The beauty of shopping online is that it’s easy to bring products from all over the world into our homes with a little bit of typing and a major credit card. The problem with buying from abroad, though, is that products for different markets don’t come with the same consumer protections. And sometimes you don’t know that you’re buying a product destined for a different market at all. That’s where Cassi’s cautionary tale comes in. From a small discount site, Cassi bought a Samsung MP3 player. Samsung tells her that it was made for the Chinese market and that if she wants them to honor her warranty, she has to fly to Hong Kong. Being a sensible person, Cassi does not want to fly to Hong Kong over a $200 MP3 player. [More]
Samsung: If You Want Us To Fix Your MP3 Player, You Have To Fly To Hong Kong
By March 25, 2013
McDonald's Offering $400 Wedding Packages
By October 14, 2010
With folks now getting hitched in Walmarts, Taco Bells and Home Depot, it would make sense that McDonald’s would eventually get around to adding weddings to their menu. And that’s exactly what the fast food chain is doing in Hong Kong, where happy couples will soon be able to say “I do” under the Golden Arches. [More]
China Pulls Carcinogenic US Pringles From Hong Kong Shelves
By December 10, 2007
Ah, the game is afoot, China! See how the worm turns! Cliché #3 should go here! China has pulled some unofficially imported (from the U.S.) Pringles chips because they contain potassium bromate, a preservative that we Americans happily ingest in order to breed a race of lumpy super-capitalists—but that China, Hong Kong, and other countries have banned “because tests have found it to be carcinogenic.”
How The "Date Rape Drug" Was Found Inside A Children's Toy
By November 8, 2007
The New York Times has a great article about the doctor who figured out that the “Aqua Dots” or “Bindeez” beads were full of GHB. It reads like a summary of an episode of House, M.D.:
Doctors at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, outside Sydney, first believed that the 2-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, had an inherited metabolic disorder. But when Dr. Carpenter checked urine samples the next day for the chemical markers of the disorder, he found GHB, which can render victims unconscious and even cause death through respiratory failure.
Burning Macbook Adaptor Porn.
By October 6, 2006
It’s bad enough that the laptop started to burn on Adrian’s bed while he was in it… [More]
