If you buy a newer car, you'll find that having a spare key for the car made at your dealers will cost $150 to $200. Ouch! This is because the newer cars require transponder keys. The keys need to be cut as before, but they also have electronics in the fob that communicate with the car itself.
I read about getting transponder key "blanks" in a newspaper column a few months ago, and I ordered keys for our cars. One is a 2008 Toyota, and the other is a 2010 Subaru. The newspaper column made it seem that the process was easy -- just go to the internet stores that the column recommended, buy the transponder keys, and you are basically done. I'm here to tell you that it is not so easy.
Getting a blank transponder key is only the first step. Once you have a blank key (the one for my Toyota cost $15), you have to find a locksmith that has the proper programming tools and program for your car. No locksmith in the Monterey, California area where I live could do this for me. The dealers, of course, refuse to do this. I called the internet store to ask for a solution and they recommended that I consult a web directory to find auto locksmiths in my area. I did so, and I found the names of a few auto locksmiths in the San Jose area, about a 2 hour drive from Monterey.
Out of four auto locksmiths that I called, only one person was remotely friendly or helpful. All the others quoted a price of $150 or more, or acted like they did not understand what I wanted to do. I drove up one weekday on other business and stopped off at Schwenk Lock & Safe, near Valley Fair shopping mall in San Jose. The owner, Yevgeny, was a jovial, very nice and helpful person. He berated be (nicely) for buying a transponder key on the internet, and then spent a good 30 minutes getting my key to work. He warned me continually that it was possible that after all his work, that the key would not work. In the end, it did work, and he charged me a measly $35 for all his time. I highly recommend these folks. I also recommend that you call them first, find out if they can get the transponder key for you ahead of time, and then bring in your car for a spare key. This will be the most efficient and painless way to get a spare key for your newer model car mde.
My 2010 Subaru is too new for the auto locksmith. I'll be returning the key to the internet store, and I'll post here if they do or do not honor their "no questions asked, no time limit" return policy.
Here are the vendors I used:
For the transponder keys: www.autotransponder.com, 1-866-595-9596. This internet store supplied me with the key "blanks." I do believe that their FAQ page was a bit misleading. It states, among other things: "New keys can be cut from a spare original. Transponder key comes with complete instructions, which require a second working programmed key. "
The truth is, my keys came with no instructions whatsoever. Creating a working spare key from the transponder requires that the actual car be present along with a working programmed key. If I had been told this first, it would have saved a few hours of driving around looking for locksmiths and visiting the car dealer in Monterey.
To find an auto locksmith in my area: www.autolocksmithfinder.com
The auto locksmith that programmed my Toyota key: Schwenk Lock & Safe, 60 N Winchester Blvd #4, San Jose, CA. yevgeny@locktools.com, 408-978-0403.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
holy cow, Creative Cow? Why so hostile to a newcomer?
Dear Ron: (and for my web-savvy friends whom I have bcc:d on this, let me know if I am out of line here, since I am gasping in disbelief at the acrimony arising from my using my email address that says "temp1@****.com"):
Holy cow! I can't believe the acrimony arising from my using my email address that says "temp1@****.com". So, here's my explanation.
I have three addresses that I use a lot.
spam@****.com is one of them. It happens to be an email address that I give out to friends and which I use for personal correspondence and for things like forums, Amazon, etc. I sometimes travel for weeks at a time. I have a Blackberry that can cost me a lot of money to get emails when I am in, for instance, Indonesia. So, for urgent work-related emails, I have an address that my office and business uses. I check those when I am overseas.
My "spam@****.com" email address is for personal stuff that is not usually urgent. The name is something I chose waggishly since it is one that I give to friends. I usually don't have those emails forwarded to my Blackberry. That's the background behind the "spam@****.com" email. Emails coming to any addresses that are spam are filtered out anyway before they reach me, largely.
Now, I do use email addresses beyond those. Anyone who is worried about spam and values their email privacy would do so. My "temp1@****.com" address forwards into my "spam@****.com" address. Using a "temp1@****.com" address doesn't filter emails for spam any more or less than my office and work emails might. It actually is a permanent email that just happens to be named "temp1". I am shocked that doing something as simple as this would irritate a forum manager to the point where he sends a irate message to a new member.
You are making a ton of assumptions about me based on something as innocuous as the email address I used to register on your site. Wow. It's almost like being labelled a nerd just because my name is Norbert and I am Chinese in descent.
Holy cow again!
-- Norb
On 4/17/10 7:04 PM, Ron Lindeboom wrote: Norman, Yes, I work hard and I wrestle with high blood pressure and so sometimes I get bitchie. But as I said: we take offense at "temp" addresses that are used in our site. You take offense that someone MIGHT send you something from here and so you use it. If you don't like our site, don't use it. I will gladly turn off your account as I am always ready to cull the herd, even when it's someone whom we own one of their books in our library. (Your Antarctica title.) You DID say our work was spam, by using the temp address -- you even admitted it was used to avoid spam. We got the message.On 4/17/10 12:41 PM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:Dear Ron: Wow. Maybe you have been working too hard. I have that problem often, but I try not to flame new clients or new contacts. Sorry for the email that voiced my concerns, but perhaps you can take it as constructive criticism rather than bringing in the three irrelevant responses you gave: 1. We spent over 8 million dollars building this and we do it our way. How much you've spent on the site was not relevant to my email to you. I am actually impressed by the site, but obviously it is not welcoming to new members. 2. We weren't impressed by you, either. How could you have been impressed or unimpressed by a brand-new member of your site? 3. we are offended by people who think all our work and effort is spam. Now, where did I ever say this? Holy crap, creative cow. And Ron.
We get lots of these temporary email account sign-ups, Norbert, and we turn them off. Yes, we are indeed autocratic and we also don't apologize for it. We spent over 8 million dollars building this and we do it our way. Weren't impressed by us? We weren't impressed by you, either. This site isn't on auto-pilot. And just as you are offended by autocratic site admins, we are offended by people who think all our work and effort is spam. Please don't feel the need to contribute if you don't want to, we have over 2 million people a month that do. We keep the serious ones who sign up for real and we toss the others. We call it "culling the herd."On 4/17/10 11:16 AM, Ron Lindeboom wrote: Hello Norbert, I wanted to point out that the account using temp2@****.com will be deactivated the first time that the email bounces. That is our policy. Best regards, The COW Team ********************* Parts of my original post to the forum and a surprisingly hostile reply: For the full thread, read: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1081667 Note that each time Norb posted to the forum, he got a warning message that his message was being moderated for quality or substance before being released. digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by Norbert Wu on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:06:47 pm Hi folks: I am hoping that I can get some suggestions from folks here. Thanks in advance. I have a library of about 250 HDCAM tapes that I hope to digitize to the ProRes422HQ format. Here is my plan, and I wonder if anyone sees any glaring errors in it or has suggestions to go this more efficiently or cheaply. Am I missing anything? 1. I will buy a used Sony J-H3 HDCAM deck to play back the tapes. This will give me an SDI output. I plan to sell the J-H3 deck after digitizing my tapes. I could also buy a J-H1 deck which outputs component HD, but I’ve heard that SDI will give a cleaner signal. It does seem that J-H3 decks sell more quickly and there is more demand for them than the J-H1 decks. 2. I’ll take the SDI output from the J-H3 deck and feed it into a Matrox MXO2 LE box. 3. My Mac tower will do most of the computing work. I will take the output from the Matrox box and convert it using Final Cut Pro version 6 (the latest I have), I will convert the footage to ProRes422HQ. My Mac is a 2 x 2.66 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with 3Gb RAM. 4. I have a MacGurus Burly Firewire 800 enclosure. My Mac will feed the ProRes422HQ footage into a Hitachi 2Tb hard drive using Firewire 800. I have heard that I should use RAID to avoid dropped frames, but I am not sure what flavor of RAID to use. Instead, I plan to capture footage to a drive, then clone the drive as backup. I’ve heard that Firewire 800 will be just fine to capture my footage. I’ve heard this statement: “You can capture ProRes to a single drive, but it may be safer to capture to a RAID to ensure there are no dropped frames.” Can anyone tell me what flavor of RAID I should use and how that would avoid dropped frames? My enclosure will allow me to set various RAID settings (software and hardware based, but I am told that the software based RAID is superior: Performace is superior using software RAID with OSX Disk Utility … and not the firmware RAID configured using the bridge RAID configurations). 5. Most of my tapes were shot in 1080i, but about 25 tapes were shot in 23.98. I shoot with an older F900 camera and after digitizing all existing tapes, I hope to sell the deck, and to use the camera to digitize any new tapes. Since the Matrox box has component HD as an input, I believe that I can simply feed my footage using the F900 camera to the Matrox box and use the procedure outlined above. Am I correct? 6. I’ve heard this statement: The only other issue needing research is monitoring the video levels for capture. I don't know if the signal can get messed up during capture. If anyone can explain the above and how I can solve any possible problem thereby, I’d greatly appreciate it. Many thanks in advance for any suggestions on the above. I am looking for a used J-H3 deck and a Matrox box to buy if anyone has one. Norbert Wu Norb ---------------------------------------- Norbert Wu Productions Pacific Grove, CA 93950 USA ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by Shane Ross on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:31:19 pm HQ is overkill. HDCAM is an 8-bit 3:1:1 format. IF it was HDCAM SR, you might choose HQ. But all that does for HDCAM is take up more space. That is a LOT of footage. 75GB per hour, so I hope those tapes aren't 1 hour tapes. Even if they are 30 min tapes, that is about 9.6TB of space. 14.1 TB at HQ. Shane GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD...don't miss it. Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by David Roth Weiss on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:45:07 pm [Shane Ross] "75GB per hour" Interesting, my Digital Heaven VideoSpace widget said 62.04 per hour. Must be because it defaults to 2-channels of audio, when HDCAM actually has 4-channels. David Roth Weiss Director/Editor/Colorist David Weiss Productions, Inc. Los Angeles POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™ EPK Colorist - UP IN THE AIR - nominated for six academy awards A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums. ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by Shane Ross on Apr 5, 2010 at 2:39:17 pm According to my AJA iPhone App, it is 75.3GB, with 2 CH of audio. Shane GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD...don't miss it. Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by Arnie Schlissel on Apr 5, 2010 at 3:45:54 pm [Shane Ross] "According to my AJA iPhone App, it is 75.3GB, with 2 CH of audio." Yes, but what does your iPad say? BTW, did you see Stephen Colbert chop salad with his? Arnie Post production is not an afterthought! http://www.arniepix.com/ ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by Norbert Wu on Apr 5, 2010 at 1:45:55 pm Thanks for the speedy replies regarding hard drive space. Hitachi 2Tb drives are $150 or so -- so I am not concerned about buying up to ten hard drives, and I believe my library of about 170 hours should only fill up 6 to 8 Tb, or 3 to 4 drives. That is a tiny amount of money compared to the cost of buying or renting a deck. Anyone see any glaring errors in this process otherwise? Thanks. Norb ---------------------------------------- Norbert Wu Productions ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by David Roth Weiss on Apr 5, 2010 at 2:01:47 pm [Norbert Wu] "Anyone see any glaring errors in this process otherwise? " Norbert, two of the forum leaders have already given you the same answer. What additional info could you really need? David Roth Weiss Director/Editor/Colorist David Weiss Productions, Inc. Los Angeles POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™ EPK Colorist - UP IN THE AIR - nominated for six academy awards A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums. ******* Re: digitizing HDCAM library to ProRes422HQ process by Norbert Wu on Apr 5, 2010 at 2:12:06 pm Well, I did have some other, perhaps more difficult questions in my post other than the hard drive space required. I do appreciate any answers to those questions, and I thank the two experts for their answers about hard drive space. Norb ---------------------------------------- Norbert Wu Productions Pacific Grove, CA 93950 USA there's more to the forum thread, all of which was helpful. David Roth Weiss, Creative Cow: why so hostile? We're all just out here trying to get along.What? What kind of message is this to send to a new user? Has an email sent to temp2@****.com bounced yet? Is there a reason to give a new user this negative feeling of having joined some kind of autocratic organization? I am a 25-year veteran of photography and filmmaking. I have multiple email addresses to avoid spam. I have a lot to contribute to a forum, but this message, and the incredible amount of administrative governance that I've encountered so far make me far less inclined to contribute to this forum or to even visit it. Just posting my first thread and getting a warning every time I posted a reply that it would be monitored, as well as the arrogance exhibited by one of your "experts", has left a very bad taste in my mouth. Wow. I am not impressed with Creative Cow. Norb
creative cow community for video folks -- dang, weird place
On 4/17/10 12:41 PM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:
> We get lots of these temporary email account sign-ups, Norbert, and we
> turn them off.
>
> Yes, we are indeed autocratic and we also don't apologize for it. We
> spent over 8 million dollars building this and we do it our way.
>
> Weren't impressed by us? We weren't impressed by you, either.
>
> This site isn't on auto-pilot. And just as you are offended by
> autocratic site admins, we are offended by people who think all our
> work and effort is spam.
>
> Please don't feel the need to contribute if you don't want to, we have
> over 2 million people a month that do. We keep the serious ones who
> sign up for real and we toss the others. We call it "culling the herd."
>
>
>>
>> What?
>> What kind of message is this to send to a new user?
>> Has an email sent to temp2@***.com bounced yet?
>> Is there a reason to give a new user this negative feeling of having
>> joined some kind of autocratic organization?
>>
>> I am a 25-year veteran of photography and filmmaking. I have
>> multiple email addresses to avoid spam. I have a lot to contribute to
>> a forum, but this message, and the incredible amount of
>> administrative governance that I've encountered so far make me far
>> less inclined to contribute to this forum or to even visit it. Just
>> posting my first thread and getting a warning every time I posted a
>> reply that it would be monitored, as well as the arrogance exhibited
>> by one of your "experts", has left a very bad taste in my mouth.
>>
>> Wow. I am not impressed with Creative Cow.
>>
>> Norb
>>
>
>
On 4/17/10 11:16 AM, Ron Lindeboom wrote:
Hello Norbert,
I wanted to point out that the account using temp2@***.com will be deactivated the first time that the email bounces.
That is our policy.
Best regards,
The COW Team
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
EyeTV hybrid product causes problems
My webmaster had a problem a few weeks ago where Quicktime clips that he was putting on my website had green poster (preview) frames.
I noticed this also. It was random. Today, however, just about every single video clip in my library on my Mac Pro started turning green.
I found this solution on the web, and it solved my problem.
> I too can confirm this, though I am using iMovie HD and showing green thumbs.
> After moving the "eyetv mpeg support.component" out of the folder and
> re-importing the video clip, thumb shows up fine. bummer eyetv affects it like
> that.
All my clips are fine again. I did not even have to reimport them.
I am not at all happy with EyeTV-- not only this problem, but many others. Admittedly, I have an older EyeTV Hybrid stick that has seen its share of use, but still - too many problems for a Mac product.
Why should this software affect all my video source files? That's terrible in and of itself.
I could not believe how clunky the EyeTV software was. It was terrible. If you moved the resulting recorded TV segment, the software would follow it. It usually would not record correctly as scheduled due to conflicts that you would never see. The quality of the recorded picture is terrible, far worse than what I get with a similar setup on a PC. The Titan TV schedule was OK, but for the past two years, I could never see what was on ABC! It always said "local programming" for that channel.
I noticed this also. It was random. Today, however, just about every single video clip in my library on my Mac Pro started turning green.
I found this solution on the web, and it solved my problem.
> I too can confirm this, though I am using iMovie HD and showing green thumbs.
> After moving the "eyetv mpeg support.component" out of the folder and
> re-importing the video clip, thumb shows up fine. bummer eyetv affects it like
> that.
All my clips are fine again. I did not even have to reimport them.
I am not at all happy with EyeTV-- not only this problem, but many others. Admittedly, I have an older EyeTV Hybrid stick that has seen its share of use, but still - too many problems for a Mac product.
Why should this software affect all my video source files? That's terrible in and of itself.
I could not believe how clunky the EyeTV software was. It was terrible. If you moved the resulting recorded TV segment, the software would follow it. It usually would not record correctly as scheduled due to conflicts that you would never see. The quality of the recorded picture is terrible, far worse than what I get with a similar setup on a PC. The Titan TV schedule was OK, but for the past two years, I could never see what was on ABC! It always said "local programming" for that channel.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
An Open Letter to the Marine Conservation Community
Note to readers: Norbert Wu was selected as a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation in 2001. He spent the next three years traveling the world, documenting marine conservation issues. At the end of his fellowship, he sent the following letter to many of the marine scientists that he had encountered at the Pew Fellows meetings.
I am writing this to a few of you who seem to have an interest in working with the popular media to get marine conservation messages out.
The overwhelming messages that I heard at the recent Pew Fellows meeting were:
1. Things are getting worse, not better.
2. Scientists need to get their message out.
3. Scientists are terrible about getting their messsage out. They need help.
If the Pew Fellows program is serious about solving marine conservation problems and recognizes that the popular media is an important part of the solution, then it needs to enlist the help of the popular media in a fundamental and integral way. It needs to marshal the expertise of the few Pew Fellows that have experience or interest in working with the popular media. It needs to enlist the participation of freelance filmmakers, photographers, writers, film producers, directors, and programming executives. It has to extend its effort well beyond the selection of scientists who are understandably absorbed in their culture and their areas of expertise and cannot direct their attention and energy to effective communication in the media.
The Pew program and its Fellows need to develop a mutual working respect for those in the popular media. Perhaps most importantly, it needs to recognize that getting stories in the popular media takes a professional, committed, time-consuming approach. Getting the message out will not be effective if delegated to "afternoons after I've finished my morning writing." The Pew program needs to fund and support those Fellows who can tell or present media stories, and the Pew Program should make "getting the message out" a top priority.
Here's an example. A recent article in Time magazine discusses how the hit CBS drama, CSI, has dramatized and popularized forensic science. Forensic scientists are rolling their eyes about the dramatic license taken in the series, but this show has increased awareness of forensic science. Forensic science schools report a dramatic increase in interest and enrollment. This is part of what we need: a new series about the oceans, with compelling characters. The series will certainly will hype and over-dramatize science.
Any scientist watching such a series will roll their eyes and cringe in embarassment, as DNA is analyzed in minutes rather than weeks, and the characters encounter adventure after adventure and make definitive statements like "the bluefin tuna fishery is crashing!" rather than "if we look at the attached reports and graphs, there is a 90% probability that tuna stocks are in serious decline. We recommend further study."
There needs to be a push to get marine science into all aspects of the popular media. There should a computer simulation game called "SIM Coral Reef," just as there is a "SIM City." There should be several television series on marine science, featuring buff women and men who would otherwise be on Baywatch, and having plots that are only a small cut above Baywatch (which was the world's most-watched series in its day). We need to continue to preach to the converted, continue to hook up scientists with the media, but we need to take a far more proactive approach to getting our stories out in far more outlets. We need to realize that we have compelling stories to tell and sell to the popular media. The Pew program is ideally situated to help marine conservationists do this. In my opinion, however, it has failed miserably and spectacularly so far in getting any kind of message out to the masses.
I could say a lot more, but this is sufficient for an initial communication. I am happy to discuss these issues and ideas with anyone.
Norb
Norbert Wu
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA
I am writing this to a few of you who seem to have an interest in working with the popular media to get marine conservation messages out.
The overwhelming messages that I heard at the recent Pew Fellows meeting were:
1. Things are getting worse, not better.
2. Scientists need to get their message out.
3. Scientists are terrible about getting their messsage out. They need help.
If the Pew Fellows program is serious about solving marine conservation problems and recognizes that the popular media is an important part of the solution, then it needs to enlist the help of the popular media in a fundamental and integral way. It needs to marshal the expertise of the few Pew Fellows that have experience or interest in working with the popular media. It needs to enlist the participation of freelance filmmakers, photographers, writers, film producers, directors, and programming executives. It has to extend its effort well beyond the selection of scientists who are understandably absorbed in their culture and their areas of expertise and cannot direct their attention and energy to effective communication in the media.
The Pew program and its Fellows need to develop a mutual working respect for those in the popular media. Perhaps most importantly, it needs to recognize that getting stories in the popular media takes a professional, committed, time-consuming approach. Getting the message out will not be effective if delegated to "afternoons after I've finished my morning writing." The Pew program needs to fund and support those Fellows who can tell or present media stories, and the Pew Program should make "getting the message out" a top priority.
Here's an example. A recent article in Time magazine discusses how the hit CBS drama, CSI, has dramatized and popularized forensic science. Forensic scientists are rolling their eyes about the dramatic license taken in the series, but this show has increased awareness of forensic science. Forensic science schools report a dramatic increase in interest and enrollment. This is part of what we need: a new series about the oceans, with compelling characters. The series will certainly will hype and over-dramatize science.
Any scientist watching such a series will roll their eyes and cringe in embarassment, as DNA is analyzed in minutes rather than weeks, and the characters encounter adventure after adventure and make definitive statements like "the bluefin tuna fishery is crashing!" rather than "if we look at the attached reports and graphs, there is a 90% probability that tuna stocks are in serious decline. We recommend further study."
There needs to be a push to get marine science into all aspects of the popular media. There should a computer simulation game called "SIM Coral Reef," just as there is a "SIM City." There should be several television series on marine science, featuring buff women and men who would otherwise be on Baywatch, and having plots that are only a small cut above Baywatch (which was the world's most-watched series in its day). We need to continue to preach to the converted, continue to hook up scientists with the media, but we need to take a far more proactive approach to getting our stories out in far more outlets. We need to realize that we have compelling stories to tell and sell to the popular media. The Pew program is ideally situated to help marine conservationists do this. In my opinion, however, it has failed miserably and spectacularly so far in getting any kind of message out to the masses.
I could say a lot more, but this is sufficient for an initial communication. I am happy to discuss these issues and ideas with anyone.
Norb
Norbert Wu
----------------------------------------
Norbert Wu Productions
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
USA
Friday, June 19, 2009
Problems, problems with Paypal
You have a point, but I am not sure how much Paypal stands behind its customers. Off the top of my head, here are things I've experienced with Paypal that I have found pretty negative:
1. As a buyer, I purchased a camera from a web storefront almost a year ago and paid using a credit card through Paypal. The web storefront proved to be fraudulent and never sent me the camera. Now, if I had paid using my credit card directly rather than through Paypal, I would have been completely protected without much of a hassle factor. All I would have to do is call my credit card company, enter a dispute, and the transaction would have been immediately voided and all money returned. I can attest to this as I know the law regarding credit cards (at least up to now). You as the consumer are always protected from credit card fraud by law for anything beyond $50. And just about all credit card companies will cover that last $50 also. (I was even refunded four months after I made an annual payment to Digital Railroad, a company that I leased software from for my website photo search engine, which got greedy and went bankrupt. The credit card company investigated the matter and refunded me the remaining eight or nine months out of the amount I had paid, which I thought was very cool).
Now, back to the above ripoff -- Paypal is just a middleman between the customer and the credit card. They took weeks to investigate the matter, kept asking me for more information, treated the matter in their usual incredibly impersonal (computer-phone tree) way that makes everyone but the most dedicated give up, and they finally refunded most of my money but kept something like $22 with no explanation.
I then called my credit card company, explained the situation, and boom -- all my money was credited back.
2. I have no idea what will happen if I, as a seller, am paid by someone who then lies to Paypal to get their money back; if their transfer of funds proves insufficient, etc. I have a strong feeling that in such cases, sellers will get hosed by Paypal. After all, Paypal is owned by Ebay, who seems hell-bent on favoring buyers rather than sellers. Sellers can't leave feedback for buyers. If a seller makes a mistake in listing a price in a buy-it-now auction and someone jumps on a too-good-to-be-true deal within 15 minutes of the listing, then the seller is forced to sell the item, or endure a negative feedback from the buyer as well as full forfeiture of the Ebay auction fee and commission. If I get stiffed by a buyer, however -- no problem. I can't do a dang thing.
I once sold an item to someone who had a problem with it. The item was fine, my return policy stated that I accept returns but the seller would have to pay shipping costs both ways unless the item was DOA. The buyer contacted Paypal, who disregarded my return policy and basically favored the buyer over the seller in all instances. Sellers don't have a chance if they get defrauded by buyers. Not a chance.
3. Paypal does all kinds of sneaky stuff to get you to withdraw funds directly from your bank account as opposed to using your credit card for transactions. I believe that this is because they make a bit more money if you use your bank account rather than a credit card. But you also get more protection if you are using your credit card. If you buy something on Ebay and use your Paypal account to pay, you are automatically paying by a direct withdrawal from your bank account. You have to be savvy enough and curious enough to hunt down the option to use your credit card. That option is often completely hidden, with no explanation, if you have any funds whatsoever in your Paypal account. You have to stop whatever you are doing in such a case, go to your Paypal account, withdraw any funds in your Paypal account, then go back to buying whatever it was on Ebay that you were using your Paypal account for. Only then will you even be able to see an option to pay for the item using your credit card.
4. I am not sure if anyone has seen ads where Blockbuster or Tiger Direct offers something like $20 or $25 back if you buy something from them using Paypal. I've been hooked by offers like this twice in the past year and have never been able to get Paypal to pay me back. It is a total scam because Paypal will never issue the rebate, and unless you have documented the offer with screen grabs, you have absolutely no proof and no recourse. Also, when you call Paypal, they tell you that the merchant is at fault. When you call the merchant, they tell you that Paypal is at fault.
Well, I actually did get some money from Paypal for the above instances. I called the Paypal phone number which I give below as a reward for reading so far into this diatribe. Feel free to pass this on.
If you have the above problem, here is a "secret" phone number to get to a supervisor.
Paypal: call this phone 402-935-7733, at some point just enter #47550 and that seems to be a magic number to get to an operator and supervisor. Both times, I talked to a supervisor about the above situations, and without asking for paperwork or anything else, the supervisors issued me the promised rebate to my account. Unbelievably, the credit to my account actually did come through. The above phone number and extension was given to me by a supervisor there. You have to ignore the constant phone tree runaround that this number gives you and keep entering the above extension. At some point, the phone tree robot will get overridden by the extension above, and you will get transferred to a supervisor.
Your consumer advocate.
1. As a buyer, I purchased a camera from a web storefront almost a year ago and paid using a credit card through Paypal. The web storefront proved to be fraudulent and never sent me the camera. Now, if I had paid using my credit card directly rather than through Paypal, I would have been completely protected without much of a hassle factor. All I would have to do is call my credit card company, enter a dispute, and the transaction would have been immediately voided and all money returned. I can attest to this as I know the law regarding credit cards (at least up to now). You as the consumer are always protected from credit card fraud by law for anything beyond $50. And just about all credit card companies will cover that last $50 also. (I was even refunded four months after I made an annual payment to Digital Railroad, a company that I leased software from for my website photo search engine, which got greedy and went bankrupt. The credit card company investigated the matter and refunded me the remaining eight or nine months out of the amount I had paid, which I thought was very cool).
Now, back to the above ripoff -- Paypal is just a middleman between the customer and the credit card. They took weeks to investigate the matter, kept asking me for more information, treated the matter in their usual incredibly impersonal (computer-phone tree) way that makes everyone but the most dedicated give up, and they finally refunded most of my money but kept something like $22 with no explanation.
I then called my credit card company, explained the situation, and boom -- all my money was credited back.
2. I have no idea what will happen if I, as a seller, am paid by someone who then lies to Paypal to get their money back; if their transfer of funds proves insufficient, etc. I have a strong feeling that in such cases, sellers will get hosed by Paypal. After all, Paypal is owned by Ebay, who seems hell-bent on favoring buyers rather than sellers. Sellers can't leave feedback for buyers. If a seller makes a mistake in listing a price in a buy-it-now auction and someone jumps on a too-good-to-be-true deal within 15 minutes of the listing, then the seller is forced to sell the item, or endure a negative feedback from the buyer as well as full forfeiture of the Ebay auction fee and commission. If I get stiffed by a buyer, however -- no problem. I can't do a dang thing.
I once sold an item to someone who had a problem with it. The item was fine, my return policy stated that I accept returns but the seller would have to pay shipping costs both ways unless the item was DOA. The buyer contacted Paypal, who disregarded my return policy and basically favored the buyer over the seller in all instances. Sellers don't have a chance if they get defrauded by buyers. Not a chance.
3. Paypal does all kinds of sneaky stuff to get you to withdraw funds directly from your bank account as opposed to using your credit card for transactions. I believe that this is because they make a bit more money if you use your bank account rather than a credit card. But you also get more protection if you are using your credit card. If you buy something on Ebay and use your Paypal account to pay, you are automatically paying by a direct withdrawal from your bank account. You have to be savvy enough and curious enough to hunt down the option to use your credit card. That option is often completely hidden, with no explanation, if you have any funds whatsoever in your Paypal account. You have to stop whatever you are doing in such a case, go to your Paypal account, withdraw any funds in your Paypal account, then go back to buying whatever it was on Ebay that you were using your Paypal account for. Only then will you even be able to see an option to pay for the item using your credit card.
4. I am not sure if anyone has seen ads where Blockbuster or Tiger Direct offers something like $20 or $25 back if you buy something from them using Paypal. I've been hooked by offers like this twice in the past year and have never been able to get Paypal to pay me back. It is a total scam because Paypal will never issue the rebate, and unless you have documented the offer with screen grabs, you have absolutely no proof and no recourse. Also, when you call Paypal, they tell you that the merchant is at fault. When you call the merchant, they tell you that Paypal is at fault.
Well, I actually did get some money from Paypal for the above instances. I called the Paypal phone number which I give below as a reward for reading so far into this diatribe. Feel free to pass this on.
If you have the above problem, here is a "secret" phone number to get to a supervisor.
Paypal: call this phone 402-935-7733, at some point just enter #47550 and that seems to be a magic number to get to an operator and supervisor. Both times, I talked to a supervisor about the above situations, and without asking for paperwork or anything else, the supervisors issued me the promised rebate to my account. Unbelievably, the credit to my account actually did come through. The above phone number and extension was given to me by a supervisor there. You have to ignore the constant phone tree runaround that this number gives you and keep entering the above extension. At some point, the phone tree robot will get overridden by the extension above, and you will get transferred to a supervisor.
Your consumer advocate.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
renting a car in New Zealand
I recently rented a car in Christchurch, New Zealand. I checked Pegasus, Hertz, Avis, and Thrifty. Hertz was the best deal and was only NZD$50 per day for a little Mazda 3 hatchback. The great thing about New Zealand car rentals is this -- the main insurance is included in the price. So you can decline all the insurance they may offer you -- the most you will pay in case of an accident is what they'd call the "deductible" here of $2500 (NZD), which they call something else there.
Be careful of the smaller car agencies. Pegasus charges by the km after you reach 150km per day. Hertz and Avis gave unlimited miles.
Lastly, if you stay in Christchurch the first night back and rent a car, Hertz and Avis have offices downtown. I saved the airport pickup fee for rental cars of $30 by picking the car up downtown and returning it to the airport.
One tip is that car rental agencies take your reservation on the web, but they will not charge you if you never show up. I don't abuse this, but I do sometimes make two reservations for different times with different car rental agencies if I am not sure of my times. I do try to cancel in advance but it is not a big deal if I do not. In the US at least -- and in New Zealand - I decline all the extra insurance that the car agencies ask for. In the US, my existing car insurance covers liability and all other stuff, and my credit card covers the deductible.
Be careful of the smaller car agencies. Pegasus charges by the km after you reach 150km per day. Hertz and Avis gave unlimited miles.
Lastly, if you stay in Christchurch the first night back and rent a car, Hertz and Avis have offices downtown. I saved the airport pickup fee for rental cars of $30 by picking the car up downtown and returning it to the airport.
One tip is that car rental agencies take your reservation on the web, but they will not charge you if you never show up. I don't abuse this, but I do sometimes make two reservations for different times with different car rental agencies if I am not sure of my times. I do try to cancel in advance but it is not a big deal if I do not. In the US at least -- and in New Zealand - I decline all the extra insurance that the car agencies ask for. In the US, my existing car insurance covers liability and all other stuff, and my credit card covers the deductible.
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