I know that this may not be TV related but it is in the area of Entertainment and has been happening in TV as well as Radio.I don't know how many of you can no longer listen to The Dr Demento Show on the net, but I am one. So I decided to try and purchase a show from www.drdemento.com.
I paid my $2, for a show that I thought I hadn't heard yet, through PayPal. I received notice from PayPal that the good Doctor had received my payment and so I waited a couple of days for the URL where I could listen, but got no notice whatsoever. I wrote to the webad...@drdemento.com and told him my plight and I sent him confirmation from PayPal. He said:

"Hello -

Typically visitors receive their email within minutes.
You might check your spam or junk mail folder, sometimes it gets
diverted there.
Below is the information to listen to your purchase:"

Yippeee! I finally got the URL to listen to the stream.

Then I noticed that at the bottom of the email it said:

"This password is for one listening. "

This concerned me since I didn't think I would be able to listen to the
whole show in one sitting. So I made time and decided maybe I could
take it all in.

Two and one half songs into the stream, I was cut off!

I couldn't believe it.

I didn't know what to do. I waited a couple days to regain my
composure. I thought I'd try it again. So I found another show I was
pretty sure I hadn't heard. I paid my $2 through PayPal and I waited.
Since I hadn't heard back I figured the same problem had occurred. So I
wrote again to the webad...@drdemento.com and told him my plight and I
sent him confirmation from PayPal. He said:

"Marcus,

There is no record of your purchase in our database and no record of
your purchase at paypal. As there is no shipping charges just
streaming, would you please have Paypal contact us for your refund or
re-play?"

After double-checking whether I had actually sent the money and confirming that I had, I wrote to PayPal asking that they send a notice to the webad ...@drdemento.com.

Have you ever tried to get PayPal to do something for you over a $2 charge? Not in this universe.

So next my friend webad...@drdemento.com writes:

"Marcus,
send me your email you used to receive the show.

You stated "Every time" you pay. . .something must be missing.

Often members apply from a different address and the show is sent there
by mistake.
At this time we cannot find any transaction on/from

(deleted)@yahoo.com"

Then he writes:

"Here are two addresses. . .which one do we send to?

There is no record of your sending us an address for the show.

please advise"

Oh man, I was getting a little peeved here.

I sent him the address where to send the URL and he writes back:

"I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.

To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have
approved beforehand.

If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please
fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I
will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to
resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.

Click the link below to fill out the request:

(deleted URL)"

I clicked on the URL and it sent me to a link at Earthlink that said:

"ERROR: Unable to process Allowed Sender request.

We're sorry. Because your original message to the recipient is no
longer available, we cannot process this Allowed Sender request. Your
message may have expired, or the recipient may have accepted or deleted
it. You may wish to resend your original message, and check your email
shortly thereafter for a new Allowed Sender Request message.

If the recipient chooses to allow email from your address, the
message(s) that have been intercepted will be delivered immediately,
and any future messages will be delivered without delay."

Right after this I received a mssg that accused me of SCAMMING THEM!!!

I wrote back and with the help of Jeff Morris who works for the show, I was
able to get in touch with them and they were all apologetic. Now, stupid me,
I fall for the line and try to buy another stream. I even stuttered and accidentally
paid for it twice! So what do you think happened next? That's right, they still
haven't sent the URL for the stream!

Now, I don't know about you, but I am really getting fed up with the money
hungry companies that are starting to charge for every little thing and worse
yet when they don't work they ignore you. I personally am through with
Dr Demento and all of this stuff. It's just not worth it anymore.

Marcus Tee

It's really sad how greedy stations get when it comes to fleecing the viewers of the programs they show. Take for example TVLand who just aired an episode of Leave It To Beaver called "Wally Buys A Car." By the time they got done with it it had been trimmed no less than seven minutes to make time for commercial breaks. If they do that to every episode over the period of an entire season that's 1638 minutes or 27.3 hours. Imagine the money made on commercials run during this time while the viewing public misses key scenes. And now missing is the entire ending of each episode as they air their inane babble and then voice-over the final scene and credits.
This is just one series. Now imagine the amount of time when you add up all the series that they have a monopoly on. The commercial airtime is staggering . And if that isn't enough, the original actors, who starred in many of the shows that we hold dear, see absolutely zero in residuals.
I think it's time that TVLand give up Leave It To Beaver, and all the other shows that they are monopolizing, and give the smaller, independent stations a chance to air these shows, and maybe, just maybe the local stations won't butcher these programs by paring them down to practically nothing.

BTW: if you don't think TVLand is shaving major time off the shows just wait a couple weeks until they begin rerunning the Leave It To Beaver series and get out your DVD of the first season. Compare the episodes. You will see that there are MAJOR chunks missing. This is happening with all the series they show.

Marcus Tee

I have been watching Law And Order CI from the first season. I have always enjoyed Vincent D'Onofrio in just about everything he's done. I also like Kathryn Erbe as his partner. She seems to understand him and his quirkiness. I never liked Chris Noth and still can't stand to watch him. Why on earth did NBC see reason to sub this second team and cut out half of the decent stories. It looks as though they are trying to phase out Vince and Kat for these other two losers. That's when L&O ends for me, permanently.

Marcus Tee

I have been noticing how very pathetic the shows on TV are recently. What's the deal? Even Lost is getting a bit too repetitive for me. Alias has lost its charm. Prison Break is on hiatus and Smallville's gone all Lexmas on us. I can only hope that the new season of 24 will continue to be as fresh and exciting as in the past.

Marcus Tee

I just finished watching TVLand's Top 100 Unexpected Moments and I remember watching St Elsewhere but I must have missed the last episode. I now see how similar it was to The Bob Newhart Show's finale. Very Wizard of Oz-esque. This makes me wonder how many other series have ended this way. I think I need to pose this question on the forums...

Marcus Tee

I was looking over some of the reviews and trivia that I added here and noticed how easy it is to make a mistake when you are convinced that you know a series really well. A bit of advice; ALWAYS check your facts.(sheesh!)
Sure is a good thing that you are allowed to correct mistakes.

Marcus Tee

I have been an avid fan of Alias since I first discovered it about midway through season one. I haven't found much reason lately for watching it since Jen got pregnant and everything started sliding downhill. But tonight's coming attraction trailer for next week intrigued me. I never believed for a moment that they would off Michael Vaughn permanently. And tonight's trailer proved me right. I know that some die hard fans have actually stopped watching the show altogether because Vaughn was eliminated. Maybe they will return as viewers...just in time for the multi-month hiatus coming up.

Marcus Tee

As I said in my last entry, I had been trying to get registered but really had a tuff time of it. Well, after that was taken care of I then realized that I couldn't edit any of the trivia or allusions or any of the good stuff relating to a particular program. Well after dinkin' around, adding two reviews and posting in half a dozen forums, not to mention rating a few episodes, I see that today I am now at level 2 and am able to edit, allude etc. This is cool. I have found (in the past) some mistakes relating to certain shows and wanted to correct them. So, I am off again to get more acquainted with this site.

Wish me well.

Marcus Tee