spaghettiwestern

joined 1 year ago
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[–] spaghettiwestern 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

I worked in sales for a Fortune 500 tech equipment and software manufacturer. When a customer had a serious outage with a single piece of our equipment it would cause them to stop and reevaluate their purchasing plans and dependence on my company.

IMO every government and business out there is going to be looking at this at every level and IT departments will be tasked to significantly reduce their reliance on Microsoft products. It will take years to actually happen, but I think Microsoft sales are going to take a serious, long term, and well-deserved hit.

[–] spaghettiwestern 3 points 4 months ago

80% of the items I considered had either jacked up the price prior to prime days, or advertised a large discount when the actual discount was tiny - a few percent. I ended up buying nothing. Amazon sucks.

[–] spaghettiwestern 1 points 4 months ago

This would be of limited use for many people. Carriers lock people in by selling lots of phones that are missing frequency bands and cannot be used on their competitor's networks. For instance, many of TMO's phones cannot be used on AT&T and Verizon's networks. My Oneplus 9Pro is a great phone, but if I wanted to switch to Spectrum (on Verizon's network) or AT&T I would be forced to buy a new phone.

Some phones like the Iphone and Pixels are compatible with every U.S. network, but plenty of others are not.

[–] spaghettiwestern 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Teamviewer has a history of lying about serious security breaches. The company's networks have been breached before and they literally spent years denying it and blaming it on their customers: https://www.securityweek.com/teamviewer-confirms-it-was-hacked-2016/

[–] spaghettiwestern 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The worst of the medical centers that knowingly overcharged me was USC Keck in L.A. They completely ignored calls, emails, faxes and certified letters for nearly a year - never once responding to anything. The scumbags actually sent my account to collections despite my having a zero balance because they flatly refused to credit my overpayments. I've learned to refuse payment of any medical bill before making absolutely sure I owe the company what they are billing, and that can take months.

The thing that amazes me with all of these companies is they expect you and I to be right on top of our accounts, respond to letters and calls, and pay their bills within 30 days. This despite the fact they don't give a fuck about doing the same. My attitude has become the same as theirs: "fuck 'em, let them wait". I get sternly worded bills with red "Past Due" printed on them every month, ignore them completely and pay when I'm ready. There's been no downside.

[–] spaghettiwestern 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Doesn’t matter, it’s all of them.

It's the majority of them, but there are exceptions. I switched to Blue Shield (not Blue Cross or one of the combined companies in some states) and had almost zero problems. They paid my claims accurately the vast majority of the time and fixed the occasional problem with relatively little fuss. The Blue Shield reps also knew their stuff and I never once had to explain my policy to them.

Health Net is deliberately designed from the bottom up to refuse legitimate claims and to fight tooth and nail when customers demand they follow their own contract. IMO Health Net should be shut down.

...my wife basically made this her daytime job calling about the bills and learning about how billing and coding works.

I had to do the same, despite recovering from surgery. To make matters worse, after I hit the maximum out of pocket amount the medical centers continued to send bills showing I owed a balance. It took nearly a year and repeated escalation to their executive and legal departments to get them to provide refunds. Calls, faxes and certified letters were completely ignored.

Corporate America has become quasi-legal and well-funded organized crime.

[–] spaghettiwestern 62 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

Name and shame - it does absolutely no good to post your experience without the insurance company name.

Health Net pulled constant bullshit with me. The company regularly refused payment on claims, saying they weren't covered after previously paying for the same service under the plan. Health Net even went so far to refuse payment on a claim when they had provided prior approval for the appointment in writing. They would refuse payment on things that were clearly covered and I had to read them the policy to even get them to look at the denial. Health Net literally trashed prior authorization requests my doctor sent in and it took 4 months and personally faxing the request myself to get them to admit they were throwing the faxes away. The list goes on and on.

After major surgery I often spent 10+ hours per week on the phone with them because Health Net would deny so many claims. Getting rid of that crappy insurance company was a major relief.

[–] spaghettiwestern 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Paypal locked my account after years of use for absolutely no reason. I never had a invalid charge, dispute, or any other kind of problem with it, just one day they decided to shut it down. They flatly refused to explain what was going on. With all the decent alternatives out there now there is no longer a reason to use their crappy service.

Love that they believe they're the only game in town and can demand your bank statement.

[–] spaghettiwestern 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

HP has known the hinges are defective since they introduced them. There are so many people having problems a class action suit was filed about it.

[–] spaghettiwestern 1 points 5 months ago

Must depend on the model. I've been running Mint on that (repaired) X360 for years without significant problems outside crappy Realtek wireless module issues.

[–] spaghettiwestern 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (15 children)

HP laptops are garbage. This is the hinge of my HP X360 laptop after 6 months of occasional use: https://i.imgur.com/LhZWBIt.jpg

[–] spaghettiwestern 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It's more insidious than that. Malignant narcissists like Trump believe their gaslighting and lies define reality for everyone.

 

The incident occurred when the man, a robotics company employee in his 40s, was inspecting the robot.

The robotic arm, confusing the man for a box of vegetables, grabbed him and pushed his body against the conveyer belt, crushing his face and chest, South Korean news agency Yonhap said.

He was sent to hospital but later died.

 

It's looking more and more like full blown dementia.

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