JJB Blog » Open-Letters http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:47:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 To: American Airlines http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2009/05/27/to-american-airlines/ http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2009/05/27/to-american-airlines/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 16:42:19 +0000 John http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/?p=792 To whom it may concern,

I recently reserved a flight on aa.com using an eVoucher.

A few hours after reserving my flight, I received a call from American
Airlines telling me that there was a problem with the eVoucher pin.
After telling the representative my eVoucher number and pin, everything
was squared away. This whole process took about 20 minutes.

Assuming that the problem was a result of me entering the information
incorrectly, the website failed to check if my voucher pin was correct.
If it had, I could have corrected it then and there, taking probably
less than a minute of extra time. Instead, I had to spend 20 minutes on
the phone to correct this problem.

In the course of my complaining to one of the representatives, I was
told that credit card information is also not verified on the website –
it has to be checked by hand after the form is submitted!

The first thought that comes to my mind is that this is a missing
feature on your website which probably wastes thousands of dollars of
labor each month.

Secondly, it wasted MY time. At the minimum, I would like some kind of
confirmation either that this is a bug, a missing feature, or a
necessity due to some sort of technical or bureaucratic limitation. I
also think I am warranted some compensation for the loss of my time.

The record locator for my reservation is XXXXXX

Thank you for your time, and thank you for providing this web form as a
channel for customer feedback.

John Bachir, AAdvantage member since 1998

Dear Mr. Bachir,

Thank you for your interest in American Airlines. We want to respond to
you, our AAdvantage Gold customer first.

AA.com is working as designed. AA.com is not programmed to verify PIN
numbers. All verification is done by American Airlines eTravel Document
Service. Your wrong entered eVoucher PIN was caught by American
Airlines eTravel Document Service automated ticketing system. This
system is working as designed.

When making a reservation through the Internet, you are acting as your
own travel agent, and thereby, have accepted responsibility for
verifying that all information you have entered is correct. Since you
entered the wrong information, American Airlines is not responsible for
your additional time spent to obtain the correct information.

Unfortunately, I must respectfully decline your request for any
compensation. While in certain situations compensation is in order,
American Airlines does not offer compensation for our customer’s time to
correct a ticketing issue.

We appreciate your visit to American Airlines’ Website, AA.com and we
look forward to the privilege of serving your travel needs.

Sincerely,
Mr. M. Exter
AA.com Web Services
American Airlines

]]> http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2009/05/27/to-american-airlines/feed/ 1 To: eBay http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2006/04/08/to-ebay/ http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2006/04/08/to-ebay/#comments Sat, 08 Apr 2006 20:02:47 +0000 John http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/275 hi… i had a draft saved, and it somehow got removed. 30 days have not passed, and i did not begin to create a new listing. [1]can you tell me why this happened? [2]can you restore my previous draft? it was a for a g5 and i made it a week or so ago.

also, i really think that we should have the ability to save as many drafts as we want. of course you have probably considered this feature 5 years ago and decided against it for some reason, but i just thought i would mention it.

thanks!
john

Hello John,

Thank you for writing to eBay. My name is Rey and I understand that you have saved a draft in your account but it was not there when you tried to complete the listing.

John, I have reviewed your account and cannot also find the draft you have saved in your account. I would like to apologize for we cannot duplicate the issue you have experienced and there is no way to recover the draft that was lost from your account. We appreciate your suggestion and I have forwarded your email to our Site Development Team. You may want to start a new listing and immediately submit it after you have finished it.

We appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter, and wish you continued success on eBay.

Regards,
Rey F.
eBay Customer Support

Hello John,

Thank you for writing to eBay’s Customer Support. I appreciate the chance to read and understand your suggestion.

The communication we receive from our community members is critical for us to make changes that will keep our site the best. I will forward your message for further consideration by the Product Development Team.

Please note that any comments or materials you have submitted or may submit to us, including questions, technical or creative suggestions or ideas, are considered by us to be non-confidential and non-proprietary. eBay has no obligation of any kind with respect to any such submissions.

Should you have any other questions or concerns please visit our help pages located on our site for instant answers to most questions. You can get to the help section by clicking on Help at the top of most eBay pages.

We are committed to your online trading safety and success.

Have a great day!

Regards,

Helen K.
eBay Customer Support

On 4/9/06, eBay Customer Support wrote:

John, I have reviewed your account and cannot also find the draft you have saved in your account. I would like to apologize for we cannot duplicate the issue you have experienced and there is no way to recover the draft that was lost from your account.

Is there no way to recover the draft, or is it against your policy to recover the draft? I find it a little insulting to be told that there is no way to recover the draft. I am a software engineer and know full well that with big systems such as yours, information is rarely deleted from databases, it is merely flagged as “deleted”, “inactive”, etc.

Which begs the question, why do you have this policy in the first place? I find it very mysterious that there is no way to develop and save drafts. It makes me suspicious that not allowing users to save drafts results in more auctions being posted sooner, so you use this lack of convenience as a stimulant for your business? Or maybe the less carefully put together auctions are more likely to get higher bids? I could make guesses all day.

Not that I really have any reason to believe that either of those guesses are the case — other than the fact that you are not being transparent AT ALL about why you have your absurd (lack of) draft saving tools, and mysterious no-draft-recovery policy.

John

Hello John,

Thank you for writing to eBay. My name is Yul and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

I understand your concern regarding draft. I realize the importance of this issue and appreciate your time and effort in addressing your exact concern. I apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

Please understand that if you start to create a new listing in the Sell Your Item form, but you don’t get to finish it, eBay will save it as a draft so that you can easily finish it later.

As you fill out the Sell Your Item form and click the Continue button at the bottom of a page, all the information you’ve entered so far is saved for you on eBay.

When you want to finish the listing, return to eBay and click on Sell at the top of any page. On the Sell page, click on the “Complete Your Listing” link. You can continue from where you left off in the Sell Your Item form.

Your saved draft remains available on eBay for you to complete unless one of the following happens:

1. Over 30 days pass since the last time you edited the draft. After this period, the draft will expire.

2. You start a brand new listing and click Continue on the Title & Description page. This new listing now becomes your saved draft, replacing the previous one. (You can only have one saved draft at a time.)

3. In rare cases, technical difficulties or outages on eBay may cause your saved draft to be erased. Email notifications

Please understand that if you don’t finish a listing, eBay will also send you a reminder email about a week before your saved draft will expire. Newer sellers may receive an additional reminder a few days after your last session working on the draft. These emails will include information about your progress and a Complete Your Listing button that you can click to access your saved draft.

I trust that this information has been useful to you. I appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter, and wish you continued success on eBay.

Regards,

Yul P.
eBay Customer Support

How insulting, that in the 3rd communication I receive from eBay on this matter, the only response I get is a copy-and-paste from the documentation that is already available on the site. Not only that, but you begin the email by thanking me for writing to you, and then introducing yourself with your first name, as if to imply that my issue is getting personal attention.

“I understand your concern regarding draft. I realize the importance of this issue and appreciate your time and effort in addressing your exact concern.”

You are NOT addressing my exact concern in any way. And you do NOT understand the importance of this issue. If you did you would change your policies and/or features.

I realize that you cannot make large feature changes for each customer who complains. But at the very least, don’t insult me by sending me 10 paragraphs of a standard customer service response in the THIRD communication. What is your strategy, to keep sending me a list of the existing rules until I stop responding? You haven’t even attempted a diplomatic answer to my questions from the previous email:

“Is there no way to recover the draft, or is it against your policy to recover the draft?… why do you have this policy in the first place?”

And don’t worry, I won’t threaten to cancel my account, you have a monopoly and I have no other options. Maybe that’s why you can afford to treat your customers so poorly.

John

]]> http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2006/04/08/to-ebay/feed/ 3 To: http://www.theantidrug.com/contact.asp http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/12/15/to-httpwwwtheantidrugcomcontactasp/ http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/12/15/to-httpwwwtheantidrugcomcontactasp/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:05:49 +0000 John http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/?p=222 To whom it may concern,

In many places on your website you state that Marijuana is addictive. I could not find any further information on this topic. Could you direct me to studies or other resources discussing this issue?

Thanks,
John

]]> http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/12/15/to-httpwwwtheantidrugcomcontactasp/feed/ 2 Ventilation on Air Canada flight http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/09/20/ventilation-on-air-canada-flight/ http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/09/20/ventilation-on-air-canada-flight/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:28:11 +0000 John http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/?p=193 Dear Air Canada,

Recently I took a flight from toronto to RDU, and there was no air condition, and seemingly no ventilation at all, while taxiing before and after the flight. It was very hot, stuffy, and smelly. It was completely absurd.

]]> http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/09/20/ventilation-on-air-canada-flight/feed/ 40 Suggestion to Sappo Hill Soap http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/09/20/suggestion-to-sappo-hill-soap/ http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/09/20/suggestion-to-sappo-hill-soap/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2005 01:56:19 +0000 John http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/?p=192 Dear Sappo Hill,

i am a longtime committed user of your soaps. i was going to write to suggest you do a lemon soap that people would like for the kitchen. then i saw that you have a gardener’s lemon, which i guess has the abrasive stuff in it. now i don’t know what to think. do people want an abrasive bar in the kitchen? perhaps.

john

]]> http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/09/20/suggestion-to-sappo-hill-soap/feed/ 1 Cease and Desist Letter Sent to Leo Stoller http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/07/22/cease-and-desist-letter-sent-to-leo-stoller/ http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2005/07/22/cease-and-desist-letter-sent-to-leo-stoller/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:56:03 +0000 John http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/?p=172 Leo Stoller
Rentamark.com
P O Box 35189
Chicago, IL 60707-0189

Re: Freedom of Expression

July 22, 2005

Dear Mr. Stoller,

Please be advised that we are stakeholders in the Freedom of Expression� Security Consortium (FESC), which, as our motto states, �regulates freedom in the marketplace of ideas.� We are writing in response to your infringing use of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, a federally registered trademark that is controlled by FESC member Kembrew McLeod, who owns the domain http://freedomofexpression.us. This mark, granted by the USPTO on January 6, 1998, is also used as the title of Dr. McLeod�s book, published in 2005 by Doubleday/Random House.

In the July 4, 2005 New York Times article about your business, �He Says He Owns the Word �Stealth,�� you said, �If a trademark owner doesn�t go up to the plate each day and police his mark, he will be overrun by third-party infringers.� Also, as you state on Rentamark.com, �There is no free well-known intellectual property left in the 21st Century. No free rides!� As a group that monitors unauthorized uses of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, we couldn�t agree more.

In the course of policing FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, we at FESC (consisting of the websites freedomofexpression.us, freedomofexpression.org, freedom-of-expression.org, and freedom-of-expression.com) have learned of your infringement, which can be found at this URL: http://www.rentamark.com/e-marks/E-I/e-i.html.

We are troubled by (1) your unrestrained use of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and (2) the fact that you have offered to license this phrase to third parties without permission. After all, not just anybody can utilize FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, and it is clear that your use of this phrase constitutes unfair competition and a blurring and tarnishing of this federally registered mark.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION will be substantially and irreparably damaged should this infringement continue. We, therefore, demand that Rentamark.com immediately cease and desist using FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION within five days. We eagerly await your response.

Very truly yours,

Kembrew McLeod

http://freedomofexpression.us/

Freedom of Expression� Security Consortium
1037 E. Washington St.
Iowa City, IA 52240
kembrew@freedomofexpression.us

cc:
John Joseph Bachir http://freedomofexpression.org/
Fletcher Moore http://freedom-of-expression.com/
Julie Gilberg http://freedom-of-expression.org/

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