It happens all the time. One Comcast customer was dumped for using too much web service on a plan he purchased because it was "unlimited." The company told him the word referred to the fact he could be on his computer as much as he wanted, not that he could view as many pages and videos as he wanted. And then Comcast tried selling him a more expensive plan. Infuriated, he fought back, launching a fiery blog and a cutting YouTube protest to tell the world he'd been ripped off. And a consumer advocate was born.

In July, Sprint put a cap on its previously "unlimited" data card usage, following Verizon and AT&T. Now, 5 gigabytes is all you get unless you want corporate monkeys to shut off your supply. Americans aren't the only ones to suffer the bait-and-switch defended by dense legalese and bent logic in the Terms of Service contract: U.K.'s Vodafone puts similar caps on its "unlimited" mobile phone plan, as does Canada's TELUS.

The creator of WonderHowTo.com is trying to enhance the online video experience. He's got a pretty simple concept: A search engine of sorts that helps people find the most relevant videos to help them learn how to do things.

He says YouTube is great, but users need to be able to find videos quickly in order for them to be the most useful. Venture capitalists believed in this idea enough to fund the company for growth. I'm not so sure about the concept. Isn't there already a search engine that helps you find videos... called Google?



Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

When a product disappoints you, do you reach for the phone, or even worse, write a freakin' letter? You're living in the future, dude, so act like it! If a product sucks, YouTube your rant about it.

YouTube and similar sites such as AOL Video are full of video complaints about product failure, usually extended plaintive ramblings about every nuance of shortcoming. Who, you might ask, watches this stuff? Is anything less interesting than a young lady's travails with a hair weave product? Actually, some of them are damn entertaining, as the video below will attest.

And the results might surprise you. Corporations, at least the savvy ones, keep an eye on viewer-posted video for consumer complaints, for two reasons. First, these most vocal customers can be just as vocal proponents of a brand if turned around by responsive customer service. Second, these complaints can be good business intelligence, an early warning of possible problems.

So the next time you have a consumer complaint for which you can't get a company response, don't just whine to your spouse; video it!

Although I've played fumbled around on the guitar for years, I've never taken lessons. Consequently, I remain ignorant of some basics. Instead of forking over cash for lessons, though, I've found a great , free alternative: YouTube.

Posted on YouTube are lessons targeted to beginners or the most advanced, in almost any style, taught by a panoply of six-stringed svengalis. In half an hour, I learned how to employ the slide for a bottleneck sound, and the basic blues progression for a stroll, although mastering the fingering might take me a couple more decades.

For muscle-memory tasks such as this, the written word just doesn't cut it. The oral and visual info from these clips makes clear what I've wondered about for 20 years. And the site is packed with other lessons of tasks best seen, rather than read about, from plumbing tips to applying makeup to playing the jew's harp. If only they had one on writing a Walletpop blog entry!

The next time you need to see how something is done, check out YouTube before paying for the help of an expert. In the meantime, rock on.