We wrap-up the fiasco with our response and JetBlue's final apology, after the jump...

JetBlue doesn't overbook. Now, that's a customer friendly policy, but the $1000 is a red herring.
•Mark spends his days in the trenches writing an amazing blog. If we spent all day tracking the airline industry, we'd be cynical, too. JetBlue doesn't overbook. Think about that for a moment. That's not just "a customer friendly policy." It's an inspiring refutation of a widely accepted practice that boosts airline profits to the exclusive detriment of consumers. The $1,000 guarantee makes it very painful for JetBlue to join other airlines in the cesspool of mediocrity.

Vouchers suck.
•Vouchers suck. Mark is right. His other points have fallen and this is all that remains. So let's consider it as the one remaining knock against JetBlue's Bill of Rights. Is payment by voucher enough to scuttle the ship? No. Sure, they could pay in gold bullion, but that stuff is heavy.

Yes, this is a public relations stunt in response to a public relations fiasco. We appreciate JetBlue, not because their stunts are good, but because their stunts are backed by action and concern for their passengers. They have gone above and beyond.

At approximately 5pm Wednesday evening, all JetBlue customers received an email from CEO David G. "Mortified" Neeleman. By our count, JetBlue has already apologized at least five, if not ten billion times. The latest apology differed from the others in that JetBlue said nothing new. The Bill of Rights has not been amended. The video apology does not now address '70's hairstyles. This was the mea culpa to you, the customer.

What Went Right

• Acceptance of responsibility: Other airlines would have shunned responsibility. JetBlue stood front and center admitting they dropped the ball.
  
• Earnestness: We hear everywhere how we, the consumer, are the number one priority. Whatever. There's something about Mr. Mortified that makes you want to believe. He's the guy you want coaching your apology for running over your significant other's cat.
  
• Exceptional action: Bills of Rights are usually fodder for the media: Cingular's CTIA, for example. JetBlue's document will be incorporated into the contract of carriage, giving it needed and admirable legal weight. We will be watching JetBlue. If they adversely define "controllable irregularity," we'll be the first to cry foul.

What Went Wrong

• Everything else: Remember, though JetBlue landed the mea culpa dead center, this was started because they couldn't get off the ground in the first place.

JetBlue's apology, in full:

Dear JetBlue Customers,

We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week.

We are committed to you, our valued customers, and are taking immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us. We have begun putting a comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.

Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry leading action.

You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.

Sincerely,

David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways

We expect this to be the last we will hear of the situation. We'll be watching as they go forward. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER

Previously: Point/Counterpoint: JetBlue's Apology Isn't Enough
JetBlue Announces Passenger Bill Of Rights

JetBlue's CEO is "Mortified"

We asked Mark Ashley of UpgradeTravel and he says:

Katie also sent her question to the Department of Transportation, but somehow we were able to respond a bit faster. — BEN POPKEN

Now we learn that Firefox actually has more bugs and security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer. Really.

Our shock and disappointment felt like a sucker punch to the gut. Firefox has been good to us, with fewer pop-ups, cleaner page loading, and a The pain and suffering rapidly subsided with the follow-up, though: While Internet Explorer has fewer gaping security holes, Microsoft takes NINE TIMES as long to patch each problem. Nine.

Why does a corporation the size of Microsoft take that much longer than Mozilla to fix a problem? Well, laziness comes to mind.

Bottom line: Despite a great raw number of errors in the browser, Firefox is still better at warding off attack by viruses and other nastiness than IE. Add that to your hymnbook.

Firefox Buggier, But IE Takes 9 Times Longer to Patch [Information Week]

So when a pilot freaks out before takeoff and announces over the intercom that the plane isn't safe, and he isn't flying it, passengers should immediately perk up and listen. Then they should follow his example and get the fuck off that plane.

British vacationers coming back from Turkey were treated to a pissed off pilot doing just this. The Airbus 321 pilot for Onur Air got on the intercom and announced: "I am resigning from my job. Do not fly with this plane. It is not safe. Do not fly with Onur Air."

Then he powered the plane down, got up, and left.

Onur Air, a discount airline based in Turkey, has seen better days. The airline was banned from four European countries' airspace because of safety concerns, though they're "legal" again today.

Was the dramatic exit a "take this job and shove it" stunt? A legitimate grievance borne of years of witnessing subpar maintenance and questionable safety practices? A psychological episode the pilot might rather forget? Irrelevant! If we hear such pronouncements, we're high-tailing it off the flight.

Terror as pilot tells passengers: this plane's a deathtrap [Daily Mail]

General Mills has announced it is changing the way it markets its high-sugar cereals. There will be "no TV ads targeted at children, no movie tie-ins, no Internet marketing and no licensing of popular cartoon characters." The Parents Television Council, ever the self-proclaimed masters of what is Good and Right on the boob tube, was quick to praise the move, but had nothing to say about the nutritional value of the cereals themselves.

What are the marketing alternatives? Will General Mills start advertising to adults instead? And will the slogans change? Will we see green clover and blue diamond marshmallows on the pages of the Economist, or advertised on "Meet the Press" on Sunday mornings?

If the cerealmaker is serious about not marketing to children, they might change the boxes, too. All the sweet cereals somehow have cartoon characters on the front. Shocking.

If children get fat, parents can no longer blame General Mills' advertisements on Nickelodeon. But they can still blame the undeniable temptation of a cartoon-covered cereal box.

Consumer group praises General Mills [Pioneer Press]

So when reader M sent us this comment regarding his difficulties in getting a subscription to Money Magazine at the rockbottom rates he "plays hardball" to get, we started off sympathetic, but he lost us.

M got them down to $9.95 for a year's subscription, but the magazine (or whichever company they contract to manage the subscriptions) entered it in as a 6 month term instead of 12 months. Intentionally? Erroneously? Who knows. But M called and they fixed the problem on the first call. Great! That's how customer service is supposed to work. Would it have been nice if they had billed him correctly in the first place? Of course! But we just can't get all hot and bothered by this.

The joke about paying "a visit to their call center with my .45 revolver" didn't go over too big here, either. Lighten up, man.

M's e-mail, uncut, after the jump:

I've been subscribing to Money magazine for at least three years now. I originally signed up for a one year subscription for $14.95, and was thrilled to get that price which is roughly half of the usually cost. Almost immediately, Money started sending me renewal notices stating that my subscription was about to run out (even though I had ten months to go) and that I could renew my subscription for the low, low price of only $29.95 per year. First, I refused to renew ten months before my subscription was set to expire. Second, I refused to pay their low, low price. I played hardball with them, insisting that I get the reduced price in order to continue my subscription. Over the years, they have usually caved to my demand since I would wait and let their renewal notices get more and more urgent as the months passed. When I get their "final notice" then I send in my check to renew for one year. Money has, for the most part, gone along with this game to see who would blink first, but always they came back with the premature renewal notices. Recently, I sent in my reduced check (which is now down to $9.95) to renew for another year, but to my dismay when I got my first magazine I found that they had only renewed my subscription for six months instead of the full twelve that make up a year. I immediately called their customer service toll free phone number, that is buried in microscopic print on their index page. I informed the phone rep that my subscription had been inexplicably truncated to six months. She had the nerve to say I had responded to a special offer of six months for only $9.50. This was untrue. I told her that never in my life had they ever sent me an offer to renew for only six months - that the minimum subscription has always been twelve months. She put me on hold for a moment and then came back to inform me that my subscription had been extended to twelve months. I told her that if they ever mess up my account again that I will pay a visit to their call center with my .45 revolver. (Just kidding. I did not say that.) I find this to be a very shabby way to run a magazine. They really are banking on their subscribers not paying attention to the details.

But for many mobile phone users, this could go beyond merely being a nuisance. Sure, there's the lost time factor, as each adver-text costs you precious time on this earth, as you reach for your phone, hoping for a sexy note from your lover, only to find a note from WalMart, announcing a rollback on Black and Decker toaster ovens.

Even worse, this is marketing that could cost you money. Unlike Europe, where the caller or texter tends to foot the bill, American texters AND textees pay. If marketers start peppering you with their messages, your texting plan could go into overage rather quickly.

Time for a Do-Not-Text List? Until then, be careful when giving away your cell phone number. You don't want to opt into any marketing scheme that will cost you money down the road.

Advertising through text messaging appears ready to explode nationwide [AP via Tucson Citizen]

Consider Kenneth Hammel, a handicapped Pennsylvania man who's either 77 or 87 years old, depending on which report you read. He walked into the Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Triplex car dealership last December, looking for a vehicle that could accommodate his wheelchair lift.

The dealership sold him a defective Kia Sedona van, at a price $700 over the MSRP. When he brought the van in a few weeks later for repairs, they gave him a different car, but not as a replacement under the lemon law. Rather, they treated the vehicle as a trade-in, and the "necessary paperwork" he signed unwittingly bought him another, higher priced car.

To top it off, they asked him for his ATM card so they could run a "credit check." They took $2000 from his account.

It goes without saying that they took advantage of an old man who didn't know what he was really doing. Whether we want to see anyone like that driving is a separate issue.

The dealership should worry, though. Hammel has retained the services of a lawyer named Craig Thor Kimmel. The guy's middle name is "Thor," for God's sake. May his Hammer of Justice strike the Anvil of Ripoff Artists!

Lawsuit claims dealership pulled bait-and-switch [phillyburbs.com]
87 Year Old, Handicapped Man from Bucks County Sues Cherry Hill Triplex for Fraud, Deceptive Practices and Theft of Thousands of Dollars [press release, via Yahoo]

Which would be great, except it's not. Even if AOL hadn't gone to a free subscription model, making the "rewards" moot, it's still AOL. Thankfully, Alex/a knows the modern day consequences of her youthful, collegiate credit indiscretions, and is looking to make amends.

The card is issued by Chase, who doesn't want to convert her points into something more useful. Like, say, cash.

On this point, we advise you to keep calling back and trying, Alex A., until you get an agent (or supervisor) who understands your problem and adopts a solution you can live with. Ask to convert the card to another Chase card, preferably 1) with no annual fee, and 2) with some sort of rewards program. Call, ask about options, and start dealing.

We recently had a similar dilemma when Citibank stopped issuing one of our rewards cards, but we're back on the wagon with the same credit limit, similar terms, and a similar rewards program. Ask, and ye shall receive Alex/Alexa!

Al's e-mail after the jump.

So I got an AOL visa card about 7 years ago when I first started college. The deal is you earn points with your purchases and can then pay for your AOL account. So yes I have the lamest reward card on earth and yes AOL sucks but I am stuck with the card because I have a $25000 limit now so I don't want to lose that.

So I usually call once a year and the put my points toward about a year worth of AOL service.

So I call recently to use my points.

The CSR says oh haven't you heard AOL is free now!

Well yeah but what the hell am I gonna do with all these stupid points?

turns out they are changing to chase flex points and my points are not transferable.

to make matters worse I get a letter in the mail 3 days later reminding me to us my points before I lose them?

wtf the only thing I can use them for is to avoid paying for what is now a free service.

So Now I am stuck with a crappy card a crappy isp and the promise of a new points reward programs in the future. Great

Alex a

Then let's say one of your customers sells something on Craigslist, or eBay, or wherever. And they deposit a check from the sale with you. And that check bounces harder and higher than a superball dropped from the observation deck of the Sears Tower. Smell the juicy fees you can charge him!

But don't stop there. You call the cops and have the customer cuffed and hauled off to jail for being party to the criminal forgery of checks. And the cops don't read him his rights, since they've been too busy writing speeding tickets to catch up on the latest season of Law & Order.

So now the customer comes back to you and wants you to cover the $14,000 in fees he's spent trying to clear his name, since he says you never gave him a chance to explain the situation before having calling him a perp and giving him an evening in a cell full of guys too high to realize their head is under the toilet bowl. What do you do?

Nothing. Say you're sorry the guy had his ass handed to him, absolve yourself of blame, and forget about it. After all, he was arrested "for the safety of the bank employees as well as the bank customers." An innocent guy who's already being hit with fees for just making a deposit? Obviously a menace.

And legally, there's nothing the customer can do. And that seems wrong to us. (We sure feel lucky that our bank didn't send the cops a-knockin' after one of our second-cousins-by-marriage wedding-gift checks bounced... Seriously.)

Our question remains: Why does anyone still accepts checks, for any reason, from strangers?

Check from a scammer bounces victim into jail [SFGate.com] (Thanks, Jennifer!)

Lunar real estate.

1,200 Germans bought tracts of moon land years ago from American "entrepreneur" Dennis Hope, at the low, low discount price of $19.99 per acre. Though no government entity recognizes the legality of Hope's sales, he justified the sales because of a loophole in the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty.

Now, with the possibility of that land being put to use for NASA, the Germans have come to collect. Their letters to the president make for some fine reading.

The effort to cash out of the lunar real estate market nearly coincides with the pricking of the real estate bubble back on earth. We await the lunar foreclosure boom before making our big move.

A Place Under the Sun [Harper's]

First, she tried buying a ticket at the price that Orbitz's otherwise rather nifty matrix display offered. After clicking all the way through to the "buy" window, she got the ol' Orbitz bait-and-switch. "We're sorry, the price we originally quoted you isn't available any longer. But we'd love to charge you even more if you click here!"

Second, each time she went through the various screens to buy a ticket, her credit card was authorized for a charge in the full amount. So even when Orbitz couldn't or wouldn't sell her the ticket, they put a hold on her credit card for that amount. All this added up to a declined charge.

But why even bother putting a hold on the card like this? You're buying a nonrefundable plane ticket, not borrowing a car. Just charge the card once the terms of the transaction are finalized!

Kristin's e-mail after the jump...

Here's a recent problem of mine regarding Orbitz.com: Everyone knows hotels and gas stations charge you more than you actually spend, and that these "holds" can take up to 14 days to clear. Who knew that the same thing could happen when booking a plane ticket online? I am a student. I had more than enough money to pay for my ticket, and I had a credit card with enough money for the ticket (but not two of them). I tried to book a ticket on orbitz.com. It was a RT flight from Europe to the US and back for $979. I filled in all of the information and clicked to book, but the ticket was not available. I repeated the steps for a "different" ticket listed with the same price and flights. Unfortunately, orbitz.com informed me that my credit card was declined. I called my bank immediately, and they told me a bit of useful information. First, that orbitz had charged $1001, and then an additional $979, which had been declined. They told me that the charge could be removed immediately by orbitz calling the bank and giving them the transaction number. Orbitz refused to call, so I ended up having to outwait the fake charge. So why did orbitz.com charge me $1001 and then a $979 ticket? They call it a "soft charge," which is almost the same as a hold. However, in my experience, holds are charged and later replaced with the actual amount of the purchase. Orbitz took over $1000 (when the actual price of the ticket was clearly available) and charged the full ticket price additionally. Orbitz told me their "hold" on my money would last "approximately" 24-72 hours. My bank told me that it is possible for these charges to last up to 14 days (including the weekends). The orbitz charge lasted for 8 (including a weekend). In the end I booked a $950 ticket on expedia.com. Expedia also put a hold on my card—$1. This hold was replaced later with the correct amount of the ticket. I luckily was booking a month in advance and didn't face increasing fares. I won't be using orbitz until this "soft charge" policy is reduced. I would also rate orbitz responses to my emails as inadequate, although I do think they answered the emails in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe this information can provide some consumerist entertainment and also save a few others from a major headache. Just imagine if this "soft hold" left you without money or a ticket when you were booking last minute.

Air traffic controllers at LAX alerted the pilots that their engine was on fire, but to the ground controllers' surprise, the plane didn't return to the airport for repairs.

The pilot's answer: "We just decided we want to set off on our flight-plan route and get as far as we can."

"As far as we can" ?? Umm, a plane can't just pull over at the side of the road and wait for AAA.

Even though the 747 is generally capable of using 3 engines instead of 4, why take the chance of further problems arising? The pilots are accused of trying to save the airline from paying compensation for delays (reportedly 100,000).

Beyond machismo and cost-savings, we are left to assume that wagers were involved. The plane eventually made an emergency landing in Manchester, just shy of London. It's unclear who won or lost the bet.

Air controllers amazed as BA pilot flies despite fire [Guardian]

With Ben back sometime today, it's time to thank the guest bloggers tied against the Consumerist radiator and put them out of their misery.

Obviously, Meg and Mark did an absolutely fantastic job. We hope, now that they are gone, you'll follow them to their regular sites and bask in the glory of their wit. And — because we didn't pay Meg or Mark, but also because we didn't actually tell them we weren't going to pay them — we decided to make it easier for them to capitalize on their newfound fame.

All posts last week tagged with Meghann Marco were written by Meg, whom you also might remember as the starving waif on the Special K diet. Liked her posts? She'd love to have you follow her to her site, MeghannMarco.com. As an added perk, she's pretty dollsome, which is a good enough reason to stalk anyone.

Not nearly as cute, and five times as flatulent, all posts tagged Mark Ashley were written by the man himself, who runs one of our favorite, more practical blogs, Upgrade Travel. Mark is awesome: if anyone is going to help you find a $1 business class fare, it'll be him. Also, he needs your traffic to help pay the medical bills of his hypochondriac wife. So go on over and start randomly clicking his Google links.

Thanks, guys! Don't sit by the mailbox waiting for that paycheck!

We recently heard about an Asian airline whose business model includes selling blankets in flight. The flight attendants get a commission on any items they sell. And if they don't unload as many blankets as they want, they ask the pilots to turn up the air conditioning in an effort to boost sales.

Inspired. (Which airline? We don't know, so we'll traffic in rumor and speculation.) 150 people stuck in an aluminum tube, with minimal control over their personal space and carrying only whatever they can legally pack into their carry-ons, and the cabin crew messes with the environment, all in the name of a couple bucks.

Europe and Asia are ground zero for the ultra-no-frills airlines that charge you for every drink, peanut, raffle ticket, pillow, and blanket. Euroskinflint Ryanair is so stripped-down that they don't even have windowshades on their planes.

Think that can't happen in the U.S., where service may suck, but at least you've got SOME amenities? Don't kid yourself. At some point, someone is going to successfully launch a no-frills airline in the United States that does this sort of thing, too. Startup Skybus has already said they plan to follow Ryanair's model to the letter.

So how can we fight back? Besides wearing a sweater, how do you keep the cabin crew honest when we're at their mercy?

That's a lot of oil, but split it up over 365 days, and it's not quite as scary. What's worse? How about eating a Hardee's 1,420-calorie Monster Thickburger, which gives you the privilege of ingesting 107 grams of fat in one sitting. Americans aren't shying away from the mega-calorie foods, according to new reports. Hopefully no one does THAT every day.

But telling you that fast food is bad for you and that fried slices of potato are full of fat is not exactly surprising. And there's no way that awareness of oil in food is going to stop us from eating the occasional bag of chips. In reality, we just wanted to use this photo in a post.

A packet of crisps a day? That's 5 litres of cooking oil in a year [Times Online]

Packaged with the confirmation number, Bill was subjected to a series of sales pitches, one by one. Lowe's. Cable TV. Phone service. Security system. Coupons for something or another. When would the madness stop? Maybe with a timeshare opportunity in Las Vegas?

Maybe Bill is just a little too nice, but he should have asked for the confirmation and left it at that. No e-mailing of coupons, no sales pitches, just a goddamn confirmation number.

Companies are obviously desperate to work the phone for sales, since the Do-Not-Call List makes cold-calling harder. But this is excessive.

And remember, you can always say no. Toughen up, Bill!

Bill's e-mail, after the jump...

OK, so I'm not 100% sure what's going on here, but I figured I'd write and hopefully gain some insight into this...

I'm in the process of buying a house. Closing is in a few weeks, but I figured I'd get a jump on things to try and make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.

I called my "local" electric company, AmerenIP, and spoke to a woman who knew her job pretty well and got me taken care of. She then said she'd transfer me to another company - I can't quite remember the name - for my "confirmation number."

I thought this was a little odd - I mean, why can't she give me a confirmation number herself? Still, who am I to say what might be happening, so I just said sure and waited.

Another lady picked up and said she would email me my confirmation number and a 10% off coupon for Lowe's if she could have my email address. Erm, okay. What - she can't just tell me the number? I'm pretty paranoid about my real email address so I gave her my spamtastic email.com account. I plan to fish it out later. Maybe.

Then she starts in with a new offer - that she'll help transfer over all of my other services. Free of charge, of course. I was getting a little on the paranoid side so hesitantly said "sure" (more out of curiosity than anything else) and she starts going through possible services I might have.

I let her know the cable's taken care of, along with high-speed internet. Check.

She asked about my local phone service. I told her I don't have or need local service. "Why?" "My girlfriend and I both have good cell service and don't need a land line." Her pitch basically amounted to, "Sir, we recommend basic phone service for 911 emergency calls so the police could locate you more quickly than they could with a cell phone." Having worked for the phone company before, I already know this is a line of crap - you can dial 911 on any phone that has a dial tone. Still, she continues her sales pitch more or less trying to scare me into signing up for basic phone service.. I make sure she knows we need no such thing.

Next on the menu of marketing offers was a "free home security consultation." By this point, I knew that Ameren had basically connected me with a telemarketer and told her that I really would not be needing this. I informed her I'd take care of the gas bill myself, and that I was going to disconnect.

Not to be distracted, she asked at the end if she could email me "$100 worth of coupons". Whatever. It's a junk account, and I was just ready to get off the phone by that point. I said okay, thnaked her for her time (old habits die hard) and got off the phone.

So seriously - what the hell? Since when did my service call become an opportunity for some third-party to make some money with dubious "services"?

Expense? Indeed, expense. Across America, some synagogues and Jewish organizations like Hillel are charging fees to non-members who attend high holy day services.

At the University of Pennsylvania, students can participate in the campus Hillel's services for free, but non-student guests must cough up $180 each. Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia charges $250 for nonmembers who participate in their events.

We don't really understand how the costs can be this high, but maybe someone can explain it to us. Labor and hall rental are certainly expensive, and there's certainly a "donation" built into the fee, but the rate seems astronomical for a religious service.

Happy Rosh Hashana! That'll be $180, please [Daily Pennsylvanian] (Thanks, Joshua!)

It's unclear whether the five-cent hike will affect all drinks equally. If so, then smaller-sized purchases will see a larger percentage increase than the big-ass ventis.

Buying beans in a store will also go up, by 50 cents. The company blames rising wages, energy, and fuel expenses for the hike. Maybe, but they know they've got enough people hooked on the juice, so they've got pricing power and can flex a little muscle.

That free Starbucks hack we posted a week ago might buy you a tiny bit less coffee as of October 3, but that'll just make you want it that much more.

We've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the putz who causes a ruckus should be held responsible, and delays do cost airlines money. But Air Canada isn't a state trooper doling out speeding tickets. Some passengers are idiots, and you have to deal with them. It's part of doing business. Can the airline send any and all passengers a bill for whatever behavior it deems unseemly?

Turn it around: When airlines delay your flight, causing you to miss a connection, a meeting, or anything else you scheduled, try sending them a bill. If they pay it, let us know, and Paypal us a cut.

So what do readers think? Should airlines bill disruptive passengers for the delay, or is that taking things a bit too far?

Air Canada bills unruly flyer $1,350 [Toronto Star]

The dancing smiley orb of cost savings and senior citizen labor exploitation shook up the pharmaceutical industry today with its announcement that that it would sell some generic drugs for as little as $4 for a month's supply. The test market is in the Tampa area, but will soon spread to the rest of Florida, and will cover the country like measles next year.

Sounds like a hardball first move in the prescription market. Hopefully other companies will follow suit, and we'll see some price breaks. Especially from those companies that will actually dispense the drugs your doctor prescribes.

Wal-Mart to cut prices for generic drugs [Yahoo! / AP]

And not just clowns. Goodyear blimps and squeaky-voiced pranksters are shit out of luck, with no alternative on the horizon.

"When people see balloons they know that's where the party is." So true. But will people know where the party is, if there are no ballooons? Transitive logic be damned!

Helium shortage could deflate some fall parties [Columbus Dispatch]

First her cellphone's battery dies, then various sellers try to milk her for outrageous cash money for a replacement, and then she just can't receive what she bought in the timeframe she specified.

SimonCells, of beautiful Brooklyn, New York, doesn't have a spotless record in the Better Business Bureau's records, with a couple unresolved cases, but it's not horrifyingly bad, either. (Run a search at BBB.org if you're ever unsure about an online seller. It may tip you off to problems.)

Andrea still doesn't have her battery. Time to call customer service, Andrea. And not having a working phone isn't an excuse. Borrow a phone, or use a payphone... C'mon!

If that doesn't work, threaten to call your credit card issuer (again, use another phone!), and use the magic word "chargeback." Unless readers have other bright ideas.

Andrea's complete e-mail after the jump...

I'm really not sure which of the companies in my tale of cell-phone-battery woe come out the worst, but suffice it to say that none of them have done me any favors thus far.

I got my current cell phone about a year ago, when I was due for an upgrade. Last Tuesday or thereabouts, it began to refuse to charge. By Thursday, it was apparent that it was dying.

No problem, right? Cingular must have the battery, or at least be able to order it. So I go to my local Cingular. I explain my situation, and the guy says yeah, batteries tend to give out after a year. He rummages through a box that contains the batteries they sell, and is unable to match my phone to any of the batteries they have on hand. He recommends I head up the street a few blocks to Radio Shack, as they carry Cingular products.

So I go to Radio Shack. The salesperson there tells me that yes, they have the battery I need, but it's $70+, and wouldn't I rather just pay $50 for a new pay-as-you-go phone that I can slip my SIM card into? I am not so sure about this being a good idea (if it worked that way, I would think Cingular would have suggested it).

So I march back to Cingular to ask if maybe I can get an early upgrade? No. Then what's the cheapest phone they sell without changes to a service plan? $169.99.

Back to Radio Shack to just buy the battery already. Another salesperson sees me looking at the rack of batteries the first guy pointed me to, and asks if she can help me. I tell her what phone I have, and with whom, and she says they normally don't carry Cingular products. She goes to the computer to see if she can order it, and the first salesperson reappears. He begins pushing me to buy one of the pay-as-you-go phones. I tell him I really just want the battery, regardless of cost, and he says that they don't have it. In other words, he knew I had a Cingular phone, and he knew they didn't have Cingular batteries, and he cheerfully lied to me nonetheless.

At this point, I have no intention of buying anything at Radio Shack, so I head home to buy the battery over the internet. I find it at SimonCells.com for the reasonable price of $15. Normally I would overnight it, but as it's past 2 PM on a Thursday, it won't be processed in time for Friday delivery, and UPS doesn't deliver on Saturdays. (None of the websites I checked could get it to me on Saturday). So I throw in $15 for UPS 3-Day Air, figuring that it stands a decent chance of arriving on Monday, and if not, what's another day at that point?

No package Monday. No package Tuesday. No package Wednesday. At this point, my order will arrive at least one week after I placed it. My current status on the website reads simply "Paid." "Shipped" is, indeed, an option, but my status hasn't changed since Friday morning, when the payment cleared. Nor am I provided with a tracking number. I e-mailed them tonight after I got home and discovered that there was still no package. (Sadly, I can't call customer service because ... you guessed it, I don't have a phone.)

I don't know who to file a complaint with as far as the shipping goes - I have a feeling that UPS and SimonCells.com won't hesitate to pass the buck back and forth, but it's obvious that I paid $15 for a service that was not rendered at all. And even if it's ridiculous and petty, I'd like that money back. Any advice?

A reserved space in the spam folder.

The culprit? The phrase "magna cum laude," for starters. (Use "with highest honors" instead.) Spam filters don't speak Latin.

Other problem terms include "'free,' 'expand,' 'trial,' 'mortgage,' or exclamation points or colored backgrounds."

Unless of course you're applying for a job as a pornographer, or a free trial mortgage company that's expanding rapidly. In that case, ignore all this advice.

(How DO pornographers filter THEIR e-mail for spam, anyway?)

Don't Let Spam Filters Snatch Your Resume [Wall Street Journal]

Reader Will is one such buyer. He bought a Dell Inspiron 5150 Inspiron, and like seemingly every other such computer, it was defective. It was replaced, the warranty extended, failed again, and finally replaced with a completely different model. Sounds like they didn't make any money on the transaction. But if you ask us, that's actually a decent resolution.

5150 owners out there should heed Will's advice, and make sure Dell replaces your computer, preferably with a different model. Just do it soon, before the specially extended warranty expires in 2007.

Did Dell make good because they were separately being sued in a class action suit, or because Will was persistent and threatened to switch to Mac? Who cares! He got a replacement computer, and can eventually get the Mac he really wants anyway.

As Sammy Hagar would grunt, that sounds like the best of both worlds.

Will's e-mail after the jump...

So I've gotten a couple of emails from the law firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein regarding a settlement on Dell 5150s and faulty adapters and motherboards. The site regarding the settlement can be found here: http://www.lundellsettlement.com

My own 5150 story is that I got the computer in Sept 04, and due to a design defect where apparently, a small piece of plastic would push into the motherboard and make it so that the power supply would not be recognized, the computer stopped working in November. (the problem has been discussed on many forums, including Dell's own support forums, and I believe that was the main consensus as to the source of the problem, and that it did in fact affect all Dell Inspiron 5150's)

I sent the nonfunctional computer to Dell and since I was under warranty, got my motherboard replaced. But the problems didn't end there, as even though I took the care not to push too hard on the bottom of the case, within a few months, the same problems happened again. It failed completely on me in Sept. 05, and since I was out of warrantly, I began looking around for options.

The law firm above put me on their mailing list after I was directed to their site through a webforum, and I actually ended up chewing out Dell's Customer Service and describing the flaw to them. After I insisted that I wasn't paying for a new motherboard, and that this computer would push me to move to Apple, they offered me a refurbished laptop for free. It was actually a 6000 series, and I was content with the replacement. Their Customer Service was actually very acommodating in the end regarding this, and personally, I think it indicates how much of a problem they were having with these computers.

Looking at the settlement, it's obvious that Dell wants this to go away. They aren't admitting that their product was flawed, and that they knew about it, but they're extending the warranties, as well as paying between 1.3 and 3.3 million in legal fees for the plaintiff.

But if you look at the terms of the settlement, the warranty extention goes until 2007. If your 5150 fails on you after that, then Dell isn't paying for it, even though the structural defect will obviously still be a problem. They're probably hoping that by then, people with 5150's will just buy a new laptop when their old one breaks again. I'm hoping people won't be buying Dells, and as for me, when the 6000 series laptop becomes too outdated, I'm buying a Mac.

But things could have been even worse. Earlier this year, the Department of Transportation considered relaxing the rules, making it easier for airlines in the United States to act like Ryanair and the other discount carriers in Europe. Your ticket costs 1 cent! ($100 surcharge may apply.) No thanks.

So we can breathe a sigh of relief: The status quo rules the day. Your airfares will be just as confusing as they were before. No more, no less. Victory is ours.

Ads must link surcharge to air fare [Detroit Free Press]

But the backlash has begun. Aldermen are considering a bill to repeal the ban, but it's no longer about food, or animal rights, or a pissing match between rivals in the City That Works. It's about God.

"Beyond the Kosher dietary laws, God has told us to do what is 'good and proper in the eyes of God,'" Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Anshe Sholom B'Nail Israel Congregation wrote to Aldermen Burton F. Natarus (42nd) and Bernard Stone (50th). "The cruelty inflicted on animals in the production of foie gras is unspeakable. It is undeniably disgusting in the eyes of God and in the eyes of any civilized person."

Threats like that are enough to drive you to drink. Which inflates the liver... hmm.

So how cruel is foie gras production really? Read a firsthand account by an American witnessing the process at a farm in France, and decide for yourself.

Jewish leaders: Overturning foie gras ban could anger God [Chicago Sun-Times]

General Motors, Ford, Toyota Motor Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. have created a ``public nuisance'' by making millions of vehicles that emit huge quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that increases the temperature of the earth's atmosphere, according to a complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in Oakland.

The state argues that the federal government isn't doing squat to slow down emissions by mandating fuel economy increases, so that automakers are not stepping up to the plate on their own, so California felt compelled to take action. But will the whole planet see a cut of the settlement?

Getting the automakers to work harder to produce fuel efficient cars is admirable, but this kind of mega-suit is as likely to create global warming awareness as it is fodder for late night comedians.

Besides, should Toyota and Honda really be on the same list as GM and Ford? After all, Toyota builds the Prius, while GM builds the Hummer. May we recommend a separate class action against every asshole that bought a Hummer?

California Sues GM, Ford, Toyota Over Global Warming [Bloomberg]

Banks charter new usurious subsidiaries in states with high or non-existent caps on interest rates. Those subsidiaries then issue the credit cards. And here's the catch: Even if you live in a state with a modicum of consumer protection, you're out of luck if your credit card issuer sets up shop in Rapid City or Provo. The laws of the bank's state, not yours, govern your rights.

So since the legislators in those states don't have the stones to stand up to the banks' lobbyists and their gift baskets of cash, everyone else in the country pays the price. Thanks so much.

For a good backgrounder on why credit cards can suck as much as they do, PBS's Frontline has a great overview of the history of plastic money. Thanks to reader Billifer who pointed us to Mental Floss's post, that riffed off Pennylicious, that was relying entirely on the PBS report we mentioned earlier. Jeez, what a mess.

Circuit City's proposed shift might be meaningless small potatoes to most of the heartless bastards who call their toll-free hotline, caring little for the human being at the other end of the phone, concerned only with their own billing complaint. But if these changes go through, everybody loses.

Call center workers will lose the little dignity they had left, as they pine for the two-foot cubicle walls that once separated them from their neighbors. All the while an electronic slave ship master lords over them, beating a rhythm on his drum.

Customers will suffer the wrath of abused and humiliated call center employees. How much slack do you think a perpetually-watched Circuit City employee is going to cut you?

And other employees of the company will arrive at HQ Monday morning, to find the toilets overflowing with the weekend shift's excrement.

Kelly's e-mail after the jump...

I don't know if this would be helpful to you or not, but a friend of mine who works at Circuit City was recently complaining about how poorly they treat their customer service reps. He works in the top tier of the customer service tree and he says they have plans to move the department to a cubicle-less room with just rows of desks (and a monitor at the end of each row). This means that that in addition to having zero personal space for hours at a time, there will be nothing to dampen the voices of all the other reps nearby, which means all the reps will be shouting over each other to be heard.

Also he mentioned that since nobody is supposed to be working in the corporate office on Sundays, they shut the water off in the building. Awesome. Maybe they could save even more money by shutting down the water altogether and setting up some Port-O-Potties outside!

It might be a good idea to warn your readers to expect some disgruntled reps next time they have a serious problem "Where Service is State of the Art."

The batteries are manufactured by (you guessed it) Sony.

No incidents of Toshiba notebooks having that certain "laptops foster" quality about them have been reported yet. But the recall addresses the same recharging problems that caused the ruckus among owners of the proven incendiary brands.

Get a new replacement battery, free. Or prepare to toast your marshmallows, Toshiba style.

Toshiba Recalls Sony Laptop Batteries [Chicago Tribune]

It turns out that (gasp!) money does indeed buy happiness. But not too much money. New research, to be published in the Journal of Health Economics, suggests that there is a sweet spot: "Medium-sized lottery wins ranging from about $2,000 to $225,000 had a long-term sustained impact in the overall happiness of the winners."

That's a rather wide range to consider "medium." I guess my credit card bill qualifies as Chase's moderate windfall.

But getting the ginormous checks apparently don't boost happiness. Nonetheless, I wouldn't mind giving it a spin.

How big a lottery prize returns happiness? [UPI]

Cost is the obvious motivation for sending a call center abroad:

Average pay for U.S. call-center workers is $10 to $12 an hour; at outsourced call centers, employer costs can be 10 percent to 20 percent lower, Butler said. Frontier reservations agents start at close to $9 an hour; more- senior employees make more.

Frontier and others are realizing that these international call centers may be penny-wise, pound-foolish. Customer satisfaction with outsourced customer service, especially to offshore locations, runs low. Some corporations, like Dell, American Express, and US Airways, have backpedaled, bringing some calls back to the United States after consumers complained enough.

If you piss off your customers with phone reps who don't understand the rules or the product (a problem with any outsourced call center, regardless of nationality) what good are the cost savings?

Agents Along for the Ride [Denver Post] (Thanks, Brandon!)

Staggering about San Francisco on the holiday morning with a hangover headache that only a trip to the ATM could cure, presumably to buy more tonic for her gin, Jessica left her card in the machine. Upon her return, it was gone. Way to go, rummy!

But when she tried to contact the bank's customer service hotline, to block any unauthorized use of the card, she discovered that banks actually DO give their employees time off.

As Jessica suggests, reporting lost or stolen cards is an essential function that banks shouldn't shut down, even on holidays. And they should offer an option to report cards on their website. And Jessica would have slept better that night, and everyone would have been happy.

Her e-mail after the jump.

So I call the customer service number and hear this harrowing message: "We're sorry, our customer service center is closed for the holiday so our employees can be with their families. Please call back tomorrow. *click*" Uh? CRAP. Surely this cannot be..this is a major bank that prides itself on fraud and security protection for their customers. Right? Right?! I poke through the phone menu to try to find some sort of automated "lost card" function. Nothing. I race back to my hotel room to fire up my laptop to check the BoA website to see if there's any way to report the card there. All it says to do if you lose your card is to call customer service ASAP- and I know what's not going on there. Luckily for me, there was no activity on my account until I could finally reach someone the next morning. Is it too much to be mildly pissed? It's selfish but.. dude. I understand employees need to be with their families, but other businesses seemed to okay with seperating families and all they were doing was serving me a smoothie, not holding all the money I have in this world. What about holiday pay? Is a skeleton crew too much to ask? Or some sort of automated "lost card" option so employees can be with their families and I avoid 24 hours of panic? I'm certain that I'm not the only dummy who lost their card that day and I'm also certain there are people now tied up in claims because of it.

Gizmodo, second-cousin by marriage to the Consumerist, has the scoop on an IBM notebook that caught fire at the United Airlines Red Carpet Club at LAX:

I spoke to the laptop owner (while getting close for some pictures!) and he said he his laptop was an IBM, that he had checked the battery against the recalls on the net and his battery wasn't a recall.

No further details as to the producer of the battery, or the precise model of the laptop.

This would never have happened to an Epson HX-20.

Gizmodo Reader Witnesses IBM Laptop Catch Fire at LAX [Gizmodo]

Remember the recall on every Segway ever built?

Tourists wept, golfers groaned, airport police sighed. But perhaps most tragically, this could keep the nascent sport of Segway Polo out of the Olympics.

The ruling affects both Dell and Apple laptops inflight, because both use Sony-made batteries. Mac owners in the same boat as Dell? Say it ain't so!

Sir General Richard Branson solemnly requests that you pull the battery out of your machine before getting on board. If you want to fire it up, you'll need to run the computer on AC power... which you can only do in business class.

Flying coach? You're screwed.

Virgin tells travellers to remove Apple, Dell laptop batteries [Reg Hardware]

But the guy has a point: TV rots your brain. And now we have the proof.

One study showed that women who watched commercials with stereotypical ditzy females before taking a math test scored 38 percent lower than women who didn't see the ads.

What's the male equivalent? Watching Pauly Shore videos?

Regardless: The lesson is clear. Be selective. Watch only advertisements that feature the late, great George Plimpton.

New research shows that drinkers earn more than non-drinkers, and that visiting a bar correlates with even higher pay. Sweet success comes at the bottom of a dirty glass.

And all along I thought that alcohol only improved your looks, smarts, and sexual prowess. Who knew the fiduciary benefits could be this tangible?

Time to start getting receipts from the bartender, and writing off the night as job training related expenses.