December 4, 2006

There were 5 posts published on December 4, 2006 (this is page 1 of 1).

Hertz Rips Me Off

The Hertz rental car company apparently tried to screw me out of a pile of money on my last trip to Chicago. The bastards. I should have known something was up when my credit card didn’t get billed promptly. Here’s the story.

I fly into Chicago’s Midway airport since I like to fly Southwest. The airport’s rental car facility is small and cramped at Midway and it usually takes a long time to either get a car or return one. I’ve had to wait forever at my usual rental car vendor, Dollar, so I thought I’d try Hertz this time. I dusted off my Hertz #1 Club Gold card and booked with Hertz. After all, any company who had O.J. Simpson as its spokesperson has to be good, right?

I landed at Chicago a bit ahead of schedule thanks to Southwest’s Outrageous Customer Service ™. Walking into the garage I was happy to see my name on Hertz’s rental board, pointing the way to my waiting Jeep Liberty. Into the car I went, hassle free. Less than two hours later I was in South Bend, Indiana for the next day’s meeting.

My meeting ended Friday a bit behind schedule. I raced back across the state line but got caught in unanticipated construction traffic. Even though I was late, I searched for the closest gas station near the airport. I stood freezing outside a Citgo in a questionable neighborhood while I filled up the thirsty Liberty. As usual, I made note of my gas purchase amount before racing into the rental return garage, though the receipt printer was not working.

I got there with precious few minutes to spare. There were returning cars everywhere! The lines were so long I barely inched my car past the automatic gate before I ran out of room. I waited there a few more minutes without anyone directing me anywhere (not that I could’ve gone anywhere, anyway). Knowing how close I was to missing my flight, I was about to put it in park when a garage attendant mumbled “I can’t let him park there” and waved me back to the Hertz end of the garage.

More precious minutes went by as I dodged hurried travelers and empty cars scattered in the traffic lanes. I was waved to a spot near the booth, where I collected my things and checked my watch again.

A Hertz woman noticed me but didn’t approach. She continued to show new renters their vehicle. More minutes went by. No one came to talk to me.

Screw it, I thought. Some “Gold” service here.

I gathered my things, left the key in the car, and booked inside to my flight, making it into the jetway after my name was called two times to board. Two other hapless travelers showed up behind me, out of breath as I was. The flight was full and still not loaded, so none of us stragglers delayed the plane, but it wasn’t a fun way to end the trip.

I assumed Hertz would send me a receipt, or I could pull one up on their website. I’m a Gold member, after all.

Days went by. Kelly began asking me to file my expense reports. I still hadn’t heard from Hertz.

Weeks went by. Still no charges. I put in a call to Hertz’s customer service center. After a long wait, a pleasant woman named Celeste answered. She took my call in the midst of the huge snowstorm that had kept most of her coworkers away. As it was 5 o’clock on a Friday I felt very lucky to have gotten her.

Celeste was puzzled why I didn’t have a receipt in the system. She agreed with me that it was very ususual. She asked me if I had filled it up before returning it and I told her I did. She put me on hold for a time or two before returning to tell me she was going to work on this some more. I should expect an answer by Monday or Tuesday, she said.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got a call back from her an hour later. “I found it,” she told me. I happily thanked her for the extra effort, giving Hertz customer service a gold star for exceeding my expectations. I anxiously awaited the emailed copy of the receipt she had promised me and then turned my thoughts to the approaching weekend.

It turns out the emailed receipt that was promised “in an hour” never arrived. I decided to do my expenses anyway and checked my credit card statement online tonight to see what my rental charge was.

It was a whopping $275.85, about $85 more than it should have been! What was I saying about Hertz again?!?

A look at my Hertz receipt (now online) showed a charge for $85.08 for gasoline! The fuckers had charged me for gas when I returned it with a full tank! Hertz better be glad no one was around to take my call a few minutes ago, because someone’s phone would’ve melted.

My next step was to call my credit card company and dispute the charge. That’s $85.08 that Hertz isn’t going to get from me. When they open tomorrow morning, they will get an earful that perhaps might singe someone’s phone if not melt it. Cold weather will be the last thing on the lucky bastard’s mind when he or she takes my call tomorrow.

I want whoever ripped me off to be fired, but of course the odds of that are slim. I anxiously await how Hertz handles this. I’ll be happy to show them the gas purchase from my credit card receipt if they choose to dispute this.

In the meantime, I want to let everyone know that HERTZ RIPPED ME OFF!!. A company that rips people off doesn’t deserve your business, either.

Now, let’s see them try to talk their way out of this . . .

Living On A Thin Line

Living On A Thin Line
The Kinks

All the stories have been told
Of kings and days of old,
But there’s no England now.

All the wars that were won and lost
Somehow don’t seem to matter very much anymore.
All the lies we were told,
All the lies of the people running round,
Their castles have burned.
Our eyes see change,
But inside we’re the same as we ever were.
Continue reading →

Bellsouth – AT&T Merger

You may or may not be aware that AT&T (actually what was known as SBC Communications before SBC adopted the AT&T name) is trying to merge with Bellsouth. This merger was announced early this year and has been held up by a deadlocked FCC. The merger would put tie together the majority of former Baby Bells into a reconstituted AT&T, reversing the decades of progress that the breakup of AT&T achieved.

Thanks to AT&T’s 1984 breakup, Americans now have more phone choices than ever before. The cost of telephone calls has plummeted. Cell phones are ubiquitous. Companies actually compete for your business (to some extent, anyway). Few of any of these would have happened – or happened as quickly – if AT&T was still guarding their mostly taxpayer-funded universe. If SBC … oops, I mean AT&T succeeds in swallowing Bellsouth it will put a huge swath of American telecommunications back under near-monopoly control, leaving only Qwest and Verizon out of this new, improved Ma Bell.

The reason for the delay is the FCC. Commissioners are deadlocked, 2 to 2, on the merger. FCC Commissioner (and Tar Heel) Kevin J. Martin break the impasse/a> by bringing back commissioner Robert McDowell, who recused himself due to earlier lobbying against similar big mergers. McDowell used to be general counsel for a trade group representing small phone companies.

In spite of Martin’s desire to clear this off the FCC’s decks, I think major changes will be needed for this thing to pass. Even though I believe McDowell’s vote may torpedo the merger, I think the conflict-of-interest laws should be respected and his participation should be barred. If the merger can’t convince the two commissioners, Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein, to vote yes then the two companies will just have to buckle down and make a more convincing case or call it off.

Signing Up for Net10 Cell Phone Service

I’ve written before about MVNOs, the cell phone providers who lease airtime from Cingular, Verizon, and Sprint. I decided that my Sprint PCS Vision plan was way too expensive. I don’t use the Internet option much at all now that I’ve got a Boingo account and the 2,000 minutes per month is far more than I ever come close to using. Thus it was time to do some shopping.

After visiting some online forums, I discovered Net10 (and have written about it before), an MVNO which has one of the most affordable plans around. The cost for calls is 10 cents per minute, period. No contracts, monthly fees or daily minimums, just a dime a minute. As opposed to other services, Net10’s minutes can be bought in quantites which last all year. I can buy a card from them providing 1500 minutes and keep them fora whole year. Thus, my monthly cellphone bill can be as low as $12.50 if that’s all the minutes I need a year. Instead, my usage is about 300 minutes per month, which equals (duh) $30 per month. That’s less than half of what I’m currently paying for Sprint!

The phones aren’t flashy, which to me is a good thing since I don’t care to have to lug around a PDA/camera phone/rocket launcher when I need to talk. The battery life should be pretty lengthy without those add-ons, too. The underlying cell phone service is provided by Cingular and T-Mobile, so the coverage is good.

I bought a reconditioned Motorola V171 from Net10 to try them out. Cost was $40. This flip phone has a color screen and is fairly easy to use. The remaining minutes are displayed on the screen so I know what I have as well as when they expire. It has support for polyphonic ringtones, in case I ever go insane and want them for some reason.

My biggest beef with the phone is that the volume on calls is a bit weak. I had trouble hearing Kelly when I took a call from her while I was driving. I thought this was a fatal flaw so I called their support number to return the phone. A nice woman in Belize answered the call and took down all my information. Even though I told her I wanted to switch to a Nokia phone, Net10 sent me an identical V171 in return! I was going to send both of them back when I decided to give the new phone a spin. It turns out the volume wasn’t turned up to the highest level, which makes a difference. Also, I reasoned, if I’m talking while driving I should be using a headset, anyway. I bought a headset and now everything seems fine.

My other beef with the V171 is that the phone just doesn’t seem to fit my ear. Motorola designed the earpiece to be totally flat, which doesn’t match any human ear I’ve ever seen. Thus you can press it against your ear and never get a good seal around it, nor feel comfortable talking on it. Once again, the headset saves the day.

To summarize, I’m happy so far with the Net10 service. I’m marginally happy with the phone. Given what I’ve spent on the phone so far, I don’t have much room to complain. Oh, by the way, the phones come with free airtime, so my $40 bought not only a phone but 300 free minutes, too.

I’m porting my Sprint number to my new Net10 service now. I won’t miss Sprint’s fat phone bill nor its now-redundant Vision internet service. Net10 may be as close to a perfect cell phone service as I’ve seen yet.