAdvantage program.  Alas.  They had better get back to me soon.  My mouse moves ever closer to the “Click here to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau” button.