Why I hate BELL Mobility

I have been having issues with Bell over the years with poor to non-existent customer service.  I moved my home phone about a year and half ago and have not regretted it at all.  I had a contract with Bell Mobility that terminated April 30, 2009.  I couldn’t wait to get away from them.  On April 1, I moved to another service provider.  I needed only to pay my last months/final bill which was on pre-authorized credit card.

Bell Mobilty’s solution was to charge me $100 plus GST and PST for terminating my contract, as for the outstanding service amount I can’t say exactly because their pay ahead system is a bit confusing.  I thought that I had paid up to my service date which was around the 22nd of each month and only owed the remaining 8 days.

They proceeded to bill my credit card for the excess amount.  As soon as I was notified of the penalty I was on their case and they said it was a mistake.  I have been trying since then to get my money back.  Their billing system only work once a month.  So this month I get a bill that says that I have a credit of $1113 coming and that it’s pre-authorized but nothing happened.  I called and they said I should get my credit next month – July/August.  This is a reason why I despise this company.  They have now promised to send me a cheque in a couple of weeks, we’ll see.

Since I left Bell for my home phone I have received monthly addressed junk mail from Bell trying to entice me back.  Annoying and a waste of money for them.  When I moved to a new cell provider, I received 3 calls from Bell (I know their number) but no one was there – dead calls.  They deserve to fail.  They have no idea how to take care of their customers.  I could talk about my wasted adventure trying out ISDN from Bell but suffice to say they couldn’t get it to work and didn’t bother telling me while I was waiting for a service response.  Losers!  Then there was the issue of a wiring problem in the house and they wanted an exorbitant fee to even come and address it – found a cheaper and better solution.

My new service supplier isn’t perfect, there was always going to be service issues but it’s how they handle them and to date they have surpassed Bell by a very wide margin.

Bell Sucks.

What are the long term effects of the current world crisis?

 You can sense that something isn’t right.  Something is changing and not for the better.   If you look at the world today you get snippets of what is happening, but is it a trend? 

 Economic recovery will very much depend upon a positive attitude in the consumers and investors around the world.  Almost everything we hear nowadays is anything but good news.  The Financial Sector in a majority of countries is corrupted and virtually bankrupt.  The leaders of many companies have run their companies into the ground trying to maximize their personal wealth through salary, bonuses and equity.  Their remuneration is obscene and totally unwarranted.  They have not added value to their companies, they have destroyed them and now it is the taxpayers (their former clients) who are being tasked with bailing them out.  It’s too bad that we are rewarding bad performance and not allowing companies that deserve to fail to do just that.

In North America, we have an Automobile Sector that blew it and made all the wrong decisions.  They misread the trends and developments and actually reversed themselves in areas where they were being innovative and getting it right.  The best example is the GM EV1 which was revolutionary and a good start to getting off the carbon trail.  I equate it to the Avro Arrow which was the best fighter bomber of its day never to have been built.  In both cases the products were destroyed to try and move the clock back.  We had quality issues which have for the most part been addressed.  I remember my first Japanese car – it was a piece of junk but then they got it right in subsequent years to where they were tops in quality and it took the big three awhile to finally catch up but we still have the perception that the quality isn’t there.  Recent surveys have shown that many of the vehicles from the North American manufacturers are better than their Japanese counterparts.  The Big 3 screwed up and we are being forced to try and save them – the jury is still out on that front. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People are angry with having to bail out the financial institutions around the world and they don’t see any change in behaviour or method of operation.  Maybe China’s solution would smarten them up – look at the Milk crisis and the main perpetrators have gone to jail for a long time or have been sentence to death.  Sounds like a deterrent to me.

Robberies and violence seem to be on the upswing.   People are losing hope and are getting desperate and doing what they can to survive or thrive.  Can this be the start of a trend that could lead to anarchy?  A Russian scholar says “There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010,” Igor Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.  Will there be a lot of social unrest?  There was during the Great Depression so it is quite plausible for the same to happen in modern times.  How far it goes will depend upon the levels of hope or despair we get to in the future.

If the ones who helped create this situation don’t change their ways we can expect a push back by the investors and consumers who are needed to right the ship. 

I despair for the lack of will on the part of governments to correct the causes of the problems in concert with their efforts to reverse the effects of the downturn in the economy.  It is just going to get worse but the creators of the problems are sitting pretty with their bonuses and offshore bank accounts.  They won’t even face paying the taxes that will pay the final tab on this problem.

Am I a Grumpy Old Man?

I am beginning to think that I am a grumpy old man.  There are a number of things that are happening that I don’t fully understand nor support.  These aren’t just local but national and international in scope.

 

 

 

We have a great country and have many opportunities that we can go after.  The world is in financial meltdown.  Credit and jobs are getting harder to find and easier to lose.  On the one hand the US has admitted that the financial crunch started there yet they can’t understand why we are annoyed with them.  I can’t understand why the world continues to invest in American securities when they are going downhill fast.  They are spending all kinds of money, in the $trillions, yet they are talking about tax cuts.  How will they pay for all of these bailouts and loans?  The greed of the financial marketers to create all of those bad mortgages and loans and resell them over and over creating derivatives and other totally speculative financial instruments where they made obscene profits.  Even today after the bailouts these people just don’t get it.  They continue their greedy and self serving ways with “taxpayer” money.  There is no accountability, no shame.  This thing is going to get worse before we start to see a return to financial stability in the world.  This pisses me off.

 

In Canada, we are being pressured to rescue the big 3 Auto Makers.  This is a real challenge because we need the jobs but the companies haven’t corrected the problems that got them their in the first place and they don’t seem to want to address this issue.  They went for short term profits and built gas guzzlers and not fuel efficient vehicles using new technologies.  There was little or no long term thinking nor trying to address the “green” market.  Toyota and Honda both had hybrids that perform well and sell well.  GM killed their electric car.  The Canadian autoworkers say it was the financial crisis that is causing the problems today yet these same worker wanted GM to keep a truck plant open that couldn’t sell its products.  The company screws up and the workers pay.  This pisses me off.

 

We are in NAFTA yet the Americans don’t play by the rules and they almost destroyed our forest industry because we didn’t use the same model that they use.  The US Congress is likely to become very protectionist and hurt Canadian jobs as a result.  My thinking is that we should turn off the tap for Canadian oil and sell it elsewhere in the world where is would buy the appropriate respect.  This pisses me off.

 

Canadian politicians at the municipal, provincial and federal levels are jerks.  Our city politicians can’t decide what the city should be funding and what it should not fund therefore our property taxes are out of control.  The Ontario Government has failed miserably except when it comes to teachers.  Now a teacher with the appropriate time in can make over $90,000 a year for less than 10 months work.  Their argument that they work very hard during those months doesn’t cut it, when I was in the Army we were expected to be available 24/7 no matter what for so-so pay.  The provincial liberals just got blasted by their auditor general who says they suck.  The federal politicians don’t really care about us; they only want their perks and powers.  This latest coalition crap is symptomatic of the problem.  Jack Layton says that this is the way that proportional representation would work yet he rejects things before he hears them and he is overly partisan about anything that he does provide assistance – if he touches – Jack and the NDP did it.  A pox on all their houses.  This pisses me off.

 

There are a number of strikes currently under way and I for the life of me cannot understand what is going through their heads.  I’ve been on strike and it is so stupid and non-productive, you never get it back.  The bus drives say they want respect, the postal techies say they want respect yet they show none to their customers, the people who make their jobs possible.  What about the hundreds of thousands who have lost or could lose their jobs because of all of the above?   We all have to sacrifice in this time of crisis but it seems to be me first.  This pisses me off.

 

Something is wrong with society when greed is rewarded and running a company into the ground gets you a government bailout and people show no respect for their fellow human beings.  We are doomed.  Our future is dark.  No wonder I am a turning into a grumpy old fart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consipiracy Theorists can make valid points

Subprime fallout: Spitzer targetted because he was about to target Bush Leaguers

“Greg Palast nails it as usual. Spitzer got nailed because,
and only because, he was going to use state law to
stop Bernanke’s quiet bailout of many dirty banks,
without any complementary measure to protect poor
families caught in the subprime scam or buyers of
“AAA” bonds that were criminally labelled same by
criminals. Not surprisingly many of the criminals
associated via the Carlyle Group which just went
bankrupt, a fact that Spitzer was already repeating.”

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

It is food for thought. There are so many examples of the Bush Administration screwing the American People you have to believe that some of it has to be true. Like the only plane that was allow to fly immediately after 9/11 carried Saudis out of the US. The war on Iraq that really had nothing to do with terrorism but with oil and money. Extraordinary presidential powers that have been included in various pieces of legislation the give the President unlimited powers. The close ties of the President and Vice President to big money corporations and the Saudis. The contracting out of the war in Iraq to friendly companies who make obscene profits and have virtual immunity from any rule of law. Contracting out of the supply chain for the US Military where prices can be manipulated up such as the acquisition of white towels for the military – the need was for plain white towels, a corporate logo was added and the price quadrupled. America had abandoned the rule of law in its handling of the detainees at Guantanamo, the use of torture, ignoring human rights and abusing its power for whatever reasons.  Then you can look at the “hanging chads” and voting machines that are vulnerable to manipulation and possible “stolen” elections.

The US had an image of the upholder of human rights and democracy for the world but in reality it has been trying to manipulate and control the world. Even in trade, they say they want free trade but what they really want is trade that is solely to its advantage.

The American people could correct this by taking off the rose colored glasses and seeing their government for what it is and not what it says it is. The average American holds the belief that their way and their countries way is the best way but they are being lied to by those in positions of authority.