Futility. David, congratulations on ruining the topic. This no more impacts you than a "Palestinian" bombing a bus full of Israeli children, yet for some reason you've taken it on as your personal cause. Get over it already. This has nothing to do with you.

If what I've said is a "common stereotype of Americans" then maybe those holding it are the ones in the wrong, eh? Of course it never occurred to you to consider this possibility. Nor did it ever occur to you that maybe they jacked me precisely because I'm American. I don't know if they did, but I'm not giving them another chance to try again. And I'm damn sure going to look out for my own by warning others against dealing with them.

Your last sarcastic response indicates a complete lack of understanding of what I said. It has nothing to do with the cables. I'll leave it to you to go back and read what I've said so you won't look like a moron the next time you respond with more gibberish.

Of course the ones holding the stereotype are (sometimes) wrong; there are ignorant people in every country. But they hold the stereotypes because of attitudes like the one you display now. They incorrectly generalize from a handful of instances exactly as you are incorrectly generalizing from a handful of instances. I do not see how you expect them to act any differently from yourself…


That is laughable. You seem to think yourself special somehow in that they would target you, but not every other American who deals with overseas companies.


And, well, not to paraphrase you or anything, but I'm damn sure going to look out for the truth and warn others about your ill-founded warning…


I'm glad you noticed that it was dripping with sarcasm. I'm disappointed that you didn't realize that the underlying question was serious. So let me state it simply for you: just what is it about overseas companies that makes them so nasty and terrible compared to, say, Canadian companies?

Maybe if I quote this stuff in an ever growing nested list of quotes, you'll understand better. I'm not hopeful. I never said, nor am I claiming to be, a special case that they've specifically targeted. I'm not that special, really. But thanks for the ego boost just the same. I'd really love to think they hosed me just because I'm me. Just know that I am not alone in this. I could sit here and drumbeat this all night with you if you like though. It might be worth a laugh or two next week.



Except you're not interested in the truth. You're interested in simply arguing the point because you can. You don't have any idea what the truth is in regard to my dealings with overseas companies. Nor do I have any idea what the truth is in regard to your dealings with them. My warning is not ill-founded. I got jacked by two overseas companies, in this instance specifically by two in the EU. It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me. I don't make a habit of broadcasting every dealing with every company I have. So for you to say I'm lying and that my warning is ill-founded is plain crap. I'm warning based on personal experience, and in my book there's nothing better than that to go by.



If I had the answer to that I'd be rich. I can't tell you why netfirms.com is doing far better at serving my needs than 1and1.com or gandi.net. Maybe one day I'll get burned by them too, but so far I haven't. They didn't try and pull this "renew everything before he cancels" game with me. Instead, the domains that were up for renewal generated polite, easy to follow emails directing me to how to renew. Giving me the option to do so if I wanted. Not forcing the decision down my throat. Certainly not ripping me off and refusing to refund the money because the exchange rate would kill them - leaving me with no recourse but to seek a chargeback through my bank.

So. Care to try one more time to make yourself out to be the hero of the EU? Defender against the evil Empire of the Iguanadons? Or are you going to accept that my personal experience trumps your imagined harm at reporting my problems to others who might find them useful?

Why bring up the possibility then?


Of course: that is why I have presented evidence that your claim does not extend to the general case. Namely the existence of just a few instances of global commerce that go quite smoothly. But I guess that's not truthful. It's interesting how you conveniently ignore the issue of global commerce and keep hammering on Samson's Two Great Instances.


Then enlighten me, and let us end this.


Two! TWO! You think it appropriate to generalize to an entire set of countries based on TWO companies?


One could just as easily find two instances of US companies that screwed over somebody from Europe. Oh no, all US countries are untrustworthy! Quick, let's stop all overseas commerce!


I am going to accept that you think your very limited personal experience somehow trumps the vast amount of world experience with global commerce, and that you apparently think yourself more representative than the trillions of dollars exchanged regularly.

By giving this ill-founded warning, you are attempting to steer people away from potentially very helpful alternatives. Your warning is therefore not helpful, as it reduces options based on extremely limited personal experience. You are not qualified to give opinions on an entire set of countries' companies simply because you got screwed by two individual companies.

You're not qualified to discount my warnings as lies unless you've got some other kind of solid evidence to go by. So unless you do, I think this conversation is over. The rest of your post doesn't deserve further comment.

I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread for now as it seems to have turned into a personal flame war between the two of you.