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Consumerist
Celebrity Cruises
Celebrity Cruises
Overpriced food
Customers at Zuni Cafe in San Francisco were surprised to find that their $8 dessert was nothing more than a nectarine rolling around on a plate.
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This $8 Nectarine Dessert At Zuni Cafe Is A Little Disappointing
Customers at Zuni Cafe in San Francisco were surprised to find that their $8 dessert was nothing more than a nectarine rolling around on a plate.
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comcastrophe
Comcast Disconnected My Verizon, What Should I Do?
Here's an odd situation: Reader Stephen says that Comcast (his old cable company) disconnected his new Verizon cable. He's not sure what exactly he should do about it and would like your advice. More »
Overdraft fees
Watch Out For These 5 Overdraft Traps
Banks need your money. They're not doing too well on their own, and you're not screwing up enough to generate the fees they need to make their shareholders happy. That's why they've set up sneaky ways to maximize your every mistake—or in some cases, ways to change the rules so that you make new mistakes where you didn't before—in order to penalize you. Here are five things SmartMoney says to watch out for. More »
Tsa
TSA Martinet Claims Her Unpublished Rules Trump Real Ones
TSA, can you at least train your agents to do their jobs properly? We'd appreciate it even more if you'd discipline (read: fire) those who go all stupidly power-mad and think they have to "win" every encounter, even when it means making up new rules on the spot. Here's a story of a soldier who lost a day of leave because one of your agents caused so much trouble. In the end, the soldier says he's happy with the outcome—"Using standard Consumerist customer service doctrine (polite, patient, proper channels and then EECB), I won"—but we're still floored by how difficult you made his trip home. Oh, and NWA, you were no help either. More »
Grocery suck ray
Arm & Hammer Responds To Baking Soda Controversy With Complete Nonsense
Widge at Needcoffee.com wrote a similar post about Arm & Hammer's new "30 day" baking soda and got a response from Arm & Hammer PR. We're being kind when we say that reason consumers are being told to buy 3 times as much baking soda is nonsense. We're sure there are more colorful words that would be just as accurate. More »
Mobile Solutions
Couple Can't Get Rid Of Cellphones No Matter What They Do
A desperate salesman wouldn't take no for an answer when Rob and his fiancee visited Mobile Solutions in Blaine, MN last month. Rob writes,
The sales rep did his song and dance and insisted that I test out the phone service for 2 weeks. I said no a few times but he wouldn’t hear it. Well, he gave me 2 phones and 2 phone numbers. No credit check, no money whatsoever. I walked out of the store with 2 free phones and some paper work.
Now Rob can't give the phones back. After several fruitless visits where the store manager told Rob he had to talk to the original salesman (who was never there) to return the phones, Rob simply left them on the counter. A few days later, they arrived at his doorstep via FedEx—along with a photocopy of another customer's driver license.
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Appliances
8 Tips That Will Keep Your Refrigerator Healthy And Your Bills Low
Consumer Reports has some tips for keeping your refrigerator happy and your utility bills low. Keeping the door shut as much as possible is apparently very important. As mom always said, "We're not trying to refrigerate the entire State of Illinois, are we?" More »
Christmas Creep
Why is Hobby Lobby selling Christmas Trees in August? WHY?! We can understand the tinsel and countdowns, maybe, but !@$% Christmas trees? This picture comes from Hutchinson, Kansas where it will be 92 degrees on Friday. We called Hobby Lobby for an explanation...
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Now Available At Hobby Lobby: Christmas Trees?
Why is Hobby Lobby selling Christmas Trees in August? WHY?! We can understand the tinsel and countdowns, maybe, but !@$% Christmas trees? This picture comes from Hutchinson, Kansas where it will be 92 degrees on Friday. We called Hobby Lobby for an explanation...
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bad consumer
Thieves Snatch Almost $20,000 Worth Of Fuel From Gas Station
Gas thieves have stolen over 5,000 gallons of fuel from the Open Pantry Citgo in Wauwatosa, WI according to WauwatosaNow.com. More »
Someone Think Of The Children
Disney Decides To Stop Selling "Dive In" Panties For Young Girls
Gee, someone wasn't thinking too clearly when they were designing High School Musical 2 themed panties for Disney. Sold in the UK, one pair of panties in a package of 5 read "Dive In" — a reference to a scene from the popular musical. More »
Friendlys
Friendly's Manager Outlaws Refunds, Demands That Employees Not Speak Her Name?
There's something odd going on at reader Brian's local Friendly's. Brian and his wife ordered and paid for two sundaes, but when Friendly's discovered they were out of the flavor they'd requested, things got complicated. First, the employees refused to give Brian and his wife their money back because the manager doesn't allow refunds, then, when they asked to speak to the manager, not only would she not speak to them, but she also wouldn't allow the employees to say her name. More »
Best Buy
Best Buy De-Hoses Washers To Save Money?
An alleged Best Buy employee tells us that the company has stopped including inlet water hoses in some Inglis, Whirlpool and Maytag top-loading washers it sells. According to the blurry photos he sent us, employees are now supposed to push this $27 accessory hose product on customers who buy the washers. Update: we don't know if the decision originated with the manufacturers or Best Buy. More »
No more free lunch
United Airlines Drops Free Snacks In Coach And So Much More...
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that United Airlines will no longer offer free snacks in coach starting September 2nd. They are also dropping complimentary meals in business class except for "premium transcontinental flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to New York." Shockingly, this move coincides with the airlines' expansion of their "buy-on-board" food offerings, says the Chronicle. More »
Shaw's crab house
Waiter, There's A 9-Foot Tapeworm In My Salmon/Digestive Tract!
A Chicago man is suing Shaw's Crab House after passing a 9-foot tapeworm he contends came from consuming undercooked fish. Anthony Franz claims he became violently ill after eating the salmon salad at Shaw's, and is suing the restaurant and its parent company, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, for $100,000. More »
Walmart
Is Walmart Passing Out Fake Back-To-School Supply Lists?
Blogger Kelby Carr says that her local Walmart has totally fake but official looking back to school supply lists posted in their stores. The lists not only contain some extra supplies that are banned from the schools, but are actually missing some supplies. Here's how she describes the lists: More »
Snake oil
Gee Whiz, It Turns Out That Kinoki Foot Pads Are A Scam
The nice folks at NPR have done us all a favor and taken some used Kinoki foot pads to be tested to see if they'd drawn anything out of a guinea pig reporter's body. Guess what? They didn't. More »
Personal Finance
6 Unpleasant Truths About Personal Finance
Ready for some tough love about how to improve your financial situation? Jeffrey Strain, the man behind SavingAdvice.com, has put together a list of six "awful truths" about personal finance for TheStreet.com. The reason they're "awful," he writes, is that "these truths mean that the each person must take more responsibility and make hard decisions that they would rather leave to others." More »
wine spectator
Totally Fake Restaurant Wins Wine Spectator Award of Excellence
Hey, did you know that with Microsoft Word, $250 and maybe a foreign language dictionary — your lemonade stand can get a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence? That's what one enterprising fellow set out to prove. More »
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