Gizer S.

Early May, the electricity in my two bedrooms went out again!

I had called Reynolds Electric in Sherman to come out again. They had been out in early April for the same problem and we thought it was fixed. Tanner - the guy who came out checked the wiring in the crawl space above the ceiling, the outlets in the bedrooms, and the breakers and found no problem. What he did find was a short in an outside electrical outlet on that side of the house.

He bypassed it - I've never used it anyway - and the lights worked again.

In early May, the lights went out again. Tanner came out, and found one of the breakers was weak. He replaced it.

No charge! He said it may have been weak the first time, but the problem then was the outside outlet. He didn't charge me because it was related to the original problem.

I've used Reynolds Electric for two other problems and both times had excellent results.

What I've noticed about Reynolds Electric is they're on time, professional, courteous, friendly, and fair.

I highly recommend them.

I've been shopping at Albertson's for many years. 2 1/2 years ago, I moved to Denison, Texas and was glad to find an Albertsons nearby.

But for some strange reason, they think they should have access to my name, phone #, and email address in order for me to get their "justforU" specials. I explained to them I don't do texts - I don't do or have apps on my phone - other than the weather and GPS. Too bad, I was told, the company requires you to sign up for their specials and want to have my information so they can track my purchases and sell my information to others.

I don't want their damn spam emails.

I know a lot of these younger people have fancy phones and don't mind giving out their personal information to anybody and everybody and getting spam emails. But I'm older, and I DO MIND!

I was given their customer service telephone number and was told I could talk to them. I was told the same thing, but without the sympathy of the employees at the store. I was told you either get the app / sign up for it, or you don't get the special.

Guess what! I don't need Albertsons! There's an Aldi's and a Wal-Mart close by too.

If you're going to treat me like a second class citizen and you don't care about my business - then you'll be doing without my business and I'll be telling my friends and neighbors just how much you hate and despise older people which is apparent since you can't seem to find a way to give those of us who are technologically challenged, or who want to protect our privacy - the specials you offer.

I know being a single older, retired person I don't buy as much as my adult children and grandchildren, but when I tell them how I'm treated, if they have any respect for me at all - and they do - you'll be losing their business too.

Oh by the way - you need to change the name of your "customer service" department to "policy enforcement" department.

When I called, I was told they were just following "policy" and the store employees had to follow the policy if they wanted to continue working there.

My advice is shop at Aldi's and Wal-Mar. They don't demand you give them your phone number, address, and email address to get their specials.

Back in May, I rescued a dog - I named him Shadow because he follows me everywhere. But he also sheds everywhere - a lot more than my previous dog.

My living room rug seemed to collect most of it. Even though I vacuumed a couple of times a week, his hair got so embedded into the fibers of the rug, that the vacuum just wasn't getting it out and the rug began to look really bad.

Then I saw a Bissell "Clearview deluxe rewind pet" vacuum for sale at my local Lowe's. I read the information about the Bissell and checked for testimonials and everything looked great. Since it was on sale for $40 off, I thought "well if it doesn't work out, I can always take it back."

I won't be taking it back. It really surprised me how great a job it did. After vacuuming and going over the rug a couple of times, I looked at it and didn't see ANY of Shadow's hair embedded in the rug. I was very pleasantly surprised.

I don't know about their other products, but this one is much better than I anticipated.

Thanks for a good product and I get to keep my rug.

I decided to buy their "backup" program to back up my accounting.

I filled out all the information on line, but for some reason couldn't get my computer to download the file.

It took many tries to finally locate a phone # on their website -- they obviously don't want to be bothered by actually talking to a customer.

When I called - I got their message saying I was # 60 in line! On line I saw their "support" page - when I went to it, there was a message saying I could talk live, but there was a 60 minute wait, or I could do the computer "chat" and it was only a 40 minute wait.

Really? And you call this "customer service"?

I don't think so.

I'll call my credit card company tomorrow and cancel the purchase.

I've used Amazon for quite a few purchases and have been very pleased. The search format is great. The order process is good - and I really like their "Wish List". It gives me time to think "Do I really want this?"

So far every order has been fulfilled promptly and the merchandise has been as good or better than I've expected.

My purchases have ranged from books, CDs, doggie door, electric fence to keep dog from digging out, to plants and other things that I might have trouble finding easily locally.

Thanks Amazon!

Over the last couple of weeks, I bought some things I needed to get my greenhouse ready for winter. Most of the lumber, hardware to build the greenhouse was bought there last year.

I wound up getting one board too many - and they took it back no questions asked.

I also bought a new Bissell vacuum that was on sale. I waited almost a week to take it out of the box and use it. I discovered it was missing a couple of the attachments. When I went back to the store today, I talked to one of the managers in the appliance department. We went over to their display area, and he gave me the attachments I needed.

Also, it's the end of the season for plants. I talked to the garden center manager and he gave me a great discount on some perennials and on bulbs. I bought so many bulbs, I shared with two of my neighbors and unless I happen to find a bulb variety that I would like to have that I don't have yet - I won't ever have to buy bulbs again.

Most of my shopping experiences have been very good, with a few exceptions.

Other than a few small building projects, I use them primarily for my yard plants, trees, and garden.

I've only had excellent experiences when I've rented cars from Avis while on vacation and when I went to Conventions.

Even got a couple of nice upgrades at no additional cost.

There are some very good employees at Walmart - but the majority really don't seem to care about doing their jobs.

I've almost been knocked down several times by the employees texting on their phones or reading texts on their phones while they're walking through the store and not noticing me being in the aisle in front of them.

I blame their lack of caring on the management / owners (Walton family) for paying such low wages, cutting hours and benefits, and encouraging their employees who are making so little to get government benefits to subsidize their pay - which means the rest of us are subsidizing the profits of Walmart and the greed of the Waltons with our taxes we pay.

As I said earlier - there are some good employees, but they would be good employees no matter where they worked. I feel sorry for them that there aren't enough better paying jobs with better benefits in some of the areas where Walmart / Waltons take advantage of the local communities.

I sometimes shop at Petco for my tropical fish and filters, light hoods, etc.

It seems that when they have fish on sale - they usually are out of stock of many that are on sale.

Their tanks are hooked up on a community filtration system which means if there are sick fish in one tank - then the whole section is exposed to the disease.

Sometimes they have good sales - but I'm usually too afraid to buy them because of the community filtration system. When I do buy them, I put them in a quarantine tank for at least a month.

Sometimes enough live to make it worth the price and other times, I have to save the dead fish and take them back for a refund or credit towards supplies.

I sometimes shop at Petsmart for my tropical fish and filters, light hoods, etc.

It seems that when they have fish on sale - they usually are out of stock of many that are on sale.

Their tanks are hooked up on a community filtration system which means if there are sick fish in one tank - then the whole section is exposed to the disease.

Sometimes they have good sales - but I'm usually too afraid to buy them because of the community filtration system. When I do buy them, I put them in a quarantine tank for at least a month.

Sometimes enough live to make it worth the price and other times, I have to save the dead fish and take them back for a refund or credit towards supplies.

Two years ago I was getting ready to buy a home and wanted to pay off all my credit cards to make the loan package go more smoothly.

When I paid off Sears, they lowered my credit limit. When I did, it lowered my credit score.

I complained to Sears to see if they would re=instate the higher credit limit, but they said no they couldn't.

Naturally I closed the account and cut up the credit card and have never bought anything from them again with either cash or another credit card.

Please sitejabber, give us a choice for ZERO stars - that's what Sears deserves.

About two years ago, I did an advertising campaign with LivingSocial - WHAT A MISTAKE!

I gave them the information for the summary for the potential buyers to read.

Their writers ignored what I gave them and tried to make it humorous instead of useful information. I reviewed and complained three times about their spelling / grammatical errors and how stupid their "ad" sounded.

After several more attempts, I compromised and left some of their stupid stuff in because they told me their writers were "professional" and knew how to appeal to customers and get them to buy.

The results were very disappointing! If they had used my ad the way I had it written, I would have gotten much better results and would probably have used them again.

It's too bad they don't have a ZERO star rating - because that's what I would like to give them.

I was planning a short trip and needed to make reservations for my hotel for three days. Today, I got an email for a 15% discount. I also had a small amount of Orbucks - for a previous flight. And I had a $50 voucher for a bad experience during that trip.

I talked to five different people over a period of two hours and was told all kinds of conflicting information - the hotel I wanted to book wasn't on the 15% discount program - even though the website said it was -- I couldn't use the 15% plus my Orbucks, and I was told by three people I couldn't use the $50 voucher, even though the voucher didn't have any restrictions on it. And two people said I could use it, but gave me two different conflicting ways to use it.

I finally got so frustrated, I told them I would never use Orbitz again or recommend it to anyone. I also had an Orbitz credit card which I called and cancelled.

I told them it was worth losing the $50 voucher and the Orbucks just to not have to deal with their ineptness.

The only reason I gave them one star was because I couldn't give them ZERO!

I've been looking for a new Epson printer that prints labels directly to a CD or DVD - they're hard to find! I found one at Office Depot - and it was on sale! Which made it even better.

My old Epson printer was still working, but I've had it for over five years, and it was beginning to hum and make rattling noises, so I decided to replace it before it stopped working.

I went to the Office Depot in Sherman, Texas. They had the printer I needed in stock. Before I found the printer on sale, I had bought a set of ink cartridges for my old printer.

The employee brought the printer to the counter for me - along with the ink I needed for the old printer, gave me a refund for the ink for the old printer.

He was professional, courteous, and helpful.

Office Depot does a good job of training their employees in customer service. Thanks.

If you ever have a problem with American Airlines - don't bother looking for a real person to call. They only allow you to send an email with your complaint. Then they take several days to respond back saying they're sorry for the "inconvenience" of my connecting flight being cancelled and causing me to be six hours late for my arrival.

The "customer service" rep gave me an unspecified number of mileage points. It could be five or five million from the information I received. When I checked my mileage points with them, he had given me 7500 - not enough to use for anything at all.

Needless to say I would rate American Airlines / US Airways as total zeroes when it comes to customer service.

I would rather drive than ever use this airline again.

After several phone calls with their customer "service" employees, I was so frustrated that even if they were getting results, I would have cancelled my service.

If I had been seeing any improvement in my rankings at all, I would have stayed with them, but instead, my rankings went down two notches on Google. Of course, when talking to them, I was told it was because I wasn't doing my part.

My last two conversations lasted longer than one hour each - not only did I waste my money, but also wasted my time.

They're favorite phrase is "You don't understand." I politely explained to them that I know more about my particular business than they do, and saying "I don't understand" is just another way for their employee to tell me I'm stupid.

They're right. I was stupid to sign up for their program.