#refund consulting business

[collabaccounting]

Expert Taxation Services in Australia | Collab Accounting

Simplify your tax obligations with Collab Accounting's expert taxation services. We offer personalized advice and solutions for individuals and businesses across Australia. Maximize your refunds and stay compliant with our experienced team. 

[venturaconsultantltd]

Looking for Best Business Advisory Services in London | Ventura Consultant Ltd

[sheslostupstate]

Source: ZIB via instagram

Attention Vienna swifties! Below is information from the AK (labor bureau) on your rights to refunds.

Ticket Refund: For tickets purchased via oeticket, you will receive a refund from the promoter within 10 business days.

Hotel and transport: the organizer is not responsible for these costs. Please consult your hotel, transport provider, or travel agent for your options. ÖBB and Westbahn have said that they will refund train tickets.

Ticket travel package: if you purchased a ticket travel package, your concert ticket will be refunded by the promoter and your accommodation/transport can be cancelled free of charge.

Third party ticket office: if you purchased your tickets from a third party (any ticket seller that is not oeticket), consult the ticket platform/seller directly.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 18, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 19, 2025

Shortly before midnight last night, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its initial findings from a study it undertook last July when it asked eight large companies to turn over information about the data they collect about consumers, product sales, and how the surveillance the companies used affected consumer prices. The FTC focused on the middlemen hired by retailers. Those middlemen use algorithms to tweak and target prices to different markets.

The initial findings of the FTC using data from six of the eight companies show that those prices are not static. Middlemen can target prices to individuals using their location, browsing patterns, shopping history, and even the way they move a mouse over a webpage. They can also use that information to show higher-priced products first in web searches. The FTC found that the intermediaries—the middlemen—worked with at least 250 retailers.

“Initial staff findings show that retailers frequently use people’s personal information to set targeted, tailored prices for goods and services—from a person's location and demographics, down to their mouse movements on a webpage,” said FTC chair Lina Khan. “The FTC should continue to investigate surveillance pricing practices because Americans deserve to know how their private data is being used to set the prices they pay and whether firms are charging different people different prices for the same good or service.”

The FTC has asked for public comment on consumers’ experience with surveillance pricing.

FTC commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson, whom Trump has tapped to chair the commission in his incoming administration, dissented from the report.

Matt Stoller of the nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project, which is working “to address today’s crisis of concentrated economic power,” wrote that “[t]he antitrust enforcers (Lina Khan et al) went full Tony Montana on big business this week before Trump people took over.”

Stoller made a list. The FTC sued John Deere “for generating $6 billion by prohibiting farmers from being able to repair their own equipment,” released a report showing that pharmacy benefit managers had “inflated prices for specialty pharmaceuticals by more than $7 billion,” “sued corporate landlord Greystar, which owns 800,000 apartments, for misleading renters on junk fees,” and “forced health care private equity powerhouse Welsh Carson to stop monopolization of the anesthesia market.”

It sued Pepsi for conspiring to give Walmart exclusive discounts that made prices higher at smaller stores, “​​[l]eft a roadmap for parties who are worried about consolidation in AI by big tech by revealing a host of interlinked relationships among Google, Amazon and Microsoft and Anthropic and OpenAI,” said gig workers can’t be sued for antitrust violations when they try to organize, and forced game developer Cognosphere to pay a $20 million fine for marketing loot boxes to teens under 16 that hid the real costs and misled the teens.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “sued Capital One for cheating consumers out of $2 billion by misleading consumers over savings accounts,” Stoller continued. It “forced Cash App purveyor Block…to give $120 million in refunds for fostering fraud on its platform and then refusing to offer customer support to affected consumers,” “sued Experian for refusing to give consumers a way to correct errors in credit reports,” ordered Equifax to pay $15 million to a victims’ fund for “failing to properly investigate errors on credit reports,” and ordered “Honda Finance to pay $12.8 million for reporting inaccurate information that smeared the credit reports of Honda and Acura drivers.”

The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice sued “seven giant corporate landlords for rent-fixing, using the software and consulting firm RealPage,” Stoller went on. It “sued $600 billion private equity titan KKR for systemically misleading the government on more than a dozen acquisitions.”

“Honorary mention goes to [Secretary Pete Buttigieg] at the Department of Transportation for suing Southwest and fining Frontier for ‘chronically delayed flights,’” Stoller concluded. He added more results to the list in his newsletter BIG.

Meanwhile, last night, while the leaders in the cryptocurrency industry were at a ball in honor of President-elect Trump’s inauguration, Trump launched his own cryptocurrency. By morning he appeared to have made more than $25 billion, at least on paper. According to Eric Lipton at the New York Times, “ethics experts assailed [the business] as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.”

Adav Noti, executive director of the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, told Lipton: “It is literally cashing in on the presidency—creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. It is beyond unprecedented.” Cryptocurrency leaders worried that just as their industry seems on the verge of becoming mainstream, Trump’s obvious cashing-in would hurt its reputation. Venture capitalist Nick Tomaino posted: “Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it.”

Yesterday the European Commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, asked X, the social media company owned by Trump-adjacent billionaire Elon Musk, to hand over internal documents about the company’s algorithms that give far-right posts and politicians more visibility than other political groups. The European Union has been investigating X since December 2023 out of concerns about how it deals with the spread of disinformation and illegal content. The European Union’s Digital Services Act regulates online platforms to prevent illegal and harmful activities, as well as the spread of disinformation.

Today in Washington, D.C., the National Mall was filled with thousands of people voicing their opposition to President-elect Trump and his policies. Online speculation has been rampant that Trump moved his inauguration indoors to avoid visual comparisons between today’s protesters and inaugural attendees. Brutally cold weather also descended on President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, but a sea of attendees nonetheless filled the National Mall.

Trump has always understood the importance of visuals and has worked hard to project an image of an invincible leader. Moving the inauguration indoors takes away that image, though, and people who have spent thousands of dollars to travel to the capital to see his inauguration are now unhappy to discover they will be limited to watching his motorcade drive by them. On social media, one user posted: “MAGA doesn’t realize the symbolism of [Trump] moving the inauguration inside: The billionaires, millionaires and oligarchs will be at his side, while his loyal followers are left outside in the cold. Welcome to the next 4+ years.”

Trump is not as good at governing as he is at performance: his approach to crises is to blame Democrats for them. But he is about to take office with majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, putting responsibility for governance firmly into his hands.

Right off the bat, he has at least two major problems at hand.

Last night, Commissioner Tyler Harper of the Georgia Department of Agriculture suspended all “poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meets, and sales” until further notice after officials found Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or bird flu, in a commercial flock. As birds die from the disease or are culled to prevent its spread, the cost of eggs is rising—just as Trump, who vowed to reduce grocery prices, takes office.

There have been 67 confirmed cases of the bird flu in the U.S. among humans who have caught the disease from birds. Most cases in humans are mild, but public health officials are watching the virus with concern because bird flu variants are unpredictable. On Friday, outgoing Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra announced $590 million in funding to Moderna to help speed up production of a vaccine that covers the bird flu. Juliana Kim of NPR explained that this funding comes on top of $176 million that Health and Human Services awarded to Moderna last July.

The second major problem is financial. On Friday, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote to congressional leaders to warn them that the Treasury would hit the debt ceiling on January 21 and be forced to begin using extraordinary measures in order to pay outstanding obligations and prevent defaulting on the national debt. Those measures mean the Treasury will stop paying into certain federal retirement accounts as required by law, expecting to make up that difference later.

Yellen reminded congressional leaders: “The debt limit does not authorize new spending, but it creates a risk that the federal government might not be able to finance its existing legal obligations that Congresses and Presidents of both parties have made in the past.” She added, “I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Both the avian flu and the limits of the debt ceiling must be managed, and managed quickly, and solutions will require expertise and political skill.

Rather than offering their solutions to these problems, the Trump team leaked that it intended to begin mass deportations on Tuesday morning in Chicago, choosing that city because it has large numbers of immigrants and because Trump’s people have been fighting with Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat. Michelle Hackman, Joe Barrett, and Paul Kiernan of the Wall Street Journal, who broke the story, reported that Trump’s people had prepared to amplify their efforts with the help of right-wing media.

But once the news leaked of the plan and undermined the “shock and awe” the administration wanted, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said the team was reconsidering it.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mechadria]

I liked their apology. (tldr lower bestie if you want)

It won't make Steven's out of touch comment or their joint decision made without either asking a business consultant or their own fans any easier to swallow, but it was a good apology. I like the new model, and I frankly think a month is short, they could have waited longer to put them up after! (they probably went short so the apology would go better and yeah, they nailed this one actually.) this kind of premium experience that you can opt into feels much better and nicer than feeling forced to subscribe to watch any of it going forward (it's really a bit of another patreon form, and I really don't mind that at all). i think more people would be willing to subscribe (within those that can afford it) now that it doesn't feel like their only option.

if they prove able to truly listen to their fans, get back down to earth and actually conduct market research and value their audience, i think they'll actually be okay. they need to make real efforts to earn back trust and foster that feeling (and promote the damn ways people can actually support them omg promote the patreon) but i see them walking back from this. maybe not this month, but eventually? it'll hopefully be a distant disappointing thing that makes you go "im glad they listened and changed"

im glad they addressed the patreon members' worry and im glad they didn't dig their heels in and are willing to offer refunds (it Was the smart thing to do, but they just proved they don't always do that, so live and learn ig). i still didn't like how they talked about it like it is their own site when we now know it's just vimeo (and like, it's fine, i have nothing against vimeo. but don't pretend it's yours when you can't even control how many people share a password, it just sounds weird instead...)

tldr;

i appreciated the work they put into the apology, as well as the format they're deciding on going forward. a few details weren't great, but i can see them surviving this and going on to do good if they listen to fans and promote their content better.

(extra more personal bit you don't really need)

i don't have a lot of extra money but I'm an artist myself and I like to support creators I like, so I have a list of patreons I'd like to support for a month whenever i next can, and theirs is tentatively back on the list. i probably won't subscribe to the streaming service because that's not something that works with how i consume their work, but patreon? maybe.

[pink-amethyst-tarot]

OPEN FOR PERSONAL READINGS

You can DM me about a personal/custom readings and e-mail me at pinkamethysttarot@gmail.com.

DM HERE OR E-MAIL ME AT PINKAMETHYSTTAROT@GMAIL.COM BOOK WITH ME!

NO REFUNDS

THE READINGS WILL BE TYPED OUT AND SENT VIA E-MAIL AS A DOCUMENT OR PDF. IT CAN ALSO BE SENT AS THE E-MAIL ITSELF IF YOU CHOOSE SO.

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME OR INITALS; YOU CAN ALSO SEND YOUR STAR SIGN(S) (SUN, MOON, RISING) AND YOUR FAVORITE COLOR!

SEND IN YOUR PAYMENTS ON C@SH@PP AT $ODDLYCOZYCOTTAGE, ON P@YP@L HERE (also @oddlycozycottage) OR ON KO-FI (@/oddlycozycottage)

HERE IS MY ETSY!

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. THESE READINGS ARE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. no guarantees are implied. These readings are not a substitute or replacement for any professional help or services. My readings are not a substitute for any form of professional legal, medical/psychiatric, relationship, religious/spiritual or financial/ business advice nor consultations. You should always see a professional legal/trained adviser for help in any matter. I am not responsible for any decisions/ actions you take.

[mariacallous]

Zhang Xiaomeng, who lives in Beijing’s expensive central business district and runs her own design agency, had been putting off downloading Pinduoduo. Despite its popularity, she disliked how it gamified shopping, particularly a feature that prompts users to enlist their friends to click on a link in exchange for a price cut. This year, she finally gave in. “Things there are cheap,” she says.

Pinduoduo shares a parent company with Temu, the blockbuster retail app that has permeated US online shopping in recent years. The success of PDD Holdings, which owns both, has come in spite of economic headwinds and intense competitive pressures in China. But an international crackdown on retail imports could bring it back to earth after a meteoric rise.

The US has outlined plans to curb tax exemptions on packages worth less than $800, in a move that will affect hundreds of millions of packages shipped by companies like Shein and Temu. It will also mean more scrutiny of textile and apparel imports, popular Temu categories. And Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump has proposed a 60 percent or higher tariff on all goods from China—a potentially huge blow to a company built on bargains.

The success in China of Pinduoduo—and Temu in the US—counters Beijing’s desire to reposition China from a source of cheap goods to a hotbed of advanced manufacturing. Its appeal lies in offering the cheapest option for anything you might need. It works. According to the company, it had 850 million annual active buyers in 2021. PDD Holdings has twice outstripped Alibaba to be China’s most valuable ecommerce company by market share, albeit briefly. And because of Temu’s continued success abroad, domestic media now holds up its business model as an example to follow.

PDD Holdings’ founder, Colin Huang, briefly became China’s richest man in August before disappointing quarterly revenues caused his company to lose $50 billion in market value. As of September 10 his net worth stood at more than $40 billion.

China’s slowing economy has contributed to Pinduoduo’s rise. The downturn in the domestic property market and rising unemployment have made consumers hesitant to spend. At the most recent June shopping festival, where ecommerce platforms organize large-scale promotions and discounts, overall ecommerce sales in China fell 7 percent from the previous year to 742.8 billion yuan ($102.3 billion). When consumers do spend, they want better value for their money, searching for discounts, coupons, and cheaper versions of the same thing. “Consumers are more price conscious amid growing economic uncertainties,” Economist Intelligence Unit research analyst Aishwarya Tendolkar told WIRED.

Last year, ecommerce platforms JD and Alibaba’s Taobao offered users steeper discounts in a bid to compete with Pinduoduo. Neither has dislodged Pinduoduo’s reputation for offering the cheapest option online. In an April interview, when asked about his most serious competitors, Alibaba group chair Joseph Tsai acknowledged that Alibaba had “fallen behind,” because “we forgot about who our real customers are.”

Tsai didn’t mention Pinduoduo by name, but from its beginnings, the shopping platform has never made the merchant its focus like Alibaba did: It has always prioritized getting the user the lowest price online.

“In retail ecommerce, price wars are continuous and will never stop,” says Zhuang Shuai, retail analyst and founder of Bailian Consulting. “They’re effective in the short term but not a long-term effective way to compete.”

Pinduoduo has even instated policies that favor customers to the detriment of merchants. Since 2021, Pinduoduo has allowed consumers to get refunds without returning the item, if what they got didn’t match the seller’s description. The Chinese counterpart to Tiktok, Douyin introduced a similar policy in September 2023, as did Taobao and JD at year end.

The platform is also edging into territory traditionally occupied by its competitors by welcoming dealers for established brands like Apple and Louis Vuitton.

Competitors like JD, which banked on being the destination for quality products and fast logistics, are at risk of their users being stolen. “JD is worried it can’t retain its existing users, and also won’t be able to attract price-sensitive users,” says one former mid-level JD manager, who asked for anonymity because of potential professional repercussions, about Pinduoduo’s rise. On its app homepage, JD has begun aping Pinduoduo by emphasizing discounts.

PDD Holdings has also made international expansion a priority by launching Temu for international markets, a step that many retail Chinese companies haven’t taken. It used to be fine for a Chinese brand to stay within the Chinese market—after all, the consumer base is huge. Rather than make international expansion a side thought, PDD Holdings spent a reported $21 million on ads at the SuperBowl earlier this year; The Wall Street Journal also reported that Temu was Meta’s single biggest advertiser in 2023, racking up $2 billion in spend. That push has paid off; in the first half of this year, Temu spent more days ranked first for downloads on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store in the US than any other app.

The company is facing headwinds, though. In addition to the potential US curbs on cheap shipments, other countries and regions are moving in a similar protective direction. Brazil passed a law levying a 20 percent tax on purchases up to $50 in June. The EU has considered scrapping its $150 duty-free threshold. In August, South Africa announced it would introduce a value-added tax on imported low-value goods, which had previously enjoyed a concession.

Managing director of CTR Market Research Jason Yu says it’s “very likely” that Temu would take a hit if the US goes through with it. “Competing on lower price will not be a sustainable strategy for companies like Temu or Shein in the long run,” he says. “With the change of law, their advantage in price will be less obvious.”

It all adds up to “a gloomy outlook for cross-border online shopping in 2025,” says Tendolkar, the research analyst.

At least on the surface, Temu isn’t worried. “If their [policy change is] fair," a Temu spokesperson tells WIRED, "we believe they won’t tilt the competitive landscape.”

[pechayfiles]

On a hiatus for now.

Hello guys I'm sorry if I'm currently unable to post updates.

Right now I'm busy with work.

I'm also trying to set up my own company/consulting firm. It's a digital marketing firm and we will offer social media services, email and calendar management, project management, etc... Setting it up is a slow process because I also have to work full-time as I do it. I already have a team and some of the basics. I just need a few more things and I'll be set up. Currently, one of the difficulties I'm facing is funding.

My aim is to establish my own consulting firm so I can have more free time to do what I want while still having a decent amount of income. Since I'm also currently a single mom, the fact that I'm always too busy with work constantly weighs down on me. I hope to spend more time with my son. And this is why I have to succeed with the firm no matter what.

That being said, I would like to ask for the support of my Sims 4 community. I hope to raise money to fund my firm.

Of course, I don't want to ask for free money. Instead, I'm hoping you can buy from our Etsy store instead.

For now, I'm offering a T-shirt and a canvas tote bag. I honestly have no idea what to sell for now. Let me know what I can offer so I can set it up.

Here is the link to the store:

ETSY STORE Again, I don't want free money. Please just buy from our shop instead so you can get something in return at least. If you want a custom t-shirt design, please contact me - I will make it for you. I can offer mugs or mousepads or desk pads if you guys want. For full transparency, I need to raise about $5000 to successfully set up my company (employee salary, tech (CRM, hosting, hiring people to set up these things), and tools that I need to cater to clients, for ads and subscriptions - the rest will be cushion until we're able to land a decent number of clients to the point where the firm can run itself. ) Thank you so much Sim fam. I know I can count on you.

FOR THE RECORD: I'm new to the Etsy thing so if there's something wrong with your purchase, let me know and I will refund you. I'm not looking to take advantage of people. I just want to raise funds in an honest way.

Again, thank you for any type of support you can offer. I will appreciate it whether it's purchasing from my store or reblogging my post or telling other people about it or liking it. Any form of support warms my heart. Thank you so much! I appreciate all of you supportive people.

[saber-monet]

To Manifest more money, get more specific.

Here are a FEW( there’s nearly infinite ways, don’t close yourself off!) ways one can receive money

Treat it like Pokémon and collect them all lol

1. Salary/wages: Regular income earned from employment self/employment.

2. Investment returns: Profits gained from investments such as stocks, bonds, or real estate.

3. Inheritance: Money or assets received from a relative or benefactor.

4. Grants: Funds awarded by organizations or institutions for specific purposes, such as research or education.

5. Loan repayment: Money received when someone pays back a loan that was previously provided.

6. Dividends: Payments made to shareholders from the profits of a corporation.

7. Royalties: Payments received by creators for the use of their intellectual property, such as books, music, or inventions.

8. Tips: Additional money given as appreciation for services rendered, typically in industries like hospitality or personal services.

9. Rebates: Refunds or discounts given after a purchase, often as an incentive or promotion.

10. Alimony/child support: Regular payments made to a former spouse or partner for financial support.

11. Found money: Money discovered unexpectedly, such as in lost or forgotten accounts, or on the ground.

12. Lottery winnings: Prizes won through games of chance like lotteries or scratch-off tickets.

13. Refunds: Money returned to a consumer after returning a product or canceling a service.

14. Sponsorship: Funds provided by companies or individuals to support a person or organization in exchange for advertising or promotion.

15. Crowdfunding: Money raised from a large number of people, typically through online platforms, to support a project, cause, or individual.

16. Cashback rewards: Money returned to a consumer as a percentage of their purchases, often offered by credit card companies or retailers.

17. Scholarships: Funds awarded to students to help cover the costs of education, typically based on academic achievement, financial need, or other criteria.

18. Patronage: Financial support given by individuals or organizations to artists, writers, or other creatives to fund their work or projects.

19. Rental income: Money earned from leasing or renting out property or assets, such as real estate, vehicles, or equipment.

20. Contest winnings: Prizes awarded for winning competitions or contests, which may include cash or other rewards.

21. Side hustle earnings: Additional income earned from part-time or freelance work outside of one's primary job.

22. Government benefits: Financial assistance provided by the government to eligible individuals or families, such as unemployment benefits, social security, or welfare.

23. Referral bonuses: Money received for referring new customers or clients to a business or service.

24. Stock options: Compensation provided to employees in the form of company stock, often as part of their overall compensation package.

25. Affiliate marketing commissions: Money earned through promoting and selling products or services for companies as an affiliate marketer.

26. Consulting fees: Payments received for providing expert advice or services to clients or businesses.

27. Trust distributions: Money distributed to beneficiaries from a trust fund, typically according to the terms outlined in the trust agreement.

28. Liquidation proceeds: Money received from selling off assets, such as stocks, bonds, or property.

29. Cash gifts: Money given by friends, family, or acquaintances as a gesture of goodwill, celebration, or support.

30. Insurance payouts: Money received from insurance companies to cover losses, damages, or expenses incurred due to accidents, disasters, or other covered events.

Focus on the ones that fits your self concept the best, for the best results. 

[goviinbookeeping]

Goviin Bookkeeping & Taxation: Your Trusted Tax Consultants in Dubai

Are you struggling with VAT registration or in need of assistance with Tax compliance, return filing, or tax agent services to minimize losses? We understand the importance of maintaining streamlined financial records. That's why we offer comprehensive services, including audits, VAT e-filing assistance, managing tax penalties and refunds, and other tax residency services. Let us help you achieve financial efficiency with our top-notch bookkeeping and accounting services.

At Goviin, we understand the importance of maintaining accurate financial records and complying with VAT regulations. Whether you need help with VAT return filing, tax agent support, or navigating complex tax laws, our team is here to provide tailored solutions to meet your needs.

As certified Tax Consultants in Dubai, recognized by the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) in the UAE, we specialize in providing professional financial management services and comprehensive VAT-related solutions. With our extensive expertise and dedication, we ensure that your business remains compliant with the ever-evolving tax landscape in Dubai.

Since the implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT) in 2018, it has significantly impacted businesses across various sectors. With a standard rate of 5% applied to a wide range of services, adherence to VAT regulations is essential to avoid penalties and ensure smooth operations.

Navigating the complexities of VAT compliance can be daunting, but with Goviin Bookkeeping & Taxation by your side, you can rest assured knowing that your tax obligations are in capable hands. Let us help you streamline your VAT processes and minimize risks, allowing you to focus on what matters most – growing your business.

[registrationmitrasblog]

GST Registration, Return Filing, Audit and Refund Services in Noida

Don't let the complex world of GST registration intimidate you! At Registration Mitra, we provide hassle-free GST registration services in Noida for businesses of all sizes. Our team of experienced consultants will take care of all the paperwork and formalities, ensuring that you're fully compliant with GST laws and regulations.

[thehenrythomas]

How To Manage Negative Online Reviews For Your Business?

No one likes to receive terrible online reviews, but it’s an inevitable thing in the world of business. While it’s normal to feel insulted and take it as an offense at first, it matters how you handle these negative reviews. 

Having such reviews is healthy for your business because, with these, you can set standards on how you can improve your services. You don’t need to worry about any of this on your own if you can’t handle it. Leave it to the hands of a reliable SEO agency providing services of an SEO company in Chandigarh.

Monitor Online Platforms

Stay vigilant and regularly monitor online platforms where customers can leave reviews about your business, such as review websites, social media platforms, and search engine listings. Being aware of negative reviews as soon as they are posted allows you to respond promptly and address the concerns.

Stay Calm and Objective

It’s natural to feel defensive when faced with negative feedback, but it’s crucial to stay calm and objective in your response. Take a step back, carefully read the review, and try to understand the customer’s perspective. Remember, a thoughtful and professional response can go a long way in resolving the issue.

Respond Promptly

Time is of the essence when dealing with negative reviews. Respond to them promptly to demonstrate that you value customer feedback and are committed to resolving any issues. Ignoring or delaying responses can worsen the situation and give the impression that you don’t care about your customers’ concerns.

Personalize Your Responses

Address the reviewer by name if possible and use personalized language in your response. This shows that you are genuinely engaging with the customer and not providing a generic reply. Acknowledge their concerns, apologize for any inconvenience caused, and offer a solution or steps to rectify the issue.

Take the Conversation Offline

While it’s important to respond publicly to negative reviews, it’s equally essential to take the conversation offline. Provide a contact email or phone number where the customer can reach out to discuss the issue in more detail. This demonstrates your willingness to resolve the problem privately and shows other potential customers that you are proactive in addressing concerns.

Offer a Resolution

In your response, provide a solution or offer to make amends. Whether it’s a refund, a replacement, or additional assistance, showing that you are willing to go the extra mile to resolve the issue can help mitigate the impact of the negative review. Be transparent about your intentions and actions to rebuild trust with the customer and other readers.

Encourage Positive Reviews

Actively encourage your satisfied customers to leave positive reviews about their experiences. This helps counterbalance negative reviews and showcases the positive aspects of your business. Implement strategies such as sending follow-up emails, offering incentives, or creating a loyalty program to encourage customers to share their positive experiences online.

Learn from Feedback

Negative reviews can provide valuable insights into areas where your business may be falling short. Use them as an opportunity to learn, adapt, and improve your products, services, or customer experience. By addressing recurring issues, you can prevent similar negative reviews in the future and enhance your overall business operations.

Seek Professional Help if Needed

In some cases, negative reviews may be particularly damaging or involve false information. If you encounter such situations, it may be beneficial to consult with a reputation management professional who can guide how to handle the issue effectively and minimize any long-term damage.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 12, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 13, 2024

I write a lot about how the Biden-Harris administration is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both political parties widely shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. And I write about how that so-called liberal consensus broke down as extremists used the Reconstruction-era image of the American cowboy—who, according to myth, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone—to stand against what they insisted was creeping socialism that stole tax dollars from hardworking white men in order to give handouts to lazy minorities and women. 

But five major stories over the past several days made me realize that I’ve never written about how Trump and his loyalists have distorted the cowboy image until it has become a poisonous caricature of the values its recent defenders have claimed to champion.

The cowboy myth originated during the Reconstruction era as a response to the idea that a government that defended Black rights was “socialist” and that the tax dollars required to pay bureaucrats and army officers would break hardworking white men. 

This weekend, on Saturday, May 11, Paul Kiel of ProPublica and Russ Buettner of the New York Times teamed up to deliver a deep investigation into what Trump was talking about when he insisted that he must break tradition and refuse to release his tax returns when he ran for office in 2016 and 2020, citing an audit.

The New York Times had already reported that one of the reasons the Internal Revenue Service was auditing Trump’s taxes was that, beginning in 2010, he began to claim a $72.9 million tax refund because of huge losses from his failing casinos.  

Kiel and Buettner followed the convoluted web of Trump’s finances to find another issue with his tax history. They concluded that Trump’s Chicago skyscraper, his last major construction project, was “a vast money loser.” He claimed losses as high as $651 million on it in 2008. But then he appears to have moved ownership of the building in 2010 from one entity to a new one—the authors describe it as “like moving coins from one pocket to another”—and used that move to claim another $168 million in losses, thereby double-dipping. 

The experts the authors consulted said that if he loses the audit battle, Trump could owe the IRS more than $100 million. University of Baltimore law professor Walter Schwidetzky, who is an expert on partnership taxation, told the authors: “I think he ripped off the tax system.” 

The cowboy myth emphasized dominance over the Indigenous Americans and Mexicans allegedly attacking white settlers from the East. On Friday an impressive piece of reporting from Jude Joffe-Block at NPR untangled the origins of a story pushed by Republicans that Democrats were encouraging asylum seekers to vote illegally for President Joe Biden in 2024, revealing that the story was entirely made up.  

The story broke on X, formerly Twitter, on April 15, when the investigative arm of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which promises to provide “aggressive oversight” of the Biden administration, posted photos of what it claimed were flyers from inside portable toilets at a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, that said in broken Spanish: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” The tweet thread got more than 9 million views and was boosted by Elon Musk, X’s owner.

But the story was fabricated. The flyer used the name of a small organization that helps asylum seekers, along with the name of the woman who runs the organization. She is a U.S. citizen and told Joffe-Block that her organization has “never encouraged people to vote for anyone.” Indeed, it has never come up because everyone knows noncitizens are not eligible to vote. The flyer had outdated phone numbers and addresses, and its Spanish was full of errors. Migrants who are staying at the encampment as they wait for their appointments to enter the U.S. say they have never seen such flyers, and no one has urged them to vote for Biden.

Digging showed that the flyer was “discovered” by the right-wing video site Muckraker, which specializes in “undercover” escapades. The founder of Muckraker, Anthony Rubin, and his brother, Joshua Rubin, had shown up at the organization’s headquarters in Matamoros asking to become volunteers for the organization; they and their conversation were captured on video, and signs point to the conclusion that they planted the flyers. 

Nonetheless, Republicans ran with the story. Within 12 hours after the fake flyer appeared on X, Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Dan Bishop (R-NC) brought posters of it to Congress, and Republicans made it a centerpiece of their insistence that Congress must pass a new law against noncitizen voting. Rather than being protected by modern-day cowboys, the woman who ran the organization that helps asylum seekers got death threats.

The cowboy image emphasized the masculinity of the independent men it championed, but the testimony of Stephanie Clifford, the adult film actress also known as Stormy Daniels, in Trump’s criminal trial for falsifying business records to cover up his payments to Clifford to keep her story of their sexual encounter secret before the 2016 election, turns Trump’s aggressive dominance into sad weakness. Covering Clifford’s testimony, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times yesterday wrote that “Trump came across as a loser in her account—a narcissist, cheater, sad Hugh Hefner wannabe, trading his satin pajamas for a dress shirt and trousers (and, later, boxers) as soon as Stormy mocked him.”

In the literature of the cowboy myth, the young champion of the underdog is eventually supposed to settle down and take care of his family, who adore him. But the news of the past week has caricatured that shift, too. On Wednesday, May 8, the Republican Party of Florida announced that it had picked Trump’s youngest son, 18-year-old Barron, as one of the state’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, along with Trump’s other sons, Eric and Donald Jr.; Don Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle; and Trump’s second daughter, Tiffany, and her husband. 

On Friday, May 10, Trump’s current wife and Barron’s mother, former first lady Melania Trump, issued a statement saying: “While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments.” It is hard not to interpret this extraordinary snub from his own wife and son as a chilly response to the past month of testimony about his extramarital escapades while Barron was an infant.

Finally, there was the eye-popping story broken by Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow in the Washington Post on Thursday, revealing that last month, at a private meeting with about two dozen top oil executives at Mar-a-Lago, Trump offered to reverse President Joe Biden’s environmental rules designed to combat climate change and to stop any new ones from being enacted in exchange for a $1 billion donation. 

Trump has promised his supporters that he would be an outsider, using his knowledge of business to defend ordinary Americans against those elites who don’t care about them. Now he has been revealed as being willing to sell us out—to sell humanity out—for the bargain basement price of $1 billion (with about 8 billion people in the world, this would make us each worth about 12 and a half cents). 

Chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration Richard Painter wrote: “This is called bribery. It’s a felony.” He followed up with “Even a candidate who loses can be prosecuted for bribery. That includes the former guy asking for a billion dollars in campaign cash from oil companies in exchange for rolling back environmental laws.”

The cowboy myth was always a political image, designed to undermine the idea of a government that worked for ordinary Americans. It was powerful after the Civil War but faded into the past in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s as Americans realized that their lives depended on government regulation and a basic social safety net. The American cowboy burst back into prominence with the advent of the Marlboro Man in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the idea of an individual white man who worked hard, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone, was a sex symbol, and protected his women became a central myth in the rise of politicians determined to overturn the liberal consensus. 

Now it seems the myth has come full circle, with the party led by a man whose wife rejects him and whose lovers ridicule him, who makes up stories about dangerous “others,” cheats on his taxes, solicits bribes, and tries to sell out his followers for cash—the very caricature the mythological cowboy was invented to fight.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[should-be-sleeping]

I lived in a tiny Ohio town and shit hit critical mass after Columbine. Within a week they banned backpacks, purses, and coats from the school. You could arrive with them, but then they had to stay in your locker all day. The bell schedule was not adjusted to allow more time for students to have to go to their locker to exchange books/supplies between classes, so everyone was late to every class.

This meant that detention (which I had everyday regardless so nothing changed for me lmao) doubled in size to the point where there wasn't enough room for all of the kids who had 3 tardies to sit, so they had to open an overflow classroom to seat them. They did not however pay for a 2nd member of staff to oversee both rooms so 1 room was just Mad Max while the other sat in silence waiting out the clock while you (key component here) missed lunch.

The best thing to do was to also arrive to detention late so you got into the unsupervised overflow room. Ironic.

If you were alt whatsoever your life at school got so much more complicated. I'm talking "random" locker, car, and person searches with or without the actual police present. Mandatory meetings with the school counselor which, btw, we never even had up to this point. Wtf did they find this man? He was not good at his job.

Once he told me that I'd feel better if I joined a church. I never expressed not feeling fine though? He just assumed because I wore combat boots and was infamously the only non Christian in the school that I was depressed, I guess? Ignored the white Baptist girl who had to get an abortion after our social studies teacher got her pregnant though. I guess she was fine. Even with the public underage day drinking.

He stated I was eligible to graduate early due to how many credits I had and said I could take it easy to lower my stress (???) only to discover upon consulting the vice principal that I was actually like 3 credits short of graduating at all and would need to attend summer school to make up the difference. Smh.

Our school radio station had its branding forcibly changed from rock to "alternative." The school board canceled a concert we'd planned all year, days before it was set to take place, and refused to refund ticket holders or pay the contracted bands which got them sued and called out by the ACLU for discrimination. It was... a wild time.

My poor mother was basically hounded by the district about how goth I was as if she was committing child abuse for letting me dye my hair and wear velvet pants. More than once police came to our house for welfare checks. Jokes on them, I wasn't even home. My friends and I were too busy out having fun.

Everything falsely reported about Columbine directly made kids lives worse. Especially if you didn't fit in somehow. Like. A lot of my peers just dropped out and got their GEDs. The harassment from grown adults was fucking bananas. Other teenagers was like, okay you're obviously just shitty and 16, but when multiple actual adults who have a say in your future essentially target and cast you out like. What do you do?

Persisting was not easy.

Was there ever a news event in our lifetimes that the media fumbled more aggressively than Columbine. They genuinely got every single detail wrong

From reporting that they killed someone for saying she believed in God (they spared a different girl who said she did) to not reporting that they sought out students of color while yelling racial slurs - on Hitler's birthday & a day after the anniversary of OKC and Waco - while promoting the idea that you have to watch out for loner bullied nerds. Even though later research shows that the shooters were, in fact, bullies themselves, who had a wide social circle, and they were, you know, Nazis motivated by racism and not the video game Doom (1993).

It's a generational fuck-up, the GOAT of bad reporting bc it's still with us. The narrative of persecution after "she said yes" is a huge reason the evangelical right is like how it is today (they made a biopic that uncritically repeated it just a couple years ago!) & they still push the idea that it's primarily victims who do that sort of thing and not aggressors & people still shared that stupid video of Marilyn Manson saying he'd "listen" until a couple years ago (though the shooters being abusive Nazi creeps would uh, not diminish Marilyn Manson's desire to befriend them, I feel)

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