Background: I ordered a gymnastics mat. It arrived. It was like the most enormous mattress you’ve ever seen. I had thought because there was a picture of a folding mat next to the product that I purchased, that it was a folding mat. I did not have space for a non-folding mat. I attempted to return it. I was informed that I would have to eat some enormous return freight shipping cost. I was told that the picture of the product I purchased was not in fact of a folding mat, and furthermore that in any case I should never assume that what is pictured is what I will receive. I was told that OnlineSports will take no responsibility for this situation and will not admit to making any error.

My response.

Pam,

As I have outlined at length on the phone:

1. The mat was clearly pictured as folding. The picture didn’t just show dark lines, it showed the mat in a folded state. There is really no disputing this. In fact it was exactly the same picture as you use for your 6′x12′ mat that does actually fold. I see you have subsequently updated the image, which does rather imply that you realize your own error. Naturally at the start of this entire debacle I saved PDFs of your product listing at Amazon as well as at your own website that clearly display the folding mat image, so let’s make sure we are referring to that and not to the current updated image which is far more accurate. I am happy to forward PDFs of the original product description if you would like them for your records. I’m sure Amazon can also confirm when the image was updated.

2. The product description makes no mention of whether or not the mat folds. The only indication to that end is the image. I strongly dispute your assertion that the omission of adequate descriptors absolves you of responsibility for this situation. Any reasonable person would have made the assumption that I did given the image that was included. In order to confirm this fact I called your customer service line and asked the nice young man who answered whether he felt that the image of this product adequately represented what I would receive, and he answered in the affirmative. I have that call recorded and am happy to forward you that recording if you care to review it.

I continue to be unwilling to pay for return freight for this item for the reasons above. I have taken the matter up with my credit card company. I am willing further to take it up with Amazon, and God forbid my legal counsel if it comes to that. I feel that I have sufficient grounds to prevail on this matter, and I certainly have reached a level of annoyance that I am more than willing to invest significant amounts of time and energy seeing this through.

Having said that, Pam, here are the things that I AM able to do for you:

1. I will exchange the mat for the 5′x10′x8″ folding landing mat. However I will incur no cost on this other than what I would have paid for it anyway. i.e. $845.24 + $115 = $960.24. Therefore I would expect to receive a refund of $113.20 on my original payment.

2. Should you agree to exchange the mat under these terms, I will agree not to share my thoughts on this experience with every online review site I can find. I have quite a bit of professional experience with search engine optimization, social media, and viral marketing, and I may feel morally obliged to put that experience to use.

That’s really it. If you’re unwilling to proceed with this plan, I will be proceeding with my complaint against you and will obtain my refund come hell or high water. I strongly urge you to consider whether this is something you want to devote resources to on an ongoing basis.

Kind Regards,
Samantha

Their response:

Hello Samantha,

Thank you for your reply. Online Sports has opted proceed with the return on the flat mat, and exchange for the folding landing mat as per your email below.

<Blah blah blah, here’s how to return it…>

Thank you again,
Pam, Senior CSR
Online Sports Customer Service

Here’s my latest, to MindBody Online, purveyor of the most mindbogglingly backward “client management” (? “yoga studio management”? “gym management”? “nail salon management”? I’m honestly not completely sure.) software I ever did see.

Dear MindBody,

To answer your questions regarding my cancellation request.

1. I don’t wish to be contacted by telephone. Your insistence on constantly spending hours on the phone is one of the worst things about the MBO experience. Just cancel it. Don’t cancel the merchant account (if you can even do that without my say-so, which I greatly hope you can’t.) I’m still using it.

2. A myriad of reasons, really. Mostly for my own satisfaction, since from what I’ve seen so far you will never actually do the kind of complete overhaul that would be necessary to fix any of this, let me elaborate.

User Interface. The website is clunky and has pretty much the worst user interface I’ve ever experienced (topped only by an incredibly shitty in-house application I once had to deal with which was designed by someone who could charitably be described as retarded.)

Clients are constantly confused and unable to easily manage pretty much anything about their account by themselves. The online retail sales interface is a joke. E-commerce is a solved problem: copy a site that works. The back button is reasonably frequently broken (a cardinal sin of usability in case you’re not familiar.) I can’t link directly to anything without viewing the source of the webpage and doing some advanced hacking, or maybe delving deep into the documentation. Frames used like this are absolutely not okay in this day and age.

More recently, half the website has morphed into a new UI while the other half is stuck in the old UI. Actually not sure if the new UI is an improvement since it appears to be basically just a paint job, but regardless going halvsies is no bueno.

I’m pretty sure you don’t actually have a UI person on staff, but if you do I hope they’re severely depressed by the current situation. If they aren’t, you need to fire them and find someone halfway competent. If you don’t have someone, seriously, what decade are you in?

There is absolutely no reason that I should ever have to do any kind of “training” in order to use a website like this. Sure, maybe nice to offer it for those who are less than computer literate, but a reasonably intelligent person (never mind one who programs websites for a living) should be able to figure it out with zero phone calls and minimal reference to documentation. I use accounting software that’s more intuitive than your website, and that’s really saying something.

Quit with the featuritis. You actually don’t have to be everything to everyone. Simplify that shit. Or at worst, hide the stuff that applies to 1% of your audience for everyone else. Only don’t do it with the kind of 20 page list of checkboxes that you’re currently using. That is way too many options. Trying to please everyone will ultimately please no one.

Downtime. Get rid of it, seriously. Add multiple layers of redundancy. A technology company like yours should not be sending out multiple heartfelt apology e-mails per year. You really get one pass on this…. pretty much ever. After that you fix it. Period.

Fire your entire “tech support” staff… if the e-mail I received 6/16/11 regarding “Steps to access your MINDBODY site” was not intended as a joke. Did you seriously just send out a 37-step guide to ACCESSING YOUR SERVICE that includes OPENING THE TERMINAL and RUNNING TRACEROUTE?? These are not “tips from MBO tech support.” These are “please bend over and relax, this will only take MBO tech support a minute.” However you got into that situation was a fuck-up on a level that should have resulted in terminations.

Stop prettifying and make some real changes. I don’t need my button edges rounded. I need something that works. Beautification can wait until after you’ve tossed out the interface you have now and made something that’s usable.

Back end. This is a complete guess, but based on what I can see from the front end, I’m going to assume that you probably have some serious back end problems as well. Again, really, suck up the cost and hire some people who know what they’re doing. Here’s a hint: most likely they will not be familiar with ASP or really any Microsoft development product. If they tell you to rebuild it from the ground, do it.

3. I don’t need it ever again, effective immediately. Burn it to the ground.

4. See above.

Best wishes,
Sam.

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:28 PM, ClientCare wrote:

Dear Samantha,

I’ve received information that you want to cancel your software subscription with MINDBODY. We are disappointed to hear that things are not going well or as expected. I’ll be coordinating everything for you throughout this process, so if you have any questions I’m the person who can help.

Before we get started, there are things you can provide us to help speed the process along:

· The best number on which to reach you
· Reason for the cancellation
· The last date you need the software
· Feedback for where we failed to meet your needs

I’ve documented your request and date that it came through on and will assign it to a Client Care Specialist to follow up on as soon as I receive your response.

Our Client Care Specialists are unbiased team members who will listen to anything and everything you have to say regardless of where problems have arisen with a humble and helpful attitude so we can proceed down the right path whether it’s parting ways or righting wrongs. We certainly hope for the latter.

Depending on all the things that need to happen with your unique situation (e.g. if you have a merchant account, how long you need your software, requests for refunds, etc.) cancellation requests may take up to 30 days to process.

We appreciate your candid and helpful feedback- please let me know if you have any questions or concerns along the way.

Best Wishes,

<redacted>
Client Care Coordinator
MINDBODY, Inc.
Direct Line: <redacted>
Toll Free: <redacted>

Here’s the thing: please don’t call me. Ever. I am extraordinarily uninterested in your latest special offer, particularly if you would like me to add a service that I had to spend multiple hours on the phone with you canceling the last time I was unfortunate enough to end up with it.

It’s nice that you would like to offer me $5 a month in cost savings, but honestly it’s no longer worth it after 5 minutes wasted on the phone with you, never mind the day I would have to spend waiting for you to come and install a service that I neither want nor need in order to realize said savings.

Perhaps I am in the minority, but I am decidedly disinterested in a race to the bottom on pricing when it comes at the cost of poor service and necessitates any interaction whatsoever with telemarketers.

You know what you should be doing with your time and money instead of wasting it on telephone sales? Making your service so good that the only time I ever think about it is when I am basking in the rosy glow of an absurdly fast download. Updating your billing system so that the user interface is a glorious dream of ease of use. Upgrading your website so that anything I might ever want to do can be done in under 5 minutes without necessitating a call to anyone.

At the very least, you might consider making sure that what sales people you DO have aren’t completely wasting their time calling someone who is fucking pissed that you called EVERY TIME YOU CALL. Get a clue and start keeping some customer records. If the person calling doesn’t even know what services I already have, never mind that I seriously don’t want to be called, that is a giant fail. If she’s offering me phone service that she ought to know I called 6 times to cancel 6 months ago, that’s an even bigger fail.

You’re a service company. Start providing me with good service. Is that really so much to ask?

Love,
Samantha

P.S. Food for thought: there have been FIOS trucks parked on my street for the past month. Don’t think I won’t do it.

First up, full documentation for the DATE merge tag.

Usage
*|DATE:FORMAT|*
Format Options
See the PHP Documentation for all the character codes you can use in the FORMAT string. (Thanks for the tip, Chad!)
Examples
*|DATE:l F jS, Y|* = Monday January 15th, 2009
*|DATE:m/d/y|* = 01/05/09
*|DATE:D j M Y H:ia|* = Mon 15 Jan 2009 05:53pm

Please let me know in the comments if you discover anything is not as documented here (or figure out anything that I haven’t!)

Frankly, I have never, *NEVER* experienced more extensive, ongoing incompetence than that displayed by the folks answering the phone at Cablevision. It’s probably not the fault of the poor schmuck whose unfortunate job it is to actually answer the phone. But seriously, when I call to have a service disconnected, I expect that service to be disconnected. When I have to call twice because I keep getting bills that says it isn’t disconnected, I am somewhat discomfited. When I have to call THREE TIMES and you DENY ALL KNOWLEDGE OF MY EVER HAVING CALLED BEFORE, that makes me LIVID. I honestly think I just popped a few blood vessels. And I’m not usually a very angry person.

Just part of the conversation:

Me: I’ve called to have this service canceled three times now, and I’d like you to refund the money I’ve paid you over the past 6 months that was related to this service.
Cablevision: We have no record of your previous calls, sorry. It says here the last time you called was in March.
Me: You know, the first person I talked to mentioned that your system shows I called in September.
Cablevision: Oh, wait, maybe I see something here. Please hold.

Sadly, this was EXACTLY the conversation I had the LAST time I called these people. “Oh sorry, we have no record that you called previously.” I’ve never seriously considered recording my calls before, but next time you can be sure I’m going to.

I never thought I’d say this, but: dear Verizon, I miss you so much. Please bring me FIOS as soon as you possibly can. I just can’t wait to give my money to you instead.

If you are experiencing this issue, I have no idea how to fix it, and can only suggest you upgrade WordPress (I am about to attempt this,) or replace all instances of “s-e-l-e-c-t” with “choose” (or “opt” or something.)

Update: Upgrading to WordPress 2.7 did indeed magically fix this issue. Select? Select?! Select!!!

In any case, I naively assumed that it would all be wine and roses, everything would work perfectly, and I would be able to easily do seemingly simple things like sharing my sweet new 3G connection over Airport with anyone else who happened to be working in my general vicinity. Upon eagerly tearing open the modem packaging and plugging it in though, I discovered pretty quickly that this sh*t is UGLY.

First of all, I couldn’t just plug in and get going. The Mac drivers for this thing aren’t part of OSX, and AT&T didn’t even bother to include them in the modem package. I had to go to some third party website and download them (support.option.com/att.) At least they took the time to write that in tiny type on page 30 of the manual.

Secondly, the third party application added a whole bunch of ugly, seemingly unnecessary network interfaces, and REMOVED all my EXISTING network interfaces. Clearly this wasn’t going to work. Not only could I not share my 3G connection with any other interface (since they’d all been disappeared,) but I couldn’t use any of my other interfaces at all until I disconnected the 3G.

[On a side note: googling the problem has indicated that this is also a major problem for Parallels and VMWare installs, which rely on adding network interfaces to get access to the host connection. Disappearing them all means that the guest OS can't access the 3G connection.]

But enough about the problem. Here’s my solution. Basically an updated version of the solution found here: Imperfect Workaround.

This works with the AT&T USBConnect Quicksilver Modem with DataConnect package, and Leopard (OS 10.5) on a Macbook Air.

1. Install GlobeTrotter software as indicated by Quicksilver manual (Download from support.option.com/att — download link is tiny somewhere in the middle of that big blank page.)
2. Plug in card and run GlobeTrotter Connect
3. Connect and ensure your card is working this way
4. Disconnect and quit GlobeTrotter Connect
5. Open System Preferences, and click on “Network” (Choose “Edit Locations” in the Location dropdown menu, then choose “GlobeTrotter Connect” and click the “-” button.)
6. Delete the “GlobeTrotter Connect” location
7. Delete all of the weird network interfaces that GlobeTrotter has added (mine were called something like ‘Icon 322 Modem,’ ‘Icon 322 Diag’ etc.)
8. Hit the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the interface list
9. Choose Interface: Icon322 Control. Call it whatever you want (mine is called ‘Evil 3G Control’)
10. In the right-hand pane, enter this information:
• Configuration: Default
• Telephone Number: ISP.CINGULAR
• Account Name: ISPDA@CINGULARGPRS.COM
• Password: CINGULAR1
11. Click the “Advanced” button.
12. In the “Modem” tab, choose:
    • Vendor: Other
    • Model: Option GlobeTrotter 3G
13. Leave everything else as-is, and click OK
14. Click Apply, the click Connect.

This should get you connected. I have found it to be very slightly tempermental, but not too bad. I’m not sure what will happen if you uninstall the GlobeTrotter application — if you try this, let me know what happens!

Leave me a comment if you got this to work, or had problems with it!

First of all, do the things it says to do in these 10 Simple Steps to Joomla RSS.

Namely, install RD-RSS, add feeds, set up Feedburner.

To turn on HTML, you’re going to need to edit the RD-RSS source code. The file you’re interested in is [JOOMLA_ROOT]/components/com_rd_rss/rd_rss.php. Find it via FTP or in a terminal session.

You’ll probably want to make a copy of the original unedited file at this point just in case something dreadful happens and you need to restore it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: screwing around with the Joomla source can quite easily cause catastrophic site failure.

Having said that, this operation is pretty basic. All you need to do is pop that bad boy open in a text editor, and comment out these lines (221-222):

$item_description = mosHTML::cleanText( $item_description );
$item_description = html_entity_decode( $item_description );

They should then look like this:

// $item_description = mosHTML::cleanText( $item_description );
// $item_description = html_entity_decode( $item_description );

Then just save the file and re-upload it (if you’re using FTP.) It might take a little while to see the effects because RD-RSS has caching enabled by default, but eventually your feeds should show up in all their HTML glory.

Note that if you want to see your images, you will have to make them into absolute links, or create a further hack to make sure that relative paths get translated into absolute ones. I suggest something along the lines of this, pasted just underneath the lines you just commented out:

$item_description = preg_replace( ‘#(href|src)=”([^:"]*)(“|(?:(?:%20|\s|\+)[^"]*”))#’, ‘$1=”http://www.YOURSITE.com/$2$3′, $item_description );

<c:url value=”http://www.google.com” var=”my_google_link”><c:param name=”query” value=”lookforit” /></c:url>

<c:url value=”my_google_link” var=”my_new_google_link”><c:param name=”pagenum” value=”5″ /></c:url>

<c:out value=”${my_new_google_link}” escapeXml=”true” />

This results in: http://www.google.com?pagenum=5&query=lookforit

Note that using escapeXml in your <c:out /> has the added benefit of giving you some sweet XHTML-compliant link action (i.e. ampersands are escaped.)