I just received an automated message in a call from 207-674-2609. It looks like a lot of other people are receiving calls from this number (although the CallerID is probably spoofed). In my case, the recording was a man saying something about a free digital satellite system. Other have reported that calls from the number also advertise factory warranty renewals.

This seems similar to the Great Atlantic Warranty calls that I used to get. As before, my solution will be to report abuse to the FTC.

Today is Eric complain day.

I went to the San Francisco DHL office to pick up a package, and the driver for my neighborhood told me that DHL has cut a lot of the drivers and office staff, and that it ultimately “affects the customers more than it does [the staff].”

“I called you on Tuesday to attempt delivery,” she said.

What I’m wondering is why that was the first and last attempt.

My package had a delivery attempt on July 28, and no reattempts thereafter. The phone at DHL’s SF office (which is housed in a trailer right now) rings off the hook, and has been doing so for more than 2 days. Even DHL headquarters can’t reach them; I spoke with several service agents by phone (all excellent, by the way) who said that SF was unreachable by both phone and internal messaging system.

3:22pm “A supervisor will call you within 30 minutes.”

5:15pm “A supervisor never called you?”

No.

I suggest avoiding DHL if you live in San Francisco. I had to physically go to their trailer/office in order to find out what was going on with my package, which arrived barely in one piece, with a big hole in the side.

Working right now = impossible.

I keep getting calls from 562-228-7160 to my mobile phone telling my my vehicle warranty has expired. I stayed on the line to talk to an operator, and he hung up on me when I told him I wanted to be taken off their list. If you call back, the number goes nowhere. A Google search for the number shows that others have had the same issue from the same number. (read more »)

Here’s an email I got today:

What filter do you use on that 20d conversion, and which service to you pick, did you get the Deep BW IR Filter Image? Thanks alot for the advice.

I get stuff like this all the time. Now, why would I reply? The guy has not introduced himself nor given me any reason to spend my time answering his question. Furthermore, a Google search for “Eric Cheng 20d infrared conversion” provides the answers as the first link.

I often get emails like this, asking about the variety of topics found on my website. It is easy enough to delete them, but I often wish the internets offered a “bitch-slap” feature as well.

Normally, I am insulated from the incredible incompetence of some airlines because I book online using websites like Orbitz. Just now, I was forced to actually call United Airlines in order to book a ticket using credit from a previously canceled fare. A strong Indian accent picked up, and they guy was stuttering and was unable to form thoughts (stumbling over himself). I knew I was fucked.

At first, he told me he would have to charge a $100 fee for using the credit (fine, since my previous ticket was non-refundable), plus a $100 fee to change the routing. I balked at that, and he put me on hold. Then, he came back and told me that he would not charge me for the re-routing fee (that is what I final figured out after about 3 minutes).

It took a total of more than 20 minutes on the phone to book the ticket. I had to coax him during each step of the process because I knew that if I just answered his questions normally, he wouldn’t understand. I had to repeat just about everything I said.

United also recently announced that it will charge non-Premier members $25 to check a second bag.

I am so glad that I switched away from them a few years ago. I only had the credit because I had a cancel a trip to Denver a few months ago (United is direct and inexpensive to Denver). Next time, I’m going to book with another airline.

Last month, I had an unauthorized $2,000 charge by Ron’s Honda Center in Soldotna, Alaska. I called them up and spoke with a nice guy named Terry, who told me that their computer systems showed no transactions of $2,000 during the month of December.

I called Citi to report the fraudulent charge, and spoke with a rather annoying service representative. 7-10 day replacement? And I have to get an affidavit notarized?

This was a fraudulent charge, and I need my card to be replaced now! I managed to get 24-hour expedited card replacement, but Citi should really be trying to replace my card as easily and quickly as possible without me having to make it an issue. This is why I like my American Express. They make things easy.

thanks, neighbor!

One of the worst things to find upon returning home from a long trip is a sink full of greasy food-water and a slippery floor.

My upstairs neighbor has clogged my sink four times since I moved in. The last time, I asked him to be sure to run the water for a long time any time they put food down the disposal. I spoke with The Wife today (who was very nice, actually), and she said that she “remembered him saying something about that.”

The plumber who just showed up quoted $334 to fix the problem. Yippee.

Does anyone out there know of a company called Callwave? They’re some sort of service that takes over your mobile phone voicemail to provide additional services.

I am not a customer of Callwave, nor have I ever been. But for the last year and a half, I’ve been billed 3 times a month by Callwave; each month, I am billed twice for $3.95 and once for $7.95. (read more »)

I have a Blackberry Pearl, and am under a plan which Cingular used to call “Blackberry International Unlimited”, which advertised unlimited data usage internationally for $69.99/month. A bundled voice plan gave me a $5 discount on the plan, making it $64.99/month for data. There was no fine print stating anything about the type of data used, but I assumed that if I ever saw a roaming indicator, I would probably get charged for the data usage. — warning, this is long! — (read more »)

Yeah, it’s true. So you e-mailed me once a few months ago, and I never wrote back. But was it important? Are you sure I received your e-mail? Did you emphasize in the text that it was time-sensitive? Did you write again to follow up? Did you try using THE PHONE? Do I even know you?

Here’s how it usually happens:

1. someone writes me an e-mail
2. 2 months pass. there are no more attempts to contact me.
3. i write back, as i try to clear out my inbox
4. they write back: “you’re hard to get ahold of”

Clearly, I am hard to get ahold of.

I also like to bitch about stuff. :)

It seems that Amazon.com is carrying shark fin soup and other products through three third-party vendors Roland, Pacific Rim Gourmet, and VitaminLife. With all the controversy surrounding shark fins and the horrible practices used to harvest fins, Amazon should be ashamed to be carrying shark fin soup and should rectify the problem immediately by pulling all shark fin products from their catalog.

What you can do:

1. Leave feedback at Amazon’s product page for Roland Shark Fin Soup, Dragonfly Shark Fin Soup, and VitaminLife.
2. Participate in the discussion over at Amazon about the product and why it’s bad for them to carry it
3. Send e-mail to Roland Food at Phyllis.Goldberg@rolandfood.com, Pacific Rim Gourmet at customerservice@pacificrim-gourmet.com, VitaminLife at customerservice@vitaminlife.com, and write letters of protest to:
   
   Pacific Rim Gourmet
   75-5660 Kopiko Street, Suite C7-210
   Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
   
   VitaminLife
   15940 Redmond Way
   Redmond, WA 98052
   
   
4. Write to Amazon.com at Advantage Customer Service (advantage@amazon.com) and Investor Relations (ir@amazon.com)
5. Spread the word through your webpage, blog, etc. (code available here)
6. Boycott Amazon.com until they comply
7. Join the discussion in the Wetpixel forums

Alibaba is even worse, and is something that also needs to be tackled by the media. Sea Shepherd has called for a ban of Alibaba’s listings, as have some other organizations.

UPDATE Amazon pulled shark fin from their inventory!

I’ve only been back for a few days and I gotta say: the Bay Bridge is a f’in nightmare. I arrived home (to SFO) late Sunday evening, and by the time Geoff and I made an attempt by car to get me and my 200 lbs of luggage back to Oakland, the now-standard midnight traffic on the Bay Bridge was already terrible. We aborted, and I spent the night at their place in the city.

CalTrans currently reports:

I 80 [SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA] IS CLOSED TO EASTBOUND TRAFFIC FROM THE JCT OF US 101 TO 4TH ST /IN SAN FRANCISCO/ (SAN FRANCISCO CO) FROM 0001 HRS TO 0600 HRS 7 DAYS A WEEK THRU 6/2/06 - DUE TO CONSTRUCTION - A DETOUR IS AVAILABLE

… but because the detour used to start at 1AM, I have been operating under that assumption and heading home each night at around 12:15am. By then, traffic is already really bad, and tonight was no exception. I left San Francisco at 12:05am and wasn’t able to get onto the bridge for over half and hour. It gets worse. There was a surprise onramp switch (chaos!!), and the four-way intersection just before the onramp was completely jammed with cars and honking taxis trying to squeeze into the lane that would eventually lead to the bridge. People were pissed.

… but I suppose tonight was better than the first time I discovered the existence of the detour, which resulted in a 3.5-hour trip across the bay (home at around 4:30am!). THAT truly sucked.

Whoever is organizing the bridge construction is completely incompetent. Don’t even get me started on the weird-ass 5th-Street-offramp / bizarre-right-jog on westbound 80 just past the bridge. That thing causes traffic at nearly all hours of the day.

I’m tempted to move away — or back to San Francisco — until the bridge construction is done.

I have to go back through Manila again tomorrow.

I am at the Manila airport at the beginning of a 6-hour layover. It’s chaotic outside, with long lines to get into the building and constant blasts of traffic officer whistles piercing the air (I had to take a taxi to this terminal). I remember wondering whether there would be a Continental lounge here, and it’s only after arriving that I realize how stupid that question had been. I’m hungry and thirsty, and can’t find a place to get food/drink nor a place to camp out where I might be able to do some work comfortably. No wonder my row-neighbors on the plane were packing airplane food away into their bags! (read more »)

I’m sick of all this wireless hype. (read more »)

It is possible for a wireless communications company to not suck?

I’m switching my Blackberry to Cingular so I can be international with it, but will remain with Verizon for voice. This involves getting new phones, and both Verizon and Cingular have totally botched the orders, requiring me to spend frustrating amounts of time talking with service reps. Some of them are nice, but all of them are telling me totally different things.

Cingular screwed up my shipping address not once, but twice. (read more »)

I went to see Memoirs of a Geisha tonight with Peter, Karine, Christine, Olivia, and a bunch of Olivia’s friends. (no spoilers ahead. don’t worry.) (read more »)

Intermittent, crippling, computer-hardware failures + 45 days out of warranty + multiple deadlines + imminent departure for foreign countries = shitload of cash out of wallet + craploads of time + elevated blood pressure + no sleep. (read more »)

Recently, the USPS changed something in their online Print Shipping Labels area — and now, it’s broken. I’ve tried two different computers using both FireFox and Internet Explorer, and neither of them have successfully been able to print. The new version requires Adobe Acrobat Reader — which I have, but I still can’t get it to work. I’m reminded of the time they rolled out their fancy new “Point of Sale” systems, which had in large lettering on the front, “P.O.S.”. It is indeed a P.O.S. (read more »)