Category: Consumer Gripes

GreedBay boycott continues to grow

I’ve been watching the GreedBay boycott with great interest. Sellers are furious (and rightly so) at eBay’s outrageous behavior – they’ve implemented a new “fee” structure that essentially puts small sellers out of business, their management has acted with great idiocy – apparently, their CEO made an assinine comment that FeeBay wants to lose it’s “Internet flea-market” image (now if that isn’t a stupid comment, I don’t know what is), and sellers are flocking to other Internet auction sites.

In addition, GreedBay has implemented a new “Detailed Seller Review” program where buyers can nail sellers on such things as “shipping speed” and “shipping costs.” I, like many others, have already been burned for that even though I have ALWAYS shipped my for-sale items IMMEDIATELY and I’ve only charged actual postage: not a cent more.

Not surprisingly,  GreedBay’s traffic rank on Alexa is also plunging: here’s the current chart that shows what’s happened over the past year.

GreedBay Site Hits Plunge

eBay Boycott

Well, it looks like there’s another very hot and nasty consumer boycott going on. (Isn’t it too bad that people don’t get riled up about other corrupt businesses too?) I’ve been buying and selling on eBay for a few years now although I stopped selling much about two years ago – right after eBay raised their sellers’ fees. Of course, the moment I start selling again, eBay starts up with their antics. Well, this time they’ve done it and people aren’t going to take it sitting down. While I sold something last week (I wasn’t aware of the boycott when I listed my item), the boycott by sellers appears to have been rather successful. People are pissed (and rightly so) because eBay “lowered” some of their listing fees but, at the same time, really jacked up their take on the final sales price of everything that’s sold – what a crock! Of course, this latest vile action was sugar coated by eBay’s PR machine (which sellers quickly saw through) and they’ve been rightfully blasted since then.

Another one of eBay’s STUPID actions against sellers is that it will now be impossible for them to leave negative feedback against buyers (what a joke). While I have always maintained a very good relationship with my buyers, as well as with sellers; this latest nonsense not only leaves sellers open to blackmail (literally) but eBay has also made their feedback against sellers far more complex: they’re even going to allow buyers to rate the SPEED of delivery. That, of course, is absurd. I recently had a transaction (as a buyer) that was botched because good ‘ole corrupt UPS lied about their delivery time. While I didn’t blame the seller for this (he had good ratings and it really wasn’t his fault), I can just see some buyers coming unglued because of UPS’ incompetence.

Interestingly, sellers seem to be flocking to other auction sites and are planning on additional boycotts. I found one site that I’ve just listed on: eBid.net. Currently, their fees are almost non-existent. Only time will tell for this one. By the way, here’s my current eBay rating:

As of today, I had a 100% positive on 115 transactions. It’s really sad that big business always screws the little guy. Like so many other businesses (and countless government agencies), the bigger they are, the more corrupt they become.

Customer disservice – Western Union & Apple Computer

Watch out, here comes a rant! Okay, the ongoing downfall of American society and culture seems to be accelerating exponentially. In the past few days, I have either experienced or observed a couple of new outrageous acts against consumers (i.e., customers) by big business. The first of these involve Western Union – you know, the company that was once known for its telegram service and now focuses on money transfers. Well, according to Western Union’s home page, they proudly (and fraudulently) tout their “money in minutes” program in which they claim that funds can be transferred anywhere around the world in a matter of a few short minutes. Heck, they even proudly proclaim,

“Happy Chinese New Year!

Every time you send a “Money in Minutes” transfer online from the U.S. to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan you will receive a set of 10 Western Union Limited Edition Red Envelopes to share with your friends and family.”

Let’s just say that Western Union is full of rotten chow mien if they expect people to really believe that. In my case, I needed to make a simple transfer but spent TWO DAYS trying to do so through WU. I tried on the their web site, called them several times on the phone, wasted time on one of their online chat boards, going into two of their branches a total of FOUR times, and then called on the phone again. As I’ve already said, “money in minutes?” Well, it gets worse, much worse. After finally reaching someone who claimed that I could take care of the transaction and that the funds would be wired in just 45 minutes, that turned out to be a big lie. Not only did my financial institution approve the transaction and WU had no problem getting an instant hold placed on those funds, but then one of their clowns on the phone disconnected me. So. . .I called back (again), only to learn that WU had decided that due to their “business requirements,” they were refusing to wire the money. Again, this was AFTER my institution approved the transfer, after WU lied to me about sending the money within 45 minutes, after spending TWO DAYS (yes, I’m yelling), trying to deal with a simple transaction, and after being lied to by their employees. On top of that, their moronic supervisors – “Mike 697” and, allegedly, his supervisor, “Nate 745” both refused to explain what the nebulous “business requirements” were (they’re allegedly “trade secrets”) but they also informed me that the hold on my funds would be there for SIX days. That’s right, WU lied about their “Money in Minutes service,” REFUSED to complete the transaction because of their own scam, and refused to provide a reason. So, as all good consumers should do, they were reported to the Better Business Bureau and the FBI Fraud Unit. Apparently, when complaints are filed against WU with the BBB, it gets their attention as I received an e-mail from them asking for more details today. Of course, I had already taken my business elsewhere and it even cost less to do so. I will NEVER use Western Union again – what a scam.

Now for rant number two – I’ve always been a PC guy (I’ve never liked the OS for Macs) but I do like their iPods – they’re extremely well designed and are rather remarkable devices. I’ve always felt; however, that the fact that their decision that iPhones can only use ATT to provide wireless phone service was a completely stupid one (I dumped my own ATT service, years ago after having problems with their “tech support” located, where else but in India). Silly me, I thought the first letter in the acronym, ATT, referred to “American.” Apple; however, did come out with a very similar device, called the iTouch, which is essentially an iPhone without the phone – all of the other cool features are still there.

In a brazen act of stupity and disregard for their customers (many of whom have been long time Apple fans), Steve Jobs – Mr. Big Mac himself  – spoke at Apple’s trade show/conference on Monday whereby he touted the latest wonders of Apple’s engineers and announced the launch of new software applications for the iPhone and iTouch. While owners of the iPhone received those applications at no charge (i.e., FREE), Mr. Big Mac also announced that owners of the iTouch, could receive the exact same software application for a measly twenty bucks. Considering that the iTouch costs the same as the iPhone and that it is essentially identical in everyway (of course, without the phone service), Mr. Big Mac’s announcement has rightfully launched a massive outcry from iTouch users. Furthermore, Apple is actively censoring posts on their own discussion boards about the situation, but that hasn’t stopped angry consumers from posting elsewhere. Not surprisingly, the media has also picked up on the situation and, while very little is coming out of Mr. Big Mac’s mouth (maybe he’s choking on a few apple seeds), the so-called “update” is no longer downloadable from Apple’s site. If a large company like Apple is so arrogant as to ignore their responsibility to their customers, no wonder that others, like Western Union, can get away with so much. What ever happened to the adage that “customers are always right” and common courtesy towards those that cough up hard earned dollars for products and services? Oh well. . .

Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water is Gross

Okay, you’ve got to admit, I must be in a strange mood as I’m going to review what used to be the best tasting water anywhere – Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water. In fact, I only bought Arrowhead for decades because it was (past tense) so good. Sadly, a few years ago, Nestlé bought out Arrowhead (if you use a magnifying glass, you might be able to see the word “brand” in extremely small print under to the company’s name) and ever since then it has tasted like something that has been filtered through a cat litter box. Their bottles also state (a bit more prominently than the word “brand”) that Arrowhead has been in business “since 1894” – of course, that water came from the Arrowhead spring located near the base of the San Bernardino Mountains – the water now bottled by Nestlé (they don’t disclose the “source” of their springs) tastes so bad that I suspect it could be the final “product” from sewage refuse plants. Also, in looking at their web site (no, I’m not going to provide the URL), they now refer to their “product” as “Arrowhead® Brand Mountain Spring Water.” You should love custom water bottles.

So, why am I ranting about this? Well, I went to the grocery story to pick up a few things and, once again, they only had Arrowhead on the self and I wasn’t happy. The last time I went to the store, the same thing happened and I was forced to buy a bottle of it as I was out of water. This time, I still had some left so I refused to buy more. Further, I only buy distilled water as I also use it for my CPAP machine: even Arrowhead’s distilled water tastes gross.

That led me to read some of the fine print on other bottles. I typically buy a couple of bottles of orange juice and I always look for brands that are not made from concentrate but that are squeezed right at the orchards. As a brand that I normally don’t buy was on sale, I took a look at the label only to learn that the juice comes from oranges grown in the United States and Brazil! So. . .I looked at the brand I usually buy and it said the same thing! Ugh! Doesn’t anything come entirely from local sources anymore? First, we’ve got “Arrowhead® Brand” water that comes from only God knows where (and tastes awful) and even though I live in California – Orange County, no less – we have to get our Orange juice from Brazil?! Okay, okay, so navel oranges originally came from there (and as navel oranges are seedless, they can only be grown from trees that have been grafted) but heck, we’ve grown oranges in great quantities in this country since 1873! Oh yeah, I wouldn’t want to forget to mention that California oranges are generally used for eating as a fruit (because they are not only seedless, but look “nice”) whereas most orange juice that comes from Florida, as their varieties may not look as good but make great juice. Even so, why do we have to import orange juice from Brazil?

Heck, I’m surprised that we’re not importing oranges and orange juice from China (who knows, maybe we are?) as they originated in southeastern Asia. Just about everything else comes from there – which is going to be the downfall of this country yet – so why not all of our food? Oh well, I guess I’m done with my rant for now.