Customer disservice – Western Union & Apple Computer

Watch out, here comes a rant! Okay, the ongoing downfall of American society and culture seems to be accelerating exponentially. In the past few days, I have either experienced or observed a couple of new outrageous acts against consumers (i.e., customers) by big business. The first of these involve Western Union – you know, the company that was once known for its telegram service and now focuses on money transfers. Well, according to Western Union’s home page, they proudly (and fraudulently) tout their “money in minutes” program in which they claim that funds can be transferred anywhere around the world in a matter of a few short minutes. Heck, they even proudly proclaim,

“Happy Chinese New Year!

Every time you send a “Money in Minutes” transfer online from the U.S. to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan you will receive a set of 10 Western Union Limited Edition Red Envelopes to share with your friends and family.”

Let’s just say that Western Union is full of rotten chow mien if they expect people to really believe that. In my case, I needed to make a simple transfer but spent TWO DAYS trying to do so through WU. I tried on the their web site, called them several times on the phone, wasted time on one of their online chat boards, going into two of their branches a total of FOUR times, and then called on the phone again. As I’ve already said, “money in minutes?” Well, it gets worse, much worse. After finally reaching someone who claimed that I could take care of the transaction and that the funds would be wired in just 45 minutes, that turned out to be a big lie. Not only did my financial institution approve the transaction and WU had no problem getting an instant hold placed on those funds, but then one of their clowns on the phone disconnected me. So. . .I called back (again), only to learn that WU had decided that due to their “business requirements,” they were refusing to wire the money. Again, this was AFTER my institution approved the transfer, after WU lied to me about sending the money within 45 minutes, after spending TWO DAYS (yes, I’m yelling), trying to deal with a simple transaction, and after being lied to by their employees. On top of that, their moronic supervisors – “Mike 697” and, allegedly, his supervisor, “Nate 745” both refused to explain what the nebulous “business requirements” were (they’re allegedly “trade secrets”) but they also informed me that the hold on my funds would be there for SIX days. That’s right, WU lied about their “Money in Minutes service,” REFUSED to complete the transaction because of their own scam, and refused to provide a reason. So, as all good consumers should do, they were reported to the Better Business Bureau and the FBI Fraud Unit. Apparently, when complaints are filed against WU with the BBB, it gets their attention as I received an e-mail from them asking for more details today. Of course, I had already taken my business elsewhere and it even cost less to do so. I will NEVER use Western Union again – what a scam.

Now for rant number two – I’ve always been a PC guy (I’ve never liked the OS for Macs) but I do like their iPods – they’re extremely well designed and are rather remarkable devices. I’ve always felt; however, that the fact that their decision that iPhones can only use ATT to provide wireless phone service was a completely stupid one (I dumped my own ATT service, years ago after having problems with their “tech support” located, where else but in India). Silly me, I thought the first letter in the acronym, ATT, referred to “American.” Apple; however, did come out with a very similar device, called the iTouch, which is essentially an iPhone without the phone – all of the other cool features are still there.

In a brazen act of stupity and disregard for their customers (many of whom have been long time Apple fans), Steve Jobs – Mr. Big Mac himself  – spoke at Apple’s trade show/conference on Monday whereby he touted the latest wonders of Apple’s engineers and announced the launch of new software applications for the iPhone and iTouch. While owners of the iPhone received those applications at no charge (i.e., FREE), Mr. Big Mac also announced that owners of the iTouch, could receive the exact same software application for a measly twenty bucks. Considering that the iTouch costs the same as the iPhone and that it is essentially identical in everyway (of course, without the phone service), Mr. Big Mac’s announcement has rightfully launched a massive outcry from iTouch users. Furthermore, Apple is actively censoring posts on their own discussion boards about the situation, but that hasn’t stopped angry consumers from posting elsewhere. Not surprisingly, the media has also picked up on the situation and, while very little is coming out of Mr. Big Mac’s mouth (maybe he’s choking on a few apple seeds), the so-called “update” is no longer downloadable from Apple’s site. If a large company like Apple is so arrogant as to ignore their responsibility to their customers, no wonder that others, like Western Union, can get away with so much. What ever happened to the adage that “customers are always right” and common courtesy towards those that cough up hard earned dollars for products and services? Oh well. . .

Had a great weekend

After having a very stressful week, I had a terrific time with my boy on Sunday. We started out by taking a trip to Seal Beach as I had read there would be members of a local kite club meeting for their monthly flying event. Sadly, there was just one gentlemen but he did have up several huge (125 sq. ft.) kites. That; however, did keep us from flying some of our kites and we had a great time. My boy spent much of the time digging in the sand while I chatted and watched the kites.

As the afternoon wore on, we decided to pack up our gear and pay a visit to the local kite shop – which, as to be expected, was a mistake. 🙂 We ended up buy two Stylus P.1 kites. These have 5 1/2 ft. wingspan parafoil (no frames) power kites. Of course, we went directly back to the beach in order to fly them. The were absolutely fantastic! To date, I haven’t had much luck with stunt kites (my boy spent New Year’s Day flying a delta stunt kite – I didn’t really get a chance 🙂  ) and these were the first parafoil stunt kites we had ever flown. I was amazed at how relatively simple they were to fly and was absolutely enthralled with the experience! We stayed until well after the sun went down and would have stayed longer but we could barely see the kites!

It was so much fun to fly these that I can’t wait to go back and fly some more. While I’ve been hooked on KAPing (Kite Aerial Photography), I can also see flying the parafoils as a great way to spend an afternoon – and getting some much needed exercise at the same time! I can also see this as a great way to get some much needed relief from stress – flying the Stylus P.1 takes full concentration but is also very relaxing in that I had complete control (well, almost complete control) of the kite as it danced around in the sky. I can also imagine booting up my iPod and making the kite “dance” to the music as the Stylus P.1 was very, very graceful and yet could really move. Heck, I may end up buy yet more kites (a bigger Stylus?). Kite flying as a kid was fun but even something as simple as kite technology has changed so much since then that it’s now just plain downright addicting! Who would have imagined, four decades ago (now, I’m not THAT old!) that one could spend an afternoon taking some really cool photographs while making kites dance in the sky with your boy! BTW, my KAP blog is located here.

I’ve got to admit that an afternoon simply can’t get much better than what I’ve just described but our day wasn’t yet complete – the fun only continued. After we packed up our gear, we went to the movies. As noted elsewhere, my boy has been doing some background acting and we went to see a movie in which he had a role it – Norbitt. While we’ve had limited success in seeing him on some of the other things he has done, we didn’t know what to expect with Norbitt. To our tremendous surprise and extraordinary delight, he appears in the first few minutes of the movie and his appearance is as plain as day! We were absolutely thrilled! As the movie was just released last Friday, it will be months before it is available on DVD. Once I am able to buy a copy, I’ll post his picture on this blog. I’m very proud of him.