I bought a Samsung Galaxy IIS through Credo Mobile, a company whose philosophy of promoting causes and encouraging citizen activism I support. However, the experience of getting this damned phone up and running consisted of a 40-hour ordeal running between Saturday, June 9 and Sunday, June 10, punctuated by multiple hang-ups by customer service reps, wrong advice, dropped calls, poor data transfer from BlackBerry-held data to the Galaxy IIS, rude customer service reps, incompetent customer service reps, mysterious self-deactivation of my phone twice in a 48-hour period whereby I could not HEAR any phones that I had dialed ringing, or their outgoing messages, or, heaven forbid, any people who may have picked up their phones and were speaking. My memopad of data had to be transferred to a Google account, and then to my new phone, only to look now like an ill-formatted spreadsheet instead of the simple listing of information I had entered into my BlackBerry. All my distinct "memos" of information (lists of books I want to read, lists of movies/DVDs I want to get, my mother's medical history and listing of doctors and pills, passwords for every damn device and credit card I own, places I want to visit, and the list goes on and on and on.....basic information, alphabetized in simple, easy-to-access and easy-to-read lists), has now been dumped into a lousy spreadsheet (I usually love spreadsheets...I'm a database marketer, for heaven's sake; but, this information doesn't belong in a spreadsheet) that is not in the least bit user-friendly.
I am complaining about Credo because their rep NEVER expressed that the data transfer would be troublesome (after I had asked him if it would be). I am complaining about Credo because it took them 48 hours, after MULTIPLE, MULTIPLE reps, to figure out how to transfer my contacts, memos, and tasks to the new phone. I am complaining about them because I had several times waited up to 42 minutes just to FIRST speak to a person. I am complaining about them because, after my phone was SEEMINGLY working find by the 50th hour, it had decided to deactivate, out of nowhere, twice.
I am complaining about JCP.com because they have not alerted their customers that they are in the midst of redesigning their website, and that their own customers, who might like to do the responsible thing and pay their bill online and on time, will need to access their site through a completely different link on their home page....one that does not even say anything in the realm of "paying bills online". I am complaining about JCP.com because, in the event (which I would hazard a guess to be happening 99% of the time) customers hit the old link and try to enter their email address and password, where it says to do so, all that comes up is the message that you are entering the wrong "sign on" (e.g., JCP is telling you that you don't REALLY know your own email address. You are wrong. Enter something else that is your email address). They don't bother offering a pop-up message THERE saying, "oh, please return to the home page and click on the NEW portal that will give you access to your own online account". No, these paid professionals who call themselves web designers have not managed to figure out how to create a user-friendly "experience" as the marketing world loves to coin every touchpoint customers use.
I have been looking for a new job for quite some time now. It mystifies me how these damn incompetents are working, and why I can't find a better job while I still have one....supposedly the only way to find a job is to still be working while you're looking for a new one. In turn, I don't know how unemployed people will ever work again...but that is a topic for another article. My purpose here today is to tell everyone to boycott Credo. Their spirit is in the right place, but their techies don't know what the hell they're doing. And boycott jcp.com. If those a-holes don't know how to design a user-friendly website, they don't deserve to be in business. Particularly when their name is now "jcp.COM". And, boycott any and every company that has LOUSY customer service. By saying this, I recognize that I am basically telling Americans to boycott 98% of the businesses that are out there today. But who cares. I'm basically hoping for complete entropy at this point. This country has now become a full-blown plutocratic, Gilded Age mess of a nation. There are no jobs. The ones that are out there pay minimum wage, which will never go up. People with master’s degrees, such as me, can't find jobs in most fields. People's homes have plummeted in value. 40% of Americans are now in poverty. FORTY PERCENT. So it is any wonder that when 40% of a company's market is in poverty, are they really going to care how well they are treated by an incompetent and low-paid customer service representative?
I really have come to despise this country. I've written articles before on the insanity of Sarah Palin, TeaBaggers, and Republicans in general. But Obama hasn't taken that party to task one iota. I'm finding less and less reason to vote in November. People might say I will have no reason to complain if I don't vote. My president now and this country in general haven’t given me much reason to care about what happens to it at this point. If I won the lottery, I'd take the first plane to Denmark, and never return. The Danes KNOW how to build a fair, HAPPY, almost fully-employed society. Our country has decided to slide down the ranks on just about every damn quality-of-life measure. It's not a country I've been proud of for years...and my lack of pride has turned into sheer hatred for most of it.
Sun Nov 11, 2012 at 7:42 PM PT: For SKOHAYE'S information, I come off great in interviews. That's why I've had multiple offers in the past six months alone. That's why I have been videotaped for my interviewing style by corporate marketing departments for several companies.
I have no idea where you're connecting my so-called "rant" about the very poor service offerd by both jcp.com (in terms of their LOUSY website. And, for the person who apparently went to it and had no problems....you didn't try it six months ago, before I even wrote this blog), and Credo.
And to the person who said "I always get good service from Credo". That's like OJ's first idiot wife saying, "he never hit me". Just because you haven't received terrible customer service doesn't mean other people haven't. Take a course in logic....maybe you'll better understand my argument and my facts.