Newsweek’s Daniel Gross explains the Consumer Price Index (here’s the official BLS site) in a very simple video. I could do without the goofy sound effects, but it’s a good, 2 minute explanation of how the government tracks inflation.
Per David Simon’s Berkeley talk, though, the video doesn’t go into why this matters. Perhaps they’ll cover that in the next installment of the Economics 101 series.
|
Blogroll
Friends
CT Politics Politics
Technology
West Hartford Blogs Hartford Blogs |
Active Posts
|
|
Track & Validate
|
This is an interesting post. I think all of us that built our careers on the back of PCs and traditional browsers will need to read this. Entrepreneurs should have to answer, “How can my idea be a mobile app? Why isn’t it?”
So, I am taking a look at all my bills to see where I can make some cuts to save some money. I come to my Verizon home phone account and I re-look at my plan. I am signed up for the Verizon Freedom Plan for $55.99. This plan includes:
Unlimited Long Distance
Anonymous Call Rejection
Call Forwarding
Call Waiting
Caller ID
Voice Mail
Speed Dialing 8 and
Three Way Calling
Now, I know when I signed up for the plan 3 years ago, this was the cheapest plan that included unlimited long distance. Since I don’t get good reception for cell phone in my condo, and I mostly call the west coast, this was the best deal at the time. But, now they have some new plans.
Since I only really use caller ID and call waiting, there is a plan that just includes these options (plus voice mail) for $39.99 called Verizon Freedom Essentials. So, this is good for me. I can cut down what I don’t use anyway and save $15/month. I select the plan and the next screen gives a list of choices you can add on for an additional charge each month. They split the choices into two lists: “Your Current Calling Features” (where the three options included in the package: voice mail, caller ID, and call waiting are all checked and the monthly fee is “included” like you would expect) and the other list is “Add New Calling Features” which have a list of options like call forwarding, *69, busy redial, etc. all for an additional monthly fee.
Well, I like my selection with just my “included” options, so I just select next and find out my monthly bill comes out to be $45.69 with extra charges for “Speed Dialing 8 @ $1.70/month and Three-Way Calling @ $4/month. So, what gives???
I go back to try to look at the selection to make sure they hadn’t check any additional features automatically (which I may have just missed). First, it takes 3 different links to go back one page (an “edit” link on the first page, a “change selection(s)” link on the second page, and another “go” link on the final page). Once I finally get back to add features page (which you can tell they made purposely hard to do), I start scanning for these two additional features: Speed Dialing 8 and Three-Way Calling. They are no where to be found. But, I do find a nondescript link on the bottom of the page called “Show All Features.” Those slime balls. So, I click the link and magically the page expands to show a sublist under “Your Current Calling Features” called “Your Additional Calling Features” which is still different than the other list “Additional Calling Features.”
Yeah it sounds confusing, but basically if you are not pay attention while going through the selection, they have automatically added additional features to your plan and hidden them from you, hoping you do not notice when you proceed with your check out. Even though there is a list of 16 additional cost features which you could choose from to add on to your package, they try to literally hide 2 of them from you so you end up paying more.
How completely unethical. Shame.
