Just in case you ever need a really good reason not to call in a fake bomb threat to an airplane, look no farther than the incident last year where armed agents swarmed a tarmac at Philadelphia International Airport, arrested one guy on the U.S. Airways flight and freaked out a whole bunch of travelers: Turns out the call was made by another man, jealous of a Facebook photo of his girlfriend that the other man had posted. He’s in big trouble now. [More]
Man Gets 15 Months In Jail For Plane Hoax, Has To Write 38 Apology Letters To Passengers
By April 22, 2013
Someone Warn This Time-Traveling Cookie Box About The Great Depression
By April 19, 2013
Who knew that they had delicious off-brand Thin Mints at the beginning of the 20th century? We didn’t. Yet John discovered this box of cookies that expired way back in 1914. Yet it has a UPC and brags that the cardboard is 100% post-consumer waste. What is this madness? [More]
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
By April 19, 2013
Here are ten of the best photos that readers added to The Consumerist Flickr Pool this week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or just plain neatness. [More]
The Origo Won’t Let Smartphone Addicts Start Car Unless Phone Is Inaccessible
By April 19, 2013
Drivers distracted by their phones or other gadgets in the car are a serious safety problem and really annoying to get stuck behind when the light turns green. What if there were an overly restrictive answer to that problem? Meet the Origo: a system that won’t let you start your car unless your phone is in a specific dock. [More]
Schnucks Grocery Stores Says 2.4M Credit & Debit Cards Affected In Security Breach
By April 15, 2013
If you’ve shopped at one of Schnuck Market’s 100 grocery stores in Missouri, Indiana or Iowa, you might want to take a close look at your credit cards and bank account: The chain says about 2.4 million credit and debit cards were potentially compromised due to a security breach. [More]
Cops: McDonald’s Customer Traded A Happy Meal For A Happy Ending
By April 15, 2013
Doesn’t matter if you’re handing over cash, a selection of fine cheeses or a bag of french fries — the law will get ya if you’re trading goods for certain ah, services. Police say a New Mexico man set up an illegal trade of the fast food-for-sex variety in Albuquerque recently, wherein he picked up a woman and then ordered her a meal at McDonald’s. [More]
metaTired of seeing pictures online that people have snapped of their food? Maybe there’s a better way. The blog Pictures of Hipsters Taking Pictures of Food offers a much deeper socioeconomic and culinary context for meal snaps. Also, it makes fun of people. [Tumblr]
Louisiana Company Recalls 468,000 Pounds Of Meat Over Listeria Concerns
By April 15, 2013
There’s a whole lot of meat on the table after a Louisiana meat-packing company extended a recall of 468,000 pounds worth of roast beef, ham, turkey breast, tasso pork, ham shanks, hog headcheese , corned beef and pastrami. Quite an awful lot of sandwiches. [More]
McDonald’s Pulls Ad Since Crippling Depression Isn’t Quite The Same As Loving Big Macs
By April 12, 2013
While it might seem like your day is ruined if you can’t get a Big Mac, in no way is it the same as suffering from a mental illness. That’s a point McDonald’s apparently missed with a regional ad in the Boston area: It featured a familiar image of a distraught woman with her head in her hands with the copy, “You Are Not Alone.” Below it? “Millions of people love the Big Mac.” [More]
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
By April 12, 2013
Yesterday, at Consumerist HQ, we were very sad to learn about the death of one of the regulars here around the site in both the comments section and the Flickr pool. She also brought Cracker Barrel’s crimes against maple to our attention, and had an unrivaled love of our weekly open threads. Kimaroo died unexpectedly of pneumonia earlier this week, at the age of only 28. As a small tribute, before the Flickr Finds, here are some of our favorite pictures of hers that we used over the years. They are, of course, of her totally handsome cats, Bastien and Alfred. [More]
Ask This Guy How To Survive For Almost 30 Years In The Woods On Spaghetti-Os
By April 11, 2013
Part of the fun of going camping is the novelty of eating camp food that you might not otherwise eat at home. Roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the flames, snacking on trail mix or just heating up a can of Spaghetti-Os — all of those are fun while you’re in the woods. Which makes us wonder how the guy who lived in the woods in Maine for 27 years feels about camp food now. [More]
Comfort Food Crime Wave Continues: Man Steals Truckload Of Soup
By April 10, 2013
First, the comfort food crime cartels came for the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve, stealing more than 10,000 barrels and selling it on the amber market. Next was the Nutella theft: someone lifted more than $20,000 worth of choco-hazelnut spread from a truck in Germany. This week, we learned about a crime against one of the most comforting comfort foods, soup. Over the weekend, two men in Florida drove off with a tractor-trailer that contained $75,000 worth. [More]
Louvre Forced To Close After Staff Walks Out In Protest Of Aggressive Pickpockets
By April 10, 2013
Beyond all the valuable pieces of art on display at the Louvre in Paris, there’s a whole other set of treasures — the pockets and purses of the millions of visitors who walk through its doors every year. The world’s most-visited museum was forced to close today after more than 100 staff walked out in protest over the rampant thievery going on right under Mona Lisa’s nose. [More]
It Ain’t Over Yet: Dutch Authorities Pull 50,000 Tons Of Beef Over Horsemeat Concerns
By April 10, 2013
If it seemed like the horsemeat scandal was slowing down over yonder in Europe, that was probably a premature supposition. Dutch authorities in the Netherlands are pulling 50,000 tons of beef from the shelves of stores all across Europe over fears that it could possibly contain horsemeat. [More]
Cops On The Lookout For Guy With An ATM That Doesn’t Belong To Him
By April 9, 2013
Anyone living in North Carolina — if your friend lets you use his “personal” ATM, perhaps in the living room or backyard, it’s probably not his. We say that because police are currently on the hunt for a suspect who first stole an excavator from a construction site and then used it to boost a 2,000-pound ATM nearby. [More]
Russell Stover Chocolate Peanut Butter Bunny Disappoints On Both Counts
By April 9, 2013
Ed sent us these chocolate bunny photos after lunchtime on Monday, which we’re assuming means that he bought them on post-Easter clearance. Even if he did, that doesn’t give Russel Stover an excuse to sell him a skimpy bunny with a meager amount of peanut butter inside. [More]
Nobody Move Or The Spaghetti Will Be Ruined: Woman Robs Bank With Tomato Sauce “Bomb”
By April 8, 2013
We’ve seen our share of consumers gone wrong, people who rob banks and maybe get caught, maybe don’t. But never before have we seen someone risk their dinner during a heist. A woman accused of robbing a bank in Michigan got away with a heist recently by claiming she had a bomb in a bag. In no world is spaghetti sauce an explosive device, unless maybe Gallagher and his mallet are involved. [More]
Somewhere, There’s A Massive, Chocolatey, Delicious Black Market For Nutella
By April 8, 2013
As mass-market food products go, chocolate-hazelnut spread and noted health food Nutella is pretty expensive per ounce. So it’s not really surprising that thieves made off with more than $20,000 worth of the stuff in the theft on seven pallets, from a parked semi-trailer truck in Germany. [More]
