I wonder if they will accept recomendations or complaints about MP's or Independents at Del Rey or Sportsmans... ??
Peace
PIDD
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www.quienpagamanda.com
D.C. Web site keeping eye on Tico customer service
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Having trouble with the local bank?
Did the manager of the fried chicken store call you an imbecile when you complained?
Do they tell you that customer service does not exist in Costa Rica?
Well, now there is a place to turn.
A former top reporter for La Nación has started a Web site that seeks to report on and evaluate retail firms and organizations here.
She is Hazel Feigenblatt, who is producing the Web site from the safety of Washington D.C., well out of reach of Costa Rica's defamation laws. The United States has very liberal laws on fair comment and criticism, demonstrated by harsh restaurant reports and negative play reviews.
Ms. Feigenblatt explained via e-mail that her Web site receives complaints and then she sends the complaint to the company. If the firm does not contact the customer within five days, it is put on a not recommended list, she said.
The Web site is quienpagamanda.com, which loosely translates to "he who pays rules." She said she is anxious to obtain complaints even from those who are challenged in Spanish. She is fluent in English and volunteered to translate complaints into Spanish.
The Web site is the latest in the action line tradition that began with the raising of consumer consciousness in the United States in the early 1960s. At that time many newspapers had columnists who basically did the same thing and then published the results. Eventually advertising-minded publishers squeezed out the local commentary and most columns eventually vanished.
Ms. Feigenblatt is in Washington as a research associate of Global Integrity, a non-profit that seeks to keep track of governments and corruption around the world.
Her Web site does contain complaints about rude fried chicken managers and banks. In one case it
Web site promises consumers useful information
www.quienpagamanda.com
appears that she, herself, paid and asked Banco HSBC to send an interbank money transfer. The cost here ranges from $1.50 to $5 depending on the bank. Through an internal error, the bank failed to send the money and asked her to submit another request. But bank workers declined to refund the fee. Eventually they did, she noted.
In another case, a man complained that the traffic license department refused to accept a dictamen médico because the date was written in numbers and not in words. There seems to be an edict from
the Colegio de Cirujanos y Medicos on this point. The man complained that he had to pay 10,000 colons ( about $17.50) twice. The license bureau responded to Ms. Feigenblatt that their workers will ignore the rule about the date. And the physician's organization said that the original doctor should have filled out a new form for free.
Later in the year, she said "the companies with the best and worst customer service in the country, which will be decided by a group of experts and the Web site´s readers. The 'awards' don't have a name yet, and we're asking people for proposals. There will also be a list of recommended companies."
So far no company is on either the recommended or not recommended list because the Web site is too new. The site also will contain a list of companies that make uninvited phone calls or other contacts that are forbidden by the new telecom law, said the site.
Ms. Feigenblatt, a frequent award winning investigative reporter at La Nación, was the newspaper's Washington bureau chief for two years.
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