no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Category Archives: Rants

Chrysler: F- in Customer Service (Round 2)

September 16th, 2009

Before I tell the latest Chrysler Fail, I want to explain how to do customer service the right way.  Chrysler could learn a thing or three from WOW!

I spoke to my Cable Monopoly Provider yesterday, the customer service representative couldn’t have been nicer. We had been experiencing intermittent service glitches, where the HD signal would “freeze” or slow down considerably, to the point that we could not watch whatever program we were trying to watch. She lowered our monthly cable and internet bill by approximately $11/month, and sent three vouchers for free pay-per-view movies.

And they lived happily ever after.

+++

Chrysler Financial called me this afternoon, and the following message was repeated probably 25 times before the call abruptly ended:

All representatives are still busy you may contineu to hold or you may hang up at any time and we will attempt to call you back later. thank you.

There was no pause between the loop. No music. No messages urging me to go to the website (which I can’t do anyways!). Just the repetition of that message. I called back:

In response to the launch of our redesigned website, we are experience longer-than-usual wait times.

The lady with whom I would eventually speak was irritable (this is the best I can say about her). They wanted to know why I hadn’t made my payment a few days ago, and when I would be making it.

I told her in no uncertain terms that I was willing and able to make a payment (like I had made the previous 25 payments), but that my previous attempts to do so had been thwarted by their technology “upgrade” (news flash: if it’s a monumental inconvenience, it’s a downgrade). I explained the facepalm experience, explained that I was through wasting my time, and if they decided that they wanted the payment, I’d just wait for them to call me, flippantly adding “And here we are.”

I even told her that I’d be happy to make a payment immediately, over the phone, if they were willing to waive the $12.95 “phone processing fee”.

They weren’t.

I continued, suggesting that forcing people with 45 days until lease/contract termination to jump through hoops as the Company migrates to a new web-server, rather than A) grandfathering them or B) allowing them to “upgrade” based on their old credentials is stupid as a football bat, and a waste of my time, and I got tired of wasting my time for the privilege of sending them $326 dollars.

So I waited for them to ask for it because that’s how I roll.

She took offense to this, repeating (as though I were a common deadbeat) things like “That’s not how it works…” or “You made the decision not to pay…” and “Nobody forced you to not pay…”

Indeed. But some ass-hat who decided that my username needed to be changed from 7 characters to 8 characters ultimately set in motion a chain of events that resulted in Chrysler wasting money, and wasting my time.

I have now “registered” for the new Chrysler Financial website, but I haven’t received my confirmation e-mail yet…

Chrysler: F- in Customer Service

September 14th, 2009

Chrysler decided to revamp their online bill payment system. The web site still looks like the same crappy website, but they’re forcing all their customers to complete a new registration process. This is how they decided to inform users of the process: User attempts to log in, and fails. Your old password no longer works, and you’re directed to a “Registration” screen if you read the message that says:

Please proceed to the Registration Page if you are a first-time or existing user who has not yet completed the new registration process.

Also missing from their new database, is my SSN, (as evidenced by the error message received when I follow the “forgot password” link) which might otherwise be used to validate my request to “register” under their new system.

Chrysler: customer service fail

Chrysler: customer service fail

In order to register for their new system, Chrysler is requesting my account number and the VIN for the vehicle I’m currently leasing. Since I pay all of my bills online, I don’t have that information handy. (In)conveniently, I receive e-Bills (which should contain both the account number and the VIN), but the e-Bills are locked behind the 128-bit encryption of a system to which I apparently no longer have access.

Other companies with whom I do business have, in the past, felt it was necessary to upgrade something in their system, which required users to update information or re-register. Typically, they will allow you to access your account using your existing credentials, at which point you are prompted to update whatever it is that needs updating, prior to proceeding. This happened quite recently with my mortgage servicer and the transition was seamless.

Chrysler, on the other hand, is a disaster.  You literally have to re-register because you no longer exist in their system.

Since I don’t exist in their system, perhaps my payment for the month of September doesn’t exist in their system.

ObamaCare is National Socialism

June 24th, 2009

For the record: I can’t wait until the lustre of the Obama Miracle Machine begins to fade, when people wake up and realize that he can’t turn water to wine; like every other mortal, he’s only capable of turning water into piss.

Why? Because I’m tired of hearing about single-payer healthcare, national healthcare, Obamacare. It’s failed in Canada. It’s failed in the U.K. It’s failed in Japan. The nearest American control group for this pitiful experiment is Massachussetts where, (you guessed it!) it’s another epic fail.

National Healthcare’s awful track record notwithstanding, “our government” is still attempting to bring Obamacare to fruition.

House Democrats on Friday (June 19, 2009) unveiled draft legislation they said would cover virtually all of the nation’s nearly 50 million uninsured as President Barack Obama has promised. However, they offered few details on how to pay for it.

For starters, claiming that there are 50 million uninsureds is about as dishonest as it gets. Seventy-five percent of those “50 million” are either disproportionately young, disproportionately wealthy, or disproportionately not-even-fucking-citizens. So 50 million people who don’t have insurance because they don’t want it, are too lazy to use the programs already available, or don’t qualify for welfare on account of not being citizens, and this is somehow a national crisis?

No. The only crisis is the looming decision on how to pay for it. Obamacare will almost certainly be financed by a tax increase of some sort.

Higher taxes on upper-income households appear likely, but broad levies — even a federal sales tax — are also under discussion.

One of the reasons given for nationalizing healthcare is that (although this is disputed) the few uninsured folks cost the rest of us a few hundred to perhaps $1,000 each year. Perhaps the few people who are truly uncovered are costing me a few bucks a week in implicit costs. Perhaps. But the solution here given—the best solution that government could come up with is: let’s make the costs explicit.

So much for not raising taxes on the middle class! I’ve even heard that benefits from my employer—several hundred dollars per month—might be taxed to pay for Obamacare.

Ironic. Raise my taxes in order to pay for something that I’m already (allegedly) paying for in the first place. Let’s cut the crap and call a turd a “turd,” OK. This isn’t about healthcare. It’s not about welfare or well-being or compassion or any of that flowery language that politicians use like some fourth-grade Fashionista with a Bedazzler and a few too many sequins.

Pure and simple: this is about control.

It would require all individuals to obtain health insurance and force employers to offer coverage to their workers, with exemptions for small businesses

If you don’t want it, you buy it. If you can’t afford to offer it to your employees, you become a “small business” or you go out of business.  Or else you go to jail. Every time you read the words “require” and “force” in this context, understand that there is nothing but violence behind it.

Control over healthcare expenses puts all individuals in a very precarious position with regards to their government, since the government will have a very effective but essentially invisible means of control, of social engineering. Like every other arena in which Federal funds play, there will be “strings attached”; obliged to provide us with healthcare, the government will begin making choices regarding what’s left of our personal liberties.

Given a few hours, I could probably come up with a list a mile long, but try these on for starters.

  • We don’t provide treatment to the elderly. Budget constraints.
  • We don’t provide treatment to gays. High-risk lifestyle.
  • We don’t provide treatment for hairlips. Aesthetic/non-essential.
  • We don’t provide treatment to fat people. Lifestyle choice.
  • We don’t cover your broken wrist; snowboarding accidents are excluded.

It might begin quietly, with certain foods or habits (transfats, alcohol, tobacco, etc) but will eventually impact lifestyle choices of all sorts. Your freedoms, my freedoms, pitted against one another in a popular vote, they’ll ask each of us to vote away the others’ liberties.  Many will play along, willingly.  And no matter who wins, we all lose, as more and more power accrues to the government.

It’s war against community, for the health of the State.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics