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THE ISSUE.
ACSA has dedicated resources for the
purposes of providing aid to consumers or merchants who have
complaints regarding practices or other members in the Computer and
Telecommunications Industry. Our motto is: "We are concerned
about consumers: consumer safety and satisfaction insures that this
industry will succeed." Please press the following button
if you need to request assistance with a Vendor or Merchant who is ignoring your
requests for help or whom you believe has engaged in wrongdoing...
BACKGROUND.
In recent years, with the advent of the
Internet, many companies have adopted procedures which make it
increasingly difficult for customers with a problem to get them
resolved satisfactorily. Economic necessity, during any
recovery period, often leads to lack of "micro-enforcement" on the
part of lawmakers and enforcement groups. Budget cuts strip
agencies of necessary personnel and enforcement becomes drawn to
other more emergent issues, for example, the war on Terrorism.
Terrorist Groups use small-cap, petty and micro-crimes to pay the
bills for their local cells while organizing a terror attack, and
more recently the resources of US Law Enforcement has been focusing
on this issue so as to protect America. As a result, in some
cases, attention is not being paid as much to fundamentals of
consumer protection, so resources can focus on ferreting out the
terror in our midst. Unfortunately, that fact is being
leveraged by some unscrupulous corporations.
Corporate America is
always on the lookout for an angle. And Corporate America has
all the resources it takes to analyze and ascertain exactly how far
to go to still meet it's budget and earnings goals while reducing
it's responsibility to consumers.
For example, in management circles,
the use of automated telephone attendants presumes that the choices
provided will handle the majority of cases for concern, while also
successfully capturing and handling 100% of the "revenue providing"
telephone contacts. That has been augmented through use of
forms and limited email points of contact over the web, and in some
businesses, Chat systems.
As time has gone on, with increasing
reliance on low cost labor via off shore call centers (ACSA has
recently opened a project called BOYCOT,
to try to convince such businesses to bring the jobs back to
Americans), a strange
thing has happened: companies have fallen gradually out of touch
with their customers who are having problems, consumers have become
increasingly frustrated with the lack of attention their particular
problem can obtain, unresolved complaints have backlogged and
incentives for Call Centers to handle more and more workload versus
manpower on board, has resulted in shorter and reduced customer
support. And in some cases, management, under pressure to produce
lower and lower expenses, and more and more competitively priced
computer products, have abandoned even the most remedial customer
support in exchange for lower cost, believing their growth and
financial strength will outweigh the enormous animus of anger,
frustration and sense of betrayal that gives rise among their
customer base.
The consequences: a literal volcano
of consumer frustration has yielded everything from Internet Fraud
Bureau sites, to vendor monitor sites that are little more than
concentrations of venom, hate and even those capitalizing on the
consumer anger over vendor's failing to attend to their problem.
We have documented cases of such hate
sites in the past (but not without being sued by the object of those
sites trying to repress or restrain publicity on the subject...). In response
to the efforts by some to pressure vendors into paying attention to
their consumers with problems, instead of fixing those consumers'
problems, many of those complained of vendors have RESORTED TO SUING
ANYONE WHO POINTS OUT THE CHAIN OF ANTI-VENDOR RESENTMENT BY
POINTING TO ALL THE WEB SITES LOADED WITH COMPLAINTS ABOUT THEM.
Vendors who behave that way are, in our opinion, living in
self-denial and are leaving a time bomb ticking away in their
customer affairs base, a time bomb waiting to go off and destroy
their business.
We at ACSA have been watching the rising tide of unsatisfied
consumer gripes and complaints and are very surprised at how easy
most of them could be resolved in a manner beneficial to most of the
vendors involved. We have come to believe the foregoing
phenomenon is the worst series of events to ever occur in the
Computer Industry. We believe it is a fatal chain of events
that eventually catches up with each and ever vendor who sacrifices
customer satisfaction in this fatal manner. We believe that
instead of making progress, the "Vendor Credibility Gap" is
beginning to damage vendors throughout our industry in ways most of
them haven't the capacity to recognize.
THE SOLUTION.
And so, we have decided and dedicated ourselves to providing aid to
those with problems that we are able to verify, by taking steps to
document the problem and best solution, both publicly and to the
vendor in question. If you have such an aid request, please
submit it using the yellow button at the top of this page.
While we can not process every consumer request, we will analyze
your problem and if we feel there is something we can do to help,
we'll contact you! Please note that all requests are processed
on a first come first served basis without guarantee of fitness or
merchantability, and that you must indemnify us from all claims
associated with your request in the event of such being asserted
against the ACSA. We will refer you and your complaint to the
appropriate public agency or consumer protection enforcement
division (State or Federal or in your local country) if deemed
appropriate. You should make certain to keep copies of all
documents and records so that you can substantiate your concern.
ACSA could
also use public support. Please Donate by pressing the Donate
button on our home page
and pledging what you feel you can afford.
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