I recently received a package from Metadot, the creators of Das Keyboard. It contained:
Here’s what the enclosed note says:
The day before, I’d received another package from them, containing a brand new Das Keyboard.
From the “We’re sorry we messed up!” you might suspect that there’s a less positive back story leading up to the seemingly happy ending, and you’d be correct. But I told the ending first for one simple reason: what Metadot did at the end made up for everything that came before, in a way that most companies nowadays just don’t seem to understand. Yes, they made a mistake (quite a few of them, actually), but they acknowledged and apologized for it, they didn’t make excuses, they fixed it, and they went the extra mile to show they were sorry.
To: Acting BPS Superintendent John McDonough
Cc: Boston School Committee
Cc: City Councillor Mark Ciommo
Cc: City Councillor and mayoral candidate John Connolly
Cc: Mayoral candidate Charlotte Golar Richie
Cc: Mayoral candidate Bill Walczak
Dear Superintendent McDonough,
Why does it have to be consistently so painful to deal with the BPS administration? Some of the many examples I’ve recently experienced…
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Honda Automobile Customer Service
1919 Torrance Boulevard
Mail Stop: 500 – 2N – 7A
Torrance, CA 90501-2746
Attention: [name elided] at 800-999-1009 ext. [extension elided]
This is a followup to the attached letter which I sent you on August 2, 2013, about which we subsequently spoke by phone.
To summarize my previous letter, the back-lighting for the A/C controller for my 2007 Honda Odyssey (VIN [elided]) had not worked since the vehicle was new. I asked you to cover the cost of fixing the problem, even though my Odyssey is out of warranty, since the problem was present from when the vehicle was new.
On the phone, you told me to bring the Odyssey to a dealership and get an estimate, and then we could discuss further whether Honda might be able to cover part of the cost of the repair.
I had Herb Chambers Honda of Boston (1186 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02134) look at the problem while I was also dealing with a dead battery there. They gave me an estimate (see attached) of $942 plus tax to replace the entire A/C switch panel. This, frankly, is patently absurd, so I went home and did some more research on my own.
I was able to buy a quality, warrantied, used A/C controller on eBay for only $74.99. I was able to install the new controller myself in a half hour. Assuming a 100% markup on the cost of the replacement part and an hour of labor at $60 per hour, Herb Chambers should have been able to do the repair for $209.98, over $700 less than the estimate they tried to gouge me with.
I recently recommended a flash charger for cell phones and other devices, being sold by NoMoreRack.com for a great price.
I stand by recommendation of that particular product, but I find it necessary to withdraw my recommendation for NoMoreRack.com.
They strongly encourage their customers to recommend their site and products to friends and relatives, and they give customers a $10 credit for each referral that results in at least one purchase. However, they don’t mention anywhere in the various screens urging people to refer others to their site, or in the emails that get sent out whenever a referral credit is generated, that these credits expire after 48 hours. Other credits they give occasionally display the expiration date prominently, which suggests that the concealing of expiration times for referral credits is intentional.
Their inventory doesn’t change often enough for anybody but a shopaholic to be likely to want to buy something from their site within 48 hours of every referral credit. Therefore, their business model for finding new customers is apparently predicated on (a) actively concealing how long referral credits are good for and (b) not actually paying out most of the referral credits that are generated, since they expire before they can be used.
This is an incredibly shady and dishonest business practice which borders on fraud. I don’t do business with companies that do stuff like this, and I discourage others from doing so.
I have no idea why Diallo Mamadou Oury, who lives in Dakar, Senegal, insists on using my email address to sign up for services and web sites all over the Internet (previouspostings). But since he apparently feels entitled to share my personal information without my consent, I have no compunctions about sharing his. Here’s an email message that landed today in my inbox:
After George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, a narrative quickly emerged that Zimmerman “profiled” Martin, that he considered Martin suspicious merely because of the color of his skin and the fact that he was wearing a hoodie.
Leaving aside the question of whether that narrative is accurate in the particular case of the Zimmerman / Martin incident, it is indisputably true that profiling and judging people based on their race occurs every minute of every day in this country, leading to vastly disparate treatment of individuals.
Those who decry racism are right to do so. It is the root cause of a great deal of unfairness and suffering in the world, it causes strife where there need not be any, and it deprives individuals of liberties, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled.
However, there are three crucial facts about racism that are often ignored or at least unacknowledged by those who fight against it, even though they are also indisputably true:
In many (but certainly not all) contexts, racism is rational.
When people are prevented by force of law from behaving in a racist way, their liberty is infringed.
Although we have chosen as a society to oppose racism (a choice I fully agree with), that fact does not negate either of the other two.
I understand that there are overhead costs associated with being a brick-and-mortar store that on-line retailers don’t have. I also understand that it’s reasonable to pay a premium to acquire a product immediately rather than waiting several days for delivery.
So I could understand if I had paid a bit more for that 1/2AA battery I bought from you this morning than I would have if I’d bought it on-line.
A bit more… but not more than 300% more.
You charged me $19.99 for that battery. I couldn’t find a single merchant on Amazon selling it for more than $5.00. I’d have to be a lot more desperate than I am to think it’s OK to pay a >300% markup just to get something now instead of on Monday.
So yeah, I just bought the battery on-line (four of them, in fact, for less than what you charged me for one), and I’ll be returning the one you sold me when I walk by your store on the way home from work.
Sincerely,
A customer who remembers the days when you didn’t suck so much
I like you better than Home Depot because your customer service is better than theirs. Or, at least, I thought it was. Perhaps I was wrong.
When a customer orders a product through your web site, it is not OK to wait nine days before calling to inform the customer that the product has been discontinued. If it’s discontinued, then why are you advertising it on your web site? And why wasn’t that call made within at most a day after the order was placed?
When you do finally call the customer, you should leave a direct call-back number or at least an extension, so that the customer doesn’t have to go through your annoying phone menus and incompetent operators to try to reach you.
Speaking of those incompetent operators, when they tell the customer they’re going to “try again” to transfer the customer to the right person, after said right person didn’t answer the phone on the first attempt, it’s a good idea for them to actually try again rather than leaving the customer on the phone in limbo for several minutes and then silently hanging up on him.
Sincerely,
A dissatisfied customer who has taken his $300 purchase, including a high-margin extended warranty, elsewhere
P.S. When you subsequently call the customer to apologize and claim to have refunded the charge to his credit card, it’s a good idea in a case like this to refund the entire purchase price,not the price minus a 15% restocking fee for a product that never existed and was never delivered. Smooth move, that. Your charge-back department will be hearing soon from my credit card company.
In 2009, I wrote about my positive experience with PayFlex, the company administering my FSA at a former employer. By that time I had experienced several FSA administrators, and PayFlex was in my opinion by far the best. This blog posting is a retraction of that earlier review, which I believe is no longer accurate.
I’ve spent some time taking a look at all of the declared candidates for Boston’s mayoral election. Here are my initial reactions, for those who might be curious.
People worth considering
All of these are people I’d be happy to see elected.
John Connolly
(Web site.) Current City Councillor. I very much liked what he said and did about the Boston Arts Academy / MSBA renovation fiasco (email me if you’re curious). His web site has by far the most detailed platform of any candidate, and I agree with pretty much everything he wants to do. His connections would make him a less adversarial mayor than the outsiders who are running, but they might also prompt him to ignore some of the “business as usual” which really needs to be cleaned up. Overall, after looking at all the candidates, Connolly is currently my first choice.
Bill Walczak
(Web site.) If you’re looking for an “outsider” who has the potential to shake things up and yet also has the strength of character and experience to avoid being eaten alive by the establishment, Bill’s your man. Definitely worth a serious look. Education and community health-care are his two big issues, and he has a huge amount of experience with both of them.
Charlotte Golar Richie
(Web site.) She seems highly qualified. She has been endorsed by EMILY’s List. She would be Boston’s first woman mayor. Unfortunately, her web site is entirely lacking any sort of substantial content about her vision, plan, or platform.
Robert Consalvo
(Web site.) City Councillor. Worth a look, but if you’re going to vote for a current City Councillor, I think Connolly is a better choice.
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