captpackrat | Entries tagged with bad guys

August 1st of last year, I purchased a "heavy duty" executive chair from OfficeMax. The box claimed it was designed to support up to 350 pounds. The salesman talked me into buying their MaxAssurance plan, which would extend the warranty on the chair out to 3 years. He assured me the warranty would cover any physical damage to the chair, except for abuse. The warranty pamphlet claimed "About the only thing MaxAssurance doesn't protect against are failures caused by abuse or misuse of the covered product."

A few days ago, the chair began wobbling side to side. I flipped it over to make sure all the bolts were tightened, and discovered the welds holding the gas strut to the base plate were beginning to fail. I dug up the receipt and the extended warranty and hit their website. I tried to fill out the form to get service, but it kept rejecting my claim. So I tried their live chat support. There I came to find out that the extended warranty covers structural defects for furniture, but according to them, chairs aren't considered furniture. (Huh?) Chairs are only covered for broken casters and the upholstery.

So not only did OfficeMax sell me shoddy merchandise, a "heavy duty" chair which failed in under 13 months, and their salesman deliberately misrepresented the extended warranty, but the warranty pamphlet itself is misleading.

Their support rep said I can send in my receipt and get a prorated refund for the rest of my extended warranty contract. Which will come out to something like $6. Whoopty-doo. I'm screwed about the chair though.

I went to Costco and bought a new one. If it ever breaks, Costco's fantastic satisfaction guarantee will give me my money back.

Current Mood: angry

It's time for another episode of Good Guys/Bad Guys

A month ago, the corner of my 4G Lexar SDHC card broke, rendering it unusable in my camera. I wasn't doing anything unusual with it, it just broke off when I pulled it out of the card reader. I sent it in to Lexar for warranty replacement; I finally got the replacement back today.

I sent them a 4G Platinum II 60X card. They sent me back a Ritz-branded 4G Class 2 card. What's the difference? A 60X card is about 4.5 times faster than a Class 2 card.

Most companies, if they are unable to send the same item, will give you a free upgrade. I sent Lexar a fairly high end card, and they sent me back the cheapest thing in their entire line.

Current Mood: annoyed

Last month I had lunch at Sizzler (the one near Oak View Mall in Omaha). The total bill came to $15.89, which I put on my credit card. I never, ever add a tip to the bill at Sizzler, since you have to pay before you get your food. I always leave a cash tip on the table after the meal, that way I can give the wait staff an appropriate tip based on their level of service.

On this particular day, service was terrible. We were pretty much ignored the whole time. It took forever to get our food, my SO spent most of the meal with an empty glass, and my all-you-could-eat shrimp wasn't remotely all-I-could-eat, it was sit-around-wait-for-until-we-had-to-leave-to-catch-our-movie-before-I-could-get-another-helping shrimp. I was so annoyed by the waiter, I left no tip whatsoever.

So today, I'm going through my credit card statement, reconciling it with Microsoft Money. And the charge for Sizzler doesn't match what's in Money. Money says I paid $15.89, while American Express says I paid $18.37, $15.89 plus a $2.48 tip.

The bastards added a tip to my bill!

I called American Express to contest the charges, and they were really great about it. They credited my account with the $2.48 right away. At ONE FREAKING AM, I was on the phone for under five minutes! And I talked to someone who spoke clear and understandable English, not Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. I really love this card.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: "Big Iron" by Marty Robbins

I was in Escondido this morning and just happened to be driving past Tamales Ancera and thought I'd stop in there to pick up some tamales. I'd seen the commercials on TV and they always looked so good.

Anywho, I ordered two of everything, figuring I'd put the rest in the freezer or something for later. The person goes in back to get my order, so I look around at all the Mexican candy and drinks and stuff they have for sale.

And then, right in front of me, a cockroach starts crawling across the front counter. It crawls over the menu I was just looking at, and just wanders around, taking its time. It wasn't in any hurry, it didn't seem to be bothered by the light or anything.

Ugh.

I just walked out.

When I got home, I called the county Health Department and filed a complaint.

I still want tamales, but I guess I'll stick to frozen tamales bought from Costco.

Current Mood: disgusted
Current Music: "King of the Hill" on TV

Stay away from the Netgear Storage Central SC101.

It's a cute little box that you slip a couple hard drives into, then it becomes a network storage device. It costs about $120, minus the drives, and offers RAID 0 and 1. Sounds like a great deal.

But the quality is utter crap. The installation software is SERIOUS broken, crashing TWICE during setup. It then completely lost one of the drives I installed and couldn't get it back. And when I tried to remove the drive so I could reformat it on another machine, the Molex power connector broke.

I've been working with computers for over 20 years, and I have never had a Molex connector break.

Current Mood: aggravated

So far I've come across at least 5 major bugs in this Windows Mobile upgrade that Dell sold me.

1. Leaving an SD or CF card in the unit drains the battery, even with it powered off. Leaving both cards in drains it twice as fast as one.

2. Leaving a CD card in the unit may cause it to disappear when the unit is powered on. Restoring the card requires a soft-reset.

3. Leaving an SD card in the unit may cause it not to turn on at all if the battery is below about 85%. Removing the card allows the unit to turn on normally.

4. Frequent error messages regarding GWES.EXE, a core Windows file that handles the graphic user interface.

5. Setting the unit in the cradle with it turned off may result in the so-called "White Screen of Death"; the screen turns on solid white and the unit becomes totally unresponsive. A soft-reset is required.

It's been confirmed that this is a problem with Dell's ROM image, not a hardware problem. It affects both the X51 and the X50 upgraded to WM5. Dell claims a new ROM image will be available on the 18th. I don't know how they're going to handle this for X50 customers.

I've also learned that the version of ActiveSync Dell shipped with the X51/X50-WM5 is a Developer Release, not a final release version. The final version isn't even available from Microsoft yet.

So much for Dell QA.

Current Mood: increasingly annoyed
Current Music: "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult

I drove over to Fry's today to pick up some equipment for work. Among the items I purchased was a rechargeable wireless mouse, normally $15 but this was an open box item, so it was $9.50. I've gotten burned on open box items before, but it's just a mouse, what could possibly go wrong?

I get back to the office, and start hooking up the mouse. I noticed that it felt odd... extremely light. I've used lots of wireless mice before, both AAA and rechargeable, and they're always extremely heavy. But this one was much too light. Lighter than most wired mice. I started looking it over, and found the battery door. Empty. The rechargeable batteries were missing.

So I drive all the way back over to Fry's to exchange it. I tell the employee that the battery is missing, and point out on the package where it says it's supposed to be included.

And the guy slaps a Return To Shelf sticker on it! So some other poor schmuck is going to get the SAME mouse with missing batteries. I guess they'll keep putting it out on the shelf until someone comes along stupid enough not to read the package and thinks he needs to supply his own batteries.

I couldn't believe this. I'm absolutely dumbstruck by it. I could maybe understand them putting a possibly defective router back on the shelf, but putting something with blatantly obvious missing pieces back? Without putting any kind of notice on the box that parts are missing? That is just down right FRAUD!

Current Mood: infuriated
Current Music: "Why Don't You Do Right?" by Peggy Lee

Just wanted to take the time to point out some of the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

Good Guys:

Scripto-Tokai Corp. (I bought a Scripto lighter and had trouble with the child resistant "feature" on it. I wrote the company to complain, and they sent me 2 free lighters to replace it.)

Master Lock (A pair of supposedly rust-resistant padlocks rusted up. I mailed them back to the manufacturer, and they sent me four replacement locks!)

Yixing.com Teapots (The first teapot I ordered arrived with damage to the inside of the lid (the outside of the pot was fine). They sent me a new one and let me keep the first one, which still looked fine on the outside!)

GM Exclusive, Vista, CA (The mechanic has put my car up on the lift several times and has fixed my brakes, topped off the brake and transmission fluids, and checked the steering linkages for damage after I hit the mother of all potholes, all for free.)

Evans Tire Center, Vista, CA (Spent an hour working on my car trying to locate a rattling noise. They couldn't find the source of the noise, but they rotated my tires, tightened down the driver's seat, and checked the suspension and exhaust system. Despite all the time spent on it, they didn't charge me a thing.)

Carl's Jr (I wrote to complain about the poor service at one of their franchise restaurants and they sent me coupons for 2 free burgers.)

Bad Guys:

Covad (Tried to pull a bait & switch selling me a very expensive T-1 when I tried to obtain a DSL line. They also tried to charge me $500 for services never provided. It took 4 months to get them to honor their own money-back guarantee.)

Toshiba (My PDA has been out of action 3 months out of the past year waiting for them to send a box to return the unit for repair. It's been sent in twice for the same problem, which appears to be endemic in that model. I'd previously purchased a Toshiba laptop that had to be replaced 3 times in 2 weeks before I finally returned it. They refuse to admit there was a problem with that model, even though all the store demo units had the same problem as well. That particular model was discontinued a mere month after introduction.)

Instant Internet Corp (a.k.a. InstaNet), Woodland Hills, CA (Ripped me off to the tune of $865 for service never provided. They have ignored my e-mails and phone calls.)

Len's Auto Body & Paint, Oceanside, CA (Took seventy-five days to repair the damage to my '93 Caprice caused by someone falling off a balcony onto the roof of the car. They did a horrible paint job that is starting to peel now, less than 5 years later. They left the interior of the car absolutely FILTHY, and they left the wiring harness for the rear view mirror just dangling.)

Mastertech, Inc., Oceanside, CA (Not only were they unable to repair my car, but they actually made things worse. Then they charged me $1000 for the work they (allegedly) did.)