A few months ago, I became a member of Grand Resort Travel, a “vacation travel club”, after I bought their spiel that they could save me time, effort and money with their service. After requesting their assistance for several trips, I found that in every case I easily found better deals on the internet using Orbitz or Craig’s List. When I came to this disappointing realization I requested my membership fee be refunded. Before I bought the membership a representative of the company promised a full refund if I was not completely satisfied. Of course, no such language is in my contract and now they are refusing to refund my fee. So forget “the customer is always right” and remember another old adage: “buyer beware”.

I must say, too, that I thought the wedding dress/dry cleaning debacle was a very interesting problem that had another interesting twist (as your scenarios often do!): why not see that the bride only paid $450 for her dress? The cost = $1000 – $200 (dry cleaning fee, which I assume was refunded) – $350 reimbursement for damage. It is not certain that the bride would have received *any* sale if she had tried to auction it off, and she would have been out the cleaning fee ($200), thus rendering a $500 sale only a $300 profit. So $350 from the cleaners was really a very good profit! Finally, the bride ends up getting to wear a $4500 dress for $450 – a 90% savings! Suze Orman would love that story. And if the bride thought she would have liked to keep the dress pristine as a memento (in the event it didn’t sell), there are plenty of home organization gurus who would make the point that a photograph can serve the memory just as nicely and take up a whole lot less space.

It also reminded me of an animal shelter here that is trying hard to be a no kill shelter. In their efforts to place as many animals as possible, they have failed in several incidents to disclose all of the information they have about the animals. My daughter got a dog from them tha was so aggressive and distructive that she could not keep it. The staff might have been able to salvage some decent feelings on our part if they had not riduclued her to tears when she returned the dog as she had been told that she could do. You can bet a lot of peoplel haev heard the story and, sadly, that seems to be their normal way of doing business. I don’t think that they will save very many animals that way. There have been other incidents as well and people are afraid to adopt from them.

Then again, I’ve also seen many companies doing business in this way, and as the effect blows over, they are still streaming with lots of customers! This is something I simply can’t understand too!

If only everyone is as conscientious in doing business, then it’ll be such a wonderful world.

and amita – i already emailed you, but thanks!

Because I am a teacher and loved the format of your blog introduction, I must tell you, that the correct answer is A. They did, at that moment, save $650 and because of this area’s growing population they might continue to have a lucrative business, even after losing the “money” from those who LEARNED of their bad choices/behavior and who chose to take their cleaning elsewhere. Perhaps someone will send your blog site to them…and then they might at least learn from it all and perhaps change some parts of their operation or themselves.
Let us hope.

Thanks for your insight and inspiration and for sharing so much.
By the way, in yesterday’s online news there was a story about a man suing a cleaners for $54 million because they lost his pants…..here is the link in case anyone is interested in the ludicrousness of it all.. http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3269485&page=1 . Someone needs to send this man your blog site as well; he could certainly use your earlier entries on time, money, and life!!
Happy Day,
Kay

Thanks to you, I got to experience the *Aha* moment! A couple of months back I was passing through a frustrating phase when nothing seems to work for you. In one of my most miserable moments I stumbled on your blog, You Teach People How to Treat You, and a bulb flashed in my mind! I knew then with absolute clarity that I was solely responsible for sabotaging my life. I have taken charge since and things are looking up. I am now your avid admirer and spend most of my week ends reading your archived posts and pondering over them. Your blogs led me to research on LOA and The Secret and I am much intrigued.
Your posts are like a breath of fresh air for weary souls: keep up the good work.

regards,

Amita