No, I Really Don't Want to Buy Your Product

This past weekend, I spent far too much time watching the first two rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. I love it, though, and look forward to the big dance from the first tip of the season.

One really troublesome consequence of watching all this hoop action is that I tend to see the same commercials over and over. Some are good and I don't mind, the Pacific Life "whales" ad, for example. Unfortunately, many are annoying and that is only exacerbated through repetition.

Here are some of those I find most irksome ...

• the Chevy truck "man step" ad with Howie Long
• the Fidelity "green line" ads
• the Charles Schwab ads which are posterized
• any Lexus ad
• the Sonic "basketball injury" ad
• the Enterprise "grandma" ad
• the Burger King breakfast shots ad
  

I suppose irritating potential customers is a sound marketing strategy during tough economic times. What do I know?

Image via Wikipedia

I saw on the news this morning that AIG was insisting they still needed to pay their executive bonuses for a variety of reasons. One was that the bonuses were parts of previously negotiated contracts. If they were not paid, they might be sued and the legal expenses would exceed the bonus amounts. I can sort of give them that.

But, another was that they might lose these executives to competitors if the bonuses were not honored. I suppose it would be tragic to lose the executives responsible for guiding your firm to financial catastrophe to your competition. To use a sports analogy, you would really hate to lose the coach who led your team to a 2-28 record to another team in your conference.

Related articles by Zemanta

• AIG still paying bonuses. Oh wells. (dailykos.com)
• Bailed-out AIG doles out $165 million in bonuses. (thinkprogress.org)
• Basket Case Insurer Gets $170 Billion from Taxpayers, Still Pays Huge Bonuses (boingboing.net)

Closed for the Super Bowl

Apart from bars and restaurants with big screen TV, this sign pretty much typifies Super Sunday in Steeler country ...

Now It's Buy.com's Turn to **** Me!

Since my last post on this issue, I was finally able to reach Buy.com customer service. I had to do a Google to find their CS number which appears nowhere on their website (That's not a good sign!).

Foolishly I thought that since they were the merchant who took my money, they might be interested in helping me resolve my issue with Westinghouse Digital. Ha!

Buy.com told me that the defective TV had to be returned to the manufacturer. Now they tell me that since I returned it to the manufacturer instead of to Buy.com, they can't help me.

Buy.com has my money. Westinghouse Digital has the TV. I have nothing but annoyance, frustration, and aggravation!

Next stop, my credit card company.

No Joy from Westinghouse Digital

In a recent post I described my battle with Westinghouse Digital regarding my attempt to exchange a defective TV.

After waiting about two more days from that time, I again called Westinghouse Digital "customer service." They still claimed the returned TV was not in their system, whatever that means. I reminded them I have delivery verification. If they don't know where it is, that's their problem, not mine.

I suggested they just grab another TV, put a shipping label on it, and send it on its merry way. Then they can worry about locating the returned TV. Of course, "We can't do that." They say they can't send out a replacement until they locate the return. Does this mean that if they can never locate it, I'll never get a new TV?

I asked to speak to a supervisor, but the was "no supervisor available." The rep said a supervisor would call me within 24 to 48 hours. We'll see.

Stay tuned, no pun intended.

Circuit City Closing

Pictures from the first day of Circuit City's liquidation ...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Circuit City Liquidating
• GRAPH: The Decline And Fall Of Circuit City [Circuit City]
• Circuit City's Going-Out-of-Business Sales Begin Today. Customers Can Use Gift Cards

I am Being Screwed by WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL

I bought a Westinghouse LCD HDTV from Buy.com in late November. It proved to be defective and it was necessary to return it to WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL for exchange.
I shipped it by UPS back to WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL on Dec 22, at MY OWN EXPENSE. It was signed for at WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL's El Paso facility just before 11 am, Dec 30. I have called WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL "customer service" at least three times since for a status report, most recently this afternoon. I CANNOT get ANY information as to what's going on. WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL doesn't even acknowledge that they have received the TV.

I told WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL that I would call back in a day or two and if I was not satisfied with the situation I wanted my money back. WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL said they couldn't do that since I purchased from Buy.com, not directly from WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL. I will contact Buy.com and if they're no help, I will try working through my credit card company.

I will NEVER buy another WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL product. I will NEVER recommend a WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL product to anyone I know.

Daily Video #8 - Nothing Like a Tightly Run Operation

This sign is in a sandwich shop/convenience store in Bellwood, PA. It's funny, but some businesses (not this one) are run this way.

You'll have to use Pause to read it all.