The Doug Hirsch Complaint department

There are many wonderful businesses and organizations who provide fine services and goods at fair prices. Sometimes an otherwise excellent organization will have some inexplicably frustrating foible that deserves correction. This page is where I will list such situations I observe.

Doug

Amazon

As a stockholder and frequent customer, I'm embarrassed that amazon.com has stubbornly refused the obvious customer service improvement of publishing their own customer service phone number, 800-201-7575, alternatively, 1-206-266-2992. Occasionally, things get so screwed up, even in a well run business, that things can only get fixed with a live conversation. Wise up, Mr. Bezos!

Fidelity

Identity theft is a serious and growing problem. Basic family and personal information is not so difficult to find these days, especially as people like me actually make much of it available on our own web sites. My passwords, however, should not be easy to find. In order to protect them, it's my policy never to say them aloud. However, to speak to customer service at Fidelity, I am told I must tell them over the phone the very same password I type at their web site. This is unacceptable practice; the first comparable company to offer a better identification authentication scheme is going to win my business away from Fidelity.

Network Innovations

Network Innovations, nii.net, is a fine, small ISP serving Massachusetts. As part of their Internet access service, they contract with another carrier to provide their customer with travel dial access from various points across the country. However, that carrier blocks outbound email (tcp port 25) except through the nii.net mail relay. This means I cannot send my business email while on the road through my corporate mail relay, blocking me from special email services I need in the course of my job. This cripples the usefulness of this otherwise vital business service, but the guys at NII refuse to raise the issue with their contract carrier.

Sprint PCS

The Massachusetts Highway department set up and subsidized a program with Smartroutes to provide Eastern Massachusetts traffic reports through a common cellphone number of *1. Sprint PCS unilaterally withdrew from this program, leaving a meaningless error message for it's customers who follow the directions from the roadside signs.

At my favorite Maine ski resort, Sunday River, Sprint has advertising signs plastered all over the resort. Why is it they can't manage to make my Sprint cellphone work there? Their advertising at that location merely rubs salt into the wound.