Addendum to Previous Post

One thing I failed to mention in my last post is opting out of either privacy policy is fairly easy, but actually implementing it to oneself may be impossible for one and very easy for the other.  With Google, you would have to abandon all their services.  I wish anyone luck trying to avoid the everything Google world.

As far as Staples is concerned, this one is very easy – just don’t shop with them – not online and definitely not in the store.  Just like I have done.  They don’t deserve the business anyway

Commentary: Google and Staples–A Tale of 2 Privacy Policies

Yesterday, Google announced that it would start tracking users information across the 60+ applications hosted by Google including their search engine, Google+, Gmail, android phones and even Blogger, which is where this blog is hosted.  In a way it is good that Google is upfront about tracking user information and targeting ads and pop-ups to what the user is looking at or searching for.  Its bad that anybody who uses anything Google will be tracked and market targeted with ads that they may not want or care about.  To make matters worse, even though the information is anonymously store, it still knows who you are.  Since I am such a strong advocate of privacy, I have actually considered moving this blog to a more friendly site like WordPress.  I will let everybody know if I plan on doing such a thing, but for now I am here and will continue to be here at least until mid-March when the changes take place.  However, the one thing that I think is funny now is when I load up the blog, I see ads for Staples on my anti-Staples blog.  I wonder if anybody else sees this like I do.  I am interested in hearing from anybody who does.

Staples, on the other hand, has decided to be very secretive about the data it collects, where it collects it, and how long it is stored.  Just a look at the Staples.com website shows that there is NO indication that Staples is PCI compliant.  I am not going to go into details on what exactly this is because it is complex, but a search will provide plenty of information on this standard. 

If you read my previous post about the Better Business Bureau closing my case against Staples, one thing should have been obvious:  the letter was generic and computer generated.  I highly doubt that any REAL person closed this complaint, but instead it was closed because it was open for exactly 3 weeks and Staples had refused to respond to my last complaint in 5 business days.  I believe that this was purposely done by Staples just so they would not have to explain how my email address got linked by another family member’s credit card.  This is definitely fraud which the company is avoiding and thus smartly let the time to let the case close itself without having to respond.  Shame on Staples for this action!  Later, I will be telling of other privacy policies that Staples clearly violated and I will guarantee it will anger people! 

So, Google smartly lets people know of the company’s intentions upfront, whereas Staples makes claims that it does nothing wrong and doesn’t violate any laws, but who’s laws are they going by anyway?  I know in the days and weeks ahead much will be said about the Google privacy change, but the Staples one will sadly continue because the company is so sly and divertive that their evil ways will continue until someone really decides to sue this evil company for the theft which they are creating. 

We can only hope that eventually the smart thing will be done with both companies and their privacy policies will change and will not steal customer’s information without their knowledge.  I highly doubt there will be any significant change in the near future.

The Cash Register (Friend or Foe?)

Yes, the title may sound funny, but realistically this item brings real fear into many who go anywhere near it.  The funny part is that in some ways it should be feared as I will be explaining in the next couple of posts. 

At the heart of many cash registers is a computer, not a sophisticated one but still a computer of sorts.  Sometimes it does what you want and sometimes it does what it wants no matter what you do.

Way back in the days of Woolworths, our old cash registers were NCR branded machines.  These machines were simple devices with multiple keys for different functions.  When first using the register, you had to put in your employee number, which was a matter of typing in the numbers then hitting the NO SALE key.  However, sometimes, the cashiers (I am also guilty of doing this on occasion too) got stupid and forgot to input their number and just hit the NO SALE key instead.  By doing this, the cash drawer opened and one always hoped that nobody except the on-duty manager saw you do it.  It was surprisingly that we were NEVER robbed because accessing the register would be so easy.  Any register not on the front end of the store was handled by a department person and they were given a register key to unlock the register when needed to use it.  Again, it was important that the register was locked when someone walked away from the register.

The biggest issue with these registers was that it was extremely easy to make errors with this system.  Amongst the problems include under ringing, over-ringing, and even not ringing up merchandise at all.  While the third item can happen under any system, the first two could easily be avoided if care was taken.  And that is the big IF.  Many employees over the years were terminated because of the other two ways and sometimes it wasn’t even intentional.

The normal register key put the register into REG mode.  However, there were other keys that would put the register into other modes.  The X mode was when a reading on the register was to be taken or to put change in the drawer.  The Y mode was used by managers to do a cash pickup when the screen indicated that there was a limit.  It was shown on the screen as a half an 8 on the far left side of the screen.  The bad thing about this is that the symbol could also be seen on the customer’s side of the LCD display and which means that a customer would know when the drawer is loaded with money.  Again, how we never got robbed really surprised me!  The Z mode was used at the end of the week to clear out the weekly sales numbers and get tallies for the various departments being counted for the week.  This was dangerous if this was done by accident and yes it was done many times and it makes weekly tallies that much harder to calculate.

The register keyboard also featured the standard TAXABLE and NON-TAXABLE keys as well as 10 special keys used to track weekly sales.  During a sales week, a sticker was placed on the front of the display that listed what each of the special function keys were used for.  For example, a popular use was “25% off Toys”. and “25% off Watches”.  After typing in the dollar amount, the cashier would hit either TAXABLE, NON-TAXABLE, or one of the special keys.  The special keys would automatically do the price reduction from the price input.  There was no scanner on these registers and EVERY single item in the store had to be individually priced.  Guess who spent hours pricing stuff?  ME!!  Later, I will discuss pricing and inventory control.

This approach lasted for about 7 years until we received a new toy: brand new registers and modern ones at that.  These new registers were manufactured by IBM and the manuals consisted of about 200 pages of how-to usage.  I was the first person to read the manual one afternoon cover-to-cover.  Mostly skimming over a lot of the information as it was repeated over and over.  Above anything else, these registers had scanners, which simplified the entire process of inventory control.  Now, merchandise could be checked to see if it in stock in almost a real-time manner by going into the office computer.  However, only managers could do this and because it was only updated daily it wasn’t always accurate, but it was closer than wasting time looking for nothing. 

The new registers featured a two-line LCD display of about 12 characters and when the display wasn’t in use it would scroll “Thank You for Shopping at Woolworth” or whatever was programmed into the main office computer.  The confusion of keys such as TAXABLE, NON-TAXABLE, and function keys were all eliminated by these new registers.  It was like heaven.

I do believe that these new registers was a huge plus to the company, but inevitably led to its eventual downfall because ways that employees could rip off the company no longer worked and huge inventory discrepancies were no longer the norm.  It was only about 2 years later that the company started shutting down stores.  Coincidence, I highly doubt it.

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I don’t really remember much about the registers from HQ except that the scanner cord was about 15 feet long and could easily strangle an employee if not careful.  Seven weeks of employment really didn’t allow me to remember much of those registers except for how dirty they were, but then again the whole place was always dusty and dirty.  Maybe it was all that dirt that clogged my mind about my memory of their systems

Of course, nothing could compare to Staples registers, which leads to the next topic.

Up Next:  The Evolution and De-Evolution of the Staples’ Register System

Breaking News: BBB closes Staples Case

Sadly, the Better Business Bureau as responded by the following notice:

Dear Louis Brown :
This notification is in regards to your complaint submitted on 1/2/2012 1:52:12 PM against Staples, Inc.. Complaint # 8865501.

BBB has closed complaint #8865501.

After reviewing the position of all parties, BBB determined that the business made a reasonable effort to address the complaint and has closed the complaint. This complaint will be publicly reported on the business's BBB Business Review for 36 months.

If BBB has additional information to provide you to assist you in pursuing your complaint with a government agency, and/or provide you with some educational tips, the information will be displayed below.

Thank you.
Better Business Bureau

The only good thing about this is that the complaint will remain with the BBB for a while.  I do not consider this a win, but yet another series of lies that this time was persuaded by the BBB.  All I can say is beware if you use any charge card at Staples as the company could and WILL store your information whether you like it or not.  Once again, this is proof that Staples is absolutely the worst company and continues to scam.

Barnes & Noble Extends a Free Membership (with Too Many Restrictions)

Just received a hilarious email from Barnes & Noble wanting me to redeem a limited 3 month membership to them by clicking on an email link.  Apparently they are trying to reach out to those long lost Borders customers who just don’t care.  Listed below are all the restrictions which makes me wonder what is this membership really good for…

The details:

Free Barnes & Noble Membership for a Limited Term Coupon Details

For one valid and current customer email address, this coupon can be redeemed once only per billing address at BN.COM. This offer is for new Barnes & Noble Members only, who have never participated in the Barnes & Noble Membership Program.

This coupon entitles you to one (1) Free Barnes & Noble Membership for a Limited Term. The Membership term is three (3) months, beginning on the date of coupon redemption. This coupon is valid at BN.com only from January 17, 2012, 2011 at 12:01am to January 31, 2012 at 2:59am Eastern Time.

Additional Rules Governing Use of this Coupon: This coupon is (i) not redeemable for cash or cash equivalents (including Gift Cards and eGift Cards); (ii) not valid on past or pre-ordered purchases; (iii) not eligible for purchases of any other products or services other than Barnes & Noble Membership; (iv) not valid on shipping or handling expenses or applicable sales tax; (v) not valid on purchases made from third parties accessible from the BN.COM website (e.g., used books, PC and video games, etc.); and (vi) not valid at Barnes & Noble retail bookstores, or Barnes & Noble College bookstores or websites. This coupon may not be combined with any other coupon or promotion or with the Educator Discount. Barnes&Noble.com is not responsible for typographical or pictorial errors. This offer is subject to change or discontinuation without notice; we will, however, honor properly placed orders with valid methods of payment with sufficient funds placed prior to such change or discontinuation. Void where prohibited by law

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No wonder they are in such trouble…

Another Update: Staples Response

Here is what they said:

To reiterate, although a Rewards number was not used on this recent purchase, it was used in conjuction with the same credit card in the past. When the card is used regardless if used with a rewards number, the unique created code is recognized and will trigger a marketing email if one is assigned for the product purchased. Once again, this practice is in compliance with all regulations.

So let’s see what happens with my response saying that the names didn’t match!!

And the bull goes on…

BREAKING NEWS: Update on Staples Credit Card Scam

I just got back a response from Staples via the Better Business Bureau regarding my credit card complaint.  Here is their response:

“When a credit card is used in conjunction of a Rewards Account number, a unique indentifiable  code is created in our system. Only this code, customer name and email address is stored and will be recognized whenever that same credit card is used and will trigger a marketing email. This common practice is in compliance with all privacy and storage regulations.”

Certainly, I rejected this response since NO rewards card was used and I sent a letter back to Staples stating as such.  Let’s see how they respond to that…

My 2012 Predictions

Before I begin dragging out the big crystal ball, I must address an issue that arose after my last post.  I received a message asking what the point of it was.  Let me explain the nature of this blog.  This blog is like a giant puzzle with many hundreds (possibly thousands) of pieces in content.  Many of the pieces may not look like they belong right now, but many of them will fit in when the story advances.  Please understand that not all will fit together nicely right now and some of it may be hard to understand even later.  This is what the comment section is for along with my other forms of contact located on the right side of this blog.  Feel free to contact me with any questions and I will answer them either here or privately through my contacts.  Please note that any and all questions can be posted here if it is relevant or of broad base interest. 

Now onto the crystal ball predictions:

• Sears will try to sell off Kmart, but with no takers the long-on-life support chain will go out of business completely.  Sears will also close half of their named stores as the company struggles to survive.
• After years of declines, both OfficeMax and Office Depot will go completely out of business.  Sadly, Staples buys the remains of both companies including their websites and thus gets scrutinized for such an act.
• Staples itself will downsize by about 1/3 therefore closing many low-performing stores and stores that have issues that need to be addressed and cannot be solved.  Ironically, the store that I was previously employed at will be one of the ones that will be closed down by mid 2013 because of too many structural problems and bad management.
• RadioShack will close about ½ of their locations that are underperformers by year’s end and by 2014 be completely out of business.
• Dow Jones will fall to 8000 points by year end with at least 2 weeks of 1000 point drops.
• Gold will drop to under $1000/oz.
• Apple will close many of its stores after protestors wreak havoc because of the overpricing of their products.  Apple stocks sink to under $100 by year’s end.
• After months of primaries, no clear winner of the Republicans is found, thus the candidate will be chosen in face-off at the convention.  The winning candidate, however, won’t have a chance against Obama by losing by a large margin.
• Maine governor Paul LePage will have an assassination attempt on him, but he will suffer other health problems forcing him out of office for good.
• A major hurricane will strike Florida causing significant damage in and around the Orlando area, destroying about a quarter of the famed Disneyworld park.  The park will remain open, but sections will not be accessible.  It will be at least 3 years to bring the park back to its original form.
• Books-A-Million exits the New England area by closing all of its locations it had previously taken over from Borders.  It can only be assumed they only had a one-year lease and wasn’t happy with the result.
• Barnes and Noble closes about 1/3 of its stores after the cost of buying the remainder of Borders’ assets was too much cost and very little reward.
• and finally, the world will supposedly end on May 21 of this year.  Ironically this also happens to be my birthday as well, therefore I believe I am the Doomsday character.

 

So enjoy the year and hopefully maybe some of these predictions will not happen, then again any or all of them could very well happen.  

Up Next:  The Cash Register (Friend or Foe?)

Commentary: End of Year Payout and Payday for Staples

This first part of this commentary refers to the following article:

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/155963/staples-inc-spls-chairman-and-ceo-ronald-sargent-sells-990000-shares

So, Staples President Ronnie Sargent takes a $14million dollar+ payday.  I am wondering how many jobs he will create with all this new money.  Can we assume the number is probably close to ZERO!!   How many more jobs lost at Staples?  Possibly hundreds!   Great time to buy that new Lamborghini Ronnie!! (or 2 or 3 or 4 or 100).

The second part refers to this article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/staples-foundation-awards-25-million-in-funding-to-non-profit-organizations-nationwide-2011-12-27

Once again, Staples does charity just not anything in Maine.  I will have much more later on Staples “charitable donations” in a future post.  For now, just take all of their so called donations and giving's as just part of Ronnie Sargent’s tax write-off.  Quite possibly a link between these 2 articles, but sneaky Staples does a great job of denial.  It is sad that Maine hardly exists as part of Staples giving especially since we have quite a few stores in the state.  Apparently  that don’t matter to them at all.  No real surprise here at all.

My Year in Review: 2011–The Way I See It and Award Ceremony

In a year where Time Magazine chose their Person of the Year as the “Protestor” and Rebecca Black taught us that Friday comes after Thursday as the most popular YouTube video (is she really only 15? she certainly don’t look like it!), this world and more specifically this country is messed up.  This is the reason why I call 2011 “The Year of the Dumbass”.  Let’s continue on with those that made up the year that should not have been.

Supreme Court denies women right to class action against Walmart

So a bunch of female managers whined that they didn’t want to be part of the discrimination lawsuit against Walmart.  The Supreme Court listened and threw the case out at the expense of the thousands of those women who felt discriminated against.  Sadly, now the women will have to sue Walmart individually if they feel justified in doing so.  This will in some states cause massive clogs and backlogs in states where there are already overloads all ready.  Many probably won’t ever bother to file a complaint as the thought of even trying to secure a lawyer may be next to impossible.  Those that do get one may find that Walmart (like Staples) will create misleading information about the women thus denying their individual cases especially if they fight their case here in Maine.  Shame on the Supreme Court for not letting this case go forward just because a few didn’t want it to advance.  Has anyone not heard of opt-out of a case? Apparently Walmart hasn’t!  Dumbass award to Female Walmart Managers and sharing it with the Supreme Court.

Herman Cain in Denial

As a typical manager, Cain was in denial of every womanizing relationship he had until the one came along that claimed a 13 year relationship.  Apparently his memory suddenly was restored with this one while he didn’t remember the others.  Selective memory or sick of hiding from the truth…at least he has left the Presidential race..hopefully for good.  A Dumbass award to you for your wonderful memory.

Paul LePage Keeps Offending Everyone

After only 1 year as governor of Maine, Paul LePage has successfully offended many people of the state.  It all started with him putting up the “Open for Business” sign at the foot of the state as if the state was nothing more than a giant Marden’s.  He continued to make waves by saying that the President should “kiss his butt” after not attending Martin Luther King luncheon.  This video went viral and made him look like a complete jerk.  To continue on, he removed a mural at the state labor board because he found it to be unrepresentative of employers.  Just because your face isn’t on it, you take it down..once again excellent job!!  Now he wants to throw 70,000 off of the MaineCare system. Another bonehead idea met with strong opposition.  Will he get impeached or terminated in 2012?  We can only hope!  To make matters worse, a poll came out that asked if voters could have a do-over, they would vote for someone other than him.  So for all of this mess and frustration, you earn a Dumbass Award. 

As a write this, Mr. LePage finished off the year by offending a former legislator at a recent town meeting.  He asked her in response to a question “What Planet are you from?”  Certainly not the type of answer that should be said from someone in his position.

City Council Wants Free Health Care

The city councilors of my town of South Portland, Maine wants to allow themselves to get free health care at an average cost of $17,000 per councilor.  But here is the rub, the councilors work part-time and are not paid for their services.  Is this fair to give them free health care when thousands of others in the state are not even covered?  Why can’t these councilors get health care through their regular jobs..is it too expensive or do they just want to steal from the citizens of the town?  I believe it is more of the latter answer, therefore the council earns a Dumbass Award.

Best Buy Cancels Christmas

Imagine walking into your local car dealership and wanting to buy a $100,000 Cadillac.  You already pay for it so all you have to do is wait for your order.  It is a gift and it was promised to arrive by Christmas.  However, a week before the holiday, you get an email from the dealer saying they can’t get the vehicle and is offering you a 1980 Yugo with 200,000 miles on it for the same price.  Certainly, this is just an alternative but the choice is left to the customer.  Not only will you not get what you ordered, but the dealer informed you too late to go a different route.  Sadly, this is EXACTLY what Best Buy did this Christmas when it cancelled orders that it could not fulfill for items ordered on their website on Black Friday.  Was nobody tallying the number sold?  Wasn’t orders set aside as they came in?  Apparently, Best Buy allowed everybody to order what they wanted without any way of checking the amount of available inventory.  To make matters worse, they offered customers downgrades on their orders.  Smart move for them as usually companies would offer a courtesy upgrade not a downgrade.  But we are talking Best Buy here..the second worst company behind Staples.  Sadly, service in store at Best Buy has suffered as much and is basically intolerable and help in the store is virtually impossible to find.  They must feel they can do all this since their major competitor of Circuit City is gone. Dumbass Award for Best Buy being the Christmas Grinch.

Staples Steals Credit Card Information

Speaking of Staples, this one scam came out of left field and caught me completely by surprise.  Since this scam involved my mother’s credit card (which I am also on) and my email account, I assume (without a doubt) that Staples matched the credit card number to an old rewards card that I haven’t used in over 3 years and got the email address registered to that rewards card to send me an email for a product review of an item purchased with my mother’s credit card.  This certainly should be a violation of credit card agreements for the illegal storage of credit card numbers.  It is this kind of problem where identity theft can thrive and must be stopped even if it means Staples GO BYE-BYE.  Dumbass award to them for this highly undesirable scam and worse that they would even do such a thing.

Update:  If you missed it, I have sent this complaint to the Better Business Bureau for further investigation.  Under no circumstances is any of this acceptable and it certainly will be interesting to see what Staples has to say about this.  I will keep you posted about this.

Lowe’s Sneaks Out of Town with Virtually No Warning

Speaking of companies going bye-bye, Lowe’s the home improvement store decided without much less of a day’s notice to shut their Biddeford Maine store along with about 20 others.  They claim that these stores were “low-performing stores”.  Seriously, did the managers not know about the possible closing less than a days notice.  I highly doubt it.  More than likely they were given at least a month’s notice of what was happening but didn’t want any employees going to the media with the company’s plans.  It certainly would have created a panic amongst employees and also would make the local residences think that the company was going to have a going-out-of-business sale.  Instead, a store meeting was held on a Sunday night and by Monday morning all the signage was off the store and the store was basically empty of all product.  Even thieves could not plan an extensive robbery this fast and thorough.    Certainly, the company must have given management a lot more warning than 24 hours.  Its interesting to point out that a proposed casino to be voted on just a few days later was only about a half mile away from their store.  Coincidence?  Hmmm…possibly.  What is not just a possibly though is a Dumbass Award for being a multimillion dollar company and dumping about a 100 people out on the streets with no notice.  Enjoy your savings and your award.

No More Casinos for Maine for Now

First let me say that the group behind the Pro-Casino group had a Facebook page that banned me along with other people for writing truths that apparently the group did not want to hear.  It is bad when freedom of speech is impacted to the extent that the truth cannot be told.  I was so glad when both questions regarding casinos in Biddeford and Lewiston were both defeated.  Apparently, Mainers got through the lies of these Pro groups and realized that jobs would not really go Mainers nor would education benefit with funds from the casinos.  Even worse is that the investors of the existing (or building of) the casino in Oxford County is being backed by Las Vegas investors.  So much for that Maine companies are running the casinos..  Therefore the Pro-Casino supporters earn a Dumbass Award and yes it does come from Maine!!

Sprint Sends Email Bills To Non-Customer

Sad, but true Sprint is sending ME email bills of somebody else’s account through my Gmail.  I have tried for over 9 months to get rid of this to no avail.  Every time I get a response that it would be ending in 90 days(!) and after the period has ended I still get the emails.  The last communication I received from Sprint was that they contacted the offending customer to change their email address because somehow it conflicts with mine. The representative wrote me and stated that I should just mark the email as spam and ignore it.  This is NOT a solution to the real problem, just a bandage for abuse of an email account.  Why am I getting so many emails that I never signed up for into this account though is the bigger question?  Only Google knows for sure…So a Dumbass Award to Sprint and yea I will send it to your Spam Account again and again and again….

In Conclusion:

All of the above awards to some extent involves some sort of management.  This will prove my ongoing point that managers (especially store managers) are dumbasses.  As I continue on with this blog, keep in mind that every jerk reaction takes someone with authority to have happen and sadly every day this is happening.  This is why this blog exists, not just for my own painful story, but all other painful stories as well.  And I will hand out more Dumbass Awards as I see fit…it won’t be just an annual event. 

Next Up:  2012 Predictions

Update on Staples Credit Card Privacy Scam

As mentioned previously, Staples has a newly discovered scam (see article http://louisbrowntruths.blogspot.com/2011/12/breaking-scam-info-newly-discovered.html).  I decided that I was not going to put up with this so I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau on Staples for this.  The BBB has submitted my complaint to Staples for review.  I will keep you informed of any developments on this.  Staples’ idiot behavior must be stopped at all costs.