Consumerist
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fire
DirecTV Charges Wildfire Victims For Burnt TV Receivers
DirecTV was planning on charging several victims in the largest fire in recorded Los Angeles County history for the satellite TV receivers that burnt to cinders in their homes. "What I'd like to do is take a shovel full of ashes from my cabin and dump it on their desk. They can have their receivers back," Ken Gray told LAT. More » -
ticketmaster
Forced To Call Ticketmaster Over 225 Times About Pee-Wee Herman Tickets
Ryan had a dream. Not an unreasonable dream for any fan: he wanted to see Pee-Wee Herman perform live. Many fans, including Ryan, were thrilled when a limited engagement of shows was announced in Los Angeles, and Ryan bought tickets and made plans to travel cross-country for the performance. Then the concert promoter and Ticketmaster stole his bike. Metaphorically. He says he attempted to call Ticketmaster over 225 times (the line was busy) and the Pee-Wee debacle still isn't solved. More » -
ashes to ashes
Funerals Another Victim Of The Recession
The Los Angeles County coroner's office reports that more bodies of deceased residents are going unclaimed than in the past, then cremated at taxpayer expense. Why the increase? Families claim that they simply can't afford funeral expenses. More » -
legalized pot
LA Cracks Down On Medical Marijuana Dispensaries
Los Angeles seems to have a lot of trouble policing commerce-related things. Advertisers put up $100,000 illegal billboards overnight and never have to take them down, and now apparently medical marijuana stores are running rampant. The Los Angeles times says that since the city enacted a moratorium on new dispensaries in 2007, the number has grown from 186 to more than 600. More » -
cars
Help, Audi Fixed My Car And Now The Trunk Fills With Water Whenever It Rains
Andrew brought his car to Audi of Downtown L.A. for routine warranty work, but left with a trunk that overflows whenever it rains. When Andrew complained to the dealership's staff, he was told to take his business elsewhere. More » -
follow up
Metrolink Addresses Confusing Wording Regarding Monthly Passes
It looks like someone at Metrolink in Southern California reads The Consumerist, because their communications manager responded today to yesterday's post about some potentially confusing language on their website. He even posted a suggested revision to the language in an attempt to clear it up, and is asking for reader feedback. More » -
Metrolink
SoCal's Metrolink Monthly Pass Doesn't Work The Way You Probably Think
Dillon is in college, and he tried to save money by buying a monthly pass on the Metrolink transit system in Southern California. The problem is that Metrolink does a terrible job of explaining how the monthly pass works, and their own staff gives out incorrect information to customers buying the pass for the first time. Now Dillon faces a $250 citation for fare evasion because it turns out he could only use his pass for the upcoming month. More » -
ups
UPS Coughs Up $50 But Still Hasn't Delivered Your Daughter's Christmas Present
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. More » -
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morton van lines
Movers Turns Musicians' New Zealand Adventure Into Fiasco
Ah, New Zealand, the land of kiwis and hobbits. Daniel and his girlfriend went there to set up a studio and get paid to do recording sessions. They're musicians. They hired Morton Van Lines to ship their equipment from LA to NZ, but after over seven months of struggle, they got it, or their money back.Turns out the equipment was shipped to the wrong country and then returned to the USA. Maybe if Morton Van Lines ever returned a phone call or an email it could have been straightened out. But nay. Here's Daniel's story... More » -
american airlines
AA Lies About Bad Weather To Deny Reader Compensation
Reader S knows his stuff when it comes to his rights as an airline passenger. He was flying on American Airlines (AA) and takeoff was delayed. AA said it was because of thunderstorms in Dallas. He called a friend in Dallas and they said "there isn't a cloud in the sky." AA later revealed the flight was actually delayed because they were waiting for a fax. It's understandable why AA lied. Since this was something they had control over, it meant they owed several things to the delayed passengers. By lying and saying it was due to the weather, they could escape their obligation. The flight finally took off but reader S missed his connection and had to stay overnight in a hotel, a hotel room that American should have paid for. Inside, the letter S executive email carpet bombed after two customer service reps refused to listen to his story on the phone and an online form sent back a robotic received reply with no real results. More » -
lawsuits
Los Angeles To Sue Time Warner Cable For Sucking
Today, the city of Los Angeles plans to give a little gift to Time Warner Cable—a lawsuit! From the LA Times:
More »The 25-page lawsuit, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, claims the company violated its franchise agreement with the city by having subscribers spend hours on hold with customer service representatives and allowing excessive repair work delays.
"Hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents were ripped off," Delgadillo said in a statement. "Time Warner must be held accountable for its promises."
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competition
L.A. County Tells Taco Trucks To Keep Moving
Peter writes to let us know that taco trucks in Los Angeles county now have to move to a new position every hour: "The county of Los Angeles has enacted some new legislation to prevent taco truck owners from staying in one spot, with penalties of a fine of up to $1000 or jail for failures to comply." Why such a weird law? Because area restaurants say they're stealing away customers. If you like your carne asada from the side of a truck, be prepared to start chasing them down as they circle through L.A. county in a weird Mexican-food carousel. More » -
urban blight
LA Has 4,000 Illegal Billboards, But City Looks On Helplessly
In 2002, LA banned any new billboards from going up in the city. Since then, an estimated four thousand have been put up by advertising companies who have ignored the law, which obviously the city's billboard inspectors—"a tiny, and some say incredibly inept, group"—have never bothered to enforce.
More »
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videos
Ex-Sub-Prime Borrowers Live In Tent Cities On LA Outskirts
Where do you go if you have no money and you lost your house to foreclosure? How about a tent city! Such are springing up on LA's outer rim, and their numbers are growing, as seen in this BBC tv report. The American Dream, imploded. [via Boing Boing]
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travel
LAX Terminal Evacuated Due To "Suspicious Comment"
20 Southwest Airlines and 2 U.S. Airways flights were delayed after a LAX terminal was evacuated for two hours due to a "suspicious comment" made by a passenger on SWA Flight 1182 from El Paso. We were unable to find out what exactly the "suspicious comment" was, but UPI suggests that it had something to do with explosives in his luggage. The LAPD bomb squad was called, but no explosives were found. More » -
best buy
Best Buy Still Embracing Deceptive In-Store Kiosks
Best Buy still uses a secret internal website to deceive customers, according to the L.A. Times. The website appearing on in-store kiosks resembles Best Buy's official site in every way, except for the prices. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was surprised to hear that his investigation failed to end Best Buy's bait-and-switch, telling the L.A. Times: "We thought Best Buy had addressed this. That's what they said to us. Apparently that's not the case." A tipster in Virginia also reports the continued existence of the secret website. More » -
The lawyer for the family whose daughter died after CIGNA declined to pay for her liver transplant said that he will urge the DA's office to press manslaughter charges against CIGNA for having "maliciously killed her." [AP]
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advertising
Firebrand, The TV Show That's Just Commercials
Firebrand is a new TV show is just 60 minutes of commercials. "CJs" will introduce the ads, interview the stars, and provide banal banter. The show was started by an MTV co-founder, who said, " "We're changing the model again... We took promotion videos no one wanted and ran them." The show runs late-nights on the ION network in LA, the place where all things devoid of substance are born.
Firebrand [Official Site]
Show pitches ads as entertainment [LAT via Stay Free! Daily]
los angeles
New York, 5:40 AM
Mon Nov 23
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