I recently booked a rental car on Priceline.com, thinking I had saved a few dollars. I always make sure I uncheck any obscure checkboxes during the checkout process so that I don’t inadvertently provide legitimation for sending me unwanted emails. Today, hardly a week later, I got several hundreds of emails from Priceline.
Nothing good can come of the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T. This will lead to essentially a 2-player cell phone market (Verizon and AT&T). Some quotes taken from various news articles: “We know the results of arrangements like this — higher prices, fewer choices, less innovation.” (Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn). “AT&T will [...]
I recently purchased a new refrigerator on HomeDepot.com. I needed the old one to be hauled away. Since Home Depot includes this service at no extra charge when you buy a new one, I accepted their somewhat higher prices compared to other online retailers. After shopping around for a while, I settled for a GE [...]
The rise of Craigslist and other free or low-cost advertising platforms have made it much more affordable for companies to post job ads. The down-side of this trend is that job ads have become more informal, are being put together without much thought, and are posted by companies that you probably should pass on. Here [...]
John A. Wimsatt Senior Vice President, Broadband Marketing One Verizon Way Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 10/30/2009 Dear Mr. Wimsatt, Ever since I subscribed to Verizon FIOS services in 2007, your organization has gone the extra mile to sell me Verizon FIOS services. At first, marketers swarmed across my neighborhood, knocking on my door, and giving [...]
A couple of days ago I received a phishing email involving two Russian sites that asked me to reactivate my Paypal account. Dutyfully I went to the Paypal website and found a link labeled “Security Center”. I clicked on it, and the page that was served contained what I was looking for – in a [...]
Can it be saved? That is the question that should be asked instead. Probably not, is the likely answer. Spending money on a bail-out of the US auto industry will be like pouring water in a bottomless bucket. US auto makers have created a market for themselves that allowed them to comfortably deliver 1950′s technology [...]
I received this email today. I wonder if this will be part of their new ad campaign to help sign on new customers … Dear Customer, We appreciate your business with Lingo, and hope that you are availing and enjoying all its benefits! We would like to inform you of updated terms and conditions of [...]
As the mortgage mess unravels and takes down more and more of the players, bits and pieces of information become available about who played central roles, and who benefited the most from unscrupulous lending schemes. One suprising conclusion that I drew is that much of this was in the making during the Clinton years, and [...]
Crude oil futures swung wildly again today, first rising to a record and then tumbling as investors wrestled with the latest developments. With little in the way of news to explain oil’s turnabout, analysts pointed to Saudi Arabia’s weekend decision to boost production and to Tuesday’s expiration of crude options, which are agreements to buy [...]
