JJB Blog » Open-Letters

I love domain squatting…

John — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:29:44 +0000

Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 17:44:42 -0500
From: “John Joseph Bachir”
To: info@globalrequest.com
Subject: offer for progress.cc

Hi.

For progress.cc I will give you $50.

Let me know how that sounds.

John

Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:13:13 +0100
From: “Alex XXXXX” info@globalrequest.com
To: “John Joseph Bachir”
Subject: Re: offer for progress.cc

Hello John,

Thanks for your offer for progress.cc. We are currently looking for offers
starting at around $2,500, though. Sorry..

Best regards,

Alex XXXXX

Differences between Danby countertop dishwashers

John — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 19:05:20 +0000

From: John Joseph Bachir
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 11:43 PM
To: Danby Customer support
Subject: differences between countertop dishwashers

Hello. I have a question: what is the difference between the DDW396W and the DDW496W? The difference between energy and water usage is huge, but it seems like the capabilities and features are exactly the same.

Thanks,
John

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your e-mail. The only difference, is they are manufactured by different companies, and the size from front to back is larger on the DDW496W. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Thank you.

Aimee
Customer Service Representative
Danby Products Inc.
Web:WWW.Danby.com

To: eBay

John — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 20:02:47 +0000

hi… i had a draft saved, and it somehow got removed. 30 days have not passed, and i did not begin to create a new listing. [1]can you tell me why this happened? [2]can you restore my previous draft? it was a for a g5 and i made it a week or so ago.

also, i really think that we should have the ability to save as many drafts as we want. of course you have probably considered this feature 5 years ago and decided against it for some reason, but i just thought i would mention it.

thanks!
john

Hello John,

Thank you for writing to eBay. My name is Rey and I understand that you have saved a draft in your account but it was not there when you tried to complete the listing.

John, I have reviewed your account and cannot also find the draft you have saved in your account. I would like to apologize for we cannot duplicate the issue you have experienced and there is no way to recover the draft that was lost from your account. We appreciate your suggestion and I have forwarded your email to our Site Development Team. You may want to start a new listing and immediately submit it after you have finished it.

We appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter, and wish you continued success on eBay.

Regards,
Rey F.
eBay Customer Support

Hello John,

Thank you for writing to eBay’s Customer Support. I appreciate the chance to read and understand your suggestion.

The communication we receive from our community members is critical for us to make changes that will keep our site the best. I will forward your message for further consideration by the Product Development Team.

Please note that any comments or materials you have submitted or may submit to us, including questions, technical or creative suggestions or ideas, are considered by us to be non-confidential and non-proprietary. eBay has no obligation of any kind with respect to any such submissions.

Should you have any other questions or concerns please visit our help pages located on our site for instant answers to most questions. You can get to the help section by clicking on Help at the top of most eBay pages.

We are committed to your online trading safety and success.

Have a great day!

Regards,

Helen K.
eBay Customer Support

On 4/9/06, eBay Customer Support wrote:

John, I have reviewed your account and cannot also find the draft you have saved in your account. I would like to apologize for we cannot duplicate the issue you have experienced and there is no way to recover the draft that was lost from your account.

Is there no way to recover the draft, or is it against your policy to recover the draft? I find it a little insulting to be told that there is no way to recover the draft. I am a software engineer and know full well that with big systems such as yours, information is rarely deleted from databases, it is merely flagged as “deleted”, “inactive”, etc.

Which begs the question, why do you have this policy in the first place? I find it very mysterious that there is no way to develop and save drafts. It makes me suspicious that not allowing users to save drafts results in more auctions being posted sooner, so you use this lack of convenience as a stimulant for your business? Or maybe the less carefully put together auctions are more likely to get higher bids? I could make guesses all day.

Not that I really have any reason to believe that either of those guesses are the case — other than the fact that you are not being transparent AT ALL about why you have your absurd (lack of) draft saving tools, and mysterious no-draft-recovery policy.

John

Hello John,

Thank you for writing to eBay. My name is Yul and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

I understand your concern regarding draft. I realize the importance of this issue and appreciate your time and effort in addressing your exact concern. I apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

Please understand that if you start to create a new listing in the Sell Your Item form, but you don’t get to finish it, eBay will save it as a draft so that you can easily finish it later.

As you fill out the Sell Your Item form and click the Continue button at the bottom of a page, all the information you’ve entered so far is saved for you on eBay.

When you want to finish the listing, return to eBay and click on Sell at the top of any page. On the Sell page, click on the “Complete Your Listing” link. You can continue from where you left off in the Sell Your Item form.

Your saved draft remains available on eBay for you to complete unless one of the following happens:

1. Over 30 days pass since the last time you edited the draft. After this period, the draft will expire.

2. You start a brand new listing and click Continue on the Title & Description page. This new listing now becomes your saved draft, replacing the previous one. (You can only have one saved draft at a time.)

3. In rare cases, technical difficulties or outages on eBay may cause your saved draft to be erased. Email notifications

Please understand that if you don’t finish a listing, eBay will also send you a reminder email about a week before your saved draft will expire. Newer sellers may receive an additional reminder a few days after your last session working on the draft. These emails will include information about your progress and a Complete Your Listing button that you can click to access your saved draft.

I trust that this information has been useful to you. I appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter, and wish you continued success on eBay.

Regards,

Yul P.
eBay Customer Support

How insulting, that in the 3rd communication I receive from eBay on this matter, the only response I get is a copy-and-paste from the documentation that is already available on the site. Not only that, but you begin the email by thanking me for writing to you, and then introducing yourself with your first name, as if to imply that my issue is getting personal attention.

“I understand your concern regarding draft. I realize the importance of this issue and appreciate your time and effort in addressing your exact concern.”

You are NOT addressing my exact concern in any way. And you do NOT understand the importance of this issue. If you did you would change your policies and/or features.

I realize that you cannot make large feature changes for each customer who complains. But at the very least, don’t insult me by sending me 10 paragraphs of a standard customer service response in the THIRD communication. What is your strategy, to keep sending me a list of the existing rules until I stop responding? You haven’t even attempted a diplomatic answer to my questions from the previous email:

“Is there no way to recover the draft, or is it against your policy to recover the draft?… why do you have this policy in the first place?”

And don’t worry, I won’t threaten to cancel my account, you have a monopoly and I have no other options. Maybe that’s why you can afford to treat your customers so poorly.

John

To: https://www.notfortourists.com/feedback.aspx

John — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 07:11:55 +0000

listen

you guys need to show shipping charges before asking for my credit card number

i mean really, it’s 2005. you should be ashamed of yourselves.

To: http://www.theantidrug.com/contact.asp

John — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:05:49 +0000

To whom it may concern,

In many places on your website you state that Marijuana is addictive. I could not find any further information on this topic. Could you direct me to studies or other resources discussing this issue?

Thanks,
John

McLuhan quote for video iPod

John — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 02:13:28 +0000

From: John Joseph Bachir
To: MEA AT lists DOT ibiblio DOT org
Date: Nov 19, 2005 10:12 PM
Subject: M.M. quote

A very important academic issue: what is the best M.M. quote to get
engraved on my Video iPod?

Each new technology is a reprogramming of sensory life.

The most human thing about us is our technology.

In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin.

Omnipresence has become an ordinary human dimension.

licensed

John — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 22:38:53 +0000

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

Info@participantproductions.com

Final-Recipient: rfc822;Info@participantproductions.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.2.2
X-Display-Name: Info

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: “John Joseph Bachir”
To: info@participantproductions.com
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 18:36:15 -0400
Subject: project proposal
Hello. Your submission policy states that you do not accept
unsolicited material, but also that you do accept material from a
licensed agent, manager, or lawyer. What manner of license could an
agent or manager get? Do you mean some sort of union membership? Also,
do you accept unsolicited material from these people?

Thank you,
John

18,509,302,100,000,000

John — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 04:53:59 +0000

Dear Dreamhost tech support,

Hi. I was just creating a bunch of email accounts, and having dreamhost create the passwords for me. At one point, two passwords in a row were identical.

For an 8 character password using lower and upper alphas, numbers, and symbols, the chances of this happening should be something like 1/108^8, or 1/18,509,302,100,000,000.

Thank you,
John

Ventilation on Air Canada flight

John — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:28:11 +0000

Dear Air Canada,

Recently I took a flight from toronto to RDU, and there was no air condition, and seemingly no ventilation at all, while taxiing before and after the flight. It was very hot, stuffy, and smelly. It was completely absurd.

Suggestion to Sappo Hill Soap

John — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 01:56:19 +0000

Dear Sappo Hill,

i am a longtime committed user of your soaps. i was going to write to suggest you do a lemon soap that people would like for the kitchen. then i saw that you have a gardener’s lemon, which i guess has the abrasive stuff in it. now i don’t know what to think. do people want an abrasive bar in the kitchen? perhaps.

john

Cease and Desist Letter Sent to Leo Stoller

John — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:56:03 +0000

Leo Stoller
Rentamark.com
P O Box 35189
Chicago, IL 60707-0189

Re: Freedom of Expression

July 22, 2005

Dear Mr. Stoller,

Please be advised that we are stakeholders in the Freedom of Expression� Security Consortium (FESC), which, as our motto states, �regulates freedom in the marketplace of ideas.� We are writing in response to your infringing use of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, a federally registered trademark that is controlled by FESC member Kembrew McLeod, who owns the domain http://freedomofexpression.us. This mark, granted by the USPTO on January 6, 1998, is also used as the title of Dr. McLeod�s book, published in 2005 by Doubleday/Random House.

In the July 4, 2005 New York Times article about your business, �He Says He Owns the Word �Stealth,�� you said, �If a trademark owner doesn�t go up to the plate each day and police his mark, he will be overrun by third-party infringers.� Also, as you state on Rentamark.com, �There is no free well-known intellectual property left in the 21st Century. No free rides!� As a group that monitors unauthorized uses of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, we couldn�t agree more.

In the course of policing FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, we at FESC (consisting of the websites freedomofexpression.us, freedomofexpression.org, freedom-of-expression.org, and freedom-of-expression.com) have learned of your infringement, which can be found at this URL: http://www.rentamark.com/e-marks/E-I/e-i.html.

We are troubled by (1) your unrestrained use of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and (2) the fact that you have offered to license this phrase to third parties without permission. After all, not just anybody can utilize FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, and it is clear that your use of this phrase constitutes unfair competition and a blurring and tarnishing of this federally registered mark.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION will be substantially and irreparably damaged should this infringement continue. We, therefore, demand that Rentamark.com immediately cease and desist using FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION within five days. We eagerly await your response.

Very truly yours,

Kembrew McLeod

http://freedomofexpression.us/

Freedom of Expression� Security Consortium
1037 E. Washington St.
Iowa City, IA 52240
kembrew@freedomofexpression.us

cc:
John Joseph Bachir http://freedomofexpression.org/
Fletcher Moore http://freedom-of-expression.com/
Julie Gilberg http://freedom-of-expression.org/

To AT&T Wireless

John — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 03:25:07 +0000

I don’t know who is advising you, but your security model SUCKS. It is RIDICULOUS to use a “secret question” to keep my account secure. Yes it’s true that a lot of answers will be very unique. But [a] it’s difficult for a user to remember exactly what they put, since they are all subjective questions [b] do a little audit of your database, I bet a solid 1% or more of the selected questions were “who would you most like to meet” with the answer being “jesus”.

Furthermore, I honestly do not have an answer to any of the questions!! I didn’t have any pets as a child, I didn’t have a hero, and I don’t have superlative feelings for ANY member of ANY of those categories. I am going to have to basically make something up, and then WRITE MY ANSWER DOWN SOMEWHERE.

What ever happened to date of birth, mother’s maiden name, and email verification with forced password change? I know there is still a small cleartext hole in that system. Maybe you have statistics that show that your system is more secure than what I propose. If so I apologize for my hurtful, ignorant criticism.

Thank you for your time,
John Joseph Bachir