19 Most Popular Consumerist Reader Complaints Of All Time!
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...
Forewarning: because this is the intenet and you're all very sick and depraved, some of the most popular stories are quite disgusting.
19: Walmart Nazi Tshirt Watch: Week 62
"Just when you thought all of the Walmart tshirts bearing the exact replica of an infamous Nazi symbol were recalled, or sold to a discount store and burned, a Walmart in Palmdale, California has them on sale for $3.00 a pop."
18: Amazon Fails At Gift Wrapping Your Nephew's X-Mas Present
"Matt ordered this copy of "Tales of Beedle The Bard" for his 13-year-old nephew. He paid an extra $4 to have it gift wrapped. Amazon actually gift wrapped it, then put the gift wrapped book inside a box that said what it was."
17:Applebee's Bruschetta Burger Menu Picture Vs Reality
"Reader Megan is troubled by the strange, slimy cylinder of fries she received from Applebee's."
16: Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Refuses Bathroom Access to 5-Year-Old, Who Then Has Diarrhea In Front Of Them
"I begged them to have a heart and that she was 5 but by that time she had lost it all over herself and me."
15: Staples Tries To Charge Senior Citizen $390 For Basic Computer Repair
"The senior, who had been lulled into Staples for a free tune up that suddenly cost $39.99, didn't understand why he needed to spend money on a "diagnostic screening ($49.99), virus removal services ($150), and more RAM (~$150)." Michael intervened and offered to look at the computer free of charge. He couldn't believe what he found when he popped open the computer."
14: Geek Squad Hatched Plot To Harvest Porn From Pornstar Jasmine Grey's HardDrive, Days Before She Died In Car Crash
"The manager on duty at the time was involved in the scam, so he offered to send an Agent out for free to "go the extra mile and insure she only shop at Best Buy in the future." He fixed the webcam in a few minutes then spent the entire remainder of the appointment scouring her network for more porn, which he saved to a portable hard drive. Those files were then shared across the store."
13: Best Buy Refuses To Honor 2 for $25 DVD Sale
"Silly Jason. He thought a Best Buy sign reading "2 for $25" meant he could buy two DVDs for $25. He obviously didn't read the part of the sign that requires customers to buy Saw IV. Oh, that's not part of the sign? Then why did the manager of the Best Buy in Beaumont, TX refuse to honor the in-store advertisement?"
12: Best Buy Forbids You From Buying Assassin's Creed, Insists You're Buying It For A Minor
"I quickly responded back that I am 21 year old and that the video game and peripheral are for me. She shook her head with a menacing grim and said that she saw me take gift cards from my brother and that what I am doing is illegal. Enough of this obese 17 year olds shenanigans! I demanded a manager. Unfortunately the manager was probably about 18 years old as well."
11: This Kmart Bacon Is Excellent, But Could Use Some More Fat
"Your first instinct will be to say, "Simon, fat is the point of bacon." Then you will look at the picture above and realize that your second instinct, to vomit, is in fact, the correct one."
10: Let Best Buy 'Professionally Install' Your XBox Games
"Apparently the local Best Buy has an unbeatable service option for you. Looks like they will come to your house and insert your game to your 360 for you. Wonder how much they would charge to turn it on and put the controller in my hand?"
9: The Best Thing We Have Ever Posted: Reader Tries To Cancel AOL
"Cancel the account. Cancel the account. Cancel the account. CANCEL THE ACCOUNT. CANCEL THE ACCOUNT. CANCEL THE ACCOUNT. FOR GOD'S SAKE JUST CANCEL THE FUCKING ACCOUNT." After every period, insert a few minutes of AOL CSR John trying to 'help' Vincent somehow figure out a way to keep on paying... generally through the ingratiating method of straight out calling him a liar."
8: Best Buy Calls Cops On You For Telling Fellow Customer Jawbone Headset Is Overpriced, Sucks
"I shared my disappointing experience with the headset and also alerted him to the fact that Best Buy was charging an additional $30 on top of both the manufacturer's price online and Verizon's price. All of this was said within earshot of a sales associate, and I walked away after sharing my experience. Within 30 seconds, a manager named Tom approached me and asked me to leave the store. I thought he was joking, since I had done absolutely nothing wrong, and I asked Tom for the reason why I needed to leave. According to Tom, "it was policy.""
7: Bank Of America Won't Let You Access Your Money
"Confused, Bill called Bank of America customer support for an explanation and had the sort of conversation that makes you want to drive a fork through your ear."
6: Jo-Ann Fabrics Refuses To Let Customer Use Bathroom, Even As She Suffers Diarrhea Right In Front Of Them
"I again told her I was experiencing diarrhea as we spoke and she again refused saying she could lose her job if she let me use the rest room and that there was nothing she could do. At this point I was becoming extremely frustrated and feared that the diarrhea was going to run down my legs and drip onto the store floor."
5: It's Now Completely Impossible To Sell A Laptop On Ebay
"The cool thing about eBay's support system is it will always answer your question; unfortunately, that answer will always be a form letter on how to reset your password, as Timothy discovered when he tried to figure out how to sell his laptop to someone who wasn't a Nigerian scammer."
4: Best Buy Cancels Your Order As You Stand There Shouting "Stop!"
"Best Buy didn't want to honor the sale price of the 2GB flash drive Matt ordered through their website, so when Matt arrived to pick-up his purchase, the store's assistant manager called customer service and, pretending to be Matt, asked to cancel the order. Let's read Matt's story and see how it violates Massachusetts law..."
3. Is This Playstation 3 Too Dusty To Be Repaired Under Warranty?
"We now have pictures of the Playstation 3 that Sony refused to repair under warranty because the unit was too dusty. Sony originally claimed that the pictures would not be released without a subpoena, and that the dust presented a threat to their technician's health that could only be alleviated if our tipster paid $150. After our posts, Sony abruptly reversed course and released the pictures to our tipster."
2: PHOTO: Dell Breaks Your Laptop, Sends Replacement Full Of Pubes
"When I opened up the new laptop, I saw the screen was scratched and dirty, and the keyboard was covered in debris. Wait, not debris....what is that? HAIRS!? Not just any hairs - these could only be described as pubes."
1: How I Became A Music Pirate
"Now I was baffled. "Records never came with any such restrictions," I said. She replied, "Well they were supposed to, but we weren't able to enforce those licenses back then, and now we can.""
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam malesuada commodo erat et molestie. Duis pellentesque aliquam bibendum. Suspendisse venenatis lobortis eleifend. Mauris id est sed lectus convallis aliquam.
Post a comment
Comments:
♪Memories, misty watercolored memories..♫
I was hoping to see something about that door to door salesman con job.
nice wrangling, but i can't help feeling this is the sort of post a weary editor would put together knowing that the end was close at hand - perhaps one that had less than a month before his beloved site were shut down forever.
say it's not so, ben.
@dorianh49: I figured it would be #1 easily. It's the reason I started reading the consumerist in the first place.
This...seems like a farewell of sorts.
Wow. Out of 19 complaints, SIX of them are all from Worst Buy!
I love that fucking bacon post, you guys. I love it. That is all.
@Zclyh3:
Was going to make the same comment myself.
Does this mean Best Buy wins an award or something? Like Worst Retailer Of The Year?
I personally was hoping for that shady photography store in brooklyn.
That chocolate malt pic next to a poop story is one of the funniest things ever.
#20: Best Buy/Wal-Mart "Security" Personnel Accost and Detain Shoppers as they try to leave the store without showing their receipt.
I also immediately thought "valedictory," but am reassured by Ben's "not so" response above. Yay!
And today's lesson? Stay out of Best Buy. Are they gonna call the cops on me for typing this?
I am quite irate that none of the stories feature Teh Kittiez.
I humbly request - no, tyrannically DAMAND - a follow-up featuring: Consumerist Best Kittehs Stories of All Time!"
Humble submission* #1: Perfect Oatmeal. Nuff Said.
Not that I'm trolling (much), but anyone else want to see Da Kittehs Feature?
Reply!
Cap't Duvel Moneycat will purr appreciatively**!
* I'm done being tyrannical. Thanks for your understanding
** And yes. Hell the HELLyes, this requires new Captain Duvel Moneycat pix.
@amuro98:
Best Buy...
I am very disappointed you. I expected to see your name appear at least 10 times, not 6.
What! Where's the "you can't get out without showing a receipt!" stories.
Although I agree with the people who expressed the thought that this was sounding like a farewell compilation, I heard a rumor about what's up with you guys.
I'll keep it to myself though. Besides, I want to see if it's true without letting the cat out of the bag.
Don't you just hate it when you think you know something but can't tell anyone.
i remember all those stories! what a wonderful montage.
i'm impressed that the tales of beedle the bard packaging story shot to the top so quickly.
When I think classic Consumerist, I think of the AOL Cancellation and Verizon Math posts. A fantastic list. It's just hard to think I read all these posts when they were just babies :o
IT IS ALMOST INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO ME THAT NOT ONE OF THESE STORIES INVOLVES HAVING TO SHOW A RECEIPT.
{Super CAPS LOCK mode off}
It just goes to show the power of the amazing individual story versus the moderately amazing, but frequent and almost universal, story.
That Best Buy/Assasin's Creed one is my fave complaint of all time.
Um, dumb question, but... why 19?
Top 10 lists are common. A top 20 list would be a nice round number. 25 is appealing. But 19?
Are these the PRIME reader complaints? Are we going to see the top 31 Verizon screw-ups, the 13 worst computer repair hassles, the top 29 Wal-Mart horror stories?
Can I be one of the top 67 contributors?
Inquiring minds want to know.
@backbroken: I was thinking the exact same thing, "Here's 19 of our reader's original stories that drew the most buzz, and blood, online over the years..." each one of those dots at the end doubles my worry that this is indeed a goodbye post.
@Zclyh3:
and yet best buy didnt even make it to the final 4.
i was confused by that, i figured they were a shoe in.
It seems that with 352 comments, "Killer Bees in the EBay RV" should be # 1. It's unclear how that list was generated; most of the items (including # 1) had less than 100 comments.
I love the two stories where the guys still buy from Best Buy after Best Buy goes so far out of their way to stop them from buying from them.
@Trai_Dep: How about a positive spin: This posts represents consumerist "in a nutshell" and provides a great way for any prospective readers (or more importantly INVESTORS) to get a good sense of what this site is all about.
I like it.
HOW IS THE AOL STORY NOT #1?!! That one pleased me to no end.
I'm surprised a bunch of people haven't voted for "Microsoft does/doesn't *" and they aren't at least half of these stories.
Let's see what next year brings!
You couldn't have found 1 more story to make it 20, honestly?
Otherwise nice roundup. Hopefully there's still more to come.
I'm honored to have several of my stories among this list. Cancel the account, Verizon math, and Honeypot remain my personal favorites.
@dlynch: Nah, all publications do end-of-the-year wrapups around this time. It's more about generating easy content during the holiday season.
Ah, the memories. However, I'm kind of surprised that the story about the CVS pharmacist calling the AIDS patient a derogatory gay slur isn't in here somewhere.
Anyone else notice how a good majority, thirty percent, are Best Buy?
Not a single airline horror story? The folks abandoned in a hurricane in the D.R? The elderly lady who had to crawl up the jetway because no one was around to bring her a wheelchair?
And no Comcast stories? How did they get the golden poop award, then?
Whoever put this together was on a Beastbuy rampage. Should've made it a top 25.
@bwcbwc: Oops, no poops for Comcast. My mistake. But still, cable service horror stories are a standard here.
Where's Verizon Math? That's the whole I reason I'm here.