By DAVE LIEBER
watchdog@star-telegram.com
Often The Watchdog shares sad tales of businesses that take advantage of customers.
Today I share good news and gratitude.
Starting with pulled pork.
Jim Emerson bought 1 1/2 pounds of the Southern delight at Red Hot & Blue restaurant on Hulen Street in Fort Worth. The price was marked as $11.99 per pound. He was charged that for the first pound but was charged $6.99, or $13.98 per pound, for the half-pound.
He questioned the charge, and the cashier told him that any fraction of a pound was sold at a higher rate. So Emerson wrote the company: "Your sign and your menu are incorrect when a person is purchasing your products in bulk."
Less than 24 hours later, he got a response from area director Paul Timmons: "You are right. You were charged the incorrect price. . . . I apologize for the mistake. It will be taken care of. In addition to the apology, I’d like to offer a complimentary pound of smoked meat of your choice. Please let me know where to send the certificate. I’m sorry to put you to all this trouble. Your business is very important to us."
How wonderful to see a company handle a problem so easily, so quickly, so correctly. Makes you want to go out and eat some pulled pork!
Return to senderCompliments to the U.S. Postal Service, too, which reversed its original decision not to pay artist Matthew Wood for his artwork that was damaged in transit from New York’s Lincoln Center to North Texas.
As I wrote Sept. 18, Wood had insured the piece for $3,000 and submitted a claim. The Postal Service offered $100. Wood appealed.
In late October, Wood received a check for $2,900.
"I was floored," the artist said.
Thank you, Postal Service.
Loan forgivenessLast year, I shared the story of more than 2,000 students of Silver State Helicopters, a flight school that closed and left students in debt for more than $100 million in nongovernment loans. Silver State had a branch at Fort Worth Meacham Airport.
Under the terms of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit, the lender, Student Loan Xpress, will forgive $112 million in loans to students who attended the failed school. For information on the settlement, send an e-mail to
settlementquestions@gmail.com.
End of an errorWhat would we do without people like John Hogg of Bedford, who carefully reviews his TXU Energy bill every month? He recently found a mistake on the bill for the "natural gas factor" charge. It’s the second error he found this year.
I sent his findings to TXU.
TXU spokesman Tom Stewart says, "Apparently when the new price for MarketEdge was changed for October, the September price wasn’t deleted as it should have been. It was an IT [information technology] error that we discovered in early October."
He continued, "Some customers, like Mr. Hogg, did receive incorrect bills. We are in the process of rebilling those customers now, including Mr. Hogg. Our customer service folks have called him specifically to let him know he was correct and that we are rebilling him properly."
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