Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

New Website Makes It Easy To Opt Out Of The Phone Book

Can we just say it's about time? As a business model, the Yellow Pages has about the same appeal  and growth potential as home delivered newspapers.It is a declining market with little or no hope for future growth.

For  consumers who are tethered to a computer, laptop, smartphone,or iPad, the Yellow Pages have become a big waste of paper instead of an important part of our daily lives. Note: According to the Yellow Pages Association, their research shows that 75% of consumers still use the Yellow Pages.

In the past several years, Yellow Page revenues have been on a steady decline. Today, many people think  of the Yellow Pages as a great product that has outlived its purpose.  It 's not only a waste of money to produce,  it's an environmental train wreck. In a time when business are committed to sustainable practices by trying to reduce the amount of paper they consume, The Yellow Pages are not a symbol of green business practices.

What is being called the first ever partnership of its kind, Conservation Minnesota and The Yellow Pages Association  have teamed up to create a website that gives people in Minnesota some choices about the phone books they receive.

The new website, www.donttrashthephonebook.org allows consumers to choose only the phone books they want to receive, opt out of getting any phone book, or choose the ways they can recycle their current phone books.

If you choose to opt out you have to opt out of three separate directories. The DEX opt-out is a bit confusing. When you click on the Opt-out button it takes you to a Welcome Page which makes you think you are ordering a phone book rather than opting out. Next you go to a page that has a bunch of sales copy on all their different products. If you are not thoroughly confused by then, you hit continue at the bottom of the page and it takes you to a page that says "Personalize Your Order."

Already have phone books that you want to get rid off? Instead of throwing them in the trash, the website provides you will information on how to recycle your phone books. It's based on your zip code . In Minneapolis it's easy - it's part of curbside recycling pickup.

But, if you don't live in Minneapolis and are unsure what you are supposed to do, just click on the recycle link, add your zip code to the drop down menu and you'll find what your options are. If the project works in Minnesota, The Yellow Pages plans to role out similar websites in other states.

Owner of Segway Dies In One Person Segway Crash

Just hours before I heard that Jimi Heselden, the owner of  the company that  makes Segway fell to his death in a Segway accident, I was chatting with one of my neighbors about the Segway tours in our neighborhood. His parents were visiting last weekend and one of the activities that participated in was a Segway tour of the Misissippi River.

My neighbor loved the tour and highly recommended it. The Segway has been a controversial vehicle since it launched in 2001. It's inventor Dean Kamen believed it would revolutionize personal transportation.

That hasn't happened.  Until this week's tragic accident when Heselden fell to his death riding his Segway, it was President George W. Bush's famous Segway ride that most people remember.However, lots of people have minor crashes when they are learning to ride a Segway.

Heselden just bought the company early this year. At the time of his death, Heselden was testing an all-terrain version of the Segway. From the Christian Science Monitor,

 

Danley of Boston Gliders Segway Tours, insists that the message from Heselden’s death shouldn’t be that Segway’s are unsafe.

“We’ve had 41,000 people ride Segways around Boston and zero accidents,” he says.

He suggests that Heselden may have been careless by riding too close to the edge of a cliff. “If you stand in the middle of a storm with a lightning rod, you will get shocked.”

“Segways are extremely safe,” says Danley. “I commute to work on one. I’ve ridden one in 30 states.”

Want a Refund For Atomic Password Recovery? Send A Letter To Russia.

My expectation is if I purchase software online and decide I don't want it, I can get an immediate refund. That is my expectation because that has been my experience. That is until I purchased  Atomic Password Recovery  Not only do they not offer an immediate refund, they expect their dissatisfied customers to download a refund form, fill it out, go to the post office, mail it toTovarischeski,. Russia and then wait for Russia to send you back a check for the refund amount. 

How long is that float?

 The software cost $30.00. I paid with a credit card which should have resulted in an easy refund. It was a Sunday morning. As is the process when you buy software online, I received an email with registration code.Only problem, it didn't work. That's when I discovered the company didn't offer phone support.

No worries, I sent an email to their help desk. That was on Sunday August 22, 2010. My expectation was that I would get an immediate response.

I didn't hear from them on Sunday or Monday. By Monday, I decided I no longer needed or wanted this software and requested a refund. So far, nothing particularly unusual in the transaction.I bought something. It didn't work. I wanted my money back.  That's when the fun began.

On Thursday August 26,2010,--four days after I sought technical support and three days after I requested a refund, the company processing the payment, SWREG forwarded an email to the good folks at [email protected] informing  them  of my concerns.

On Sunday August 28,2010 I received an email informing me that the company doesn't give "unconditional refunds."

I am sorry, but we do not provide an unconditional refund. We make a refund after we receive a refund request form from you.

Can you tell me the ID of your ticket given to you when you contacted our support team? Immediately upon payment you receive a valid key for the current version of the program that can be downloaded on the web-site.

 

 It was the last sentence of that message that tipped me over the edge. The whole reason I wanted the refund was that the "key code" didn't work. I remember thinking what is the problem, don't they understand English? Apparently not.

Finally, I got a response on how to request a refund. Turns out they wouldn't just credit my credit card. Instead, they expecdted me to fill ot a form, mail it to a guy in Russia and then he would issue a check. I kid you not.

Curious if anyone has ever sent Denis Gladysh,the CEO of AccentSoft, this form ,and if you did how long did it take to get your money.  My hunch is that for $30 most people would simply be annoyed but not make the effort to write a letter to Russia.

As it turns out, I am getting a refund without sending the letter to Russia. I contacted SWREG, who processed the original credit card transaction,and  after explaining the situation, they promised that I would get a credit card refund. According to the email, the refund is in process.