Consumerist

Posts Tagged “

abuse

delta

Delta Makes Woman With Muscular Dystrophy Crawl Off Plane

On July 20th, Julianna's (delayed) Delta flight landed in Atlanta at 7:30pm, with a connecting flight scheduled for 8:05pm. Julianna, who has muscular dystrophy, missed the connecting flight because nobody came with a wheelchair until 8:05—the same time the connecting flight took off. To make matters worse, the plane crew told Julianna she might make the flight anyway if she stopped waiting for help and got off the plane right now, so she crawled down the stairs on her own. When the wheelchair came she was "wheeled into a back room and advised" that her plane had taken off. But that was just the first half of her ordeal, and the next eight hours only got worse. More »

detained

Wal-Mart & Local Police Detain Man, Threaten Arrest Over 4 Bags Of Sugar

This guy was trying to make strawberry jam this morning, and he had to go buy 4 bags of sugar. The cashier threw away the original receipt but put the sugar in a couple of Wal-Mart shopping bags, so Ben left the store thinking everything was, you know, normal for a Saturday morning. Then he was stopped by a security guard, a store manager, and an off-duty police officer, all of whom went batshit crazy on Ben over his 4 bags of sugar and lack of receipt. Before it was over one of the shopping bags was ripped open, a bag of sugar lay broken open on the parking lot, the guard had threatened to kick Ben's ass, and the police officer said, "you'd better not be lying to me." Ben was marched back into the store so they could verify with his cashier that he wasn't a sugar thief. Welcome to Wal-Mart, the police-state superstore where prices are low and civil rights don't exist. More »

abuse

Meet The Coupon-Throwing Papa John's Owner From Hell

Papa John's wouldn't let reader Adi redeem her coupon for a $9.99 extra-large pizza online, so she trekked over to the nearest store in Weymouth, Massachusetts, where she met the franchise owner from hell. The owner insisted that the coupon didn't apply to online orders, so Adi asked to cancel her online order and re-order her pizza in person to get the discount. This prompted the owner to angrily throw the coupon at Adi, before throwing away her ready-made pizza. And was just the start of the fun... More »

lawsuits

JetBlue Forces Passenger To Sit On Toilet For Flight

Talk about crappy service! JetBlue is the number 1 and the number 2 airline! A man from NYC is suing JetBlue "for more than $2 million because he says a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet for more than three hours on a flight from California," reports CBS News. We're not going to judge the airline too harshly until more of the story comes out, just in case it turns out to be another upset passenger overstating the situation—but if it's true, it's going to be hard for JetBlue to wipe this story from the public's memory for a while. Especially with all the joke opportunities. More »

drugs

Drug Maker Develops "Abuse-Resistant" Oxycontin

In response to the epidemic of opiate addiction, Purdue Phrama LP the maker of Oxycontin, has developed a new version of the powerful painkiller that's "harder to abuse." According to an AP article, the government will soon be examining this new incarnation of the drug and evaluating the manufacturer's lofty claims. How could this drug be made "abuse-resistant?" Details, inside... More »

food safety

USDA Accused Of Bullying Inspectors Who Reported Safety Violations

First the FAA makes their own inspectors cry in front of Congress and now the Associated Press says that the head of the federal inspectors' union is alleging that the USDA told him to "drop the matter" when he reported food safety violations at slaughterhouses. When he refused, he was placed on "disciplinary investigative status." More »

lawsuits

Company Sued For Waterboarding Salesman

"We're not the mean waterboarding company that people think we are," says the general counsel for Prosper Inc., a company that sells "coaching packages" over the telephone. They're being sued by a former employee who says he was held down as his boss emptied a gallon jug of water into his mouth and nose as part of a team-building exercise. Our tipster Rachael writes that it's like "an episode of The Office gone horribly wrong." More »

videos

Dateline Investigates Shady Annuity Salesmen Targeting Seniors

Dateline did a hidden camera investigation into the world of shady annuity salesmen targeting seniors and playing on their emotions to lock their life savings away in funds they may never live to receive the benefit from, or pay stiff penalties, not disclosed in the sales pitch, for early withdrawal. In this clip, Dateline producers attended "Annuity University," a two-day session run by Tyrone Clark to teach them how to sell to elders. He settled with the state of Massachusetts after he published a sales pamphlet that told salespeople to treat seniors "like they were selling to a twelve year old" and to hit their "fear, anger, and greed buttons" to make the sale. He also sells questionable self-promotional tools and services. In one of them, a fake radio guy will call up the salesperson and interview them like they're a financial expert on the radio. The session is recorded and the salesman gets CDs to pass out, so they can pass themselves off as legitimate financial advisers. Video, inside...

More »

elder abuse

GMAC And Car Dealership Scam Old Lady For Nearly $8,000

A volunteer in Chicago claims that her client, a 65-year-old woman with dementia, was given a GMAC auto loan for a new 2007 Pontiac, even though she only makes $900 a month and has no driver's license. Now the car has been repossessed and the car lot is saying she owes them nearly $8,000. More »

fur

Dog Fur Coats Sold By Dillards, Caché, ELUXURY, And DrJays

The Humane Society has just released the results from another round of tests on fur-trimmed products from national U.S. retailers, and in four cases they found that the advertised "raccoon" fur was actually "raccoon dog," a canine indigenous to Asia. This is one case where the FTC is squarely to blame for creating the problem in the first place, because in 1951 they decided that trade trumps scientific classification and declared "that this animal should be referred to as 'Asiatic raccoon' in advertising and labeling." More »

recalls

Cow Abuse Meatpacking Boss Reluctantly Admits To Tainting The Food Supply

The president of a slaughterhouse at the heart of the largest meat recall denied under oath on Wednesday, but then changed his mind, that his company introduced sick cows into the food supply, says the NYT. More »

evil

Payday Lenders Convince Elderly To Assign Social Security Checks To Them, Hand Back Allowances

This writer is quickly growing convinced that payday lenders are the modern version of indentured servitude, trapping consumers in cycles of debt that simply cannot be broken in their lifetimes. The Wall Street Journal published a story last week about payday lenders who make loans to the elderly and effectively take over their Social Security or disability payments, handing back whatever remains after they take their cut. Though it sounds like it should be illegal, payday loan companies are partnering with banks to pull this off.
More »

scams

Centura Bank Manager Steals $82,000 From Elderly Customer's Account

A Centura bank manager was arresetd on suspicion of defrauding an 86-year old man out of $82,000 from his bank account. Milton Hagelberger helped the old man set up his checkbook, then set up a second account under the old man's name and made himself an ATM card. The manager had the account statements mailed to an empty lot across the street from the bank so the man wouldn't see the missing money. The victim only found out about the fraud after he tried to cash a check and found he had insufficient funds. We're often worried about outside identity thieves stealing our moneys over the internet, but sometimes identity theft happens in the flesh, right in front of our face.

Bank Manager Fleeces Elderly Man [The Tampa Tribune] (Thanks to ForgottenPassword!)


sweatshops

How Often Do Companies Check On Overseas Manufacturers?

With the Gap embarrassed this week by reports that Indian children as young as 10 were making Gap Kids clothing, a lot of people are asking, just how frequently and to what degree do large U.S. companies like Gap and Wal-Mart monitor their foreign manufacturers? According to Slate, "anywhere from six months to once every several years." Unfortunately, because the visits are usually announced ahead of time, factories can hide violations, coach employees on what to say, get rid of the child workers, and forge records. In China, there are consultants who will prepare a factory for inspection, going so far as to fake missing records. More »

shipping

FedEx Could Have Kicked This Package Once More

[Utica, Michigan, July 20. Image via Nuxx.net]

Surprisingly, the infrared thermometer inside was not damaged.


loansharks

Daughter Stuck with Comatose Mom's Debt?

For those of you who enjoyed today's post on the woman who committed suicide after her husband was threatened with debtor's prison, here's another one up your bleak alley. More »

debt collection abuse

Discover's Debt Collectors' Threats Drive Woman To Suicide

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act starts out this way:
There is abundant evidence of the use of abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices by many debt collectors. Abusive debt collection practices contribute to the number of personal bankruptcies, to marital instability, to the loss of jobs, and to invasions of individual privacy.
One of the things debt collection leads to that is missing to the FDCPA's introduction is this: suicide. More »

telemarketing

infoUSA Calls "Unfair" NYT Article About How It Marketed Lists Of "Gullible" Seniors To Known Scammers,

Instead of atoning for their sins and begging for forgiveness, infoUSA, the firm that knowingly marketed lists of "gullible" seniors to known scammers, opted for a path of childish and defensive rebuttals: More »