Category: Rant

I got a telemarketing call last week (why I answered it I don’t know (we have caller ID for this reason)) asking if I’d take part in a test viewing of a tv show episode. I received this today with materials and a letter from Doris Price from Audience Studies, Inc. of Cincinnati, OH. The video was a ‘self-erasing video tape’ through the placement of a magnet, pretty slick that. It was a sitcom called ‘Dads’. Turns out this is more of a marketing scam than an actual test pilot viewing. First off, what kind of pilot comes with commercials in it? Also the fact that the show references ‘Barney’ pretty heavily dates it. Finally, the credits at the end of the video date it as 1997. So they are test marketing a show they made 6 years ago? Yeah right, weasles.

I searched on the web and found this thread from other people who were duped too, back as far as 2001. This one post was particularly informative.

I also found this site which says even more.

The show itself was predictable and stereotypical too. Clueless dads who don’t know about doing dishes or their kids birthdays.

When they call tomorrow to ask about what I thought I plan to be pretty harsh about their deceiptful practices. I’m willing to watch a show to tell them what I think. Hell I’d even be willing to watch it with commercials if they were up front, but dont lie to me, bastards.

I don’t recall exactly when I wrote this, I’m guessing it was 2003 or so. I just found this text in an old ‘stickie’ on my work mac and figured I’d post it here. Backdating so it doesn’t show up as current:

Dear Union Trust Representatives;

For the the record, I am VERY upset with the downtime for your Bill Pay service for this past weekend, and now for the next week. I don’t care if I am not being billed this month, what I care about is that your service, which I have come to rely on, is now down during a prime bill paying time of the month and this will cause me a bunch of extra work, since I have come to throw out return envelopes and file bills that are regularly paid online.

Pardon me for trusting that an institution with millions of dollars in assets might spend enough to offer their services without interuption. I find it very irresponsible that your upgrades were not planned better and that your service experienced any downtime at all, let alone a amjor failure of more than 10 days! I am computer system administrator and am familiar with industry standard practices and setups that guarantee 99.999% uptime for critical services, and I see no reason why your systems should incur such a critical failure, expecially a service that is only available to online users and thus requires even a higher level of reliability since there is no offline equivalent. Would you ever turn off your ATMs for a week? I see this service as equally critical, apparently you do not.

I will spend this downtime researching offerings by other local banks that now offer bill pay services. I suggest you spend some time reviewing your IT department procedures and level of service you plan to offer your customers in the future.

Very upset;

Matthew & Emily Baya