Yesterday, many of us stopped giving a hoot about — at least for a few minutes — about problems with our wireless bills and cable connection to watch with concern as news reports tried to piece together exactly what happened during and after the explosions that rocked the Boston Marathon. Then there were those jerks who, as will all high-profile tragedies, sought to cash in. [More]
More Than 125 Sketchy Domains Registered Within Hours Of Boston Marathon Explosions
By April 16, 2013
No, You Didn’t Earn Two Free Travel Vouchers From ‘United Airways’
By April 11, 2013
For at least the last year, something calling itself ‘United Airways’ — which is the name of a regional carrier in Asia that has nothing to do with this story — has been sending out versions of the above letter to consumers, promising free reward travel, but both the airline industry and the Better Business Bureau say it’s nothing but a scam. [More]
Walmart Worker Stops Woman From Wiring $2,100 To Fake Stranded Grandson
By March 7, 2013
With all the news of scammers out there stealing money from unsuspecting folks using the lowdown, dirty “Help, I’m your grandson/niece/other close family relative!” act, our hearts are warmed all the more when observant customer associates stop those scams cold. Here to brighten the day comes the tale of the Walmart employee and the loving grandma. [More]
5 Warning Signs That A Craigslist Rental Listing Is Probably A Scam
By February 27, 2013
Even though it’s nothing new, we’ve recently started seeing a resurgence of reader e-mails asking if a really awesome-sounding rental listing on Craigslist might be a scam, so we figured it was time for a refresher course. [More]
Months After Newtown School Shooting, Facebook Finally Gets Around To Dealing With Scammy Tribute Pages
By February 26, 2013
It’s been more than two months since the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, and just as long since heartless, greedy scammers immediately jumped on the event as an opportunity to enrich themselves with fake Facebook pages. Now the site is finally doing something about it. [More]
ID Theft Not Just Fodder For Wacky Comedies, Also Tops FTC’s List Of Most Complained-About Issues Of 2012
By February 26, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission has finally sorted through the more than 2 million complaints filed by consumers during 2012, and once again identity theft identity theft was by far the most griped-about issue of them all. [More]
Debt Collectors Keep Calling About Bogus Debt, Even After Being Threatened With Suit
By February 19, 2013
From calling at all hours of the day and night to contacting you at work, we’ve told you before about the large number of banned practices for debt collectors. But one man says he’s the victim of a tenacious debt collector trying to collect a debt he doesn’t even owe. [More]
Why Would I Fund A “New” Kickstarter Product If I Can Find It Cheaper Elsewhere?
By February 8, 2013
That headline is a big fat rhetorical. No one would (or should) pledge to back a Kickstarter product if it’s already for sale — meaning the creator may not have come up with it in the first place — and is cheaper elsewhere on the Internets. In a recent case of a project gone awry, the creator behind a “three-in-one” USB cable that can charge a mobile device, transfer data and read cards found themselves in hot water when a few of the 464 backers noticed the exact same thing on sites like Amazon.com. Kickstarter suspended the project yesterday. [More]
5 Examples Why Just About Everyone Hates Debt Collectors
By February 6, 2013
People go into debt. The businesses that own that debt want their money. This is why the world needs debt collectors. But what the world doesn’t need are debt collectors who harass, lie, and threaten to take debtors’ children and pets away. [More]
Do A Bit Of Research On Kickstarter Projects Before You Hand Over $100 For A $15 Watch
By January 31, 2013
The projects looking for crowd-sourced funds on Kickstarter range from the absurd to the brilliant, but a few of them are just plain scams. One very questionable project is currently suspended over such concerns, but not until after it scored donations of more than $9,000. [More]
Ticketmaster CEO Takes Pity On 49ers Fans Who Fell Victim To Super Bowl Ticket Craigslist Scam
By January 30, 2013
We’ve warned readers many times about the dangers of Craigslist or other online scams, especially in the weeks leading up to big events like the Super Bowl, but for one couple and their family, paying $5,900 for tickets to the game made it seem like a legit deal. Oh, but it wasn’t. And while their story has a happy ending (spoiler alert), there are many scamees who aren’t so lucky. [More]
![([F]oxymoron)](http://consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/bluewallet.jpg?w=150)
Smart Move Or Bad Service? Restaurant Calls Cops On Diner Who Claims He Left His Wallet In Hotel Room
By January 25, 2013
It’s a nightmare situation for any consumer: You’ve just finished your expensive meal and suddenly realize you can’t pay because you don’t have your wallet. How do you convince the restaurant manager to cut you some slack? What if they won’t? [More]
More Than 50 San Francisco Restaurants Accused Of Scamming Customers & Employees By Pocketing Health Care Surcharge
By January 25, 2013
For more than four years, dozens of restaurants in San Francisco have been tacking on surcharges to diners’ bills, claiming that the money was to go toward health care costs. But it turns out that millions of those dollars were just going into restaurant owners’ pockets. [More]
Visa, FICO Warn Card Issuers Of More Sophisticated ATM Crimes
By January 24, 2013
Card skimmers have been around for a while. And while they may have gotten smaller and harder to detect, the people using the skimmed data were generally limited to how much cash they could pull out of victim’s accounts in a day. And so a new breed of criminal has figured out a way to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from ATMs. [More]
PayPal Says It’ll Change Its Fraud Filters So Users Won’t Get Frozen Accounts So Dang Often
By January 21, 2013
Frauds and scams are awful and when it comes to your money, of course a service like PayPal is expected to protect customers from such shenanigans. But the company’s infamous process of filtering frauds has also proven difficult for customers trying to prove they actually are who they are in the past. That’s all changing now, says PayPal. [More]
Bank Employee Explains Why It Takes So Dang Long To Process Debit Card Fraud Claims & Disputes… And Other Fun Stuff
By January 17, 2013
We hear a lot from readers who say their debit cards were charged for services they didn’t receive — whether by fraud or by ineptitude on the part of a merchant — and who are now waiting for their bank to please put back the money that was wrongfully taken from them. [More]
Professor Tries, Fails To Defend Payday Lending As Legitimate Form Of Credit
By January 16, 2013
Most regular readers of Consumerist know that we’re not exactly fans of payday loans, which charge upwards of 25 times the interest of a high-interest credit card and hundreds of times the interest on a standard loan. And yet, there are people — well-educated people at that — who stick with the argument that payday loans are a good thing. [More]
Consumers Now Feeling The Pain Of Post-Holiday Gift Card Scams
By January 4, 2013
Back in December, we told you about how scammers could take money from your gift card before you even get a chance to use it. Now that people are trying to cash in those cards, they’re feeling the sting of finding out they have a zero balance. [More]
