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greenwashing
As of August 5th, Alaska Airlines no longer accepts cash on its flights. In their words, welcome to "the convenience of a cashless cabin. Passengers will no longer need to hunt for cash to pay for on board purchases." Finally! All that cash flitting around the cabin hurting people is a thing of the past. [Personal Finance Weblog]
samsclub
Sam's Club Pretends Its Polystyrene Cup Is Green
Gregg saw this cheerful environmentally-friendly message on the side of his Sam's Club soda cup. Wait, what? We guess it saves Sam's Club fuel costs to ship the cups, but that sounds more like a profit-friendly quality. Gregg notes another benefit of the cup: "[it] may never biodegrade but at least it's easy on my drinkin' elbow." More »
spin
Geek Squad Feels "Unfairly Targeted" By Consumerist Expose
When personal finance magazine Kiplinger asked the Geek Squad about our video that caught one of their technicians stealing porn from our harddrive (peeping tomism, hardly limited to Geek Squad, is just as rampant in the computer repair industry as the photo developing industry), an unidentified Geek Squad spokeswoman ingenuously responded, "We have been the target of a blog that prefers to focus on the exceptions to our service and not the overall, vast majority of successful services we provide to clients." That's like saying dirt is unfairly targeted by a broom. Where there's a valid complaint, we'll post. Where there's a consumer whose rights aren't respected, we will defend. We don't have a vendetta against the Geek Squad, or any other company. We have a vendetta against bad customer service. That's our bottom line. After the jump, the original undercover video...
toy safety
Toy Industry Association Will Announce New Safety Plan In February
Well we're glad that's taken care of. Wait... the Toy Industry Association is a trade group, not a federal agency! At any rate, on February 1st the Toy Industry Association, a 500-member strong group, will "release a draft of tough new safety rules, which include a plan to require manufacturers to test toys for hazardous chemicals and defective designs." According to CNN, the group is drafting the 3-point plan with at least the awareness, if not the help, of the CPSC, and it hopes to have the plan formally certified as the CPSC's "new standard for toy safety." More »
the greening of walmart
Walmart To Save Planet With Concentrated Laundry Detergents
Walmart says it's going to save "one of our most precious natural resources", water, by offering only concentrated laundry detergents from now on. More »
media whoring
Ben On XM Satellite Radio Today
Tune int o Channel 169 "Mario Armstrong's Digital Spin," on XM Radio this afternoon to hear Ben jaw about some of our recent scoops. We should be on around 3:35 PM eastern. This will be our second time riding a satellite and we look forward to the experience. — BEN POPKEN More »
media whoring
Consumerist On XM Satellite Radio This Saturday
We will be on XM Radio Channel 169 "Mario Armstrong's Digital Spin," this Saturday, April 14th. The show is from 3-5pm (ET) and rebroadcasts Sunday 3-5 PM ET and Monday 1 AM ET. More »
walmart
Spinning Walmart: Astroturfing, Edelman, And Why Walmart's TVs Are Tuned To Fox News
A new article in the New Yorker examines Walmart's complicated relationship with its PR company, Edelman, with whom readers of the Consumerist have become so well-aquainted. The reporter goes inside Walmart's "home office" in Bentonville, AR, where he meets Walmart's resident Edelman staff, notes that the TVs are all tuned to FOX News, and learns some interesting tidbits about the looms in which PR for Walmart is spun:The Edelman team assigned to Wal-Mart, I learned, is divided into three groups: "promote," "response," and "pressure." The Jobs and Opportunity Zones notion came from the promotions team. The response-team members—veterans of political campaigns—are supposed to quickly counter criticism in the press or on the Web. The pressure group works on opposition research, focussing on the unions and the press.More »
