Bloggy Bits

What Greedy CEOs Need to Understand (it's not that difficult)

Nov 4, 2011   [permalink]

So I got hit with a bunch of exasperating smacks from different companies this week, all in the same realm of "annoying things companies do just out of greed."

This collided with a newspaper article where a bunch of CEOs said they didn't get the Occupy movement, didn't understand why people were upset with CEOs and their companies.

Well, maybe we can clue you in, guys. So I started a Facebook page for it, if you want to post examples of your own, called What Greedy CEOs Need to Understand: http://www.facebook.com/pages/What-Greedy-CEOS-Need-to-Understand-OWS/284283668269868

In my case, you can read there about Frontier airlines, who cancelled my flight next year (bought & paid for), rescheduling me onto a flight hours earlier that I couldn't possibly make because of the connection from another airline. Apparently they decided that my flight wasn't making them enough profit, so they'd just cancel that flight. WTF! We had a deal, and we made plans around that. I call that: #greedy

Then there's the bank where I keep the accounts for Critters and ReAnimus Press, who decided to be greedy and suddenly charge $2/month for sending paper statements -- $48/year all told. (Like, dudes, a bank is about taking deposits and lending those out for interest... not charging fees to hold your money for you. A mattress will do that for free.)

(I should add that I do generally like digital over paper — and if they emailed me a PDF of the statement I'd be entirely happy. But emailing a note telling me I need to go log in, hunt down the file, and manually download it, every blasted month, for every account I have (since other places also are pushing for this) — that's a lot more work for me. Email me the thing itself, I'd be happy.)

Then there's GoDaddy, where last year I cancelled an SSL certificate for a web site I don't use any longer. Last year, after I'd supposedly cancelled it, they automatically charged me for a renewal, which was annoying, so I had to waste my time to call, and they said sorry, no problem, all sorted out. Except this year, ding! again it autorenews and charges my credit card with no warning. Seriously, people, cancelling something means — cancel it. Permanently. Completely. No "accidental" lingering charges for it, hoping, what, you won't notice? That's twice now I haven't been able to get it stopped. Just like the banks that leave open an account after you say "close it", so they can still count you as a customer — One bank still counts us as a customer even though we closed the account like 20 years ago — this smells fishy, intentional, and #greedy.

Ok, then there was a problem with another place that failed to make a scheduled payment for money they owed. (Yeah, all these hit like on the same day this week.) And there's no way to contact them to reach a human. Preventing you from reaching a human to resolve a problem is just... #greedy.

And I'm still of the opinion that if a company wastes your time because of their error, they should reimburse you for it.)

All of which was what put me over the edge to make me create that Facebook page. :)

I should say, I'm a big fan of capitalism — but tempered by ethical behavior. (Which usually requires laws, regulations, taxes, etc.)

So, share your examples there on that facebook, and who knows, maybe someday the CEOs will get the clue!

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