Local Insanity

I’ve been away for the last 10 days or so on a well-deserved vacation. Here are a few updates that all have to do with money:

1. The Fed lowered the Prime Rate, and ING Direct lowered their interests rates the next day
2. Helio finally gave me the $272 they owed me (which after 9 months they should owe me $10 interest, but whatever)
3. I now work for wesabe.com, a personal finance website
4. I’m switching to EverBank from ING’s Orange Savings and Wells Fargo’s checking

I’m really excited about the new job, in part because I think it’s a cool company with a good product, but also because I’ll still get to do Rails work with some pretty cool people, like Coda Hale and Andre Arko. Attendio was a good learning experience for me, and I wish them luck in the future, but I think it was time for me to move on and I think I made the right decision.

Number 1 doesn’t bother me so much because of number 4, as EverBank has yet to lower their rates (which stand at 5.01% APY vs. ING’s 4.20% APY for Money Market and 3.65% APY vs. WellsFargo’s 0.00% APY on checking). EverBank also lets you send electronic (or paper) checks, though you can’t write them yourself — you do it online — and you get an ATM card which you can use at BofA, Wells Fargo, and more and they will reimburse you up to $6/mo in fees from other banks, which I estimate to be about two withdraws per month — more than I ever make.

The Helio thing came four days after my last conversation with them (9/17 to 9/21), indicating that perhaps the only way to get your refund back is to be a persistent and bitchy thorn in their side. I’m glad that chapter in my life is closed.

I finally found, after about two months, a couple things I want the iPhone to do that it doesn’t do:

1. Upload to Flickr
2. Play music over an Airport Express

The first may be taken care of with a third-party app, like Pushr or iFlickr. The latter is a bit more tricky, or at least would be if we wanted it done right (as part of the iPod app — hint, hint Apple). But hey, give me a simple interface to browse songs and I’d be satisfied for a first attempt.

Having recently dealt with Apple in buying the iPhone and having to continually deal with Helio to give me my money back, I thought I’d compare and contrast the experiences I’ve had with them.

Helio hasn’t refunded the money they owe me when I’ve been asking for it for the last nine months. Apple gave me back $100 that they didn’t even owe me, and the refund took about two minutes.

Helio’s customer service representatives are either dumb, misinformed, or powerless to help when confronted with a problem. Apple’s customer service representatives are knowledgeable, intelligent, and generally do the right thing (such as when they completely overhauled my old PowerBook when I sent it in for the final repair).

Helio and Apple both try to appeal to the hip and young crowd, but Helio does it with slogans and cute phrases over the phone, such as “How can we make your day better?” and “If you’re holding [on the phone], you must not be happy.” Apple does it with superior design, superior service, and simplicity.

I spent about an hour on the phone today with Helio, today being about a day later than they said I should have my refund. Since I last blogged about it they pushed it off in August, saying that the approval process should take no more than two weeks from that date, pushed it off again at the end of August, and now pushed it off again in mid-September. Not only that, but they’re now saying 59 business days, not just days. The last person I spoke to said that I could expect the refund 59 business days from today. This is simply amazing. This company has so much contempt for their customers, it is unbelievable. They now tell me that I should wait until December 10th to receive the refund, or over a whole year since I cancelled my account.

While cell phone carriers may suck in general, Helio raises the bar on horrible so much that it’s hard to compete with without going out of business (which I predict Helio will do within a year). Anyone interested in getting a class-action suit together?

I was a little disappointed by Apple’s decreasing the price of the iPhone by $200 so shortly after it came out. That’s 33% off, quite a big discount and, for some early iPhone adopters, a slap in the face. I felt like this: I was willing to pay for it at the full price, and I did — lowering the price doesn’t invalidate my decision. And so I was prepared to continue to enthusiastically support Apple, but maybe adding the caveat that you really ought to do your homework before you buy, and even then you might get screwed.

But not now. Apple has decided to give every iPhone owner $100 back. Apple rocks and I’m glad they chose to do right by their early adopters. Thanks guys.