Complaints

Baltimore's aggressive crime-fighting strategy -- imported from New York amid community fears of police misconduct -- has not provoked an increased number of public complaints. While the number of people stopped and questioned by officers has risen sharply in the past year, complaints of excessive force reported to the Police Department dropped slightly, from 407 in 1999 to 390 in 2000. Discourtesy complaints decreased during the same time, from 225 to 196. "Despite all the rhetoric and fears that this would be an aggressive, out-of-control Police Department, that turned out to be far from the truth," said Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris, who ran the day-to-day operations of the New York Police Department until he was hired by Baltimore last year.

CLARIFICATION An article on Page 1A of the Jan. 11 editions of The Sun about local cable television service described a Baltimore County couple's complaint over a $304 charge from Comcast for movies they said they never ordered. The quote, "This is mind boggling," and other comments critical of Comcast were made by the complaining couple. Attribution of these comments in the article was ambiguous and gave the impression the comments had been made by a county worker. In addition, the article did not carry the cable company's explanation for the disputed bill.

If a grandchild calls begging for money because the Iceland volcano has left him stuck in Europe, you might want to check his story out. This could be the latest twist on the grandparent scheme, in which con artists pretend to be a grandchild who is traveling and needs money wired right away because of an accident or other emergency. Frauds like this have been on the rise. You have only to check your e-mail to see all the foreign lotteries you won without entering or the pitches for business opportunities that start off with "Hello dear."

An article in The Wall Street Journal  goes on about "bad grammar" in the workplace and quotes someone raving about the Oxford comma and Bryan Garner's dislike of "I could care less. " William B. Lawrence, dean and professor of American church history at SMU's Perkins School of Theology, takes up the cudgel  and execrates data  and media  used as singulars. Tom Chivers of The Telegraph   has some fun with a C of E vicar  who thinks that ordinary literary competence has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.* Upon examination, these complaints turn out to be the customary farrago of minor errors, superstitions, and private prejudices.

Greig Altieri and Devon Brown have few kind words for each other.Their relationship turned adversarial after Mr. Brown bought a custom-designed $546,400 home on 3 acres in Glenwood from Altieri Homes Inc. last year and then complained about problems ranging from wall cracks to dripping pipes.Mr. Brown says they are construction problems. The Altieris Greig and his father, Frank say most of his complaints are home maintenance issues for which they are not responsible."He's a devil," says Greig Altieri, vice president at Altieri Homes.

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Housing and Urban Development said yesterday that it no longer would act against people who challenged its decisions with letter writing, pamphleteering or other forms of peaceful protest.The decision came in response to complaints from people who protested the department's decisions in Berkeley, Calif., and Manhattan, N.Y., and then faced HUD investigations in which they were told to turn over diaries, phone messages and other personal papers.In Berkeley, the complaints were over a HUD proposal for housing for the poor.

Consumers make mistakes. We hire businesses without asking for references. We neglect to read contracts thoroughly before we sign on the dotted line. We fail to call different companies to get more than one estimate. We impulse buy. Sometimes, we get lucky and manage to avoid catastrophe. But more often than not, such self-inflicted wounds stick us with faulty goods or services, embroil us in intractable disputes, or wreck our home and finances. By the time we remember what we did wrong, it's usually far too late and our money and peace of mind are long gone.

The Better Business Bureau has issued a warning about Las Vegas-based City Resorts after 23 people filed complaints about the company since March. Apparently City Resorts representatives have contacted timeshare owners saying they've found a buyer for them. But after the owners send in cashier's check payments of anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000, ostensibly for closing costs or processing fees, they haven't heard anything more from the company, according to the BBB. This isn't the only example of timeshare resellers gone bad. The BBB says they've gotten nearly 3,000 complaints about this industry in 2010 alone.

Besieged with complaints about a management company's ability to service and sell thousands of government-owned foreclosed homes, the Department of Housing and Urban Development severed its five-year, multimillion-dollar contract with Intown Management Group LLC yesterday.The Atlanta-based organization, which had contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in 27 states including Maryland, was informed of HUD's decision yesterday. The Maryland contract was for $74 million."We're saying that they were terminated for failure to perform," said James S. Kelly, a spokesman for HUD in its Baltimore office.

With spring here, your thoughts might turn toward home remodeling. But even before the first nail is pounded, you have plenty of work to do. You must find a trustworthy, experienced contractor and negotiate a deal so no ugly surprises pop up. For Maryland homeowners, that's not so easy. Sure, the state licenses contractors, but that's no guarantee the contractor is skilled or the job will be completed as promised. Information the state provides on a contractor's record can be sketchy and — as I found recently — inaccurate or incomplete.