July 10, 2008
Bad guys (and girls), Utter BS
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A while back Charter held a Father’s Day contest, promising a 65-inch television to the winner. A fellow named Mike Lewis won the prize when his daughter wrote in to the company explaining why he deserved it. Unfortunately, like most other promises, Charter completely failed to honor the 65-inch television. They sent him a 19-inch TV instead.
But why exactly didn’t they deliver the promised prize?
From the article:
“When I asked if he had gotten the form, he said he hadn’t gone through his mail yet. He asked if Misty Wade, his associate, had called me,” she said. “Then he started talking about the TV and said something about someone in Georgia and that the expense was too much and that they wanted to give me a 19-inch instead but that he was working on getting me a 42-inch. He said he would call his boss and call me back.”
That’s right. Charter Communications ran a Father’s Day promotional giveaway of a 65-inch high definition television, but when it came time to deliver decided that it was too expensive and chose to offer a 19-inch television instead. One would think that Charter is in dire financial shape if they can’t even afford to give Mike his promised prize. Dire shape indeed.
But even though they can’t seem to come up with a couple of grand to honor their promise to Mike, they still managed to throw a $25,000 raise and a $100,000 bonus to their CFO this week. Former Chief Marketing Officer Robert Quigley also got $100K, and he has already resigned to make room for our friend and douchebag of the year Ted Schremp.
So let me get this straight. Charter can’t come up with the money to deliver on a promise made by the marketing team, but the heads of both the financial and the marketing departments both got the equivalent of fifty 62-inch TV’s each? Does anybody else see the idiocy in this? The heads of the department responsible for setting aside cash with which to buy the TV and the department responsible for delivering the TV both said there was no money to follow through with the promise immediately prior to receiving huge checks themselves
I swear, nothing surprises me anymore with these people.
UPDATE 7/14/08: A comment left by scoosdad provided this link, which includes updated information about this matter. Apparently Mike Lewis did not win the grand prize, but rather an honorable mention, which means that he was never eligible for the 65″ television in the first place.
From the article (and a letter from Charter Communications Director Marty Richmond):
“The details presented to the family were about a 19-inch HDTV honorable mention prize, not the grand prize 65-inch HDTV. Regrettably, this was not clearly communicated.”
Here’s the problem. Apparently Charter Communications didn’t communicate with the family very well, which totally screwed up their understanding of their prize. Perhaps they didn’t win anything except a 19″ TV, but they thought the prize was something much, much different, and everything I’m seeing says that they thought this to be the case based on what they were hearing from Charter. Maybe Charter is to blame and maybe the Lewis family is to blame. Either way, it’s still not surprising to hear that Charter found a way to screw up something so simple as a contest.
There’s clear evidence that Charter Communications wanted a W-9 tax from from Mr. Lewis, which means that his winnings would, by law, have to exceed $600. Either Charter intended to give him the nicest 19″ LCD on the planet, or they screwed up and thought he had won more than a simple honorable mention.
Moreover, an email from Charter’s Jeff Thatcher stated “Also, if you can think of a couple of days/times next week that would be good for us to come out and deliver the TV, I will get with my team to verify and we’ll get your Hi-Def set up!” Obviously Jeff Thatcher thought that Mr. Lewis had won the grand prize, and it sounds to me like he communicated just that.
Maybe the whole situation isn’t exactly as it sounds, but it’s certainly no picnic for Charter. Incompetence has a way of getting you into trouble with more than just advertising, it would seem.
June 24, 2008
Bad guys (and girls), Doublespeak, Technical, Utter BS
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A couple of months ago I saw a commercial for Charter Communications which featured a man in a suit sitting at a computer talking about fiber optics. He explained that Verizon was getting a lot of publicity of their FIOS service, but maintained that Charter had been using fiber optics for years, insinuating that the services were equal in terms of speed and reliability. Then he pretended to type. Not only can Charter not hire competent executives or managers, but they can’t even get an actor to type convincingly on cue.
It bothered me even then that Charter would lie so boldly. Of course they use fiber optics in their network, as does virtually every company with more than a half dozen servers. Heck, my third bedroom has some fiber in play for my personal servers, and I’ve been using fiber to connect my music hardware for almost a decade. Does that put my technology on par with Charter’s? With Verizon’s? Since I use fiber too, can I now go on television and promise to deliver the exact same thing that these companies do?
Of course the answer is no, but that doesn’t stop Charter from comparing their decades-old cable technology to Verizon’s cutting-edge FIOS. It’s so blatant that even Forbes did a piece on it.
From the article:
Mike Weaver in Watauga, Texas, saw an ad from Charter Communications Inc. that talked about “advanced fiber optics,” and was disappointed when he realized that the cable company isn’t drawing fiber to the home. He wants the faster Internet speeds provided by FiOS, he said.
Charter spokeswoman Anita Lamont said the intent behind the current ads, which say the company has been using fiber for the last 10 years, “is to reassure current Charter customers that they too have fiber optic technology bringing their homes to life.”
Mike saw the same commercial I saw. In it Charter obviously compares their fiber optic network to Verizon’s, which indicates that Charter too offers fiber to the doorstep. According to Anita Lamont, this commercial is intended to do just that. Charter knows that the vast majority of customers won’t know that the fiber optic being touted in their commercials only refers to that in use in their datacenters. Charter knows that the majority of their customers won’t call them on their BS when they see a plain old coaxial cable strung across their backyard. Charter thinks that they can lie with impunity, and that no one will do anything about it. That is how much they think of you and I as customers.
So why is it surprising when they employ the same techniques in dealing with privacy? Charter’s standard procedure is to lie, bend the truth, and spread misinformation. We all know that they don’t have the same fiber optic network as Verizon, and we all know that they won’t protect our privacy.
But that isn’t going to stop them from lying through their teeth about it. There’s money to be made, and the truth is the only thing left standing in the way. Somebody call Ted Schremp. There’s BS that needs to be spread.
June 20, 2008
Bad guys (and girls)
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Robb Topolski, author of the highly recommended and incredibly technical privacy report on NebuAD’s methods, made a comment on this site yesterday about NebuAD employees, asking if I would look into the rumor that some of them had previously worked for Gator, the notorious spyware company. At first I dismissed the rumor as just that; negative speculation is not hard to find around companies who are engaged in repugnant behavior.
Robb’s concern stayed with me though, so last night I started digging up whatever I could find on the matter. It seems that Robb was quite right. There are some very deep links between NebuAD and Gator, along with other spyware/tracking companies. I will update this list as more information is uncovered. I’ve done everything in my power to verify everything listed, but I cannot claim that all of this information is completely factual. It’s just tough to trust the Internet sometimes. Also, if you have anything to add to this list, please contact me here.
- Scott Tavenner, NebuAD’s vice president of business development, held the title of director of business development at Gator/Claria.
- Paul Goad, NebuAD’s managing director for the UK, founded Tacoda, a behavioral advertising company. Visiting Tacoda’s website, it becomes immediately clear that they and NebuAD hired the same web developer. What is it about companies doing things no one would ever be proud to do advertising that fact by presenting as little information and navigation as possible on their websites?
- Mike Miller is NebuAD’s vice president of advertising sales, and also a former Gator. While there he held the title of director of sales.
- Here’s one that’s a little different. Lebin Chang, the VP of Engineering and Infrastructure Products for NebuAD, previously worked for McAfee on a team managing intrusion detection software. I suppose if part of your business is gaining questionable access to the machines of your users using methods most commonly associated with scammers and spammers, you need a good security guy to keep you from getting caught.
- Chuck Gilbert, a senior product manager at NebuAD is also a former Gator guy. He may not be important enough at NebuAD to get his own page, but around here he’s a rock star.
- Amy Auranicky is a director of sales at nebuAD. That’s quite a step up from her position as integration manager at Claria.
- Jeanne Houweling is the vice president of advertising services at NebuAD. She was previously employed as the senior director of business development at Claria.
- Kevin Wilk, the Vice President of West Sales at NebuAD was a Business Development Manager at Eyeblaster, another monitoring/tracking/spyware company.
- Len Munday is the European Technical Director for NebuAD. He once held the position of Senior System Engineer at Allot Communications, a company which specializes in deep packet inspection solutions.
For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 5 confirmed Gator/Claria connections, 2 connections to other spyware companies, a security guy, and a deep packet inspection guru thus far.
Are these the people we really want running a network which has unfettered access to the most intimate aspects of our lives? Even if what they were doing was legal, which is isn’t, do these seem like the best people with whom to team up?
Update 6/24: Several articles have been published recently about NebuAD’s association with Gator. The L.A. Times points out at least 5 former Gator employees at NebuAD. The Register echoes that number. Crunchgear has it too. The list goes on and on.