I informed each of the following businesses that, as a blogger, I owed it to my readers to know how poorly they had conducted their business with me. I hope you are either equally outraged or perhaps amused.

My inaugural Worst Business Experiences of 2014:

3. Lotus Blue: Food poisoning from this Tribeca restaurant resulted in an offer of a free entree (valued at $20) as compensation. I declined, telling them I did not want to go through the experience again.

2. Pimsleur: Purchase of “Simple and Quick” Language Learning CD (for $9.95) secretly enrolls customer into the Gold Program which costs $150 plus shipping. I had to make two phone calls and send three emails, including the following, to cancel: Nowhere in your promotion for the “Simple and Quick” CD does it say that one is automatically enrolled in the Gold Program. It is criminal that you force customers into this nonsense. The fact that you will not process cancellations through email is not for my protection but so that you can drag this matter out and hopefully get more money out of me. I will call and tell your customer service people exactly that. Hopefully they don’t try to manipulate me as you are doing.

1. Fedex: Accepted payment of $200 for a shipment of nine pounds of smoked salmon (valued at $400-600), failed to deliver package, allowing the salmon to rot, and then refused to pay any damages nor refund the shipping fee. (My new slogan goes like this: Whatever you do, don’t do it with Fedex.)