The Art of Complaining

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Why is your complaint with Aetna and not the health care provider? If the provider gave you misleading information, I think you have a legitimate complaint with it but I am not sure what Aetna did wrong.

Jon of IL 11:00AM April 20, 2009

Let me give some insight here. First of all Sprint is responsible for the $3 fee. They refer to this as a convenice fee. In order for Radio Shack to generate a Payment card sprint requires $3, so blame sprint for that one. If you lost your payment card or forgot it thats YOUR fault not radio shack or sprints, thats what a wallet is for.
Unless you are an employee you do not understand that there is no way to refund those fees. And obviously since you have paid your bill at radio shack before and have recived a payment card before you are aware of that fee.
And why did you play the race card for. The fact that you are asian has nothing to do with it. Stop blaming others for your mistake, you said that you commenly use electronic bill pay, use it for sprint too and you will save time and confusion. The fact that you assume that radioshack is somehow cheating their customers is pretty low, and insulting the fact that that they are not well trained and liars is wrong. I have shoped at radio shack many times and they have helped me find items no one else has, and i have been in there when another customer comes in and the customer dosent even know what the hell they need and the employee has to spend 10 min. to find out what they need. So relax and be glad there is a place like radio shack to go to find what you you need, and not a place like best buy where it takes 30 min to get help.

RAG of CA 2:49PM April 10, 2008

Kimberly (and John),
I would encourage you to more fully explore the difference between "accepts" and "participates" for a service provider. Very often providers that participate in a network provide substantial discounts for services. Often it is not simply a paperwork issue. For example, I recently had some lab work done. The lab billed the insurance $203.29 for the test. Had the lab simply accepted my insurance, my insurance company would have paid 70% of that amount leaving me to pay the final 30%. However, since the lab participates in my network, my insurance provider negotiated the total cost of the test down to $22.31, of which they paid 90% and I paid 10%; my out of pocket cost was $2.23 as opposed to $69.09. As you can see, for me, the difference was substantial. Details of network agreements will of course vary from provider to provider, but the distinction deserves some investigation with your insurance company.

MLM of CA 10:35PM February 10, 2008

Since we use on line or electronic transfer to pay our bill, we hardly have postal stamps at home; when we use Spring PCS cell phone, commonly just walk into Radio Shack which we bought our cell phone there couple years ago, paid the cell phone bill monthly. One time, I went in to the Arcadia Radio Shack store on Baldwin Ave; they charged $5.00 for fees, plus $3.00 for payment card from Spring PCS, in order to get the service from Radio Shack, I was rush to do something attend to come back to find out; but, I forgot.
Last month 01/16, 11:18 AM I went into store again, I have paid my Spring cellphone bill, they charged $5.00 for fee and $3.00 for without payment card; I was asked the guy names Malvin why, he told me the computer said so, because the machine can not read the payment card; I told him if computer can not read the card how do you know my address and verified with me? What is the card you are holding? He couldnot answered, and refused to return the overcharge; I was upset and walked out the Radio Shack, looked into the printed receipt, it stated, without payment card, $3.00 been charged, please bring back your payment card!
I know I got cheated by this Radio Shack Arcadia store clerk; when I drove around the blocks, I decided went back to the Radio Shack store again, malvin saw me and rushing out for lunch, the store Manager Irfan Khan came to the front ignored the situation and asked me to call the Spring PCS and find out the charge, push away the incident like nothing happened in the store, and refused refund the difference; we walked away.
Now, we have called the Spring PCS, they indicated that charges not applied to Spring PCS, that means, those charges goes to Radio Shack store; we tried to contact Radio Shack customer service, they want us to deal with "SErvice Provider"- the store we went in! No one can help us, they want us to call Spring PCS to solve the problem.
We felt so bad, we were Radio Shack store customer for many years, why Radio Shack had never trained these guys in this store? Why Radio Shack will hire someone like these to guys to handle the store?
I would like to get the answer somewhere and somehow I will tell all my neighbors and friends, church members, Chamber of Commerce members, school district or media if I have to when I have chance.
If I got cheated, what about so many seniors and other Asian Americans lived in the areas, this Radio Shack store must did the same to all others; what can we do to stop them?
Will you passed these message to Radio Shack Customer Service and Spring PCS and others?

Rex Chang of CA 1:39PM February 10, 2008

Thank you for the alert. This topic cannot be talked about enough. I wish that every person, especially 65+, disabled, hearing-imparied, language-imparied, etc... would get a dose of this information every single day. The more we hear of other people's experiences of having to fight every darn mistake, the more we know how common it is (and realize that it is a PRACTICE of many businesses, NOT an erroneous mistake!). Once we realize this is a practice designed to bilk us out of our hard-earned money, we get ticked off enough to do something about it. Please keep writing these articles and sharing these experiences. The fact that we all have to be our own advocate about every single transaction, and fight these companies on a regular basis..... is criminal. These companies should never be allowed to operate like this. They should be investigated and fined big erroneous bucks!!!!
I just saw a similar story on 20/20 last night where John Stossel visits a number of resorts to find that almost every hotel had a hidden "resort fee" that nobody ever tells you about until you check out. The standard answer was "oh this is a mandatory fee that is charged to everyone, whether you use the services or not"... the services being morning newspaper, gym, pool, etc. The message of the story was --- always ask -- always question what you are paying -- and always attempt to negotiate to have a fee removed, because sometimes the clerk can and will remove the fee. Obviously if a CLERK has the authority to remove a standard fee when you simply question them about it, then this fee IS ERRONEOUS. It's bad enough that many many hotels are charging hidden fees *without telling you up front* but insurance companies and emergency rooms not being up front and/or making "mistakes" that are ALWAYS in their favor? God help us.

Caryn Parker of CA 2:48PM February 09, 2008

Hi John,
When I asked Aetna to explain, it said that a provider might say it "accepts" a form of insurance when it means that it is not in a network with it but is willing to fill out the paperwork so you can pay upfront and be reimbursed later. To my mind (and I assume others), that is not the same as "accepting" insurance. But Aetna says the term "participates" more clearly specifies whether the provider is in the network with the provider. Hope that helps.

Kimberly Palmer of 5:34PM February 07, 2008

Tell me about it. I was the victim of Identity Theft/Fraud and I did everything I was supposed to due according to the FTC, from Obtaining police reports, contacting credit card companies, attempting to change account numbers, and it is now Feb. 2008, and this occurred as far back as 9/2006. I am a single Mom with 2 almost grown kids, and had my bills paid from my checking account and it wasn't until I began to notice $18,000 charges per month on my Bank of America charges among other companies that I went into overdrive. I was treated by B of A like the criminal-not the victim. I am still going back and forth with them and Comptroller of the Currency and them since they did an offset of my checking account and widthdrew funds and even the 'asst' to the CEO doesn't know the correct information. This has bankrupted my 22 yr old business, made me sick, had consequenses that are so far reaching it is really disquisting.

Pamela Bonds of PA 2:50PM February 07, 2008

Kimberly,
Thank you for the very eye opening article on "The Art of Complaining." I'm having the same problem with my insurance company. What did the rep mean by the following that you should have asked the facility if it "participates" with the provider, not if it "accepts it." What is the difference?
Thank you,

John Gill of CO 10:57PM February 06, 2008