Consumerist

Early Ethics Alarms 2014 Award: The Corporate Asshole Of The Year Is….Comcast

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
Yeah, just try getting Comcast to fix your service issues, and you may find out exactly what it cares about, when you get your severance paycheck...just ask Conal O"Roarke.

Yeah, just try getting Comcast to fix your service issues, and you may find out exactly what it cares about when you get your severance paycheck…just ask Conal O”Roarke.

I don’t want to spoil the suspense or anything, but when a company gives a customer horrible service, keeps botching its attempts to address it, and then calls the customer’s employer about the persistence of his complaints, getting him fired as a direct result, attention, as Mrs. Willy Loman memorably said, must be paid.

Here is the whole awful story, as first described in Consumerist.

Conal O’Rourke  subscribed to Comcast in early 2013.  The company charged him, he says, for set-top boxes that hadn’t been activated; some of his bills were not being delivered as well, because they had his name wrong on the account. He met with a Comcast rep in May who said all would be resolved. It wasn’t. The problems got worse. In addition to still being charged for unactivated devices in his house, Comcast charged him twice for an additional  modem he did not have.

He decided to to cancel his service from these bozos in Oct. 2013,  but says a Comcast rep convinced him that the billing issues would be resolved and that he would get free DVR service and The Movie Channel for three months as compensation. I’ve been there, with DirecTV…except that my satellite service actually did what it said it would. Not Comcast, apparently. It sent Conal O’Rourke about a dozen pieces of equipment that he never ordered and didn’t want–DVRs, modem, standard boxes other stuff—and billed him $1,820 for it. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: A Taco Bell Employee

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

tacobell

“WE WEREN’T EVEN IN THE FOOD AREA! IF YOU CAN SEE IN THE BACK IT’S THE SODA MACHINES!… YOU’RE OPINION DOESN’T EVEN MATTER BECAUSE THIS HAPPENED A LONG TIME AGO! DAMMIT!”

—-The Taco Bell employee who allegedly took the photo above of a colleague licking a stack of taco shells. The image was, naturally, posted by one of them on Facebook, and re-posted, with appropriate alarm, by Consumerist.

The runners-up for this quote of the day were several jaw-dropping comments on Facebook, such as…

  • Wes Abdi, who says: 1. I know the person in the photo, not just from work, but from school as well; and I know that he is not dumb enough to lick a stack of taco shells and then serve them to the public. 2. There is a 99% chance that stack of Tacos was getting thrown out, as in: getting thrown away, so it’s not as if they were going to be served to anyone. 3. This was obviously done out of humor. I know most of you don’t see it as this, but this is friggin hilarious, sit back and just laugh at it.

Uh, Wes….1. He was dumb enough to post the picture, causing a business crisis for his employer, causing Taco Bell to lose untold sales and presumably putting his job at risk. He’s pretty dumb. 2. You know, a 1% chance that I’m going to be buying and eating a taco that has been ore-licked by an idiot is still too high for me, and, I bet, the FDA. 3. Yeah, food adulteration and tampering is hilarious. Now we know why you and The Mad Licker are friends, you idiot. (By the way, over a hundred readers “liked” this fatuous comment. What does that tell us?)

  • Aj Hackett, one of the hundred plus who think Wes is brilliant, wrote: One reason why I dislike this post so much is that you don’t know any side of this story. You only have a picture and you’re reading too much into it. What happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? You talk of freedom of speech and differences of opinion, yet you ignore one of the nation’s founding creeds. I do believe that Wes Abdi is correct in saying that you…should be the one to prove that this employee was ignoring his duty in properly handling food items. Once again, “innocent until proven guilty.” So prove it.
What? There is a posted photo of a Taco Bell employee licking food! There aren’t two sides; there is only one that matters: the side of the tacos being licked. No one’s reading too much into the photo at all, A.J., and may I add, what the hell’s the matter with you? The picture is what the law calls res ipsa loquitur. It speaks for itself. The existence of such a photo is proof that an employee licked the food, thought it was funny, and posted it so everyone could see the care and professionalism of those entrusted with handling the meals of Taco Bell customers. It is also proof that Taco Bell has at least one irresponsible idiot handling food. Nobody is “reading too much into it.” Meanwhile, your reference to “one of the nation’s founding creeds” is ignorant, misplaced, and mistaken, and your high school needs to be torn down and its teachers sent off to work at Taco Bell. “Innocent until proven guilty” is not a founding creed in any way; it is a convention of the justice system, and simply establishes who has the burden of proof in criminal prosecutions by the government. It has absolutely no application to private or public conclusions about an individual’s guilt when evidence is overwhelming. Nor does criticism of the photo or subsequent negative consequences being inflicted on the Mad Licker and his accomplices in any way relate to free speech. He’s free to post the photo: it’s still up, in fact. Free speech means the government isn’t allowed to stop anyone from posting photos that prove they are mentally deficient and that Taco Bell’s food might have god-knows-what done to it before we eat it.
  • Rebekah Becky Majors-Manley, another Wes fan, writes this stunner:  EXACTLY WES- TELL THAT KID THAT THIS OLD MOM OF 5 SONS THINKS IT IS A SCREAM AND HILARIOUS. TELL HIM HE IS MY HERO OF THE WEEK. I WOULD HIRE HIM IN A RED HOT MINUTE FOR HAVING FUN WHILE WORKING- VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE FUN ON THE JOB. PEOPLE FORGET HOW IMPORTANT FUN IS- !LIFE IS SHORT AND THEN YOU DIE. HAVE FUN AND NEVER STOP LAUGHING. TACO BELL WILL SURVIVE IT-LOL. Look out, World…Rebekah has raised five sons who think like her.

There is no reason to expound further on what is unethical about posting a photo of yourself licking food that may or may not have ended up in a customer’s lunch, to the detriment of your employer and horror of its customers. If that isn’t immediately apparent, you’re either beyond hope, like Rebekah, Wes, A.J., and the unidentified photographer, or you work at Taco Bell.______________Pointer: tgtFacts and Graphic: Consumerist

 

 

If Only The Profession Was This Strict AFTER Admitting A Lawyer To The Bar…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
No, surprisingly in light of last week's revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I'm as stunned as you are!

No, surprisingly in light of last week’s revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I’m as stunned as you are!

One of the legal profession’s ethics anomalies is that its character standards for entering legal practice are far more unforgiving than the standards for keeping one’s license to practice after being admitted. For while John Edwards continues to be a North Carolina lawyer in “good standing,” an Ohio bar applicant was held to lack the requisite good character to be a trustworthy lawyer (Ohio Supreme Court opinion here) because of the following set of facts.

When Jasmine Shawn Parker of Covington, Kentucky was taking the Ohio bar exam, a test monitor reported that she had continued to write for up to 30 seconds after “time” was called on a set of two exam questions, and then again for 45 to 60 seconds on two sets of two exam questions. The Board of Bar Examiners investigated, and asked Parker’s tablemates about their observations or her actions, if any, after time had been called. They reported that Parker had continued writing for maybe a second or two past the declared deadline on Day 1 of the exam, and on the second day, had continued to write past the stopping point “long enough to get at least two lines of writing on paper.” As a penalty after these findings, the Ohio Board of Bar Examiners gave Parker no credit on the exam question with the highest point value. Never mind: Parker’s score was high enough to pass the bar exam anyway. Her alleged cheating, however, led the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness to recommend her license be denied, with the opportunity to reapply.  Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Grand Hotel Dallas

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is how it is done: the perfect way to handle organizational misconduct.

hotellobbysignConsumerist blew the whistle on the Grand Hotel in Dallas for blatantly attempting to bribe patrons into posting  favorable reviews of their stays there online. A reader had alerted the consumer hawk website to a sign displayed in the hotel’s lobby offering $3 to $5 to guests who wrote raves on travel sites like Expedia, Priceline, and others. The sign required “immediate proof of review,” said the bribe amount would vary according to the number of websites that posted it, and noted that all must be “positive, favorable” reviews” approved by mgmt.”

The web site soon learned that the whole scheme had never been “approved by mgmt.” The hotel’s representative sent this e-mail to Consumerist: Continue reading →

The Perfect Ethics Story: The Dilemma Of The Extra iPads

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments
Your ethical dilemma just arrived!

Your ethical dilemma just arrived!

Now here is an example of a consumer episode in which everyone involved behaved with exemplary ethics, and without hidden agendas. There is no need to draw this out—Consumerist does a great job telling the story, and you should read it here. A quick summary:

  • A woman who ordered one iPad from Best Buy received five.
  • Her e-mail to the store about what she should do was unanswered.
  • Legally, she was within her rights to keep the extra merchandise, but (correctly) worried about possible consequences to the worker who made the shipping error,
  • She consulted the consumer advice maven at Consumerist, who tracked down someone at Best Buy to deal with the problem.
  • Best Buy’s rep contacted the consumer, thanked her for her honesty, and sent her this letter: Continue reading →

Ungrateful Consumer of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Don’t smile at me, you inconsiderate fool! Do you know what time it is? Why should I accept your wares before they were scheduled to arrive? I need my sleep, not that blue-collar peasant like you could comprehend that! Mark my words, your employer will hear of this outrage; now get back into your pathetic truck and only return when it is convenient for me!”

We don’t see this kind of unethical conduct that often, so it is worthy of note.

A consumer named Richard wrote to Consumerist to complain that his order from Amazon, which he ordered on a Friday and was scheduled for three-day delivery, arrived in only one day, on Saturday morning.  Naturally, he was outraged:

“Imagine my surprise to be woken up out of a sound sleep at 8am by the incessant ringing of my door bell .. probably 10 times. I’m thinking something bad happened. I jump up go to answer the door and find out it’s just OnTrac delivering my $23 package from Amazon! As much as I might appreciate getting something 2 days early, I (and my neighbors) appreciate our sleep even more. I called Amazon and the CSR was sympathetic but could do nothing but leave “feedback” with OnTrac. So fair warning… unless you need an early morning wake up call, don’t order from Amazon… because just because the order says Monday, doesn’t mean you won’t get someone leaning on your door buzzer until you give in and answer it, no matter the time of day.”

Not to leave you in suspense, Richard is what an old poker-playing buddy used to call a “jerkola.” I wonder what other examples of efficient service aggravate him. Does he get angry when repair men arrive at the start of the day, rather than making you wait all day at home wondering if they’ll arrive at all? Does he complain when airplanes arrive at their destination early? When Verizon doesn’t make you wait forever to talk to a real person after negotiating your way through phone-tree hell? How about the Department of Motor vehicles—does Richard get ticked off when they call his number before he need another shave? Continue reading →