Consumerist: Typo

Sprint: Can You Please Give Us $39,952 Today?

Meg Marco — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:35:53 EDT

Reader Richard says he came home this summer to angry parents "because of our sprint bill with the family share plan was insanely high." Of course, it turned out to be the same typo we'd written about before, but we really enjoyed the polite but firm manner in which Sprint asked Richard's parents for $39,952... "today."

Dreamhost Busy Cleaning Up The Great Billing Apocalypse Of 2008

Meg Marco — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:59:33 EST

Dreamhost is busy cleaning up the mess after accidentally overcharging their customers by $7.5 million dollars due to a typo. The process is not going smoothly and we've been receiving a mix of complaints and praise.

First, a complaint:

You might be interested to know the situation is getting worse and customers are still being billed. In fact, they are not responding to emails/faxes from their customers regarding this issue...
DreamHost is incommunicado at this point and most users are left wondering whether their funds have disappeared to St. Petersburg, the Caribbean or Mexico...

And now some praise:

FYI, this morning I created a support ticket with Dreamhost's support team (as recommended on Dreamhost's official blog — http://blog.dreamhost.com/2008/01/16/the-aftermath) requesting a service credit for the NSF fees I'd received. I created my ticket at about 10am, at 11:30am I got a ticket from a CSR requesting I resend the copy of my bank statement that I'd initially submitted (which I did), and then at 2pm got an email stating that the credit I'd requested had been placed on my account. No muss, no fuss, no argument.
So I'd say that Dreamhost has been far from "unresponsive" on this issue. They're clearly bending over backwards to resolve the problems they created, and I really think you guys ought to give them some props for it.

We continue to wish Dreamhost the best of luck compensating their users. They are obviously working very hard and are genuinely sorry for the error, so we'll try not to get called for any late hits out of bounds.

Feel free to post your experiences with Dreamhost in the comments, or send them to tips@consumerist.com.

(Photo:Getty)

GameStop Will Not Accept Defective PS3 Exchange Because Of Serial Number Mistake

Meg Marco — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:18:45 EST

Reader Ben's receipt doesn't match the serial number on his defective PS3, so GameStop and Sony are refusing to repair or exchange it.

This same kind of problem has happened to one of our readers before. It turns out that an employee had inadvertently entered the SKU instead of the serial number on our Reader's XBOX. He was eventually able to prove that he hadn't switched the XBOXs, but Ben is having a much more difficult time.

Ben writes:

I am going through a terrible experience with game stop. After finally deciding to make the leap and purchase a PS3 I went to my local game stop in Queens, NY. After purchasing the 80 GB I drove home and eagerly took it out of the box. Much to my dismay I found the video and audio signal weren't working properly. I called the store and they said bring it back in. I went back to the store(less than an hour later) and they told me that they could not help me because the serial number on the box didn't match the one on the machine. Employee scam? WTF? So the say sorry, sorry, blah, blah, we are going to investigate this and review the cameras. Whatever. Who checks the serial number before they leave the store? Well apparently we all should. Now it's been over two weeks and I still have no answer from game stop or the manager...

We suggested he try some of the tips in this post. He wrote back today with an update:

Wow. I am screwed. So, the main customer service for gamestop has now told me that the district manager made his decision (unbeknownst to me) and they have to stand by his decision. This is to not help me in any way, shape, or form. So I figured good old Sony would help me, right? Well they also refuse to help me. Not only will they not exchange my machine, they refuse to even take it for repair because my serial # from the receipt doesn't match. I really don't care what my serial # is, I just want a PS3 that works properly for the 500 I spent. Any suggestions?

Ben

We suggest that Ben contact his credit card company and request a chargeback. Once again we are lead to believe that before you exit a store you should check to see that your serial number is correct on the receipt and open the box to make sure what you're buying is actually inside. Once you leave the store, they're going to assume that you're a liar and a crook.

Does anyone else have any suggestions for Ben?

(Photo:Marike79)

Comcast Wants You To Send Your Bill To A Mythical Greek Woman Nursed By A Bear

Meg Marco — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:34:35 EST

Comcast is asking you to send your bills to a character in Greek mythology (Not that the Consumerist never has a typo, but we digress...)

As Reader Bob said in his email: " I doubt one character from Greek mythology can process all these bills." Then again, she was the fastest runner in Greece, you know. Maybe she's also good at billing.—MEGHANN MARCO

Typosquatters: Google, Yahoo, Hucksters Profit From Your Butter Fingers

consumerist.com — Mon, 01 May 2006 07:19:51 EDT

Don't you hate it when you try to go to BestBuy.com and accidentally replace the first vowel with a w? Or put a hyphen between best and buy? And you end up at one of those squatter advertisement sites, designed specifically to garner profits from the typos or ignorance of others?

Those sites are big business, believe it or not. "In two minutes, I can set up a thousand domain names," claims one entrepreneur. "I know quite a few guys making over a million dollars a year from advertising on their domains... It's like a 24-hour money-printing machine."

But ad networks like Google's and Yahoo's are now coming under fire for allowing domain squatters and advertisement hucksters to turn a pretty profit off of their advertisement networks. Many trademark attorneys are finding it hard to reconcile Google's "Do No Evil" policy with their business with companies that are preying on consumer confusion.

One revelation that amazed us in the linked article: "This form of online advertising relies on "type-in traffic": users who type the information they're looking for into the Web browser's address bar instead of using a search engine. Industry analysts estimate 15 percent of Web traffic originates this way." Only 15%? Maybe we're old school, but the idea of getting to Best Buy's homepage through MSN Search is like referencing the phone book every time you want to call your Mom. Just memorize it or put it on speed dial, already!

Typed too fast? Google profits from your typo [Seattle Times]