How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#191

Post by owenmarshall » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

technothrasher wrote: post #137

sverhagen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US system is based on liability and the threat of legal action. The European system is based on their regulatory framework. If you have a complaint that is clearly managed within that framework (my laundry machine spontaneously broke down within the statutory warranty period) they'll comply, else, yeah, good luck. I moved in the other direction (to the US) and I'm amazed when my wife gets a $50 little blender rep…

Sometimes the regulatory route works in the US. We had our main business phone line go down and Verizon customer service basically shrugged their shoulders and said there was nothing they could do and no way to escalate. One call to the state regulator and not only did they fix the phone line within a couple hours, they begged us to tell them what they could do to make the regulatory complaint go away. We told them w…

When I was a youngster growing up with dialup internet we had a problem: when it rained, static filled the line and the internet died.

The repair tech sympathetically said that he was trying, but their policy at the time said the interference was at acceptable levels for voice and he wasn’t able to convince his management to trace the problem upstream and replace the line to fix one rural customer’s service.

On his fourth trip out he slipped dad a post it note with a phone number. It was the state public utility commission. My dad called on Thursday.

That Saturday, the district manager knocks on our door. He informs us of how sorry the entire Bell family is for the trouble we’ve had, that they have teams tracing lines from the central office to our house and will have the problem identified and fixed by Sunday, and that we will receive a rather significant discount to our bill over the next year to help “make it right”. His only ask was that we call the PSC and let them know if AT&T had solved the problem to our satisfaction.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#192

Post by polartx » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

Haga wrote: post #43

Zanneth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to demonstrate a professional method for communicating with companies that are incompetent or otherwise untrustworthy. The amount of money involved and the business practices of the company with whom he is communicating is not strictly relevant.

It's a Form of hacking a company's processes from outside. Basically you punch through to the enterprise layer of communication and get treated better accordingly.

I’ve worked for 50 person companies, and 250k person companies. I’ve found that, (barring outliers), most CEOs, especially of startups, are very interested in the perspective of ‘Joe customer’, if shared in earnest. When you think about it, they’ve placed many layers of abstraction between themselves and their customers for the sake of the larger perspective. But CEOs are also people, and customers (of someone) themselves. And are therefore interested in the individual satisfaction of their customers/partners, to a point.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#193

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

This whole article read like an undisputable libel piece to name and shame a company.

Also, if a company tries to give me that run around once, why would I ever bother repping their products ever again? Also...it was $80. I do realize it can buy a decent amount of stuff but the amount of work and time this guy spent writing emails about this, he would've been better off black listing them.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#194

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #178

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124

I like the article. It presents the way that I believe we should all behave with each other in a professional environment. Respect and Courtesy are important at all times (IMNSHO). Some folks seem to feel that being respectful is a sign of weakness, but cops are extremely respectful, as they explain to you why they will be writing a ticket for an eye-watering amount (at least, good cops are). Many moons ago, when the…

> cops are extremely respectful I'm glad you've had only positive experiences with the police, but this is a hell of a take in 2020.

The majority of cops outside of major metro areas aren't entirely shitheads. Half the time they're just traffic cops.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#195

Post by heelix » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #9

Scoundreller wrote: post #4

I wonder if the merchant is sneaking any gluten into their “bread”. Edit: extra carbs I mean. Getting my diets confused here.

This made me think of [1] this discussion here about subway and their fake whole wheat bread. It looks like Subway was forced to change their recipe but honestly I don't have faith in any many companies. Instead of offering good food it always ends up "return to share holders" mode and the product turns to crap. {1| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24646755

It was not too long ago that Ireland ruled that there was so much sugar in the Subway bread it was 'cake'. Sugar made up 10% of the weight of the flour.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919189045/for-subway-a-ruling...

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#196

Post by wrycoder » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #3

> To put it bluntly, we are not paying you for your conversions How did the CEO write this and not immediately ^H^H^H it? Could he really not think of a better phrasing than "your conversions"?

My read was that he doesn’t speak English very well and that he meant to say, “that we are not paying you...”

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#197

Post by m3kw9 » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

Basically talk like a lawyer and an accountant, and it may get their attention

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#198

Post by stickfigure » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

0xfaded wrote: post #119

stickfigure wrote: post #42

Geez. This article was hard to follow but... it sounds like the merchant is really screwing up. My SaaS business gets most of our users via an affiliate program, and many years ago I worked in porn where nearly all of our users from an affiliate program. The #1 rule of affiliate programs is to treat affiliates like royalty. Or more accurately - business partners. Be clear about what you offer, be generous, and always…

Is there a good way to contact an online business directly and say "It seems you pay a 20% affiliate fee. I would like a 20% discount?" Amazon kinda does this with smile and donations, even though I don't use amazon anymore. I go out of my way, with link strippers, cookie removers, adblockers, to the point of often manually copy and pasting links into a private window if necessary, to avoid affiliate links. When I do…

Sure. Email them and ask.

Keep in mind though that affiliate programs are not necessarily sleazy. By default nobody knows about your product. Some of our partners have been making tutorials in other languages and building API integrations into their products. They deserve the money we send them.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#199

Post by true_religion » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

0xfaded wrote: post #119

stickfigure wrote: post #42

Geez. This article was hard to follow but... it sounds like the merchant is really screwing up. My SaaS business gets most of our users via an affiliate program, and many years ago I worked in porn where nearly all of our users from an affiliate program. The #1 rule of affiliate programs is to treat affiliates like royalty. Or more accurately - business partners. Be clear about what you offer, be generous, and always…

Is there a good way to contact an online business directly and say "It seems you pay a 20% affiliate fee. I would like a 20% discount?" Amazon kinda does this with smile and donations, even though I don't use amazon anymore. I go out of my way, with link strippers, cookie removers, adblockers, to the point of often manually copy and pasting links into a private window if necessary, to avoid affiliate links. When I do…

The affiliate fee is a payment for someone who did the work of marketing the product and finding new clients that would otherwise be inaccessible.

You didn’t do any of that. You are just a customer at best and don’t provide any additional value on top of the money you pay for the product. Charging less then is just the company shorting itself for a single customer.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#200

Post by stickfigure » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 4:06 PM UTC

jpcooper wrote: post #96

stickfigure wrote: post #42

Geez. This article was hard to follow but... it sounds like the merchant is really screwing up. My SaaS business gets most of our users via an affiliate program, and many years ago I worked in porn where nearly all of our users from an affiliate program. The #1 rule of affiliate programs is to treat affiliates like royalty. Or more accurately - business partners. Be clear about what you offer, be generous, and always…

What led you away from porn?

Nothing in particular? I wanted to start my own company and I didn't have any compelling ideas for making porn better.