Jeff Haas Mazda - General(ly Specific) Complaint(s)

I've really been thinking about how I don't post here anymore, which I follow by saying I've been considering turning this blog into a complaint log. It almost seems like I'm always complaining about something. I don't do it for any personal gain though; I do it to warn you. I search for an appropriate outlet to lodge my complaint without having to sign up for some site that will sell my information to some advertising company (yet another thing I'd have to complain about!) and usually wind up empty handed and anger-ful (you like how I did that?). So I wind up here again, and that is the extremely long-winded intro to my rant about the Jeff Haas Mazda dealership in Houston, TX.

I know dealerships are scummy, with all the (usually unethical) tactics they employ, but I at least expect them to carry their operations out in a friendly demeanor. I'm 99.99% certain I'd never been yelled at by an employee at a dealership, until this visit. The smug, angry financial manager was only part of the complaint though. The way the deal was handled overall, led something to be desired. I'll admit, I've been listening to some best negotiation practices MP3's by several authors (some of my favorites are by Roger Dawson) so I guess I was expecting a more congenial showdown (or no showdown at all!). Fisher, Ury, and Patton talk about the angry negotiator, and I have since learned better how to deal with someone like that, but it was a surprise at the time to have someone in that state of mind at a place where you kind of expect to get your butt kissed a little. Anyway, on to the story!

We found a car we wanted through Yahoo Autos and emailed the internet salesman with our interest and terms. We told him we need to be between a certain price range and we don't have (or want to put down) a down payment. We do have a trade-in but it is slightly "upside down" financially. Carl Scott, the salesman responded kindly saying he definitely felt he could get us in our range pending credit approval. "Great," we thought and quickly headed there on our first day off together (Saturday). We set up an appointment but of course we had to wait on Carl when we got there. He was very friendly at least, and didn't pressure us on anything. He brought us back a list of figures that were still out of our price range, but he said that the finance manager could work with us on the numbers and that the figures on the paper were just estimates. We can handle that, and we just assume that this dealership works a little different than others where you do most of your bargaining with the salesman before you get to finance.

So we wait. They have a small room with 1 TV on CNN or some other news station where all they play are commercials and disturbing international news. I'll refer to it as "The Holding Cell."

Thirty minutes later: we are greeted by the finance manager Kortney Malito.

As an aside, I've done some searching on him to see if others have complained, and he is apparently some kind of Master Level Business Manager according to "The Automotive Training Academy." I guess he just had to pass the "5 day training course" to be classified in this "distinguished" manner, because it surely has nothing to do with his cordial and ethical business practices (non-existent).

Mr. Mal(d)ito immediately became irate that we weren't taking the deal he had weaved, which was clearly (although only by a small margin) outside of our agreed upon price range. "That's just semantics," he raved. Really? According to Merriam-Webster semantics doesn't mean "untrue," it means the study of words and how they change through history. Does this mean the Automotive Training Academy doesn't teach definitions of useful terms? Maybe "Master Level" means: "you sell cars real good - even if you have to bully a couple people (or everyone) to meet your forecasts."

But I digress.

I don't know if there really was some misinformation provided by Mr. Scott, or if Mr. Malito was just using psychological warfare, but he actually had to call Scott into the room to clarify what the original agreement had been. Malito had an angry tone most of the time, especially when I brought up any kind of bargaining stance. He basically yelled at me when I mentioned the dealership's "documentation fee" as a point of discontent. I stated that it was not required by the state of Texas, as I had previously learned, but he wasn't hearing any of that! He quickly shot his chair around to grab previous documents, stating that Jeff Haas has never (EVER) waived the fee, and that I would "kill the deal" if I made that an issue. I'm actually curious if bringing that number up, but being told that it would not be negotiated is illegal since the state does not require it and declares that it should be a number agreed upon by both parties (if you know, please shoot me a comment to inform me). Then he exclaimed that there was another couple waiting to buy the car and that there were other people waiting to get financing, so if I would just hurry up and sign the deal we could get moving.

And I'm running out of steam...

He broke me down with his tone and his (overkill) argumentative nature until I was just unwilling to keep trying for a fair deal. We were eventually actually inside of our price range, so I let it be and we bought the car.

"Sign here here here here here here here here here and here..." and the deal was done.

"Hand this (paper plate) to Mr. Scott and he will put it on the car for you."

I honestly don't even recall if he thanked us for buying the car because I was so sick to my stomach at that point. It didn't get any better when we got back to Scott and he handed us the key. Wait... the key?

"There's only one key?" We asked.

"Yep," was his only response.

This isn't just any key, this is a $156 "switchblade" programmable linking key. Great, another kick in the pants on the way out!

After all the dust settled and we were driving to show our friends and family the new purchase, it dawned on us that we had been totally distracted by all the numbers and attitude, that we completely forgot to ask for a Carfax report! DOH!! Of course to make it worse, the universe saw fit to show us literally 50 Carfax commercials that night while watching TV.

Maybe it just wasn't our day! The car is nice though.








. .

The Worst Airline in The World (Not Just the US)

This post is not merely a rant, nor is it slanderous, but rather it is a report of a horrible experience with US Airways. I will post the actual email sent to US Air and Travelocity's customer service email addresses, along with their responses. This is an honest complaint as well as a "BUYER BEWARE" alert! The copied contact form submissions are a little lengthy because we wanted to make sure the actual events were expressed as clearly as possible.

So it goes ...

The Original Customer Relations Email:

I am writing this letter to you, not as a gimmick to receive free vouchers or whatever it may be, but rather to inform you of a horrible experience that myself and three other individuals in my traveling party were subjected to as a result of booking our flights with US Air. Our
horrid experience began as soon as we checked our bags with the attendant inside Terminal A of Bush IAH in Houston, Texas on Thursday April 2, 2009.

As anticipated, there was a charge for our checked baggage (which is a common practice amongst airline carriers now). Call me crazy, however, I feel as though if I am going to pay $30.00 for two pieces of luggage to travel with me, the checked bag handling process sure as heck better exceed any of my previous notions of care under the old system (of not paying). Unfortunately this was not the case. I watched in disbelief as the clerk launched my bags from the check-in station face down onto the conveyor belt with little (actually no) regard for my belongings that I just paid $30 for on top of my ticket price. It is not that I had anything fragile packed away, it was just the fact that my property was being abused for no reason what so ever.

Being that we were going on vacation, we all shrugged the situation off and headed toward our departure gate. Upon glancing at our boarding passes, we were shocked to see that for both our departing flight into Phoenix and our connection into Honolulu all of our seating assignments had been changed from what we booked on Travelocity. [This subject will be revisited in detail shortly] So again we shrugged the situation off in the hopes or putting these inconveniences behind us.

Due to adverse weather in Houston that morning, we were delayed over 1 hour once we boarded the plane before takeoff [This of course is not being blamed on anyone, simply being added for a better understanding of the situation]. Since we only had a small window of time between flights (Houston to Phoenix and Phoenix to Honolulu) my girlfriend and I decided to page one of the flight attendants while we were still parked on the runway waiting in line to take off. We wanted to inquire about any connection info or later flights into Honolulu - Not a strange request of information I figured. Unfortunately, rather than receiving answers to our questions (or even getting to ask them) the young lady (all in one motion) turned off the service page light above our heads and simply said "We don't know anything about that yet" as she walked away. Need I remind you, I did not even ask a question! She simply saw that my girlfriend and I were frantically viewing our itinerary.

Well, thankfully, we did make it to our connecting flight simply because we all sprinted across the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport just minutes before the aircraft door was sealed (other people from our flight from Houston were not as fortunate). This time our seats were 30 rows behind where we initially selected upon booking! Not to mention that our group was completely separated. Oh well, on with the trip we figured.

Now, at this point (before our departure to Honolulu) we had already been up and traveling for over 4 hours off and on, and the flight to Honolulu would total out our travel time at over 10 hours. Naturally, at some point during a 10 hour span, one would eat. So, we planned on eating a light lunch on the plane during the flight to Honolulu (Since two meal choices and a snack choice were to be offered on the flight as advertised by both the flight attendant and the US Air Magazine). Bad decision! Being that my girlfriend and I were in row 30 (instead of row 5) of the Boeing 757-200 craft we eagerly anticipated our turn for the attendants to take our meal request. Much to our dismay, upon reaching row 24 the attendant with the (most sarcastic grin I have ever seen in my life) exclaimed, "Sorry, we are out of food!" as she (without hesitation) walked the cart to the back of the craft. I honestly thought the rear of the plane was going to revolt. Imagine that over 12 rows or people did not even get the option to eat! That's 12 rows at 6 people per row, 72 people! Wow, is that even possible? Even people that did get to enjoy a meal (our friends who we were supposed to be seated next to in the front) suffered from US Air's horrible service. They had to hold onto their trash for over three hours! When they asked an attendant to remove it so they could put their tray-table up, they were snapped with, "You're going to have to wait.", as the attendant kept walking past.

The airline industry is said to be struggling to stay afloat. I, having not worked in this particular industry, am simply speculating that the in-flight meals turn a profit - At $7 or $5 a pop, they would have to. Well just imagine that 2/3 of the people that did not get to eat were planning on it (like myself) that would roughly bring in an additional $332 of sales for that flight alone. Not to mention, satisfy the hunger of people traveling in your crafts. Shouldn't the flight attendant have
been trained or have enough wherewithal to genuinely apologize and offer an alternative, maybe an additional soda or something rather than just disappear?

Well, we finally make it to Hawaii and had a great time, all the while dreading having to travel with US Air on the return flight. So, Sunday April 5, 2009 we make it out to the airport expecting the worst.

Sure as the sun rises, we got it again! This time our travel group's seating arrangements were so screwed up, at times on our trip home we wouldn't even be sitting with our significant others! (Did I fail to mention we booked and reserved our seats over 2 months in advance?) So, naturally at the check-in kiosk we attempt to change our seats using the interactive flight manifest, so that we could at least be in the same vicinity of each other. Now please explain to me why some seats in the
coach section of the plane cost an additional $25 or $10 to occupy? Is it just a gimmick to get some fast cash? I already explained how you can do it legitimately through food sales or is the state of your company so bad you need to squeeze your customers in every direction possible for their hard-earned money? [Honestly, I still don't know why those seats cost more, even the attendant couldn't tell me.]

We attempted to ask the check-in clerk if there was any way to waive those fees so we could sit next to each other, and as expected, she was of no use. In fact she argued with us that this whole situation was our fault for booking online and attempted to downplay the whole situation.

Well thinking back, she was right about something, this entire situation actually was our fault, we were the ones that selected US Air in the first place.

I'm sure you can imagine the rest. Thankfully we made it home to Houston and our luggage made it too. I have no grievances with the pilots or complaints about the act of flying, except to mention that each time we boarded one of the dilapidated vessels operated by US Air I was not only horrified to see that it was left rancid and filthy from the flight before us, but also amazed that the craft could actually fly. I kid you not when I say that the craft which carried us from Honolulu to Phoenix had a hole in the cabin veneer the size of a golf ball and two others just like it covered with painted duct tape on row 14 by seat F! If that was the inside of the plane that people can actually see, I would hate to see what is not in view.

In an effort to keep this letter to a tolerable minimum, I will allow you fill in the blanks as far as how my travel experiences with US Air were. I seriously hope to never fly with you again (as do the other 3 members of our group). Sadistically enough, I genuinely hope that others will follow suit until you learn to value and respect the individuals that pay your bills - or simply go out of business. In a day and age where people are restructuring their priorities in life and stretching their incomes, one would think a company such as this one would do everything possible to create loyal customers and really "wow" them with your service and care, yet you seem to do the exact opposite - But what do I know? Oddly enough, it did not seem to be just me or our group, as we witnessed other passengers demanding to speak with supervisors and watched as the customer service line inside of Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport grew and remained at over seventeen seemingly angry passengers in the course of an hour. We would have spoken with a US Air representative the morning of the 6th; however she yawned as we approached her and rolled her eyes, so I didn't even bother.

Like I stated earlier, I am not looking for anything and I would be surprised if this letter ever gets read other than an email server just sending me an auto-reply in the standard form, but who knows.

So there you have it. Hopefully you were able to read through the entire account so that you could form a clear picture of what we endured. He didn't even mention the part about how the steward of our return flight from Honolulu to Phoenix (the long one!) allowed two people to move forward from the rear to sit next to us (one beside each group) without asking if it was OK with us. Normally I wouldn't mind too much, and probably would have said "Sure." if he HAD asked, but he didn't, and the two individuals just happened to be rude and disrespectful. My first impression of the person moved to sit next to me was shattered by her slinging her sweaters and carry-on luggage (3 pieces!?) into the seat, hitting me in the arm several times, yet never bothering to say so much as "Hi," or "Sorry," before settling in and falling fast asleep. The male moved to sit next to our companions, had a very similar attitude but unfortunately enough for them, he had the added "benefit" of reeking of smoke, alcohol, and body odor. Of course, as he fell asleep, he naturally leaned towards them, and was a burden the entire flight.

Ah, it feels so good to get complaints off your chest and vent your frustrations, but I digress.

Travelocity was CC'd on the email for 3 reasons:
1) We used them to book the travel packages,
2) We figured they would want to know about and document US Airways' horrible service, possibly removing them from their search results, and
3) So that US Air might be moved towards an actual customer relation response, knowing that Travelocity would be watching.


The Results

Travelocity was the first to respond, and I don't have that actual email, but apparently they have issued my friend a $100 voucher for travel through their service for any time in the next 13 months. Not too shabby, or rather, a reasonable response from a company which didn't even really have any control over why we experienced what we did. So I would say I'm pleased with their return, and will probably use them again in the future when taking trips or booking vacations.

HOWEVER!

I DO have US Airways' reply, and it is just plain ridiculous! Here is the exact copy (with account info starred out) for your viewing and critiquing pleasure.

Response from US Airways Customer Relations Contact Form

From: Customer Relations
To: ******@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2009 2:04:58 PM
Subject: US Airways Customer Relations - US-09******-049D4 - G1C

Dear Mr. ******:

Thank you for contacting Customer Relations at US Airways. We appreciate
hearing from our customers and having an opportunity to address their
concerns.

Please accept my apology for the disappointing service you received. Our
customers deserve a pleasurable experience each and every time they fly
with us, and I am sorry this trip did not meet your expectations. Your
comments regarding our service are important and we appreciate you
taking the time to let us know.

We appreciate and value your business. We're working hard to earn your
continued patronage. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to do so.

Sincerely,

Joseph Gutierrez
US Airways Customer Relations
Corporate Office

US-09******-049D4

As Charlie Brown would exclaim, "Good grief!" Are they serious? Is that all? It's completely devoid of emotion or any actual sense of appreciation or empathy. Maybe since my friend said he wasn't contacting them for vouchers, they decided they wouldn't even offer (or try to make good on the situation at all).

My email response to my friend ...

This part confuses me: "We appreciate and value your business. We're working hard to earn your continued patronage. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to do so."

How are they appreciating and valuing your business? By solely responding? How are they working hard to earn your continued patronage? By simply responding? He's right about you giving them the opportunity, but it appears they have done NOTHING with it!

How expected!!!

... But I'll let you make your own decisions.

Save yourself heartache, stress, and pain by upgrading your travel experience and avoiding US Airways at all costs!



. . . . .

Is Gexa Energy Price Gouging?

*** Update ***

The first of this month (April 2009) my roommate received a letter from Gexa informing him that their web security was compromised and that his information was made available to whoever hacked in. I'm assuming they tracked someone down who they suspect initiated the breach, because they continued that they were currently in the process of indicting the party responsible...

I long ago warned him about how shoddy that company is, so all I can say now is "I told you so."

****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ******


And if so, who do I contact?

**WARNING** - This is a particularly lengthy rant, so I'll summarize with bullet points at the end, in case you're not in a reading mood right now. That way, you can come back and catch up on all the mushy details some other time.

So it begins...

I've never been real happy with our electric provider, but recently things have gotten out of hand. I'm renting the spare room of a condo from a friend, so all the bills are in his name. He's been with Gexa Energy for his electric provider since he moved in, and possibly before that (he seems pretty loyal, even though the company has been bending us over, the last couple of months).

Which leads me to this scenario, and why I believe Gexa might be gouging:

When I had electricity in my own name in the past, I never saw more than a cent raise in "per kilowatt hour" charges over the span of any single billing period (possibly in the summer when the Texas heat is unbearable without air conditioning, so at least it would be an understandable increase), but the last three billing periods with Gexa Electric have shown an average 2 cents per billing period rise to the current 21.something cents per KWH!

Besides not wanting to pay an extra $100 a month for electricity, the falling gas prices got me to thinking that maybe something isn't right with this electrical price spike that's been occurring.

Three months ago (after the first few cent increases), I sent my roommate a link to http://powertochoose.org so that he could find a cheaper electricity provider, Texas is deregulated after all, and no one should pay more than they have to for electric services. He brushed it off saying he didn't see any companies with prices cheaper than what he was paying, or they weren't fixed/guaranteed prices, blah blah blah, etc... etc...; even though I specifically saw prices that were 4 cents/KWH cheaper than what we were paying at the time, I figured he didn't want to switch because of the hassle and possible fees related, so I understood and didn't press the issue.

Recently I did a quick search to figure out if there were potential coal sourcing issues (maybe somalian pirate ship hijacking concerns), causing the facilities burning it all, to need a couple extra hundred million dollars every month (21c/KWH x 2000 KWH/residence x minimum of 1 million customers), however, I found (not suprisingly) that the price of most American-based coal commodities has actually decreased over the last few months. Add to that, the recently reported 1 percent drop in consumer prices over the last month, and this skyrocketing electric cost just doesn't add up!!

I finally confronted the roommate again two nights ago and discussed switching providers again. I then followed up by sending him a link to http://houstonconsumerchoice.com (I couldn't remember the link I'd sent him previously and only discovered it after I perused my IM message archive), showing him specifically where to click to sign up for service with a fixed rate of 13.9 c/KWH, which is even derived from GREEN/RENEWABLE energy sources (typically a higher rate but better for the environment and green/renewable research & development). A 30% savings every month, fixed for a year, AND good for the planet!?!? I was flabbergasted!

And then it gets crazy. Instead of switching providers (showing that no-good-for-nothing gouging company that you're upset about how much you've been padding their executives' pockets), through some chain of events, my roommate has now signed up for a renewable resource plan from GEXA (to be furthermore known as the gouging devil incarnate), for 13 c/KWH!!

Any company which charges a steadily increasing rate of 30% over what they offer on a standard fixed-rate package (from what I understand, this is not a special deal of any sort), blows a red flag right into the stratosphere and screams price rape, in my humble opinion anyway (you can make your own decision).


In summary:
* Gexa has raised its c/KWH rate over 4 cents in the last two months (approx 1 c/month prior)
* Coal prices have actually decreased in recent months (coal being the number 1 energy source for electric plants)
* Gexa has fixed-rate plans offering prices 30% lower (not special introductory rates)
* Price gouging (to my understanding) is offering a service at a much inflated rate, when you can (and DO) obviously offer the same service for a much cheaper (reasonable and fair) price


So please, if you read all that, and you think the same way I do, AND you have a viable solution involving a way to punish Gexa and possibly get credited back some of the over-payments, I'd really love to hear from you!

Thanks, and happy hump day!

My (De)Vices

Someone commented on one of my Youtube videos, asking what webcam I used to get the effect I had posted about. I decided it would be a good opportunity to write a simple "about me" related post, in which I show you a couple of the devices I use on a semi-regular basis.

So here's my Logitech Quickcam Pro.

I won this beauty in a contest on a website that doesn't really exist anymore, called Collegeclub.com; they were really booming back in 2000 when I won it, and I think I only wound up with it because of website difficulties they were having with all the contest traffic. I'm sure you've never had a traffic problem on your website...but I digress.

The picture of the Quickcam was taken with my new phone - this Samsung Blackjack II (whose picture I took with the webcam).

Read all about the initial heartache I suffered trying to actually get the phone from Letstalk.com (NEVER ORDER FROM THEM! I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH!) in the post I made on my original blog about how much Letstalk.com SUCKS! Here is another similar Letstalk.com complaint with what appears to be slightly less depth than what I went through.

Upon searching for more such complaints, I find it hard to believe that most of the rants are actually about the cell phone companies, and not Letstalk.com. AT&T has been more than helpful, although I've had to contact the multiple times to fix everything Letstalk.com messed up. ARRrrggghh! Ok sorry, I'm done ranting - I just really hate Letstalk.com, and thinking about all the customer service phone calls and emails I went through just gets my blood boiling all over again. Man, I need a drink.