Category Archives: Goods and services

The wife has been interested in checking out Skyrim for a while now, and I have to admit that I was a little bit too. I intended to purchase her a copy of it yesterday for digital download, thinking that if it looked good and had reasonable controls on the PC ported version of it, I might get it for myself as well. So I started looking for places that had the digital download available. GameFly had it available, but I haven’t ordered anything from them since I used to get the downloads from Direct2Drive, and I was afraid that this fact could delay the download, so I looked elsewhere. Then I saw that BestBuy.com had it available.

Now, I have a BestBuy Rewards mastercard. I haven’t used it in over a year though, because it is issued by Swindler’s Bank and Trust, who have been slapped with so many class action lawsuits over the last few years that, frankly, I just typed “hsbc class action lawsuit” in the search bar and picked a random one for that link -the bank was directly involved in the Madoff scandal, as well as being sued for selling bogus credit protection plans, being sued for harassing phone calls, being sued for intentionally not mailing credit card statements and then charging late fees on them; in short, if Satan ran a credit card company, he would be envious of their business practices. But I did earn some reward points with Best Buy for using it.

That was a whole other issue. When you start your rewards account they have it set to automatically print out reward certificates at some ridiculously low number, and while I don’t remember what that amount is, let’s say it’s $5. So every time you earn $5 in rewards they send you a certificate that is good for a couple of months and expires if you don’t use it. Obviously you aren’t going to plan major purchases around having a $5 off certificate laying around, so mine all expired. I navigated my way through the maze of a website for the rewards card though, and was able to change it so that my rewards would accumulate and only print out when the value of it was $500 (although when I look at it now, it is still set at that, but the only options you can now set it for are 5, 10, or 20 bucks, so maybe it has changed). At any rate, even though I haven’t used the card in over a year, I had $70 in rewards certificates stacked up in there, so I figured why not use them to get not one, but two copies of Skyrim for less than the price of one!

Dumbass.

So I placed the order for two digital copies of Skyrim from BestBuy.com expecting the download to be available instantly. I was basing that on the following information, which is readily available on their website:

For your digital products delivered by Best Buy pc app: You’ll receive another e-mail when your game or software is available in My Downloads in pc app. It usually takes just a few minutes.

Please note: It may take up to 15 minutes for new orders to show up in your account.

So based on the information available on their website it should take no longer than 15 minutes for the digital download to be available… 12 hours later I called customer service to see what was up with the order -fearing that the rewards points I used were going to be disallowed for some reason or another. Here are some direct quotes from the representative with my (paraphrased) questions and responses:

Me: I just ordered some digital software and have been waiting on it for a while, how long should the process take?

Rep: “The credit card verification process can take up to four hours. After that your games will be available.”

Me: Alright, it’s been twelve hours.

Rep: “One moment.” (here she placed me on hold) “I just spoke to my supervisor and he said that since the system upgrades on the weekend, this could take a little longer than normal. Please allow up to 48 hours.”

Me: “Is 48 hours within BestBuy’s definition of the scope of “just a few minutes”? (this one is a direct quote, I had planned to ask that about the 12 hours I had already been waiting, but changed it on the fly. Go improv!)

Rep: “Our website suggests that as a possible time frame, but does not guarantee it.”

Me: Can I have my money back so I can just buy it from a reputable company?

Rep: “We can process a return for you, however the funds will not be returned to you for 2-3 business days.”

I did finally get the downloads and game codes. Ultimately I had to wait roughly 16 hours for them to be available. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense to me though; if I had ordered this from any other company, the download is available the very second you make a payment. One would assume that since BestBuy is such a huge company they could at least match the other 2-bit services out there. One would be wrong. The good news is that now that I have spent all my reward points I have no reason to ever make another purchase from BestBuy, and judging by their impressive 10% rating on customer service scoreboard it’s probably for the best (that stat is horribly skewed since that website is designed specifically to collect complaints… I know that, but I am using it here because this process pissed me off quite a bit. What really pissed me off about it was the customer service rep was not even a bit concerned about the misleading statements on the website, and didn’t seem to give half a rat’s ass whether I ever got my products; she seemed actively annoyed that I had called at all).

As I noted in a comment in one of their forums, “I really believe that if bestbuy were to completely scrap their digital download service it would increase their sales. If every sale you make loses you a customer for life, it’s probably not going to increase profit.” And to answer the question put forth in the title of this post, How long does it take to get a digital download from BestBuy.com? The answer is 16 hours, but 16 particularly annoying hours because the website intentionally misleads you and the customer service reps lie to you. Kudos BestBuy.com!

Credit cards are a pretty bad thing in general; If you don’t have the cash to pay for it, you probably shouldn’t be buying it in the first place. That being said, it is near impossible to get by in day to day life without having one of the precious plastic things in your wallet/purse. Just imagine trying to make hotel/car rental reservations without one. Sure the same can be done with a debit card, but you are a far braver soul than I if you are willing to give your personal bank account information to the stranger on the end of a phone line.

True, now that the debit cards are actually subsidized by VISA they are covered by the exact same fraud protection as a normal credit card, but you have to file a claim and wait for a couple of weeks to get reimbursed for the fraudulent purchases. That is a lot of time to have to wait to get the money back in your bank account, especially if the rent is due. If your credit card is used fraudulently all you have to do is cancel it, then take care of the paperwork at your leisure. Much less stressful.

Of course I would be lying if I said that the only reason I use a credit card is to book hotel rooms. I do use them for all sorts of stuff, and I do maintain a balance on one card. It keeps my credit in good standing (funny thing about credit is if you quit using it the companies assume that you are no longer creditworthy), and is far cheaper than doing some highway robbery rent to own type bullshit.

Anyway, I cancelled a credit card in January. They decided to jack the interest rate from 6.9% to 14.9%, and homey don’t play that. So I sent in a final payment, cut the credit card up and that was that. Until today that is.

I sent in a check that was one dollar more than the total balance, thus leaving the account with a 1 dollar credit. It seems that their computer systems are pretty serious about what they consider a “balance”. I guess my contract stated that there was a minimum one dollar finance charge when the card had a “balance”, the fine print must not have stipulated that it be a positive balance, cause they charged me the finance charge on a negative balance. Now, through some sort of weird math that only credit companies can understand, that didn’t take my account balance to $0 (which it should have, -1+1=0, right?), it took my balance to $.03. Yes, three cents. Very fishy math, that.

The last statement that I saw was still showing a credit of one dollar. The next one I got was showing a balance of 15.98, without a purchase being made. The one dollar credit became a 3 cent balance, which they tacked a one dollar finance charge onto, then, then, they had the nerve to tack on a 14.95 late payment fee, even though they hadn’t been sending me statements! Yeah!

So I dialed up India (that is where all the call centers are, isn’t it?) and, after about ten minutes of navigating the maze that is the automated call center, got to speak to Apu himself. I told him I simply wanted to close the account and be done with it. I think he asked me what I was disappointed with, though I could barely understand a word he said so I can’t be sure. I told him that I didn’t appreciate being charged a finance charge and late fee on a negative balance, which he said he understood, and he would gladly close the account if I would remit payment for 15.98. That pissed me off even more. I yelled at him for about five minutes, even though I know it wasn’t his fault, simply because it made me feel better to lash out at someone.

Apu said that he was authorized to waive the late fee one time based on my good history with their company, (I could almost hear him reading it from the form letter, I bet they get this phone call a lot). But this still left me with a balance of 1.03, which I would have to pay in order to close the account. Not only that but there was a 9.95 fee to make the payment by phone. Fuck That! Okay, now the gloves were off.

You know that point where you get so pissed off that you go beyond anger and into a sort of freakily-tranquil, rage-induced calm? Where every word that comes out of your mouth is with a sort of firm staccato? I was there. “Send me a copy of every statement since December please.”

“I can do that Mr. Burgess, can you verify your mailing address for me?” He mispronounced my name, but I didn’t care.

I verified the information for him, then added “I would also like your name and the name of your supervisor…” paused for a moment, then added, “my attorney may need it.”

This was, of course, and idle threat; I would have to be insane to try to take on a credit company as large as Citibank (woops, let the name slip). Then again, it wasn’t the money that was pissing me off, so who knows. Thankfully I won’t have to know, since the moment the word “attorney” left my lips Apu wanted me to talk to someone higher up in the chain of command.

The supervisor had a worse accent than Apu, I really couldn’t understand anything she said. I did most of the talking though. There was generous use of the words “close my account”, “waive all fees”, “or else” and, of course, “attorney”. I probably said each of them a half a dozen times, basically whenever she tried to say anything. In less than five minutes my account was closed, and she had graciously offered to send me the one dollar credit that remained in my account. It was so simple.

I just have to wonder how many people just pay the fees. In my case it was pretty clear that I was being fleeced, but what if someone’s statement never arrived? Do most people simply pay the fee as opposed to going through the hassle of getting the fee removed? Do the credit card companies intentionally not send out statements to force the members to pay the fees? If I had to go through all this with Citibank (being one of the larger credit companies), what would you have to go through with some smaller bank?

Being the cynical person that I am, I believe that the majority of this is intentional. Most credit cards are not issued in the state that you live in, I think it is either Maryland or Massachusetts that most are based in, precisely because of lax regulation. Since you signed the contract in that other state, it would also have to be litigated in that state, which would be a heck of a burden for most people, especially when they could just pay the 9.95 (or whatever) and be done with it. The fact that they so quickly reverse all the charges really bolsters my case: They seem to know what they are doing is wrong, they simply don’t care. The second they are challenged on it they fold. Their actions are criminal, hell, worse than criminal, at least you know what to expect when you get involved with the Mafia.

This bitch is pretty specific. Car insurance companies seem to be getting away with the worst false advertising ever, unless you count the “Employee Pricing for Everyone” programs that every car dealer is now using.

I will even get a bit more specific: The company is Allstate. They are running commercial ads that say that you can save ( I forget the exact number ) $300 dollars a year by switching to them. I was intrigued. How can that be true? It took watching the commercial a couple of dozen times before I figured out exactly how they were making that claim; they are flat-out lying.

At the very bottom of the screen, and only when they make the claim of the “average savings”, there comes up a little line (and I mean tiny) that says, “Savings claim based on customers who reported saving when switching to Allstate.” Okay, that sucks. Where are the real numbers? They can actually claim that the “average savings” was whatever when that only counts the people who saved money? Shouldn’t they have to follow that up with another line about how for others they were paying an average of $700 more? At least then you could add up the numbers and do the math yourself.

I am really thinking that their claim might not have been legal. I am thinking that only because the most recent commercial that I saw doesn’t say anything about the “average savings”, instead it says that “for many, they actually saved money by switching to Allstate.” That isn’t much better though, who defines many? One is a person, two is a pair, three is a few, so any group of four or more could be many, right? (that would explain how they could save so much money by switching to the highest priced auto insurance in the country though, just take four people who have recently sent their children away to school, knock off the money for that and the fact that they are middle-aged, Boom, big savings.) The claim is clearly false, but big business has never let that stop them from telling mistruths before and it’s not likely they are going to start now.

Sometimes I really wish that I could be a religious man (I would pray for it but it doesn’t seem to work) just so I could see the lawyers, used car dealers, the majority of the priests, insurance salesmen and about 99.8% of the corporate hierarchy in the U.S. sizzling away in Hell. Of course wishing them harm would be a sin wouldn’t it? That is why I am not religious; I want to see them all burn in hell for their deeds, but I don’t want to burn in hell for wanting them to burn in hell. Damn it! I just figured out how religion works. It is sort of like high school. You don’t have to be the best, or the brightest, or the most attractive, no, you just have to find someone that is worse than you and strive to be better than him/her. Then you really have to believe that since Jimmy just killed a cat down the street, you are one step closer to God. If Father J molests 32 children and God will still have him, and you only molest 31, you are so in!

I think I might have gone a bit off topic there. The point that I was trying to get to, yet never did, is about the legality of the claims car insurance companies make. Whether or not they put enough disclaimers (and if they are “disclaimers”, meaning that they are opposite to what they are claiming to be the facts, why do they print it so small?) in the ad to make it legal, it is still not ethical. No one would ever buy a car from someone that they knew was a rip-off artist, but that is what you get when you buy car insurance from any company.

Is it really not possible to make legal and ethical both mean about the same thing? I don’t mean that in a What would Jesus do kind of way, I am merely speculating that most people don’t like to be ripped off. I guess the whole ethical idea is flawed anyway, since they did mention something pretty similar to that in the bible, it was something about treating others as you would be treated. Hell, honestly now, “treat others as you wish to be treated” could have made up the majority of the U.S. constitution. Many of the amendments are necessary as well since I believe that if you are a human you have the same rights as me, regardless of gender, color, religious affiliation and the such.

Perhaps the constitution could read, simply, “Don’t cheat me and you won’t get shot.” Probably wouldn’t take the High Court long to figure out what that meant.

This post has been on a ‘stream of consciousness (arguably)’ mode for a while now. I remember that I hate car insurance companies so I will end with that. I hate car insurance companies!

On our way out of Phoenix last Sunday we stopped by a shoe store to buy my birthday gift, my birthday is actually the 12th of July but I just never got around to getting the shoes until then. I had the same problem as I always do, it turns out that the major shoe companies think that everyone has really narrow feet, I do not. Thus most of the shoes just didn’t fit.

The problem I have with finding shoes really doesn’t have much to do with the width though. You can pick up just about any pair of New Balance shoes and they will fit pretty well, if not New Balance seems to sell far more extra wide shoes than any other company. The problem that I have is that the only color I can wear is black, and the shoe needs to be made out of leather (or a faux version of it). I can’t wear suede or just the normal canvas like fabric because the blood that I drip on my shoes soaks through them, and that is really really gross.

I tried just wearing a pair of those solid black work boots some years ago, they fit my criteria perfectly. The only problem with them is that I am not just standing around hacking apart animal carcass all the time, I also have to be able to bend at the ankles when I am trying to stock product in the coolers and the such, those black boots don’t allow for much flexibility at the ankle (well none at all). So sneakers it has to be.

This time we went to a DSW shoe warehouse which had thousands of shoes on display, unfortunately there were only about three of them that met my color and material requirements. Of those three there was only one that had my size in a wide, it is a Reebok low top. It is a fairly comfortable shoe, I don’t have any complaints about the shoe itself, yet I do wonder why I can’t find anything in a mid to high top that meets the stated criteria. The two colors that go with everything are white and black. For some reason you just can’t find a men’s athletic shoe that is solid white or solid black, what the hell is up with that? Did someone just eventually realize that if they sold black athletic shoes men would wear them to formal occasions rather than buy a pair of formal shoes? Seriously, why don’t they just have solid black or white?

I was able to find shoes in my size that met all the criteria so I guess I shouldn’t bitch, but I just have to. The low tops usually slip on the back of my ankles and lead to blisters. I guess that is better than my other option, which was usually to buy shoes about three sizes too big so that my wide ass feet could fit into them. If I was just looking for the cheapest shoe in the store I could understand them not having what I was looking for, but I am talking about looking for any shoe, price be damned. Oddly, as I think about it, I could probably find all sorts of solid black shoes made out of faux leather at Payless Shoe Source, but they would last about a week with the punishment they would be subjected to.

I guess I better quit bitching about shoes, lest you think I have some sort of weird fetish (of course I do have some weird fetishes, none of them involve shoes though; none of them really involve any sort of clothing come to think about it). Stupid shoe stores and their stupid no solid black shoes policy.