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The Consumerist has posted a giant round-up of their advocacy articles called \"The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back.\" It breaks down into three sections: Section 1: \"I've been wronged! What do I do next?\"
The Consumerist has posted a giant round-up of their advocacy articles called \"The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back.\" It breaks down into three sections: Section 1: \"I've been wronged! What do I do next?\"
I find, when a problem has been continuing for months (or years) it becomes quite difficult to find a complete history of who called who, wrote a letter, sent a mail, promised to fix it etc.
I use this ... www.home-sec.info
which lets me record all events then filter them by contact or organisation to get a full list of every action that took place and the outcome.
Rich
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We never did get Outraged Consumerist Man a belt, did we?
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not that i was wronged on a particularly bad problem but i was wronged and incredibly p*ss*d off at the time when i pre ordered a record months and monthss before it was released and they decide on the day of release to email me they won't be sending me a copy so i believe i sent a rather large rant (no puntuation of any kind lol) explaining how bad the position they have just left me in, the fact i now had to go to ebay, the fact i had chosen them over hmv online and a whole lot of other things.
this got me a free copy of said out of stock record, the original i was supposed to have in the first place and ended up with one from ebay too *shrugs*
i love burning off steam like that
My suggestion, use a good program to record details of any and every communication with the company (I use HomeSec{www.home-sec.info} but I'm sure there are others, what do you use?)
If your dispute rolls on for a long time, you'll find it really useful to be able to pinpoint exactly who did or said what and when and with all creation and editing dates being recorded you can even prove that an event took place at a certain date.
Rich
Well done -- this is by far the best online resource of its kind. The executive email carpet bomb tactic was new to me, but has already yielded very positive results in our most recent imbroglio. Thanks to just that one tip, we may have yet another \"success story\" to add to the pile.
I'd like to see the \"hardball\" section expanded upon, as those are the tactics that are generally necessary to gain results (as any well-placed corporate executive will no doubt agree).
In addressing corporate astroturfing on our forums, when all else fails, we've found great success with parodying a company's executives.
Start by finding pics of the company's execs. Visit their corporate website (often different from their primary brand's site). There will usually be a page or a section with executive bios, from which you can glean photos of their execs. If not, Google Images should provide you with something, probably from an industry publication or some such. Search for the exec's names, plus the company name.
Save all the executive bio pics, as the offending corporation may pull them off the web.
Use the pics to create First Amendment-protected speech-bubble parodies of their executives. You can select certain execs, or combine them all into one large photograph, in which they all share a speech bubble. Clearly identify the pics as parodies -- this offers \"significant protection\" (I am not a lawyer) against claims of defamation and copyright infringement. We went so far as to make a simple piece of software that allows people to anonymously create executive parody photos, and share them on the web (see [spankmymarketer.com] ).
Once a parody photo is made, be sure to notify the offending executives. Send them an email with a link in it that leads to the photo parody. You can \"track\" the link using one of various common methods -- this will let you know, at very least, if they've clicked it, and when.
In the fight against corporations (and various other incarnations of The Man), laughter is a potent weapon. Newspapers, magazines, and especially late-night talk shows all know this. They are largely corporate-owned, and they frequently weaponize laughter to effect political change with parody.
We (wife and myself) entered a two year contract (that we understood at
the time to be a one year contract)with Direct TV in late 2007. Big mistake!
I have had problems with the service from the beginning. It started with
shoddy installation that prohibited me from locking my home and protecting
my family and valuables from break in. We are plagued with downtime due to
faulty equipment that won't even last through the contract period. When we
request service on their defective equipment, they tell us they are going to
charge us to fix their equipment. I had cablevision for 30 years prior to
getting screwed by Direct TV. This is the worst service coupled with the
worst product I have ever been stuck with in my entire life. The worst thing
that ever happened with cablevision was being down for 2-3 hours once every
year or two because of a down line. When I call Direct TV for service, they
tell me it will be a week to ten days before they can get to me. So I am
without television for that long but am still charged for it. I am also
expected to take four to eight hours out of my work day every time Direct TV
comes to my home. The last time I was told service would be performed
between eight o'clock in the morning and noon. The technician did not even
arrive onsite until 12:10 p.m. Service was not performed until after the
agreed upon time that it would be completed. That was just two week ago. Now
the service is broken again and we are told it will be another week before
they can come to fix it. How long will the FCC go on allowing Direct TV to
cheat and take advantage of customers? I would love to have the opportunity
to do a commercial for cable television. After being subjected to customer
service as poor as Direct TV, I know what the worst is. And to top it all
off, when my wife negotiated this contract with Direct TV she was told that
it was a one year agreement. Two weeks ago when we had trouble the last
time, we were informed that it was a two year and not a one year contract
that we originally agreed to. I suppose we can throw a little deceptive
trade
in for good measure... huh? This is the worst experience I have ever had
with any vendor in my 50 years and I will make sure I tell everybody that
has ears to hear.
I LOVE YOUR SITE. Thank you so much for it. After searching for the name of DirectTV's CEO, I found your site and his direct telephone number. I immediately called the number and spoke to one of his assistants, Dave, and got an issue that I had been dealing with for 8 weeks resolved in 8 minutes.
I am an Independent Film Producer and would love to speak with someone about putting some of these incidents on a visual medium. Please contact me if interested and THANKS again for the information.
Val Jones
If I wasn't so overworked I would write a FCBA sample letter.
Maybe I'll put it in my \"to do\" list this weekend.