The 411

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Saturday, November 19, 2011

Yes, One more time about being on hold

Ok, i really am finding that when i am on hold, it is a great few minutes to check dealdash and blog a bit. And surprise, i am on hold.  I'm bitter about the under $1 wins they have posted.  But that seems to be my norm.

But here is what i really want to say:

Has every single automated phone system in the world "recently changed their menu"?  You know what i mean right? "please listen carefully as our menu has recently changed." I don't think i have come across a menu that hasn't recently changed. Have you? I mean seriously??

I am so sick of recorded voices demanding me to pay attention because they did NOT change their menu in the last 5 years. They just say that so you pay attention. It is really not cool.

So what i am proposing is a National Automated Phone System regulation to be passed. There is a set amount of time you can have your recording say that the menu has recently changed. There is a time limit. Maybe 3 months or something. Because you usually don't have to call some of these places all the time. You don't remember what button to push so you are going to listen to the recording anyway. So i guess if you call on a monthly basis, you will need this information about a recently changed menu. But the rest of us who call only once in awhile are already going to listen to the darn menu options because we need to make the right choice. We actually don't care that it changed because we don't remember what it was like last time we called. So don't give us the b.s. "pay attention" moment. It wastes 2-3 seconds of our lives. We are already going to spend the next 10 minutes on hold waiting for you, so give us back this 3 seconds of life. And don't sternly tell me to pay attention. I'm not in kindergarten.

So after the set period of time, you are required by law to make your automated phone message no longer say that the menu has recently changed. Because it hasn't. Real people always tell us what to do, so don't have a recorded voice tell me what to do too.

6 comments:

  1. I think it would be really awesome if the bidders who try to be fair on DD tried to prevent those annoying last-second bidders (Alwayslate, aantar, pageorder, Firearms, etc.) from ever winning. Anyone interested or have any ideas?

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  2. Never mind. It would be too difficult, possibly against DD rules. It's tempting to be rude and annoying to make the playing field more even, but I just can't seem to force myself to jump in late on the starters. I just don't understand how so many bidders feel comfortable with this. I take some comfort from the fact that most of the bidders like I mentioned in my previous comment don't seem to win often.

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  3. So what does everyone think about the new changes on DD? I noticed a couple of things different when I went in tonight.

    First, it appears that the timer is going down lower (almost to zero) much more often than before while bidders have the BidBuddies set. I'm not sure what to think of this yet. In a way, I feel like it is taking away some of what makes DD different and in my opinion, better, than many other auction sites. One plus is that it makes those last second bidders rethink their strategy.

    I also noticed that when I opened up an auction page, the avatars of all the bidders in the auction did not show up as usual. Instead, the avatars of the current bidders pop up. This makes it more difficult to know who has been bidding from the start. I'm sure it is in DD's best interest financially to have jumpers, and it appears they are trying to take away some of the stigma of jumping into an auction late: How can bidders be expected to respect the starting bidders if they don't know who they are?

    Overall, I don't think I like these changes much. It just goes back to what I said earlier; some of the charm of DD seems to have disappeared with these changes. I'm pondering now if I want to purchase more bids while they are half-price, or should I just get out now?

    One other thing I've noticed is that many of the buy it now prices have increased. Very much in some cases. I'm more hesitant to bid on some of the bigger items now. This makes me wonder if this method is such a great idea after all. Paying several hundred dollars above retail for an item is ridiculous, even if you are getting your bids back. Most bidders who use buy it now on a big item are likely overspending on something they didn't really need anyway, but were just hoping for a good deal on. I just realized that I now have more respect for the way Quibids does it, where you can buy an item if you lose an auction and subtract the value of the bids used. The DD way is a recipe for financial disaster for those who get caught up in penny auctions and don't have great success.

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    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Anonymous! I really didn't think anyone looked at my little blog anymore. Nice to see that someone still does. I don't know what the deal is with chrome but i will look into it. I don't have time any more to watch deal dash all day, though i did enjoy commenting on the whole thing. Maybe every once in awhile i will check it out again.
    meanwhile - i did start moving some content over to wikiwikiworld blog that is currently shut down because i violated something. But i'll move it and get it back up.
    Hit me up again -

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  6. Oh my it's been so so long... I thought I'd drop by and see if you had anything FUNNY to read and what you have been up to. From this post it seems almost a YEAR to the day.... WOW...

    Miss seeing your daily rants and bringing smiles and giggles to my screen.

    It is too bad for all of US that you are so busy now as I miss the daily conversations...

    Hint: Put up a Post for all of us OLD TIMERS to just drop by and say Hi... and we can see how long between visits everyone comes by...to check on ya! That would be interesting...

    Miss Ya...

    LadyK

    ReplyDelete