Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet
sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
Our businesses are smarter and have forseen the trend. They are rallying against the consumers who believe they have rights.
I'm actually surprised at the apathy shown towards the Bank of America fiasco of exploiting loopholes in the law to allow them to open accounts and credit cards for illegal aliens!!
I figured there would have been a much larger rush of people to move their accounts away from them.
I guess aiding and abetting law breakers just isn't enough to get the typical US citizen's ire up....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
English: Football
Spanish: fútbol
Protuguse: futebol
Romanian: fotbal
Galician: fútbot
Catalan: futbol
French: le football
Russian: futbol
Turkish: futbol
Serbian: fudbal
German: Fußball
Dutch: voetbal
Norweian: fotball
Swedish: fotboll
Danish: fodbold
American: Soccer
The United States, it seems, is the only country in the world that prefers to use the name football to refer to a game that doesn't actually use the feet.
All we ask is that you please call the biggest sport in the world by its commonly accepted name! :)
Thanks in advance,
Rest of World
PS: Now if only we could get our overpaid under-performing team to win something...
A few months ago, I bought a nice mountain bike from a well-known vendor. Right from the start I had issues with the front crank. So I went online and founds hundreds of people having exactly the same problem on the very same model. It gave me a much stronger case to get the shop to replace the problematic part by another brand: they could not claim that it was my fault. So yeah, online consumer activist is good, but you already knew that, right ?
Nobox: Only simple products.
Yes, yes they will. See the current bruhaha over Bank of America and their giving credit cards to illegal aliens as well as allowing unapproved documents to be used to open accounts.
Even, gasp!, Michelle Malkin is getting into scrum and accusing the Bush administration of ignoring and condoning the actions of Bank of America.
One need only do searches for things like "lawsuit Match.com" to see that (maybe) consumers will be getting the upper hand. Until businesses bribe, er, lobby, Congress to protect them that is.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We are the people. Individually we are weak. Together we rule the world.
Those who oppress us cannot do so unless we help them. Those who go against our-selves rampant, shall suffer the only possible consequence.
As humanity learns to speak with one another, breaking down barriers of distance, language, and culture, the existing governmental powers are going to have a very interesting dillema on their hands. One people, one world, one government.
-GiH
The preceding has been your dose of political idealism for the day. Overdosiong on political idealism may lead to conspiracy theories, or dellusions of power. Use only as recomneded.
RE: that British bank scandal, the courts there determined that banks were breaking the law. This was then reported by the news (such as BBC) who published handy tips on reclaiming unfair fees.
Is it thus fair to call a press which publishes information about this issue, along with all the people who makes use of that information, an "advocate mob" out to bully corporations out of their profits? In fact, who is the more organized here? The private companies with enough funds to hire PR agents, attorneys, and lobbyists, or those citizens who assert their rights as legislated by parliament and enforced by the courts?
Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
Wait until such a "mob" hits Slashdot and demands journalism.
No it's not, because, frankly it doesn't affect anyone I know. People don't care. I don't care.
If an illegal alien can go and open a bank account, it's fine by me. Bank of America is not in the law enforcement business, it's in the banking business. This alien is supporting an American business by opening that bank account.
No, let's talk about predatory lending, sneaky credit card terms, deceitful charges, etc.
Let's talk about MBNA (now part of Bank of America) and BofA being some of the heaviest hitters to push through new bankruptcy law that makes everyone a peon to credit card companies, regardless of circumstances! Let's talk about the fact that an amendment to limit credit card interest rates to 30% (yes, that's thirty f'ing percent) was rejected last yaer. Yes, credit card companies did not want their interest rate limited to a cut-throat ceiling of 30%!
Let's talk about my platinum Bank of America card moving from 2 late payments (by even a day!) in 6 months to 2 late payments in 12 months to 1 late payment in 12 months before they bump your rate from a good APR to an insane 20%+ default APR. Let's talk about two-cycle billing (my roommate, who normally pays off his entire balance got bitten by this because he miscalculated and payed off a $1 less than the balance)
Let's talk about CapitalOne (and some other predatory lenders) not reporting your credit limit to the credit reporting agencies, which is ILLEGAL to do, but there is not enough activism or pressure to change that.
So yeah, let's talk about that, and then you can tell me why I should care that Bank of America issues a bank account to an illegal alien, when there are all these other topics out there that affect every damn American.
The problem is that there are fewer and fewer acceptable choices every year as alternatives. BofA isn't the only bank you wouldn't want to do business with.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Big business profits motivate Bush administration's every single action:
* ignoring BofA bruhaha
* encouraging "guest worker status" to permit legal under-minimum-wage labor
* signing the bankruptcy bill
* pushing ethanol fuel (big ethanol lobby)
* against discount drugs from Canada
* crazy cronyism in Iraq (KBR, Halliburton)
I mean, there is very little that's not big business motivated.
That's "football clubs" to the rest of us.
:-)
Disclaimer: I am an American.
Ah, but see, by saying "soccer" it removes all the ambiguity. Most non-Americans know what "soccer" is, they just think it is an incorrect term to describe that sport with 2 goals and a buncha guys kicking a ball around. Had the poster said "football" then the American population would assume the summary was referring to American football while the non-american population wouldn't be confused for they would expect to see "American football" to describe football and "football" to describe soccer; a clever non-American would however assume that since this is an Amermican website that the summarry was actually referring to American footbal by saying "football". So had the summary said "football" to describe soccer, only non-presumptuous non-American's would infer the correct meaning...By saying soccer, everyone infers the correct meaning, and a few people get pissed off and/or roll their eyes.
P.S. I'm not arguing over which is the more correct term, thats a useless debate...Seeing as I am an American and a Slashdotter, I suppose I'm supposed to be double-arrogant and double-argumentative. . so yeah, soccer is THE correct term
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
My solution has been to refer to soccer as "unamerican football." Things are a bit different with handball, though. American-style handball is either "handball" or "racquetless racquetball," while team handball is now either "handsoccer" or "dry water polo."
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
The banks have it coming, they really do. Unfortunately, when this happened to me, HTTP was brand new and only geeks used it, and I was still a student.
I had to pay a deposit to my landlord for a new place I was going to rent. Unfortunately, due to a foul up which was entirely my fault, this put me something like £1 overdrawn (a trivial amount in anyone's book). So the bank sent me a letter that they were going to charge me (IIRC) £25 for unarranged borrowing and a further £3 per day for each day overdrawn! Then they took the £25 out just before my first pay day, making me overdrawn AGAIN, causing them to charge me £25 again for unarranged borrowing as a direct consequence of them charging me for the previous problem! You'd think before they charged you they would check that the charge wouldn't cause you to go overdrawn again and be charged again.
Of course they refused to refund it. Natwest - bastards. They used to like also withdrawing the funds on a cheque written the day it hit the payee's bank, but not add the funds on a cheque you were paying in for 3 to 5 days.
If my current bank tries that trick, I will move my account elsewhere - including my mortgage. I'll make sure it ends up costing them more than it does me.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
A funny letter snarking a bank for bouncing a check against a pensioner now insisting banks deal with her own new defensive bureaucracy circulates the Net in an email claiming to be from an old pensioner. It reportedly was written by an Australian columnist as humor. But practically everyone can relate. And now, with our PCs, I hope to see everyone actually apply the policies and procedures the letter mentions.
--
make install -not war
yes, we should also put in some stronger laws that make it impossible to share music.
Also, we should put governors in all cars so they can't go over 65MPH.
Oh, and all computers should report to government agencies to help prevent crime.
Here's on for you:
In new Mexico there are farms the pay over 10 bucks an hour, and have benefits, and they can't find anyone to do the work. Picking is a very hard, and supprisingly skilled labor. Most peopel would rather take there 5 dollar an hour fast food job rather then pick.
It used to be, migrant workers came to the US, picked, got paid, took the money back home with them and the end of the season.
While here they would, of course, spend money.
remember, this is to do a job NO LOCAL CITIZEN WILL DO.
Of course, you could pay 100 dollars an hour, but all that will do is make it so everyone needs to get a 75% pay raise which would make 100 bucks not very valuable.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm not sure, probably, but one of the best I have seen so far is saynoto0870 which lists the equivalent geographical telephone numbers for the 0870 (national rate non-geographical) numbers that companies give out for support and such. ( Okay so it should have been called saynoto0870.co.uk but that's a little OT )
Considering how long some of them keep you on hold, dialling non-geographical numbers (which are often excluded from discount pricing plans) can cost you a fortune.
(Disclaimer: I don't know if the U.K.'s any better than the U.S. in this regard):
In the U.S., if consumer revolt ever becomes enough of a problem, the companies will just buy some laws making it illegal for consumers to collude against them, and/or crush complainers under the weight of the civil court system.
"Most peopel also know that immigrant workers are good for the US . .
So truth is now a function of popular opinion?
Illegal immigrants are great for the factories and construction companies that can get them to work for sub-minimum wages. They're just a burden on the rest of us that have to pay taxes to build the public infrastructure and fund the public services that everyone uses(and illegals don't pay for). It's also a documented fact that illegals ship substantial portions of their earnings back to their home countries, so the wealth doesn't even circulate in the rest of the economy. Not to mention the grave security risk of having 20 million illegals that we know nothing about running around our country. That's supposed to be a "benefit to the US"?
Who's a whacko? Somebody that dares to defy the status quo and question insane government policies?
Americans don't have any respect for the law, because the law doesn't have any respect for us.
There's just no way someone can look at the American revolution and its causes -- the very principles that the country was founded upon -- and then look at today's America and not see hipocrisy. The Drug War?! DMCA!? All the creepy shit that's been happening since September 2001? Even little day-to-day stuff, like speed traps that are set up to generate revenue instead of improve safety.
It's a joke. Today's America is an "us versus them" situation where "them" is the government itself -- which is supposed to be us. The only law that Americans respect is this law: don't get caught. Why would you expect anyone to get their ire up over breaking immigration law? Most Americans don't know jack shit about what the immigration laws are -- all we know is that the laws are probably unfair, and almost certainly arbitrary and not tuned to maximize any particular political ideal -- neither racist protectionism nor freedom and the power of diversity. There are no ethical principles upon which any of our laws are based; they're all made from compromises between competing special interests. Why should anyone expect immigration law to be any different?
It's not worth getting upset over. (Except when you're in the crosshairs.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
We should also consider the evolution of the sport since its birth. Back in the day, leather helmets were worn, with minimal padding. This was in the days long before super agents and scouts were hand picking the biggest, meanest ogres they could find. Long before the days where a bone shattering hit was expected on every tackle. Give me the best runningback from the early days of football, and I'll laugh my ass off as he gets trampled to death 10 out of 10 times by the most mediocre backfielder in the NFL.
The modern American football pad set evolved from intense competition, where everyone was looking for a better edge. However, it is my opinion that the inception of hard plactic components that spurred our current suit of armor look. Would you rather get speared in the gut by a guy wearing a thick, soft leather helmet, or a guy wearing a bulletproof shell on his head? Thus it became necessary to wear hard plastic shoulders as well as elbow, knee and girdle pads.
As far as the purists accross the pond mocking American football, I say, if you hadn't spent the majority of the 20th century without 2 nickels to rub together, your rugby would have evolved similarly. If rugby was a billion dollar industry like American football, you would be importing only the most ferocious animals alive to play the game. Competition would spur the need for stronger, lighter protection, and eventually, the only difference between American football and rugby would be that nifty little gay pride celebration you chaps call a scrum.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
Apparently, in the cases mentioned in the article, businesses were doing things that prompted their customers to leave when they found out that what they were faced with was "policy" instead of just "bad luck".
Market transparency is great ... it forces businesses to be honest and to actually compete on value instead of relying on (modest) barriers (including ignorance) to keep their customers. If a business uses practices that hurt it when the public finds out about it (as was the case here), can those practices be either good or reasonable? What's not to like?
And look at the flip side of the coin ... if people are happy with the way a business works they will write about that too.
As a purist from across the pond your plasticy standing about game might produce a load of hugely muscled ogres but for strength, stamina, endurance and speed you'd be better off with rugby players. I just read that your teams are actually 2 seperate teams because your players just can't hack playing the full match ! Incredible, especially since they stop for breaks every 5 seconds and those girlish gossipy chats they always seem to be having.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
AC is indeed insightful, because to be insightful you must be observant of situations, people, processes ... and then be able to (via epiphany or logic) derive a reasonable or accurate description of facts and/or causes of the situations, people, processes ... conditions.
... is beyond insightful ... it is prescient. I regret that I have no moderator points today to provide to AC.
... I am sure is appreciated by AC.
...) are created by "Civil Law" mandated by "Human Citizens" any institution can be dissolved, terminated, destroyed ... by "Civil Law" when mandated by "Human Citizens" for whatever reason. However, when a "Human Citizens" is destroyed, terminated, dissolved ... by an institution then a crime against humanity has occurred, this is true for capital-punishment, war, famine, genocide ... :"FOR ME" only self-defense to protect the life of family, friends, others and self is justifiable, but might be punishable by an institutions following the letters of the law, legal yes, but never would it be justice. Institutions cannot think, feel, and/or act in anyway, institutions are inanimate objects created and controlled by "Human Citizens". My observations, make me believe, that USA prison populations should be 50/50, one half murders, pedophiles, drug-dealers ... the other half should be politicians, CEOs/CFOs, market-traders, pseudo-prophet/televangelists ....
....
I do not know who AC is, but if I did I would click-friend the person AC. AC's ability to observe and derive personal conclusions that indeed do reflect reality in the USA, EU, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico
Ditto: "I know you're telling the truth but do you mind sharing *why* you feel this way? This comment doesn't deserve an "Insightful" rating unless he can back it up." This is a statement in conflict (I feel) with logical use of words. You know AC is truthful implies that you may be in possession of facts that would support AC's insightful observations, but then you ask AC for feelings, rather than more facts to support those you appear to already have obtained by some real data collection. It was just odd to me the way you worded your comment, which I understand when folks use ESL. The support you provided to AC
JonWan: "Well customers do have rights, but so do businesses." is incorrect, because rights as in "Civil/Human Rights" cannot be reserved or legislated to cover any institutions with "RIGHTS". Institutions (society, businesses, governments, religions, clubs, marriage
Having said the above, please notice I do not include SBA/AFF [Small Business Americans or American Family Farmers in the Western Hemisphere]. I know the SBA/AFF are as fucked as the rest of US, EU
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The existence of a law has no correlation with the prescence of morality. Many immoral things have been and are still legal. Many things that could very well be considered not only moral, but righteous, are illegal.
You're right that attempting to change a situation through the democratic process is important, and that to some extent law is a social contract we all deal with to get along a bit better... but that does not mean that all laws should be obeyed, and it MOST CERTAINLY does not mean that any particular law is MORAL.
Sometimes, you do need to break laws.
Well, that's fine. But don't pretend that law is the ultimate arbitration of morality, that's all. Law and morality are not even passingly related. And incidentally, I think you'd find that if your family is living in abject poverty, you'd do whatever you could to help or protect them, so on purely moral grounds I'd have a hard time faulting an "alien" for trying to get work here. Their action may be Illegal, sure, but not immoral. They are still human beings doing the best they know how to. If, for some reason, we feel the need to protect ourselves from them, then so be it. But that doesn't make them immoral people, nor necessarily us immoral, unless you're advocating for extreme violations of basic human rights like torturing them to make an example or something perhaps.
Basically, if someone wants to treat them like criminals then they should feel free, but they should at least man up and admit that the "illegals" or "aliens" are people who aren't necessarily some slavering horde of theives and rapists. It's not ok to justify the actions behind some guise of "morality". if it's justified then it may be a pragmatic reality, but it's not a moral question, and pretending something is a moral question when it is not, ironically, often allows quite immoral behaviour to be justified, so I'm a little distrustful of people using it lightly. People tend to more extreme reactions if they paint their target as an immoral being.
Not saying you were; you were just asking a question. Just explaining my reaction and its cause.
Honestly, this kind of networking is what has happened before as have mass runs on stores and banks of the type described. The only difference is in how the groups are organizing and the speed with which it is happening. And Amen I say. The public does not exist to serve the state or business. Those fat bastards exist to serve us!