AT&T’s typical poor customer service

So the rumblings on the web is that the new $199/$299 price point for the 3G iPhone is subsidized. So what are all current iPhone owners to do? Apparently if you are an iPhone owner and are not currently eligible for a phone upgrade, they will still let you upgrade to the 3G for the subsidized price. Nice. Or is it?

So here’s my beef. AT&T is solely determining whether or not you are an existing iPhone customer based upon whether or not you have an iPhone data plan. If you read the iPhone Terms and Conditions, you’ll notice that a data plan is not even required.

You may ask, why not just restore your iPhone, activate it again and get the data plan added back on? Sure, I could, but I shouldn’t have to. The fact that AT&T isn’t basing it upon whether or not you have a 2-year contract from activating your iPhone is just stupid.

What if someone got their iPhone stolen or it broke and they cancelled their data plan and is using an old phone now? They are still under a 2-year contract from activating their iPhone, but according to AT&T they are not an existing iPhone user. Super lame.

Regardless, I’ll be adding my data plan back on and buying a new phone. The funny thing is I’ll actually be paying the $30/month for a data plan now since it’s fast enough to use.

QA Industry

Since software quality assurance is my profession, it’s interesting to occasionally step back and take a look at the entire industry. From my previous jobs and the jobs my friends have, I see the industry broken down into three segments:

Contractors and temps – This seems to be a growing trend in the industry. Either companies don’t value their QA department enough and only keep on contractors (like a lot of HP) or they hire people on as contractors as an extended interview with the intention of making them full-time. The former is typical to a company who really doesn’t care about longevity and experience in their own company and keep QA around simply because it is necessary.

The exploitation of the youth – Some companies are hiring QAs straight out of college or with little experience before the employees know what they are really worth. I’ve personally worked for one of these companies before (Homestead) and they serve the purpose of giving people experience before moving on to a better job. Much like the first type, these companies do not value longevity and obviously don’t value their QA departments or they would compensate them as fairly as they compensate developers. The best QAs are those we are capable of being developers after all.

Companies that value quality – The third and most difficult to find is a company that actually values quality. You can find these companies by noticing QA engineers who have been around with the company for many years and who are fairly compensated.

iPhone

Well, I’m finally getting rid of my crappy RAZR V3 for an 8 gig iPhone. I’ve been wanting a PDA phone for awhile, but every one I’ve tried pretty much sucked.

It’s definitely going to be nice to have email access wherever I go and to have the web at my fingertips (stock trading on my phone, sweet!). Definitely will be nice not to lug my laptop to the east coast and to Europe for my trips. Moving up in the world, one step at a time.

Yahoo! Auctions kind of suck

After using eBay for the past 8 years, Yahoo! Auctions kind of suck. Sometimes, just sometimes, they will have something for sale that eBay doesn’t.

The first thing that kind of sucks is if you enter a max incremental bid that happens to be greater or equal to the buy it now price of the item, it will automatically purchase it for you at the buy it now price. So if an item’s starting bid is $55 and has a buy it now of $75, having an incremental bid of $75 buys it automatically (that’s how I wasted $20, thanks Yahoo!).

The interface also really bad. As a logged-in user it’s really hard to find anything. Want to leave feedback? Not easy to find or centralized like eBay’s My eBay.

Comcast vs. AT&T DSL

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, moving and setting up an apartment is hell. I’ve been battling over which ISP to use. I initially signed up for Comcast HSI, $33/month for 6 months, then $43/month for a 6 megabit connection (say you don’t want the self-install kit then call them up to get your modem manually registered on the network, saves you $10+). The connection has been incredibly flakey, probably the worst internet experience I’ve had. I may have had a grounding issue, but I really didn’t feel like wasting any more hours of my life on it.

I switched to the 3 megabit AT&T DSL for $25/month with no contract (free modem, $75 gift card). So far it’s been great. One thing that can give you a headache if you don’t realize it is the newer modems, like the Siemens SpeedStream 4100, have a built in router. No longer do you need to connect via PPP with a seperate router or XP/OS X. By the same token, the modem will have a local IP address on the network like 192.168.0.1. If you’re hooking it up to a wireless router, be careful and change the router to a different IP, like 192.168.1.1 or you will have networking hell.

Amazon.com Rebate Update

I have to say, I’m very, very impressed with Amazon.com. Just days after I submitted my BBB complain over never receiving my $150 rebate, they responded with a very nice apology and that my rebate check is being sent to me via Fed Ex overnight delivery. I’ve always liked Amazon.com and this definitely helps.

Amazon.com and BBB

Today I finally got around to filing a complaint against Amazon.com with the BBB. I submitted a cellphone rebate over a year ago ($150), they received it and mailed me a check, but sent it to the wrong address twice. Since then, I haven’t been able to get them to resent it to my correct address.

I really love Amazon.com, but they outsource their rebates to incompetent companies. Let’s hope the BBB gets Amazon.com to resend my check to the correct address.

Wii Component Cables

I’m not too much of a gamer in my old age, but I do have a soft spot for Nintendo games (as in first party Nintendo games, like Mario and Zelda). I’ve decided to pick up a Wii at some point, but one thing that really bothers me is the inability to readily get component cables. Let’s face it, I refuse to buy the system unless I can get first party component cables.

Problem #1 – GameCube component cables do not work. Nintendo has been great about keeping the video output the same since the SNES all the way through to the GameCube, but the Wii has a completely new A/V out. I hate to say it, but PS2 component cables work on the PS3.

Problem #2 – Retail stores don’t get the component cables in stock until mid December. Ummm… the console launched in mid/late November, what’s up with that?

Problem #3 – You couldn’t order the component cables online until about the day of launch, and they were already sold out from people calling in phone orders for them even though they weren’t listed.

It’s so hard to get the cables that they are actually selling for about $150 on eBay.

I don’t know when Nintendo is going to realize how important video quality is to gamers. Hell, they removed the digital video out port on the later models of the GameCube.

Why I Hate Citibank

I really try to not let things get to me, but Citibank really screwed me over. I applied to consolidate all my federal loans back in April 2006 to lock in the 4.7% Stafford interest rates before they went up by 2% on July 1st and while my loans were still in the in-school status so I could save the extra 0.6%. I also applied for a loan consolidation via the Federal Government in case Citibank declined me for some weird reason.

Fast-forward 4 months. Citibank still hasn’t consolidated my loans. I’ve called them 5 times, they keep telling me everything is okay, I just need to contact my only private federal FFELP loan lender (Mohela) to change my loans to repayment then they can buy it out. Since they said everything is okay, I cancelled my Federal Government consolidation since Citibank has slightly better incentives and better customer support (I could actually get them on the phone).

Fast-forward to another 6 weeks to September. Citibank still hasn’t consolidated my loans. Finally after being on hold for 20 minutes they tell me they can’t consolidate them because of the “Single Holder Rule.” Basically if you have one FFELP loan with one lender (in my case Mohela) you have to go to them first for consolidation. They explained to me this was repealed after July 1st, but since I applied back in April there is no way for them to consolidate them. I asked why no one told me this before, as in MONTHS ago so I wouldn’t have cancelled the consolidation through the government (which the Single Holder Rule doesn’t apply to), and they couldn’t give me an answer. Basically they gave me the option of re-applying for a consolidation with them so it would be after July 1st and the rule wouldn’t apply and my interest rate would go up 2.6%, costing me another $1,000 a year in interest alone (my loans were now in repayment since they told me to put them into repayment, hence the extra 0.6%!!!). The problem is with an interest rate above 7% I know I would be making the maximum payments possible to get it paid off, since that’s the kind of person I am. If it was below 5% I would probably stretch it over 20 years since the interest is at the rate of inflation. Basically I was going to be poor for the next 3-4 years until I had it paid off if my interest rate was going to be that high.

That’s when I found a great company called OneSimpleLoan. They are actually the company that sued the federal government over the Single Holder Rule and they are the reason why it got repealed. They had a great section on their website that mentioned that they can take over another loan consolidation application and that it would be possible to get the same interest rate that you would have gotten. The key part is if you have in your possession a dated loan consolidation application in your possession from another lender. Thankfully, I keep EVERYTHING now (and doing so just saved me probably over $10K in interest. Their customer service has been fantastic, and I would definitely recommend them to anyone. I can’t put it any other way other than they saved me tons of money and years of misery.

Moral of the story, I hate Citibank, they are either incompetent or dishonest, most likely both. I’m not sure which one is worse, but I’ll be either transferring my private loan from them or paying it off completely over the next few months so they won’t make any more money off me.