Heartless Businesses Infuriate Disgruntled Consumers

Welcome to the Gripes About Big Business blog,

My name is Mike Campbell. I live at the beach in South Carolina. Just an average guy living life day-to-day like lots of other people do. Nothing is special about me.  Like most people, I try to be nice and polite to everyone while hoping everyone reciprocates. For the most part, it has worked well for me but not always. From time to time, I find my blood pressure rising while trying to negotiate, resolve, explain or detail a problem with a large, non-personal company or corporation. Take for example in my case: calling the cable company each year and asking why the cable bill has jumped 25-33% while seeing ads on television promoting the same price for the same service as last year. My query as to why a new customer gets the bargain rate and I, as a loyal, yearlong consumer, get to pay more for the same privileges and services. The customer service representative explains the promotion is for one year. My meek response was: “Do I have to cease and disconnect and then re-apply for the better deal?”.  The service representative says that it is my choice and there may be some disruption of cable service to do it. Begrudgingly, I hang up. This brings me to the purpose for writing this blog.

How many other examples of corporate indifference are there? Let’s see who else has been shafted. The twist, to just listing the injustices (which I will list examples from time to time), is seeking more examples and how to find an equitable revenge factor from readers of this blog. Ask yourself  how you would resolve a listed injustice or one of your own injustices at the hands of corporate America. Remember it should be legal and non-violent. Simple, devious, disruptive, sneaky, underhanded, unique and/or ingenuous advice for resolving an injustice and/or gaining a revenge factor for the shafted victim. Through this blog, let’s give victims a way to state their injustice while showing options which may appeal to them thus allowing some form of satisfaction out of a bad situation. Next, let’s look at some more examples of what I consider corporate injustices upon the public at large.

Here are examples from the internet which I have found (click the underlined words to goto original article):

• I came to an agreement with B of A to pay off my $4500 credit card at $100 a month. I agreed to have automatic debits to make the payments. I have reduced the debt since 2008 to less than $2000, but at some point in the past, the automatic debits had failed and so now it is showing $222 past due. They are showing that a payment (automatic?) was missed and that a second was refunded, because I couldn’t make rent and asked for that. But I also remember having to pay double the next month, which was very hard on me.
• So now they are reporting me as late to the credit bureaus. Why am I bothering to pay them if they are messing up my credit? The only reason my credit was messed up in the first place was because I had identity theft, which I discovered after B of A closed my credit card because of a charge off for a utility bill in some other city and they and Wells Fargo and Discover each, because of it, raised my percentage to 36% and I couldn’t handle the payments anymore, and they refused to reduce the amounts even after I provided a police report and a letter from the creditor. Finally, B of A came to me and offered to let me pay $100 a month at 5% and I agreed to help restore my credit, but this is now just going to hurt me more.
• Donald of West Hills, CA

• I was a customer with Sovereign bank for over 12 years and I finally had enough. Admittedly, I knew my account was overdrawn due to a calculation error on my part, so I expected to get one overdraft message and one fee of $33. It seems that the bank had a different idea. They held all of my transactions for 8 days, then took the largest withdrawals out first (not in the order in which they came in), which overdrew my account 9 times. I owed them $209 in overdraft fees. Then they decided to freeze my account with no notification. It took me three days to get that straightened out.
• I deposited approx. $1500 a few days later and when I went to the MAC machine, my account was still frozen. FYI, when they freeze your account, the customer service people on the phone WILL NOT HELP YOU AT ALL. You physically have to go to your branch and have them take off the hold.
• After the second time of doing this and having 4 more overdrafts in the meantime (because they ‘forgot’ to take off the hold the first time), I took all but $4.86 out of my account and went to a new bank. I want them to waste their time, resources and effort managing my $4.86 for the rest of my life.
• Tiredofbanks
• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
• U.S.A.

• Poor customer service:
• I cannot stand AT&T!!! First off I’ve been waiting 5 days. YES, 5 days for them to provide a dial tone at my new residence.
• I am currently on the telephone with them and have been for the past 30 minutes and they still cannot tell me when or if someone will be out to my house today to provide adequate service.
• I cannot explain how angry I am that I cannot get a straight answer regarding service. They want their money in a timely fashion.  I want my phone too.  I told them if they don’t get it together I will be paying a visit to the local office and find a tech to bring them out to my house and do what they are paid to do!!!
• C. Williams

• I was a customer of DirecTV in 2010. I was deployed to Afghanistan and notified Qwest and DirecTV on July 13, 2010, that I needed my service shutoff. Qwest stated that DirecTV had assessed an early termination fee on July 20th, but had continued to bill me until November 2010. Qwest told me I needed to speak with DirecTV to clear the issue up.
• I called DirectTV and was told by a representative in their reconnection department that he found an issue in their records, but all he could do was excuse the early termination fee, and not the subsequent bills. He then transferred me to their billing department, who told me they could find no record of my having the service terminated, and that I owed 3 months worth of monthly payments.
• I told the woman about the other representative in the reconnection department and the Qwest representative who found the records. The woman placed me on hold, and hung up on me. I the filed a BBB complaint and was contacted by a woman named Amy in their office of the president. Amy said she found some discrepancies, but that all she could do was refund the money to me, and I would have to pay Qwest myself, since Qwest collected the bills for DirectTV.
• I told her that this was not optimal for me because there was no guarantee from them or Qwest that they would remove the negative report from my credit file. I told the BBB that DirecTV and Qwest needed to work together to resolve the issue that they caused, and fix my credit standing. DirecTV flat out refused, stating that they could do nothing.
• Qwest said that they couldn’t do anything if DirecTV did not admit it was their fault. A month later, I received a letter from Qwest stating that the 3 months of bills were not from DirecTV service but from Qwest service and that they had no record of my requesting the service to be terminated. The two companies work together and bill together.
• I have only gotten the run-around, and have been unable to get this issue sorted out. What a wonderful way to treat the people that put their lives on the line for them. I will never use DirecTV, Qwest, or Century Link again. I am now stuck, and have no way to fight these companies, and clear my credit record.
• Rachel of Homestead, FL

• I was involved in a small finder binder on 11/09. I was driving to work and a man in an ’88 Honda had pulled over the crosswalk and stop coming from the right hand-side of a major road down the street from a high school. It was 7:45 and on a school day so slow is as fast as you can go. I didn’t see that front of his car was in the intersection until it was too late. I bumped him going about 10m. The damage was minor and the police told us to let Liberty take care of it. We both had the same company. I called them and they called me back seven times. I was told that it was taken care of.
• Then I got a call from their attorney telling me I was not with Liberty at the time. I called Liberty and again got someone new by now I think I have talked to 30 people. I was told that a claim was filed and it would be taken care of. Almost three years went by and I have been served by them again. OMG, this is nuts. They are trying to tell me I was dropped for 40 days and that they didn’t have to tell me. And now I find out that they toiled out his car and they want me to pay for it and the worst thing is I have to and it’s almost $9000. I cant find an attorney to help me. I just want to know what I can do and no one I call seems to understand how this has happened. I need help.
• tabatha of sac, CA

Hello, this is Mike Campbell again.  If you have read the above injustices, can you provide any advice on these problems? Anything you think will help would be appreciated.

• Posted in: Business Practices versus Ordinary People
• Tagged: ATT, Bank of America, BOA, Business, business practice, cable, disgruntled, heartless, injustice, non-personal, problem, resolution, Sovereign Bank