Bob Sutton writes about how earlier this summer, United Airlines (which is the merger of the old United and Continental) lost a 10-year-old girl. Aside from the exact details of how they lost her, the story is surprisingly similar to what happened to my daughter in 2009. It is depressing, but not surprising, to learn… Read More »
In 2008, I wrote about the Macular Degeneration Association (MDA), a questionable charity whose actual mission seemed to be more about lining the pockets of its founder and his cronies than about supporting macular degeneration research or people suffering with the disease. The charity doesn’t look any better now than it did then. Here’s an… Read More »
I pre-ordered a Samsung Galaxy S III from Verizon Wireless a couple weeks before they started shipping. Between when I placed the pre-order and when they started shipping, I had to change my credit-card number, so the number that Verizon had was no longer valid. I didn’t realize that they hadn’t actually charged my card… Read More »
I bought a ThinkPad laptop from Lenovo recently. The actual laptop hardware is quite good… it feels solid and it has a nice screen, nice keyboard, good weight to performance ratio, good price to performance ratio, and great battery life. Alas, things were not so smooth after the laptop arrived. In fact, my post-purchase experience… Read More »
I recently sent a complaint to a compact fluorescent light bulb manufacturer about a bulb that was rated for 12,000 hours but lasted less than three years. Their response included this: “…remember that there are situations that can shorten the life of a CFL, such as using the bulb in a receptacle that is turned… Read More »
I ordered something from Gadgets and Gizmos early on the morning of March 27. By late the next night, two full business days later, I’d received no shipping notification. I sent them the following email. I’ll let it and the subsequent exchange I had with them speak for itself: To: support@shopgadgetsandgizmos.com My order was placed… Read More »
Apparently, enough people have linked to my complaint about the abuse my family received at the hands of US Airways that it is now the first match that comes up when someone googles for “CEO of USAir”. Many people are doing that because they want to complaint to US Airways themselves but don’t know how… Read More »
I can’t speak to the quality of the custom tailoring work at Gregory’s Fine Tailoring, located at Boston’s downtown crossing. What I can do is report the facts of what Gregory did to me, and then you can decide for yourself whether to patronize his business. Executive summary: Work on my jacket, which I was… Read More »
My wife received a bill last week from Simon Medical Services for $90.22, part of the cost of a brace her doctor gave her for her broken foot. This confused me because our health insurance, Tufts HMO, usually provides 100% coverage after copayments. I looked up the claim on the Tufts web site and found… Read More »
I received the following email this morning from Bill Groome, the owner of Madhatter Magic Shop, about whom I’ve written previously and who has posted several comments on my blog (along with one of his employees) which if anything make him look even worse than what I wrote about him: Subject: Re: Lawsuit Date:… Read More »