Quasi una fantasia (Mac's Blog)

Wachovia spent years earning my trust. Wells Fargo is not taking very long to lose it. Among other (pretty minor, but still annoying) issues, I got unsolicited mail from Wells Fargo today talking about a Super Bowl contest.

Since the government-forced takeover of Wells Fargo by Wachovia, I’ve noticed a marked decline in service when engaging with the Wells Fargo side of the company, but have still had excellent service when engaging with the Wachovia side.

I waited on the phone for a receptionist for about 9 minutes; then the phone started ringing; it rang for maybe 5 minutes with nobody answering; I called back, and I just get an error sound when I choose the option to schedule an appointment (probably because 4:30 passed while I was waiting, which is when they stop making appointments).

This is really quite bad customer service!

I got a letter from Wachovia summarizing some of their methods of over-the-phone identity verification and requesting that I sign an agreement stating that “… this security procedure constitutes a commercially reasonable method of providing security against unauthorized instructions.” I was also asked to agree not to hold Wachovia liable if their identity verification system fails and someone impersonating me is able to tamper with my account.

This is a betrayal of customers in two ways.

(1) Wachovia shouldn’t ask people who are unqualified to do so to state whether or not their security provisions are “commercially reasonable” (whatever that means). And by the way, the letter does not contain enough information for a security expert to assess the “reasonableness” of the policies, anyway.

(2) Wachovia should take responsibility when its identity verification procedures fail, in cases in which the victim has not negligently revealed personal information that made it easy for his identity to be stolen. After all, one of the main purposes of a bank is to keep your money safe.

Once you sign in to your account, the Verizon Wireless website is slow to the point of being unusable on Linux. It’s also slow to the point of being unusable on Windows XP, at least in a virtual machine. And I don’t mean I’m being impatient. I mean that I have to wait multiple minutes to load a single new view (i.e. part of a page), and that I sometimes get browser timeouts.

I tried multiple times over multiple weeks. I tried in both Firefox and Internet Explorer (the latter only from my Windows VM). I Googled around and saw some others (but curiously, not very many) complaining of similar issues.

So I gave up on trying to use the site. Which is unfortunate, since it has a lot of useful features. As a (now former) US Cellular customer with a dumbphone, I had no desire to use a website for anything (if they even have one). As a Verizon customer with a smartphone, it would be really nice.

I did try to use the site to contact customer service, to report the problem, but I couldn’t load the page to do so.

Googling about the problem again, I came upon this forum post (emphasis mine):

I thought it was because I use AT&T for internet. lol

Same issue here though, slow as crap on FF and Linux and even in Vbox running XP on Linux.

I can fire up my laptop running XP and get right into the Verizon site.

I don’t understand how it’s even possible that a site could load slow unless you’re running Windows?

It’s true. The Verizon Wireless website is balls slow when accessed from Linux, even using Internet Explorer in a Windows XP virtual machine. It is lightning fast when accessed from a computer running Windows XP natively.

I told my officemate this bizarre story. He says that there actually are hacks, such as looking at MAC address ranges, that can give websites useable clues about whether or not requests are coming from a virtual machine.

Do we have a conspiracy on our hands? Maybe, maybe not. I recently saw complaints about Verizon doing an on-air update for many of their customers’ phones, making Bing the default browser. Seems possible that Microsoft and Verizon are “scratching each other’s backs.” What Verizon is getting in return is up for speculation. OTOH, I’m not saying I really think there really is a conspiracy—it could very well be a bizarre technical issue. I think the issue deserves further investigation.

For the most part, I’ve been very happy with Verizon. I’ve only had a few issues.

• The topic discussed here
• The topic discussed in my previous post
• Visual Voicemail “ineligibility” (I have a pending customer service inquiry about this)

All things considered, Verizon has done a lot of good: they sold me a great smartphone and have excellent coverage. AFAIK only US Cellular can compete with them in the latter category in my area, and US Cellular lost my business after many years for not satisfying in the former area.

In order to get a rebate on my new phone, I had to send in a bunch of crap that came with the phone. Then the rebate came in the form of a credit card. In order to get the money off the card, I had to register with a Citi (the bank) website and request that a check be sent to me. This was a huge waste of my time, and the process was pretty un-transparent.

Seriously, Verizon? You have to waste my time like this? Can’t you just credit the money to me? Or, better yet, just let me pay $100 less in the first place?

Don’t treat your customers like babies/idiots, and don’t presume that their time isn’t valuable.

Which is what you do when you make them waste their time on gimmicks like this.

I recently set up Netflix for my mom and helped her select a bunch of movies to order. I promptly forgot which ones we had chosen.

Yesterday (which was several weeks later), I was asking her how she liked the movies. She told me that she really liked the most recent movie. I started trying to figure out which one it was. (A little context: 90% of my mom’s communication is via “yes” and “no,” due to her stroke, and she definitely can’t tell me the title of a movie she’s watched.)

One of my first questions was, “Does it have an animal?’ The answer was “yes.” After much back and forth, I confirmed that it was, in fact, some kind of mammal. Maybe if I could figure out exactly what it was, I could figure out the movie. Eventually we narrowed it down to being some sort of big cat that lives at the zoo. I named all the big cats I could: tiger, cougar, panther, leopard, lion, mountain lion, bobcat, and so on. “No” to all of them. Then I asked her if the cat could talk and she said “yes.” Well, I was pretty much stumped. I again went through all the big cats I could think of and got “no” to all of them. I ultimately decided that she probably didn’t really mean that the cat could actually talk to humans. I figured it was just some random movie in which a cat played a significant part.

Today I logged onto her Netflix account to find out what the movie was. Turns out the big cat was Aslan and the movie was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (I can only assume that my mom said “no” on “lion” because it’s not your typical, everyday lion.)

Awww. LOL.

Dear Malcolm,

Recently, we sent you an invitation to complete a Guest Satisfaction Survey concerning your stay with us at Days Inn Washington Dc-Connecticut Ave., where you checked out on December 4, 2009.

We noticed that you did not have time to complete the survey. We are concerned that you may not have responded because we have somehow failed to live up to your expectations.

At Days Inn, we are committed to providing a superior guest experience to each and every one of our customers. Please take a few minutes to tell us how well we met your expectations.

Point 1: I get emails like this occasionally, which is too often. If I wanted to take the survey, I would have taken it the first time I got the email. Sending me a “reminder” presumes that I’m sloppy in the way I read and react to emails. This won’t be enough to make me not stay at Days Inn, but I won’t forget it, either. Point: Don’t presume your customers are idiots and don’t second-guess them.

Point 2: I actually did have a very specific problem with my “stay.” I moved my reservation to be under my roommate’s name, since I decided not to go. Unfortunately, my roommate reported that despite what the hotel receptionist had told me on the telephone, the reservation was still under my name, meaning that he had to go through extra trouble to actually check in. I would really like to report this problem to Days Inn. But the survey doesn’t let me submit quick feedback, like this. No — I have to spend an estimated 7 minutes filling it out, and at least the initial page requires me to fill in lots of bubbles, *not* provide quick feedback. No, thanks. Point 2: Make surveys convenient for your customers, and allow them to give quick feedback easily (if they want to).

Time Warner Cable incorrectly buried a cable in our yard (re: did not bury it, but left it sticking up in long grass), causing it to be cut by the lawnmower.

My housemate attempted to contact them to rectify the problem. Here is an excert of his summary of the experience:

So I tried calling their customer service department and it didn’t connect to anything but an automated message that said to press star to accept a text. They sent me a text message asking me to accept support for $9.99 a month plus texting fees and I was like fuck that.

No kidding! (We did eventually find a free way to alert them to the problem, though.)

I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a “natural monopoly” (such as over telecommunications infrastructure) or a monopoly that comes about through ethical and properly legal business practices (such as the alleged Microsoft monopoly). The only kind of monopoly there is is a government-granted one. But this blog is not the proper medium for communicating the full philosophical justification of this stance.

I’ve had tons and tons of trouble with Time Warner Cable, and their one competitor (AT&T) isn’t a viable option because until very lately, they didn’t seem to sell a package that didn’t include lots of stuff we don’t need (for extra price). The local government (not sure if it’s a Chapel Hill thing or an Orange County thing or a North Carolina thing) should revoke the cable monopoly so that other companies can provide cable TV/Internet service to the area. This would delight local residents.

A comment on Amazon:

“If you ever wondered what happens when you place an order to sell 10 million shares of GOOG (which you may or may not already own), or what transpires when you try to corner the silver market like the Hunt brothers, you’ll find all the details in this book.”

Now how could I ever pass that up?

Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I’ve been an Objectivist (someone who attempts to apply the principles of Objectivism to his life) for several years.

Recently, I was talking to a friend about Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. I promised to send him a list of reading material. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. So, rather than repeating the effort in the future, I’ll just direct people to this blog post.

For newbies, I’d recommend checking out the following web pages (all from the Ayn Rand Institute website), in order:

• Here is an explanation of why philosophy (that is, correct, practical philosophy) is important.
• Here is a very, very basic overview of Objectivism
• Here is a slightly longer, “Objectivism in a Nutshell”-type description.
• Here is a 10-page description that goes much deeper into the practical implications of Objectivism on one’s life, and how it relates to other commonly held ideas.

Please keep in mind that a summary of something (as provided on the above pages) does not (and is not supposed to) constitute evidence for or proof of it.

For actual literature, see the ARI Recommended Reading List.

The most comprehensive written resource on Objectivism is this book, which I recommend highly to anyone who has read both Atlas Shrugged and some of the short essays in the books on the recommended reading list. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to glance over or even read the book without much former background, but (at 493 pages) it’s fairly technical and probably not the best place to start (though it may be a fair place, for the layman, to finish).