Saturday, October 20, 2007

A recent day trip


We wanted to take a day trip in September, decided on Seattle. We had gone on the underground tour in the past but not with the kids. Got a few neat shots, I really wanted PC doc to get a good shot of one of the tour guides Angus, in his "utilikilt", mostly because 1) Angus is a fun name, 2) I like saying Utilikilt, and lastly, well, a good looking, buff Scotsman in a designer kilt is fun to watch. He didn't really get a good shot. Oh well.








Wednesday, October 17, 2007

tilting at windmills

Aye faithful Pancho?
We recently switched from dishnetwork to comcast cable. PCdoc got a good combo deal on our internet and tv, which was cheaper than the tv alone had been with dish. I might add that although the internet service is pretty flawless, we have been underwhelmed by the cable tv service, value, lineup, customer care etc.

Anyway, in the process I discoverd that we had an 18 month, not a 12 month agreement with Dish, and stopping it early would cost more than keeping it going at a minimal level. So that's what I did, I kept it on the family lineup which is 19.99/month, and still givesPCdoc his RFDTV, as well as the kids stuff, but doesn't include local channels. We get that on cable to it's ok. We keep the dish reciever on our bedroom TV and the comcast on the big family tv.
In the process of doing this we were required to return one of our recievers to Dish. They sent us a box, pre-labeled and everything, it got packed up and UPS picked it up as scheduled. No problem.

That is until about a month later when I saw a 100 dollar charge on my checking account by Dish. Of course I called. I need to add here that Dish has joined the disturbing trend across the great US of A of hiring out customer support to India, at least as far as I can tell by the lovely british tinged accents I hear. UPS on the other hand uses good old 'merican made folks, no funny pronunciations and impossible to decipher intro's (ello, mee nam ess FRED ((yeah right)), ow mee Iy elp yoo todee??) .

I was told by the first gentleman, Peter?, that we had not returned the reciever. I said we did, and he said that they would refund our money then. Ok, great. So I waited. And so on, doncha know. Of course they didn't. So I called back today, and spoke with Sam. Sam said we didn't return the reciever, and I said we did, and Sam said, did we have the tracking number and I said, no, the label was on the box they sent, there was no reciept to keep and he said, so sorry GI, you have to have the tracking number for us to help you. I said, isn't they your job to find, since I am not lying, and I did send the box, it is obviously an error on their part and he said, as soon as I could produce the tracking number they couild process the refund.
Ok, let me stop here and comment that I have a stubborn streak a mile wide, and I don't like being thwarted, especially when I am in the right. I don't like customer service people telling me they can't or I can't, and i don't like it when people can't do their own job, and I have to do it for them.

So that's basically what I told Sam, that I was pissed they took the money in the first place, that they screwed up and lost the damn reciever, and they were making me pay for their incompetence, and on top of the I would have to prove I returned the thing, and figure out what UPS did with it, when it was their mistake. Slam.

So I called UPS, and asked to be directed to the department that could help me find a package when I didn't have the tracking number. I got disconected. I tried again, this time they were able to get me through to the person who could tell me that, they couldn't help me without the tracking number. So, almost in tears I said, so basically, they can just lie and say they didn't get it and charge me for the item and I can't do a thing about it??? After which I got a key piece of information, the very kind UPS lady told me yes, however if the business sent me the box, THEY HAD THE TRACKING NUMBER.

So after all the conversations with Dish, peter, sam and the rest of the gang, being put on hold, going through the nameless faceless endless morsass of voice recgonition systems, they had the info all along they said I needed to provide. They had it on their little computers all along. Sigh. SO I spoke with Raymond, (at PCDoc's advice I went to tech support rather than billing, thinking it might be somewhere other than Bangladesh). It wasn't, however, I very kindly asked Ray to look up my tracking number on a box sent to me by Dish, which he did in less than 2 minutes flat. I then input this into UPS tracking and saw that the package in question had been delivered over a month ago. I asked Ray to tranfer me to billing so they could take care of the refund but he assured me that was not necessary, he could take care of that, which he did.
I guess I just didn't ask the right question. That's the key isn't, asking the right question, knowing which button to push, knowing who to ask?
And all this before breakfast or coffee...................

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Some fall pics, the tree you see first can also be seen in the city hill view, it's the really bright one in the middle of the shot at the bottom of the hill.




Vista

Sigh. My husband upgraded my computer and added vista as my operating system. Now I can't post pictures on my blog. I don't kknow why. I unblocked popups, I don't know what else to try. It also won't let my computer remember my filled in field info, which I kinds like my computer to do. It helps as I don't always write things down. What's so great about vista? I guess it has the ability to run as if you had two different computers. Sort of a virtual thing. Why I would ever want to do this is beyond me, I have enough trouble making one work. It's just like cars, I really just want it to work, and I don't want to have to go through any gymnastics, mental or physical to make that happen. He is going to put windows "something else" back on, goody!