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If the merchandise was truly unordered, whether or not marked as a gift, the recipient may use or dispose of the items as desired. - NYS BBB

"Donated property may generally be deducted at the fair market value of the property at the time of the contribution."

This generally means how much the donated property can be sold for. The source of the info

This means that Microsoft can deduct from their taxes the full retail price of any software donated, up to 10% of their total taxable income. Which was 3.2 billion dollars in 1999. But the whole tax point is kind of moot because if this guy is right they didn't pay any taxes before the current software donations began.

My employer got whacked for about $300 from a company called "Dax publications". It's some kind of search engine, except that theirs (according to Google) is referenced from about a dozen or so places on the entire Internet. How's that "value added"?

Instead of sneaking it onto the phone bill, the invoice was (in my opinion) designed to look like an ISP charging a "hosting fee" to host a corporate website. Since our website is internally hosted, it took about three seconds to detect the scam. BBB has a nice writeup.

I don't believe that it will hurt all online sales, but to some extent it will. Here's why: most of the stuff I buy online I do so because either I can't buy it at a local brick and mortar or because it's far cheaper online. If it is available both online and locally, I compare the final price - which is cheaper, buying locally and paying tax or buying online and paying shipping? Then I consider the time to wait for shipping. From that, I decide which is the best option, if in fact there is an option.

For places like Wal-Mart, Target, and Toys 'r Us, it will probably hurt online commerce because people will just go to the local store. But the store is still getting their money, so they aren't actually hurt. For places that aren't so physically pervasive, such as purveyors of computer components, online sales won't be hurt if they eventually have to collect taxes. If I'm looking to buy an Athlon XP2000+ and I check the local shop and find it to be, say $200 plus 7% tax for a retail box and find it on pricewatch for $115 plus tax and shipping, I'll certainly buy it from the online shop, after checking out their credibility on the BBB of course.

I would suggest contacting the Better Business Bureau to get these complaints addressed.

In a capitalist economy, businesses compete to provide a quality product or service at the lowest price. The companies that provide bad service will shape up or go out of business. The companies that provide good service, either by extensive training of employees or innovative solutions to improve service, will make more money.

If you introduce regulations, this upsets basic competition by placing rules that restrict businesses' ability and motivation to innovate and compete. By adding government regulations, you would actually make service worse. If you doubt this, consider: Post Office vs FedEx, Private School vs Public School, Public Transportation vs Private, etc. In almost every case, government intervention causes a worse service or product. As someone pointed out, years of regulation have done little to improve the auto industry, utilities, etc. While you may argue restaraunts are safer, you should note that people still get food poisoning, and even good establishments regularly fail inspections.

Basic laws preventing fraud, false advertising, etc. protect the consumer from the things you mentioned already, while allowing businesses to innovate. In addition, voluntary certification and training allow businesses to improve their service on their own, and thus compete.

Finally, in cases where legal recourse isn't practical, consumer advocacy groups, such as the Better Business Bureau give you a powerful voice in the free market, without looking to "big government" to solve your problems.

This system has worked pretty good for a few hundred years. I don't see why people are all of the sudden so intent on screwing it up.

Fist, find out what city the compay (or division of the company) you're complaining about is in. You can probably do that from the bbb's site, which is http://www.bbb.org/.

On the BBB's website, there's a complaint resoution form that's pretty easy to fill out. The only advice I have for you is to be sure to present your argument in as porfessional of a tone as possible. If you start to sound incendiary or otherwise agressive, it hurts your argument. Present the facts and only the facts, and something wil probably get done fairly quickly. No company wants poorly-resolved BBB problems associated with them. :)

Then, make sure that you follow up with the BBB regarding whether or not the problem was satisfactorily resolved.

Have fun! ;)

If you got this nasty feeling you weren't being treated right, that's opinion.

A company making repeated false statements about shipping time (several instances of "Your order will be shipped Monday" without even taking the caller's name, and not even shipping then), multiple documented cases of billing for more than the double the quoted shipping price (when confronted, they say "Too bad."), and reneging on advertised discounts ("We offered 20% off? Well we're not doing it now.") is not opinion.

I've read the original posts, and these people were documenting experiences with the company. It's not opinion; It's fact.

There's a reason Pets Warehouse ranks poorly with the NY BBB.

Take it even further. First of all, there's no reason why the company involved shouldn't be forced to pay you for your legal bills, and theirs. If they're going to spend a few million dollars to squash some guy in Arkansas, they should be prepared to pay him that ammount.

Of course, for something like the Pets Warehouse case, this doesn't change much, since Novak is representing himself pro se. But I still think it's fair. It's really the way courts are 'meant to be', but modern society has drifted away from that. Two ordinary people trying to settle an injustice. Not 18 guys in suits, with another 45 back home generating stacks of paper.

On the other hand, Dan was sued for $15,000,001. That's a huge ammount of money. The case was settled for $4,150. That should set off a red flag somewhere, and it should be someones job to investigate that. (Department of Justice, based on the name...) If a plaintiff believes that Fifteen million dollars worth of damage was done, why in the world would they settle for $4,150? And if they don't believe that $15 million worth of damage was done, wasn't the lawsuit bogus?

In my origional post, where I dared him to sue me, I said things that are similar to what Dan said. I compared price and service. Both are verifiable, easily. If you want something interesting, go to the Better Business Bureau website, and click 'check company'. Enter Pets Warehouse. They're rated unsatisfactory . Excerpts below:

Based on our files, this firm has an unsatisfactory record.

Closed Complaints
Total number of complaints processed by the BBB in last 36 months: 23
Total number of complaints processed by the BBB in last 12 months: 4

That Pet Place (That Fish Place) on the other hand, has this record with the BBB:

Based on BBB files, this company has a satisfactory record with the Bureau. Any complaints processed by the Bureau in its three-year reporting period have been resolved. The number and type of complaints are not unusual for a company in this industry.

Not exactly glowing praise, but the BBB only has three raitings, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, and updating. ;p And what about Drs. Foster & Smith?

Based on BBB files, this company has a satisfactory record with the Bureau. Same story.

Dan relates a tale how he ordered plants, and had to call six times to get yelled at. I ordered from That Pet Place, used the internet form, changed my mind, called their customer service, and was able to un-order a $90 item. The woman I talked to was sweet as pie, and they even asked me, since I'd selected federal express, if I'd like them to try to hurry the rest of the order so it could be shipped out today. If only other companies were so good.

I'd document price right now, but it seems that petswarehouse.com isn't responding. Anyway, the point is, how in the world can you sue people for this?!? I'd love to go off on a rant and yell and scream about how the system is 'broken', but I really can't think of any checks you could put in that couldn't be abused in the other direction. If you've read the Rainmaker, you can already picture it - you have a son, dying of cancer, and the insurance company defaults on the coverage. You need $200k for surgery and hospital bills. You sue for $15,000,000 for punitive damages, to 'fine' them in essence, so they think twice before screwing the next person. They offer to settle for $225k.

Your son is dying. What do you do? (It's a great book, by the way, and I don't think I ruined it for you.)

It's all so frigging complicated. I just can't find it in me to think of a better way to do things, though. I would really appreciate any suggestions, though. I think I'll start using my slashdot journal today.

I have played this same silly game with various service providers, with the worst by far being Earthlink and MSN.

I have written the Better Business Bureau to express my frustration in both cases, and clearly I'm not the only one. Earthlink has an 'unsatisfactory' record with the BBB.

Note the statistics:

Credit or Billing Issues: 410 Outcome of all complaints - Resolved: 225; Delayed Resolution: 1; Company made every reasonable effort to Resolve: 47; company did not respond: 137

My cancellation process with Earthlink involved a series of steps almost identical to those you've described.

MSN's BBB record might be better, but their service isn't. I recently switched from DSL to cable, and after spending over an hour on the phone (on three different service lines) I finally talked to someone capable of axing my account. Like most, he demanded a reason, but fortunately didn't push the issue.

At this point, he gave me some silly story about needing to wait for his 'system to come up' before he could cancel the account. Blip! On hold. I thought this sounded suspicious, so I recorded the time he put me on hold. Just as I expected, exactly 5 minutes later he was back. It's as if they put their callers through a mandatory delay period just to see if they can get them to hang up in frustration. If only they were so lucky.

So our service representative *finally* kills the account, and gives me a tracking number on top of it. "Great", I think. That's out of the way. But that was not the case. I guess some switch never got flipped because I have continued to be billed for service, 3 months after this call. I've called twice to attempt a resolution, but in both cases (after waiting on the line, of course) they gave some ridiculous excuse about their systems being down. I mean, yes this is Microsoft, but even Windows-based machines can do better than 1% uptime when I call. I guess they are running a fully exposed Windows 3.1 network in their cancellation department.

I have yet to come across a major service provider that gives even the slightest crap what their customers think.

-Derek

1. BBB.org
2. FTC
3. USPS Post Master [usps.com]

From Apple's Knowledgebase Article regarding this it implies that this product (and a couple of others) fall into that category of disks that do not qualify for the CD logo. Therefore they are not CDs.

However, stores are marketing this as if it were a CD:
* CDNow lists it as a "CD"
* Amazon lists the media type as "Audio CD"
* CD Universe lists it as a "CD"

If you have purcased a copy protected disk without the CD logo, and it was marketed as an actual CD, you do have grounds to return the disk. Even more so if you got it online and had no opportunity to examine the logo and see warning labels on the disk. If they give you any problems, report them to the Better Business Bureau and/or your state's Attorney General.

http://www.bbb.org/library/employ.asp

It's a quick read, and I've found it invaluable as I start my job search. It explains how to find and what you can expect from an ethical/effective employment agency, how to get what you really want from them, and how to steer clear of the bad ones.

Has anyone who's gotten stiffed from Best Buy called the BBB?

Hmmm ... 2000+ calls may do something about the problem.

1. BBB.org
2. FTC
3. USPS Post Master

It's time for the government to castrated NSI/Verisign.


Then let's do something about it. Contact your local better business bureau and complain, citing specific examples of how they've screwed *you*. Make it professional and personal. The web hosting company I work for has already called the BBB (last week, actually) about Network Solutions on behalf of some of our clients, and the person handling the case sounded rather interested.

~z

Our company had over 7000 of the CPx units and they kept repeatedly breaking. The buttons for the trackpoint repeadedly fell off and the motherboard would fail in such a manner that would cause some keys not to work (not to mention the other problems). Then they recalled all of the batteries because of possibly issues with starting on fire. Last January, 900 of the 7000 units needed service - many of them more than once. Since it was costing Dell $150 - $200 for on site service (depending on the provider) on *top* of the parts in question, they finally broke down and decided to replace all 7000 units with Latitude C600s which are a much better PC. Bottom line was that they were lemons. Call Dell and demand satisfaction (have your glove handy). If none is achieved, visit the BBB Online and let them know what you are going through.

Auction fraud is illegal, I believe there is a way you can file with the FTC and have the fraudelant seller fined thousands of dollars, or even possibly jailed. IIRC, something about interstate commerce, or whatknot.

Don't forget the Better Business Bureau - some people have had great experiences with the BBB helping them out when the venders go bad.

• http://www.att.com/true/slam.html
  
• Long Distance Toll Verification: 1-700-555-4141
  
• Slamming Resolution Center: 1-800-538-5345 if AT&T slammed you
  
• AT&T Consumer Services: 1-800-222-0300
  
• FCC Complaint Phone: 1-888-225-5322
  
• Better Business Bureau www.bbb.org
  
• Magic phrase for getting people not to call you back: Please put me on your don't-call list.
  

  
  Disclaimer: I work for AT&T, but my comments here are just my personal comments. You can read AT&T's comments on slamming on their web page.
  AT&T got lots of flack for a while from people being slammed by their subcontractors, and they started putting a lot more control on that, but they still screw up sometimes.
  

  I've never particularly liked the local phone companies' approach to slamming, which is to continue to bill you for the long distance service and have you resolve it. My own preference is to write to the local telco and the slammer telco notifying them that unsolicited services are legally a gift, and you did not request any services from them and will not pay for them, and thank you for freely handling all the calls that you tried to make using your preferred long-distance carrier (in my case, AT&T) and that they can return you back at their leisure but could they fix that little hiss in the background?
  I haven't tried this, and the telcos probably wouldn't like having this used widely because it's an obvious method for fraud, but tough luck, eh?
  

  I haven't had to use AT&T's don't-call lists, though I think one of their telemarketer subcontractors did call me once even though I'm a subscriber:-)
  MCI does a decent job of maintaining don't-call lists - I usually ask them if their employee discount is better than AT&T's and they get the hint. They aren't bright enough to figure out about don't call lists for multiple phone lines at the same address, and they once got lucky and called my modem line between the time I got home and the time I plugged in my laptop, so it's in the list now also...

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

The problem with banner ads is that they must spell-out the product and establish honest expectation for the user before he clicks. This will never happen because advertising practices are based on persuasion and deception.

The problem with mega-store sites like Amazon.com is that they can be replaced overnight by a fleet of mom-and-pop sites. This will happen when an impartial licensing body similar to the Better Business Bureau or Consumers Union issues trust ratings for web sites.

The good news is that the power aggregators are wringing their hands behind closed doors uncertain about a future that is, for the first time, unwritten.

BBB Complaint line

-- Speak up and be heard! or shutup and live with it.

I used to get that Toner Spam from Benchmark Industries about once a week. The interesting part was that they didn't BCC the email list. This was nice because you could pretty easily figure out where they got the list from (obviously it was also bad because any of those other people on the list could use it for their own spamming purposes.)

Anyway, after reporting them to spamcop for months and filing complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau (both good resources for this) I decided to actually look at the email. At the bottom they included two different 1-800 numbers for customer support and to remove your name from their list.

Now, obviously I'm not going to tell them which email is active, because they'll just send me more, so I had my computer call them up over and over and over and over again leaving long messages (at their expenses, thank you 1-800) telling them to remove all email addresses from my school (everyone on their list was from my university). They were never there in person, always had a machine answer the phone, but I think they eventually got fed up with paying the 1-800 bill and eventually stopped sending me spam.

It was some work, but it eventually got rid of them. So remember, first use spamcop, second use BBB, third spam them back... always check for that 1-800.

I used to get that Toner Spam from Benchmark Industries about once a week. The interesting part was that they didn't BCC the email list. This was nice because you could pretty easily figure out where they got the list from (obviously it was also bad because any of those other people on the list could use it for their own spamming purposes.)

Anyway, after reporting them to spamcop for months and filing complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau (both good resources for this) I decided to actually look at the email. At the bottom they included two different 1-800 numbers for customer support and to remove your name from their list.

Now, obviously I'm not going to tell them which email is active, because they'll just send me more, so I had my computer call them up over and over and over and over again leaving long messages (at their expenses, thank you 1-800) telling them to remove all email addresses from my school (everyone on their list was from my university). They were never there in person, always had a machine answer the phone, but I think they eventually got fed up with paying the 1-800 bill and eventually stopped sending me spam.

It was some work, but it eventually got rid of them. So remember, first use spamcop, second use BBB, third spam them back... always check for that 1-800.