Target.com into the HALL of SHAME!

Target.com a fresh new entry into my customer service Hall Of Shame. I ordered a houseware product from Target.com in late August. Shortly thereafter I got an email telling me the order would be delayed and would I continue to wait. The email also gave a time frame when the order would ship. Since that [...]

Do Not Call List Frustrations

Recently I have been getting an absolute ton of automated telephone calls with various recordings. Most of these are telemarketing companies calling with these recorded messages. Overall they must work because they keep doing them. At my office usually after hours we get several of these per day. Also I sometimes get a credit card [...]

Gift Cards- Read the Terms Carefully

Store Gift cards have been a hot topic the last few years due to company policies on use of the cards. Basically the stores want consumers to use the cards so they can account for them (accounting basis)within a set period of time. Many stores started to deduct card values after one year in order [...]

20/20 Story on Real Estate

I saw an interesting program this weekend from 20/20 on the current housing crisis. They were showing several families trying to sell their houses in order to buy another or move on with their lives. It was interesting as one family was profiled who bought at the top of the real estate maket a year [...]

Ticketmaster Shuts out the public-No Springsteen or Hannah Montana!

This week Ticketmaster came under attack as offerings for a National Hannah Montana(Miley Cyrus) tour sold out in less than 5 minutes. The public is starting to wonder how it seems that ticket brokers have all the tickets immediately and public  gets shut out. Earlier I wrote how Ticketmaster service charges are outrageous. Now is [...]

FDIC Calls for Banks to Convert ARM loans

Various news agencies are reporting a story from the head of the FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. Bair is calling for banks to take all homes covered in ARMS right now and freeze the rates/and or convert them to a fixed rate product. This would apply only to homeowners who are current on the loan and,live [...]

New Mortgage on Paid Off House Not Deductible

If you have a house that is paid off in full (no mortgage) you cannot get a new mortgage on the same property and deduct the mortgage intrest as most homeowners can do. This is a little known fact. The homeowner can get an equity loan on the house but not a first mortgage (with [...]

Firedog and The Geek Squad- Not Worth it!

Recently I had to take a monitor in for service which I dropped off at The Geek Squad (Best Buy) they had to send it out for warranty service. I have also observed their tech and reas many things abotu the Geek Squad (owned by Best Buy) and Firedog tech support owned by Circuit City. [...]

Watch Those Credit Card Point Programs

For those that you use point cards including airline cards for very heavy use, you should check if the programs have any max point restrictions. Citibank and others will promote the great things you can get using points with their card, but don’t tell you when you reached the maximum points per year for the [...]

Big Companies Hooked On Surveys

So many companies these days use consumer surveys. Sometimes you will be offered a discount copupon, free item etc to call in an automated survey or to answer some questions on the phone. I have been called a number of times this year from various companies including Audi, Pizza Hut and others. Some of the [...]