Chris, who purchased his tickets weeks in advance, tried calling Megabus' 800 number:

I called the 877 toll free Megabus number listed with 800 information. Calling that number - the one listed on the Megabus site - I got a recorded message stating that "information pertaining to this number has changed." If I wanted the number, "say yes." I said yes, and it sent me a text (for which I get charged 15 cents by my carrier). This is the text message verbatim, from 23333:

"Reply Y now to get info on the # you are trying to reach. Locator Svc $9.99/month + std msg fees for 20 lookups/month.
Support/Terms?
www.smsvw.com"

Megabus is a shell company that contracts service to subsidiaries. Chris noticed that the bus driver was wearing a 76 Carriage Company shirt, so he tried calling them next.

The dispatcher apologized for the driver's claim that he didn't know how I could call anyone. He offered to send a 76 shuttle that they usually use for hotel guests to get us to 6th & Market, and promised to call the driver's cell phone to hold the bus until we could get there. He repeated, however, that we still weren't getting on the bus if there weren't two empty seats after they filled up at 6th. This is the best deal I could swing after having a several-minute argument with 76 about what the word "reservation" means.

This, of course, also meant that a whole bus of people had to sit at 6th & Market for no reason. The bus driver, we learned from our friends on the bus, led people to believe that we were the hold-up!

We figured that if nothing else, we could get taken back home or closer to home on 76's dime if this didn't pan out. The shuttle driver was polite and professional.

As it turns out, there were about five empty seats. We rode that bus to NY, leaving about 20 minutes late. Had the bus been full or just had one seat open, our day - a day that a few people took off from work to enjoy, having booked the trip a month earlier - would have been shot. We also had to jaw at a few fellow passengers who were led to believe that we were somehow making them late.

We don't expect much from Chinatown bus companies or their competitors aside from a seat, but apparently even that is too much to ask for sometimes.

Megabus megasucks; just take NJ Transit or Chinatown buses [QuizMasterChris' Trivia Pub Quiz Blog & Infoporium]
(Photo: Wikipedia)

Blint explained that photography wasn't allowed, even though Hawk had confirmed that it was, and then asked two security guards to escort Hawk out.

MOMA's website states:

Cameras
Photography is not permitted in the galleries. Flash photography is permitted only with a handheld camera in the Atrium.

So Thomas must have been in the galleries, right? Why else would they kick him out. Well, let's look at the picture he took:

Oh.
Ok, then he had to be using something other than a handheld camera. A fancy camera, one with a tripod and a flash.

I was not shooting with a tripod. I was not shooting with a flash. I was being quiet and respectful of the area and the other patrons.

Blint on the other hand was hostile, accusatory and refused to even examine my photographs or allow me to share with him what I was doing with my art. He accused me of using a "telephoto" lens to spy on his staff from the public staircase on the second floor. Blint obviously knows nothing of photography because the 14mm ultra wide angle lens on my camera body was about the furthest thing possible from a telephoto lens. He refused to discuss this, refused to examine my photographs, refused to consider it at all and simply had me ejected with two security guards.

[...]

I believe that I was very much targeted in this case because I was using a digital SLR. There were plenty of people taking photographs of the atrium using point and shoots that Simon did not target, but I think that it was the fact that I was using a larger DSLR that made me a target. Rather than try to understand what I and my art were about Simon felt the smarter way to deal with the situation was simply to kick me out of his museum.

Tell us, our charmingly creative commenters, what would be the best way for Simon Blint to apologize to Thomas?

Update: A witness chimes in over at SFist:

I was at the museum on Friday and saw this whole thing go down. Thomas Hawk's account of what happened is unabashedly one-sided. What he neglects to mention is that he was standing on a balcony with his camera pointed down, aiming directly into the shirt/cleavage of one of the female employees working at the museum. Simon Blint asked Thomas Hawk to stop taking photos in order to protect his staff from a creepy perv, not because he was using a dSLR or for whatever BS reason Thomas Hawk claims.

If true, then Blint's actions would be entirely appropriate. Whichever poor soul handles communications for SFMOMA should be able to provide needed clarification tomorrow morning.

Simon Blint, Director of Visitor Relations at the SF MOMA, Yeah You Asshole, Photography is Not a Crime [Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection]
(Photo: Thomas Hawk)

She writes:

I show up on Friday, surrounded by people with iPhone issues (dude, I’d totally be on that bandwagon if they hadn’t contracted with AT&T, but that’s another story). My personal Genius said yep, you need a new battery and OF COURSE they were completely out of stock. I state, somewhat irately (the first Genius wasn’t really that nice and blamed me for not checking on the stock on Wednesday), that it needed to be done, please call the King of Prussia store - anywhere from here to Delaware - and get me the part and an appointment. He stated that he didn’t have time to help me and grabbed the man who eventually become my Apple Store savior - Dan in the black shirt.

Thank god for black shirt Dan. After hearing my sob story about the stresses of moving across the country (I know - I’m moving to freaking paradise, finally going to grad school, and getting a dog… my life is soooooo tough), he called KOP (who OF COURSE also didn’t have the part). Sensing that I had completely given up hope (literally, head down on my Fat City Reprise purse, completely dejected, and wondering how many times I’d hear Miley Cyrus on shuffle all on my Nano), Dan vowed to figure something out. I expected, I guess, that maybe they would forward my info to the Apple Store in Boulder and hook me up or maybe let me purchase a replacement 30GB (since they no longer sell them) for the price of the repair.

I was offered neither of those options. I saw the Holy Grail of ridiculously amazing customer service.

Since there were no 30GB iPods in stock (OF COURSE!!!), I was going to be given a brand spanking new 80GB iPod for the price of the repair. Holy shit. Insane - I don’t even have enough music to fill that. I looked at Dan and tried to not cry, which freaked him out I think, because he got that “Oh Christ, please don’t freak out” look on his face. I assured him that I was thrilled, just because shit like this doesn’t ever happen to me and I had been super-stressed out. He then made it better by telling me that it would be easier if they charged me nothing. NOTHING.

Because Apple cares about their customers, I got an 80GB iPod for free.

Great work, Apple!

Steve Jobs Knows Customer Service [Randomn3ss]
(Photo: Getty)

There I am going pee in Wendy's by my office when a Wendy's employee comes into the bathroom and goes into the stall to pee. I wash my hands, dry them and exit as I hear a flush. I get about 3 seconds out of the bathroom and guess who comes out of the bathroom! I'm in gross shock at this point but I think "Ok maybe he's going on break and he will wash after he smokes ones..."WRONG! He not only went behind the counter he started handling fries! So what do I do? "Excuse me, I would like to see your manager.""Um Larry, this guy wants you!... I don't know he wants a manager!"Larry the manager comes to the counter and about 5 employees are eyes glued! Including Mr. Dirty Hands Fry-man."Yeah that guy right there working the fries with the mustache, he was just in the bathroom at the same time I was and he left without washing his hands."

The room fell SILENT!

About 6 people were standing at the counter waiting for their food, plus 10 people sitting close enough to hear this, plus the onlooking employees, INCLUDING Mr. Dirty Hands Fry-man.Now Mr. Dirty Hands Fry-man had this look on his face that can only be explained as a look that said "YOU SON OF A !!!" Without actually saying a word. Fearing he might come over the counter or throw something at my head I bid them farewell. "I'll just go to Burger King." I watched over my shoulder the whole way and I am pleased to say that I saw a couple of familiar faces at Burger King a few minutes later.

Chalk one up for customers!

Sure, he could have spoken privately to the manager to handle it more discreetly. Or filed a complaint with the Health Inspector. But I'll bet you every worker at that Wendy's washes their hands after using the bathroom now.

Reminds me of a scene from a Seinfeld episode:

Health Inspector: Are you Poppie?
POPPIE: I'm Poppie.
Health Inspector: I think you'd better come with me.
POPPIE: What's the problem?
(Poppie leaves with the Health Inspector)
AUDREY: What do they want from Poppie?
JERRY: Well, Poppie's a little sloppy.

See? Not quite as dramatic.

Mr. Dirty-hands Fry-man [Where is everybody???]

The Internet Explorer developer's forum has developed one solution:

Here is the fix for users of IE 6 and 7 who are getting the "operation aborted" message.

Follow These Steps Exactly:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click on the menu Tools -> Internet Options.
3. Click on the tab Security.
4. Click on the icon Restricted Sites.
5. Click on the button Sites.
6. Under Add this website to the zone:
   Type the text ‘ *.sitemeter.com ’ (with asterisk and dot & without the quotes).
7. Click the Add button. Click Close. Click OK.

All sites will work again without error messages coming up.

IE users can also bypass the Sitemeter bug by accessing sites through RSS. Here are our feeds:

• Full Content (with ads)
• Partial Content (no ads)
• Comments

• Ben Popken
• Meghann Marco
• Chris Walters
• Jay Slatkin
• Carey Greenberg-Berger

Worst of all, Sitemeter hasn't acknowledged the problem. Patching the bug and pretending this never happened isn't a winning damage control strategy. We don't need a lengthy explanation, but "Whoops, we broke the internet," would be nice.

Web Sites Using SiteMeter Are Crashing with Internet Explorer [Wired]
Re: Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site - Operation aborted [MSDN Forums]
Firefox [Mozilla]

[via BudgetTravel] (Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

Here are several representative snippets:

"I have two preschoolers (ages 2 and 4) and this pool is just the right size for them."

"It is the worst product I'd ever bought from Toys R US and I'll never go to Six Flags! Don't buy it."

"One person can't slide down the slide while one person is in the pool let alone have 2 people sitting in it! The slide is so small and when you turn on the hose to let the sprinklers come down the orange top collapses and has no use!"

"As every one else has said this pool is tiny maybe good for 1 or 2 toddlers. Picture on the front is NOT accurate. A 6 year old can't go down the slide with his legs out because they hit the wall. My 3 year old hardly fit. Buy a sprinkler for $5.00 my kids had more fun with that."

The box admonishes buyers "product may not be as appears on image;" a gross understatement for a gross distortion.

SPIN SPIN SPIN [Popper Font] (Thanks to Paul!)
Banzai Complete Water Park [Amazon]
(Photo: davehwng)

Ely used the material from our posts and used it to break his ETF without fee. Now he gathers together all that information into easily-digested video format (he's also blogged it (posts 1, 2, 3).

This video talks about Verizon, but most of the tactics can be applied to every national cellphone carrier. Just lookup the relevant verbiage in your contract and replace it with what Ely quotes.

Video Tutorial: How to Get Out of Your Verizon Contract Without an Early Termination Fee [Crastinate]

TmoNews says, "It sounds like these plans will be very similar, if not the same, to T-mobile’s current offerings of individual, or family time plans, with or without MyFaves." For new customers, this will mean that, if you buy from Tmobile, you will have to pay full retail price for your new cellphone. Unless there's some caveat against it, it would be smart though to buy your phone off eBay or convert pay-as-you-go Walmart-style phone to the month-to-month plan. There will also be an activation fee. But at least there will be no early termination fee.

Thumbs up to Tmobile on this one, even though it's probably just a placating gesture in advance of the FCC ruling on ETFs. Hopefully the other carriers will follow suit with similar placating gestures.

T-mobile Introduces Month to Month Contracts [TmoNews] (Thanks to Scott!)

If your flight is canceled or you're given a wrong connection, the airline might have to put you on another flight for free, even if it's on another airline. Airfarewatchdog blog has put together a handy table to help you tell which airlines follow these procedures, and to what degree. They also have links to the contracts of carriage for the airlines that have them posted online. Handy to check if you're covered before booking, and also good to print out and bring with you to the airport just in case you need to invoke your rights and the airline employee has forgotten their own policies.

Rule 240 Revisited [Airfarewatchdog Blog]

Chris only noticed the massive withdrawals after the police arrested the thief.

They said they caught this guy at BestBuy trying to use somebody else’s credit card to buy a whole bunch of computers. Apparently BestBuy’s register system pops up an alert code if there is somebody trying to use a card that has been reported lost or stolen, and they call the cops. Impressive. The police caught the guy red handed. With drugs. And paraphernalia. And a bunch of people’s personal information.

At the time, I thought they got the sucker before he could do any real damage. But just to be safe, I checked with Bank of America. I was shocked to see my account was overdrawn by almost $300. Last I checked, I had almost 40k in there.

A quick review turned up 5 suspicious transactions. Two were deposits, and three were withdrawals. All five transactions occurred *inside* five different Bank of America banking centers. What amazed me most is the final two transactions. A withdrawal of 26k. And later that day, another withdrawal of 12.5k. Way to spot suspicious activity Bank of America. They handed the guy almost 40k in cash in one day.

Turns out the first two transactions where not just deposits. They were checks written to me, Christopher Hooley. The first one was $6200. The guy kept $5k and left $1200 in my account. The next one was a day later at a different center for $7500. Again, the guy kept $5k. I saw the debit slip online, and this guy’s signature wasn’t even a remote attempt to copy mine. To make matters worse, it turns out he was forging checks from another valley business, who subsequently called the police on ME!

Great work protecting your customers, Bank of America!

Way to Spot Suspicious Activity Bank of America [Chris Hooley's - ThinkBait-]
(Photo: Getty)

JD at Get Rich Slowly also shares his wife's personal money saving trick:

For several years, Kris has been rounding every transaction up to the next dollar in her checkbook. If she spends $49.74 at the grocery store, she enters this in her checkbook as $50. If she spends $33.13 on gas, she enters it as $34. As a result, she saves an average of 50 cents every time she performs a transaction. In 2-1/2 years, Kris saved an extra $500 using this method. That's enough to treat herself to something nice.

There are many different tricks people use to save money — from the very low-tech "saving change in a jar" to the bit more sophisticated "automatic payroll deduction." The key seems to be in finding something that works for the specific individual — something he can stick with over the long haul. As long as the saver remains committed to the trick, almost any method seems destined to succeed.

Do you have any unusual ways you trick yourself into saving money?

Turning $5 into Thousands [Get Rich Slowly]

— FREE MONEY FINANCE

(Photo: bethography)

1960s ad for rice [BoingBoing]

As Upgrade: Travel Better and Elliot.org point out, it's just another way to try to recoup costs without having to increase the "landing price," the upfront price shoppers see when they first encounter a merchant's offer.

There are two ways around the fee. You can either purchase your Spirit airlines tickets at the airport, or you can buy them on Orbitz. There's no "web convenience fee" for Spirit Airline tickets bought on Orbitz, and Orbitz's fee is less than Spirit's. Let's just hope the other obsessively copycat airlines don't pick this one up too.

Below, Spirit Airlines verbiage for the fee.

Convenience Fee of $5.00 per traveling customer per one way travel applies to all reservations with the exception of those bookings created directly at Spirit Airlines’ airport locations. All fares are subject to change until confirmed and purchased.

Money talks, B.S. flies [Upgrade: Travel Better]
Watch out — Spirit is socking passengers with surprise fees! [Elliot.org]

(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

1. Shop With A Timer: Avoid wasteful and expensive browsing by marching into stores with firm deadlines. Looking for a single item? Remind yourself it's time to leave by setting your cellphone to ring after five minutes.

2. Reward Your Effort: Need a little extra motivation to research that insurance you should have bought months ago? "Just like diet and exercise, slogging through the details of dreaded, uninteresting purchase decisions is hard work and requires some investment of time and energy. Set up the amount of time as well as the actual time, such as 2:30-3:00 p.m. on Sunday, that you will solely use to focus on evaluating the purchase details. Note this in your calendar along with a "treat" for sticking to the details and honoring your time commitment. Knowing that you have a reward for a job "well done" (or at least, "done") will help motivate you through the nitty-gritty of this kind of shopping situation."

3. Enlist An Expert: Alpha Consumer recommends enlisting an expert before making a large purchase, paying for outside help if necessary. Most of the "expert advice" available for sale is already hiding on the internet. Don't open your wallet without first training to become an armchair expert.

3 Ways to Be a Smarter Shopper [Alpha Consumer]
(Photo: goodrob13)

#1: Build it before you need it
#2: You must make a deposit before you have the right to withdraw
#3: Give more than you receive
#4: Be open and genuine
#5: Follow up and stay in touch
#6: The devil is in the details
#7: Your network doesn't end with your contact

Using these principles, the writer had two job offers within a week of being fired. Within two weeks he had settled on one of them — ending up with a promotion from a better company despite the hard economic times.

His take: developing a solid network offers wonderful job security.

What's your take?

Network Your Way to Job Security [Get Rich Slowly]

— FREE MONEY FINANCE

Jeff Simmermon's blog:

I just ordered my usual summertime pick-me-up: a triple shot of espresso dumped over ice. And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here. It’s against our policy.”

The whole world turned brown and chunky for a second. Flecks of corn floated past my pupils, and it took me a second to blink it all away.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please.” He rolled his eyes and rang it up, took my money, gave me change. I stood there and waited. Then the barista called me over to the bar. I reached for it, and he leaned over and locked his eyes with mine, saying “Hey man. What you’re about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay.”

Blah blah blah, then Jeff ordered a second cup of coffee and left a dollar tip in the tip jar scrawled with the phrase, "Fuck you and your precious coffee policy."

The story got picked up on BoingBoing and Metafilter, with commenters chiming in.

The net blowup prompted the store owner to blog the following:

Okay, we don't do espresso over ice. Why? Number one, because we don't do it. Number two, because we don't do it. Mostly for quality reasons. Also, because more than half the time, it's abused (Google "ghetto latte").

To Mr. Simmermon, you overplayed your hand with your vulgar tip-schtick. While I certainly won't bemoan you your right to free-speech, I have to respond to you in your own dialect: Fuck you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you'll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I'll punch you in your dick.

Respectfully,
Nick
Owner, murky coffee

Nick also posted some answers to the most frequently asked questions people were leaving on the blog:

We've got quite a few comments in the moderation-queue, and in a departure from normal procedures, I won't be approving and posting them all. Why? If you want to spew garbage on the internet, get your own blog.

I will, however, respond here to a few legitimate questions that some folks asked.

Q. What's wrong with "espresso over ice?"
Answer: Espresso is a fairly volatile thing, and when it hits ice, it seems to go through a chemical change that we can't fully explain (and I haven't seen a good explanation within our industry quite yet). It does appear to have something to do with ascorbic acid, but when we make our iced americanos (espresso + water + ice), we pour the shots into room-temperature water before adding the ice. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. Pouring espresso over ice creates unpleasantly acrid flavors.

Somewhat similarly, when we make our iced coffee, we go through the trouble of brewing it double-strength directly onto ice. If you brew coffee normally and then pour the hot coffee over ice, it results in unpleasant flavors. Making iced-coffee the way that we do seems to preserve a lot of the unique flavors from the coffees we're brewing (unlike the popular "Toddy" method of cold-brewing for iced coffee), and yields a great drink overall. Again, not entirely sure why the different technique yields such different results, but it does. If we put the coffee through two slits, it'd probably act all confusingly then too.

The second and more mundane reason has to do with the infamous "ghetto latte." More than half of the customers who we gave "iced espresso" to (back before our now infamous policy) would take that cup to the condiment bar and pour 8-14 ounces of milk out of the dairy pitcher, effectively taking advantage of a perceived loophole in the "system." Just as buying a cup of coffee doesn't entitle you to take a pound's worth of sugar packets home with you to put into your jar at home, this "ghetto latte" practice was pretty disheartening and distracting to the baristas. Call it our "infield fly rule," but "no espresso over ice" became our policy in 2006.

Q. Why do you allow "iced americanos," but not iced espresso?
Answer: See answer above.

Q. But why would David, the barista in question, "Hey, what you’re about to do-that’s really, really not okay?"
Because we have our policy, and David was trying to support it, even though the other barista who rang this customer up gave in and gave him "a double espresso and a cup of ice," which, to be frank, the baristas aren't supposed to do.

Q. Why did you threaten the guy with violence? That's not cool!
Maybe you're right. But if someone posts on the internet "the only way I’m ever coming back to Murky Coffee in Arlington is if I’m carrying matches and a can of kerosene" as this dude did, I will, without remorse, post publicly that I will defend our property, even with violence. Yeah, what I wrote was ridiculous. A ridiculous response to a ridiculous statement... at least I hope so. If not, I hope his dick is at least big enough to punch.

Q. The customer is always right
Yeah, that's true. Actually, nevermind. It's bullshit.

Every customer is a welcome guest. But even welcome guests can overstep their bounds, and demanding that we give you something that we say that we can't or won't is overstepping your bounds for sure. I can pretty much guarantee that we spend more time and energy on making our espresso as great as can be, than anyone else in the DC area. That said, not everyone's gonna love it. Such is life. We have our standards. You're more than welcome to partake in it, and you're completely free not to. We'll keep doing our best (and that includes giving good customer service).

This all leads to a whole thing about consumerism that I've been ranting about for years, but this is neither the time nor place for that.

I will add that it is our internal policy that I support my employees, even when they make mistakes. In this case, David wasn't perfect, but he tried to do the right thing. For the Simmermon-dude to write that crap on that dollar bill waived his rights to any civility. Dish it out, then take it. Mr. Simmermon is a big boy. He doesn't need the blogosphere coming to his defense.

Q. Get over it. It's just coffee.
You're absolutely right. Everyone go home and call your mother and tell her you love her. Afterwards, understand that it is "just coffee" after all. However, coffee is our job. That's all. No more, no less.

Thanks for all the comments and emails (for the record, about 40% supportive, 20% critical, and about 40% ignorant and ridiculous... but that's the nature of the sandbox that we blog in, no?).

-Nick Cho, owner

Unless the shop makes the customers sign an EULA, they can't control what people decide to do with their products after they're sold. After that, you just have 3 dicks in a dick-measuring contest. Congrats, you're all winners.

(Photo: Guy Noir)
(Thanks to Jason and Ben!)

Some construction work was ongoing in the neighborhood, and it disrupted the underground cable services. Verizon and the electric provider fixed their wires within a day. Cablevision couldn't figure out how to fix their underground wiring, so they proceeded to run a coaxial cable out of the pedestal on my front property, up a tree in my front yard, where it was tied on with some copper wire, thrown across the street, tied to a lamppost head again with copper wire, dropped back down the lamppost, into another pedestal. It sat like this for well over a month and Cablevision insisted there was nothing they could do about it...

I made three service appointments to fix it and each time I was told my picture quality was fine. I eventually got them to fix it by lying through my teeth that I was about to cut down my tree. There was absolutely no lighting protection, and in addition there were exposed conductors from the previous underground installation hanging out right in the open. But also, no one from Cablevision ever asked to use my tree as an ad-hoc telephone pole, and in fact, when they were installing the wire in the tree, one of the technicians gave us a hard time about accessing our own driveway. Am I surprised? Not at all. But I did promise Cablevision I was going to get them some press over it.

Happy to oblige.

Cul-de-sac’s Cut Cable Causes Cablevision Craziness

For users of Profiles, I have good news to report: we will keep the feature with no plans to discontinue it.

We were persuaded by the well-reasoned, sincere responses of loyal members who very much value this feature. As someone who enjoys helping his four-year-old daughter manage her one-DVD-at-a-time, G-rated sub-account, I identified with these thoughtful pleas to maintain Profiles.

Because of an ongoing desire to make our website easier to use, we believed taking a feature away that is only used by a very small minority would help us improve the site for everyone. Listening to our members, we realized that users of this feature often describe it as an essential part of their Netflix experience. Simplicity is only one virtue and it can certainly be outweighed by utility.

As for improving Profiles, there are no definite plans in place yet, but, like everything at Netflix, we seek to make it better and we are open to suggestions. Non-users of the feature and new members will be able to access Profiles in 2-3 weeks. Existing users will be able to continue their use, uninterrupted.

We apologize for any inconvenience the previous announcement caused.

Enjoy.

-Todd

Emails from Consumerist readers sharing the good news hit our mailbox moments after the news was released. Here's how some of our readers are reacting:

Rick: "Sounds like Netflix got the message. Personally, I never used profiles, but it's nice to see that they are willing to say, OK, we made you mad, so we're going to make things right. I like the tone of this message — not too sappy, silly, or over-apologetic. Most companies insult your intelligence one way or another with their apologies."

Sonya: "Yay!"

Keith: "Netflix does take us seriously :)"

Di: "I wonder how many people have already sold thier soul to Blockbuster over this. Oh well."

Steven: "We win I guess!"

Profiles feature NOT going away [Netflix Community Blog] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
PREVIOUSLY: Netflix Eliminates User Profiles, Infuriates Customers
(Photo: Maulleigh)

As an idea, risk-based pricing isn't all that bad: consumers pay for credit based on their risk. But with credit cards, only interest rates and late fees are arguably "risk-based."

Interest rates are a terrible way to counter risk. Responsible cardholders never carry balances, so fiddling with their interest rates mean nothing. Kicking consumers with retroactive penalty APRs means that creditors failed to properly assess the risk in the first place; if creditors were truly risk based, they would respond to increased risk by slashing credit lines.

Late fees are equally terrible. Most creditors have three tiers of late fees. It doesn't matter if you're late by one hour or one month, even though the two clearly show different degrees of risk.

Or as Levitin puts it:

Suffice it to say that it is a real stretch to say that credit card pricing overall is risk-based; certain elements of card pricing are partially risk-based, but many are not. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence connecting the advent of risk-based pricing to lower costs of credit to creditworthy consumers or greater credit availability to subprime borrowers. There is a study that correlates late fees and overlimit fees with banks' aggregate cardholder risk, as well as with banks' market power, but there is no research connecting fee levels, which are often one-size fits all, with individual cardholder risk. The putative benefits of risk-based pricing depend on pricing being sensitive to individual level, not aggregate level risk, so that low risk cardholders don't subsidize high risk cardholders.

In any case, the benefits that the card industry attributes to risk-based pricing are explained at least as well by other factors: lower costs of funds explain lower interest rates to creditworthy consumers (issuers’ annual net interest margin has been fairly static for the last two decades), and securitization is at least as good of an explanation for the expansion in subprime lending.

So why do credit card companies pretend to use risk-based pricing? To evade government regulation. Professor Levitin makes a convincing six-point case for the government to lasso creditors with powerful regulations, but we'll let you read the full paper for yourself to see why.

The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights [Credit Slips]
All But Accurate: A Critique of the American Bankers Association's Study on Credit Card Regulation [SSRN]
(Photo: Getty)

Normally, you have to swipe your Costco Card or the American Express Costco TrueEarnings card in order to authenticate in their gas station systems. It appears that you can simply use any American Express card in the authentication phase because the American Express Costco TrueEarnings card is just an AMEX with a Costco bar code.

The trick definitely works in Maryland, but not in New Jersey or Oregon. Would you fill your tank at Costco, or are the ethical considerations enough to keep you at your local station?

Buy Costco Gas without Costco Membership [Blueprint for Financial Prosperity]



(Photo: beebo wallace)

My wife let out a full-throated scream that I've only really heard in my nightmares when she is being carried off by a giant squid or something and both of my legs have been cut off and I can't help her...she bent over, her trembling hands on her knees and spit out what was in her mouth onto the floor...my wife's box of Goobers was ALIVE and crawling with maggots...I peered inside the box and saw lumpen, misshapen Goobers with maggots or some kind of larvae crawling everywhere.

Naturally, the blogger took a video, available in all its disgusting glory, inside...

Nestle's Maggoty Goobers [SAVANNAH RED] (Thanks to Rob Walker!)

• CreditKarma.com: Gives you your TransUnion score. Advertising-supported.
• E-Loan: Experian score. Scroll down to "One-Time Credit Snapshots" and "Free Credit Score (Credit Score Only)"
• Prosper: Experian score. Information on how to do it here.
• LendingClub: Gives you a letter grade score, which you can use this chart to translate to a numerical score.
• Washington Mutual Credit Cards: Get your Transunion score when you log in.

• Another way these are useful is that if you check in periodically and keep track of the results, you can see how your score fluctuates and try to correlate its delta with any credit-related actions you took during that time. But, if you're shopping for a loan or a mortgage, you will definitely want to pony up the cash and get your real FICO score.

  [via MyMoneyBlog]

73% - Crude oil
11% - Federal and state taxes
10% - Refining costs and profits
6% - Distribution and marketing

He's also got a cool graph showing how this ratio has changed from 2001-2008.

What Goes Into the Price of Gas? [FiveCentNickel]

(Photo: amyadoyzie)

(Brag) New York to Toronto Bus Ticket for $2! [Ready to shop with Nico?]

(Photo: Getty)

Envelope System Video Tutorial (Step By Step Guide To Using The Envelope System To Manage Your Cash) [No Credit Needed]

RELATED: Dave Ramsey's Envelope System [Dave Ramsey]

Comcast Treats M-Card as Two CableCARDs, Bills Accordingly [Christopher Price]

All of the ceiling fans we recently tested run clockwise to blow air downward and have a switch that you flip to reverse the motion of the blade. During warm weather, you run the fan clockwise to create a breeze that cools you—that’s the wind-chill effect, the same cool breeze you feel when you roll down the window in a moving car.

Many ceiling-fan manufacturers—and various Web sites out there—suggest that you run the ceiling fan counterclockwise when the weather is cold and the heat is on in your home. The idea is that the fan mixes the warm air collecting at the ceiling and moves it back down into the perimeter of room, creating a higher average room temperature and less need for heat.

If the blades are spinning counterclockwise, then you're doing it wrong, and the fan is circulating warmer air. You want the blades to rotate clockwise, generating a relaxing breeze to help ward off this miserable !@#$% heat.

Q&A: Which direction should the blades on my ceiling fan rotate?
(Photo: ewen and donabel)

I’ve been in supermarkets where a couple of skinless, boneless chicken breasts cost MORE than a whole chicken. Wouldn’t it make sense to buy the whole bird, trim out the breasts (30 seconds, once you’ve done it a couple of times) and throw the rest away if it will cost less than buying two cutlets?...Does your family like nice boneless centercut porkchops? Buy a whole boneless pork loin and cut into 1″ slices. You can even wrap them in plastic film and freeze them for use later. By being your own butcher, you’ll enjoy great quality meat at probably two-thirds the price of anything you would buy pre-cut.

Makes sense to us, especially after seeing this investigation on how chicken is packed with extra water so they can charge you more. Just get a good set of knives and get slicing and dicing. You can also save by cutting and marinating your own meats, and making your own bacon.

Sharpen Knife, Slash Your Food Costs [Cheap Stingy Bargains] (Thanks to Marilyn!)

(Photo: seventime)

* A sabbatical is a one-time event. Mini-retirements are meant to recur throughout a lifetime.
* A vacation is short, and often involves a tourist lifestyle with little immersion in a new way of life. A mini-retirement is long (one to six months), and allows one to fully participate in his new environment.

The first question that pops up in most people's minds when considering such an issue is "how would I be able to afford it?" Ferriss actually claims that taking mini-retirements improves your finances:

"I think one assumption that [you're making] is that you spend and not save money on a mini-retirement. Let me offer a personal example. The personal stories in the book are mostly from experiences I had between 2004 and early 2006, traveling around the world for about 18 months. During the first twelve month period of time, I actually saved $32,000 when compared to sitting on my couch watching The Simpsons in my apartment in the Bay Area.

So if I saved $32,000 by taking a mini-retirement to Panama or to Argentina or to Thailand, and I do that once a year, that's an additional $32,000 that I can invest into a 401(k) or a Roth IRA or a profit-sharing plan...You end up at break-even, but had a mini-retirement to Thailand and you have an additional $32,000."

Lots to consider. Is the definition of retirement changing? If so, is it moving towards what Ferriss suggests or the (more likely) delay of traditional retirement due to rising healthcare costs? And what about the concept of taking more time off during your work years while you're young and can enjoy it? Sounds like a good idea, but can doing so be a break-even proposition financially or can you (almost unbelievably) actually earn/save more while taking mini-retirements? What's your take on the issues?

How to Take a Mini-Retirement: Tips and Tricks from Timothy Ferriss [Get Rich Slowly]

— FREE MONEY FINANCE

(Photo: saramarie)

AT&T settles suit over 3rd-party cell phone fees [AP via MrConsumer]
(Photo: Getty)

Upon boarding this flight, my [spouse] was assigned seat 24E. Upon reaching the seat, the gentleman in seat 24F indicated that seat 24E was soaked and that it smelled badly. That kept [my spouse] from immediately sitting in the seat. In fact, the seat was soaked with urine. The flight attendant's solution was to put a couple of blankets and a plastic bag on the seat. [Your passenger] literally sat in a urine soaked seat (the seat belt was soaked also) for the duration of this 2 hour flight! [There] was offered no compensation, no alternative seating, nothing.

... I believe that, at a minimum, we are entitled to a full refund of [my spouse's] ticket for that flight. Once the flight attendant was made aware of the situation, something should have been done. Seat cushions switched out, [offer of] another seat (except the plane was full), or...offered an alternative flight. I look forward to your quick resolution of this appalling situation.

This is what happens when crews are under the knife to turn over the airplane between flights with enough time for a thorough cleaning, or, in this case, the construction of a vacuum-sealed hazmat quarantine. The story is disgusting, and so is the crew's indifference and jerry-rigged solution. The only thing I can remember that tops it is Continental Airlines flight 1970 from Amsterdam to New Jersey on Thursday, June 14, 2007, where the toilets overflowed and streamed down the aisles. And in December '07, AirTran let a lady traveling to Boston sit in a seat that was similarly anointed. She got her airfare and the cost of her clothing refunded.

Personally, I would have refused to sit down and insisted on getting booked on the next flight. Still, that passenger definitely deserves a free ticket voucher and a hell of an apology.

Airline flight became more than a piddling matter [Fort Wayne Observed]
(Photo: JohnKit)

From Jared's blog,

Since today was Katie’s last day at Levelland ISD she wanted to go out for a quick dinner and drinks. We went to Chilis because she had a few coupons for free chips and salsa. Well, we were both munching on the chips and we picked one up and lo and behold what do we find? This “volume” knob, or at least what I thought was a volume knob.

Once our waiter came back we pointed it out to him not wanting them to have to forgo listening to music in the back. Their manager pointed out that it was one of the temperature control knobs for the the chip warmer.

I guess it was ok since we didn’t pay for the chips anyways.

We imagine that Chili's knob-chips would taste great with their funky chunky sour cream. Ask your server for details.

David wanted a refurbished unit to test-run iPhone applications he was developing for work. AT&T gave him a a mishmash of conflicting information after he placed his order. One CSR said the unit would ship that day. Five days later, another CSR said the unit would ship within 3 days, but that was also wrong, and the package shipped that night with DHL.

DHL delivered the package the next day:

My wife calls to tell me she found the DHL delivery, but it's not a box. It's a shipping envelope. She asks if she should open it. I tell her please do.

"It's just a bag."
"It's a what?"
"It's a bag. It's an empty plastic bag."
"Well, um, er, is there anything else in the package at all? A note or anything?"
"There's a shipping label. But this is just a bag like you'd get if you bought something in their store."

When David called for an explanation, a supervisor explained that "there was a memo telling him that refurbished iPhone shipments had a technical glitch in shipping and would be delayed for a few days."

David isn't alone. AT&T's heavily moderated forums are littered with similar complaints. When David tried to post contact information for AT&T's executive office (877-734-0766,) he received the following reprimand:

Hello,

We'd like to ask that you not post contact info for the Office of the President in posts or PMs until an AT&T moderator can PM you. Failure to follow moderator directions can result in loss of posting privileges.

regards

David only wants the iPhone he ordered. The applications he designed just don't work the same on AT&T's Empty Plastic Bag ®.

AT&T is shipping empty plastic bags to iPhone customers [Where's My iPhone?]

Before You Leave

• Set Goals: Set a daily budget to restrict extraneous spending. Account for food, hotels, transportation, entertainment, and a little extra for those adorable tchotchkes.
• Know How To Exchange Money: Know exactly where you can exchange currency, how much it will cost, and if your credit card is planning to slap you with foreign transaction fees.

While Away

• Track Your Expenses: Either keep all your receipts, or write down your expenses in a notebook. At the end of the day, see where you can cut expenses the next day.
• Separate Your Cash: If you change currency in bulk, separate out the mass of cash into chunks that match your daily budget. Wallets brimming with cash scream "Spend Me!"
• Understand The Conversion Rates: "You’ll do a better job of reining in your purchases if you know how much you are spending. Your rule-of-thumb doesn’t need to be exact. For example, at today’s rate of 1.57 US Dollars to the Euro, I would multiply any price I saw by two and then subtract 20%. (Meaning a 30 euro item is approximately $60-$12=$48.) This accounts for any transaction fees, and slightly overestimates the cost of each item so that there aren’t any nasty surprises when I return home."

How to Track Travel Expenses and Stick to a Vacation Budget [Get Rich Slowly]
(Photo: Rory Finneren)

Before leaving home, Shawn's bags weighed 44 pounds. At Chicago, the airport scale said they weighed 44 pounds. When lifting off from Phoenix, the airport's scales said the bag weighed 52 lbs, incurring at $50 fee. When he landed in Chicago, he weighed the bags again at the check-in counter. 47.5 pounds. "Her bag had lost 4.5 pounds on a 3 1/2 hour flight,” Shawn told Elliot.org. After writing a complaint letter, Shawn received a $50 voucher from American Airlines who defended their fraudulent scale by saying they were in "full compliance with the policies for scale calibrations." So apparently the policy allows for defrauding passengers. The voucher is nice, but I would want my actual money back. And what of all the other travelers who didn't pay attention or didn't complain? Pure profit.

American Airlines offers $50 voucher after being accused of scale ’sham’ [Elliot]

(Photo: Getty)

1. Be an Amazon member
2. Log in
3. Locate similar, companion or accessory items to the one you want to buy and click "I own this item." For instance, if you want a Sony PSP, claim ownership of a PSP 2GB Memory Stick
4. Wait a day
5. Go to Today's Deals
6. At bottom it says "(Your Name)'s Quick Picks"
7. The item you really want to buy might show up there with 5-15% discount

The Quick Picks are normally based on your previous purchases. But by using the "I own this item" on related items, you may be able to get a deal on a pricey item. It won't work on everything, we're guessing it works best on things where the accessory can only be used for just one item, the item you want.

Tricking Amazon into an extra 5% off [ProBargainHunter]