What a strange company

I got my Motorola Droid - so far loving it. But Verizon Wireless really does have some strange business practices.

I have a second line, and usually when I get a new phone after my New Every 2 kicks in, they give me a new free phone for the 2nd line. It's not as good as the main phone, obviously, usually just a basic one, but what the heck, it's a new phone.

So as I was in the Verizon store on 86th today getting the Droid, I asked the guy what free phone comes with it for the second line.

Well, apparently none. He claimed they subsidize the Droid so much, they don't give a free phone with it.

I was perturbed and he noted I could get a new one pretty cheap. I looked at the Samsung Intensity, which sells for $70, but comes with a $50 rebate, so final cost was 20 bucks. I told him I'd take that, but he helpfully told me that if I ordered it online they sell it at the reduced price without having to go through the rebate dog & pony show of sending in the receipt and the bar code and waiting 8 weeks for it to show up, they just sell it at the $20 price.

Even better.

So I get home, log on to Verizon - and it turns out they actually are selling it to me free. No charge at all. And the beauty part, no shipping charge. I just got an email from FedEx that it's already left their West Chester, PA facility and will be here in two days.

Now you figure the 2-day shipping is going to cost Verizon, what, 8 bucks, 10?

So instead of just giving me the damn phone for free in the store, they are going to pay money to ship it to me.

And somehow they will still manage to make a bazillion dollars this year.

Bastards

The cell phone industry really does seem to go out of its way to make it difficult and piss you off, doesn't it?

I'm drooling over the Motorola Droid phone and my Verizon contract kicked into New Every 2 mode a few weeks ago...but now I'm reading about this Nexus phone which is only available on T-Mobile, which I have no interest in switching to - but apparently it will soon be available on Verizon in a few months.

And then you keep hearing that the iPhone will also soon be available on Verizon.

Seriously, these cell phone carriers/hardware companies just like to make us jump through hoops.

Bastards.

Somewhere on the rails

Mobile post from the railroad wondering if it works. Because even on a commuter train people are annoying. I need one of those "Get Smart" cone of silence things. If someone invents a portable one they will make a fortune.

Take your little scam elsewhere

A year or so ago, when I was moving Too Saucy from the blogspot.com site, where it had been for a few years (awkwardly named toosaucy.blogspot.com), to its own stand alone domain name, I tried to get TooSaucy.com - but someone had bought the name. And it was just there - blank, nothing on the page. Obviously, it was one of those creepy companies that buy domain names and then sit on them hoping to sell them for a profit.

Oh well. What are you going to do. But toosaucy.org was available, so I got that instead.

Well, a few days ago I got an email from the domain snatcher informing me that, hey, what do you know, toosaucy.com was available and it could be mine.

"We noticed that you own TOOSAUCY.ORG and felt that you may be interested in acquiring the .COM version of your existing domain name. It is available for a one-time fee of only $49.00 USD."

Of course, a domain name only costs $10 from a regular registry, like Go Daddy (not to mention, they have hot girls in their Super Bowl ads).

Well, needless to say, I was not about to give those creeps $49 - but, hey guys, thanks for informing me .com was now available. So I immediately hopped on Go Daddy, and, voilà, ten bucks later, toosaucy.com belongs to me, its rightful owner.

And, I have the pleasure of knowing that they held on to the name for two years, so the whole thing actually cost them $20.

Not that I'll make any real money from it, but, you know, it's the principle.