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- Aug 12, 2008
Okay, so I just broke up with my eBook "promoter" because I found out they weren't really doing $*$! but collecting my royalties for themselves.(Black Urban Books, even though the book is neither of the first two words, I'm both so it was a good idea at the time.) It's not just the money, I wasn't getting $*$! for promotion--y'know, what I'm paying them for, I could never get in contact with them, I had to cut ties in a **@%!%# Twitter DM. Of course they had no check for me since "they had to recoup their marketing fees". It sounds a bit odd that a professional marketing firm wouldn't be able to make $300 in the better part of a year, but it's whatever...I cut my losses and moved on.
That got me to thinking about other questionable business practices:
-Like T-Mobile slowly sneaking my bill up month by month...went from $75 to $100+ in the past year and change, got worse service, issued accents to their call centers, and generally gave me less bang for more bucks. They told me I could have $20 off my bill a month, but I'd lose my upgrade privilege. Leaving them ASAP.
-Or Wells Fargo all of a sudden adding "service fees" to their checking accounts after I've been with them for 5 years, didn't change $*$!, and never paid anything like that the whole time. $5 a month might not seem like much, but I know some of y'all know what $5 can mean on a rough day. Oh, and they also cranked their ATM fees up to $2.50 ON TOP of the on-site fee...that means sometimes $20 costs $24 if I use a non-Wells machine. (I live in an area where the nearest bank is an oxymoron.) Just terrible.
-Some disreputable literary agents charge reading fees to even consider you as a client. Yes, of course I'll give you $200 to determine whether you want 15% of my eventual publishing deal.
-Clear Wireless had a nice little deal with $25 high speed internet, then one day they decided to double the price (and not the speed, which could have used doubling). Never told me $*$! about that until I opened the envelope saying so. !%#+ that passionately...they're still calling for "their money" to this day.
Is anything a straight-up fair trade of goods/currency for services any more or is everything a mild-to-moderate scam?
Aight, just had to get that off my chest...I know y'all have stories of shady sellers, predatory purveyors, and dubious dealers. Point 'em out!
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That got me to thinking about other questionable business practices:
-Like T-Mobile slowly sneaking my bill up month by month...went from $75 to $100+ in the past year and change, got worse service, issued accents to their call centers, and generally gave me less bang for more bucks. They told me I could have $20 off my bill a month, but I'd lose my upgrade privilege. Leaving them ASAP.
-Or Wells Fargo all of a sudden adding "service fees" to their checking accounts after I've been with them for 5 years, didn't change $*$!, and never paid anything like that the whole time. $5 a month might not seem like much, but I know some of y'all know what $5 can mean on a rough day. Oh, and they also cranked their ATM fees up to $2.50 ON TOP of the on-site fee...that means sometimes $20 costs $24 if I use a non-Wells machine. (I live in an area where the nearest bank is an oxymoron.) Just terrible.
-Some disreputable literary agents charge reading fees to even consider you as a client. Yes, of course I'll give you $200 to determine whether you want 15% of my eventual publishing deal.
-Clear Wireless had a nice little deal with $25 high speed internet, then one day they decided to double the price (and not the speed, which could have used doubling). Never told me $*$! about that until I opened the envelope saying so. !%#+ that passionately...they're still calling for "their money" to this day.
Is anything a straight-up fair trade of goods/currency for services any more or is everything a mild-to-moderate scam?
Aight, just had to get that off my chest...I know y'all have stories of shady sellers, predatory purveyors, and dubious dealers. Point 'em out!
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