Dip’s Hits

I signed up for an online bank. The name is ‘Emigrant Direct’, but I’m not going to bother linking to them to give them even web bot link referrals. They give great rates- 4%, which was about 800% more than what I was getting with my local bank. You know, the power of the internet, blah blah blah. But, they blundered. Hard. They sent me a little hat with their name on it. I might post said hat with what I think of it. I did send them a letter though. And to follow up, I’ve opened accounts with other banks- who haven’t sent me a hat- but they haven’t wrapped themselves in the flag either.

I just received your hat and was initially pleased at the gesture. I really liked the little USA flag on the back- it made me think the founders of Emigrant Bank would have been proud of their new country.

Then, I turn the hat over to see the “Made in China” label. That’s almost obscene- using the flag for Chinese made goods. Next time, keep your stupid hat.

I now think the founders of Emigrant Bank (Irish Emigrants, right?) would be turning over in their graves because you decide to send a gift from a communist country- when the US itself has many manufacturers of hats. You know, manufacturing- the kind of jobs that Irish emigrants would have filled when they came to this country.

Actually, your blunder is the kind of impetus that would make me get rid of your bank and go to one of your competitors. Or, as your example would show, maybe I should go to an overseas vendor- who doesn’t provide things like health insurance for their bank employees so they can offer the absolute lowest price- my own country be damned.

But, lucky for you, I guess, banking still has protectionist measures that prevent the destruction of that local industry. Though, I’m guessing, you probably outsource your customer service through call centers in India, your IT work is probably done in Vietnam, and the little doodads you pass out in the branch offices are all made in China.

Don’t send me any more communist, slave or prison-labor made junk. I’ll only throw it away and ridicule you further. This is posted on my blog. I’m no longer recommending your bank.

Regards,

Dip S. Hits

Oh, now one of my favorite organizations, the EFF , which is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (no, I’m not being sarcastic- these are the good guys) sent me a way cool looks-like-the-FBI hat when I joined. Only problem is… the hat is made in aforementioned child and slave labor communist country where freedom doesn’t even remotely exist.

Here’s what I wrote to them.

I’m happy to be a part of EFF- and I love my hat that I got when I signed up.
However, I was pretty disappointed to see that it was made in China. If there’s any country in the world where electronic (or any) freedom is restricted, it is that country. Why give (my) money to a company in such a country?

Please reconsider where you source your promotional merchandise, as it gives a very mixed signal.

Regards,

And they wrote back (unlike aforementioned bank)

Thank you for your email and your concern. This issue has been brought to our attention and we are looking into alternatives to the hat we are currently offering.

Thanks for your continued support!

So, do I hate China? Well, yeah. Uh.. no. Not really. I have nothing against Taiwan, for example. In fact, I strongly support them. Big difference to me between ‘made in Taiwan’ and ‘made in China’. But I’ll talk about that another time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.