• woot

    Database Bug At Woot Leaves Reader Wary Of Ordering

    Robear wanted to order from shirt.woot, but something strange happened when he went to register. After choosing a username and entering his e-mail address, he noticed that all of the forms were pre-populated with another customer's information...including that user's credit card information. He contacted Woot to try to find out what could have happened, but Woot either hasn't figured it out yet, or just isn't responding. (UPDATE: Response from Woot below.) More »
  • infestations

    Help, There Are Bugs In My Kitty Litter!

    Dawn is freaked out because when she got up this morning, she found bugs in her cat's litter box. She called the company that makes the litter to ask them what to do, and they offered coupons but no real explanation. "Maybe some of your readers have had the same experience and could help me figure out what to do," she writes. "Thanks!" More »
  • bailout

    Alert: You Cannot Buy Consumerist With Doodle Money

    Our post last Friday gave people some great business ideas. We appreciate the offers, but we must insist that you do not try to purchase Consumerist with doodle currency that you have minted yourself, probably while drinking. You can, however, try to bail out the auto industry with it if you want. More »
  • citibank

    Citibank's Website Glitch Tricks Man Into Overpaying $755, But They Won't Issue Refund

    Citibank's website isn't reliable, at least according to them. Matt assumed that a website from a bank could be trustworthy, and that if there was no scheduled payment showing up, then he must have forgotten to arrange it. He scheduled a second payment, but then both payments went through one day apart. Now Citibank refuses to give him a refund: he should have called or emailed before rescheduling, they've told him, and not trusted what the website was telling him. More »
  • Sitemeter

    Sitemeter Bug Breaks Parts Of The Internet For Internet Explorer Users

    A bug in the popular metrics-tracking platform Sitemeter has boxed Internet Explorer users into a quiet little corner of the internet since late yesterday afternoon. Any site using Sitemeter now displays the following cryptic message to IE users: "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site - Operation aborted." The bug affects IE 5.5, 6, and 7, but we have three ways—including use another browser!—to restore access to the full internet in all its horrible glory, inside. (Note: we've put in a fix so IE users can continue to read Consumerist without changing their settings.) More »
  • united airlines

    United Airlines Flight Delayed For Hours Due To Tick Infestation

    Ew! United Airlines 1178 was delayed 6 hours because a passenger spotted a tick hitching a ride in coach during a previous flight from Washington D.C. to Denver. The airline isn't sure how the plane got tick infested, but had to temporarily pull the plane out of service while a crew cleaned it. More »
  • unacceptable food

    Pizza Hut Is Sorry It Baked A Cockroach Into Your Pizza, Got Fined $35,000

    Here's a lovely little story from our friends down in Bellbowrie, Australia. It seems that they have a Pizza Hut in Bellbowrie, and that Pizza Hut has cockroaches. Lots of cockroaches. So many cockroaches, in fact, that it baked one alive into a meatlovers pizza. More »
  • used equipment

    Time Warner Delivers Modem, Cockroaches

    Maybe Time Warner needs to include a decontamination protocol when it transfers reusable equipment between customers. Natalie writes:
    On Tuesday, April 15, 2008 a Time Warner representative came to our home to install the digital telephone modem which would also provide our internet service.
    More »
  • tragic

    Hey, Thanks For The Bed Bugs!

    Sarah is experiencing every traveler's worst nightmare. Bed bugs!
    I just started reading The Consumerist. I did a search on bedbugs to see if you had any posts, and then thought I'd tell you my own story after reading about the people who found bedbugs in a Santa Monica hotel. In August of last year, I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica.
    More »
  • food

    Restaurant Gives 25% Discount To Birthday Diners, Writes "Bug On Food" For Reason On Check

    A restaurant in Dubai gave a 25% discount to a party of birthday diners after they found four bugs in their food. Says a restaurant official, "The guys thought being friendly and having a joke about the environment would relax the diners because it was a birthday, but unfortunately it didn't." We sort of think after the second or third bug, you should probably just comp the meal—and then shut down the restaurant for fumigation. More »
  • domestic spying

    Whistleblower Confirms He Worked On Warrantless Wiretapping Program For "A Large Wireless Company"

    Another person has stepped forward to allege that a "major wireless carrier" may have aided the FBI's warrantless wiretapping program. He claims he was brought in to work with the company on something called the Quantico Circuit, "a high-speed line from the wireless carrier to an unnamed third party. Quantico, Va., is the site of a U.S. intelligence and military base."
    "The circuit was tied to the organization's core network," Pasdar stated in the affidavit. "It had access to the billing system, text messaging, fraud detection, Web site, and pretty much all the systems in the data center without restrictions."
    More »
  • photos

    Dead Bugs Found In Health Valley Soup

    I'm not sure what's more disgusting, the dead bugs, or paying $4.00 for a paper cup of freeze-dried pea soup. Elaine writes:
    I bought a Health Valley split pea soup at Publix Supermarket in Miami, FL on Friday 01/11/08 in the morning before coming in to work. Around 12:30 or so when I finally felt ready to have lunch, I opened the soup only to find it infested with dead bugs.
    More »
  • uh oh

    QuickBooks' Latest Update Destroyed Mac Users' Desktops

    Here's one reason to use an online service to store financial data: no buggy updates to deal with.* Intuit's December update for 2006 and 2007 versions of QuickBooks Pro on the Mac platform wiped the user's Desktop folder and anything stored there. The company released a patch, but it didn't work if you launched QuickBooks while connected to a wireless hotspot, oops. The latest patch, so far as we can tell, simply disables any further updates to the application—on January 3rd the company "began automatically feeding a patch to Mac QuickBooks users that permanently switches off the program's upgrade mechanism to prevent a repetition of a data disaster." In the meantime, since they can't offer a way to fix the deleted Desktop folders, they're offering rebates to users who buy a copy of the data recovery program Data Rescue II. More »
  • christmas

    Microsoft Releases Dirty Santa Chatbot On Unsuspecting Children!

    Oh noes! The children! Microsoft released a Santa bot on its Windows Messenger network that had a surprising predilection for swinging the conversation to oral sex. More »