Tag: complaint

Never, ever go out in the sun

CNN.com – Sun kills 60,000 a year, WHO says – Jul 26, 2006

“The application of sunscreens should not be used to prolong sun exposure but rather to protect the skin when exposure is unavoidable,” the report advises.

When the World Health Organization tells me to only go outside when absolutely necessary, I stop paying attention.  Sure, we should do more to protect the ozone layer.  But staying inside with the A/C blasting isn’t really the way to go.

I’m too lazy to look up numbers, but I imagine that 60,000 people a year makes the sun about as dangerous as a pair of toenail clippers.  How many people are there in the world?  Four billion?  What percentage of four billion is 60,000?  Well, I’ll tell you.  It’s 0.0015%.  You’re more likely to be struck by lightning while being mauled by a bear and holding a winning lottery ticket.  Actually, I made that up.  But seriously.  More people die from heart disease because they stayed inside worrying about skin cancer than die from actually getting skin cancer.  I made that up, too, but I guarantee it’s true or your money back.

I am unauthorized

I got this yesterday, but just got around to reading it.

Thank you for contacting us. We consider feedback from our customers to be very important. We are currently experiencing higher than normal email communications from our customers and our response to you may be delayed. We’ll reply as soon as possible and we appreciate your patience in the meantime.

That’s not the best part. This is:

This email message and its contents are copyrighted and are proprietary products of American Airlines, Inc. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or transfer of this message or its contents, in any medium, is strictly prohibited.

The email message is copyrighted. Um, okay. I guess this is an unauthorized reproduction. What are they going to do, steal 16 hours of my bachelor party? Oh, wait . . .

I also like how they attach a name to the autoreply, as if some CSR actually read my submission and responded personally. How touching.

Pre-Vegas timeline of incompetence and sorrow

Thursday 1:00PM – Leave work, giddy with anticipation 3:30PM – Leave home, Sam in tow, to pick up Evan 3:36PM – Return home to feed cat so fiancée can go to happy hour 4:00PM – Arrive at Mike’s office to carpool to airport 4:11PM – Arrive at Dulles Airport 4:30PM – Check in, breeze through security 4:32PM – Realize that our flight is delayed. 4:45PM – Realize that we will now miss our connection in Dallas 5:30PM – Find out there are no more flights from Dallas to Vegas 6:03PM – Leave airport, new boarding passes for Friday morning in hand 6:15PM – Arrive at restaurant to drown our sorrows 6:30PM – Very nice waitress tells us “dead baby” jokes to try and raise our spirits 7:00PM – Our spirits slightly raised, we go our separate ways. 8:00PM – Join fiance at happy hour Friday 1:30AM – Leave bar, fiance convinces cab driver to go through Wendy’s drive through 2:15AM – Arrive home to sleep 4:45AM – Alarm goes off, time to do it again 4:46AM – Unbeknownst to me, receive a call at work from American notifying me that my flight is delayed 4:49AM – Evan gets the same call from American. 5:30AM – Arrive at Mike’s office again, break the news that we have a new flight, but it’s out of National Airport. 6:03AM – Arrive at National Airport for a 7:17 flight 6:10AM – Begin horror of checking in for an America West flight bought with an American Airlines ticket 6:10-7:14AM – Made three runs back and forth between counters, cutting in line and getting yelled at each time (Thanks, Evan) 7:14AM – End horror of checking in for an America West flight bought with an American Airlines ticket and proceed to security 7:19AM – exit security, thirty yards from our gate, only to find that the plane that was supposed to be waiting for us has just pulled away. 7:20AM – Gnashing of teeth, screams of anguish, various cursing 7:22AM – Return to American counter, beaten and depressed. Get booked on Continental flight at 11 8:00AM – Mike throws in the towel. 8:15AM – Nutritious breakfast at Cinnebon accompanied by really bad coffee 9:45AM – Mike leaves the airport, refund in hand. Evan, Sam, and I head to security. 10:00AM – Evan, Sam, and I, one right after the other, are selected for “random” expanded security screenings 10:02AM – Very pleasant gay man gives me a wanding and a pat down 10:15AM – Arrive at our new gate 10:15:02AM – Sit down at airport bar for beer, screwdrivers 10:30AM – Realize our flight is delayed again, and we’ll miss our connection 10:31AM – Wonderful Continental agent gets us on another flight which has already boarded 10:34AM – Surprised flight attendant finds us some empty seats seconds before the doors close 12:00PM – Arrive in Cleveland, slightly surprised Continental agent prints our boarding passes since the first agent had kept them 2:30PM – Arrive in Vegas, start drinking heavily. It sure is nice when your boy has $12 margaritas waiting for you at the pool bar.

Ooh, a direct hit

Take this, American Airlines. This is what you get for costing me sixteen hours of bachelor party in Vegas. What follows is my letter to the airline that I mailed this morning. They’re going to be sorry if they make me bust out the BBB. You don’t mess with a man’s bachelor party.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to tell you about the worst airline experience I have ever had. On July 20th, I left with my brother and two friends to fly from Dulles Airport in Virginia to Las Vegas, Nevada for the weekend. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:26PM, arriving in Las Vegas via Dallas, Texas at 10:40PM. Our troubles began when the first flight was delayed, and we were told that we would miss our connection in Dallas, and that there were no more flights to Las Vegas from Dallas, either that night, or the next morning. Rather than risk being stranded indefinitely in Texas, we returned home after being booked on an America West flight through Phoenix the next morning.

Unfortunately, in the morning, our flight was again delayed, such that we would miss our connection. American called one of my fellow travelers, and we managed to get a flight for the four of us from Washington National airport through Newark. We rushed to National and arrived approximately one hour before our scheduled departure at 7:17AM. When we got to the America West counter, we were forced to literally run back and forth between the American counter and the America West counter, trying to get the proper documentation so that our boarding passes could be printed. At approximately 7:14AM, we had our passes and rushed to security, assured by the America West counter agent that the flight knew we were coming and would wait for us.

However, this was a lie, and the flight was already backing away from the gate when we arrived at approximately 7:19AM. We returned to the American counter and were booked on a flight through Continental at 11AM. Continental finally provided us with good service. When our 11AM flight was delayed, again making us miss our connection, the Continental agent found us another flight that left immediately and brought us to Las Vegas, through Cleveland, arriving at 2:30PM the day after we were scheduled to arrive.

I can understand delays. I understand that they happen sometimes, and sometimes there is nothing the airline can do. But when we are forced to change flights three times, change airports, and do all of the running back and forth to get the proper documentation ourselves, it becomes unacceptable. At no time did any employee of American Airlines apologize. At no time did any employee acknowledge that we had been subjected to unreasonable delays. The only thing that American employees did was dump us off on other airlines, hoping the problem would go away.

I have already written to you using the complaint submission form at aa.com. However, the 1500 character limit did not allow me to fully explain the situation. The reference number is XXX.

I travel a lot. My fiancée’s family owns a travel agency. At this point, I have no interest in ever flying with American Airlines again. You have made a mistake, which is understandable. But you have done absolutely nothing to fix it, which is unacceptable. Please contact me as soon as possible if you have not already done so as a result of my complaint online.

Thank you very much

I’ll keep you all posted on what transpires. I also submitted a thank you through Continental.com’s web form, because I figure I shouldn’t only contact the company when they screw up.

Im back

And boy, do I have some complaints for you.  I have complaints about American Airlines first, who decided that I didn’t need to get to Vegas Thursday night, but that getting me there Friday afternoon without so much as an apology was just fine.  I have complaints about the place where we’re getting married, who have now charged my credit card twice when they were only owed once, and a complaint about Discover, who blocked the first charge, then let a duplicate charge go through two weeks later, putting me over my limit.  I also have complaints about Vegas, primarily that it was way too hot and I didn’t win every time I played craps, but those are probably not really so legitimate.

In any event, I will be posting the saga of our trip out there soon.  It’ll be fun, just wait.

Failure or success?

You may know that I’ve been trying to get a more balanced view of the news.  I realized recently that everything I read has a pretty liberal slant, and I want to see the other side.  Both because I agree with a lot of conservative ideas, and because seeing both sides of an issue helps you regardless of which side you’re on.

So tell me if I’m better off now – I don’t like reading either side.  I read the National Review, and all I hear is, “President Bush is doing the right thing, why can’t you stupid liberals see that?”.  Then I read the Daily Kos and I see, “President Bush is destroying the world.  Why can’t you stupid conservatives see that?”.  I’m sick of it all.

What happened to the idea of public service?  What happened to the idea that we’re going to do what’s right for the people, not what the leaders of the political party you affiliate yourself with think serves their interests.

When I first registered to vote in Maryland when I was 18, I registered as a Democrat, mostly because my parents are Democrats, and Maryland requires you to register with a party to vote in the primaries.  Did that mean that I was ruled by the Democratic party?  No.  It means that I chose to associate with them because, in general, their ideas matched up with mine, and they had a much bigger voice than I do.  Later, I considered myself a Republican, because my views changed, and now I agreed with more Republican ideas.

Today, I will not associate myself with either party.  Politics is too much about the party, and about the fighting for the superiority and power of one over the other, and too often the people are forgotten.

Bush Set to Use First Veto on Stem Cell Bill

Bush Set to Use First Veto on Stem Cell Bill

I’m actually okay with Bush vetoing this bill.  I mean, he said in 2001 that he wasn’t going to expand federal funding for stem cell research.  At least he’s being true to his word.  I disagree with his 2001 decision, but at least he’s being honest and consistent.

I’ll discuss my views on stem cell research another time.  The real problem I have with this veto is this:

[This veto] would mark the first time the president has wielded a veto pen, putting him far behind his predecessors Bill Clinton (38 vetoes in two terms), George H.W. Bush (44 in one term) and Ronald Reagan (78 in two terms). To a large degree, the lack of a veto reflects the simple fact that Republicans have controlled Congress almost the entire time Bush has been in office and they have been reluctant to send him legislation that might be vetoed.

You know, the real failing of those who don’t like the President may not be that we allowed him to be re-elected, but rather that we haven’t managed to get anyone in Congress who both disagrees with him, and has the backing to do something about it.  If all of Congress is behind him, and at this point it seems like half of the Supreme Court is his nominees, it’s no wonder that he’s been able to do so many things that make so many people upset.

I thought midterm elections where when the party that opposed the President typically got some more control of Congress.  Maybe we were too busy crying about how poorly he speaks, or how he stole the election.

Comment spam

Have I mentioned that people who take the time to write little scripts or whatever it is they do to spam the comments at this blog and others deserve to be hit by buses? I don’t quite know why this bothers me so much. It feels like an invasion of privacy. I love when people comment here. I love that people actually do enjoy what I write, and I welcome comments, whether you agree with me or not. But I do wish, with all my heart, that those responsible for comment spam and all other types of spam would die. This is not hyperbole. I wish death upon them. The world would be better off. If only Dante were alive now so that he could write them into The Inferno. They’d be sitting on top of Satan’s head, screaming offers for cheap V14gr4 at the tortured souls all around them.

What may be even worse is the people who actually buy from them. It must be profitable, or they’d quit. Please, anyone reading this, never, EVER EVER EVER buy ANYTHING from a spammer. If you get an email trying to sell you something, it IS A SCAM. No exceptions. It’s only going to get worse if you keep encouraging them.