word!

**UPDATE**
Evidently Thrifty (or corporate parent Hertz) thinks they can impede on my 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech by sending the following kiss-off. Nice try. Try investing your money in proper customer service and you wouldn’t have to threaten your customers with Marketing Interns.

June 27, 2016
Jacob B. Amato to me
Hello,

As you may be aware, there have been recent Google search updates which have prompted the Hertz Corporation to review inbound links to our web property Thrifty.com.

Research has identified that someone who is not authorized has built links to http://www.thrifty.com and we would like to request that you remove the links that exist to our website from all pages where the link is installed.

Our search has located this site with link for removal:
michaelpiotter.com/word/2007/08/01/yippy-skippy-businesses-hate-you/
michaelpiotter.com/word/2007/page/2/
michaelpiotter.com/word/category/rant/page/2/

This request needs to be completed immediately. Please acknowledge this request and comply with removing the links as requested and let us know when completed.
All links on your site to HTTP://www.thrifty.com must be removed.

Your prompt attention to this is appreciated. If you have further questions, please email.

Thank you.

Jacob Amato

Intern, Digital Marketing

The Hertz Corporation | 8501 Williams Road

Estero, FL 33928 | Email: jacob.b.amato@hertz.com
Phone: (239)-301-7319

As of 8.21.2007, my complaints have been somewhat resolved. I have contacted the Better Business Bureau in regards to all 3 with mixed results. Crucial.com does not admit that they may have misled me either via their website or in person, BBB closed case. (I beg to differ).

Thrifty indicated via phone call they would send me out coupons for $100. Only received $50, which expire in a year, only in my name and again would have to use Thrifty. 🙁

Days Inn responded by indicating I was diserviced by a independent owner working under Days Inn name. They said they would contact him and he would get back to me in 10 business days. That deadline came and went with fanfare. So Days Inn corporate is supposedly sending check for $45. Will wait to see that money.

I am fed-up with companies charging you for their service/product and then not delivering on it.
I have had recent run-ins with Crucial.com,Thrifty Car rental and Days Inn, SFO to prove it.

Crucial sells memory and I used their service to scan my computer for an upgrade. All well and dandy, found out that two – 2 gb memory sticks would fit my system and give me the appropriate upgrade I wanted. Installed it today and found out that my computer can’t use all the memory I bought, only about half of it. Customer service says I should have seen a Q&A section where it would state the XP would have this issue. Thanks, I had bought and paid for the memory already. I could return this and get new smaller sticks, but then I’d be out a restocking fee plus time and effort spent in getting this all in order. Money out: $100

Second business on the list is Thrifty Car Rental. Thrifty was used on the recent trip out to San Fran. I requested a Dodge Charger, but was given a Dodge Avenger, which is a smaller car. This gem of a car also did not have a working cruise control or any type of working interior dome lighting. Plus they get to tack on all these neat little rental fees that they put in fine print without much of any explanation. Called customer service, all they could do is issue a voucher for my next rental. Fuck you, I don’t want to use your service again. Money out: ~$100

Third business is Days Inn. The email I sent them via DaysInn.com

What a joke! This hotel was squalor and scary to visit. First off, the motel is located no where near the airport and after circling the airport for 20 minutes, finally learned that it was on a ‘airport rd’ some considerable distance, and tucked away from 101 as so prominently stated on your site. When we got there, service was lackluster in the cramped lobby. Our room was scary. Numerous holes in the walls were merely pasted over with scraps of wallpaper and all furniture/fixtures were in bad, dilapidated shape. Room was almost unfit for a Days Inn property. Were given a handicap room, but if it was for handicap people, I could not see how they could move about without getting stuck. We booked this room for 2 nights. After our first night, the room was not cleaned or refreshed at all. After requesting new linens, I waited 2 hours with no service to the room, even though I was told they would come. I went back a second time to request them, and was given them after another 15 minute wait. They claim to offer a breakfast, but all it consisted of was cold coffee, watered down orange juice,few pastries and fruit. The pastries had visibly been eat off of and this had to be before we got to lobby which was first opened to myself @ 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Staff barely spoke English and had worse time understanding it. They didn’t seem to know what was going on either. Continuously asked me room number, but did nothing about it.

The neighborhood this Inn was located in was very run down and I was afraid at night. I did not sleep the one whole night because of my fears over this. I believe motel employees were remodeling the room adjacent to ours, but did so after 7 pm at night, when I intended to rest in quiet.

Website states free newspaper, local restaurant in walking distance, 24-hr front desk, wheelchair accessible. It had none of this, or failed miserably to display this.

This was a terrible experience, I am ashamed to have chosen your hotel chain for this trip and all of my previously positive stays with you. This place was a nightmare, I wonder how you could endorse such a shoddy enterprise as Days Inn- Oyster Point.

I expect at least an apology for this and monetary compensation. What a sad, sad business you run.

I don’t know what to think about these businesses. I will be extremely slow to use them again if ever. I urge you to boycott them as well. You pay by their rules and when they fail that, they pay you back in vouchers or saying we’re sorry with out any compensation or such. What a grand system. I always thought the customer was right! Maybe just right to keep paying?!?

I find it endlessly fascinating that a toddler nowadays knows more about computers than most people over 30 years of age. But in some ways, it’s fascinating to watch what draws a toddlers attention on the internet.

Of course, kids are enamored by all the cartoon characters they see on TV. They want to then play games online with these characters in them. So Nick and Cartoon Network are often top destinations.

I wonder who makes the decisions for these websites. They have so very many options that the smallest child is often at a loss for what they really want to do ~ play games. I think it idiotic to try and signup a toddler for email updates or sell them some toy or memorabilia, all from the same webpage. Toddlers and young kids don’t hardly know how to read, let alone comprehend the marketing that these companies are trying to shove down their throats.

They are kids for pete’s sake. They like the pictures they see. They want to interact. They don’t buy online, they don’t know how or even care for that matter. They don’t care about all that other jazz you’re trying to push them the same way you would for adults. That’s grownup material. Get their parents involved a different way, don’t force them to navigate your site because you can’t effectively design the sites for your target audience. Add to your image by letting kids interact with your characters in fun,educational games, but don’t market to them in the same screen.

They don’t understand and you just piss off people by having them navigate around the garbage in order to find the stuff of some value.

Be there for the kids, not the greed!

All in all, today had all the makings of a positive, productive day up until about 4:30 this afternoon. Nothing too exciting usually happens that time of day and nothing too particular. Mine usually involves heading home. So I was off of work and heading home… la te da, nothing new.

Was doing fine until I get about a mile away from home. Going the normal speed limit when I notice a panel truck pulling out of a neighbors’ driveway. The scary part is that this panel truck does not stop at end of driveway as the law requires, but continues to roll through and start to turn onto the main gravel rode.

Now normally this seem all be well and fine, but it does not take into account that this is a gravel road and that this truck driver has decided to take a big ass turn with said truck.

I’m almost in a panic now realizing what this guy is doing as I am coming at him full speed and it appears he does not see me coming. So I slam on the brakes, but realize at the speed I’m going on a loosely graveled road this is not good as I begin fish-tailing. Luckily, the truck driver stops short of his intention as I am coming closer, and I just move closer to the ditch and get by, although a tad closer to the ditch than I would ever had liked to be.

Fine, so this yahoo pulled out in front of me. The real scary part is that 19 years ago a very similar incident happened to me at this same drive way, under much the same circumstances. That time I ended up in the hospital to have a 4 inch gash sewed up from my head.

I honestly don’t know what I would have done had the truck not stopped when it did. My car was loose on the gravel so it made it hard to control, but taking the ditch might have been an option. I don’t want to think about what would have happened had I only the choice to hit the truck with my car. That would not have had a good outcome.

Not fun and having to almost relive that previous accident shook me up a tad. Damn it.

p.s. I called up the business owner that owned the truck and bitched them out. piss-poor driving I don’t need to tolerate!

I continuously wonder at the amazement the human populous has with a well maintained turf around ones abode.

Really? What the hell does cutting grass have to do with the human condition? Does it say were not as good as our neighbor, if the retired bastard has nothing better to do with his day/life than chop off a few inches of plant matter every couple days? Does it mean were lazy or not as good as our neighbor if we don’t beat them to punch and get the yard cut before they do, again?

I wonder if it’s pointless to ask why we do it, even if no one outside the immediate members such yards belong to are the only ones to notice, unless it is not tended to in a timely matter.

Are we that far gone as a species of animals that the only thing we have to look forward to is mowing our grass?

What the fuck makes grass so fucking special?

I laughed this morning upon seeing the local news headlines overnight. Seems a crabby basketball player that ONLY makes $11 million a year after foregoing college because he couldn’t possibly pass it, got into trouble for throwing/tossing a basketball into the stands and hitting a fan.

It was even more impressive to see the great bit of drama acted out by said fan, all the way from his seat to the ambulance gurney for ‘head trama’. I wonder when, not if, he will reprise his role in a lawsuit towards said NBA player. Should be happening shortly.

And already pundits are saying the player was under the duress of a piss-poor season with a dismal team that he has poured his heart and soul into. Give me a break, for that much money anyone would show up and attempt to make nice as well.

Said player was already under suspicion when upon his grand entrance into the league in his rookie season in a game at the Target Center, he ungratefully avoided his young fans as he sauntered to the court he would inhabit for at least the next decade. That’s true ignorance of the hand that feeds him.

So without great reservation, I think he deserves what he is due. Payback is a bitch.