DirecTV has wasted a lot of my time this week, and it tried to take a lot of my money, too. I’ll fill you in on the details below, but you already know the story. I canceled service. I was told my bill was paid. Months later I was hit [Keep reading]
Whenever I get in a dispute with a customer service agent, I try to humanize the dialog. “Do you think this is fair?” I’ll ask. And if I can pierce the corporate-speak at all, I usually saying something like, “Look, you are I have way more in common than you and [Keep reading]
One of the saddest chapters of U.S. higher education closed on Monday, as ITT Technical Institute suddenly announced it was shutting down. ITT has been hit with numerous legal actions, and just last week it finally received what amounted to a death penalty from the Department of Education — which [Keep reading]
Frustration among Starbucks workers who say their hours and pay have been slashed took an ugly turn this week as it spilled awkwardly onto forums at Reddit used by employees to “venti” about the coffee giant. You might recall this summer’s controversy, as workers complained that labor cutbacks left many scrambling for hours. Some baristas said shifts [Keep reading]
Across America, workers are sharing the most intimate details of their lives with employers through gadgets like Fitbits — all to save a little money on life or health insurance. It’s junk science meets Orwell meets Lenin. And we are going down a crazy, creepy path. “Take 10,000 steps and [Keep reading]
Another day, another reminder that companies don’t really have to abide by promises to NOT share your personal information. They have a big “but” in their contracts. Last week, it was WhatsApp and Facebook. We’ll get to that in a moment. This week, millions of Sports Authority customers began receiving notices [Keep reading]
The FBI has issued a warning that state board of election websites are being targeted by hackers, and in at least one case, voter data has been stolen. Yahoo News Michael Isikoff first reported the attack and posted the FBI warning online (against the FBI’s wishes). It’s very serious. Clearly the FBI [Keep reading]
The Affordable Care Act is having (another) existential moment. This one will be supercharged by a presidential election, which is a shame, because improving America’s health care insurance system is a really complicated project — sloganeering has no place. But the atmosphere around the topic so poisoned that it’s hard to [Keep reading]
Get used to another term in world of computer hacking: “economic warfare.” A French firm building multi-billion-dollar submarines for Australia and several other nations says it was the victim of economic warfare after some of its schematics for similar subs being built for India were released online, allegedly by hackers. The [Keep reading]
If you’re like me, you’re afraid to answer your cell phone. And that’s a bad thing for a reporter. It wasn’t always this way. For years, my cell phone number seemed to be out of the public domain, and even businesses that had it were pretty respectful of my need [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan