A fundraiser event in Tampa was sort of a boozy raffle. Guests could pay $20 for a flute of champagne with a clear gemstone at the bottom. Everyone got to drink champagne, and one lucky guest won a diamond worth $5,000. The 80-year-old winner didn’t have to worry about finding a safe place to store the stone on her way home, because she had accidentally swallowed it. [More]
Woman Wins $5,000 Diamond Prize, Finds Out After Accidentally Swallowing It
By April 30, 2013
Woman Told She Was Too Fat To Tan Given Refund, Free Tanning Elsewhere
By April 24, 2013
After a lot of media attention, the Ohio tanning salon that sold a woman a month-long unlimited membership and then banned her from all but one of their pieces of equipment because of her weight has offered her a refund. A different salon has offered her a free month of tanning, as well. [KHOU] [More]
Carnival Put Non-Fliers On Stranded Dream On A Competitor’s Cruise Back To Florida
By March 29, 2013
You may remember the Carnival Dream, which had a backup generator malfunction while docked at St. Maarten and could have become another Poop Cruise nightmare. Passengers had already started to contact media outlets with harrowing accounts of overflowing toilets and being confined to the ship. Carnival quickly canceled the cruise and put passengers on a plane back to Florida. But what about passengers who couldn’t get on a plane, due to phobias or medical conditions? We recently learned that Carnival worked with competitor Norwegian and put surface-bound passengers in empty staterooms on a three-day cruise that happened to be traveling from St. Maarten to Miami. [More]
Apple Sympathizes With My Need To Listen To One Song On Repeat For Hours On End
By March 4, 2013
Elaine was suffering. In the midst of an overwhelming obsession with the song “Our Love” by Al Jarreau, she lost access to the song on her iPhone and was thrown into severe withdrawal. How could she make it through her 45-minute train ride without it? She needed Apple’s help, and she needed it bad. [More]
Homeless Man Reaps $145K Reward For Returning Engagement Ring Dropped In His Cup
By February 26, 2013
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Honesty is the best policy when it comes to finding things that aren’t yours. A homeless man in Kansas City, Mo. found that out in quite a delightful way, after returning a diamond engagement ring he found in his change cup to the woman who’d dropped it. She and her fiancé have raised $145,000 in donations to reward him for his kindness. [More]
Man Reunited With His Wallet And The $800 Inside Three Years After He Lost It
By February 25, 2013
What’s lost is often gone for good, as anyone who’s ever misplaced a wallet or a phone has had the misfortune to discover. But perhaps it’s an even better to recover something years after you figured you’d never see again, like a man who was reunited with his wallet full of $800 in cash three years after it went missing. [More]
Yellow Pages Works Hard To Make Sure Non-Customer Stays Happy Non-Customer
By January 8, 2013
Maurice isn’t an anti-phone book zealot, but he doesn’t need one, either. A few months ago, an unwanted one showed up on his porch. Instead of saving it for a power or Internet service outage or sticking it under a wobbly table leg, he decided to contact the company that delivered it and let them know that they didn’t need to waste any more trees or time delivering phone books to him. The message didn’t quite take. Unwanted phone books are pretty low on his list of problems in life, but that’s an easy problem to solve. Right? [More]
Eight-Year-Old Donates 500 Presents From Birthday Benefit To Toys For Tots
By December 10, 2012
There is no strict governing body presiding over exactly what form Santa Claus must come in, so why couldn’t he look like a generous eight-year-old boy? The young man from Owasso, Okla. was turning eight and decided he had enough toys. Instead, he opted to turn his birthday party into a benefit to bring in toys and give them away to those less fortunate. [More]
Bus Driver Finds Elderly Woman’s $500K Cash In A Shopping Bag & Turns It In
By December 6, 2012
We’ve often mused about what we’d do if we were to stumble on a whole lot of cash, seemingly without any owner to claim it. Maybe sneak a few bills? Quietly tuck it all away and pretend like it never happened? We couldn’t, we just couldn’t. And when a bus driver in Vienna found a shopping bag filled with 390,000 euros ($509,700) in cash, he did the right thing, too. [More]
My Mom Ordered One iPad And Best Buy Sent Five
By December 5, 2012
Alexa’s boyfriend got an iPad for Christmas from his mother. Well, that’s not quite true. His mother ordered one iPad, and had it shipped to him. What arrived on their doorstep was a very large and heavy box that was big enough to hold five iPads. Because it did. [More]
Man Blinded By Drinking Vodka Regains His Sight After Doctors Administer A Dose Of Whiskey
By December 3, 2012
We’ve all heard of the phrase “blacked out” in relation to drinking alcohol. While that frat bro talking too loudly about his weekend in the coffee shop might be throwing out the phrase to indicate an unhealthy amount of booze consumed, in the case of one man who had a little bit of vodka, the liquor actually made him lose his eyesight. At first, doctors were stumped. Then they came to the rescue with a very odd prescription. More booze! [More]
LEGO Finds Spare Discontinued Set So Boy Who Saved Up For 2 Years Wouldn’t Be Disappointed
By December 3, 2012
We’re used to dealing with companies that seem to take joy in foiling their customers, so when a company comes through, really performs above and beyond, we jump at the chance to warm a few hearts. Like say when an 11-year-old boy saves up his money for two years to buy a LEGO train set only to find out it isn’t being made anymore and is now a collectible, completely out of his price range. You better believe this one has a happy ending. [More]
Secret Santa From Missouri Hands Out $100 Bills To Hurricane Sandy Victims
By November 30, 2012
Winter chill is setting in across our fair land, so how’s about a little warming of the old blood pump? Here you go: A philanthropist from Missouri has popped up as a Secret Santa of sorts on the East Coast, and has been handing out $100 bills to victims of Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey. Don’t fight it, just feel the goodwill spread. Ahh, there it is. [More]
Bright House Customer Now Has His Football In Glorious HD
By November 9, 2012
A few months ago, we shared with you the story of Tim, a Bright House cable customer who signed up for the company’s most basic package because the company’s website created the appearance that high-definition channels were part of it. After we published Craig’s story, the person at Bright House whose job it is to fund unhappy customers venting on the Internet and make them happy again contacted us, wanting to help Tim. This person agreed that the online listings were confusing, and upgraded Tim’s cable at no cost. [More]
Cat's Plan To Rid The World Of Mickey Mouse Leads Him To Stow Away In Suitcase For 10 Hours
By September 14, 2012
If the rest of my family was taking off for a vacation to Disney World and I wasn’t allowed to go, I’d be terribly put out. But I am not a cat, and so unlike one Bob-bob of Ohio, I can’t climb inside my owner’s suitcase and show up in Florida anyway. Bob-bob’s recent journey took 10 hours, at the end of which his owner was a bit surprised to see him pop out of the luggage. [More]
Thanks To Consumerist, Customer Wins Game Of ETF Chicken With ADT
By September 12, 2012
You may remember reader Matthew, who a few weeks ago was playing chicken with alarm company ADT over having to pay an early termination fee for moving. After we posted his story, an ADT representative showed up and posted a comment, which got the ball rolling on an actual solution for him. They refunded him for the months that he had been paying for service that his local ADT salesman wasn’t willing to provide him. [More]
Chicago Public Library's Amnesty Period Prompts Woman To Return Copy Of 'Dorian Gray' Overdue By 78 Years
By September 4, 2012
Fear of the inevitably ginormous fine she’d face after hanging onto a Chicago Public Library copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde for 78 years too long kept one woman from bringing the overdue back to its proper place. But thanks to the library’s recent three-week amnesty period, the book has finally been returned. [More]
Wells Fargo Working With Daughter To Make Her An Authorized Party On Late Mother's Loan
By August 31, 2012
We’ve been closely following the case of a woman who was trying to save the home she inherited from her late mother, only to be confounded when Wells Fargo refused to deal with anyone but the dead woman. Earlier this week, Wells Fargo announced that they’d placed the foreclosure on hold and had reached out to the woman. In the latest update, both the woman and Wells Fargo have confirmed that negotiations are underway. [More]
