Search:

I recently purchased my home using Zip Realty as my buyers agent/realtor. Here I present numerous experiences to consider before using Zip Realty as your agent.

[[in process]]

Walter Zilinksy and Al Petre work out of Westchester County, NY for Home team Inspection, (Hometeaminspection.com). Below is a Home Team Inspection review from me using their services for my Condo purchase on 7/31/08.

I will be posting my experience with Al Petre Home Team inspection and Walter Zilinsky. Basically there is no reason to hire these guys as they do not inspect homes they just come to visit and charge you for it. There are number of obvious things missed during their inspection.

[[in process]]

Etrade is an full service online bank that normally out beats brick and mortar banks with high interest savings, low-fee security trading, and extremely efficient online banking platform. Now that's the good news. The bad news is eTrade consistently has failed to prove to me that you can use this online bank for all your banking needs.

Etrade needs to figure out how to better handle the fact that it's an online bank but its customers may need the conveniences of a local branch more effectively.

Etrade website fails to give any guidance on obtaining a "bank check" or cashiers check on its website. Bank checks are often required for buying cars and houses, which everyone does and it's important to provide this information.

Etrade offer some of the best CD (certificate of deposit) rates. Even though they offer quick transfer with normal accounts they fail to provide withdrawal information for their CD accounts and this must be handled by calling their customer service number. For one of their CD's I had to call their customer service and then fax a letter asking for a transfer to my OTHER Etrade account. This is totally unnecessary and was a huge inconvenience.

Etrade does have some physical branches. The branch I visited was pretty big and resembled a normal branch bank. However the bank failed to provide services that a normal bank branch provided. You couldn't get a cashiers check, you couldn't get a withdrawal over the provided ATM limit, the people working there only were there to assist with their securities division and opening new accounts. In my mind they are wasting space and these branches could be used in a more beneficial way to their consumers.

So even though eTrade does provide great rates and easy online banking they still have work to do if they want to become the one stop shop for banking.

Realty Trac, Realtytrac.com is site that tries to offer services for people interested in buying homes. They fail miserably. I signed up for a free trial with them and found house I was interested in and received three different emails saying that I will be contacted by a real estate agent with 24 hours. I didn't hear from a single agent. I canceled my account, however, Realty Trac still charged my credit card at a wopping $49.95.

So I figured I'd email them to get a refund and they denied the refund. Why? Because they said I signed in after the trial period ended. Why did I sign in after the trial period? Because they require you to sign in to send them customer service emails. They also offer no contact infromation for customer service for non members.

UPDATE - Not only does RealtyTrac take your money they also could run up your cell phone bill. After I cancelled Reatlytrac I started receiving phone calls on my cell phone from 949-502-7787 on a daily basis. The phone would ring and the caller hangs up as soon as you talk. I am not sure their purpose of this but this adds to the list poor business practices that Realtytrac engages in and their lack of responsibility.

Link: http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-502-7787

So here's to Realty Trac (realtytrac.com) to gaining a place on the TJShome.com hall of shame.

EDIT: Fixed Spelling Reatlytrac.com =/ Realtytrac.com

I was looking to start a new career as an insurance adjuster. A Google search returned the website usstaffingadj.com.
The first time I called the guy who answered was pretty nice but I didn't have the cash for their program (which was pretty expensive). Well the sales guy was persistent and said I wouldn't work as an adjuster if I didn't get licensed through them and get their training. I finally agreed because I really needed the work. What a mistake! The training was lousy at best. It was clear once I was there that they just wanted my money and that being on their "roster" meant NOTHING. Despite numerous calls to US Staffing Adjusting Services I have not been able to get work from them. Moreover the "training" they provided has definitely not prepared me to work as an adjuster.

External Link: usstaffingsucks.com

Ask.com is the only major search engine that does not index this website. I have tried numerous attempts to get an answer on why this is and have gotten no response. If a search engine can't index this page that shows that it must be missing tons of other links. I suggest that no one use this search engine as you will clearly not be getting as good results as using competitors searches such as google, msn, and yahoo.

ASK.com index this page or give me a reason why you won't index this page.

This website offers cheap eyeglass prescriptions online. They would be great deal if you always got the correct glasses. They are the only online business that makes you pay if they make a mistake creating your prescription glasses. Also if you make a mistake entering your prescription you just lost the money you paid because they offer no recourse in these instances. Here is the text from their FAQ's:

We are proud to provide you with a 30 days quality guarantee !
If you find that we customize your glasses with the wrong prescription in 30 days, We will replace them with the correct ones.
All you need to pay is the shipping fee of your glasses .
However, please make sure that the prescription error is not from data input when filling out the order form. In that case, NO lens replacements will be provided . To verify if there is a prescription mistake made by us. Take your glasses to your nearest optical store . They will be glad to help you verify your glasses' prescription .

Some quality guarantee you offer there. We need to pay shipping even if you made the mistake?? What if you we just do not like the quality of the frames and not the lens? What guarantee do you offer then??

Paychex is a payroll service provider for millions of small and large businesses. I feel this company has no commitment on customer satisfaction and here is why:

1.) Some of Paychex representatives are not competent or do not care. I've seen instances where paychex failed to provide social security numbers for employees on Government filed reports. Getting a social security number is not hard to get for an employee and they should know better than to file payroll returns and W-2's with out this REQUIRED information. This lack of care leads to payroll tax notices the company receives and could lead to penalties. And it is hard to get paychex to handle payroll tax notices even if it is their screw up.

2.) Paychex 401k fees are high and absurd. I have 401k with them and they charged me almost 20% in fees on my contributions. They call the fee the "Mid-Atlantic Trustee Fee". Such a high fee is unexplainable and shows that they don't care about the end customer and only care about profit. If my employer didn't match my contribution I would need to earn >20% from my investments which is not plausible in most instances. Furthermore, no statements or account information I received from Paychex gives information on how this fee is calculated.

3.) Payroll Reports - Paychex payroll reporting sucks. They need a system where their reports can be export to .CSV or excel format (NOT txt or unicode) for easy file keeping and application into accounting systems.

I starting to hate internet companies that auto bill you on a subscription basis. The dating website Match or Match.com is a big perpetrator of this and they have a strict no-refund policy. In my opinion it should be illegal for someone to auto bill your credit card without honoring refunds.. it is unethical. I recently paid for a myspace subscription for six months on sale for $30 bucks. I didn't use it much and pretty much forgot about it until my card was charged after the subscription ended for a full year subscription for $113. Absolutely no warning email was given and support was very rude and unapologetic. I ended up having to issue a charge back through my credit card, which had a special handling procedure for myspace since so many people end up having to issue charge backs.

Match.com change your unethical business model and earn your revenue fair!

Pricegrabber sucks for reporting other companies that suck.

Pricegrabber.com is the reason I created this page in the first place. I had a unpleasant experience with an online retailer Tuccini Fragrance Outlet and wanted to post my experience to let other people know about this consumer. Knowing that Pricegrabber is one of biggest retailer information centers I figured it would be a great place for my post. So I did everything correctly and wrote up pretty lengthy essay with exact details and provided my order number. I submit my experience and then a couple days later log into my account to check the status of my submissions. Turns out they deleted all traces of my submission and there is no explanation of why this happened. So I write a kind letter to support asking where the submission went and get a very blunt response "Your review was removed because the invoice number that you provided is invalid.

Please feel free to resubmit your submission. Make sure to include the correct invoice number so that your review is approved." --Pricegrabber

Now I know I checked and double checked my order number so I know it was correct. This got me angry because I wasted my time submitting my review since and would have to rewrite the whole thing to submit again. And they didn't even give me an update in my account --- they just deleted all traces. They should let people know when their story is rejected and give a detailed description. I use to check Pricegrabber for all my reviews but I don't trust them anymore as I think they side with the sellers more because of this. I mean store reviews are a big part of their site and they should have a better system for handling them.

Blockbuster online rental offers you DVD rentals in your mail. When blockbuster raises rates in likes to do it on a extraordinary scale. Blockbuster recently changes is plan offerings which resulted in a price increase of 38% or from $17.99 to 24.99 per month for 3 DVD's at a time. Further more if you decide to quit your plan during your rental period, you're subscription does not continue through the period you already paid for they cancel your account immediately. These two items caused me to cancel my account and give Netflix a try.

I never thought I would add a company that gave me a free iPod to this list, but they definitely earn it. Gratis is the operator of freeipods.com. How it works is you sign up for an offer and refer your friends to do the same and you get a free product. Sounds Easy, right? It would be, except if you follow all the rules and complete all the requirements they will end up suspending your account with out a reason anyway. It happened to me and I never got a free computer as their offer entitled me to. Also, I should mention that they were investigated by the Attorney General of NY for selling email addresses to outside parties for unsolicited mailings. Offercentric, LLC is much more reputable company and IS LEGIT.

Have a MBNA credit card? If you do not, do not get one. Every month you get a call from a Telemarketer offering you a deal for a fee based service add on for your card (ie: Security, points programs). They tell you that as long as you do not maintain a balance you will not be charged, then proceed to charge you anyway. And no matter how many times you ask them to stop calling they do not. These are not official MBNA representatives either... they sell your information to outside vendors who market you these plans. Like the company above this shows to me that they only care about the buck and not customer satisfaction.

Why Wachovia Sucks:

Wachovia is business model is the worst I ever seen. They are worst than the IRS, in that like to "tax" the poor by only charging brokerage accounts with minimal balances an annual fee.
Have a brokerage account that had less than $10,000 balance? Did you not Generate them any commmission during the year? If not, than you may get charged $85/year. Basically they are charging you money to let your money sit with them. Wachovia Bank is one of the biggest banks in the world. They must have grown too big because they no longer want to do business with the "little folks". You will notice this when dealing with their customer service and viewing their account fee schedules. They come up with new ways to charge people before coming up with better ways to do business with people. I hate companies that have no care for customer satisfaction.