OT: Stupid Business Practices (starting with Southwest)

[JD10367]

Okay, new place to rant about companies that irritate you...

We want to go to Florida in December. (We couldn't get tickets for the Pats/Fins game 'cause the effin' thing sold out quickly, but we're still gonna go down and try.) We'd like to fly down on Wednesday December 6th and back on Monday December 11th. We'd like to fly Southwest: they're cheap, they have comfy seats, and I like the "First Come First Serve" seat policy.

However, SWA is also the only company that has this ridiculous practice of only having tickets a few months out. They currently don't sell them past Sunday December 10th. I called, and they don't know when the tickets will be on sale for after that; she said "maybe mid-August".

I said, "Do they realize how stupid they are? Do they realize how much business they lose?" Basically, she didn't sound like she cared. I guess their tickets are so cheap and in demand that they don't have to care about pissing off potential customers. So, some other airline will be getting my money instead of Southwest because we want to buy tickets today, not in mid-August.

Any other companies do stuff that irritate you? Now, or historically? (For example, Apple used to irritate me by keeping their stuff proprietary. In the mid-90's, I had an easier chance of finding a virgin than finding Apple-compatible software.)

[patfan64]

CBS Sportsline is pissing me off right now. I tried to take advantage of the $20 off offer and register for the football site by July 15th. Well, when I went to pay for it through the site - I got an error message. I thought that I had forgotten my password at first so I asked them to send me a new one. They said they would via e-mail. I then realized that my credit card (that was on file with CBS) had expired. All I had to do was update the expiration. Before yesterday, I had e-mailed them 5 times looking for a resolution so I could pay for the football site. No response. Worse yet, I can't access my baseball site unless I am home. My password won't work for baseball or football. I typically delete my temporary internet files evey other week to keep my computer running more smoothly. I can't do that because I would have zero access to CBS.

Last night I shot off ten identical e-mails to them. I will send 10 a day until this problem is resolved. Maybe I'll increase it to 20 on August 1. I'm home for the summer. What else have I got to do?

[JD10367]

Here's another one. I just clicked on my boston.com link to read some sports news and, lo and behold, you now have to "register" to read it.

This is something that pisses me off intensely. I can't read the Projo online any more. I can't read most of ESPN.com any more. Now I can't read boston.com any more.

It's one thing to register on a site where you post stuff. I don't want to have to #$@&*( "register" to read something. Why should we have to give these businesses access to us, just to read something? They want your e-mail address, your phone number, or the like, only so they can harass you, try to sell you things, give your e-mail address to companies so you can get more spam, etc.,. Bullshit!

[Undertaker #59]

For boston.com try:

Username: holy_fool_69@yahoo.com
Password: bugmenot



And for ProJo try:

Username: foobar@projo.com
Password: foobnewb


A lot of people hate these things. Hence the site http://www.bugmenot.com/ where I got these.

[Dirtywater]

edit: nevermind, UT posted what I just posted, lol.

[patfan64]

JD

Let's go out and grab a beer. Sounds like you're having a rough day.

[JD10367]

Originally posted by Undertaker #59
For boston.com try:

Username: holy_fool_69@yahoo.com
Password: bugmenot



And for ProJo try:

Username: foobar@projo.com
Password: foobnewb


A lot of people hate these things. Hence the site http://www.bugmenot.com/ where I got these.

Schweet!!