Consumerist
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hotels
Hyatts In Boston Decide To Outsource Housekeeping
Housekeepers at three Hyatt hotels in Boston made over $15 an hour and had benefits like 401(k) retirement plans and health insurance. On August 31st, Hyatt laid them off en masse—after first having them train their replacements under the guise of creating a holiday fill-in staff—and turned the housekeeping duties over to an outside firm. More » -
verdicts
30 Songs? That'll Be $675,000
A Boston jury yesterday ruled that file sharer Joel Tenenbaum would have to pay the Recording Industry of America $675,000 for sharing 30 copyrighted songs. The hefty award was all the more surprising because Tenenbaum was represented by a crack team of legal eagles from Harvard's law school. The trial didn't unfold nearly the way they planned... More » -
government transparency
Boston Police Department: We Will Let You Know When The Zombies Come
The first surprising part of this story is that the Boston Police Department has a Twitter feed. They use it to post breaking police-type information that's useful to the public, such as roads closed due to car accidents, crime data, big arrests, etc. Sometimes they also reply to reader questions. And that is how TruTV learned that the Boston police will not hide the zombie invasion from the public. More » -
newspaper
New York Times Was Just Joking About That Whole 'Closing The Boston Globe' Thing
Those pesky unions, always asking for reasonable pay for their employees, decent working conditions, continued employment and the like. Well, the New York Times Company found a way to deal with the scalawags at the Boston Globe: threaten to fire 'em all and shut down their place of business. More » -
freebies
Ride For Free On Jet Blue (If You Can Get Yourself "Trapped" In The Cargo Hold)
A Jet Blue employee hitched a free flight from JFK Airport in NYC to Logan Airport in Boston this past weekend, after getting trapped in the cargo hold before takeoff. Police aren't charging him with a crime, but they told the Boston Globe that, "Even after talking to him, we were a little uncertain as to how it happened." He apparently called the company from the cargo hold once the plane was in the air—which is exactly what we would do to deflect suspicion in a scheme like this. Tokyo, here we come via new part-time job as a baggage handler! More » -
scams
Fake Repairman Preys On Powerless Worcesterians
After ice storms slammed Boston and left thousands without power, one opportunist saw a chance to make a buck in the dark. -
consumer reports
Try Consumer Reports' Website For Free And Increase Your Shopping Abilities
Consumer Reports has set up some cute mall kiosks in the Boston Area so that shoppers can research products while they are shopping, but if you can't get to Boston you can still give the website a try. More » -
tweeter
Inside The Mind Of A Liquidator
Interesting facts from a Boston Globe article profiling a member of the Tweeter liquidation team, David "The Junkyard Dog" Spehar: More » -
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If you're in the Boston area, be sure to check out Consumer Reports' Holiday Smart Labs. There's a kiosk where shoppers can access ConsumerReports.org and take away a free 24-hour access pass to the site. The kiosks will be open at the North Shore Mall in Peabody, South Shore Mall in Braintree and Burlington Mall in Burlington from 12/4 - 12/7.
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christmas creep
Christmas Creep: Radio Stations Are In Full Holiday Mode
If you thought that you could avoid Christmas Creep by staying out of stores — think again. It's annoying you on the radio as well. More » -
drinking water
Update:
If you weren't one of the 41 million Americans drinking water contaminated with sex hormones and pharmaceutical waste, welcome to the club! Testing prompted by the AP's damning investigation has revealed that another five million people, including residents of Reno, Colorado Springs, and Chicago, now sip the potentially dangerous pharmaceutical soup. More »4146 Million Americans Drink Pharmaceutical Waste -
airtran
AirTran Agent Screams, Curses At Travelers While Supervisor Looks On
Forget about those dowdy old-school Olympics. What we need is an international competition to see which airline can suck the most, since everyone is getting so good at it. In the category of Random Rudeness, this AirTran agent and her equally hostile supervisor would have a good shot at the gold—especially since they aimed their hostility at a honeymooning couple. More » -
uno chicago grill
Will Uno Chicago Grill Be The Next Restaurant Chain To File For Bankruptcy?
At the risk of inviting another pointless "this pizza is better than that pizza" debate in the comments, we feel it is necessary to inform you that Uno has run into some nasty looking debt problems and some people are speculating that they may be the next restaurant chain to go under. More » -
united airlines
United Makes You Pay To Move To Upgrade Area They Would Have Moved You To Anyway
Joe may have uncovered a deceptive policy at United Airlines that's screwing over customers. Here's how it works. If you've got an economy ticket and the only seats available are in Economy Plus, but you didn't spring for the extra Economy Plus fee, you're asked if you would like to pay the upgrade fee for economy plus seating. If you decline to upgrade, they seat you there anyway. Sounds pretty sketchy to me. Here's Joe's story: More » -
supermarkets
Massachusetts Supermarkets Want To Remove Price Tags From Items
A bill is advancing through the Massachusetts legislature that will allow supermarkets to leave off item price tags and instead force customers to rely on electronic scanners spaced throughout the store. Although prices will still need to be displayed on store shelves for most items, you'll have to rely on your memory and your faith in the store's scanner system at checkout. John Hurst, the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, "said consumers will benefit in the form of lower prices and shortened lines once stores no longer need to devote resources to item-by-item pricing." But kjd aa- [thump]
—sorry, we just fell out of our chairs laughing at the idea of a supermarket out there that will heroically pass the savings downstream to consumers instead of profiting directly from it. More »
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moving disaster
Broadway Express Responds With More Information About The Moving Disaster
The moving company responsible for the moving disaster that we mentioned the other day has written in to share some information about the way insurance works in the event of such a catastrophe. More » -
legal sea food
Legal Sea Foods CEO Offers Sarcastic "Apology" To Offended Trolley Conductors
A few days ago we mentioned a controversy that was going on in Boston after some trolley conductors objected to an advertising campaign for Legal Sea Foods "fresh fish." The controversial ad reads, "This conductor has a face like a halibut." Now Legal Sea Food's CEO has decided to strike back against the offended conductors with a sarcastic "apology." More » -
controversy
Trolley Conductors Do Not Appreciate Being Told They Have "A Face Like A Halibut"
The conductors of Boston's Green Line trolleys aren't exactly amused by a new ad campaign for Legal Sea Foods that accuses them of having faces like a halibut, says the Boston Globe. The campaign features "fresh fish," that toss out hilarious insults such as: "Hey lady, I've seen smaller noses on a swordfish," and, "This trolley gets around more than your sister." Har, har, har. Most of the ads are fairly innocuous, but one has the trolley conductors seeing red. It reads: "This conductor has a face like a halibut." More »
boston
New York, 11:04 AM
Sun Nov 22
8 posts in the last 24 hours
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