FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: [customer's name]

Consumers Don't Just Tell Their Friends About Poor Treatment From Companies, These Days They Put Up Web Sites

(FAIRFAX, Virginia) -- When [customer's name] could not get a customer service problem with [customer's] Carrier furnace resolved [customer] didn't just tell a few friends, [customer] created an Internet site detailing [customer's] travail.

Once, consumers who were frustrated with they way they were treated by a company could only tell their friends and neighbors. Now, Internet service providers are giving consumers another means of fighting back. Free or low cost computer space for Internet world wide web sites is empowering consumers like [customer's name] to tell not only their friends, but the world about the way they have been treated.

[Customer's] site (http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/1007/) not only lists [customer's] grievances with Carrier, it also offers compelling detail about [customer's] case. Several years of correspondence are included which document [customer's] efforts to get a refund for [customer's] faulty furnace. Starting with Carrier’s customer service department, [customer] contacted officials up Carrier’s chain of command, ending with the president of United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company. When those efforts were unsuccessful, [customer] enlisted the aid of Senator John Warner, Congressman Frank Wolf, the Fairfax County Department of Consumer Affairs, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Visitors to the site can read the letter in which Carrier acknowledges a manufacturing defect and that the "extra silicone was most likely applied at the factory." They can also read the letter in which an FTC lawyer states that while the FTC "generally does not intervene on behalf of particular consumers, I would appreciate your examining the attached complaint and providing a response, including an explanation of the denial of [customer's] request for a refund."

How do consumers find out about [customer's] site? [Customer's name] regularly posts information about it on several home improvement internet newsgroups where consumers post questions and read responses. Apparently someone is listening. In its first five weeks [customer's] site was visited over one thousand times.

As [customer's] story illustrates, the Internet is raising the stakes for customer service. With the ability to create a web site dedicated to a particular issue, a disgruntled customer can have nearly the same reach as a manufacturer. The Internet makes it more difficult for recalcitrant companies to ignore their customers.

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