Wednesday, January 21, 2009
So much for books at the Bookstore
Last night was the first night of classes for WPI C Term [which is part-time, night students] and after dropping off my rather large check for the two classes I am taking at the accounting office, I made my way to the campus bookstore to pick up the serviously over priced books. Each of my classes require a single book bu the campus bookstore was currently out of both. I was told my the store manager that one was on back order and the other was on hold because of a publisher change of numbering. Also she commented that one of my classes had more students then expected. My reply was that since class started tonight, students kind of need their books now.
Having used their "back order" system, I left the bookstore with two pink slips of paper - one representing an order for each book. Pretty expensive paper when you consider I spent over $280 for them. Last semster I had a similar problem with materials for the one class I took and thought at the time that I had never had these problems in the past and now it seems to only be getting worse. If the campus bookstore continues down this quasi-just-in-time model, they are going to lose a ton of business to out side venders such as amazon next semster.
Labels: College, Going out of business
Friday, October 10, 2008
I need a friend like this
Cognos ULC, and its sales agent, Joseph Lally gave more than $1.8 million in previously undisclosed payments to three promient Boston businessmen. These men, longtime legal associate [and office mate] Steven J. Topazio, accountant and former campaign treasurer Richard D. Vitale and DiMasi confidant Richard W. McDonough, all are close freinds and business assocaites of House Speaker
Salvatore F. DiMasi. They each received monies classified as lobbying fees were never reported to the Massachusetts secretary of state's office, which requires these be publicly disclosed. Interestingly enough, these payments coincided with the award of multimillion-dollar contracts from the state. OUt of all of the payments, the biggest single payday for Vitale and McDonough was Aug. 31, 2007, the same day the state wired $13 million to Cognos for a statewide technology contract, the largest in the company's history.
I wonder if the IRS is going to join into the on going state investigation into the comapny and these men? I wonder if DiMasi will get caught up in all of this? I guess our current troubled economic times does not include large software companies who have the money to pave the way to state contracts. Wonder what they could have done with that 1.8 million instead of buying off people in Boston for contract? Perhaps it was a good investment, now if the state could only keep it's hands out of the cookie jar and do business straight, we all might just be a better state for it.
Labels: Going out of business
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Spectator's Award of Excellence, Not
Author
Robin Goldstein got curious about Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence while researching his book entitled The Wine Trials [blind wine tasting book which boasts 100 wines under $15 that outscored $50-$150 wines]. So using Microsoft Word, he cooked up a fictional restaurant, a menu and a good sized wine list. The "restaurant" is called Osteria L’Intrepido and is "located" in Milan Italy. Goldstein's menu included, what he terms, a fun amalgamation of somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes. And the piece de resistance is his wine list which included more than 250 wines including whites, reds, and sparkling wines–some of which scored well in the magazine. However the "reserve" list he included for Wine Spectator's review was largely chosen from among some of the lowest-scoring Italian wines in Wine Spectator over the past few decades.
In order to make the application appear genuine, Goldstein also obtained a Milan phone/fax number, as required by the application, and established a small online presence. With all this completed, he submitted a cover letter, the $250 fee and his menus" for Wine Spectator's inspection. Wouldn't you know it, they gave him the
Award of Excellence even though he didn't exist and was never contacted for verification.
With an estimated income of over 600k from the award each year and apparently very little effort, Wine Spectator appears to making quite a profit from this "award" system. I'm kind of waiting for Wine Enthusiast to create a contest to see how many people can get this award just to shine a very bright light on what appears to be more of a sham than the rest of domestic awards combined.
Labels: Going out of business, Wine
Monday, June 16, 2008
Verizon Customer Service, Part 2
Dear Verizon,
I tried again to upgrade my phone this weekend but unfortunately I was again turned away by your retain outlets. This time the problem is not that my name and number has purchase ability but rather I am the second phone number on our family plan. So the sales representative told me that I could not utilize the $50 credit the account has for a phone upgrade but I could pay $20 transfer fee and purchase a new phone if I wanted to. Hmm let me think about that... Nope, thanks.
Yup, that's an 0-for-2 trip to the Verizon retain store.
So after returning home, I called their 800 service line and I was told that upgrading my phone using our account credit is not a problem and she promptly ordered me a new red juke phone which should arrive mid-week. The service rep actually commented that I have no need to go to their physical location unless I need to look and touch a new phone, otherwise everything can be done online or over the phone. Thanks for the tip, so now I will never need to return to one of those -oh-so-unhelpful locations as long as I remain a Verizon customer. Maybe we will start seeing less and less retail stores if this trend of anti-service continues.
Which at this point, is fine with me.
Verizon Customer 123456789
[because we are all just numbers to Corporate America]
Labels: Business, Going out of business, Internet
Thursday, May 03, 2007
More good new for Lowes
Last night Boston's local ABC affiliate, WCVB,
aired a story about Home Depot and their
deceptive installation tactics. In the story they
reference a manual which has some pretty troubling statements, such as:
- DON'T tell the customer that this is an outside service
- Use a blank Labor Bill (with the labor rates deleted)
- You are NOT permitted to wear shirts or hats that advertise a competitor of The Home Depot
- NEVER criticize RMA of Home Depot in front of the customer
- Clean up the job every day and, most importantly, when the job is completed - the customer may not know enough to identify a poor installation, but they definitely notice when you leave their home a mess
- The customer is Home Depot's customer! You are NOT permitted to ask for or accept additional work unless the work will be done by RMA on behalf of Home Depot
Also the Georgia's Office of Consumer Affairs [Home Depot's corporate headquarters are located in Atlanta] is investigating Home Depot for deceptive practices, and now, they are interested in the manual.
In a related story, last month, Home Depot opened stores that measure 28,600 to 50,000 square feet, smaller than its average 105,000-square- foot format, in California and are also rolling out small-market stores in Tennessee in July. Maybe this is another sign of the beginning-of-the-end for The Home Depot.
Labels: Going out of business
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
BestBuy online or else
Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices based on an article written by George Gombossy in the Febuary 9th edition of the Hartford Courant. According the Gombossy's research, BestBuy has been using an internal website that looks exactly like their public website however the intranet site has different, as in higher, prices. BestBuy spokesman Justin Barber, who in early February denied the existence of the internal website that could be accessed only by employees, says his company is "cooperating fully" with the state attorney general's investigation. Based on what his office has learned, Blumenthal said, it appears the consumer has the burden of informing Best Buy sales people of the cheaper price listed on its Internet site, which he said "is troubling."
This investigation could not happen to a, in my opinion, better company. In my experiences with BestBuy I have found that they are unfriendly and difficult to their customers. We bought a laptop there last fall and we may have actually seen their intranet in action. I know it was very, very difficult for us to purchase the new laptop with the free printer and software incentive and it took us a good hour to convince the customer service folks that the deal was legitimate.
If the AG of Connecticut find them to be at fault for a high-tech bait-and-switch, I would recommend they are charged with larceny in the sixth degree [Class C misdemeanor - which carries up to 3 months of imprisonment and up to $500 fine] for each transaction made by all 11 stores in the state. Let's just say that each store does 1 million annual transactions [which I think is low], then they would be fined $5.5 billion dollars and that should about take care of it. Of course if this logic was applied to the entire corporation across the country then they would be out of business - but it would put an end to these kind of shady practices.
Even if the state doesn't get BestBuy, I'm sure their stockholders will since their stock prices has been steadily declining since Gombossy's February 9th article. The close price on February 8th was $51.12 and they closed yesterday at $47.61 which is a loss of almost 7% in 5 weeks. We might also hear of some sudden retirements from the upper management in the BestBuy organization if this issue doesn't get resolved quickly and the stocks continue to slide.
Labels: Going out of business
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Why Home Depot is getting it's ass kicked?
Home Depot stock has been completely flat, hovering around the $35 to $40 range, since it posted a high of $51 back in 2002. They recently removed their Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli, Executive Vice President and General Counsel Frank Fernandez and Executive Vice President, Human Resources Dennis Donovan in a management shake up. Nardelli had held that position for the past 6 years and probably was shown the door because of the flat stock, which any stock owner will tell you is not good business. That all sounds bad but here's my recent experience:
When into my local Home Depot, which I used to go to all the time until a Lowes was built 2 miles from my house, recently to look for some bathroom accessories because I hadn’t been able to find exactly what I was looking for at other stores. As soon as I entered I remembered why I liked Lowes so much better, Depot's in general are uninviting and have that warehouse look and feel. Very cold and honestly they feel almost dirty. I walked around and actually found a faw things I liked but did notice that most of the boxes I pulled of the shelves where very dusty. Does their merchandise actually sit on the shelf that long or is it just that dirty in the store? not sure. Anyway, I go to the self-check out because I like this innovation and I don't mind scanning and bagging my own purchase. That went well and I grabbed my two bags of goodies and I started to head out of the store. Just as I hit the doorway, the alarms go off meaning I had a purchase with a sensor and it had to be deactivated. I actually kept walking because the girl working there saw me checkout and pay and even said goodbye to me on the way by. Well she ran after me and asked me to return to the store so she could fix the issue. At this point I was getting annoyed because, for me the paying customer, there is no issue. I paid for the items I left with, what's the issue? Anyway, when we returned to the regular checkout, she and another associate took my bags and first looked at them and didn't know which item was the culprit so they just scanned all the items in both bags until the $22 towel bar made the register beep indicating it was de-activated. This didn't take very long but I found it to be so unnecessary and this is the reason their stock is flat. The store's are gloomy, the service is sub-par and clearly their IT infrastructure is poor at best since their self check-out isn't clever enough to inform the consumer they have a security tag on a product they are purchasing. The Depot thinks it's a better business model to wait till the customer sets off the alarm so that they can be made to feel like common criminals while shopping at their stores.
Well, needless to say, I avoid the Depot [have been for years] and will continue to as much as humanly possible and say thank you a thousand times over for Lowes picking my home town to build one of their stores in. You have made my life easier and taken just a little stress away all at the same time.
Labels: Going out of business
