Ultimate Rant o' Cell Phone Customers (Part I)

These are some of my pet-peeves when it comes to people and cell phones. As the original just kept growing with rage, I decided to break it into several installments.

Overage
Personally, I have had four different cell phone companies over the course of the past ten years or so. I'd imagine most people have either also had several different companies or a phone for quite some time. Yet, some things that are common with every other company in the industry seem to jump out and surprise people before peeing on their couch and stealing the beer in the fridge. Unless you have an unlimited minute plan, you know you have a set amount of minutes you can use in a given period, roughly thirty days. If you exceed these minutes, you are charged extra. While the price you pay per minute may vary, the basic concept has been around since the advent of cell phones. The same concept has since been expanded to text message and internet usage. Bottom-line, if you’re not paying for unlimited, you take that risk. Plan accordingly.

Taxes
Rarely do I see people complain that their McDouble was not an even dollar as most people seem to understand that you pay taxes on most things you buy at a store. Unfortunately, these same people don’t seem to apply the same logic to services like cell phone service. If you are upset that your bill is not a nice, round $49.99, you are an idiot and you need to complain to your congressman or other elected official as your beef is with the gummint, not the company that is forced to collect these taxes. The same thing applies to regulatory fees like those to provide emergency services with your location if you have an emergency. You may not use these on a daily basis, but you’re going to be paying for them regardless and you’d probably be pissed if you died in a frozen tundra or were mauled by mutated cannibals in West Virginia because no one found you.

Changing Companies
Certainly you remember when you messed up, your previous company refused to remove accurate charges from your bill, so you decided to stick it to them and go somewhere else. If this seems fuzzy, certainly you can see that your phone is now different and your bill has another company’s name at the top? All of this means what you paid for, what your plan was, or what that last company did is no longer relevant. Your last company may have given you free phones every third day because you were so awesome, but we don’t. You may have been able to go four months without paying a bill before, but now you can’t. Your plan may have included free incoming calls, unlimited text messages included, and complimentary psychiatric service, but you opted to leave that company. I’m not sure why you would, but don’t assume that your current service is just like your last one. As we illustrated before, it’s not.

Yeah, Fees Suck. We Get It

People love to complain. They complain about anything they feel with no regard to if it is a valid argument or if they are merely talking out of their ass. Hell, I complain but I usually try to withhold such activities for things that deserve it, unlike this Gizmodo article crying about early termination fees for cell phone companies.

Fees are seemingly common for most service companies, at least the ones that I am familiar with. After much pressure from the FCC, cell phone companies began prorating early termination fees, or the fee you would pay to break the legally binding document you signed to start service. Apparently that is not enough as more are calling for additional government regulation for these charges. But, I have a real simple solution if you don't like the prospect of an early termination fee: don't sign a g-d contract. Imagine if you were able to switch companies with ease, not having to worry about waiting a predetermined length of time, with no additional fee for switching other than what you pay for your monthly rate. Wouldn't it be nice if there were such a thing?

Now, I'm not a big proponent of fees like paying money to pay a bill, not with a person but with an automated system or online. But, when you agree to do business with a company, you are agreeing to deal with that company, their fees, their policies, and everything else. You can't sign up for a service, wait six months, and then complain about the very thing that was detailed in your inital documentation because it no longer is beneficial for you. Sure, you can go to someone else, but chances are they have the same exact business practices as well. Is it right? Not really. Is that life? Yep.

So, if you want to avoid fees, look for alternative companies if any exist. If none do, start your own. If the previous two suggestions are too terribly hard, then STFU and pay your bill. Maybe if you get enough ill-informed people like you, you can lobby your congressman or a special-interest group and get the government to step in. At that rate, every industry will be regulated to death with many companies going out of business which will then lead to reduced competition and more bitching. So ... choose wisely.

Why I Hate the Music Industry

Back when I was a wee lad and Napster had first emerged, for all the fun I had finding songs from the radio, acoustic tracks, and bands recommended by friends, I felt a tinge of guilt for illegally downloading songs that some of my favorite bands had spent much time and effort on making. Then, as more and more came out about the music industry, the RIAA and their sue-happy legal team, and the fact that bands don't make dick unless they are super popular made me that much more jaded and more willing to download those tracks (even though I neeeever do anymore).

While a bit of a lengthy read, this article lends credence to the fact that record companies suck for consumers even less than they suck for the bands themselves. Admittedly, I have no idea if this piece is accurate or even applicable to most bands, but if the math is as stated, you'd be better off downloading an album off the internet and mailing your favorite band a check for $5 to split between the members. At least at that point, the record company isn't in the mix to mess everything up.

Why Go Organic?

Perhaps I'm old fashioned, cheap, or just an ass, but I really don't understand the whole "Organic" craze that's sweeping everything from cereal to produce to even tampons. The less environmentally friendly of the population are finding more and more obstacles in their way at their nearest supermarket.

It seems that more and more companies and brands are going "green" and making organic versions of already existing products to lure in the inner tree-hugging hippy in us all. At the core, organic sounds good: it's good for you, it's good for the earth, it's good for Susan Saradon. But my question is ... really?

On one hand, I can fully appreciate the fact that ingesting toxic chemicals is probably not the best thing. Fortunately, the ever-increasingly-awesome Consumerist has posted on the cost effectiveness of going all natural and when it is beneficial in doing so.

On the other hand, as far as food is concerned, not having any pesticides or chemicals in your sirloin steak may sound healthier, but

No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food. And the USDA — even though it certifies organic food — doesn't claim that these products are safer or more nutritious - Scientific American

This is not to mention that organic products are higher priced than their earth-raping counterparts by up to 40%. And there is also the argument that organic farming yields less crops, feeds less people, and other things that are way above my rudimentary agricultural skills.

So, if you have conflicting evidence in both directions, why would you choose the higher of the two options? I can safely say I have never bought a single organic item in my life and I generally don't jump on the popular bandwagons. While I don't prefer toxic chemicals dumped into water supplies, we've dealt with worse in the past (not me personally, but humanity as a whole).

So forget you Seventh Generation and your overpriced laundry detergent/dryer sheets/god-knows-whatever-else. I'll stick with Tide and the world will keep turning.

Of course, if I'm wrong, I'll be dead so I probably wouldn't care too much.

Scientific American: Organic foods: Are they safer? More nutritious?
Consumerist: When Is It Worthwhile To Buy Organic?

Don't Misuse the Voicemail Greeting

Last night at work, I had to attempt to call a customer on his phone to follow up with his account. The phone did not ring and went straight to his voicemail greeting.

While most people use voicemail as a purgatory of sorts for people they really don't want to talk to, some use it for really stupid purposes. You have those who think the Sarah Conner in the orignal Terminator film left a fine message and subsequently piss you off when you hear:

Hello? Hello?!? Fooled you! You're talking to a machine.

You have others who decide spending $1 per month on those ringing tones is too much and use the voicemail greeting for a piss-poor quality recording of the new Fall Out Boy song.

Bringing things back to a point, my customer last night had a voicemail greeting consisting of only the following:

If you a bill collector, stop calling. I ain't got it.

So, not only does this tell anyone else who calls that you are probably a deadbeat, it tells these debt collectors of your unwillingness to pay.

I doubt though that will stop the deluge of calls from Entertainment Weekly and Verizon about those delinquent accounts.

Paying them certainly would though.