Is Quality Going Down?

Recently I've experienced poor customer service and incompetence from my bank, cell phone provider, my credit card company and computer company.

Are you experiencing it too?

I blogged about my computer hard drive burning up. It just quit one night when I was working on it. It is a Dell and less than a year old. Dell sent me a new hard drive but it was refurbished. Shouldn't I get a new one if it is under warranty. I would complain but I'd have to spend half my day on the phone like Laura did trying to install the hard drive and the lost programs. It is ridiculous.

Dell was a really good company but I think they got too big too fast. I wouldn't recommend buying a computer from them. I can't say anything about their other products.

My next beef is with my cell phone company Sprint. I have been trying to cancel my automatic payment from my checking account for a year. Every time I call they say they cancel it but I keep getting the bill deducted from my account. The worst part is I don't use that checking account anymore so I do not deposit into it as of a month ago. I don't recommend Sprint either.

Onto my bank. When Laura and I set up the account here in New York I wasn't able to be on it because I didn't have any paperwork with my name and address on it. So we just put it in Laura's name. We had a wonderful experience with the staff member who helped us. Last month we went back to get my name on the account. Again the woman was excellent. I asked if I could sign the checks even if my name wasn't on the check itself. She said now that my name was on the account it didn't matter. Well I had to call Citibank the other day to ask a question and I couldn't because my name isn't on the account. Incompetence.

Now here's the deal with my credit card. It kept getting declined. So I called them. The bill was returned to them when they tried to mail it. I just moved. I changed my address with company before that. It must not have happened. You would think they would call me if my bill was sent back?

I called up the company to change my address again. The woman I spoke with didn't know how to do that. As she fumbled around, I was disconnected. I couldn't call back because I was on my lunch break and didn't have time to call back and wait on hold. I am cancelling the card.

These aren't complaints, just realities. Realities that waste time. We all shell out a lot of money for these services (which we really don't need). We should call out companies that have poor quality and service and patron those that excel in it.

One company that went above and beyond for us is DHL, a shipping company. So there's a shout for DHL.