Like most couples, one of us is the person handling the money. In our case, that’s me. I call it “paying the bills” but I should call it “ducking the corporate fist”.
This morning, my duck-the-fist-list included activating a debit card that I received as a rebate, signing up for a class action so that I can get a few bucks in a few months because my insurance company colluded to fix prices and got caught, and dealing with an airline that decided to change my itinerary to add another connecting flight (which I specifically avoided by paying more for the ticket in the first place).
I’ll preface this by saying that I’m a privileged guy and most of this is just an annoyance rather than a serious issue. Still, I think one of the superpowers that Democrats get from small-dollar funding is the ability to run against stuff like this, and then fix it, because we shouldn’t be beholden to corporate contributions.
I realize that Republicans and corporations will squeal like stuck pigs, but fixing this stuff is not that complicated. Why shouldn’t we just outlaw rebates? They’re just a weaselly way for a corporation to advertise a discount that they don’t really want to give. Why the fuck is anti-trust and other consumer protection being done by class action lawsuit? The overhead here is enormous. Class-action lawyers make millions, and millions more are sucked down by third parties distributing the ridiculously small individual settlements. How about this instead: have anti-trust and consumer protection laws and enforcement with teeth. And, my sweet Lord, when we de-regulated airlines that didn’t mean that they could revert to a state of nature where any fee or fuck you is allowed, because freedom.
I could go on and on, but I need to call the airline again since they didn’t return my call in the promised 52 minutes after I made it. Their time: precious. My time: expendable.
Adam Lang
Trust me, you won’t see anything from the BCBS settlement for YEARS.
J.
Amen, Brother Mistermix, amen!
If you added up the time that my spouse and I have wasted on hold with credit card companies, insurers, airlines, etc., no doubt it would be over a year. And I can’t believe that people who vote for those with Rs after their names really enjoy hold music and being constantly transferred all that much. But maybe I’m wrong and they’re all masochists.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Adam Lang: I don’t expect anything from it, ever, tbf.
The Enderville Phantom
Clearly what you needed was … rebate insurance! “For mere pennies on each transaction or purchase our team of lawyers will work hard to ensure that you receive full entitlement to your rebate! Get money today!”
But seriously twenty some years ago my brother and I were sitting around wondering how to get free money for nothing and rebate insurance was it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Reminds me of that joke from an old BTAS episode:
Phylllis
Yes, like the Equifax settlement, where all us ‘greedy folk’ were castigated for signing up for the cash payment & exhausting the fund as opposed to opting for their free credit monitoring. Why would I take their credit monitoring when they exposed my data in the first place?
artem1s
I’m a little more concerned with the defanging of the FTC by SCOTUS that happened this last week
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/22/9-0-supreme-court-ruling-guts-ftcs-ability-to-seek-redress-for-consumers-484194
Scams are now a feature, not a bug for doing business in the US
waspuppet
Republicans recognize this is a problem; it’s just that their solution is to ban class-action lawsuits and stop enforcing anti-trust and consumer protection law. Similar to their preferred method for dealing with hunger and homelessness: Just let them all die and they’ll disappear.
JanieM
I’m right there with you, mistermix. And that’s all I’m going to say, otherwise I’ll never stop.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@artem1s:
Apparently Congress is working on a fix to this. When I mentioned it here a few days ago nobody seemed very concerned for some reason. Unless there’s enough Republicans in the Senate to overcome the filibuster, this is DOA. Am I missing something?
WhatsMyNym
Rebates – if you’re talking about big ticket items like tires & appliances: they are used by the producers to make sure the savings are really going to the end buyer. Otherwise the resellers tend to take their share.
Anonymous At Work
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Actually, that was kinda the deal. Deregulate and walk away. Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue, etc. grew out of the “no protection for incumbents” while TWA and a few others folded. You didn’t hear shareholders screaming the same way as they do today because there were reams of Congressional testimony and APA comments from shareholders telling Congress, President Carter, and frankly any aliens listening in from the (then) Planet Pluto that it was exactly what they wanted.
Now, that being said, the market has dictated a good hub-and-spoke system and the government should hold to strict rules about how the airlines operate their near-total local monopolies over the hubs.
Mike in NC
I turn on the TV and there is a fawning CBS interview with fascist nutjob Jon Voight, age 82. Time for Jesus to call him home.
WhatsMyNym
@Phylllis: LOL
and they hope you forgot to cancel when free service runs out…it’s only “$19.95 per month. Cancel at any time; no partial month refunds.”
Geo Wilcox
@Mike in NC: I doubt he’s headed there and the devil sure as shit doesn’t want him either.
Jeffery
I bought a particular brand of olive oil for a number of years then got a letter saying I was in some class action suit against the company. That must have been 8 years ago. Never heard anything further. I assumed the lawyers would get all the money. Still buy the same brand of olive oil.
Ken
Nowadays you just become a GQP fundraiser and skim 80% off the top. Probably the other 20% off the bottom too.
Baud
Class action lawsuits are the only way to bring private lawsuits for small dollar harms. No one is going to bother suing individually for $10 in damages.
Class actions lawsuits are not a substitute for vigorous government enforcement, and vice versa. Even the best government can’t police every corporation for every consumer harm.
There are many problems with class action settlements, but no one has come up with anything better for holding corporations accountable for mass consumer harms where the per person damage is small.
dnfree
@Jeffery: I remember some class action lawsuit many years ago, I think against Compaq, because the diagonal measurement of the monitor was 1/4” less than the stated dimension. My reaction was, who cares? I saw the size of the monitor when I bought it; my purchase wasn’t on the basis of stated size. (This is back when you bought computers in stores, children.) There still seem to be too many class action lawsuits based on technicalities.
Ivan X
Airline protip: if you can’t get them on the phone easily, and you have a specific request that doesn’t require an extended conversation, DM their social media team on Twitter. Delta’s is especially good. I can usually get most issues resolved in a few minutes, even complex things like a full refund doctor’s note exemption for my mom when cancelling a ticket.
One upside of the pandemic is all the airlines have gotten rid of change and cancel fees (though that doesn’t mean refund, they just give you a credit), so enjoy that while you can.
Please let us not get rid of rebates. Legally, that’s what credit card signup bonuses are, and by jumping through all the hoop BS, I’ve made tens of thousands on them and they allow me to fly business/1st class, which my middle aged body is ever grateful for. Don’t get mad, get even.
But I actually agree with the sentiment in the post; why not use the legislative power that the D’s currently have to make people’s lives easier by reducing corporate fuckery?
cain
@Ken:
Sounds to me that we should get in on the grift too and get our slice of whatever is the collective Trumper wallet.
Amir Khalid
@Mike in NC:
The last movie of his that I saw was many years ago, when he played Evil Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible. As Republican luminaries go, he isn’t really among the most luminous. It must have been a slow news night when they put him on.
hueyplong
Far right idiocy has passed old Jon by. He can’t compete with the pillow guy, MTG, OAN, and other peddlers of Rube Scientology. This pathetic attempt to give him a little oxygen will soon be followed up by a fame flatlining.
craigie
Quite right!
In this category: why can a company send me an email or letter unilaterally changing the terms of our agreement? Why can’t I do that to them?
hueyplong
@craigie: Remember when you checked that box beside Terms and Conditions? You know, the one that was blocking any attempt to advance to another screen?
At least it didn’t obligate you to a revolving contribution to Own The Libs.
Ken
@hueyplong: Exactly, it’s in the original agreement that they can unilaterally change the conditions. Same reason they can harvest your kidneys.
hueyplong
@Ken: It probably also obligates to you arbitration instead of civil suit and bans class treatment even in arbitration
Even about the kidney harvesting thing.
Rand Careaga
“Your call is very important to us. That’s why we’re going to leave it dangling from this phone tree for an hour or two, so that we can admire it.”
different-church-lady
A couple of weeks ago I spent a great deal of time doing two things.
The first was having a long conversation with the State Unemployment office, trying to understand what I needed to do to keep qualifying for benefits under the extended law. They were missing a great deal of my (admittedly complicated) income for 2020. The “Monetary Determination” came with a form with which one could correct the income. I filled out the form, and submitted the required pay stubs and W-2 forms.
The second was calling the IRS over the course of three days about a penalty for 2019. The first two days the lines were so busy that I wasn’t even put on hold, merely told to call later and dumped out. Upon getting through on the third day I stayed on hold an hour, and eventually was told the penalty was because they didn’t have a record of a form I could prove that I did send them. I was told if I resubmitted the form that would clear things up.
This past week I got two bits of correspondence in return.
The first was a “Monetary Redetermination” from the state unemployment office. It differed from the initial Monetary Determination in exactly zero ways.
The second was a notice from the IRS. It informed me I still owed exactly the same amount of money indicated in the first notice.
patrick II
Dealing with big business is just so frustrating — they just steal every little bit they can get from you. It may be a small amount, but it adds up. Just one small example (I could do more).I recently had someone do an electronic transfer of funds to bank account for a small business I was managing. The person did, and it was reported on her account as a electronic transfer. Eight days later I received a paper check. It turns out the bank had electronically transferred the money to an national intermediary company that prints out checks — and collects interest while the check is in the mail, misleading the check writer in the meantime. Not particularly legal but they do it to small companies they figure can’t afford to sue. Hundreds of thousands of transactions across the country and that adds up to a nice profit for them doing nothing but making the economy work less efficiently than it otherwise would. Profit for negative value added.
Professor Bigfoot
@artem1s: It’s been feeling that way to me for quite a while now.
Shafting the employees and providing as little value as conceivably possible to customers is now “just business.”
Amir Khalid
@Jeffery:
Did you yourself ever notice anything that didn’t seem right about the olive oil?
Gvg
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it was a 9-0 decision, which to me means the FTC really was going beyond the law. There is no sense in crying about the court in that case. That means the only solution is a law. Congress (the democrats) are working on it. Maybe the republicans won’t allow it. There are always plenty of reasons to elect more democrats.
Ruckus
@Ivan X:
I did well when I flew a lot. I flew A LOT. When you only fly once in a while, which for me has been almost zero in the last 16 yrs, you get screwed because you don’t know the system. Now maybe it isn’t the same any more but as a regular customer you can learn how stuff works and things go smoother, you get perks, etc. And you don’t get near as frustrated when things go sideways, you are used to a system that most people don’t use or use rarely and operates in ways we normally don’t.
Ruckus
@hueyplong:
This. Is. Perfect.
Layer upon layer of bullshit, of circular nothings, interspaced with/surrounded by big words that mean, nothing, organized into what looks like an entire system of thought, if one is unable to actually think.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus:
This is why I dread flying nowadays. They try as hard as they can to make it a complicated game there’s no way of winning.
I don’t even want to win. I don’t want to have to play a game at all. I just want to get to my destination without having it cost twice as much as they first lead me to believe it was going to.
different-church-lady
@patrick II: I think it was about three weeks ago a bunch of people here were telling me, “Hey, all business costs money, so just let PayPal do pretty much exactly this same thing, it’s really great!”
Martin
This is spot on. As Ms Martin and I moved from not-quite-poor-recent-college-grads to just-wealthy-enough-to-have-choices-in-life, one of the more notable things that happened, that we didn’t see coming is that we moved from the constant chasing life’s dark patterns, dropping our phone company every 6 months because they’d throw a new random fee on us, to being an actual valued customer, someone with enough money that they will actually, you know, do stuff for us. That fee, you call them and tell them to remove it, and they just do. It’s weird. Hey, if you switch to our bank we’ll give you $500. No shopping for which bank will fuck us over the least – just here’s some cash, come over. Those fees? They’re all negotiable if you have enough money. If you get the $500 bribe, you can tell them your account will have no fees, no overdraft, and so on and they’ll just do it. No, ‘sorry, we can’t do that in the computer’ bullshit.
So, all of the bullshit hoops they make you jump through – they’re basically all deliberate. They can actually treat you like a valued customer, but it’s unclear whether they don’t want to, or whether they want the bullshit as something they can make go away as a ‘perk’.
What’s so depressing is how everything is just clearly rigged against people without wealth and how that all goes away once you have it. Where does the $500 incentive come from? Well, clearly from the overdraft and other fees that non-wealthy customers pay.
Ruckus
@patrick II:
As a consumer the only thing you gain from a companies profit is a negative value. Oh and that they will be likely able to stay in business and take another bit of negative value added from you in the future. A business doesn’t have to make a profit, they do have to break even. But modern business demands a profit on all the parts of the business, because people have bought stock in the company and demand their share of the profits. (Also a profit helps smooth out the movement of money for the cost of providing whatever, because nothing is perfect and that goes especially for most anything made or sold by humans) Oh also a profit is nice to have, it does make the business/work of providing whatever a bit nicer. But it is not necessary. We’ve just been told it is absolutely necessary for a very long time, because people that benefit from that profit, like that, even if they did nothing to actually create it, actually especially if they did nothing.
WereBear
I don’t know what can be done about corporate phone menus, but if I had my druthers, it would involve some cruel and unusual punishment.
Yutsano
@different-church-lady:
One most likely has nothing to do with the other. We don’t move nearly that fast. If you manage to get someone on the horn again (or better yet make an appointment at your local office) ask if you can fax the form so they can correct the penalty right then.
Martin
@Amir Khalid: At least in the US, most olive oil is sold as Italian Extra Virgin, and virtually none of it is either Italian or Extra Virgin.
The scam works because most americans can’t tell what proper extra virgin olive oil should taste like. We differentiate from canola oil, etc. so as long as it’s different enough in the right way, it’s good enough. Plus we tend to not use it with such regularity for it to become the baseline where we can tell olive oils apart very well.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
It’s never really been any different with flying. It’s just that more people are doing it because it’s a relatively cheap way to go far relatively rapidly. I have friends in northern CA and go up every once in a while to see them. I can drive, fly or the train. Flying costs twice the train and with all the waiting/terminal BS takes about 1/3 the time of the train. Driving is the cheapest but takes almost as long as the train and is actual work. If I had lots of money, I’d fly, no question. The train is comfortable, just slower and of course there is a nice bus ride on each end.
Winning isn’t the goal, getting there is. Winning is not getting totally screwed in the process. What with the TSA (I have stories from traveling a lot by air) and your fellow passengers, and having to sit with about 27% of the public, who are assholes (I have stories from traveling a lot by air) and schedules changed, weather, flights canceled, not getting screwed is going to happen. I used to fly into/out of Atlanta a lot, same flight in the morning/same at night. I flew often enough the stews recognized me and my flight going home was always the last flight out at night so it got canceled a few times, not enough bodies/money to justify. I twice used the airline provided hotel, the first and last time, which happened to be the same night. After that I slept on the terminal floor, and actually got far better rested than the hotel.
The first rule of constant flying is GO WITH THE FLOW. The second is window seat. The third is to learn to sleep on the plane (window seat). The fourth is to never, ever, under any circumstances expect to leave or arrive when or even where you planned/want. The fifth is SEE RULE #1. I have stories. Might even be enough for an uninteresting book.
smith
One thing I’ve found to work, if it’s a menu that wants you to speak to it, is just yell, “Representative! Representative!” into the phone until you’re connected to a real person. Amazing how well that works. Sometimes, with a number-only menu, punching 0 repeatedly works, but not as well.
The fact is, companies really don’t want you to call. They know the convoluted menus are irritating, that music always sounds crappy on a cell phone ( and that it’s highly likely you’re calling on one), that you’ll give up if you have to wait too long, and, most importantly, that they can understaff their call service to ensure you will have a thoroughly off-putting experience so you’ll hesitate to call them again.
scott (the other one)
Read a thing not too long ago where someone who was in the top 1% of the top 1% said that the biggest difference between having that kind of money and not is that they simply have far more time. They never wait in lines, they never have to deal with insurance companies or bill-paying, they don’t wait when they go to the doctor or the dentist, they don’t go to the grocery store or cook or clean up, they don’t have to deal with the TSA, and so much more (or, I suppose, less). They have hours per day available to them that the proles don’t and never will.
zhena gogolia
I am now obsessed with this guy Scott Seiss who does an Ikea employee. He is hysterical:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7KBcsdPhxA
germy
James E Powell
An art teacher (not sure where) asked students to create a post-pandemic New Yorker cover.
The last one by Amy Young got me. The whole thread is worth viewing.
zhena gogolia
JL Cauvin and Scott Seiss are funnier than anyone on SNL except maybe Cecily and Kenan.
Another Scott
@different-church-lady: One must imagine that different-church-lady happy. Amirite?
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
WereBear
@smith: All of that is what they deserve punishment FOR!
Ruckus
@smith:
The first rule of
constant flyingcorporate phoning is GO WITH THE FLOW. The second is window seat. The third is to learn to sleep and listen (window seat helps). The fourth is to never, ever, under any circumstances expect to get what you need/want. The fifth is SEE RULE #1.Kay
@Martin:
My daughter and son in law got me fancy olive oil for Christmas because she knows I use olive oil mixed with vinegar on salads- plain, just those 2 mixed- and it was delicious. I was shocked there was such a big difference. I don’t think I can go back to the giant Costco jug :)
germy
@James E Powell:
Talented students, and they’re in for an awakening when they finally submit covers to the New Yorker. They’ll be jerked around, asked to make multiple revisions and versions before being rejected in favor of someone more famous.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: Corollary to #4 – Don’t sign up for the last flight of the day. Any flight can be cancelled, but if it’s the last flight your options are more limited.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
In other news, Green Party slightly in the lead in Germany in latest poll:
Germany’s Greens ahead of Merkel’s CDU/CSU in new poll
https://p.dw.com/p/3sXZT
Cheers,
Scott.
jonas
@Martin:
Yeah, I recall a few years ago, some consumer group tested a bunch of supermarket olive oils and found that the majority were adulterated. Basically if it’s anything other than single-producer sourced olive oil — which is phenomenally expensive — it’s probably fake. The one brand that came out legit every time? Costco’s Kirkland brand.
VOR
many years ago a local home realty firm was sued for dual agency, where the same firm represents both buyer and seller. This was legal in my state as long as it is disclosed. The settlement saw the lawyers get paid in cash while the class members got a coupon for $500 off the next time they used this firm to sell their homes. If I thought a realtor screwed me out of $5k or more then a $500 coupon is not an incentive.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Given where I was going to/coming from there really was limited choice. And the last flight home normally was the plane that was first out in the morning, except when the last flight out of home didn’t go because of lack of people traveling on the last plane to Atlanta.
And hence sleeping on the terminal floor. Always with friends.
Empty seats flying means empty airline bank accounts which make shareholders far more pissed off than customers who have little choice and cause employees to lose jobs, which they like less than pissing off customers.
Ruckus
mistermix
You referred to flight changes and fees. Airlines have had to do that to keep prices low, because if the price isn’t low people often have slower, cheaper options. Now that doesn’t work for someone like me, was who was on the road for work well over 50% of the year and seldom were the distances short enough to drive. Flying was it. Now I had a corporate credit card, but on more than one occasion that card would get maxed out between billing/payment and I’d have to use mine and be reimbursed. The company tried hiring a inside travel agent and mandated that we all had to use this person. The first and only time I used her services she changed the times/date and airline I requested and always used because it saved $12. It got me there long after I needed to be there and cost an extra day in a hotel so that $12 was quite the savings.
J R in WV
@artem1s:
Actually the politico article was really misleading — the court disallowed the FTC use of a single paragraph in the law they were using.
From more complete/prpofessional articles it appears this was an error on the part of the FTC, and there are still all the other sections of the law that they may still use to recover funds for the bilked citizenry.
I’ve about given up on Politico, they appear to be a right wing rag attempting to disguise their fascist underpinnings.
J R in WV
Rule one when flying — go front of the cabin first class or business class, better seats, more respect, good food, champagne. We don’t fly that often so well worth it.
Rule two when flying — sign up for TSA pre-approved (I’m not sure what the actual name is, but this is the gist of it) status.
Rule three when flying — if possible, check a firearm in your luggage, they never lose track of a weapon.
Rule four when flying — don’t expect to sleep on a plane, fly early enough to sleep at your destination before you need to make sense or participate in anything.
Rule five when flying — put everything you HAVE to have in your carry-on, like prescription medications. I know this conflicts with Rule three, see rule six.
Rule six when flying — sometimes nothing you do will help… If there’s an emergency on your flight they won’t want you to carry off your carry-on bag. Good luck living through the experience! Hope you have an experienced pilot like Sully!!
glc
@Another Scott:
I like this phrasing very much.
Plus, my usual airport is EWR, which tends to melt in the rain.
ExpatDanBKK
I really feel sorry for those who have to fly in the US or on US carriers. We are spoiled here in Asia. Major carriers here give excellent service (yes, even in economy) and actually care about your business. The last time we were in the States flying was a horror show: rude obnoxious staff everywhere and just awful. Well-travelled Thai wife was appalled and said “Hon, if we come back here we’ll drive everywhere because I’m not doing that again!” ?
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: and the American Chemical Society reports on methods of detecting fake olive oil. No link because I’m still drugged up from surgery and C&E News is paywalled/ACS members only after the first 3 articles.