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Old 10-14-2011, 09:54 PM   #1
Talon87
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United Breaks Guitars and Faces

I could have sworn we had a thread on this, but given that it's from Summer '09, it may have been from when I last left UPN and I may be remembering discussions on other forums. So, since I was relistening to the song tonight (on a whim ), here goes the thread, two years later ...

United Breaks Guitars

Quoting Dave from his Youtube page's description:
In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn't deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.
The Youtube video became a huge sensation. United tried to apologize to Mr. Carroll but by the time the video had gone viral it was far too late for apologies. The Taylor company got wind of this and invited Dave out to tour their facilities as well as get a brand-new Taylor from them, no charge (afaik). And two years later, the video has amassed over 10 million views. Not bad.

You can read more about the United Breaks Guitars story here.
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Old 10-14-2011, 11:06 PM   #2
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People can be really dumb.

Like, this postman who was delivering my graduation photos - in a hard card-board envelope with huge red letters that said DO NOT FOLD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - folded/creased the envelope in half to put it in my mail-box!

I think it was even worse of United that nobody took responsibility. Even if they had no involvement in the matter, just saying "I'm sorry, here's what we can do to compensate you..." would have been appropriate. Make the customer feel important/valued! The video is cool, and the damage done to the company's rep pretty deserving given the baton passing, but someone should have taken the fall somewhere. There might not even have been consequences.

I think Michael Jackson's death was the big reason this may have slipped your mind, Talon.
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Old 10-16-2011, 08:00 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
I think it was even worse of United that nobody took responsibility. Even if they had no involvement in the matter, just saying "I'm sorry, here's what we can do to compensate you..." would have been appropriate. Make the customer feel important/valued! The video is cool, and the damage done to the company's rep pretty deserving given the baton passing, but someone should have taken the fall somewhere. There might not even have been consequences.
In hindsight, United must realize how dumb it was of their lower-level and mid-level employees to play this so by the book and to not compensate Mr. Carroll for his damaged property. However, up until the music video came out, the way United must have looked at it (i.e. what the Big Book o' Corporate Rules instructed the mid-level employees to do) was, "We can't go around giving every customer who claims that we broke their $3,500 guitar a cheque for $3,500. Better to let that person go. Even if they never fly with us again, chances are good that they wouldn't have flown with us as many as ten to twenty additional times anyway, i.e. we save more money in the long run letting them go than compensating them in a desperate bid to keep them. Besides: who's to say we really broke the guitar? And who's to say he'd stay with us even if we wrote him the cheque?" Obviously the mid-level employees were too stupid to realize that a musician in the modern age can very easily take his message to Youtube and craft what could potentially become a viral video against the company. I'm sure that if the case had made its way on up to the big brass, they would have recognized the problem for what it was and contacted Mr. Carroll privately; and, upon discovering that he was in fact telling the truth and had the evidence to back it up, compensate him in full plus give him some free tickets for his next trip.

Anyway, what's done is done. They had their chance(s), they snubbed them, and so Dave did the only thing he could do: take his complaint to the streets. And he did. And it worked.

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I think Michael Jackson's death was the big reason this may have slipped your mind, Talon.
This doesn't make any sense. It hasn't slipped my mind: it appears to have slipped everybody else's on this board. Like I explained, I remember discussing this on a webforum (or webforums) with people. So if it wasn't here, then it must have been elsewhere: but either way, it didn't slip my mind. Besides: I don't think I was even here in Summer 2009. In fact, I'm fairly positive that I wasn't. Because when Kuno asked me to come back, it was May 2010, and I'd been gone for about a solid year.
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Old 10-17-2011, 09:34 AM   #4
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Orbitz books impossible itineraries. Also, after years of complaining, they also breach customer privacy.
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Old 04-10-2017, 01:44 PM   #5
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A few months ago, United was back in the news for a similar story: someone checked their cello, and when they arrived at their destination the cello had been smashed to bits. The victim writes:

Quote:
Whenever I fly, I always gate check my cello to ensure that it is properly handled. When I flew back to Tallahassee, United Airlines did not allow me to gate check my cello. I pleaded with them saying that I have checked the cello many times in the past and was allowed to do so on my initial flight to California. They were completely unsympathetic refusing to allow me to be present during the checking process. There were no extra seats on the plane so I could not buy a seat for my cello. I couldn’t cancel my flight and was forced to check it through normal baggage procedures.

When I got back to Tallahassee, my instrument was completely broken. Not just parts of it. The whole instrument was in pieces as well as the case. Clearly the airline completely mishandled my cello. This incident has been incredibly traumatic. I’m currently using a loaned instrument that is inferior to my cello. This instrument negatively impacts my ability to perform at a high level causing my work at school to suffer and jeopardizing my livelihood.
Many people criticized the cello owner for checking it in the first place, stating that a cello owner should know better than to do this. But wtf, man!? What was she supposed to do here!? In my view, United is clearly in the wrong.

But this is NOTHING compared with what I'm going to write about next ...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A passenger flying with United Airlines was brutally beaten today by Chicago police when he refused to volunteer his seat. The passenger's head was smashed against an armrest, his body was dragged down the aisle, and he was abandoned outside the gate despite suffering a severe concussion. In a daze, he then somehow makes his way back onto the plane. The victim was a medical doctor en route to Louisville, where he had patients in need of his services the very next day and for that reason could not afford to miss his flight.

FUCK UNITED. This is absolutely awful. I thought the guitar-smashing and cello-smashing was bad enough, but this ... this is just evil. Reports are in that the flight wasn't even overbooked -- rather, United fucked up on their own personnel end and had four stewardesses who they need to get to Louisville pronto so that the ladies could make their next flights out of Louisville. So this was a case of bumping off paying customers to make room for staff, not to make room for emergency customers. Furthermore, the volunteering process was flawed too -- allegedly, United only offered up to $800 for seats before they resorted to forcible removal. However, federal law stipulates that people who are bumped from their seats be offered a minimum of $1,300 or else four times the value of their ticket, whichever is less; and further discourages bumping people from flights after they have already boarded as it presents security risks. (You're supposed to do this process at the gate, prior to boarding.) Seeing as it's unlikely the victim's ticket was valued at $200 or less, this would seem to indicate that United was in violation of federal law here, even without the brutality.

United blames the police for the brutality. The police blame United. It's a shitfest of fingerpointing all around.

Either way, 1) fuck United and 2) United is utterly fucked. I will be shocked if the company makes it out of this alive. It's already terribly hard times for all of the major airlines right now, as evidenced by their unpopular changes in recent years to flying coach. (E.g. some airlines will now charge you for bringing carry-on baggage aboard the plane, something which has been free up until now for as long as public flight has been a thing.) And Delta, who this very same week had their own fair share of the bump blues, has been seen as a hero of the industry for offering people financial compensation no questions asked if they'll give up their seats to others who need to make it home. Delta is going to come out of this a winner, and United is fucking donezo.
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Old 04-11-2017, 03:51 PM   #6
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Well, there's a definite notice that You Fucked Up.

That's over a billion dollars of shares lost. That's absolutely massive.
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Old 04-11-2017, 04:27 PM   #7
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Updated the title to be more accurate.
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Old 04-12-2017, 12:14 AM   #8
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That's over a billion dollars of shares lost. That's absolutely massive.
Sigh.

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Old 04-18-2017, 11:30 AM   #9
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The United stock dip was so insignificant I can't even tell it apart on the charts now.
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Old 04-18-2017, 12:11 PM   #10
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The United stock dip was so insignificant I can't even tell it apart on the charts now.
I still believe that this is going to be one of those cases where the (stock) market gets it wrong, and won't realize they've gotten it wrong until much later.
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Old 04-18-2017, 01:02 PM   #11
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I don't think it's going to be a permanently (bad) thing for United just because of its clientele.

The trend for stocks these days that get hammered and stay depressed are they're millennial dependent:

GoPro
Fitbit
Under Armour
Target
Chipotle

All overpriced. All novelty. All about brand. The fundamentals of these companies are tenuous at best, unstable at worst. Because they're all "premium" millennials search for an excuse to dump them when they face financial pressure. It's crazy to think that the E.coli thing did so much damage to Chipotle, when E.coli scares have happened to other fast foot places over the years. Heck, Wal-Mart had a listeria problem this year which lead to recalls and shutting down of a cheese supplier. Blue Bell had a listeria problem a few years ago. Millennials used the E.coli as the final straw to something they wanted to do for a while: cut out Chipotle.

Milllennials don't fly United. They hardly fly at all, it is too expensive. Yet, I bet they are the ones most outraged about United. Which is all fine and dandy because they should be, but getting mad about a service they probably don't use and so have no ability to influence isn't going to do much.
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Old 04-26-2017, 03:06 PM   #12
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And just when you thought it couldn't get worse for United, they've gone and got a giant bunny killed in-flight.

So lemme get this right...United breaks guitars, faces and bunnies.
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Old 04-29-2017, 12:39 PM   #13
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Thank you Imgur.
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