Author: FourMajor
Date: 2006-09-20
September 20, 2006
Teavana
2164 Polk St
San Francisco, CA 94109
To Whom It May Concern:
As I walk by your store most every day, I couldn’t help but notice the sign posted on the door stating something to the effect of, “Closed for remodel until 9/15.” It is clear that the store:
1) Is not being remodeled.
2) Did not reopen on or immediately after September 15.
With your permission, I will gladly affix more accurate signage to the door free of charge.
Sincerely,
Stuart Matthews
(address omitted in the online version of this letter)
Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-12-16
My first positive letter:
********************
December 9, 2005
MSNBC on the Internet
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
To Whom It May Concern:
I would like to applaud the free podcast service you provide for several of your television shows. I especially like the NBC Nightly News podcast and the Meet the Press podcast. This is a great service that you provide and it speaks highly of MSNBC that the service is provided for free.
Having said this, I do understand that these programs cost money to produce. My free listening is currently being subsidized by cable TV and advertising revenues. I would like to let MSNBC know that I would be willing to pay a reasonable price for this podcast service. Hopefully, others will be willing to do the same, so that at the time when the podcast becomes too popular to provide for free, we can pay a subscription for the podcast rather than have it paid for through ads.
Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Stuart Matthews
2240 Larkin Street
Apartment 103
San Francisco, CA 94109
Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-12-02
I have written the following letter to Postmaster General John Potter as a follow-up to the letter I sent to the Pine Street post office in San Francisco, to which I have not received a response.
2 December 2005
Postmaster General John E. Potter
U.S. Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20260
Dear Postmaster General Potter:
First of all, I am writing this letter directly to you because I was unable to find a general mailing address for the USPS on the usps.com website. I find this a bit ironic.
On November 2, 2005, I sent a letter (included in this mailing) to my local post office, located at 1400 Pine St. San Francisco, CA 94109-9991, concerning a customer service complaint. I have not yet received a response, which only further adds to my evidence of shoddy customer service at this location.
I understand that the USPS is not motivated by profit, and therefore it may be more difficult to motivate managers to provide good service to the customers. This is the reason I am writing – in the absence of feedback in the form of rising or falling profits, managers have to receive feedback from the customers as far as their performance is concerned.
I hope you will take action to improve the customer service skills of the employees at this location. I would like to hear back from you or someone at my local post office with details on what actions are being taken to improve customer service.
Sincerely,
Stuart Matthews
2240 Larkin Street
Apartment 103
San Francisco, CA 94109
**** Original letter to SF post office omitted from this post, because it can be found by clicking here. ****
Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-11-18
Macy’s doesn’t seem too interested in protecting their customers against fraud, so I’ve written them again and copied the California Office of Privacy Protection. Hopefully we will get some results. The contents of the letter are found below.
November 18, 2005
Macy’s Customer Service
P.O. Box 8067
Mason, OH 45040
CC: Office of Privacy Protection
Department of Consumer Affairs
400 R Street, Suite 3080
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Macy’s Customer Service,
On October 5, 2005, I wrote a letter (a copy of which has been included in this mailing) to Macy’s customer service with a concern about the security of the credit card mailing methods. I have not yet received a reply. I was fairly certain that someone at Macy’s would be interested to know the ease in which fraud could be committed on their customers’ new credit cards.
Since that time I have received two promotional offers in the mail from Macy’s. I hardly think your sales and offers are more important than your customers’ identity theft concerns.
Due to the apparent lack of interest in the protection of your customers’ credit card accounts, I have sent a copy of this letter to the California Office of Privacy Protection. I hope that between all of us, we can come up with an acceptable solution.
Sincerely,
Stuart Matthews
2240 Larkin Street
Apartment 103
San Francisco, CA 94109
October 5, 2005
Macy’s Customer Service
P.O. Box 8067
Mason, OH 45040
To Whom It May Concern –
I have recently received a Macy’s Visa card in the mail. I have noticed a stunning security problem with the way the card is sent.
The credit card number, as you know, is shown on the back of the card as well as the front of the card. On the back of the card, it is printed in black ink. The glue used to affix the credit card is placed directly onto this part of the card. When you remove the card from the paper, guess what gets left behind on the paper? That is right – the credit card number, and the three-digit security code. This, in combination with the credit card holder’s name and address, is almost all that is needed to make charges to the card. The only other thing needed is the expiration date. A nefarious individual can quite easily guess this date in a short amount of time. They can either start trying dates starting from one month after the current month, or they can easily apply for a Macy’s card of their own and see what the expiration date is on that, which will be close to the date of the stolen card number.
Many people throw this piece of paper away unmolested. The only personally-identifiable information they should expect to be on this paper are their name and address. Not everyone will have as good of eyesight as I do to be able to notice the small numbers left behind on the glue. I hope you correct this error quickly and update me with any actions that have been taken to prevent fraud due to this error.
Sincerely,
Stuart Matthews
2240 Larkin Street
Apartment 103
San Francisco, CA 94109
Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-11-18
I have written a letter to Google. The letter text is below:
November 18, 2005
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
To Whom It May Concern:
I would like to start this letter by saying that I really admire your company. I have always thought that many companies require far too many employees to create software that is either not extremely complex, or software that takes entirely too long to complete. Google proves that software can be written quickly and efficiently, and at a high quality. Because of my faith in the company, I am also a shareholder.
But this was not the point of my letter. Unfortunately I do not often send letters for the sole purpose of praise, although I suppose maybe I should. Rather, I am writing with concerns over how Google makes money.
By making money solely through advertising, you are giving your users no choice other than to have messages which are often nothing more than misleading half-truths shoved into their faces. I personally take offense to advertising. Advertising by its very nature is likely to be extremely misleading. Advertisers, entirely motivated by capitalism in most cases, will say whatever needs to be said to generate the most profit. This and many other things are what offend me about advertising.
Having said this, I admit that Google is hardly the most evil corporation in the world. Indeed, I believe that Google has done a lot of good for the world. The reason that I have picked Google, however, to write this letter to, is because of the size of Google and its future potential for growth. Because of Google’s size, I wanted to make it clear that not necessarily everyone is “OK†with advertising. Not everyone accepts a service as “free†when we are being forced to be shown advertising.
I am not suggesting that Google change its entire business model. To do so would surely be the ruin of the company. What I am suggesting is that the users be given a choice. I am sure you have plenty of data regarding how much money is made on each user per visit, day, click, etc. I suggest that you offer a pay model that would match this revenue. If a user such as me were to sign up for this pay model, I would simply not be shown the ads, yet you would be receiving the same amount of money from me that you would expect from a normal “free†user. You can count on the fact that I would be the first person to sign up for such a service.
I have attached a recent article that I have written on my blog. You can find the online copy of this article at http://www.fourmajor.com/?p=52. I hope you will think about what I have said in this letter. I do not expect one letter to cause a change in how you do business, but if everyone that felt as I do would write a letter to Google, perhaps you would consider changing how you do business. I would greatly appreciate a reply containing your thoughts in response to my letter.
Sincerely,
Stuart Matthews
2240 Larkin Street
Apartment 103
San Francisco, CA 94109
Google Account name: muhgcee@gmail.com
** text of attached article removed from online version of letter. Please click this link to view the online version of the article **
Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-11-06
Ralph Nader wrote the following letter to President Bush. You can find the original here.
Dear Mr. President:
A humanitarian catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions is unfolding in the Himalayas, yet your administration seems remarkably unorganized in applying more resources. Has anyone shown you the wire service photos of frightened children standing in the rubble with nothing between them and the impending winter but a blanket? Reports tell of 2 to 3 million people who are without homes, hundreds of thousands who have received no aid whatsoever, and helicopter flights facing cutbacks because they have no aid to deliver. Is the world community prepared to turn its back on these people? Are you, the self proclaimed leader of the compassionate forces in the world, looking askance?
While hundreds of millions of dollars in aid have been promised by the international community, only a fraction of it has been received. What is urgently needed are tents for shelter and equipment for removing rubble, reconstruction and other materials in advance of the approaching winter. Lack of medical care is causing relatively minor infections to fester to the point where doctors are forced to resort to amputation. Reports from the scene tell us that the 80,000 dead from the earthquake may be matched by a second wave of preventable deaths, deaths attributable to disinterest and neglect among those who have the capacity to preserve these lives.
Our nation has large and well-organized communities of both Indians and Pakistanis. If the reports and the images of this tidal wave of human disaster do not move you, perhaps you and your party should prepare to explain to these communities why their brothers and sisters were not worth saving. The aid pledged by your administration so far amounts to a few hours worth of what you are spending on the boomerang Iraq War opposed by a growing majority of the American people. Please spare us from the suggestion that you, our history’s largest tax-cutter for the wealthy, including yourself, cannot afford to do more.
You have often loudly and publicly proclaimed your Christian beliefs, most recently in your support for Ms. Meyers’ nomination to the United States Supreme Court. Perhaps your religious beliefs could offer you some guidance in determining what is the decent course of action for the President to do in this moment of grave crisis for so many helpless families.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-11-05
Some or all of you may not have noticed, but I have put a link on the right to my letter writing. New this week – me complaining to the Washington Post and my local post office.