USAA Credit Card Fraud

When USAA doesn’t care about their customer’s credit cards being used for fraud, it concerns me. I’m not surprised anymore by bad customer service, but I AM surprised when a financial institution doesn’t care about fraud. In this case, I’ve got a customer (or fraudulent scammer) trying to use a credit card with a different name and city on their card, than what’s on their customer profile. On one hand, I want to provide a potentially real customer access to my service – but on the other hand, …

Dr. Ben Franklin or: How I Learned to Ignore Lazy Entrepreneurs and Love the Email Address

I’ve been searching for a local or regional marketing consultant to hire, to put together a marketing plan. To me, the most obvious place to me to find that person is LinkedIn – the social network for business. To my great disappointment, of the more than 60 profiles I opened for people listed as “Marketing Consultant” or “Independent Marketing Consulting” only THREE of them had contact information on their LinkedIn profile. It should be a giant red flag if a MARKETING CONSULTANT doesn’t know how to market themselves… …

eBay sucks again

Isn’t it sad that we EXPECT bad customer service these days? That we EXPECT companies to NOT stand behind their products? And we’re SHOCKED when they do a good job? Well, as usual, eBay did NOT do a good job. And (because I’m honest,) they’re going to (eventually) get 15%+ on a limited edition watch that I’m selling. Why? Because they have a popular marketplace that gets a lot of eyes – AND, they don’t care about customers. I created an eBay listing for a watch worth many …

‘Free’ digital bulletin board

Last year I was trying to figure out how to build and display a ‘digital bulletin board’ on Main Street USA. The idea being that it would be remotely updated with text, video, graphics, AND would pull from RSS feeds, or just show scheduled content, and be easily updatable. The idea was to mount a flat-panel monitor or TV against a large window where there’s lots of foot traffic to catch the eye of visitors and residents when they were in town. It took a while, but I …

Test Driving… Mattresses

I’ve had the same mattress for more than 10 years now. I literally bought it (new) from a Big Lots store. It’s a Serta Perfect Sleeper Courtland mattress. I’ve been a fat guy for the past 10 years as well, so I’ve definitely put the mattress through its paces. I’ve also had somewhat bad neck pain for several years, usually when I wake up. I’ve tried several different pillows… different brands, different styles, different thicknesses. Nothing has seemed to help. It occurred to me recently than I’ve stayed …

Quora: “What was your most difficult moment as a Disney cast member?”

Before I moved to (and learned a lot from) Disneyland Guest Relations, my most difficult moment came from my own lack of experience dealing with angry/bad guests. I started my Disneyland career as a ride operator on Autopia, around the age of 29 (so I wasn’t a ‘kid.’) One of the positions there is “grouper,” where you assign positions for guests, based on how many cars they need for their group. The position is somewhat fast-paced, as the cars are loading and unloading constantly, and not all guests …

Back to Top