Everybody gets a fake chicken! Everybody gets a fake chicken! From our new Chinese answer to KFC, KLG!

Credit: CNBC

It’s clear why they want to do this; they want to ban customers who return too much stuff. However, there is a secondary motive; they want to track customer data with a serial number: your personal serial number.

What is unreasonable, is turning state-issued forms of identification into a customer tracking tool. Presently, we use state IDs to track credit data, for pre-sale long-term commitments. Your driver’s license or state ID is usually run when you buy a cell phone (or your social security number, same idea).

However, to use this for returns makes me much more unsettled. Nobody would want to have their driver’s license swiped when purchasing something sans long term commitment, so why be okay with that at the point of a return?

I have a Reward Zone Card (Premier Silver VIP standing, no less). Best Buy already tracks my every purchase, coupon, redemption, and yes, return. I do this in exchange for a 1.25% discount on purchases (in the form of gift card rebates). It’s a fair exchange, in my opinion. It also gives me convenience; if I forget a receipt, I don’t have to remember how I paid for the item, I just have to pull out my Reward Zone card. Why? Because Best Buy is keeping tabs on me, and I’m letting them do that.

Here, Best Buy is offering me nothing for handing over my private information, other than to tell me that if I don’t, I won’t be allowed to return the item. Now Best Buy is keeping tabs on me, or I don’t get to return items. Big Best Buy Brother is watching, and if you don’t like that it’s mandatory, you don’t have to shop there. Well, I don’t like it one bit.

Returning an item that was purchased before this policy was, needless to say, unpleasant. It took a manager, and two re-runs of the policy, to remind them that I was grandfathered into not having to show my ID. I was told twice that this was a one-time exception.

My advice: If you have to buy something at Best Buy, use your passport upon returning the item. Best Buy will not be able to track Passport ID numbers the same way they track driver’s licenses or social security cards.

I know one thing’s for sure… I’m a lot less likely to hit Premier Silver status on my Reward Zone card next year. I may lose 45 day return periods, I may pay a little bit more buying from Fry’s or Micro Center… or even Wal-mart, but I will keep my identity a lot more secure, and a lot less tracked.

If someone wants your ID, you should make sure there’s a darn good reason, or else you’re helping to contribute to the downfall of privacy, and the rise of National ID and National Serial Numbers for us all.

For awhile, I’ve been in the market for an extended warranty for my car. Over the past couple of months, I wound up with a $1,000 total set of repair bills. That’s more than two monthly payments on a new car. Three if I went for a cheap new car.

As a consumer advocate, I’m very cautious towards U.S. Fidelis. Their executives have a shady past, and worse, the company promises the world in their ads. If it sounds too good to be true…

I called U.S. Fidelis first. The quote they gave me was around $1,000 for two years and around 50,000 miles of coverage. Powertrain-only coverage. I was told my 2000 model year car was too old for any other plan.

Then the high-pressure tactics rolled in. I was told that if I didn’t buy the warranty today, that I would be subjected to a mandatory inspection. In follow-up sales calls, I was told this was “incorrect and a miscommunication”. Yeah, right; it was a scare tactic. Actually, I would prefer a free car inspection, then there would be no disputing a breakdown later. When I asked further questions and expressed concerns (as I’ll go into below) about the underwriter… I was hung up on by US Fidelis.

Multiple other companies gave me the same plan. So, I decided to look into the underwriter. I check for an AM Best rating, couldn’t find any. Also couldn’t find this “magical second underwriter” that was supposed to back them in case they went under. All I could find was a PO Box and a telephone number. No corporate web site (not uncommon with middlemen insurers), but the lack of an AM Best rating is unacceptable. Do not buy a vehicle warranty policy unless you can personally verify the current AM Best rating of their underwater. Do not rely on a salesman to give you this info, it’s just as easy to lie and say “A-”.

The lack of an AM Best rating indicates a shady underwriter. It does not guarantee that the underwriter will/won’t go under, but an unrated insurer is a major red flag.

I decided to go with Warranty Direct and was presented with several options. I chose the mid-range (Standard MBI) plan, which added electrics, brakes, and other non-powertrain items. It cost $722 for one year of coverage or 20,000 miles. I tend to put that many miles per year on a car, so that works. Oh, and a $200 deductible.

And yes, the plan I had was underwritten by a company with a real A- rating from AM Best. This plan is actually realistic too, the amount of coverage doesn’t have that “way too good to be true” tinge to it.

In addition, I paid $30 for a rider that covers when a non-covered part breaks a covered part. I did not chose to pay for the opposite; when a covered part breaks a non-covered part. I figured that a non-covered part breaking a covered part is an easy excuse for a claims administrator, and that it would be much harder to show that a covered part was responsible for a non-covered part’s failure (or rather, that it would be hard to get them to admit it). Another option was for a $50 rider for emissions coverage, but I passed on it. It didn’t cover the most expensive emissions-related items (like the catalytic converter, something quite prone to failure on middle-aged-to-older cars).

Mostly I grabbed this plan so that I didn’t have to negotiate with car repairmen. I’ve been in very high-pressure environments, where it basically broke down to the repairman lying to inflate a bill. I had to dispute credit card charges, and even with written proof that I was lied to… it took months to get the charges reversed.

I’ve seen extended warranty negotiations, and well, it’s a lot more civil. The repairman knows that the claims administrator has access to average repair rates (a la RepairPal), and is basically clinical. Either the repairman accepts the rate, or the warranty provider tells the car owner to go to another repair facility. There’s no impression that you’re a dumb consumer and can be charged a “little extra” because of it.

Now it doesn’t mater if something short circuits, or if the transmission blows… I’m only out $200, plus $62 per month. Theoretically.

We’ll see if it actually works out that way. Bottom line: US Fidelis is on my no-no list, Warranty Direct is on my hopeful list.

Granted, one of the first announcements out of the Saturn/Penske deal was that the Sky roadster was going to be cut from production immediately. But, we already knew that was coming down, as GM didn’t want to continue original models for Saturn (at least, until the dust settled). Enter Holden.

The Commodore VE (aka Pontiac G8) can’t seem to find a place in GM’s lineup, due to fuel economy and issues with it taking up a spot in the CAFE standard lineup, which would need to be reserved for a pickup truck or SUV (where GM really makes its money). But, Penske’s Saturn no longer has such an issue. It’s not GM. And, it doesn’t have the same gas-guzzler ratio concerns.

I expect on the low-end, Penske will use fuel-efficient cars from Korea and, eventually, China. But, they’ll use the top spots for cars sourced from GM and Holden directly. That would give them sporty drives along with economy drives. With the loss of Pontiac, Penske has a rare opportunity to sell GM Sport cars… even when GM can’t or won’t in the United States.

Especially with GM Holden saying that the Zeta platform will be replaced with a lighter, more fuel-efficient remix of Zeta, I can’t see any reason for Penske not to pass on such an opportunity. Let’s hope that Penske will do what Henderson won’t, and rebadge a great car so it can be sold here.

But, as you may have seen at fast food restaurants, and other locations, ads to the effect of “As featured on HealthyDiningFinder.com.”

I don’t like HealthyDiningFinder.com. Quite frankly, they list a lot of food that isn’t healthy. Of course, their response to that subject is that it depends on what your definition of healthy is:

“The FDA has very strict criteria for any food or meal designated as “healthy.” Most of the menu items featured on this site do not meet the FDA criteria for “healthy,” and neither the restaurants nor Healthy Dining claims that the featured items meet the FDA’s criteria for “healthy.” The criteria for this website focus on calories, fat and saturated fat, whereas the FDA’s criteria for “healthy” also include cholesterol and sodium. So that a sufficient variety of items can be listed, the criteria on this site do not include cholesterol and sodium. However, values for sodium and cholesterol are posted, so that consumers can make informed choices.”

Now, the FDA doesn’t make these criteria to give restaurants a hard time. Sodium and cholesterol are key factors in preventing cardiovascular disease. How many times do we hear ads about blood pressure and cholesterol medicine!?

HealthyDiningFinder.com seems to argue that the things that cause high blood pressure and high cholesterol (namely, eating too much salt and cholesterol) aren’t as important as the FDA thinks they are.

I think that HealthyDiningFinder.com should, at the very least, tell people straight which foods meet FDA criteria (in the context of a three-meal-a-day diet), and which ones don’t. I’ve seen items on HealthyDiningFinder.com that have almost double the day’s recommended limit on salt… in one food item!

If you want to use the site, do so with caution. Keep in mind that cholesterol and sodium aren’t factors in inclusion on the site. Know the FDA’s RDA and count the milligrams of each. They can easily add up to sudden cardiac arrest.

“I got a rock…”

Yes, that famous Charlie Brown line is what many new Pontiac G8 owners are saying. See, the Pontiac web site clearly lists Bluetooth as an included feature for the 2009 model year. Yet, many who are snapping up these discontinued-despite-Vice-Chairman-Bob-Lutz-saying-it’s-better-than-sliced-bread-wanting-to-save-it cars (yes, the G8 saga is that long)… are finding Bluetooth is missing.

Here’s what happened, according to GM. The initial 2009 model marketing for the Pontiac G8 didn’t include Bluetooth. But, mid-year they added it as a last-ditch effort to surge faltering sales (this is a recession, and BMW 5-series best-ers still don’t sell at $24,000).

Unfortunately, GM didn’t note that this was a mid-year addition. And, with so many G8s sitting in inventory, many wound up test-driving a G8 with Bluetooth, and signing for a G8 without Bluetooth.

Some dealers have reportedly said “go **** yourself” literally to customers who are upset about the Bluetooth bait-and-switch. Worse, the Bluetooth system is configured via OnStar, purely from voice commands. If you don’t have a conversation with the car about its Bluetooth abilities (or lack thereof), you have no way of knowing from a visual inspection. Savvy G8 shoppers can check for a serial number beginning with L3, the third revision which added Bluetooth (L2 was to take care of initial recall issues).

GM says that there is no easy fix to the problem. The OnStar hardware is a mess to replace. Some customers that have complained for countless hours, up to the top tiers of GM have gotten some assistance. Pontiac appears to be handling the matter on a case-by-case basis, based on the rage-meter of how enraged a customer is. At least one customer has gotten GM to instruct a dealer to swap out the OnStar gear free of charge with “BlueStar” (Bluetooth-enabled OnStar) hardware.

But, buyer beware. Just because the 2009 Pontiac G8 web site says it has Bluetooth, doesn’t mean it really does. GM has said to some customers that they are working on a product-wide solution, but I wouldn’t hold my breath… even though GM may genuinely be working on a solution, the last thing I would want as a mobile enthusiast, is to have an uphill battle to get Bluetooth in my car. You really don’t want to hate something you’ll be paying on for awhile.

Personal note: I am still warming up to buying a G8 GT myself, but I typically buy CPOs. Yes, Pontiac is going away, and I’d love to buy one to “show the Auto Task Force” that forcing Pontiac’s closure was a mistake. But, it’s not the right time to be making $5,000 political statements. I’d rather someone else pay $1/mile to wear in the car.

We’re in a downturn, but it’s more than that… people left and right feel depressed about the loss of our capitalistic spirit. We feel like we’re loosing our ability to be the best innovators and decision makers out there. Even if it was crud, Billy Mays could innovate it into something fantastic. He didn’t just have the gadgets, he had the enthusiasm, the passion down better than anyone else.

One can only imagine if GM and Chrysler had such great pitchmen back in the ’90s… because they sure need them right now. American car makers are outpacing their foreign counterparts left and right… good luck getting anyone to take even a free test drive and find out.

Even Dell is about to lose in raw sales to Acer.

This is not a post mourning the loss of a superhero. It’s a post saying that America will fight to keep its freedom, its freedom to innovate, to chose… whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Sure, Billy Mays’ death seems like an odd time for a rally cry, but it’s exactly the reason that people are so fired up about his loss.

We’ll miss you Mr. Mays, but don’t think for a minute we’re going to let America go quietly into the night.

Last week, I updated my PayPal profile, removing an old default address.
Tonight, I bought something on eBay. Used PayPal to checkout. Also used an eBay coupon.
To my chagrin, I noticed the transaction went through, with my old erroneous address as the shipping address. It was still an address in eBay, and wound up as the default (not my new default address).

Now I’m looking at having to waste $40 worth of time, to first fix the shipping address SNAFU, and then to get back a $19.20 coupon from eBay… all because eBay revived a dead address. This should not have happened.

PayPal should have removed the Confirmed status as soon as I disavowed the address in PayPal. That would have prevented eBay from completing the transaction.

Instead, PayPal re-certified my old (erroneous) address as active and confirmed. Theoretically, you could use this in nefarious ways to certify an incorrect address as Confirmed, by cross-site scripting PayPal and eBay. There may be some precautions preventing that… but if I was able to trip it up without trying… it doesn’t look good for the eBay-PayPal bridge API.

Note, I’m not faulting eBay for me missing this… I should have gone into the eBay-side of things and made sure that the old address was gone there too (though, eBay and PayPal now boast tight payment integration… not so tight here). And I should have noticed when PayPal didn’t relay this to eBay. But, I’m sure eBay won’t fix it… and I’ll have to email PayPal begging for the transaction credit to be re-applied to the new PayPal transaction.

I would advise PayPal to look into this, because I now have a transaction for a Confirmed address that should not be Confirmed.

And, I just realized this will also probably void my Bing cashback too… now I’m looking at $50 worth of time to recover $40…

Now, I will point out that this guide takes into account some assumptions. It assumes Bob Lutz’s most recent Volt pricing projections are correct. Second, it assumes legislation that has not yet passed Congress, will indeed pass.

Essentially, we’re going to combine multiple government welfare (oh snap, I said welfare) programs, to bring the Volt down from its $39,999.99 price tag (they’d tack on a 9/10th of a cent if they could).

First, we’re going to take the government’s $7,500 tax credit for the Volt into account. GM doesn’t yet know how this is going to work with financing. It’s possible that they’ll write up two loans, one of which being a $7,500 loan at 0% interest… which would be due upon receiving your tax refund check. That would keep the loan for the car, separate from the loan for the tax credit.

The price is now $32,750. How do we get to $28,000? Cash for clunkers.

Cash for Clunkers (you may have heard of it in the past) is a government welfare program, aimed at getting clunkers off the road, to cut pollution. It uses about $4 billion of that $787 billion TARP bailout (which again, was for banks… to save the economy… from evil, dirty, inequitable capitalism…). Basically, it requires that you have a car which gets an EPA city/highway combined estimate of under 18 miles per gallon.

Plus, the new car has to be under $45,000. That’s fine for the entry-level Volt buyer, but options can easily push the price tag up a few thousand. Be careful, I doubt dealers will negotiate on a car that, if there was a sales line for early-adopters, would resemble an iPhone launch.

Oh, and the clunker has to be registered for over a year. That means if you have a car collecting dust, now is the time to pay a few hundred bucks and get it registered. I can’t promise the law won’t change in Congress before it’s passed, but as it stands now, all the car has to be is registered for 365 days.

So, when it comes time to buy the Volt… well, there’s a problem there too. See, Cash for Clunkers only lasts for a year, from when it is signed into law. Let’s say it gets signed into law in two months (it could get passed sooner, or later). That’s mid-August. How many Volts are going to be in-stores in mid-August 2010? Zero. No, GM doesn’t expect to have them shipped to customers until late Q4. And those will sell out almost instantly. Most people who want Volts, will have to wait until 2011 for their orders to be filled.

That’s the one unknown about Cash for Clunkers. If we “buy” a car, which hasn’t been built yet, does the program apply? Or, do we have to actually take ownership of the car within the program’s period… in order to get the discount? I think this will depend on how much GM pushes for it. Remember, the car makers support this program because they claim it will help sell new cars. But if the world’s first mass-production electric car can’t benefit from the program, then this is just going to push people into cars on the lots right now.

In fact, GM had better be careful with Cash for Clunkers. Let’s say the bill gets tweaked, and the Volt is somehow exempted. If I can get $4,500 now for my clunker, I might as well go get a Kia (from the car company for hamsters), and get the Volt after that car dies. Why waste a $4,500 bailout credit welfare check, especially when the Volt will only go down in cost later on?

So, a lot of people have picked up on my theme of asking why GM won’t sell Pontiac. There are eligible buyers, and they want to buy the brand for fair market price. So, why not sell?

At the time, I blamed the Obama Car Czars. And, I still do. After all, they rejected the (reasonable and sound) GM Viability Plan, which would have made Pontiac a niche brand.

But, I have a new suspicion, which I hope you won’t consider a conspiracy theory. I suspect that GM’s board decided that Pontiac could be mothballed, and brought back after the government and unions sell their stake in the company. Both have said they intend to… who knows if they actually hold true to that promise set of words.

This makes a lot of sense when you consider the positioning of Pontiac, as opposed to Saturn. Saturn was created to be the un-GM, the Devil’s Advocate in GM if you will. Unfortunately, Saturn failed at being that. Saturn even axed their own polymer door panels, and basically became a reseller for GM Europe. Model-wise, Saturn and Chevy became indifferent. Not so with Pontiac.

Government Motors hates Pontiac. It shows muscle, flare, passionate driving. Government today hates all that, it’s un-American (but only in their view of America, GM knows the consumer’s view of America is much different).

GM has brought back brands before. Most recently, GM’s commitment to killing the Camaro… that didn’t last either.

And, best of all, Pontiac 2.0 could be built without the posionous, deadly union contracts. The dealers? Most of them sell Buick, Pontiac, and GMC as a trio. As such, the scaled back set of dealerships could add back on Pontiac when the brand returns.

Do I see this happening as fast as Camaro’s return? Probably not. But, I also think GM is looking to the future when they aren’t beholden to outside control. Hopefully they won’t screw it up.