Bait and Switch at AirTran?

Dear AirTran,

Here is the flight I tried booking on AirTran’s website this morning. As you can see on the first page it said it was having difficulties with the payment processing system and to call 1-800-AIRTRAN. I called and was on hold for about 20 minutes before someone answered the phone at which time they wanted to not only charge me the higher fares (for what their computer said because they couldn’t access the web specials) but also charge me an agent fee for booking over the phone.

I have been at this for over three hours this morning trying to book this flight via your website and over the phone. I was then given the customer relations number 866-247-2428 option 3, to call for help. That person promptly knew what the problem was with the website (apparently the A+ rewards number needed a nationality (even though it doesn’t ask you for that information). However, the first person I spoke with at the phone number given on the page had no idea that this was the problem. Your company should be able to promptly disseminate information to those who speak to customers having this problem.

Once the problem was resolved by the second person, the flight I was trying to book was no longer available at the price I was quoted. This is a prime example of bait and switch. I go to the internet site, try to book a flight, your site doesn’t work, I have to call, told to pay agent fee to book and that the flight is more expensive.

Please see the attached documents (2 pages) for the flight details and price amounts for what I was purchasing. I am not a crazy customer – just trying to keep the system fair and honest.

In addition, due to the fact that this has been a 3+ hr ordeal to book a flight I would appreciate a discount in addition to getting both flights at the quoted cost on the attachments. No one should have to go through this in order to book an airline ticket in this day and age.

Sincerely, A First Time Passenger

Circuit City Frustration

I went online looking for the best shipping deal when pre-ordering a Wii game coming out in September and found Circuit City had free shipping. Awesome, right? So then I redeemed points for a $50 gift card to pre-order the Wii game. Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? It turns out you can't pre-order a Wii game using a gift card. Not that it tells you that. It tells you that you can't pre-order music or movies. Is a Wii game music or a movie? Not the last time I checked. How was I to know? So I called their customer service and I told the person I wanted to pre-order a Wii game using a gift card. If this was really their policy she would have told me right then and there. But no instead she took all my info down and set up the order and then told me that the system won't let you pre-order a game using a gift card. I asked if there was any way around this and she said no, the computer won't let her. I asked to speak to a manager. She said I would have to call back and press another number to speak to someone higher up. She kept apologizing. How does apologizing in every sentence make things better?

Why did I waste my points on a gift card for a store I don't shop at? I guess I should have known better.

Airline Fees have you down?

Check out this msnbc article about how to complain about the outrageous fees are now charging - from checking first and second bags to getting a drink while on a four hour plane ride.

"A complaint letter is a good start. There’s evidence that airlines count the number of grievances about a particular fee. They may even read the letter you’ve sent. In the past several weeks, I’ve had a chance to review several airline responses (they’re all form letters) which suggests the carriers have no intention of lifting these new surcharges. One way to underscore the seriousness of your complaint is to copy the Transportation Department, which compiles these grievances in a monthly report. Airlines pay attention to those numbers."

Petco no more

Today I attempted to return kitty litter to Petco and was disappointed that they wouldn't accept it because it had been more than 30 days.

While back I bought some expensive kitty litter made out of corn that is flushable. I have been trying to come up with a method to eliminate plastic bags (from stores) in my home. Mostly I use them to throw away the kitty litter. But with this corn type you can flush it down the toilet. The price for a 30 lb bag was $46, which is personally just outrageous. But, I thought I would give it a try and see what happens.

Let's just say it wasn't accepted by my cats. Instead of using the litter box, they used the floor. Totally disgusting. And this was after I attempted to wean them off of the regular kitty litter by mixing the two together.

At first the answer at Petco was no returns accepted after 30 days. I tried to explain to them that this good earth friendly kitty litter lasts a long time and it took quite awhile to wean the cats off of the old stuff before using it alone. Nope, nothing from the store manager. She called the district manager and he said they'd refund half my money. Well, that'd be fine if I had used half of the product. But considering I hadn't used very much at all I thought that was a bad deal.

My next attempt is to contact the manufacturer and let them know that my cats were dissatisfied with the product. Which is true. And thus so was I because I had to keep cleaning up the mess.

Home Depot's Green Attempt

In this morning's home depot advertisement they stated they were giving away free reusable bags this morning and quantities were limited. You see stuff like this every year around Earth Day, a company's attempt to look "green" without actually implementing any sustaining changes.

I went to Home Depot this morning and found out that they only had 150 bags to give away and they were given away as you checked out. So one person theoretically could have left with 10 bags. 150 bags barely counts as trying to be "green".

Home Warranty (Beware)

Dear National Home Protection & Nationwide Home Warranty,

I found your company's website to be very misleading. In your contract terms it says that each item is limited to $1500 to repair/replace. However on this page of your website your company provides the estimated cost to fix things if you don't' have a warranty, but state if you had a NHP plan you simply pay the annual contract price and the per visit trade service fee which is listed as $60.

That's what is misleading. Where some repairs could cost $4000 to $7000 your only going to cover $1500 and the homeowner has to cover the difference. Other warranty companies pay for the full cost of the repair and don't cost much more than you for the annual warranty plan.

Very disappointed in your company for mis-representing this information.

Sincerely,
A frustrated homeowner

Has Target lost their mind?

Here is Target's reply to my friend's incident I reported recently. They want you to jump through hoops to return a 1 year old's birthday gift.

Love Lost (Target)

This is from a friend.

Dear Target,

I don't even know how to do this. I know that breaking up via blog is so childish, but I feel like our latest spat was also childish (on your part), and I'm pretty peeved right now. My little Claire got the cutest bathing suit for her birthday, but I'm afraid it won't fit her in a few months when we're actually able to swim outside. I don't have the receipt, as it was a gift, and apparently you no longer give gift receipts with every purchase. But I thought I could at least EXCHANGE it for the next size up. I mean, it has the TAG on it still, which is CLEARLY marked Circo (a brand carried exclusively by you), and it has never been worn. The nice lady at customer service looked me up in your computer system using my driver's license, and noted that I had already used my 2 (TWO!) non-receipt returns/exchanges for the year. I quickly did the math, and came up with the fact that it is still January of this year, and I am pretty certain that I have not returned anything yet in 2008. She pointed to her paper where she had written down two dates:

1. 1/08/07
2. 6/24/07

She pointed at the last date and said that she would be glad to accept my return after June 24th of THIS YEAR. So it's not a calendar year thing, nor is it even a within-12-months thing, or I would have been able to return this bathing suit because today is later than January 8th. This makes no sense to me.

So. I called my friend Rae, who gave us the darling bathing suit in lime green and white stripes with the cutest ruffle you ever have seen, and asked her if she had by any chance kept that darned receipt. Maybe it was the tone in my voice, but she started in on a rant. "Oh I KNOW! It is so annoying that they won't let you exchange anything without your license, and you only get 2 per year! I once had to give them my license for a Match Box car return!" She told me she does still have the receipt, because she was concerned that maybe we would need to exchange the gifts, and then she launched into her experience trying to get a gift receipt from said store which does not accept returns without a receipt. She had already been cashed out, and when she looked at her receipt, she noticed there was no gift portion on it. She asked the checker if she could have a gift receipt and he said it was too late! "Just give them the actual receipt." This is not an acceptable answer, Target.

Now. If you are going to require a receipt for such silly things as EXCHANGES for the EXACT SAME ITEM, and people without their receipt may only have 2 of these exchanges per non-calendar year, PERHAPS you should include a GIFT RECEIPT on EVERY SINGLE DAMN PURCHASE.

I do love you, Target. You have fun things. Your prices are reasonable. You are so close by. Your stores make me happy, and even my oldest daughter loves to go to "the big red ball store". But I think we may need to take a break for awhile, and hope that each other's absence will repair the damage that has been done. Perhaps you should seek therapy. Until then, I will have to drive all the way to the BX, or even to *gah* WalMart. Please make a change for the better.

Sincerely,

The owner of a very cute too-small child's bathing suit

AT&T's proposed filtering policy is bad news

AT&T’s big plan, which CEO Randall Stephenson shared this week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, is to monitor traffic over its online network in what he claims is an effort to stamp out theft of copyrighted material. He failed to mention that such a plan is also unethical, impractical, insane, and given the CEO’s explanation, probably more than a little dishonest.

“Do you guys want AT&T to read your e-mails?” Johnson asked the Thompson audience, when he should’ve been talking about gadgets. “Do you want AT&T to like, open up your instant message conversation and look and see if you maybe said something that they didn’t like or maybe the government didn’t like? Yeah? No. I don’t think anybody wants that.” A chorus of “Noooos!” echoed from the audience before producers shut him down.