Ways to Get Screwed

Way #1 — Live in Maryland

Maryland has, for years, been known as “The Fee State.” Well, now it’s January 3, 2008, and Maryland’s new sales tax is in effect — 6% now, instead of 5%, as well as a doubled cigarette tax! At least the ciggie tax doesn’t affect me. And, fortunately, we bought the new car last year. Unfortunately, we still need a new computer … 

Way #2 — Buy a Dell PDA

Last year sometime, I bought a Dell X51v PDA. It’s a nice enough device, but it’s becoming increasingly useless. I can connect to fewer and fewer WIFI networks with it, as WAP security protocols get tighter and tighter. Of course, increased security is a good thing. The bad thing is that Dell have no plans for any OS upgrades. Or any other upgrades or updates. The “updates” on their web site are older than the firmware in my unit.  The fact is, they seem to have washed their hands of the whole thing. That’s the last Dell product I’ll ever buy.

Way #3 — Get a Rhapsody Account

Actually, opening the account isn’t the way to get screwed. However, trying to cancel the service will. Despite receiving a confirmation number from the customer service rep who simply couldn’t believe that I’d rather use a free service, or none at all, my credit card is still being charged. Which leads me to …

Way #4 — Use a Capital One Credit Card

Since Rhapsody have been no help, choosing instead to simply ignore me, I went to my credit card company, Capital One. I spent a fair amount of time online, filling out a form explaining the entire situation. A few days later, I was interviewed (more like interrogated) by a customer service rep, who then sent out a form for me to fill out — the same damned thing as the online form. Another call to the CSR, and I found out that they need a signature on the form. Okay, that made sense. So, I filled the thing out, mailed it in, and they lost it. In the meantime, they’ve re-billed my account.

Way #5 — Verizon Cell Phones

We have Verizon for our cellular service. Everything was pretty good, until we got the latest phones (the old ones were wearing out, and the upgrade was free). I got an LG VX8100. According to the LG site, there were all kinds of really neat, useful or fun features. However, some of the most basic, Verizon have disabled — like the MP3 player. Instead, they’ve dumped their own VCast player on there that only plays WMA files. At the same time, they’ve managed to lock me out of the account management functions on the web site, so I can’t even find out how much longer I have to put up with this piece of crap phone, and their service. I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble it’s going to be to try to use the phone as a Bluetooth modem for the PDA.

So, that ends my rant for the moment. I’m sure I could come up with some more ways to get screwed, given a couple of minutes thought. But, I’ve got other stuff to do.