Category: Wednesday Whine
FinallyFast.com is finally fined for its fraudulent computer “fix-it” software practices
In January of 2009, I wrote an article detailing everything I hate about the then-frequently aired commercials for FinallyFast.com. In the article, I explained five reasons why the commercial made me want to throw my TV out a window every time it came on. I also initially stated that the software likely did absolutely nothing useful for any of the unlucky suckers who bought into it.
Shortly thereafter, I received a letter from an attorney representing FinallyFast.com asking me to remove their commercial, screenshots, and all “defamatory, false, and misleading” comments I had made. I obliged, ONLY because I had never actually used their software and couldn’t say with a 100% certainty that it did not work. Now I can.
Ascentive, the company behind FinallyFast.com, has now been penalized $78,000 and is being forced to issue thousands of $17.90 refunds to customers who purchased their misleading software and ultimately didn’t use it.
The software downloads for free, scans a user’s computer, identifies “problems” with it, and then presents users with options to “fix” it at an additional cost. But those costs were apparently automatically charged whether the user wanted them or not.
To make the situation worse, Assistant Attorney General Jake Bernstein says the FinallyFast.com software finds problems regardless of whether there are any. Even new computers or ones with freshly reformatted hard drives would be identified as having hundreds, if not thousands, of “errors.” In addition, until March 2009, the software was bundled with adware and regularly popped-up warning messages declaring how many “errors” it found.
In the meantime, customers were automatically charged for subscribing to Ascentive’s practically fictitious “cleaning” service and had to jump through hoops to figure out how to cancel.
So it seems I was right about Ascentive and its FinallyFast.com site and software all along, despite what their attorneys wanted me to believe. I won’t bother re-editing my original article, as it’s simply not worth including their obnoxious commercial here. (Plus, I don’t think it’s airing on TV anymore – thankfully.)
I’d like to think this is a lesson learned for anyone who even remotely considers buying computer “fix-it” software off of a late-night TV commercial, but it’s most likely the case that anyone who gets suckered in to buying such software will never read this article or even hear about the ruling against FinallyFast.com.
TweetNew color scheme and blog changes.
As a first step in returning to regularly posting here, I have updated the color scheme of the blog (I was never particularly happy with the previous one – though this one may be a bit too blue-heavy).
As a second step in returning to regularly posting here, I have removed the “daily posts” link from the nav bar above. That also means that I’m dumping the idea of themed daily posts. It was fun while it lasted but it was inevitable that I would grow tired of the self-imposed restriction.
Instead, I’m going to make a point of posting something interesting every day when I get up. The topics will likely still be the same as my previous array of daily categories, but they just won’t be limited to the day of the week.
This will be the last official post in the daily categories. In the future, instead of “Wednesday Whine,” I will simply use a new “Whine” category. The same goes for all the others.
I’m sure there will be days when I’m too busy to post anything but I’ll try not to let that happen too often, as there’s almost always something interesting going on in the world that I want to comment about.
In case you’re curious: This blog receives about 12,000 unique visitors a month, so there are definitely plenty of readers out there. It’s down about 9% over the last 30 days so I hope to bring that number back up as I resume posting once again… which will be later today, after I eat lunch.
Until then, comment and let me know if there are any particular topics you enjoy reading my thoughts on.
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Cancelled by Fox
Terminator Salvation is almost here which means that my series of Terminator-related posts is soon coming to a close, but not before I whine about…
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Cancelled by Fox
Help me understand this timeline:
- Fox decides to resurrect the Terminator franchise with a show called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
- The show premieres with 4.1 million people watching. Not a bad start for a sci-fi show.
- After the first season, Fox brings the show back for a second but dooms it to the Friday night slot – a ratings black hole.
- Meanwhile, a fourth Terminator film, Terminator Salvation, is produced and scheduled to be released to theaters just a couple of months after the second season of Fox’s show ends. The film is heavily marketed with toys, promotional partnerships, and plenty of television commercials.
- Rather than capitalizing on the hype from the first Terminator film in six years, Fox decides to pull the plug on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I don’t get it. Fox decided to renew Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, which had comparably low ratings as Terminator. The network’s president of entertainment attempted to explain why one show was renewed while the other was cancelled, though none of it really makes a whole lot sense.
I really enjoyed Fox’s Terminator series. It had a few dull episodes, but I thought that they did a good job of exploring aspects of the characters that had not been seen in the films.
In the end, no real reason is given other than they felt Terminator had run its course and didn’t have a future. As Sarah Connor often said, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. In this case, Fox appears to have decided the Connors’ fate for them instead.
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Theme Park Entrance Turnstile Slowness
It never fails. I drive to one of Orlando’s many fantastic theme parks, park, hop out of my car, speed walk up to the turnstiles, pick what appears to be the shortest line, and inevitably deal with…
Theme Park Entrance Turnstile Slowness
Let’s examine the various possible reasons for a theme park turnstile line moving entirely too slowly:
- Invalid/Expired/Swapped Tickets – This is the #1 culprit of the most time-consuming individual holdups at the turnstiles. Guests regularly show up, stick their ticket in the machine, only to be denied entrance to the park. What ensues is usually a small argument between the guest, who is often overtired and over-budget, and the turnstile attendant, who is often overtired and bored out of his/her mind. Ultimately, after the attendant explains to the guest no less than five times why the ticket doesn’t work, the guest takes his family and storms off to guest relations to throw a hissy fit.
- General Confusion/Incompetence – Ever since theme parks moved from physically marking tickets with ink stamps to electronically-read tickets, there is a subset of visitors that simply can’t figure out how to stick their ticket into a slot to enter the park. They’re likely the same people who still write checks at grocery stores. To add to the seemingly-baffling complexity of the situation, theme parks somewhat recently introduced biometric readers onto which guests must place a finger to ensure that a ticket is used only by its owner and not traded around. Of course, this makes the entire process 100 times more difficult for those who have trouble simply sliding a ticket into a slot. The system is designed for the index finger, yet some guests insist on using every finger except that one. Some guests just ignore the finger scan completely, running full-force into the non-moving turnstile bar – an embarrassing act that is generally followed by an angry glare directed toward the turnstile attendant.
- Tickets Not Ready or Accessible – Let’s see… you’re walking up to the entrance of a theme park. What should you have ready? Oh, your cell phone. No, wait – your soda! No, that’s not it. A ha. Your sunscreen. Actually, it seems like in the minds of far too many theme park visitors, the ticket to get in is the absolute last thing they would ever think to have ready, in their hands, when approaching the turnstiles. Instead, mom has to open her theme park survival fanny pack and sift through tissues, lip balm, ponchos, and thirty other random personal items before finally finding a ticket. Of course, it’s not the right one, so she has to then dive into the backpack that’s sitting in the otherwise empty stroller that doesn’t even have a kid in it. What is so hard about getting tickets out in advance?
- One Person Holding Way Too Many Tickets – Of course, there’s always that family with the mom or dad who is the ticket god, responsible for keeping the whole family’s tickets together at all times out of fear that little Susan will lose hers or little Billy will smother his in ice cream. The problem there is that too many of these ticket gods forget to write names on the tickets or can’t keep them organized in any way. So they had a stack of tickets to the turnstile attendant while they push their kids through, wondering why the turnstile bar isn’t spinning as the attendant tries to figure out who is who.
I’m sure there are many more reasons why there are so many holdups at theme park turnstiles, but these seem to be the biggest offenders. My question is: Why do I always choose the line that has all four of these types ahead of me? There really should be separate lines for those who know how to use tickets and those who don’t. Then yet another section for those who actually know how to use tickets and aren’t just pretending to out of pride.
But in reality, everyone should be able to get through a turnstile in no more than 10 seconds. So anyone out there that’s heading to a theme park soon, follow these quick and easy steps:
- Approach the turnstiles
- Select a line
- While waiting, get your ticket out and hold it in your hand
- Do nothing else but wait for your turn, making sure your ticket never leaves your hand
- When you reach the turnstile, place the ticket in the slot (or if there is no slot, hand it to the attendant)
- If there is a finger scanner, place your index finger on the scanner and remain motionless until you are directed to move through the turnstile by a green light or the attendant. (If, for some reason, you didn’t use your index finger the first time you used your ticket, use the same finger you used last time)
- Grab your ticket as you pass through and clear the area so the person behind you can keep moving
It’s really not that hard.
TweetWEDNESDAY WHINE: Florida Heat
I’m going to keep this week’s whine short and simple. It’s based on a few less-than-pleasant recent experiences where I should have known better, but wasn’t really paying attention to the fast-approaching onslaught of…
Florida Heat
Inevitably each year, Spring comes along and I completely forget just how hot it gets in Florida as Summer approaches. Then a day comes where I visit a theme park without sunscreen and deeply regret it later. That day was last week.
I visited the Magic Kingdom for only 3 or 4 hours, taking some photos, riding a few rides, and generally having a good time. My good time ended later that day when I returned home to find that my nose, cheeks, and forehead were bordering the danger zone between receiving a day of healthy sunlight and one of painful scorching. Fortunately, I left early enough to avoid that whole scorching part.
A few days later came my visit to both of Disney’s water parks, to scout photo locations for an upcoming article in Orlando Attractions Magazine. After my Magic Kingdom experience, I made sure to lather up with plenty of SPF 50 and didn’t have any sun problems that day. The water kept me cool and all was right with the world.
Another couple days later, I returned to the water parks, not to actually go in the water but to take some pictures. On this day, I brilliantly thought that since I’d only be walking around the parks for a couple of hours early in the morning, I didn’t need any sunscreen. Again came the sunlight danger zone, except this time the reflections off of the water, the morning sun, or a combination of both made my encounter with solar rays a bit more unpleasant. Fortunately, still no burns, but definitely a not-so-healthy glow.
The following day, I attended the opening day preview of the new Manta roller coaster at SeaWorld, which ended up being the hottest day ever in the history of the world. Exaggeration? Probably. Is that what it felt like? Absolutely. I did remember the sunscreen that day but that didn’t help the overbearing heat poundin on me throughout the day. While I loved riding Manta, I couldn’t bring myself to ride more than twice, not because of the G-forces, twists, or turns, but rather because of the oppressive heat that beared down on me while I was on the ride.
I’ve never been good with hot weather and generally try to stay inside the air-conditioning during the Summer months. But as I wrote at the top of this post, I always forget when those Summer months are approaching and get hit with an unexpected blast of heat every year. Now, it’s predicted to stay in the ’90s for the rest of the week (and possibly the rest of the next 3-4 months) and thus begins my return to reclusion. I will gladly stay tucked away inside my house for a while. E-mail me when it’s October.
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