Netflix

Nature of the Offense

Unlike a lot of the companies on this site, I actually like Netflix. A lot. But I hate getting frivolous price gouges with no accompanying value increase, like the one-dollar monthly hike Netflix just imposed.

Netflix doesn't have a publicly accessible email address, so I just ran down the address of their CEO and fired off the following complaint.

The Letter

Dear Mr. Hastings,

I would like to express my immense disappointment in Netflix's decision to raise membership prices for its consumers. I realize instant streaming has become the new rage, and you have to keep up with server demands, but as of this moment, your service has added no additional value to merit the rate hike. Allow me to spell out the problems with your new pricing model.

The current "new arrivals" to the Watch Instantly menu include Sorority Wars, The Planet's Funniest Animals (Season 9), The Hot Chick, Maid in Manhattan, and Repo! The Genetic Opera. Citizen Kane is nowhere to be found. Neither is Vertigo, The Sound of Music, Gone With the Wind, or Anal Babes 9.



"Netflix: bringing the authentic cinema experience straight to your living room!"


Sure, I can get unlimited instant streaming for cheap, but I'd better be content to watch the latest Rob Schneider masterpiece. It's like being able to take whatever I want out of the DVD bargain bin at Wal-Mart. This is after being a paying customer for 5 years without being able to watch instantly on:

1. a TV
2. a Mac
3. a web browser other than Internet Explorer
4. a wireless router more than 3 months old
5. the toilet.

That last one might not be your fault, but I still can't get Netflix on my cell phone unless it's an iPhone. My point is that after it took so long to finally get any use whatsoever out of your Watch Instantly service, I should be getting a discount to make up for lost time, not a price gouge.

I do understand that as more customers use your streaming service you have to upgrade your servers, but there are other companies in your position who aren't sticking it to their customers in the middle of the worst economic downturn in 80 years. Take Nintendo, for example. I can play unlimited Goldeneye online, and for free. Sure, Rob Schneider might very well pop up there too, but in that case a) I can't see him, b) there's no voice chat, so I can't hear him, and c) I can blow his friggin' brains out. Maybe Nintendo doesn't have to pay content providers like you do, but hey, nobody ever said Netflix isn't allowed to use The Pirate Bay.



"Up yours, Schneider!"


I would strongly urge you to either reconsider your subscription fee increase, or at least give us something worth watching. Otherwise, I'm coming over there and making you sit through The Human Centipede: First Sequence with me.

The Response

As of this posting, the highlights of the New Releases in Netflix's online selection were:





So yeah, looks like that letter did a lot of good!

In all seriousness, though, I noticed just the other day that my rate had actually been "grandfathered in," and I wasn't paying the upcharge, which wasn't part of the original plan. Maybe the letter did some good, for once.

Guest Author Letter: Time Warner #2

Nature of the Offense

Even if you have never been to this site, you probably already know Time Warner Cable sucks. Their broken give-a-shit has driven our frequent contributor, the Fast Food Warrior, completely up the wall, and the following letter conveys pure exasperation as well as anything you'll ever see.

For context, FFW has canceled his services with TWC, only to receive a bill the next month anyway. To be fair, it's true that he's still getting the same quality of service as before he canceled...

The Letter

Congratulations TWC, you have managed to still incite my rage even after I ended our
relationship. Today I received notification of a bill covering the service period beginning November 25, 2010, that would be automatically charged to my credit card. This would normally not be so surprising except for the fact that I terminated my service on November 1. I recognize, as your online chat agent (P*** S*****) repeatedly pointed out, that you bill one month in advance. (editor's note: see the full chat transcript here) However, I am not accustomed to being billed for future service by companies that I am not a customer of. I tried to turn off the recurring payment feature so that my credit card could not be automatically charged, but was unable to do so. Your chat agent attempted to walk me through the steps that I had just followed on my own, but told me that he lacks the power to do anything. Why do you even offer online chat about billing issues if your agents are effectively neutered. This makes about as much sense as buying an B-cup bra for Pamela Anderson.



This is the second time FFW has used a simile that I refuse to find a picture for.


More troubling was the fact that there was no credit on this latest billing statement for services paid for in the post-cancellation period on last month's bill (11/1 to 11/24). This was contrary to a statement made by your online chat agent, who assured me that such a credit should appear on the next bill following cancellation. Your agent also assured me that I could "ignore" the latest bill.

Given your company's stellar record of integrity and quality customer service, I should have no reason to not trust his statements, right? Wrong. TWC does not keep to its own standards of performance, consistently fails its customers and even makes life difficult for those who are no longer customers.

You are hereby on notice that if I see a single cent charged to my credit card in the future from TWC, or fail to see a full credit for unused service within one month, I will not hesitate to open a disputed charge inquiry with American Express. You certainly don't want to mess with them.

Thank you for wasting an hour of my day.


The Response

We'll just skip the start of the form letter here and skip to the relevant bit...

"I have checked your account and would like to inform you that the service call for the disconncetion (sic) of the service is scheduled on 11/18/2010. Please be rest assured, your services will be disconnceted (sic), and once the services are disconnceted (sic) and the equipments are returned, your account will be credited and if there is any credit balance left on the account. You will receive that
credit as refund check at your mailing address.

Also, I have escalated your issue to the relevant department. Our escalation team will contact you at XXXX@XXXX.com in the next 24-48 business hours. We appreciate your patience. For your reference the ticket number is "

...aaand it cuts off there. TWC's idiot representative couldn't even be bothered to fill in the ticket number on the form letter. Also, what does it mean to "disconncet" your cable? FFW called the 800 number to find out, and got an email shortly after, explaining:

"I request you to provide us some time to resolve your issue, as your issue has been escalated to the relevant. Please be rest assured your issue will be resolved as soon as possible."

FFW and I wondered together what "the relevant" was. My conclusion is that his complaint was finally placed in the "relevant" inbox, rather than the "trash immediately" pile that most customer letters go into. Perhaps I should take some insight from this regarding my own letters...




After some more back-and-forth with the TWC staff, FFW finally received the following notice:

"I understand your issue has been fixed and would like to be contacted only if you have been given free cable and internet service for lifetime.... We will be sure to share the poor experience you encountered with our entire team so that everyone re-focuses on the importance of providing quality customer service.... Please be rest assured your issue will be resolved as soon as possible. "

FFW's reaction: "I only hope they didn't confuse a lifetime supply with the Lifetime family of shitty cable channels. "

Dell Computers #2

Nature of the Offense

After my last correspondence with Dell, I finally received a new laptop, which seemed to be working fine. That is, until it failed to connect to the internet. Considering I had about seven other devices running off my wireless router, I was pretty sure the computer was at fault. Swallowing hard, I called Dell technical support, and had the following exchange:

First guy: says he's a hardware guy and I have a software problem. Transfers me to software people

Second lady: says I never purchased a "software license," whatever that is. Tells me it will cost me $215 dollars to buy one, without which she cannot even look at my problem.

Me: hangs up.

Really? $215 on a $500 computer? And then 2 hours later, I discover that all I had to do was hit "reset" on my firewall, and all was well.

Screw these people. I sent the following letter, not to get anything out of them, but just to release all the hate they had inspired in me.

The Letter

Dear Dell,

Allow me to take you on a journey of the imagination. Imagine you go to your nearest Ford dealership and buy a brand new Explorer. Just so we're dealing with round numbers, let's say you pay $30,000 for it.

Now suppose a month later, you go to start up your new Explorer and the engine won't turn over. No problem, you think, it's still under warranty, and you call Ford to arrange a repair.

Ford's 800 number routes you to a mechanic in Belgium, which is strange, you think, since the factory that makes Explorers is just down the road from you, but whatever. You spend 10 minutes telling this Belgian mechanic what's wrong with your vehicle, at which point he tells you that it sounds like there's a problem with your engine, and he only works on leather interiors. No problem, though, he'll just forward your call to the engine department!

15 minutes later, another Belgian mechanic picks up the phone, and you regurgitate your whole story again. According to this mechanic, you have most likely done something to fatally injure your transmission. Unfortunately for you, the body of your Explorer is under warranty, but you didn't purchase a special transmission contract (which wasn't offered). At this point, your only option is to purchase this contract, at a price of $13,000, and then the Belgian mechanic still won't fix your vehicle, but she will tell you how to do it yourself. Maybe.

Now let's suppose you aren't the shit-chucking idiot this mechanic thinks you are, and you hang up the phone. You don't know much about cars, but for $13K, you'll see if you can't fix the problem yourself. A little while later you find a loose fuse, plug it back in, and your car starts up just fine. Ford was going to charge you nearly 50 percent of your vehicle's purchase price to help you replace your own fuse.





Left: The Problem.
Right: What Dell thinks the problem is.


Does this sound like competence to you? Or conscientious business practice? Or basic human decency? If not, you should seriously reconsider your sales model, because the above story is not fantasyland, it's directly analogous to your company's policy. Two nights ago, your representative tried to charge me $215 to fix my "corrupted software," when really it was just my firewall acting up. This coming barely a month after it took upwards of 60 days to convince you to honor my warranty on a defective laptop.

Dell, there was a time when your company was like the computer equivalent of a Taylor Swift song. Sure, you might not have had the most impressive set of "features," and your hardware wasn't decked out in the same name-brand logos that douchebags put on bumper stickers, but you were reliable, and didn't complain about going to Olive Garden on prom night.

Now? You're more like a common highway hooker. Yeah, maybe you look OK in the dark, and you're certainly cheaper than a girlfriend, but the buyer is certain to regret the transaction within a month. The only difference is I can probably get her pimp on the phone in less than 15 minutes, with no robots required.



Introducing Dell's new "Hooker Series." Now with 2 GHz of RAM and at least 3 STDs!


So thanks for nothing, Dell. Next time I have a problem with one of your products, I won't bother to call. I'll save myself some time and smack myself in the face with a brick. It'll have the same result.

The Response

"Hi Gene

Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care.

I see that you are not satisfied with the level of service you have received from the Dell support. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to you. I am concerned to read in your e-mail that the company provided you with anything less than the most courteous and professional service. This is not the way we train our people to conduct business services. It is something that we are constantly focusing at, as a daily business practice for improvement. By bringing this to our attention, you have provided us with crucial data in our ever-vigilant efforts to raise the standards of individuals, upon whom we rely to give excellent service to our customers. Your feedback will continue to be seriously considered in our ongoing endeavors to improve services.

Please be advised that we are unable to pull any information with the order number 123456789 provided by you therefore I would request you to check the number and reply to this email.

Also, please provide the complete name as it appears on the account with us.

Sincerely,

Vikram **** *****
Rep ID *******
Dell Online Customer Care"

See, this is both why I have to write these letters, and why they almost never do any good. These people don't get it. I wasn't complaining about the professionalism of their staff, I was complaining about the policies of the company itself! I don't want to get too far off the comedic path here, but these people flat-out suck. I wouldn't buy so much as a single wafer of silicon from them.

Guest Author Quickie: Time Warner Cable

Nature of the Offense

I expect most of my readers don't need the whole back-story here; Time Warner Cable is a healthy dose of pure evil, and in most places it isn't held in check by a lovely little thing called competition. This potent cocktail typically ferments into a nice frothy cup of "Eff You" for the consumer, which today's guest author, previously known as the Fast Food Warrior, finally got enough of.

FFW originally sent Time Warner a letter to the effect of "you have utterly disregarded your commitment to the customer, leaving me out of service for a week, give me a refund or I walk."



"Sure coach, I can be at the game! I'll be there sometime between noon and 4 PM. Oh, the game is at 8? Yeaaahh...no, that won't work."


TWC responded with the following letter:

The Response/Offense

"In response to your email, I do apologize for the delayed response and the issues with your account. I did review your account today and did see that you were assisted with your account. Again I do apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. We sincerely appreciate your business and thank you for choosing us as your cable provider. If you have any other questions please let me know. Thank you for the customer service inquiry.


Margaret *******

Customer Relations Department
Time Warner Cable - Central Texas Division"

They really expect this to work. Do you people let this shit fly? FFW didn't. Below is the last letter he'll ever write to Time Warner.

The Letter

Ms. *******,

I think you are misreading the situation. I do not feel appreciated and I am no longer choosing Time Warner Cable as my cable or internet provider. TWC no longer holds a monopoly on non-satellite cable TV service in my neighborhood and your new competition has made a generous offer for my business. Once AT&T has installed their service, it is my intent to cancel service with TWC as a result of this incident and the failure of TWC personnel to follow up in a timely manner.

The original non-automated response to the email you are quoting below, written by a Ms. Vivian ******, stated that the case was being escalated and that I could expect a response within 48 hours. This was dated October 5, 2010. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that two weeks a quite a bit longer than 48 hours. A professor of mine once said that rocket science "isn't very hard either." We're dealing with a simple math here: an inequality between TWC's professed standards (S) and TWC's actual performance (P). In my recent experience in dealing with your company via chat, email, phone and in person, S >> P.



TWC's latest telecom satellite launched into orbit.


In case you are more the literary type, let me phrase it another way. If there was ever a bridge between us, I feel as if one TWC employee after another has set it alight with flames of indifference and spilled crude oil into the stream below so that its waters can not stop the bridge from burning.

I do have some good news though. TWC has earned a spot in my mind alongside such fine corporations as:

Wendy's
McDonald's
Dell Computers
and
New Belgium Brewery

The University of North Carolina

Nature of the Offense

So I'm having lunch, minding my own business the other day, when I get the following email from the University of North Carolina, which I haven't attended in 3 years:

"Hello Scott and Paul,

Since you are new Evacuation Monitors for Wilson library, please sign up for one of the training sessions listed below.

Thanks,

Eileen"

Um, what? First off, what is an "Evacuation Monitor?" It sounds like I have to watch people go to the bathroom. Second, how did I get this job? Rather than ask either of these questions, I decided to blindly accept the job and decide for myself what it consists of. The following letter is my response to this email.

The (first) Letter

Hi Eileen,

I am honored to be chosen as the new Evacuation Monitor for Wilson library. Thank you for sending me the information on the training sessions. I have booked a flight from Austin (where I am currently living) to attend. Below is my itinerary, feel free to just send me an account number for the airfare, as American has assured me they can transfer the charges for me--one of the perks of being a first-class customer, I suppose.





While I am delighted to have an excuse to travel back to Chapel Hill for a few days, I'm sure you realize that such travel is highly impractical for my day-to-day duties as Evacuation Monitor. I'm thinking that the most effective solution, as you have probably already realized, is to outfit both my office in Austin and the librarian's office in Wilson with some new telecon equipment. In the event of an emergency, I would need essentially "red-phone" access to the librarian on videoconference, so that we could quickly coordinate the evacuation. I spoke briefly with my IT guy, and he thinks the whole setup could be completed for less than ten thousand dollars (plus monthly service charges, of course). Do you have a fax number where I could send some spec sheets?



"That oughta do it."


Finally, I think that it would be most prudent for me to be provided with a firearm. I know that in the event of an evacuation situation I am most likely to be out of the state, but if a sophisticated terrorist cell were to acquire that information--and I don't see any reason why they couldn't--they could carry out a coordinated attack in which I were simultaneously compromised in order to hinder the evacuation process. In such a situation, I would need to quickly eliminate any hostile parties on my end so as to expedite the extraction of students at Wilson. Now, I already have the requisite training, but my lawyer informs the that if the school provides the actual firearm I am significantly less liable should any civilians be injured or killed in a firefight.

Again, I am very much looking forward to working with you! I'll send a fax along shortly.

Best,
Paul

The Response

"Paul,

Apparently you are the wrong Paul *********. Please disregard my email.



Eileen *****

Business Services Coordinator

UNC Chapel Hill - Wilson Library"

I love people telling me I'm the "wrong" me. I couldn't stop with this...

The (second) Letter

Eileen,

If I just disregard every email asking me to help defend America and its precious institutions of higher learning from violent terrorists, then what kind of patriot am I?

Look, maybe I was the wrong Paul ********* for your address book, but I am the right Paul ********* for the job. After being on UNC's campus during the "Pit Driver" attack, and on the University of Texas's campus for both last month's library shooting and Barack Obama's recent appearance, I have experienced, by my count, three separate attacks of domestic terrorism first-hand. Being a good Texan, I have undergone training for all munitions up to and including rocket-propelled grenades, and am more than willing to put my own safety on the line to protect UNC, its students and staff.



Legal in Texas, but there's an additional charge on your vehicle registration.


I have copied the "other" Paul ********* on this message. I am sure he will agree with me that I should take over this job. That said, Paul, I see you are a Digitization Support Technician. Would you be able to help set up some of the telecon equipment described below? I've heard bad things about Geek Squad.

Sincerely,
Paul

The Response

Eileen must be a terrorist sympathizer, because I haven't heard back from her again. Bad news for me...I booked a non-refundable flight!

New Belgium Brewery

Nature of the Offense

So I'm walking to a party with some friends, carrying lots of beers because, well, it was that kind of night. We're at a busy intersection about halfway there when...





As you can see, we didn't tear or otherwise mistreat the packaging of this batch of beer, it was the glue that quit on us. I need to be able to trust my six-packs, so I sent the following letter to New Belgium Brewery.

The Letter

Dear New Belgium,

Let me begin by saying that I enjoy your beers. It is obvious that you put real effort into your product, and you want the customer to be satisfied. However, there appears to be one weak link in the chain connecting your beer from the brewing vats and your customers' livers, and that is the packaging. Some friends and I were recently carrying a six-pack of New Belgium beers to a party when the pack suddenly expelled its contents onto the sidewalk below, sending all the beer inside into a nearby storm drain and peppering us with glass shrapnel. Since I know you are probably too smart to open attachments, I have placed photos of the resulting carnage at the following links:







Upon further inspection, we noticed that the cardboard itself was not damaged, but it was the glue that had simply given out. I should mention that other six-packs of inferior beer such as Dos Equis and Lone Star that we had brought along survived the trip just fine--evidently, you have elected to package your beer with kindergarten-grade glue, and the end result isn't pretty.

The worst part of the whole experience was that as we tried to hold a moment of silence for the recently departed beer, we were verbally assaulted by an angry enviro-nazi riding by on her bike and complaining about the wreckage. I mean, really, imagine yourself in my position: you're standing in the middle of a busy intersection ankle-deep in spilled beer, your legs bleeding from the flying glass, watching your ice-cold brews run down the drain, and here's some hairy Weezer fan chewing your ear off like you just asked her to put on some deodorant. Normally you'd just lob a spare Lone Star at her, but again, you've just lost all your good beer, and your blood isn't going to just magically increase its own alcohol content. So there she is, holding up the shortest green light in town, and now all the cars are honking at you too because you can't get this tree-humper to get out of the way, and her BO is starting to mix with the smell of beer-soaked dirt and the combination makes your eyes water. The end result is you're standing in the street while a line of honking cars watches you cry because you're getting chewed out by some philosophy major who wears boxer shorts and gets stoned to Michael Moore movies. Is there any more impotent feeling in the world?

Again, beers that cost half as much as yours didn't cause this predicament. Yours did. I hope you will take action to rectify this situation and prevent it from occurring in the future.

The Response

Apparently, part of being a small craft brewery is you don't have a form letter prepared to shoot off to irate emailers. Screw 'em. Their beer is mediocre at best, with their tastiest option (Ranger IPA) being thoroughly owned by alternatives such as Long Hammer and Hop Czar.




Matching baller mustaches. Coincidence? What do you think?

Pluckers Chicken

Nature of the Offense

If you've ever been to a college town, you're familiar with these cookie-cutter wing joints that almost universally suck, so there's nothing really new about Pluckers. However, the other day a friend emails me saying "hey, you know Pluckers has weekly Beer Pong tournaments? Wanna play?"

Now, I'm actually a big fan of beer pong, and considered giving it a shot. That is, until I went to their website and saw this:







As any self-respecting Beer Pong player already knows, playing without beer is beyond unacceptable. I had to let Pluckers know this in no uncertain terms.

The Letter

Dear Pluckers,

I am writing in response to your idiotic decision to advertise weekly "Beer Pong" tournaments, which you play with cups of water. This false advertising is a grievous offense to beer, beer pong, and chicken joints in general. Have any of you ever actually played beer pong, or is it just one of those things you heard those wacky college kids do?

In the words of the late, great Colonel Sanders, "I'm too drunk to taste this chicken." Granted, The Colonel had more knowledge of beer and chicken in his right nut than you guys do, and he left that one on some battlefield in Germany, but whatever.



If Ronald McDonald could drink like The Colonel, maybe we wouldn't have had so much trouble with McDonald's.


My point is that beer pong is meant to be played drunk, and that anyone who doesn't agree might as well be playing Candyland. Don't believe me? Ask Ron Hamilton of Smashing Time, winners of the ABPAA World Series of Beer Pong. Upon winning the tournament, Hamilton claimed that "The key today was me getting really drunk." He chugged a bottle of Jack Daniels before the final. Think that guy would be caught dead in your Water Pong tournament?

The short answer is no. The long answer is FUCK no. Why? Because he knows that, like most beer pong purists, he'd probably get knocked out in the second round by a couple of Young Lifers who would then use their gift certificate prize to feed some of your chicken to homeless people or something. I can't stand homeless people; they smell bad and leave beer cans all over my neighborhood.

I see right through this whole charade. It's just one more of your tiresome stunts to get stupid college students into your awful restaurant, just like cramming your flyers into my fence and car windshield. You know how many KFC flyers I've found in my windshield? Exactly eleven fewer than the number of secret herbs and spices in Original Recipe. Maybe if you spent less time printing flyers and more time making your chicken suck less, I would visit your restaurant. Until then, try Coors Light. Even the Young Lifers won't be able to distinguish it from water, and you won't be completely lying to us.

The Response

Nothing yet. Maybe I shouldn't expect much from a company whose slogan is "If you don't like our wings, we'll give you the bird."