Commercial Product Fail of the Week: Toyota Prius

Oh Toyota - where to begin? Cutting corners in recent years led to a plethora of recalls on your vehicles BUT you still had your golden pony, the good ol' hybrid Prius.

Too bad that's a big FAIL. And, no by fail I don't mean, the inability to stop because of the acceleration issues previously noted, I mean FAIL because the number one thing the Prius prides itself of, is the fact that it is eco-friendly - your very own friendly planet advocate.

Okay, so for consumers who want to save money, the gas mileage is still a plus (I will give the vehicle that) but for the hipster, tree-hugging population of America that boycotts Hummers and such, ironically your planet-happy Prius is enemy number 1 to this planet.

Yup, that's right. Those super special batteries the Prius has that enable such great gas mileage, well those batteries cause a ton of damage. Here's an except from one of many articles written about this matter:

The Prius' battery contains nickel, which is mined in Ontario Canada. The plant that smelts this nickel is apparently nicknamed "the Superstack" because of the amount of pollution it puts out; the area for miles around it is a wasteland because of acid rain and air pollution.

But the main problem that the "Dust to Dust" study has with the Prius' impact on the environment comes next.

That smelted nickel then has to travel (via container ship) to Europe to be refined, then to China to be made into "nickel foam," then to Japan for assembly, and finally to the United States. All this shipment for each tiny step in the production process costs a great deal, both in dollars and in pollution.

The study then concludes that -- all the production costs in mind -- the Prius costs about $3.25 per mile and is expected to last about 100,000 miles. The Hummer, on the other hand, with all the same factors counted, costs about $1.95 per mile and is expected to last about 300,000 miles.

Boo hoo, my planet-friendly car is actually a major contributor to those evil pollution concerns!

Ponderings on Black Friday commercials

It's almost that time - the day that I am sure most husbands look forward to almost more than their wives, Black Friday. Women awake in the wee hours to get special 4 a.m. deals (meanwhile they could all wait until Cyber Friday and just order stuff online), and commercials advertising these sales and other Christmas deals are force-fed to us on every channel.

I kind of enjoy watching these commercials for a number of reasons - the approach used by companies, the cool items going on sale and the perception of buyers that companies seem to have. I also get to giggle a little about the impression most viewers are left with.

Car commercials: These ones get me - do people really buy each other cars for Christmas? I mean, maybe the 1 percenters do, but who else in the world awakens to a brand new lexus in their driveway. The absolute best part about the Lexus commercials, is the infamous big, red bow. You know the one, it sits atop of the luxury vehicle in a snowy driveway.

Here's a "did-ya-know" for you. You don't get to keep the bow. That's right - if you are planning on spending 50k to buy one of these bad boys for your significant other or spoiled teen, you still have to return the bow. I think you get it for like 24 - 72 hours then it must be returned to the dealer. For 50k, you get a terrible warranty and a false sense of excitement about a big red bow. It's kind of comical.

Toys: Toy commercials are the best; I think mostly because Christmas really is the most exciting when you have a child to buy gifts for or when you are a child yourself. I pick toys as one, but specifically, Crayola. I mean, we give kudos to NASA and Apple for innovation but what about Crayola. How do they make these special coloring tools that only react to certain paper and not your carpet? Glowing pens and pencils and neon light fixtures; we don't give props to Crayola quite enough but when you think about it - they are doing some sort of chemical reaction technology development over there that maybe we should consider for other things?

Department/All-in-one Store: I wonder when K-Mart is going to get it. There are so many issues with K-Mart it's no wonder America has been Walmartized. Though half the things I buy from Walmart come with Spanish-only directions or flimsy assembly parts, I'd rather deal with them then spend double at K-Mart. Does K-Mart not realize that their target audience is the low income class of America? That lack-of-realization combined with their stupid Blue light bulb who boasts Black Friday sales on bedding sets really makes me wonder if they hired a homeless person to do their advertising and marketing.

Now, while I can't stand Walmart commercials, especially the "match it" price matcher's commercials, they know what they are doing. Like K-Mart, they tend to reach a low income class of folks, and for them, a $199 flat screen TV is what they are looking for, not a comforter.

Okay, I am sick of griping - until I see new commercials to comment on for Christmas shopping, that's all.

Commercial product fail of the week: GARMIN GPS

Though I am certain we all have our complaints about GPS systems, nothing can be worse than the "bitch" I have in charge of my car, or Serena.

Serena is a GARMIN GPS I recieved for Christmas a year or so back. Often I curse at her for various reasons, however, my problem goes deeper than that. These car GPS systems have changed the way we navigate. The evolution of navigation went from recieving directions from a friend (and writing down) to printing directions from Mapquest to being heavily reliant upon our digital GPS systems (whether embedded or detached).

My issue is about the purpose of the GPS. On Mapquest we could choose between fastest route, shortest distance, avoid tolls, etc. Supposedly, our GPS finds a combo of the first two - this is it's purpose. Serena FAILS at this.

I have tested this theory - I have printed directions from Mapquest that show the approximate distance/time and I have plugged the same address into the GPS. Without fail, Serena always takes me a route that is both longer distance-wise, and more time-consuming. I know this because when I have ignored her "take the exit in ___ miles" prompts, the ETA adjusts to a shorter TIME than with her calculated route.

This new route is the same route I have printed out from Mapquest, the same route that is less mileage.

I just don't understand. Does Garmin have some kind of stock sharing with STS or JiffyLube? Why does she continously intend to take me on a longer route with higher mileage?

Also, why does she have me U-Turn through toll booths? I won't elaborate - I could guess there is some partnership with EZ-Pass or something. Either way, I hope to investigate these things sooner as I am a heartbeat away from going Office Space on her.

Commercial Product FAIL of the week: iTunes

Freaking Apple products. From the iPod to taking over the universe, Apple has cornered their market on MP3-listening hipsters, birthers...well everyone. I can't really complain about their music and multi-touch devices without being a hypocrite as I own an iPad and an iPod Touch. I can, however, gripe about iTunes.

The features of iTunes started off as a pretty simple idea. You could add your own music, regardless of where you got it, onto your iTunes library and playlist - no sacrifices or redundant spending, iTunes allowed all MP3 files in their library and, in turn, on your iPod device.

I like things that are simple and I like spending money on purchases that I can do what I please with. I used my money to buy them, so I should be able to enjoy them in my own form. This is no longer the case with iTunes.

Because of my own closet preference for Apple products, regardless how Wal-martized they are (I use this term to explain any big business take over of their market), I chose to remain hush-hush about all things Apple. Well, the corporate greed in cornering the MP3/computer market is out of control.

I downloaded a whole season of one of my favorite shows recently, Sons of Anarchy. I used iTunes for two reasons: one I could watch the shows on my iPad and two I could not find the most recent season in any stores. I think I spent $29.99 for the season, not too shabby.

But, I wanted to enjoy the show with others and thus, I found a problem. Some stupid encrypted/coding system iTunes uses now does not allow you to burn your own purchases onto a DVD. I bought the season, I should be able to watch it however I choose. No, after dabbling with some free encoding applications that I thought might mitigate this issue, I still couldn't. Of course not, I needed to purchase a FULL program to this, which would cost another 30 bucks.

Resilient as I often am, I tried a new method. I hooked up my XBox to my computer to use a Microsoft service that will allow you to play TV shows and such from your computer through the XBox and onto the TV. Hello error messages, no such luck. Apple in their protection coding or whatever, has forbid this - all of their iTunes products are given a super special file name, only readable through iTunes.

Well, well I chose to give my money, yes mine, to Apple for a product rather than Amazon or some other misc. video-selling store and now I can only use said product through iTunes.

Is this necessary? No. It's called greed. And like Netflix, another big company has chosen to limit the use of a product you spent money on, in order to move out their competition.

This is the same company that recently got caught with child labor in China. Skim some bucks from production and limit the use of your products among your consumers - well, thank you. We all appreciate your greed. Capitalism, fascism, communism - whatever. It's my money that you are controlling to fund your overpriced lifestyles.

Commercial Product Fail of the Week: Netflix

Time and time again we are betrayed by our beloved discount services. We watch companies pop-up that offer some of our favorite things or services at cheaper prices than we currently have at our dispose. Even the mothership of cheap/discount products, Wal-Mart, trick us in to thinking we have a new one-stop location for an item or product.

This time, Netpricks, I mean Netflix, have Walmartized themselves. Netflix offered convenient video rentals for our tool shed home (tool is a term I learned a few years back that refers to Americans never having to leave their house for everything they need). Netflix's services were a mere $7.99 per month - wow 7.99!? We couldn't rent two DVDs from Blockbuster for $7.99.

Blockbuster...RIP. Thanks to Netflix, you could get cheaper movie rentals without ever even having to leave your house (except of course to walk to your mailbox). Such services at such rates successfuly and rapidly started to shutdown Blockbusters all over the country.

Aha victory for Netflix. Their biggest, and basically only competitor was no longer a factor. Now that they have the video rental market to themselves, it's time...time to raise prices?? Less competition = higher subscription rates and thus, less need to charge even $7.99.

Big business at it's best. And no, the argument regarding a need for more resources (people, places, etc) doesn't hold true for Netflix. They are operated out of one huge warehouse. Think about it, they just need envelopes and DVDs - it's not even like they have a ton of each DVD to send out - otherwise there would be no need for a wait list for your favorite movies.

So, here's to you Netflix. You put Joe the Plumber (err DVD store clerk) out of business, and successfully shut down your biggest competitor. Looks like it's time to add the American people to the list of those you screwed. Problem is, we are YOUR customers. Unlawful rate increases for an unchanged product/service is an ugly side of corporate America that we DO NOT like - bad economy, high gas prices and now greedy Netflix higher-ups, trying to squeeze yet another dollar or 7.99 out of us.

Commercial Product FAIL of the Week: DISH

I recently saw a DISH network commercial that boasted they were "Number 1 in customer service," a sentiment that nearly cost me the gulp of wine I had in my mouth. I can't think of ever hearing a less-true statement. I thought that they surely had some lawsuits coming their way for false advertising as they were one of the absolute worst companies I have ever dealt with in my life, specifically their customer service department.

According to DISH's website, "Our goals are simple: Provide the best service at a fair price without any gimmicks or tricks. We'd love for you to be another satisfied customer. Take advantage of the best offer in TV, with DISH Network."

What's odd is that in 2010, DISH won some kind of Customer Service award from the "American Customer Satisfaction Index."

Mind-boggling. Especially when you look at one of the many consumer complaint websites, which shows Dish having approximately 400 complaints (just on one website) from customers.

Here is one example from ConsumerAffairs.com from November 17, 2010: "I called Dish Network today to cancel my subscription due to my husband being laid off after 22 years and to also inform them that we live in company housing and are getting kicked out. I explained that I could fax them the separation papers. They explained right back that they were sorry but unless I died with proof of death, then I could not cancel. They said we could go six months on a suspension but that won't take away from our 30 more months to go, they also said they would charge me $300 to cancel."

Additional small tidbits can be found on this site through scrolling, "Stay away from DISH," or "The channel advertised wasn't there," etc, etc.

Once upon a nightmare, I too had DISH. I was fooled into their "non-gimmick" commercial of low prices and called to inquire, emphasizing that I would only purchase their plan if my local sports teams would be able to be viewed (I was moving to a town only 10 miles away from the city in which they played). They gauranteed this to me.

Nope - every single game was blacked out. I could, however, for an additional ten dollars a month add a sports package that would broadcast a few games here and there. I complied, unfortunately. Still, the games that took place just 10 miles away were all blacked out ALL the time. Then, FX was blacked out due to the stinginess of DISH - but did I get the 10 bucks a month back that I paid to have the FX channel ONLY for one show (Sons of Anarchy), nope - they instead gave us a "comparable replacement channel" - I still don't know what they were referring to.

I had enough and tried to get out of the contract. I was told only for 300 bucks would that be possible. I pulled all the stops and was bounced from voicemail to voicemail (in Colorado and states all across the U.S.) where alleged "supervisors" would call me back. They never did.

I tried a new route - I called asking for copies of the transcript from our initial phone call, in which they assured me I could see the local sports games with their network. They agreed to get copies printed and sent to me in a few days (getting someone on the phone who would even talk about it was a 3-day affair) - come to think of it I never did get those copies, I did however get out of the contract. I am guessing they realized (after me threatening a binding verbal agreement was broken by them) I was right, and their sales rep made a mistake when he promised such things.

Either way, take it from consumers all across the internet, DISH has TERRIBLE customer service and will shackle you to an absurd contract based on gimmicks and hopes of cheaper cable. The reality is you will have about 10 jewelry-shopping channels (Gemstones! OMG), duplicates of most of your channels and an overall poor quality of service (beware of all wind, you will lose the channel).

So, don't do it. If something sounds too good (or too cheap) to be true, it probably is.