I woke up this morning and decided to see if I could log into Gowalla for shits and giggles. Well looky looky here. I was able to log in! It seems they’ve finally unbanned me for NOT CHEATING. I’ve been checking every few days to see if they have or haven’t unbanned me, again for shits and giggles. It’s been over 4 weeks since they banned me for just picking up an exclusive item.

After a few emails back and somewhat forth with Gowalla CEO Josh Williams (and never a response back from their main support email), I didn’t hear back from him for over 2 weeks. Last he said that my account would be reinstated with a group of other accounts & I would be able to start checking in again “soon.” That was over 2 weeks ago. Like I said in my last post on this matter, “soon” is a few days to me, not a week and not 2 weeks.

I have been knocking Gowalla hard on Twitter the past few weeks for their lack of communication skills and their terrible customer support. Gowalla and Josh Williams really need to work on these. Over the past few weeks I’ve heard from other Gowalla users (current and former) that have the same complaints about Gowalla’s customer service. It’s pretty pathetic that such a company in these days, especially one that is involved with social networking, has horrible communication and customer service skills.

I’ve mentioned this news on my Twitter feeed and I’ve been asked by several people if I’ll start using Gowalla again. In my last post I did say “Goodbye & Fuck You Gowalla.” Right now I don’t know what I’ll do. I still haven’t received an email from Gowalla or Josh Williams apologizing for banning me when I never cheated. I still think what they did was wrong and it’s been compounded by their lack of communication, terrible customer support, speed to resolve the issue (see posts 1, 2, 3), and the lack of any form of apology for the entire situation. And I still haven’t heard why they never selected me as a STE (mentioned to Josh Williams in our emails). Great communication skills! I still need to think about using Gowalla again. My anger towards them has not changed yet. Maybe someone at Gowalla will grow some fucking balls!

I would like to thank Lucas and JefCon1 for showing solidarity with me during the past 4 weeks (I think they were the ONLY ones to do so publicly) and anyone else that stopped using Gowalla because of this. Thanks to everyone that retweeted my posts on this. And to anyone else that didn’t feel like showing your support, “Go fuck yourselves, you cunts!”

                          

Well, it’s been over three weeks since I was banned from Gowalla. If you need to catch up on what’s been going on, check out post 1 and post 2.

Here’s the latest. Since last week I have not heard back from CEO Josh Williams or Gowalla support on the matter. Josh said my account would be unbanned “soon” with a bunch of other accounts that were to be unbanned also. Well, “soon” to me means a few days. It’s been a week. Josh could have just had someone unban me right then, but it’s obvious that Gowalla doesn’t want me as a user.

Well, all I have to say to that is…

I don’t care if Gowalla unbans me or not any more. It’s been over 3 weeks and it took them only 3 hours to unban the person that was cheating. They consistently ignored my emails on different instances. And it appears they really don’t care about their once dedicated users.

Normally I can be a patient person. Shit, I waited 7 months to hear back about becoming part of your Street Team Elite so I could help other Gowalla users. Never heard back from them. They had set up other, less dedicated, less knowledge NEW users as STEs the very next day they sent you an email (go look on GetSatisfaction.com). FUCK YOU! Their support email never responded to my emails when I got banned, but the person I know that cheated they had unbanned in 3 hours. I didn’t cheat. Let me repeat that… I DID NOT CHEAT! FUCK YOU!

Josh Williams, you lied to me. That just makes it worse. You should not ignore your users. You really need to fix your communication skills and you need to learn some customer service skills too.

So now I’ll be using their main competition, Foursquare.

Goodbye Gowalla. Maybe you’ll learn from this.

                          

If you follow me on Twitter or read my last post, you’ll have a good idea of what’s going on. Since whoever handles Gowalla’s main email contact doesn’t respond to my emails, I went to the top of the company by emailing Gowalla’s CEO, Josh Williams last week.

Josh seems like a very nice guy, but seems to lack the authority to get things done right away. This is what I’m getting from our correspondence, but I could be wrong. Being the CEO of any company one would think all you would need to do is bark out some orders and your employees do as you say. Doesn’t seem like that at Gowalla. Josh said that last week he’d have someone look into my situation. Nothing happened so a week later I emailed Josh again. Josh’s reply last night said that “We’re going to be reinstating several accounts that were turned off a couple weeks ago do to Terms violations and I’m sure your account will be included in that group. You’ll be able to resume your check-ins soon.” Ummmm… “soon”? Why not just tell someone to reinstate my account now? Why wait? What are you waiting for? What’s the hold up? It should be a very simple process to do.

My email to Josh on Wednesday mentioned in great detail on how they have ignored my emails on requesting to become a Street Team Elite member since January and with being banned for doing something less than cheating, while the person that cheated was unbanned within 3 hours and was sent a pleasant email from their main contact email. Josh said in his reply to me “Thanks for your patience for a reply. I know you’ve been disappointed with our response time on this one.” All I have is patience for lots of things and sometimes, just sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting (like waiting to become a STE after 7 months) just erupts like a volcano.

Josh also mentioned that he was saddened with the fact I’ve taken my “frustration public in such a lengthy manner. It seems very unnecessary to me.” So now, it’s obvious that they are watching my Twitter feed (or just looking for mention of “Gowalla”) and maybe reading my blog. I’m not always the one to complain, but after being ignored with my request to help make the user experience better for all Gowalla users for 7 months while others got a 1 day response & acceptance and with no response as to why I was banned & someone that did something worse than me was unbanned very very quickly, just has finally pissed me off enough to scream my frustration to the world. This happens a lot. People need to voice their opinions about how they’ve been wronged by companies that didn’t do the right thing at first or just ignored their customers.

Although I have loved Gowalla since day one and made the entire state of Delaware and everyone else that follows me know this, I fell that I’ve been wronged so I made myself very vocal about the situation.

Companies should never ignore their customers/users. Never! They need to listen, find out what the issue is, and promptly try to fix it while communicating to their customers/users what’s going on. Gowalla got a lot of heat back in March during the item drought and when GowallaTools creator Ben Dodson gave up developing with Gowalla’s API a few months ago. Negative reviews and press are heard 5 to 10 times more than positive press. It’s a fact. Look at the issues with Apple’s iPhone 4. What a cluster-fuck that was. A simple issue that’s in every other smartphone blown out of proportion by the blogsphere, tech sites, and making all the news outlets in the world. Apple’s first few replies about the issue where received with a lot of shock, but they bounced back by trying to make the entire situation right with their customers and letting them know what was going on and what their plans were. And because I know that negative press is heard 5 to 10 times more than positive press, I went very public with the situation.

Josh, please don’t let your users be ignored. Communicate with them. Don’t give them the opportunity to become this frustrated with Gowalla that their only outlet/recourse is to be very outspoken & public about their issue.

Oh yeah, I am still banned from Gowalla. I’ve been playing with foursquare a lot in the past 2 weeks. I’ll have another post soon about all of that.

                          

You might be able to title this post “Why I’ve Been Banned From Gowalla” or even “Why Does Gowalla Ignore Me?”.

I’ve hinted at my recent issue with Gowalla on Twitter. Many have asked what’s up, but I haven’t brought forth any details as to what’s going on since it is a long story. Now, here it is:

About a week and a half ago, the Red Bull user on Gowalla started picking up the new Red Bull can item from locations. I asked them if this item was everywhere and they said “yes”. I mentioned the new item to a friend of mine on Gowalla and we started to try to locate the item locally. Around the same time, my friend noticed another person in our state checking in to Gowalla spots across the country. This is what Gowalla & their users consider cheating. Yes, it is. We watched him for a day or too. My friend inquired with him on how he was doing that and learned how to also. I was also sent the information on how to cheat, but since I was at work, I couldn’t try it out (all blocked by a nice firewall). I contemplated the idea of trying it out, but didn’t know if I really would. I mean, come on, it’s cheating. So, still at work, my friend tells me to check into a local spot and that there’s something for me. I do and what do you know, a Red Bull can sitting there. So I picked it up and placed it in my vault.

After a few hours later, maybe after work, my friend texts me and tells me that he & the other guy can’t get into Gowalla. I try and I can get it, so it wasn’t an issue with their website, our wireless carrier, or the app. Both of them are thinking that they’ve been busted by Gowalla for checking into spots 3000 miles away (i.e. cheating).

So they next day I do my normal thing, go to work, check in at a few places, etc… Later on I try to check into a spot and notice that I’m unable to log into the Gowalla app. Well, it seems I got banned too by association. I won’t mention the rude STE (Street Team Elite) member that started tweeting to me earlier on about the item I recently picked up. By coincidence I made my Gowalla account private around the same time, due to many people trying to friend me on there that I didn’t know at all. Yeah, I’m not a friend-whore online. If I know you in real life, via Twitter or Facebook, fine. It seems this rude STE probably yapped to Gowalla that I picked up the Red Bull can, which seems to be a restricted new item, & my friend’s suspicious check-ins… Funny, the person using Gowalla for Red Bull said that the item was everywhere.

So, I email Gowalla. At the same time my friend emailed them too. After a few hours he received a response back from them saying don’t be a bad boy & cheat and he was able to log back in again. By the next day I still haven’t heard back from Gowalla. Now, I didn’t cheat by checking into a spot 3000 miles away. I just picked up an item at a local spot. A few days pass and still no reply from Gowalla. I emailed them again and still didn’t get a reply. I also don’t get replies back from them on Twitter. Now, I believe, if you don’t respond to someone’s email, return their phone calls, or reply to a text or tweet, that’s just fucking RUDE. So, I thought I’d take this matter up to the head of Gowalla, Josh Williams, and I emailed him the story of what I just described above, after 7 days. He responds back saying that he’s traveling to a wedding and will have someone take care of this. So, I’m thinking that this will be done & over with, but 4 days later I still can’t log into Gowalla nor have I received any other reply besides Josh’s. Maybe that it’s the weekend. Maybe if I just give them a few more days & be patient. Wait, I’ve heard that before.

But this isn’t the first time Gowalla completely ignored me. I emailed them in January of this year to become a STE member. No reply. In April I sent them another email, but all I get is an automated reply. On Gowalla’s GetSatisfaction forum there are a few threads about becoming a STE that people are stating that the day after they emailed Gowalla to become a STE they were made a STE. Yes I was pissed. Damn fucking straight I was pissed! I emailed them again and still no reply. And in between those times, people just said be patient and wait. Now, in July & before I was banned, I gave up the idea of becoming a STE, even though I know a few STEs (via Twitter & met one while in Las Vegas) and had many saying that I would make a great STE since I am so diligent in finding local spots that I travel to with issues & getting them corrected. Even when I was in Las Vegas I posted 4 long lists of spots that needed to be merged, name changed, spot location fixed and more. I’ve probably submitted close to 500+ spots via GetSatisfaction.com to be fixed. But Gowalla thinks for some reason I shouldn’t be a STE. Yeah, what-fucking-ever. I still enjoyed helping out people by answering their questions on GetSatisfaction.com and helping out friends find items that have eluded them that I keep finding. I was a very dedicated Gowalla user since last year. I got many people that follow me on Twitter to use or try out Gowalla and definitely made a name for them in my state. If you look through this site you’ll find many posts showing how much I do love them. Well, let’s say “loved” them. Yes I was a bit hard on them during the item drought in March while SXSW was going on, but many people were too. I wasn’t the only one upset that Gowalla did not communicate to their users what was going on and that they didn’t take the issue seriously at first. That was water under the bridge after it was fixed. I forgave them since I loved them so much.

But after I get banned for just picking up an item at a local spot placed there by another user that cheated to get it and they were unbanned after only a few hours while after 1.5 weeks I’m still banned… “WHAT THE FUCK?” is really all I have to say. Why am I still banned for just picking up an item. I didn’t cheat, checking into a spot 3000 miles away.

So, to curb my geolocation fix, I’ve been using Foursquare (Remember when I was bashing them? They have fixed things since.) and SCVNGR, but also toying around with Loopt (the basic one) again. Brightkite I tried to get back into, but for some reason I’m not digging it as much. stickybits is an interesting app. You use your iPhone’s camera (I think it’s available for Android too) to scan the bar code of an item and it finds it, displays your location, and lets you add comments or pictures to the bar code in their system. Neat idea, but I haven’t used it much.

Now, the only reason that I can think of for having my emails & tweets ignored by Gowalla is that someone there does not like me and has it in for me. Now, I never called anyone names during any contact with Gowalla. I might have hurt their’s or someone’s feelings there back during the item drought, but come on. Get over it. If you run a company that has end users using your product expect not everyone to be in love with you.

I’m hoping Josh Williams is back on Monday and I’ve been debating if I’ll reply to him stating that I’m still banned for just picking up an item at a local spot. And for the record, I DID NOT CHEAT AT GOWALLA. I picked up an item at a LOCAL spot. I DID NOT CHECK INTO A SPOT 3000 MILES AWAY. Now, if you find a rare/location or event exclusive item, are you to leave it there, run to Gowalla and say you found it and get them to remove it from the spot?

I’ve also come to realize, while being banned, that playing Gowalla is fucking dangerous if you’re driving!

So my friends, look me up on Foursquare for now. Show your solidarity and stop using Gowalla until they unban me. But the question is, if they do unban me, will I use them again. I don’t know right now. There is a strong sour taste from all of this.

[UPDATE 07/28/2010 00:35] Well, 2 days after the weekend and no reply from Gowalla at all. Josh Williams said he’d have someone take care of my account while he was traveling, but nothing. Still banned. AWESOME USER SUPPORT. No email replies. No sticking to their word. I think I am done with Gowalla. They’ve mostly treated me like shit by ignoring my emails since January and leaving me banned for almost 2 weeks while a cheater (I’m not bashing you buddy. I know you tried to help me.) is unbanned after a few hours. I’m debating if I should email Josh Williams again. Maybe I’ll just walk away. I don’t like to walk away. I like to fight.

The funny thing is that Red Bull requested to be my friend on Foursquare. HA HA HA HA!!!! FUCKING HYSTERICAL!

[UPDATE 07/29/2010 07:10] Sent the final email I’ll probably ever send to Gowalla’s Josh Williams stating how I’ve been ignored by them since January when I first emailed about becoming a Street Team Elite member. Being ignored by a company is very bad customer service/user support. You should never ignore your customers or users. The email had a tone of sadness (not anger) about how I’ve felt about being ignored by them especially in this situation most of all after all of the support I’ve given them since last year. I’ll see if Josh replies to it. I’ve also submitted this all to Mashable.com and so should you. It would be cool if this story got picked up by them. Please take a minute or two to submit this to Mashable.

If I don’t hear back from Gowalla later today or tomorrow, I’ll be done with them for good. In solidarity, so should you! This situation is just ridiculous and should have never gone this far. You don’t treat your users this way when they didn’t cheat.

                          

From the Facebook group Stop the Westboro Baptist Church from picketing Ronnie James Dio’s Memorial:

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) — an independent Baptist church and hate group known for its hatred of homosexuals and its protest activities (which include picketing funerals) — WBC is planning on picketing Ronnie James Dio’s public memorial service on Sunday, May 30 at 2:00 p.m. at The Hall Of Liberty located at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles, California. What will presumably one of WBC’s standard “peaceful sidewalk demonstrations” is meant to “remind you who worship that old Serpent, Satan, that your time is very short,” according to a post on the “Upcoming Picket Schedule” page of the web site. The post continues, “You know 67 year old, Satan-worshiping (or at least one of their enablers) Ronnie James Dio (of showing his devil horns to the world each time he goes in public) BLACK SABBATH fame is dead, right? We’ll be there! Just because the chances of any of God’s elect being amongst this group of heavy metal sycophants is slim to none does not mean they should not get some good words.”

RIP Ronnie James Dio - Stop the Westboro Baptist Church from picketing Ronnie James Dio's Memorial

The post goes on to say, “Yes, it is true that Ozzy Osbourne did ‘accidentally’ bite off the head of a bat, but THAT is the least of their sins (little nasties!), they currently do not do that, but they throw raw meat to the audience and encourage violence of EVERY FORM!”

The WBC web site then proceeds to list “admitted sins of this now dead and in hell pervert: 1) He hates his neighbor(s) starting with Ozzy Osbourne, and continuing down to his pornography star niece Gen Padova! 2) He hates God. Pay especial attention to the fact that he changed his original sir name from Padova to Dio, which means God in Italian. 3) Ronnie the simpleton enabled, and encouraged Sorceries: everything he was about including the little finger horn thing (he got this from his mother which is an incantation to ward off the ‘evil eye’) to the drugs, bloody raw meat and his fellowship with those pentagon necklace wearing freakish band members.”

The post concludes: “Yes, Ronnie James Padova (NOT DIO) is currently residing in hell. When all those who worship him and his false gods meet him in hell it will be just like this: Isaiah 2:12 For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: Isaiah 14:11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Praise God all ye, His people. The Great Day of the Lord draws nigh. AMEN!”

According to CNN.com, the members of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church filed a legal brief with the high court last year indicating that they “believe it is their duty to protest and picket at certain events, including funerals, to promote their religious message: ‘That God’s promise of love and heaven for those who obey him in this life is counterbalanced by God’s wrath and hell for those who do not obey him.’”

The congregation is made up mostly of pastor Fred Phelps and his family. The pastor has 13 children, and at least 54 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. He described himself as an “old-time” gospel preacher in a CNN interview in 2006, saying, “You can’t preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God.”

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JOIN THE FIGHT! Stop the Westboro Baptist Church from picketing Ronnie James Dio’s Memorial!

                          

I have Twitter and that’s all I need. If you want to get rid of Google Buzz for ever, keep reading…

Go into your Gmail and go to the very bottom of the page. You will see this:

Do you see where it says “turn off buzz” right in the middle in the line that starts with “Gmail view:”? Click it! It will remove Google Buzz form your Gmail. You can always go back to the same location and turn Google Buzz back on if you wish.

Have fun de-Buzzing!

                          

You might know Adrianne Curry (model, reality TV star, scifi geek) from VH1′s fourth season of The Surreal Life & that she married Christopher Knight (Peter Brady from The Brady Bunch) who also appeared on the show. I follow her on Twitter because she’s actually very interesting, and very hot.

A few minutes ago, she tweeted that she was booted from Facebook for the 5th time for no apparent reason.

facebook just deleted me! this is the 5th time! when I first signed up, they deleted me 4 times in a row. I am so angry!

WOW. What the hell is Facebook doing? Booting celebrities from their site? What’s up with that?

She also said that there is no way to email Facebook and with no proof they’ll just “leave you out to dry”. When did the Nazi’s start running Facebook? Or is it the Christian Moral Majority? That’s pretty funny because of all of the college girls that post pictures of themselves & friends all drunk at parties… Remember the breasting feeding picture debacle they had last year or so?

So, I told Adrianne that she should start writing to the social media web sites like Mashable.com & Techcrunch.com and get her story out and see if Facebook takes notice. It all starts with one voice…

I hope this helps Adrianne.

UPDATE: It appears shortly after this post started getting retweeted on Twitter, Facebook re-enabled Adrianne’s account.

I’m back! Why was my account disabled, and then magically pop back up? Why ask why? I’m just grateful!

Will Adrianne give me credit for helping? I don’t know. Maybe Facebook knows that they can’t win against @The_BORG. I’m just glad that Adrianne is back on Facebook.

                          

After the success of getting the Christina School District to amend their code of conduct and let Zachary Christie back into school, another victim of the school district’s zero tolerance policy came to attention. 13 year old Kyle Hebert was bullied and tormented (even had a florescent light smashed over his head) all last school year. When he went to school staff to complain he was told to fight back, to lie about what happened, not to tattle tale, and other crap that the teachers & administration at the George V. Kirk Middle School in Newark, Delaware thought it was fine to tell Kyle- trying to bury the issue and have it forgotten (this is against school/district policy & Delaware’s anti-bullying law of 2007). One day after some bullying, one of the cruel bullies dropped a pocket knife into Kyle’s lap and shout something like “Kyle has a knife!”. Let’s read that sentence again. One day after some bullying, one of the cruel bullies dropped a pocket knife into Kyle’s lap and shout something like “Kyle has a knife!”. Guess what happened? Kyle got suspended and was told that he must attend one of Delaware’s “alternative” schools (this are reform schools for actual juvenile delinquents). His mother, Dodi Hebert, started to home-school Kyle instead, refusing to let her son go to an alternative school. She also plans to pull her younger son out of school at the end of this school year. Dodi has lost all faith in the Christina School District. She even has EVIDENCE that her son Kyle was framed. So far school district officials and the School Board have not helped Dodi Hebert one bit. They sit there with the most dumbfounded looks on their face everytime they hear this, as I witnessed last night at the School Board meeting at Porter Road Elementary School when Dodi addressed the School Board members. At the time of the incident with Kyle, she did not reach out to media to get her son’s story out. Now with the national media coverage and outrage that Zachary Christie’s case got, Dodi is now looking to make some noise.

Now, to say that this is rare would be not right. The Christina School District’s zero tolerance policy has also made other children victims of it. How about the girl that brought the birthday cake to school and the cake knife. The teacher cut the cake with it and then went to the principal. The little girl got suspended. Another little girl brought an exacto/X-Acto knife to school to help her with an art project. Suspended.

The state of Delaware has even passed legislation telling the schools & school districts that they need to look at each case individually and determine what to do from there. Did Christina School District or the School Board even bother to THINK with an open mind instead of following the policy to the letter? NO. They ALL need to be held accountable for the injustices brought against all of these children.

Get involved. Make noise. Question the schools & districts. Talk to your legislature. Talk to the media! Talk on the Internet!

These problems must be fixed!

                          

Here are my pics from tonight at the Christina School Board meeting. I was there in support of Zachary Christie. The school board had already planned to amend the code of conduct & made it retroactive for the school year. It was a great thing that happened, but should have never been allowed to come to this. Zero tolerance policies do not work!

Will be reposting the pictures soon.

                          

Tornoe cartoon: School Districts and their Silly ‘No Tolerance’ Policies (originally from communitypub.com)

Hockessin, Del. — Rob Tornoe’s latest cartoon on school districts and their no tolerance policies, highlighted this week by the story of Zachary Christie, a 6 year-old student in the Christina school district who was suspended for bringing camping utensils to school and faces 45 days in reform school.

To HELP Zachary and for more info on the situation go to http://www.helpzachary.com or visit the previous post.