Just got this in my inbox:
June Cotte, Deborah Compeau & Nicole Haggerty
are pleased to invite you to a
PhD Public Lecture
presented by
Hannah Rasmussen
PhD Candidate in Information Systems
and entitled
“Nursing Identity and the Computer: The Impact of Care Realities on Information Systems Use”
The lecture will be held at 9:00 a.m.
on
Thursday, June 7, 2012
at the
Ivey School of Business, Room 1N05.
Refreshments available.
Turns out not everyone is happy with my new title. This came out of nowhere, from Twitterer @raynesierra (in bold, my responses unbolded)
So are you really now an Asst. Prof.? or just faking it?
Really am. As of yesterday, in fact.
And was there an open competition you applied for? If so, which one?
And didn't you just get your Ph.D. very recently?
Yep. A couple weeks ago.
Clearly there are some interesting stds in econ academics. No post-doc requirements, rigorous journal article records, etc.?
I'm at a business school, not an economics department. And, no, there aren't any post doc requirements.
Sounds like hiring there is an absolute joke.
And it goes on from there. He kept wondering why I didn't want to answer his questions. (Really?) I'm told he's going to write a fun blog post about me. Stay tuned!
A discussion between my friend Becky, her 4-year old son Aiden, and my recent thesis defense:
Aiden and I have the best conversations while making crafts. Today he asked me why Mike is a doctor (guess he's been ruminating on that one for a few weeks?), and I said that if you go to school for 30 years and get really good at critical thinking, they give you a special title. Aiden: "Well, I spend a lot of time thinking. I think all the time. Especially about tigers."
Aiden will make a terrific academic.
I have been thinking a great deal about the Tori Stafford trial lately. Living in Southwestern Ontario, it is hard not to.
There doesn't seem to be much question that Michael Rafferty is guilty of the horrific crimes he has been charged with. It would save us all a great deal of time and money if we simply dispensed of holding a trial and sent the monster to jail for a good, long time.
We can't do that, of course, for reasons beyond simply "we're not allowed to". If we allow governments to simply declare persons guilty by fiat, it would throw the whole integrity of the process into question. There is a duty to act fairly and that the system be seen as free as bias (as possible). As Wikipedia describes it:
There are two rules that natural justice is concerned with. These are the rule against bias (nemo iudex in causa sua) and the right to a fair hearing (audi alteram partem).
The basis for the rule against bias is the need to maintain public confidence in the legal system.
The need to give Michael Rafferty a fair trial has nothing to do with whether we think Michael Raffety is guilty or innocent. It is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
On to the LPC leadership race. When Bob Rae took the job of Liberal interim leader, it was on the understanding (though not an outright rule) that he would not seek the permanent job:
The national board of the Liberal Party set ground rules for the interim leadership, which limited the number of candidates. Those interested in the job had to be bilingual and agree not to run as permanent leader or to pursue any merger talks with the NDP. Rae, who had made it clear he only wanted to be interim leader if it lasts longer than a “summer job,” said he accepts the conditions and had also given his word to his wife that he’s only taking the interim job.
There were very good reasons for putting this "ground rule" into place - being the interim leader would give any candidate a large enough structural advantage as to throw the fairness of the permanent leadership race into dispute. The race needs to be unbiased, but also needs to appear unbiased, as to maintain public confidence in the system.
Note that this "ground rule" did not suggest that the interim leader resign 6 months before the permanent race, again, for good reason, as there are structural advantages to being interim leader, even if for a short while.
None of this has anything to do with the suitability of Bob Rae as leader. You may think Bob Rae may be a terrific leader or a lousy leader or that voters may punish Rae for flip-flopping on being the permanent leader. It's all irrelevant. Procedural fairness, particularly the need for an unbiased race, suggests that Bob Rae not be allowed within 100 yards of the leadership race.
If the Liberals don't stand for small l-liberal values such as procedural justice, then what do they stand for? Here's hoping the powers that be make the right decision.
June Cotte and Peter Bell
are pleased to invite you to a
PhD Public Lecture
presented by
Michael Patrick Moffatt
PhD Candidate in Management Science
and entitled
“Revenue Management in Multi-Firm, Multi-Product Price Competition”
The lecture will be held at 11:00 a.m.
on
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
at the
Ivey School of Business, Room 2R07.
Refreshments available.
Writing a post like this, I am sure I will be accused of some sort of bias. Before you do, please read the disclosure statement at the bottom of this post. Everyone else can ignore it.
I have been trying to figure out how the London West call could have happened. The two important facts of the call are:
The easiest and most obvious explanation would be that the call came from Mr. Ferguson's campaign and there was some form of error that had Ms. O'Reilly's polling information incorrect, or that they meant to call someone else. There are a couple difficulties with that.
1. The Liberals Swear They Didn't Make That Call
Apparently they've looked into it and the call wasn't from them. I believe it is safe to conclude that the call did not come from a local volunteer. The political community in London is pretty small, so had the caller been a local Liberal supporter, someone would have recognized the voice by now. As such, it almost certainly came from a call center. But whose? The Liberals say it didn't come from theirs. Until we get phone records, we won't know.
2. It's Not Obvious What the Source of the Error Was
There were no polling station location changes in London West in the 2011 election. Thanks to legwork from Kevin Weiner, we know that the same polling numbers were used in both the 2008 and 2011 elections in London West (so the call wasn't based on old polling information). I thought it may be a transcription error (say Ms. O'Reilly's poll was 37 but was entered in as 73), but looking at the map from Mr. Weiner, it looks highly unlikely. I'm told that Ms. O'Reilly had not moved nor changed her number recently. The only thing I can think of is a phone number error; they meant to call someone else. Is there a Liberal supporter that lives near Emily Carr that has a phone number similar to Ms. O'Reilly's? If I'm the Conservatives, I'd be looking into that ASAP, because it seems like the only possible explanation.
I am at a loss to understand what happened here, given that the Liberals claim they did not make the call and that most of the obvious sources of error have been ruled out. There have also been claims of dozens of other similar calls in the riding, but this is the only one we have audio evidence of.
Disclosure statement: I don't currently live in London West, but my parents do; we moved there around my 11th birthday. Obviously I couldn't vote for any of the candidates, but if I could have, I would have voted for the Green candidate, Brad Corbett. I spoke to Brad a few times before the campaign and probably attended a fundraiser or two of his (my wife was 9 months pregnant during the election, the whole period is kind of a blur). I know 3 of the other 4 candidates personally - Doug Ferguson (Liberal), Ed Holder (Conservative) and Rod Morley (United), and they're all terrific people. I also have many friends that worked on either the Liberal and Conservative campaigns. Ed Holder has been involved with Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada fundraisers, a charity my family is heavily involved in. If there was anything 'funny' going on here (and I still believe there likely wasn't), I'll bet the house Ed had nothing to do with it. He's not that kind of guy. The only London West campaign I didn't have obvious ties to was the NDP one; if you want to accuse me of an anti-New Democrat bias on this, be my guest.
In a terrific piece, Glen Pearson asks:
...[W]hy aren’t the true business entrepreneurs speaking out against fiefdoms like Caterpillar and working to make governments more sensitive to where the real growth is?
I thought I'd answer his question with a story.
We have an office in the west end of London Ontario. Specifically just southwest of Hyde Park and Fanshawe Park roads. There's a few dozen businesses back here, most of which you have never heard of. Some of us own our own buildings, others rent from a handful of different landlords.
It is impossible to get decent internet service here. DSL is not an option - the phone lines in the area are 40-50 years old and cannot handle the load. (Why have our phone lines never been replaced? I have no idea). Rogers has not wired the area for cable. The only option is to get satellite internet, which is very expensive. We pay nearly $500 a month for 100 GB worth of bandwidth and many months we go over our cap and pay penalties for doing so.
I have tried on four separate occasions to get a quote to get a cable run to our office (cable is available on the east side of Hyde Park road, but not the west). I received the following four answers:
I'm not sure why we get a different answer each time, but we do.
This is a pretty classic microeconomic problem. If we have the cable run to our office, it will pass many other offices who will then be able to run cables to their office for next-to-nothing. Our installing cable will provide a pretty massive positive externality to them. I have tried to band 25 different businesses together to each pay $2500 or so, but we've run into the classic co-ordination and free-rider problems. This is exactly the type of externality problem that government should be involved in. They could co-ordinate us all together, put in the cable, and charge us for it. Heck, they could probably do so at a substantial profit.
I tried discussing this with municipal politicians from councilors to the mayor and gotten nowhere. It was a complete and utter waste of time. So much so that it's more profitable to simply pay the $500+ a month for satellite service than it is lobbying politicians who have zero interest in the problems of small business.
Heavy industry with the machine-building industry as its backbone is the pillar of an independent national economy. Heavy industry developed in such a way can guarantee economic and technical independence and accelerate the development of light industry and agriculture and the national economy as a whole on the basis of modern technology. Moreover, simultaneous development of light industry and agriculture, along with heavy industry, can ensure a systematic improvement of the people's living standard and faster the development of heavy industry itself. Solving the problem of food on one's own through successful farming, in particular, is of tremendous significance in providing the people with stabilized living conditions and an independent life.
- Kim Jong Il: On the Juche Idea (1982)
The more it stays the same, the less it changes! - Spinal Tap
We left off on Wednesday at 11:21am.
I received a call that afternoon around 1PM from a TD rep in Toronto. Unfortunately I was out of the office, but called back when I returned about 10 minutes later. The call was to let me know that TD was aware of the problem and that they were looking into it and that I'd be contacted later in the day. Good to know.
After a couple hours of talking on the phone with other banks I might take our business today, I received a call at 3:30PM from the same gentleman in Toronto. Was told that the person at my local branch had submitted my application to the wrong department, which is why I wasn't up and running on the wire notification service. Good to know, but why didn't the 'wrong department' forward the application to the right department? I didn't ask. I wish I had.
Fun moment: Being told "I saw your blog post. We had no idea about the extent of the problem"
Despite the time it took to fill out the last application, I was told to make an appointment with my branch manager and fill out a new application. I was told that he had spoken to the branch manager and he was available until 5 PM. It was around 3:45 at this point and it's a 15 minute drive to get there, so I figured if I packed up that moment I could be there by 4:30 at the latest, so I made the appointment for then. Fortunately I had over-estimated the amount of time it would take to pack up and get there, so I got in at around 20 after.
I filled out the application for a second time with the help of the branch manager. He was in constant contact with someone at "SBB Cash Management Sales & Implementation" in Toronto to ensure everything was filled out correctly. For some reason on the previous application I was advised to take the Fax notification service. This time they recommended notifications through Business Web Banking. Doesn't matter to me either way. I received information about the Web Banking service and an account name. I was told I would be receiving a phone call the next day with the password. I also received a couple of e-mails from the SBB Cash Management that included instruction manuals, etc. Key point: I was told that the notification service was active as of Wednesday and any wire payments I received on Wednesday I would be notified of.
We also received 3 months of some services for free - a savings of $75. Unnecessary, but very appreciated. Who doesn't like free money? I also gave the branch manager the current list of wire payments I do not have information on. I was told I would receive information on them shortly.
A couple hours later, my wife went into labour, so was out of the office until today (the following Monday).
When I got into the office, I had a voicemail waiting for me. Was from TD, letting them know that they had the password for me, but they couldn't release it over the phone and that I was to call a 1-800 number they provided.
I called the 1-800 number, explained the situation to the person and was told that "I've never heard of that before - someone needing to call this number to get a password" Are you serious?!?
He said he'd look into it. He asked me for my Web Banking account name, which I received on Wednesday. Gave it to him and he was able to give me a temporary password after all.
Off to the races. After a few hiccups on my part (including typing in the provided URL as http:// instead of https://) I managed to log into the system and enter in a permanent password, etc. Found the file area where notifications are collected and there was nothing there. Which is perfecty natural if I hadn't received any wire payments.
Checked my online bank statement and we had, in fact received a wire payment that Wednesday. And remember: I was told that the notification service was active as of Wednesday and any wire payments I received on Wednesday I would be notified of.
By itself not a huge issue and there are some pretty logical explanations - perhaps the wire payment came on in Tuesday but shows up as Wednesday on our bank statement. I don't know. But at this point my confidence level in TD is less than zero.
Replied to an e-mail from the "SBB Cash Management" person and told her:
Hi [Name],
I have my password now and can log into the system.
I was told at the branch that the wire payment notification service would be active on May 25th and include any transactions processed on that date. However I see that a payment came in on that date and I did not receive any notification. How can I access this information?
Best regards,
Mike
I quickly received the following response:
Hi Mike,
Please contact the Cash Management Support Group at 1-800-668-7328 who will assist you with looking into that matter.
Thank you,
Not helpful at all. I'm not looking for someone to contact, I'm looking for a solution to this. Instead of having me contact someone, instead why not have someone contact me?
Before I received the following e-mail, I sent a message to the TD Twitter contact with the message: Still having issues RE: Wire payments. I suspect this will never be resolved. Got the response:
Mike, I'm so sorry. Let me get someone to look into this. Erin
This is much better. I suspect if all of TDs people were as helpful and as useful as their Twitter team, this would have been solved ages ago.
A half hour later, I received a call from Toronto from the same person at the top of this post. I explained the issue to him. He said that the system is active, but that payment was missed for whatever reason (he mentioned something about a number being input incorrectly, which I didn't really understand) and that information about this payment would be sent to my branch along with information on the wire payments I asked for on Wednesday.
Looks like I will continue to playing the waiting game.
Before I go into my story, I would just like to state for the record that I quite like TD. They handle most of my personal banking. When my wife and I bought our first house they were incredibly helpful in going over what our various options were. Their branches have excellent hours, the staff are friendly and I like what they're doing on social media such as Twitter. For personal banking, I would highly recommend them.
For business banking? A complete gong show. I would recommend all business owners steer clear of TD.
We've had a number of issues with them since day one, particularly when it comes to our Venture Line of Credit. But relatively minor things compared to our 'wire payment' fiasco.
Over the past 18 months our company has made an effort to extend our client base outside of North America. We now have clients on four continents and we operate in 5 different currencies (Canadian and U.S. dollars, U.K. pound sterling, euros and Japanese yen). Unlike in North America where almost all of our clients wish to pay either by cheque or by credit card, our overseas clients prefer to pay via wire payment.
When we receive a wire payment it is deposited directly into our account and appears on our bank statement like this:
08/13/2010 100811S7340000FXWIRE 4101.12
The difficulty is, we don't know who sent the wire payment, what the original currency was, what fees were deducted, what the exchange rate was, etc. In the average month we send out 50 invoices, many for quite similar amounts, so unless we are sent something by our client indicating how they paid, we have no way of knowing who the payment is for.
At first whenever we received a wire payment we called up the client that I believed most likely sent it and kept calling clients until we figured it out. Not the most efficient use of my time and naturally I don't like bothering my clients about payments they might have sent.
Late last summer I had a few wire payments that I could not trace at all. I printed out the information, took it to my TD branch. Was told that they would have to do an 'investigation' but in a couple of weeks I would receive by mail photocopies of the receipts via mail. About 3 weeks later, I received the photocopies. Excellent! The wait was annoying, but it was nice to have the paper receipts in case we're ever audited by the CRA.
In December there were more wire payments we could not trace. Made up a print-out, went to the TD branch closest to the office (which is not our 'home' branch) and was told, just like last time, I would receive the results from my investigation.
Nothing arrived.
I went back in late January with an expanded list (since there were more wire payments). Tried again with the branch by my office, this time with a different TD employee. Told the same story and...
Nothing arrived.
I started to think maybe it was just the branch by my office that was having issues. So in March I had an even longer list and tried back with our home branch. Was told I'd receive something in the mail, and guess what?
Nothing arrived.
On April 21, I decided to try via EasyWeb. Sent a quick message:
We have 12 wire payments that we cannot identify who they are from. Can you send us information on these?
[list]
Best regards,
Mike
Got told the following:
Hello,
We appreciate your interest in investigating the origin of multiple wire transfers. We are happy to direct you to the area that can assist you. Thank you for taking the time to write.
We are very sorry for the lengthy delay in responding to your message and apologize that we were unable to provide you direction and assistance sooner. Due to an unexpected increase in volume, our email response times are longer than normal. Thank you for your patience.
We are able to confirm that to request a trace of an incoming wire deposit to confirm where it came from, it is necessary to visit your TD Canada Trust Branch.
We regret that we are unable to assist you with this request personally. Through EasyWeb Secure Messaging we are able to review your transactions and discuss your profile, however, we are unable to perform wire transfer investigations. We apologize for any inconvenience that this limitation may cause.
We trust that this direction will help you obtain the information about the origin of your wire deposit. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to respond to this message. We are always happy to help you with your banking needs.
Regards,
[Name]
Internet Correspondence Representative
Now I didn't actually tell them in the first e-mail that I was getting absolutely nowhere with my local branch. So I wrote back:
We've done so three times, and our branch has been unable to help us. Is there any other way?
To which I received:
Hello,
Thank you for your response.
We regret that we are unable to assist you with this request personally. Through EasyWeb Secure Messaging we are able to review your transactions and discuss your profile, however, we are unable to perform wire transfer investigations. We apologize for any inconvenience that this limitation may cause.
Please accept our apologies for any frustration this situation has caused. We value your business and we look forward to continuing to serve your banking needs. If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact us again. We'd be happy to assist you.
Regards,
[Different Person]
Internet Correspondence Representative
In other words - there is no solution. Sorry. Please take your business somewhere else.
Around the 1st of May, we caught a lucky break. I had to call up TD because of an issue with our business credit card. The person on the phone was incredibly helpful and after we were done, she asked me if there was anything else I needed. I mentioned my ongoing issues with wire payments and she mentioned that it sounded like I needed TD's "Wire Payment Notification Service" - that it would be perfect for this. Whenever we received a wire payment, we would receive via e-mail or fax, a copy of the receipt from the incoming wire payment. YESSSSS!
I had been dealing with this wire payment issues for nearly a year. I had gone into my branch 4 times and dealt with EasyWeb twice. AT NO TIME IN MY 6 CONVERSATIONS DID ANYONE AT TD INFORM ME THIS SERVICE EXISTED. This was *exactly* what I was looking for.
She gave me a number to call and told me they could set up the service. I called the number and was told that they, in fact, could not set up the service but I would have to do it at my local branch.
I set up an appointment at my local branch for the next day (May 4th). I spent a good 45 minutes going over the plan and filling out the paperwork with my "investment consultant". Got the plan all set up, was told I would receive a notification whenever a wire payment arrived and the notification services would be activated that day. We went over the fees, but at this point I didn't really care - I was practically willing to give up my first born not to have to deal with this nonsense anymore.
On the morning of May 24th one of our employees sent me an e-mail saying [Some company from Japan] is sending us a wire payment, please let me know when it arrives. I thought to myself, "Hmm.. I wonder if we've received any wire payments since the 4th - I should check our online bank statement".
We had received 4 wire payments. We had been notified of exactly 0. Looks like I signed up for a notification service that doesn't notify!
I voiced my frustration on Twitter. I also sent the following message via e-mail and via EasyWeb to TD, despite the fact that I've learned that EasyWeb is useless in this regard:
Good afternoon,
This is from [account info]
On May 4th we signed up for "Incoming Wire Payment Notification Service". Since then we have received 4 wire payments and have not been notified on any of them.
Below is a list of 17 wire payments from the past 13 months we would like information on. As well, we would like to make sure that our notification service is activated.
Best regards,
Mike
[payments]
I received a response from my Twitter rant from TD:
@MikePMoffatt Oh no! OK, login to Easyweb & send a secure email -we'll have a rep look into ur acct to make sure it was set up correctly ^EB
Which I had already done, despite the futility in doing so.
Five hours later I received my first response via e-mail, letting me know to use EasyWeb instead:
Hello Mike,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your enquiry. We appreciate your concern, and would like to provide you with further direction.
Protecting our customers' privacy and confidentiality is fundamental to the way we do business. As email is not a secure channel for transmitting information, we regret that we are unable to access your portfolio and assist you via this medium. We apologize for any inconvenience this situation may present.
If you are registered for EasyWeb we encourage you to log in and contact us through the Secured Messaging service. This will ensure your request is processed in the most efficient manner. 'EasyWeb Messages' can be found on the right-hand side of the 'View Accounts' page. Please click on the link that says, 'You have X Unread Secured Messages' and select the orange 'Send a New Message' button.
For immediate assistance with your request, please contact EasyLine at 1-866-222-3456 (collect at (416) 983-5393). Representatives are available 24 hours everyday, and will be happy to provide you with further assistance.
We hope that this direction has been helpful, Mike. We apologize that we are unable to assist you directly. Please don't hesitate to reply to this email if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
[Name]
Internet Correspondence Representative
So that's two different mediums, Twitter and e-mail, both suggesting I use EasyWeb instead. I heard from EasyWeb 15 mintues later and the response was as follows:
Hello Mike,
We appreciate your concerns regarding the Incoming Wire Payment Notification Service. We would like to thank you for taking the time to contact us and are pleased to be able to provide you with assistance.
We are sorry to learn that you have experienced issues with this service. Unfortunately, we are not able to access the systems related to this service via this medium and are unable to assist you as a result. In order to receive assistance with this service, it would be necessary to contact your branch. It is also necessary to contact your branch to request details regarding any wire transfers that you have received. For your convenience, branch contact information can be located on our website here.
Mike, we can appreciate that this is not the response you were hoping to receive and apologize that we were unable to assist you directly. Please don't hesitate to reply to this email if you have any further questions.
Regards,
[Different Person]
Internet Correspondence Representative
Despite the fact I was told to go there by two different sources (Twitter, e-mail), they could do nothing for me. The TD reps on Twitter have been very apologetic and responded with: "What a pain. So sorry. Can I get someone to give you a call?" That was 3 hours ago - hopefully I'll receive that call.
EasyWeb has continued to be useless. Needless to say I'm losing my patience, which showed in my response:
My Branch cannot handle this issue, which is why I was sent here.
Please have someone contact me IMMEDIATELY with a solution.
A few hours later I received the response:
Good morning,
Thank you for taking the time to write to us. I am sorry to learn of your experience with TD Canada Trust. I can certainly understand your displeasure and apologize for any inconvenience caused.
I have forwarded your email to the Customer Cares Regional Manager, who will ensure that your concerns are further reviewed and that a response is provided to you.
Your feedback is important to us. Thank you for taking the time to bring your concerns to our attention.
Regards,
[Other Person]
Manager, Customer Relations
Representing the Office of the Vice President
TD Canada Trust
That was yesterday. As of 11:21 this morning, have not received a phonecall.
TD, you were a great bank when I was younger and my needs were more simple. But now my financial needs have matured, I think it's time I see other banks.
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