A little earlier, stuffy said:
Without knowing the posts in the GQ thread, it seems that the ticket does not have any fine print (or any print) on the back saying it is non-refundable.
I too have never bought a bus ticket but I would assume there would be some documentation produced by Greyhound which you could read prior to making the purchase. But I could be wrong. Heck, here is some info from Greyhound’s website
To clear up a few things, the ticket does have information on the back addressing arrival times, luggage policy and length of time the ticket is good for, no refund information at all. At the station where I bought the ticket, there was a board showing arrival/departure times and the agents are behind a counter, if there was refund information posted I saw none.
In the interest of helping people keep from getting screwed by Corporate America [sup]TM[/sup] I put together this helpful list:
Don’t pay for, use, or take posession of any item or service until you know how much it costs
Assume the guy at the other end of the phone is an ignorant moron who hates his job and works for minimum wage.
Get it in writing
If you know the terms of a contract, don’t get mad when the company enforces them
Nothing is free
Bank fees. Grr.
Suppose I use an ATM at Bank X to get money out of my First National Stagecoach account. Now, I can understand Bank X charging a fee to pay for maintenance and restocking of the ATM - but where the hell does First National Stagecoach get off charging me for that transaction? They aren’t providing anything special, just sending numbers over a wire. If I use a Stagecoach ATM, they do the very same thing, and have to restock the ATM, yet they don’t charge me a dime.
And also, where do they get off charging $3 a month to keep money in a savings account (when balance is less than X)? There’s no monthly fee for a checking account, and the interest on my savings account is less than one percent. I can take money out of checking at any time, but the savings balance is virtually guaranteed cash for them to lend out at 6% interest.
I think in practical terms, they know that you are very unlikely to overdraw your savings account and generate fees. I assume there is some manner of upkeep for the savings accounts, so they’re charging for their existence, except for those that give them X dollars to make small business loans and mortgages.
As for why they charge you to use another bank’s ATM, I think the answer is, “Because they legally can.” It doesn’t have to sound fair, it just has to be legal. Businesses are not in business to make us happy. Rather, they are in business to make us just happy enough that we don’t take the trouble to change services, and make as much money from us as possible in the process.
If I may say so, spoken like someone without stock in that particular enterprise.
Because Bank X also charges First National Stagecoach (FNS) a fee when you use a Bank X ATM. FNS doesn’t want to lose money as a result of your actions. FYI, my bank doesn’t charge me fees for using other banks’ ATMs and that is why they are my bank.
They “get off” charging you $3 per month when your balance is below X since they disclosed that to you when you started using the bank and nobody held a gun to your head and told you to bank with them, right? If you don’t like the fees/services, find a new bank.
Some more on ATM fees:
ATM Fees: The Price for Convenience
and
Checking/ ATM fees by market
For that, I’d pay extra. My only question would be, do we have to wait for an emergency?
Actually, they are not (unless the evil Clinton era regulators began forcing the hotels to do that). Oh, the fees are “indicated,” but they were (at least originally in the Marriotts) deliberately obscure. I even asked at check-in about using my calling card and was told there would be no fee “as noted on the phone instructions.” The phone instructions, however, said something that resembled no fee under certain circumstances, but after I dialed out to my 800 line and made my $.57 call, the hotel tacked on $10.90 (plus tax) and when I questioned them, I was shown how if one stood on one’s head and read it backward with one eye peering through the bottom of a shot glass, it really meant that I would be charged if I so much as looked at the phone during my stay.
Now I simply use my card at the lobby pay phone (since I rarely make calls, anyway).
Dude, are you being deliberately ironic here? You complain that the charges are hidden because you have them bill the credit card directly, when the likely the reason you set it up on the credit card in the first place was so you wouldn’t have to read the damn bill? Aren’t they really just giving you what you ask for?
You people and your “corporate = bad” mentality never cease to amuse me. Complaining that banks make too much money? ATM fees are too high? You got charged for, wait for it…using a phone, the horror, the horror. What universe are you living in?
The universe I’m living in is one in which I’m taken advantage of by corporations whenever and wherever they can get away with it. I can envision a better world, in which “caveat emptor” isn’t the unspoken motto of every business, and where businesses actually try to give me value for my money instead of trying to give me as little as possible while getting as much from me as possible. This bothers me; I’m not sure why it doesn’t bother you.
How can you say you are being taken advantage of when the “corporation” is just giving you exactly what you want? I am sure there are refunable bus tickets, the fact is our brilliant OP didn’t buy one. He chose to have his bill paid by credit card, then complains that he doesn’t get a bill. He chooses to use the phone, not knowing what it costs, and then complains at the charge. People complain about a $1.50 fee to use an ATM because they think they should be able to get money whenever wherever for free. They don’t think the bank should charge them a monthly fee, yet they continue to keep their account open. The list goes on and on…People voluntarily agreeing to a service or purchasing a product and then attacking “corporate” America for giving them what they asked for.
And BTW, some people seem to be operating under the delusion that corporations are these monolithic inhuman entitites. The fact is that these corporations you decry are the same ones that employ millions of workers, and in which millions more’s money is invested. Anyone with a pension fund is a corporation owner. Do you want your pension and 401K to grow, your bonds to apreciate? Well, then you are feeding the corporations’ desires to return profits.
Well, I know one way you could save a little money next time - try walking? The Hyatt is about two blocks from the Ferry Building. 
Technology sets us free. The cell phone replaces the hotel phone. The laptop connects to the cell phone for internet access. The laptop has a dvd drive and nice, portable external speakers for watching the movies brought along from the Netflix account. The hotel might get paid for breakfast…some things are worth the silly price.
Years ago I lived in San Francisco and Cablevision was the cable tv provider. After three years of the service I happened to read the bill. Turns out, they were charging 5 bucks a month for remote control rental. $180 for a remote, ha ha. Yes I am a schmuck for not reading the bill. I was equally chagrined and annoyed.
Caveat Emptor.
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Actually, corporations rarely give me exactly what I want. I usually settle for something marginally acceptable because nobody else offers anything better.
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In the world I live in, all banks offer virtually the same service (you might not know this, but Canadian banking is significantly different than American banking.) Also, it is virtually impossible to be employed in Canada and not have a bank account. So, I am forced to have an account so I can get paid, and each bank has the same policies. This doesn’t sound really voluntary to me.
Here’s another sticking point; the corporations make profits, which in turn they hand over to the corporate Board members, the executives, and the stockholders. The profits, in my experience, are not returned to the average worker like myself. I’m not saying a company should put every penny of profit into employee benefits, but a significant portion of it should be returned to the people who have created that profit in the first place.
Well who are you? Sorry everthing can’t be customized for your personal needs but there are a million other customers out there, each with their own slightly diferent idea of “what they want”.
You receive a paycheck, right? You have the option to buy some stock, right? Do you have health benefits? A 401k (or whatever they have in Canada)? How much profit do you think the company should spend on you?
I hate corporate work as much or more than anyone, but all too often “The company is screwing me” usually translates to “The company is screwing me because I actually have to pay money for a service and it does not cater to my every irrational whim”.
There was a Dilbert strip some time ago that went something like this:
PHB: We should find out what the customer wants and give it to them.
Dilbert: The customer wants unlimited features and wants them for free.
And why do the corporation’s employees qualify as “people who have created that profit in the first place” any more than the shareholders of the corporation do?
The employees wouldn’t even have jobs if the shareholders hadn’t transferred money to the corporation in exchange for stock so that the corporation could buy assets and pay salaries.
The shareholder is the one that has bargained for the right to participate in the profits of the company. Workers as such have not; workers have only bargained for compensation for their labor. If the workers want to participate in the profits from the corporation, then they should (a) bargain for a compensation package that includes either stock, stock options, bonuses based on profits, etc. (the receipt of any one of which will undoubtedly reduce the cash compensation each employee receives) or (b) buy stock in the company themselves.
On a more fundamental level, the point here is that people are not treated unfairly if they are given exactly what they have bargained for (no more and no less). Shareholders bargain for participation in the profits of the enterprise, and workers (as such) bargain for only a return on their investment of time and talent.
For what it’s worth, I have found that angry letters work wonders. Even if the company is technically doing nothing wrong, they are often so fearful of bad press that they will help you out if you make them.
Keep careful records of names, dates, and information that they provide to you. Don’t give up ! Your angry letter will almost certainly get a response of some sort, as big companies usually have mechanisms to deal with complaints, and they will often give you something just to shut you up. You just have to ask for it.