02 July 2006

Unexcusable Stupidities of America #2: Unethical Businesses

U.S.A. - The Unnecessary Stupidities of America (formerly Unexcusable Stupidities of America)
Stupidity #2 Unethical businesses
Early on the final week on June 2006, a man named Vincent Ferrari had a dispute with AOL (America Online for short). He was trying to cancel his account. However, as AOL has done to numerous other bothered customers, they tried to coax him to keep the account and offered some more time of free service. In fact, the AOL call center employees are even given SCRIPTS as to how to conduct such calls. Ferrari later appeared on the Today show on NBC to express his dissatisfaction; the call has circulated through the Internet and the Strawberry in the Morning show on San Francisco hip-hop station KYLD-FM (Wild 94.9). The entire call can be heard here. (WARNING: This call does contain one swear word). The Today interview is here. Oh yeah, I also forgot that Leo Laportes Tech Guy radio show on KFI-AM in Los Angeles interviewed V.F last Saturday, 24 June. The whole episode is here.
In addition, the San Jose Mercury News publishes a daily column, Action Line, written by Dennis Rockstroh. Covering Bay Area citizens concerns and disputes with the law, city ordinances, scam artists, and...you guessed it...unethical businesses, it is fun and informative to read. Some of the unethical business issues that it covered were very hilarious, such as companies not returning a rebate that it promised or Internet providers overcharging, some being very dumb or obvious problems. Misunderstandings of the law/city ordinances? I do not have a problem with that. However, companies that mistreat their customers by doing bad stuff like overcharging or not doing warranty stuff properly is simply stupid. Even a second-grader can do better! All thats needed to carry out such actions is to follow simple directions pay the rebate, charge this or that much, or just do it, as Nike commercials say. And yet, those lazy-butt companies simply wont do it! Whats next? We will, if this continues on, a new generation of lazy, disobedient citizens. If the companies want a good reputation and to show their intelligence, they should just follow simple directions.
P.S.: Listening to Leo Laportes June 24 episode, I realized that AOL has lost much money from the many free trial CDs that they put out. In addition, under the Controversy section of the wikipedia article on AOL...whoa boy figure it out yourself. And, PC World in 2005 marked AOL as the worst tech product of all time...[see here]
So I think all of us should stop using AIM. Theres also Yahoo Messenger, and many others.