Let's Play "Do I really need it"

For years, I have bitched about cable companies. Every year it seems as though the price just keeps creeping up. If you call them up and complain, they will typically allow you to reduce the price increase, and they will offer you some free shit in return. I call it "shit" because that is exactly what it is. "Hey, if you stay with us, for just $10 more we will give you these 5 channels on Russian Art History and a live, Underwater Basket Weaving channel!!!"

Thanks, but no thanks. For the longest time, I have just kind of gone about my ways, continuing to call up various cable companies every 6 months, to complain about the high price, only to end up paying $5 more than I was before, and with some additional perk I will never use. About a year ago, I signed up for FiOS at my new house. I figured I would give them a try and see if things were really any different. You probably still see ads in your neighborhood about some bundle deal with the best cable package, some internet, and a phone line for $99 per month. That is the plan I am on right now, where the "phone line" I have is my existing Verizon cell phone. This is something that no matter what Comcast/Xfinity does, they cannot offer me a cell phone. So, for $99, this is not too shabby.

Well, then we get into the additional fees. The most annoying one is the rental fee for the boxes. With FiOS, and now with I guess almost all cable companies, you need a box for every TV in the house. The basic, no frills, standard definition box is $5.99 per month. I have two of those, one on a TV that gets little use, but would be almost useless otherwise. Then, we have the main box. This one has the DVR on it, High Def tuner, and Home Media DVR which allows me to watch the shows I record on this DVR in any room in the house (assuming I record it in Standard Def). How much for this little gem? $16.99 per month. That brings my equipment fees up to basically another $30 per month. This is for just 3 tvs. My parents house has probably 10 tvs. You would be looking at a minimum of $60 per month to cable all the TVs. If the TV doesn't have cable, then it is not as valuable either. So, hard to decide whether you would box all of them.

Recently, I started talking with Erin a lot about maybe removing cable. If I just did a really nice internet package with no bundle at all, it would cost in the neighborhood of $50 per month. This leaves me $80 per month to work with until I would be better off paying for cable. What could be done with this $80 to still enjoy the shows we like?

Well, I understand that Hulu will save the last 5 episodes of many of the shows we like to watch. For Erin and I, this list of shows includes, House, Law and Order CI, Law and Order SVU, probably Law and Order LA, NCIS, NCIS LA (who doesn't love them some crime shows!!), 30 Rock, Community, Office, Family Guy, Simpsons and usually we will try some other shows each season (this year it was Forgotten and Flashforward, in the past we had Pushing Daisies, Parks and Rec, and probably others).

From my work computer, I cant access Hulu, but I recall that some of these shows are offered for the last 5 episodes. These are free, and if we did a good job keeping up with them, we would not need to pay for any of these episodes.

Let's pretend though that we missed them. All of them. So we are looking at a worst case now. We have to pay for all of the shows. ITunes will sell them to you. And I guess that episode is then yours forever at $3. So, let's see how much it would cost to buy all of these episodes.

For House, there were 22 shows last season, so we are looking at $66. Simpsons had 23 episodes and Family Guy with 21, adding $132 to the total bringing us to $198. Law and Order SVU had 24 episodes, CI had 16, and LA is slated to have 13 episodes for now. This makes LaO $159, bringing our total to $357. 30 Rock had 22 episodes, Office had 26, and Community had 25 episodes, making Thursday Night cost $219, for a total of $576. NCIS had 24 episodes and NCIS LA had 24, making NCIS cost $144, and a new total of $720.

The $80 per month gives us $960 to use for the year until we have spent more than the cost of cable at today's price. It should be pointed out the prices above are assuming that we dont get any episodes for free, and that we buy each episode from ITunes. Throw in a few shows that we watch occasionally, and we might be getting closer to the $960.

Another thought. On September 21 2010, Law and Order SVU Season 11 comes to DVD (the season that just ended). The price is listed as $54. We would have paid $72 through ITunes. I also think that every year, around Black Friday, these shows go on sale. I think it is very possible to buy them for less than $40, but that means you have waited a full season to catch up on last season. It is a trade off. In return, you have now purchased these episodes and you own them forever, rather than just having them on a DVR that you watch once and then erase. Good or bad, this method makes these episodes yours.

The last thought on this issue is Sports. I mostly use my TV for live entertainment when I am watching sports. Rabbit ears will get me all of the Eagles Games, minus Monday Night Football. I will not see the majority of Phillies and Flyers games, but the radio will carry them. I would also be able to see golf majors, March Madness, Super Bowl, World Series, etc. I would lose some of my live sports, but to save how much?

Thoughts? Could this be done? What do you do with the time that right now you spend just watching a little TV? Would we all sleep better if we didn't watch TV at night? At what point do you just decide that the convenience of cable is worth the extra $XXX?

C&C Stuff Factory: Boarded up and heading home

Yesterday marked the end of an era. The ebay store, most famously known as C&C Stuff Factory, closed up shop yesterday to minimal fanfare. After a 2 year run on the market, rising ebay fees doomed the young store. I wrote a recent post describing the problems with the store in the new ebay fee structure, and after some more thought, it just seemed like this was the time to close up. As it was, the fees ebay charged to remain open were close to the profits on the items, but with 4xing the listing fees on me, the margin became small enough to the point where most of my items would cost more to list than I would be able to profit. Breaking even, or losing money, was not the intentions of C&C Stuff Factory.

I would not say that this ends my schemes at making money. That is the nice thing about get rich quick ideas. You might have a bunch that fail, but you just need that one to work, and then you are rich. And you don't have to go to work. Or bathe. Or do anything you don't want to do. So, we shall see what the next idea brings. One idea is in the works right now, with my brother being the lead on this project. Maybe a future post can detail some of that plan, but first I will need to consult with him on the public release notes.

The blog however will continue. Still many good things (and bad things) to talk about so stay tuned!

Do you feel more special?

Today's post is more of a poll than anything else. I had this dispute now with a few different vendors, most notable my mortgage lender and the Phillies. If you are reading this, and at this point trying to figure out how someone could manage to have the same argument with the Phillies as you would have with your mortgage lender, then I suggest you read on.

How many of us receive mail that is addressed to you? Of course, most of us do. However, sometimes you may note that it comes addressed to Mr or Ms . To many of you, I am sure that this goes unnoticed. For a guy like me, who has a name that can be used for either gender, I notice this a lot. (Take for instance Robin Roberts, you could discuss the Hall of Fame pitcher for the Phils, or the broadcaster for ESPN and others, one male, one female, same exact name).

The discussion that I have had with these places, is why bother addressing the envelope to a Mr. or Ms. at all? Why not just send the information to Robin Czyzewicz. I was super unhappy when I got a letter from my mortgage lender addressed to Ms. Robin Czyzewicz. I had recently taken out a $200,000 mortgage with them, on which they would make $100,000s, and they have no idea whether I have a penis or a vagina. Would I have felt any more special had they acknowledged my proper genitals? Probably not. It would go mostly unnoticed. The time I notice it is when they mess it up. It just leaves them hanging out there to look bad.

The same thing came up with the Phillies. I organized a trip for 100 people to the game tomorrow night. When I made the final payment on the tickets, for roughly $4,000, the tickets came in the mail a few days later, addressed to none other than, Ms. Robin Czyzewicz. I realize that to the Phillies, $4,000 is no big deal. To me, charging that purchase, and the organizing the group, was a big deal. For them to turn around and guess at whether I am a male or female just seemed stupid. Again, it added nothing to the conversation, other than to leave them looking stupid, and me pissed off. I called them up and they did not have a great explanation for this mixup. In the system, they have a spot for Mr. or Ms. on their account, and mine was not filled it. Now it had been adjusted, but I still am not sure where the error originally came from.

Having dealt with gender confusion due to my name for my entire life, I usually let it roll off my back. Sometimes though, it really bothers me, especially when it is with big business. If I were running a company, I would just send the mailings to . I have met plenty of people with gender bending names, and I am sure I am not alone. Just send my mail to Robin.

So, how do you guys feel? When you get mail that is specifically addressed acknowledged your genitals, does it make you feel better? Do you even notice? Have you received one in error before? And why bother?

Turning point for the Ebay store

So, the store is hitting a crossroads again, and it is time to figure out what the intentions are. It has been fun having the store around, but the problem right now is this...

When the store opened, my brother and I had just sold all of our N64 games and system for roughly $250. The store fees were $15 per month, and that allowed you to list 250 items in your store inventory at $0.05 per listing. These listings would then last 30 days, before being relisted and charging an additional $0.05. Not a big fee. When the item sold, you would pay the ebay fees as usual. I was finding that for the popular book titles, like Batman, the title would usually last about 2 months. This would mean the fee would be about $0.10. There were also many other titles being offered, and they would typically be on the market for a good 4-6 months, some have never sold. So, these texts slowly rack up fees, but someday they may sell, and even if they sit there for 2 years, it would cost me $1.20. The average amount I making on a book is just a bit over $2, and the books cost about $1. So, if the book sits for 2 years, I roughly break even. I still think it looks better to have a big store inventory rather than remove titles.

Fastforward now to the present day, and ebay's new fee structure. For the basic store plan, it now costs $0.20 to list the items, with relisting every 30 days. The fees quadrupled!! For these books where I am trying to make just a little profit on each, this fee hike is killer. I just sold a book that was listed on Monday night. The title went for $4, including shipping. Shipping cost $1.90, and the ebay fees, including paypal, added another $1.10. This meant that I got $1 for the book, which cost me just about $1. So in other words, a book that sold in its first listing, profited virtually 0, whereas before it would have at least profitted something. Granted this was a non-Batman title, so the price was lower, but still.

So, can my model work? I am thinking not. To get the fees back to the $0.05 listing price, you need to upgrade to the $50/month store, which is significant. I think, sadly, this may spell the end of my ebay store, unless I can find a new business model quickly.

A good experience

So with all the complaining, it is good to mix in some stories of places who seem to do things the right way. Lowe's has been very good to us in the last few months with allowing items to be returned opened, beyond 60 days, and without receipts. Here is how it has gone.

Back in November of last year, Erin, myself, and many helpers, constructed a new railing in our house. The prep for this project began in the fall, with the wood pieces being stained and sealed. We had one large trip to Lowes in September in which we dropped $1200, including a coupon which got us 10% off. As part of this trip we bought not only all the wood pieces we would need, but also an array of hardware we thought we might use to do the install. Of course, this was based on just some basic internet research into building and installing a railing, something none of us had ever done.

By the time we finished the install in the middle of November, we had numerous ideas that did not pan out (several of them are well documented in photos on facebook for those interested). At this point however, we were past 60 days since the purchase had been made, so it was tough to say whether they would accept these items back.

I took them to Lowe's, with receipt at least, and the woman told me that the items were beyond 60 days, but she could see it was a big order, so she issued me a store gift card for the returns (which was for only about $30). This was such a good decision, since we had spent so much money, and only wanted to return a fraction of it. Why chase someone to a different store over such a small amount?

Later, Erin and I decided to remodel our powder room. Another trip to Lowe's, another $1200 on the Lowe's card. This time, when the project was over, we had just a few small items to return, but I could not find the receipt of hand. I recalled that if you had the card you charged it to, that was enough, and receipt would not be needed. So off we went to the store. 3 of the items returned without a problem, but a 4th, which was one piece of crown molding, would not come up. He scanned it again, and again, to no avail. I was sure that it was on this credit card, but it jut wouldn't work. Erin and I decided that the problem was we have purchased 4 of what we thought were the same items, but it turned out that we had 2 of one color and 2 of another slightly different color. As a result, they had different UPC labels I am sure. When we checked out though, we just told the woman we had 4 of these, and handed her one to scan. There was a good chance this item was never really checked out. So what do you do?

Well, it was a $3 item, so the guy just decided to hand me the cash. I feel like there are other stores (Radio Shack) where this would not be the case. But for Lowe's, they were willing to take these items back with barely any questions asked. What does that do for them? Well, by my best guess, in the last year, I would say Erin and I have spent well over $4000 at Lowe's, and roughly $150 at a Home Depot not far away. Good customer service will bring the fans back.

Follow up from MasterCard International

This morning I received the following response from MasterCard International. I think at this point, I am going to send a letter to the RewardZone Mastercard people, asking that they reimburse me for my time with some rewardzone points. See where that goes.

Dear Robin,

First and foremost, we are sorry to hear about the inconveniences you have experienced with your MasterCard account and specifically with a card breach event that resulted in the issuance of a new account in your name. We also appreciate the concern and diligence you are taking to protect your finances as it relates to credit cards and the inquiry regarding this card account breach.

You should know that MasterCard licenses its' processing network to banks, who in turn, acquire cardholders and manage cardholder accounts. Specific to card breaches, MasterCard cannot determine which merchant transaction caused a card breach since this data is not provided to us. I have provided below a typical scenario of card breaches and the subsequent activity.

* Merchants use a processing company, or what MasterCard calls an Acquiring Bank, to consolidate all of their MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover transactions
* Processors are used to simplify how the daily charges are submitted
* Most card breaches occur when the computer system of a Processor is compromised and data in the computer is ‘exposed’ to an unauthorized source or person
* When the Processor realizes that an exposure has occurred, they send a list of the exposed accounts to MasterCard, Visa, etc in a large batch file
* In turn, MasterCard separates the list by issuing bank and then notifies each that a compromise has occurred
* MasterCard provides each issuing bank with a list of only their card accounts that were exposed; again this is an aggregate list of card accounts not specific merchant transactions
* The issuer then makes a decision, based on the risk presented, what actions they will take; sometimes that means the issuer will replace card accounts


I provide this explanation so you realize that MasterCard cannot provide the specific and infractional information cardholders request. We simply do not have this data, nor does the issuer. We do take each card breach occurrence very seriously and work closely with investigative agencies. Additionally, MasterCard has stiffened penalties to Processors to help ensure each of these companies protects cardholder data with extreme care and diligence.

Time for a new fight

Sometimes a little fight is a good thing. It helps to relieve any stress building up. I strongly believe in this. I also strongly believe in voicing my opinions, and standing up for what I consider to be "right". Some may call me stubborn at times, but I see it as confidence at other times. So, with that in mind, I am going to share with the readers my most recent battle that I am in the process of fighting, against a very large company. Here goes...

I do a pretty significant amount of internet shopping with my credit card. In fact, I use my credit card just about everywhere I go. I used to be embarrassed when I would use it on purchases that were pretty inexpensive, but the more you do it, the less bad you feel. The way I see it, is that I accumulate so many points to use on things, that I don't really care if someone at the register thinks I am strange for charging $1. Also, remembering my days at Rita's, I realized that the person at the register, probably doesn't care. It is not their store, and they are not paying the service fee. So, if no one cares, then why should I? I pay all my credit cards in full each month, so no harm done.

My most heavily used credit card is a BestBuy Rewardzone Mastercard. This is my go to card, and the only time I don't use it is when there is a problem with it, which has been very rare. I also may use one of my other cards once in a great while so those accounts don't close (having old accounts supposedly helps your credit rating). In any given month, I rack up roughly 1000 rewardzone points, which equates to about $20 in bestbuy gift cards. I am storing my points up right now, and as of the writing of this post, I have 32,500 points, which is good for $650 in gift certificates. Not bad, and all for free since I pay the card off each month.

Things were going along fine with this plan, until about one month ago. I was using my credit card on a Thursday evening to shop at an internet vendor, and the order went right through. The next morning, I used my credit card to order some postage from USPS.com, and the card was rejected. I tried again, same story. I used a different card, and it went right through. Very odd. I called the rewardzone mastercard people on the phone and I was told that their records indicated that my account had been compromised, and the account number closed and moved to a new card. I should receive it in the mail in about 7 days. When I asked what happened, they told me that mastercard international called them and informed them that a vendor I had shopped with misplaced some information, and as a result they thought I should change my credit card info. I asked who it was, and they told me that I could speak to a different person and maybe find out some info. I had to go to work, so I told them don't bother.

The annoying part of this was that I have my credit card saved in so many different places, I am still finding places where I need to update that. I also had a lot of autopay accounts setup, and I was not sure when those payments would try to go through. I asked how this would be handled, and mastercard told me that those payments would be rejected. They suggest I change the information, but at this point I don't have my new credit card. So, I went ahead and changed roughly 8 places where the old number was saved to avoid having any charges get rejected. This was a painful process, as I had to look through old statements to figure out which vendors I use autopay, log in to all of them, remove the old card, update a new card, only to log in a week or so later and use my new card info to repeat the process.

Once everything had settled, I decided that this bothered me more. I spent some time fixing everything, and someone should pay for that. Most notably, the vendor who was careless with my personal data. So, this morning, I called Bestbuy RewardZone Mastercard to ask who effed me. The conversation went something like this:

Me: My card info was compromised by a vendor about a month ago and I wanted to know the name of the vendor.

BBMC: I am sorry sir I cannot tell you that information.

Me: Um, why not? Isn't it my information that was compromised?

BBMC: If I told you this information you probably wouldn't shop at that vendor anymore.

Me: Exactly...

BBMC: Sorry sir, I cannot give you the information.

Me: Well, I need to hold someone accountable for this error, and if you can't tell me the vendor, then I will hold Mastercard responsible for this.

BBMC: Sorry sir, I cannot give you the information. Mastercard International told us of the compromise, so we merely followed instruction.

Me: OK, can I have some contact information for them?

BBMC: Sorry sir, I don't have that information.

Me: OK, I think we are done then.

BBMC: OK sir, I hope I have answered your questions and have a nice day.

Me: Sorry, I don't have that information. [hangup]


I was more than a little annoyed at this point. This conversation circled a few times in the middle, with me determined to get my answer. I even asked for a supervisor, and she told me that I would not get my answer from them either. So apparently, the problem is further up.

At this moment, I am working up a letter to MasterCard, and a letter to the RewardZone MasterCard offices. It is a difficult situation. I feel as though I need to follow through in my claim that someone should be held responsible, or if nothing else, compensate me for my time spent (what is a few thousand rewardzone points to them?!?!).

So what do you guys think? I really like this card and the rewards are the most useful for me out of any credit card. I don't really want to stop using the card, but at the same time, it does bother me that someone messed up, and I can't hold them accountable. Jurassic Park has been on a lot lately, and John Hammond, the park owner, has a good line in it where he says: "I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them. "

I think that quote accurately summarizes how I feel about most companies. We all make mistakes, and we all pay for them. Time to pay up!!

Back in Business

It has been a long time since I wrote here, but maybe this time I will be a little more dedicated to my blogging. In other words, I now have my own office at work, and over lunch might be the best time to add some material.

I am in the process of upgrading my ebay store. For the longest time I have been torn between the idea of letting the store go and close it up, or putting in some time and getting some new items. I finally decided that I was going to go ahead and get some new items, and try to push some more stuff out the door. It might be a temporary experiment, as it seems like increasing ebay fees and paypal fees are slowly pushing $5 items off the site, but I am willing to give it another try.

A month back, the Phillies celebrated Roy Halladay bobble head night. This was where the store started to make its turnaround. I had 12 bobbles to auction off, all very successfully (there should be some Sarge hats up there this weekend if you are interested...)

When those items went quickly, I decided that I just generally enjoy selling stuff on there. I have tried buying some deal a day items from best buy, with some mixed success there (I sold a few things for more than twice what I paid for them, sold a few for just a bit less than what I bought them for). I think there is some potential here, I just need better research before I commit. There have also been a lot of yard sale type items that have come up recently, and some of those went for a lot (sold our Super Nintendo and about 20 games for a little more than $225).

So, this is where I am. Working on new schemes. The thing about get rich quick schemes is that you only need one to work. So far I haven't found that one yet, but when I do, you will know about it.

Please comment with ideas you have, or just to let me know that someone out there might still read this.