Concern about the ways in which corporations waste our time, energy, and money.

I have always believed that any corporation, with its fiduciary
obligations to shareholders, is going to have to both create or
dissemenate useful products, but will also have to control costs in ways
that are both ethical and unethical.

Many companies start out with the best of intentions in being ethical
about cost cutting, ordering cheaper staples, and reducing overhead,
finding more efficient ways to produce.

However, as shareholders get more and more anxious for earnings growth,
and there are fewer and fewer available technologies created, a lot of
companies go for the path of reducing customer service to the minimum
point as to be legally acceptable.

Today I was hit with three such events from different corporate entities.

First, I was trying to get my Roth IRA linked to my checking account at
Bank of America so that I wouldn't get charged their already exorbitant
$20 monthly fee. Actually, I did request, in writing that such a link be
made, back in April, when I opened the acocunts. However, their customer
service messed up and linked the Roth IRA to the wrong account, and thus
I got charged a service fee. After about 4 hours with customer service
on the phone since Sunday, I finally got the fee reversed. But now,
rather than correcting the mistake in a way that is amenable to me, the
investment services department insists that I go down to my local branch
to fill out a form they faxed there, wasting even more of my time. I
asked them if they could email me a pdf and I could email it back,
signed, as this would take less time, but no! Even though they have
email and this would clearly be the most efficient way to handle this
transaction, they insist on synchronous, rather than asynchronous
methods of doing bureaucracy. These are some of the main reasons I left
England, a charming place with wretched systems designed to suck you
into mediocrity.

Next, I went to get some groceries from Albertson's. Bananas were an
already fairly pricey $.79 per pound. The scale, by the produce section,
was clearly labelled "for estimation only." They should have labelled it
"for consumer exploitation only." My bananas weighed it at a reasonable
1.3 pounds. I get to the checkout, and they were 2.3 pounds! I pointed
this out to the clerk, who made a fake attempt to alert a store manager
to the scale. I was not impressed.

Finally, I've been expecting a replacement hard-drive from Hitachi, who
originally sold me a faulty drive. I got the 250 GB model in the hopes
that I would never have to fumble with CDs and DVDs of data again (or at
least for the near future). After months of ridiculous customer service
inquiries, including packaging requirements that could not be met with
purchased items in the greater San Francisco bay area (believe me, I
tried for 29 days to find the right foam rubber packing material and EDS
bags for shipment), today, DHL attempted to deliver the package. I was
home when they said they came to deliver it. They claim they need a
signature for delivery. Both Hitachi and DHL have my email address - why
couldn't they schedule delivery? Why didn't they actually give me an
option on the form to schedule redelivery? It seems, suspiciously, like
they have a broken system.

All these gripes bring me to my point. It seems that if a large business
can screw you, they will. Customer service used to be better - but
companies grew wise and realized that they could beat you down into
submission by making contacting them and getting resolution for problems
as difficult as possible, but still possible (with ridiculous
persistence and patience). In the case of the grocery store, there have
been many cases of people being overcharged $.10 or $.05 or even $.01,
particularly in large transactions where they will be unlikely to notice
it. I think that legal options need to be as vigilant for these
so-called "mistakes" as for bigger infractions. In the case of the bank,
if I open or close accounts too many times, it will affect my credit
score. I don't think that I should have to self-inflict a credit score
wound to switch to better customer service.
This to me provides a compelling argument that the credit bureaus are in
an alliance with banks, which surely must be some sort of Anti-Trust
violation.

Time will tell if consumers will demand more of their institutions. But,
I believe, that people are complacent, or if not complacent, overwhelmed
with the demands of the modern world to the point where they let these
little things go. It is to our collective long-term peril to do so, and
unless the legal environment supports it and openness to competition
exists in our culture, we too will sink into an awful customer
serviceless demise.