crimeWatch out for shady black-market over-the-counter drug dealers. Police outside of Pennsylvania’s capital are looking for two men who stole $1,000 worth of Mucinex from a CVS store, and who may or may not have one heck of a cough. If that sounds like a lot, it’s not: it’s less than twenty 100-packs. [WHTM]
Jeff takes the generic form of Adderall, a mild stimulant prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder. His health insurance uses prescription benefit company Caremark, which CVS owns, so he can pick up the 90-day refills that normally would go through mail order at a retail CVS pharmacy. Yay, how convenient! Only he ran into a problem the last time he needed to get more pills. The pharmacy technician demanded photo ID in order to drop off his prescription. To pick up the bottle of 90 pills, sure: it’s a controlled substance. But to drop off the prescription? [More]
Dave sent us this irresistible deal from pharmacy chain CVS. You can get $5 in Extrabucks rewards currency by buying these Futuro anti-embolism stockings. Not a bad deal if you’re in the market for them, and will remember to come back and use the Extrabucks. This plan has a flaw, though: you only come out 30 cents ahead, because the sale price is $4.70 above regular retail. [More]
Len noticed this sign at CVS. It seems pretty straightforward: the summer clearance items are all 50% off. Except for the fans. And the items that don’t scan at 50% off. The more you think about this sign, the more confusing it gets, because it means walking up to the counter or using a self-scan machine to determine whether items are on clearance sale. Why do you need a sign telling you to do that? [More]
Reader SaberTail got a pretty average receipt on a recent trip to CVS: a trailing banner that could, in a pinch, be mistaken for an unspooled roll of toilet paper. We exaggerate only a little. It had three coupons, one of which just contradicts itself out of existence. [More]
It was an observant CVS cashier who brought a Florida man’s reign of fecal contamination to a close. The customer would allegedly buy saline enema kits, use them, clumsily reseal the boxes, and return the kits to the store. The enema kits went right back on store shelves to be sold to unsuspecting customers. The bottles contained some fluid, but had fecal matter on them. This purchase and return cycle began in April and continued until June. [More]
Fair warning from last week’s CVS circular: if you come by to take advantage of this amazing deal on Tide or Gain detergent, there’s a limit. You can only buy three bottles, for a total savings of fifteen cents. [More]
Shopping at CVS, Ajay noticed this odd sale on a seasonal item (sandals). Okay, it’s fine to charge more for seasonal items during the season when they’re used: that’s basic retail. But there’s something terribly wrong when employees put up a sign doubling the price on a sale item without batting an eye. [More]
Shopping for some cool Star Wars figurines at CVS? Well you should’ve bought them before Spring Savings went into effect at the store. David saw some funny dealings at his local store and sent in a photo of with the Consumerist Tipster app. While time’s used to be you could nab some “Movie Legends Figurines” for $13.79, now they’re $14.79. [More]
Police in Dallas added insult to injury when they arrested a woman in a leg brace for a shattered knee on charges of forging her painkiller prescription, even though her doctor says no one ever checked with him to see if the ‘scrip was legitimate. [More]
It makes sense for a store to place small impulse-buy items on the shelf next to related merchandise. Say, cereal and bananas. Beer and Ping-Pong balls. Cold medicine and tissues. Tampons and chocolate. Those choices all make sense, but this impulse buy found at a New England CVS left us, and tipster Jena, scratching our heads. [More]
Looking back on it all, perhaps it was a bit suspicious to have a male CVS employee insist on checking out a bathroom to make sure it was “all clear” before a female customer used it. Cops say a man working the pharmacy counter used that excuse to plant an iPhone in between rolls of toilet paper, and subsequently film dozens of women. [More]
For almost two months, some children in New Jersey were taking breast cancer drugs instead of fluoride pills for their teeth. CVS made a big whoopsie, as parents were picking up tamoxifen unbeknownst to them, and handing it out to their kids at home. [More]
Reader Andy noticed this sign in near the breakfast foods in a local CVS. It instructs customers to check the expiration dates of the items they choose before taking them up to the cash register. It’s an innovative idea: maybe they’re aiming to crowdsource stock rotation. [More]
Last year, Mike bought a Vanilla Visa prepaid debit card at CVS as a gift for a friend, who promptly forgot that the card existed until about a year later. The card doesn’t work, but not because it’s been dormant for the last year and had its balance eaten up in fees. No, the problem is that this card expired in July 2010, before it was even purchased. CVS never should have sold him this card. Now neither CVS nor Vanilla Visa will take responsibility for the problem, and are even accusing Mike of being a scammer. [More]
Two days before school starts and you need those pencils and TI-89 calculators, stat? If online shopping is the route you’re going, Costco will get it to you faster than Walmart, says a new survey. [More]
The CVS ExtraCare program lets customers get Extra Bucks rewards, but instead of putting those rewards on your ExtraCare card, they are printed at the bottom of CVS’ infamously long checkout receipts. A year ago, the company’s chief marketing officer told L.A. Times reporter David Lazarus that this would soon change and Extra Bucks would be placed directly on your card. But now CVS is saying just the opposite — that it deliberately wants those Bucks on the receipt because it’s a real thrill to the consumer. [More]
Had David’s wife not probed closely, she could have ended up paying $228 for generic Fosamax that could have been easily gotten for $24. He’s sharing the story as a cautionary tale so that other people who are getting their maintenance prescriptions covered by their employer’s insurance don’t end up overpaying for generics. [More]
