fail

CBS 5 exposed a "gaping hole" in the code of California's state-run employment website that allows anyone who views the site to access and modify other users' resumes and personal info simply by changing some numbers in the URL.  More »

"More banks have failed in 2009 than the rest of the decade combined," writes Ariel Nelson at CNBC. Today, Partners Bank in Naples, Florida closed its doors, making it the 100th bank to fail this year. Click the link to see a map of where bank failures have happened the most over the past 10 months.  More »

LIFE magazine has published a list of 30 dumb inventions from the middle of the 20th century. There are some profoundly stupid ideas on display here (baby cage, anyone?).  More »

Chris sent us this picture of a package that UPS delivered to his apartment. Instead of leaving it at the complex's office, the delivery person left the box in a "secure, out of sight" location.  More »

Any good grifter knows that a classic shortcut to sympathy is to fake a handicap. This guy, however, should have thought about the distancing effect of using a telephone relay service, which is designed for people who are hearing impaired.  More »

Justin sent us this gamepiece he scraped like a wet scab off the side of his moist Subway beverage cup. (I do not like gamepieces affixed to fast food drinks.) We're in awe at its nearly k?an-like phrasing. How is an instant win not an instant winner? How do you peel the gamepiece that has already been peeled? Feel free to use these in your meditations.  More »

Normally we wouldn't rely on the phrase "third largest bank failure of the year" to impress upon you the seriousness of a situation, but since we're at our 81st bank failure of 2009, we're going to go with it. Meet Guaranty Bank of Texas. It has now failed.  More »

We know not all of our readers agree on our stupid shipping gang posts, but here's one we can all get behind: you probably don't need to deliver a ten-foot power cord in a large box on a wooden pallet.  More »

Stickers need to stick to things. That's why they call them stickers. Someone should have explained this to the State of New York.  More »

The Wall Street Journal looks at how an unfortunately named marketing agency called the Intelligence Group tried to promote recent bomb "I Love You, Beth Cooper" with a viral video on YouTube. (Can we just once and for all ban anyone who works in advertising from accessing YouTube?) They paid the valedictorian of a Los Angeles high school $1,800 to "spontaneously" blurt out a secret crush during her speech, and they hired someone to film the speech in a faux-homemade style to post online.  More »

A Consumer Reports Insights story in the Washington Post evaluates the DIY teeth-whitening racket, finding strips work better than trays, which don't always fit in your mouth so well, the products may mess with your sensitive teeth, and that yellow teeth whiten easier than gray, brown or blue.  More »

Loyal Consumerist readers may have noticed that we haven't made any recent posts in our widely acclaimed series of posts about how discount retailer Target is insane. Has Target sought help and found its way back to reality? No. We were just saving up material.  More »

What can you do if you're too small to have a shot in our Worst Company In America contest, but too awful to not earn some sort of notoriety? Well, you can get your BBB membership revoked and earn a big fat F ranking. It's no golden poo, but it's a start.  More »

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the Daily News that the residents of the swanky failed-condo-turned-homeless-shelter shouldn't get too comfortable. They'll need to move on.  More »

Target continues its rebranding as the Duchamp of retail stores, with this receipt that indicates savings where no savings ever existed. Or perhaps multi-dimensional savings; we can't pretend to know what Target sees when it stares into the void. Mark notes, "The cookies were on sale, as indicated. The cascade, I had a coupon for it to be free. Total savings should be $4.23. The receipt says $7.37. Maybe it's a conspiracy since it is the Love Field (near the airport) in Dallas where Southwest flies only 737s." That's as good an explanation as any, Mark. Maybe you should work for Target?  More »

Oprah has given the world many discoveries: Dr. Phil, books and on April 17, when she devoted an entire show to it, Twitter.  More »

You know how much it sucks to lose a $5 bill, right? Well, times that by 11 million and you get an idea of how CBS president and CEO Les Moonves felt during the first quarter of the year, when his company lost $55.3 million.  More »

Shelley just sent us this photo of a store she saw in New Jersey this afternoon. We particularly like that the neon signs in the window are just as contradictory as the roof signs. It's like a decorating theme.  More »

Sidd tried to fill out a Best Buy post-purchase survey online, but he suspects it might be skewed toward specific ratings. We know, it's just a glitch, but this would explain that report that Best Buy is demoting 8,000 senior sales associates.  More »