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...they are apparently complete scam merchants. The products on offer could be cardboard mockups of the product being sold, not the product itself, for all the backup and support you can get. There is no way to examine the merchandise, ask questions about it, or validate the product at all. See http://www.ripoffreport.com/re... It will inevitably be a home for scammers to accumulate money from rubes.

I would encourage /. management to vet advertisers before taking their money for ads in this respected web service.

hah, found more: http://www.ripoffreport.com/re...

I'm guessing he started shooting because his construction work wasn't killing enough people.

Yes. It was ugly.

Also, it is probably helpful to note that Southwestern Bell, a company that had a very bad reputation with customers, bought the name AT&T. There is no connection between the old AT&T and the company called AT&T today.

Yes. It was ugly.

Also, it is probably helpful to note that Southwestern Bell, a company that had a very bad reputation with customers, bought the name AT&T. There is no connection between the old AT&T and the company called AT&T today.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/re... and http://www.bing.com/search?q=C... raymorris, can you tell us more about all of that per the subject line above?

...Subsequently, I enabled a feature that GoDaddy offers. GoDaddy sends a text message that I must respond with. ..

I hate security features that attempt to text to a phone number, usually a cell phone. And will not use them. Besides not everyone uses texting on their cell phone anyway. I want my phone to be a phone, I can text with my tablet, laptop or desktop.

I despise them (cell phone security BS procedures) specifically because I have been burnt by two different cellular phone providers for over $500 of calls that I did not make (one after adding all-I-could-eat text messaging for a high monthly fee).

Mentioning the cell phone providers is not significant, because if you go to RipOff Reports and search for every possible provider, you will see litterally thousands of complaints for each one. Same is true for every Bank in business today, except with the banks, RipOff Reports usually shows 4,000 ~ 10,000 complaints. These complaints are customers stating they are being ripped off by the companies that supposedly care about customer service. More like Customer No Service

Unlike the Better Busines Bureau, where a company can pay money when a member to remove the complaints from the public eye. With RipOff Reports Customers complain, and companies can respond. However the complaints are NEVER removed. Thus you can see the complaint and see if the rip off reported company even bothered trying to satisfy the customer. These large corporations do not bother even trying to make it right!

Seems companies today don't care about customers, they think of you like a mushroom and that you will not churn away from them when they treat you like crap.

Always churn when treated wrongly. Its the only way to be a valued customer, you have to be willing to walk away. Eventually a company will enter the market and earn your business and be worth staying with, let the others whither on their shrinking vine and die. Never do business with a company that has ripped you off, even if they are the only company offering that service. Do without the service. You can not settle here, never ever.

• They (both cellular companies) refused to work with me to reverse the charges even after I offered to prove that the calls on my statement had not been made by me. (I went through a year of statements and had never called those numbers, even though they tried to say I did) Based on reading RipoffReports, this is common for carriers to put charges on a customer's bill and refuse to remove it, they make allot of money. You think they would want to keep a customer over over 3 to 5 years (first time) and 1 1/2 years (second time). Wrong, they just want the money, they do not care about the customer.
• One company tried to tell me I was not paying the fee for a paper copy, sent only a summary copy of the bill and refused to send me an itemized copy of the bill so I could see the calls. (A neighbor working for the company got me a copy of my itemized bill, unofficial)
• Never sign up for more than a 1 year contract, as they screw you over in year two and you will have to pay for another two years or be sent to collections. Get yourself in a position to churn as soon as possible, 1 year contracts MAX. There is a company in New York where you can purchase new handsets for full price, thus never get locked into a multi-year contract. It might seem expensive at first, but having the ability to churn is worth it.
• I ALWAYS pay the $1.00 fee for the paper statement, these two experiences verify how important this is. One provider even told me that I had not been paying that fee, therefore the summary bill that they sent i

...Subsequently, I enabled a feature that GoDaddy offers. GoDaddy sends a text message that I must respond with. ..

I hate security features that attempt to text to a phone number, usually a cell phone. And will not use them. Besides not everyone uses texting on their cell phone anyway. I want my phone to be a phone, I can text with my tablet, laptop or desktop.

I despise them (cell phone security BS procedures) specifically because I have been burnt by two different cellular phone providers for over $500 of calls that I did not make (one after adding all-I-could-eat text messaging for a high monthly fee).

Mentioning the cell phone providers is not significant, because if you go to RipOff Reports and search for every possible provider, you will see litterally thousands of complaints for each one. Same is true for every Bank in business today, except with the banks, RipOff Reports usually shows 4,000 ~ 10,000 complaints. These complaints are customers stating they are being ripped off by the companies that supposedly care about customer service. More like Customer No Service

Unlike the Better Busines Bureau, where a company can pay money when a member to remove the complaints from the public eye. With RipOff Reports Customers complain, and companies can respond. However the complaints are NEVER removed. Thus you can see the complaint and see if the rip off reported company even bothered trying to satisfy the customer. These large corporations do not bother even trying to make it right!

Seems companies today don't care about customers, they think of you like a mushroom and that you will not churn away from them when they treat you like crap.

Always churn when treated wrongly. Its the only way to be a valued customer, you have to be willing to walk away. Eventually a company will enter the market and earn your business and be worth staying with, let the others whither on their shrinking vine and die. Never do business with a company that has ripped you off, even if they are the only company offering that service. Do without the service. You can not settle here, never ever.

• They (both cellular companies) refused to work with me to reverse the charges even after I offered to prove that the calls on my statement had not been made by me. (I went through a year of statements and had never called those numbers, even though they tried to say I did) Based on reading RipoffReports, this is common for carriers to put charges on a customer's bill and refuse to remove it, they make allot of money. You think they would want to keep a customer over over 3 to 5 years (first time) and 1 1/2 years (second time). Wrong, they just want the money, they do not care about the customer.
• One company tried to tell me I was not paying the fee for a paper copy, sent only a summary copy of the bill and refused to send me an itemized copy of the bill so I could see the calls. (A neighbor working for the company got me a copy of my itemized bill, unofficial)
• Never sign up for more than a 1 year contract, as they screw you over in year two and you will have to pay for another two years or be sent to collections. Get yourself in a position to churn as soon as possible, 1 year contracts MAX. There is a company in New York where you can purchase new handsets for full price, thus never get locked into a multi-year contract. It might seem expensive at first, but having the ability to churn is worth it.
• I ALWAYS pay the $1.00 fee for the paper statement, these two experiences verify how important this is. One provider even told me that I had not been paying that fee, therefore the summary bill that they sent i

...Subsequently, I enabled a feature that GoDaddy offers. GoDaddy sends a text message that I must respond with. ..

I hate security features that attempt to text to a phone number, usually a cell phone. And will not use them. Besides not everyone uses texting on their cell phone anyway. I want my phone to be a phone, I can text with my tablet, laptop or desktop.

I despise them (cell phone security BS procedures) specifically because I have been burnt by two different cellular phone providers for over $500 of calls that I did not make (one after adding all-I-could-eat text messaging for a high monthly fee).

Mentioning the cell phone providers is not significant, because if you go to RipOff Reports and search for every possible provider, you will see litterally thousands of complaints for each one. Same is true for every Bank in business today, except with the banks, RipOff Reports usually shows 4,000 ~ 10,000 complaints. These complaints are customers stating they are being ripped off by the companies that supposedly care about customer service. More like Customer No Service

Unlike the Better Busines Bureau, where a company can pay money when a member to remove the complaints from the public eye. With RipOff Reports Customers complain, and companies can respond. However the complaints are NEVER removed. Thus you can see the complaint and see if the rip off reported company even bothered trying to satisfy the customer. These large corporations do not bother even trying to make it right!

Seems companies today don't care about customers, they think of you like a mushroom and that you will not churn away from them when they treat you like crap.

Always churn when treated wrongly. Its the only way to be a valued customer, you have to be willing to walk away. Eventually a company will enter the market and earn your business and be worth staying with, let the others whither on their shrinking vine and die. Never do business with a company that has ripped you off, even if they are the only company offering that service. Do without the service. You can not settle here, never ever.

• They (both cellular companies) refused to work with me to reverse the charges even after I offered to prove that the calls on my statement had not been made by me. (I went through a year of statements and had never called those numbers, even though they tried to say I did) Based on reading RipoffReports, this is common for carriers to put charges on a customer's bill and refuse to remove it, they make allot of money. You think they would want to keep a customer over over 3 to 5 years (first time) and 1 1/2 years (second time). Wrong, they just want the money, they do not care about the customer.
• One company tried to tell me I was not paying the fee for a paper copy, sent only a summary copy of the bill and refused to send me an itemized copy of the bill so I could see the calls. (A neighbor working for the company got me a copy of my itemized bill, unofficial)
• Never sign up for more than a 1 year contract, as they screw you over in year two and you will have to pay for another two years or be sent to collections. Get yourself in a position to churn as soon as possible, 1 year contracts MAX. There is a company in New York where you can purchase new handsets for full price, thus never get locked into a multi-year contract. It might seem expensive at first, but having the ability to churn is worth it.
• I ALWAYS pay the $1.00 fee for the paper statement, these two experiences verify how important this is. One provider even told me that I had not been paying that fee, therefore the summary bill that they sent i

http://webutation.com/

This links you to a site which helps businesses deal with blogs such as http://www.ripoffreport.com/ .

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

While I have absolutely no sympathy for all the hate that the keangear asshats will get from this, I just wish that ripoffreport.com would get their share of it. Did you know that if you pay them money, they will happily turn all the negative reports about your business into positive? They call it "Corporate Advocacy Program", but the real name of it should be "blackmail and extortion". Absolutely anyone can post anything about any business, be it true or a complete lie, and the business owner has absolutely no way for defending themselves. Except if you pay ripoffreport.com a few hundred bucks and then all negative reports go away. And they even claim that they will help place the newly positive reviews "at the top of search engines", whatever the hell that means. See, they do it to benefit the consumer and to assure the complete satisfaction, and not at all to blackmail small businesses and extort money from them:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/CorporateAdvocacyProgram/Change-Report-From-Negative-To-Positive.aspx

The Streisand effect in full swing: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/kleargear

You're slowing down! I give you 3, you only have one?!

Oh I see that you, Daniel Phillips are listed on ripoff report for Plagerism, Theft, Scandalous Fraudulent Liar. You naughty boy.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/consumer-services/dan-phillips-d-p-mak/dan-phillips-d-p-makeup-studi-4b72a.htm

Bashing would imply false information simply meant to insult. Which bit of data do you find not factual?

Apart from the meaning of "bashing"? Uh - your whole story.

Nice certificate fact basher. You have a very distinctive writing/ranting style

I think it might be this one The decision pdf lists G & G Addiction Treatment LLC, but I could find no reports are found for that name. Also it say the post was in July, 2009. There are two for G & G Holistics Addiction Treatment Center in Florida. PDF states the poster claimed owner was a felon and this post does that but is dated May 2009.

You're crazy. We've reversed transactions at ATMs with our bank where the ATM didn't spit out the money but marked it as a successful transaction

I am not a lawyer, but I believe legally the customer is liable for ATM transactions, except in a case where the card is stolen, AND the transactions happen no more than 72 hours before the report, and then I think your liability is capped at $50. Any reimbursements would be at the bank's discretion, so if you have a good, sympathetic bank(er), like it sounds like you have, you might get off the hook. I've had my fair share of disputes with banks that like to pin things on customers, and they're generally not as cooperative or polite about it.

If somebody, for example, does this or this, and you see it on your statement the next month; or even if you used your card soon after it happened (can't claim the card is stolen) but didn't check your statement online until later that night, you're stuck with it.

I didn't need to do "research" because I had personal experience to back it up, and no amount of research would have led me to your experience. Banks, in general, try to pin these things on the consumer instead of eating the loss, especially Bank of America.

Well, sure. Obviously UCSF (one of the best medical schools in the world) has a higher quality program. But they do have a LVN program, too.

Doing some digging around, their fees (http://registrar.ucsf.edu/registration/fees/nursing) are comparable with private schools in the area, and there's (less good) public schools that are much cheaper.

I couldn't even find an LVN program at UCSF. If you say they have one, I'll believe you, but all the programs I see there are for people who already have some training.

For LVN or CNA, it seems the most economical route, by far, would be to go to a community college. Those programs have the same low entry requirements as the for-profits, and CA community colleges charge a whopping $26/unit/semester. Since LVN at CCSF is an 18-month program, I'll just go ahead and call it 4 semesters with 15 units/semester, weighing in at a grand total of $1,560. Throw in some fees, textbooks, and a parking permit, and you're close to 5% of a for-profit scam shop with superior training. Granted, CCSF probably has a longer waiting list, but I'm sure their program is plenty good for LVNs, probably even RNs.

Well, sure. You obviously would want to go to UCSF - it's the getting in that's hard. You go to a for-profit when your other options are eliminated. (My wife was fortunate to get into UCSF for pharmacy, and her education and degree have served her well.) The lower pass rate from the for-profits is probably both a function of a less educated applicant pool and the lower quality education. But I don't think the *fees* are excessive when compared with UCSF.

I think that's really my point, though. An extremely prestigious public university, offering an advanced degree (and medical insurance included in those fee totals), is comparable in cost (per year) to for-profits that have come under attack for shady business practices and bad training?

Here's a link to a news story on GAO report about for-profit colleges using deceptive tactics. A rip-off report anecdote about Everett College.

You can't really compare fees without looking at what those expenses get you. UCSF is probably worth the cost. A no-name school with questionable teaching practices, low licensure pass rates, low job placement rates, and extremely high student loan default rates? The fees shouldn't even be comprable.

I have a friend who was maligned by an ex-coworker. He has been told he has to pay money to post a redaction.

You have always been able to post a free rebuttal. The fee is if you want to use an arbitrator to determine what parts of a complaint are untrue and then update the post with this information. The fee is high ($2000) IMHO, but then again you are paying for an actual arbitrator to review the facts... certainly one wouldn't expect the website to absorb the cost, but you'd think the fee would be time-based rather than flat.

The ex-coworker has already publicly admitted their post was... "incorrect" (knowingly not factual, ligitatable, etc). My friend still has to pay if he wants to post a rebuttal, and the ex-coworker's post will remain there forever.

If the ex-coworker is being cooperative now, why not have them go over and update the report? It will show up in red at the top of the report that the post has been updated. See an example here.

Or yes, as you indicate, you could sue them.

Ah yes... the correction ripoffreports WONT post?

I think you need to visit the original reports.

Attached to each of them is an extremely detailed account of the case, complete with links to relevant court documents and an explanation of their actions. Far, far more information is provided than any NY Times redaction that I've ever seen.

See the problem now?

What I'm seeing is a system that is working. Ripoffreports has a blatant lie on their site, are reluctant to edit it, get dragged into court and as a result of all of this the page gets updated with the full story. That's a win for the disparaged party.

By the way, the original posts are so hilariously bad that it's amazing anyone even cared to sue. They are almost incoherent.

Ah... so either they have changed... or the publicity has forced them to (at least in this case, if not all future ones).

I have a friend who was maligned by an ex-coworker. He has been told he has to pay money to post a redaction. The ex-coworker has already publicly admitted their post was... "incorrect" (knowingly not factual, ligitatable, etc). My friend still has to pay if he wants to post a rebuttal, and the ex-coworker's post will remain there forever.

Of course, I guess he could have spent a lot of money going to court, using the ex-c's own public statements to prove the knowingly false statements, then generated enough media publicity so that RoR would post a statement... or... maybe if not it's business as usual?

Ah yes... the correction ripoffreports WONT post?

I think you need to visit the original reports.

Attached to each of them is an extremely detailed account of the case, complete with links to relevant court documents and an explanation of their actions. Far, far more information is provided than any NY Times redaction that I've ever seen.

See the problem now?

What I'm seeing is a system that is working. Ripoffreports has a blatant lie on their site, are reluctant to edit it, get dragged into court and as a result of all of this the page gets updated with the full story. That's a win for the disparaged party.

By the way, the original posts are so hilariously bad that it's amazing anyone even cared to sue. They are almost incoherent.

Ah... so either they have changed... or the publicity has forced them to (at least in this case, if not all future ones).

I have a friend who was maligned by an ex-coworker. He has been told he has to pay money to post a redaction. The ex-coworker has already publicly admitted their post was... "incorrect" (knowingly not factual, ligitatable, etc). My friend still has to pay if he wants to post a rebuttal, and the ex-coworker's post will remain there forever.

Of course, I guess he could have spent a lot of money going to court, using the ex-c's own public statements to prove the knowingly false statements, then generated enough media publicity so that RoR would post a statement... or... maybe if not it's business as usual?

Ah yes... the correction ripoffreports WONT post?

I think you need to visit the original reports.

Attached to each of them is an extremely detailed account of the case, complete with links to relevant court documents and an explanation of their actions. Far, far more information is provided than any NY Times redaction that I've ever seen.

See the problem now?

What I'm seeing is a system that is working. Ripoffreports has a blatant lie on their site, are reluctant to edit it, get dragged into court and as a result of all of this the page gets updated with the full story. That's a win for the disparaged party.

By the way, the original posts are so hilariously bad that it's amazing anyone even cared to sue. They are almost incoherent.

Ah yes... the correction ripoffreports WONT post?

I think you need to visit the original reports.

Attached to each of them is an extremely detailed account of the case, complete with links to relevant court documents and an explanation of their actions. Far, far more information is provided than any NY Times redaction that I've ever seen.

See the problem now?

What I'm seeing is a system that is working. Ripoffreports has a blatant lie on their site, are reluctant to edit it, get dragged into court and as a result of all of this the page gets updated with the full story. That's a win for the disparaged party.

By the way, the original posts are so hilariously bad that it's amazing anyone even cared to sue. They are almost incoherent.

if you'd bought gold at the historically high level of $1000/oz last year, you'd be doing quite well now.

Not if you bought it from goldline.

After I made the purchase, I finally did my homework and found that the coins I had purchases for $318 each could be bought for $208 - $218 each on other sites. I spend over $5000 to get coins worth $3520 at most. As others have pointed out over a 30% mark up.

At best your $1000/oz gold that you bought at 30+% markup just might be breaking even.

CEO of ChronoPay, the ultra shady payment "processor" that functioned more like an account hijacker. Looking to partner with Paypal for Russian transactions as well as online Sino-Russian transactions.

If you used the illegitimate MP3 site allofmp3.com you may want to investigate whether or not your transaction went through Chronopay as they might have retained a copy of your records *cough* *cough*. Krebs outed this guy in the first report and Vrublevsky tried to play it off like someone higher was trying to drag his name through the mud for political reasons. I don't need anymore accusations: Vrublevsky's a crook.

Here are a few Intuit abuses.

"... don't really trust Intuit with my data, ..."

My impression of Intuit is that they are one of the most abusive big companies in the United States.

Here are just a few examples: Intuit abuses.

You are indeed lucky to be in a country where you can get a text and/or phone plan for only "£15 a month". Here in America, only recently did another cellular company start offering plans (voice, not text) for $50 per month unlimited. Metro PCS has had real unlimited plans for between $40 to $50 per month for years. That is definitely the direction I would go, if I had to purchase cellular today as other cellular company plans that state they are unlimited have small contract in the contract that state otherwise.

With every other cellular company, in America, you are guaranteed, check RipOffReports.com (by consumers, for consumers; Don't let them get away with it...let the truth be known!) if you do not believe me, that you are guaranteed to eventually get hit with random over-charges. Which demonstrates to anyone who looks, by their very actions, that they (cellular providers in America) believe, honestly believe, with all their little tiny hearts, that Americans HAVE NO CHOICE! Thus they can get away with it. Can they? Really, Really, REALLY. (more directed at Americans than you)

Most people these days are used to "always on" connections, and I think this is how things should and will eventually be - the ability to use on line services anytime, anyplace.

I agree with you that this is how things should be and eventually will be, even here in America. Just not today, not yet. The American corporations have no incentive to provide it. In fact they do just the opposite, when a town or city attempts to put in city wide WiFi for the benefit of their customers, the telcos fight it, and they fight it hard. Usually they successfully prevent city-wide WiFi, but not always. It like people forget that the city infrastructure, water, sewer, eclectic belong to them and them alone!

The mentality of fighting innovation and service for customers is, well, pathetic. They have been fighting against fiber over the last mile in America for years, literally decades now. In Utah and Wilson, North Carolina they have fiber to their home. Will your community be next? Its up to you!

• User owned Fiber initiatives, where a community and a family in that community, can literally own the Fiber cable from the telco switching location of the town to their home. Smart families will spend the $3,000.00 (what one community charges) to own that critical fiber link for, especially if they plan to keep the home and property in the family and have children as it will bear fruit for generations. Of course the next bottleneck is having a non American Telco control fiber across the continent + undersea fiber optic cables to other continents. Utopia serves a good portion of Utah to date; Bringham City, Tremonton, Perry City, Layton, Centerville, Murray, Midvale, West Valley City, Riverton, Cedar Hills, Lindon, Orem, Payson, Cedar City
• Greenlight, North Carolina: the city council started running their own Fiber when Time Warner refused, that's when Time Warner got busy lobbying the legislature! They are still lobbying the state legislature, even though a Bill to limit broadband was defeated!

Note: About needing a non American owned company; the facts are that the current American telcos, even after receiving over 200 Billions in American Tax dollars over decades, have refused to innovate and provide fiber over the last mile to Americans. They received American tax dollars + additional taxes + additional legislative approved fees to bring Fiber to American ho

This is called "choice" and encourages manufacturers to observe market requirements(e.g. listen to customer) and hopefully drive down prices(unlikely). Whoever get closest to this wins.

Most of the businesses related to wireline/wireless are simply big to care and/or listen to their customers. And the market does NOT work because of all the proprietary hardware and proprietary software and proprietary networks, etc....

If the market was free and working as you, and many others hypothesis; than we would have fiber to our homes already. (Promised by telcos in 1990s in order to get tax dollars)

By 2000 we would have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps Internet access, for less than $55 per month, via that fiber connection to our homes.

By 2006 we would have had 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps Internet access for less than $52 per month via that same fiber connection.

The market has not and does not work. The companies that play in the space DO NOT listen to customers as RipOffReports.com proves. Enter the name of your provider and search on any term: fraud, problem, billing, and you will discover that your provider and all the other providers have hundreds if not thousands of reports. One or two you might dismiss as crack pots, but not the volume that is there. Also it is pretty obvious when you are reading a report if the person is being unreasonable or not. Sadly most are not, the customers are just not interested in providing service anymore.

If they listened to their customers, no one would get an inflated bill in the mail for any reason. Especially not for the company putting random charges on it. I personally experienced that from two different providers over a 10 year period before I left cellular forever.

I do not mind paying for what I use, but I will not pay for their mistakes or other peoples charges. Both times I had in excess of three years as a good customer with the provider (obviously one time was longer than just 3 years). If I had mattered as a customer, they would have removed the charges that I did not make and proved based on my multi-year calling pattern the first time and via their provisioning mistake the second time. Both times, both companies simply DID NOT CARE. Said pay up or else. Sorry but mob style tactics do not work on honest Americans.

I churned and am much happier for it. Skype is wonderful and if they went out or got bought out tomorrow, I would provision my own VoIP server (Linux of course), use it myself and sell to my friends. There is no way I would ever settle for a total cost of ownership of over $100 per year ever again. Especially not in this economy.

These customer-no-service-tactics are really stupid. They honestly believe you do not have a choice or they would not do it. Guess what, they are WRONG!

Sign me laughing all the way to the bank!

P.S. Only Greenlight in Wilson N.C. offers 100Mbps / 100Mbps Fiber connected to your home Internet access in the USA today. It will cost you $100 per month. When they started offering service, after being invited into the community by the local politicians to do so; the telcos / Cable companies responded by attempting to push legislature through the North Carolina legislature to stop them. Yea, thats a FREE market, NOT!

The markets have not been working since 1990. So wake up and see the reality of the situation, please, before it is too late.

Not to say what she did was right, but Monroe is listed as a for-profit university, right next to Everest/Bryman and University of Phoenix. So her "degree" might be worth less than the paper it's written on and she does deserve her money and 4 years of her life back.

Not to say what she did was right, but Monroe is listed as a for-profit university, right next to Everest/Bryman and University of Phoenix. So her "degree" might be worth less than the paper it's written on and she does deserve her money and 4 years of her life back.

FREE-PC.COM was created by Idealab that used to exist in the late 1990s, when they started a bunch of Dot-COMs. It offered free PCs to individuals who agreed in exchange to use the PC at least 10 hours per month.

Free PCs were sponsored by advertisers, and ads were visible at all times. They shipped 30k+ units in 1999, their last year of operation.

They were merged with eMachines.

And about 5 years ago, eMachines got absorbed by Gateway.

There were some other companies to do similar things. And AOL has been infamous for "free computer" with long locked-in AOL subscription deals.

There are even a few references to Free PC/Free-PC on slashdot...

But I don't see any articles about it anymore. Perhaps the archives didn't go back farther than the year 2000??

I took one just to see...and when it asked for my phone number the mission was aborted.

My mother-in-law took that quiz. It signed her up for a "subscription" that was billed to her phone to the tune of $9.99 per month. Here's an article about it.

Here's the one I got messed up in.

The bride tells me we need new curtains for the living room. We surf, and shop, and surf, and shop and end up at JCPenny. I use my debit card and the bride got new curtains.

JCPenny turns around my info to a subsidiary called Stonebridge, and I get spammed for insurance, and other stuff. Other stuff like a bullshit 'membership' which somehow I failed to opt-out of that charges my card $10/mo. Well, 3 months later I finally get that charge removed, with large amounts of swearing on the phone (hey, if 2 months of 'nice' phone calls won't work, break out the profanity).

I still recieve Stonebridge insurance scams in my snail-mail, after months and months of calling them and asking (yep ... more swearing too, although unsuccessful so far).

Never do business with JCPenny as they appear to have other instances, and multiple ways to rip you off.

Here's the one I got messed up in.

The bride tells me we need new curtains for the living room. We surf, and shop, and surf, and shop and end up at JCPenny. I use my debit card and the bride got new curtains.

JCPenny turns around my info to a subsidiary called Stonebridge, and I get spammed for insurance, and other stuff. Other stuff like a bullshit 'membership' which somehow I failed to opt-out of that charges my card $10/mo. Well, 3 months later I finally get that charge removed, with large amounts of swearing on the phone (hey, if 2 months of 'nice' phone calls won't work, break out the profanity).

I still recieve Stonebridge insurance scams in my snail-mail, after months and months of calling them and asking (yep ... more swearing too, although unsuccessful so far).

Never do business with JCPenny as they appear to have other instances, and multiple ways to rip you off.

Here's the one I got messed up in.

The bride tells me we need new curtains for the living room. We surf, and shop, and surf, and shop and end up at JCPenny. I use my debit card and the bride got new curtains.

JCPenny turns around my info to a subsidiary called Stonebridge, and I get spammed for insurance, and other stuff. Other stuff like a bullshit 'membership' which somehow I failed to opt-out of that charges my card $10/mo. Well, 3 months later I finally get that charge removed, with large amounts of swearing on the phone (hey, if 2 months of 'nice' phone calls won't work, break out the profanity).

I still recieve Stonebridge insurance scams in my snail-mail, after months and months of calling them and asking (yep ... more swearing too, although unsuccessful so far).

Never do business with JCPenny as they appear to have other instances, and multiple ways to rip you off.

Here's the one I got messed up in.

The bride tells me we need new curtains for the living room. We surf, and shop, and surf, and shop and end up at JCPenny. I use my debit card and the bride got new curtains.

JCPenny turns around my info to a subsidiary called Stonebridge, and I get spammed for insurance, and other stuff. Other stuff like a bullshit 'membership' which somehow I failed to opt-out of that charges my card $10/mo. Well, 3 months later I finally get that charge removed, with large amounts of swearing on the phone (hey, if 2 months of 'nice' phone calls won't work, break out the profanity).

I still recieve Stonebridge insurance scams in my snail-mail, after months and months of calling them and asking (yep ... more swearing too, although unsuccessful so far).

Never do business with JCPenny as they appear to have other instances, and multiple ways to rip you off.

...TD has the added benefit of a location half a block from where I work...

When looking at TD Bank's website, I noticed that they use interactive data. Interactive Data's terms of services states:

All information provided by ComStock, Inc. ("ComStock") and its affiliates (the "ComStock Information") is owned by or licensed to ComStock and its affiliates and any user is permitted to store, manipulate, analyze, reformat, print and display the ComStock Information only for such user's personal use....

...NEITHER COMSTOCK NOR ITS AFFILIATES WILL BE LIABLE TO ANY USER OR ANYONE ELSE FOR ANY INTERRUPTION, INACCURACY, ERROR OR OMISSION, REGARDLESS OF CAUSE, IN THE COMSTOCK INFORMATION OR FOR ANY DAMAGES (WHETHER DIRECT OR INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY) RESULTING THEREFROM.

Pretty standard stuff, however I started wondering who the affiliates were and how they might use your banking information?

There were 18 ripoff reports, FYI...considering that all banks have negative reports, and 18 is pretty low...as long as Interactive data and their affiliates are not mis using your data it sounds like a decent bank all in all.

If a bank uses Chexsystems (most do, but not all) be aware that if you get a negative report in chexsystems for any reason, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to open a new bank or checking account anywhere else. Check out these 137 reports to learn about this from others mistakes. Personally based on what I have seen, that 137 number appears to be very low, so check on other search engines as well.

Helpful link concerning chexsystems here. Remember that this information, even after you pay it current, remains on chexsystems for a minimum of five years, good luck.

To be safe, maintain a minimum of two bank accounts at all times, preferably three, so that if one bank does something stupid (anything customer no service) you can find a new bank first, before you drop the offending bank. Never drop an account until you have a replacement bank account open, otherwise you might have problems opening a new account. Remember that many banks have relationships with other banks and that makes it harder to find two banks that are not related. Make your third bank a Credit Union or Savings and Loan as they will honestly work with you when a regular bank will not.

Remember you catch more flies with honey, so treat the people you are talking to with respect and you will find that you get respect in return. Save the yelling for somewhere else as that just insures that they will NOT help you.

For instance use Google Finance to look up information on companies that are publicly traded. Refer to the Related Companies section (its right after the chart) to see if two banks are related. Did you know that while Bank of America and Washington Mutual use to not be directly related as they are today. However even back in the day, prior to December 2008, both banks were indirectly related via both Citibank and Wells Fargo. Today they are directly related vi

...TD has the added benefit of a location half a block from where I work...

When looking at TD Bank's website, I noticed that they use interactive data. Interactive Data's terms of services states:

All information provided by ComStock, Inc. ("ComStock") and its affiliates (the "ComStock Information") is owned by or licensed to ComStock and its affiliates and any user is permitted to store, manipulate, analyze, reformat, print and display the ComStock Information only for such user's personal use....

...NEITHER COMSTOCK NOR ITS AFFILIATES WILL BE LIABLE TO ANY USER OR ANYONE ELSE FOR ANY INTERRUPTION, INACCURACY, ERROR OR OMISSION, REGARDLESS OF CAUSE, IN THE COMSTOCK INFORMATION OR FOR ANY DAMAGES (WHETHER DIRECT OR INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY) RESULTING THEREFROM.

Pretty standard stuff, however I started wondering who the affiliates were and how they might use your banking information?

There were 18 ripoff reports, FYI...considering that all banks have negative reports, and 18 is pretty low...as long as Interactive data and their affiliates are not mis using your data it sounds like a decent bank all in all.

If a bank uses Chexsystems (most do, but not all) be aware that if you get a negative report in chexsystems for any reason, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to open a new bank or checking account anywhere else. Check out these 137 reports to learn about this from others mistakes. Personally based on what I have seen, that 137 number appears to be very low, so check on other search engines as well.

Helpful link concerning chexsystems here. Remember that this information, even after you pay it current, remains on chexsystems for a minimum of five years, good luck.

To be safe, maintain a minimum of two bank accounts at all times, preferably three, so that if one bank does something stupid (anything customer no service) you can find a new bank first, before you drop the offending bank. Never drop an account until you have a replacement bank account open, otherwise you might have problems opening a new account. Remember that many banks have relationships with other banks and that makes it harder to find two banks that are not related. Make your third bank a Credit Union or Savings and Loan as they will honestly work with you when a regular bank will not.

Remember you catch more flies with honey, so treat the people you are talking to with respect and you will find that you get respect in return. Save the yelling for somewhere else as that just insures that they will NOT help you.

For instance use Google Finance to look up information on companies that are publicly traded. Refer to the Related Companies section (its right after the chart) to see if two banks are related. Did you know that while Bank of America and Washington Mutual use to not be directly related as they are today. However even back in the day, prior to December 2008, both banks were indirectly related via both Citibank and Wells Fargo. Today they are directly related vi

We found a bill on our credit card statement from some company.

No doubt this is Webloyalty. What they do is wave a "rebate" coupon of $10 or something in your face, but in the fine print they are actually subscribing you to some worthless "rewards" program for a monthly fee that they hope you won't notice. Pure scam company that partners with a lot of online sites like Classmates.

If there IS a class-action lawsuit against them, I want in on it. No joke.

http://www.google.com/search?q=webloyalty+class+action

Attacking the credit card system appears to be too easy. Just create an large enterprise or group of associate divisions and make sure each is authorized for billing by various credit services. (If enough of them pull through, also be sure to use the funds to expand the umbrella organization. It's kind of like adding to your "botnet".)

Then run through a list of any credit card numbers you can obtain. Either via confidence shemes (including phishing), other social engineering, or even random number generators. Bonus points if you're using TV adspace with a catchy jingle or animations or ads on legit online services to bring in marks for your phishing. (Another bonus if your scam also plays the "anti-scam" side of the market with some fake protection racket. Be sure to google bomb with it, so legitimate reports of your scamming gets lost under your own "fix".) First test the credit card numbers with an initial charge of $1 or $2 (something very small, so the charge-back won't be bothersome if not accepted.) If the charge accepts, add it to your index and then bill the account for "services" at a monthly fee in an average range of $10 to $30. This way the fee is likely to get lost in the charges listing on the bill and get overlooked.

Works very well. Just ask the kind folks at Vertrue and Adaptive Marketing LLC. Also ask Mr. James B. Duffy how well it works. He's got a mansion and a yacht and who knows how many millions via use of this nice exploit.

The credit card industry as it is right now is like WinXP with no firewall and all ports open with no SP2 update and no AV. I'm suprised the FTC and other government accountability services haven't gotten on it yet.

http://consumerist.com/5008441/watch-for-baloney-reservation-rewards-charges-on-your-credit-card

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/dynamic/ecommerce-investigation-webloyalty.cfm

http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/2004/12/24/webloyalty_aka_wli_reservations_is_a_scam

http://ask.metafilter.com/76535/Scammed-by-WLI-Reservation-Rewards

http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search!&q5=WLI

I love a good compression scam....

Stay away from Adaptive Marketing LLC! They're bad! Google them and see for yourself.

MyidWatchdog.com says something about those F'ers having 2969 domains registered. It's like a con-man confidence scheme minefield out there. But myidwatchdog.com wants you to pay for the list. Meh... At least you get an idea of how pervasive the shit by just one company is from the numbers.

As for the shit they pull, see this RipoffReport post.

Fake phishing clones of bank sites is the thing I think is only one aspect of the problem.

Also do your homework on any business offering "free credit reports" as well. Seems a lot of those are also phishing and confidence schemes to get your financial or identity related data which they can use to rip you off. (And I say be more wary of the confidence scheme, because the places that are phishing are giving "advice" against phishing and claim to be anti-phishing - which is a lie.) Just because their banner is on a trusted site such as your bank or email service, doesn't mean they should be.

This complaint shows just how far some rip-off operations go.

The thing I'm left wondering is how come sites related to this company and its parent organization are allowed to continue operation when there are numerous complaints of fraud dating back over 2 years, yet places like wikileaks get a court injunction to shut off access? Call me confused!

Although I consider Lenovo to be a great company, their customer service leaves *alot* to be desired.

I recently purchased a Thinkpad directly from Lenovo and Lenovo lied to me, stole my money and told me to go away... More details (for those of you that are interested) can be found here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=334865&sid=6df4b030e6cd05ec0d9f77667843891b

and here:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/269/RipOff0269581.htm

and here:

http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.664197/browse_thread/thread/c4fe47e6830193a9

Up until this point I *LOVED* Lenovo as a company, and recommended Thinkpads to my friends & family, as well as recommended their stock to my friends who dabbled in the market.

I guess the lesson in all this is that no matter how well your machines are put together or how fantastic your innovations may be, if your customer service can't even be deemed mediocre, it's all in vain... Lenovo could take a cue from Apple in the customer service dept if you ask me.

Regards

http://www.checkyourphonebill.com/index.html

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/006/ripoff0006518.htm

http://www.phoneplusmag.com/articles/0c1rnew4.html?cntwelcome=1

tons more. Verizon has tried their hardest to screw the customer for a really long time.

Lenovo has at least done well at keeping up the high quality standards that IBM started with the Thinkpad laptops. Customer service however is another matter entirely.

I recently purchase a Thinkpad directly from Lenovo, only to be lied to by one of their customer care reps, which resulted in my being completely screwed over. To sum it up, Lenovo lied to me, stole my money and told me to go away. (If anyone's interested, more details regarding this Lenovo customer service tragedy can be had here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/269/RipOff02 69581.htm)

Which is a damn shame, considering how fantastic the thinkpad line of laptops are, it's a veritable tragedy that the customer service is being handled by outsourced call centers in far off lands where people are being paid pennies on the dollar. I'm all for people having jobs in India, but as far as I'm concerned, they should be paying said India call center reps the same wage(s) they would be paying someone stateside - this would result in a higher quality of living and boost the entire economy for the region that they outsource calls to. To top it off, it would ensure that people in these call centers take pride in doing their job properly because they cared about the work they were doing and they paycheck they would receive because of it. I know that in my particular situation, if the person I spoke to cared about her job, she would take the time to memorize the proper return procedure.

I'm not alone in any of this either, (If you do a google search for "Lenovo lied to me" all sorts of horror stories pop up.) heres another report about how someone else entirely had a somewhat similar problems in their dealings with Lenovo: (http://consumerist.com/consumer/complaints/consum ers-speak-lenovos-tricky-customer-service-144702.p hp) And that article was from 2005! So all these 'miscommunication' problems, and people being flat out *lied* to by Lenovo is an ongoing problem that no one inside Lenovo cares enough about to address properly.

If Lenovo succeeds in buying out Seagate, I for one will never be purchasing another Seagate hard drive, which again, really sucks, as I've always thought Seagate to be far more reliable than Maxtor and most other HD manufacturers.

Probably not such a good idea to use their employee re finance deals, if they are anything like the retail version ..... http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/198/RipOff01 98550.htm

It's not just work, why not also study? Why on Earth, with the technology available, does anyone need to go to a building and sit with 100 other students in a cold lecture hall for an hour or too. There's no reason why that can be video streamed and questions handled by chat or email. Then you can fit in the lecture when you brain is most receptive, and take breaks when you wish, or replay parts you didn't get. In fact for many subjects, the lectures need only be recorded once for use over many years. Transcripts of previous Q and A's can also be available online.

Sure, labs and tutorials need face to face, but that can be one day per week.

University of Phoenix might be considered by many to be a joke, but the concept is sound, just needs better execution.

Who needs caps or a fancy battery when you can just drop a pill in the tank.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:BioPerforma nce_Fuel

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff179058.h tm