Walgreens — or, as known by its proper name, Walgreen — has agreed to pony up a whopping $80 million to settle claims by the government that it was negligent in allowing painkillers to end up on the black market. It’s the largest settlement in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and is the result of an investigation into a distribution center in Florida that had been receiving a high number of prescription pain meds from six pharmacies in the state. [More]
Spirit Airlines Switches Customer Help Numbers From Toll-Free 800 To Not-Free 801 Area Code
By May 7, 2013
Need help from Spirit Airlines? It’ll cost you now: the company that brought us carry-on bag fees is cutting corners yet again, by switching its customer help numbers from the toll-free 800 area code to the not-so-free 801 area code. Of course, that change will likely only affect customers calling from a landline, at about $0.05 to $0.18 per minute. In any case, we’re not surprised. [More]
Barclays Bank To Pay $450 Million To Settle Charges That It Manipulated Interest Rates
By June 27, 2012
Barclays Bank has agreed to pay out more than $450 million in settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission and the British Financial Services Authority. Those entities said the bank had tried to manipulate key interest rates, which in turn affect mortgages, student loans and more. [More]
Walgreens To Pay $7.9 Million To Make Prescriptions Controversy Go Away
By April 20, 2012
Walgreens owes a pretty penny to the U.S. Department of Justice, specifically, $7.9 million to make a little prescription controversy to go away. The government said Walgreens illegally tried to get federal health care beneficiaries to switch their prescriptions to Walgreens pharmacies. [More]
Man Receives $44 Million Hospital Bill For $300 Worth Of Treatments
By January 17, 2012
The good news is that Alexis isn’t going to have to pay the $44 million bill he received after a hospital treated his pneumonia. The bad is that hundreds of others also received ridiculous bills after a billing company made the teensy error of entering the invoice numbers into the amount due box. Woopsies. [More]
Woman Rejects Honda Settlement, Claims Her Civic Didn't Live Up To Its Advertised Gas Mileage
By January 2, 2012
Not content with a proposed settlement from Honda over claims that their Civic Hybrids don’t live up to their advertised gas mileage, a woman is bringing the car manufacturers to small-claims court to get what she thinks is her due. [More]
HTC Damaged My Phone During Warranty Inspection, Refuses To Fix
By September 19, 2011
Consumerist reader Travis needed to replace a digitizer on his HTC HD2 phone, so he went through the usual channels and contacted the company’s warranty center to get the process going. From then on, everything went downhill. [More]
Fetch.io Account Suspended For Overdue Sum of No Dollars
By July 11, 2011
Things can get really tight when it comes to bills, and now and then, having your account suspended due to nonpayment… well, it’s happened to many of us. But what if you don’t owe anything and are then held accountable for not paying that overdue amount of $0? Such was the case for Consumerist reader John W. [More]
