Windshield Wiper Blades. These are the easiest. Press a clip, slide off, and slide on the replacement. Time: 5 minutes. Cost: about $10 each.

Battery. The dealership does a vehicle inspection for me whenever they do an oil change. They told me my battery's cranking power was low and they would charge me $150 to replace it. I went to Wal-Mart. They install the battery for free if you buy it there. I waited nearly two hours and it still wasn't my turn yet. I got fed up and just bought the battery.

The job turned out to be really easy too. Unscrew two nuts on a metal bracket, disconnect the battery cables (negative off first, on last), remove and replace. Time: 15 minutes. Cost: about $80.

Air Filter. Another easy one. The air filter stays in a plastic box under the hood. You can see it easily because there is a big hose connected to the box. Either unclip some clips or loosen some nuts. Open up the lid, remove and replace. A piece of cake. Time: 5 minutes. Cost: about $15.

Cabin Air Filter. Also known as A/C Air Filter. This one may be a little tricky depending on the car. On my Honda Accord, it's also a 2-minute job, but the dealership wanted to charge me $100 for doing it.

The cabin air filter is behind the glove box. Drop down the glove box, pull out and replace. Time: 2 minutes. Cost: about $15.

Oil change. I haven't done this yet. I heard it's also easy but somehow I'm afraid of crawling under the car and having oil gushing onto my face.

What other car maintenance work can an owner do easily?

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I have been a AAA member for a few years but I still don't understand what AAA really is. I mean, is it a for-profit company? If so, who owns it? AAA books travel. Who earns the commission? AAA sells auto insurance. Who's providing the insurance? Does AAA have its own insurance subsidiary or is it just an agent for other insurance companies? If I don't use AAA travel agents or buy insurance from AAA, am I benefiting from the profits in those areas?

Wikipedia says AAA is a non-profit owned by regional motor clubs. Individuals like myself are members of a regional club, for example AAA Northern New England. It's still not clear to me whether the regional clubs are for-profit or non-profit. I don't have auto or homeowners insurance through AAA. Therefore I don't know who's behind the insurance. If anyone knows for sure, please help.

Suppose the regional clubs are non-profit. Then they are a form of a co-operative. People band together and provide services to themselves, either in-house or by contract with outside providers. That's how Vanguard, mutual insurance companies, credit unions, and homeowners associations are organized. A retail chain store I frequent called REI is also organized as a co-operative. Costco, on the other hand, is a for-profit company, although it also charges membership fees. In the health care field, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan is a non-profit co-operative which contracts with Kaiser hospitals and Permanente doctors, unlike other health insurance companies which are in it for profit.

I wonder why we don't see more co-operatives. I can see the lack of profit prospect makes people less motivated to start these. But how did these co-operatives get started in the past? The organizers knew there wouldn't be profit. Was it easier to start a co-operative in the past but more difficult now?

It's also interesting to note that a co-operative structure does not guarantee the lowest cost or the highest quality. Vanguard does very well in both cost and quality. State Farm as a mutual insurance company isn't necessarily the least expensive. Other stores often beat REI in prices although REI has a better return policy. For towing and jumpstarting? I don't know if other companies do it better or cheaper than AAA because I don't have any experience with others.

The roadside assistance option from auto insurance is cheaper than AAA membership. I wonder if I should use that instead, or just pay out-of-pocket if I need service.

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5-Step Guide to Finding The Lowest Rate For Hotel Rooms

Basically if you use an "opaque agency" like Priceline or Hotwire, you are able to save substantially on a hotel room. Although I've had a problem with Priceline, I still use them because on average I still get a better room for the money.

When hotels sell the same room for less on Priceline or Hotwire than they do on their own web site, they are practicing price discrimination. Customers who are willing to jump through a few hoops get a lower price. [Note 1]

The "catch" with Priceline and Hotwire is that you don't know exactly what you will get before you commit to buy. In the case of Priceline, you also don't know how low you should go. [Note 2]

Consumers counter it with web sites like BetterBidding and BiddingForTravel, where they post what prices were accepted or rejected and to which hotels they got assigned. When consumers share notes with each other, it's no longer as opaque.

Businesses share notes about consumers all the time. They have access to a consumer's credit reports, ChexSystems report, C.L.U.E. reports, MIB file, and God knows what other reports. It's time for consumers to get together and share notes about businesses.

Right now the consumers are very disorganized. There are various review sites (Yelp for restaurants, for example), forums, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, but the "notes" are scattered all over the place. Google helps people find them, but relative to the number of consumers conducting transactions with businesses, the number of reviews is still very very small.

A smart government can play a good role here, as you see in how they help consumers save money on auto and homeowners insurance. If there is an official place where consumers can look up the score card of any business, they are so much better off than being in the dark.

If the government says every business must provide a score card and disclose their scores before entering into a contract with a consumer, good honest businesses will welcome that. This has worked very well on eBay.

If the consumers who fill out the score card with a review are entered into a lottery, there will be an incentive for consumers to do so. Some countries use this lottery mechanism to reduce tax evasion. In the end, everybody benefits. The consumers are more informed. Good businesses earn more business.

Whenever possible, I do my fair share of notes sharing. The reach is still very limited though. Sadly my post about BBG Communications has become a popular one because so many other consumers are also victimized by BBG.

Notes:

1. There's an econ paper about this whole opaque model. To be honest the propositions and proofs make my head spin. I will leave them to your enjoyment.

Shapiro, Dmitry A. and Shi, Xianwen, Market Segmentation: The Role of Opaque Travel Agencies (February 2008).

2. If you use Priceline, make sure you are familiar with this "free rebid zones" strategy:

Consumer's Checkbook: Priceline Can Deliver Incredibly Low Rates on Hotel Rooms — If You Use It Wisely

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Is an extended warranty on a car "worth it"? The standard advice you hear about extended warranties is that they are not worth it. I disagree. I must say it depends. It depends on what price you pay and what you get for that price. The coverage is worth something. If you pay a low enough price for the right coverage, you can make the extended warranty "worth it."

Let me begin with what NOT to do when you buy an extended warranty.

1. Don't buy it from the dealership at the same time when you are buying a new car. New cars are covered by bumper-to-bumper manufacturer's warranty, typically for at least 3 years or 36,000 miles. The extended warranty kicks in only after the manufacturer's warranty runs out.

You have plenty of time to see how the car holds up while it's covered by the manufacturer's warranty. If it looks like it's rock solid, you don't have to buy an extended warranty. If after 2-1/2 years you think you are not going to keep the car for long, you don't have to buy an extended warranty. The extra time for making decisions and the opportunity for observation have value. Don't give up that value.

Also, when you are buying a new car, you get only one offer for the extended warranty. There's little chance to shop. You don't know if the dealership is offering the extended warranty at a fair price or not. If you buy the extended warranty together with your new car, chances are you will overpay by a lot.

2. Don't buy an extended warranty plan unless it's backed by the manufacturer and honored by all dealerships. There are extended warranty plans offered by third parties. I think the chances of getting a repair covered by the manufacturer is a lot higher than getting it covered by a 3rd party because the manufacturer is usually interested in building some loyalty from the owners. I have no scientific proof for this. It's just my opinion.

Most (all?) car manufacturers have their own extended warranty plans. They call them by different names, for example:

• GM Protection Plan (GMPP)
• Ford Extended Service Plan (Ford ESP)
• Toyota Vehicle Service Agreement (Toyota VSA)
• Honda Care
• Volkswagen RealDriver

You just have to remember to shop for the extended warranty when your manufacturer's warranty is about to run out.

Now, how do you shop for an extended warranty if you decide to buy one?

3. Shop from any dealership, including out-of-state dealerships. All dealerships of the same manufacturer are authorized to sell the same extended warranty to all customers. The dealership is not on the hook for the warranty. The manufacturer is. You don't have to buy it from the same dealership where you bought your car. Your don't have to buy it from a dealership in your local area either.

Extended warranties have a high markup in the MSRP. Never pay MSRP. The markup on the extended warranty is pure profit because the dealership does not have to do anything to it until there's a sale. They just fill out some forms and collect the sales markup. If an out-of-state dealership has a willing customer calling them, ready to buy, they will much more likely offer a good price, because they know the customer is shopping for price and only a good price will get the sale. A quick sale for $100-200 profit is so easy.

4. Shop by phone, not online. Yes, the old fashioned telephone. You are unlikely to find really good deals online, because the manufacturer discourages posting discounted prices online. One "rouge" dealership ruins the fat profit for everybody. If you call and make an offer that still gives the dealership a reasonable profit, they will gladly accept the easy profit.

For the kind of extended warranty I was asked to shop for, I came to the conclusion that the cost to the dealership is 50% of MSRP. I got quotes for the same plan from three dealerships. Based on the 50% of MSRP number, here are their markups:

You see the difference?

I sent my family member to dealership #3. Everybody is happy. He's happy to have peace of mind and he saved at least $300. The dealership got an easy $200 profit. All I've got is this blog post.

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Firms taking advantage of customers through such tactics, whether deliberate or unintentional, trigger a backlash: consumers retaliate — with lawsuits, mass defections, and company-specific "hate sites."

I would add that in addition to providing a bad product or service, a company is hated by the consumers when consumers don't have a better choice. If you look at the Worst Companies in America 2009 list at Consumerist, you will see many companies on the list are near monopolies in their market segment. By popular votes, the four Worst Companies in America 2009 were:

• AIG
• Comcast
• Bank of America
• Ticketmaster

AT&T, formerly Cingular, got on my hated companies list recently. It looks to me everyone and their brothers have their cool iPhone. Everybody knows that in order to use an iPhone, you must have AT&T wireless. That's fine, I already use AT&T. I use their prepaid service.

Can I buy an iPhone on eBay and add a data plan to my prepaid service? No. You have to have a voice plan, which starts at $40/month, plus tax and fees. I pay $8 a month for my prepaid service right now. To get the iPhone experience, even if I pay the full $599 unsubsidized price for the phone, I still have to pay extra $32/month for voice service I don't need. That's extracting value.

Isn't bundling iPhone and data service with voice service illegal tying, like the famous Microsoft Internet Explorer case? If it's not, it should be. I see that question has been asked ever since iPhone first came out two years ago.

Does Apple's Tightly Controlled Ecosystem Strategy Constitute an Illegal Tying Arrangement?

[Update] I also read this headline from Financial Times yesterday: Department of Justice launches review of handset arrangements.

Somebody gave me a used BlackBerry. Can I add a data plan to my AT&T prepaid service and use the BlackBerry? No. AT&T used to offer a prepaid data plan for $20/month, until they killed it in December 2008.

Can I get a data-only plan on the BlackBerry? Yes, AT&T has one for $35 a month, but I can't get the BlackBerry to synchronize with my work e-mails, calendar, and address book. AT&T's $35-a-month data plan is called BlackBerry Personal, which only gives you access to personal e-mails and web browsing. To use it with corporate e-mails and calendar, you have to buy AT&T's BlackBerry Enterprise service, which is $50 a month. Come on, data is data. I also don't want to carry two phones.

I signed up with T-Mobile. They offer a data plan for $40 a month, with voice minutes billed à la carte at $0.20 a minute. T-Mobile does not charge extra for connecting to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). That's fair, except I don't get signal from T-Mobile in my office. It works fine at home, just not in my office. I had to cancel after a few days.

I end up not using the BlackBerry I got. And I hate AT&T. Which companies do you hate and why?

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The cheap gas price in the U.S. certainly has something to do with it. Unleaded gas in Ireland (called "petrol") was 1.12 Euros a liter. That's about $6 a gallon in Ireland, versus $2.50 a gallon in the U.S. I don't know if they sell hybrid cars in Ireland. I did not see a single Prius when I was there. Perhaps hybrids are the future, but we can go a long way toward reducing fossil fuel consumption if only small cars are more popular in the U.S. Making gas more expensive is certainly one way to induce that.

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In the U.S. I get a discount of $0.05 per bag if I bring my own bags to the two grocery store chains near me. It's not by law, just store policy. Technically not getting the $0.05/bag discount is equivalent to paying a $0.05 surcharge for each bag. But I bet most customers don't know about the surcharge because it's not on their receipt. If we increase that surcharge from $0.05 to $0.30 like in Ireland and make it a true surcharge which shows up on the receipt, not just a lack of a discount, I'm sure it will change people's habits really fast and cut down our consumption of plastic grocery bags significantly. It's a strange phenomenon. People don't mind missing out on some discount but they will change their behavior if they pay a surcharge. Economists say it has to do with framing.

By the way I love their yogurt. Not too starchy or too sweet like the Dannon and Yoplait yogurt I get here in the U.S. It was cheap too. 0.87 Euro for a big 16-oz jar. I will try some different brands at Trader Joe's and see if they have yogurt made in that style.

One other thing I like about my experience in Ireland is that their price tag includes everything. The sales tax (VAT) is included in the price. What you see is what you pay. I walked into a hotel. The room rate posted on their board was 69 Euros. I paid 69 Euros. End of story. There wasn't a separate high tax just for hotel guests. If there was, it was included in the price tag.

Here in the U.S. we do the same for gas. The price posted on the board is what you pay. Taxes are included in the price. I wonder why we can't do it for everything else we buy.

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I was looking for a small mp3 player for jogging and working out in the gym. Because I heard so much about iPods but I never had one, I wanted an iPod to have that Apple iPod experience. I went to Apple's web site to see its product lineup. The iPod Shuffle looked like the answer. I watched its video demo. The controls are built into the earbuds? Whose brilliant idea was that?! What if the wire breaks or I don't like their headphones? I can't use it with a different pair of headphones? Fortunately they are still selling the older model, the so-called 2nd generation iPod Shuffle. I saw it doesn't have a LCD screen for selecting tracks. For jogging and the gym, I'm OK with that. So I bought one.

After I got my iPod Shuffle, one surprise came after another. Perhaps I'm not up to the Apple experience. I plugged in the Shuffle and I wanted to drop some podcast mp3's onto it. What, no drag and drop? I have to install iTunes? Why? I just want to put some mp3's on it. I don't need to buy any music right now. I already have what I want. Apple says no. Got to install iTunes. I reluctantly obliged.

iTunes didn't come alone. It came with a friend called Bonjour for unknown reasons. It didn't even ask me if I wanted it. I have no use for it. I had to go through the trouble uninstalling Bonjour. iTunes also added an iPodService and an iTunesHelper which run on my computer all the time. For Christ's sake, I just want to add some mp3's to my player once in a while. I don't need them running all the time!

Finally I was able to put some music on my player. When I plugged it in to my second computer, I had to do the iTunes and Bonjour business all over again. Then Apple threw me another loop. It said my player was tied to the first computer and I had to "Erase and Sync" if I wanted to use it on the second computer. Why can't I use it with both computers? Apple must be insane.

The surprises never end. The last one came when I tried to charge the battery. I plugged it in before I went to bed for the night. The little light was still blinking orange the next morning. A Google search found out that I have to run iTunes when I charge the battery if I want to see the green light for the full charge. Run iTunes for charging the battery? Apple really is insane.

Sorry about the rant. This is what I get when I trust a brand without looking at the product. I still don't understand what's so great about Apple products. These are what people have to put up with? It's worse than Microsoft! I hope their other products are not as crazy as the Shuffle. There may be 3rd party software that get around the hurdles set by Apple. I don't feel like I should have to resort to 3rd party software though. Very disappointed.

Experienced iPod users please help me. I thought my needs are very simple. Plug it in. Put some files on to it or charge the battery. Unplug and go. How can it fail at such basic tasks?

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FCC- Sprint can be judge and jury

In a nutshell, he wanted to get a prorated refund for his final month. He reasoned if he canceled ten days into the month, he should not have to pay for the whole month. That sounds reasonable to me. But Sprint and almost every other carrier don't do it that way. No prorated refund for partial month. He complained to the FCC but the FCC basically just bounced it to Sprint, which rejected his complaint because "it's in the contract." The FCC gave him an option to file a formal complaint, which costs $190, far more than the prorated refund he was looking for. Bob actually got a lot farther than an average consumer could because he identified himself as a journalist when he dealt with Sprint and the FCC. If it was Joe Six-pack, he'd still be waiting for replies.

Whenever this type of dispute comes up, there are basically two camps of opinions. The first camp says "read the contract." Assuming this surprise feature is in the contract and the consumer is given the contract before he/she signs up for the service, the consumer is supposed to take the whole contract into consideration. If there's something you don't like, don't sign up. The second camp says "protect the consumer." The contract should be fair to the consumer. Certain clauses should not be legal even if they are adequately disclosed in the contract in black and white.

I can see merits in both opinions. On one hand, the contract is an agreement between two parties. If you don't agree, don't sign it. On the other hand, the contracts are always one sided. Businesses make up the contract. There's no way for a consumer to negotiate the terms. The best a consumer can do is not sign the contract. Realistically, nobody shops their cell phone service by comparing the contracts. Consumers expect to be treated fairly. For this reason, I think it's very inefficient to have every consumer read and consider the entire contract, versus having a consumer protection agency evaluate the contract for fairness. If a consumer is in no position to negotiate the contract, the contract should become legal only if it received a passing score from this consumer protection agency. Then we can all relax a little bit and expect a reasonable level of fairness from our dealing with businesses.

Moreover, mandating the disclosure of the consumer protection score will push businesses toward scoring higher. Then all consumers are better off. If a contract comes with "this contract received a score of 75 for consumer fairness from the Consumer Protection Authority" consumers will be able to ask why it only got 75 versus another service which scored 95 and whether they should use the other service instead.

Before we get there though, I use a prepaid service for my cell phone. It makes it really simple. You buy minutes. You use minutes. There is no contract, no bill, no add-on fees. If you don't like the service, burn the minutes and stop buying more minutes. Bob Sullivan wrote in a previous article How to save money on: cell phones that more than 50% of cell phone service in Europe are prepaid while only 17% of cell phone service in the U.S. are prepaid.

[1] I reviewed his book Gotcha Capitalism last year. It's a great book.

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We can get it there the next day for $17.50. It includes $100 of insurance.

Not the exact words, but something to that effect. It continues with suggesting the next most expensive service, and the next one, followed by the optional insurance, return receipt, delivery confirmation, and so on.

Whoa Nelly! While I'm used to being pestered about extended warranties at electronics stores, I did not expect a government-run postal service would train its employees to extract the maximum amount of money from the customers with unnecessary services. It's been like that for some time. Whenever I try to mail something, the clerk always practices the friendly power of suggestion for some service upgrade. They do it by scaring you about the possible slow delivery time of their regular service. I suspected something was going on but seeing the script this time really made me sick.

A little Googling produced an image of the actual script (in case the image is taken down, I also archived it here). The script says (after suggesting Express Mail):

PAUSE AND WAIT FOR CUSTOMER TO RESPOND before offering any other classes of mail!

… …

Note: Hierarchy of offering classes of mail MUST BE IN THIS ORDER — Express Mail, Priority Mail, First-Class and then if needed Parcel Post.

Parcel Post should never be offered unless all other options have been declined by the customer.

I found the script on a forum where postal employees discuss things. I learned that Mystery Shop aka Mystery Shopper is a program run by the USPS. Third-party auditors come to the post office pretending to be customers. The clerks are evaluated on how they perform their upselling. If they don't follow the script, they will get poor scores. They will get into trouble with their postmaster. If a station doesn't perform well in these Mystery Shopper audits, the postmaster gets into trouble.

I wonder if Consumerist wants to know about this.

[Update] Consumerist told me they wrote about this last year.

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