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(Tashi & Wash)
ThinkGeek Makes Christmas Possible For Cancer Patient & Family
By Chris Morran on December 29, 2011 5:00 PM
41 Comments
For Consumerist reader Tashi and her husband, Wash, who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer only a few months after they wed, perusing the ThinkGeek catalog was something they would do to amuse themselves and keep their spirits up — even if they couldn't really afford to buy most of the items they coveted. But when the people at ThinkGeek got wind of the young couple's ordeal, they decided to play Santa. More »
UPS Won't Budge On Refunds For Packages That Didn't Make Guaranteed Christmas Delivery In Colorado
By Chris Morran on December 28, 2011 12:09 PM
77 Comments
There are several thousand irritated UPS customers in the Denver area this week. They paid for UPS' guaranteed pre-Christmas delivery but Big Brown was unable to make good on its promise and 50,000 packages didn't make it under the tree in time. Now UPS is saying these customers will not be getting refunds because the delay was snow-related. More »
Guaranteed Christmas Delivery At Zales Leads To Panicked Boyfriend
By Laura Northrup on December 23, 2011 11:30 AM
63 Comments
Maybe Derek shouldn't have waited until last week to order a bracelet for his girlfriend as a Christmas gift, or maybe he should have gone to a brick-and-mortar Zales store to buy it. But he didn't, and their site guaranteed delivery by Christmas if he ordered at that point. It turns out that "guaranteed Christmas delivery" actually means "we might get around to shipping it by the 22nd." More »
(Amazon)
Texas Drought Spurs Mistletoe Shortage
By Phil Villarreal on December 22, 2011 8:15 AM
32 Comments
If you've had a hard time finding mistletoe hanging at your office — encouraging festivity-endorsed sexual harassment — credit a Texas drought for causing a shortage in the smooch-mandating parasitic plant. More »
(Eva_Deht)
Don't Sacrifice Your Financial Future Underneath The Christmas Tree
By Phil Villarreal on December 21, 2011 11:15 AM
51 Comments
Retailers and their marketing arms are excellent at convincing parents to spend more and more each Christmas, and those who fall for the trap may be doing so at the expense of their future. Short-time financial impact aside, blowing big money on presents year after year eats away at savings potential for your kids' college funds, as well as your own retirement. More »
Reenacting '12 Days Of Christmas' Will Now Cost You More Than $100K
By Chris Morran on November 28, 2011 4:15 PM
44 Comments
If you've ever thought about actually purchasing all the items (though we assume you'd need to rent the lords a-leaping, maids a-milking, and all the ladies dancing to the drumming drummers and piping pipers) listed in the holiday classic "The 12 Days of Christmas," you had better have a pile of cash at the ready. More »
Most Americans Giving Black Friday The Cold Shoulder
By Ben Popken on November 10, 2011 11:00 AM
88 Comments
Despite all the hype and hoopla and multi-page spreads, most Americans are planning on doing absolutely no shopping at all on Black Friday, according to a new survey. More »
White House Gets Dept. Of Agriculture To Delay Christmas Tree Tax
By Chris Morran on November 9, 2011 5:28 PM
87 Comments
Less than 24 hours after the Dept. of Agriculture announced a program that would charge a $.15/tree "tax" to Christmas tree growers in order to fund a campaign to promote those very trees, the White House has responded to the flurry of criticism by asking the regulators to rethink the idea. More »
Dept. Of Agriculture Announces Christmas Tree Tax To Help Promote Christmas Trees
By Chris Morran on November 9, 2011 12:15 PM
173 Comments
UPDATE: The White House says it has asked the Dept. of Agriculture to press pause on this fee while it rethinks the program. More »
Isn't It A Tad Early To Be Selling "Belated" Christmas Cards?
By Ben Popken on November 2, 2011 4:00 PM
24 Comments
Seems to be jumping the gun a bit to already be selling "Belated Christmas" cards, don't you think? More »
If You Want A Giftless Holiday Season, Now Is The Time To Start The Legwork
By Phil Villarreal on October 24, 2011 10:30 AM
91 Comments
If you've had a rough financial year, or are simply sick of running the stress-inducing hamster wheel of gift exchanges, perhaps you'd like a present-free holiday season. More »
Pier 1 Kicks Off Christmas Creep Season
By Ben Popken on July 13, 2011 4:00 PM
35 Comments
It may not be a full-fledged instance because it's not in a physical store, but a recent email promo by Pier 1 is at very least a warning shot that Christmas Creep season is upon us. They recently sent around an email featuring a large snowman. It said, "You can now scratch "get an early start on Christmas" off your to-do list. Preview holiday fun before it even gets to our stores." More »
(cavale)
Reader Crafts Effective Complaint Letter, Scores 50% Refund From CVS
By Ben Popken on December 29, 2010 5:00 PM
42 Comments
Reader CMM was able to score a partial refund from CVS after they flubbed up her gift photobook order. Instead of bound and ready books, they handed her husband a pile of loose pages and covers and said "go to town." Some of the pages had minor ink spots on them too. More »
(jonathon)
Amazon Patents Tech That Returns And Exchanges Bad Gifts Before You Get Them
By Ben Popken on December 29, 2010 10:00 AM
47 Comments
Call it "The Bad Gift Filter." Amazon has patented a system that could intercept the yet another sweater Aunt Janice has sent you and automatically return it and exchange it for something you actually want. More »
(photojq)
Assessing The Christmas Aftermath: How'd You Make Out?
By Mary Beth Quirk on December 25, 2010 12:00 PM
244 Comments
Now that the dust has settled, the overly expensive wrapping paper has been ripped to shreds and stuffed into giant garbage bags and the candy cane hangovers have started, we want to know, how'd you do this year? More »
Retailer Makes Up For UPS's Botched Delivery Of My Laptop
By Phil Villarreal on December 24, 2010 2:30 PM
70 Comments
M ordered a MacBook Pro as a Christmas gift, but he says it didn't show up when it was supposed to, despite UPS's online report that it had been delivered to the "front door" of his apartment. More »
Have You Finished Your Christmas Shopping Yet?
By Holiday Cat on December 24, 2010 11:15 AM
19 Comments
I finished all my holiday shopping back before Hanukkah, so I'll just be chilling out around Consumerist HQ and occasionally playing with a plastic bag. But I am aware that with only hours to go until Santa Claus squeezes his jolly girth down millions of chimneys, many of you humans are still scrambling to do some last-minute shopping. More »
BBB Offers Tips On Returning All The Unwanted Stuff You'll Get Tomorrow
By Phil Villarreal on December 24, 2010 9:45 AM
26 Comments
Face it — you don't actually want anything you'll receive tomorrow, otherwise you would have found a way to have gotten it yourself by now. So you'll either be lazy and shove all your gifts in a closet, or get ambitious and go on a returning spree. More »
A 28-Year Santa Dishes On Kids' Requests
By Phil Villarreal on December 23, 2010 2:15 PM
82 Comments
Portly men who don the visage of Santa Claus hear the darndest things. A man who has played Santa for 28 years started blogging about the poignant, funny and sad things kids have told him over the years. More »
(jetalone)
Snapfish Takes On Too Many Christmas Orders, Then Avoids Customer Contact
By Laura Northrup on December 23, 2010 11:30 AM
49 Comments
Stacey is a longtime customer of HP's Snapfish service. She tells Consumerist that she wasn't able to get her photo calendars ordered until December 19th. No worries, though: the shipping deadlines on the site said that they'd be able to get the calendar out in plenty of time if she paid for two-day shipping. Except this turned out to not be, strictly speaking, true. Stacey found herself without her palnned gifts and suck on the phone with a customer service agent whose entire job, it seemed, is to "listen to people complain and then to explain how busy HP is." More »
