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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1958)
w by Joseph N. Bell Art by John Massey 'hen i bought a new car a few years ago, I became an un knowing and unwilling guinea pig for tubeless tires. I understand they've been improved considerably since then, but all the tires on that 1955 car quickly developed the alarm ing habit of throwing large patches of tread. Within several months, I had scattered tires all over the U.S. When the first tire disintegrated at 4,000 miles, we were far from home and the dealer who had sold us the car. I drove into a large service sta tion advertising the offending brand of tires and demanded my rights. The dealer gave me a new tire at a liberal discount charging me only for the mileage on my old tire. This seemed satisfactory the first time it happened. But when the sec ond, third, and fourth tires collapsed in much the same manner, I wanted no more of that brand. But it appeared I was stuck with them. All the dealers told me glibly: "We'll be glad to give you a dis count according to the wear on your used tires. But we can't give you your money back or sell you any other brand of tires. You won't have any trouble with the new ones, anyway." But I did have trouble. I'd gone through seven tires all the same make when I told this sad story to a friend. He looked at me pitiably. "What a sucker you are," he said. "The same thing happened to me with the same tires. I put up with it the first time, too. But the second time, I told the dealer I didn't want any more of that brand that I wanted my money back instead. He refused. So I III It I ' want to keep you as a customer, : Vi so fyu nave a Sine gripe, j DTT "When they replaced the first tire, I was satisfied. But when three more collapsed, I de manded a complete refund." called the factory from his office, got an assistant sales manager, told him what had happened, and he instructed the dealer right then and there to give me a refund on the tires." Since that day, I've quit being a patsy for people who are selling in ferior products or services. Not that I'm obnoxious about it, but when I get short-changed, I complain loud and long. And I've found that in many instances the people responsible are honestly glad I did. Oftentimes they had been losing customers without knowing why because the customers meekly refused to complain about a poor product or inadequate service. Most Americans are first-class chumps when it comes to demanding their money's worth. The present gen eration has been pushed around so much during depression years, war years, and shortage years that they've fallen into the mental slough of a per petual seller's market whether one exists or not. This is especially true where serv ices are concerned. During periods when we had to take it that way or not at all, we became used to shrug ging off poor service from hotel room clerks and bellhops, bcz drivers, wait- Lt: i i ii i cia, tauuics, m eci iuh its, ana an suris of tradesmen to name but a few. Now we've been beaten down for so long that we continue to take it on the chin without a murmur of legiti mate protest. Recently my daughter saved pen nies from her allowance to buy new batteries for her bicycle headlamp. After only a few weeks the light ex pired, and when I took it apart I found that one of the batteries had leaked acid into the framework of the lamp. So I packed up the defective batteries 21 Family Wrakly, Novrmber 30, If St
