Sticking it to the man (well I wish)

Ok I understand I'm not "that" important in the whole scheme of the business world. I'm not a huge spender, I'm definitely not a millionaire, and that's fine (well ok, I'd like to be a millionaire don't get me wrong) But I've had it up to here with dealing with some of the companies out there. Have they all gotten so big that ticking off one customer is of no concern? We really are just a statistic or source of revenue.

The source of my annoyance: the giant baby retailer who shall remain nameless. I'll give you two tries but I'm assuming it's obvious. Nevermind that it was a pain in the butt dealing with our registry and trying to buy stuff off of it (always out of stock) Or that earlier this week I bought a bumbo seat to find it was heavily used and that the original owner's baby shower card was still in the box. Promptly returned. This morning, I had called the credit card company (since I have one of the store cards) to see if just possibly they could remove the one late fee on the account from last month. Pretty much "no way in hell" - all they said was "read your rules." I heard that about ten times and cancelled the card.

Ok, yeah, it's my fault: I paid it late last month. Believe me, I get that and am beyond annoyed with myself for paying a bill late. Proudly though, only the second time ever in my bill paying history but still my fault. Hadn't realized the payment due date was on a Sunday and made my billpay set it up wrong. Fine. But they can't, in the spirit of things and seeing how much we spend there, take away the little $30 fee? Having had not such a good morning (another post for that) I was not happy enough cancelling the card. I found the "contact us" comment form on the corporate site and went to town. Mathematically spelled it out how much in formula, diapers and baby gear we will spend in the next two years, and while they would receive their $30, the thousands "to be spent" will be going to another company.

Do they care? Probably (almost certainly) not. Will the new company be happy to have my business? Maybe, maybe not. But at least I tried and voiced my frustration. While I like to save money and get good deals / low prices, maybe while it may mean spending a bit more, I'm going to try to give my business to people who give a damn. Example: a local grocery chain, as they do, has signs posted how they are not responsible for cart damage. My dad had a cart break his headlight. At first request, the grocery store said there was nothing they could do - "read the signs." Well, he then sent them all the receipts / copies of checks to show how much he spent there, and mentioned he could go elsewhere. All of a sudden, the grocery store paid for the headlight. See, they wanted to keep a single customer. Obviously the baby chain doesn't and therefore they won't.

Second corporate gripe: We have an obvious issue with our electricity. It has caused our A/C to blow twice in two years and, despite our recent attempts to have the local electric company come test the lines and figure out what's going on, they don't respond to our calls or emails. But we still get to pay out of pocket for all the failed appliances since they, at least on paper, can not be responsible for damage caused by power surges, fluctuations, blah blah.

(Now if anyone is a lawyer or electrician and knows if that's true or how to work this so the electric company might help us out for the newest A/C unit, I'd be forever in debt) Just throwing that out there. But call me crazy: there's no reason our power should go out at random, or why at 9:15 every night there's a surge. Again, maybe the electric company doesn't care since we really can't switch companies. Tempting if we had the money to go all solar / geo-thermal, but then again, would they really cry over losing one pesky customer?