fool-me-once c.

If you want never-ending spam for the rest of your life, give these people an email address.

They are a real estate company that charges up front for marketing your timeshare. They don't really care if it sells or not - they make their money but convincing owners to pay them to put it on the market.

They will happily tell you how valuable your timeshare is *even if its been bulldozed* and offer to sell if for you. For a price, of course. In my case, they wanted $2000. Pay them and they'll put it on the market.

As a seller, I have a problem selling worthless property and their persistant spam after I've told them "NO!"

Buyers had better beware as well. Would you like to buy my timeshare? Picture attached.

In the movie "Cast Away", Tom Hanks portayed a dedicated Fedex worker who kept and delivered a package after his ordeal stranded on an island for years and basically losing everything important to him Delivering the package was the last purpose in life he could hang on to.

The movie was great. His portrayal of a Fedex worker was, alas, fictional.

Today's minimum-wage minimum-intelligence Fedex employee puts in minimal effort and couldn't care less if a package is correctly delivered. The computers actually track their whereabouts, but it still doesn't matter. If your address is not convenient enough, the driver will likely skip you and/or drop your package some place else.

A "full day's work" means getting rid of a truck full of deliveries as quickly as possible. GPS is such a nuissance. Anywhere will do in a pinch if the driver has better things to do that afternoon. He can go home and let someone else fix any problems. Shucks, the packages are insured, right?

Which would be bad enough if the managers at Fedex cared at all and would actaully fix problems. But they are no more than semi-organic bots who read the lines the computer tells them to say. If the computer says "the package was delivered", there can be no other answer. Nevermind that the driver dumped it at an address near his favorite bar.

Fedex "managers" no longer manage. They are hired to tell customers anything that will keep them from calling again. They don't want people pestering them asking where their package went. "We'll call you" is another favorite line.

It appears Fedex has successfully fought it's way to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to delivery services. They are now only a small step above handing your package and a dollar bill to a kid on the street.

US-forms.com is very likely a renamed version of other sites that have come under investigation or have been shut down. They give no mailing address, but their format is suspiciously similar to other sites that play the same game to trick people into paying them money.

Even I was fooled, and I know to NEVER USE ANY SITE OTHER THAN ONE THAT ENDS IN ". GOV".

In this case, I wanted to fill out an citizenship naturalization form, and US-forms said I could fill it out online for $199. Well, that sounded pretty good - so good that I stupidly overlooked the fact that it was a ". Com" site.

What I got for my $199 was an online replica of what might have been the correct form, which I dutifully filled out. At the end, it gave me an un-editable PDF file and some generic instructions for mailing in an application for a work permit.? Well, I did fill out the form online, but a PDF file to print and mail is NOT what I expected. And I couldn't even edit it.

The ONLY good part about US-forms.com is that they guaranty a refund if you aren't satified, and I was NOT satisfiied. They say they processed the refund. With that, I can make certain when I get my credit card statement.

Having made my mistake, I went looking for the proper form again, and this time made sure I was on a USCIS government web site. There, I found very clear instructions for gathering the required supporting documents, and an online form to fill out AND SUBMIT that was very, very easy. Unlike the scam site, the only fees were the actual filing fees.

NEVER RELY ON ANYTHING BUT A US GOVERNMENT SITE ENDING IN ". GOV".

NOTE: I could see from the charge to my credit card that US-Forms operates out of Barcelona, Spain. A foreign address keeps them out of reach of the US legal system.

I have tried several times using the PC based application, and it ALWAYS fails. The first time it input the street the restaurant was on as the delivery address, and there was no way to correct it. The second time, the order was completely lost and we had to re-order and wait 3 hours for dinner. The third time we gave up because the system gave us no way to order the sides that came with the dinner.

All that would be bad enough, but we called and emailed DoorDash "customer service" all three times to try to straighten out these problems AND NEVER GOT A REPLY. We also tried to call the number given for the driver about the delivery problem, and found out that it was incorrect.

Ahhh. But it still gets much worse. When we finally got an order using the iPhone app, it arrived OPENED and PARTIALLY CONSUMED. The DoorDash driver had helped himself to part of our meal. Of course we complained (again), but got no reply and no refund.

Today I received my charge card bill... for the order that never arrived. That's what prompted me to write this review.

Where is the option for ZERO stars?

Let me start by saying that only an idiot would flunk the 4 hour 'driver improvement' course since there is no time limit and you can look up the answers. FL law required a minimum of 4 hours, so more likely you'll have to wait for each section's minimum time to complete.

That said, there are several sites offering the same course as "LowestPriceTrafficSchool", WITHOUT the deceit.

LIE #1: the price. They advertise $5 but as soon as you select the course, you find out that it's $6 plus an FL state fee of $25. AFTER you pay that, you are hit with all sorts of extra charges, and warnings that if you don't pay for the extras, you might not get your certificate. Mostly scare tactics, and a hard sell. A VERY hard sell... to get you to pay a LOT more than the original price. TRUTH: YOU DON'T NEED ANY EXTRAS.

LIE #2: It will take weeks to get your certificate unless you pay extra for special delivery. THE TRUTH: You can get it by email as soon as you complete the test.

LIE #3: Most of the reviews you find online are THEIRS, selling themselves. That alone tells you they are frauds. HONESTY goes a long way in my book.

I needed a textbook for a class that just started. On the first day of calls, the professor told us to get a certain book. Like most these days, it cost over a hundred dollars new in the campus bookstore. So, even he advised getting it online. Abebooks said they had several in stock, and the price was much lower. Great. So I ordered it, and I added an extra $6.99 for "priority mail" shipping. And THAT is the problem...

Abebooks has redefined "priority mail" to mean collecting their money fast and then sending the order on to a third party who will do whatever they feel like doing. When I didn't even get a tracking number in 48 hours and complained, they responded with the advice that they would pass my complaint on to the seller and if the book didn't arrive in 12 days, I could make another inquiry. So I complained again that this was unacceptable, and they replied with the same canned response.

The seller finally responded with a "tracking number" - that their shipper says is not valid. I complained AGAIN - and got the same canned response AGAIN.

I hope I get this book before the class is over! And frankly, now that I have read the reviews, I worry about the condition of what will arrive - assuming it ever does.

IN THE MEANTIME, I have been forced to buy another book from another seller so I have something to work with. So much for "AbeBooks", one of the worse online retailers I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

Buy from Abebooks at your peril. Remember, they are NOT the real seller, but an order taking service that couldn't care less about the honesty of their sellers.

UPDATE: I finally got the book. It was clearly marked on both front and back covers "SAMPLE EDITION FOR EVALUATION ONLY. NOT FOR SALE OR RESALE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES". I am also now getting SPAM mail from them.

Cheap is the name of the game, and Walmart online is no different that the store. A selection of cheap merchandise, and lots of errors in the descriptions that make you think you are getting something different. BUT, sometimes you just want cheap, and Walmart will accept your rejection or return of anything that turns out to be TOO cheap. Delivery is pretty fast an efficient, even to the home. If a store is close, smaller items can be picked up to save the delivery charge. If the store is out of stock on something, chances are you can order it online and have it sent to the store just for you.

Amazon has lots of stuff, and most of the time the price is at or near the best you'll find. But what really sets them apart is the customer service provided *by Amazon*. Of course, Amazon offers items from its own warehouse, but they also offer the same items from third party distributors. EVEN THEN, if there is a problem, my experience is that Amazon will take care of you. I've had to return items - Amazon paid return shipping. I've gotten items that were defective and the seller disappeared. Amazon gave me a refund. I've had warranty issues with third party seller - Amazon made good on my purchase. THe bottom line is that I am pretty sure I can rely on Amazon to correct any problems, at their expense, not mine. That makes them a great online store.

So, the commercials promise a savings of 15% or more on your insurance bill. They do offer good rates, as far as I can tell. But they will get it back from you many times over...

Case in point #1: I had GEICO car insurance in NJ. They cancelled my policy because I got ONE $10 "illegal U-turn" ticket. In fact, I had mistakenly gone around a traffic circle in at an hour when going all the way was prohibited, and I missed the sign. But GEICO had decided to pull out of NJ because it wasn't profitable for them, and used any excuse they could find to cancel policies. By cancelling my policy, the only insurance I could get for the next 6 months cost me twice as much.

Case in point #2: Years later, I moved to MD, and foolishly chose the cheapest insurance policy I could - GEICO. I took my car to the shop for repair because the AC wasn't working. What they found was that a mouse had chewed through the wiring. That meant it was covered by insurance under my comprehensive coverage. Before staring work, I called GEICO to see if they wanted to inspect the car before I proceed. "No need" they said, because I had gone to a GEICO-approved shop, and the shop confirmed that a mouse had done the damage. The shop saved the evidence when doing the work, and after the repair was done, the shop called GEICO again to see if they wanted to see any of the evidence. "No need" they said, "just send us the bill." So the shop threw it out and billed GEICO. Weeks later. GEICO informed me that they would not pay for the damage because my claim was unbelievable. After considerable debate, they agreed to pay HALF on the basis that the air conditioning had depreciated by 50%!

Case in point #3: I should have gotten a new policy, but instead I bought a new car. I notified GEICO, and they sent me insurance cards for my new car. What I did not notice is that these new cards had an expiration date three weeks before they sent them. I had my insurance bills on autopay, and didn't notice any lack of bills. 5 months later, however, the MVA fined me $1500 for not having car insurance!?!?!?!?! THAT is how I found out. I took GEICO to court, since the law requires that they notify policy holders with 2 cancellation notices sent by registered mail, and I got none. GEICO said they sent the two notices in one envelope. When I demanded they show the registered mail receipt, they pointed out that the law didnt require them to confirm delivery. What they had as "proof" was a statement by their mail clerk that they send cancellation notices. The court offered me the option of forcing GEICO to re-insure my car, but no repayment of the fine.

Needless to say, I would never give business to GEICO ever again.

If you're looking for some electronic gadget or adapter or anything else slightly "techie", DealeXtreme offer you a LOT of options and low prices. I'm pretty sure that many of the eBay sellers actually get their stuff from DealeXtreme with a quantity discount.

Most of it is made in China, and some of it is of dubious quality. But DealeXtreme posts honest customer reviews, and you can pick out the good from the bad. The selection is fantastic, and they phase out older stuff in favor of newer versions very quickly. Depending on the item, I don't even care if the plastic is cheesy - I just want an adapter that fits and if I can get it for $1 instead of $10 on Amazon or $20 in the local store, guess which one I'll choose? Many times, its the same exact item.

They give you options for shipping too. Not just the type of service, but how to bundle your order. I like that. Whatever you choose, its FAST. And they respond just as quickly to any problems you have.

All in all, a great experience. I am amazed by the people who say they had any trouble at all with the customer service. It is one of the best I have ever dealt with for online purchases - responsive and intelligent service - and I've been buying bits and pieces from DealeXtreme for many years.

Time and time again, I go to my local Lowes because it is so close to my home. Time and time again, I walk out with nothing because they don't have what I need - either out of stock or they never carried it How can such a big store be so "empty"?

The employees are helpful enough. The "greeters" are useless - its downright annoying that they waste their time saying "hello" when they might be putting proper price stickers on the stock or doing something else useful. The most helpful ones are those that tell me where I can actually get the item I'm looking for - most often NOT at Lowes.

They offer a "lowest price guarantee". I've never tested that, because if I can get the item cheaper someplace else, why bother going back to Lowes and trying to prove that it's the same item to get the same price?

Sad.

Home Depot took over the home improvement business from local stores - forcing them out of business and literally buying their buildings to convert into "Home Depots". At first, they offered good selection and lower prices. But once the local stores were out of business, Home Depot slacked off.

Now, the selection of products is little different than what you can get at the other national chain - Lowes - and probably a little higher priced. And if they don't have it, there is nowhere else to go - they have driven all the competition away.

They have a good return policy, which is very important and well used - the lines at the return counter are just as long as new sales. But just like Lowes, they only stock the mass-produced items, and only support those products with parts and accessories. In most cases, you can get better products at lower prices by going to the right supply house - i. E., Plumbing Supply, Electrical Supply, Lumber yard, Building Supply. There is something to be said for the convenience of having all these things in one place, but you must dig through the lumber to find a straight piece, and make do with whatever fittings you can find to meet your electrical or plumbing needs.

The best section is the garden shop in my opinion, where you can get plants well suited to your area at decent prices compared to local nurseries. But if you want anything out of the ordinary, you'll be out of luck.

It seems like every retailer in this class tries to carry everything these days, and Target is no exception. They are a little higher priced than Walmart, with a little less selection, but most things are a bit higher quality. Chances are, you'll have a bit easier time finding help with your purchase, too.

The latest addition that I'm aware of is a grocery section. Not very large, limited selection but *different* than some of the other stores around, and decently priced. Adjacent is a Target liquor store, with similar selection and pricing characteristics.

On the whole, I think its a step up from Walmart, and lots cheaper than the stores in the Shopping Mall. If your needs are pretty ordinary, then Target is a good places to satisfy them. If you want something more unique and/or higher quality and are willing to pay for it, then head for the specialty shops in the nearest Shopping Mall.

Very good selection with decent prices for a retail store. But truly, since most of the stock they carry is available mail order for 25%-50% less, its hard to imagine buying anything unless (1) you need it immediately, or (2) you plan on returning it.

I've also had a problem with a discourteous salesperson. Suffice to say that they are not ALL as customer-friendly as one might hope. If it was just one, I wouldn't mention it, but its happened several times. The common problem is that they seem to think they are the experts and all customers are ignorant. Ahhh. But I'm not ignorant, and probably know a lot more about the technology than they do in some cases. More than once, asking about a detail in the technical specifications has gotten me a snippy response. In such cases, I take it that they either don't know or the answer (if they gave it) would be a negative.

But they beat the prices and selection available in local department stores. So, if I desperately need a new memory card, I might get it at Micro Center. Or, if its a price-fixed item like one of the Apple products, Micro Center might be the best bet. That just doesn't happen very often for me.

Tiger Direct mostly sells products that are slightly out of date and past their prime. The prices are low because they are the "leftovers" or "end runs" from manufacturers who have stopped production in favor of newer, better products.

As long as you know this, and know that whatever you buy is not the latest technology, or has been replaced by an improved version, its fair enough. But then you must also contend with their customer service which is definitely "discount quality".

Being that the stock they sell has often been shifted around the warehouse a few times before finally getting out the door, it is often defective or broken. The challenge for the customer is to then get a repair or replacement. Tiger Direct will send you to the manufacturer, who will tell you the product is no longer supported. Take you pick: rock, hard place. With a bit of persistence, you might get one or the other to eventually make good on your purchase, but don't expect it to be easy. You chose a discounted item, and they will treat you as such.

Apple designs some good products, which they get manufactured in Asia. As good as the design may be, the manufacturing quality is about the same as you can expect of anything you get at Walmart.

But Apple is very careful to price-fix its products. Anyone offering them for less will soon find that Apple won't supply them with any more to sell. That has always been Apple's marketing strategy, and the reason IBM PC's with Windows became the international standard rather than MacIntosh.

*IF* you buy anything from Apple, you have to pay the Apple retail price for it as well as any of the "extras". If you want some new software, you must pay Apple. If you want an accessory, you must pay Apple. It limits selection and makes everything higher priced. Many people assume that anything high priced must be high quality, and ignore the "Made in China" labels. And it makes Apple rich.

Apple is also very careful to guard what it considers its "proprietary" intellectual property. Like a rectangular shape for a cell phone. They sued Samsung for a billion dollars over that one. But Apple isn't against violating other companies' patent rights, even when their own engineers and federal courts tell them so. With $50 billion in the bank, they just roll out their lawyers to avoid paying those smaller companies for what is rightfully theirs. Apple is a bully. Its time for the federal government to intervene, just as they did for Microsoft a few years back.

There are people who just HAVE to have the latest trendy product, and don't care if they have to pay an inflated price. So what if it bends in the middle? Its a "fashion statement".

Sooo... I'll stick to Windows and/or Android, thankyouverymuch, with many times more products, better compatibility, and lower prices.

One would think that a company with such a stellar past performance as the nation's telephone system would be able to manage a digital network. It's true that they are hampered by an old physical infrastructure designed for analog telephones, but that should still be a step ahead of carriers who have to build everything from scratch. And there is NO excuse for the miserable management that prevents their own employees from doing a decent job.

First, lets start with a fact about their "U-Verse" fiber network: Its not fiber except for some of the backbone. Customers are connected with copper cables. They promise multi-megabit bandwidth to the customer, but their backbone is badly overloaded. Most internet connections are bogged down so badly that many times they time out. The browser may report "URL not found" until you try a second or third time. Streaming videos (i. E., Netflix) will pause until enough data is received to continue, causing annoying breaks every few minutes.

Next, if the poor performance wasn't bad enough, its a world ahead of NO performance. On average, I lose ALL internet service for about 24 hours out of every week. Sometimes I get a notice online that they are about to do some repair or maintenance, and will be out of service for about 15 minutes/ "About 15 minutes" really means until the next day, and usually requires a call to their "customer service". That call is ALWAYS frustrating because "customer service" is apparently staffed by Asian high school students trained to follow an exact script. Nevermind that the same problem has occurred repeatedly and is always found to be a configuration error in their network, they *always* tell you the problem "must" be something you did in your home. Nevermind that on each of those prior occasions, they sent an AT&T tech to the house who found absolutely nothing wrong. Nevermind that service is mysteriously restored after someone finally calls the core network group who insist there are no problems with the network... Uhuh... If we are to believe customer service or the field technicians, they cannot contact the core network group to find out what they did to restore service. Against the rules.

Finally, there is the whole contract thing and the AT&T acquisition of DirecTV to offer a bundled service. The "bundle" consists of an AT&T contract for internet, and a **separate** contract with DirecTV for television. AT&T installed their cable, and DirecTV was to show up two weeks later. Except they didn't show up and the tech lied and said he was onsite. So I called, and they got a tech to actually show up. Then they said my location couldn't receive satellite signals. Another lie - I ended up calling DISH network, who installed their satellite service the next day. DirecTV cancelled their contract, but I was stuck with AT&T because *that* was separate! Adding insult to injury, this makes AT&T even higher priced, and it was already the most costly.

AT&T does ONE thing right as far as I can tell: they make a point of grading their field service based on customer reviews. The result is that the field service people do everything possible to help the customer in a professional and courteous manner. Unfortunately, since the real problems are in the backbone core network, and the field service are not allowed to contact the group responsible, there is little they can do to improve the abysmal service.

It is particularly galling that I cannot get honest answers from AT&T. I have spent 30+ years as a technical consultant to our government and a few allied nations, focused mainly on network communications. I have been the chief troubleshooter for several global networks and can diagnose many problems with a little factual data. But AT&T hides behind glossy marketing fluff and false promises. Instead of fixing problems, they merely deny them. I should have expected that their commercial service would be no different than their government service, with which I am all too familiar.

BOTTOM LINE: If you have a choice, choose another network provider. No matter how good the promises made by AT&T sound to you, know that you will be sorry if you sign any contract.

The first thing you need to know is that MaxSold pays people for positive reviews, contrary to SiteJabber's T&C's. They started doing that after my first review - one of very few at the time, and very negative. Suddenly, they got lots of positive reviews, many of which specifically refuted what I had posted.

So who would give MaxSold a positive review? Buyers are often willing to do that, because many of them got real bargains, paying perhaps 1-5% of an item's true value. MaxSold DOES NOT have all the bidders they claim, and most auctions end up with a large number of items with 1 or 0 bids.

Compare the reviews by Buyers with the reviews by Sellers. Nearly all Sellers will tell you MaxSold lied about the customer base and how many bids there would be and how much money they would get for their possessions. When you complain, they point to fine print in the contract. Most of us sign that contract under duress - a family member has died, or some other major event is the reason we are selling the estate. Bottom line: no matter what fine words you were told, in the end EVERYTHING is the seller's responsibility to clean up. Things stolen? Seller's problem. Damage to house? Seller's problem. Items never sold or never picked up? Seller's problem. After paying MaxSold several thousand dollars, it cost me several thousand more to restore the house after they left. Meanwhile, a solid silver and crystal chandelier sold for $75, and I was supposed to be happy about that.

So, if you're a buyer who doesn't mind taking advantage of other people, you can get some bargains IF you know what you are doing since the item descriptions are made up by people who haven't a clue what they are doing.

If you're a seller, find ANY other option because MaxSold will cause you nothing but grief.

I only gave it one star because ZERO is not an option. I'm sure the experience depends on the seller, but the whole point of an auction site is to take away the risk of dealing with an anonymous seller. If you have ANY problem, don't expect DHGate to do anything for you. First, just try to find a way to send a message to the seller - it almost impossible. When you "send a message", it only goes to YOU. Fat lot of good that does. Open a dispute? Nothing happens until the seller responds - if ever. I finally got the sellers attention by ordering the same item again and NOT paying for it. If and when the seller does respond, the seller has 120 days before you can do anything further! And you cant leave feedback until you confirm delivery and close any dispute. BE SURE YOU USE A CREDIT CARD AND FILE A CLAIM *BEFORE* 120 days because many credit card agreements will not allow you to dispute a charge that far out.