Crazy Guide to the Internet

We don’t mean to influence the “Worst Company In America” voting, but check this out: if you call Comcast and ask them to stop sending you anything other than your bill, they’ll agree but quietly slap you with a $1.99 “change of service” fee. Like most made-up, totally indefensible fees from cable and cell phone companies, Ian found that a chat with a customer service agent can get the fee removed.

I noticed a $1.99 “change of service” charge on my most recent Comcast bill. During an online chat, a Comcast rep explained the source of the fee:

“It looks like on 2/5/08 you contacted us and requested to have all direct mailers stopped on your account. There is a one time “Change of service” fee associated with making that change on the account.”

I had in fact called Comcast a few weeks earlier and asked them to stop sending me anything except a monthly bill. They were happy to do so, but had not told me that they would try and stick me for $2. They rep removed the fee from my bill.

Your readers might want to be on the lookout for bogus charges on their Comcast bill if they’ve ever spoken to Comcast on the phone. Perhaps this is how they pay for people to fill seats for them at FCC
hearings.

-Ian

Of course Ian is referring to this little stunt. In Comcast’s defense, however, we think with the FCC hearing they were just trying to solve the sleepy technician problem that’s plagued them in the past.

We can’t come up with a way to justify charging someone to stop sending them junk mail they never asked for, though.

(Photo: Tyler Durden’s Imaginary Friend)

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For those of you who missed the live feed, here are some photos from the Fort Worth rally…

If you’re from Texas, check out TX.BarackObama.com to find out how you can vote early and get involved locally… For folks around the country, please donate and help us expand our total for the month — tomorrow is the last day of the reporting period. 

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If you live in the New York Metro area, tune into NBC channel 4 like right now to see a followup on the widespread HSBC fraud story we broke. They interview Corey, the fiance of Emily, a Consumerist reader and HSBC fraud victim. WNBC tells us that the FBI said they they were generally aware of fraud in the area, but not this specific HSBC matter, and will be looking into the case. It’s par for the course that the bank would be more interested in avoiding bad publicity quiet than going after the scammers stealing your money. UPDATE: Just watched it, HSBC is saying that a credit card payment processor lost the customer data and so other banks could be affected too. However, when WNBC contacted other banks, Chase and Citi said they had not heard of missing money, Mastercard said they have not issued a system-wide alert, and VISA said they’re looking into it.

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Michelle Obama visited the Zanesville Day Nursery in Ohio today, where she got a tour of the nursery and held a roundtable on women’s issues.

During the tour, she had the opportunity to meet 3, 4, and 5 year olds and learn about how the nursery provides early childhood education to children in Zanesville.

After the tour, she held a roundtable with six local women, where they discussed work and childcare issues.

Michelle spoke about how she likes meeting with women all over the country because she enjoys talking about their common challenges and struggles.  She tells Barack about her experiences with women so that he can “continue to be accessible to folks and still connected to what’s happening on the ground.”  She said:

I’m lucky because I have this strong, informal support network.  But I’m like every other woman, except that the balancing act I’m trying to pull off is in front of the cameras. 

Education was an important issue for all the women in attendance, and they all agreed that teachers are not valued enough.  Michelle spoke about how everyone she meets is worried about the structure of public education.  She said:

Every parent feels the struggle of No Child Left Behind.  We have to work overtime to make money to pay for our kids’ college educations…So many of our star students are not getting an education because their families can’t afford it.  Many of them are going into corporate law because they’re forced to in order to pay for their degrees.

Michelle described how Barack is committed to improving public education across the country and making college affordable for everyone.

One of the attendees, Geri, asked Michelle how Barack will unite the country and help people see things from other’s points of view.  Michelle replied that Barack starts with empathy, and that his natural instinct is to try and understand where someone is coming from.  She said:

The truth is, most people aren’t on the polar opposites.  There are extremes on every issue, but the vast majority of Americans are right down the middle.  Having the opportunity to tour the nation, most folks are in the same spot when it comes to the future of the nation.  How do we start trusting each other and change the tone in this nation to a more positive tone? That’s what has dominated Barack’s conversations because shifting the tone will be the hardest thing to do.  If you can do that, the policy changes can be done.

Have you made your voice heard and voted early yet?  Find out how where to vote early here.

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The CEO of Uhaul gave out his cellphone number last night on an episode of Inside Edition, inviting consumers to call with complaints or questions. Joe Shoen explained saying, “People can’t get this organization to behave, I can.” That number is 602-390-6525.

(Thanks to le-garce!)

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We’re streaming the rally with Barack in Ft. Worth… Watch it LIVE now…

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Afraid of their insurance getting jacked up or of employer discrimation, people who think they might be genetically predisposed to certain diseases are testing themselves with home DNA kits, hiding the results from their doctors, and harboring a potentially deadly secret. [NYT]

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Here’s what The Boss had to say about Obama in a USA Today interview…

“I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality,” Springsteen says. “And I think (Obama’s) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter? How do we create a more humane society? We’ve lived through such ugly times that people want to have a romance with the idea of America again, and I think they need to.

“The hard realities and how things get done are important, too, but if you can effectively convince people that it’s possible to make things better, they get excited.”

Listen to some Bruce for inspiration and hit the phones… We’ve got work to do if we want to hit our goal of one million calls by March 4th… Go to My.BarackObama.com/call to start making calls now! 

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