LightWork, a Brighthill Magazine: The Conscious Consumer

The Conscious Consumer Autumn 2009
Integrity is very important, and as conscious consumers, it helps to seek out those businesses who act with integrity. But how do you know? In this column, we will endeavor to shed some light on some questionable business practices and interactions with companies that we have experienced firsthand. We hope that this information will help the spiritually minded consumer make informed decisions. In this column: Acai berry supplements Best Buy credit card's 18 month with no interest payment plan Verizon FiOS cable, Internet, and phone bundle Acai berry supplements We decided to look into the Acai berry thing to see what would happen. There are two main claims for Acai berries: Taking Acai will help you to lose weight Acai berry can help with pain from inflammation After spending most of her life walking on crutches, Ahnna suffers arthritis in her hands, arms, and shoulders. So we thought we'd investigate this and then report on it. "Free" samples on the Internet On the Internet, you can find a number of companies offering one month of Acai supplements "for free." Two of the companies doing this were Acai Green of St. George, UT and Pure Berry Max of Great Britain. We requested our free sample, and we read all of the fine print. And I do mean all of it. Here's what happened. With Acai Green, you have to cancel the account after receiving your free sample, or they will charge you an exhorbitant fee per month to send you more—close to $100. We did this. Nevertheless, they sent us another package of the stuff and charged our credit card. We returned it and disputed the charge. But they also signed us up for a membership on MyShpMyWay.com for weight loss support. This wasn't mentioned anywhere when we signed up for the free sample. This web site began to charge our card $29.99 per month. We had to call them to cancel it, too. We also disputed this charge, because we were not told of this enrollment anywhere. Our experience with Pure Berry Max was equally bad. Even though the Acai was "free," they charged us for a bottle of Natural Cleanse that they sent with it—$88. And like the Acai Green, they had enrolled us in other things without telling us. On one statement, I saw two charges for something called A1 Member (also from Great Britain) for $25.12. We disputed all of these charges. We thought we were done with both companies, but on the next month's statement was a new charge from an unrecognizable source. We had not put any new charges on the card, so we knew this must also be coming from either Acai Green or Pure Berry Max. At this point, we called our credit card company and had them issue us a new card. We felt that these charges were fraudulent, and so did our credit card company. We also purchased some Acai berry supplement at Costco. While still expensive, it was less than what either Acai Green or Pure Berry Max would have charged had we subscribed to their system. Does Acai berry work? Ahnna took the Acai berry for two months, trying all three brands. She found no appreciable difference in the quality of the formulas, so the cheaper option (Costco) is the way to go. In terms of weight loss (it is supposed to suppress the appetite), she found no effect. In terms of arthritic pain, the Acai berry works extremely well—for awhile. She found that it helped her pain for 4-6 weeks, then it lost effectiveness. It did seem to stop a pain cycle, however, so her pain levels right now are still lower even though she hasn't taken it for awhile. This could be due to the warmth of summer, or it could be a residual effect from the Acai. We can only speculate. It's possible that if the pain worsened and she took it again for a short time that it may be helpful again. Conclusion If you experience chronic inflammatory pain, it's worth a try. Take it for a month, and then stop. Give it a rest and go back to it later if you need to. We do not recommend that you purchase Acai from any web site that offers a "free" month's trial. As Robert Heinlein said, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Those free samples were very expensive in the end. There are probably legitimate businesses online who sell Acai for a reasonable price, but if you purchase online, shop carefully. Buying locally is a great option because then at least you know what you're getting. Costco is a great place to get it, but we're sure that many other businesses also sell Acai for a reasonable price. Also, if you're interest in Acai is for weight loss, don't even bother. Invest the money instead in a program that's proven to work, such as Weight Watchers (we have lost a considerable amount of weight between us thanks to them). Best Buy credit card's 18 month with no interest payment plan I recently bought a new computer from Best Buy. They offer an 18-month payment plan using their credit card. The way it works is that you sign up for the credit card, and you purchase a new computer or what have you (up to $2000) using the credit card. So far, this is working well, but there are a few "gotchas" that you need to know about. The credit card is offered through HSBC, a bank with offices worldwide. If you decide to purchase on one of these plans, be absolutely certain that you will pay it off within the prescribed timeframe. Any balance remaining on the card after that time becomes subject to outrageous interest rates, above 21%. You will receive the credit card in the mail within a few weeks of making the purchase. On the card is a number to call to activate the card. I called this number, though I'm not certain that it is necessary. Once the card is activated, you are transferred to a representative who will try to sell you "account protection" for $9.99 per month—which would be charged to the Best Buy card. Personally, I don't think anyone needs this. This Account Shield program is meant to cover part or all of the balance on the Best Buy card in the event of damaged/destroyed merchandise, loss of employment, inability to work due to illness or injury, or in the event that you die. All this for a card with a maximum balance of $2,000. It is my opinion that this protection is probably not very useful in practice. At $9.99 per month (or more if you don't pay off the balance in 18 months), it is far more likely to enrich the bank than to protect you, which is why they want you to buy it. At any rate, I declined this. I told them in no uncertain terms, "No, I do not want that." Then I destroyed the credit card, since I do not plan to make more purchases on it. A week later, I received a letter from them welcoming me to the Account Shield program. This after I had told her, quite distinctly, NO. I immediately called them to cancel the service, and I made sure that the representative gave me a cancellation number, which I wrote down. They did confirm my cancellation in the mail. Conclusion If you need a new computer or similar at Best Buy, but you don't have the cash to pay for it all at once, the Best Buy credit card can be a good option as long as you stick within these parameters: Make sure you make monthly payments that are large enough to pay off your balance within 18 months. If you don't want Account Shield, follow through. Just telling them "No" on the phone may not be enough. If they enrolled you against your consent, you will get mail telling you that. Look for it. If you receive a letter welcoming you to the program, call them the same day to cancel it and make sure they give you a cancellation number. If you do decide to purchase the Account Shield, factor in the extra $9.99 per month in your payment. If there's still a balance on your card after 18 months, you will end up paying a lot more than the purchase price of your computer and a lot more than $9.99 per month for the account protection. After you receive the credit card in the mail, destroy it. At the end of 18 months, when the balance is zero, cancel the account. Verizon FiOS cable, Internet, and phone bundle We switched to Verizon FiOS last spring because the sales representative came to our house and pitched a deal that sounded good: improved service for less than we were paying Comcast. Our setup is slightly different from the standard bundle in that we have two phone lines instead of one, because we have a dedicated fax. We explained this to the sales rep so that this could be factored in to the cost and install. She said she understood. We set everything up with the expectation that our bill would be $10 less per month than with Comcast. When they came out to install, they needed to place a battery backup unit on the wall inside the house. We were not given a choice of where it could go. Before we knew it, we had an ugly box installed on our dining room wall, with a cord stapled along the baseboard to an electrical outlet on the other side of the room. The salesperson never told us about that, and we were not happy with having this on our dining room wall. We like to entertain, and quite frankly, this was very ugly. When the install person left, we realized that they had only installed one phone line. This was not what we had asked for or ordered. We called Verizon and explained that we were expecting this, and apparently there had been a misunderstanding somewhere. The phone rep was sympathetic and said that they would waive installation fees on the second line, but that it would cost an extra $20 per month. (With Comcast, a second line was only an extra $10 per month.) Nonetheless, we agreed to let them come out and install the second phone line. When we got our bill, however, we discovered that our monthly charge was $20 per month more than with Comcast (with fewer channels) and that Verizon charged us nearly $200 to install the second phone line. We called Verizon to complain, since they had told us they would waive the install fee. Unlike the first representative, the person who answered our call told us that we would have to pay it, and that was that (she was not only unsympathetic; she was rude). When we told her that this incident would result in Verizon losing our business, she offered to transfer us to disconnect right then. We needed our service, so we paid the bill and waited. After a few months, we called Comcast and got a good deal to go back to them, so we cancelled with Verizon and explained to them that they needed to come remove the ugly box from our dining room wall. They appeared to be very surprised at this request, and they said it wasn't something that they normally do. If I had been able to remove the box myself, I would have, and saved myself the hassle of dealing with Verizon. But it was attached through the wall to the FiOS utility box on the outside of the house. I did not feel I could remove the box myself without incurring liability. We had to call Verizon a total of 7 times, and we had to ask for a supervisor by the third call. They gave us a total of two work order numbers, with assurances that someone would call us within 48 hours, and then within 24 hours, with no results. We also found out that we couldn't return our cable boxes anywhere locally—the nearest Verizon drop-off was in California; we live in Oregon—so they would have to send us boxes and shipping labels. Update 10/11/2009: The Oregonian Complaint Desk published an article about another local man's experience with Verizon. He entered into a contract with their sales representative, and they charged him nearly twice the amount specified in the contract. Read the article for details. Resolution In the end, we began to feel like Verizon would never come out and remove their box, so I found the e-mail addresses of corporate executives on the Web and wrote them a polite letter asking for resolution. I also copied the Complaint Desk, a column in The Oregonian, our local paper. Having done this, I resolved to try once more on the phone. I spoke calmly and politely—this is essential to resolve anything—and opted to be placed on hold rather than receive a call back. After more than an hour on the phone, I finally got a supervisor who assured me that I would be called that day; I was skeptical, but I hung up. A local Verizon manager did call me, and he and a technician came to the house within two hours and removed the box. The manager returned to the office to get a receipt for my cable boxes, and then he came back to collect those also. In addition, someone from the corporate offices called me in response to my e-mail, also that same day. Conclusion Our experience with Verizon sales and customer service was very bad, on the whole. We did like the product, and their cable menus and DVR functionality are vastly superior to Comcast's. We think that if you have a standard setup, and their box can be installed somewhere out of the way (your garage, perhaps) and they give you a choice in that matter, then you can probably be pretty happy with their service. That being said, if you need something a little out of the ordinary or you have problems, finding someone who cares enough to help you or who has the power to help you can be tough. Verizon has some real issues with their infrastructure, and the left hand seldom seems to know what the right hand is doing. If you do find yourself in a jam and can't seem to get help, though, I recommend doing things that are completely out of the ordinary. Sometimes starting at the top and letting them hand it down works better than trying to barrel your way up through the bottom ranks. Remember, Google is your friend. There's also your local cable regulatory commission, where you can file a complaint. But above all, remain civil. You can act with integrity, even if the company doesn't. A calm and polite demeanor will get you more than anything else.

The Conscious Consumer
Autumn 2009

Integrity is very important, and as conscious consumers, it helps to seek out those businesses who act with integrity. But how do you know?

In this column, we will endeavor to shed some light on some questionable business practices and interactions with companies that we have experienced firsthand. We hope that this information will help the spiritually minded consumer make informed decisions.

In this column:

Acai berry supplements
Best Buy credit card's 18 month with no interest payment plan
Verizon FiOS cable, Internet, and phone bundle

Acai berry supplements

We decided to look into the Acai berry thing to see what would happen. There are two main claims for Acai berries:

Taking Acai will help you to lose weight
Acai berry can help with pain from inflammation

After spending most of her life walking on crutches, Ahnna suffers arthritis in her hands, arms, and shoulders. So we thought we'd investigate this and then report on it.

"Free" samples on the Internet

On the Internet, you can find a number of companies offering one month of Acai supplements "for free." Two of the companies doing this were Acai Green of St. George, UT and Pure Berry Max of Great Britain. We requested our free sample, and we read all of the fine print. And I do mean all of it. Here's what happened.

With Acai Green, you have to cancel the account after receiving your free sample, or they will charge you an exhorbitant fee per month to send you more—close to $100. We did this. Nevertheless, they sent us another package of the stuff and charged our credit card. We returned it and disputed the charge. But they also signed us up for a membership on MyShpMyWay.com for weight loss support. This wasn't mentioned anywhere when we signed up for the free sample. This web site began to charge our card $29.99 per month. We had to call them to cancel it, too. We also disputed this charge, because we were not told of this enrollment anywhere.

Our experience with Pure Berry Max was equally bad. Even though the Acai was "free," they charged us for a bottle of Natural Cleanse that they sent with it—$88. And like the Acai Green, they had enrolled us in other things without telling us. On one statement, I saw two charges for something called A1 Member (also from Great Britain) for $25.12. We disputed all of these charges.

We thought we were done with both companies, but on the next month's statement was a new charge from an unrecognizable source. We had not put any new charges on the card, so we knew this must also be coming from either Acai Green or Pure Berry Max. At this point, we called our credit card company and had them issue us a new card. We felt that these charges were fraudulent, and so did our credit card company.

We also purchased some Acai berry supplement at Costco. While still expensive, it was less than what either Acai Green or Pure Berry Max would have charged had we subscribed to their system.

Does Acai berry work?

Ahnna took the Acai berry for two months, trying all three brands. She found no appreciable difference in the quality of the formulas, so the cheaper option (Costco) is the way to go.

In terms of weight loss (it is supposed to suppress the appetite), she found no effect.

In terms of arthritic pain, the Acai berry works extremely well—for awhile. She found that it helped her pain for 4-6 weeks, then it lost effectiveness. It did seem to stop a pain cycle, however, so her pain levels right now are still lower even though she hasn't taken it for awhile. This could be due to the warmth of summer, or it could be a residual effect from the Acai. We can only speculate. It's possible that if the pain worsened and she took it again for a short time that it may be helpful again.

Conclusion

If you experience chronic inflammatory pain, it's worth a try. Take it for a month, and then stop. Give it a rest and go back to it later if you need to.

We do not recommend that you purchase Acai from any web site that offers a "free" month's trial. As Robert Heinlein said, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Those free samples were very expensive in the end.

There are probably legitimate businesses online who sell Acai for a reasonable price, but if you purchase online, shop carefully.

Buying locally is a great option because then at least you know what you're getting. Costco is a great place to get it, but we're sure that many other businesses also sell Acai for a reasonable price.

Also, if you're interest in Acai is for weight loss, don't even bother. Invest the money instead in a program that's proven to work, such as Weight Watchers (we have lost a considerable amount of weight between us thanks to them).

Best Buy credit card's 18 month with no interest payment plan

I recently bought a new computer from Best Buy. They offer an 18-month payment plan using their credit card. The way it works is that you sign up for the credit card, and you purchase a new computer or what have you (up to $2000) using the credit card. So far, this is working well, but there are a few "gotchas" that you need to know about.

The credit card is offered through HSBC, a bank with offices worldwide.

If you decide to purchase on one of these plans, be absolutely certain that you will pay it off within the prescribed timeframe. Any balance remaining on the card after that time becomes subject to outrageous interest rates, above 21%.

You will receive the credit card in the mail within a few weeks of making the purchase. On the card is a number to call to activate the card. I called this number, though I'm not certain that it is necessary. Once the card is activated, you are transferred to a representative who will try to sell you "account protection" for $9.99 per month—which would be charged to the Best Buy card. Personally, I don't think anyone needs this. This Account Shield program is meant to cover part or all of the balance on the Best Buy card in the event of damaged/destroyed merchandise, loss of employment, inability to work due to illness or injury, or in the event that you die. All this for a card with a maximum balance of $2,000. It is my opinion that this protection is probably not very useful in practice. At $9.99 per month (or more if you don't pay off the balance in 18 months), it is far more likely to enrich the bank than to protect you, which is why they want you to buy it. At any rate, I declined this. I told them in no uncertain terms, "No, I do not want that." Then I destroyed the credit card, since I do not plan to make more purchases on it.

A week later, I received a letter from them welcoming me to the Account Shield program. This after I had told her, quite distinctly, NO. I immediately called them to cancel the service, and I made sure that the representative gave me a cancellation number, which I wrote down. They did confirm my cancellation in the mail.

Conclusion

If you need a new computer or similar at Best Buy, but you don't have the cash to pay for it all at once, the Best Buy credit card can be a good option as long as you stick within these parameters:

Make sure you make monthly payments that are large enough to pay off your balance within 18 months.
If you don't want Account Shield, follow through. Just telling them "No" on the phone may not be enough. If they enrolled you against your consent, you will get mail telling you that. Look for it. If you receive a letter welcoming you to the program, call them the same day to cancel it and make sure they give you a cancellation number.
If you do decide to purchase the Account Shield, factor in the extra $9.99 per month in your payment. If there's still a balance on your card after 18 months, you will end up paying a lot more than the purchase price of your computer and a lot more than $9.99 per month for the account protection.
After you receive the credit card in the mail, destroy it.
At the end of 18 months, when the balance is zero, cancel the account.

Verizon FiOS cable, Internet, and phone bundle

We switched to Verizon FiOS last spring because the sales representative came to our house and pitched a deal that sounded good: improved service for less than we were paying Comcast. Our setup is slightly different from the standard bundle in that we have two phone lines instead of one, because we have a dedicated fax. We explained this to the sales rep so that this could be factored in to the cost and install. She said she understood. We set everything up with the expectation that our bill would be $10 less per month than with Comcast.

When they came out to install, they needed to place a battery backup unit on the wall inside the house. We were not given a choice of where it could go. Before we knew it, we had an ugly box installed on our dining room wall, with a cord stapled along the baseboard to an electrical outlet on the other side of the room. The salesperson never told us about that, and we were not happy with having this on our dining room wall. We like to entertain, and quite frankly, this was very ugly.

When the install person left, we realized that they had only installed one phone line. This was not what we had asked for or ordered. We called Verizon and explained that we were expecting this, and apparently there had been a misunderstanding somewhere. The phone rep was sympathetic and said that they would waive installation fees on the second line, but that it would cost an extra $20 per month. (With Comcast, a second line was only an extra $10 per month.) Nonetheless, we agreed to let them come out and install the second phone line.

When we got our bill, however, we discovered that our monthly charge was $20 per month more than with Comcast (with fewer channels) and that Verizon charged us nearly $200 to install the second phone line. We called Verizon to complain, since they had told us they would waive the install fee. Unlike the first representative, the person who answered our call told us that we would have to pay it, and that was that (she was not only unsympathetic; she was rude). When we told her that this incident would result in Verizon losing our business, she offered to transfer us to disconnect right then. We needed our service, so we paid the bill and waited.

After a few months, we called Comcast and got a good deal to go back to them, so we cancelled with Verizon and explained to them that they needed to come remove the ugly box from our dining room wall. They appeared to be very surprised at this request, and they said it wasn't something that they normally do. If I had been able to remove the box myself, I would have, and saved myself the hassle of dealing with Verizon. But it was attached through the wall to the FiOS utility box on the outside of the house. I did not feel I could remove the box myself without incurring liability.

We had to call Verizon a total of 7 times, and we had to ask for a supervisor by the third call. They gave us a total of two work order numbers, with assurances that someone would call us within 48 hours, and then within 24 hours, with no results. We also found out that we couldn't return our cable boxes anywhere locally—the nearest Verizon drop-off was in California; we live in Oregon—so they would have to send us boxes and shipping labels.

Update 10/11/2009: The Oregonian Complaint Desk published an article about another local man's experience with Verizon. He entered into a contract with their sales representative, and they charged him nearly twice the amount specified in the contract. Read the article for details.

Resolution

In the end, we began to feel like Verizon would never come out and remove their box, so I found the e-mail addresses of corporate executives on the Web and wrote them a polite letter asking for resolution. I also copied the Complaint Desk, a column in The Oregonian, our local paper. Having done this, I resolved to try once more on the phone. I spoke calmly and politely—this is essential to resolve anything—and opted to be placed on hold rather than receive a call back. After more than an hour on the phone, I finally got a supervisor who assured me that I would be called that day; I was skeptical, but I hung up.

A local Verizon manager did call me, and he and a technician came to the house within two hours and removed the box. The manager returned to the office to get a receipt for my cable boxes, and then he came back to collect those also. In addition, someone from the corporate offices called me in response to my e-mail, also that same day.

Conclusion

Our experience with Verizon sales and customer service was very bad, on the whole. We did like the product, and their cable menus and DVR functionality are vastly superior to Comcast's. We think that if you have a standard setup, and their box can be installed somewhere out of the way (your garage, perhaps) and they give you a choice in that matter, then you can probably be pretty happy with their service.

That being said, if you need something a little out of the ordinary or you have problems, finding someone who cares enough to help you or who has the power to help you can be tough. Verizon has some real issues with their infrastructure, and the left hand seldom seems to know what the right hand is doing.

If you do find yourself in a jam and can't seem to get help, though, I recommend doing things that are completely out of the ordinary. Sometimes starting at the top and letting them hand it down works better than trying to barrel your way up through the bottom ranks. Remember, Google is your friend. There's also your local cable regulatory commission, where you can file a complaint. But above all, remain civil. You can act with integrity, even if the company doesn't. A calm and polite demeanor will get you more than anything else.