Focus on Politics

Motel 6 claims to have cheap prices without the extra stuff, but sometimes that extra stuff is what keeps people coming back. I always look for a good deal, and I try not to waste money on things that don’t matter. But a hotel, something I thought didn’t make a difference, is something you need to think twice about before you go with just the cheapest deal.

I was traveling to Los Angeles during Memorial Day weekend. The purpose of the visit was to stop by Bartow and visit my grandpa’s gravesite in honor of his heroism. I decided to travel all the way to LA so I could show my husband the beach. I made reservations for Motel 6 in Hollywood almost a month in advance. I had made the original reservation for two nights.

We live in Phoenix, so we decided to head for LA first. We made it to Hollywood around 6pm. My husband said he had family in Mission Hills and that may be able to stay with them on the second night. When we checked into the hotel, we told the front desk person that we had a reservation for two nights but that we may not use our second night. The girl said that she would fix our reservation so that all we would have to do was let them know by 11am the next morning if we wanted to stay our second night. We were handed our keys and went up to the room.

The next morning, we decided that we should stay the second night at the hotel because we didn’t want to impose on my husband’s family. They really didn’t have the room anyway. So, we went down to the hotel’s front desk and told them we needed our room for the second night of our reservation. We were told by a different girl that their hotel was full and that we couldn’t stay a second night. I asked her what had happened to our reservation because I had made a two night reservation a month ago. She said the person who checked us in had taken away our second night and sold it to someone else.

It was Memorial Day weekend, so I knew that the hotels around the area would be full, but these people did nothing to accommodate us. I used to work for a hotel and our policy was to try and accommodate the people who we had overbooked. It was our job, not the customer, to find room at another hotel. Motel 6 did nothing. I spoke to the manager, and he basically said it was too bad.

It began to rain and my husband and I could not visit the beach. Instead, we had to drive all the way back to Phoenix because we had no place to stay. We managed to stop by Barstow to visit my grandpa’s grave before we headed back home. I’m glad that I at least had the opportunity to do that.

Motel 6 changed our vacation plans for the worse. We weren’t able to do anything we were planning on doing, and we almost didn’t get the chance to stop in Barstow. All because Motel 6 made a mistake that they couldn’t take responsibility for.

When I arrived home, I went to the Motel 6 website. I filled out a complaint on their site, but I never heard anything from them. They probably just ignored me thinking I was just a cheap consumer who deserved to have my vacation plans ruined. Motel 6 won’t leave the light on for you because they don’t care about their guests. It shows in their customer service. The next time you think about saving money on a hotel, make sure you know you are taking a risk for bad customer service. To me, it’s not worth it.

I would never buy a Kia, but that has nothing to do with their service. I just don’t like their cars. Unfortunately, my mother was desperate for a car and she bought the first one that was inexpensive. She had just moved to Arizona in February 2005 and didn’t have a car. She couldn’t afford an expensive car because she wasn’t making much in the Education field. So, she found a Kia Rio for around $10,000. She bought the Rio at Big Bell Kia in northern Phoenix.

The car came with a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty. Her car recently reached 30,000 miles. She decided to take her Rio to this Kia location on a Friday to have her 30,000 mile inspection. She had to work, but unfortunately she worked 40 minutes away from this location. I volunteered to take her car up there for her. She called me after she got off work and told me that Kia had called her to let her know that her car was done.

I picked her up and we drove all the way up to northern Phoenix in rush hour. It was taking longer than we had expected, so she tried to call Kia service station ten minutes before 6pm. No one answered. We finally arrived at Kia at 5:57pm. All of the service station people had left for the day. The sales people were the only ones there. They tried to help us, but they couldn’t get into the service department because they didn’t have keys to get in. They had to call the manager so we could get her car.

My mother lives almost 50 miles away from Phoenix, and she needs a car. We weren’t leaving until she had her car. At around 7:00pm, an hour after we had arrived, the manager showed up to let us get our car. My mother paid the bill. I asked the manager why everyone in the service department went home so early. She said that she was there until 6pm. What a lie! I told her that we tried calling at 10 minutes before 6pm and that we had arrived at 5:57. She may have meant that she screeched out in her car at 6pm on the dot.

When you work for a company that closes at a certain time, you don’t leave at the time you close, you leave when every thing gets done. You can’t close early or leave early just in case someone stops by right before you close. My mother and I did every thing we could to let them know we might be late, and we were actually there right on time. This dealership called my mother to let her know her car was done right before 5pm. She told them that she would be on her way but that it may be awhile because I had to pick her up from work. Kia knew we were on our way, and there was no reason to believe that we were not coming. They didn’t leave keys with the secretary and they didn’t even call us to see if we were on our way. We did every thing we could on our part, but Kia didn’t do anything on their part to avoid this problem. Kia was clearly at fault, but when the bill was presented to us, they didn’t bother to take off anything for the inconvenience.

Several months ago, I had taken my Mitsubishi Lancer to the dealership in Scottsdale, and I had a similar issue with them. I had dropped off my car for a break repair, but it was taking longer than they had anticipated. I told the service guy that I needed it by Saturday. He said he would make sure it was finished by then. I didn’t hear anything from Mitsubishi on Friday. I called them on Monday, still without my car, and told them that I had needed my car by Saturday. The service guy apologized to me and even took off $50 on the bill. I later found out that this guy had called me and left a message letting me know that my car was done, but my cell phone didn’t give me the message until it was took late. So, it wasn’t their fault at all. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault, but Mitsubishi took the blame and they did what they could to correct the situation and keep me happy.

It looks like Kia could really take customer service advice from Mitsubishi. I love my Lancer and I will be loyal to Mitsubishi with that kind of good service. Kia’s cars are not really that great to begin with, and when you combine that with terrible customer service, they take the award for worse car dealership overall.

Dell computers tend to be made of refurbished parts, even when they say they are “New.” My mother decided to finally upgrade her old HP computer to a “new” Dell laptop. She decided to purchase a laptop three years ago because she was working on her Master’s degree and needed a way to store class information on a portable computer. She bought a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop along with a “new” desktop Dell computer. She bought an additional warranty for her laptop because she needed it to be reliable. After two years, her computer’s hard drive crashed, with just a month left on her warranty. We recovered all of her documents and installed the “new” hard drive Dell sent us. Less than two weeks later, her computer would not turn on. She brought it to me about a week later. I called Dell, but they wouldn’t even speak to me because the warranty had expired that same day. I called back a week later and told them that I already know the warranty was expired but that I just wanted to know what was going on with the computer.

I ran a bunch of tests. I tried to plug in the computer with the AC adapter, but every time I did, the green light would go out. Dell told me to start pulling out parts, like the DVD dive, the LAN wireless card, the RAM, and so forth. It still didn’t work, and they told me that the motherboard had died. I took the “new” hard drive we had just recently installed, and I decided to look to see the last date my mother used her computer before it crashed. It had crashed five days before the warranty had expired.

I explained to Dell the situation, but they said that they couldn’t cover the computer because I called after the warranty had expired. Apparently the prove on the hard drive and my mother’s word was not enough to convince them that the motherboard really did die before the warranty was expired.

I have had my Gateway laptop for three years, the same amount of time she has had her Dell. I have never had a problem with my laptop. I decided to see if there was a reason why her Dell would break down, especially for something as major as the motherboard, so soon. I took out the parts of her computer that the Dell technician told me to take out originally and I notice that the parts looked old. To compare it, I also took out the same parts out of my Gateway computer. I could easily tell that the Gateway parts were new. The so-called “new” parts Dell claimed to have, were actually refurbished. In fact, I could easily tell they were used because the LAN wireless card had hair on it, plus it was the older version. My Gateway had the new version installed.

I tried looking up on the Internet for a replacement motherboard for her Dell, but the only ones people were selling were all “new” refurbished. I’d be skeptical to try and buy it from Dell because I’m not sure if they even sell actual new parts that have never been used. My mother bought a Dell computer because it was cheap. I now know why they can keep their prices so cheap… they hire cheap tech people who can hardly speak English and don’t know how to fix anything, and then they refurbish all of their parts so they can save money by not making new products.

Dell may be cheap, but it’s not worth it. When you buy a computer from Dell, the only new product you are buying is the outside packaging. Everything else is probably used.

Arizona House Bill 2816

“Students pursuing double majors could lose financial aid after completing 145 credit hours if the Arizona Legislature passes House Bill 2816.” This was the lead sentence that Natalie Hays, a reporter for the State Press, said when she began her story. I don’t know if Natalie reported this error on purpose or if she just didn’t read or understand the House Bill. It says directly in the Bill that it exempts “credits earned in the pursuit of up to two baccalaureate degrees.” This means that the state will still allow students to pursue a double major or double program without being restricted. Unfortunately, this is not what the newspaper had reported. In fact, the paper was completely incorrect and had no basis for fact. The paper reported this story on April 10, 2006. The House had passed this bill on March 8, 2006. I’m not sure why the paper would be more than a month late with their reporting. Journalism is supposed to give people information in an unbiased manner. People need to realize that the news is reported on by other people. These people have emotions and opinions like everyone else. Journalist should be professional, but like any professional, their own opinions may cloud their judgment; especially in the journalism field. But that is not excuse to make mistakes that are easily avoidable. In fact, it’s a crime to report a lie on purpose.

Arizona State University completed their race to elect a new student body president. Unfortunately, this race has stirred up political tactics used by some jealous candidates. Dirty politics has become common place in our country, but college politics is not the place where you tend see candidates digging up dirt on another opponent. ASU had their run-off election between Ross Meyer and Richard Sales on March 7. Ross Meyer ended up winning this election and was thought to have been the new student body president. Little did he know that Sales was about to pull out dirt on him in a disturbing way. Shortly after Meyer was elected, Sales filed a complaint against Meyer for not turning in his expense report on time. Meyer was then disqualified. He has said that he will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the Associated Students of ASU. Unfortunately, the dirt has already been uncovered. The story gets even more disturbing after learning that Sales did not file is expense report on time either. What bothers me about this whole thing is that Sales decided to file a complaint against Meyer for the same violation that he too had committed. But Meyer did not file a complaint. Why? Maybe Meyer is a better person, and maybe that’s why he was elected president. I don’t know what Sales were thinking when he did what he did. He had to have known that he too was guilty of the same thing. I think he just wanted to get revenge for loosing the race. That’s poor sportsmanship. Sales seems to be a sore looser beyond the scope of a jealous child losing something he wanted. Children will just whine and complain. Sales wants to stab his opponent in the back and draw blood. This is why people did not vote for him. And I’m glad he is not the president. What would it say about ASU if a person like Richard Sales were the student body president?