customer service

Crappy service, great food...what to do?

Yesterday I witnessed something quite special. My lovely wife, who is usually not one for complaining, decided that the service we had received at a local restaurant (or hadn't in this case) was not on. She put her foot down, followed my advice, and I witnessed it with a glowing smile.

Here's the story.

After being seated by the host, we waited 15 minutes for a server to appear at our table. We did the usual 'please, can't somebody take our order' stares into space. We made eye contact with other servers. We did everything right. Alas, we were ignored.

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Last night I threatened to disconnect my cable

Sit down, relax, and let me tell you a story. A story about how you get to be a hero, and how to get your cable company begging on all fours like a dog.

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Buy a drink, get a free Whopper - every single day?

Did your mom always nag you to keep your receipts? Mine did. She'd see me charge something to a credit card and then casually toss away the receipt, and I'd get an immediate lecture about what it means to keep track of my expenses yada yada yada (Mom actually included the yada's). Frankly, budgeting has never been an issue for me, even when I was close to the poverty line, and receipts seemed to be a wallet-cluttering nuisance. But that all changed for me recently, and now I treasure receipts because they are kind of convenience that is rare - they are pre-cut coupons.

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Can i please, please just TALK TO A HUMAN?!!

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Track Your Refunds or Get Ripped Off

“Refunds” are supposedly different from “rebates”, although honestly, you might never know it, since both are difficult to obtain. I find that lately, I’ve had to harass the heck out of companies, particularly companies that primarily do business via mail order or on the internet, to get my money back even after returning a product.

In the past, when I treated money with a devil-may-care attitude, I’m sure I let dozens of potential refunds slip right by. I don’t believe that all retailers really want to rip off customers, but I don’t see refunds as a really high priority of theirs, either.

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How I Got Over My Haggling Hatred

I used to really hate haggling. That vain, self-conscious part of me that doesn't want to appear cheap, or worse, stingy, has always had an aversion to haggling. As I've gotten older, though, I've come to realize that it's a necessary evil, and who doesn't love a little bit of evil?

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The Key to Free

I love mail-in rebates, because I have perfected the art of receiving them. It can be a royal pain-in-the-ear, but if you are willing to do a little extra work, you too can get save a remarkable amount of money on rebates.

I came across Free After Rebate, a great site that posts deals in which you get stuff for free, after rebates (hence the name, see?). Now, rebates can be tricky, but I have faith that we can all fight the Man and wrench our hard-earned money back from those big, faceless corporations.

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Customer Service Nightmares - What's a Good Consumerist to Do?

I love the web site Consumerist.com (motto: Shoppers Bite Back). They provide some great money-saving ideas, funny advice on how to get away with things that you didn't even know you could, and good commentary on consumerist culture.

In addition, Consumerist offers some great customer-provided stories about companies jilting customers, and they offer the customer the best revenge - public venting of their experience. Better than a rant/rave on craigslist.org, the stories at Consumerist are mind-boggling. The kind of bullying that goes down at retailers both big and small, online and brick-and-mortar, are often laugh-out-loud funny.

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