I didn’t read the whole thread so I’m sorry if someone’s said this before, but here’s my take, FWIW:
In each of the situations you describe in the OP you have to pay (or pay more) for something because you didn’t initially investigate the cost yourself before you incurred it. And then you blame “Corporate America” and claim they are “fucking you.”
I think you are fucking yourself. Your OP boils down to the following:
“I used a service without knowing how much it would cost and was then charged at a rate that I thought was excessive!”
“I failed to investigate the terms of a purchase and am now upset that those terms are less favorable than I hoped them to be! When speaking with a customer rep, that person failed to tell me how unfavorable the terms were!”
“I failed to investigate how I could save money on a service I use every day in my business, and the company failed to tell me how I could give the company less money!” I’m sure you let all your customers know of ways they can put less money into your pocket.
In a way, they are offering a discount. Internet access is actually $60 / month, but it’s only $50 if you order cable TV. Why do they say it the way they do? Several possibilities.
$50 / month looks better in advertisements than $60.
People will sign up for the cable, and then say, “Oh, hey, I get it for cheaper if I buy the TV as well”, or perhaps if it’s something that can be ‘added on’ later, they’ll feel more inclined to add it on,
Maybe, honestly, they want to use a bait-and-switch (or am I using the right term here?) tactic. They -want- to catch you with the extra $120 / year.
FUCK! I just read the rest of this thread and it’s like a little idiot dance party in here or something (with the notable exception of a couple of others (sleestak for one) fighting the good fight against ignorance). Jesus! I thought we were better than this here at the SDMB, people!
If you don’t like ATM access fees, then just don’t pay them for Christ’s sake. It’s not like Bank of America comes up behind you on the street with a gun and demands a buck fifty from you. You have a choice whether to pay ATM fees or not.
Hey, that’s not bad compared to how it is here. You can’t even get cable Internet access at all unless you sign up for basic cable.
Hell, I wouldn’t want it anyway. Their commercials claim that they’re twice as fast as DSL. In small print at the bottom, the disclaimer is that they are comparing their service to 512kbps DSL.
Uh, yeah. One problem there, bub. There is only one company in the city that offers DSL service and they only offer one residential plan, a 1.5Mbps downstream. They are actually much faster than the lying cable bastards.
In the Fed-Ex situation no less than 3 people could have told me about getting a regularly scheduled pick up including the moron who initially set up my account.
I put a question regarding the greyhound thing in GQ, and as it turns out the people I talked to on the phone were fucking liars, the tickets says no such thing, so I’ll be going there tonight to demand a refund.
Then stop treating yourself shoddily and look before you fucking leap, fucknugget. (In case you didn’t catch on, I’m implying that your misfortune in each of the OP situations is your own fault).
Dude, since when is a business supposed to tell you about things that would make the business less money? Sure they could have told you, but I don’t think you can blame them because they didn’t tell you. You run your business, so it’s your job to reduce the costs of your business as much as possible; you should have looked for every way possible to save money on your bill, and for someone who does that much shipping, having a regular pickup time seems pretty damn obvious.
Dude, the law does not give you the right to a refund. Therefore, the only way you can get a refund is if the contract between you and the seller gives you the right to a refund. All we’ve established so far is that the ticket does not say that it’s nonrefundable, which doesn’t mean you are entitled to a refund.
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Of course you do, dumbass!
Did you even check how much the rate for the room at the hotel was, or did you just get a room, go to sleep, check out in the morning, and complain if you thought the rate was too high? Of course you didn’t do that–you knew the price of a room before you slept in it. Likewise, you should have checked out the price of the phone before you used it. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?
By the way, what sort of business do you run? With your stellar understanding of the rudimentary concepts upon which our economic system is based, I wonder if the place has ever turned a profit.
So, when I go to San Antonio on vacation, I can tell the local bank to stuff their ATM fee up their ass? My credit union doesn’t have branches outside Pennsylvania. When I’m home, fees don’t matter; there is a network of credit union ATMs that don’t charge fees for CU customers that belong to that network, and the two largest CUs are members, so it’s not a big deal.
OTOH, there is no such agreement between the PA credit unions and the Texas credit unions. So when I go on vacation down there, I have to pay ATM fees, or I have to carry a lot of cash with me.
Oh, and BTW, were you born an ass, or was this quality developed over time?
I want Bank X (with whom I have no financial relations otherwise and who therefore do not earn any income from me) to build an ATM network, buy machines, put them in every location that would be convenient to me, front the money they hold, pay a driver and truck to run around and refill/service them daily, and allow me to take money out of them whenever I please – AND I DON’T WANT TO PAY THEM A PENNY FOR THEIR EFFORTS.
Hmmm. Can’t think why Bank X doesn’t leap at your marvelous business opportunity.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying: either pay ATM fees or carry enough cash with you. (BTW, since you can pay for most things with plastic, I don’t think you’ll ever need to carry really large amounts of cash (anything more than a couple hundred buks) to do typical vacation activities).
If you don’t want to carry large amounts of cash, then pay the ATM fee. The ATM fee is a fee you pay for the service of a bank providing you with cash when and where you want it so that you don’t have to providet the cash yourself. Therefore, an ATM fee isn’t a “fee for nothing” that you are required to pay, like some people seem to think it is. The bank is actually providing a service to you.
Hey, I’m willing to be thought of as an asshole if that’s what it takes to fight ignorance.
Taxguy, there is a difference between somebody not paying attention or looking after their own interests, and the way corporations intentionally and systematically mislead the public. An excellent (if small) example of this is at Safeway. They will put up huge signs in huge letters saying “FRESH ROASTED CHICKEN! $4.99 EACH!!!” and in tiny little letters at the bottom of the sign it says “When you buy two or more.”
It’s a very adversarial relationship; it’s us against them, with them having huge advantages in almost every way.
As for the bank charges, the banks in Canada report astonishing profits every quarter (in the billions of dollars, if I recall correctly). I assert that they are not providing billions of dollars of service to justify these profits.
Since when do profits have to be “justified,” whatever the hell that means anyway?
So you’re mad at the bank for making a sum of money that in your estimation is not commensurate with the level of services the bank provides? We have a word for that around here . . .
Oh let me see, I’d call that good business practises. I could do a whole lot of similar shitty things to my own customers, but I don’t. Know why? I’d like them to continue doing business with me. Oh and somehow you seem to have missed on the fact, THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH MY REP In addition to the fact those charges were hidden by the fact they they charge my creditcard instead of sending me an itemized bill.
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Oh wait I get it, a major company with a murky refund policy is somehow my fault. Gotcha nice attitude…for a sheep.
I’ve ommmited the phone part as I’ve already acknowled THREE FUCKING TIMES THAT IT WAS COMPLETELY MY FAULT.
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You really are being kind of an ass here. The hotel phone thing is a non-issue as Stuffy has admitted that he was at fault, so I won’t even acknowledge that. As far as the FedEx thing goes, the whole point of setting up an account is to sit down and figure out which services would be best for you, sign up for said services and start up your account. Considering that stuffy isn’t a mind reader (are you stuffy?) I’m assuming that he wasn’t asking the rep about certain options as it was the rep’s duty to be informing him of said options. How are you supposed to ask about something that you don’t know exists?
As for the bank fee’s, well, I’m of mixed opinions on that. There are a lot of banks around here that don’t charge ATM fee’s (Washington Mutal comes to mind), so in my mind, it’s more of a matter of choosing convienence over saving a buck fifty. When you’re going on Vacation, you’ve got to plan for these types of things or consider it part of the overall vacation expenses.
Um, you were the one telling MsRobyn that the bank charges ATM fees for the service they provide. I am saying that the billions of dollars of profit they make off of those fees is not justified by the service they are providing. In recent years, the level of service from banks has dropped significantly, yet the service charges and profits continue to increase.
I’m sorry, I don’t get your oblique reference - what word are you talking about?
That’s right, because you’ve read the agreement on everything you’ve ever bought, right?
You can say with 100% certainty that no single piece of software you’ve ever installed promises 10% of your bank account if the author ever requests it?
You’ve read every single plane ticket you’ve ever purchased and made damned sure that, in case of emergency, the flight attendants aren’t allowed to beat you with a bag of oranges?
And, of course, we’d all consider it completely reasonable for someone to do jail time because they recorded a Brewers game with only the implied written consent of Major League Baseball.
But the difference, Merijeek, is that TaxGuy isn’t bitching about how he didn’t read the agreements. I take TaxGuy’s statements to be basically: If you didn’t read the fine print, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
If I find out that one of the agreements I didn’t fully read says that the software company is entitled to 10% of my gross pay each year I used it, I would be upset but they didn’t screw me, I screwed me.
And as for taping a baseball game, it’s only illegal (IIRC) to rebroadcast it without the explicit written consent.
Well then how would you suggest stuffy read the fine print on the bus ticket, considering the fine print was on the back of the ticket he had just purchased?
Kinda hard to read the fine print on something before buying it when it’s printed on the very thing you’re buying. I’ve never bought a bus ticket, but I’m assuming it doesn’t involved contracts or anything like that, but I could be wrong.
