• canon

    Canon's Rebate Program Is Blurry And Poorly Lit

    Brett has now been the victim of two failed rebate attempts through Canon. They ignored the first one, and rejected the second one with a claim that he can clearly disprove. He's trying again. Unfortunately, it looks like Brett's experience with Canon isn't unique. More »

    9:55 AM on Mon Sep 22 2008
    By Chris Walters
    7,849 views, 44 comments

    Most discussed FreemanB: I don't think a rebate can always be the basis of a chargeback, particularly since the rebate might be outside more »

  • bad company

    Company Bills Customer For Chargeback

    After Ilan successfully filed a chargeback on a company, the company decided to bill him directly for the amount that was refunded. What's even sneakier is the company (which Ilan didn't name) waited until after they reported the matter resolved to the Better Business Bureau. Now Ilan's wondering what options he has to fight back. More »

    1:29 PM on Tue May 27 2008
    By Chris Walters
    13,747 views, 85 comments

    Latest by smokinfoo: This was a pretty damn vague post. To me when someone is being vague they are not telling the entire more »

  • bad company

    This Online Pet Store Has Rabies

    On the surface, Hands-N-Paws caters to owners-n-their-dogs, but the company's real stock in trade is being hilariously rude to its customers. When someone asked them to cancel an order immediately, they wrote back, "No..not immediately, when we can get round to it." When another person threatened to report them to the Better Business Bureau, they wrote back, "File it. Blackmail gets you nowhere, honey." They even have a "Hall of Shame" on their website where they list the email addresses of customers they hate most of all. This is why we make all of our cats' clothing out of old newspaper. More »

    5:00 PM on Thu May 15 2008
    By Chris Walters
    11,682 views, 118 comments

    Latest by irid3sc3nt: @B: I agree. I've met several people that LOVE animals but could care less for humans. more »

  • bad company

    Royal Flowers Hikes Price After You Order Flowers For Mother's Day

    Ian in Pennsylvania says Royal Flowers tried to scam him on a recent bouquet purchase:

    With it being Mothers Day, I was shopping around for flowers to send to my mother. I checked the normal big sites since she lives in another state, like 1-800 flowers. I decided to check the local company I use, since they are always cheap and service is great. So I found a great piece significantly cheaper than the other sites. I place the order and everything is going great.

    Then I received the following email.

    More »

    12:46 PM on Sun May 11 2008
    By Chris Walters
    9,767 views, 24 comments

  • living wages

    Burger King Investigating Email Shenanigans In Tomato Price War

    Last week a Florida journalist busted Burger King VP Stephen Grover for using his tween-aged daughter's email account to slam a farm workers group—but that wasn't the only weird email event related to this story. Now Burger King is taking steps to officially distance itself from Grover's actions and the other internal emails by announcing it's launched an "internal investigation" into all three. More »

    9:16 AM on Tue May 6 2008
    By Chris Walters
    3,291 views, 5 comments

    Latest by nichomiz: I forgive you already BK. That Whopper is one tasty sandwich. more »

  • bad company

    Dunkin' Donuts Suing Its Own Small Franchisees Out Of Existence

    If your favorite Dunkin' Donuts shop is an individually-owned franchise and not part of a large group of stores, don't grow too attached to it, warns Cindy Gluck, a DD owner in Brooklyn. She claims DD corporate waits patiently for smaller franchisees to make any mistake at all, then strong-arms them out of business at a huge financial loss. The sheer number of lawsuits DD has aimed at small-time owners recently indicates that something unusual is going on:
    Dunkin' Donuts has sued other franchise owners 154 times since 2006. Over the same stretch of time, McDonald's was involved in five lawsuits. And Subway, a company that has four times the number of locations as Dunkin' Donuts, sued its franchises 12 times.
    More »

    8:54 PM on Wed Apr 30 2008
    By Chris Walters
    11,558 views, 72 comments

    Latest by juggler314: What I can't understand is how this makes sense. Suing small owners out of business doesn't prevent existing large owners more »

  • living wages

    Burger King Exec Hides Behind Daughter's Email Account To Trash Talk Opponents

    The next time Burger King VP Stephen Grover goes online to spread FUD about labor advocates, he should probably leave his daughter out of it. For one thing, she's a horrible accomplice and will spill her guts to the first reporter who calls. For another thing, this forthrightness clearly makes her too ethical to smear a group that's trying to bring pay for tomato pickers up to living wage levels. More »

    2:14 PM on Tue Apr 29 2008
    By Chris Walters
    11,201 views, 74 comments

    Latest by 2719: If they don't like the pay they need to find another job. At least that's something I would do. I more »

  • bad company

    EMI Says You Can't Store Your Music Files Online

    Today, MP3tunes' CEO Michael Robertson sent out an email to all users of the online music backup and place-shifting service MP3tunes.com, asking them to help publicize EMI's ridiculous and ignorant lawsuit against the company. EMI believes that consumers aren't allowed to store their music files online, and that MP3tunes is violating copyright law by providing a backup service. (And we're not using a euphemism here—it really is a backup/place-shifting service and not a file sharing site in disguise.) More »

    5:40 PM on Tue Apr 22 2008
    By Chris Walters
    34,554 views, 42 comments

    Latest by gbmatty: Let's put some of the Music Industry's greatest blunders into perspective; Whether it was putting rootkits on CD's to hair-metal, more »

  • follow-up

    Follow-Up: Citibank Steps In, Forces Sears To Remove The $1070 Charge

    Tom just sent us a follow-up to yesterday's post, and it's good news:
    Score another one for The Consumerist!
     
    This morning I contacted Sears' Executive Customer Service Department. They attempted to contact the store manager on my behalf. I stress "attempted" because they were hung up on too.

    More »

    6:42 PM on Tue Apr 15 2008
    By Chris Walters
    17,458 views, 59 comments

    Latest by jennilee13: I am compelled to add to this story in case anyone gets the wrong impression that the Citibank side of more »

  • fraud

    Sears Refuses To Refund $1070 For TV They Never Delivered

    Update: one day after being posted here, the issue has been resolved. Sears strikes again! They sold Tom a TV for $1,070 on Black Friday last November. "Of course, it wasn't in stock but they assured me that they could order it," he writes. They were never able to deliver it, however, so finally Tom arranged for a similar discount on another TV and bought that one instead.
     
    Now it's four and half months later, and Sears still won't remove the charge for the original out-of-stock TV from Tom's Sears Card.
    More »

    12:43 PM on Mon Apr 14 2008
    By Chris Walters
    43,485 views, 71 comments

    Latest by rickg57: After reading about "Tom's" problem with Sears and a television purchase, I thought I'd let you know about a similar more »