Blessings of the Blog

"I think you're bluffing."

"It's possible, pig. I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass. I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. Then again, perhaps I do have the strength."

 (Inspirational music)

"Drop. Your. Sword." 

~Excerpt from The Princess Bride. Dialogue between Westley and Prince Humperdink.




I got really dirty with a guy on the phone today. By dirty, I mean, angry.

So, I am thinking not just Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. All I am trying to do is close an account, which I tried to do a month before. They do not want to close my account, because they are making money from it.

First, I pointed out that they never sent me the necessary paperwork, and that this was express negligence on their part. Then I demanded a refund for the charges made after I requested the account closed. The man was practically laughing at me, possibly because I sound like a young child on the phone. Not my fault. He said there was no way I was getting a refund, and the paperwork was probably lost in the mail. Right.

So it was time to play rough with the devil. I was completely bluffing, but I said, "Just so you know, I do have a blog. And I use it extensively. (Does he know I have but two devoted followers? No.) I'm capable of reaching a lot of people, and I can spread the word that your company is not the most responsible."

Suddenly, he became very, very nice. He even sounded kind of scared. He also opened up about the "fine print" terms of closing an account, and waived the fee.

It is kind of sad that I had to use threats, something I am theoretically against, for the guy to just do his job. And I am wondering what kind of mentality believes that by treating people badly, you will make progress in your business. Okay, so a lot of times this works. But as we can see from the present economy, in the end everybody pays the price. So, someone needs to call these guys on their corrupt behavior.

I just found one way to do so.