Emma Brooks | Digital Media Enthusiast

If you can very well tell from the title, I’m in a ranty mood. But I promise, seriously guys, cross my heart and hope to die, to try to keep the caps to a minimum.

A few weeks ago, I ordered a pair of on-sale sandals from Spring. Why, you may ask, did you ever order sandals at the end of summer? Because I like to plan ahead, ok? Gosh.

The sandals were low-cost enough that I put aside my hesitation of ordering from Spring aside. Now, for anyone who knows me, knows I order a lot online. I don’t normally hesitate about ordering online.

But I had already had a bad experience with Spring. (The plot thickens.) You see, a couple years ago I ordered some shoes online from Spring. I was excited. In fact my actual words, blogged the summer of 2008 were:

I love the camel colour – I don’t think I have any shoes in that colour. They were on sale from $59.99 to $34.98 and Spring Shoes has free shipping right now with easy in-store return. That’s pretty much the best thing ever.

So, I tracked my packaged religiously. Yay, shoes getting closer to me! But then one day noticed the package had been “accepted” by someone in Québec. WTF? I panicked and called the Customer Service number thinking someone accidentally received my shoes and accepted the package thinking, “All right! Free shoes!”

Oh. No. It turns out Purolator couldn’t deliver my shoes as no one was there to receive the package when they tried. So they were shipped back to Spring Shoes’ warehouse in Québec.

Wait, what? Why didn’t Purolator try to um… Contact me in any way? Isn’t that usually how it is? You leave a note or something saying you tried? And here’s the kicker: I lived in a building with a 24/7 doorman (who once asked me out in the most awkward elevator ride ever – but I digress, that is another story). There’s no way that no one was there to receive said package.

The Customer Service rep explained this to me on the phone and that I would be refunded. Please note: This was the first time I had heard that I was not getting my shoes. When I called. There was never any communication about trouble shipping my shoes before and I only knew this had happened because I was so enthusiastically tracking my package. I asked the rep if I could then re-order my shoes because I still wanted them. I was told I couldn’t, as they were now out of stock on that pair. Well, awesome.

Definitely not the great first experience with shopping Spring online.

This time around, I figured that more than two years had passed so surely they must have sorted their online shopping issues, right? Surely! It’s 2010. Online shopping isn’t that difficult!

But alas, it was not meant to be. Except this time I’m even more indignant about it!

Here’s where the #fails happened:

1. The website kept telling me my suite number was an invalid number. Canada Post told them so, so SURELY I must be wrong. I clearly don’t know where I work. I decided, eff it, I’m ordering them anyway and I’ll sort out the proper shipping address after.

2. I immediately went to their contact us page. Listed before their phone number is their email address. And I don’t feel like calling a call centre, like many of us feel so of course I’m going to email them to tell them to rectify the problem. I email them to let them know my shipping address on my order was incorrect and I would like them to fix the issue before it ships out. Never got an answer.

3. I then reached out to them on Facebook to let them know what a frustrating experience I had on their site. My exact post, and their reply:

Notice how they didn’t actually read my post at all. Fail!

4. 3 weeks pass and nothing. No email. No shoes. I finally get an email with the first line saying: “We’re sorry to hear that you have chosen to return your Spring online purchase.”

Uh. No. I didn’t decide to return my stupid shoes. You decided not to deliver them because your customer service channels are INCOMPETENT. I immediately email them back saying, essentially, that I did not chose to return my shoes, they had never arrived. I expressed how unhappy I was with ordering from their site, that I doubted I would order from them again, and to please rectify this.

I never got an answer.

5. Two days later, I called customer service (finally). They told me that yes, there was trouble delivering the package. I explained that their site was not functioning and I had emailed their customer service channels several times without reply. The customer service rep told me, “Yes, our emails are really backed up, that’s probably why you haven’t received an answer.”

Um, excuse me? I get that emails may be backed up but then you probably shouldn’t advertise it as an available customer service channel! That makes sense, right?! If you can’t answer customer problems via that channel, maybe you shouldn’t list it. It’s like telling a customer to call you at your 1-800 number and then just not answering the phones.

So this is the second time I’ve ordered from Spring and now the second time I’ve never received my shoes. As the saying goes: Once bitten, twice shy. The incompetency of them keeping my money is astounding. So suck it, Spring Shoes. You will never get my online dollars again.

PS: And for the record, Spring hadn’t actually refunded my purchase by the time I called. The rep assured me I would receive my refund but who knows, right? They clearly don’t know how to do business so I sincerely wonder if they can handle a simple refund.

Ok. Men, women, watch this video. And then let’s chat.

“The result: More happy men at bars. Less broken up couples.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhrgh!

Because, I, as one part of couple, absolutely want to be in a relationship with a person who lies to me about where he is. THAT, according to Cerveza Andes, is a good relationship. Thank god for Cerveza Andes! Because of them, I too can be in a relationship with a liar! Phew, dodged that bullet.

Listen, I know the state of the nation. Beer commercials are all aimed at men. Women are always cast as either sex objects with skimpy clothes, or as the “ol’ ball and chain” girlfriend. And it’s getting really old.

I am female. My drink of choice? Beer. I have beer several times a week. And I will allow for some stereotypical commercials with the guys and the party and the hot tub with the girls in them in the mountains. What I can’t stand? The portrayal of females as being crazy, clingy or a drag. To the point where their boyfriends HAVE TO LIE TO THEM ABOUT WHERE THEY ARE. RAGE!!

Screw you Cerveza Andes, you have truly insulted me. I’ll stick to my brand of Keith’s, whose spots are at least original and interesting. And you know, DOESN’T INSULT HALF OF ITS BUYERS.

I am going to do my best and not get all CAPS HAPPY when writing about the following article. Must. Control. Rage.

<Deep breath.> Ok.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.com, recently told a live audience that the age of privacy is now over and if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would be publicly available rather than private, as it has been for years.

And what is his reasoning, you might ask? Why would users be perfectly fine with anyone accessing their private information? Why, because WE ALL BLOG, OF COURSE!

(Oops, sorry, the caps slipped out.)

Yes. Society is one big giant blogger and it’s Facebook’s duty to follow suit. Don’t believe me? Words from the wonder kid himself:

And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

OK, Facebook, listen up! You’re missing three very key important points here:

ONE. Yes, blogging is big. Pretty big, in fact. But Facebook-worthy big? Hells to the no. As Marshall Kirkpatrick writes, “Not very many people write blogs, almost everyone is on Facebook.”

And he’s right. I can think of numerous friends (Facebook friends, fancy that!) that do not blog, nor have any interest in blogging. Ironically, I can even think of privacy-zealot friends, who rightfully freaked out about the Facebook privacy changes this past December, who blog.

TWO. Which brings me to my second point: The difference between blogging and Facebook’s outlook on privacy is that with blogging we 100% control the information. I’ll say it again for emphasis: I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CONTROL the information I put on any blog I own. Whereas, where it looks like Facebook is headed, they could completely take away that control. They could give my personal information to whomever they like, whenever they like, however they like and not tell me. And some things, like my profile picture, I can’t do anything to stop them from sharing that with the world. Does that make me feel comfortable? All warm and fuzzy on the inside? Absolutely not.

THREE. My last point: I expected better from the world’s largest social networking site. Facebook, really? Do you hear the tone of disappointment in my voice? Because it’s there. It’s really, really there.

You are not a follower. You shouldn’t be a follower. You didn’t get to where you were by following trends but by breaking through with something different and new. So don’t go trying to conform to “social norms” (which I would still argue, as who the h-e-double hockey sticks would find giving away their privacy, no problem, “normal”?)

What you could have done (what you should have done) was become a LEADER in privacy. Show the rest of those silly social networks how IT IS DONE. Boom goes the dynamite, done. Give your users somewhere they can feel safe, where they can interact with their friends and not have to worry about who is seeing what. And who is selling what.

TO WRAP UP. I think there’s any opportunity here, for some young whippersnapper, to seize. If a respectable Facebook competitor would emerge, built on a platform of trust and privacy, I could really see many people, including my lovable privacy-zealot friends, switching over immediately and completely purging their Facebook accounts.

The problem right now is there is no real competitor to Facebook, and this results in users having very little choice and say in what happens with their accounts, as we’ve seen over and over with the Facebook redesigns and policy changes in the last couple of years (seriously, how do they manage to NOT LISTEN AT ALL?!).

So, young whippersnappers: hop to! Give Facebook a run for its money! And leave our information to us. We know what to do with it. Trust us.

(I think I did maybe a B+ on the “Avoiding Caps” scale. I’ll work harder next time. Maybe.)

So I spent a long time last week perusing clothes on eBay trying to decide if I wanted to buy a dress for Fake Prom 2009 from it. (What’s that? Haven’t heard about Fake Prom? Oh, well, it’s nothing much: Only the BEST THING EVER.) I’ve actually recently purchased something on eBay with a brand spankin’ new account.

And it got me wondering… In 2005, I swore of eBay for ever and ever, never again! Never again was I going to use eBay or PayPal or any of those horrid, horrid sites because I had been screwed over one too many times. In fact, I believe I had a run of about 4 purchases in a row that ended up in consumer hell and me out of money. And with PayPal and eBay doing everything but helping me with those, I just gave up.

I declared a life-long personal ban on them. And yet, I’ve used PayPal about 5 or 6 times in the last 6 months to transfer money overseas. I recently bought something on eBay for my roommate. I am considering another purchase from eBay. What happened?

Did the great giants of online bidding and money transfers woo me back with more efficient, better services? Have I learned to forgive them?

The best answer to these questions seem to be: “Hahahahahahaha. Yeah. Right.”

Ask anyone who has used PayPal in the past: their opinions of these companies are pretty bad, to put it mildly. As for eBay, well, I can’t say I’ve really heard any fantastic stories. So clearly eBay and PayPal haven’t improved their services.

I know I’m not the only one who has returned to a vendor’s site after saying they’re never going to use it again. Many of my friends have slumped back to a hated vendor’s site and grudgingly given over their hard-earned money. So are we forgiving?

I don’t think so, personally.

It’s just that these companies offer a service no one else can really compete with, sadly. Can you think of an eBay alternative? I confess I can’t. Bank e-mail money transfers definitely took over any money transfers I would normally do, as they were easy, worked and I didn’t feel like my soul was dying a little bit every time I used it. But for the overseas money transfer, from an Australian bank account to a Canadian – I’m not aware, as a consumer, of a viable alternative to PayPal.

So we don’t forgive. We don’t forget. We just don’t have a choice. Thanks capitalism, for sucking when I needed you the most.

So what do you think? Are consumers forgiving? Can a company ever redeem themselves? Please let me know in the comments!

If you’re behind the game, here’s a link explaining The Great Write Off of 2009. You can find links and discussion to all posts by checking out the Twitter trending topic, #WriteOff09.

We’re almost at the end of The Great Write Off of 2009! Tomorrow is the official end date and I’ll be posting then as well. Until now, onto today’s topic: Unsolicited Spam.

Was I ever angry when I logged into my gmail account today to see an unsolicited e-mail from a real estate agent. I rarely hand out my gmail e-mail as a preventative so I am angry and sad that I’ve been blasted. My question is really, “How did she get it?” I wish I could know.

The e-mail in question:

Ha! She left her Twitter account at the bottom – GREAT! I quickly Tweeted at her with this:

Well, I can’t undo the fact that she has my email address now but damn, if I don’t feel better about yelling at her. And who knows, maybe she’ll respond to me and I can figure out how she got it. One can dream…

Ok, so lately I’ve had a major crush. HUGE. I can’t stop thinking about this crush. When I close my eyes, I see my crush. I can’t help it. It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thought on my mind as I drift to sleep.

I – what? A boy?! Ha. Hahaha. No, no, dear friends. I’m clearly talking about only the best game ever out there on Facebook: Pop Cap’s BEJWEWLED BLITZ!

So I’ve played a lot. Obssesively, one might say. I have the 2nd highest score of my “friends group” in this application and I’ve been trying my hardest to beat silly Katie for aaaaages now. I’m not going to even try to count how many hours I’ve spent looking at this application. But I will say: it’s a lot. And I’ve been wondering: What is Bejweled doing with all these minutes?

I think these are lost minutes. Sure, I know now that Pop Cap is the creator. That’s been drilled into my head by the opening credits. But beyond that, what are they doing to gain an advantage over other applications? Eventually, I fear, I will lose interest. And then I will drift away. And what is Pop Cap left with? An ex-user who used their application for free for many hours and then walked away. What did Pop Cap benefit from that?

There is a small link to Bejeweled 2 at the bottom of the end credits. Is this what their aim is? To get users to buy Bejeweled 2 $19.99? Becaue unless you visit the site, I had no idea the software was even for sale. I think they should really ramp up that marketing message because unless you accidentally clicked on the link (which I’ve done, many times, and then immediately closed the window without even looking at the content), how will you know about this?

On the other hand, I do like what they’re doing here:

See at the bottom there? The more you and your friends play, the better prizes you could possibly win? Every week, the game starts anew. I like this for three reasons:

1. I like free things. A lot.
2. It makes me want to invite as many friends as possible so the chances of winning the better prizes is larger.
3. It appeals to my competitive streak to see my progress right there. If I only play 600,000 points worth of games in the next 4 days, I could win a laptop! Holy smokes, right?!

And so when I log in today to play the ever-addicting game, I see this:

Eeee! I can’t wait! I want way more awesome. I want to go to that place. (As Liz Lemon would say.)

I’ll let you know if the way more awesome Bejeweled Blitz is an improvement over the current one. And if they do anything useful with all those minutes I’m throwing their way.

So what do you think? Any applications on Facebook that are doing some things right? Or maybe some that are wasting away good opportunities? Please share your thoughts in the comments!