Pac Tel Cellular Phone Advertising Message Isn’t as Digital as It Sounds
“The leader just became clearer,” brags L.A. Cellular, in advertisements announcing “Southern California’s fully digital system.”
In a slice of Los Angeles County--including Century City, Beverly Hills and parts of West Los Angeles--the company has started offering an advanced technology called digital cellular. By translating voice into electronic bits--the language of computers--it offers better sound. The technology works only on special digital phones.
Archrival Pac Tel Cellular is still building its digital cellular network, but that detail hasn’t stopped the company from running ads boasting that “the only way to get this digital wizardry is to choose Pac Tel Cellular.”
Conley Smith, Pac Tel’s manager of advertising and communications, said that while voice transmission isn’t digital, Pac Tel uses digital technology in other parts of its phone system. Pac Tel isn’t trying to confuse consumers, he said. “We’re trying to play up the part of our system that is digital.”
Asked his opinion, L.A. Cellular President Michael Heil said, “I know what they’re doing, but I’m not going to comment on it.”
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Tattletales: American Express is asking cardholders to inform on merchants who discourage them from using the card.
In letters sent to cardholders this month, American Express asks cardholders to “take a minute” to report businesses that discourage card use “to insure that a warm welcome greets you every time you present the card.”
The mailing indicates that American Express continues to face strong merchant resistance.
The card company charges merchants higher processing fees than Visa or MasterCard, and some high-profile businesses, such as Laura Ashley and Carnival Cruise Lines, have dropped the card altogether.
A spokesman for American Express said that in the past it has dropped merchants after cardholders complained of problems using the card. “Nine times out of 10, we resolve the dispute amicably,” he said.
The postage-paid return form provides space for names and addresses of three businesses that have asked for other credit cards or charge extra fees to process American Express. Though American Express tells cardholders it is also “interested in learning of any additional locations where you would like to use the card,” there’s no space on the forms for that information.
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Getting Milked: Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said a Los Angeles family of four will pay nearly $90 more for milk in the coming year as a result of the increase in raw milk prices approved by state regulators earlier this week.
Statewide, Californians will pay $350 million more for milk, Consumers Union said. The estimates assume that the approved 14.3% price increase is passed on to consumers.
The state Department of Food and Agriculture has said it approved the increase because half the state’s 2,160 dairy farmers aren’t covering their costs. Consumers Union has argued that recession-weary consumers can ill afford a jump in milk prices.
