<rant> Please don't send an email like this to customer support

In this episode of "the life of a business owner..."

People say the darndest things when writing in to customer support. Here's a recent example sent in to FolioHD.

"My service is still not working. My business depends on the reliability of this website and if this can't be fixed I'll have to switch providers immediately."

Do customers think support people are more inclined to respond faster if they include a line like this? Do they subconsciously think a slight threat is going to get their problem fixed any faster?

The unfortunate fact is that 99 out of 100 times, the "problem" is a user error (at least in our case - in this particular instance, a misconfigured domain name). But when you're the service provider, it's never the customer's fault -- and I'll gladly take on their problem as if it were the most important thing in the world, but because I want them to have a good experience, not because of their tone.

There's just something inside me that hopes they don't correlate their slightly threatening tone to what got their problem resolved, because it really doesn't help.

</rant>

Disincentivized

  • It was announced today that illegal immigrants will now be eligible to receive back tax refunds even though they've never actually paid taxes.
  • Today I went to pick up a prescription that cost me over $100 because my new Obamacare insurance doesn't cover it. My old insurance was 1/4 the cost and covered everything.
  • I'm working on filing my taxes and am astounded at the amount of money I'm handing over to Uncle Sam. And I'm seeing less in return for it than ever before.

I'm beginning to wonder what the point is of working hard all day, sometimes nights and weekends. I work more than I should, to the point it sometimes starts to interfere with relationships and social activities and I have to constantly keep myself in check, but I've chosen to do it because I enjoy it and because I want to get ahead.

But with every action our government takes, they take away my incentive to actually try to get ahead.

Why should I work hard to pay for a $100 prescription, where if I made less money, I wouldn't pay anything at all?

Why should I work to pay my rent, when the government would chip in and help me pay for a place just as nice if I made less money?

Why is the government handing out my money who have done nothing to earn it and who haven't gone through the legal routes to be here?

This system doesn't work. The people on the low end of the pole have no incentive to work hard because they are being handed everything. And the people on the upper end have no incentive to work hard because they'll get the same benefits regardless of how hard they work.

Welcome to the new America.

Resort fees, dealer fees, convenience fees, and other bogus charges

Typically when we buy something, we're accustomed to paying the listed price, plus a mandated tax on the item. But recently we've become accustomed to seeing additional fees on purchases that aren't listed in the purchase price. This is already common practice for things like utility bills, cell phone bills, and car rentals. But over the past decade, this practice has extended to the internet in some incredibly shady ways.

Ever booked a hotel room and been forced to fork over an extra $15 or $20 a night at the front desk, on top of what you already paid to book the room? You may or may not have been aware of this charge called a "Resort Fee", a completely bogus charge some hotels are resorting (no pun intended) to, in order to maintain profit margins but still appear competitive on their price.

How does it work? Imaging you're filtering for 4-star hotels, then sorting by price, lowest to highest. "Wow," you say, "I found an amazing 4-star hotel for $90 a night!" Not so fast. If you look closely, you'll see a Resort Fee of something like $20 per night, payable to the hotel upon arrival. So what's going on? Well, for that hotel to appear in the top results for the price range, they lower their price but make back that amount in the form of a fee that isn't included in the price.

I recently came across an incredibly shady example of this fee on a Travelzoo deal:

"A resort fee of $15 per night is not included and will be paid directly to the hotel. This fee covers Wi-Fi, pool access, spa access (may be limited), fitness center access, newspaper, phone calls (may be limited), in-room coffee, in-room bottled water, self parking, valet parking and additional inclusions."

Travelzoo is all about great deals, but if you factor in the extra $15 you're going to have to fork over, you have to question if it's really that great of a deal. But the most offensive part is that this hotel is communicating this fee covers things like self-parking, coffee, fitness center access, and even pool/spa access! We all know even the most basic hotels have offered this forever at no additional charge. This is a blatant way to make back the profit they would have lost by actually offering a deal.

These tactics extend to things far beyond hotel bookings. Ever bought a car and thought you got a great deal? You should watch this video about the four square model, the model that every car dealership uses to make sure they make a certain profit on every car sale. Oh, and that dealer fee you may have paid from anywhere from $200-$750? Yeah, that's just a bogus fee - doesn't actually cover anything. It just goes toward making your purchase price appear lower.

Fortunately, there are some sites that actively try to give you an out-the-door price, which I really appreciate. Stubhub shows you your out-the-door price per ticket to an event. Southwest shows you the out-the-door price on an airline ticket - it includes all the bogus government fees.

I have declared war on these types of bogus fees. I try to avoid them as much as I possibly can and I hope I can convince you to do the same, when at all possible.