RE: midrangenews.net and boycotting

I also let my clients know which companies have sent IT functions 
off-shore, and let them know that I boycott those firms also. Here's a 
good one:

I came home from a trip last Friday night. On Saturday, as I was going 
throught the mail, I found a collection notice for $19.90 from the parent 
company of Juno and NetZero. I had opened a Juno account over 4 years ago, 
in the dark ages before broadband. When I got broadband about 3.5 years 
ago, I sent Juno a letter to cancel the account. I thought that was the 
end of my association with Juno. When I called the number given on the 
collection letter yesterday, all I got was a recording telling me where to 
send the payment. I went to Juno's web site and finally found the number 
to call about billing questions. As you may have already guessed, I was 
connected to India. 

The first guy's accent  was completely unintelligible, so I asked for his 
supervisor. She was almost as bad, but I was able to decipher that 1, they 
had no record of having received my letter, and 2, they had been charging 
my credit card ever since. When we closed that account in January, Juno 
couldn't hit it for any more money. Hence, the collection letter. Before 
you jump on me, be aware that my wife handles the bills, at least until 
last night, that is. I told the woman in charge that I had sent a letter 
cancelling the account, and that I wanted my money back. She told me that 
the only way that Juno permits somebody to cancel is via a phone call. 
When I responded that a letter is required for such transactions in 
America, she said something I couldn't understand. I asked to speak to her 
supervisor. She refused. She asked for 3 to 5 business days to review the 
account, and that I should send a copy of the letter. When I asked for 
their Fedex account number so that I could overnight the letter, and asked 
to whom I should send an invoice for my time, she said something else 
unintelligible and hung up on me. Too bad, because next I was going to ask 
to be connected to an American in Woodland Hills.

Being a resourceful guy, I called directory assistance for that company in 
California. No numbers were found. I jumped on Google and found through 
Forbes.com not only a number, but also the names of executives there. I 
got through to the accounting department and explained the situation. The 
lady (American accent) put me on hold for a couple of minutes, and then 
their phone system disconnected me. This happened twice more. On the 
fourth call, I asked to speak to the CFO, whose name was listed on the 
Forbes web site. I actually got transferred to his secretary, and after 
explaining the situation to her, she connected me to someone who not only 
fixed the situation, but is sending me a check refunding all charges since 
January 1, 2003.

This stuff is much easier to resolve when one is speaking to an American. 
By the way, the credit card we cancelled was a Bank of America card. We 
decided to pay it off and close the account after learning that B of A had 
outsourced American IT jobs to India.