Complete Satisfaction? Not really!

I purchased a freestanding wine cooler (wine cellar, if you prefer) from Wine Enthusiast in 2011. It wasn't the top-of-the-line, it was their own brand (N'Finity) and my assumption was that if it was good enough for them to put their name on it then it myst be a reasonably solid unit.

Not so much!

Last summer (2015) it formed a block of ice on the rear wall inside the cooler. In hindsight this was the beginning of the end. Over course of the last six to eight months the unit has labored, running continuously while the internal temperature crept slowly upward to ambient. Initially I thought the coils were in need of cleaning, so I unloaded the contents of the cooler, fortunately not quite the 170 bottle capacity, thanks to the vagaries of inconsistent bottle sizing in the wine industry. After moving ~150 bottles (three and four at a time) I maneuvered the unit away from the wall and cleaned the coils thoroughly, checked the drain pan, wiped down the interior and exterior, and moved it back in position. I re-loaded all of the wine (not having enough counter space to allow 150 bottles to sit around and still have a functional kitchen) and waited a few hours to power the unit up so that the refrigerant would have plenty of time to settle in the system.

Started the unit up and let it run overnight. Internal temperatures substantially identical to ambient temperature. Thinking that there's a lot of thermal density in those 150 bottles of liquid I give it another 24 hours. No detectable change.

Cue the appliance repairman. I describe the failure mode (starting with the ice block a year ago) and he starts poking around. No refrigerant, appears to be a failed condenser. Since this is a sealed unit (read: not designed for serviceability) repairing it won't be inexpensive, but the repairs will convert it to a completely serviceable unit if/when any future issues arise.

Repairman calls Wine Enthusiast, technicians are not available so he leaves a message, tells me he will call when he hears from them.

A couple of hours later the repairman calls. Do I want the bad news or the worse news? Bad news - they no longer have parts because the systems were such pieces of crap that they discontinued that design. Worse news - I now own a large paperweight as no one has parts available.

WTF?

I have no reason to doubt the repairman, he's with a company that we've used several times over the years and they always do excellent work at fair rates, but I want to see what Wine Enthusiast has to say to a customer who has purchased a fair bit of hardware from them, this being one of two wine coolers (the other belongs to a family member) not to mention a long list of other items.

So I send an email, describing the situation, telling them what the repairman said, and asking if they can help. They reply after a couple of days with instructions to give them a call. So I call. The tech is apologetic and reiterates nearly verbatim what my repair guy told me. Nothing they can do. I ask him about their Complete Satisfaction Guarantee (so boldly posted in their website.) He says there's nothing they can do. I ask if he has any idea what they mean by "Complete Satisfaction" and he doesn't. I express my discontent over having a large, 250 pound paperweight and the fact that they are selling disposable junk instead of quality products that should last more than four or five years. He finally says that we can probably find a suitable condenser from a local refrigeration supply house and offers to send me schematics and parts lists immediately via email.

I wait, and wait, and wait, and...well, you get the idea. Nothing. Check the spam folder, still nothing.

I fill out contact forms on their website. Nothing. It's obvious that their "Complete Satisfaction" guarantee isn't worth the electrons that it takes to display on your screen and the company could really care less about customer service. This isn't to say the folks answering the phone and email don't care (current evidence to the contrary.) But whomever conceived advertising "Complete Satisfaction" is suffering from cranio-rectal inversion and needs to read the book "You Will Be Satisfied" so they can learn a thing or two.

That said, if you're looking for a wine cooler, or a corkscrew, or anything else that has to do with wine, do yourself a favor and look anywhere other than Wine Enthusiast. Their products are crap and their service is crappier.

I'm in the market for a free-standing wine cooler, capacity of around 170 bottles (no larger, as they won't fit the space I have available.) Let me know if you have any suggestions.

US Air Flight 3371 PHL-ILM 1/17/2011

This is a summary of the flight chronology along with theories as to why events unfolded the way they did.
Flight information is from FlightAware, other information is from personal observation. I don’t have any information on the time the crew came on duty, but the series of events supports my theory.

The flight was scheduled to depart PHL at 8:55pm but was delayed until 10:13pm due to a snowstorm. At 10:33 the flight leveled out at 33,000 feet and cruised for 26 minutes before beginning its decent to ILM at 11:00. At 11:20 the flight leveled off at 4,000 feet as it was vectored to the ILS approach for runway 6. At 11:30 it began descending on the approach and reached a minimum altitude of 600 feet at 11:36. Given that the Category 1 ILS approach on runway 6 has a decision height of 200 feet the pilot’s claim that he could not see the runway is entirely implausible. Add to this the fact that I made visual contact with the plane as it executed the missed approach procedure and crossed mid-field (at approximately 1,300 feet, according to FlightAware) and the visibility claim becomes even less plausible. For even more damning evidence take in to consideration that I could see the headlights of cars passing perpendicular to my line of sight over a mile away (across the airport) and the story deteriorates rapidly.

Now, all of this wouldn’t be such a big deal except for two issues: (1) The USAir agents that met the plane in Charlotte were as courteous as a pit bull with a toothache and (2) The flight crew was boasting about the fact that they got to go home last night. (It was a Charlotte based crew.) To add insult to injury the most the agents would do for stranded passengers (after midnight, no less) was to provide a voucher good for $7 off a $62 hotel room that, frankly, wasn’t worth $22. It had to be one of the most unkept facilities in the country and it’s amazing that the chain allows this hole-in-the-wall to keep their flag. Then the agents informed the passengers that they would have no access to their luggage – however, when they went downstairs to find the hotel shuttle buses they discovered their luggage on the carousel. WTF?

I have two theories on why events unfolded in this manner.

1) (and most likely) Due to the extended delay in Philadelphia the pilot would have been forced to take himself off-duty upon landing in Wilmington. While this would have been an inconvenience to him it would have only left two passengers stranded, instead of the dozens that were left stranded and forced to fly stand-by back to Wilmington the next day. Based on the behavior demonstrated by the flight attendant after repeated conversations with the cockpit leading up to the approach in Wilmington this is even more plausible.

2) The pilot was afraid that the weather in Wilmington would deteriorate below minimums and he wouldn’t be allowed to take off after landing, again leaving him to spend the night away from home.

As a pilot I certainly respect the Pilot in Command’s right to act in his best judgement. However, the evidence in this situation indicates that this PIC only acted in his best interest, abandoning any concern he had about the impact of that decision on his passengers. Furthermore the USAir gate agent in Charlotte provided poor customer service to a group of people stranded overnight due to the selfishness of their fellow employee.

Air Travel

I would consider myself an above-average user of our airline system and a fairly saavy traveler.   About ten years ago I flew almost weekly, these days it averages out to about every 6-8 weeks, almost exclusively on two airlines.  In all of my flying I can count on two hands the number of unpleasant experiences I’ve endured.  I can count on one hand those experiences that were not related to the weather and of the remainder there are just a couple that occurred on the plane – most are due to surly ticket agents and carry-on luggage nazis that “pre screen” the number and size of your items.  Ironically enough, the longest ramp delay I’ve ever experienced doesn’t even rank among my most unpleasant.  While inconvenient and a general nuisance, the overall circumstances were about as tolerable as they come.

I was flying Delta (yes, I’ll mention names – and do my best to give praise as readily as criticism) leaving Atlanta for Oklahoma City on an August evening a couple of years ago.  It should come as no surprise that there were thunderstorms in the area, so traffic was a bit sluggish to begin with.   After lining up for one end of the runway the winds changed, so ATC reversed the field and sent everyone scurrying to the opposite end of the runway. (I’d love to see this ballet from the tower, I’m sure it’s a challenge both in the air and on the ground.)  As we reach our place in line at the other end of the runway a huge storm parks over the field and ATC shuts down operations.  At this point we are already 30 minutes beyond scheduled departure.  When the Captain informs us that we will be sitting for a while there are mostly shrugs – we’re fortunate to be on an MD-80 that is only about 2/3 full, the sun has set and we have a crew that has just come on duty.  We can move about, use our phones and electronics, visit the restrooms and generally make ourselves comfortable.  Snacks and soft drinks are also available if you take a short walk to the galley and the 1 1/2 hours passes without incident, in large part due to the courtesy of the flight attendants and the updates from the captain. When the storm passes, guess what? The winds have changed again, so it’s back to the other end of the runway. Fortunately we were adjacent to an intersecting taxiway and ended up #2 for departure, which caused a bit of a scurry as everyone re-prepped for takeoff, but the mood remained light.

Fast forward to the past few months. I’ve flown a bit more frequently in late 2009 and the first half of 2010 on a combination of business and family trips. Now, those of us who travel with such extravagant items as a razor (electrics have never worked well for me) shaving cream (for use with said razor) toothpaste, and deodorant (of all things!) are forced to pay an additional fee to check our bags. They call it “un-bundling fees” but apparently they think we all have the logical capacity of an opossum.

For those of you who were in a coma the past several years, there was a huge run-up in fuel prices after a combination of storms and mishaps impacted refining capacity. Those issues have long since been resolved and prices have moderated significantly (a decrease of about $2 per gallon, generally speaking)

In the midst of all this airfares increased, fees became “un-bundled” and passenger services were cut. Keep in mind that self-service check-in also increased (so your services were cut even before you got on the plane) and luggage weight limits were decreased from ~70lbs to 50lbs. (Don’t even get me started on flying internationally, where your 50lb suitcase is just fine for the trip over, but on the way back it becomes ~22.7 kg, which exceeds the 22kg limit imposed on the other end of the trip!) Now your empty suitcase consumes nearly 20% of your alloted 50lbs, assuming you have something of fairly recent vintage. In many cases airlines also added seats to some planes, decreasing precious legroom. I’m of average height (5-9) and if my legs are cramped I know something is wrong.

Now, every time you board an aircraft, thanks to all these additional fees and decreases in service you get to enjoy any number of inconveniences. First, and most likely, as you come down the jet bridge you get to run the gate-check obstacle course. No one has been able to explain to me why it apparently costs the airlines nothing to place these bags in the hold while my bag, checked at the counter and handled most of the time by machinery, costs them some portion of $15-$23, depending upon the airline. After we survive the obstacle course and make it on the plane we are faced with what I like to call “The Gauntlet.”

“The Gauntlet” consists of making it to your seat without suffering grave injury from the wild combination of suitcases falling from the overhead, passengers moving upstream with items too large to fit in the overhead and flight attendants squeezing through the aisle attempting to mitigate the damage from the two prior insults. After you finally get to your seat the danger still exists, especially if you are seated on the aisle. Somehow, all the angst and discontent that this exercise creates – all in the name of “un-bundling” – is lost on the airline bean-counters. As someone who doesn’t haul everything into the cabin I find it an affront that I’m forced to deal with the headache when I’ve paid to avoid it. Hey, airlines – how about preferred boarding for those who pony up for checked baggage? Let me take my seat before the circus starts, at least then I’m not having to deal with the salmon-esque machinations of everyone else.

Upon arrival at your destination there’s a whole new obstacle course to navigate, this one of feet and carry-on bags as everyone lines the sides of the jetway waiting for their luggage to be retrieved from the cargo hold. With all the other irritations, change fees have gotten outrageous as well. I’ve never failed to inform the airlines of how stupid they are on this issue when the chance presents itself. Last summer I was booked to fly from OKC to ILM on Monday morning. Sunday morning it became apparent that our meetings would end much earlier than anticipated so I called Delta to inquire about changing to a Sunday evening flight. There were seats available for Sunday evening, but Delta wanted a $100 change fee, plus an additional $300 for the difference in the cost of the airfare. I told them (not politely, mind you) that they were out of their minds and spent the night in OKC. The next morning they ended up compensating two people $400 each due to the flight being overbooked. I refused to take a bump on the principle of the matter and politely informed the gate agent that I attempted to fly out the night before but Delta’s asinine policy put revenue ahead of common sense. Given the choice to use something that is about to become worthless (such as an empty airline seat after the plane leaves the gate) and replace it with something of potential value (an airline seat the next day) doesn’t logic dictate that you at least try to preserve value? Obviously not in the airline industry.

Again, how does this specialized handling of baggage represent a cost benefit to the airline? I’d love to hear an answer to that one. Better yet, explain to me how you can claim rising fuel prices were the catalyst for cutting services, then fail to reinstate the services when the fuel prices dropped? Southwest Airlines allows two free checked bags and has the most reasonable cancellation and change policies I’ve ever seen, along with ridiculously affordable fares. Perhaps the other airlines should learn from their example?

As it is, the only thing the airlines are proving is that they will squeeze the markets where they have no competition to extract every dime they can, no matter what the cost.

The Fine Print

The fine print is the root of all evil.  Today’s example of corporate absurdity comes to you courtesy of Best Buy.  A year ago we purchased a new laptop for my son to use for school.  Being prudent parents, with full knowledge of the various situations that can arise with teenagers, laptops and schools we opted for the extended warranty coverage.  It wasn’t horribly overpriced, making it at least digestible when viewed as an insurance policy.

Fast forward to today, almost a year to the day after the original purchase:  The laptop (running that fantastic operating system from Microsoft known as ‘Vista’) is being its usual, less than agreeable, self and I learn that this has been the normal condition since it was purchased. (Thanks, Microsoft!)  I suggest that he check microsoft.com for a service pack that might address these performance issues.  He does, there is – and the wheels proceed to come off.  After installing the service pack the laptop devolves into a useless pile of components, taking an hour to fully boot and equally as long for a browser window to appear.  Ugh!  Time to call Best Buy to see about getting the Operating System reinstalled.

Or so I thought.

After calling the local store and spending over 30 minutes total listening to a phone ring in my ear through several failed transfers (nothing like a technology store that hasn’t figured out a 19^th century invention…) I’m informed that the extended warranty only covers damage – “software issues” are not covered, and an operating system [sic] reload will cost you a cool $130.00 (well over 10% of the cost of the laptop when it was new!)  In this day of manufacturers shipping computers without media it’s more than a little underhanded to slap that kind of fee on a clean O/S reload that requires neither diagnostics nor backup – nothing more than a few keystrokes.  Keep in mind that if a drink were spilled into the keyboard or it were dropped it would be replaced, free of charge (but, according to the customer disservice goon at 888-BESTBUY, once you make a claim the warranty disappears…) The goon was quick enough to notice from my Best Buy Reward Zone profile that I am (was) an “excellent customer” – but guess what?  I’ll no longer patronize Best Buy as I have in the past.  They have proven to be nothing more than a corporate behemoth that only gives lip-service to customer service and chooses to gouge their customers at every opportunity.  I’ve got a bit of experience loading operating systems on computers, so I’m well aware of the effort involved.  Mr. Goon insisted that $130 was an industry standard fee for this service.  When I asked him to name a competitor that charged this fee he gave me Circuit City (umm, they’re bankrupt – I don’t think you want to compare Best Buy to them, do you?  Thanks for playing….) His next comparable company was CompUSA – hmm, 25 stores in 4 states plus Puerto Rico.  Again, not a flattering comparison for Best Buy.

So, we’re hunting up those media discs and embarking on a reloading session.  Thanks for nothing, Best Buy, we won’t be seeing you later.

Dear NetZero

Why do you suck so bad?  Two years ago I received multiple welcome kits in the mail – all from fraudulent activity.  Today I received a collection notice from your pathetic Collections Division (that can’t be contacted via phone, despite the toll-free number listed on the top of the page – who was the Einstein who came up with that?)   So I call your billing department (in Bangalore or some other similarly unhelpful location where English is somewhat close to intelligible, but just far enough off that it’s just annoying when you deal with the compression introduced by the echo-cancellation hardware on the phone lines) Lo and behold, my phone number isn’t in your system and I don’t have a clue which maiden name you have on file since Gomer from Sheboygan was the one who set up the fraudulent account.  The unhelpful billing disservice representative tells me I can send a letter to your collections goons and all will be right with the world.  Well, I’m not inclined to do that.  Instead, I think I’ll just post this little diatribe on every venue I can so that the world can see what a pathetic shell of a company you are.  Pass this along to your pretty boy CEO so he can think about this the next time he’s prancing in front of the cameras shooting a television commercial.  Obviously whatever you have in place for “security” during your online subscription process isn’t working.  Pull your heads out, get some oxygen, fix the problems and quit abusing innocent bystanders who get caught between you and your fraudulent customer base.

Exceptional Customer Service (NOT!)

So, for my wife’s birthday I gave her a gift certificate to a local spa for a massage and facial.  We’ve been going to this spa off-and-on for almost ten years, the frequency fluctuating with where we happened to be living and our travel schedules.  However, any way you slice it, we’re fairly established customers.

She went in a few weeks ago to redeem part of her gift and while she was there she scheduled a massage to consume the remainder of her certificate.  Since we were driving from Oklahoma City to Wilmington (1300+ miles) she thought it would be a good idea to have a massage the day after our return.

Much to her surprise, the day she was scheduled to fly to Oklahoma City to meet me, she recieved a call from the spa to reconfirm her appointment that afternoon.  Obviously the person making the appointment made a simple mistake – why on earth would she schedule a massage for 2:00 when she had to be at the airport at 3:00?  The spa nazi was insistent that the computer was never wrong and informed my wife that if she cancelled there would be a penalty fee of 50% of the service.  After much debate (spa nazi was sorry my wife was upset…) she offered to only charge half of the normal penalty.  When my wife requested to speak to the manager or owner she was rebuffed; spa nazi insisted that this was her job and she could take care of it.

I haven’t called them yet; rest assured that when I do the spa nazi will regret not handling things properly with my wife in the first place.  Regardless of the outcome we will never spend another penny at Ki Spa & Salon (Wilmington, NC) and I suggest that you do the same – unless you happen to derive pleasure from abusive customer service policies.

Citigroup is Pathetic

Where to begin?  Let’s start with Citi taking over SearsCard.    My wife and I have held a Sears card since 1989 (our first “real” credit card together.)  As a young couple we had the usual ups-and-downs, but did a reasonable job of being responsible with the account, as is evidenced by our eventual upgrade to “Gold” status and a credit line increase to ten-fold the original amount.  Not a huge credit line, but the fact that it grew organically over the years was noteworthy – we never requested an increase.  When the service was offered I signed up for online payments and electronic billing notices.  We continued to tread lightly with the account, only hitting snags when extended travel caused things to get off-kilter from time to time.

Then Citigroup hit the scene.

First, the online notices disappeared (no one has ever been able to tell me why, but they did, and of course this came back to bite me – I need reminders to get bills paid and if you don’t send me one I’m not going to sit there and wonder about it.)  After things got in arrears they called and asked me why I was late – then the Citi rep and I discovered that the email notifications for my account were somehow turned off.  No problem, we got things sorted out and back on track.

Fast forward a few months.  After sailing along smoothly for some time I notice that one of my online payments was “returned” – so I made a payment in the store.  Then another online payment was “returned” so I called the fine folks at Citigroup and spent nearly 2 hours on the phone with them.  They tell me that ANOTHER payment, made months previous, had been “returned” – which flagged the account as “Bad” and led to the eventual closure (all without notification to me.)  When asked how the payments were “returned” they had no answer.  There was lots of finger pointing at me, my bank, data input errors (on my part, of course!) and just about anything other than a Citigroup error.  They went on to explain that they had different online payment systems, depending upon if your account was “Good” or “Bad” and that I had incorrect information in my “Bad” account screen (even though I didn’t even know it existed, apparently I was logging in to it to make payments that weren’t being accepted.)

They tried to tell me my recent payment was processed over the phone by their collections department (it wasn’t – I’ll take a polygraph and wager any amount of money on that fact!) as was the previous “returned” payment (it wasn’t, either.)

I’ve seen stories about credit card companies tossing payments in the garbage to run up fees – it’s obvious to me that I’m the victim of an electronic version of the same scam.  If this is how Citigroup treats someone who has held an account for just short of 20 years then I sincerely hope they crumble from the weight of their collective egos if not from the consequences of the current financial crisis.

After spending 2 hours on the phone with no less than six of their employees (usually two at a time, with someone running off to check with their manager) it is no shock to me that they are loosing money like crazy.  It’s not bad debt that’s killing them, it’s bad management and abusive policy towards their customers.

Suffice it to say I now place Citigroup on the same pedestal as AT&T/Cingular for abusive customer service policies and wish a plague of locusts upon them.