trl.ca » FAIL

Ship with DHL at Your Own Risk

Todd Lyons — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:11:02 +0000

Recently I shipped an order using DHL because the merchant didn’t offer FedEx or UPS as an option. I assumed the experience would be similar to their competitors, seeing as they’re such a big company. Lesson learned.

DHL’s own Customs Collection division opened my package, decided I owed $7.20 in taxes for the goods inside, charged me another $10 for their time and effort in opening my package, then added another $1.30 in taxes for their intrusion service.

The package arrived a day late, with $18.50 owing COD.

First and last experience with DHL.

Don’t use DHL — unless you want to pay for artificially low up-front shipping, have your package opened by your shipper, then have it held hostage with COD charges.

Foursquare Fail Page

Todd Lyons — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:30:22 +0000

Latest in my series of website fail pages is Foursquare, who, late on a Sunday evening of all times, served me up this:

Last.fm Fail Page

Todd Lyons — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:53:28 +0000

I’ve been on last.fm since late 2006 and don’t recall ever getting a failpage before:

Hopefully it’s a good sign: of increasing popularity, and not just inadequate infrastructure due to declining revenues and diminishing paid subscriber base.

Hootsuite Fail Page

Todd Lyons — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:30:14 +0000

Hootsuite’s always been very reliable for me. Here’s proof it can fail with the same grace and good humour as Twitter.

Product #FAIL: Koodo Phone Case

Todd Lyons — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:00:13 +0000

Here’s a few questions it might be useful to ask before designing a mobile phone case, or alternately, before buying a warehouse full of some other manufacturer’s mobile phone cases:

(1.) Should we use rivets to attach the belt clip to the main body of the case?

(2.) How many should we use?

(3.) How large should those rivets be?

As accurately as I can determine, the answers to these questions as they apply to the case I purchased for my mobile phone are:

(1.) Yes.

(2.) Two.

(3.) Very small.

Sadly, this provides the customer with about 2 months of use for a $20 fee. And if the customer happened to buy it from a Koodo mall kiosk as opposed to the Web Store, he may be out of luck in getting a replacement. (Unless he had the foresight to jealously guard his receipt in a cool, dark place, away from pyring kid fingers and thermal-paper-damaging UV rays.)

Bravo Koodo! You’ve been good, but I guess you can’t win them all. =)

Product #FAIL: Crest for Kids

Todd Lyons — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:25:09 +0000

Can you see anything wrong with this product? Perhaps. But how about from inside a sealed box? No, and as luck would have it, that’s how these kid-friendly tubes happen to be sold.

Having had some time to field test it (something I’m guessing Crest didn’t do), I can see at least two fun-enhancing benefits to this design:

(1.) It promotes the development of fine motor control, because excessive force during the squeezing process results in roughly a hectare of paste spilling out everywhere. And we all know how much kids hate to make a mess.

(2.) The non-flip non-attached-in-any-way cap makes for an exciting game of tube cap hide-and-go-seek. Perhaps your kids will have more fun here. Our cap has been hiding out in the U-bend of the sink for weeks now, apparently unaware that the sporting thing to do is to come out quietly, when the searchers have figured our where you’ve concealed yourself.

Bravo Crest!