CTA Tattler

Another "campaign" that needs to stop is the periodic littering of trains with free Red Eye issues.

Thank goodness I didn't encounter this type of marketing. From all that I've heard whom witnessed it firsthand, it was most annoying and disruptive. Such a pity that none of them boarded the Red Line and were forced to go below ground between Fullerton and North and face the wrath of no reception.

Take that, US Cellular!

interesting stuff. for all the things i've seen that are SO much more annoying -- the same "blind" guy (is he really blind? i can't tell) that used to go back and forth on the red line (around addison) asking for change in the same monotone -- "i'm hongry. i'm blind. ..."

but no one writes the cta or complains or does shit about that guy. and he was/is RELENTLESS. he'd totally slow walk, go INBETWEEN train cars, pause in front of you until you gave him money or ignored him long enough.

i'm all about helping people, but if that's not solicitation?

i don't know. i'm not saying that i wouldn't have been annoyed or not, but i probably would have been more intrigued/fascinated at first.

I didn't actually see these guys, but what made me angry about the campaign was that it was too blatant and over-the-top. Outside it's fine, because it's a public place and you can walk away. But you can't walk away in a crowded El car.

Besides, they were on private property and should have been paying the cash-strapped CTA for using their facilities to hawk their service. Though I'm sure glad they didn't.

As for Jocelyn's comment about the blind guy, I'm sure you understand this is quite different, with many guys doing this, backed by a huge corporation. As opposed to that one pitiful character. I just found out that it is now legal to panhandle on city streets, though still illegal on CTA property. I think the CTA doesn't want to bother enforcing the rule since a judge found panhandling in public to be legal.

I think the blind guy is annoying, too, and not just because I've been whopped with his cane more than once. But I can draw a clear distinction between one disabled man trying to make a living and a giant, multi-million (billion, even?) dollar company sending blue people onto my morning commute to try and dupe me into buying a cell phone plan.

Good job, CTA! Thanks!

THANK YOU CTA AND THANK YOU TATTLER!

may faith in the power of complaining is restored! hee.

er, "my" faith.

just find it interesting. you can't be duped unless you want to be.

Kudos, CTA Tattler and everyone who complained to the CTA. And cheers for responding in a timely manner, CTA! Screw you, US Cellular.

I'm glad to see that CTA made such swift work of those bozos. I was wondering how long Cingular would get away with that.

I actually retaliated against it by performing a guerilla theatre action of my own against them. You can read the specifics of it at my Web site.

Just so you know, US Cellular is the worst cellular provider on the planet. They lied to me about what my plan consisted of. (Sure it has free incoming minutes. Oh now that you can't cancel anymore, we're taking those away.) I don't get reception anywhere in Chicago. The phone they sold me is defective. Etc, etc, etc. They absolutely fucking suck. Did I mention you can't pay your bill online?

I got lucky though. In their bout of incompetence, they wrote on the contract that my commitment was "0 months". So I cancelled with no charge :) (Actually, they said they cancelled my service, but I got a bill anyway. I am very close to taking them to small claims court -- and very far away from writing them a check.)

So this whole campaign is just another reason to hate US Cellular. (Charging Chicagoans $125 to see the World Series, in a stadium that MY TAXES bought, is another. But that's probably not their fault... it is fun to blame them though :)

Now that they've been lambasted for riding CTA trains with their guerrila campaign, they've invaded Union Station. Seven of them in under a minute tonight. Two outside at Adams, two inside in front of the McDonalds getting in people's way, one standing in the middle of the stairs leading down to the north concourse, and two more on the north concourse. I headed straight for the Amtrak Security office (since apparently Amtrak owns the building, not Metra) and had a nice little discussion with one of the guards...

I used to be a customer of the Cell. As soon as I was able, I cancelled that contract and ran like hell for someone else. Terrible reception, constant drops - without having moved an inch! - mystery charges every month, telephone payments that weren't processed for weeks (oh, and added surcharges for paying by debit card on the phone rather than mailing a check, which I would think would incur *more* processing time), and no itemized billing so I could charge my employer for work-related calls on my personal phone.

Oh, and Matthew, that was beautiful. ::sniff::

Do you think if we launch a complaint campaign against US Cellular commercials, we can get that dopey broad, Joan Cusack, off the air? God, I hate her and her stupid commericals.

US Cellular sold me an inherently defective phone(Krycero K16). When they initially replaced the first defective phone the repair person claimed he was giving me a new phone. He pulled it from a cabinet shelf full of these same phones others had returned. It was not a new phone it was the same type problemactic phone that had previously been returned to US Cellular by someone else that had the same exact problems I was having with the phone. The only difference was my defective phone was not full of scrathes and it still looked brand new. Several hundred dollars later for new batteries and new charging cords and claims by US Cellular phone repairmen that the phone was fine when it was obviously not, the phone recieved it's demised after falling from my coat pocket in the driveway. The Signal Insurance that is recomended and sold by US Cellular replaced the phone with another bound to fail problemactic phone someone else had, the same make and model K16. Even paying $5.98 per month plus $50.00 for a Signal Insurance is no guaratee you will get and keep a working phone. The replacement phone(no cord or accessories) did little to no good and it has the same inherent defective problems it had when some other soul paid $50.00 on top of that monthly fee of $5.95 they had been faithfully paying each month to return this K16 for recieving someonelses defective K16 that they monkeyed with a bit and then called it refurbished. So pay $5.95 per month + $50.00 dollars and give up your inherently defective phone for someone else can pay $50.00 plus $5.95 to Signal via US Cellular for it when they have problems and their defective phone is returned.

For another $50.00 dollars Signal would send me another inherently defective phone of the same make and model that someone else and more than likely several someones had already returned. No telling how many times that defective K16 phone made the circle in the Signal/US Cellular scam. We took that trip again to the US Cellular office. The US Cellular repairman claimed the phone was fine, then he also said he could send it to their repair facility. Why send it to a repair facility if its fine as he says? I declined since the phone was claimed. After the repairman claiming the phone would work why would I be another who knows how long without a phone? Upon arriving home we plug the phone in and it won't even light up. So my husband drove back over to the repair facility for US Cellular. The repair guy now claims my cord is bad, the cord was fine that same morning and it was the phone that was suposedly bad? So my husband offers to buy another cord (this would be the third new cord for this phone type). US Cellular has no cords for the phone. The US Cellular folks knowing full well this particular phone type was defective and would continue to have problems kept replacing the defective phone with another bound to fail phone. US Cellular and their Signal insurance have a nice shell game going with defective phones they circulate from customer to customer at $50.00 plus per incident and $5.95 per month per phone.

U.S. Cellular has definitely not ceased and desisted--I witnessed the tactics on a southbound Blue Line train late Friday morning.

The new subway cars facing the aisle. Don't they think people like to look out a window?

If a homeless person gets on you can't sit down.

I had boarded the #6 bus taking my granddaughter to school when the bus stopped to pick up a passenger at 67 oglesby. An elderly lady with a cane asked the driver to lower the step for her and the driver told her that it didn't work, so the elderly lady attempted to climb the step and fell into the bus and was in such pain that she began to cry the driver did not attempt to aid the lady in getting to her feet, a man came from the back of the bus and lifted her to her feet and then I saw her face and recognized her from my church, I began to go to her and take her in my arms and hold her until she became calm. she was very frightened. I proceeded to seat her and one of the riders suggested that the driver should have her fill out an accident report - very nastily, the driver said that she didn't any, the handicaped woman told me that she needed one, I then asked the driver for one and she told me that everyone had to get off of the bus as she was calling an ambulance since the woman requested an accident report form. I did not know the elderly woman's name as I had to leave the bus to get my granddaughter to school, but as I waited for another bus, the ambulance took so long and when it came the poor woman had a hard time getting into the ambulance as they had no ramp or wheelchair. To make a long story short, I feel that the driver was very rude to the elderly person and should have warned her to wait for another bus whose entrance step was working instead of watching that poor lady attempt to climb that step. Needless to say, I say the woman on another bus after that and she told me that the driver told the CTA and the police report, that she had fallen outside of the bus, and by there being no witnesses, she could't prove otherwise. That bus # was 7705 and was driven by a woman. Had there been accident report forms on the bus the riders could have witnessed the accident. Something should be done in situations such as these. Drivers should maintain courtesy at all times while dealing with the public. This happended about 3 weeks or so at around 8:20 a.m. If the electronic steps are not working the driver should recommend the rider to board another bus. All of the pain and confusion could have been avoided if only the driver had just a little compassion for her fellow human beings. Thank you for listening.

There is profanity on the seat in the booth on the SW corner of Sheridan and BrynMawr. Soutyh bound side. I brought this to the attention of authiorities some weeks ago and promised it would be taken care of immeiately. Still there

Bus Driver #7225, a black woman with blonde highlights was either very rude, or very not alert as she drove the 62 archer bus (#6545) with destination to Harlem at 11:15 pm Wednesday April 22, 2009.

As I sat on that bus, a person transfering from the Orange Line asked 3 times, (Is this going to Harlem?) waiting for a response. The driver never answered her. If this was the only complaint, I wouldn't have taken the time to post this.

It gets worse.

Another lady walks in , and asks the same question 2 stops down. The driver again doesn't respond to the nice lady asking her the same question? Is this going to Harlem?.

-Apparently, the sign on the outside of the bus was not working.

Well, 2 men apparently got on the wrong bus, because the lady never answered to anyone askng if the bus was going to downtown, or if it was going to harlem.

I'm sure CTA is estatic about people paying extra fare, but I still think with the price of the CTA at $2.25 , the drivers should at least treat people humanely.

Anyways, the whole point of this was to see if CTA actually listens to this complaints.

I'm sure they get these all the time. But do they do anything when the complaints seem small?, obviously it's not, if people have to pay extra for a bus driver's lack of humanity. It's not the customers who should pay extra for that.

I can guarantee the 10 people riding the bus that night felt the same way, cause they sure spoke up.