Category Archives: Consumer activism

Kroll Web Watcher makes people less secure

Generating pointless alerts that users can’t do anything about decreases security for everyone.

Gogo airplane WiFi works, but everything else about Gogo is a tire fire

A simple attempt to purchase in-flight WiFi from Gogo yielded 11 distinct failures from there web site and ecommerce platform.

United Airlines violates passenger privacy during chaotic boarding process

Flying on United wasn’t entirely bad, but poor policies and procedures or failures to follow them caused several problems that could have been avoided, including a violation of passenger privacy.

Experian / T-Mobile class action lawyers send victims important emails guaranteed to be rejected by most recipients

In late 2015, 15 million T-Mobile customers learned that they had been victims of a two-year security breach at Experian. Since then, the 150-million victim Equifax breach has made the Experian breach look kind of puny, but at the time it became public it was a Big [expletive] Deal. Of course, a class-action lawsuit was… Read More »

Thanks to Amtrak for finding and returning my lost laptop

Last week, I left my laptop on a train when disembarking in Boston. Today, Amtrak called to tell me they’d found it and I could come to the station to pick it up. A big shout-out to Amtrak for doing the right thing.

NYC’s Hotel Wolcott is a mediocre hotel with terrible management

I recently checked into the Hotel Wolcott, located at 4 West 31st Street in New York City. Because I booked the hotel on hotels.com, they sent me an email asking me about my check-in experience and initial impressions of the hotel. I expressed unhappiness about the check-in experience, specifically “Slow Check-in”. I expressed unhappiness with… Read More »

Why I’m leaving Facebook

TL;DR I am taking a break from Facebook and I encourage all of you reading this to do the same. #BoycottFacebook I have been in a love/hate relationship with Facebook for quite a while now. On the one hand, I love how Facebook allows me to remain connected with my social network. I also love… Read More »

Honda Village up to its old tricks

Long-time readers of my blog will remember the saga of Honda Village, which offended me to the nth degree after we bought a minivan from them back in 2007, first by incessantly spamming my wife and me for many months despite many requests for them to stop, and then by incessantly sending us junk mail… Read More »

CVS fixes security hole in their web site without ever acknowledging my report about it

I reported a web site security hole to CVS three different ways. They fixed the hole, but they couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge any of my reports. This is not OK.

People who own businesses should not act like assholes

Dear Mr. Kamens: It has come to our attention that you have left false and inappropriate remarks about a managing partner of MatrixTechs on Google reviews. You are not a client of MatrixTechs and have not received any goods or services from MatrixTechs. Google reviews are for clients and not for people who are upset with individual partners. We would like to take this opportunity to request that you remove your inappropriate remarks that you placed this morning on Google which criticize Mr. Jones. Your argument is personal in nature and not with the company and as such, a Google review is not the place to express your opinion about Mr. Jones. We have also requested that Google investigate this issue further. Mr. Jones has not written anything about you in a public forum; we request you do the same. I thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Mr. Tobin Jones, owner of MatrixTechs LLC in Miami, Florida, picked the wrong person to harass online. Righteous indignation man strikes again!