Heard back from Rewind 94.9

Got the following email from Jay Kruz, a DJ at Rewind 94.9:

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks for writing. We appreciate honest and candid feedback from our listeners on how our station is serving them. I am sorry to hear that you were not happy with your Class Reunion Lunch playlist. We truly value our listener participation and will use your constructive feedback as we continue our Class Reunion Lunch feature.

I’d like try to make things right and want to make sure you enjoy a “Lunch” on us with a gift certificate to Jeff Ruby’s Carlo and Johnny restaurant. Please reply back with your full name and phone number so we can have the certificate available to pick up from our receptionist at our studios.

I sincerely hope you’ll continue to listen to and be a part of The New Rewind 94.9.

All the best,

Jay

Today I went down to the station to pick up my lunch gift certificate. I figured while I was down there I may as well get that DVD that I won, that I didn't want to pick up before. I still don't want the DVD, but hey, it is mine. Maybe I can sell it. While I was down there Jay Kruz came out to meet me. He told me that "they" talked about my comments and that "they" take comments and suggestions seriously. So what ever that really means, I guess it's nice that they didn't just ignore my email. Maybe other folks who participate in the Class Reunion Lunch will actually get the songs they picked played on the air.

Over all I'm very pleased with how they handled my complaint.

Dear Humana

This is an email that I sent to Humana. I just wanted them to know that I think their customer service stinks. I have as little hope of them responding to this letter as I did to them taking care of any of these bills in a timely manner.

I would just like to say that I am extremely unsatisfied with the service that I have received from Humana. When my son was born on _________, my husband added him to our insurance policy. Humana did not add my son to our policy until January 1,_________. This led to a pile of bills between those dates that were not our responsibility to pay. My husband and myself have been on the phone dozens of times with the hospital and with Humana, trying to sort out these various bills. Over and over again, all Humana has to say is to tell my hospital to resubmit the bills. And over and over again the bills were not paid. It took months for most of these bills to ever get resolved, during which we continued to get bills in the mail saying we were late with payment. This alone is completely embarrassing because those bills were not my responsibility. In the end, it seems all of those bills were paid except one. Yesterday I received a letter from a collections agency. I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I am an honest person and I pay my debts. I feel infuriated to have a collections agency after me for money that is not my responsibility to pay. It all makes me completely sick to my stomach. I feel hopeless when dealing with your company. Each time I call to try to resolve these bills I feel like your people are running me in circles. I feel like no one really cares and that no one really wants to help. Your customer service is a joke. I loathe your company. But I feel like I am stuck because my family needs health insurance. It seems I shall have to continue to "deal with the devil" so to speak.

(I edited this from the original, removing the dates in question.)

94.9 WREW Class Reunion Lunch

I would like to express my disappointment with your Class Reunion Lunch. A month ago I got a phone call from someone at 94.9 saying that my play list was selected for the Class Reunion Lunch. Of course I was quite excited because I rarely win anything. First off, I was not impressed with the prize. The DVD was not even worth my time to go down to your offices to pick up, so I didn't bother. But I was quite excited that the songs that I selected from my graduating year were going to be played on the radio. In fact, I told all of my family and friends to tune in.

Yesterday (Sept. 17th) I tuned in to listen to my songs, and things started off OK when two of the songs I picked out where played. Then I got really annoyed when 6 songs were played that I didn't even pick. Sure, they were songs that were popular from 1995, but they were NOT songs that I selected or even like! I have to admit that I was embarrassed that my friends and family were listening to songs such as I Can Love You Like That, and assuming that I picked it out. I don't even like that song! I find it so annoying that you asked for my favorite songs from my graduating year then proceed to ignore most of my suggestions and play the songs that you think were best from that year.

I was especially frustrated because I was led to believe that songs from my actual play list would be played. Granted, you did play two songs that I picked, but what about all the other songs?? Not my picks. So what did I "win" from the Class Reunion Lunch? A crappy DVD that I didn't even want to go pick up and a bunch of songs that I don't even like. Thanks so much 94.9.

Duke Energy

Hello,

I am writing to complain about your automatic Bill Pay service. EVERY SINGLE OTHER bill that I have to pay (that would be phone, cell phone, Internet, water, cable, credit cards, mortgages, etc) allows you to a) sign up online and b) pay your bill for free.

You offer neither. You have a form that has to be printed out and faxed / mailed out, and your service charges a monthly fee. True, it is only 30 cents per month but literally EVERY other company I pay has no such fee. Why would you want to discourage people from paying you automatically? It just doesn't make sense.

I understand that you contract with another company (Billpayer 2000) but every single other company has managed to figure it out so I don't know why you guys are any different.

I am very disappointed.

Kroger followup

Followup on my email to Kroger

Thank you for contacting The Kroger Co. I do apologize for your experience and I will be forwarding this report to the store director. I have also sent you out a coupon for your inconvenience please allow up to ten business days for the coupon for arrive. Thank you for taking the time to e-mail us. We appreciate your business.



Sincerely,



Nicole B
Consumer Affairs

Buffalo Wild Wings

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to share my experience at a BW3 restaurant (Store #3334 in Mason, Ohio) this afternoon (Friday 8/21). In these tough economic times, I usually bring my lunch, and so when I take the opportunity to go out to lunch, I hope more than usual that it will be worth my time and money.

The waitress did not point out the lunch specials that were available. I was looking through the regular menu (at things that were at least $2 more expensive) for quite awhile before one of the other guys at my table found the lunch menu.

The food took an inordinate amount of time. As I said, I do not go out to lunch very often so I don't have a great sense for how long things "should" take, but when I commented on it, the other members of my party agreed that it was a longer than normal time. They were surprised since the restaurant was not busy at all.

I ordered the Cheeseburger Slammers lunch menu, with no lettuce, tomato or onion. When my meal finally came out, I found that those items were included. Apparently they come on the side, so that was good enough. And sure, I ended up just taking them off and it was not the end of the world, but to me, good customer service would not have put them in the basket. I mean, somebody somewhere in the restaurant (whether it was the cook, the server or someone else) had to put them on there at some point! When the food came out, another guy at my table who had also ordered the Cheeseburger Slammers mentioned that mine had the no lettuce, tomato or onion (he ordered his with those and wanted to make sure that we each got the right one), only to find out that both did. The server did not apologize, nor offer to remove or exchange them, but instead just said "They're on the side". Again, I don't want to make a huge deal over this and if this was the only thing maybe I would not have brought it up.

The food was decent. My burgers were cooked a little longer and were a bit cold (if that combination makes sense). Perhaps this is related to the longer than average wait time? The bottle of ketchup that was on the table was nearly empty. I am sure that this is not the waitresses fault and it wasn't a huge deal since I just grabbed a bottle from a neighboring empty table. In a positive note, I did appreciate the speed with which my drink was refilled, including a time when the waitress just brought a refill without asking when she saw my cup was low. I always appreciate that.

When we paid, the server brought our checks and we put our money or cards on the trays. When our change was brought out, I found that my receipt / change was switched with the gentleman sitting next to me. Not a huge deal since it turned out that although we ordered separate meals, our meals both were the same amount and we had both paid with $20 bills.

Thank you for your time in reading this. I am sure that you pride yourselves in trying to foster a good dining experience and I hope that these comments will help you as you try to improve your overall customer service.

UPDATE - GRR I HATE WHEN COMPANY'S FEEDBACK FORMS LIMIT THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS I CAN WRITE. I TOOK THE TIME TO WRITE A NOTE WITH DETAILED FEEDBACK ON HOW THEY COULD IMPROVE - THE LEAST THEY CAN DO IS READ IT!

So in their feedback form I wrote

---

I had a poor experience at lunch today. I wrote a very thoughtful and detailed note describing the different areas of service but because you have decided to limit me to only 1500 characters, it would not fit.

So I have had to publish it on the Internet in order for you to be able to read it.

---

And then I linked them to this post.

Kroger cart locks and bikes

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my frustration about 2 experiences at the new Norwood Kroger in Surrey Square in Norwood, Ohio. This is not the closest Kroger to my house, but it is nearby, and occasionally I shop here. So with the opening of the brand new building, I thought that I would give it a try.

I was amused to see the messages in the shopping carts about how the wheels would lock up if you removed the carts from the parking lot (as marked by the yellow boundary lines in the parking lot). The message was just such a contrast from the brand-new and fanciness of the building. But that was fine, since it is generally not my intent to steal shopping carts.

I purchased a few things and then headed back to the car, which I had parked on the north end of the parking lot, near the McDonalds drivethru. As I took my cart out to my car, the wheels locked up on me a full 2 rows from my car. I saw that the yellow boundary line was still a good 10-20 feet away. Needless to say, I did not enjoy having to carry each bag of my groceries from my locked up cart to the trunk of my car.

Then last week, I was out for a bike ride, and I got a flat tire near the Norwood Kroger. My patch kit was unable to fix it and so I walked my bike towards the store. It was my intention to check if Kroger sold bicycle patch kits or anything that might help me. I didn't think that they would but since it was a new Kroger that seemed to have more general merchandise items that it was at least worth checking before I had to call my wife to come pick me up.

I took my bike inside with me so that I could make sure to buy the right kind. Obviously I did not ride my bike in the store. But it didn't matter as the security guard told me I had to leave. I tried to explain but he was not interested. So that was disappointing.

I guess I will have to continue to do my shopping at Meijer, Sams, Biggs, Aldi or possibly some of the other Krogers nearby.

Thank you for your time

National City branch visit complaint

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my frustration with the new National City branch building at 5550 Ridge avenue in Pleasant Ridge in Cincinnati. It looks very nice from the outside but the method of entry leaves much to be desired.

I don't know why the decision was to limit entry to 1 person at a time. I can only assume that it is some sort of security measure, though upon first glance it seems of dubious merit. Not to mention that I don't really feel like Pleasant Ridge is a particularly dangerous part of town, where a bank might need enhanced security measures.

If it was just me entering, I'd have no problem. But this past week I came with my whole family. I had been needing to get something notarized with my wife and I both signing it, and it can prove challenging to get both of us (which necessitates bringing our 5 young children as well) at the same place at the same time during a bank's normal operating hours. But I was off work last Wednesday (August 12th) and so on our way down to the museum, we stopped by the Ridge branch.

While my wife was getting the baby out of the car, I attempted to go in with the other 4 kids. I saw the signs to enter only 1 at a time, but I went ahead anyways because I had all my kids with me and couldn't just leave them there. I don't know if you have kids, or how old they might be, but the odds of successfully explaining the correct procedures for entering the bank to an autistic 9 year old, as well as 7, 4 and 2 year olds is approximately 0%.

Obviously we were unable to enter the bank. After awhile, a woman came over the intercom and asked how many people were in the vestibule. I replied "1 adult and 4 children". She said "Normally I would make you go out and come in 1 at a time but I will let you in this time." So we finally made it in! Then my wife came in, pushing our baby in the stroller. And unbelievably she had it even worse! Obviously we could not leave an 8 month old to try and enter by himself, so they both went in to the vestibule area. She also appeared to speak to someone over the intercom (I couldn't hear what was being said) but eventually she got the door unlocked, but because the vestibule was so narrow, it was nearly impossible for her to push the door open since the stroller was in front of her. And there was no room to get around the stroller or turn it around. It took 3 tries before she was able to get in.

After that, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. The wait was longer than I wished it was, but we were able to get our documents notarized and head out. I can't really fault the customer service of the teller. And the manager-type man who notarized our documents was very nice.

But I would like to ask that this method of entry to bank branches be stopped. Or at the very least limit it to branches that really ARE in bad neighborhoods, where I wouldn't want to take my kids anyways.

Thank you

Dave and Busters complaint

To whom it may concern:

I am writing with a complaint about the Dave and Buster's store in Cincinnati, Ohio. This summer, my family and I chose to do a "staycation" where we stayed in town and did activities here locally.

One of the activities that we chose to do was to visit Dave and Buster's and play some games. I had a gift certificate for a $10 power card and so we set off on the last day of our staycation, Wed. August 12th, before I had to go back to work the next day.

When we got there, we were informed by the girl who was working the front desk that the fine print on my gift certificate indicated that it was not good on "Half Price Wednesdays". Apparently (as you are no doubt already aware), on Wednesdays all games cost half as much.

Now, to me this seemed reasonable. It seemed that D&B management wanted to avoid turning the $10 gift certificate into essentially a $20 gift certificate. So I suggested that if games were half price, that she just give me a $5 power card for my $10 gift certificate, since that would essentially be the same thing. She rotely repeated that she could not help me. Perhaps this is just not allowed, or perhaps she did not understand me, or perhaps she wanted to get back to the doodling on her paper that I had interrupted.

The kids were EXTREMELY disappointed. At least we got to take a picture outside with D&B in the background and the family all growling our disappointment, for the blog recap and Facebook picture upload.

So we ended up coming back this past Monday (the 17th). It was a bit more inconvenient, since I had to meet up with them after work and still get back before too late since school is now back in session and it was a school night. I had no problem getting the $10 power card.

But then, in a revelation that made things EVEN MORE GALLING, I learned that the $10 power card that I received on Monday is good any day. So there is nothing to prevent me (other than having to make 2 trips) from getting the $10 power card on Monday and then returning on a Wednesday for $20 in games! So essentially I was denied usage of my certificate on Wednesday, forced to listen to nearly a week's worth of kid disappointment, all for NOTHING!

We were extremely disappointed in our experience with Dave and Busters and we thank you for taking the time to read this.

Update - Apparently Dave and Busters has no way to email them from their website? What is this, 1995? I'll show them - I'll tweet this over to them!

Cole Garlic bread response

Got a letter back from Sue at Coles - she apologized and said she sent me 2 VIP coupons as well as 2 $0.30 off coupons. There was only 1 free coupon though. I emailed back asking about that but am not really expecting them to send me another one. Still, free garlic bread!

Cole Garlic bread

Hello,

I don't buy a lot of garlic bread - we do eat a lot of pasta, but usually it just stands alone, or maybe with some biscuits. Recently however, there was a good deal on Cole garlic bread mini loaf, and so we bought 2 loaves.

But each of them had major problems - the instructions say to open the garlic bread to cook it, but for both loaves, this proved impossible - they stuck together, making one side have very little of the garlic and spices (since it all stuck to one side). Even trying to defrost or microwave it a little to soften it up proved fruitless.

We were very disappointed in our experience with Cole Garlic bread.

Thank you for your time

Walmart wheat sandwich bread

Hello,

I am writing with a complaint about the Ridge / Highland Wal-Mart store (#2250) in Cincinnati, Ohio. I shop at this store fairly regularly, and usually on Saturday mornings. I understand that Saturdays are sometimes the end of a sales cycle, and that merchandise deliveries don't always come every day, but very frequently, when I get to the store on Saturdays, the Great Value wheat sandwich bread (in the orange-ish bag) is out of stock.

This is a problem for me as I am forced to either a) go to another store, b) buy white bread that my family does not prefer or c) spend $3-4 extra to buy 4 loaves of more expensive bread.

Since this is not a one-time occurrence - while not every week this does happen with some regularity, I wish that you would stock more of the wheat sandwich bread!!!

Unfortunately, even as I write this, I despair of anyone reading my comments much less following up on it, as the past 2 times I have written to Walmart I have effectively been ignored.

Kroger raincheck followup

Dear Mr. Miller:

Thank you for contacting Kroger in regards to the rain check issue you had from out customer service desk. I want to apologize for this. I have sent this concern to store management for immediate review and resolution. I assure you this will be addressed. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention.


Sincerely,


Amber S
Consumer Affairs

Kroger raincheck fiasco

Hello,

Last Saturday, May 16th, at approximately 5:00 p.m. I went to the local Kroger store in Norwood Ohio. I was interested in stocking up on several items from your "Lowest prices of the season" ad, specifically Oscar Mayer bologna, Kroger frozen potatoes and Kroger brand peanut butter, all listed at 99 cents.

When I got to the store, all 3 of those items were out of stock. I was disappointed but not particularly surprised (it was a Saturday afternoon, I understand). So I went to the customer service desk to get rainchecks. I waited in the extremely long line. There were 2 gentlemen behind the desk, but for whatever reason they were only serving customers one at a time. I did not get to catch their names, but one was a Caucasian gentleman in his 40s or so and a somewhat younger African-American gentleman.

When it finally became my turn (no exaggerating - it was probably at least 10-15 minutes), I asked for my rainchecks. The older gentleman said that these were "summer specials" and would be good through the whole summer, so (his words) they didn't need to write me a raincheck. I was somewhat skeptical, but had no way to doubt him and plus my family was waiting in the car.

So this week I went to Kroger to verify the prices and what do you know - the manager's comments were NOT true, and everything was back to its regular price!

So whereas, it was my intention to stock up (similar to your 10 for $10 sales) with 10 bologna, 10 frozen potatoes and 10 peanut butter, for a total of $29.70, now to buy those same products, I must pay $26.90 for 10 Oscar Mayer bolognas, $16.90 for 10 frozen potatoes, and $17.90 for 10 peanut butters, for a total of $61.70. So I am out $32.

And even if somehow I am able to make it down to that Kroger to try and explain, I have to a) spend the gas to drive down to that Kroger (it's not my regular Kroger - we were just in the area eating at a nearby restaurant), b) hope that particular manager is working when I stop in, c) hope he remembers our conversation from a week ago and d) hope that he is willing to honor the raincheck.

All in all, an extremely frustrating and disappointing situation

Thank you for your time in reading these comments

Dan Miller

Cici's pizza compliment

I know this is a complaints blog but I thought I'd share my recent compliment email just to show I'm not a total curmudgeon

---

Hello,

I would just like to take a moment to express how satisfied I was with my recent experience (Saturday May 16th @ 4:30 pm) at the Norwood Ohio Cici's Pizza restaurant. The employees there were extremely friendly and helpful. I had found several of the "Free Buffet" pennies as part of your recent promotion. In my experience, whenever you are getting something for "free", often times employees treat you differently (i.e. worse) than they might treat paying customers.

But I did not find this to be the case at Cici's - on the contrary, the staff was extremely courteous and helpful. I know from past experience that the staff is trained to be somewhat "over the top" in friendliness but my family and I enjoyed my experience there.

Thank you

Kroger bagel followup

Dear Mr. Miller:

Thank you for contacting The Kroger Co. I apologize for the poor quality of the product; I will forward your comments over to our Consumer Affairs and Manufacture for review. I also see you left your address so I will be mailing out a $5.00 dollar coupon to purchase any Kroger Item in the store you wish, it will take up to three weeks for this to reach you. And if you experience this issue in the future we carry a quality guarantee on all of our items. And you can return them back to the store for a replacement or refund.



Sincerely,



Bryan N.
Consumer Affairs

More Kroger bagels

Hello. I wrote a letter on April 29th talking about mold growing on 2 bags of Kroger brand bagels that we purchased at Kroger. Nobody bothered to respond to me, and I forgot about it. Apparently though, I am a glutton for punishment as this past Saturday (May 10th) I again purchased Kroger brand bagels (plain). This morning (only 3 days later), we once again noticed mold on several of the bagels.

Needless to say I am extremely disappointed. I had already decided to buy my future bagels at Aldi, since they're cheaper ($1.25 vs. $1.59), the bagels themselves are bigger, and there are 6 in a package rather than 5. But now I am extremely hesitant to even buy ANYTHING out of the Kroger bakery.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Hamilton County Auditor

While I'm in a posting mood - another one I did a few days ago to Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes

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Mr. Rhodes,

I would like to register my disappointment at your recent site change which eliminates the ability to go directly to the property search page. I noticed this a few weeks ago but hoped that it was just a temporary glitch that would resolve itself. I see now from your blog that it was an intentional (and likely permanent) change.

This is extremely frustrating to me. I don't know if it was done for some sort of technical reasons or if it was an attempt to force people into going to the main auditor's page (or something else entirely), but it is something that is very frustrating for me. I've long been very pleased with the service that you have provided and have commented on it to my friends and neighbors. So I felt it was only fair to share with you my disappointment at this latest decision

Thank you for your time in reading this

Response -

---

Thanks for your e-mail and candid comments. I’m glad our website has been helpful to you over the years.



The change was made because we often have important information on the main page which needs to be known by citizens and people working with our office. Bypassing the main page means people had to make an extra call or e-mail to us for information that was there – but they didn’t see it.



Additionally, some agencies and companies were using our information and presenting it as their own. I’m sorry for the inconvenience but we think it is important that users know where the data is really coming from.



----Dusty Rhodes----

---

So basically, too bad Dan, you lose. Oh well. Maybe I'll vote him out of office!!! :-)

Miami University triathlon

I wrote an email complaining about the lack of split times and general bad times at the Miami University triathlon that I did a week or so ago. You can read my race report over on my blog.

Anyways, HFP Racing, who kind of runs the race, responded.

---

Dan,
Thank you for your constructive comments, and of course we will always take the time to read letters from our participants. We take feedback very seriously and grow and learn from it. I have forwarded some of your comments to Miami U. organizers as they are more applicable to their realm of responsibility.
I would like to offer you 50% one of our Wheelie Fun Series events as consolation for the loss of split times. Let me know if you would like to select one and I will give you a 50% off discount code.

---

I responded - Thanks for your reply. I looked at the Wheelie Fun races and unfortunately, all of them are on Sundays and I don't race on Sundays. I would be interested possibly in a 50% discount code for the 2010 Miami race. I understand you might not have those set up yet but if it works for you, I could just forward this email on to you when you have them set up in a few months and if I plan on racing it

---

And got a response. Notice me not making fun of her Big 10 grammatical error :-)

Hi Dan,
I hope you're week has been productive. I contacted the Miami University Race Director and requested a 50% off discount for you to race next year. I respect your choice to not race on Sunday's and have struggled with that issue myself. In any case, Mr. Marcechko said that he would be fine with providing you the discount to compensate for problems you experienced on race day. He has reviewed your constructive criticisms as well.
Thanks, and have a wonderful weekend.

---

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Kroger bagels

Last Saturday (April 25th) I purchased 2 packages of Kroger bagels, that were on sale 10 for $10. When we brought them home we refrigerated them as instructed on the package. This morning, when we went to use them for breakfast we found that they were growing mold!!!

Needless to say this was unexpected and disappointing only 4 days after purchasing them.

We do still have one of the packages - I looked for any kind of code or sale by date but did not see any obvious one.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sycamore Township traffic problems

I am writing to express 2 areas of traffic unpleasantness on Montgomery Road in Sycamore Township.

#1 - Early in the mornings (say, before 8:00 a.m.), the traffic light pattern for the traffic light between Nordstroms and LCA Vision is not commesurate with the traffic. At that time of day, traffic is at least 90% either coming from or going to Interstate 71. There is almost never a car that is coming out from Nordstroms or from the LCA / Staples / Old Navy shopping area (since they're all closed that early in the morning). Similarly, even with the construction at Nordstroms, there are almost never cars trying to turn left off of Montgomery, and even when there are, the traffic is light enough that a left turn is easily accomplished.

It's just frustrating as I'm heading off to work, that I have to sit at a red light for 30-60 seconds as no cross traffic takes advantage of it and then, to add further insult, sit ANOTHER 30-45 seconds as nobody takes advantage of a left turn arrow. Such a traffic pattern is definitely called for after say 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. when the mall and shopping areas open, but not before that.

My recommendation would be to re-program that traffic light for early morning times to be "on-demand", and only provide a green light for cross traffic when there actually IS traffic to use it.

#2 - Slightly further north on Montgomery, when going southbound, it is extremely frustrating having to be backed up by someone turning left into the Starbucks plaza. Since there is no dedicated turn lane, and usually heavy traffic coming northbound, it can really back up southbound traffic. There may not be anything that can be done about this, since I'm sure the businesses in that plaza would not be in favor of forbidding left turns into the plaza, and there may not be enough road to have a turn lane there, but I just thought I would express my frustration in the matter.

Thank you for your time in reading this and your attention to this matter.

Sams Club followup

Received a letter from the membership manager at my local Sam's. Now, normally, I don't like to pick TOO much on people's spelling / grammar, but this lady IS a manager, and...well, you'll see.

Mr. Miller,

I understand your frustration with the difference of Sam's Club pricing and would like to explain why our prices are different at each location. Each club comps prices within their local area on a weekly basis. For example, Tri-county and Fields Ertle (sic) (two stores you mentioned) will comp their local grocery stores, but they also comp Costco pricing, as eash (sic) of these stores have a Costco in their local range. Eastgate will comp their local GFS. Until recently, the Oakley store has had no one to comp but the local Meijer and Krogers (sic) which is easy for us to beat prices on (sic). However, we have just started comping Restaurant Depo (sic) as well, which will make a significant difference in our pricing as it is actually someone to compeat (sic) with. We have just gained access to comp them as of last week, so you should see a drop in our pricing. I hope this better explains why you find a difference in pricing between stores as each store has a range we are allowed to comp within as well as pricing autonomy on low on hand items and/or display units (sic for massive run-on). If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact myself or any other manager at the club.

Respectfully,

Ashley xxxxx
Membership Manger

=====================

To which I responded:

Ms. Byrd,

Thank you for your response. I understand your reasoning, since it is your (and your fellow associates') responsibility to maximize profits for your store. I am sure that you will also understand that since it is my responsibility to provide food for my family at the lowest price possible, until such time as the prices come down, I will be doing my weekly Sam's club shopping at the xxxxx store.

I am not familiar with Restaurant Depot, though it appeared that they sell more supplies rather than actual food. I did notice that you did not mention comping with the Aldi on xxxxx, which has lower prices than you on many food items.

Again, thank you for your time. It was nice to actually get a response back (as opposed to previous times I have contacted Sam's)

Dan Miller.

The "Quality" of Pampers

To Whom It May Concern,

I've been wanting to write this letter for a few weeks now. We have two children: an almost 2-year-old and a 5-month-old. When we had our first child, we tried just about every diaper brand out there and ultimately decided, rather early on, that Pampers was by far the most absorbent and best-fitting brand of diapers. We have not used anything but Pampers for almost two years now. However, within the past few weeks, when we go to put a diaper on one of our children, we often find that one of the tabs completely rips off, rendering the diaper utterly useless. This has happened about 7 or 8 times now and is unacceptable. Diapers are way too expensive, especially these days, to just say, "Oh, well." We have always loved the Pampers brand for our children, but we are very seriously considering switching to another brand. Huggies, for example, is available at Costco and is cheaper than getting Pampers elsewhere, which is what we have always done in the past, because we believed Pampers to be the best. We don't feel this to be the case anymore.

Thank you for your time, and I hope that you will improve the quality of Pampers so that the problems that we have been experiencing do not happen again.

Sams Club

Hi,

I am calling to complain about the high prices at the Sams Club that is nearest my house (Club #xxxx). I got a Sams Club membership (again) a little more than a year ago and for the most part have been very happy. You have a good selection and better prices on some items than a typical grocery store.

But recently, while I was at a different Sams Club also in the Cincinnati metro area, I noticed that the price on cheese was lower than I remembered. Then, after I got home and did a little research on your website, I found that this was not a fluke, that in fact, the prices at my Sams Club were consistently higher (and not insignificantly).

I compared 4 clubs that are near my house: Club xxxx (8 mins away), Club xxxx (22 mins), Club xxxx (15 mins) and club xxxx (23 mins), for the items that I typically buy at your store.

Here are a few of the items, with the prices at each of those 4 clubs
5 lb Cheddar Cheese - $8.24, $8.28, $9.16, $9.22
5 lb Mozzerella Cheese - $7.93, $8.05, $8.53, $8.56
American cheese - $7.42, $7.79, $8.12, $8.12
Pancake mix - $5.68, $5.72, $5.72, $6.48

I did find a few items (mostly non-perishables) that appeared to be the same price at each club.

I just find it frustrating that in order to achieve the "every day low prices" that your company always touts and advertises, that I have to drive around to several different clubs WITHIN YOUR SAME COMPANY!!!

I would like to send this to the manager of my local store (#xxxx) to let him know that he will now be losing my business due to his prices, but found no way to contact an individual store on your website.

Thank you for your time.

Dan Miller

To NBC, RE Kings

I heard a rumor that Kings may be on the chopping block. (as in the proverbial one, not the horrible TV series one).

Please in the name of all that is good about television, do not cancel this show.  Finally My wife and I have found a drama that interests us as much as early ER and 24.  We have been looking for a long time and have found disappointment after miserable disappointment, but we love Kings.

Great acting, compelling story lines, and intelligent writing make it a show we look forward to.

That said, we do watch it on DVR, so if you are going solely by the ratings, we aren't helping any, I don't think, but remember that there are those of us out there that think this is a great series and will be sorely bitter if you cancel it.

Cheers!