accolades
Emailing a company about a product problem via their front-facing email address usually has about as much effect as wishing your way out of debt (just don't tell the producers of The Secret). But Steve emailed
Panasonic and instead of getting nothing or a generic response back, he actually ended up sending a series of emails back and forth with a product engineer who solved his consumer conundrum. Amazing! Here's his story.
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ups
Reader Michael wants to know why it's taking UPS almost a month to ship his daughter's Christmas gift from Los Angeles to Seattle. Michael thinks his package might have been eaten by the snowstorm that broke Seattle a few weeks back, but UPS swears that they have the gift and that this is all a simple matter of "the driver forgot to put it on the truck." Worried that it that it might have been faster for a messenger to walk between Los Angeles and Seattle with his daughter's present, Michael decided to launch an Executive Email Carpet Bomb at UPS executives.
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circuit city
Circuit City promised that if you ordered from them on December 18th, you'd get free
shipping and a guarantee that your order would arrive before Christmas. It turns out that promise was worthless, at least for Brandon—or rather, it's worth exactly $5 in company scrip from Circuit City. (We
love apologies that force you to shop at the company that screwed up.) Circuit City's CSR even says that the December 18th offer doesn't exist, despite the fact that their logo is still up on the
freeshippingday.com website as of today.
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christmas creep
Reader Bob sent in this picture from a
CVS in Indianapolis. Those are reduced price Christmas decorations in the background, and in the center: delicious Easter treats!
above and beyond
Our reader ordered some gifts from Amazon in early December, only to have the post office lose them right before
Christmas. Amazon saved his Christmas by overnighting a new package at no charge.
christmas
If America's
Google searches for the 25th are any indicator, you all enjoyed tasty meals at IHOP, went for a Christmas Day shopping spree at Walmart, and gave up on Rock Band and Guitar Hero and searched for cheat codes. Tell us what you got, and what you gave, in the comments.
bah humbug
According to an Email received by reader Jessica,
Progressive Auto Insurance is increasing rates for New York Customers by nearly 20%. And the best time to announce this? Christmas day, of course!
psas
Today is a half-day at Consumerist. There will be no posts on
Christmas. Posts return on Friday. Happy Holidays everyone! (Photo:
u2acro)
no santa
The
AP says that while last-minute shoppers are still out there looking for bargains — the holiday season was over long ago for retailers.
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DiscoverThis
Joe received his order from DiscoverThis.com today and yes, they did indeed wrap the items for free. Too bad they wrapped them together as one unit.
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christmas
Hey gift procrastinators, Dealnews has a list of 90 stores that you can still order from and have it arrive it time to make it under the tree before the 25th. [
Dealnews] (Photo:
HowardLake)
insiders
Regarding
this story, turns out, every year at this time, Target has an internal clash of the titans over whether or not to automatically print guest receipts, according to a former employee.