(SA_Steve)
Walmart Robber Swings Newborn Baby At Security To Escape Store
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 4:18 PM
19 Comments
Some idiots try to profit off their babies by attempting to sell them outside of Walmart. And now there's the woman in Syracuse who stands accused of using her baby to ward off Walmart loss prevention officers while she and her two alleged accomplices made off with their purloined loot. More »
Zero Witnesses Back Slater's Story
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 4:00 PM
19 Comments
Authorities have interviewed every single passenger that was on Steven Slater's last flight, and not a single one says events went down the way he's been describing them, according to a Port Authority police official. More »
My Code For A Digital Copy Of District 9 Won't Work, Sony Won't Help
By Phil Villarreal on September 9, 2010 3:30 PM
19 Comments
Realizing that rampant movie piracy has as much to do with the way consumers want to watch a film with their unwillingness to pay for it, some home video studios include codes to transfer digital copies of the films along with Blu-rays. More »
(cletch)
GM Wants You To Update Your Facebook Status While You Drive
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 3:15 PM
40 Comments
Because there is nothing more important for GM to improve with their vehicles, the car company has begun testing a functionality that would allow Facebook-addicted drivers to tell everyone "I can't believe Prince Poppycock made it through to the finals on America's Got Talent!!!" without having to take their hands off the steering wheel. More »
Turn Store Financing Offers Into Interest-Earning Free Loans
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 3:00 PM
31 Comments
Store financing offers like 0% down, pay nothing for 6 months, etc, can be a way to lure those who really shouldn't be buying stuff into purchasing, but if you actually have the cash in hand already, you can leverage them into the equivalent of an interest-earning free loan. More »
Who Is This Strange Goateed Man Trying To Sell Us KFC Products?
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 2:30 PM
55 Comments
For those of us who grew up watching Colonel Sanders (or rather, some guy dressed up as Colonel Sanders) on ads for Kentucky Fried Chicken, it might come as a shock to learn that the fast food chain's own survey found that more than 60% of Americans between the ages of 18-25 couldn't identify the man. More »
Which Technological Advance Of The Last 20 Years Has Most Made Your Life Easier?
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 2:15 PM
105 Comments
In 1990, the internet was something used by fantasy baseball fanatics on CompuServe and mobile phones were the size of toddlers -- a luxury for those who could afford to not use pay phones. Satellite TV meant having a massive dish on your property; millions struggled with programming their VCRs to tape L.A. Law; bills were paid by check... in the mail. More »
The Candwich Is Real! Sorta.
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 2:00 PM
26 Comments
I thought the Candwich was a hoagie-in-the-sky scheme stringing along hapless, and, sometimes, unwitting, investors, but here's some video of actual market-ready sandwiches rolling off the Mark One production line. Unfortunately, instead of a pre-made sandwich in a can, they are simply sandwich ingredients in a can, consisting of a bagged bun with a packet of jelly and a packet of peanut butter. This is not the future I was looking forward to. More »
UPS, UPS Store And Repair Shop All Blame Each Other For My Missing PS3
By Phil Villarreal on September 9, 2010 1:30 PM
23 Comments
John sent his broken PlayStation 3 off for repair, but the game console has vanished thanks to either UPS, a UPS Store, the repair shop to which he sent the device or some combination of the three. More »
Pregnant Traveler: TSA Screeners Bullied Me Into Full-Body Scan
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 1:15 PM
148 Comments
Pregnant Consumerist reader Mary was recently going through the security checkpoint at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. When she realized that she would be going through a full-body scanner, she told the screeners she wanted to exercise her right to a pat-down -- even if it meant experiencing the TSA's new, icky "enhanced" pat-down. But instead of the screeners doing as she requested, Mary claims they proceeded to bully her into the scanner. More »
Happiness Costs $75,000
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 1:00 PM
55 Comments
It's settled, money can buy happiness, and it tops out at $75,000. That's the result of a new Princeton study which found that the way people evaluated their lives got steadily better as their annual income increased. A lower income makes things like divorce, bad health and being alone more emotionally painful. However, the way respondents rated the quality of their everyday experiences and feelings did not increase after passing the $75,000 mark. More »
An Unexpected Win At TD Bank's Penny Arcade
By Laura Northrup on September 9, 2010 12:30 PM
32 Comments
At some heartless banks, a malfunctioning self-serve coin counting machine could lead to lost money and general sadness. Not at Flexo's local TD Bank branch, however. A malfunctioning machine meant $32 more in his account. Unfortunately, this windfall came at the expense of the unknown previous customer to use the machine, to whom the $32 actually belonged. More »
Starbucks Explains Disappearance Of Tall From Drive-Thru Menus
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 12:15 PM
59 Comments
You might remember last week when a reader wrote in to point out that Tall coffees were no longer being listed on the drive-thru menu at her local Starbucks. Well, some actual journalist in Seattle got someone at Starbucks to explain the vanishing act, which is apparently now happening nationwide. More »
(Nykoh)
5 Horrors Parents Most Worry About Vs 5 Most Likely To Occur
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 12:00 PM
84 Comments
According to a new survey, the top 5 calamities parents fret over happening to their kids are, in order from most fretting to least: kidnapping, school snipers, terrorists, dangerous strangers, and drugs. What they really should be concerned over are the top 5 way children actually get hurt and/or killed: car accidents, homicide by someone the kid knows, abuse, suicide, and drowning. More »
(KitanaOR)
Times Square Pop-Tart Emporium Doesn't Open Until After Breakfast
By Laura Northrup on September 9, 2010 11:30 AM
33 Comments
When do you eat Pop-Tarts? They're supposed to be a breakfast food, aren't they? So why does the new Pop-Tarts World store in Manhattan's Times Square not open until 11:00? That's lunchtime, people! More »
Black & Decker Recalls 192,000 Orbit Sanders Over Unintentional Flying Objects
By Chris Morran on September 9, 2010 11:15 AM
17 Comments
Earlier today, Black & Decker and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary recall of 192,000 Black & Decker Random Orbit Sanders after several reports that the plastic disc that holds the sandpaper to the sander can fly off and hurt the hell out of you or anyone around you. More »
Old Navy 36" Pants Actually 41"
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 11:00 AM
108 Comments
Your pants are lying to you. An Esquire investigation found that different clothing stores have greatly varying definitions of waistline size. Old Navy was the worst offender. Their "36 inch" pants measured actually at 41 inches. At the GAP, 36 inches actually means 39. Guess we need to start going to stores with conversion charts in hand. More »
Giant Eagle's New Shelf Tags Target Ice Cream-Eating Diabetics
By Laura Northrup on September 9, 2010 10:30 AM
43 Comments
Now, it could be that Giant Eagle grocery stores plastered every shelf in their stores with tags advertising their new program which provides free diabetes medications to customers. As tipster Greg writes, "While, as a diabetic, I appreciate the free meds from Giant Eagle grocery store, did they really have to advertise it next to the Breyer's ice cream? That really hurt."
Man Sues Whole Foods Over Exploding Green Tea
By Phil Villarreal on September 9, 2010 10:15 AM
64 Comments
Some people drink tea to put a little spark into their day, but a Nashville man got explosions instead. He's suing Starbucks and Whole Foods after bottles of Tazo green tea exploded twice in his possession. One time the bottle shattered in his hand, and another it blew up in his shopping cart. On one of the occasions, shards of glass damaged tendons in his hand that required two surgeries. More »
Convincing The Credit Bureaus I Wasn't Dead
By Ben Popken on September 9, 2010 10:00 AM
24 Comments
A writer for Slate shares the tell of her trying to convince Experian and Transunion that she is not deceased, as being dead is a bit of a problem when you're trying to buy an apartment. Transunion only took one phone call and one fax to Lazarus her, but Experian was an abyss of despair, until, out of the darkness, a ray of hope emerged... More »
How Tech Companies Got Their Odd Names
By Phil Villarreal on September 9, 2010 9:45 AM
9 Comments
Had fate twisted differently, you might have bought domain names from BigDaddy.com, searched for stuff online via BackRub or never heard of Yahoo because its original name, Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web was so wordy it might have killed the company. More »
(Colin)
Verizon Sends Customer One Pre-Broken Droid After Another
By Laura Northrup on September 9, 2010 9:30 AM
65 Comments
Colin would like a functioning smartphone. Unfortunately, he purchased the original Motorola Droid from Verizon, and tells Consumerist that somehow the company is unable to provide him with one. His fifth replacement phone was shipped to a Verizon Wireless store, where Colin had to convince the manager that there was actually a problem with the phone...all for nothing, since the manager didn't note his account about the broken phone as promised. More »
How To Always Remember Where You Parked
By Phil Villarreal on September 9, 2010 9:15 AM
75 Comments
In the anxiety-inducing Seinfeld episode "The Parking Garage," the gang wanders hopelessly through a parking structure, unable to remember where they left their car. Too bad they lived in the days before keyless entry panic buttons and digital cameras were ubiquitous. More »
Samsung's Kafkaesque Refrigerator Executive Customer Service Runaround
By Laura Northrup on September 9, 2010 9:00 AM
51 Comments
Jason's story about his Samsung refrigerator seems, for the first few paragraphs, to be a relatively mundane incident involving a customer who is (justifiably) annoyed when some relatively small features of his $2,700 refrigerator kept breaking, requiring repairs. But when the icemaker and the entire freezer began to fail, Jason's story took a different turn. A repairman encouraged him to seek a replacement for the frequently failing fridge, which he did. Now his quest for a new fridge looks more like a part-time job, and Samsung's executive customer service is beginning to look like ... regular customer service. More »
