Oooooh, someone’s in trouuuuble! Chastisements can come in tiny packages, as one nine-year-old girl proved at today’s annual McDonald’s shareholders meeting. She took to the mic with a pretty clear message for Mickey D’s CEO Don Thompson: ”It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time.” Oh, snap. [More]
9-Year-Old Girl Tells McDonald’s CEO: Stop Trying To Trick Kids Into Eating Your Food
By May 23, 2013
Guy Using The Last Name “Disney” Caught Giving Stolen Disneyland Tickets To Charity
By May 23, 2013
Listen, if you want to go around and tell people, “Yeah, I’m related to Walt Disney,” even if it isn’t true, that’s up to you. But one man allegedly impersonating a Disney heir took that delusion to another level when he, again, allegedly, passed off stolen Disneyland tickets as the real deal. [More]
House Passes Bill Tying Student Loan Rates To Treasury Notes
By May 23, 2013
While Senator Elizabeth Warren pushes for legislation that would allow student borrowers to enjoy the same insanely low interest rates as big banks (for one year at least), the House of Representatives today passed a bill that would link the interest rates on federal student loans to the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. [More]
How Much Did I Save If I Don’t Buy Anything?
By May 23, 2013
Whenever I throw away a coupon or decide not to take advantage of a sale, I tell myself that I’m saving more money by not buying the item in the first place. That is not exactly the approach that OfficeMax took when adding up the items in Tod’s cart. [More]
Amazon Wants To Sell Your Vampire Fan Fiction To The World — If You Keep It Clean
By May 23, 2013
Have you ever loved a book or movie so much, say, a teenage vampire romance, that you just can’t stand it when it’s all over? Fan fiction, that distinct genre that takes existing characters off into new storylines, or rewrites those stories in a more satisfactory way only rarely pays off for writers, but Amazon’s new Kindle Worlds wants to change that. [More]
jenny from the blockAre you a Jennifer Lopez fan that has been feeling woefully disconnected from the singer/actress/business mogul/whatever else she’s up to these days? Jenny from the block has got the perfect solution, in the form of her new chain of cellphone stores under the Viva Movil brand name. Will you be able to dial her directly if you buy a phone at one of 15 authorized Verizon resellers? Well, no. But you will help her earn more buckets of money, so yay for you? [via Associated Press]
4 Early Concerns About The Xbox One
By May 23, 2013
Earlier this week, Microsoft finally got around to showing off Xbox One, the console some gamers have been waiting for since the Xbox 360 came out eight years ago. The company made sure to highlight all the cool bells and whistles of the upcoming device, but also skipped over a number of issues that are already giving some folks reason for concern. [More]
Alleged Shoplifter Makes A Run For It, Loses Pants
By May 23, 2013
Always dress for the task at hand. If you’re going on a long hike, wear layers. Going to the beach? Put on some sunscreen. Suspicious clouds in the sky? Pack an umbrella. And if you’re going shoplifting, for gosh sakes, make sure your clothes fit properly. And put on some underpants. [More]
Regal Cinemas Raising Ticket Prices 4% Because You’re All Still Gonna Pay
By May 23, 2013
Thanks to innovations like 3D and IMAX (or IMAX-ish), going to see a movie in theaters is an experience that a home theater really can’t match, even if a home theater has the benefit of comfier seats and no obnoxious strangers. The bosses of Regal Cinemas, one of the chains that have consolidated Americans’ away-from-home movie experience, understand this. So they’re going to raise ticket prices some more. [More]
Study: Peaches From A Can (That Were Put There By A Man) As Nutritious As Fresh Counterparts
By May 23, 2013
Cracking open a can of peaches and slurping down the syrupy, sticky sweet juice before eating the peaches inside always made me feel like I was getting away with something. How could something so tasty also be good for you? Surely this canned nectar of the gods isn’t as healthy as biting into a juicy fresh peach. But a new study says actually, canned peaches are just as nutritious as the fresh ones. [More]
Mississippi Takes Man’s Tax Refund Twice To Pay Child Support For Kid He Doesn’t Have
By May 23, 2013
It has to feel completely awful to get a letter from the government saying it’s holding onto your refund check. But even worse, as one couple found out, is the feeling of that happening twice. And then there’s this doozy: Tax officials claim the refunds were put on hold because the state of Mississippi twice has said the husband owed back child support payments. Problem is, the couple has never lived in Mississippi and the man hasn’t father a child there either. Not once, and definitely not twice. [More]
New York Warns Of Medical-Alert Device Robocalling Scam Targeting Seniors
By May 23, 2013
Most of you know to be suspicious when someone calls out of the blue to tell you you’ve been approved to get something for free. But not everyone is as savvy as y’all, which is what scammers depend on to make their money. [More]
Joystiq Readers Join Raiders Of The Lost Walmart, Try To Report Defunct Games
By May 23, 2013
Back in 2010, before Consumerist’s Raiders of the Lost Walmart had a name and a mission, we shared a fascinating bit of retail archaeology: a copy of the multiplayer game Tabula Rasa, released in 2007 and shut down in 2009. We thought it was bad when a reader spotted a copy on the shelf in 2010, but a Joystiq blogger visited Walmart and found a copy just a few days ago. [More]
Store-Brand Sunscreens From Target, Walmart, Walgreens Outperform Higher-Priced Options In Test
By May 23, 2013
If you think you get what you pay for when you buy sunscreen, you might be in for a surprise. Our less-sunburned cousins at Consumer Reports recently put a dozen sun-protection products to the test and the ones that came out on top were also among the least expensive. [More]
Cleveland Restaurants Offer Free Hamburgers For Life To Man Who Helped Save Kidnap Victims
By May 23, 2013
Despite the initial PR grab on McDonald’s part to get in touch with Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland man who was instrumental in saving three women who had been kidnapped after he noticed one of them while on his porch eating a Big Mac. While McD’s hasn’t followed up, the man’s hometown restaurants are instead issuing him the opportunity to dine on hamburgers free of charge for the rest of his life. [More]
Microsoft Says Liquid Damage Ruined My Surface’s Battery, And That’s Final
By May 23, 2013
Electronics that are popular and have been on the market long enough to be out of warranty have vibrant industries of third-party repair shops, replacement parts, and online repair manuals. Yes, we’re thinking of iDevices when we say that. The problem with owning a newer device like the Microsoft Surface is that this kind of cottage industry hasn’t had the opportunity to grow yet. Warranty replacements are the norm and the only way to get things replaced. [More]
VIDEO: Stadium Vendor Takes Sno-Cones With Him Into Bathroom Stall
By May 23, 2013
If you’re skittish about eating at the ballpark, this video of a sno-cone vendor allegedly using the toilet while his product sits next to him on the bathroom floor probably isn’t going to help. [More]
Abercrombie & Fitch Meets With Teen Petitioner & Issues Another Mea Culpa
By May 23, 2013
Abercrombie & Fitch’s top executive/Gary Busey doppelgänger Mike Jeffries lobbed a “Sorry (not sorry) you don’t like my comments about thin, cool people wearing our clothes” non-apology last week, and now the company is kinda sorta trying to take that mea culpa a bit further. Executives met with a group from the National Eating Disorder Association and members of America the Beautiful Teen Empowerment Series to discuss how it can be more diverse and said it regrets the offense it caused. [More]
