corporate abuse

I want to belong to K-Mart’s Shop Your Way bonus club for the reward points that I can deduct from my purchases, but I don’t want to receive their promo emails; but the club policy requires that, if am a member, I must receive these emails. Therefore, even though I agree to receive them by default, I still consider them to be scum spam and I treat them accordingly by dismissing them outright and relegating them to the trash folder automatically. Maybe one day I’ll take some kind of action that more directly addresses this "disrespect” (for lack of a better word; “abuse” is probably too strong) of customers who spend money at their stores.

This issue is larger and more profound than K-Mart, though. It was not all that long ago that most customer service reps would bend over backwards to satisfy a complaining customer; but no longer. Now they tell you when you complain that they’re sorry (they’re still required to be polite) but they can do nothing for you because the issue is a matter of policy. Oh, I see. You have a policy. Well, that makes it all right then. I do admit that a certain type of customer will abuse the former bend-over-backwards policy, but then I could care less if corporations are abused—because, despite law to the contrary, they are not individual people, they are non-living  entities and thus by definition cannot be (psychologically) abused.

OTOH, corporations abuse customers all the time. In fact, the argument can be made that the very existence of corporations as individuals is a form of abuse. But, beyond that, selling by and large is no longer so much a means of providing a quality product or service as it is a means of getting as much money as possible for as little quantity and quality as possible; or IOW, maximization of profits. This is a form of customer abuse. It treats the customers as if they are idiots, which, unfortunately many of them are, which is why the corporations can get away with what they do. And the government supports the corporations because it is bought and paid for by them; and it’s probably too late to reverse this. The corruption has gone too far. No “peoples’ representative” is going to bite the hand that feeds them.

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