Walter P.

Why are they so expensive? Their offerings are certainly not the best that are available.

Bought a program from Auslogics and they sent e-mail for me to call a number to activate the program. Did so and the tech rep wanted to "remote enter into my computer to do so". I figured if it's from Auslogics that has 15,000,000 customers, what could go wrong?

Turned out his remote access program was UIS.edu which I did not give it much thought at the time. However later, I HAD to write to the University of Illinois at Springfield to question this transaction.

Why would an University in Illinois; sponsor the activation of programs by an Australian company; when all the work and charges would be going to TechLiveConnect which appears to be in India; and the payments are going through Avangate in the Netherlands? Does not make sense?

Anyway following is a message that I wrote to the Univ of Illinois:

Pardon me if I'm not addressing the right person, but I'm trying to determine if your UIS.edu remote access system can be used for commercial purposes. Apparently one of your students accessed my home computer today using the remote access capability under the pretext that he was going to activate a program for Auslogics Software in Sydney, Australia (they have 15,000,000 customers). However, when he got into my computer, he burrowed around in it, and informed me that I had 10 problems that were slowing it down, and that he could fix them for $30.00 each. Then he connected me with his "supervisor" or "manager" at a company called TechLiveConnect that appeared to be in India, and when this "supervisor/mannager" got on line with me, they proceeded to try selling me additional "necessary" software for another $300.00.

The money was not a problem, (although $600.00 additional for a $27 program does appear to be extremely excessive), but they were so persistent, and so incredibly pushy that I eventually had to turn my computer off to shut them down.

In the meanwhile, I'm afraid that they may have accessed all of my personal and financial information with the University's remote access program, and I would therefore appreciate if you could provide me with some assistance. For example, could you advise me who this could be if I provide you with additional information.

I have written to the Attorney General of the State of NJ about this, but perhaps with your help we can narrow down who this could be. I had all the information on the computer that they accessed, but I'm afraid to turn it on in case the remote feature is still active.

I had tried Pandora when they first came on line, but then they became what appeared to be an advertising agency with lots of commercials. Now I can't tell what they are. They are certainly very, very difficult to sign up with. I've been using computers for over 30 years (yes I'm that old) and just a few days ago I tried to sign up on Pandora again and had the hardest time doing it. Why the complexities?

Walmart just opened a big brand new store near us (Teterboro Airport NJ) and initially I was extremely disappointed. I happened to look at the bikes that they had to offer and I was shocked to note that NOT ONE of the bikes had the proper tags (with price, make, model, etc) on the rack where the bikes were. As a matter of fact I could not find ANY bikes that met the descriptions of the posted tags. It was absurd. It's as if no one in the bike department had any idea whatsoever about the English language. Also this was a totally new store, but the bikes had missing seats, missing handlebars, missing parts, etc.
To this day (4 weeks later) they still have not straightened anything out.
Since 4 weeks ago, the store has improved tremendously and it's now looking better and better every day. But I went on a Saturday and it was literally a ZOO. People ripping open packages, taking things out of boxes, kids throwing things around, trash everywhere. The place does not need sales people, they need a police force to maintain some kind of order.
Even the Walmarts in Mexico were better organized than this one in one of the richest counties in the USA.
I guess Walmart attracts a lot of animalistic tendencies in shoppers. Maybe they should put everything behind bars or bulletproof windows.

Yes, there are some bargains at this well established site, but unfortunately they are few and far between. I have not found anything recently that I would consider purchasing. The prices are just too high for most products. For home design type products which are not easily comparable, they do have a fine selection; however, how many sheets or bath towels does one need?

Closing stores is the only good thing that they are doing now. The rest are the same problems as those facing Office Depot.

The big question is "how long"? How long do they plan to stay alive? Today I went to one of their stores and all I could buy was a Scotch Tape holder because the blade on mine went bad and I did not want to pay shipping charges from an on-line store even though the prices were half that of Office Depot.
There was a time when I spent a fortune at Office Depot, and now I can't find anything at all of "value". They gobbled up Office Max, and Reliable Office Supplies, and who knows or cares whatever other store; and still there is not a bargain to be found. Even their "bargain basement" equivalent department has nothing that was worth buying.
What a shame! But what can you say for a store that still sells software for Windows 98se, Windows 2000, and Windows XP?
When I can buy the best pens in the world directly from China (shipping included) for less than $0.10, why would I pay $1 to $5 for the same thing at Office Depot? Yes, I'll wait 2 weeks for delivery!
What they should do is get rid of all their high priced equipment and furniture and become a "Big Lots" type of discount store. Or - just sell to their corporate clients - on line.
Just my thoughts!

I never expected to be "taken" by a corporate/computer peripherals giant like Seagate but I was wrong. Anyway, it looks like I've again "been taken" by corporate "double-speak" in a Seagate advertisement that insinuated that if I bought one of their mega-storage units (called Central), I would also be protected via mirror-like storage on their cloud service. Boy was I wrong. And of course, you don't realize this until a problem happens. Which of course it did.
I did not expect that from Seagate. As a huge corporation I thought you were beyond taking "change" away from thier clients. But I guess every penny helps when you are spending billions on acquisitions. So where else to get the funds but from their stupid, ignorant, non-legalese educated existing clients.
What you (and in this case Seagate) do is make an exceptional offer for a piece of obsolete (or soon to be obsolete) equipment; wrap it up in a lot of goobledygook concerning protection in the cloud; and sell it to your best idiot clients.
Unfortunately, I'm now stuck with another piece of Seagate garbage that I will have to get rid of somehow.
I've no use for yet another hard drive no matter how large it is, when I'm trying to consolidate the 30-40 or so hard drives that I already have from my old computers.
What a joke! And again it's being played over and over again on unsuspecting and gullible clients of this mega-monster.
If you have other choices - use them.

This review will probably never get posted, but here goes anyway.
If you're in the mood to be ripped-off (and who isn't when there are no real choices), then try Verizon FIOS. Their ads are everywhere and their "sale prices" fluctuate more frequently than bugs get born.
I had just gotten tired of their nonsense in November 2014 and switched to Cablevision (another "winner" of a company). So in early December, I turned in my equipment to Verizon, but the manager at the store in Paramus NJ would not let me leave until he gave me his sales pitch. He sold me on the $79.99 price with a $400.00 bonus debit card from Visa, and other "benefits". Since I was skeptical about switching back to Verizon before a 30 day period, he promised that Verizon was no longer enforcing this waiting period and that I can switch right away.
So - like all fools that go for these "specials", I switched again and by the time I was done "resigning up", I was suddenly up to $140.00 per month, but I had all the Premium shows for my wife and the 50/50mbps internet speed for me with WiFi and everything.
That's when things started to go haywire. The WiFi did not work, the internet speed was nowhere near 50/50, the multi-room DVR service did not work, and the capacity of the DVR was a measly 16Mb which is enough for taping only a few shows.
So I started complaining to Verizon and this is when their entire load of misinformation, fine-print, and inaccuracies started coming into the light. Then I got my first bill and it was $277.11 which is a far cry from the $79.99 originally promised and even the $140.00 with some bells and whistles which I was not getting.
To make a very, very long and difficult story shorter, I'll just get into the highlights of what occurred:
A) After a half dozen phone calls, e-mail complaints, and letters, I received visits from a tech-rep that was not able to help me with the speed and WiFi problems, then I received a visit from another tech rep and the Technical Supervisor who again were only partially able to help by installing "boosters" for the WiFi but who could not help with the internet speed.
B) It turned out that when I signed up, I got "old" equipment which included an "old" router and an "old" VCR. So when I purchased new equipment on my own (a new, fast router and a range extender) things worked a little better but still not up to par.
C) Then suddenly a day or two later, my internet speed (according to Verizon Tests) was over 50/50. Apparently someone at their tech center just cranked up the speed and there I was with a new speed. That's when the WiFi started working also (albeit still very slowly).
D) When I experienced very long delays with my internet pages opening, I decided to investigate further. That's when I found out that Verizon's speed tests are produced by Ookla. This is a Flash based test and found to be not quite an accurate test of internet speed by some experts. When I tested this with HTML5 tests, they turned out to be very, very different from Flash based tests. They also appeared to be a more accurate depiction of speed as compared to Flash tests. Unfortunately, they also showed that the speed I was getting was far, far lower than 50/50 mbps. One of the tests showed speeds as low as 1.6mbps upload. The average test however was 26mbps Download and around 10mbps upload. To me these were better indicators of what I was experiencing. So it appears to me that I've been wasting $50 per month plus taxes and fees for nothing.
E) Verizon had promised me several times to exchange our very low capacity VCR box for one with a higher capacity. Now after almost 5 months, they still have not done it.
F) The Multi-Room function of the VCR works only when "it" wants to. Not when my wife needs it. Another misleading promise from Verizon.
G) As for the $400 Visa Gift Card bonus from Verizon - NEVER GOT IT. And probably never will. Another lie.
H) Activation fees - just what is this? I had just returned our Verizon equipment after almost 2 years of service and all their wiring and main connection equipment was still in place in our basement. So what exactly were they activating? Turning on the switch at their location? For this I was paying $69.99? They did not charge us "installation fees" which consists of plugging in the router and putting up the set top boxes. But they did charge us Activation fees. Why?
F) Incidentally, the taxes and fees are outrageous. They come to over 12% of your monthly bill and on top of it. So the $79.99 monthly fee is suddenly around $90.00 plus your activation, installation, equipment, Regional Sports network, wireless router, etc fees, "plus" taxes, and it's no wonder that the first month's bill came to $277.11. Why is it that Cablevision does not have these taxes and fees? (Not that I'm endorsing Cablevision - they are as big offenders on the truthfulness of their services as is Verizon).
G) Incidentally, I've written to the FCC and guess what? They have asked Verizon to respond. Talk about regulators regulating. What a joke? We pay for these regulators via our taxes, and they do whatever the corporations want. Is this fair? Right? Honest?

End result: after four months of battling with Verizon on each of these issues, very little got resolved. My only other option is the courts. Let's see if they are better than the FCC.

Very, very poor check out service. Whomever thought this one up out to be fired. On busy days the lines can stretch for at least 300 to 400 feet (no exageration). Tellers calling people in line one at a time and hoping customers see them waiving. Then people walking as far as 30-40 feet to a teller with all their products, children and/or family members can take 4-5 minutes.
All in all I have experienced waits of over 2 hours when I just HAD to get a product.

Selections are horrible. Rarely do you find a current movie. They even recycle 1950 through 1990 movies. Desperate? I think so.

For a while, they were giving Home Depot a good run for their money, but somewhere along the line, they seem to have given up. Their prices, products, services, etc just are not living up to the standards they originally seemed to have set for themselves. Maybe they'll come back but Home Depot is still king.

The one main problem I have with Amazon is their "fixed" reviews. 90% of the time when I write a 1 star review about any of their products, they REFUSE to publish it until I say something nice. They protect their SELLERS not their BUYERS, and this will eventually come back and bite them in the rear.
They appear to be in the market to control the entire online experience which is good and bad. When their investors were paying for the services (their stocks skyrocketed even though they rarely showed profits), they could afford to do this. But now that investors are starting to demand some sort of steady profitability and some return on their investments other than inflated stocks, Amazon looks like they are starting to worry and this is why they tend to manipulate buyer reviews.
If you don't believe this, try it yourself. Buy what you would consider a poor product and write a bad review. Fortunately, at this point you will get a refund from Amazon, but your review will most likely be squashed.