Customer service rambling

Back in the late 1980's or early 1990's, I went to literally a mom and pop store to buy a new scanner. This place came very highly recommended and had been around forever as being the end all and be all for anything scanners. So I tell them which scanner I was interested in and they acted like it was their first day of kindergarten as never hearing of that model "We don't know we don't know." Fortunately, I found another local place that to me was scanner Heaven with the owner being the kind of guy who was happy to talk to you all day about scanners. I bought a couple more from him until he closed up in about the mid 1990's. The internet has been a Godsend to me in regards to scanners. Once you find a good place, it's best to stick with them. If not, there are many others out there. Yes dealing with customer service these days can be like pushing a brick wall with many incompetent people then add to that people who don't or refuse to speak English especially over the phone.
That's why I have absolutely no regrets about completely cutting the TV cord last year. Paying a ton of money only to have equipment not working properly and only getting jerked around isn't worth it. I only watch my growing DVD collection now along with YOUTUBE video's. Much more wide and segmented choices that way and no high fees either.

 

[kc2asb]

Mom & pop / brick & mortar radio shops are an endangered species. Radio Shack fit that bill in many areas. There was nothing better than being able to walk into a showroom and see/try the radios out in person.

My father took me to Radio Shack in the late 80's to get my first new radio, a Realistic SW-60 multi-band tunable receiver. In 1988, I received my first scanner as a birthday gift, which was purchased at a Consumers Catalog Showrooms store. (anyone remember them?) My first CB radio also came from Radio Shack, a year later.

Over the years, I purchased more scanners from Radio Shack and from a local mom & pop CB/scanner/marine radio shop, who was a Uniden Bearcat dealer.
Like you, I mostly watch programming on DVD/BluRay and Youtube. Youtube is OK, so long as the ad blocker is working, otherwise their ads are too intrusive and long. (as well as irrelevant). I'm close to canceling FIOS TV and only keeping the phone/internet.

As long as they keep making BluRay/DVD players, we should be fine!

 

[MTS2000des]

Watch TV over the air for free with an antenna and stop paying cable/satellite/streaming to get local TV. Sure, you may have to put up an outdoor antenna like the old days of analog TV, but you'll never pay for anything more than electricity to watch TV.

Second, customer service is non-existent. Companies want your money and nothing else. They don't give a rats behind about loyalty or repeat business. If you have LOCALLY owned hardware stores, grocers, eateries, etc SUPPORT THEM. Screw the corporate chains.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Watch TV over the air for free with an antenna and stop paying cable/satellite/streaming to get local TV. Sure, you may have to put up an outdoor antenna like the old days of analog TV, but you'll never pay for anything more than electricity to watch TV.

Second, customer service is non-existent. Companies want your money and nothing else. They don't give a rats behind about loyalty or repeat business. If you have LOCALLY owned hardware stores, grocers, eateries, etc SUPPORT THEM. Screw the corporate chains.

All things being equal, I would rather patronize a local or regional establishment. However, if the local places don't have what I want or the owner is a crabby old jerk, then I say that I don't care who owns it. I have dealt with bad local places and great national places. As for TV, to me there's nothing worth watching on local OTA TV so no need for an antenna. I can get local news headlines on my phone thereby omitting the Ken and Barbie Bubblehead giggle session to get news.

 

[ladn]

Indeed, most "customer service" is an oxymoron.

I can't receive OTA TV where I live so I've beet at the mercy of either cable or Dish. I dropped cable many years ago in favor of Dish because of poor signal quality. I'd grown weary of they way Dish (and other providers) bundle channels. The poor customer service from some offshore script reading dolt I received earlier this year when I tried to get the LNBs replaced was enough motivation to completely sack Dish. Haven't looked back.

There used to be many excellent electronics stores here in the Los Angeles area; Henry Radio, Jun's, Dow, ITC, Electronic City, HRO and Eagle to name just a few. Now these are all gone (HRO still exists, but the nearest store in in Anaheim). I've ordered from DX Engineering with good results along with the Antenna Farm. Most of my recent scanners come from Amazon. Their customer service, while mostly offshore, has generally been decent. They're not of any use for technical issues though.

My community had two locally owned hardware stores. Both were well stocked and had long time employees who knew things. The owner of one store retired and sold out about 10 years ago. The new owners were nice enough, but didn't know much about hardware. The long time employees left and the store eventually closed. The second store's owner also wanted to retire. Business was down because of local ACE and DIY Home Center store competition. He ended up just closing the store.

 

[KK4JUG]

All things being equal, I would rather patronize a local or regional establishment. However, if the local places don't have what I want or the owner is a crabby old jerk, then I say that I don't care who owns it. I have dealt with bad local places and great national places. As for TV, to me there's nothing worth watching on local OTA TV so no need for an antenna. I can get local news headlines on my phone thereby omitting the Ken and Barbie Bubblehead giggle session to get news.

I have always thought this way. I have always tried to buy as local as possible. Many years ago, we had a local dairy (read milk processing plant) and I always bought their milk because it was local. They went out of business so it doesn't matter now. My car was made about 40 miles up the road. I have two Heckler & Koch pistols because they're made locally. A couple of blocks from me is an old fashioned hardware store; it's one of those that seems to have at least one of everything ever made. I shop there when I can. Failing that, I go to Home Depot. It's not that Lowe's is bad, rather, it's because HD is a Georgia company. I used to drink RC Cola because (like Coca Cola) it was invented locally.* Early on, Coke move to Atlanta but RC stayed here--for a while. When they moved to New York, I quit drinking soft drinks. Rainbo Bread used to have a local bakery but when it moved, bread brands didn't matter anymore.

I've always tried to buy local. Sometimes it's a few pennies more but nothing I can't afford.

*Dr. Pemberton was a local pharmacist who concocted his drink here in Columbus, GA. He took it to Atlanta for marketing purposes and never left. Columbus doesn't even have a Coca Cola bottling plant anymore.

 

[MTS2000des]

As for TV, to me there's nothing worth watching on local OTA TV so no need for an antenna. I can get local news headlines on my phone thereby omitting the Ken and Barbie Bubblehead giggle session to get news.

So now you presumably pay a subscription service to get Ken and Barbie Bubblehead to get your "local news" on a device that also costs a monthly fee to use, and is reliant upon a network/wi-fi to get it's content which presumably also has a fee. Gotcha.

 

[kc2asb]

So now you presumably pay a subscription service to get Ken and Barbie Bubblehead to get your "local news" on a device that also costs a monthly fee to use, and is reliant upon a network/wi-fi to get it's content which presumably also has a fee. Gotcha.

News is perfectly fine OTA, whether TV or radio. Like you said, no subscription fee, no reliance on a network/wifi.

 

[mark40]

Early seventies time line, in my teens, purchased scanners literally at Mom and Pops kitchen table and CBs from another Pops living room. In the eighties and nineties it was either Mom and Pop, Scanner World or a local Fire Equipment Vendor. Scanner Master and Bearcat Warehouse have been what I've used in more recent times. In all those mentioned never had a bad customer service experience.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Well it's doesn't cost extra to access local TV station apps to look at the headlines. I have to pay to use the device anyway and more choices less cost than traditional OTA or cable could even think of. Nobody likes to pay fees for extra service and I don't subscribe to extra cost apps. But see, they can't give things away since nobody wants to work for free.
HEHE, fees. Last month I paid over $500.00 for a complete series DVD set. The original FBI TV program. But now I don't have to worry that some subscription service will yank it.

 

[MTS2000des]

Many of the network TV apps and most corporate local TV stations require one to...wait for it..login with your "cable or satellite account" to access live content. In other words, one has to be a PAYING SUBSCRIBER to stream live TV. I get over 87 channels from 24 actual RF channels at my house FOR FREE with nothing but over the air TV including: MeTV, Dabl, Court TV, France 24, NHK, Fox Weather, to name a few- not a penny and no reliance on cellular networks that always seem to be having outages these days. If we don't support free OTA, it will soon go away. Oh wait...they're already trying to...uh oh..dirty word here..ENCRYPT it so they can put it behind paywalls.

 

[kc2asb]

If we don't support free OTA, it will soon go away. Oh wait...they're already trying to...uh oh..dirty word here..ENCRYPT it so they can put it behind paywalls.

Exactly. How else can they get your money and sell the data on your viewing habits to data brokers? No matter how cheap satellite radio is, I'm sticking with terrestrial radio.

 

[MTS2000des]

That part. Once free to air goes away, or encrypted/paywalled, I won't consume it any more. They lose viewership and ad revenue. I'll spend money on subscriptions like Netflix that offer ad-free experiences and affordable streaming services like FrndlyTV that have the three cable networks I watch. The sad part is local news is a good tool for exposing local corruption and holding local officials accountable. If the NAB and ATSC keep hosing things up, no one will be watching anything and they'll go out of business.

 

[Falcon9h]

Canceled cable years ago. I have sources I download movies from. I want the movie in the collection, not streaming=not in my possession. Otherwise it's Youtube with adblockers for windows and Android, without adblocking it's not even usable. I stay away from most news-I'm trying to stay out of the psych ward, not in. 😜
I'm rural so lots of times it's Amazon or nothing. I try to support local business. Miss Radio Shack but I knew they were gonna cream in when they became Cellphone Shack.

 

[kc2asb]

Canceled cable years ago. I have sources I download movies from. I want the movie in the collection, not streaming=not in my possession. Otherwise it's Youtube with adblockers for windows and Android, without adblocking it's not even usable. I stay away from most news-I'm trying to stay out of the psych ward, not in. 😜

Looks like Youtube is now interspersing ads with the search results/video listing vs. inserting them into videos. Has anyone else noticed this? I still use an ad blocker with Firefox.

There is still good programming out there, but you have to premium cable channels and/or multiple streaming platforms. Even the streaming platforms are raising their prices now that they feel they have captive audiences. It's not worth it - I'll stick with my DVD/BluRay collection and Youtube

I'm rural so lots of times it's Amazon or nothing. I try to support local business. Miss Radio Shack but I knew they were gonna cream in when they became Cellphone Shack.

That was the beginning of the end for Radio Shack. In addition to Radio Shack, I bought receivers/scanners from Universal Radio, Lentini Communications in CT and Advanced Specialties here in NJ. Universal Radio and Lentini have both closed, and I believe Advanced Specialties moved to NY.

If I was going to buy a new scanner today, I'd probably go with MTC in Texas. They are radio people, have good prices and frequent sales.

 

[MTS2000des]

Yep, YouTube is inserting spam ads into content based on auto detection. If someone mentions say, a particular brand of snack foods, it's detected much like other "content match". Speaking of zero customer service, companies like Google and Meta do everything they can to avoid person to person contact. Everything is online and most are spam turd AI chat bots or they'll refer you to a forum, Reddit or some other third party venue to voice a concern or report an issue.

 

[kc2asb]

Yep, YouTube is inserting spam ads into content based on auto detection. If someone mentions say, a particular brand of snack foods, it's detected much like other "content match". Speaking of zero customer service, companies like Google and Meta do everything they can to avoid person to person contact. Everything is online and most are spam turd AI chat bots or they'll refer you to a forum, Reddit or some other third party venue to voice a concern or report an issue.

Don't want to go to far off topic, but Google and Meta are two companies we could do without. Google especially is too big and should be broken up.

After my cousin was hacked and now has someone impersonating her on FARCEbook, I may delete my account. No interest in chatting with an AI bot. She cannot get any help from Facebook in resolving this.

That is what makes Radio Reference great - there are real people here to address any issues and they respond very promptly.

 

[KK4JUG]

Speaking of zero customer service, companies like Google and Meta do everything they can to avoid person to person contact. Everything is online and most are spam turd AI chat bots or they'll refer you to a forum, Reddit or some other third party venue to voice a concern or report an issue.

With the millions and millions of people using both Google and Meta, it would take tens of thousands of individuals to handle the phones. While I'm sure they could afford it, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of them doing it.

 

[MTS2000des]

With the millions and millions of people using both Google and Meta, it would take tens of thousands of individuals to handle the phones. While I'm sure they could afford it, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of them doing it.

Verizon has millions of customers. They answer the phone.
AT&T also has millions of customers.. They answer the phone.
When someone commits fraud and opens a Verizon or AT&T account in your name, you can call their fraud department with near immediacy, when you have a fake Facrbook impersonator, or YouTube content creators steal another persons IP, there is no live person. Just AI turdbots to blow you off. Sounds reasonable!

 

[Scan125]

Have to say be thankful you don't live in the UK

You have to have an expensive TV License to watch *ANY* (including Foreign TV) live broadcast including those streamed over the Internet. Failure to have a license is a CRIMINAL offence, with criminal record that can screw you fr years to come. This is how the BBC is funded as opposed to TV ads etc. None of the money goes to independent TV companies who have to fund themselves via ads etc.

However if you live outside the UK you can watch all the live broadcasts for free.

We have been thinking of pulling the plug on the TV antenna especially as the BBC is completely woke, avoids any news/content/reporting that the Government would prefer not to be seen etc.

Pull the antenna sounds easy but even watching one live broadcast that may be streamed on the Internet is a criminal offence.

All stitched up we are.