(_tar0_)
(Kimaroo)
(birdarts)
(Scurzuzu)
(ckilgore)
(birdarts)
(afagen)
(37prime)
(blue_j)
(Ninja M.)
(stirwise)
(leanne42)
(Diaspora)
(Scoboco)
(pmarkham)
(WSVN.com)
(afagen)
(pdxmac)
(Amazon)
(Enokson)
(tjean314)
(CBS2)
(S.L.M.)
(smcgee)
(TVS)
(tedd4u)
(zieak)
(blue_j)
(dmuth)
(afagen)
(birdarts)
(camknows)
(nycborg)
(elle_emm)
(mrbill)
(matneym)
(TLFagan)
(ash)
(pdxmac)
(WHEC.com)
(FOX25)
(phirleh)
(camknows)
(Sterlic)
(Rentvine)
(afagen)
(chloeloe)
(Razor512)
(afagen)
(afagen)
(Guyism)
(Klaus M)
(afagen)
MIke writes that he's having some catastrophic billing issues with Verizon. He's never had good luck with their customer service, which was fine with him because he never really had issues with his account. The simple act of choosing a new home service bundle set off a chain reaction ended up with Mike receiving multiple bills with different charges for different things, totaling about $1,100 for a 45-day period.
When he threw up his hands and asked Verizon to just cancel his service, waiving the early termination fees for his trouble, they couldn't handle that, either. Update: Verizon has fixed the accounts and given Mike a full refund. More »
(kusine)
(dougtone)
(Habib Q)
(Colin)
(afagen)
(dM.nyc)
(cavale)
(balmes)
(myjilla)
(KTLA)
(rogersmj)
(Mikelo)
(indi.ca)
(u2acro)
(chloeloe)
(Logan)
(dsb nola)
(mslavick)
(Aaron)
(mirnanda)
(Breslow)
(julian-)
(Lorri37)
5 Things BP CEO Tony Hayward Wishes He'd Never Said
(mjar81)
(kusine)
(AComment)
(bytehead)
(miamism)
(Bodog)
(JohnKit)
(Meghann)
(TEXT)
(fiatluxe)
(KitanaOR)
(Jay Adan)
(ashi)
The Walker family, who live in a 150-person village in England, would like to upgrade their dialup Internet connection to broadband. Unfortunately, in order to do that, British Telecom insists that they would need to install higher capacity equipment for the entire village, and send the Walkers the £45,000 ($69,788) bill.
It probably goes without saying that BT has a monopoly. More »
Another case of TSA overkill [philly] More »
(Photo: Voltron.com)
(Photo: missyosgirl)
(Photo: epicharmus)
(Photo: Hesweptlime)
(Photo: Great Beyond)
(Photo: Mica_R)
(Photo: consumerisn't)
(Photo: epicharmus)
(Photo: frankieleon)
(Photo: Maulleigh)
(Photo: name)
(Photo: So Cal Metro)
(Photo: yoshiffles)
(Photo: epicharmus)
(Photo: Maulleigh)
(Photo: LasVegasNow.com)
(Photo: Paxton Holley)
(Photo: kevindean)
(Photo: epicharmus)
(Photo: Maulleigh)
(Photo: Meg Marco)
(Photo:diaper)
(Photo:epicharmus)
(Photo:Justin Zangerle)
(Photo: Samsung)
(Photo:The Consumerist)
(Photo:cag2012)
Photo: scott*eric
(Photo:balmes)
(Photo:FastFords)
(Photo:opacity)
—>Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is calling for a probe of frequent flyer programs to determine whether they deliver the value that they promise. In particular, he wants the Department of Transportation to look into the issue of evaporating miles, a relatively new phenomenon brought introduced via expiration dates in recent years. More »
—>It didn't take long for Intuit to start ruining a great product. They've begun upselling Mint.com customers to two "free" credit report sites that are anything but. UPDATE: Turns out Mint was already doing this pre-Intuit. Bully for them. More »
—>Microsoft has declared that the owners of banned Xbox consoles have no recourse and no choice but to buy new consoles. Some users see this as unfair and a vast Redmond conspiracy, and law firm AbingtonIP is fighting back with a class-action lawsuit. God bless America. More »
—>A depressed woman has lost her benefits because her insurance agent found Facebook photos where she appears to be having fun. More »
—>We're always making fun of companies who overuse the phrase "taking it seriously," but it looks like Wendy's isn't playing around. An anonymous tipster found a chicken bone in his Wendy's sandwich, and got taken very seriously when he reported it. More »
—>Last week, Daynah wrote about how she was forced to stop writing anything down during a recent shopping trip to the cosmetics store Ulta. At the time, Daynah grudgingly gave in because she really wanted to make a purchase (she tests products for consumers). But once she left the store, she took the fight back to Ulta. More »
—>Jay's parents have gotten quite, uh, spendy with their retirement income, and now they've got a lot of debt they can't pay off. This has become Jay's problem not because he's a party to any of the debt, but because they've put him down as a reference and now bill collectors are harassing him. More »
—>Out of the shadows steps a dark figure, sporting wrinkled khakis, a retractable namebadge, and a headset dangling from his ear. It's the telermarketing insider, and he's going to confess to you how his industry really works and how you can resist and even fight back: More »
—>When an insurer decides whether to offer you a new policy, or whether to raise rates on a current one, he most likely pulls a CLUE report that lists any homeowner or automobile insurance loss claims (or sometimes even just inquiries) that you've made over the past 3-7 years. Hopefully you monitor your consumer credit report for errors, but as you can see, that's not the only one you should keep an eye on. More »
—>In a world where smartphones can shoot video, snap photos, record audio, scan barcodes, and let you make price comparisons via text message, it's almost funny to run into a paranoid manager like the one at an Ulta makeup store in Seattle. Well, funny except for that petty tyrant part where she tells you that you'll have to take your old-school pen and papers out to the car and come back empty handed before she'll sell you any makeup. More »
—>A Rent-A-Center employee near Detroit has allegedly found a new approach to helping consumers get out of debt: making their bills go away in exchange for sex. More »
—>Walmart can try to spin itself as being on the side of good all it wants, but if it ever suspects you of shoplifting, you may find that you're powerless to fight back. In the case of a couple accused of shoplifting some Bic lighters in Niles, Michigan this past August, Walmart detained them, the police came and cuffed one of them, their two kids were taken to a security room, and—after a review of security footage proved the couple's innocence—they were banned for life from all Walmarts. To top it off, Walmart's legal team has sent the couple a letter asking to be reimbursed for 10 times the value of the lighters, even though the police determined no shoplifting had taken place. More »
—>For secretly stealing users' phone number by exploiting a backdoor iPhone vulnerability, app developer Storm8 got slapped with a class action lawsuit. More »
—>If you buy the Summer Infant Day and Night Video Monitor, you might want to make sure your neighbors haven't also got one, or else they'll have a secret window into your newborn's room. More »
—>Robear wanted to order from shirt.woot, but something strange happened when he went to register. After choosing a username and entering his e-mail address, he noticed that all of the forms were pre-populated with another customer's information...including that user's credit card information. He contacted Woot to try to find out what could have happened, but Woot either hasn't figured it out yet, or just isn't responding. (UPDATE: Response from Woot below.) More »
—>Pro rock climber and base jumper Steph Davis is always superstitious about her last "flight." On any trip, the last jump off the cliff in her wing suit, she's sure something will go wrong. Recently, her fears came true, but not while hurtling herself off the Eiger. It was her flight on United, who lost $12,418.28 of her gear, including parachute. More »
—>Frank Eliason is a great pointman for escalating Comcast customer service issues, but what if he dies, gets promoted, a new job, or decides we're all just too annoying? Then you might want to have some backup executive customer service info: More »
—>Zach ordered a netbook online from Dell, then got a call from a customer service rep who wanted to verify his identity for the order. He was stumped as to why the company needed to give his birthday and last four digits of his SSN. More »
—>Zach's $100,000 CD with TD Bank he took out on 10/5 was mysteriously showing a $0 balance and no one seemed able to fix it until we told him what to do. TD Bank PR says it wasn't related to their clusterfunk of delays that started Sep 28. Zach's experience says otherwise. More »
—>"When I see you, I'm gonna f*** you up," says debt collector "Mickey," pictured at left, on the answering machine of a guy who bounced a check. WTSP obtained the messages, some of the worst debt collector recordings I've ever heard, and you can listen to them here. More »
—>They say that for people going through a divorce it can feel like you're losing half of yourself. As if it that wasn't bad enough, Verizon Wireless has taken away William's unlimited broadband plan on the account he used to share with his wife. More »
—>PG&E has decided to start billing Josh's parents for electricity from the 1970's, to the tune of nearly $1000 per month. More »
—>Greg says he inadvertently authorized Citi to share his personal info because he applied for an online rebate. He writes: More »
—>Attention Shoppers: We're interested in your opinions about the upcoming holiday shopping season. What drives you up the chimney? Is it the music? Black Friday? Rebates? Christmas Creep? Let us know! More »
—>Freescore.com is one of those online companies that offers a free trial, and then attempts to enroll its customers in a $30/month subscription service. Now they're suing Yahoo in an attempt to reveal an anonymous blogger who quoted a Reuters article when criticizing the service, and who pointed out that Freescore is owned by a company with a reputation for billing customers without permission. More »
—>We're no longer indignant about Amex's weirdly lax security policies anymore, we're just confused. Why would a major credit card company cold call new customers and insist they give up bank and address info over the phone, or email sensitive data to strangers? Or, we just learned, demand that you use a lame password that isn't case sensitive, is only 6 to 8 characters long, and can't contain special characters? More »
—>Here's the problem with Gmail: so many people use it that a mistyped e-mail address probably will not result in a bounced message. It will result in your message going to the wrong person, since nearly every derivation of a name is probably a working address. More »
—>Jonathan wanted to opt out everyone in his family from direct marketing campaigns, something the DMA promises is possible via their website. Surprise! It turns out the DMA doesn't really care so much about whether or not you want to be taken off any mailing lists, and they have a rotten website and poor security protocols to prove it. More »
—>Apparently the new generation of med students aren't as concerned as you might like them to be about sharing your medical information on Facebook or Twitter, says Time. More »
—>We're not sure why a company would bother with offering a password feature on their customer accounts if they disable them without warning 3 months later as a matter of policy, but that's how Southern California Gas Company rolls. Does it really matter, you ask? It might if you're a victim of domestic violence. More »
—>Want to claim a missing rebate, or reverse sneaky cable, bank, cellphone or hotel fee? These free complaint letter templates posted by Gotcha Capitalism and Red Tape Chronicles author Bob Sullivan are a godsend. It's like Madlibs for money. More »
—>Hey, we helped get an Ameriprise customer banned from the financial company's consumer advisory panel! Sorry about that, Brendan. More »
—>When a Florida man suffered a heart attack, he needed to leave his job. Between everyday expenses and medical bills, he fell behind on his mortgage and other bills, and debt collectors began calling. And calling. And calling. Eventually, a lawsuit alleges, the stress from the harassing and abusive phone calls led to the man's death. Frivolous lawsuit? Maybe not. More »
—>Reader Len recently found out that it's sort of impossible to order shampoo and a book from Amazon at the same time. They'll just keep sending you a shampoo-covered book until they eventually give up and refund your money. Trouble is, Len didn't want a refund. He wanted a shampoo-less book. More »
—>Jon wants us to recommend a good lawyer to sue HP for screwing him over on laptop repairs. We do not offer legal advice like that. We do, however, believe strongly in the power of small claims court. More »
—>Reader David's FiOS DVR really sucks. Since it's his 5th one — he's starting to suspect that they all suck. More »
—>A teenager is suing Abercrombie & Fitch and one of its former employees after she caught someone filming her in one of the store's dressing rooms. More »
—>The USDA and Health and Human Services (HHS) today unveiled a new website focused on food safety at foodsafety.gov. It's got lots of info on how to keep food from spoiling, but better still it's a good launching pad for filing complaints, or keeping track of what's going on in your state (check the "state agency" widget in the bottom right column). More »
—>Fed up with stores not knowing the rules for credit card purchases, Andy at NonToxicReviews created this handy credit-card-sized PDF of the relevant portions of Visa's and MasterCard's merchant agreements. More »
—>One of the unfortunate things about Crohn's disease is it can make you need to use the bathroom pretty much immediately, without warning or fanfare. Of course, there's plenty of fanfare afterward if you can't find a bathroom, as one longtime customer of Plaid Pantry found out yesterday when she shat her pants in the parking lot after being denied emergency access to their employee toilet. More »
—>Edmunds.com, the car info website, is asking people who participated in the short-lived Cash for Clunkers program to contact them if something went wrong. Although they can't fix any problems, they're trying to collect data on consumers who are being asked to pay back the government rebate after already being approved, which was forbidden under the rules of the program, so they can present the data to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More »
—>What do Facebook applications know about you and your friends? What do you know about what Facebook applications know about you? If you have Facebook, you can take this handy quiz from the ACLU of Northern California that tests your knowledge of Facebook, privacy, and outside developers. More »
—>Yesterday, the New York Times wrote about a judge in Arizona who forced Wells Fargo to explain why it keeps stalling and being uncooperative with a customer who has been trying to get a loan modification request approved. Sadly, in the past week we've gotten two separate emails from homeowners who are also having trouble with getting banks to approve their requests for the government-sponsored loan modifications. "Who can we contact to complain?" asks one frustrated customer. More »
—>Remember the U-Haul customer who was locked in at a self-storage unit in Wisconsin? Something similar, but possibly more dangerous, happened over the weekend at an indoor U-Haul facility in Philadelphia. More »
—>No shopper wants higher prices because of excessive return fraud, but many people aren't comfortable having their driver's license scanned when making a return at the store, either. We've covered the reasons for this before, but Retail Customer Experience took a closer look. More »
—>A Florida man was unable to cash a Bank of America check because the bank required a thumbprint, and he had no arms. More »
—>The National Association of Attorneys General has polled state attorneys general, who are typically responsible for enforcing consumer protection laws in their states, and announced the top ten consumer complaints for 2008. It's an interesting list. More »
—>If you're suspicious of Facebook's use of your personal data, the social networking site has made some recent changes that may make you very happy. And for this, you can blame thank Canada. More »
—>We're not sure how effective a stamp would be to truly block out personal info on your mail—cross-cut shredding is always better—but at the very least this would be a fun thing to do while sorting your mail. Maybe it would be good if you're one of those people who hates throwing out old magazines with your address info printed on the covers. More »
—>After our post yesterday ended up crashing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' consumer information website, we received an email from them. They said they wanted to explain how the site works to address some reader questions, as well as point out that you too can contribute to the rankings by filing complaints when your insurer does something objectionable. More »
—>Today the FTC banned pretty much all telemarketing-based robocalls starting Tuesday, September 1st, 2009. At that point, "violators will face penalties up to $16,000 per call," notes the Los Angeles Times. More »
—>So you suspect your health/auto/home insurer is run by the devil, but you're not sure whether the alternative you're considering is any better. Kiplinger Finance has posted a helpful article on how to find the complaint ratio of an insurer via the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' website. Update: here's how to file your own complaint. More »
—>A man in Connecticut brought his computer to his local Apple Store for repair due to a software issue (likely a—gasp!—virus) but when he returned to pick it up, learned that the Mac Genius had reported him to the police after finding child pornography on the hard drive. More »
—>Watch out for "[A friend] commented on a photo of you" notifications on Facebook. If you click on the notification and it asks you to install an application called "Your Photos," RUN AWAY. Your friend didn't comment on any photos of you, and the application exists to coax people to click on banner ads. More »
—>A funny story from KSDK in St. Louis looks at the bridal store "I Do I Do"—now under new management—and some of the more colorful complaints received by the Better Business Bureau over the past few years. (The store has an F rating with the BBB.) It's quite likely, based on these complaints, that "I Do I Do" was employing a chimpanzee to make alterations. More »
—>130 million is a large number, but that's how many credit card numbers a group of three hackers are alleged to have stolen from five different companies including 7 Eleven, Hannaford, and Heartland Payment Systems says the Department of Justice. More »
—>After it broke last week that Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa was claiming it was the fault of the victim and her two toddlers that she was raped in their parking garage, the hotel has decided to withdraw the claim. They also apologized for the rape in a general sort of way—but not for subpoenaing her friends and professional acquaintances who otherwise would not have known about the crime. More »
—>U-Haul apparently knows about Ryder's initiative to outdo it on suckage, so they've introduced a whole new class of customer abuse: false imprisonment. Best of all, the employee who was sent to let Jessica and her friend out of U-Haul Prison told them that if they hadn't wanted to get locked in after 5pm, they should have paid for 24 hour access. (They were taking advantage of a complimentary offer from the company.) More »
—>If you get a call from a debt collector for a loan you never took out, and your Social Security number starts with a zero, try this excuse: "[My SSN] ended up linked to a Micronesian man who defaulted on a disaster loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration." More »
—>[Note: Sandals has already responded to the post, expressed sympathy, and reached out to Autumn. We've removed their name from the headline to more accurately focus the blame on Delta, which is the company really behind the problems.] We get that Delta employees just flat out hate their jobs at this point—that would explain the surly flight attendants on my last Delta flight, at any rate—but why would you take that out on newlyweds, who have their whole lives to be disappointed and deserve that one week of happiness at the start? The least you could do, angry Delta employees, is try to help out after your employer utterly fails to deliver the passengers anywhere near their destination. No, a dingy one-night stay in a hotel room in NYC is not the same as a week in Antigua. More »
—>Megan sent us this transcript of a recent phone conversation she had with someone from a mysteriously generic "cardholder services" that called her. More »
—>The Onion reports that Google's new privacy policy requires users who wish to opt out to relocate to a remote ghetto and abandon all contact with the outside world. (Photo: kalle svensson) More »
—>Bank of America isn't the only bank that enjoys canceling their traveling customer's credit cards. HSBC canceled my card while I was living in New Zealand, and as part of their "continuing efforts to fight fraud," sent an active replacement card to my address 9,000 miles away. More »
—>Nothing says "wow I can't wait to see who is on the other end of the line" like a company that programmed their number to show up on caller ID as "NOT A COLLECTER." More »
—>Bank of America has cut off Shannon's debit card and says she has to get a new one. This would otherwise be a minor inconvenience except for the fact that Shannon is in Irkutsk, Russia on a 2-week Trans-Siberian trek. More »
—>Debt collectors, like vampires, have certain rules they must follow. For example, both are vulnerable to sunlight and garlic, but only vampires glitter when they're playing baseball. More »
—>Starting in June, Paypal started assessing a fee of 2.9% on on purchases marked "goods" or services" to personal accounts. They can do whatever they want, but the problem is they were very quiet about it. Almost sneakily so. More »
—>The NYT has the story of a woman who, more than 10 years after she tried and failed to have a baby using in vitro procedures, is still getting marketing information for all sorts of products. First it was Pampers and baby formula — then, as the baby she did not have "grew up," so did the marketing offers. How did they get her information? They bought it. More »
—>Everyone who's over the age of 3 and not a lifelong vegan has surely had a confrontation with a haughty fast-food manager. Danny and his family threw down with a Wendy's honcho who tried to get all Studio 54 with them — resulting in a hastily filled-out free burger coupon and a near denial of its redemption — but it looks as though Danny gave as good as he received. More »
—>Remember Jim? His Comcast cable box randomly responded to the emergency alert system (EAS) by tuning in to QVC. According to a source inside Comcast, rogue lightning strikes set off the EAS, even though there wasn't an emergency. Two things happen when the EAS activates: the cable box switches to a local channel, and Comcast replaces the local programming with an alert. In Jim's case, the box switched to the emergency channel—which happened to be QVC—but since there wasn't an emergency, there was no special broadcast. So what can you do next time your cable box independently declares an emergency? More »
—>The Better Business Bureau has released a warning to be aware of scammers calling to threaten people with arrest "within the hour" for defaulting on payday loans. What makes them stand out from normal debt collecting scammers is these callers have huge amounts of personal info on their victims, including Social Security and drivers license numbers; old bank account numbers; names of employers, relatives, and friends; and home addresses. More »
—>Facebook has firmly told app developers that it's not okay for them to steal your wife's photo from her profile page and use it to entice others into a sexy local singles dating service. More »
—>If you're not a Bank of America customer, but visit one of their branches to cash a check, you'll need to be fingerprinted. No, check cashing is not a crime, and the bank is trying to protect itself against fraud, but some people still don't like the idea of giving up their prints for cash. More »
—>If the the puiblic didn't read Amanda Bonnen's Twitter feed before, they will now, thanks to a defamation lawsuit brought against her by Horizon Group Management in Chicago. More »
—>Taking outsourcing to an extreme, Bank of New Zealand decided that instead of figuring out why one woman's charges ended up on another customer's account, they would just give the customer the woman's name, home address, work address, email address and cellphone number so they could settle things for themselves. More »
—>John visited his local Rhode Island Subway every weekday for the past two months to enjoy what he thought was a healthy lunch. That all came to end after he overheard a Subway worker say to her colleague: "I don't know how anybody could eat this stuff everyday. It's disgusting and it will make you fat." More »
Do you know that Comcast commercial where this homeowner gets FiOs installed against his will and then all these bulldozers tear up his lawn and bumbling contractors cause an electrical short? Lelah's letter describes a process that's very similar, except worse and much longer. And then this salesman just picks up her guitar and starts playing it and singing without even asking first. No wonder, by story's end, she's been driven to the brink of insanity, demanding compensation for 5 missed days of work. So far, they're offering her $25. More »
—> More »
—>Nearly a week after Amazon remotely deleted 1984 and Animal Farm from customers' Kindles because they weren't licensed, head Kindle-cheerleader Jeff Bezos posted this statement on the Kindle Community discussion board on Amazon.com. More »
—>John Hargrave of comedy site Zug.com tracked down the personal info of Verizon's CEO, then showed up with a bullhorn to illustrate what a lack of privacy feels like. "Ivan Seidenberg! I'm here on behalf of Verizon customers. PLEASE DO A BETTER JOB PROTECTING YOUR CUSTOMERS' CELL PHONE RECORDS! Everyone has the right to privacy, including you Ivan! When we don't have privacy, then freaks with bullhorns start showing up on our front lawn." More »
—>Leo thought that letting his two dogs greet an approaching ADT salesman would be enough of a hint that he didn't want their security services. Nope! The well-trained salesman sensitively barked: "You know what they are doing to dogs now, don't you? They're spraying oven-cleaner into their face, killing them in 20 seconds!" More »
—>Careful travelers, there's a panty-stealing baggage screener lurking in San Francisco's international airport, according to reader Ari, whose girlfriend lost eight days worth of underwear on a recent trip. More »
—>Ari's wife had ten minutes to call into her local Washington D.C. radio station to claim a $1,000 giveaway, but couldn't connect because Vonage routes all calls to 1-800 numbers through New York, and the radio station was only accepting local calls. For ten anguishing minutes Ari and his wife suffered through busy signals, worried that the radio station was deluged by other callers. After emailing both Vonage and the station producer, Ari and his wife finally realized what happened... More »
—>The only thing crazier than people involved with wedding planning are people in the scrapbooking supply industry, it seems. Weddingbee reports that an online craft supply store called Urban Expressions (not to be confused with the handbag company) completely lost it when an angry customer wrote in asking why they had neither shipped the item she'd bought nor specified otherwise as promised. Their response makes us understand why they chose the name "Urban Expressions" for their store. More »
—>In 2006, five states launched an investigation into DISH Network's crummy sales practices after hundreds of complaints from consumers. Now the company has agreed to pay $5.9 million to 46 states in a settlement announced today—and at least some of that money is earmarked for DISH customers. More »
—>Wow, the folks at Delta really must hate the creative director behind and star of those UPS whiteboard commercials, Andy Azula. On the open letter he published today, he notes that he's a frequent-flyer with Platinum status on Delta, and until this past June one of their "biggest fans." Then Delta forced him, his wife, and his twin seven-year-olds to wait 13 hours in the Richmond, VA airport, while their luggage remained trapped on a plane that was forever "almost fixed." More »
—>Lu, who caught a Game Crazy cashier adding bogus fees to a purchase, has sent in a couple of updates. More »
—>Can we tag a story "above and beyond" if the customer service cycle is so screwed up that it eventually works out in the customer's favor? When jpodbuild tried to get his Craftsman sander repaired or replaced, he couldn't get anyone on the phone who could actually help him—eventually he would end up back at the first number he'd called. He decided to show up in person and let the store manager handle the phone calls. New sander! More »
—>Xmitter was checking his Thrift Lodge bed for bed bugs when he discovered a bag filled with hypodermic needles. The clerk on duty refused to offer either an apology or a refund, and explained that "you can even find needles [in] 5 star hotels." When told that this was an inappropriate response, the clerk asked: "Is this a test?" More »
—>What can you do if you're too small to have a shot in our Worst Company In America contest, but too awful to not earn some sort of notoriety? Well, you can get your BBB membership revoked and earn a big fat F ranking. It's no golden poo, but it's a start. More »
—>Don't install the iPhone app iDrive Lite if you value the privacy of your contact list. Avi Muchnick, one of the developers behind the free, consumer-friendly online graphics suite Aviary, used iDrive to backup his Gmail contact list when switching to a new phone. The next day, he awoke to discover that iDrive's parent company, Pro Softnet Corp, had spammed every single entry in his contact list without his permission. More »
—>Earlier this week we wrote about how BoA told Jesse he could never have an account with them, but they wouldn't give a specific reason. A lot of readers and tipsters suggested ChexSystems was the culprit, so we asked Jesse if there was something in his credit past causing the problem. More »
—>After reading about how Jesse was banned for life from Bank of America for no clear reason, other readers wrote in with similarly bizarre BoA stories. Wayne was locked out of his new account after he opened it and charged a $75 overdraft fee. Chris was sent checks linked to a duplicate account and then charged penalties when the checks bounced. Edward's new account was closed but the CSR refused to tell him why, and he was charged a $60 "research fee" for the closing. When Edward went to a BoA branch to clear things up, he says the employee there told him, "That's why you don't open up accounts online." More »
—>It turns out our Social Security numbering system, which launched in 1936, isn't very foolproof against some types of hacking. The New York Times reports that researchers at Carnegie Mellon University "used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual's date and location of birth." More »
—>Jesse tried to scam Bank of America. No, wait. He tried to open two accounts at once! No, that's not right either. He did something wrong, that's obvious. Isn't it? Hello? Please tell us what Jesse did wrong, Bank of America. Your lifetime banning confuses us. More »
—>Yesterday I was musing that Time Warner Cable was passing the cost of customer care off to other businesses, by requiring customers to take half-days or full days off of work just to wait for a cable repairman. Today I think I stumbled upon another hidden economic impact of bad customer service: it's responsible for generating a lot of the "free" content online. The next time you're reading an IMDB entry about "Damages" or "Big Love" for example, you can thank Verizon's collection of angry, confused, and possibly insane employees, and all the idle time they create for a customer who has to deal with them. More »
—>Several major advertising trade groups announced yesterday that starting in 2010, they will implement a new set of self-imposed guidelines on how they collect and use your personal info, in an attempt to prevent the government from handing down federal regulations. More »
—>Hector didn't know whether or not he was going to accept Bank of America's offer of a new credit card with a $3,500 limit, so the bank made his decision easy by issuing the card without his permission. When Hector discovered the surprise credit line, he called Bank of America with two requests: explain how they could open a new account without his consent, and keep the account open until he could figure out the new line's impact on his credit score. Of course, without a peep, Bank of America immediately canceled the new credit card, leaving Hector wondering what might happen to his credit score... More »
—>Jiffy Lube agreed to pay Alison over $250 after botching routine work that forced her to interrupt her road trip for emergency car repairs. Alison's mechanic said that Jiffy Lube's attempted transmission fluid flush could have caused "catastrophic car damage" if left unfixed. Jiffy Lube denied all responsibility until Alison fired off an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to C.E.O. Rick Altizer, who agreed not only to reimburse for the repairs, but refunded the original cost of the transmission fluid flush, and tossed in a few coupons for free oil changes. More »
—>A Congressional panel is looking into drafting new online privacy laws, but Yahoo says such legislation isn't necessary because the e-industry has done such a bang-up job of regulating itself. More »
—>This morning, I woke up to find an inbox full of readers freaked out about Facebook friend suggestions. What's the big deal about that? Privacy-minded Facebook users can't figure out where these suggestions are coming from, and aren't happy with the possibilities. More »
The New York Times takes a look at "contact scraping," which is when a website tricks you into providing access to your address book and then spams all of your friends by saying you asked them to join. Some of the offenders include Tagged.com, MyLife.com (formerly Reunion.com), and desktopdating.net. [New York Times] More »
—>Tyler needs his laptop repaired, but he's got the bad luck to own an HP product. If you read Consumerist regularly you know that Hewlett-Packard has one of the worst track records for taking care of its customers. The last time we posted a complaint, the person who reached out to us from the corporate side was a third party at a PR firm hired by HP, if that tells you anything about how little they care about doing a good job. Read Tyler's recap below and remember it the next time you're in the market for a computer. More »
—>ReadWriteWeb has a scary article about the city of Bozeman, Montana. It doesn't sound like a scary place, but if you want to say, work for the City, you'll need to give them all your social networking usernames and passwords. More »
—>The AP is reporting that Venezuela has banned Coke Zero because the company allegedly didn't declare a potentially harmful artificial sweetener when it "received its initial health permit to begin selling the product in April." More »
—>Alex shipped two packages to San Francisco from the UPS store in Boston. One was delivered, the other wasn't—until without any explanation or notification, it arrived back at Alex's house in Boston on a FedEx truck. Huh? More »
—>Update: Some of our readers who are Sprint customers say they don't think the screenshots are legit. We asked Sprint for an opinion, and they responded, "We had noticed the post on sprintusers.com earlier today and are tracking down the answer. I'll get back to you asap." We'll post further updates when they arrive. More »
—>Someone stole reader A's WaMu credit card number and racked up thousands in fraudulent charges, and now WaMu wants A to pay for it. The fraudsters also made a PIN request for a cash advance over the phone, and WaMu said that phonecall orginated from A's parents house. Because of this, which A says is impossible, WaMu demands A be responsible for the charges. He's written letters and called executive customer service and it's gotten him nowhere. His crappy story, inside... More »
—>Tagged.com has been around for a few years now, but it's spread across the Internet with a vengeance in the last few weeks. The service promotes itself by getting inside the address book or e-mail contacts of people who sign up and e-mailing everyone they know. It's disingenuous, since the e-mail looks like an invitation from your friend or family member...but they didn't initiate it at all. More »
—>Jacob got engaged last weekend. Yay! Mysteriously, before the wedding plans could even begin, his fiancée received an e-mail from Pottery Barn inviting her to start a wedding registry. Except she never signed up with them, or told any other retailer that she was engaged. What she did do was...change her Facebook status.
More »
—>It's difficult enough to parse a lengthy TOS for one web-based service, let alone for dozens, or to keep track of when and how they update them. It would be nice if some public-service website out there would keep track of this stuff for all of us, wouldn't it? Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) did just that with the launch of TOSBAck.org, "the terms-of-service tracker." It tracks TOS agreements for 44 different services, including Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter, and eBay. More »
—>We're starting to think Amex doesn't take this whole "data security" thing very seriously. First they confused a customer, and us, a few months ago with their random confirmation phone call, where they demanded a customer turn over bank account information over the phone without giving him a way to verify they were really Amex. Now a reader says the company has "for years" been sending him someone else's account info via email, including the customer's name and the last 5 digits of his account number. J.R. writes, "Seriously, I've seen better security on a video game forum." More »
—>Newsweek has an article that you should not read if you're especially paranoid. Why? Because it says that according to a security consultant — the percentage of US cellphones that have been tapped with spyware could be as high as 3%. More »
—>Back in Aug '06, a researcher ended up releasing 500,000+ AOL user search histories online and all sort of heck broke loose. One of the pieces of fallout was the search queries of User 927, who displayed a fondness for mold, mange, orchids, beauty and the beast disney porn and testicle festivals. The only sensible thing to do, of course, was to make it into a play. More »
—>Courtney had some questions about an order she wanted to place with Jansen Medical Supply of Houston. Their website offers large discounts on medical equipment and chairs that automatically dump grandma on the floor when it's time for her to leave. What they don't offer, however, is answers. Courtney found out the hard way, and we're not sure but we think she's been banned from ordering from them. Well, unless she disguises her voice and calls back. More »
—>In 2007 and 2008, Sears invited select customers to join the exclusive "My SHC Community," which involved installing an app that would monitor online browsing in exchange for $10. The app was called spyware by researchers and the FTC, because the data it collected on customers included "details from their online shopping, bank statements, drug-prescription records, video rentals, library-borrowing histories, even the names and addresses of their e-mail correspondents," as well as "data about the users' computers, printers, and other devices." More »
—>Late last Thursday night, two guys rang reader Sean's doorbell and asked if he'd like to get anything out of his 2007 Jeep Compass before they repossessed it. Since then, Sean has tried to get current on his payments, but Chrysler's web site snafus have kept him from getting the cash to Chrysler, which won't let him get his car back unless he forks over hundreds of dollars in fees. Oy. Sean's story, inside.. More »
—>A North Carolina woman out walking her dog last month was sprayed in the face with a gypsy moth pesticide, and subsequently developed "a severe rash and other flu-like symptoms, breathing complications, and nausea for several days." Unfortunately, her doctor can't treat her properly because the company that makes the spray won't tell him what's in it. More »
—>What ruins your movie-going experience more than being searched for surreptitious snacks? Having your mom discover that you're taking birth control pills when movie theater employees go through your purse. More »
—>"Litigant Alert" from WebRecon promises to help debt collection companies ferret out "overly-litigious debtors" with "a history of suing collection agencies." It's basically a Do Not Call list of troublemakers who had the nerve to fight aggressive collection practices with the law. Debt collectors are apparently willing to pay $1,595 to figure out who they should leave alone. More »
—>Ever wonder if "certified refurbished" is just corporate doublespeak for "not entirely broken crap?" Well, at Dell, it is! The refurbished Dell Studio Joseph bought as a gift for his father-in-law arrived with large scratches and a CD-R in the optical drive containing a pirated copy of Microsoft Office. Dell's response? They're willing to take back the laptop and waive the restocking fee, but that's it. More »
—>Of all the weird encounters to have on an airplane, we never would have expected to have a flight attendant point out just how bad a full can of soda is for you. That's what happened to Laura, though. More »
—>While it's OK for messages from top-secret government agencies to self destruct, that's not the case for car brakes. But more than 200 owners of 2008 and 2009 Accords have complained that keeping their brakes in working condition has proven to be a mission impossible. More »
—>HP called Consumerist about our inquiry about Jillian's sparking and flaming HP dv2845se laptop adapter that she says burned a hole in her pants and caused a welt on her leg. Jillian had also alleged that HP customer service, regular and escalated, was both unresponsive and rude. HP told us.... More »
—>The sun has set for Sun Harbour Apartments in their attempt to steal money from a dead man's family. Court documents obtained by Consumerist indicated the landlords recently lost their appeal in a case where they tried to charge the estate of the late Arthur Zissenfor the 3 months left on the man's lease, as well as taking his security deposit. The apartment complex have a 60 days advance notice required before vacating the premises policy and not even a swoosh of The Reaper's scythe could break it, Sun Harbor believed, erroneously. Inside, the local newscast from when the case first went to court. More »
—>Ooo, you nasty! With your service animal! Get out of here! That's the new informal slogan of Isis Bridal & Formal in Dallas after news broke that they kicked out a 62-year-old grandmother with multiple sclerosis, because they were worried her service dog would get service dog cooties all over the dresses. More »
—>Oh, human error. New Jersey has announced that an unknown number of unemployed residents had their personal information shared with companies they never worked for. More »
—>UPDATE: HP Calls About Pants Burnin' Laptop More »
—>Max wants to know why he hasn't received the $10 gift certificate that the cashier at Sears promised him for turning over an email address to receive marketing messages. We contacted Sears and found out what's actually going on. More »
Santana had actually already sought permission from the bank to settle for as little as $10,000. It's an open secret that if a debtor is willing to wait long enough, he can probably get away with paying almost nothing, as long as he doesn't mind hurting his credit score. So Santana knew he should jump at the offer. But as an amateur psychologist, Santana was eager to make his own diagnosis - and presumably boost his own commission. More »
—>Evan's on the large side and wants to buy two adjoining seats, but Delta doesn't seem to care whether or not he inconveniences other passengers. The airline won't assign two seats to the same passenger name, and if he buys a second seat under a different name, it won't necessarily adjoin the first. Delta also warned that "they will give [his] second seat away if they need it, even if [he] paid for it." One agent thought he had a solution, but it was going to cost Evan $200 more than Delta's online fares. More »
—>Who wouldn't want to start their prom by watching a stretch limo cruise down their street an hour and a half late before crashing into their parent's car? Apparently a bunch of high school students in Washington state, that's who. And they're not the only ones angry that they booked with Blessed Limo. The notorious local operator apparently has a knack for showing up late and then stranding kids at prom. Complaining to state authorities only goes so far because these guys don't even bother with bureaucratic backaches like "operating licenses." More »
—>The next time you apply for a credit card, your credit report and income will be only a part of the criteria used to determine your creditworthiness. For that matter, as long as you have the card, what you use it for will be noted and added to a growing set of data that makes up your psychological profile, which will then be referred to every time the bank deals with your or reevaluates your risk as a customer. More »
—>U.S. Fidelis, the auto warranty company that's currently being investigated by 40 state attorneys general for questionable business practices, has hired the law firm headed by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. The firm won't represent the company in litigation, but is supposed to provide an internal review of their practices. They'll also provide draping cloths for any immodest statuary, and wiretap kits for employees of interest. Hey, it's hard to do topical humor on someone who's been out of office for 4 years. More »
—>Luis dropped his busted LG EnV in the mail at the end of last year and tracked its progress as FedEx delivered the package to Verizon. Verizon, apparently unfamiliar with tracking numbers, doesn't believe that Luis ever returned the phone, and insists that they're owed a $320 replacement fee. Luis disputed the charge, but rather than investigate his claim, Verizon decided it would be easier to suspend his service. Now they want Luis—a customer of seven years who pays over $350 across six phone lines each month—to pay another $15 to reconnect the service they should never have disconnected in the first place. He writes: More »
—>Comcast agreed to lower reader O.'s monthly cable bill to $40, but they didn't warn him that the new, lower price would come with a hefty $150 early termination fee. O. could barely afford Comcast's service before, and wouldn't have agreed to the lower fee if he knew about the surprise fee. Comcast is telling him that he has no choice but to pay, and won't even let him return to his previous plan. More »
—>To thank Kelly for pointing out an error on their website, Pinkberry offered to come to her office bearing "a few yogurts and toppings for some of the hard working people that you work with." What error could prompt such an over-the-top apology? Kelly tried to visit two separate Pinkberry locations at 11:30 a.m., which Pinkberry's website lists as the store's opening time. But! The store's don't open until *gasp* noon! More »
—>George's outgoing Skype calls properly display his SkypeIn number, but if anyone tries to call him back, they're connected the number's rightful owner, a nice old woman in Raleigh, NC. George wants to know why Skype sold him someone else's number, but the internet telecom apparently doesn't pay anyone to answer their phones. More »
—>Why pay for ProFlowers when you can get the same effect by dumpster diving for old arrangements that look just as good? Our reader Hakoken3 paid ProFlowers $92 so they'd deliver 18 roses to his girlfriend this morning on her birthday. He paid extra to ensure that the roses would be delivered by noon, and at 12:01 they showed up. Unfortunately, they were so wilted and near-death that they looked like hand-me-down flowers that some luckier person had thrown out. More »
—>After our story about USPS losing a reader's five insured computers then only valuing them at $74 generated a lot of response (and turned into a vowel-less debate on health care), a couple readers sent us the contact info for the insurance agent who denied our reader's request. More »
—>Star fruit distributed by Melissa's Produce between April 21 and May 5 is being recalled due to chemical residues. Mmmm. I'm having a hard time finding coverage of the recall itself, but one grocery store's handling of the situation got my attention. More »
—>Mark started getting promotional emails from Hilton over a year ago, and he's tried all sorts of opt-out strategies:
More »
—>Late last year we pointed out that GameFly, a Netflix-style program for video games, was beginning to develop a reputation for rotten service and slow turnaround. It looks like the United States Postal Service may be partly to blame, at least as far as GameFly is concerned. They've filed a complaint against the USPS over lost, stolen, and damaged discs, as well as discriminatory treatment when compared to Netflix and Blockbuster. More »
—>Debt collectors are using cute chicks as bait on Facebook to track down and keep track of debtors. For some reason, someone at CBV collections decided to out the truth behind the online construct "Jenny Anderson," that she was the tool of professional skiptracers, to all 658 of her "friends." Reader Bryan, who happens to be a reporter, was one of them, and he took a snapshot and interviewed "Jenny" a bit. The story, inside... More »
—>Christoff knew the dangers, but he went ahead anyway. He bought a Linksys router. And lo, it broke. The day had come for him to deal with their outsourced tech support. Over four hours of conversation and hold time, mainly hold time, later, he has a 2nd replacement router. Both replacement routers had the same problem as the first. Read of his trials and tribulations, inside... More »
—>James says he got ejected from his United Airlines flight because he had a cold and some of the other passengers wigged out, fearful of becoming swine flu victims. His letter, and its surprise ending, inside... More »
—>See this gift card, the one that says "GIFT CARD" in big letters? Ticketmaster insists it's really a "Discount Card," and thus, not covered by the California law preventing gift cards from expiring. More »
—>Cliff logged on to his U.S. internet connection to use his U.S. credit card to buy airline tickets on Aer Lingus in U.S. dollars, a transaction he assumed wouldn't incur a foreign transaction fee. Nope! Citibank slapped a 3% fee on the $2,600 purchase, something Cliff feels the airline should have warned him about. More »
—>"Chad Bradley" likes to write letters to companies. Unlike a normal crank, however, his letters are filled with complaints about surreal or nonsensical things, or they offer useless ideas for product improvements. (To the makers of Connect 4, for example, he suggests a new game called Connect 1.) The letters are entertaining enough on their own, but what's even better is sometimes the companies write back. More »
—>Natalie is pretty angry. Lately whenever her mother, who is blind, has to travel, she seems to run into trouble. As Natalie puts it, as far as airline regulations go a guide dog is equivalent to a wheelchair, and the appropriate accommodations should be made without hassle. It's too bad on her last flight, Natalie's mother had to sit in the bulkhead next to a Delta employee with a fear of dogs. More »
—>Taylor just noticed that T-Mobile has been billing him $19.99 for a data package he asked them to cancel seven months ago. Yes, Taylor should've caught the mistake sooner, but now that he's found it, he wants T-Mobile to refund the $140 in unauthorized charges. T-Mobile, citing policy, is only willing to credit him $60. More »
—>Beaverly saw some eyeglass frames she really liked on some Club Monaco in-store signage. No matter what she does, however, she can't find out if they really exist and whether or not she can purchase the same frames for herself. They've gone so far as to make Russell, the sales guy who was trying to help her, "disappear." More »
—>Reader Michelle bought a pair of jeans from pricey denim company Hello! SkinnyJeans, decided they weren't her style, and tried to return them. HSJ wouldn't refund her money, but they did offer complimentary rude notes and free phone support with insults from the owner herself. More »
—>You've got about a day and a half left to cast your vote for which Terms of Service you'd prefer Facebook go with—the one written in September 2008 without user input, or the new one they've drafted over the last month based on suggestions from the Facebook community. More »
—>Consumerist reader Dionicious and his brother tried to rent a trailer from U-Haul over the weekend. First they were faced with a closed location, then they had to ask before the company followed through on its $50 "Right Time, Right Location" guarantee. They hoped that was the end of the screw-ups, but the next day an angry employee called and threatened to file criminal charges against the brothers. Too bad there's not some sort of $50 "We Threaten You, We Pay" guarantee. More »
Might I make a suggestion for further Verizon Customer Issue articles? It would be helpful to know where the incident took place. As I'm sure you know, different parts of the county have different installation teams. Here in the New England region, installations are handled by real Verizon employees. Where in other areas, they contract installations to a third party that pass themselves off as Verizon. Also most regions have a VP email address for employees to help expidite such issues. More »
—>Little-known fact: some coffee shops can be havens of passive-aggressive behavior. Reader Paul discovered what might be the most passive-aggressive coffee shop we've ever seen, and he'd like to share its dysfunction with the world. More »
—>It's no surprise that a popular purveyor of work-suitable vestments suck lowered a reader's friend's store credit-card limit, but to go from $1000 to $100, that's cold, Banana Republic. Danielle writes: More »
—>Mike rushed his girlfriend to the airport to catch a flight to see her dying mother, only to watch her miss the flight because United Airline's ticketing agent refused to help because "it was time for her to go on her break." Passengers waiting in line were more than willing to let Mike's girlfriend skip to the front of the line, but her sad situation apparently wasn't enough to earn the agent's sympathies. When his girlfriend finally reached the gate in time to watch her flight depart, the gate agent defended his colleague's lack of sympathy, saying "management really makes us work some unreasonable schedules." More »
—>Vonage charged J.R. $38.94 for a three-hour call transferred from Texas to Los Angeles because Vonage apparently thinks L.A. is somewhere in Algeria. After some digging, J.R. learned that if you transfer a call without adding +1 to the number, Vonage will mistake area codes for country codes and bill at the international rate, even though the calls are domestic. More »
—>Andrew brought his car to Audi of Downtown L.A. for routine warranty work, but left with a trunk that overflows whenever it rains. When Andrew complained to the dealership's staff, he was told to take his business elsewhere. More »
—>Vinay's StubHub tickets to see Lady Gaga never arrived in his inbox, but StubHub insists that they delivered the goods and refuses to issue a refund. StubHub's only communication with Vinay was a short confirmation email promising that the real tickets would arrive via SubHub's e-LMS system. The tickets still hadn't arrived the day of the concert, and armed with only a confirmation email in hand, Vinay was turned away from the venue. More »
—>Garmin wants to bill reader Hal $99 for a new SD card after failing to tell him to remove his old card before returning his dead-on-arrival StreetPilot C510. The SD card holds the unit's maps, and without one, the GPS unit is useless. More »
—>Enterprise Rent-A-Car failed reader Jimmy in every possible way, which is quite the accomplishment since he only wanted a full size car to drive around his visiting friends. GEICO, Jimmy's insurance company, set him up with Enterprise after he lost a head-on collision with a deer. Enterprise managed to muck up nearly every step of the rental process, promising to deliver cars they didn't have, delivering the wrong class of car, and upselling unnecessary insurance that they wrongly said GEICO would cover. Jimmy's never going to use Enterprise again, and inside, you'll see why... More »
—>Jon spent $250 on a Western Digital VelociRaptor but what he received from Best Buy was a Quantum Fireball, a discontinued hard drive that hasn't been sold for nine years. Best Buy, of course, took no responsibility for the odd swap, and said that Western Digital must have accidentally sold a competitor's discontinued drive. Western Digital, of course, said that a Best Buy employee stole Jon's hard drive. We've seen this happen before with Best Buy, and Jon has made it clear that he knows how to bite back... More »
—>There were lots of problems on the recent Costa Cruise vacation that Krista and her friends took, including lukewarm hot tubs, closed buffets, and missing towels. But the biggest surprise was when their waiter was replaced on the second day with a newly promoted, untrained busboy who abandoned them nightly. Well, when he wasn't taking their sugar or stealing their basket of bread. More »
—>Randy tried to get new O and P keys for his HP laptop. The outsourced, English-is-not-his-first-language, customer service rep won't sell or send him the keys and instead insists that Randy sit in for a $298 repair. Blithely indifferent to Randy's increasing incredulity and rage, the customer service rep suggests that for that amount of money, Randy should just buy a new laptop for $400. That's right, a new laptop because two of the keys are bad. The ridiculous chat transcript, inside... More »
—>If someone says "HIPAA" and you think they might be talking about a herd of hippos, you got some reading to do. The "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" protects the health insurance workers and their families when they lose their jobs, and also protects the confidentiality of patients' records. Like all big laws, it's a bit of a thicket to navigate, so the World Privacy Forum just published a "Patient's Guide to HIPAA" to help chop your way through it. Check it out and bone up on your rights. More »
—>The National Funeral Home in Falls Church, Virginia stores unrefrigerated corpses, including some bound for Arlington National Cemetery, in hallways and garages for months on end, according to embalmer-turned-whistleblower Steven Napper. The Funeral Home's owner, Texas-based Service Corporation International, told Napper that they were unwilling to pay for refrigeration, which would prevent corpses from leaking and growing mold. More »
—>Royal Caribbean is gutting the Crown & Anchor society that lavishes loyal cruisers with perks like discounts, priority boarding, and a concierge lounge stocked with complimentary cocktails. The free booze will now be available only to cruisers who have sailed more than 25 times with Royal Caribbean. Many loyal passengers who don't spend their lives on Royal Caribbean ships are understandably pissed. More »
—>A well-respected lawyer has a simple message for corporations: stop suing disgruntled customers who start websites to air their grievances. Though William Pecau of Steptoe & Johnson thinks that online gripers are "self-righteous narcissists with time on their hands," he also realizes that "shutting down a gripe site generally is not easy, often cannot be done, and often is counterproductive." Pecau goes on to explain exactly why most online gripers are safe from over-hyped takedown notices... More »
—>Come on people, Dell agreed to dole out $1.5 million to customers who had problems with warranty repairs, credit financing, and rebates, but with only a week before the filing deadline, Washington's Attorney General says that only 42 people in his state have submitted claim forms. We know there are eligible Dell victims out there. Our tipline alone has nearly 1,000 Dell-related complaints. Please, fill out your claim form now and get the money your state attorney generals earned for you! More »
—>Would you pay $4,000 for a hypoallergenic cat? One reader did and he's still waiting for his cat, or a refund, from the Allerca corporation. Allerca founder Simon Brodie garnered lots of press a few years ago after he claimed to be able to sell genetically engineered cats that wouldn't trigger any allergies, a designer pussy called "Ashera." Our reader isn't alone, you can find a slew of complaints online from people who say they've that they've forked over thousands of dollars to Allerca, and never gotten a hypoallergenic cat, or a refund. More »
—>Maybe things are different in your house but in PJ's it's rather disconcerting to receive a bill for $1,821.91 for the wife's Blackberry. U.S. Cellular says that she used 150mb of data and now must pay the price. PJ's wife has no idea what she might have done that would've been that large, and US Cellular can't tell her either. They just want their monies. More »
—>You know what they need to make? A zombie film starring reanimated furniture. The whole walking corpse thing is just so done. But an undead end table stalking you through your house and hacking through the closet door to reveal your pathetic hiding spot and devour your flesh? Now that's something I'd pay to see, even if it wasn't in 3- as, apparently, all movies will be in the future. Until that cinematic masterpiece hits the silver screen, I guess Steve's story of how Ashley Furniture wouldn't stop calling him until he sent their headquarters an Executive Email Carpet Bomb will have to suffice... More »
—>Allison filled out one of those "win a free cruise" forms at a local cask ale festival and almost got dunked in a barrel o' scam fun for her troubles. Here's her story: More »
—>We'll give Unilever points for offering an exhaustive opt-out page that covers every conceivable form of communication you may be receiving from them. We'll take all those points away, however, and award them a fail badge for creating the world's longest, most labor intensive opt-out page you've ever seen. More »
—>Everyone knows that one of the best ways to protect yourself from online security disasters is to use a different password for each account. But do you do it? Probably not, because at first glance it looks like an unreasonable burden, having to either remember dozens of unique passwords or having to keep them all written down somewhere (which in itself is a security risk). The website ideashower.com offers a simple way to create a unique, easy to remember password for every account. More »
—>A spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Bellflower, California says that 15 employees were fired and another 8 disciplined for improperly accessing the medical records of Nadya Suleman, A.K.A. Octomom. More »
—>Claire was told the wrong thing by an AT&T Wireless rep regarding international long distance, but when she called back to sort things out, she came up against the Nurse Ratched of the AT&T call center—a woman who refused to give in, or offer any help at all. In fact, when Claire finally admitted defeat and said she'd accept the credit that had been offered to her, the supervisor refused. Apparently Claire only had one chance to accept that and since she said no, it was off the table. More »
—>Do you remember Millard? He was the angry customer who demanded that Woot send him black iPod headphones to match his black iPod, and claimed to have been misled by the company. Woot is selling black iPods today and wants to make it very clear—"in case your monitor can't display pictures, or you're black-white colorblind"—you will receive white earbuds with your iPod. Sorry, Millard, Woot is still refusing to cooperate by inventing a black version of the Apple product. More »
—>Katy's KitchenAid dishwasher hasn't dissolved soap or cleaned dishes since July, despite receiving four new parts over seven service visits. KitchenAid's service plan promises a replacement unit if the same part breaks three times, but KitchenAid still isn't sure which part of Katy's dishwasher is broken, and so they're refusing to give her a new one. Does that seem fair? More »
—>Reader Lance emailed Digital River to opt-out of the automatic license renewal that came with his three-year subscription to BitDefender Antivirus. Rather than read Lance's email, Digital River instead decided to cancel his entire purchase. After throwing several protest emails into Digital River's customer service void, Lance decided to accept the refund so he could buy a different antivirus package. Except now, the refund is nowhere to be found... More »
—>Please don't pull the cord on Howard's laptop or it will die. Best Buy's Geek Squad has failed five times to coax his laptop's ailing battery into holding a charge, replacing both the battery and the hard drive, and shipping Howard the same incorrect replacement battery three times. Howard now wants Best Buy to honor their lemon policy by giving him a new laptop, but it seems like every Geek Squad agent has a different copy of the replacement policy, and none of them apply to Howard. It's almost like he's asking for a price match! Let's read his story, inside... More »
—>Poor Sam didn't take our advice. He let H&R Block do his taxes and then took out a refund anticipation loan. The money, which was deposited on an H&R Block Emerald Card, is now tied up by several inexplicable holds for transactions he didn't make. The companies supposedly holding the funds have no clue who Sam is, or why they'd be holding his money. H&R Block's only response is to charge Sam $2 whenever he calls their customer service line for help. More »
—>Nine West wasn't sure how much tax to charge Jane for her online order so they have gave her a price that was $5.48 less than what they actually charged. When Jane wrote in to complain and to ask for her money back, Nine West explained that it was impossible to instantly calculate how much tax to charge because they use two highly-sophisticated tax gizmos that simply can't interface with their online store. Jane wants to know if Nine West's charges are ethical and whether it's worth complaining over six bucks. More »
—>Target sold Shawn a defective shoe, and then gave him defective customer service when he tried to get exchange it for a functional shoe. Here is his amusing story, which he was kind enough to submit already written in the third person. More »
—>Comcast keeps sending Andrew's parents letters insisting that "there is a leak of our electronic signal into the air," and that if it can't be immediately fixed, their service will be disconnected. Andrew's parents always immediately call Comcast to schedule a service visit, because nobody wants a signal leaking into the air, especially not one that "could interfere with aircraft and ship communications," but each time they call, Comcast has no clue why they sent a letter, or how to plug the leaky plane-gobbling signal. More »
—>Gateway claims that the Patriot Act is holding up delivery of the part needed to fix Redwoodflyer's laptop, which has been broken since October. Seems believable to us! More »
—>SJ replaced his Volkswagen's bulbs with Sylvania Silverstar lights that were twice as expensive, only to watch them fail after three months of use. Disappointed, since the standard bulbs lasted for three years, SJ wrote to Sylvania telling them that he expected, at a minimum, a voucher for new bulbs. Sylvania's response managed to brighten his day... More »
—>DirecTV agreed to let Anthony cancel his service without an early termination fee because his signal would randomly fade away without explanation. What DirecTV really meant though was that they would let Anthony cancel if he paid a final bill of $446.69. After speaking with two agents who agreed that the fee should have been waived, DirecTV reduced Anthony's bill to $445.42. A third agent told Anthony that he would need to negotiate any further deductions in writing with the dispute department... More »
—>The State of New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against Verizon, alleging that its marketing, sales, billing and customer service practices for its FiOS television, telephone and internet services are deceptive and misleading. The lawsuit is partly in response to the now-infamous "Free LCD" disaster. More »
UPDATE: It's getting worked on!
Comments still not functioning correctly for you? As Ben suggested, I've opened a complaint on GetSatisfaction.com to try to reach Gawker's tech team. If the comment reply/preview feature is still broken for you (it seems to be working for some, not others), why not head over there and add your two cents to my complaint? [GetSatisfaction.com] More »
—>Christina decided to give the famed acai berry a try. What the heck, she must have thought, it won't cost me that much ($10) and the site's refund policy clearly indicates when I can return the product, cancel the "subscription," and move on. She knew the cancel-by date and was prepared to follow the rules. AcaiBerryUltimate.com had other plans, which are best summed up by this email they sent to her: "You can get your refund in hell. haahah." More »
—>Last week, Google introduced its new "interest based" ads, which is based on tracking your browsing activity and targeting ads based on that behavior. Fortunately, there are several ways to opt out. More »
—>Greyhound tickets from Raleigh to Asheville cost $67.50, unless you're Meg Stivison. Then they cost over $1,000. Greyhound repeatedly charged Stivison's debit card while insisting that she didn't know the address on her bank statement. Meg ended up driving down to the bus terminal to buy a ticket, but that was just the start of her nightmarish journey... More »
—>C'mon Sears, rust isn't a magic brown fairy powder that you can sprinkle over any warranty issue to deny coverage. Brian was told he couldn't have his worn-out sockets replaced because they were rusty. He pointed out that he needed them replaced because they were worn out, not because of some cosmetic damage due to oxidation. Now Sears has officially told him that any rust on a Craftsman tool automatically voids the warranty—which is not what Sears told us two years ago. More »
—>Brian tried to trade in some old Craftsman tools, the ones that come with a lifetime, no-questions-asked replacement policy. Unfortunately, the Tool Associate at Sears deemed Brian unworthy of the Cratfsman guarantee and refused him. That's why he's the Tool Associate. More »
—>Aaron is happy to report that he has gotten resolution with his complaint about HP's repair center sending him back his laptop filled with viruses. Good thing for HP that Aaron is honest, otherwise he could probably have three laptops right now, as three different HP reps contacted him about his story. On March 9th he wrote us: More »
—>Dan Hesse should be ashamed. Ripping off a consumer reporter and then lying to the FCC about it? Bad idea. Here's what Sprint did to The Red Tape Chronicles reporter Bob Sullivan... More »
—>Mechanics are like doctors - it often pays to get a second opinion. When Josh's wife's Jetta failed, Belle Tire said it would cost $1,000 to replace the transmission. When Josh checked it out himself, he saw that it probably just needed to have a cable reattached to the transmission. Belle refused to check it out and insisted that it would cost $1000. So Josh to it a local mechanic, Otto Khim, and they fixed everything for $52.27, a savings of $947.43. Then he drove back to Belle Tire and laughed in their face. His story, inside... More »
—>Bob Garfield, creator of ComcastMustDie.com, has declared victory. Comcast isn't dead, but he says instead of being "a vast, greedy, blundering, tone-deaf corporate colossus," it's merely all of the above with the exception of tone-deaf. ComcastMustDie is one of the many online different outlets for customer rage that Comcast has tapped into to proactively respond to customer complaints. They still have a long way to go, but at least they're listening. That is all Bob really wanted, it seems, as he's moving on to a new project, CustomerCircus.net, that will solicit and broadcast consumer complaints against all kinds of companies. And yep, Comcast will still be one of them. More »
—>PC Mag has assembled a list of instructions on how to wipe your account from a long list of websites, including Classmates.com (you'll have to call), Windows Live ID (it's complicated), and Friendster (ha ha ha). In many cases, canceling is as straightforward as clicking a link and authorizing the cancellation, but it's nice to see all the phone numbers and tips collected in one spot. More »
—>Not happy with the high cost of his $350 electrical bill, John Almany of Virginia decided to pay it entirely in pennies, all 35,000 and 170 pounds of them. It took two men with two large duffel bags transport them to the billing counter, and took Bristol Virginia Utilities two hours just to count up to $26. That's certainly one way to go about it. More »
—>Did Citi set up its "homeowner helper" site to comply with Obama's mortgage assistance programs, but then not actually attach it to any humans that will help homeowners? After inputting his info on the site, Citi told reader CoarseLive to schedule an appointment with a representative. No one ever called him. When he tried calling Citi directly, multiple agents told him they had no idea what he was talking about, and they hung up on him, again and again. His story, inside... More »
—>Erica, who writes Philadelphia Weekly's Style blog, went to Target this past Saturday to purchase some new tank tops. She and her boyfriend filled their cart with a lot of other stuff too—"Ready to stimulate the economy?" she joked to him on their way to the register—and they agreed to split the cost equally. Now when I worked retail, that was an infrequent but not impossible task. When you ask a Target cashier to do that, get ready to have your debit card debited twice for the full amount of the bill, and then told two days later that the voided transactions will take 72 hours to clear. More »
—>BoingBoing Gadgets says that Verizon has been mailing out a leaflet to its customers informing them that the company intends to sell their personal information unless they explicitly opt-out. More »
—>Best Buy charged Nicole $99 to backup her data but then replaced her hard drive without backing up a single byte. Nicole's service contract clearly stated that Best Buy would perform the backup before any other service. Now Best Buy is claiming that her old hard drive is their property and that she has no right to the data that they failed to backup or restore. More »
—>The IRS has ended a controversial program that allowed private debt collectors to pursue individual debts owed to the government. The private debt collectors, described as "bounty hunters who collect taxes from vulnerable people for profit," were allowed to keep 25% of any collected debts for themselves. Before we celebrate, let's all take a moment to join Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa in thinking about those poor private debt collectors who no longer have jobs harassing and abusing people... More »
—>Reader Con Seannery was randomly locked out of his Steam account one day and has been trying to get Valve's attention for months. Will they ever respond? More »
—>If you have any lines of credit and you use them to manage your financial flow, you should evaluate your personal money matrix so you're ready in case all of them get cut. They're cutting lines of credit even for rocket scientists like reader Rocky. That's right, he's an engineer in the aerospace industry, has never overdrawn, never been late, never incurred NSF charges, and has 3 Masters and 2 MBAs. Overnight, they cut his four lines of credit. Apparently his only crime was simply having them. He called multiple times and got nowhere, only to be told to talk to a credit counselor. A credit counselor? Bank of America, he doesn't have bad credit, he has no lines of credit because you just cut them all. His story, inside... More »
—>UPDATE: Best Buy Goes Above And Beyond To Make Up For Selling Busted Camera As New More »
He is actually still here I as I e-mail you — I hate to be mean, but the BO is so bad, I am seriously choking. He left to get some parts out of the truck and the smell is so strong in my apartment I am going to need to open all of my windows for the rest of the afternoon just to get this smell out. More »
—>Man, those online review websites sure can be harsh. Some doctors think they're totally unfair! That's why a neurosurgeon in North Carolina has started a business called Medical Justice. The Associated Press says the company provides waiver forms for docs to give to patients. If you sign it, and then post a review online that can be traced back to you, the doctor can use your signed form as proof that it must be removed. More »
—>HP is known for its incompetent repair process, but what makes Aaron's case special is that at the end they decide to kick it up a notch. When he sends his computer in and gets it back from the repair center, HP has so ever so graciously filled it with free spyware and viruses. More »
—>UPDATE: Vincent To Get Car He Wants More »
—>It's amazing the hassle Bruce went through trying to buy a Jeep with $24,000 cash. Even though he's ready to buy the car outright, the car salesman almost convinces him to finance because that way you get $1,500 back. Total cost of the loan: $31,732...they wanted him to spend an extra $7,132 to "save" $1500. Luckily his mom steps in and saves him from getting taken for a ride. His journey doesn't stop there, nor does it end with a successful Jeep purchase. They can't even sell a car to a guy who shows up with cash in hand ready to buy... no wonder they needed a bailout. Full story inside... More »
Consumerist was on The Today Show this morning, they interviewed Facebook's CEO and used the clip from NBC Nightly News in the segment. [Today Show] More »
We are open to putting the documents up to a vote. The rules people must do when on the site and what we must do, a two way thing. There will be Comment periods, a council that will help on future revisions. More »
—>Hooray for Verizon Wireless! Wait, what? The cellular carrier has just filed a lawsuit against Feature Films For Families for illegally telemarketing. Specifically, they're accusing the company of using an auto-dialer to cold call hundreds of thousands of Verizon Wireless customers earlier this month, which is illegal according to NJ state laws (where the suit was filed) and the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. More »
—>Looks like some Quiznos aren't too happy about the free sandwich campaign. Readers report interactions ranging from coupons being denied, to local franchises making up new limitations on it (like only certain sandwiches are eligible, or requiring drink and chip purchase), to being treated like thieving jerks. The coupon says the offer is only good at "participating stores," but doesn't say anything that in lieu of free sandwich the coupon will be exchanged for rude attitudes. Inside, the conflict between corporate, the franchises, and the customer caught in-between. Oh, and yes, they do check IDs. More »
—>All told, reader Sam sat on hold with the Fuai Corporation for 2 hours and 25 minutes only to end up with a DTV box with a busted-up face that didn't even have the analog pass-through feature he paid for. That could be a problem if he still wants to watch his local PBS affiliate station... More »
—>Nobody told 74-year-old Mrs. Reynolds her American Airlines flight was canceled until she was on-board the wrong one. Her tale of sprinting, being stranded, and customer service failure, inside... More »
An employee of Starbucks has filed a class action lawsuit against the company for failing to properly secure employee data. The employee was one of one of 97,000 notified late last year after a Starbucks laptop containing employee names, addresses and Social Security numbers was stolen. [NetworkWorld via Starbucks Gossip] More »
—>The Santa Rosa, California Press Democrat says that Korbel Champagne Cellars will ask a Sonoma County judge to force Comcast to reveal the names of anonymous Craigslist posters who criticized the company. More »
—>Rob bought a monitor from Dell. Not just any monitor, a defective one. Ok, he didn't specifically request it to come defective, but that's how it did. So did its replacement. "The backlight was flickering constantly and it made me feel nauseous just looking at it," writes Rob. He's returned the monitors but Dell has yet to give him back his money. Every time he calls, they tell him it will be just 7-10 days more and that he paid with two credit cards is complicating things. So far it's been 45 days. More »
—>Reader Nicholas likes to listen to the cockpit channel while flying, because he says it calms his nerves. The flight attendants must have assumed that no one was turned to that station (or that they weren't being broadcast on it), because Nicholas says he heard one of them refer to the passengers in the coach cabin as "idiots." Whoops. More »
—>Now that Facebook has said they're drafting a new Terms of Service based on community input, that community has eagerly put forth their proposals in the Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities Facebook group. Forum admin Julius Harper went through the 27 pages of feedback and pulled out the three major areas the community seemed most concerned about. Here's what the people are demanding: More »
—>Sleepy's just won't help Ashley pick up her new mattress. The store promised to have rope on hand to strap the mattress to her car, but when Ashley arrived she was told that Sleepy's had "run out of rope." To apologize, a sales rep instead promised her free delivery, but called later to explain that he wasn't authorized to offer any freebies. He did, though, promise that Sleepy's would have rope the next time Ashley came by. Of course, they didn't have rope when she returned, and when she complained to a manager, the manager explained that Sleepy's had no obligation to provide Ashley with rope or free delivery, and that she better find a way to take her mattress because they weren't going to refund her money either. More »
—>Stephanie Bemister says that after our post went up Facebook contacted her and agreed to take down the facebook page of her dead brother, an award-winning investigative journalist and Nazi hunter. "Thank you again, Ben," she wrote. "My family has no words that truly express how we feel." Previously Facebook told her they wouldn't remove the page because... More »
—>UPDATE: Facebook Agrees To Take Down Dead Relative's Page. Facebook thinks it knows better than the sister of the deceased journalist Bill Bemister about what to do with his Facebook page. Stephanie Bemister sent them a copy of his death certificate and asked it get taken down for privacy and respect purposes. Unlike every other single social networking site she dealt with, Facebook said no. They have a better idea. Stephanie's letter inside... More »
—>United Airlines doesn't want to talk to you on the phone about your complaints — so they're disconnecting it. MSNBC is reporting that starting in April, the airline will shut down the call center that deals with customer complaints. More »
—>It appears in the wake of global attention and outcry, Facebook has, as of at least 12:27 am, reverted back to the previous Terms of Service. Phew, now we can all go back to sending each other digital cupcakes without Big Brother watching us. This is a temporary move until Facebook can draft a new Terms of Service that addresses the users' concerns. CEO Zuckerberg wrote a new blog post, and Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt released this statement: More »
—>Online, in print and on TV, Consumerist's Facebook terms of service change story, and the ensuing global uproar, has spread like Ebola in a monkey house... More »
—>Concerned about how discreet your bits are over at Facebook? The All Facebook blog has 10 privacy settings ever user should know about, from removing yourself from Facebook and Google searches, to who can see your tagged photos, and other basic ways of controlling your content. More »
—>We write often about companies' sleazy approaches to online reviews. Some companies bribe users for positive feedback. Others sue over negative reviews. Direct Express Auto Transport, however, is the first company we've seen that responds to bad reviews by sharing users' personal information. More »
—>If you've been following the Facebook story over the past couple of days, you know by now that Facebook has said that they are not claiming ownership of uploaded user content: "We certainly did not—and did not intend—to create any new right or interest for Facebook in users' data by issuing the new Terms." But blogger Amanda French decided to actually compare the fine print for several social networking sites—MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Picasa—and she concludes that "Facebook's claims to your content are extraordinarily grabby and arrogant." Read her side-by-side comparison here. More »
—>Well, yesterday's Facebook post certainly blew up today, and it looks like Facebook is currently preparing an official response. In the meantime, a Facebook rep has written to the Industry Standard to emphasize that all rights are subject to your privacy settings, so even if they don't expire when you close your account, they'll still be subject to whatever restrictions you had when the account was active. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also posted a more philosophical response on the Facebook blog saying that while the new Terms of Service are "overly formal," they're only meant to give Facebook the legal ability to enable content sharing among users. More »
—>This post has generated a lot of responses, including from Facebook. Check them out here. More »
—>A glitch in Delta's website bumped Jesse's return date up by a month, which sort of interfered with his travel plans when he showed up at the airport to check in. Here's the complaint letter he sent to Delta, and their response. More »
—>Dear DVD Planet, you might want to sit down with the person who designed your customer account system and have a long talk. You know, about things like data security. After we posted this story yesterday about an Amazon shopper who was surprised to find you'd automatically created a barely secure account in his name with his data, another reader—this time a former eBay customer from nearly two years ago—decided to check whether you'd done the same thing to her. Yep! And the password was "Ebay." More »
—>Joel says when he ordered a disc from DVD Planet via Amazon, the company automatically created an account for him on their website. The problem is that the default password they used was so easy to guess that he figured it out on the second try, and he suspects it's the same password they use on every account. Once you guess it, you can see the customer's past orders and credit card billing address. When Joel contacted them to have the account removed, he was told that wasn't possible. More »
—>Lisa says a Walmart greeter grabbed onto her cart and and wouldn't let her leave because she refused to let the greeter check her receipt. That, my friends, is not legal. Sure, it would make life a lot easier if people just acquiesced to the receipt-checking, but it's not the law. It is against the law, however, to unlawfully detain a customer. Here's Lisa's account: More »
—>Reader Dan says he was walking home last night and got robbed at gunpoint, losing his iPhone, which he only got five days ago, in the process. He asks, "Any tips from you or readers? Can it be tracked using the onboard gps? This STINKS!" More »
Are you a New Jersey resident who was screwed out of Springsteen tickets by the Ticketmaster/TicketsNow "technical glitch"? The state's Division of Consumer Affairs would like to hear from you. There's a small box on the lower right corner of the home page that will take you to a complaint form. [NJ Consumer Affairs via MetsPolice] More »
Regenersis studied a random sample of 2000 handsets processed during the first week in December and found that 99% of handsets received contained some sort of personal data, including: contacts, SMS messages, pictures, music, videos, calendar entries, emails, notes, mailing lists and to do lists. In some cases, extremely sensitive information was contained, including bank details, addresses, and confidential emails. More »
—>The nation's economic woes make debt collection a topic du jour, but while there are some good bits mixed into the Washington Post's article, "When Debt Collectors Disrupt Dinner," it probably should have been titled "What Debt Collectors Would Like You To Say And Do When They Call About The Credit Card." Read it with a shaker of salt. Read on for the good, the bad, and the lazy reporting, plus what you should actually to protect and exercise your rights as a debtor... More »
—>A number of consumers are complaining about their Seagate Barrucada 7200.11 500GB hard drive failures, and the company is censoring them. While Seagate has issued a firmware upgrade, it doesn't work if your drive has already been affected, like reader Danny, who just lost all his research material and papers for school. According to some posts on MSFN, moderators on the official Seagate forums are deleting user posts about the issue, and even going so far as to disabling links made on the Seagate forums to posts on other forums about the issue. Danny's letter, inside... More »
—>The boy whose HP was running 200°F and was told by tech support to "buy a cooling mat" used some of the higher-up phone numbers readers posted in the comment on the original post to get in touch with a Senior Case Manager. Despite being out of warranty, they reopened the case and had him send in his laptop. Lo and behold, they fixed it! "It is running great now," writes Travis. Huzzah! More »
—>Asta la vista, robo callers! As of December, all pre-recorded sales calls need to have a way for consumers to opt-out of their mailing lists, either by pressing a button or saying something.No doubt this will happen at the end of the call. So the good news is that you have a way to get off their list. The bad news is... More »
—>Jeff says the Wendy's he goes to is getting a little tricky with their upselling, creating the appearance of a universe where the only sizes are medium or large. More »
—>What are those papers blowing down Columbus Avenue? Why, those are your tax returns, driver's licenses, credit reports, bank statements, and 401k statements. It seems that your real estate company, Citi Habitats, dumped an entire years worth of sensitive client documents in the streets of New York. More »
—>The man who wrote the long, funny complaint letter to Richard Branson about the level of suck on his recent Virgin Atlantic flight has been asked to "come to the airline’s catering house next month, to help select the food on future Virgin flights." Yeah, we know that it's a publicity stunt, but an entertaining one. We hope the customer agrees, and hates the new food just as much. In fact, we wish he'd replace Toby Young on Top Chef; the dead hamster line would be a pretty good put-down on that show. More »
—>A disgruntled Virgin Air passenger sent an exhaustive complaint letter to Sir Richard Branson, supported by a series of incriminating photographs. We think it's safe to say that he did not enjoy the in-flight food—which is surprising, because everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard. More »
—>We love it when what's supposed to be internal communication leaks out to the customer—it gives you such clear insight as to how a company really feels about you. In the case of 1800mattress.com, calling to complain about a missed delivery date makes you "difficult." But hey, they'll still send you some free pillows. More »
—>Sears tried to scare Anthony into buying an unnecessary protection plan several days after he purchased a new plasma tv. The sales rep who called explained that Anthony's new plasma would need to be recharged every five years, which isn't true. According to Consumer Reports: "There is no such thing as recharging a plasma TV with new gas. It is sealed at the factory." More »
—>Orbitz sent out an "email exclusive" advertising 20% off select hotel rooms, which might have been a decent deal if hadn't expired four days before the email was sent. More »
—>Louisiana seven-year-old Sydney Hotard fixed her broken playground by writing a well-crafted letter to her Parish President. Hotard was concerned that the plastic slide needed to be "more slippery" and that a nearby exposed electrical panel might be "dangerus." Upon receiving the letter, Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet was so charmed that he ordered municipal workers to immediately fix the playground. More »
—>Comcast charged Robert a $24.95 "Customertroublecall" fee after he called to ask why they were taking over a month to restore his service after Hurricane Ike swooped in and caused over $3,000 worth of damage. Robert wanted to know why Comcast was continually missing their scheduled service appointments and why they insisted on billing him for a service he couldn't use. More »
Remember the father and son team who cut in line at Walmart, then threatened an off-duty police officer with bodily harm, then were arrested? They've been charged with battery, and the off-duty cop has been cleared. A police investigator said, "The [Walmart] video supports [Officer] Kirby's version of what happened." [Indy Star] (Thanks to David!) More »
Hawaii last week became the first state to transition to digital television, leading hundreds of confused locals to call into the FCC's help center. Though the transition appears to have been a technical success, the new digital signals mays never reach some of the 20,000 Hawaiians who rely on analog service. More »
—>Andrew's car was towed from Stabucks' parking lot as he sat inside enjoying his drink. The Portland Starbucks apparently has a contract with a local predatory towing company that allows them to walk in, call out a bunch of license plate numbers, and tow any car whose owner doesn't speak up. More »
—>After waiting 56 days for his Dell Mini 9 to ship, reader WantMyDellMini asked Dell for a little compensation, only to be told: “Dell no longer believes in compensation for the purpose of customer satisfaction.” The Mini 9's shipping status has already changed at least ten times, but Dell claims that our poor reader has no choice but to keep waiting. More »
—>Aaron sent us this postcard he received from Work Out World. Amidst the grammatical landmines and asterisks to nowhere, it purports to offer membership for $9.99 per month with no enrollment fee and no commitment. Aaron even called to confirm that he had read the offer correctly, and was told he had. When he got to the gym, however, he ran into trouble. More »
—>As if a big chocolate doodie drizzled in caramelized cheez-wiz wasn't gross enough, Marc was dismayed to find his Reese's brownie covered in strange webbing. Dismay turned to horror as he ascertained the white strings and brown pellets were related to the meal worms crawling their way through his sweet treat. When he took the brownie back to the deli, they opened the rest of the batch. It was a veritable meal worm polka party. The horror unfolds in photographic form, inside... More »
—>When 26-year-old Edward Pluhar Jr. decided to walk past the people waiting in line at Walmart's customer service desk over the weekend, he probably didn't expect one of the men he dissed to confront him over it. What he and his father really didn't expect, however, was for the guy to be an off-duty police officer who doesn't appreciate being threatened. More »
—>Steven at The Jewish Channel ordered four hard drives from Buy.com, and got them, along with a packaging surprise. The packaging was very excessive. Each hard drive came in its a separate packing box 4591.75 cubic inches larger than the hard drive box it was meant to contain. In addition, that extra dead space was taken up by what amounted to a waterfall of brown packing paper. The containers, measuring 24" x 18" x 11.5" could each have held six of the 10.75" x 7" x 5" boxes. More pix inside. Steven writes: More »
—>Update: company co-founder Matt addresses some of the accusations in a comment below. Why are there so many complaints online about Silicon Solar? One customer, Dennis, told us how he was lied to by a salesman, then strung along by a woman in customer support until the 14-day return period had expired. A quick Google search turns up dozens of similar stories about being treated badly by customer service, receiving products that don't work as advertised, and never being given the RMAs necessary to send items back. Writes one reviewer on DavesGarden.com, "I can't express the anger and frustration I felt when dealing with this company." More »
—>Reader Michael wants to know why it's taking UPS almost a month to ship his daughter's Christmas gift from Los Angeles to Seattle. Michael thinks his package might have been eaten by the snowstorm that broke Seattle a few weeks back, but UPS swears that they have the gift and that this is all a simple matter of "the driver forgot to put it on the truck." Worried that it that it might have been faster for a messenger to walk between Los Angeles and Seattle with his daughter's present, Michael decided to launch an Executive Email Carpet Bomb at UPS executives. More »
—>Even a TV producer with 5 years experience in doing consumer complaint stories is powerless against AT&T's incompetence. Anderson writes: More »
—>When company policy has a head-on collision with absurdity. Your United Airlines ticket is $60. Your baby's, who's going to be sitting in your lap? $1,280. [Elliot] (Photo: moxythecat) More »
—>You know you're not in for a life-changing experience when you get a room at a Super 8 motel, but you at least expect that for $190 a night, there will be hot water and blankets big enough to cover both you and your girlfriend. And no plywood in the bathroom. And four legs holding up the bed. But not at the Super 8 in Pasadena, CA, according to Matt, who was just there for the Rose Bowl. More »
—>After ordering a TV from TechGearNow, Reid noticed two notes on his account asking him to call to confirm his order. It turns out they wanted to sell him an HDMI cable and warranty for $60, which he declined. The next time he checked his account, he saw the above note. More »
—>Here are our favorite disgusting stories of 2008. You're welcome! More »
—>As you scramble to redeem gift cards and return unwanted items, we remind you that honey attracts more flies than vinegar, tart words make no friends, and please stop dropping F bombs in crowded stores. More »
—>Buying something from Best Buy? Check your receipt, you may have been signed up for a magazine subscription and you didn't even know it. More »
—>About 450 Amtrak passengers were stranded in Chicago's Union Station for almost 24 hours — without food, water or access to reliable functioning restrooms. More »
—>Whose problem is it when your iPhone needs to be activated? Nobody seems to know. It is a mystery. More »
—>Nancy asks, "I’m preparing to send a letter to Nissan’s customer service about a horrific experience I had at my local dealership. Do you have any pointers about tone or what specifically to include so that I know my letter will be taken seriously?" Great question! More »
—>Amanda couldn't find a fitting formal dress at Macy's. Macy's said they don't cater to her plus-sized demographic, she should go to another Macy's, which caters to more black women, who tend to be larger. More »
—>These are the ladybugs that infested Sam's Macbook, the ladybugs Apple said must be his fault. Now, here is the update to Sam's saga, and how he finally got justice from Apple. More »
—>David wrote a very angry letter to Circuit City's CEO. The CEO responded, and used the letter as a learning point in his next staff Town Hall meeting, making David angrier than ever. More »
—>UPDATED. Sam loves his Apple products, but their blaming him for the big ladybugs inside his Macbook Pro? It's enough to turn this fanboy into whatever is the clever name for opposite of a fanboy. More »
—>I love how this blog gives everyday people a big voice to tell the world what's wrong. Here's 19 of our reader's original stories that drew the most buzz, and blood, online over the years... More »
—>Hurricane Ike left Mike's with a hole in his roof. He needs Flagstar Bank's holding onto his insurance company check like a hole in his head. More »
—>Rob is mad because Amazon, in the figurative sense, delivered his wife's secret Christmas gift in a see-through glass box: More »
—>A Time Out New York reporter paid nearly double MSRP for a new G1 phone she bought off Times Square from Cellular Stop. After she realized she'd been had (internet access and texting were sold to her as "add-ons"), she went back to the store asking for an explanation. Instead, she says, six clerks began circling her and her friends, screaming and cursing and threatening to "break" their "fucking faces." Her friend was tossed against a wall and another clerk tried to smash her camera. More »
—>According to Computerworld, Apple yanked a "controversial" support document from its website Tuesday, after it began a heated debate among the Apple faithful. What was the controversial advice? Apple suggested its users run anti-virus software. More »
—>Eric lost his home to foreclosure, but unlike other homeowners, he had actually been trying for the past month-and-a-half to buy it back from the mortgage company for more than the mortgage. The law firm that was handling it, however, wanted an extra $20k in fees to make that happen. He told the realtor that he would buy it for more than it was going to be listed for. The realtor told him that he couldn't make a bid until it was "active," which would happen on 11-29. On Sunday he tells the broker he;ll give an offer on Monday. Monday rolls around and they've already sold the house to someone else, for less than Eric was willing to pay. They said they "forgot" that he was going to make a bid. Eric is livid. His story, inside... More »
—>Reader Benjamin is pissed because Comcast in his town of Richmond, VA they raised his rates, and justified it by saying they have to pass on the cost of rising gas, technology, and health care. He writes "Gas is a Buck' 69, they haven't improved the technology in my area, and health care... Really? They might as well of added a $5 fee to restock the candy bowl in the break room of the service center while they are at it." If that's not fun enough, see what happens when he tries to file a complaint about it. They try to route him to the complaint line...but it's been disconnected! More »
—>Reader Christi reports that Mervyns, a mid-range department store that is closing all its locations, now charges you a $15 fee if you want to talk to customer service over the phone. When Christi called a store to complain, they told her to call the number back, accept the charge, then ask them what the heck was going on. Thing is, Christi was just calling to make a payment by phone, More »
—>A reader's girlfriend tried to buy Plan B yesterday, but the Oxford, MS Walgreens pharmacy seemed to go out of their way to make it has hard as possible. Mere incompetence doesn't explain what happened. Instead, it sounds more like a consciously decided system of policies designed to discourage people from buying the pill... More »
—>Consumerist empowers consumers to take on bad companies, but sometimes even the negative PR that Consumerist can bring to bear is not enough to persuade companies to behave. When that happens, you might have to sue in order to get what you want. Here is a brief guide to your options when you decide you need to escalate your complaint to the courts. More »
—>Marc is happy to report that Aliph really came through for him after he complained about Jawbone smoking and melting after he plugged it into his computer: More »
—>UPDATE: Aliph Quicly Replaces Melted Jawbone More »
—>You would think tough times would be boom times for debt collectors, but debt collection company First American Recovery Services is filing for bankruptcy. "The amount of debt out there is 10 times what it had been, but the ability to pay is less," Tim Smith, FirstSource Advantage collections vice president told The Buffalo News. Don't dance on their grave quite yet. The debts will just get sold to someone else, and usually each generation of debt owners has successively less scruples. But you have to wonder, how long before there is just too much debt that's just too hard to collect in time before the statute of limitations expires? More »
—>Reader James is upset. His TV is broken and Geek Squad can't fix it. He bought the TV and Best Buy's performance service plan — which hypothetically should replace his TV in the event that it cannot be repaired. Now, after 2 months, 27 days, a botched repair job and 6 unreturned phone calls, James is annoyed. He's launched an Executive Email Carpet Bomb on Best Buy and CC'd us. The best part comes near the end of the letter, when Best Buy calls James to ask if he was satisfied with a Geek Squad appointment that had never even happened... More »
—>Mr Bill says his latest dealings with Capital One have him "wanting to spit venom." Whence this reptilian impulse? There is apparently no structure to refinance your loan with them. They consider it makes you a new customer, and they aren't making any new loans. This takes several hours and several phone calls to figure out. There also seems to be no way to pay off a loan with a credit or debit card. This also takes several hours and phone calls to figure out. It's really just totally frustrating for Mr. Bill. "What is this, 1987?" he writes. So he's taking his business elsewhere. His misanthropic misadventure, inside... More »
—>Jeff and his wife bought a couch, chair, and armoire from Basset Furniture in Rockville, Maryland this weekend, and while the actual experience was rather pleasant, they might not be going back. It wasn't because their salesperson was rude, but rather because another employee they'd never dealt with pulled them aside at the last minute to warn them that there was "something wrong" with the woman who'd been helping them. What? What the hell does that mean? Did she sell them haunted furniture? Was she really a robber who was pretending to sell furniture to get the customers out of the store so she could finish her robbery? Was she a replicant? More »
—>"US National Bank" is still at it, calling up people and threatening them with jail time unless they pay up for debts they never took out and USNB doesn't own. Here's K's story of how "Harry Wilson" called him up screaming and yelling. But after speaking to a consumer lawyer, K learned what he needed to say to get the extortionist to stop phone-harassing him. You'll learn too after you read the story inside... More »
—>Aaron went shopping on AutoTrader and saw a BMW he liked sold by International Motor Productions. The lady over the phone, Brigette Brown, told him everything about the car was perfect. He put down a $500 deposit and flew down from Chicago to check it out with his friend Nathan. There he discovered the body panels didn't line up and the tires were mismatched and worn. When he took it for a test drive, it pulled under acceleration and made horrible noises. He took it to a reputable dealer who inspected the car and assessed it had been in an accident and had frame damage. When he took it back to International Motor Productions and asked for his deposit back... More »
—>Here's a weird story. Chris at PhillyBurbs.com was dealing with some ID theft problems (random charges were showing up on his credit cards) when he got a random credit card in the mail. It was an extra copy of a card he did indeed have. Wondering if someone was trying to get copies of his cards — he contacted the bank: More »
—>Reader Wormfather had an unsatisfactory Red Lobster experience with waiters joking about "diarrhea" and wanting "hot" customers, but after mentioning it to the manager, the couple left with satisfaction and smiles on their faces. His story, inside... More »
—>Best Buy sold Clif a "new" laptop one of their employees had bought, used, and returned. They made up for it by giving him an actually new laptop with a slightly better configuration, then tried to upsell him to the Best Buy extended warranty. Two things I enjoyed about this story: 1) The clerk he went to return the laptop to was the same employee who had used the laptop (Clif knew this because he saw the guy's resume on the laptop) 2) Clif then subsequently asked to speak to the manager in private and explained the situation there. That's the classy way to do it. More »
—>Sarah has $40k+ in student debt that went into default after she got sick and had to spend a lot of money on medical care. She's been paying it off, but one of the companies that owns one of her loans, NCO Financial, has told her that unless she signs a legal document that says she can pay $260 a month, they're going to place her account back in collections and start harassing her even more than they are now (they're already calling her daily at home and work)... More »
—>Concerned about a recent incident in which his wife's social security number may have been exposed (by a Bank of America employee, but that's another story), Christian wants to know if you can change your social security number. In special circumstances, yes, the Social Security Administration will change your number. You need to show proof that 1) you've suffered harm from someone misusing your ss# and 2) you've made all reasonable efforts to otherwise solve the problem i.e. credit report freezes, closing accounts and changing account numbers, etc. If both of these apply, then you can simply visit your local SSA office, call, or visit www.ssa.gov/reach.htm. More »
—>When the Lenovo laptop Rick ordered for his college-bound daughter was super-duper delayed in arriving and he hadn't heard anything from the company, he did the opposite of an EECB (executive email carpet bomb). Instead of blasting his complaint to every single executive he could find, he wrote a well-crafted letter laser-targeted at a single individual, the SVP of operations. The result? An email from the Chief of Staff in the CEO's office. His order was expedited, and, in the meantime, they got a $5000 "Reserve Edition" leather-wrapped laptop as a loaner. Here's his letter that got him the fix: More »
—>Circuit City sold Ronald a fake camera for $1134.99, and now they're holding the fake and his money hostage. The camera was no Kodak disposable, but a Nikon D90 Digital SLR. When he opened the box at home, inside was a D50 covered with crappy D90 stickers and affixed with a fake serial plate. Circuit City should give him his money back or a new D90. Why should Ronald be punished for Circuit City's inability to maintain control over their supply chain? He shouldn't. He should file a chargeback with his credit card company. Ronald's letter of complaint to Circuit City's consumer affairs group (consumer_affairs@circuitcity.com), inside... More »
—>How is Midwest Airlines like Schlitz beer? A traveler angry over how Midwest's wider business seats now cost an extra $50 explains. [Upgrade: Travel Better] More »
—>The NES collection agency is coming after Nancy for a debt on an account number she's never owned. She's trying to beseech BoA billing for a resolution and to fix her credit history. That may be completely the wrong way to go about it. Here's her story: More »
—>Molly's laptop was stolen, and the thief didn't even break into her house, or snag it from her at a coffeeshop, or hold a knife to her neck in a darkened alley. No, her laptop was stolen via email. In fact, she mailed it to thief, in Africa. OMG, you're probably saying to yourself right now with your hands up by your face, how could this be? Discover the horrifying true story, inside... More »
—>Reader R. kinda messed up his credit years ago. He's a good boy now and his credit score is 700+, but now RSI Claims Process Services is hassling him about a 12-year-old credit card debt. They scared him into thinking they're going to send him to jail and managed to squeeze a $100 "good-faith" payment out of him, but now he's got second thoughts. And with good reason: the statute of limitations on the debt has well passed and threatening to send a debtor to jail is a violation of Federal law. Here's his story and our advice... More »
—>If you were confused about why Circuit City might close 150 stores, this customer complaint sent in by William O'Donnell makes it pretty clear: Circuit City sucks. They try to get out of price-matching with a nearby B&H, out of the 3 hard drives he went through, one was missing parts and one wasn't even the right drive, and they try to tell him that it's supposed to come missing parts. Basically, when they don't know what they're talking about, they just make some shit up to make their lives easier. That's what happens when you cut costs by firing anyone who knows what they're doing. Here's Will's tale: More »
—>Reader Steven wrote in to let us know that his Dell Mini's ship date keeps getting pushed back and he's starting to become annoyed. More »
I have a card with one bank (that I am trying my hardest to pay off ASAP) that is 24% APR. It is killing me. A week or two ago, you had an article about a woman who paid off all her credit card debt over the course of 20 months or so. Good for her and it was a good story. One thing about it had me wondering though. She said that she negotiated with her lenders to get lower interest rates on her cards. How do you suggest I do that? More »
—>According to the credit report, AMEX says Dan's father-in-law closed a credit card he had with them while he was in a coma. Now Amex is using that to come after the mother-in-law for $15,000. Read the rest of the story, inside... More »
—>Almost immediately after Laurie Lucas picked up the phone, the many from "Legal Affidavit Office" began reading off a litany of charges he said "US National Bank" had filed against her. Theft of property. Fraud. Money laundering. "Eric Matthews" said that he, "felt sorry for the tragedy that was getting ready to befall" her for her failure to pay back a $5,000 payday loan. They would be coming to arrest her tomorrow morning at 11am, he said in an identifiably Indian accent. When Laurie protested that she had never taken out such a loan, or even a payday loan in her life, and had never heard of US National Bank, Eric said she should have kept better records... More »
—>Ricky had a bizarre run-in with "Larry" at his local Walmart, where he was shopping recently with his mother, who needed a new trash can. While Ricky browsed the automotive accessories counter, his mom did mom things in the silk flower department, and she left her new trash can next to Ricky's leg while she wandered off. It turns out, you do not leave trash cans anywhere in Larry's line of sight if you know what's good for you. More »
—>Yes, our pro-consumer bias has its limits. For instance, when a customer service representative tries to help you, don't respond by telling them to "go back to school," or by mentioning that your fourth-grade class can "spell better." Of the tens of thousands of tips you have sent us, this is one of the worst. Do not be this guy. More »
—>Netflix will be start charging you $1 more per month to offset the costs of Blu-Ray movies, starting November 5. You have to opt-in to the Blu-Ray access, and the $1 surcharge, by going to "your account" and "add Blu-Ray access." If you don't already have Blu-Ray access on your account, then your membership price stays the same. Sounds like they needed to invent a way to make more money and this fee, admittedly small, seemed the best way to go about it. Copy of the email they sent subscribers, inside. More »
—>Some punkass debt collector called trying to get a hold of some lady he thinks my girlfriend knows. Here's roughly how the conversation went. Keep in mind I had just put a bunch of peanuts in my mouth... More »
—>Remember Vickie and her defective Delta Creative PermEnamel experience? It ruined several of her pieces, not because she applied it incorrectly but because something was wrong with the product. It happens sometimes with products, no big deal. What was a big deal was the company's CEO, Bill George, refused to approve a compensation payment that his employees had already agreed to with Vickie, leaving her with no choice but to contact a lawyer and write to us. It looks like Delta Creative and the artist have now resolved the issue, and she's sent us a statement saying everything has been resolved to her "complete satisfaction." More »
—>We talk a lot on this blog about personal data and privacy, but not so much about how to secure that data on your own computer. That's because a.) we're not Lifehacker and b.) the solutions frequently bloat into crazy, jargon-filled recipes that scare away the non-IT crowd. Not this time! For all you novices, here is a single idea you should consider that will help keep your personal data personal, and make your identity that much harder to steal. More »
I have used the Delta PermEnamel Products for several years with marvelous results. This was an isolated incident which I would not expect to recur. This isolated incident has been resolved to my complete satisfaction. Thank you, Delta Creative, Inc. More »
—>If you've bought stocks through E*Trade, make sure you log into your account at least once a quarter. That way you can see if there's any alerts on the account, like the one telling you about the "inactivity fee" for not executing at least one trade per quarter, the fee that they'll sell some of your stocks to pay for. This happened to reader Brody, who writes: More »
—>Oh Comcast, you romantic. You were so sorry to see Michal leave that you pretended he didn't. We get it: he bikes, he blogs, he helps toddlers learn Polish. But after four months of him repeatedly asking you to stop billing him, when you still won't stop it begins to look a little stalker-ish. Your computers can't always be down. More »
—>Update: The owner of the California Tortilla left an excellent response, republished inside in full. More »
—>Amanda just had a frightening experience with the woman at the Proactiv kiosk in her hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi: "[Mall security] told me to come over and get away from her because she would not stop yelling, and refusing to do anything until I was out of her sight." [Update: we've received more information on who to contact to resolve this issue. Check out the bottom of the post for details.] More »
—>As an aside, WaMu's charter was under the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). Chase's bank regulator is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Whether being a Chase customer was your choice or not, if you ever have a major complaint about Chase regarding what you feel is on the bank's part malfeasance, you'll want to send it to the OCC. More »
So what exactly is the problem? After 12 online (and phone) disputes to Equifax and 14 calls (and faxes) to the Direct Loan Servicing Center, each party seems to blame the other. More »
They acknowledge the router got an upgraded firmware image automatically (forget the fact I had explicitly disabled that feature for this very reason), but I'm shit out of luck. Even though the fact my formerly perfectly working 6100 is now bricked because of something Verizon did without my approval or knowledge, they will not provide me with a new one for free because the router is out of warranty. More »
—>Consumerist reader MunkyBoi had a terrible experience at Tahoe Joe's, where he and his fiancee held their wedding dinner. He tried to follow up with the manager of the restaurant, both to explain what went wrong and to commend the one waitress who saved the day, but the manager kept brushing him off. Finally he wrote a letter to corporate, and was surprised to receive a very personal response—along with a $250 gift certificate—a few days later. We'd love to know if that $250 came out of the manager's profits. More »
...I flew from Sacramento to the connection hub in San Diego, where I had a 25 minute layover. While I would not have chosen a 25-minute layover,Southwest doesn't give you your flight times until you've booked....the two gates were in separate parts of the building, separated by security... More »
—>Confusion about what those color coded bracelets mean can cause deadly medical mistakes, but if the bracelets are standardized — is everyone going to know your business? More »
—>Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but reader Robbie has done everything short of hire someone to wait for his package, and still FedEx will not deliver it. Instead, despite Robbie's best efforts, they keep leaving "Sorry you weren't here" notes outside his door. More »
—>Earlier this week we posted about Cory, a man who had a bad experience with the moving company he hired to schlep his belongings from New York to North Carolina. Now Quality Van Lines has responded with their side of the story. More »
—>Comcast's customer service czar Frank responded to our post "Comcast: "The Patriot Act" Mandates We Need Your SSN" by saying it was an error on part of the agent. Via Twitter he said: More »
—>Dell charged this guy's daughter over $200 for replacement batteries that don't even match her laptop. When her battery died, Dell sent her the wrong battery. Since she was out of warranty, Dell insisted that they could only continue to send her the wrong battery. When she asked why, Bill says the a supervisor repeatedly said, "I don't know ma'am, that's not my problem." More »
—>As several readers discussed in yesterday's post, utility, phone, and cable companies usually require your Social Security number in order to perform a credit check before activating service. You don't have to provide it, but they don't have to extend their services to you either. Here's one reader's explanation of how he was able to turn on water, electricity, gas, and an AT&T land line without turning over his SSN. More »
—>Do you read Consumerist on your lunch break? Oops. Here's a photo of something Richard colorfully calls "maggot stew" lining the bottom of his dog's food dish, right after Banjo finished a heaping helping of Purina Beneful. Richard says Banjo seems okay so far, but we think it's interesting that this is the second Beneful maggot story we've received in under a week. Read Richard's full story below. More »
I just opened my mail for today. I just received a pre-approved credit card application and they ::oops:: included another one for my neighbor, in my envelope. More »
Below I detail a problem I encountered with my 2005 F-150 pickup and what I thought were covered damages and repairs under the initial warranty or the ExtraCARE extended coverage. More »
—>Ryan wanted to order new Comcast service but balked at their request for a Social Security number. When he asked why they needed it, the Comcast chat rep said "The Patriot Act" required it. That doesn't sound right to us, or to Ryan. His story and full screenshot of the chat, inside... More »
—>Cory and his girlfriend moved from New York to North Carolina this summer. They hired Quality Van Lines out of Clifton, NJ to handle the move, but soon regretted the choice: they overcharged him, failed to deliver on promises, and damaged not only his belongings but his car. Cory wants to know what his options are now—and we want readers to know how to avoid hiring companies like Quality Van Lines in the future. More »
—>Brett has now been the victim of two failed rebate attempts through Canon. They ignored the first one, and rejected the second one with a claim that he can clearly disprove. He's trying again. Unfortunately, it looks like Brett's experience with Canon isn't unique. More »
—>Christina's two dogs fell ill after eating Purina Beneful infested with maggots and fly larvae. After taking her dogs to the vet, Christina called Purina for an explanation, only to be told: "As soon as our food leaves our factory, it is no longer our responsibility." More »
—>The ease with which a student was able to reset Sarah Palin's Yahoo email password highlights a vulnerability of so-called "challenge questions" designed to verify your identity: if the questions are about personal details from your life, there's a risk that somewhere out there on the web, that info is visible to the public. That might be a realistic risk only for public figures, but it's also possible that friends or family members could answer your questions with a little guesswork. If you want better security, make up fake answers that you'll remember. More »
—>Don't order textbooks from Indoo.com if you need them right away, because they're a little casual with their shipping. Joe ordered two textbooks on September 5th. Four days later on September 9th, they sent him an email saying they'd been shipped via USPS Priority mail. They hadn't arrived by the 16th, so Joe emailed to ask what was going on. They responded that actually the books had been shipped on September 11th via USPS Priority and that "the arrival expectation is 4 to 5 business days." Joe received one of the two books yesterday, on September 17th, which would have been 5 business days after the 11th. Still no sign of the other book. More »
This Saturday (September 20th) is the Better Business Bureau's "Secure Your ID" day: in select cities, "bring up to three boxes or bags of paper documents that contain your personal information and we'll shred them." Or, you know, just do it yourself all year long. [BBB] More »
—>Rick has been trying for months to get his his credit union, Opportunities Credit Union of Vermont, to pay up for a $125 home inspection, and now, a week after sending his EECB, he prevailed. As we wrote last week, his credit union was supposed to pay for a home inspection but said they didn't have to because the bill was never sent. However, the home inspector uses an electronic billing system and it showed that the credit union rep had in fact read the sent bill. Emails and phone calls between Rick and his credit union rep led to a stalemate. Then Jim sent off an executive email carpet bomb and got the following back from the credit union president: More »
—>If you've ever wanted to see the rants from angry Consumerist tipsters brought to life by the woman who played Patrick Swayze in "Ghost," here ya go—although Sherri Shephard is actually a bit funnier, describing how the Time Warner CSR makes her go to an evil place. Seen here is Shephard letting out the evil because of the CSR who tells her, "Well my supervisor is going to say the same thing." Video clip below. More »
—>Reader Laurynn wants to warn Verizon customers to stay away from "OneBill," because according to several of the 7 different CSRs she talked to today, it's "not ready yet." More »
—>Steve Jackson, a well-known game designer, got an offer for free credit report monitoring from his bank. When he called up the monitoring company, Intersections Inc, the customer service rep rattled off a boilerplate agreement and asked for his assent. When he asked if they would send him a copy, she said they don't send out copies. When he asked then how he would have a record of what they agreed to, she got huffy and said, "This is free. You don't need to worry about it." More »
—>While we're waiting on our video boys to harvest the clip of Whoopie's rant against DirecTV on The View this morning, here's a little reader-submitted DirecTV install nightmare to tide you over. Andy used to think DirecTV was pretty good, but his experience trying to get them to hook up an HD/DVR to his TV has felt him feeling like he is "going to explode, or destroy pieces of furniture." More »
—>UPDATE: Here's the video. More »
—>Forever21 announced Friday that the Secret Service told it criminals had jacked 98,930 credit and debit card numbers from its computers. Based on their forensic analysis, your digits could be in the hands of unsavory individuals if you shopped there on... More »
Nearly all of Houston has no power and most has no water. Even though my upstairs ceiling caved in, my manager at Walgreens said "you're scheduled to work and are expected to be here." More »
—>Tim enjoyed his unlisted phone number for over thirty years until Charter published it in the local phone book. Now he has two options: ditch his long-time number, or lose his cherished anonymity. Inside, Charter's apology letter. More »
—>Two Apple customer service representatives told reader Mark to blame his MacBook's four hard drive crashes on GarageBand, professional-grade software that his puny consumer-grade laptop 'can't handle.' Every MacBook comes with GarageBand pre-loaded as part of Apple's iLife suite. More »
—>UPDATE: EECB Gets Credit Union To Pay Up $125 More »
The court noted that "were the 'Federalist Papers' just being published today via e-mail, that transmission by Publius would violate the [current Virginia] statute." More »
—>You don't have to believe everything customers say to you when you're a customer service rep. You don't even have to actually care. But if you can't stop yourself from slipping in phrases like "not my problem" when you're helping out a customer, maybe you need to try a different career. Like, say, parole officer. More »
—>Police have charged Elizabeth Miller, the manager of the Bed, Bath & Beyond in Lexington, Kentucky, who refused to let a couple use the store's phone to call 911 to report a three-year-old locked in a van, and refused to make an announcement over the store's PA system. The charge is "failure to report dependency, neglect and abuse, a Class B misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of 90 days and a maximum fine of $250." More »
—>Re: Countrywide Sends Fraud Alert Letters: 'Your Info May Have Been Sold," Reader Esqdork writes, "Yesterday, I phoned Countrywide to get them to extend the credit monitoring service [that they offered in their apology letter] to my co-borrower and was promptly hung up on." The only surprise here is that they even picked up in the first place. More »
—>Sick of seeing customers screwed over and billed for unnecessary repairs by undertrained technicians, a Staples tech writes in to tell the incident that made him quit. See this picture? This is the floor model computer where he was told to copy all of a customer's hard drive data as part of their diagnostic process, then he had to leave the area and leave all the data up on the screen for any customer to see or snag with a thumb drive. The full story, inside... More »
—>Got a problem with your federal student loan? The Federal Student Aid Ombudsman specialists are here to help. First they've got a bunch of tips for you to fix your problem on your own. If all those don't work, contact them by phone, fax, or mail and they will help you out. For reals. This is reader Trey's great experience with them: More »
His response was "Whatever, somebody needs to come deal with this because I'm about to go off..." More »
—>Palisades Collection is offering Jeremy a great deal: he can pay half off his debt of $237.64 and get the account settled! Small snag, though, Jeremy never ordered the Verizon service they're trying to collect on, the debt has passed the statute of limitations, and he got it expunged from his credit report years ago. Still, Palisades persists in sending collection notices for him to his grandma's house. What's a boy to do? Read on and find out. More »
I received a letter from Countrywide today that says: More »
Google has announced that they're shortening the duration that they keep personal data on users from 18 months to 9 months. Yay! "It's no big deal—we've already got more personal info on you than we know how to monetize," said a Google official in a totally fabricated (yet plausible) statement. [Reuters] More »
—>The condescending store-manager, irked that your request for them to fulfill their contractual agreement has forced them away from a high-scoring session of Snood. Long have consumers suffered under his reign of caprice and indifference. No longer. A weakness has been discovered. The EECB, a modern version of "taking it to the top." Jim used it and got not only the rare and magnificent personal apology, but a $30 gift card and he was allowed to make the return he wanted to do in the first place. His story follows. More »
—>Many of you know that if you're late on your credit card bill payments they can raise your rates as high as 29.99%, but that's just for scalawags, right? Nope. JLP at All Financial Matter's brother was late twice on his Bank of America bill, once by three days, and once by one day. That was enough to make Bank of America say, OMG, this guy is way too risky and we need to penalize him and send his rates as high as they can legally go! More »
[Parent company] Event Tickets LLC has an unsatisfactory rating from BBB due to its performance, which includes nearly 100 instances of non-delivery of tickets, nearly another 100 complaints involving refunds and exchanges, and on about 200 occasions, the company has failed to even respond to BBB or consumers to resolve issues. More »
—>Seth Robert's doctor discovered he had a tiny hernia and referred him to a general surgeon, who recommended surgery. Seth, a psychology professor at UC Berkely and author of The Shrangri-La Diet, asked why. "It could get worse," she said. "Why is it better to have surgery than not," asked Seth. "Surgery is dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming." The surgeon said clinical trials showed the benefits of this surgery. "Just use Google, you'll find them." Seth tried to find them. His mom, who does medical searching as her job, couldn't find any completed clinical trials. More »
—>Daniel went to his local Safeway with his brother to buy some beer. Daniel had his ID, but his brother didn't—but that's okay, because Daniel was the one buying the beer. The cashier, however, felt otherwise, and wouldn't complete the transaction without carding both of them. The store manager told him "the policy is, at the discretion of the clerk, to check the ID of every person present." More »
—>At Bank of America, your accounts are Buddhist. As in, undergoing "eternal return," where accounts that have been closed and passed on will reemerge, rejuvenated, reopened, even if you closed them long, long, ago. Reader Chip writes: More »
—>Slickdeal forums members are complaining about a mass-closing of Amazon accounts. The reasons cited vary from having too high a percentage of returns, shipping to too many different addresses, and having too many different Amazon accounts. Guess they're trying to tighten their bottom line and prevent loopholes from being exploited, but the net may have been cast too wide; some of the adversely affected users say the action was unfair and unwarranted. Couple this with the online retailer dropping the post price guarantee at basically the same time and you have to wonder if the boys in the Amazon backroom spent Labor Day Weekend earning their Six Sigma certificates. More »
—>Here's some updates on the post about reader Josh, whom Orbitz wanted to make pay for a ticket they never sold him and he never used. Turns out that between when he sent his original letter to us in February and when we posted it, Orbitz sent him to collections. But now that his story got on here and Digg, Orbitz's ass-covering machine has been activated... More »
—>Last year, Lowe's horribly botched Allen's $3500 fence installation (see picture, left). When he complained, the installer and Lowes dodged responsibility, but still demanded $3500. Allen refused to pay and they sent his bill to collections. So Allen put up Lowes-sucks.com with pictures, correspondence and phone recordings of his customer service debacle. Instead of fixing Allen's problem, Lowe's sent him a cease-and-desist to get him to take down the website, claiming "trademark infringement." That's when our site picked it up, along with Ars Technica, Digg, and others, driving lots of traffic to Lowes-sucks.com That was a year ago. Now it seems Allen has won his fight. More »
—>In a dime-a-dozen business like nail salons, you need to have a hook or a gimmick to be unique. At the The Bella Aqua Spa in Laurinburg, North Carolina, they seem to have settled on requiring a copious amount of personal and medical history from you before you get to have a manicure as their little way of standing out. More »
—>UPDATE: Orbitz Sent Reader To Collections For Ticket They Never Sold Him More »
—>Ah, New Zealand, the land of kiwis and hobbits. Daniel and his girlfriend went there to set up a studio and get paid to do recording sessions. They're musicians. They hired Morton Van Lines to ship their equipment from LA to NZ, but after over seven months of struggle, they got it, or their money back.Turns out the equipment was shipped to the wrong country and then returned to the USA. Maybe if Morton Van Lines ever returned a phone call or an email it could have been straightened out. But nay. Here's Daniel's story... More »
—>This telemarketer has had it up to here with all of you people at home hanging up on her every time she needs to sell you something! Randall Whited in Austin, Texas, received an earful recently, when he answered the phone shortly after hanging up on the unnamed telemarketer. More »
—>Wamu's fraud department has a problem sending letters. Just like another reader, Kristin, we posted about, Rob is having trouble disputing fraudulent charges on his account. He followed their every instruction, except to respond to the second letter WaMu sent out. How could Rob do such a foolish thing? Because it never showed up in his mailbox, a point, WaMu seems to think, is owing to, not their incompetence, but Rob's general lassitude and weakness of character. Or something like that. Here's Rob's story... More »
—>According to reader Caleb, Wells Fargo seems to have recently crippled their loan repayment system in a way that makes it impossible for borrowers to pay off loans the way they want to. That is, unless you prefer to let your highest-interest loans ride for as long as possible while you pay off your lower-interest loans... More »
—>In the battle for customer satisfaction, if Mike's letter is any indication, it appears that ASUS is (still) under siege attack by General Incompetence. More »
—>Last year, Gpotato.com fraudulently took $50 from reader Adam's Paypal account. He disputed the charge, Paypal agreed it was fraud and returned the funds, and Adam closed the account. Now all of a sudden Paypal's internal collections agency is calling up Adam and making rude and insistent demands that he pay this $50 immediately. More »
—>A Customer Associate for a Best Buy in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was indicted on Thursday for credit card fraud—three counts of making fraudulent purchases over $2500, three counts of making fraudulent purchases over $500, over 20 counts of falsely signing credit card slips, and 1 count of disposing of stolen property. More »
—>Update: Circuit City says the repair should have been free. Here's their response. Travis writes that a friend of his just bought a new computer from Circuit City, and after turning down all of the Firedog's "it won't work unless you also buy this" offers, he noticed a $40 fee on his receipt. Turns out the associate claims he had to flash the computer's BIOS or Vista wouldn't work. Travis writes, "Regardless of the fact that Vista booted up just fine with out the update, he was more disturbed with the fact that Circuit City would sell him a computer that they knew didn't work, or so they say." So does Circuit City sell computers that don't work without a preliminary repair, or do they lie in order to generate extra fees? More »
—>Although stores often claim they employ receipt checkers to make sure you got everything you paid for, you still might get ripped off. This past weekend, three stores tried to sell us items that did not match their price tag or description. Each time, we politely pointed out the difference to a manager, and each time, we were rewarded for doing so, either with a reduced price or a better item than the original one we wanted. Let us tell you about our exciting weekend, inside. More »
—>We'd hoped that Activision's blunder would be the last one, but it turns out the HR department at Aflac can't find the BCC field either. Reader Corey writes in to let us know he just received an email addressed to him and 623 other people who were interested in jobs with the insurance company. Our guess is some of the recipients won't be so interested in a career with a company that doesn't care about the privacy of its employees. After the jump, a quick guide to obscuring other recipients' email addresses so this doesn't happen again. More »
Gmail recently rolled out a change to its settings, where now you can permanently turn on SSL encryption. Do it now—your personal data will thank you for it. Besides, it's going to get a lot easier to hack Gmail sessions very soon, because some guy is planning on releasing a hacking tool to the public in order to force Google to implement better security. [monkey_bites] More »
—>Consumerist reader Chris decided to take advantage of GM's please-buy-a-car Employee Discount sale that we wrote about yesterday, so he headed off to two different dealerships in the NY/NJ area. What he found were deserted showrooms with salesmen who ignored him or argued with him over the existence of specific models he'd looked at online. He adds, "tonight I’m off to Toyota for some hard numbers on a Corolla and Camry." More »
—>Reader Misha would like to know what can be done about a mail carrier who seems to enjoy throwing packages up several flights of stairs, and supervisors at the post office who don't mind that she does this. More »
—>After reviewing the more than 14,000 comments left by living human beings, the FTC yesterday amended its Telemarketing Sales Rule to ban most types of robotic telemarketing calls. By this December, any recorded calls will have to lead off with an automated opt-out option; by September 2009, telemarketers will need prior written permission to contact someone—simply being a recent customer won't cut it. More »
—>Reader Jeff writes in to let us know that Comcast Frank and the Twitter team swooped in and rescued him from Comcast tech hell. More »
—>Reader Sara wants to share the experience she had with Petsmart's dog grooming service. She says that after they accidentally cut her dog's toenail too close they tried to sell her a product to stop the bleeding. More »
—>Adam is writing in to say that in the year that Virgin America has been operating, he feels that they've forgotten how to run their airline. The first time he flew with them, his flight was delayed and his laptop adapter melted. He got a free flight. The second time he flew, about a year later, his flight was delayed, the airline ran out of food, his luggage was ripped open and his valuables disappeared, and the baggage claim rep laughed at his misfortune. More »
—>Pizza Hut apologized for sending an unsolicited marketing email by sending an unsolicited apology email. We've all accidentally hit send without ending the world, but the pizza-maker's flub is all the more egregious because they force customer who place orders online to opt-in to spam marketing. According to Pizza Hut, the error occurred while "testing new functionality." More »
—>USAToday says that the TSA was placing fliers who forgot their ID in a database along with people who have been questioned for "suspicious behavior" or who "violated security laws." In an interview, TSA chief Kip Hawley told the paper that the "the information helps track potential terrorists who may be "probing the system" by trying to get though checkpoints at various airports." More »
—>About a month ago, we wrote about Walmart's new logo, and its resemblance to one of Kurt Vonnegut's favorite drawings. It's happened again, although we might be, um, stretching it. While browsing Ikea the other day, we came across their Visen bathroom set, and, well, judge for yourself. More »
—>Last week, a developer discovered that the iPhone has the capability to quietly connect to Apple's servers to check an application blacklist, and then disable any installed apps that are on the list. The story was quickly defused by blogs, but today the Wall Street Journal says Steve Jobs has confirmed that there really is an application "kill switch." More »
—>A mom in West Virginia says her 3-year-old's Diego walkie-talkie, which is supposed to have a range of 20 feet, picked up some blue talk from truckers who may have been 275 miles away. "They said we should go smoke some weed, and were talking about being in a strip bar, some really explicit things," the mother told the Asssociated Press. More »
—>DirecTV customers are complaining that a software upgrade is shoving pay-per-view movies onto their DVR hard-drives, eating up disc-space and causing headaches. Tipster Buzwardo says, "I find it pretty darn annoying that DirecTV is sending me PPV content that I now have to make sure my kids don't play." More complaints can be found in the DirecTV Forums. More »
—>Back in June we mentioned how TicketsMyWay has a reputation for not actually providing tickets—"MyWay" apparently refers to the company and not the customer, and it translates into "no tickets or refunds for you." A customer who learned the hard way about TicketsMyWay sent us an alert that the company is operating under a new banner, OnTheGoTickets.com. More »
—>Marc's girlfriend found some lumps in her breasts, the mammogram and ultrasound came back ok, but BCBS is denying coverage for the biopsy, saying it's a "pre-existing condition." The out-of-pocket cost is over $2,000. We're confused, BCBS. What pre-existing condition? That she has breasts? That she might not have cancer? More »
—>"Maybe I should call the E*Trade Baby. He might give me better customer service." Matt's mother died last year and he has been trying since last year to liquidate her E*Trade CD and put it in the family trust. Every other financial institution has been able to liquidate the assets with no problem, but it seems after blowing their wad on funny Superbowl ads, E*Trade has nothing left over for customer service. Here's Matt's story, and our advice on how can get his problem fixed: More »
—>Joe may have uncovered a deceptive policy at United Airlines that's screwing over customers. Here's how it works. If you've got an economy ticket and the only seats available are in Economy Plus, but you didn't spring for the extra Economy Plus fee, you're asked if you would like to pay the upgrade fee for economy plus seating. If you decline to upgrade, they seat you there anyway. Sounds pretty sketchy to me. Here's Joe's story: More »
—>You know those Verizon ads where someone is trying to make a call and like 100 Verizon people show up to help them do it? Arelene's story is sort of like that. Except they all showed up to help her change her address. And they were one at a time. And it was over the phone. And it took several days. Here's her tale, and how she eventually won... More »
—>With all the focus on the girl rocketing across the desert in a supersonic purple dildo, Washington Mutual forgot to mention one thing. When you sign up for a new account with them online instead of in person, be prepared to be treated like a criminal at every turn. Here's Brett's story of why he and his partner don't bank with WaMu, and never will again... More »
—>This NSFW recording is an expletive-drenched masterpiece. It's a series of messages a customer left on a cable company's answering machine after his cable went out and every number they had listed in the phonebook was busy... More »
—>When the sign says, "employees must wash hands after using bathroom," Brent takes it very seriously. He says he was using the toilet at a Wendy's, and spotted a worker use the bathroom and head right back to fondling the fries without scrubbing his hands. That's when Brent decided to call out the guy in front of the entire restaurant. Here's his story and what happened next... More »
—>The FBI has announced that a former Countrywide employee and his accomplice were arrested on charges related to "illegal access of computers containing personal information," and "illegal sale of the data." A criminal complaint filed last Friday alleges that one of the men, Rene L. Rebollo Jr., a senior financial analyst for Countrywide Home Loan's subprime mortgage division (who was let go in July), had been harvesting data from Countrywide's computers for the past two years — downloading and storing the information on personal flash drives. More »
—>Meet James Colliton, a disbarred corporate lawyer who served 19 months in jail after bribing a mother so he could sleep with her 13 and 15 year-old daughters. Colliton recently sued American Express for $4 million, claiming that he was captured because the credit card company told authorities that the fugitive gutter-cretin was signing for hotel rooms in Ontario. More »
—>Reader Rachael wants to know if there's any way she can get a harassing debt collector to stop calling her 3 times a day — looking for someone else who used to have her number. More »
—>Well, if you're having a bad day at work, rest assured that someone in Georgia is having a worse one. The Journal-Constitution is reporting that 202,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia customers had their personal information exposed, including (in some cases) their social security numbers, thanks to an error in the computerized mailing system. The system was apparently used before it was tested. More »
—>"Go outside, or to hilltop to make calls from your cell phone. Sprint does not guarantee call quality in buildings or homes," a Sprint customer service rep told reader Nathan shortly before he canceled service. Sprint had told a long series of lies with various reasons and solutions that never materialized for why Nathan and his family couldn't get any reception in their home. After wrangling for many months, Nathan told them to stuff it. More »
—>John finally got United to pay for the car he had to rent when the airline flew him to the wrong airport over nine months ago. In classic fashion, their refund invoice has a big typographical error. Airlines, even when they get it right, they manage to get it wrong. More »
—>Our network of spies and informants have penetrated every major American corporation. The following is dialog from a recent Spirit Airlines board meeting, as imagined by reader David, whom they screwed over. The first sentence of this post is therefore a non sequitor, but that's ok. What's not ok is Spirit's policy making its various fees and upgrades non-refundable. So if they screw up your ticket and then have to issue you a new one, you don't get to keep the upgrades you bought. They just take your money, because of their ironclad policy against refunds. Now let's join that imagined Spirit Airlines board meeting, already in progress... More »
—>Yesterday, we received a letter from Primo's Vice President of Marketing and PR. He wanted to chime in on Primo's unique bottle qualities and dispel any assumptions that a heated Primo bottle could somehow release toxic chemicals. His letter, inside... More »
—> More »
—>Modell's own peculiar definition of "low price guarantee, we will beat any ad" surprised reader Randy when he tried to get them to honor it on a baseball glove he bought, as it would even the most casual student of Logic or Semantics. He writes: More »
—>Reader Patrick wrote to us about a scam involving the "Awesome Auger." After finishing his transaction on their website, Patrick thought that his total price came to $28.98, but he soon came to realization that the only thing awesome about the "Awesome Auger" was the amount that they charge for "shipping and processing" on the auger's "free" items. All said and done, Patrick was billed $56.80 on his credit card. Patrick's letter inside... More »
—>Yes, OFF! FamilyCare Smooth and Dry insect repellent contains cornstarch. Reader Michelle found out about this fact the worst way possible—not through an ingredient label of which there is none that mentions cornstarch, but by inadvertently inhaling the stuff one evening and suffering an allergic reaction which lasted a few days. Michelle's letter, inside... More »
—>UPDATE: After he sent an EECB, all of Andrew's billing errors have been resolved. More »
—>Nate and Ashley got some duplicate gifts from Macy's and attempted to exchange them for store credit. The trouble is, when they tried to spend the gift card they'd be given — they found out that it had never been validated. They're pretty much resigned to the fact that they're not getting the $120 in store credit back, but they'd like to let Macy's know that they were treated very rudely by several employees. More »
—>Lauren was shocked to find five charges for a total of $200 on her account from a pizza place she hadn't been to in months. They were all levied from one Uno Chicago Grill during a day she wasn't even in town. What she found out about why they happened in the first place was even more disturbing, and annoying. More »
—>If a store sells you something, and then fails to deliver the product, you should be entitled to a full refund, right? Not so at Furniture Bargains of Calumet City, IL. There, even when they don't give you the furniture you ordered at all, they'll take 20% off your refund, at "the manager's discretion." Which I guess is just a fancy way of saying, "we feel like robbing you today and the manager said it's ok." AJ's story, inside... More »
—>Reader Bill wrote to us wondering about some cheap flashlights he bought from Amazon. Their warning label says to "Always wear ANSI approved safety goggles when using this product...Normal everyday use of this product is likely to expose the user to dust and microscopic particles containing lead and other chemicals known in the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm." Should Bill be worried about the cancer risk and reproductive harm of his flashlights? More »
—>Reader j. sent us the above scan of a page from an L.L. Bean catalog. j. says: More »
—>Reader Joe wrote to us with a heads-up about not short-changing the U.S. Post Office. His postman left him a serious-ass invoice charging Joe with 1¢ postage due. According to Joe's rough numbers, the PO spent at least $.25 to pay the postman for the estimated minute it took to write the invoice. Joe's letter and photos, inside... More »
—>Reader Diana has always had small problems at her local KFC store in Los Lunas, NM. but never of this magnitude. After Diana returned home with her food, she realized that KFC had forgotten the biscuits. Because Diana lives nearby and is a fan of their biscuits, she returned to KFC to retrieve her missing food. Instead of a helpful and apologetic employee, she spoke to a rude and sarcastic employee who was convinced that she had included the biscuits and believed that Diana was liar. Diana recounts her conversation, inside... More »
—>U.S. law allows whistleblowers to collect 30 percent of any taxes recovered as a result of their information, and it seems that one disgruntled computer technician is taking advantage of the program. Meet Heinrich Kieber, a nefarious criminal-type turned "good guy" who will be testifying in front of the "Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Thursday via a video statement from a secret location," according to ABC News. Mr. Keiber is from Liechtenstein, a tiny country with very secretive banking laws. He stole banking information that showed how the world's super-rich were skirting their countries tax laws. Keiber then sold the information to tax authorities in 12 countries, including the U.S, hence the whole "secret location" thing. More »
—>Thruhike98 tried to buy some wine at Target a couple of weekends ago, and they were surprised at how invasive the ID check turned out to be: More »
—>WaMu goes out of its way to convince you that it is staffed by friendly, outgoing people who want to help you if something goes wrong. Their "About" page on the WaMu website says: "We’re informal, friendly and fun. We take our customers’ money seriously, but not ourselves." We suspect that reader Drew would disagree with the whole "friendly" part of that sentence. He arrived home a day late from a business trip to Europe and was in a rush to pay his rent before it was due. He made it to the WaMu branch 5 minutes before it closed, but it was already locked. More »
—>Reader Brandon is obviously familiar with number 3 in the 10 Things You Might Not Know About Your Credit Card post, holding firm in the face of a retailer who wanted Brandon to give his driver's license when he bought something with a credit card: More »
—>Dhanushka is having some trouble getting money back from his travel agent. He writes, More »
—>Jon was freaked out when flying on Jetblue and his flight came in close proximity to another aircraft. He wonders if he should, and how he might, report such an incident. His story, and advice we got from an Air Force pilot, inside... More »
—>Last winter, David's old furnace broke down. But things got really heated up when the incompetent HVAC repairmen he hired threatened to report him to collection agencies and put a lien on his condo when they wanted him to pay up for a repair they never finished. Just to give a little atmosphere, this takes place in Chicago, famed for its merciless winters. David's story, and how fought back, inside... More »
—>Gail Martin was having a meal at a restaurant in Jackson, SC. when her 4-year-old autistic daughter Alyssa began crying, WIS10 reports. Gail then heard a man yell at her from across the room who told her leave the restaurant. This man was neither a callous restaurant employee nor a drunk bar patron, it was the Jackson Police Chief, Dennis Rushton. "He said, ‘You need to pick her up and you need to get out of here now,'" Gail said. Details, inside... More »
—>Last Friday, we told you about Ashlee from Paonia, Colorado who took her Saturn to a Walmart Auto Service Center in the city of Delta for an oil change. Because they botched the job, the oil leaked out which resulted in extensive engine damage to the tune of $5,875. Since then, she spoke to a representative from Walmart's insurance company who said that they won't pay for the repairs, because when Ashlee discovered the damage, she took her car to a non-Walmart mechanic, and in doing so has "tampered with evidence." Not to be trifled with, Ashlee is gathering evidence and witnesses and hiring a lawyer. Ashlee's, letter inside... More »
—>Consumerist Forums reader Sixtwo sent us some photos from his recent scrape with Dell and the stupid shipping gang. He ordered a pair of "keyboard condoms" which tip the scales at a few grams, but received a giant box and paid $16 for shipping. His letter and photos, inside... More »
—>Reports on the MacRumors forums and Gizmodo comments assert that some of the new Apple iPhone 3Gs look distinctly iJaundiced. Needless to say, the owners are pissed. Did you get one of these banana phones? Send an email with a pic to tips@consumerist.com or let us know in the comments. More »
—>You may think this dog is cute, but that's bullshit. This dog is a deadbeat that doesn't pay its Verizon bill. More »
—> Is Walmart channeling Kurt Vonnegut? When Walmart unveiled its new logo last week, there was only one thing we thought of when we saw that logo. More »
—>Margaret Vail (pictured left), an 80-year-old woman from Mansfield, OH., is fed up with Sears and the numerous collection agencies that claim she ordered a $6 datebook back in 2003. According to the Mansfield News Journal, Margaret never ordered the datebook, yet Sears sent her one anyway and put it on her Sears charge card. Her local store won't accept returns on mail-order merchandise and she refuses to pay shipping to return it. Over the years, the balance has ballooned to $130 which doesn't faze Margaret who is spending over $200 in fees to file her lawsuit. Details, inside... More »
—>Huey Tsao, an expectant mother, was looking forward to a family reunion aboard the Carnival Glory. Along with her boarding pass, she received a document entitled "Welcome Aboard: Things to know before you sail" which stated that guests who are 27 weeks into their pregnancy are not permitted to sail because of the risk of premature labor. Huey was not concerned because she was only 26 weeks and had a note from her physician stating that she was fit to travel. She and her family arrived at the dock only to find out some very bad news. Unbeknownst to Huey, Carnival had changed their no-sail pregnancy policy from 27 weeks to 24 weeks. Despite her doctor's note and attempts at escalating the issue, she was denied passage onto the boat. Her letter, inside... More »
—>Jasper got a notice in the mail about marketing from Bank of America, so he called them up to opt-out. After agreeing to stop spamming him, the Bank of America CSR launched into a sales pitch for their "credit protection" services... More »
More »
—>Sarah bought some car chargers from Eforcity through Amazon, and was disappointed to find that the charger plug doesn't stay in the phone unless you hold it in. She said as much in her Amazon feedback. In response, Eforcity said they would be happy to give her a refund, as long as she deleted her negative feedback. In other words, a bribe for self-censorship. Eforcity's email, inside... More »
—>All the security in the world can be rendered useless by human error, it seems. Marko Karppinen, a software designer, says Apple gave his password to someone who simply emailed them and asked for it. More »
—>Can it actually be unsafe to fly a plane full of seething, rage-filled passengers from Florida to New York? Apparently so. Flight 1908 from Miami to LaGuardia was delayed because the flight crew didn't arrive on time. When they did finally show up, the angry passengers started to boo. More »
—>23 months after we first posted her story, Angela Weigold writes in with the latest update about a Prius salesmen who left multiple harassing phone messages daily, calling Anela a "whore" and put her phone number on online escort websites. More »
—>Do you ever feel trapped by a company because of their ineffectual and unsympathetic ways? Reader Josh had that feeling because he and his friend Omar were literally trapped inside Public Storage for an hour-and-a-half when the facility locked its gates 10 minutes early. Omar called Public Storage's 800 number, and after waiting on hold for 20 minutes, he was told to call a different number which also placed him on hold. Meanwhile, Josh decided to call the local police department who told them they had no way to open the gate. While searching the facility for a place to escape, they discovered the trailer where the manager lives. She was none too happy to help Josh and Omar and told them that their release would result in an extra charge on Omar's bill. Josh's letter, inside... More »
—>UPDATE: Adam has been in contact with the owners and has posted an update on his site. More »
—>Wired's Threat Level blog says that the judge in the Viacom/Google lawsuit has made a ruling forcing Google to turn over "every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses," to Viacom. More »
—>Like countless others, reader Ryan is in debt. His debt is to the tune of $1,364. He received an interesting offer from the debt collector who is offering "debt reduction" in the form of a pre-approved Visa card in which his $1,364 debt would be reduced to a $1,200 balance if he accepts the card. He would need only to to pay off the balance under the terms of the credit card to eliminate his debt. Ryan wisely wrote to us to ask if this is a good idea. Actually Ryan, it's a really really really bad idea. His letter and our advice, inside... More »
—>UPDATE: Comcast has now removed Brad from its mailing lists for really reals. More »
—>After a mechanical snafu grounded his flight to Zurich, Aaron received several vouchers and an upgrade as compensation from United Airlines. Unfortunately, the vouchers and upgrades proved so difficult to use that he has given up and is now publicly vowing never to fly United Airlines again. More »
—>Peter writes: More »
—>Somewhere between 51,000 and 200,000 records were stolen from Montgomery Ward's servers last December—the company says it's the smaller number, but CardCops, the group that spotted the hack in the first place, "spotted hackers touting the sale of 200,000 payment cards belonging to one merchant" in June, which is how the story became public. Montgomery Wards knew about the breach when it happened, and although they reported the crime to federal investigators, they didn't tell any of the victims. The CEO of Direct Marketing Services, which owns the Montgomery Ward name, told the Associated Press that after he alerted investigators he felt his company "had met its obligations." More »
—>When you fly an ultra low budget airliner, you expect ultra low service, but even under that business model, it seems reasonable to assume that calling customer service won't take you to a phone sex line. Reader Barbara would agree. She writes: More »
—>Tipster Toland pointed us toward the Stonecipher Report which contains an entry about a weary traveler who, against his better judgment, decided to get his oil changed at Wal-Mart. After his car was returned, he noticed that his oil monitoring system was still indicating 10% oil life. He asked the Wal-Mart employee if the oil had actually been changed to which she replied, "Yep, I know it was, cause I did it myself." He then went to go check the dipstick and discovered the oil hadn't been changed after all. His post, inside... More »
—>Reader Victor wrote to alert us to NCIC payphones which are charging outrageous rates and fees in various airports across the country. At first, Victor used some spare change in an NCIC payphone and received a reasonable long distance rate of about $1 for 4 minutes. But Victor ran out of change and used his credit card to make 3 more quick calls. When Victor received his bill he discovered that he'd been charged $11 per call. He directed us over to ripoffreports.com and as far as we can tell, he got off easy. We read numerous reports of customers being charged exorbitant rates for local and long distance calls. The amounts that their customers are being charged vary so wildly that we're not even sure what NCIC's rates are supposed to be. Victor's letter, inside... More »
—>Hey! Krystal! Are you there?! Reader Josh sent two letter complaining about his local burger franchise and hasn't heard a peep in response. Not even "we're taking it seriously" or "your opinion is important to us." Nothing! More »
—>Meet Ms. Suspicious, a member of the "Online Liberation Movement." According to AT&T, Ms. Suspicious "has nothing to hide," so she certainly won't mind when AT&T and their traitorous telecom buddies trash the Constitution and violate her right to privacy! More »
—>A few days ago, we told you about Mark's Arby's Roast Beef sandwich which was made with beef-confetti rather than the slices of beef which are normally served. Mark fired off a letter to Arby's and actually received a reply. In case you were losing sleep thinking about how such an enigmatic sandwich came to be, Arby's supplies an explanation. Original not-safe-for-lunch photo and Arby's response, inside... More »
—>Reader Taylor had purchased wedding rings from Zales with a payment plan that allows him to make payments over the course of a year. One day, Taylor went to the store to make a payment of $160 and received his receipt for the cash transaction. A few days later, he received a call from the store manager who said that she believed that Taylor had only paid $60 and cited a surveillance video which, according to the manager, shows their sales representative counting only 3 bills. Even though Taylor was certain that he paid $160 and has a receipt to prove it, he asked to see this intriguing video, but the store manager has been giving him the run-around ever since. Taylor's letter and our advice, inside... More »
—>If you produced expensive, frequently pirated software, you'd probably want the process for buying it to be as easy on the customer as possible, right? If you're Adobe, not so much. Yet another reader writes in to share her frustrations with trying to buy Adobe's Dreamweaver. More »
—>Last month we reported on Charter Communications' plan to start tracking its users internet activity in order to serve more targeted ads. Charter claimed customers could opt-out of the service, but a reader reviewed Charter's opt-out method and discovered that even if you said no, you would still be tracked. Yesterday Charter announced it was abandoning the program and will not track its customers' activities after all—at least for the immediate future. More »
—>Even at Apple where consistency practiced and preached, not all Apple Stores are created equal, just ask reader Adam. The Bluetooth capability on his Macbook Pro was malfunctioning and because he relies on his Macbook for work, he couldn't simply drop it off for a week to be repaired. Fortunately, Adam had a 1-week vacation ahead, so he left the Macbook at the Millenia Apple Store in Orlando, FL. who promised him that the repairs would be made before the end of his break. Adam returned to pick up the Macbook and discovered that not only had it not been fixed, nobody had even attempted to diagnose the problem. Adam could not afford to miss any work, so on a whim, he brought it to a different Apple Store which produced a dramatically different result. Adam's letter, inside... More »
—>Yesterday, we wrote about a mother whose five-year-old child had diarrhea and was refused bathroom access by a local Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. She emailed us today to say she received a call from the Chief Operating Officer of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. More »
—> More »
—>Got a Chase credit card? Check your bill to see if the due date shrunk. For the past ten months, the due date on reader NDphoxylady's four Chase credit card due date was the fifteenth. Then, without warning or notice, it became the tenth. NDphoxylady only noticed when she was charged a $39 late fee and a $20 finance charge. When she complained to Chase, they told her that simply changing the due date on the bill was adequate notice. Nu-uh More »
—>Reader S knows his stuff when it comes to his rights as an airline passenger. He was flying on American Airlines (AA) and takeoff was delayed. AA said it was because of thunderstorms in Dallas. He called a friend in Dallas and they said "there isn't a cloud in the sky." AA later revealed the flight was actually delayed because they were waiting for a fax. It's understandable why AA lied. Since this was something they had control over, it meant they owed several things to the delayed passengers. By lying and saying it was due to the weather, they could escape their obligation. The flight finally took off but reader S missed his connection and had to stay overnight in a hotel, a hotel room that American should have paid for. Inside, the letter S executive email carpet bombed after two customer service reps refused to listen to his story on the phone and an online form sent back a robotic received reply with no real results. More »
—>David becomes our first reader to fly under the TSA's new ID policy. Formerly, if you refused or were unable to show ID you could still fly — but were required to undergo secondary screening by the TSA. Now they've altered their position slightly— fliers who willingly refuse to show ID are now barred from flying. The new rule went into effect over the weekend, and David says that in order to board the plane after forgetting his driver's license he had to answer questions about his political party affiliation and previous addresses. More »
—>A reader writes: "Last night we were out with friends and went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory at Bella Terra/Huntington Beach. We were eating outside as my 5 year old daughter got an uncontrollable urge to use the bathroom and began crying and screaming 'diarrhea, diarrhea.' I ran into the store with her in my arms, begging to use the bathroom and they refused multiple times." More »
—>As I enjoyed the New York Philharmonic's production of Tosca this past Tuesday, I received a solicitation call. From the New York Philharmonic. More »
—>Texas wedding caterer Dale Cane found a dead rat's head in one of the twenty cans of Allen's Italian Green Beans he bought at Walmart. Allen's quickly offered Cane $200 if he agreed to keep quiet, and assured him that "the Pasteurization process renders the product sterile and completely safe for consumption." Even worse, this isn't the first time a dead rat's head popped up in a can of Allen's Green Beans... More »
—>Joelle expected Acer to repair her chronically overheating laptop, not coat the inside of its screen with "a sort of brown dripping." Acer insists that their shipping company caused the internal screen damage, and won't repair the laptop unless Joelle pays up. More »
—>Time Warner wants reader Nancy, a 60-year-old English teacher, to pay $1,400 for ordering porn—including 17 flicks supposedly viewed on a single day. Nancy didn't order the porn, and has no clue how the charges were associated with her cable box, but one useless Time Warner representative suggested: "maybe your dog ordered them." More »
—>It's no secret to Consumerist readers that Comcast's outsourced techs are often late, rude and incompetent, and that calling customer service is more akin to improving dialogue in a Beckett play, but as this exclusively obtained powerpoint made by a Comcast employee shows, it's no secret to the cable company either. (I know the damn thing wasn't officially created by Comcast corp. C'mon, give us more credit than that. It's pretty obvious that it's too funny to be official. I just meant to describe how it was created by a Comcast employee and passed around to other Comcast employees and came from inside Comcast. I realize now that "internal" makes it sound official, and that wasn't my intention. I apologize for the confusion.) Watch and/or download the powerpoint, inside... More »
—>Now that it's summer, many people are doing the moving thing. For some, this might mean renting a truck or trailer from U-Haul, like reader Ryan. He reserved a truck from U-Haul online well in advance of his move, but when he went in for pickup was told none were available. Ryan called corporate, who called the store and convinced the surly manager to give Ryan a truck. Three days after Ryan returned the truck, he got this voicemail from from U-Haul: “This is Alexandria U-Haul Rentals. Your rental truck was due three days ago and you haven't returned it. If you don't return our truck today I will call the police." See how Ryan handled the situation, inside. More »
The FTC claims that CompuCredit didn’t properly disclose that it monitored spending and cut credit lines if consumers used their cards at certain places. Among them: tire and retreading shops, massage parlors, bars, billiard halls, and marriage counseling offices. "What they didn’t say was that you could be punished for specific kinds of purchases." More »
—>How would you feel to learn that not only had your household become subscribed to a magazine against its will, you were not getting threats that your account was overdue and was about to be sent to a debt-collection agency? That's exactly what happened to husband and wife Keith and Stacy with New York Magazine. After our post went up about them, NYmag, wanting to defend what Communications Manager Lauren Starke called, "the good name of our circulation department—one of the most solid in the industry." We put them in contact with Keith. After a flurry of testy emails between the two, here's what happened. More »
—>As part of a full kitchen upgrade, reader Sean purchased a $1300 dishwasher from Sears. Shortly after he received the unit, he realized it was defective. Sears directed him to an outsourced service company called OneSource. During the phone call to OneSource, Sean logged over 3 hours of hold time and was bounced around to 11 different CSRs, but they did nothing to help. Eventually, he got with Sears Executive customer service who said that they couldn't replace the washer until July. Now, Sean can't even wash his dishes because his hot water isn't connected and his garbage disposal leaks water. Sean's letter, inside... More »
—>These Sun Chips have shrunk from 11.5 oz to 10.5 oz and are still being sold at the same price. "Not even healthy foods that normally are already sold in smaller portions are safe," says tipster MasonTwo who spotted these on the shelves at Walmart. CNN says the products most vulnerable to the Grocery Shrink Ray are paper towels, potato chips, sticks of gum, toilet paper, detergent and candy bars. Hey, look at the bright side, maybe the Grocery Shrink Ray is just what we need to fight the obesity crisis. More »
—>Tony Roma corporate sent Alex the following response to his complaint over being sold a 16 oz beer and getting a 14 oz beer instead: More »
—>UPDATE: Tony Roma Corporate Responds To Shrinking Beer Complaint More »
—>The moving company responsible for the moving disaster that we mentioned the other day has written in to share some information about the way insurance works in the event of such a catastrophe. More »
—>Chris gave Comcast a heads up that he was moving and wanted to arrange a transfer date ahead of time, and they disconnected his present internet access instead. Gahhhhhhh! Ahhhh!!! When he made various calls to various Comcast departments, various employees agreed it was messed up, but all refused to actually solve the problem. So Chris, using some email addresses we posted, sent out a well-crafted executive email carpet bomb... More »
—>Not content with contaminating your mailbox or using your windshield wiper as coupon clip, Domino's has found a new hi-tech method of distributing coupons using the concept of inertial mass combined with a transparent weatherproof barrier. Ok, it's actually just a Ziploc filled with coupons and rocks. Reader Will arrived home to discover the baggies littering his driveway and those of his neighbors'. We assume that the rocks allow the lazy Domino's employees to easily fling the bundles out of their car windows and help keep the baggie weighted down. Will's letter, inside... More »
—> More »
—>A MasterCard spokesperson has confirmed, just like we've been telling you all along, that a store cannot refuse to sell you something solely because you refuse to provide additional identification along with your MasterCard. The only time it's ok is if it's required for shipping, or when you're at a gas pump or making orders via internet, phone, or mail, in which case they can use the MasterCard Address Verification System (AVS). But if you're in a store, right in front of them, in the flesh, it violates their MasterCard merchant agreement. Consumers experiencing this can fill out a Merchant Violation form found in the FAQ/Contact US part of Mastercard.com. Full statement, inside... More »
—>It is no secret that we dole out criticism of the cable companies, perhaps, on a daily basis. We thought it might be fair and equitable to learn what cable technicians hate about the customers. We found out about this post written by a cable tech who isn't afraid to let it fly, "And every once in a while, we get the one customer, and we just fucking hate you," says "InstallerTechJeff" on Cable Rant Forums. The 25 reasons, inside... More »
—>What should you do when you carefully pack all of your belongings into a truck for a cross country move and the driver promptly drives under a bridge that's a couple feet shorter than said truck? That's the question that one couple is asking after their move from Boston to Oakland, CA went horribly awry. They shared their story with a Boston alumni email list and one user posted it to LiveJournal. Their letter, plus a gallery of photos generously donated by eyewitness (and Flickr user) K a t m, inside. More »
Another article about Facebook applications and their scary privacy implications. Why does a Sudoku puzzle need to know that you have two kids? [Washington Post] More »
—>Apropos of today's Worst Company In America matchup between DeBeers and Exxon, Wesa Anderson sends us this EE Robbins diamond ad seen on the side of a Seattle bus. See, the way it works is the more you spend, the more man you are. No girl can resist a big rock. Hey, maybe I should make extra cash drafting taglines for EE Robbins. More »
—>Reader Mike reports he got screwed buying a used TiVo off eBay. It turned out 1) It would need a new $20 access card for DirecTV to activate it and 2) DirecTV wouldn't authorize sending a new access card because the box was linked to a defaulted account. The lesson Mike says he learned is that, "If anyone plans on buying any used DirectTV equipment make sure you call DirectTV with the Serial Number and RID number off the unit BEFORE you purchase it to make sure it's not coming from a defaulted account. If not, you chance buying an electronic brick." This is true when buying other used electronic service items with service contracts linked to them, like cellphones. More »
—>The TSA recently announced that airport security scanners which can see under clothing are being installed at 10 U.S. airports, according to the AFP. Travelers will enter glass booths while a 3-dimensional full-body image is rendered using "millimeter waves." Because the image gives a clear representation of travelers' bodies and genitalia, it has some people concerned about their privacy. More, inside... More »
—>Reader T is wondering why the Cheesecake Factory's kitchen is being run by a drill sergeant. He says his meal was ruined by the "unrelenting, verbal assaults" that were wafting from the open kitchen into the dining room where he and the restaurant's other customers were trying to eat. More »
—>Arlene got behind on her mortgage payments and had been trying for 6 months to contact her lender, Washington Mutual, to see if they could work out a deal. All she found was disconnections, non-returned phone calls, contradictory information, and no answers. After reading my article in Reader's Digest about ways to get customer satisfaction she sent me an email. She was ready to try the "town crier" method, where you stand outside the business passing out copies of your complaint letter, but we gave her some executive contact info to try first before wasting any money at Kinko's. Arlene says that thanks to the phone numbers we gave her, "They are going to suspend the foreclosure for 60 days and work with me on the payments for a set period of time which is all I ever wanted them to do." Once again, the almighty power of executive customer service has been revealed. Arlene's original email, inside... More »
—> While Sears Auto may not be the division of Sears that leaves you without hot water for three weeks, or refuses to refund the money on the TV they never delivered, they are the division that magnificently screws up changing a tire then tries to bill you for the labor it took them to fix their mistake. Reader R writes in to tell us when he needed to replace a damaged tire, Sears Auto had the cheapest price. After three hours and two different tires, he left Sears Auto with the damaged tire he drove in with. Sears botched the first attempt at a tire change by giving him a tire in the wrong size, then presented him with a bill for the additional labor it took them to get it right. When R balked at paying to fix their mistake, the manager on duty put the busted tire back on the car. Classy! Read his story, inside. More »
I was ripped off to the tune of $5620. They refused for 3 years to refund my money. Then they told me I have I have no recourse. It was electronic funds transfer for personal training that I never authorized. The people who did it were fired shortly after. It had happened to several other members, and most of the cases were settled. Except mine. More »
—>Reader Kristina was hungry and ready to make use of her Subway $20 gift card, however, when she tried to redeem it at the Subway store at Water and Wall St. in Manhattan, the transaction unfolded like this: More »
—>The Chicago Tribune writes that "More than 119,000 civil lawsuits against alleged debtors are clogging [Chicago] courtrooms," but since collection agencies make money off of volume business, the suits filed are based on too little information. The result: cases based on mistaken identities, or for debts already settled, or against debtors who have made good-faith efforts to work out repayment plans. "The system is out of control," one attorney tells the paper. More »
—>WAFF reports that Greg Moore, age 15, took a Greyhound bus from Opelika, Alabama to Athens, Georgia which is normally a 10 hour trip. But because of unannounced re-reroutes, the trip was extended to a brutal 26 hours. Greg's family was alarmed because they didn't know where he was during that time, and only received scant information from Greyhound. To make matters worse, $900 worth of belongings had been stolen from his lost luggage which he didn't receive until a week later. More, inside... More »
—>Papa John's wouldn't let reader Adi redeem her coupon for a $9.99 extra-large pizza online, so she trekked over to the nearest store in Weymouth, Massachusetts, where she met the franchise owner from hell. The owner insisted that the coupon didn't apply to online orders, so Adi asked to cancel her online order and re-order her pizza in person to get the discount. This prompted the owner to angrily throw the coupon at Adi, before throwing away her ready-made pizza. And was just the start of the fun... More »
—>A woman who sent a sarcastic payment to the "Comcast Vampires" for "My Right Arm" is suing because she says Comcast employees posted a copy of her unredacted check on the internet. She says she was alerted to the security breach by a stranger from Colorado who received the check in an email that said: "This is too funny not to pass on. This is an actual payment we received via yesterdays mail." More »
—> Reader Chris wrote in to warn us off Northwest's "Coach Choice" seat upgrade. On a recent trip, he was offered the opportunity to upgrade to a "Coach Choice" seat for an extra $30 per seat. He eagerly forked over $60 for two upgrades, and was shocked and angry at what that Northwest gave him in return. See what a "Coach Choice" seat means to NWA, inside. More »
—>This guy on San Fran's "Woody Show" goes into Office Max, twice, and loses his shit after every item he brings up to the counter rings up higher than its shelf-price. Not only does no one seem to care, one employee even insinuates that the complainant might be partially at fault for Office Max's inability to shelve things in the right place. Neither disc jockey, producer, crazed customer, Office Max employees number 1 and 2, nor Office Max Manager seem to realize that if the item is found on the store shelves under a certain price, as long as the description matches the product, the store has to honor the price. It's the law. In addition to a an amusing radio clip and animation, The Woody Show also has material here for a complaint to their state's Attorney General. Video, inside... More »
—>Mary is freaking out because BCBS of Maryland just doubled the copay on her thyroid meds. Times are tight, and Mary doesn't have a thyroid. The insurance companies have been telling her for years that Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs is a generic, now BCBS has classified it as not being generic. She's pretty ticked, and considering getting married to her fiance early just to get on his insurance. Her letter, and how she might save $200.32 a year, inside. More »
—>Reader Stevenson was doing some grocery shopping in the heat of the afternoon, one summer's day. Feeling parched, he located a Coca-Cola machine which appeared to him as a merciful desert oasis, or maybe it was just a mirage. Eager to quench his thirst, he hastily fed a dollar bill into the machine. He reached into the machine with the expectation of cool tasty relief, but what he retrieved from the bowels of the mechanical hell-beast was a bottle of Coke that was so f'ng hot he could barely maintain his grip. Shocked and confused, he looked around and caught a glimpse of the machine's digital readout that mockingly read "ICE COLD COCA COLA 115F." Stevenson's letter, inside... More »
—>Reader Dustin is upset with Circuit City because they tried to tell him that their 24 minute guarantee meant he had to be waiting at the store for more than 24 minutes. After Dustin explained that the 24 minute guarantee was supposed to mean that the item would be pulled from the back within 24 minutes of his confirmation email, the supervisor said that Dustin " would have had to come in within 24 minutes to qualify." We're pretty sure that's not how it works, because Circuit City's policy specifically says that's not how the guarantee works. More »
—>An American Airlines passenger says they had to sit through an entire flight in a seat soaked with urine from a previous passenger, the Fort Wayne Observed blog reports. Here's an excerpt of the complaint letter they emailed the airline: More »
Lila got her Washington Mutual debit card pickpocketed while traveling in India. Naturally, her account was drained. She filed a fraud report with Washington Mutual and a got a temporary credit issued on the account while the case was investigated. Less than 3 days later, the credit was reversed without warning. It's not WaMu's policy to reverse provisional credits in these matters before 30 days have passed to investigate, and not without warning. None of the various reps and fraud personal could explain why this happened, nor could they give her her money back, nor could they connect her with anyone who would or could do anything. Supervisors are mysteriously never around. It's a good thing she already had some Rupees in hand when the theft occured, or Lila could have been stranded in the Himalayas while WaMu reps were busy playing Snood. Her complaint letter, and our advice on how to be more effective, inside... More »
—>Verizon announced last week that they accidentally sold over 12,500 private addresses and phone numbers to a phone book company in West Virginia. "We certainly apologize to those customers whose numbers were published. ... We're taking accountability for that," said a Verizon spokesman. Translation: they're calling customers to let them know what happened, offering to change their phone numbers for free, and offering to pay the fee to have an unlisted number ($1.98 a month) for a year. Since this is the second time Verizon has made this mistake in the past four years, we wonder if "accountability" can also include taking steps to find out how the numbers keep getting offered up for sale. More »
—>Reader Drew went out of his way to ensure that he'd be able to get money from ATMs (using his Bank of America card), while on vacation. Despite his best efforts, he learned that a) putting a note on your account saying that you'll be in England and b) drawing less than the maximum daily amount from your account is still not enough to keep BoA from putting a hold on your account. He's written in with some advice for other Bank of America customers who are planning on traveling soon... More »
—>As if to prove that their chips are served warm, Chili's is now serving their chips complete with the temperature control knob from the chip warmer. Reader Jared describes his chips with a twist, inside... More »
—>David ordered a refurbished iPhone from AT&T. What he received was a brand new empty plastic bag. Apparently, AT&T has 500 backorders for refurbished iPhones, so for some completely unknown and nonsensical reason, they've decided to start shipping empty plastic bags. Let's join David as he tries to track down the iPhone he ordered... More »
—>Virginia police are unable to track down the creep who grabbed Michael's wife in a Rite Aid parking lot because Rite Aid is refusing to hand over its security tapes. Even worse, the store manager apparently knows the creepy grabber guy and is also refusing to help. Michael wrote to Rite Aid's corporate office begging them to cooperate with law enforcement. He hasn't heard back in two days. More »
—>Greyhound ditched reader Austin at a Philadelphia rest stop on the way from Chicago to New York. During the previous stops, the driver clearly announced that the bus was about to depart. This apparently wasn't necessary in Philadelphia, even though Greyhound ordered off all the passengers so the bus could be cleaned and refueled. After thirty minutes, Austin quickly dashed into the bathroom. When he returned, the bus had disappeared with his bag. Now, Greyhound's executive office is refusing to talk to Austin, or provide any compensation for his missing bag. More »
—>The Austin Business Journal says that a new survey shows Americans are fed up with flying and have been avoiding it — and hotels and restaurants are suffering. More »
—>Shawn is a Sam's Club member and on a recent shopping trip to buy a Wii he thought he'd snagged the very last one, but when the cashier tried to ring the item up something went wrong. Turns out that Sam's Club was "saving" that Wii for a "Grand Re-Opening" party and refused to sell it to Shawn and his girlfriend. More »
—>Reader Dave is not having a good day. Time Warner Cable is being spectacularly unhelpful. First they changed the name of his company to his wife's name. Then they double billed them. Then they sent a guy out to his house to physically disconnect his internet. Then another guy came to disconnect someone else's cable and disconnected Dave's instead. Finally, while he was trying to fix the double billing issue he got a TWC CSR that kept asking him why he "felt" like he was being double billed. What a mess! More »
—>If you read our story "Canceling HBO Costs $1.99 But Canceling Comcast Is Free, Which Do You Choose?" you should remember Jonathon who was trying to cancel his HBO with a Comcast online CSR that was offering very little help. Jonathon wrote back to us to let us know that after our story ran he received a call from a Comcast supervisor who apologized and said that the online CSR did in fact have the authority to waive the $1.99 fee. Jonathon's letter, inside... More »
—>Forbes Traveler has put together a list of the top 10 most annoying airline fees, and it's a good one — or is it a bad one? Airlines are feeling the effect of skyrocking oil prices and they're trying their best to pass the costs along to you, their customers, without driving down demand. The result? These delightful fees. Gotcha! More »
Erin was the recipient of a recent scam attempt from Moreno and Woods, a debt collection agency that—according to her account and others found online—uses abusive tactics and fraudulent claims to try to con people into paying off debts they never owed to avoid things like wage garnishments and lawsuits. Erin fought back, and shared her story with us to warn others. More »
—>If you read our story from this morning "Sears Kicks Off Holiday Weekend With False Advertising" you should remember Nazar who couldn't get the advertised discount on his garage storage. He wrote to us with the following update: More »
—>Consumerist Forums moderator Brian is moderating a problem of his own. His mother, who is mourning the recent loss of their dog Mandy, is receiving a relentless flood of spam email from 1-800 PetMeds with titles such as: "Take Mandy on a picnic this Memorial Day Weekend!" and "Summer showers are around the corner, make sure Mandy is dressed properly!" Considering the fact that Mandy passed only a few days before, the emails are causing Brian's mother a great amount of grief and tears. He has set up email filters to block the email, but like an intelligent virus the email changes its signature to bypass the filters. Unfortunately, he cannot simply filter the word "Mandy" because his mother is still sending and receiving email regarding her demise. His letter, inside... More »
It looks like IDT Energy sales reps are back to their old tricks of getting customers to switch from ConEd by posing as ConEd workers and using misleading sales tactics. S.J. in Brooklyn has the report... More »
—>At some undefined point in our fast food history, there was a brief flash and the 2 Hamburger Extra Value Menu slipped into extinction. One theory is that it is McDonald's attempt to involuntarily up-sell us to cheese. The casual observer might conclude that the customer must certainly be able to order a 2 Cheeseburger Extra Value Meal minus the cheese, even if said customer has to pay for the cheese. It is not that easy. "At McDonald's, if there's no button for it on the register it doesn't exist," says "Bagumpity," a Consumerist Forums reader. Not content with letting McDonald's play God with his 2 Hamburger Extra Value Meal, Bagumpity discusses the strange world of confusion and twisted logic he is forced to enter each time he tries to order a 2 Cheeseburger Extra Value Meal with no cheese. His letter, inside... More »
Some people think the BBB doesn't work. They do, but only if the company cares about keeping a clean record. See when you look up a company in the BBB database it shows you how many complaints have been filed against the company, how many were answered, how many did the consumer report as being satisfactorily resolved, etc. So if you have a valid complaint, file it with the BBB, and the company cares about its BBB record, you have a decent chance of getting a solution. You might not believe it, but it turns out Sprint is one of those companies. Here's Kevin's story of how the BBB got his erroneous text message charges refunded and let him leave contract early without early termination fee... More »
—>Johanna deposited a financial aid check from her university into her Chase checking account. She'd done this before without incident, but this time something went wrong. More »
—> More »
—>Reader Daniel wrote to tell us about his potentially unsafe purchase from a Safeway store in Daly City, California. When Daniel arrived at the checkout counter, he quickly checked the expiration dates on his Yves vegetarian sandwich meat only to discover that one of the packages had expired April 18th, 37 days ago, while the others had expired 4 days ago. He even took a hostage-style photograph with the expired product next to a stack of current day newspapers to help substantiate his claim. We would expect that when confronted with this information that a Safeway employee would promptly be instructed to scour the shelves as to prevent other hapless shoppers from buying the expired imitation meat, but apparently we expect too much. Daniel's letter and photos, inside... More »
—>Companies are slowly learning that those infuriating automated phone trees aren't the answer to their customer service problems. Some experts even claim that automated systems anger customers. The New York Times decided to trace the history of the hated trees, while wondering if things will ever change. More »
—>Michael launched an Executive Email Carpet Bomb after Home Depot twice failed to deliver an undamaged washer and dryer. Home Depot's CEO Frank Blake quickly thanked Michael for his even-handed letter, and promised that the local store manager would make him a happy customer... More »
—>Emmett writes: Dear Mr. Schoonover: More »
—>Reader Brenden went to see the new Indiana Jones movie last night, and spent the last 10 minutes of the movie watching it with no audio. Rather than stopping the movie and handing out free passes, the theater just let it play with no sound, then refused to rewind it. More »
—>Reader Dan says Bank of America called his old address and gave out his account details to the person who answered the phone. Luckily, that person turned out to be his father, though Bank of America didn't know that. Once they did know they were speaking to a relative, they asked Dan's dad to pay his bill for him. More »
—> More »
—> More »
More »
—>Meet Steph Tytus and Varun Nangia, two more readers whose names were too inappropriate for XBOX live. Varun was forced to change his gamertag, which was his first and last name, and Steph tried to create a band using her name so the world can know that she rocks. Sadly, Rock Band thinks her name isn't "classy," and spat our an error message. More »
Reader Todd decided to call Bank of America up to test whether our story "BoA Closes Your Credit Cards If You Ask Why They Increased Your APR" was really true or not. Turns out, it is. More »
—>Reader Shannon has been without a working phone in her home office for the past 16 days thanks to Comcast. This has her in a bad mood, but she's also a little ticked off because they sent over a bunch of guys who didn't understand her when she told them not to dig up her patio. More »
—>Reader Richard would like to use his full name as his gamer tag, but XBOX has decided that "Gaywood" is offensive. Here's his letter: More »
—>Apparently Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide, has never made a mistake and needed help (from, say, Bank of America,) because he thinks that homeowners who are desperately trying to refinance out of their disastrous home loans and avoid foreclosure are "disgusting" if they look to the internet for help writing letters. More »
—>You know we're at death's door for the print industry when they have to resort to a sleazy subscription tactic like this debt collection warning New York Mag sent Keith's wife for a subscription she believes she never signed up for. Keith called the number on the back of the card and a customer service rep said that an "affiliate" put in the order. Dawn let Keith cancel the order without fuss. When Keith asked why the company was threatening to send people to collections for something they never ordered , "Dawn" said, "Don't worry...it doesn't make a difference since we don't have your social security number and we will never ask for it." As if that's going to protect you from a debt collector. UPDATE: NYmag says the subscription renewal was valid and the customer must have forgotten about it. Full response inside. More »
—>Jesse sent us a copy of the letter he recently sent to CarSoup.com about the treatment his mother received at the K2 Auto Group car lot in Bloomington, Minneapolis.The salesmen who "greeted" them employed a novel sales technique whereby you treat the customer like she's not rich or smart enough to even own a car, much less one of your beauties. Oddly, it didn't work, and they left without buying anything. Read on for the salesman's amazing technique in action. More »
—>Last week, we wrote about Charter's decision to begin tracking its users internet activity and inserting targeted ads. One of our readers wrote in to let us know he discovered that Charter's insecure opt-out solution—downloading a cookie that must be downloaded for each user and browser, and downloading it again whenever the cache is cleared—only blocks the ads from showing up; it doesn't block Charter from monitoring users' searches and web activity. More »
—>Brenda and Gerald Moran are what you might call "regulars" on Royal Caribbean — or they were — until they were banned for life after they complained too loudly on a cruise website. For the past 3 years, they took two cruises a year with Royal Caribbean, but according to the cruise line, they complained about almost all of them. Finally, after stirring up too much controversy on a popular cruise site, the company banned the Morans for life. More »
—>Reader Nick's wife recently ordered an iPhone and was surprised to find it came in two boxes. She was even more surprised when the second box contained only an AT&T plastic shopping bag. It was also packed with brown packing material around it. "I find it comical that the plastic bag had more packing material around it then the $250 iPhone did," Nick writes. More »
—>Reader Robert's Dell XPS died. Under warranty, a Dell technician came to his house and in the process of "fixing" his computer decided to hook up and format his backup external hard drive, thus deleting 3 years worth of his work. Dell admits that they formatted his external drive but all they have to say to Robert is "Welcome to Dell." Robert's letter and timeline, inside... More »
—>Reader Loren decided to get her midnight breakfast on with some pancakes at IHOP, but when she got home something tasted a bit off. She looked down and to her disgust, discovered what she thought to be a large area of mold engulfing the blueberries on the pancakes. Her letter and the not-safe-for-breakfast pictures, inside... More »
Now that the airline with the fuzzy animals on their planes has also declared bankruptcy, you might be in the same position as reader Scott. Scott had Frontier cancel his flight and send him an email with a link to get a refund. While it's nice that Frontier made the refund option easy, a refund doesn't get Scott any closer to his destination, and a second ticket would cost Scott a bit more than he initially paid. Thanks to a little bit of research and 35 minutes on the phone, Scott was able to get Frontier to rebook him on a different airline. Find out how, inside. More »
—> More »
The guy who had a Five-seveN handgun fire out of battery and injure his hand, and then the handgun company stopped returning his calls reports that Five-seveN has now contacted him and promises that they're sending a pre-paid packing slip and will be sending him a new handgun free of charge. [FivesevenForum] More »
—>You need the express written consent of Major League Baseball to do pretty much anything to a baseball game, but does your pizza place need your permission to sell your personal information (name, address and phone number) to the highest bidder? Take a guess. The answer is inside. Cheating is easy, but in poor taste. (For the purposes of this quiz, you live in California.) More »
—>Tammy's been trying to get a new Citibank card to replace her expired one since March. For two months Citibank has lied, stalled, and generally screwed around with her access to her money. For two months, a a series of increasingly senior people have told her her card is on the way. They even told her they'd overnight it, twice. Read her story, More »
—>Joseph's four-day Carnival cruise was tainted by a sewage stench that steamed through his stateroom. Carnival's only advice was to "shut the bathroom door and close the air vents," an ineffective solution that forced Joseph and his girlfriend above deck. Now he wants Carnival to clean up their mess. More »
—>Joel loves his orange juice and is none too pleased with Tropicana's recent decision to shrink their containers by 7 oz. He fired off a complaint through Tropicana's website, and was pleasantly surprised when the company responded with a coupon for a free carton of shrunken sweetness. More »
A lawyer in Florida has launched a business where he'll send a complaint letter on your behalf for a flat $50 fee. He even sends prospective customers to our website to educate themselves on "fighting back." Florida only. [Equal-Footing] More »
—>Reader Chris, a donator to his local police department, is disturbed by the calls he has been receiving from the Richmond Police telemarketers. Besides being unusually aggressive and rude, one of their recent tactics involves placing phone calls late at night. One evening Chris tried to explain to this person that it was too late to take such calls to which the disgruntled telemarketer replied, "Ok little guy, you get to bed." Chris describes the strange phone calls, inside... More »
—> More »
—>Reader Grant says that his gamer tag "theGAYERgamer" was recently banned by Xbox Live. He hoped that a call to customer support would sort things out but all he received was a confusing explanation from an Xbox Live supervisor. According to the supervisor, it wasn't that she found the name offensive, but it was the "greater Xbox community" that found it offensive. Screenshot above. Grant's letter, inside... More »
—>Consumers are complaining that a change in how Sallie Mae decided to recode some loans caused their credit score to drop by over a hundred points. That's enough to make a $93,240 difference in a home loan's total cost. Here's what happened. More »
Radiohead ticket holders who couldn't get into the DC concert this weekend due to flooding should email their grievances to customerservice@nissanpavilion.com [via DCist] More »
—>UPDATE: FNH Gun Blew Up In Owner's Hand Because He Used Reloaded Ammo More »
—>Reader Nora placed an order via the internet with Quiznos and paid with a credit card. But when Nora's husband arrived at the store, he was told that their store didn't accept online orders. They had already paid online but Quiznos didn't seem to care. Her letter, inside... More »
—>Having previously rented at U-Haul with no issues, reader Robert was surprised when a U-Haul agent wouldn't rent him a truck unless he had a land line phone number. Robert tried giving him his work number but agent promptly dialed and when he realized it wasn't Robert's personal phone number, he hung up and said, "Land line!" Not having an actual land line number Robert was in a bit of a jam. Robert's letter, inside.... More »
—> Charter Communications is sending letters to its customers informing them of an "enhanced online experience" that involves Charter monitoring its users' searches and the websites they visit, and inserting targeted third-party ads based on their web activity. Charter, which serves nearly six million customers, is requiring users who want to keep their activity private to submit their personal information to Charter via an unencrypted form and download a privacy cookie that must be downloaded again each time a user clears his web cache or uses a different browser. More »
—>A link to the following letter to T-Mobile's president just popped into our inbox. It seems that if you receive a T-Mobile Sidekick for Christmas and it's defective... your options are fairly limited. T-Mobile's best solution to your broken phone? Sell it on eBay. More »
Kapil's brand new Blackberry arrived with a battery that won't charge. He wants T-Mobile to exchange it, but he says T-Mobile wants to replace it with a refurbished Blackberry instead of a new model. Kapil is fighting back, but even at the executive support level all he's found are rude, uncooperative T-Mobile employees who keep saying there's a process, and that someone will call him back—which never happens. Kapil refused to hang up on the fourth day and demanded to know what happens next after nobody calls back, which seemed to confuse and anger the T-Mobile rep he was speaking with. And for those of you who can't listen in, we've transcribed some of the juiciest parts. More »
—>Picture this: The phones rings, and you check the caller ID and see your girlfriend's number. With great anticipation you answer the call, but then a gruff masculine "Hello" bellows from the ear piece. What the...? It sounds awkward but that's what happened to James. His girlfriend's iPhone was stolen a few weeks ago and the theft was reported to AT&T who had the phone deactivated. However, the new owner of the stolen iPhone had it reactivated and assumed the phone number of James' girlfriend, thus deactivating James' girlfriend's replacement phone. How could this happen? James' letter, inside... More »
—>Jonathan purchased the heavily promoted Padres' "loaded tickets" for his family, each costing $40 which includes a $20 credit toward concessions at the park. The family arrived at Petco Park where confused employees told them to wait in several different lines because nobody knew how to process their tickets...strike 1. During the game, Jonathan thought he would go and redeem the concession money on his tickets by getting some food for his family. However, the food-stand employee balked at Jonathan's loaded ticket, so Jonathan spent $40 out-of-pocket for food...strike 2. After a month of phone tag and a half-dozen calls, park officials refused to compensate him for the money he spent on food at the park...strike 3, yer out. His letter, inside... More »
—>Reader Jamie used to enjoy the convenience of those DVD rental vending machines you see in supermarkets, but that quickly changed when she was mistakenly billed $74.90 on her debit card for 2 DVDs. One would think a few calls to customer service would fix this mess but "The New Release" has left Jamie twisting in the wind. Her letter and our advice, inside... More »
—>In case you though AT&T wanting to run a credit check before they sell you a prepaid phone was as dumb as AT&T could get, reader Dan writes in to tell us about an AT&T store that wouldn't sell him a phone because he was already an AT&T customer. If he hadn't copped to being an AT&T customer, he could have walked out of the store with a lovely LG CG180 Go Phone. But since he admitted he had an AT&T number, the sales reps at the store wanted him to put an extra $100 down. More, after the jump. More »
—> More »
—>Dell, for the love of God, stop sending me catalogs! They are annoying and unwanted, not to mention, useless. If I want to buy something from you, I'll go online. I've filled out your online forms asking you to stop. I've asked over the phone. Three different Dell executives have been in email contact with me pledging that they would investigate the mystery of why Dell is addicted to sending me catalogs. I've burnt them. I've recycled them. They continue to arrive. In my previous post on this, someone mentioned they got Dell to stop after filing a BBB complaint. Here's where you go to make one online. I just filed one, my first ever BBB complaint (Dell, see what you made me do?). It took less than 5 minutes. More »
—>According to News 10, Josh Sjowall ordered a foot-long roast beef combo at a Subway store in Tracy, California. As he picked up the sandwich he felt a foreign object with his thumb and discovered it was a rusty bolt. And oh yes, Subway is...."taking it very seriously." Details and photo, inside... More »
—>Reader Linda was having lunch at Chili's and decided to order some extra sour cream to eat with her mashed potatoes. She was surprised and disgusted to learn that like peanut butter, Chili's sour cream comes in "smooth" and "extra chunky." Her letter, inside... More »
—>Amy launched an EECB to Adobe, after her $2600 worth of software failed to ship on time. Or at all. No one at Adobe customer service can tell her why it didn't ship, or if it ever will, but one CSR suggested it was her fault for ordering through the online store rather than through a sales rep. He says no one tracks the orders on the online store, which makes absolutely no sense. What's the point in having an online store if no one fills the orders? Why the tease, Adobe? Check out her EECB inside. More »
—>RadioShack's whole collecting-your-personal-data nonsense is old news, but it's not just for purchases anymore. When Pete tried to take back some potentiometers he'd paid for the day before with cash, the clerk refused to give him any sort of refund—even a store credit—without Pete's physical address. More »
—>There's something deeply wrong with HP these days. It seems that instead of just fixing your laptop's overheating issue, they'd rather accuse Amazon.com of selling fake HP laptops and deny your warranty. Reader Floria says that even though she got a letter from Amazon stating that there's no possible way they sold her a fake or refurbished laptop, and then escalated her complaint to a "senior case manager" who approved the repair, HP still hasn't fixed her computer. Is anyone in charge over there? More »
—>A reader writes in to share his traumatic experience with a Chase telemarketer who first tried to sneak a sale into the one-way conversation, then launched into scare tactics like asking, "What are you going to do when someone steals your identity?" R. writes, "I feel like I need protection from Chase's employees." More »
—>Reader Rachael went into McDonald's today to get her usual morning Coca-Cola and was denied a large cup, despite the fact that she paid the "large" price, because it was "breakfast." Instead, Rachael ended up with a medium Coke which the McDonald's employee called a "breakfast large." More »
—> More »
—>In an effort to save money and inconvenience customers, Delta has discontinued their ticket jackets, much to the dismay of seasoned air-traveler, Greg. For the uninitiated, ticket jackets are the handy-dandy miniature document organizers that allow you to neatly store tickets, boarding passes and itineraries. He was disappointed to learn that Delta had discontinued this mini-marvel of personal organizers which actually boasts a rich history in aviation. His letter, inside... More »
—>What makes the next story about reader Pavel trying to get satisfaction from Chase executive customer service so interesting is that Pavel himself is Executive Assistant to the President of his company. He knows how executive customer service is supposed to work. As he puts in, he has the ability to "walk on water" within in his company. Which makes his experience with Chase, where they closed his account for having a zero-balance for less than a week, and then held his money hostage, all the more frustrating... More »
—>Some visitors and citizens of the United States may be shocked to learn that their computers, cell phones and data devices are now subject to search and data retrieval upon entry into the U.S., even without cause or suspicion. On April 19th, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that all computers and data devices are the same as luggage in that they can be searched without cause, and that all collected data may be stored indefinitely. More, inside... More »
—>According to the customer service at Major League Baseball, the MLB.TV Premium package, which lets customers watch baseball games on their computers at higher bandwidths than the basic package and allows users to watch up to six games at once, is a "bonus." The rep also claims that the difference between 800k and 1.2Mb video speeds, both of which are available to Premium subscribers, is negligible, and in any case, their product info pages says they're not obligated to provide the 1.2Mb package. Inside, read why all of this is completely wrong. More »
—>It's evident the pendulum swung too far in terms of giving away too much credit, but now it seems to be swinging back in the opposite direction just as hard, with banks getting too tightfisted, even when it doesn't make sense. For instance, the APR on James's BoA credit card jumped from 9.32% to 13.99%, and shortly after he called to see about getting it back, they closed all three of his credit cards. One was a Gold account with a lifetime APR of 7.99%, the other had a 1.99% APR. Just last month, he received an offer to transfer $15,000 to the 1.99% card. Obviously at least one department in Bank of America thinks he's a good credit risk. It appears some other expressionless faces of the massive dodecahedron that is the entity called Bank of America disagreed. More »
—>DirecTV is a lying pack of liars. They told Ian that if he moved to a place where he couldn't use his dish, then they would let him out of contract without early termination fee (ETF). Well guess what? He moved to a place without a balcony or roof access. Double guess what: Now DirecTV says he has to pay an ETF and they say there's no record of all those reps telling him that, and that that's not part of their policy. Triple guess what: Ian called up DirecTV sales and recorded their sales rep telling him that they DO let you out of contract if you move to a new place where you can't use DirecTV. Are DirecTV retention reps just not versed on company policy, or are they a pack of scumbags? I dunno, but you know what they say, never trust a company run by a man in a mustache. Ian's audio recording and letter to the CEO of DirecTV is inside... More »
—>"MyGearStore," a seller on Amazon, tried to bribe reader Michael into remove less-than-stellar feedback. Michael writes, "There were some problems with the order, and I gave them neutral feedback (which was pretty generous)." They said they would give him a partial refund if he took down his feedback. He complained to Amazon, who didn't reply except with a "thanks for emailing us" and to MyGearStore, who didn't respond. One tool consumers use to evaluate the slew of online retailers out there is by looking through feedback left by other customers. If stores are trying to pay off customers to get rid of negative feedback, one, they're stupid because they're going to get caught. Two, it means you should be suspicious if the feedback for one store, product, or seller is overwhelmingly positive. Critical reading, it's a good ability to have. The original bribe note sent by MyGearStore, inside.. More »
—> More »
—>Reader Sid is having a hell of a time reporting some damaged luggage to United Airlines. More »
—>Reader Helen went to Home Depot to buy some various and sundry items, but left empty-handed after the self-checkout refused to let her complete her purchase without disclosing what she planned to do with her items. Helen says: More »
—>The Star Tribune reports a woman is suing Best Buy for $50,000 after the Best Buy/Geek Squad repair service stole her naked photos from her computer, shared them with other Geek Squad agents, and even copied them onto the hard drives of other customers (this is hardly the first time Geek Squad has been caught stealing porn from customer's computers). William E. Giffels admitted in a written statement that he copied Kaylee Hall's nude photos from her computer onto his personal flash drive. On this drive, he also kept the most up-to-date version of the Geek Squad diagnostic tools and told other agents to copy from it. Then other Geek Squad made CD copies of the drive and installed the tools, along with Kaylee's photos, onto other customers' computers in the Traverse City, Michigan area. Inside, Giffels's written confession... More »
—>Reader John and his friend Michelle found themselves in a situation where they needed to get "Plan B" birth control, also known as "the morning after pill." They went to their local CVS in Hawthorne, CA. and met an uncooperative pharmacist who refused them access to the pills because Michelle only had foreign ID to prove she is of legal age. (18+) The pharmacist also refused John's state issued ID with the reason that it could not be sold to man, however, the FDA's website clearly says that Plan B can be sold OTC to a man or woman who is 18 or over. Find out what happened to John and Michelle, inside.... More »
—>OfficeMax called Chris a thief for recycling empty printer cartridges. OfficeMax's MaxPerks program gives customers $3 for each empty cartridge they recycle, with a limit of 5 cartridges per customer per day. Chris runs a computer repair business that leaves him flush with empty cartridges. According to one cashier, this makes Chris a thief. More »
This afternoon I visited the Kohl's store in Moline, Illinois. When I was checking out I elected to pay with my Visa card. After sliding my card through the card reader I signed the screen when prompted. My cashier asked to see the card, which I handed over to her. She handed my card back to me and then asked to see my identification, to which I respectfully declined. She said I had to show my ID or I could not leave the store with my purchases... More »
—>Patricia closed her company's American Express Delta Sky Miles card six months ago, but the expired card unexpectedly sprang to life thanks to a supplier's accidental charge. American Express laughed off the matter, saying "this happens all of the time," adding that it's Patricia's responsibility to ensure that all vendors destroy her outdated billing information. More »
—>Anthony paid Circuit City $1,271 for a new 40" Samsung LN40A550, but what he received was a "scratched up, dinged to hell, beaten and abused FLOOR MODEL OPEN BOX" LN40A330. As a Circuit City employee, Anthony thought exchanging the TV or receiving a refund would be a cinch. Boy, was he wrong. More »
—>Fortune magazine has compiled a list of 9 "forbidden' foods that have been banned (for some reason or another) in the US. Trans fats in NYC, foie gras in Chicago... Here's the list: More »
—>Cole discovered that by simply incrementing a numerical string by one in a url Best Buy sent out, he could pull up screen after screen of random customer info. Fortunately, all he could see were customer names, their home addresses, and their order numbers. It's still surprising that Best Buy—or more specifically, Postpublisher.net, the email company they outsourced this to—wasn't more careful with customer security. More »
—>Feel wary about giving applications access to your Facebook page? Worried one of those quizzes or games might be maliciously harvesting your data? You were right to worry. The BBC had the same idea, so they decided to write a program to do just that. And it worked. Not only did it steal the data of Facebook users who installed the application, it also victimized all of their "friends." More »
—>After reader Vikram ordered flowers online from 1800flowers.com, he realized he was receiving a monthly charge from an obscure company called "LiveWell" for $11.99 per month. He did some quick research and found out that many others were being duped into this program. Yet nobody, not even 1800flowers seemed to know what it actually is. What should he do? His letter and our advice, inside... More »
—>Delta is now charging $25, if you want to check more than one bag starting May 5, but they're also backdating the fee. You can get it waived at check-in, but only if you bought between February 4, and April 4. This is of no help to reader Jason, who bought tickets back in January, and is now subject to a surprise $100 fee (he and his wife are both bringing two bags each). He writes, "If I would have known that when I booked I may have thought twice about Delta. I feel I was misled!" Jason tried emailing customer service but got nowhere. He might try sending them an executive email carpet bomb, based on the info in this post. More »
—> An anonymous tipster wrote to us about how Chipotle, known for their delicious, healthy burritos, handled a Hepatitis A outbreak at his neighborhood store. This might be the one case of a corporation giving you something for free, and it not making the situation any better. Read his letter, inside. More »
Team 4: Complaining Bridgeville Neighbor Arrested For Harassment [The Pittsburgh Channel] More »
—>Reader Dave said he was shopping with his friend (male) at Walmart, searching for the coveted Nintendo Wii. He was happy to find that Walmart had 7 or 8 of the consoles in stock — enough for both he and his friend to purchase one. Walmart, however, had other ideas. Dave says that Walmart wouldn't let he and his friend each purchase a Wii because they were "together." First they're rationing rice and now men are forced to share their video games? What's going on in America, folks? More »
—>A new play called "User 927," inspired by the thousands of AOL users whose personal search histories were posted online for all to see and dissect, opens on June 6th at the St. Stephen's Theatre in Philadelphia. Hardcore Consumerist readers will recall User 927's fondness for mold, testicle festivals, slow-dancing steps, and pedophilic imagery (full search history here). The theater's site say it's "a thriller about cyberstalking, search engines, and the way information is obtained, manipulated, and released in our wired world." We have high hopes for the production, judging by how awesome the group's rendition of "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" turned out (video inside...) More »
—>Bryan Carroll can't pick up his repaired Xbox because Microsoft printed his name on the address label as "Brian Dyranerool." After he scheduled a repair with a CSR in India, Bryan was assured that he would receive a shipping box within 3-5 days. After 6 days had passed, he contacted an apologetic supervisor who said she would simply email him a shipping label and send out a free wireless controller for his wasted time and trouble. However, the name on his shipping label read, "Brian Dryanerool." He contacted Microsoft about the error and was told that the problem was corrected. The good news is that Bryan's Xbox was repaired and shipped swiftly to a UPS customer center. The bad news is that his box was addressed to "Brian Dryanerool," and he was not allowed to pick up the repaired Xbox. Bryan describes his saga inside: More »
—>Writing "Ask For ID" on the back of your credit card isn't an unimpeachable guarantee of security, but it could be the last line of defense between you and a fraudulent charge. Invoking perilously flawed logic, the Boston Globe argues: "the cardholder gains nothing by not signing the card or writing in 'See ID' on the signature panel." Let's dismantle this nonsense piece by piece. More »
—>Joyce has been waiting since December for IKEA to send her a replacement couch cover. IKEA admitted that the cover had a known defect, but since they were out replacements at the time, they promised to call Joyce a month later when new covers arrived. Joyce gave her information and asked for a reference number, but was told that one wouldn't be necessary. Wouldn't that have been nice? More »
—>You'd think a credit monitoring service—even one as skeevy as freecreditreport.com—would take great pains to keep up the appearance of security and confidentiality. You'd be wrong. When Brian called to cancel their service he was asked to call out his social security number and his mother's maiden name, even though it turned out they could easily access his account and cancel his service with only his phone number and birthday. Oh, and the first CSR hung up on him, but (sadly) that's not really very newsworthy anymore. More »
—>Those Honda Civic SI owners who were holding protests in front of dealerships about the widespread transmission problem (where the 3rd gear kept grinding, popping out and randomly going into neutral), finally have their day. Honda issued a TSB (technical service bulletin) on the issue, so now owners experiencing the problem can go their dealership and get it repaired for free, provided they are still under warranty. It's not quite the recall owners were hoping for, but it's something. Guess Honda has now heard of the problem they previously said they "never heard of before." Must have been all that negative news coverage. Here's links to the TSB (for Honda dealers, for Acura dealers (PDF)) so you can print it out and bring with you. Inside, one of the original newscasts covering the uproar. More »
—>Reader Erin found out that when HSBC says, "no minimum balance," they actually mean, "at least $.01." What seems like an innocent misunderstanding is actually going to cost Erin some time and trouble. It all began when she had to empty one of her HSBC accounts to make a large purchase. Because her account required no minimum balance she assumed all was well, until she went online and found out that HSBC had conveniently closed her account which can only be reopened in person. Erin writes: More »
—>When reader Stuart bought his Motorola Razr V3XX, he was pleased with the phone but could not understand why the tiny flap covering the charger port was held in place by only 2 fragile plastic hinges. As if channeling the spirit of Nostradamus, Stuart made a startling prediction: This flimsy flap will fail. And it did. Twice. The first time, Motorola happily sent Stuart a new flap. But when the flap failed again 8 months later, Motorola unleashed a volley of red tape that left Stuart stuck. Stuart's letter and Motorola's response inside... More »
—>Marcie writes:
I live in a 750 square foot apartment in Brooklyn, NY. Per the lease agreement, my roommate and I signed to pay the heat separate from the rent. The first gas bill we received was $750, and the following gas bill was roughly the same amount. We knew that the price of gas was expensive, but for two people who make great pains to use the heat only when absolutely necessary, and occasionally use the stove to boil a pot of water, this seemed ridiculous. For all of 2007, we owe roughly $2000 in gas costs.More »
—>Jessie opened his Sprint bill and nearly had a heart attack. Staring back at him was in big bold letters: COLLECTION AGENCY ALERT. After recovering, Jessie looked at his bill and nearly had a second heart attack. It said the amount due was $32,669.00. Huh? Had his cellphone been hacked? Used as a call-home payphone for a neighborhood of Tajikistan émigrés? Used by NASA as a Space Station communications channel? Take a guess and then see the answer inside... More »
—>Reader Jerry wants to warn you about his shocking problem with his Bose in-ear headphones. If he goes for a walk with them, they shock his inner ear. Ouch! Jerry wrote to Bose, telling them about his problem, and Bose wrote back, "Yeah? So?". Apparently, occasional shocks to your inner ear aren't a problem, or a design flaw, they're a feature! See what Jerry has to say about this, inside. More »
—>After eight months of calling and writing, Reader Brice finally annoyed E*Trade enough to close his account. At least that's what the letter from E*Trade said; in reality, Brice never received a check for his balance, and although he couldn't access his $3,195, his account is still earning interest. More »
—>Washington Mutual will give you a copy of the check that you've been requesting for a year, but first you will need to subpoena them twice and attempt to have them held in contempt of court. That's what one reader experienced when her employer, a law firm, needed a document from the megabank. As she puts it: "If a law firm with the power of a subpoena behind them can't get WaMu to cough up a document in a timely manner without a massive amount of headache, I'd hate to see what the average consumer has to deal with." More »
—>United Health Care, not content with merely denying life saving cancer procedures or refusing to pay for basic (covered!) checkups, took things to a new level by retroactively un-approving procedures they paid for in 2005. They sent reader Suzanne a letter and a bill for $7700, claiming the pay-out was an "administrative error", and she needed to pay up. Check out the details, inside. More »
I went to IHOP(INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PANCAKES) on March 30th with my wife to eat. After our meal I went to the counter to pay and presented my Visa as payment. I was asked for photo ID, and kindly declined. I was then told that they were not going to be able to accept my card without photo ID.More »
—>Dyan says that Macy's contacted her with the apology she was looking for. More »
—>Despite my repeated requests via online form and phone, and even a few posts about it, including one where I made a photo spread of burning the offending items, Dell keeps sending me catalogs. So here is another post for the online pillory, but, in celebration of Earth Day, instead of burning these catalogs, I have recycled them (see above). Their inability/indifference is all the more stupid because two different Dell execs contacted me to say they would look into the issue. They even had me email them the cryptograms on my address label to help remove me from their mailing system. Dell, please, help me save the planet and take me off your stupid catalog lists. Otherwise I guess I'll just have to deem your material "pornographic" (hey, I know it when I see it, right?) and use USPS form 1500 to get you stop. When you decided to get people to lust after your XPS line, that probably isn't what you had in mind. More »
—> Reader Dyan isn't sure if she's right on this one and wants to know if we think Macy's owes her an apology. She was shopping at Macy's last Saturday when she noticed a cast-iron pot on sale for $19.99. The display item was the last one in stock, so she asked if she could have it. An employee said she could, but before she could pay for the item the store's manager stopped her and took the pot away because "another customer want[ed] it." More »
—>LendingTree announced today that several former employees are suspected of sharing passwords with lenders that were not approved by LendingTree, and that this may have exposed customer data including: name, address, e-mail address, phone number, Social Security number, income and employment information. More »
—>Reader Stephanie wants to cry because of Comcast:
I HATE dealing with tech support. This time, I bit the bullet because my internet connection wasn't working.More »
—>Reader Nick's mother bought a coat that was on clearance at Sears. A week later she saw that the coat had been marked down even further, so she brought it back and asked if she could return it and then buy it again for the cheaper price. More »
—>Jim over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity closed his Bank of America account after a teller forced him to fill out a deposit slip. Jim doesn't care for deposit slips, calling them "a wasted branch on a tree we'd otherwise like to keep around," and likes tellers to double-check his math. Even though Jim yielded and started to fill out a slip, the teller tapped a reserve of rudeness that inspired him to close his account. More »
—>Microsoft hasn't returned Tiffany's XBox 360 for four months because they think she is a thief, even though she has her original receipt and a credit card statement proving that she is the console's rightful owner. Microsoft repaired the XBox back in January and tried to return it via FedEx, but a shipping snafu landed the box back at Microsoft's service center. Tiffany has called repeatedly. She even sent a letter to Microsoft's legal department, after sending her receipt and statement, asking how else she could prove ownership. That was 22 days ago. She has yet to receive a response. More »
—>Reader Craig ordered some gym equipment from Amazon, but he accidentally used his debit card instead of his credit card. Realizing his mistake, he immediately tried to correct the problem. He went through the change payment process right away and figured all was well. Of course it wasn't, and he ended up getting charged $2,288.44 for $750 worth of equipment when Amazon got the refund process backwards. Twice. See how it happened after the jump. More »
—>Reader "phillipe23" wants cable service, but because of his rural location it will cost him $9,060. He already has satellite, but his reception is very spotty. It seems that when the bad weather rolls in his service goes out. Clinging to the the hope that cable could be the answer to his problems, he contacted Time Warner for some relief. So what did the ever-sympathetic cable giant have to say? phillipe23's letter, and our advice, inside... More »
—>One of the most popular sentiments expressed by readers on our blog is "be a smart consumer." Now two privacy advocacy organizations are calling for the creation of a "do-not-track" list that would protect registered users from online data collection. They argue that a list is needed because too many consumers won't or can't understand the methods behind online tracking. To illustrate, one of the organizations "pointed to a 2005 University of Pennsylvania survey in which only 25 percent of respondents knew that a Web site having a privacy policy doesn't guarantee that the site refrains from sharing customers' information with companies." But a do-not-track list is overkill, and a fearful reaction against emerging technologies. More »
—>Frank Eliason from Comcast Executive Customer Service provided the following statement regarding the San Fransican whose Comcast cable service mysteriously shut off 10 minutes after asking a tech to move his van from in front of his driveway: More »
—>Be wary of Arcot, a credit card security company that's devoid of customer service.
Nels had to sign up for Arcot's SecureCode to complete an online purchase. Now he wants to cancel it, but can't find anyone at Arcot who can help him. The web pages he's sent to are dead ends, and he left messages with Arcot's executives that were never returned. More »
—>Reader Hayden had to email the CEO of Sirius radio just to get them to ship him some replacement adhesive backing for his car radio. Every homebrewed solution he tried couldn't get his Sirius radio to stick to his dashboard. When he called Sirius, he got bounced around between disconnections, robots, people who couldn't speak English, a guy who insisted Sirius didn't have stock any replacement tape. So Hayden kicked it straight to the man at the top with a nice cogent complaint letter, cc'd to us, various Sirius execs, the BBB, the Georgia Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs, and some popular gadget blogs. Apparently that's what it takes to get some replacement tape. His complaint letter, inside... More »
—>Reunion.com dupes new members into signing up by sending them an email that pretends to be from an acquaintance who's been looking for them (on Reunion.com, naturally). After signing up, the site sucks in your contacts and immediately begins spamming them to join by sending out a similar email. If one of those people then signs up at Reunion.com, their contact list is scooped up and the cycle starts all over again, like a social engineering version of a virus or parasitic infestation. Maybe this is why Reunion.com can claim to register about 1 million new members every month. More »
—>Kristine writes:
Oxford healthcare recently updated its policy to read that no dosages of prescriptions exceeding 31 days would be processed. In the case of a patient receiving injectable solution, this may mean that their reconstitution device will give them 18 days of dosing, meaning that they will have to pay two copayments per month in order to receive ample supply of their medication...More »
—>Reader Justin claims he discovered this gray glove in a package of Earthbound Farm organic salad. Salads, organic or otherwise, do not typically contain prizes, and Justin's reaction ("I was mortified") is understandable. The experience has scarred Justin's psyche and he is left wondering, "How many times was I one package away from eating glove?" Additional picture inside. More »
—>Reader Daniel lives in San Francisco, where parking is notoriously impossible. He came home one morning to find a Comcast van blocking his drive way, and politely asked the driver to move. Ten minutes later he lost his internet and TV signal. Mysterious coincidence, or malevolent tech? Check out the details, inside. More »
—>PC World has an overview of Loopt, which will begin testing location-based advertising via CBS Mobile in the near future. What's notable about the service—aside from the fun concept of triangulating location via cell towers—is that Loopt and CBS Mobile "seem to have made most of the right choices for privacy." That includes the service being opt-in instead of opt-out, and no personal data (such as account info or phone number) being sent back upstream. The targeted ads replace existing ads as well, so there's not a location-based spammy increase in advertising with the service. This is the kind of advertising we "like"—localized, relevant, and anonymous on our side of things. More »
—>Waffling about whether to invest in a backup harddrive? Maybe this story will help convince you:
I am crawling under my desk in my work clothes before I have to take children to school and then run for the train. There is a phone wedged under my ear and a bowl of cereal in one hand. With the other, I am trying to pull a cable from behind my computer while a customer service rep for Treo (like a Blackberry, but worse) attempts to diagnose why the computer just wiped out every article I have ever written and my appointments through next year. She is in Bombay. My children are in my kitchen. They are yelling for me.Hard drives WILL fail. It's just a question of when. Protect your sanity, and your work clothes from getting wrinkled, and get a backup harddrive. More »
—>It's common for restaurants to not seat a party until everyone has arrived, but here's something we've never seen before: requiring a credit card to make the reservation, then charging $20 per person who doesn't show up—but still refusing to seat an incomplete party. When Matthew tried to get his party of ten seated without two of the people—basically saying he'd pay the $40 to get out of the bar and at a table—management refused. We think this restaurant doesn't like its patrons very much. More »
—>As long as your clothing isn't scanty or sporting lewd or suggestive imagery, Southwest Airlines is usually pretty good to fly. Not so for the author of the Strobist blog on a recent trip whose fun had only just begun when Southwest sent him an email reminder about his trip that said it was leaving 7 hours earlier than expected. He rushed off to the airport, nearly all of his clothes still in the wash, only to find out that his flight was leaving at the later time as scheduled. Always double-check those flight times and if you see something wacky, verify it first before leaving the house without a clean pair of underwear. More »
—>The New York Times is reporting this morning that an unnamed employee stole personal data on over 40,000 patients from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The theft "occurred over the past several years and included patients' names, phone numbers and Social Security numbers." As we've come to grimly expect in these cases, the hospital was made aware of the theft in January, and announced it publicly on Friday after an internal audit. "We obviously deeply regret that this has happened," said the hospital's spokeswoman, Ms. Manners. She also said that investigators are "looking into the possibility that the theft could be part of a larger criminal scheme." More »
—>Veteran Ebay buyer/seller Monty has just come off a triple play of misrepresented auctions, each from a different seller, and has had zero luck getting things straightened out with any of them. More »
—>Reader D misses his laptop. A lot. He hasn't seen it in 6 weeks. Despite tirelessly working to escalate his complaint up the ladder at HP, he keeps getting shuffled back around to "Jim," an executive customer service rep who just keeps repeating the same old story about a delayed part. More »
UPDATE: Geek Squad Replaces Soaked Computer For Free More »
—>Condé Nast marketing department, are you on crack? Have you put some trinket from "The Hills" in charge of your mail server? Justin has emailed you repeatedly to tell you to stop spamming him. His marketing preferences on your site show a vast field of "No" for every single title on your list. And yet he's received 16 emails since his last request—almost three a month. You should know better—or, as Justin puts it, "This isn't some Nigerian guy trying to make my penis larger or send me money, this is a company here, in the United States, that I know should be held accountable." More »
—>Steve Steinberg refused to pay a parking ticket issued after his car had been stolen, so the Washington, DC Department of Motor Vehicles sent a collections agency after him. Steinberg's car was stolen in September of 2006. After he reported the theft, Steinberg says, the DC police and DMV ticketed his car, towed it, then released it to the thief. More »
—>You may think that your credit card and banking information is worth a lot of money to potential crooks. If you do, you're wrong. There's so much stolen personal information out there and banks are getting so good at cutting off compromised credit cards quickly that it's driving the price down. More »
—>Gordon Biersch, a small chain of brewery-restaurants, stole a penny from our reader. Consumerist "Punkrawka" used a credit card to hold open a tab at the bar, then closed the with a gift card. Gordon Biersch then passed a one-cent charge onto our reader's credit card a few days later. More funny than anything else, the bizarre details, inside... More »
—>Though Microsoft bowed to a gamer backlash and gave 3-year warranty protection for the widespread Xbox hardware failure known as "The Red Ring of Death," it seems another debilitating malfunction, "The Red Light of Death," hasn't become enough of a PR fiasco to merit the same treatment. Let's help it along with reader Steve's story... More »
—>H&R Block recently got into trouble because when a Connecticut same-sex couple tried to file their taxes through H&R Block's website, the system spat back, ""We don't support Connecticut Civil Union returns." One of our readers wrote H&R Block about our post and their VP of Marketing actually wrote back to him to describe what she felt was media sensationalization of the story. She says that the problem happens because the Federal government doesn't recognize same-sex civil unions. The information for state tax returns gets inputted based on the federal, so in this specific case, it's not "flowing" correctly. It sounds like they're working on fixing that, though. Here's her email in full: More »
—>Internet service providers are actively tracking 100,000 users, reading every email they send and every website they visit, according to the Washington Post. The report coincides with a damning Associated Press investigation of ISP contracts which finds that they reserve broad rights to read essentially anything you view on the internet without any intervening supervision or regulation. More »
—>William writes to tell us about an asinine DirecTV contractor who demanded a tip before starting work. The contractor was dispatched by Halstead Communications, DirecTV's unfortunate installer of choice in New York. After being denied an entrance tip, the contractor noticed an easily movable table blocking his way and declared to his partner, "I can't work like this, let's get the fuck out of here." More »
—>Daniel, whose Office Depot rebate was falsely denied, says he called them back today and his rebate has been approved. His issue has even been escalated so his check will get out faster. Daniel also says that when he sent his complaint in, it wasn't so much his particular issue that he was upset about, as he felt sure he would be able to successfully get his rebate after sending in the necessary information, but it was really the thought of how many other people there were out there who would end up getting their rebate denied because they didn't have photographic proof that they had filled out their rebate correctly. He also notes that when he received the denial notice, it only gave him five days to respond. Had it come last week, while he was away on a 12-day trip, he would have lost his chance at rebate redemption. Those are the risks you take when you play the rebate lottery. Like most games of chance, the odds are stacked in favor of the house. More »
—>Reader Brent was furious to find three lawn tickets bought through Ticketmaster, priced at $13 each, came to the ridiculous total of $106.20. First there's the facility fee, then there's the mandatory parking, a processing fee, and the "convenience" charge for purchasing the tickets online. After all the fees were piled on, the $13 tickets now cost $35.40 each. Brent's letter, and a breakdown of the charges, inside: More »
—>You know what this is? This is a picture of Dan's rebate form and UPC code, the very UPC code that whoever does Office Depot's rebate processing says wasn't attached to his rebate form. Yes, Daniel is the kind of person who takes pictures of all his rebate materials before sending them in, just in case something like this should occur. Companies love rebates because they can get you to buy something thinking you're going to get a deal, and then if you fail the rebate process, they still get to keep all your money. Even if you do everything right, they still might deny it. Why? Because the rebate company has a certain quota, their contractually agreed upon "redemption rate" of rebates to deny that they have to meet. If too many legitimate rebates get in, guess they have to "figure out" ways to meet their numbers. Inside, the correspondence between Office Depot and Dan and a full-sized pic of his rebate and UPC code... More »
—>David wanted a straight answer from Comcast as to whether they were degrading his HD signal, but instead was fed a colossal trough of baloney. The executive customer service rep who replied to David's email said Comcast is using a "new system" for HD and while it "works well with clean 1080i signals, we're making some adjustments to improve how it handles other types of HD signals so we can bring you the best HD picture. We apologize this has not created the HD experience that we intended, but we will work towards getting it right. " Sure... check out this previous post, Comcast Degrades HD Quality To Make Room For More Channels, for the science and proof of how Comcast (and other cable operators) are degrading HD feeds to make more money. The full exchanges between David and the Comcast reps, inside... More »
—>Reader Tom was all set to buy a ticket on Virgin America when all of a sudden the fare he thought was locked in shot up 33%. The machine told him his reservation had expired. Tom tried redoing the purchase several times, clearing his cookies, changing browsers, only to continue to be denied by Richard Branson's faceless automoton army. So then he cleared his cookies and then rerouting his signal through another computer so to Virgin America it looks like a different user is trying to buy the ticket (in technical terms, he rerouted his traffic through a SOCKS proxy server on the West Coast). Shazam, he was able to get the ticket at the old price. Whether the deal had expired because he dawdled too long, or whether he was only able to get it because it looked like he was coming from the West Coast and the fare was related to the time of day, Tom felt jerked around. If this happens to you, here's a how-to on using proxy servers. More »
—>There are efficient ways to initiate a recall and issue safety notices, and then there's the Buick way. After determining a potential fire hazard in the certain Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick Regals, Buick sent out safety notices in advance of a probable recall to its customers. It alerted them of the hazard, and recommend they have a mechanic investigate any suspicious burning smells. What they neglected, however, was to inform their dealerships of the hazard. Reader Tculkin, who had already complained of burning smells to another mechanic, followed the advice in his safety notice and immediately called his local dealership. The dealership had no idea what he was talking about. Literally, they didn't get the memo. Details, inside... More »
—>Allison and her husband wanted to reduce the amount of minutes they're signed up for on their Sprint-Nextel cellphone plan. While that was a hassle in of itself and Allison ended up getting a phone with another company, the fun really begins once ""Insert SIM" started flashing on her husband's phone (which is on the Nextel network, which uses SIM cards). Sprint seemed convinced that the SIM card had been reported as lost or stolen and couldn't be activated. This was very bad as it was her husband's business line. What followed were a series of 45+ minute call time waits, disconnected customer service calls, fruitless visits to the store, conflicting and confusing information given by different customer service reps and tech support personnel. During the fracas, her husband lost one customer who hadn't been able to reach him during the outage. Over 100 days into the reign of new Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and shennanigans like the following story are still happening. Oh Danny-boy, are one of the "nukes" you have planned for revamping Sprint aimed at customer service? More »
—>Reader Tim went to Radio Shack to buy something or other and the manager refused to process his cash transaction without first learning his home address. Tim left the store and dashed off a quick email to us. He let us know he was going to contact Radio Shack about the incident, but felt certain that he'd be ignored. More »
My fiancee sent her computer in to Gateway 3 weeks ago for warranty repair. After repeatedly being told the computer would be repaired we have now been told it is still in the repair depot waiting for a part. Here's the transcript of a chat we had with agent "Patrick" this morning. When he said he would escalate the issue, and we should check back in 3-5 business days, I asked if the escalation had any effect other than to make us stop bothering them for 3-5 business days... his response? "No." When I asked him to connect me to someone who could solve the issue today, he ended the chat session.More »
—>Part of our job here as we incorporate The Conglomerist into the fold of Haberdasher Communications (tagline: let's keep it under our hat, shall we?) is to clean up some of the ethical missteps taken by The Consumerist, particularly with regards to its notoriously corrupt photo selection department. Dipping into the mailbag, Marc writes:
An avid reader of your website, I was a little bit concerned by the choice of picture to illustrate the "IDT Energy Scamming Spreads Past New York City" story.More »
Granted, the picture shows an IDT building in the background, but in the foreground are catenary wires, which are quite distinctive from power distribution wires...
—>We're not sure what Robert's problem is but apparently he doesn't appreciate the hard work Dairy Queen went into making him and his family four delicious cheeseburgers. Irregardless of the futility of the endeavor, he has decided to make it his personal mission to try to sic the health department on his local Dairy Queen, simply because his burgers came out nearly raw. News flash Robert! Ever heard of a steak tartare? This is a Freedom Steak, and you don't have to go into one of them fancy-pants restaurants to get it. His ill-informed ranting and more pictures of tasty burgers, after the jump... More »
—>Reader Tom wrote in to let us know that during a conversation with AT&T customer service, a representative told him that it is typical to send out collection notices ten days after the original bill is mailed. Factoring in two or three days for the bill to arrive, two or three days for the check to get back to AT&T, and a Sunday or two, that leaves three to five days for customers to pay their bills before the angry letters and phone calls begin. More »
—> Matthew wrote in to complain about a new website called Spokeo, which sounds like a stalker's dream: it sucks up all the entries in your address book, then returns a Big Brothery smorgasbord of all the publicly accessible accounts and services linked to each email address, along with updates any time something happens. It might surprise you to see just how easy it is for someone to assemble a picture of your Internet footprint with only an email address.
Don't like the sound of that? Luckily for you, someone has already been inspired to follow Spokeo's model and create a tool—Identifight—that lets you track your own email address to see what shows up, so you can patch up privacy leaks. More »
—>Reader Steaming Pile is waiting, not so patiently, for AT&T to give him back his $160. He had an account set up with automatic bill pay, and when his contract was up in September he canceled the account. This should have been the end of his dealings with AT&T. A few months later, he was perusing his post-holiday credit card bill when he noticed a charge from AT&T. Reviewing his statements more closely, he noticed that while he was successful in terminating his service, he hadn't convinced AT&T to stop taking his money every month. Thanks to automatic bill pay and (let's admit it) his own negligence, AT&T had pocketed $160 for a closed account. In fact, when he called to terminate the automatic bill pay, not only did he have to argue for the credit, he's still waiting for his money three months later. Check out his very angry email below. More »
Debtors have rights, and sometimes they get violated. The FTC released its annual Fair Debt Collection Practices Act report, part of which documents the number of complaints they get about debt collectors violating consumers rates. FTC received 70,951 DCPA violation complaints in 2007. Of them: More »
—>
Long time reader, first time tipper. I'm sure you've heard plenty about Blockbuster and their shady Total Access dealings, but I thought I'd send along my experience with them. More »
—> Reader George is having serious trouble with Geek Squad. It started when he bought a laptop from Best Buy a few years ago. He sent it in to get a loose AC jack replaced. They replace it. Two months later, it's loose again. It's replaced again, but this time, when his picks it up, the door to the DVD/CD drive is warped and won't open. George's in a hurry, so he asked the Geek to make a note about the damage, and he'll bring it back for repair. From here on out, nothing goes right. First they can't find his account, then they can't find the note, then they can't find his computer, then they can't work their own computers. His full story, inside. More »
—>Best Buy called the cops on Alex because he told another shopper that the Jawbone headset he was considering was poor quality and marked up $30 from the manufacturer's price. Alex went to Best Buy to purchase a new Bluetooth headset because the Jawbone he recently purchased from Verizon wasn't cutting it. While browsing the headsets, he struck up a conversation with another customer who was checking out the Jawbone. Alex told his fellow customer that he had been disappointed in the quality of the Jawbone, and that Best Buy was charging $30 more than the manufacturer or Verizon. A sales associate overheard this and told the manager, who asked Alex to leave the store, then threatened to call the police, then did. More »
—>The guy who won a BMW for $60k on eBay only to have the dealership back out is chaffing at the conditions the dealership imposed after the two, following an international onslaught of criticism, came to terms. The two conditions the dealership asked for were 1) That Ken not sell the car for a certain number of years after he bought it and 2) That Ken has to go around to all the internet sites that picked up his story and tell them that the dealership worked out the deal. Ken's lawyer was able to get the first one struck but Ken really doesn't like the second one, especially after the following quote from the dealership appeared in the Journal-Star, "These bloggers out there, they have lots of time on their hands to do this." To this, Ken wrote, "I got placed under the impression that the dealership really isn't sorry for anything they have done here. Their attitude, it seemed was that I am to blame for the firestorm that culminated, implying that I wasn't being proactive enough in getting the word out...I had no intention of becoming a pawn for this dealer, not after the way they treated me!" For their part, the dealership says they are ready to sell the car at the agreed-upon price once they receive payment from Ken. More »
I used to work at HSBC's call center in Tigard, Oregon. More »
After 23 months of same-sex, civil-union bliss, Jason Smith and Settimio Pisu had grown accustomed to some institutions being not quite ready for the concept of gay spouses. More »
—> Gregory writes in to point out that Facebook does a lousy job of monitoring the development of its third-party Platform applications—and in fact many of them are written so badly that they can be easily hacked. The examples he cites, which are listed in the winter issue of the hacker magazine 2600, are all fairly mild stunts like spoofing user IDs, changing the moods of another user, and re-routing gifts, "but this information could be used to mount large scale social engineering attacks if automated and coupled with other information." To illustrate how easy it is to change another user's settings, he pointed us to a YouTube example of how to change another users "mood" via the Mood app. More »
—>CVS underfilled Shannon's prescription and then treated her like a junkie when she complained. According to her email, after Shannon picked up her regular monthly batch of 60 Kolonopin pills, an anticonvulsant, she realized CVS only gave her 30. She called CVS and they insisted they gave her 60 pills. Shannon encouraged them to check their inventory, which CVS said was impossible. Shannon then asked them to fill one of the refills for the script. CVS told her that insurance wouldn't cover more than 60 pills in 30 days. Shannon said that was fine, seeing as it's dangerous to suddenly stop taking the drug, she would pay out of pocket. CVS then told her they would not do the refill "under any circumstances" and they would note her record for "drug-seeking behavior..." More »
Evening, Consumerist Editors (and hopefully readers)! More »
I saw something a little weird at our local Best Buy [redacted]. While on my break from work I decided to stop by the store and pick up the latest copy of Rainbow Six Vegas 2. While walking through the audio section of the Home Theater department I passed by a computer terminal next to some stereo equipment and an open filing cabinet in the middle with a tray on-top. At first I thought it was just storage for binders, pamphlets, sales ad's and stuff they might need on the floor, but when I looked into the tray I saw completed credit card forms, with peoples names, addresses, social security # and etc...More »
—>Reader Eric wants a Zune. He found a great deal on a refurbished one at overstockdealz.com, placed his order, and a few days later received his package. It contained an $8 Zune cable. Here's his letter: More »
—> A man wrote in to travel writer Christopher Elliott to complain about the awful experience he and his wife had with Comfort Inn & Suites in North Vancouver, British Columbia. When they checked in, they were surprised with a "free upgrade," but found the room was unclean and lacked linens. They asked to be given the room they initially reserved, then discovered the water was lukewarm during their entire visit, and the coffee machine was broken. The hotel's ice machine was also broken. Richard said in each case he complained to the front desk but only got an apology—and when he contacted Choice Hotels to complain, they told him he should have brought the issues to the attention of the hotel, and consequently they would not honor their 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. More »
—>Ben is getting some crappy customer service from Verizon in attempting to get FiOS installed. His phone is disconnected, they made a half-assed install, don't show up for installs, don't call, oh, and he still doens't have FiOS. He writes:
To file amongst other I hate Verizon articles. Typing and summarizing while on hold with Verizon for approximately the 8th time... More »
Greetings from Austin, Consumerist. I thought y'all might like to hear tale of a visit to a local Walmart (store 1185, for those keeping track). More »
—>After he continued to receive mailings for months from his bank after he thought he opted out of their mailings, reader Perre asked Citibank if they had honored his request. They said, "yes you're opted out of Balance Transfer offers and Cash Convenience Checks." Then he cleverly thought to ask which mailing lists he was still opted in. Citibank told him he was still on "Sales and Marketing" and "Third Party Sharing." They explained this by saying when you call to opt-out, they only take you off "in-statement offers." We're not sure what that means, it sounds like they're just agreeing to not put additional marketing offers in your billing statement envelope, which is definitely not what any normal person would have in mind when they call to opt-out. Sneaky. When you call a company to opt-out of their mailings, be sure to also ask which lists you're opted in, and then ask to get off those as well. More »
—> If your company is in the habit of using a "donotreply.com" address in the "From" field of its emails, you might want to forward your IT department this entry from the Washington Post's "Security Fix" blog—when customers don't pay attention and reply to a "donotreply.com" email address, it goes to Chet Faliszek, a programmer in Seattle who registered the domain seven years ago.
With the exception of extreme cases... Faliszek says he long ago stopped trying to alert companies about the e-mails he was receiving. It's just not worth it: Faliszek said he is constantly threatened with lawsuits from companies who for one reason or another have a difficult time grasping why he is in possession of their internal documents and e-mails.More »
—>After Daniela's SONY laptop was stuck in a warranty repair purgatory for months and a SONY tech screamed at her over the phone accusing her of warranty fraud, her story appeared on The Consumerist. Now she happily writes:
Almost immediately after my article was posted on the consumerist, I received a friendly and extremely apologetic call from a Sony exec. Before even calling me, he had reviewed my case and agreed fully that they were in the wrong. He apologized and offered to have my notebook repaired immediately!More »
—>UPDATE: Facing Online Onslaught, Dealership Honors eBay Sale More »
—>Andrew's wife got mugged, the thief rand up purchases on her credit card, and now CapitalOne has sued them for $1200 and won. How can this be? Andrew writes:
In May of 2005 my wife was mugged at one of the elevated train stations in Chicago. After calling the police and filing a police report, she started calling each credit card company to cancel each account. Except she forgot about one card, her CapitalOne card. A card hardly ever used and only had a $500.00 limit...More »
Nice. More »
—> After hearing about Hannaford's giant customer data breach yesterday, Brian decided to cancel the debit card he'd used there. That's when he found out that Key Bank really wants you to have a debit card. In fact, they'll charge you a small monthly fee to not have one linked to your "free checking" account. We figure that this means Key Bank makes about $12 a year more off of customers who have linked debit cards—and that if you want greater security on your account, it's going to cost you. More »
—>Reader Glenn was traveling to Thailand with a group of friends. Glenn and another member of the group have issues with Sleep Apnea, a potentially life threatening disorder where sufferers stop breathing in their sleep. Fortunately, a simple medical device called a C-Pap machine can be used during sleep to correct the problem. So Glenn, being the informed responsible consumer he is, contacted the airline the group was booked on, United, to make sure that he'd be able to use his C-Pap machine during the god-awfully long trip from Boston to Thailand. United said, sure, no problem, they'd be able to get him an outlet for his machine. Then, they canceled his booking. Without telling him. But wait! It gets worse! More »
—> The info-loving people at Flowing Data pulled the figures on data breaches (available at Attrition.org) and created a chart showing the top 10 biggest breaches in the past eight years. The most disturbing trend, which probably will surprise few Consumerist readers, is that the breaches are increasing in frequency. More »
—>Remember N? He last saw his laptop in December after shipping it to HP for desperately needed repairs. After posting the story HP reached out to N, who tells us that he just received a spanking new machine. Read N's reaction and his tips for handling similar situations, after the jump. More »
Dear Consumerist, More »
—> The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report yesterday that says that while the FCC processes about 95% of the complaints that come in, it takes some sort of enforcement action in only about 9% of them. "The GAO said it was unable to determine why the [other] investigations were closed without action because 'FCC does not systematically collect these data.'" The FCC uses five separate databases and "about 46,000 paper files" to track complaints, and the GAO said "made it difficult to get answers to basic questions like how long it takes the agency to close an investigation and the total dollar amount it assesses in fines." More »
—> Another person has stepped forward to allege that a "major wireless carrier" may have aided the FBI's warrantless wiretapping program. He claims he was brought in to work with the company on something called the Quantico Circuit, "a high-speed line from the wireless carrier to an unnamed third party. Quantico, Va., is the site of a U.S. intelligence and military base."
"The circuit was tied to the organization's core network," Pasdar stated in the affidavit. "It had access to the billing system, text messaging, fraud detection, Web site, and pretty much all the systems in the data center without restrictions."More »
—>A bunch of Honda owners are mad because they think Honda should issue a recall on their cars due to their transmission, things like randomly deciding to pop out of third gear into neutral and not fully engaging. When these owners confront Honda, the car company kept saying "we've never heard of the problem before," despite numerous complaints being sent in, and dealers say they "can't replicate" the problem. There's a writeup of the whole problem at AutomotiveTech.org, a list of message board forum members with the problem, and now, Fox 6 San Diego picked up on it after angry owners organized a protest at a local dealership. Suddenly, Honda's tune has changed, and they're "aware of the problem" and "investigating." Video after the jump. More »
—> When you place an order on Pizza Hut's website, you have to create an account, and to create an account, you have to check the box that says you agree to their privacy policy and terms of use. It also says, "I agree to receive information about Pizza Hut®/WingStreet® couons, promotions, announcements, events and specials." This e-commerce blogger is amazed that Pizza Hut would resort to such a sneaky tactic, which ultimately ruins the customer experience and probably costs them online orders. More »
—>A Bostonian now living in Cincinnati, reader Patrick was excited to see that this year's Major League Baseball schedule includes a Red Sox at Reds series. He went to the Reds' ticket website to buy tickets for his family, friends, and himself. That's where things got ridiculous. More »
—>"[Debt] Collectors actually care about consumers... They want to teach consumers how to get out of debt. They're trying to put themselves out of business." - Rozanne Andersen, general counsel of ACA International (formerly the American Collectors Association) as quoted in this morning's NYT article, "Debt Collectors Try to Put on a Friendlier Face." As times get tougher and the options for borrowing from Peter to pay Paul shrink, more accounts are becoming delinquent. This means booming business for debt collectors, but increased activity could bring scrutiny from politicians and regulators, as well as consumer backlash. So, infamous for harassing debtors with abusive and threatening language and incessant calls (all violations of Federal regulations), the industry is trying a new tactic: playing Mr. Nice Guy. They're conducting personal finance management courses, writing columns about how Abraham Lincoln couldn't pay his debts, and opened a full-time lobbying office in Washington DC this month. More »
—>Reader Dan writes in to tell us that the incense peddlers over at Keyherb.com are too chill to do business. All he wanted to do was de-stress with some of their lovely, organic aromatherapy products, but instead of shipping his order, they sent him a fake tracking number then ignored him. More »
—> Direct mailers don't believe in the concept of opting in, so if you want to cut down on the amount of straight-to-the-trash mail you receive, you'll need to contact them directly and request that your name is removed. ForestEthics—the group behind the Do Not Mail Registry petition we blogged about earlier, has gathered several ways to contact the offending parties. More »
—>Even though I have asked them several times and waited several months, Dell won't stop sending me catalogs, so I'm burning them. Every other company that sends me catalogs that I've requested to be removed from their mailing list has done it. I have called customer service on two different occasions and requested to be removed. I have gone to the special website on the back of the catalogs and requested to be removed. I have done this for both the sets of names and addresses they have on file for me. They don't care. I tried to be nice but obviously that doesn't work. So burn, baby, burn. It may not stop the mailings, but I felt better afterwards. Another image of Dell catalog immolation, inside... More »
—> A former FDIC employee writes that the FDIC's call center (877-275-3342) is "a tremendously helpful place to get basic referral information if you're having trouble with your bank, lender, or finance company." They can't help you with complaints, but they can route you to the correct agency, provide credit union contact info, and give you the names and numbers of state agencies where your bank is located. More »
—> David C. Richardson, the owner of Rhode Island Refrigeration in Providence, Rhode Island, overheard two customers speaking Spanish to each other, so he asked them to produce proof of citizenship. According to them, he then threatened to call Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and make a citizen's arrest, although Richardson denies he picked up the phone, but not that he made the threats. In fact, he says he's done this "fifteen or twenty times" in the past and refuses to do business with those who won't show their Social Security cards. More »
—>Reader Thomas was waiting for his delayed AirTran flight.... and waiting... and waiting. Turns out that AirTrain never made an annoucement that the delayed flight had arrived and it left without Thomas and a few other passengers. More »
—>Whenever Brian drives his Dodge Charger in the rain, all of the dash lights flash and has trouble restarting his car. He's taken the car to the dealership multiple times, but they say they're never able to recreate the problem. Above are two screencaps of the video he took last time this occurred. He's now taken to writing a letter to Chrysler CEO Big Bob Nardelli, which is most likely a futile effort. You might instead email Cerberus, the company that now owns Chrysler's ass. Maybe the dealership will find it's able to recreate the flashing signals if Brian rides along the next time they test the car. Maybe call the Car Talk radio show. Inside, a video of this bizzare phenom in action, and his letter to the CEO. More »
—>Because Marc B. hadn't used his account for a few years, Bank of America decided he must have died, and froze his account. Then they started charging a maintenance fee, which eventually overdrew his account. Full email inside. More »
"Please don't stick me up," a cashier told the shopper on Feb. 2, according to the Nevada chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. More »
—> Seth wrote in to describe the response he got from Dell recently, and compared it to the response he got four years ago. That was a more innocent time, before rags like BusinessWeek blew the lid on our EECB strategy by printing it in old media that execs would read. More »
—>There have been several business article written about how Dell is changing its bad customer service ways, but after you read Anthony's horrible tale, you will know that Dell hell is very alive and very real:
In April of 2005, I purchased a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop computer. Approximately a year later, I was given a replacement for ongoing issues with the computer, and that replacement served me fine for approximately another year before it too had ongoing issues and was replaced under warranty. However, this is where the problems began...More »
—> A fourth grade teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, bought a box of scrap paper for $20 and discovered it was actually a box of medical records of 28 patients from Central Florida Regional Hospital. The hospital shipped the box via UPS to an audit company in Las Vegas last December. The hospital claims it had been tracking the box since February, but hadn't told the patients. As for the teacher's class, her next assignment for the students will be, "Apply for credit card offers using SSNs from the scrap paper box." More »
—>New reader Lynne (Hi, Lynne!) shares with us a letter that she recently sent to Poland Springs after they refused to stop delivering and billing her for water she did not want. Originally, she simply wanted to place her account on hold while she moved to a new home. Poland Springs complete inability to follow her simple requests turned a loyal customer into a former one. More »
—>Reader G writes:
On Saturday 3/8/08 at approximately 4pm I went to a drive-up ATM at the Wachovia Bank branch located at 951 South George Mason Drive, Arlington, VA 22204. I put my card in and asked to withdraw $80. The machine was acting normally until it was supposed to dispense the money. More »
—>Erica writes:
Recently, my husband and I got two new Chase credit cards in the mail. I didn't look closely, assuming that this was a new card for our never-used Chase Mastercard account. This account has been around for seven years, but we prefer another card with a rewards system; the Mastercard account is open only to benefit our credit rating. Therefore, no urgency in activating it — I dropped it in the bill pile to deal with later.More »
—>Colin writes:
I went into my nearest ATT store and there were two CSR's behind the counter- I asked for an 8gig Refurb iPhone thats being sold for $249 and the kid said sure and walked me over to the desk. The next words out of his mouth "What is your social security number?" No "How are you today?" "Thanks for coming in" No, apparently they just want my credit report to see if I am "worthy"More »
—>Kevin noted on his Budget rental forms that his truck was covered with graffiti and other nicks and scratches before driving off the lot. As soon as he returned the truck, the lot agent pointed out a slew of damage and invited him inside. He said that Kevin had two options: pay $670 in cash immediately, or pay several thousand dollars to corporate later. Kevin paid the extortion fee, but now Budget's corporate office wants $2,080 to repair, among other things, graffiti damage. More »
—>Tricia asks:
Tmobile is not budging regarding $1500 dollars worth of charges on a SIM card that was stolen from my lost phone and put into another device. Its so obvious the phone was stolen, my bill is typically $40 a month, the person took someone out of my "Fave 5" and put in someone named Mostofo. I called Mostofo who said he wants to help "find the criminal" but Tmobile says they don't really care about the fact that it was stolen, that I owe the total amount regardless. Super annoying! Anything I can do? I get that Tmobile says, until I officially report it stolen I'm responsible for the charges, I just think that's ridiculous when its SO obvious the charges aren't mine.More »
—>UPDATE: We Post, SONY Replaces Long-Languishing Laptop More »
Yesterday I was shopping at JCPenny in Cary, North Carolina. Was browsing through some of the racks, picking up some new outfits for work, when an employee approached me to ask if I needed any help. I told him no thanks, and then he said to me "Well, the Big and Tall section is over there" and points me to a different part of the store... More »
—>Two Marines, a husband and wife, found Verizon had an unpleasant welcome-home gift waiting for them when they got back from serving in Iraq: canceled cellphones, a $500 bill, and their phone numbers were given to other people. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, when a soldier goes off to war, they're able to send their deployment letters to their service companies and get their service put on hold. Apparently in the case of Haley Katz and her husband, that letter wasn't good enough. When they complained a reached a manager, the manager told them it was their fault they owed the money, and then hung up on them. Read their letter as published in Stars and Stripes, inside... More »
—>Verizon has posted a Q&A that tries to address some of the concerns their customers were having over an LCD TV promotion that's gone awry. More »
—> Kurt was at Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago yesterday, where his father is in rehab after a recent stroke, and he was nearly kicked out because he took a photo of the setting sun out the window from a hallway.
Before even reviewing the picture, I heard a woman yell, "What do you think you're doing?!" I looked up, seeing an angry looking woman briskly coming down the hall at me.More »
"Taking a photo of the sun," I replied.
"You're in a hospital!" she shrilly declared.
"Yes, obviously."
"I've called security, you stay here!"
I made an electronic payment online with my one of my bank's check card. Turns out this was the wrong one, and I immediately canceled the payment (as there's a very easy to find and large button allowing you to do this immediately as well), and resubmitted it through the correct bank. So, to sum up, the payment was made, about two weeks before it was due. I figured all was cool and I was being a good customer for paying more than the minimum balance, way ahead of the due date, online, so there wouldn't be any "problems" with a check or the postal service. Then I look on my statement and I've been charged a $35 Returned Payment Fee.More »
—>Capital One accidentally sent a customer with a closed Capital One credit card a check for $500. She cashed the check and now CapO wants its money back... so badly that they reopened the closed credit card just so it could bill her. They also added a $1.42 finance charge. When asked by The Oregonian, a consumer advocate and official with the Office Of The Comptroller of Currency both said they had never heard of a company reopening a closed credit card for this reason before. What a brilliant new scam, here's a check for $500 dummty dum dum two months pass oh wait guess what that was actually a loan, pay up, bitch. In all seriousness, don't cash unexpected checks, you're just asking for trouble. More »
—> Lifestyle Lift claims it's a "minor one-hour procedure with major results," but a lot of customers who have paid for the procedure have been left unhappy, and they've consequently posted reviews about it on a plastic surgery review blog called RealSelf. Lifestyle Lift has sued RealSelf, claiming trademark infringement, and now RealSelf has countersued, claiming Lifestyle Lift padded RealSelf's site with shill reviews. More »
—>Reader Mary says that she ordered Verizon FiOS during the "free LCD TV" promotion they were running, but she still hasn't received the letter she needs in order to start the rebate process. More »
—>Thomas writes:
If you don't use your Juniper iTunes Rewards VISA (issued by Barclay's) for an entire year, they close the card and report to the credit agencies that you requested to close it. I've learned that when I called to inquire about a lower rate on 2/26, the agent canceled my account.More »
—>Reader Anjela writes in wondering if a certain employee of the Apple store has has a rare disorder that makes women invisible to him. That might explain why the employee spent the entire AirBook shopping excursion talking to her husband instead of Anjela—the actual customer. More »
—>For three months, HP has promised to return reader N's laptop within the next ten days. N sent his HP Pavillion for repairs in December after his screen became a blurry mess incapable of displaying anything as basic as say, oh, a tracking page. HP insists that they fixed the laptop, but they won't ship it back to N. Conveniently, the one-year warranty expired last month. More »
—>Before leaving for his honeymoon, Derek called Bank of America to make sure he could rely on his debit card while he was in Japan. Bank of America assured him that he would have no problem accessing money. Yet on the third day of his honeymoon, neither he nor his wife could draw cash from their cards, stranding them with only $15 in cash. More »
—>If you want to have a successful complaint, it helps to complain like Gerald. That's the father-in-the law of this WSJ writer, and he's able to perform daring feats of consumer action, like the time he got the hardware store to replace the $800 grill that stopped working a year after he bought it. Here's how he does it: More »
—>UPDATE: EECB Scores Direct Hit On United Health Care More »
—>We read a lot of stories about companies doing boneheaded things but rarely do we read anything like what reader Nathanial sent in. More »
—> Reader Brad took his XBOX Live Gamertag to a friend's house. When he got home, he realized that he'd forgotten his memory card (with the Gamertag on it) at his friend's place. More »
—>When you get a new or replacement credit card in the mail, you have to call the number on the back to activate it, or else you can't use it, right? Wrong. Despite the sticker on the back that says, "For security purposes, this card is not active," credit card companies are mailing out cards that can be used without phone activation. This is a problem if the letter containing your credit card is intercepted by an identity thief, like what happened to reader PC Guy. The kicker? He didn't even request the card, it was a forcible reissue when his store-branded card switched from Visa to Mastercard. His story, inside. More »
—>Rob writes:
I was the recipient of an international wire transfer into my Netbank Checking Account for $1000 EUR (about $1400 US) on 2007-08-08. After I noticed the amount didn't post to my account, I contacted Netbank and the sending bank in Spain. The sending bank generated a multi-page "proof of transfer" document and indicated the money had been transfered. Netbank never got back to me. This began the 7 month nightmare of dealing with an inattentive bank in the middle of it's being seized by the FDIC that continues to this day.Pictured: CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann perched atop his Harley-Davidson in the ING-Direct company lobby. More »
—>Starting in November, reader Roberta has called Verizon 21 times about her lack of DSL, and has yet to reach a resolution. She also launched two EECBs, both of which were ignored. More »
—>There's no better way to say "we don't give a damn about your business" than to deliver 25 boxes stacked against your door in a slovenly pile. A reader writes:
More »
—>Ian writes:
Last Thursday 2/14, I ordered a 32GB iPod touch from CircuitCity.com at $474 + tax for a total of about $514. After thinking about it for a bit, I logged back in and canceled the order - just a bit too steep for an iPod, you know? I figured I'd have to wait a while for the price to drop, and left it at that. Well, believe it or not, I received a call at work today from a Circuit City sales rep at corporate telling me he'd offer me the iPod at a discount, so CC could keep my business. I was baffled - nothing like this has ever happened to me before, but the price he gave me $420 + tax... was too good to pass up.More »
—>Donald writes:
First and foremost i would like to thank you for the wonderful site. The information found here has been extremely useful. With that said i just want to share with you a success story i had with getting Bank Of America to lower the interest rate on my Apple GoldReserve Line of Credit. This story does not start out so nicely though.More »
—>Kathyrn writes:
A friend of sent me your article on ESCOS [Energy Service Companies]. My father is a senior citizen and he signed up, and his energy bill has sky rocketed, we have called his energy resell co. three different times asking them to cancel his contract every time they say we will it will take about 30 days, but nothing is happening, can you advise me how to get him out of this contract?More »
Apparently, the email has caused such an outpouring of similar customer service stories that the restaurant is actually closed. More »
—>Why play solitaire when you work for the utility company and can look up the mayor's phone number? An Associated Press investigation reveals that casual snooping is widespread among employees who have access to large customer databases. According to one utility executive, it would be "difficult, if not impossible" to ferret out employees who use sensitive data for identity theft. More »
—> Joseph writes in with a helpful reminder:
Now might be a good time to remind people that they can opt-out of pre-screened offers of credit. In light of the HSBC debacle I've been victim of, I checked out my credit report yesterday. I was amazed at how often the major credit card companies (AMEX, Capital One, Bank of America, etc...) access my credit history in order pre-screen me for promotional purposes. Consumers can opt-out at: www.optoutprescreen.comMore »
I wanted to inform consumerist that the manager from the Apple Store at Stonestown called me back to apologize about the incident and to invite me back to the store. She apologized for the employees making ID a requirement of purchase and that they were doing it to protect from fraud. She then mentioned that they understand they were not following the merchant agreements but will do so here on out. I will go back to make my purchase! More »
—> Oh look, Americans also enjoy putting shocking phrases on receipts. Yesterday's UK restaurant surprise reminded one of our interns of a receipt sent in a few weeks ago from Brad in California: "got this receipt from home depot today.... look closely just below the total and you will see something surprising.... lol." Probably NSFW, unless you work at Home Depot or Joe Delucci's Italian Restaurant. More »
—> First it was breast reduction advice, now it's weight management tips, this time from a rude Panera Bread employee who didn't like being confronted by an angry customer. Here's what happened to Jeff's wife when she tried to buy some chicken noodle soup the other day: More »
—>We received the following strangely awesome, if a bit strange, letter from a consumer who was not allowed to purchase something at the Apple store because he would not show ID. It was sent to Steve Jobs and William Rhodes (of Citibank.) Let's listen in: More »
—> If there's one thing this writer has learned over the years, it's to never tell a woman to get breast reduction surgery. It's rude, insulting, and can quite possibly get you kneed in the groin, slapped, pushed into a train, cut out of the will, and so on. But apparently the salesperson at Penningtons—sort of a Canadian Lane Bryant—didn't get that memo. "North of 49" writes:
I'm a woman of "ample girth" but still have a figure. At 226lbs, I have a 38J cup. We're getting married on leap day and I have had issues with bra shopping before. So I went to "Penningtons," an above average store that should have had bras in my size. They didn't.More »
—> Christine learned an interesting bit of in-flight trivia on her recent United flight: those little call buttons are for emergencies only. What's more, the flight attendants can psychically sense when it's an emergency and when you're just foolin' with them, and they'll ignore you if they suspect you're just going to ask for water. And no, needing to take sinus medicine to prevent clusters of needle-explosions going off in your skull during descent is not an emergency, so go back to your seat. More »
—> The BBC is reporting that a restaurant owner has apologized to some customers who received the above-pictured bill. More »
—>Here's a new sales tactic from Dish Network. When they interrupt your dinner to sell you satellite TV, and you politely decline, they will win you over by telling you to shut up. More »
—>Keith writes:
On Friday February 15th I called HSBC customer service. I explained that there was a $1,000 difference between my "Bank Balance" and I was concerned because I hadn't used my ATM card. They said that the money was "on hold." They could give no further explanation. I pressed them and said "How is it possible that $1,000 of my money is out in space" They had no reply. I asked to speak to a supervisor to which the person I was speaking to refused and said "They have the same information I do and they are not available." I was talking to outsourced "customer service reps" from the Philippines so I hung up and dialed 716.841.7212 again. I kindly explained my store from scratch to Helga REP # 6124, also in the Philippines, not Buffalo, NY. She said the same thing as the guy before (at least they were consistent), and refused to let me speak to a supervisor.More »
—>Reader Brian sent us this transcript of a conversation that he had with a Comcast rep. He was considering switching to Verizon and was wondering if Comcast could come up with any reason why he should stay. They couldn't. In fact, Comcast's CSR "Mike" said: "my advice is to go ahead and switch, and if you find Comacst provides a fast and more reliable service we will welcome you back." More »
—>Just because we posted the internal US Bank memo saying that customers could turn off courtesy overdraft protection doesn't mean that the rest of the US Bank employees got it, or read it. Here's what happened to Jason when he tried to get it turned off: More »
—>Check your statements. Fraudulent charges of $429 for "ID Safe" are showing up on some people's credit card bills. Which is odd, because usually these places use tiny charges so they're more likely to go unnoticed. If you see a suspicious charge on your credit card, call your card company immediately to check it out and get it reversed if need be. On the credit card statement, the phone number listed for ID safe is 888-261-6045. After the jump, what happened to one consumer when he called the number and got through to the mastermind, who sounded like she was banging pots around in her kitchen... More »
—>Reader Brian doesn't have a womb, so when he saw a copy of Working Mother magazine in his mailbox, he was pretty sure that he didn't order it:
Last December I placed an order at art.com for a framed print which I intended to give as a Christmas present. I placed the order well within art.com's recommended time frame for delivery in time for christmas. During the order they promised delivery by December 17th. Well, as you may guess December 17th came and went with no package (they shipped it on the 15th via DHL.) December 24th came and went with no package. DHL finally delivered it on the 26th after I had been forced to go out and purchase another gift to replace the one that had not arrived. More »
—>Is Countrywide telling you your Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio needs to have reached 75%, not 80%, in order to get the private mortgage insurance (PMI) removed? Throw the book at them: tell them they're in violation of the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998. The law clearly states that PMI is to be removed after 80%:
Cancellation date.—The term ``cancellation date'' means...the date on which the principal balance of the mortgage...is first scheduled to reach 80 percent of the original value of the property securing the loan.One reader (different from the guy we posted about before) says he was having trouble getting Countrywide to remove the PMI. They twice told him in writing that he needed a LTV of 75%. Then on the phone with them he mentioned the Homeowner's Protection Act and then all of a sudden they were magically able to remove the PMI. More »
So besides your site, Lifehacker, and a few others, I also follow slickdeals.net. The other day there was an Office Depot item, where you could buy an office chair, set it for in-store pickup, and if your order was over $50, you could use a coupon to take an additional $20 off. Sweet. I placed my order and went pick it up today. More »
On Monday, Facebook modified its help pages to tell people that if they wanted to remove their accounts entirely, they could e-mail the company to have it done. But on Tuesday, representatives of Facebook stopped short of saying the company would introduce a one-step delete account option. More »
—>The FTC today released its top consumer fraud complaints of 2007. Based on complaints filed by consumers, identity theft is the number one complaint by a very wide margin, taking 32% of all complaints. The next closest complaint category was Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales, which only took 8% of the complaints. Here's how the bastards break down: More »
—>Raelyn Campbell is suing Best Buy for $54 million for losing her laptop and lying to her for months about it. She bought a laptop from Best Buy with an extended warranty, it broke, she sent it in for repairs, months later she didn't have her laptop and after getting the runaround the store finally said it had lost her laptop and offered her a $900 gift card. She paid over $1,100 for the laptop, she paid for software on it, and it had irreplaceable photos, music, and personal information, including her tax returns. She freely admits she chose the high figure to attract media attention. She tells the Red Tape Chronicles "I can't help but wonder how many other people have had their computer stolen (or) lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses." She also has a blog. More »
"It's like the Hotel California," said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." More »
Read the tragic tale of this screwed eBay seller over on Metafilter. He did everything Paypal told him to do to avoid being scammed when he sold a cellphone, including, when the buyer returned the item, opening it in front of a police officer. Problem was, the buyer/scammer sent back a smashed gold cellphone instead of nice $500+ cellphone that was sold. Seller protection policy should apply, right? Nope, it doesn't cover "items not as described." Failure. More »
—>Reader Jeff isn't pleased with HughesNet and has cc'd us on his email so that we can listen in. It's more of a warning than a specific complaint that can be resolved:
I would just like to take this opportunity to reiterate, for the hundredth time, how much I loathe HughesNet. I have just been FAPed again. No one here is downloading any movies, music, books, or much of anything — just using the Internet. I have a guest visiting, and I'm assuming their additional drain on the ridiculously small 375 MB cap we're afforded is what's knocked us over the limit...so now I'm stuck at sub-dialup speeds for the next 24 hours. More »
—>John writes:
Had a problem with my Mom's Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan with Humana. Their mail order pharmacy (RightSource) advertises a two-week turnaround from date of sending-in an order to receipt of medications. However after three weeks, RightSource had not acknowledged receipt of the order. A RightSource phone rep said the logging-in of orders was being delayed by two to three weeks due to heavy volume. This delay — in the case of meds for a 93 year-old lady — was unacceptable.More »
—>JD writes:
My device was stolen in Mexico. I reported it. The Sprint rep. suspended the WRONG line. My bill comes a few weeks ago: $6,000+. My Sprint bill was $6,000 this month and two calls to Fraud Prevention/2 tickets/and my bill is almost due (with no response or adjustment, was was promised within 2 business days, twice). I don't know what to do at this point...It appears your claim has gotten lost somewhere within the deep dark bowels of Sprint's billing system. The best thing we can suggest at this point is to call the Sprint Executive Customer Service line at 703-433-4401 and get your claim expedited. Oh, and happy Valentine's Day. More »
—> Here's proof that bad customer service, like haggling and buyer's remorse, is a universal human condition. A woman in Brisbane, Australia saw an ad for 50% off the bill at Casa Flamenco, a local restaurant, so she and some friends went out for dinner. The experience wasn't good—untrained waiter, mediocre food, small servings, long wait time, and despite the half-off coupon the meal was surprisingly expensive for the value. The woman—a restaurant marketer—wrote a polite email to the restaurant with some professional feedback and suggestions on how to improve service. More »
—>Rachel used a $100 gift card to pay for her Christmas gifts, but Sur La Table decided to take the funds directly from her debit card. Sur La Table apologized for the error, but instead of overnighting Rachel a refund check as promised, they inexplicably charged her an additional $31.89. Now Rachel is angry and wants an explanation. More »
—>Andrew writes: "I had been a satisfied customer of Verizon for several years - I have had phone service with them since the days of Bell Atlantic and have had their fiber-optic internet service (FiOS) since March 2005. In March 2007, I decided to switch cable providers and signed up for Verizon's FiOS TV service as it was cheaper than Comcast and supposedly provided superior picture quality. As the saying goes, "you get what you pay for." More »
Comcast has quietly changed their terms of service following the BitTorrent backlash to protect their ass a bit more. [Ars Technica] More »
—>Shawn writes:
About 3 weeks ago I had a job interview in California- I currently live in Philadelphia. The employer reserved a rental car for me with enterprise so I could get around town, with his credit card. I had a long flight with a lay over, and didn't arrive at Enterprise until about 2 o clock Philadelphia time. There was a long line, and after about a half hour I was taken back and shown a Chevy Aveo. She handed me papers to sign saying there was no damage to the car, and that I would pay an additional 10$ a day for being 23 years old. I walked around the car, and didn't see anything. I was eager to get to my hotel and go to bed, so I signed the papers and left. More »
—>The photo at left is an actual photo of the damage done to this lady's hair and head. Lane writes:
I'm sure you get hundreds of complaints about salons, but have any of the salon owners in question put a lien on the car of the injured party? Mine has. More »
—>After Andru's story about Verizon not taking his privacy concerns seriously hit our pages and the front page of Digg, the Verizon Damage Control team swung into action. Andru had this problem where whenever he logged into his Verizon FiOS account, he saw the personal information on some other guy's account. When he contacted the guy, the other guy said he saw Andru's info as well. Over eight months of broken promises by Verizon and the problem wasn't solved. So Andru blogged it. Once it started getting internet attention, Andru got two calls and several emails from Verizon people and a Verizon exec ended up having a tech stay on the line with Andru for an hour getting it fixed. Andru then asked for compensation for his three quarters of a year of hassle. Verizon gave him 10 months free FiOS, a $1500 value. Ii think it's actually good thing when the customers can force the big corps to do right," Andru tells The Consumerist. More »
—>Some iPhone users are being told that they have to sign up for a new 2-year contract if they upgrade from the 8gb iPhone to the 16gb iPhone. Even though Apple's website and AT&T's internal official policy says this is not the case, some AT&T reps are insisting that customers have to extend their contract. Fortunately, they are completely misinformed. You just get your new iPhone, update your account through iTunes, and boom, you're good to go, no contract extension. More »
—>AT&T and Comcast may be willing to help Hollywood control piracy on their networks, but Verizon wants none of it, says the New York Times. More »
—>Kayla writes:
My Husband and I called Embarq for a bundle pack with dish network in April of 2007. We were told by Embarq that we would only be seeing one bill from them, that would include dish charges, and that it would be about $100 a month. We have paid our bill every month, and never had anything suspended. As a matter of fact, we had never had to make any inquiries about dish as it had been a wonderful experience until mid-January. One morning I was turning on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for my son and I had no service. So I called Embarq, who told me to call Dish, who had no record of our names or social security numbers, who told me to call Emarq again...More »
—>Faith writes:
It began the beginning of Oct. 2007. My credit card expired, and I contacted all of my utilities to update my credit card information. It was an annoying process, but it went smoothly. That is, until the notices started coming. More »
—>According to the Department of Transportation's Air Travel Consumer Report the top 6 most complained about travel agents for 2007 are: More »
Microsoft has been trying to make Google seem like a threat to privacy, when in fact it's both of them," says Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). "We may now have two companies that will rival the National Security Agency in their ability to compile detailed profiles of users wherever they go online." More »
—> A coffee shop in Montreal has removed a "dud" security camera from its bathroom after news of it hit the local papers. Corporate headquarters asked the franchise owner to take it down, and apologized/avoided blame in a press release that said they were "not consulted in advance." The franchise owner had installed it as a sort of junkie scarecrow, to frighten away heroin users who were leaving dirty needles in the bathroom stall. More »
—>Consumers have filed over 69,000 complaints against scummy debt collectors for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, prompting the FTC to rush to our collective defense by taking action against three debt collectors who showed a "culture of harassing the debtors from which they collect." Two debt collectors settled and one went to court. Still, when you receive over 69,000 complaints—and these are from the people who know to complain to the FTC—it's reasonable to assume that more than three collectors encourage a culture of harassment. More harrowing revelations from the FTC's annual report to Congress, after the jump. More »
A consumer who received a collections notice that began, "DEAR SHITFACE," will sue the collections agency next week. [Caveat Emptor] More »
—>Paul writes, "Did you know a "closed" checking account is never really closed? Today I walked to the local BofA for the third time to close a checking account that every month seems to magically re-open with a $5.95 account fee. What the manager told me was quite shocking." More »
—> Clint at Seattlest went shopping for a suit for his wedding. The wedding isn't until August, but he and his beyonce just wanted to see what Men's Wearhouse had to offer. Mostly, they had to offer a really rude sales clerk who told them to get out of her store and come back in the summer when they were ready to shop. More »
—>Ken writes: "In February of 2007, we purchased a Whirlpool Duet Sport Washer, model XWWFW8410SW. The washer worked very well, and we noticed a savings in our water and electric bill. A few months later, we noticed it was leaking water. Fortunately, the washer is in the garage. We called our local appliance dealer, and they sent out a service technician. He "fixed" the leak. A couple of days later, it began leaking again. And it was fixed again. The door was replaced. The lock was replaced. The ring was replaced. Everything was caulked, adjusted, tweaked, etc. Again it leaked." More »
—>How's this for twisted: An insurance company, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, have demanded that the parents of minor children who suffer from anorexia turn over their children's writings on MySpace and Facebook, as well as any emails where they discuss their problems. More »
—>"In response to consumer feedback," Inteliius says it will discontinue selling your private cellphone number in its searchable online database. Liz Murray, Communications Manager at Intelius in a press release that, besides trying to explain away their actions, also spent half of its time touting the company's Cell Phone Caller ID program, said, "As a company, we have strived to be at the forefront of innovation...We realize that in this instance we may have been ahead of our time." That's right, it was a notion from some future time where mankind has evolved into a more advanced being that doesn't care about its privacy. Despite the press release, as of this writing, the company is still advertising the cell phone directory on its site. More »
—>Tamara Perez caught a cab to her Manhattan home Tuesday, when she noticed that she didn't have enough cash. The cab had a credit card machine, so she decided to pay with credit. More »
—> Julie found that only about half of her seat was available due to the size of the passenger next to her. The passenger was apologetic, but obviously couldn't magically shrink her body mass and make more room. Julie asked if she could purchase a seat in first class but was told they were sold out, and there were no more seats available. "A flight attendant suggested that the only way to change my seat was to 'find a cute boy or girl' and sit on their lap." Instead, she spent the flight half in her seat and half in the aisle. When she emailed a complaint to Delta and asked for a refund, they thanked her for her feedback. More »
TSA can haz blog. [Evolution of Security] More »
Man manages to stay at what he describes as the most ghetto Sheraton in the world. How bad was it? Well, it's called the "Sheraton-Miami-Mart." Yes, "Mart," and it has the same high level of quality, cleanliness, and accommodations that you would expect from any place with "Mart" as a suffix. [Shankman] More »
—>Tmobile was hit with a class action suit yesterday over its charging customers for unwanted text messages. Unscrupulous marketers can get your cellphone number, send you "premium" texts (for dating services, daily jokes, horoscopes, etc), and then have Tmobile bill you for them. Tmobile gets to keep a piece of the profit. Other cellphone companies let you disable text messages sent from the internet, where most text spam originates, or turn off text messages all together. Tmobile has refused to give customers this option. More »
—> There's all sorts of advice online about how to disable RFID chips and tags, and now that they're starting to show up uninvited on credit cards, you might be tempted to try some of those tactics. But as a reader found out, many credit card issuers will simply swap out your newfangled RFID-enabled card for a traditional one if you just ask. More »
—>One of our readers appeared on NBC Nightly News the other night after his story was featured on The Consumerist. Bob Loncaric paid extra to fly direct on United and when he checked his reservation, he found it had been mysteriously changed to one with stopovers. He called customer service, but was barely able to understand the outsourced call center employee's version of English, except for the list of cities he didn't want to stay in spouting out of the guy's mouth.... More »
How did Intelius compile its directory of people's private cellphone numbers it now has for sale online? Laws on the books forbid telelphone companies from amassing cell phone directories without customer's consent, but the laws don't mention third parties. Instead, Intelius buys them from your friendly, local pizza delivery place. Here's what the CEO said when asked how people end up in their system: "Geez, [there are] tons of ways — everything from going out to a Web site and buying a ring tone for your phone to putting your phone number down at anything [like] ordering a pizza...There are literally dozens and dozens of ways that a user or a consumer could opt in to a database." See, it's legal for businesses to contact you you have business relationship. But companies are turning around and selling these customer databases to places like Intelius, and transferring the right to use the database to these third parties as well. While you're taking a bite out of that deep-dish, they're taking a bite out of your privacy. More »
—>A Comcast insider warns us that Comcast does no checks to make sure 911 is working on your Comcast digital phone: More »
—>If you thought your cellphone number was safe, think again. Intellus just launched the first ever online cellphone directory. Oh, you never gave them permission, they went ahead and scraped the internet, bought lists from data resellers and deployed data mining techniques. More »
—>Colby writes:
I moved this past month to a new apartment in the same building — when I was setting up the account transfer, the representative uncovered that I had been misbilled for nearly 2 years for service on a 3rd, non-existent, television. It wasn't clear due to the billing information, and I was instantly promised a credit for $170.20 that was calculated by the rep and his supervisor. As a loyal consumerist reader, I got all their extensions and representantive ID's — just in case. After the move, I received a bill and there was no credit. I called, and was informed my credit was denied due to a 'disclaimer' that would allow them to only go back for 3 months with a credit. They didn't care what I had been promised, nor did they care what another rep and their supervisor had noted on my account.More »
—>Ben writes:
A friend of mine bought a 2005 Toyota 4 Runner for about $25000. When he went to the dealer, he told them that safety was a big concern as he has small children, and he wanted to get as many safety features as he could on the vehicle he was going to buy. The saleswoman showed him the 4 Runner he ended up buying and pointed out that it had side and curtain airbags, which were listed on the sticker. He bought it, and a week later he took it to get inspected. It turns out that it does not have the side and curtain airbags that are listed on the sticker. He went back to the dealership and spoke to the manager who offered him a few free oil changes, and tried to tell him that that year didn't even come with those airbags so what was he complaining about. What should he do? They already got rid of the truck he traded in, and is thinking that the dealer owes him some cash back on the deal.Classic bait and switch. If your friend wants to take the guy to the mat, he could try to ask for a rebate for what he feels the cash value of those safety features are. I recommend the tactics described in the post, "How To Kick A Scammy Car Dealer In The Nuts." More »
—>Ethan writes:
I purchased a laptop through my company in 2005. The laptop I bought was the Dell XPS (Gen2). I had several issues with the DVD burner right off the bat. Within months Dell was replacing my 6800 Ultra laptop video board due to video artifacts. This happened again and more parts were replaced. In Late 2006 Dell swapped my Gen2 system for a M1710. In my book, both the customer service and the quality hit the fan. They sent me a laptop with less memory and poor video. More »
—>Whenever Andru logs into his Verizon FiOS account, he sees the personal information on some other guy's account, including name, address, email address, last four digits of credit card and social security number. He's contacted the other guy, and the other guy also sees his. Verizon has said they will fix it in the next 24 hours. They've been saying that for the past eight months. This is supposed to be the future of the internet and they can't even fix a simple account error? More »
—>Fed up with a change in flight patterns that made them sleep in bed at night with earplugs, one Philly couple decided to paint "FUCK YOU FAA. NO FLY ZONE" and a symbol for "no planes" on the top of their roof. Note: in real life, it says "fuck" but the newspaper photoshopped it to just say "FU." Homeowner Michael Hall said they had tried to lodge complaints with the FAA noise-complaint hotline over 20 times, but whenever they called, an answering machines would apologize for not being able to take their message as the mailbox was full. More »
—>After we posted SM's battle with Comcast to stop fraudulently billing her for over a year, , Comcast took notice and asked to get in touch with SM. We played matchmaker and now Comcast reports that the problem is solved. The account is cleared and CMI has been notified to stop trying to collect on it. Inside is the letter they are sending to SM. Hooray, problem solved. Comcast's billing system, however, remains a mess. Hopefully CMI won't still try to collect, for CMI's sake. Otherwise SM will now really have a very good basis for making quick and easy cash by suing them in small claims court for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. More »
—> The European Union's data privacy regulator group said this week that an IP address "has to be regarded as personal data" when it's used to identify a person. Although this has no bearing on how IP addresses are used in the United States, it might trigger a change in data collection policies for companies like Google that use IP addresses in order to serve relevant search results and ads. More »
—> Facebook is being investigated by the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) over their jacked-up cancellation policies, which keeps your user data on Facebook's servers even after you've closed your account. Facebook says its privacy policies are well within ICO regulations, and that they are taking the "concerns of the ICO and our user's privacy very seriously." More »
—>Over at ZDnet an interesting point has been raised: Why does Build-A-Bear workshop need to know so much information about your children? Just to help return a lost bear? Should kids be encouraged to give out so much information? More »
—>SM writes:
This story starts in March 07 when my sister moved out of the country and canceled her Comcast account. I returned her modem, and they told me her account was settled. Then, my mom (who has power of attorney) gets a bill for around $193. Comcast customer service tells my mom that she really only has to pay around $35, so she sends a check for that amount, but another bill arrives for $135.35. Again, Comcast customer service tells her, no actually you only need to pay $43.86. My mom tries to dispute the bill, but Comcast sends my sister's account to a collection agency called CMI... More »
I've been an avid reader of Consumerist for quite some time. Reading the good/bad experiences other readers had and the shortcomings of some companies is an eye opener. Unfortunately, my recent experience at a nearby Sears Automotive Department is worth mentioning. I've noticed my car would pull to the left while driving on a straight road. My initial thought was to get the wheels aligned. I decided to have it done at Sears. More »
—>If you think your bank is doing something so bad that it violates banking regulations, here are the groups that officially regulate banks. Complaining to them might not help your individual issue, but enough complaints could bring some attention on the banks that they would prefer to avoid: More »
—> Between December 2006 and January 2007, Mann Theatres in Southern California printed the expiration dates of credit cards on receipts. If you were one of the lucky suckers who saw a movie there during this period and paid via credit card, Mann's lawyers want to make things right by giving you two free movie tickets and some free popcorn. However, to qualify for the free tickets, you have to provide your credit card number. This is like the end of "The Lion King" where the new cub is held aloft—the circle of life continues. More »
—> Consumerist reader chrismar was one of the Guitar Hero customers who requested a Wii replacement disc from Activision last month. On January 18th, the company sent out an email to its customers with an update on the disc replacement program. The problem is, they copied 859 other customers on the email. "As a result, my email address is in 859 unknown hands, and I have 859 email addresses I don't want." More »
Talking About AT&T's Internet Filtering on AT&T's The Hugh Thompson Show [Boing Boing Gadgets] More »
You know what, Apple has this titanium image like they have the awesomest customer service in the world, and sometimes you call and get the really great and quick ninja Apple Care reps, but sometimes when you call Apple Care you get what sounds like are the outsourced guys and they're very stupid and not helpful and difficult to understand. There, I said it. More »
—>Reader and commenter Salviati writes in to share his personal experience with Blockbuster and his theory for why they will never survive fierce competition from Netflix and the new Apple video rentals. More »
—>
Mr. Kuhlman, More »
—> Laura used Picasa to share photographs of her mastectomy with members of her support group, as well as family and friends. Now they're gone, deleted without warning because some anonymous jackass flagged them as inappropriate. [Update: Pics are back up! Google apologized and reinstated the entire album, along with comments.] The first problem with this is that it's hard to figure out which category of "inappropriate" surgical pictures fall under: obscenity, pornography, promotions of hate, incitement of violence, spam, malicious code, or viruses? More »
—>A Target billboard depicting a woman spreadeagled over a Target logo with her vagina centered squarely on the bullseye has some parents and feminists all riled up. One of them, Amy from ShapingYouth.org, contacted Target to see if they realized, you know, that their ad had a woman's crotch centered on a bullseye. More »
—>Adam shares his success story in using an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) to get his student loan company to fix his botched loan after a year of runarounds and empty promises:
In January 2007, I took out a Graduate Plus Loan to cover a couple of courses at George Washington University. I was in-school half-time from mid-January to mid-May of 2007. Accordingly, I should have been covered by an in-school deferment through May of 2007. Well, unknown to me, my lender, ACS (as sub-lender to PNC bank) decided that I actually needed to be making student loan payments while in school and never decided to tell me about it!More »
—>Look, Wisconsin. We weren't kidding around last time. We really did mean it when we said that it wasn't cool to print people's Social Security Numbers where anyone can see them. How can people who are smart enough to sell sausage shaped like beer (above) not able to figure out that the SSN is a secret? More »
—>Can you spot what's wrong with this Business Reply postcard? That's right, The Huntsville Times wants you to write down your full contact information and credit card number on a postcard and send it through the mail where anyone can see it. Hellooooo, identity theft. More »
—> In April of 2006, Deborah replaced her daughter's DirecTV receiver. When the technician was installing the line to her daughter's bedroom, he accidentally shoved his foot through the Deborah's ceiling. More »
—>Researchers from Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin say they can reverse Netflix's anonymous data (which was released in to the public as part of a contest to see if someone could design a better rating system) by comparing it to only a few ratings on IMDb. The result? Specific users can be identified and linked to their (ostensibly) private ratings.
Releasing the data and just removing the names does nothing for privacy," Shmatikov told SecurityFocus. "If you know their name and a few records, then you can identify that person in the other (private) database." More »
—>No doubt "taking" the backlash "seriously," the Maryland power company that sent customers unsolicited CFL lightbulbs, and then silently charged them $.96/month for it, has apologized. The company will appear before the Maryland Public Service Commission tomorrow for a hearing. "We stand ready to take whatever corrective actions are deemed necessary by the commission," Allegheny Power President said. Yes, they're probably going to tell you to refund people's money, you jackasses. More »
—>Reader Travis would like to purchase an XM radio from Best Buy. Sadly for him, Best Buy refused to sell him the radio without first learning his phone number. Travis does not want to share his phone number with Best Buy, therefore Travis has no radio. More »
—>Jordan writes:
Recently, I discovered that many of Rice-a-roni's products, even the one's I assumed to be vegetarian friendly, had meat byproducts in them. Granted, I can expect "Chicken and Broccoli" to have meat byproducts, but I've come to discover almost all of them do. Nearly all contain Chicken Fat. I wrote Rice-A-Roni a complaint, which can be found below, with there extremely helpful response! I was very pleased with their Customer Relations department for the time being. They wrote they'd send me a few coupons and such to try out their Kosher line, which can be vegetarian friendly. I just received the coupons in the mail. I opened the enveloped, with three coupons for Quaker Oats products. Here's the irony. They decided it'd be friendly of them to send a recipe that I could try out with their products. What recipe is sent, do you ask. A recipe for Quaker Oats "Prize-Winning Meatloaf."More »
—>Matt writes:
Yesterday I went through the horror of taking my 15 year old brother to the Best Buy in Orland Park, IL on LaGrange Ave. I had close to $100 in Best Buy Gift Certificates given to me for Christmas. My brother and I were en route to dinner and we decided to swing by the aforementioned Best Buy to pick up a video game, Assassin's Creed, and XBOX Live Gold. We entered the store. I browsed the camera aisle looking for a cable to possibly purchase for our flat screen then headed to the video game section. I picked up the said items and headed to check out where hell will shortly ensue.More »
—>Here's where you can go to opt-out from annoying text message ads sent to you by Sprint. Yes, it's legit, you get to that page from the opt-out link on this Sprint page. However, they may have trouble saying goodbye. Scott, our tipster, writes, "After I sent my phone number through this page, I received 5 text messages from Sprint, telling me that I won't receive any more text messages from Sprint..." More »
Shawn has a nice success story with the Seagate company that provides an interesting twist on the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) technique that we've been telling you about for months:
I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB external harddrive about two or three months ago, and backed up several harddrives to it. Everything was going awesome on every computer I had, but then it had an issue on my desktop. "Delayed Write Failure" WHAT? I try to read the information on the drive, it won't allow me.More »
—>An electric company in Maryland, Allegheny Power, sent its customers some CFL light bulbs as part of a consumer education program. Sounds nice until you find out that they customers were charged $0.96 a month (about $12 a year) for the two light bulbs. More »
—>Evan sent the following complaint letter to Tmobile's CEO:
I am a T-Mobile customer from Miami, FL. I am writing you to report the unconscionable treatment I have received from T-Mobile over the past six months. For the past six months I have received no cellular reception in my area. After repeated calls and technical checks, the T-Mobile technical team issued a report stating that there is no coverage in my home and T-Mobile has no intention of upgrading the service in my area. I was initially told that upgrading my equipment to a new phone may resolve my issue. After a contract renewal and significant expense for the new equipment, my service is no better than it was previously.More »
—>What the hell, Wisconsin?! The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that for the second time in just over a year, the state of Wisconsin has printed mailing labels that display the social security numbers of the recipient. More »
—>Passengers on a flight from Puerto Rico to Chicago claim that they were delayed for 33 hours while United Airlines loaded them on and off two broken planes. One passenger compared the ordeal to being "held hostage," says FOX Chicago. More »
—>Sprint has told Jon that he owes over $2,500 in broken phones that he says he returned but they don't seem to have a record of. His tale is long and twisted, and seems to be the first reported failure of the Sprint executive customer service line we've received. In fact, his account sounds so messed up that probably the best thing to do is shut it down and switch providers. Just another drop in the churn bucket. Jon writes: More »
—>Chris recorded a little sound file onto his answering machine that stopped a debt collector robot that kept calling him, seeking people who didn't live there. This .WAV is the U.S. Special Information Tone signal for "vacant circuit", which signifies and out-of-service or nonexistant number. You know it better as "boo-boo-BOOP!" Chris recorded a new message on his answering machine with the tones at the beginning and the next time the robot called, it thought it was getting a dead line and dutifully erased the number from its system. Voila, automatons be gone. Some places have autodialers that don't (or have been tweaked) to respond to SIT tones, but if you've got a persistent unwanted robot caller, it's worth a shot. More »
—>Jeremy Clarkson, a British TV star, wrote an editorial describing privacy activism as "palaver," and just to prove how safe we all are, included his bank account number. Soon afterwards someone snagged £500 from the Top Gear host's account. "I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake," the presenter later told reporters. Needless to say, you should never share your bank account information with anyone who doesn't need it, for instance, millions of faceless readers. More »
Oh, by the way, KamberEdelson, the law firm that filed the class action against Sears over its website exposing customer's purchase histories? They're the same folks who successfully sued Sony BMG for selling all those DRM-riddled music CDs. Sears could be in trouble. [Washington Post] More »
If you have problems getting an exit seat from Midwest Airlines ticket agent Ramone at LGA, it's possible he will tell Roger to go up to you on the flight and boom, "I UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS SEAT AND WANT OFF THIS FLIGHT." [Click Here Technology Columns] More »
—>Reuters reports a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Sears for its managemyhome.com site which allowed you to type in anyone's name and address or phone number and get a record of everything they ever bought at Sears. The suit alleges that in doing so, Sears engaged in "unfair or deceptive" practices. Not too long after our post went up on Friday reporting on the matter, the purchase history feature was turned off. Sears said it had "turned off the ability to view a customer's purchase history on Manage My Home until we can implement a validation process that will restrict access by unauthorized third parties." Yes, a validation process, that would be good to have. More »
—>Chris writes: "I had been last minute Christmas shopping on Saturday morning with my younger brother and sister and we happened upon Best Buy where we were looking for a digital picture frame for my Dad as a Christmas present. We got to the section near the digital cameras and noticed a decent deal. "7" Digital Picture Frame Touch" 79.99 was the label. A whole slew of product (NuTouch 7" Touch button Frames) were neatly stocked on the shelf. Note: STOCKED not STACKED. I quickly picked one up and proceeded to the register. At the register- the product rung up for the incorrect price (179.99)- here in CT, when that happens, so long as the item is labeled as such in the store (mistake or not) the retailer is legally supposed to give you the product for free (if food items) or at the marked price if it is any other type of consumer product..." More »
—>New York state has released its Annual Ranking of Automobile Insurance Complaints. Here's how the 10 biggest insurance companies, as determined by market share, compare. The ratio is the number of upheld complaints filed with the state Insurance Department as compared to the company's total consumer car business. Upheld complaints are the complaints where the state Insurance Department agrees that the insurance company was in the wrong. More »
—>
I'm composing this email with rather mixed emotions. I am, on the one hand almost lightheaded with relief. I am, on the other hand so incredibly angry I'm almost sick. Let me explain. More »
—>Nathalie Martin's elderly cousin had her social security check garnished straight from her bank account by a collections agency. Apparently, most banks skip over the section of federal law that protects social security and other public benefits from creditors. Good thing Nathalie is a bankruptcy scholar and knows how to fight the sleazy debt collectors. More »
—>"What is ya'lls experience with dealing with AA when the passenger has a case of appendicitis? My sister is going under the knife in London right now, and was admitted to the ER 6hrs before her scheduled flight back to Seattle. We've called AA and they say no chance of getting any sort of re-booking, rebate, coupon, or whatever because she was listed as a "No Show" for the flight. We called the airline before the flight to inform them of the situation." More »
—>Sprint wants Tracey Stewart to keep paying her dead father's cellphone bill. Sprint is not completely heartless: they offered to cut his monthly rate to $10 until the contract expires in September. More »
—>Some people would rather not take a plastic bag if they don't need one, ourselves included, because a) enough with the plastic bags already b) it's wasteful and bad for the planet to take plastic bags when you really blatantly don't need or want them. More »
—>Krystl and Sprint tell us that the cellphone provider has seen the error of its ways and decided that Krystl no longer owes them over fourteen thousand dollars:"They dropped all the charges and had told me that the person who had initially signed me up for sprint was supposed to put me on the new EVDO technology system at which they didn't." More »
After a 7-year-old riding a bike collided with a van, he got a bill from a collections agency for $650. After the local news team got involved, the company said they were dropping the matter as "it wasn't their policy to send notices to little 7-year-olds." They're also giving him $100 for a new bike. Aw. [KPHO] More »
—>Want to see all the major appliances and repair services that your friends and neighbors... (and anyone else who you can look up in the phone book) have ever purchased at Sears? More »
—>Are you a a FiOS customer with your Verizon-supplied Actiontec MI424-WR router that keeps rebooting itself? Apparently a recent firmware upgrade, the software that runs the router, is buggy, but there is a solution. You can get it if you call and complain, that is, if you're able to make it through the phone lines that are all bogged up from other customers calling about the same issue. Reader Jarrod writes, "My entire neighborhood is experiencing this issue and the only resolution I can find online says to call them and complain and then they will fix it. Too bad the support lines are jammed and after I did get through I have been on hold for over 1 1/2 hours." More »
—>Wow, you guys really hated airlines in November. Complaints against airlines jumped 37% in November as compared to last year. Here are the five airlines pulling in the most gripes: More »
—>Last week, Reader Andrew CC'd us on this email to Steve Jobs: More »
—> Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America both threw their support behind Rep. Carolyn Maloney [D-NY]'s "Financial Consumer Hotline Act of 2007," a proposal to establish a single national hotline where consumers can file complaints against any financial institution. Currently there are five different federal agencies who regulate the banking industry, each with its own system for collecting and addressing complaints. More »
—>Two men from Houma, LA say they were banned from the Manchuria Restaurant for eating too much, too often. More »
—> The "Shine the Light" law passed in California in 2005 requires all businesses to tell customers who they sell their private data to, and to provide a no-cost way to remove your name, address, and phone number from their lists. Unfortunately, it's not being followed by more than half of the companies tested in a new report: "The California Public Interest Research Group found only one third of the survey participants received responses from companies consistent with the law." More »
—>Reader Kimberley writes to tell us that in the course of trying to find out why the vacuum she ordered had not been shipped... she was ignored, hung up on or transfered to the phone directory six (6!) times. 6. More »
—>Not content with having some of retail's worst customer service, Sears has decided to wring out more dollars from its customers by jumping into the spyware game. Sears recently sent out an email inviting customers to join "My SHC Community" where they will have a chance to earn fabulous prizes and journal their online shopping experience. All you gotta do is provide your address and install a little ComScore program that monitors your every single step on the internet, from Sears to Myspace to your online banking, to your email headers. More »
—>Huzzah! Dan's quest to not live in an icecube has succeeded. He writes:
The boiler's been replaced and I've had consistent heat and hot water since xmas. Now i just have this unholy clanking coming from the steam pipe every morning b/t 3 and 5 am which jolts me from my bed in fear that its about to explode and take me with it. The super says hopefully it will get resolved this week. More »
—>James writes:
We were kicked off the 747-400 because they refused to allow a car seat on board and my two year old son was incapable of staying in his coffin-like seat. We were told we were a security threat, threatened to be left behind and accused of not following crew instructions. More »
—>Terry writes:
I'm writing to tell you about the miserable service I've received from Wachovia Bank. On several occasions I've logged into my checking account to sent payments for various things. It seems that more often that not I end up hearing from these businesses wanted to know where the payments are. I know full well that I've sent them, and even having the confirmation codes to prove it. I log in to my account and can find no record whatsoever of these payments.More »
—>This past July, I decided to try out Skybus on their run from the "Seattle are", where I live, to Columbus, Ohio, their hub and (as it just so happens) a place I visit several times a year. Now don't get me wrong - I travel a LOT, so I'm used to delays, gruff employees and all manner of shenanigans, and trying out a brand-new airline that had only been flying for two weeks was a bit daunting. But I figured what he hell, I got a great price on two one-way tickets (the only way you CAN buy tickets on Skybust) so I threw in and figured I'd give them a shot. More »
—>After waving good-bye to billions in the subprime mortgage market and bailing out nefarious mustache-twirling mortgage lender Countrywide, Bank of America says it can no longer afford soap for its employee's break rooms. More »
—>Frank told FedEx to require a signature before delivering his skis, instructions FedEx found vague and confusing. When Frank complained, FedEx said that in order to deliver the increased volume of goods over the holidays, they reserve the right to essentially chuck your delicate gifts from a speeding truck. More »
—>"On November 29th, 2007, I purchased a Phillips HTS3544 HTIB (Home Theater in-a-box) online at circuit city.com for $197.47. This included the extra that I paid for expedited 3-day shipping. Done. I thought with the weekend coming up I would receive it around December 3rd-4th. And thats when the problems started rolling on it. The first problem was that the circuit city warehouse didn't even notify FedEx until December 4th, and I didn't receive the item until December 7th (which is 3-day on FedEx's part). Okay, fine, I think Ill just call and have the extra charges refunded. But no way did I know this would spiral into what it has become." More »
I have a lovely story that I hope you'll run about our favorite industry... Airlines :) More »
—>This story has plenty of salaciousness and few details, but here we go: A woman is claiming that U.S. Airways employees helped her off of her flight from Bakersfield to Las Vegas, then left her parked in a wheelchair on the tarmac, causing her to miss her connection to Orlando. Eventually, another employee found the woman, wheeled her into a hallway and left. The woman's daughter says that the employee told her mother, "this is not my job, but I can park you here." More »
—>I just received about the lamest answer from Continental after presenting them with my complaint, a $75 coupon. I was flying into Ponce, through Newark on the 11th of December. Due to weather, supposedly, I missed my connection in Newark and I was left at 1AM, with no bags or vouchers, or apologies, or upgrades of any sort. The next flight was 24 hours away, only one flight a day. I'm attaching the emails I've exchanged with them in hope that you'll publish them and perhaps cause them some well-deserved shame and bad publicity. I can't believe they boast of 'best in customer satisfaction.' More »
—>The other day we woke up to find that a story we'd accidentally "shared" on Google Reader was now being automatically broadcast to a wide swath of strangers who were listed in our Gmail contacts and had been "auto- added" to Google Talk . It was startling, but no big deal because we didn't use the "share" feature on Google Reader and therefore had only to delete the single "United Airlines does something boring that no one actually cares about" AP story that we'd accidentally clicked sometime last year. More »
—>Chase will reset everyone's marketing preferences under the guise of providing "more options to specify which mail offers you do not want." Remember when you originally opted-out? They didn't quite understand. What about their Value Added Products And Services and Used Vehicle Financing? Unless you opt-out again by January 24, Chase will acknowledge your implied change of heart. Read their notice after the jump. More »
—>"I was one of the majority when it came to being fed up with Comcast. However, unlike most, I never had any of the customer service nightmares so often reported on consumer sites. My dissatisfaction with Comcast was purely based on what I felt was unfair pricing. More »
—>A Consumerist reader reports his success with escaping Sprint without paying an early termination fee by calling the Sprint Consumerist Executive Help Line (703-433-4401), who were the only people who didn't give him a line of bull when he called. He argued that the new fees Sprints was imposing were a material change of contract (see "Sprint Mails Customers A "Get Out Of Sprint Free" Card") and thus voided his agreement so he could now switch carriers and port his number without penalty. More »
—>
To Whom It May Concern; More »
—>Sprint has a new CEO, and, you know, it's a tough job being "the new guy" and being charged with turning around a poorly performing company. So we thought we'd give Dan Hesse a hand and tell him what's wrong with their phone-based customer service, seen as being one of their major weaknesses. We asked our readers for their thoughts and they had lots of neat ideas why Sprint customer service sucks. Some of them even have worked on the call center side of Sprint; their insights are especially revealing/frightening... More »
[via Caveat Emptor] More »
—>Amazon should take a closer look at how they're shipping hard drives, because the current plan just isn't working. More »
Lazy, fat, inbred, black, pathetic, stupid, liar, thief, nigger. Those are some of the defamatory words Merchants Retail Credit Association (MRCA) used on Dolores Madduxes' family when they tried to collect on a debt Dolores Maddux, who is dead, owed CitiFinancial. For these violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Madduxes sued MRCA and won $854,389.81. Even delinquent debtors have rights and it's important to know them and call an attorney if they're being violated. More »
—>David writes:
I had purchased a ticket on Spirit Airlines for a friend of mine in Brooklyn, New York to come and visit me in Orlando. I had purchased the ticket about three months prior to the departure date so I could get the lowest fare. To make a long story short, my friend had been diagnosed with colon cancer and had to start treatment immediately.... More »
—>Mike had his phone stolen and $239 in fraudulent calls made to Africa on November 4th, and even though he reported the charges on November 5th, Tmobile says he still has to pay up. Their inviolable policy is that you're responsible for the charges up until you report the phone as stolen. Mike recorded his failed attempts to get Tmobile to credit his account. More »
A reader describes his frustrating experience with figuring out whether or not he's actually going to get what he ordered from Buy.com on time. [Don't Buy From Buy.Com] More »
—>Ticketmaster is suing RMG Technologies for selling lecherous software that instantly sucks up tickets to everyone's favorite concerts and sporting events. Groups like RMG are the reason tickets sell out just minutes after going on sale, only to mysteriously reappear at outrageously marked up prices on ticket resale sites like StubHub. More »
—>Cable companies must constantly prove their worth to local franchise authorities. The authorities grant the cable providers permission to operate, and can whip them into action for failing to meet basic customer service standards, as reader Darren shows. More »
—>A Peter Pan bus driver took revenge on passengers who complained about his unsafe driving by refusing to let anyone off the bus while making an unexpected thirty minute stop in Framingham, MA. One angry passenger who noticed the driver's erratic swerving, Brian Moore, blogged about his experience as a surprise hostage on the trip from New York to Boston. More »
—>Dan, whose Xbox360 was "lost in transit," spent the past six months trying to get either UPS or Microsoft to give him what he had paid his hard-earned money for, has finally succeed in his quest. After we posted his story (see Microsoft Presents: UPS And The Case Of The Vanishing XBOX 360) and he sent executive email carpet bombs (EECBs) to both UPS and MIcrosoft, they are shipping him a brand new Xbox360. We briefly spoke with Dan over IM about his harrowing journey... More »
—>I was hoping I'd never have to write to The Consumerist about a company giving me grief. I never expected that it would end up being a company that I have absolutely no connections to that forced my hand. More »
—> The XBOX that I bought on Black Friday had recently been scratching my discs. More »
—>My problem started yesterday morning when my wife and I decided we would either purchase 3 Microsoft Zunes or 3 iPods from Best Buy for part of our children's Christmas gifts. I checked prices by going to bestbuy.com and searching Zune. [ed.note— item no longer on sale.] More »
—>
Dear Consumerist, More »
—>
Mr. Grover: More »
—>Seth Godin thinks that for all the talk about privacy, what people really object to is being "surprised."
If your credit card company called you up and said, "we've been looking over your records and we see that you've been having an extramarital affair. We'd like to offer you a free coupon for VD testing..." you'd freak out, and for good reason. More »
—> Rodrigo writes of American Airlines, "In the last 4 travels between me, my wife and my father-in-law, ALL of them had been pretty bad. But the last one was the worst by far." However, they had lots of miles to cash in, a tight budget, and travel needs, so it was back into the belly of the beast for one more adventure: "First nonsense of the day was when the lady there claimed the maximum was 50 pounds for the luggage. Ok here we go again." More »
—>Man fakes death for three years to avoid debt collectors. Hides in in house and flees via secret compartments whenever guests are over. When he finally resurfaced, he did it by walking into a police station and claiming to be suffering from amnesia. He was arrested on suspicion of fraud. Debt makes people do crazy things. That's why we're allergic to it when it comes to buying depreciating assets (unless they're needed to make more money. More »
—>Here's an interesting fact in this Red Tape Chronicles post about how to protect your private data bits from retailers who don't know any better: by the terms of their merchant agreement with credit card issuers, stores are not allowed to force you to present ID in addition to your credit card. More »
—>
On Nov 22 my 36 year old brother Mike died suddenly. So I quickly hoped on-line to get a flight from San Francisco to Pittsburgh, leaving Nov 24th. More »
—>
About six months ago I moved into my apartment in Chicago to learn that the only service available was with DirecTV. Not only that, but we were forced to use MDU communications, a DirecTV reseller. With no options for television, I reluctantly purchased my own HD receiver off eBay (The HR-20) to avoid entering into a contract with them for two years. When I received my unit, I called MDU to sign up and the CSR at MDU told me that since I had my own receiver, I could sign directly up with DirecTV. Awesome I thought, I can cut out the middle man. The CSR at MDU even transferred me to DirecTV account set up line himself.More »
—>Charter accused Kevin of failing to pay for unreturned equipment, even though Kevin paid his final bill in full and has a receipt for a returned cable box. Charter customer service representatives were happy to play whack-a-mole whenever the bogus charges for the equipment appeared on Kevin's bill, but Charter eventually tired of the infuriatingly unwinnable game and sent Kevin's account to collections. More »
—>If you're AT&T cellphone customer on a messaging plan and you like to send pictures, check your bills. After noticing he was getting overcharged for sending pictures, reader Robert says an AT&T CSR told him that AT&T is having a nationwide computer glitch that could be overcharging you too... More »
Corey writes:
I have a lovely Citi Mastercard with lots of rewards. I hate having to deal with paper statements, so I signed up for paperless statements (like I've done with all my accounts), available for viewing online at their website. More »
—>Karen, a self-described, "Stinky Mom," writes:
I have had nothing but trouble w/ my high efficiency washer - my house STINKS, my clothes STINK, my towels STINK and now my FAMILY STINKS!!! I think as a Mom you've had enough when the kids at school laugh at your son because his jeans STINK!!!! I've had Sears out a number of times (will get my service) records - and even had the senior customer service person who deals with this type of washer say "I'm surprised they haven't recalled the washers, we get this complaint all the time"!!More »
—> A senior database administrator for Fidelity National Information Services, a widely used banking technology and data providor, has admitted that he stole 8.4 million customer records from the company and sold the data to a broker, who in turn sold them to marketers. He could face up to 10 years in prison but will probably get less because he confessed. We think he should have to open, read, and shred every piece of junk mail that his victims receive for the next, oh, say 10 years instead. More »
—>When Netbank went belly-up, all its customers and their accounts got converted to ING Direct customers, but reader Nate says they bungled his conversion and left him without funds, days before he was supposed to complete a cross-country move. He writes... More »
—>Andriy writes:
It seems as I'm falling a victim to a Yo-Yo Car Financing | Spot Delivery Scam from a car dealer... More »
—>Don't like Facebook secretly tracking your online purchases and telling your friends what you bought? Users of the Firefox we browser can use an easy add-on that jams the beacon's signal. Just install the BlockSite add-on, and then add http://*facebook.com/beacon/* as one of the blocked sites. Make sure to keep those asterisks in. If that sounds a little complicated, this step-by-step walk-through at Wikihow shows you how it's done. Alternatively, you could also add the same url to AdBlockPlus, another Firefox extension. More »
—>In a funny twist of fate, last week Facebook failed in its attempt to force a site to remove incriminating and/or embarrassing personal information about Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We think Facebook missed a real opportunity here—they should have distributed the documents personally and attached ads to them. More »
—>The roach situation has improved, but Daniel still has to call the super every time he wants to take a shower. Also, on Sunday, when it was 21 degrees in New York, he didn't have any heat until 6pm. More »
—>A Target insider writes:"Starting next year, guests will no longer be able to return items without a receipt. This means that if you accidentally lose your receipt, or if your cashier doesn't give you one, you're SOL. More »
—>Hewlett-Packard took over three months to fix reader Mark's ailing laptop, which they then shipped to the wrong address. HP charged Mark several hundred dollars for the repairs in July, and gave an expected delivery date of August 5. In early September, Mark was told that the laptop would definitely ship by September 24. On October 10, Mark learned - after sending an email to the CEO and leaving ten messages - that his laptop could not be repaired, and that he would instead receive a new Compaq Presario by October 23. The laptop finally shipped on October 25 to Lavergne, Tennessee. Mark lives in Iowa. More »
Sean writes:
When I went to check the statement on my wife's student loan through CitiBank for November, I noticed a late fee listed. As we signed up to pay via direct debit for the interest rate deduction, we get no paper statements. I checked my records, and our last payment had been processed for the full amount, on the due date. I asked my wife to call and find out why we were being charged a late fee. The representative told her that it was to correct an error from 2005. There is no explanation on the site, and when my wife asked to speak to a supervisor, the supervisor told her that there were no plans to notify people being charged these fees. My wife had to specifically request that a letter be sent detailing these fees. More »
The New York Times says that Facebook will be making a slight change to "Beacon" the feature that tracks users purchases throughout the web and broadcasts them to their friends.
Late yesterday the company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users' Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time. More »
—>Jessica writes:
I lost my 30 day unlimited MetroCard over the holiday weekend. Happily, a friend told me the MTA will replace it if it was purchased with a credit or debit card, which it was. However, since calling the handy replacement number on the MTA's web site for THREE DAYS IN A ROW and holding anywhere from 100-150 minutes each time, I'm not so sure. Have other people in New York dealt with this? I understand the MTA is probably like your average DMV when it comes to efficiency, but this is just plain ridiculous. My lunch money is dwindling with each $2.00 trip to—and from—work.More »
—>The deep discounts some retailers offered on Black Friday are biting them in the ass - they were too popular and can't fulfill all the orders. Some are trying to scramble to offer alternative deals, but since they can't compare, they smell like bait and switch... and now that it's been almost a week, bait left over from last Friday sure don't smell too pretty. Here's what reader Ian has to say about Sears failure to sell him a TV at advertised price... More »
Helen writes:
I'm challenging a charge on my Citibank card right now and have to fill out paperwork for their records. The second page of the form I'm filling in tells me to mail the form back to PO Box 6035, The Lakes, NV, 89163-6035. The self-addressed envelope they provided me with to mail the form back in? It has an address of PO Box 6013, Sioux Falls, SD, 57117-6013. A bit different, don't you think? I'm just going to copy the form and mail it to both. I have 10 days to get this back to them, so I'm sure that having two separate addresses helps to deny claims i.e. "We never got your paperwork."Maybe sneaky, maybe honest mistake, either way, just another reason you definitely gotta scrutinize every line of fine print when you're dealing with a bank. More »
—>The TSA wants to know your birthday and if you are a boy or a girl, says USAToday. Apparently, they've been tagging too many of our fine citizens are terrorists and need more information in order to help with their "background checks." More »
—>Reader Allison wrote her Congressional rep in regards to Comcast defrauding her:
Dear Representative Snyder, More »
We don't necessarily agree that this Circuit City customer should have gotten a purple thumb drive for the same price as the same black one, or gotten a deal after it had expired, but two things are certain: One, he pursued his deal beyond the point of reason, and Two, the complaint's ornate tone and its litany of gripes makes for an entertaining read. [CheapAssGamer] More »
—>Reader Chris writes the CEO of Sears to let him know why he'll never step foot inside Sears ever again.
Dear Mr. Lewis, More »
—>Ars Technica reports that "42 percent of adults in the UK feel that their trust in a brand would be greatly reduced by receiving a phishing e-mail claiming to be from that brand, according to an online survey conducted by research firm YouGov." More »
One of Best Buy's Black Friday deals was a $229 laptop. Each store was supposed to have 15. A complaint letter posted over at Notebooks.com alleges that a New Orleans Best Buy hoarded the most laptops for the employees and passed out only a few vouchers. At one point, an employee's girlfriend in line threw a hissy-fit because she didn't get a voucher and her boyfriend snuck over and palmed her a voucher, skipping over the other customers in line. Shame shame shame, Best Buy. Yet another reason we hate Black Friday, the stores can't even abide by the rules of the in-store promotions that are designed to lure more people inside than will ever get the deal and then offload otherwise unsellable crap. More »
—>
Due to the Costco membership second driver discount, I suggested that my parents use Alamo on their trip to visit me. When my mother told the rep on the phone and again at airport pickup that she was a Costco member for the free additional driver, they told her there was no such thing and they had never heard of it. I have used this discount, and it was the only reason I recommended Alamo. Rather than contacting someone else who might know of the partnership discount or listening to their customer, they were rude to my mother and she left with no second driver rather than pay the additional $9/day they were asking for.More »
—>Scott is pissed because he had his hopes geared up for a $99 Navigon 2100 portable GPS unit from Staples. All the advertising said the sale started at 6am. After dutifully waiting until 6am, he ordered the item Then he found out that some people had been calling in to the 1800 Staples # since 4 that morning, placing orders, and it was now out of stock. No GPS for Scott, who is now mad. If you advertise the heck out of a 6am starting time, you better make sure everyone abides by it. At least, unlike other shoppers across the nation, Scott was able to miss out on the doorbuster deal from the comfort, convenience, and warmth of his own home. More »
LeAnn writes:
On Friday, November 16, 2007, my dog, Catfish, died. Catfish died from ingesting a toy I bought her from the Dollar Tree. This was a dog toy by "Paws N Claws", called a "Chase and Fetch Chew Toy". It was a plastic boomerang distributed by Greenbrier International Inc. from Chesapeake, Virginia. More »
—>MoveOn.org is annoyed with Facebook over privacy issues. Apparently, people on Facebook can see what you've been buying on sites unrelated to Facebook and share this information with your friends. According to MoveOn.org, this is not only a violation of privacy (the feature is opt-out rather than opt-in), it's been ruining Christmas/Holidays/Birthdays/Whatever for Facebook users. More »
—>George, who was called a liar by an ill-tempered Comcast CSR (who didn't believe that George had been quoted a lower price than the one that was noted on his account) has written in to let us know that Comcast apologized: More »
2 weeks ago both my wife and I got a summons, that let us know that our landlord was being sued by the bank he financed the house through, for not paying his mortgage since July of this year... More »
—>In August, my husband and I wanted to change phone carriers from Sprint to Helio. We first looked at the Sprint website to see if our contracts were up. It appeared that my contract was up in January 07 and my husbands was expired by July 07. We called Sprint to make sure. The person we talked to said there was some 1-year renewal that was given to us with a $50 rebate in 2006. We didn't remember doing this. The man we spoke to said he would get rid of the rebate and add it on to our last bill and not charge us the $150. Great! We thought. More »
—>
When Sue wrote in about DHL and said that she "wouldn't use their company again on a dare," she was dead on. If you think receiving packages with DHL is bad, just wait until you try shipping. More »
—>Brandon writes:"In January 2007, I was traveling in Mexico and was mugged, having my wallet and passport stolen. By the time I got back to the hotel and began calling my credit card companies to cancel, the criminal had charged close to $3,000 on my CHASE Circuit City Visa card. I explained to CHASE that the charges were fraud, and they sent me a fraudulent charge affidavit to complete and have notarized. As I couldn't take care of this until I returned from my trip, and had more important things like a passport to worry about, I waited a few weeks before completing the paperwork and during those weeks received about 2 calls a day from CHASE urging me to send the documents." More »
—> Just days after a deputy director of national intelligence told Americans that we need to rethink our concepts of privacy, comes news that it may, in fact, be harming us in the long run. In a recent national survey, nearly 70% of research scientists said the 2003 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is "impeding scientific research, stalling clinical studies and halting others altogether." More »
—>We have an official company response in regards to our post, "Sur La Table Mug Handle Found Scorchingly Hot After 2 Minutes In Microwave." Susanna Linse, Sur La Table Media Relations Manager writes: More »
—>Commerce Bank isn't sure whether it accidentally gave out your SSN and account number, so its going to write you a letter to offer you some free credit report monitoring. More »
—>Dan bought an Aquos LC-32D40U 32" LCD TV' and one month out of warranty it developed a thin black line on the right side of the screen. Sharp didn't want to talk to him. Best Buy wanted to charge him $100 just to come out and look at it. Something had to be done. Dan writes: More »
—>After we posted Charlie's complaint, "Charter Doesn't Care If You Can't Watch BBC America," a Charter Communications Corporate Escalation Specialist emailed The Consumerist and we put her in touch with Charlie. More »
—>T-Mobile sent reader Ivan's account to collections after he twice cancelled his service. He first cancelled in August, but T-Mobile mysteriously lost the cancellation letter. Ivan faxed over a second cancellation letter while a CSR waited on the phone to confirm receipt. Having switched to Verizon, Ivan didn't care when in September, someone stepped on the T-Mobile phone lying in his car, breaking the screen. T-Mobile is now demanding that Ivan pay a bill that lists only a reinstatement fee. Ivan writes: More »
—>"I took your advice a while ago on asking your credit card company politely for a lower APR. I asked Discover Card to give me just that. More »
—> Considering the lifeblood of The Consumerist is publicizing stories of bad businesses and bad business practices—including drawing attention to personal stories on other peoples' blogs—we were happy to read that blogger Philip Smith won the federal defamation and trademark dilution lawsuit brought against him by a company he wrote about on his personal blog. Although it doesn't guarantee that other angry business owners or their legal teams won't come after you for writing about your unpleasant experiences with them, it cheers us to know that, at least in this case, a federal judge felt that Smith should be protected from retaliation for telling his side of the story. "It's not about the title, it's about the content, said Judge Henry Hurlong, Jr.; a journalist turns out to be anyone who does journalism, and bloggers who do so have the same rights and privileges under federal law as the 'real' journalists." More »
—>"Got a charge on my credit card from "Member Services" for $19.23. This is a card I use for 3 specific bills, and I pay them off the day after the charge shows. I know it's coming so this stood out. More »
—> WBAL news in Balitmore did the usual investigation into Home Depot's notoriously crappy contractors and were hit with a tsunami of similar complaints after the story aired. More »
US Airways had the most consumer complaints of any airline for the month of September, with 2.13 complaints for every 100,000 passengers. [