Archive for the 'Misc' Category

My CompUSA Horror Story

Published
by
Ross
on August 15, 2006
in Misc
. 0 Comments

By Ross Hosman (rosshosman@gmail.com)

 

 

This story starts with me wanting to buy a very specific laptop, the Acer Aspire 5672WLMi (here). You’ll notice the CompUSA website says that you can no londer order them anymore but there may be some stock in stores. So I went to the Ballwin, MO CompUSA and looked around for a bit until a sales associate finally came up to me to ask if he could help me. I asked him to see if they had the laptop I wanted in stock, he said that he’d be glad to. To my delight they had a single one left and he went into the store room to retrieve it, he was back there a while and when he came out he had no laptop. The associate then informed me that he couldn’t find the laptop and asked if any of the other laptops suited me. I looked around some more but didn’t find anything that quite fit my taste.

I went back to the sales gentleman who helped me and asked if they had the model I wanted in their Sunset Hills, MO store. He said that he couldn’t check their inventory and he didn’t have their phone number handy, fine it’s only a 15-20 min drive. On the way i called 411 to get the Sunset Hills number so that i could call the store and ask them if they had the laptop I wanted in stock (save myself some of the drive if they didn’t), the 411 operator informed me that there was no Sunset Hills store listed (great). The thing I forgot is that I’d hit rush hour so a 20 min drive turned into 35 minutes but no biggie, I was going to be in laptop heaven soon (optimist).

Arriving at the Sunset Hills location I breathed a sigh of relief to have reached finally my destination. I walked into the store to see if they had the model I wanted on display, no dice, so I went up to the customer service center where I had to wait 10 minutes for an employee (I guess employee, his shirt was all wrinkled and tucked out of his pants) to get done with a customer before he could help me (all the other employees were busy talking to each other on the floor). Finally it was my turn and I was given the news that they also didn’t have any of the laptop I wanted in stock. I thanked the employee and sulked back to the laptop area to do some quick spec checking on some of the other laptops. After a bit I came to the conclusion that the Compaq v6030us would do the trick. I scoured the area for a sales person but the two that were on the floor seemed busy. After about 10 minutes one of the sales people told me he’d be right with me, 20 minutes later and I was still sales person less.

Now this is what gets me, all they had to do was grab the laptop and they would have had a sale. Basically I was just waiting to give them my money and all the while the only two sales people were helping people with USB keys I was waiting to purchase a $1000 laptop. I finally got tired of waiting and went up to an employee to ask if he could get me the laptop I wanted. He informed me that he did not deal in laptops but would get me someone who could help me, finally! Nope, it was just an empty promise as 20 minutes later there was still no sales person to help me buy my laptop. The real bad thing is there was a guy next to me that wanted to purchase a laptop as well, I guess he didn’t have the patience as he finally walked out pissed off but I kept my cool and waited.

I finally got tired of waiting and went up to the customer service. When i walked up I could see employees goofing around in the office, laughing and playing some sort of game amongst themselves as I waited to be helped once again. When one of the people finally got to me I asked to purchase the laptop I wanted. This person informed me that he could not help me but would send someone back to help me, so I went back to the laptop area and waited like a fool.

I waited around 20 minutes and was about to ask to speak to a manager when an employee named Ben walked up to ask me if I had been helped. I informed him that I had not and that I would like to purchase the laptop in question. Ben told me that wouldn’t be a problem and he went to find out how many they had in stock. Well you have already probably guessed it, they didn’t have any in stock. After my hour plus ordeal they didn’t have the freaking laptop i wanted in stock! Ben was a bit more helpful though he offered to check the Ballwin store’s stock (hey the Ballwin sales person told me they couldn’t check another stores stock) and guess what, Ballwin had four of the laptop I wanted. Ben went even further by calling the Ballwin store who said that they would reserve me the laptop I wanted and that it’d be waiting for me at the front.

So I have to drive back to the store that is right near my house but that is fine, at least it’ll be over soon. I drive all the way back to the Ballwin location and go inside the store. I stroll around to find a sales person and after about 10 minutes snag one who informed me that he was only doing stock but that he’d find someone to help me (yea right). Declining his offer I went to stand in the check out line, my laptop should be waiting up front anyway right? At the front of the line is an irate man who I guess had been having a day. Apparently he had been sent store to store for a USB key and had finally lost it, he wanted the USB key that the other store had promised him that this one had in stock or he wanted a better one for the same price.

Funny thing with this ordeal is that this is the only check out line open and why the check out lady battles this customer walking off at times to check USB stuff, customers are just waiting and losing patience. Finally, after 15 minutes, one guy in the line asks the lady if she can get someone else up front so people can check out; she ignores his request and walks off to look at the USB keys again. This man just kind of snapped, he put the 5 spindles of DVD+R’s he was going to purchase on the check out counter and left (so far they’ve lost a laptop sale and 5 spindles of dvdrs and probably to customers forever). After a while longer the check out lady gets someone higher up on the phone and they agree to the mans request for the cheaper price on the 2 GB USB key.

YES AND NOW IT’S MY TURN, LAPTOP HERE I COME!!!! Maybe not, when I get up to the counter I tell the lady about the reserved laptop and she says “Ohh your Ross”, she then informs me that someone needs to go get my laptop out of the stock (wait, I thought it was up front waiting for me?). She asks me to step out of line while an employee goes to get my laptop out of the stock room. Fine, I comply after all the pain is almost over right? It takes the employee another at least 15 minutes to bring my laptop up front. Instead of checking me out the employee puts the laptop behind the register and asks me to wait in line, I told him that I had already done so and that he he should check me out. He told me that was not his job and that if I wanted the laptop I’d have to wait in line (woohoo customer service!).

Did I get pissed and leave, of course not. I was a man on a mission, I had made a promise to myself that I was going to get that laptop no matter what; even if I had to steal it right out of the store. These bastards were going to deliver me a product no matter how hard they tried not to. Another long wait in line later and finally it was my turn to check out (yes they still had only one lady checking people pout). The check out lady rings up the laptop, tells me my total and I write a check. Finally this sales trip from hell is over, or not. She says that she has to call the check processing company to verify credit, fine whatever lets just get it done. It is the only way I’m going to get this laptop anyway. After a decent amount of time I am finally losing my patience (I’m a very patient and forgiving person if you couldn’t tell, after all I had bought many products from CompUSA before including desktops, cameras, etc.) and I ask the lady, “Who do we need to call to get this done.” She informs me that we just had to wait until someone at the check processing place answered or that I could pay by another means.

The problem with this idea was that I thought my daily spending limit on my debit card was $1000. I informed her of this, I then also asked to speak with a manager; she declined saying that manager couldn’t help me but went ahead and gave me their regional managers name as well as phone number. I called Mr. Harry (or Henry) Freed while we waited for the check processor to answer but of course he was out of the office. I decided to call my bank to see if they could raise my daily spending limit. After only two minutes I had someone on the phone who informed me that my daily limit had been raised to $3000 a while ago (sweet!). I thanked hung up the phone, I then grabbed my check off the counter and ripped it up. Proudly, I handed the cashier my debit card and she ran it. I think I almost wept when that receipt started printing out, I signed the store copy and ran for the door before something bad could happen.

After four hours of hell I’m finally typing on the brand new laptop that i had to force CompUSA to sell me. Some will argue that I deserved the long wait for putting up with so much but they need to understand that I became obsessed. After this huge ordeal I have to say I will never buy a CompUSA product again; which is sad after the amount I have spent with them in the past. Before you or your friends consider buying a laptop from CompUSA i hope you read this story and decide to go elsewhere.

BP and the great oil pipeline scam

Published
by
Ross
on August 9, 2006
in Misc
. 0 Comments

I found this on Greg Palast’s blog and i think everyone should give it a good reading:

Is the Alaska Pipeline corroded? You bet it is. Has been for more than a decade. Did British Petroleum shut the pipe yesterday to turn a quick buck on its negligence, to profit off the disaster it created? Just ask the “smart pig.”

Years ago, I had the unhappy job of leading an investigation of British Petroleum’s management of the Alaska pipeline system. I was working for the Chugach villages, the Alaskan Natives who own the shoreline slimed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding.

Even then, courageous government inspectors and pipeline workers were screaming about corrosion all through the pipeline. I say “courageous” because BP, which owns 46% of the pipe and is supposed to manage the system, had a habit of hunting down and destroying the careers of those who warn of pipeline problems.

In one case, BP’s CEO of Alaskan operations hired a former CIA expert to break into the home of a whistleblower, Chuck Hamel, who had complained of conditions at the pipe’s tanker facility. BP tapped his phone calls with a US congressman and ran a surveillance and smear campaign against him. When caught, a US federal judge said BP’s acts were “reminiscent of Nazi Germany.”

This was not an isolated case. Captain James Woodle, once in charge of the pipe’s Valdez terminus, was blackmailed into resigning the post when he complained of disastrous conditions there. The weapon used on Woodle was a file of faked evidence of marital infidelity. Nice guys, eh?

Now let’s talk timing. BP’s suddenly discovered corrosion necessitating an emergency shut-down of the line is the same corrosion Dan Lawn has been screaming about for 15 years. Lawn is a steel-eyed government inspector who has kept his job only because his union’s lawyers have kept BP from having his head.

Indeed, it’s pretty darn hard for BP to claim it is surprised to find corrosion this week when Lawn issued a damning report on corrosion right after a leak and spill were discovered on March 2 of this year.

Why shut the pipe now? The timing of a sudden inspection and fix of a decade-long problem has a suspicious smell. A precipitous shutdown in mid-summer, in the middle of Middle East war(s), is guaranteed to raise prices and reap monster profits for BP. The price of crude jumped $2.22 a barrel on the shutdown news to over $76. How lucky for BP which sells four million barrels of oil a day. Had BP completed its inspection and repairs a couple years back — say, after Dan Lawn’s tenth warning — the oil market would have hardly noticed.

But $2 a barrel is just the beginning of BP’s shut-down bonus. The Alaskan oil was destined for the California market which now faces a supply crisis at the very height of the summer travel season. The big winner is ARCO petroleum, the largest retailer in the Golden State. ARCO is a 100%-owned subsidiary of … British Petroleum.

BP could have fixed the pipeline problem this past winter, after their latest corrosion-caused oil spill. But then ARCO would have lost the summertime supply-squeeze windfall.

Enron Corporation was infamous for deliberately timing repairs to maximize profit. Would BP also manipulate the market in such a crude manner? Some US prosecutors think they did so in the US propane market. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) just six weeks ago charged the company with approving an Enron-style scheme to crank up the price of propane sold in poor rural communities in the US. One former BP exec has pleaded guilty.

Lord Browne, the imperious CEO of BP, has apologized for that scam, for the Alaska spill, for this week’s shutdown and for the deaths in 2005 of 15 workers at the company’s mortally sloppy refinery operation at Texas City, Texas.

I don’t want readers to think BP isn’t civic-minded. The company’s US CEO, Bob Malone, was Co-Chairman of the Bush re-election campaign in Alaska. Mr. Bush, in turn, was so impressed with BP’s care of Alaska’s environment that he pushed again to open the state’s arctic wildlife refuge (ANWR) to drilling by the BP consortium.

Indeed, you can go to Alaska today and see for yourself the evidence of BP’s care of the wilderness. You can smell it: the crude oil still on the beaches from the Exxon Valdez spill.

Exxon took all the blame for the spill because they were dumb enough to have the company’s name on the ship. But it was BP’s pipeline managers who filed reports that oil spill containment equipment was sitting right at the site of the grounding near Bligh Island. However, the reports were bogus, the equipment wasn’t there and so the beaches were poisoned. At the time, our investigators uncovered four-volume’s worth of faked safety reports and concluded that BP was at least as culpable as Exxon for the 1,200 miles of oil-destroyed coastline.

Nevertheless, m’Lord Browne preens himself with his corporation’s environmental record. We know BP cares about nature because they have lots of photos of solar panels in their annual reports — and they’ve painted every one of their gas stations green.

The green paint-job is supposed to represent the oil giant’s love of Mother Nature. But the good Lord, Mr. Browne, knows it stands for the color of the Yankee dollar.

BP claims the profitable timing of its Alaska pipe shutdown can be explained because they’ve only now run a “smart pig” through the pipes to locate the corrosion. The “pig” is an electronic drone that BP should have been using continuously, though they had not done so for 14 years. The fact that, in the middle of an oil crisis, they’ve run it through now, forcing the shutdown, reminds me, when I consider Lord Browne’s closeness to George Bush, that the company’s pig is indeed, very, very smart.