[conspire] OT: The 'Don't deal with crooks' rule, extended edition, in action

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ehud Kaldor (ehud.kaldor at gmail.com):

> not that it's not a good story (and it is, and educational), but the sad
> truth is that had you sent your email, it would have probably be read by
> some low-paid sorter, who would have tossed it in the 'replied No' pile for
> resending.

Oh, absolutely.

There are ways to get a company's attention if it's actually desirable
to do so (see 'Art of Turboing' on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Essays), 
but my central _point_ in this case was that telling Discover Card why I
declined to do business with them would _not_ be 'revenge' at all, but
rather giving something of value (information) for free to a business
entity I'd decided I'd prefer on the whole to wither and die.

In fact, on the whole, I would rather such companies remain _oblivious_ to
unsatified customers.


> learning the lesson and filing for personal use was probably the right thing
> to do...

Um, no shit?

I wasn't asking advice, you know.  ;->   (By the way, in case you
weren't paying attention, Discover Card sucks.  One of many hits from
the Web-search I alluded to:
http://www.crafthugheslaw.com/Consumer-Protection/Discover-Credit-Card-Fraud.shtml)

My larger point was that we generally do have a choice as to which firms and
individuals we choose to do business with, and to assert based on my own
experience that my life has been markedly improved by simply deciding to 
politely walk away from the bad ones.  

I commend the practice, as I notice that the overwhelming majority of my
fellow citizens observe shady behaviour, grumble about it for years, but
reward it by continuing that relationship.

If you were on this mailing list a couple of years ago, I gave another
small example:  My fourth-generation Apple iPod having ceased working, I
walked into the Palo Alto Apple Store's service department ('Genius Bar'), 
suggesting that it probably just needed a new lithium battery.  The fellow
conducted a couple of tests on it, and then (in these exact words)
'pronounced death sentence on' the unit and offered me a 5% discount on
purchase of a current model at full retail price.

I thanked the young twinkie for his [dishonest, insultingly bad] upsell
advice, left the store, and immediately went to Allmac, which in less
time than the Genius Bar guy had required opened the iPod, swapped in a
new lithium pack, and that'll be $20 or so.

I don't blame Apple, Inc. for having a 'No battery replacements offered
for out-of-warranty iPods' policy, but I do think a policy of lying to
customers about units' easy servicability elsewhere reflects poorly on
them and should not be rewarded.

(By the way, in case you weren't paying attention, Allmac doesn't 
suck.  ;->  http://www.allmac.com/ipod.php)