Customer (dis)Service: Chase Bank

Last week while waiting for Charter to call me regarding my appointment, I got a call from Chase Bank. I just got a new credit card from the company the week before and I was being contacted regarding their member services. I listened as they welcomed me and went over my account to make sure everything was correct. It was. After that, it began to get a bit weird.

The customer representative began telling me about these protections plans for my credit card. I've already declined these offers when I initially signed up, so I politely interrupted the rep. during his spiel to let me him know of this. I also requested that I be taken off any and all phone list for any future calls. The rep. to persuade me into getting the plan, which I declined and requested again to remove from any phone lists.

"I am not sure you understand this offer. This is not a cold call. This is for members only.", said the rep.

I understood what he was saying but I still wasn't going to change my mind. I declined the offer yet again.

"You are still not understanding what I am saying ..." said the persistent rep.

I was no longer having this. I firmly, yet calmly, told him that I declined the offer several but I will still being badgered for something I didn't want.

I asked, "do you think this is good customer service?"

He continued with his hard sell, and questioned my comprehension of what he was offering. I grew tired of the conversation. I calmly as possible I told him that since he refused to listen to my requests I will would be ending the call. THE GUY STILL KEPT TALKING! I said goodbye, and hung up the phone.

I am kind of worried now. I never received this kind of bad customer service from Capital One or Bank of America ... and I HATE my Bank of America credit card. In hospital after my car accident, I tried to pay with my BoA credit card only to find out they put a hold on my card. I just paid my in full the week before, but and iTunes charge posted later for $2.15 ... and then put a hold on my card. Luckily, I had my trust Capital One card.

Too bad I have to cancel it because we have been through a lot together. But they refuse to raise my limited, after 4 years and one late payment ... so they got to go -- after I use my points for my $50 Amazon.com gift card. The reasons why I got the Chase Bank card is because I got a $30 discount my TiVo HD, and I am Amazon.com whore and it offers 3 points per dollar on all orders. For every 2500 points they send a $25 Amazon.com gift card.

It should be a great relationship between myself and Chase Bank, but we aren't off to a good start.

Do you have a Chase Bank horror story?

Customer (dis)Service: Charter Communication

I have been in a battle with my cable company, Charter Communications, for several weeks now. Actually, I have been battling with them for about a year now for a variety of issues with my service. My most recent battle is regarding the cablecards that are installed in my HD TiVo.

On May 8th I got Digital/HD service added to my account, and I wanted to have the installer check my line to make sure that my signals were good. He refused because the picture at the time was clear, but I made him sign that he didn't check the signal on my work order. After the installer left, my digital and HD channels cut in and out. I eventually got rid of Charter's HD DVR and I got two cablecards installed on May 15th and I was still having an issue where most of my digital and HD channels were not coming in. I was told by the installed that it takes 24-48 hours for the channels to download to the cablecards. That didn't make any sense to me but I let the install off the hook.

48 hours later, I was still having a issue with my cable.

I had them come back on May 18th between 11am and 2pm, and they didn't show it until 2:40pm. They reactivated my cablecards, so I thought, and my service returned and I asked them to check my signals to make sure they were okay. I was pissed with them because they showed up late, messed up the initial installation, and made me return to my office late after working from home for a couple of hours. I just wanted them gone so they forgot to check the signal. Made an emergency appointment for the next day.

May 19th: Charter never showed for the appointment. Totally annoyed, I called and had to deal with their inept customer service staff who knew absolutely nothing about cablecards. After spinning my wheels for about an hour, I had to make another appointment. I wasn't going to take more time off of work so I made it for the following Saturday.

May 26th: Charter never showed for the appointment schedule between 8am-11am. I called and they send a message to the installer and they were supposed to call me within an hour. They never did.

I meet up with a friend for lunch and came back home around 2:30pm. Called Charter to let them know their installer never show up. They gave me a $25 missed appointment credit (which I didn't receive last time two times) and spoke with the installers dispatching office. They were scheduled to come up withing 1.5 hours.

I fell asleep on the couch with my (loud) cordless phone near my head. I woke up around 4:20pm and did not receive any calls from Charter. Their policy is to call you when they are on their way ... but they never called. I called Charter to let them know that the installer never called me for the appointment, but was told that the installer came at 4:16pm without calling. I was livid. They made another appointment for me for the following Monday between 1-5pm. I took it ... but I wasn't happy about it.

May 28th: Around 11:30am I heard a knock at my door. I thought it might be my neighbour because I listening to music on my desktop computer at a high volume. It wasn't ... it was actually the Charter installer 1.5 hours early for my appointment. Luckily I was home or else I would have missed another appointment. Once again, they didn't not call before showing up for the appointment.

One of my cablecards was swapped out but it wasn't pairing with systems. The installer tried to blame my Monster power filter/surge protector for the problem before I had to set him straight and let him know the problems were associated with the device. I asked him to check my signal, but the installed tried to tell me that the signal was fine and a booster was recently added to the main line to improve the signal. I adamantly asked him to check my signal because it has been an issue for at least two years. It was the reason why I couldn't get a cable modem in my apartment. He wasn't happy but he went to his truck, got his equipment, checked the signal, and lo and behold ... my signal completely out of range.

I asked the installer if he could fix the problem, but he said he couldn't. Not only did he not have the equipment to do so, I was told that it possible couldn't be fixed because I lived in a apartment. Ummm ... what? I have been paying a home wiring maintenance fee (which covers repairs to faulty wiring) for 1.5 years and now I was being told that I can't have maintenance on my wires? How does that make any sense?

After taking a look at existing wiring, he called his HQ and they scheduled an in-house installer to rewire my apartment June 2nd. They should be able to run a new line from the main box to my apartment, which should solve all my problems. I just have to get approval from the apartment managers.

Hopefully, everything goes as planned because the Roland Garros-French Open has started and I don't want my tennis coverage interrupted.

DVDs: Glitter (Rifftrax version)

I love the movie Glitter for all the wrong reasons. I never thought I could love it more, until it yesterday with Rifftrax.

[source: Rifftrax.com]
Rifftrax is the brainchild of Michael J. Nelson. Michael J. Nelson was the head writer and host of Mystery Science Theater 3000 during seasons 5-10, and a writer of show since it premiere. I have been fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for many years and it is good to see some of the actors and writes from MST3K participating. Mary Jo Pehl (seen above giving her best Mariah face), Kevin Murphy (voice of Tom Servo), Bill Corbett (voice of Crow T. Robot) have all provided commentary for Rifftrax.

Click here to view a sample of Rifftrax'd version of Glitter.

Respiratory

Ugh. I have been feeling like crap for the past couple of days.

It all started this past Wednesday when I felt a bit of a tickle in the back my throat. I reach for my stash of Ricola I have in my office drawer and hoped for the best. But, that wasn't enough. Thursday morning I felt about the same, but Thursday night I could not breathe because I was so congested. I managed to get about 5 hours a sleep before I had to be at work on at 6:45am Friday. Before work I made a detour at Wal-Mart to get some Kleenex and Theraflu to drink to help alleviate some of my symptoms. My sneezing, coughing and nose-blowing lasted throughout the day until I got off work at 7:45pm. I was trying to get better as fast as possible because I had a tennis tournament the next day.

Saturday morning, and I felt a lot better than the previous day and I thought I was on the mend. I played two rounds of my USTA tournament round-robin and I won the tournament.


Yay, for me!

I returned home with my trophy in hand feeling good about 2nd win this year. I hit the couch and I began to feel weak and had chills throughout my body. The Greek wanted to take me out to dinner but I knew that I wasn't going to be well enough to do that. I went to the bathroom and turned up the hot water in the shower to full blast to create my own personal steam room. It worked ... but a little too well as it caused the paint on the walls to bubble. 15 minutes steam and a shower and I was still feeling the chills. I got my comforter, a mini-trashcan, and a box of tissue and parked my self on the couch.

I ended up watching the last 7 episodes of Heroes and they were interesting (I am now all caught up to see the season finale airing tonight). I watched Saturday Night Live, hosted by Zach Braff before heading to be in a Nyquil induced coma.

Sunday I was feeling even worst. I skipped Sunday morning tennis because I was feeling so lousy and made my way back to the couch to see the Hamburg Masters Final on The Tennis Channel.


My Federer finally beat Nadal on Clay after two years and five tries. This should give him that extra boost of confidence for the French Open.

Around 3pm I realized that I to finish a project for work. I tried to do this remotely but someone changed the standard password for a couple training PC that needed to be configured. I drove hazily to work and finished the project in about 30 minutes. I was out of Nyquil so I made a stop at the Wal-Mart. Along with my Nyquil, I bought Vicks Vaporub and humidifier. I get to the self-check out station and scan my Nyquil only to receive a message stating that I needed customer assistance. Apparently, you now have to be 18 years of age to purchase a variety of cold products because people make a drug called Cheese from it. It has caused a number of deaths in the Dallas area (story).

I returned home, covered my chest with Vicks, and fired up humidifier. I finally started to feel better because the air was no longer dry. I've been meaning to get a humidifier for months now, like this one. But the $9 humidifier, which doesn't look as nice, did the trick.

Today I work from home most of the day before coming into the office around 2pm. The is A/C vent right above my cube and it is made me feel miserable. Luckily I was only in for a couple of hours, and I brought a hooded sweatshirt to keep me warm.

But enough about me. How was your weekend?

Next Top Model: America vs. Australia

So another season of America's Next Top Model (ANTM) has ended, and we have another winner who will never be a real model. Congratulations, Jaslene! I must admit that I didn't watch this past cycle of girls, because I was completely turned off by last cycle's winner CariDee. Melrose got robbed! I have been keeping up with the show by reading Rich's ANTM recaps at FourFour.

For me, the last great cycle of ANTM was cycle 3 when Eva won. I really wanted Yaya to win, but I was happy with Eva winning the final since she took great pictures. But this is when the show jumped the shark. I predicted the winner of cycle 4, but overall it was an alright season. For that point on the show before more and more unwatchable.

It is clear that Tyra(nt) isn't looking for girls who can actually model, but for girls with issues (or babies) that can be exploited for good television. For Tyra, it is about the journey to becoming America's Next Top Model, and not the fact the most of the winner don't have careers after the show. In the land down under it is totally the opposite.

Australia's Next Top Model (AusNTM) are looking for girls who can actually be models ... for reals. If you are too short, not thin enough, or not pretty enough ... then you won't even make it past the compulsory rounds. AusNTM: Series 3 is looking for haute couture models, and not just a spokesperson for cheap cosmetics (read: CoverGirl). They have real photo shoots that could actually go in fashion magazine, and are actually learning about the business of modeling with by people in the business. The show had the editor of Vogue (Australia) magazine give critiques and advice to the contestants.

My favorite is Alice:


Look at her work the runway:


She is a bit too thin, but she is working on trying to gain weight. If she were on ANTM there would be an episode where she is confronted by someone because she is alleged to have an eating disorder, which would lead to a one-on-one with Tyra. On AusNTM why have fitness instructors and nutritionists to help the girls lead health lifestyles.

Until America's Next Top Model has girls on the show that can work in the industry, I will not be tuning in.

Gadgetry: My TiVo Series 3 HD Media Recorder

Last week I found out that Charter Cable finally added The Tennis Channel to their current lineup, and I immediately called to get this service. Along with The Tennis Channel, I decided to get the HD DVR package ... just because. After the installer came and left, but not before lecturing me that my Monster surge protector/line filter was waste of money, I indulged in the HD goodness. Then I remembered why I got rid of the HD DVR last year ... interface totally sucks compared to TiVo. The next day I end up getting the TiVo Series 3 HD Media Recorder from Amazon.com.


I hooked it up to my cheap $9 antenna that I got from Radio Shack last year and set it to record Law & Order and Saturday Night Live in HD before heading to Austin, TX for the weekend. When I returned home, I was blown away by the quality of the recordings. I usually download shows in HD off the Internet because I couldn't record them ... but never again.

I had Charter Cable at my apartment yesterday to install two CableCards in my TiVo (which only cost $1.50 per card to lease) in order to receive the HD and Digital cable channels. As of right now, its not working because the installer can't read and gave HQ the wrong information to activate my CableCards. I will have to call today and fix the issue because I am missing a lot of good tennis matches.

So far it is economical because if I kept the Charter HD DVR my bill would increased by $37. With the HD TiVo box, my bill is $15 cheaper and I get more services. Over the life of the box it will eventually pay for itself.

Hopefully but tomorrow everything will be straightened out and I can veg out on my couch this weekend watching television. But I have a tennis tournament so, I don't know if it will be possible unless I lose ... and I am trying to avoid that.

Misquoted: Cameron Diaz

I begin my morning by reading my list blog RSS feeds, and I saw this on kenneth in the (212):

Popular: How embarrassing was Cameron Diaz on the "Today Show"?

It was followed by a link to TMZ.com and contained a short clip of Cameron Diaz being in interviewed on the Today Show. Here is the post:

Cameron Diaz says that all the world's like high school -- and that celebs are the "popular kids" that everyone is just dying to know about. Good to know that Cam doesn't have a shrek of humility.

On the "Today" show this morning, Meredith Vieira just had to go there, asking Diaz what it was like to be on the same red carpet for the "Shrek the Third" premiere -- and share a kiss (on the cheek) with ex-beau and co-star Justin Timberlake. "We're friends, so we're OK," said Diaz. "All you want is that the person you care about to be happy ... It's like high school. We're like the popular kids. Everybody wants to know what happens to us."

...Until you reveal yourself to be just a little bit full of yourself. (source)

Now if you just read the article Cameron Diaz seems to be conceited, but viewing the video shows something completely different. The actual quote was:

"...It's like high school, isn't it? [laughs] We as celebrities are sort of like the 'popular kids' that everybody wants to know our business. So, you know, people make a big deal out of it, but it's really not a big deal at all."

To completely misconstrue someone's statement in order to demean, on a site dedicated to celebrity gossip, and to post a video that contradicts the entire article seems to be irresponsible. Don't get me wrong, I love me some celebrity gossip. But at the end of the day, it is just that ... gossip.

Movies: Spider-Man 3

To be quite honest, I didn't know Spider-Man 3 was opening on May 4th, 2007 until about a week prior. I remember seeing all of the promotion for the movie but I never paid attention because I didn't want to have the movie spoiled for me. From my quick glimpses I thought the movie was going to be really dark -- the mood to match Spider-Man's newly acquired black costume ... but it wasn't. The movie turned out to be far worst than I imagined.

I will try not to spoil the movie for those who may be reading, but here are a list of my grievances:

1. There was far too much crying from all of the characters.
2. Sandman was real let down. He only had about 10 lines in the entire movie, which I think was done on purpose to setup a possible spin-off movie.
   
3. Venom is only in the movie for about 20 minutes (another possible spin-off) with hardly in background information.
   
4. The film was a live action cartoon instead of superhero drama/origin story like the first and second films.
5. The action scenes were very boring and some seemed like they were recycled from the previous movies.

Spider-Man 2 > Spider-Man 1 > Spider-Man 3, in my opinion. This movie cost in the neighborhood of $260 million to make, and it has broken many records (highest one-day gross, highest weekend gross, etc...) but I don't think it was money well spent. I will assume that most of the money went to the CGI production which looked a bit fake and wasn't really used effectively.

I don't know what went wrong with this highly anticipated movie. I am thinking that Sam Rami's involvement in the writing of the movie have been its downfall. The was some weird hybrid of Spider-Man and Evil Dead (there was far too much of Bruce Campbell), which perverted the feel of the movie. I don't know. Maybe I was expecting too much after the very well done Spider-Man 2, which set such a high bar for any future superhero movie . I guess I was doomed to be disappointed.

With all that said, I can't recommend this movie to anyone to see in the theater. Wait for the DVD and watch it at you leisure.

Intruder Alert?

In a mad rush out the door, being 10 late for work, I put my key in the door to lock it only to have it not fit. I thought I was using the wrong key, but I confirmed that it was the second key from the key I use for my mailbox, yet it still wouldn't fit into the lock. Looking closer at the lock, it seems as though someone tried to jimmy the lock. I have multiple locks, so I am not sure if the person made it through the first lock while I was sleeping. This worries me because I don't think this is the first attempt by someone trying to access my apartment.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard my doorknob rattle while drifting off to sleep. I thought it was all in my mind but I now think it actually happened. The area I live in is really safe and I haven't heard of any type of force entries in my area. There are general reports of car break-ins but that normal for my area since I am 1/2 mile from a college.

I will have to call and get my locks replaced and add a few more locks, just as a precaution. I have been thinking about moving this fall, but this all depended on me getting the new job.

Now I feel bad for laughing at the silly ADT commercials with the overly hysterical women. I think I might call them now.

DVD: Dreamgirls

My DVD of Dreamgirls arrived from Amazon.com today. Luckily I have dual monitors at work, or else I won't be able to get anything done. I will have to watch the movie this weekend.

Weight Check: 5/1/07

I didn't hit my goal of 195 lbs and I am still stuck at 207 lbs. It is my own fault really. I have been gorging myself on Breyer's ice cream and Taquitos. I really need to clean up my diet because it is the only thing holding me back from reach my goal. I am going to finish my last gallon of Butter Pecan and I am done with ice cream for the rest of the summer ... maybe.

Back in Buffalo, NY I used to only get frozen yogurt and skipped ice cream all together. I stocked up on Edy's (which is called Dryer's in Texas) Chocolate Vanilla Swirl or Wegmans brand fro-yo. I have yet to find a grocery store that sells frozen yogurt in Dallas ... but it's no excuse for going through like 2 gallons a week.

My new goals is to get to 195 lbs or lower by July 1st. More importantly, lower my body fat percentage because I think I have been pickup muscle which is why my weight hasn't changed. Well, that and the copious amounts of ice cream I've been ingesting.

Will post update on July 1st, 2007.