My health insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, currently uses Express Scripts as its mail-order pharmacy. They’re switching to CVS Caremark as of January 1, 2023, which as you’ll see from below is probably a good thing. However, if your insurance company is still using Express Scripts, then I to encourage you to… Read More: Why you probably shouldn’t use Express Scripts »
I had a Visa card issued by Elan Financial Services branded through my bank (Eastern Bank). Elan is consistently mediocre. Their web site looks and works like it was built 20 years ago. Their monthly statements tell you how much “bonus” cash back you earned but don’t tell you which transactions fall into which bonus… Read More: Elan Financial Services: why are you so bad at this? »
A couple of years ago, my wife and I needed neuropsychological testing for one of our children. We asked around among our friends for recommendations, and Dr. Erick A. Medina of Wellesley, Massachusetts was recommended to us. We spoke with Dr. Medina and liked what we heard, so we went ahead with the testing. In… Read More: PSA: Always check if your psychologist is licensed, a.k.a., how… »
I recently booked a stay at a motel through hotels.com. The night I checked in, hotels.com sent me email asking me to rate my check-in (literally, the subject line said, “How was your check-in, Jonathan K?” and the body of the email said “How’s your trip going, Jonathan Kamens? Rate your check-in experience.”). Thinking that’s… Read More: Why you can’t trust hotels.com customer ratings »
We’ve been smelling a faint gas smell in our house for several months. It was sufficiently faint and intermittent that we didn’t feel too much urgency to get it fixed, but my wife finally asked me last week to call the gas company (National Grid) and ask them what to do about it, which I… Read More: The saga of the leaky gas valve and the “Type… »
My bank was recently acquired. The migration of accounts into the new bank’s infrastructure happened over the weekend, and this morning at 8am, we were officially able to log into the new online banking site. We were told that any direct deposits or debits we had configured with the old bank’s routing number would automatically… Read More: Comedy of errors trying to update my bank account info… »
On October 15, 2021, I received this email from Hotels.com: Those of you who’ve been reading my blog know that I‘ve been demanding this since June. Even emailing the president of the company didn’t help. After that failed, I filed a complaint with the New York Attorney General’s office. That, too, was fruitless. They forwarded… Read More: Hotels.com refunds illegal New York City hotel occupancy tax after… »
UPDATE [October 14, 2021]: Vanguard has confirmed to me that this issue was caused by a bug in a software update they released to their web site and then fixed a day later. See the end of this blog posting for their response. Executive summary Some time between 6:00am US/Eastern on September 14, 2021 and… Read More: Vanguard bug temporarily rewrites history and dramatically over-reports some account… »
[October 17, 2021 update here.] July 8, 2021 Adam Jay, PresidentHotels.com5400 LBJ Freeway, Suite 500Dallas, TX 75240 Dear Mr. Jay, On May 5, 2021, I reserved a room through hotels.com for June 20-22 at the Washington Square Hotel in New York City. My confirmation number was [elided]. On June 22, I learned that NYC Mayor… Read More: hotels.com hides taxes and fees, won’t disclose, has terrible customer… »
Great news, y'all. You get two "Why is @Amtrak service so terrible?" stories in one day! How exciting! (See the last installment at https://twitter.com/jikamens/status/1407335005450342403) #TrainTwitter 1/ I'm taking the Acela home tonight, so I figured hey, what the heck, I'll use one of my upgrade coupons to hop into first class and enjoy unbridled Acela… Read More: Another another bad user experience from Amtrak »