Slashdot Mirror
Forbes Lists Top Corporate Hate Web Sites
windowpain writes "You've seen them. Maybe you've made one, like Walmart-blows.com or Paypalsucks.com. Now Forbes.com has a 'Special Report' devoted to what it considers the best of them. 'The following nine sites--there were ten, but one went unexpectedly dark during the editing of this story--are the crème de la crème of online rage. Note that we substantially cleaned up some of the posts, editing out odd capitulation schemes, iffy grammar and plain incoherence. Apparently blinding anger does not go hand in hand with dotting your i's and crossing your t's.' Maybe this will become an annual thing like the Forbes 400 and the Fortune 500." (I wonder what a capitulation scheme is.)
On a side note I wonder how forbes has/would handle something like forbessucks.com.
They have/would have bought it.
Registrant:
Forbes, Inc.
(DOM-1334284)
60 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011 US
Domain Name: forbessucks.com
Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com
Administrative Contact:
Filipe Carreira
(NIC-14324246)
Forbes, Inc.
60 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011 US
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I'm thinking that a capitulation scheme is the plan of how to entice or coerce the company in question to change their objectionable behavior to one which is less objectionable... as in the company will capitulate to the demands of the web site.
I first heard of the site from reading this paper in www2004, which used epinions data as the basis for a reputation system. (I don't know if epinions uses that same system internally, but they at least do something similar.) The cool part is that you can rate individual reviewers as "trusted" or "untrusted". By examining the graph of trust and distrust relationships between users, they can come up with a reasonable guess for how much any user should trust any other user, and sort reviews accordingly.
I don't know what the motives are of the people who run the site. Perhaps they're just trying to grease the wheels of capitalism by giving people good information to make informed decisions about what products to buy (or, more formally, to avoid information asymmetry). Perhaps they're secretly tweaking the ratings to support companies that send them money. Perhaps they're just trying to generate ad banner revenue. Who knows.
In many states, you can easily get a concealed carry permit. Here in Arizona you can carry a weapon openly (defined as any part of the weapon or holster being clearly visible) with no permit, or concealed with a permit. You take a class that covers CCW law, firearm safety, and a shooting test, then submit an application. Provided you pass a backgroud check, you get your permit. There are a lot of people that have them, and a lot of people that carry all the time.
I had a really bad experience flying them out of the Oakland airport a few years ago. It was a few days before Christmas. The line to check baggage extended way out into the parking lot, and there was no airline employee to break into the line for people who were about to miss their flights. In spite of arriving 2 hours before my flight, I wasn't able to check my bag in time to board the plane.
So, after waiting 2 hours to check my bag, I dutifully waited in line for another hour to book myself on another flight. When I got to the front, the agent informed me that I'd have to fly standby on the next available flight--meaning the time I just spent waiting was utterly wasted. I'd have to wait in line again. I am not ordinarily someone who flies off the handle, but at this point I started yelling and pounding my fist on the counter. The agent said something to the effect of "Well maybe if you got here on time you wouldn't miss your flight," to which I responded "I WAS TWO HOURS EARLY!" to which she responded "Well it's Christmas..." to which I said "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!" or something to that effect. She did let me skip to the head of the line when it started, but she wouldn't have done it without me screaming at her.
There's no excuse for this. Christmas is the SAME DAY every year. They knew how many people were traveling. All they had to do was have enough employees to handle the crowds, and they did not. In my mind, they didn't provide the service I paid for. I don't expect to be waited on hand-and-foot, but I do think it's reasonable to expect that the price of a ticket includes having your baggage checked in less than 2 hours. Not with Southwest, apparently.
In addition to this experience, I just hate their system generally. I hate waiting in line for an hour to get an aisle seat--I'd rather reserve. I hate taking 10 hours to fly from San Francisco to Chicago, because they make 4 stops along the way. I hate their corporate culture that tries to mask lousy service with PR that casts their CEO as a "rebel" and their flight attendants as stand-up comics.
And then there's the fact that they purchased southwestsucks.com to keep anyone else from getting it, then posted this message:
"Southwest Airlines strives to maintain a high level of Customer Service and is proud of its corporate reputation and responsiveness to its Customers. As part of that effort, Southwest wants to control the release of inaccurate and irresponsible information about the Company via the Internet. If you would like more information on Southwest, please go to www.southwest.com."
Who writes this crap: the Bush administration press office?
They seem to follow this logic:
1) If we say it, it's true
2) If we're wrong, see rule 1
They're a Texas Republican company that sums up what I hate about Texas Republicanism.
The other side of the story (which isn't to say companies don't suck):
http://www.customerssuck.com/
I've only had one experience with UPS and it went very badly. The crux of the problem is the fact that I live in Canada and purchased an item on Ebay from an American. Two fur coats (muskrat & beaver) for $475 (that was the final bidding price.)
.. I'm faced with the question if I Should or shouldn't pay the $780 for package ? Is it worth it?
When the seller shipped the package he wrote down the retail/market price on the package which was $1800. The UPS guy shows up at my door on a monday morning and tells me that I need to pay for the package, "How much ?" I asked.. $780.21.
$780 for what ? huh ? He's telling me that he can take credit card.. So I sent him on his way and told him to keep it at the distribution center till I called my lawyer.
The $780 wasn't customs/exise duties charged by the government, in fact my packaged slipped through without any duties applied.
This is how UPS operates when they deliver a package from the U.S. into Canada. They have their own special levy that they call a "Brokers Fee." The brokers fee is based on the value of the package.. ie. $30 package/$16 brokers fee, $100 package/$45 brokers fee, etc. So in my case, the listed price of $1800 is converted to Canadian dollars and then a brokers fee (a percentage based on which price bracket it fits into) is applied..
Even had the seller wrote down $475 on the package, which I paid, I would still be facing a brokers fee of over a $150.
Unfortunately the seller, as i mentioned, wrote down the market value on the package and not the price I paid for it. The brokers fee doesn't make any god damn sense, FedEX/USPS/etc have never charged these fees... And here's UPS trying to extort money from me because they know I want my package
In the end I told them to ship it back, go fuck themselves and expect retribution in good time. I was out nearly $500 because of some insane brokers fee I was never told about to begin with.
(You might be asking why I was out $500 if I had the package shipped back to the seller. I did ask him and he said it was okay, BUT when UPS showed up at his place, they decided to charge him as well... he told them to fuck off. So.. somewhere, UPS is holding two fur coats and a whole lot of my money. )
Moral of the story: If you're Canadian and shop on Ebay.. ASK FOR YOUR PACKAGE TO BE SHIPPED BY FEDEX/USPS/ETC.. NEVER UPS, AVOID UPS AT ALL COSTS.
My favourite hate site: KMFMS.com.
Author of a very good article "What's so bad about Microsoft", that is referenced in the Microsuck site.