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Reader Laura had Kaiser Permanente health insurance through her employer. When she lost her job, she paid Kaiser directly for COBRA coverage. She stuck with the company for her employer-subsidized health insurance when she started a new job earlier this year, and was under the impression that the COBRA plan would end when her new coverage began. It didn't.
When she couldn't convince anyone in first-line customer service that she really, really didn't mean to have two separate insurance plans simultaneously, she did some research and launched an executive e-mail carpet bomb at the company, bringing the bureaucratic stupidity to the attention of someone with actual power.
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Happily, over the past two days Sony reps have been in contact with Kate and made things whole again. More »
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—>Mohamed made a mistake, forgetting to use his Priceline bonus cash on a transaction. He contacted Priceline through their online help interface and was stunned at the quick and helpful response he received. His request was forwarded straight to the executive customer service team, and taken care of immediately. More »
—>At first he thought it was an earthquake, being in California and all. Then Eric realized, no, it was his Mini Cooper that was violently shaking. More »
—>Kristina stumbled onto a savvy con for those who need two turkeys but only want to pay for one: Buy a turkey, call with a sob story about accidentally ruining it, then show up at the store with hat in hand waiting for your free sympathy bird. More »
—>Reader Y0himba was a loyal and happy customer of AT&T Wireless. But then the iPhone 3Gs became cheaper and proliferated, and he told both Consumerist and AT&T that his family's phones became completely non-functional. But this is not a complaint—it is a tale of victory. More »
—>Chris navigated Verizon Wireless's troubled phone upgrade waters and came away with Droids for both himself and his wife, even though her upgrade date was still a ways off. Earlier, his wife had gotten a new Voyager with assurances that her contract renewal date wouldn't be affected. More »
—>Earlier this week, I posted about a college student who couldn't get Capital One's Emergency Payment Protection Plan activated on his account because of missed deadlines. Andon wrote back today to say that after he sent an EECB to the credit card company's executives, they apologized and activated the service. More »
—>Reader Stephanie's brother recently started a blog dedicated to reviewing French Dip sandwiches. To that end, he ordered, and reviewed, a French Dip at a Perkins in Madison, WI. Unfortunately, his sandwich came on regular bread, instead of typical French Dip bread. More »
—>After the wedding has passed and gifts are all opened, married couples who has registered at Target receives a coupon for 10% off any items on their registry that they didn't receive. It's a nice promotion that gives happy couples a break on that eighth place setting, and maybe the Kitchenaid mixer no one wanted to drag into the reception. More »
—>Richard, whose wife had her Hotmail account swiped by a hacker, was able to get it back by calling Xbox Live customer service, of all people. More »
—>Ryan in North Dakota bought a very nice HP laptop in 2007. This particular model, he DV6000, has a certain flaw, and HP extended the warranty to cover inevitable repairs. But when the computer broke down for the second time at the tender age of two and a half years, and HP wouldn't repair it for free, he was angry. He had expected to get at least four years' use out of the laptop. More »
—>Even though it most likely wasn't Amazon's fault that Lucas's iPod arrived in a hippo-flattened package, a company rep stepped in and gave him a $10 credit to say sorry. More »
—>Remember back when some individuals referred to good things as "da bomb?" They probably didn't have the Executive Email Carpet Bomb in mind, since Consumerist didn't yet exist, but they should have. Here's to re-branding "da bomb" as shorthand for the EECB. Just look at what it did for c0crusader, a spurned Sony laptop customer who used da bomb to shake Sony down for $99. More »
—>Remember Mark, the gentleman who paid $200 to repair a Hitachi TV, only to see it immediately break again? Of course you don't, because we posted his story three months ago. More »
—>Some people who got away with using a $60 gift certificate on two separate Amazon orders would take the merchandise and run, hoping to get to use it a third time. More »
—>Back in July near Miami, 12-year-old Jennifer came away with Phillies player Ryan Howard's 200th home run ball. Florida Marlins officials asked her to give up the milestone ball so Howard could autograph it. More »
—>Buddy, owner of the refrigerator from hell, has sent us a follow-up. Lowe's has agreed to send him a check for the replacement cost of the evil fridge. Hooray! More »
—>Brian believes a firmware update made his 80gb Zune give up the ghost, so he called customer service asking for a repair. The CSR's idea was for Brian to send the Zune and $160 so Microsoft — new 80gb Zunes are going for $217 on Amazon — but Brian had a different idea: call in an EECB airstrike. More »
—>Greg struggled for more than a year to get Dell to solve myriad issues with his notebook, but moved things along real quick-like once he ignited an Executive Email Carpet Bomb. He wrote us the following, summarized from two separate messages: More »
—>You can understand Amy's disappointment when she ordered a belted dress from Neiman Marcus, but the dress arrived beltless. Starting in July, she tangled with customer service to get her money back. More »
—>While we don't recommend doing this on a large scale, one woman's YouTube debt revolt has succeeded. Ann MInch, a YouTube sensation and then-unemployed credit card rebel, has been offered a lower interest rate on her card. More »
—>When a company is on the ropes, customer service tends to improve. That's what Chris found when his Sirius XM satellite radio broke and he called to cancel his account. More »
—>Chuck lost his job several months ago and wanted to continue his American Express membership, but had trouble justifying the $50 annual fee in his limited budget. So he launched an Executive Email Carpet Bomb, started his own anti-AmEx blog and started picketing... More »
—>Remember that couple who tried to get Best Buy to fix their CD drive, only to have lost all their data and be charged $1,500? More »
—>Remember Kelly, the one who couldn't get her money back from Classmates after she canceled her automatically renewed gold membership? More »
—>Wait a minute...that headline sounds familiar. It doesn't have the desolate ring that "stranded in Siberia" has, but Josiah recently found himself without available credit in Mumbai. He recently had made a large payment on his American Express balance, see, and AmEx cut his credit limit accordingly—down to his current balance. Stranded without money in Mumbai? More »
—>We're not entirely sure Consumerist is responsible for Walmart finally getting back to Jeff on his ruined transmission—and frankly, because of the length of time between the incident and his complaint, as well as Walmart's reputation for silence on consumer complaints like this, we didn't expect much to happen at all. We were wrong, and we tip our hats to Walmart for making good on a very expensive mistake. Read Jeff's update below. More »
—>Seth had what should have been a fairly simple problem. His son's radio control car broke after only a few weeks of use. The toy was purchased at and manufactured by Toys R Us, and an e-mail to the support address included with the toy bounced. No one in the company's usual customer service channels could resolve his problem, and the people whose job it was to help customers in this situation never managed to contact him. More »
—>Thanks to their own determination and a tip from a fellow Consumerist reader, Tavie and Gina have finally found someone at Funai willing to not only answer the phone, but grant them a refund for their Sylvania television that died after only a few months of use. The amount of effort needed to get this result is a little disheartening, but we're thrilled at the happy ending, and we now have helpful information for other customers who encounter problems with Funai. More »
—>Jen, who was left stranded in another city recently when her Zipcar lost its zip, managed to get through to the New York area general manager for Zipcar this morning: More »
—>Here's an example of a great EECB that worked: even though Joe's generator was out of warranty and the first two levels of customer service refused to help him, he was able to convince the company's execs to make good on a defective starter. More »
—>It took an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to convince Best Buy to replace Bryan's Panasonic LiFi LCD Projection TV after it ate through four lamps. Bryan had purchased Best Buy's extended warranty, which contains a no lemon clause that promises a replacement after three failed repairs. Best Buy conveniently insisted that replacing the broken lamp did not count as a "qualified repair." Bryan first escalated his complaint through normal channels; when he had no other choice, he launched the mighty EECB. More »
—>Wentao, who had been waiting over half a year for a replacement set of earbuds from Skullcandy, wrote in with an update: More »
—>Reader Stephen writes in to let us know that the Marriott Residence Inn in Boulder, CO was nice to him when some random jerks charged food to his room. More »
—>Last Friday, we posted about how a Dodge dealership in New York spent nearly a week working on a truck, and charged over $700 for the labor, only to say they couldn't fix it in the end. It looks like the story has a happy ending: after the truck's owner sent in a formal complaint and pointed the dealership to our post, the dealership's owner refunded both the repair fees and the towing fees. More »
—>Score one for the consumer over unfair arbitration. Just last week, Minnesota's Attorney General sued the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) for fraud, false advertising, and deceptive trade practices—and now the company has agreed to pull out of the credit card business entirely. According to the settlement reached on July 17th, "The only business NAF can now be involved with is in arbitrating Internet domain disputes, a business it has long been in." More »
—>Tony had a lot of problems with the build quality of his new bicycle, so he finally wrote to Trek Bikes and told them all the things going wrong with it. Unlike Comfort Select, which denies manufacturing problems even as it replaces broken units with a less defective version (that you pay for), Trek contacted Tony and treated him like they actually wanted his repeat business. More »
—>Lu, who caught a Game Crazy cashier adding bogus fees to a purchase, has sent in a couple of updates. More »
—>Reader Tyler started 344pounds.com to document his weight loss journey. We've checked in with him before when he lost 32 and then 54.6 pounds. Now that he's hit the hundred-pound-loss mark, Tyler wrote this feature for us to share his methods. More »
—>Can we tag a story "above and beyond" if the customer service cycle is so screwed up that it eventually works out in the customer's favor? When jpodbuild tried to get his Craftsman sander repaired or replaced, he couldn't get anyone on the phone who could actually help him—eventually he would end up back at the first number he'd called. He decided to show up in person and let the store manager handle the phone calls. New sander! More »
—>Corey admits that he messed up. He was the one who didn't keep as close track of his transactions as he should have, and overdrafted his account. It was Bank of America's policies, however, that resulted in his being hit with fifteen overdraft fees at $35 each, for a total of $525 over the course of a weekend. Corey knew that he was in the wrong, but thought that these fees were unfair, and also more than he could afford. So what did he do? He used what he's learned from reading Consumerist to make his case to the people in charge. More »
—>Jiffy Lube agreed to pay Alison over $250 after botching routine work that forced her to interrupt her road trip for emergency car repairs. Alison's mechanic said that Jiffy Lube's attempted transmission fluid flush could have caused "catastrophic car damage" if left unfixed. Jiffy Lube denied all responsibility until Alison fired off an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to C.E.O. Rick Altizer, who agreed not only to reimburse for the repairs, but refunded the original cost of the transmission fluid flush, and tossed in a few coupons for free oil changes. More »
—>Southwest Airlines has apologized to Chip, the frequent business traveler who was denied boarding because he was too big to fly. If you recall, Chip, a self-described "big guy," does not use a seat belt extender and says he has no trouble fitting into a standard airline seat. More »
—>Bank of America messed up Andy's credit score by failing to send him credit card statements or giving him online access to an old account he only recently started using again. They also refused to work with him over the phone, telling him each time he called that they had no record of his previous conversations with customer service and therefore no reason to believe him. More »
—>Jon wrote back with the results of his attempt to redeem a gift certificate that's over a decade old. More »
—>For the past two years, Time Warner has charged Eric $10 per month above its published rates. Eric called and made what he thought was a fair offer: In exchange for refunding only one year's worth of overcharges, he would add a premium cable service. A Time Warner supervisor responded with: "this is not let's make a deal," and then offered to refund three months worth of overcharges. Offended and armed with a reasonable request, Eric decided to unleash the mighty Executive Email Carpet Bomb. More »
—>Ryan convinced Bank of America to drop their demand for $315 from nine overdraft fees by sending a well-crafted Executive Email Carpet Bomb. Ryan admitted that he was wrong to expect his checks to clear so quickly, but gently reminded the bank that nine overdraft fees was excessive, and explained that he would consider taking his business elsewhere if they thought this was an acceptable way to treat a long-time customer. Two days later, the fees were gone. More »
—>Jon, like many American Express customers, had his credit limit slashed without warning recently. What he did next makes us feel all warm and fuzzy about our jobs here, because he found the necessary contact info buried in a post from 2007. Here's his story, proof that sometimes persistence pays off. More »
—>Chris was surprised to find that T-Mobile didn't cancel his account as promised a few months ago. What's worse, the note on his account that mentioned his cancellation request was missing, and nobody at customer service would help him. Chri works for a "very large consumer electronics company" that he won't name (we're pretty sure it's Apple) and thinks customer service is important, so he gave up on the CSR angle and instead came to our site to find contact info for T-Mobile executives. One EECB later, Chris is free from T-Mobile and the ETF they tried to apply. More »
—>Disneyland mistakenly extended a special annual pass program to ineligible customers last December, but only realized it recently. At the time of the sale, residents of certain Southern California zip codes could buy an annual ticket on a 12-month installment plan, free from any interest rates or other fees. When they discovered that some customers weren't in valid zip codes, they ended the payment agreement with them—but they're letting them keep the annual passes. More »
—>Reader Chris bought a GE hot water tank from Home Depot, only to find out that it was broken. He noticed a sticker on the back telling him to call a 1-800 number for warranty repair rather than returning the tank to the store. So he did. And he got the runaround. More »
—>Chris reports getting sweet satisfaction from HP after he searched for their executive customer service number on our site and gave them a ring: More »
—>After Lisa's story of how she bought an ostensibly new DVD player from Best Buy only to find an adult DVD already in it went up on Consumerist, the retailer contacted her and sent her a $30 gift card. The original DVD player cost $29.99. That was nice of them, as Lisa was more amused than bothered at the situation in the first place. She wrote, "It was pretty funny! At first my husband was thinking, "Sweet!!! Score..." when we opened it up. We got a good laugh, but then I started thinking, "Wait a second, we bought it as a regular item, not open boxed. Why is there a DVD in there then?" More »
—>It's strange, the way some customer/CSR encounters go so well when others seem headed for failure before the first sentence is finished. When Nix called to complain about being mistakenly sent a $100 gift card offer that she can't take advantage of, the Verizon rep on the other end not only addressed the real issues, but later sent a $50 gift card to Nix as a goodwill gesture. More »
—>You know what they need to make? A zombie film starring reanimated furniture. The whole walking corpse thing is just so done. But an undead end table stalking you through your house and hacking through the closet door to reveal your pathetic hiding spot and devour your flesh? Now that's something I'd pay to see, even if it wasn't in 3- as, apparently, all movies will be in the future. Until that cinematic masterpiece hits the silver screen, I guess Steve's story of how Ashley Furniture wouldn't stop calling him until he sent their headquarters an Executive Email Carpet Bomb will have to suffice... More »
—>An EZ Lube store in California overcharged Timothy for a new cabin filter when he went to get his oil changed. The mechanic managed to do this by quizzing Timothy on his knowledge of air filters, then using that info to make vague assurances that sounded good but didn't convey the actual, final price. Timothy admits that he let his guard down, but when he was hit with the final bill, he regained his consumerist footing and began to take steps to remedy the situation—and he succeeded. More »
—>Here's an example of terrific customer service, this time from the sink and faucet company Kohler. More »
—>Like anything that's cool and people use to organically connect to one another, companies have rushed into Twittering. To take advantage of this, reader Justin says he's started following all the companies he gets service from on Twitter. When he saw @dishnetwork tweet about an area getting local HD channels, he asked in reply when Cincinnati would get them. @dishnetwork replied back that Cincinnati should have them and asked for his account for so they could check into it. Turned out he needed a different Dish and the rep agreed to have it installed at no cost instead of the usual $60. "The tech showed up this morning, and I have local HD channels for free," writes Justin. "I'm finding tracking companies on Twitter is useful because they people monitoring the accounts are ones who can actually do something." More »
—>When we broke off from our Sears Craftsman warranty saga last Friday, Brian had been told there were no replacements on tools that have rust on them, which wasn't what Sears told us the last time we had warranty questions. Over the weekend, Brian found more evidence that Sears can't get its warranty language straight. But there's some good news, too: he dressed up a little, cleaned off the sockets, and went back to Sears. This time he got a different associate who seemed to have no problem swapping out the tools, and who never mentioned the supposed "three per day" rule. More »
—>Reader Lyn is happy to report that he is not suffering any buyer's regret. A week after buying a big ol' 52" Sony Bravia LCD TV from Costco for $1950, one of "my wife's and I's once-in-ten-years type deals," he saw the same one sitting in the TV section for $200 less. More »
—>Aaron is happy to report that he has gotten resolution with his complaint about HP's repair center sending him back his laptop filled with viruses. Good thing for HP that Aaron is honest, otherwise he could probably have three laptops right now, as three different HP reps contacted him about his story. On March 9th he wrote us: More »
—>Michael is happy to report that he got a really great resolution from Best Buy, who had sold his grandma a broken camera as new and then accused them of breaking it themselves. The shots of Best Buy employees Michael found on the camera, and the repugnant attitude he encountered when they tried to return it and disinterest when he complained to corporate multiple times, only made the story that much juicier. After Micheal's story went up on Consumerist and hit Digg, Best Buy contacted him. Here's what they did to make nice: More »
—>Earlier today, Jessica wrote to us about her Comcast horror story: there was something that smelled terrible, and the smell was coming from inside her apartment! He also hooked up her replacement modem incorrectly, so it still didn't work, then said he'd be right back and drove off forever. Luckily, she was able to steal enough wifi to send an email to Comcast, and as of now the problem has been resolved. More »
—>Yesterday we brought you the story of Vincent who got "gold misted" at a Chevy dealership. After his story went up he learned that his brother-in-law's cousin works at a Chevy dealership and will get him the car he wanted. "Life is good :-)" announced Vincent. More »
—>James almost got cheated out of CS4, the suite of graphics software sold by Adobe, when he bought a new Macbook Pro recently. He kept pressing the issue though, and his persistence and level-headedness finally, after several near misses, convinced Apple to do the right thing and send him what he paid for. Congrats to James! More »
—>Paul now has 30 free pairs of sneakers from J.Crew for calling them out on some bullshit. More »
—>R wanted to get started paying off her Capital One credit card but after missing one month's payment she started a fee pigpile. She got overlimit fees, and then so many extra fees started piling on that she wasn't ever able to pay them off enough to bring her balance back under her credit limit. R wanted to get started on debt reduction snowball method but could never get that first ball started because the fees were too high. Tugs at the regular customer service line to try to get some fees waived were fruitless. To untangle this Gordian Knot R had to pull out her mighty sword of executive customer service. Her story, inside... More »
—>The Black Bear Diner in Colorado Springs twice served Jason the same undercooked steak. When he asked for a new steak, the server returned with the same steak cooked for a third time. When Jason told the server that the steak looked unappetizingly familiar, the server responded with "some story about her eating the old steak, and (unprompted) said that she couldn't bring out the other steak because she had ate it, and got in trouble with her boss about it." More »
Want to read more about the banker President Obama mentioned tonight who gave $60 million to his employees past and present? [The Miami Herald] More »
—>Reader B. probably shouldn't have used her credit to help her less-than-creditworthy brother get a cellphone, but this story has a happy ending thanks to some helpful customer service from Sprint. More »
—>Josh chopped down Duke Energy's thicket of phone trees by launching the mighty Executive Email Carpet Bomb. He had a simple request: turn on the power to his construction site. Calling the main customer support number led to a series of thirty-minute waits while listening to Duke's cheerful computer voice promise that he would hold "for no longer than one minute." He also sent six emails to Duke's customer service inbox, all of which were ignored. Finally, after three weeks without power, Josh tracked down executive contact info for Duke's executives and fired off an EECB. Five minutes later, his problem was solved. More »
—>The boy whose HP was running 200°F and was told by tech support to "buy a cooling mat" used some of the higher-up phone numbers readers posted in the comment on the original post to get in touch with a Senior Case Manager. Despite being out of warranty, they reopened the case and had him send in his laptop. Lo and behold, they fixed it! "It is running great now," writes Travis. Huzzah! More »
—>Reader Patty is shocked that Newegg would send her another keyboard because the one she bought was defective. She's stunned. She can't believe it. More »
—>Martin discovered he was able to get Citibank to extend his grace period from 20 to 25 days. It seems all you have to do is ask! Here's how he found out. More »
—>Louisiana seven-year-old Sydney Hotard fixed her broken playground by writing a well-crafted letter to her Parish President. Hotard was concerned that the plastic slide needed to be "more slippery" and that a nearby exposed electrical panel might be "dangerus." Upon receiving the letter, Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet was so charmed that he ordered municipal workers to immediately fix the playground. More »
—>Two weeks ago I wrote that Woot! hadn't replaced a shirt stolen by the U.S. Post Office. Well, I was wrong. Unbeknownst to me, Woot! shipped out a brand new replacement shirt, just as I had requested. More »
—>Stop the presses! Brian was able to get Chase to reinstate his promotional APR even though he accidentally set up in the auto-payment system in a way that incurred late fees. His secret? Asking politely and making a cogent argument that positioned his request in a manner any business would understand. His strange-but-true tale, inside. More »
—>L.L. Bean just wants you to be happy, ok? Even if your unhappiness is entirely your own fault because you ordered the wrong size shirts and had them monogrammed. They don't care. You will be happy or else. More »
—>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 »
—>It's the dream of every angry customer — sending a bill to the company that wasted your time. Well, it's finally happened. More »
—>There's a nasty winter storm coming to Chicagoland — a mix of rain, sleet and snow that might result in 12" of accumulation. Jennifer was scheduled to fly right in the middle of it. More »
—>Reader Jesse was having an awful time explaining a simple problem to DirecTV. Thankfully, the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) was just the thing. More »
—>Aaron has gotten a busy signal from the Pennsylvania unemployment office call center for a month. He started filing his claim online, which was fine, until he started getting automated emails saying there were problems with the online system, and instructed him to call the toll-free call center number. That's right, the one that's a constant busy signal. So, he got in touch with his local state representative, and got results! More »
—>Marc is happy to report that Aliph really came through for him after he complained about Jawbone smoking and melting after he plugged it into his computer: More »
—>Bill says that an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) follow up to a BBB complaint solved his $500 billing dispute with TMobile, and he couldn't be happier. More »
—>After umpteen attempts to have his multiple MacBook Pro problems fixed, only to be told each time the laptop was working perfectly fine, Jordan wrote a polite email to Steve Jobs. He affirmed his Apple loyalty, laid out what happened to him, and asked for help. A couple of emails later and he was able to walk into an Apple store and swap his jalopy for one of the brand new MacBook Pros that just came out. You might analyze how the letter was written for clues to his success but really what it came down to was that he had gone in for repairs of the same problem more than three times, qualifying him for a refund or replacement under what is known as "lemon law," and he got his issue under the nose of the guy at the top. Or at least the assistant who opens his email. Same difference. Jordan's success story, inside... More »
—>Here's a good example of how to write an effective Executive Email Carpet Bomb, or EECB, to break through the "please hold" purgatory of the company's phone system. Alicia's car's bumper was scratched by a Best Buy employee, and calling consumer relations as directed proved fruitless. Now she's got a check in her hands from Best Buy to pay for the repairs. More »
—>Nicole was hit with a surprise 6 point interest rate increase on her Citicard, so she fought back. Her story is a good reminder that you should look at all of your options and be prepared to argue on your behalf, even if you're not in a position where you can just pay off the entire balance and walk away. More »
—>Here's a happy story from someone who bought a "Box of Crap" (this is what we call a box that looks new, but contains the wrong item or a used item, due to return fraud). Instead of accusing reader Ryan of some sort of crime, Home Depot simply issued him a gift card. Hooray! More »
—>Enterprise Car Rental charged Mike $560 for a scratch on the bumper he felt was unfair, but after he followed The Consumerist's instructions on sending an Executive Email Carpet Bomb (EECB), all that changed. "Long story short," he writes, "Within ONE DAY, that email was forward with highlights , such as URGENT -PLEASE RESOLVE, and ultimately reached the northeast manager, who called me and apologized profusely for their poor handling of the situation, and WAIVED ALL charges ($560 for repairs). done..all wiped... GONE!!! THANK you for publishing that thread.. it absolutely positively works!!!" More »
—>Jeff has a big sweaty hug to give FedEx after their customer service rep Leslie personaly intervened and saved his car-buying transaction from getting 1000% harder. Read his happy tale, and another addition to the "ABOVE AND BEYOND" files, inside... More »
—>Here's how with a little patience, persistence and pricematching, reader Scott is saving $65.52 on his phone and internet service with AT&T: More »
—>In an update and conclusion, reader Sean let us know he finally got satisfaction regarding his story that we posted, "Circuit City Credits Wrong Card For $130 Return, Sends You Away With Nothing." More »
—>When the Lenovo laptop Rick ordered for his college-bound daughter was super-duper delayed in arriving and he hadn't heard anything from the company, he did the opposite of an EECB (executive email carpet bomb). Instead of blasting his complaint to every single executive he could find, he wrote a well-crafted letter laser-targeted at a single individual, the SVP of operations. The result? An email from the Chief of Staff in the CEO's office. His order was expedited, and, in the meantime, they got a $5000 "Reserve Edition" leather-wrapped laptop as a loaner. Here's his letter that got him the fix: More »
—>Update on "Casio Voids Warranty, Claims There's A Fingerprint Inside New Camera": After Sam's story went live on Consumerist and he got escalated at Casio, they repaired his camera fully under warranty, acknowledged their mistake, and gave him a free 8 Gig Class III SD card. Sam writes, "Once the right people found out things moved around quickly." More »
—>Here's a nice story from reader Aaron. His Adidas backpack soaked up a ton of water and ruined his books and papers, so he complained to Adidas. They referred him to their backpack manufacturer, and they replaced the backpack with a better one for free. More »
—>Reader Bill was getting the run around from Verizon— but he wasn't even a customer yet! His dramatic ordeal started on October 9th, and by the 16th he'd taken a full day off of work, called Verizon nine times and still he was without FiOS. More »
—>Luisa accidentally overdrafted her checking account with Bank of America, but found that no matter how much money she put in — it was being eaten up by the fee monster that lurks at the bottom of her account. It has big yellow teeth and glowing eyes and only the CEO can control it... Rrraaawwwrrrr........ More »
—>Remember Vickie and her defective Delta Creative PermEnamel experience? It ruined several of her pieces, not because she applied it incorrectly but because something was wrong with the product. It happens sometimes with products, no big deal. What was a big deal was the company's CEO, Bill George, refused to approve a compensation payment that his employees had already agreed to with Vickie, leaving her with no choice but to contact a lawyer and write to us. It looks like Delta Creative and the artist have now resolved the issue, and she's sent us a statement saying everything has been resolved to her "complete satisfaction." More »
—>David used the classic Threaten To Cancel method to save big time on his cable bill, $238.92 per year. Better yet, he did it in the face of Comcast trying to raise his bill. Granted, it was by less than a dollar. But why pay more if you don't have to? Here's how he did it. More »
—>Rick has been trying for months to get his his credit union, Opportunities Credit Union of Vermont, to pay up for a $125 home inspection, and now, a week after sending his EECB, he prevailed. As we wrote last week, his credit union was supposed to pay for a home inspection but said they didn't have to because the bill was never sent. However, the home inspector uses an electronic billing system and it showed that the credit union rep had in fact read the sent bill. Emails and phone calls between Rick and his credit union rep led to a stalemate. Then Jim sent off an executive email carpet bomb and got the following back from the credit union president: More »
I have a first generation Nintendo Wii and I recently bought the game Boom Blox for it. When I put the game in to start playing it would often lock up at the health warning screen and I would have to restart my Wii by unplugging it since no other method would work. More »
—>Earlier this summer, we wrote about how Paul was being gouged by Advantage Rent-A-Car on repairs that had to be made after his rental was damaged in a hit and run. Paul was willing to pay the repairs on the vehicle, but Advantage wanted almost double the amount. After we posted his story, Paul was able to get in touch with a higher-up at Advantage who passed him along directly to the Chairman. Here's what happened. More »
—>Got a problem with your federal student loan? The Federal Student Aid Ombudsman specialists are here to help. First they've got a bunch of tips for you to fix your problem on your own. If all those don't work, contact them by phone, fax, or mail and they will help you out. For reals. This is reader Trey's great experience with them: More »
—>The condescending store-manager, irked that your request for them to fulfill their contractual agreement has forced them away from a high-scoring session of Snood. Long have consumers suffered under his reign of caprice and indifference. No longer. A weakness has been discovered. The EECB, a modern version of "taking it to the top." Jim used it and got not only the rare and magnificent personal apology, but a $30 gift card and he was allowed to make the return he wanted to do in the first place. His story follows. More »
—>Obviously, stores sell items that has been returned by other customers as "open box" merchandise, but before reader David left the store, he specifically asked if the phone he was buying was "new" and was told it was. When he got home and found addresses saved on the phone and a few scratches he was understandably annoyed. He launched an EECB on Best Buy and after a little negotiation, he got a $120 gift card. Now he's writing to compliment Best Buy on the way they handled his complaint. More »
—>It took a little negotiating but reader Noah was able to get United Airlines to honor the agreement that their CSR made, despite the fact that it was a violation of some kind of deeply sacred policy. More »
—>Although stores often claim they employ receipt checkers to make sure you got everything you paid for, you still might get ripped off. This past weekend, three stores tried to sell us items that did not match their price tag or description. Each time, we politely pointed out the difference to a manager, and each time, we were rewarded for doing so, either with a reduced price or a better item than the original one we wanted. Let us tell you about our exciting weekend, inside. More »
—>Reader Jeff writes in to let us know that Comcast Frank and the Twitter team swooped in and rescued him from Comcast tech hell. More »
—>Assurant Solutions, the company that's supposed to be honoring any outstanding TAP agreements with former CompUSA customers, likes to refuse service for arbitrary reasons. Luckily for TAP-holders, CompUSA has said it will honor any TAP agreements if Assurant doesn't. The guy with the broken laptop wrote back to let us know that CompUSA indeed came through for him after every attempt he made with Assurant ended in rejection. More »
—>You know those Verizon ads where someone is trying to make a call and like 100 Verizon people show up to help them do it? Arelene's story is sort of like that. Except they all showed up to help her change her address. And they were one at a time. And it was over the phone. And it took several days. Here's her tale, and how she eventually won... More »
—>Reader Corey checked the 3G coverage map before buying a new iPhone, only to find out that the map was wrong. The story has something of a happy ending, however, because Corey says he's pleased with the $250 service credit AT&T offered. More »
—>Claudia's father couldn't get a loan because Sears reported to the credit bureaus that he was dead. In fact, it was her mother who had died. After complaints, Sears credit cards, run by Citibank said they fixed the problem. Then Claudia's dad tried to get a loan but couldn't. His credit score was zero. More »
—>Reader Kyle says that his dispute with Comcast has resulting in something of a happy ending, though they're still working out that pesky easement issue. Comcast is under the impression that it has an easement on Kyle's property, while Kyle's records show that they do not. According to Kyle, Comcast has agreed to mail him some paperwork about the easement and has offered him a credit of $500. More »
—>Chris L. writes in to let us know that the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) is probably the only way you're going to get Comcast to fix a network problem that affects your entire neighborhood. Calling and talking to the "zombies" at the call center will just result in yet another "truck roll" (where Comcast comes to your house and says everything is fine.) More »
—>Joe wants to thank American Express for fixing an incorrect charge on his bill even though he completely forgot to send in the paperwork. Aw! More »
—>Like all those people who joined the class-action suit, Consumerist reader Russ has a moldy Select Comfort mattress. Unlike many of them, he was able to use it to get a new bed, and the old bed taken away, for free. Here's how he negotiated with customer service: More »
—>Reader Michael is having a rough time with the iPhone. He says that two out of three of the iPhones purchased by his family were defective, and the third one wouldn't receive calls. Weirdly, this story has a happy ending, because Michael found some contact information on Consumerist that got his problem solved in 5 minutes. More »
—>Last winter, David's old furnace broke down. But things got really heated up when the incompetent HVAC repairmen he hired threatened to report him to collection agencies and put a lien on his condo when they wanted him to pay up for a repair they never finished. Just to give a little atmosphere, this takes place in Chicago, famed for its merciless winters. David's story, and how fought back, inside... More »
—>Nick was tired of getting the run around from his insurance company, part of United Heathcare, over frequent (and pricey) billing errors. More »
—>After we posted about a reader's frustrated attempts to buy Adobe's Dreamweaver, Adobe sent us an email, which we passed along to the reader. Over the weekend, she wrote in and said Adobe helped her solve her problems. More »
—>Chris gave Comcast a heads up that he was moving and wanted to arrange a transfer date ahead of time, and they disconnected his present internet access instead. Gahhhhhhh! Ahhhh!!! When he made various calls to various Comcast departments, various employees agreed it was messed up, but all refused to actually solve the problem. So Chris, using some email addresses we posted, sent out a well-crafted executive email carpet bomb... More »
—>Pani just had an astoundingly good bit of customer service from aptly-named simplehuman—makers of those elegant-but-expensive trash cans—and wrote to let us know about it. Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and every cable, cellular, and telephone company, you might want to print this out and pass it around your CSR executive offices. More »
—>Arlene got behind on her mortgage payments and had been trying for 6 months to contact her lender, Washington Mutual, to see if they could work out a deal. All she found was disconnections, non-returned phone calls, contradictory information, and no answers. After reading my article in Reader's Digest about ways to get customer satisfaction she sent me an email. She was ready to try the "town crier" method, where you stand outside the business passing out copies of your complaint letter, but we gave her some executive contact info to try first before wasting any money at Kinko's. Arlene says that thanks to the phone numbers we gave her, "They are going to suspend the foreclosure for 60 days and work with me on the payments for a set period of time which is all I ever wanted them to do." Once again, the almighty power of executive customer service has been revealed. Arlene's original email, inside... More »
I was ripped off to the tune of $5620. They refused for 3 years to refund my money. Then they told me I have I have no recourse. It was electronic funds transfer for personal training that I never authorized. The people who did it were fired shortly after. It had happened to several other members, and most of the cases were settled. Except mine. More »
—>Michael canceled his Hilton Hotel reservation with less than 24 hour notice and got charged the full-room rate of $189. This post is not about that. Michael knows and accepts that this is the policy. Rather, this is about $25. The $25 "occupancy tax" the Hilton tacked on. Michael wasn't about to be charged an occupancy tax for a room he never occupied. After talking to three different people for two days, he finally got Hilton refund the charge. "I thought other readers may like to know about this story and to be on the look out for stupid taxes that aren't valid when you cancel a hotel room," Michael writes. More »
—>Reader Mark ordered DirecTV and waited patently for the installer. And waited. And rescheduled. And waited. Luckily, Mark knew that he might want to order DirecTV in the future, and he'd made a note of CEO Chase Carey's email address when we posted it. More »
—>EECBs are scoring direct hits on HSBC and Best Buy. Reader Chad was having the same problem with his Best Buy credit card that reader Jason wrote in about. After he saw Jason's successful EECB he launched one of his own. Reade Chad's letter and Best Buy's response inside. More »
—>If you read our story from this morning "Sears Kicks Off Holiday Weekend With False Advertising" you should remember Nazar who couldn't get the advertised discount on his garage storage. He wrote to us with the following update: More »
Some people think the BBB doesn't work. They do, but only if the company cares about keeping a clean record. See when you look up a company in the BBB database it shows you how many complaints have been filed against the company, how many were answered, how many did the consumer report as being satisfactorily resolved, etc. So if you have a valid complaint, file it with the BBB, and the company cares about its BBB record, you have a decent chance of getting a solution. You might not believe it, but it turns out Sprint is one of those companies. Here's Kevin's story of how the BBB got his erroneous text message charges refunded and let him leave contract early without early termination fee... More »
—>A month ago, we wrote about Brice's struggles with E*Trade to recover the balance on an account they closed. After eight months of letters and phone calls, Brice got E*Trade to close the account, but it continued to accrue interest and Brice never received the balance. Finally, after launching eight Executive Email Carpet Bombs, Brice has his money. More »
—>Michael launched an Executive Email Carpet Bomb after Home Depot twice failed to deliver an undamaged washer and dryer. Home Depot's CEO Frank Blake quickly thanked Michael for his even-handed letter, and promised that the local store manager would make him a happy customer... More »
—>Remember Nick? UPS smashed up his insured computer and then refused to provide any compensation, even after mysteriously shipping it to a stranger. UPS' public relations folks reached out to us after we posted his story and recently sent us an update: "...after a search of all UPS’s facilities we were not able to recover his computer." Bummer, but all is not lost. More »
—>If you read yesterday's article Best Buy's "Same As Cash" Credit Card Conceals Major Hidden Fees, you should remember Jason who got socked with some serious fees on his Best Buy/HSBC credit card. Jason wrote back to us to say that within a mere 3 hours after the deployment of his EECB, Best Buy reversed all of his fees. Jason's and Best Buy's letter, inside... More »
—>Reader Chris write in to let us know that even though his local Pizza Hut was having a really, really bad day (car accidents, miscommunication, messed up refunds) they went out of their way to try to make it up to him. More »
—>The mighty EECB (executive email carpet bomb) has brought justice to West Chester, Ohio, says reader Drew. Drew was mistakenly charged a $60 restocking fee on a defective bookcase. He wrote to us and launched an EECB on IKEA. The results? A very nice apology letter, a full refund and a $25 gift card. Looks like it's Swedish meatballs for dinner tonight. More »
—>Joel loves his orange juice and is none too pleased with Tropicana's recent decision to shrink their containers by 7 oz. He fired off a complaint through Tropicana's website, and was pleasantly surprised when the company responded with a coupon for a free carton of shrunken sweetness. More »
—>Some scammer out there has a sense of humor (and a shrink wrap machine), because when Greg opened his apparently "new" copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, he found a used copy of "Boys N Da Hood." More »
—>You may remember reader Matt from the story "No Proof Of Address? FedEx Curses You Out" in which he was treated very rudely by FedEx employees when he could not produce a utility bill needed to pick up his package. We were happy to hear that after our story ran, FedEx contacted Matt and had his package swiftly delivered to him at work. Additionally, he learned that the Maspeth location already had over 50 similar complaints filed, and that FedEx is now diligently trying to update their door tags and email with current information regarding "proof of address." Matt's comment, inside... More »
—>If you read the story, "Beware Of Rotten Newegg Rebate," you may remember the plight of reader RJ who submitted his $20 rebate information back in January and was getting the runaround from Newegg and the rebate company. RJ is now happy to learn that not only is Newegg giving him $20, they are giving him an extra $20 for his trouble, and not just store credit, real cash. Read Newegg's letter, inside... More »
—>Reader Dustin was upset that Sony responded with form emails no matter what he wrote, now he "has a smile on his face" because Sony contacted him and would like to replace his broken PS3. More »
—>Reader Justin got hit with Delta's new $25 extra bag fee on the way home from his vacation to West Palm Beach. He turned to the dreaded EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) to get his $25 refund. Let's listen in: More »
—>If you plunk down six grand for a refrigerator like the Jade Model #RJRS4870D, you expect it work. And if it doesn't, you expect the three-year warranty on it to cover things like the refrigerator leaking all over the floor, extra ice building up, and exuding the smell of burning rubber. Ron and his parents certainly thought so, but Maytag wanted them to pay for the installation of a new part to fix the problem, even though Maytag admitted it was a known issue with this refrigerator. Read his blog post about how he was able to use an executive email carpet bomb to persuade Maytag to doing the right thing. The end result was more than Ron asked or even hoped for: $6,000 credit towards any fridge they carry from either JennAir or Whirpool, installation included. My favorite line is when he tells them, "If the Whirlpool conglomerate cannot handle all of its customers in a timely matter maybe they should stop acquiring other brands and focus on the ones that they already have." More »
Recent true tales of everyday consumers fighting back, and getting back cash or items of significant monetary value for their troubles!
- The $10,000 EECB! Emailing Bank of America Saves You $120 A Month For 7 Years
- Polite Letter Results In $700 Priceline.com Refund
- We Post, SONY Replaces Long-Languishing Laptop
- ING Decides To Care You Never Got Your $1400
—>Whenever Brian drove his Dodge Charger in the rain, all the dash lights flashed and he had trouble restarting his car, but after 8 months of strife, his problem got fixed after his story posted to The Consumerist. The next day after the post went up, Brian got a call from Paul at Danbury Dodge, his dealership. Paul wanted Brian to bring his car in so the Chrysler tech could inspect it. Brian brought in the car during a rainy day, the problems were recreated, and the Chrysler tech diagnosed and fixed the problem in less than four hours. On repeated visits before this, the dealership kept claiming they couldn't recreate the problem. A rep for Chrysler VP TP Lassdora also called Brian up, apologized profusely, and offered five years of free oil changes and extended Brian's service contract. "In the end, I believe that the Consumerist story forced Chrysler to get involved, whereas Danbury Dodge was content to ignore my complaints," writes Brian. "Thank you to the staff and the readers of the Consumerist for motivating Chrysler and Danbury Dodge to fix my car." Inside, the original video showing how Brian's dashboard reacted in the rain. More »
—>Stephanie's internet is back after she used the contact info from our post "Comcast Trawling Blogs And Twitter For Customer Complaints" to email Comcast's problem solver, Frank Eliason. Stephanie writes, "Within an hour of my email to Frank he responded, saying that he forwarded my problem to Scott the local guy...they had a tech at my house within an hour." Score! More »
—>Reader Hayden had to email the CEO of Sirius radio just to get them to ship him some replacement adhesive backing for his car radio. Every homebrewed solution he tried couldn't get his Sirius radio to stick to his dashboard. When he called Sirius, he got bounced around between disconnections, robots, people who couldn't speak English, a guy who insisted Sirius didn't have stock any replacement tape. So Hayden kicked it straight to the man at the top with a nice cogent complaint letter, cc'd to us, various Sirius execs, the BBB, the Georgia Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs, and some popular gadget blogs. Apparently that's what it takes to get some replacement tape. His complaint letter, inside... More »
—>FatWallet forum member NewNole2001 details how they just finished paying off $9,482 in credit card debt. Here's how Nole did it: More »
—>Reader Nathan writes:
Here's a story about how Cinnabon gave me some free churros: More »
This is a copy of a letter that I just sent to Costco, I X'd out the serial numbers More »
—>I had a weird unpaid debt listed on my credit reports, some video store I used to go to in college. I guess they thought I had an overdue video? Anyway, they never sent me any notice about it but yet on my credit report it was listed that I never paid Integral Recovers Inc, who also have never contacted me, some $250. So, about three months ago, I filed a dispute notice with TransUnion, the one credit bureaus report it was listed on, and today I got a nice letter saying they deleted the item. It was all very easy, I just went to annualcreditreport.com, checked my credit report, went to the dispute item area, printed out the one-page form, filled it in saying that I was disputing because I never got any notice about the debt, and mailed it all off. Took less than 10 minutes, tops. Be sure to check your credit report from all three credit bureaus at least once a year for errors and file disputes when information is incorrect. Otherwise, your ability to get credit might be unfairly affected. It's easier and faster than you might think! More »
—>After Daniela's SONY laptop was stuck in a warranty repair purgatory for months and a SONY tech screamed at her over the phone accusing her of warranty fraud, her story appeared on The Consumerist. Now she happily writes:
Almost immediately after my article was posted on the consumerist, I received a friendly and extremely apologetic call from a Sony exec. Before even calling me, he had reviewed my case and agreed fully that they were in the wrong. He apologized and offered to have my notebook repaired immediately!More »
He writes:
I've been a Sprint customer for around ten years, and in early February decided to upgrade to a new HTC Mogul smartphone under Sprint's "New For You" rebate program which gives existing customers the same price on new phones that new customers get, as long as the existing customers agree to extend their contracts. To get a $100 rebate, I agreed to extend for two years—not really a problem, as I have no plans to leave Sprint. I received the phone and mailed in the rebate form. More »
—>Remember N? He last saw his laptop in December after shipping it to HP for desperately needed repairs. After posting the story HP reached out to N, who tells us that he just received a spanking new machine. Read N's reaction and his tips for handling similar situations, after the jump. More »
Greetings O exalted ones! More »
—>Comcast wanted to charge Daniel $69.99 for 16mbps internet access, or "Blast" level service, but he knew that he should only be paying $52.95, as he already had TV service with Comcast. No amount of wrangling could convince the customer service reps otherwise. The deal also couldn't be found when going through the main Comcast pages and price plans. But then, after searching on the Comcast site, Daniel found documentation of the price and forced Comcast to honor it. Now he shares the PDF with us so others can get this deal as well. He was also able to get a $79.99 credit on his account to buy a new cable modem since the 16mbps service needs Docsis 1.5 or higher technology in the modem, so that's something to shoot for as well. Note, Blast is only available if you're in one of Comcast's the "select" "competitive" markets, i.e. wherever Verizon FiOS is. Inside, the full contents of the PDF splayed out... More »
—>Talyor was able to leave his Verizon contract without paying an early termination fee by launching an executive email carpet bomb loaded with a polite email. In it, he says that customer service reps have refused to transfer him to a supervisor and now he needs some help. In the ensuing email exchange with the executive customer service rep who helps him, he tells her how he wants to leave because of the raise in text message rates. Frequent readers of The Consumerist will remember that when a cellphone company raises its text message rates, it's a material change to the contract, meaning that the original contract is void and the other party can walk away from the contract without penalty. Taylor wins because he's polite, professional, persistent, and acts like he's conducting a business transactions, which is exactly what he's doing. Read his blow by blow exchange, inside... More »
—>Here we go again! Rhys wrote back let us know that Apple says that its system can handle 7 gift cards in one transaction. It just took a little effort. More »
Dear Ben, Meghann, Chris, Carey, Alex and Theresa, More »
—>Occasionally, people send us nice stories about customer service from companies that already have good reputations. While they're not exactly the most exciting letters, it's good to know that there are still a few pleasant experiences worth sharing. More »
—>Remember Nathanial? Microsoft's repair center senseless erased the valuable signatures and cool artwork he had painstakingly collected on his XBox 360. When Bungie, the maker of Halo, saw what happened, they wanted to help—even though they had nothing to do with the calamity. They decided to ship Nathanial an awesome swag bag stuffed with signature-adorned freebies. More »
—>Alexis, who had been fighting for 10.5 months to get United Health Care to pay for her checkup that should have been covered, finally found success after launching an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) with information that we provided her.
A Consumer Advocate named April from the Executive Office left me a message. She said my claim had been "reprocessed appropriately" and that a check was sent to my doctor's office, OB-GYN Associates of Pittsburgh, yesterday with the remaining balance. She said that the doctor I saw was indeed a UHC contracted doctor (no kidding!), and that my only responsibility was the $10 co-pay that I paid at the time of the visit.More »
—>Reader Rob got some bad information from a T-Mobile sales rep and it resulted in a huge text messaging bill. He launched an EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) and got a very pleasant response: More »
—>Last week we told you about Rob who never got a $1400 wire transfer when he was a Netbank customer, and then after ING acquired the bank when it failed, their customer service never fixed the transfer despite 8-months of calls assurances. We gave Rob the phone number for ING executive customer service (302-255-3005) and now he happily reports:
Within a few hours of my initial contact, Laura got back to me via phone to let me know exactly what happened. It appears that the initial wire transfer paperwork was filled out incorrectly by the sender and the money hadn't ever made it to Netbank or Ing Direct but only got to American Express Bank (who as acting as an intermediary in this transfer.) I contacted American Express Bank and in a few minutes they were able to confirm that the wire was incorrectly setup and the funds had been returned to the sending back on August 10th...More »
—>Last week reader Keith told us how scammers in Bulgaria siphoned $2,000 from his account, and his story snowballed into an entire HSBC class breach. Now Keith tells us that he has all the money back. He writes:
Once I was able to get in touch with Robert Olejniczak of corporate security he was extremely helpful, concerned and empathetic. The missing money was credited back to my account on 2/25, 6 business days after it went missing. I just received a letter in the mail stating that the "investigation is complete." I guess they figured they didn't need to do much investigating to determine that I couldn't be swiping my card at a diner in Manhattan and in Bulgaria withdrawing large sums from an ATM at the same time.They even gave him $.02 in interest, how nice. More »
—>Home Depot's CEO, Frank Blake, responded to Matt's complaint about being unlawfully detained by the Washington D.C. Metropolitan police after refusing to show his receipt to a Home Depot employee. More »
—>Mike, the subject of the post "When Zombie Utility Bills Attack!," has an update for us: More »
—>Circuit City lied to Ian about giving him a discounted iPod Touch, but now he has a satisfactory resolution. He writes:
After writing a number of emails to Circuit City and after a making few more (fruitless) calls, I tried something new and posted my story to their public online customer service forums. The forum manager responded very quickly and promised that someone would call me back to resolve things. I received two calls last Thursday from Circuit City staff who wanted to help fix the situation;More »
—>Donald writes:
First and foremost i would like to thank you for the wonderful site. The information found here has been extremely useful. With that said i just want to share with you a success story i had with getting Bank Of America to lower the interest rate on my Apple GoldReserve Line of Credit. This story does not start out so nicely though.More »
—>Shaw writes:
I am one of the early adopters of Comcast's new TiVo service that is being rolled (see: rushed before ready) out in Massachusetts. More »
"First customer service sent a 1 hundred dollar voucher.. then the secretary to the CEO sent a 500 dollar voucher... thanks for posting this it really helped." - Juliana's update to her EECB to AA sent in July 2007. More »
Remember Rachel? Sur La Table took $100 from her debit card that should have come from a gift card. Rachel let us know that Sur La Table finally corrected the mistake and restored the money to her bank account. To apologize, Sur La Table issued a gift card, giving them the perfect opportunity to show that the same mistake won't happen twice. More »
—>Rachael writes in with an update about her complaint with CVS. More »
—>Never again will you have to worry about renewing your Do Not Call List registration thanks to Public Laws 110-187 and 110-188. Our newest laws provide a permanent stream of funding for the Do Not Call List and guarantee that registrations will never expire. Read the White House's ebullient press release, after jump. More »
—>Dancing Deer wasted no time responding to yesterday's post featuring a two-inch metal spear in a package of blondies. Trish Karter, Dancing Deer's President, Chief Deer, and Floor Sweeper sent tipster Helen a wonderfully detailed apology and promised to conduct an investigation. Read her excellent mea culpa, after the jump. More »
Recent true tales of everyday consumers fighting back, and winning. More »
—>Reader Robert used the Consumerist's Ultimate Guide To Fighting Back to get an $856 refund from another driver's insurance company. More »
—>John writes:
Had a problem with my Mom's Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan with Humana. Their mail order pharmacy (RightSource) advertises a two-week turnaround from date of sending-in an order to receipt of medications. However after three weeks, RightSource had not acknowledged receipt of the order. A RightSource phone rep said the logging-in of orders was being delayed by two to three weeks due to heavy volume. This delay — in the case of meds for a 93 year-old lady — was unacceptable.More »
—>After Andru's story about Verizon not taking his privacy concerns seriously hit our pages and the front page of Digg, the Verizon Damage Control team swung into action. Andru had this problem where whenever he logged into his Verizon FiOS account, he saw the personal information on some other guy's account. When he contacted the guy, the other guy said he saw Andru's info as well. Over eight months of broken promises by Verizon and the problem wasn't solved. So Andru blogged it. Once it started getting internet attention, Andru got two calls and several emails from Verizon people and a Verizon exec ended up having a tech stay on the line with Andru for an hour getting it fixed. Andru then asked for compensation for his three quarters of a year of hassle. Verizon gave him 10 months free FiOS, a $1500 value. Ii think it's actually good thing when the customers can force the big corps to do right," Andru tells The Consumerist. More »
—>Meet Tony Tyler, CEO of Cathay Pacific. Reader Jeff sent him an email after Cathay Pacific lost his reservation for a window seat on his flight to Australia and then served him a half-frozen kosher meal. Jeff wanted an upgrade to business class for his return trip, or a refund. Cathay Pacific's customer service representatives were unwilling to provide either, but then Mr. Tyler intervened. More »
—>Moriconi writes in to tell us how he was able to save $950 this week by uprooting the hidden fees and renegotiating the things in his life he was paying too much for. Awesome! Here's his true story: More »
Yesterday I sent an e-mail bomb to several executives at Walmart. The concern was that the store was requiring you to provide your receipt upon leaving the store (as in Sam's club, but at Walmart). As we all know, this is a hot topic issue, and I expected Walmart to ignore my e-mails. But to my surprise, after writing my e-mail on Sunday afternoon, I got a reply shortly after 8am! Here is my letter — More »
—>Colby writes:
I moved this past month to a new apartment in the same building — when I was setting up the account transfer, the representative uncovered that I had been misbilled for nearly 2 years for service on a 3rd, non-existent, television. It wasn't clear due to the billing information, and I was instantly promised a credit for $170.20 that was calculated by the rep and his supervisor. As a loyal consumerist reader, I got all their extensions and representantive ID's — just in case. After the move, I received a bill and there was no credit. I called, and was informed my credit was denied due to a 'disclaimer' that would allow them to only go back for 3 months with a credit. They didn't care what I had been promised, nor did they care what another rep and their supervisor had noted on my account.More »
—>Until now, we've been telling people trying to escape their cellphone contract without early termination fees based on a raise in text message prices that it's necessary that they don't have a text message plan. However, reader Mtman says he used a novel argument to get out of his Verizon plan, even though he did have a text message plan! More »
—>Jon writes:
I was one of the first to get an Xbox 360 when they came out, paying way more than I should have. I had problems with the console right out of the box and after weeks of haggling with their normal customer service department, I was contacted by their escalation department. Within a week, my problems were solved and they sent me a bunch of free stuff (games & controllers). Fast forward two years, and I'm having the same problem. I emailed both Bill Gates and Kathleen Hogan(Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Customer Service, Support and Customer and Partner Experience) yesterday...More »
—>Dave writes:
I just got a wireless bill from Cincinnati Bell with $180 worth of overages. Thanks to several of the articles I've read on your site, I felt confident that I would be able to get them waived. And I did. The one thing I did that I probably wouldn't have done without your site was when the rep I was speaking with said that she "didn't have the power" to grant my request (I wanted all of my overages waived if I upgraded my account), I didn't lose my cool or get upset but calmly asked to talk to her supervisor. Her supervisor offered me what I wanted without ever having to ask! One hundred and eighty, thanks.That's the way to do it. If the customer service rep says they "don't have the power," then you just simply ask to be put in touch with someone who does. Remaining cool, calm and professional, you escalate to someone with decision-making powers. Also note his successful negotiation tactic... More »
—>After we posted SM's battle with Comcast to stop fraudulently billing her for over a year, , Comcast took notice and asked to get in touch with SM. We played matchmaker and now Comcast reports that the problem is solved. The account is cleared and CMI has been notified to stop trying to collect on it. Inside is the letter they are sending to SM. Hooray, problem solved. Comcast's billing system, however, remains a mess. Hopefully CMI won't still try to collect, for CMI's sake. Otherwise SM will now really have a very good basis for making quick and easy cash by suing them in small claims court for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. More »
—>Reid, the guy with the Playstation that Sony said was too dusty to repair, is getting his system replaced through his Visa card's extended warranty protection. More »
—>Adam shares his success story in using an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) to get his student loan company to fix his botched loan after a year of runarounds and empty promises:
In January 2007, I took out a Graduate Plus Loan to cover a couple of courses at George Washington University. I was in-school half-time from mid-January to mid-May of 2007. Accordingly, I should have been covered by an in-school deferment through May of 2007. Well, unknown to me, my lender, ACS (as sub-lender to PNC bank) decided that I actually needed to be making student loan payments while in school and never decided to tell me about it!More »
—>Wayne writes:
I read one of your post last week concerning Verizon Wireless changing the terms of agreement concerning text messaging and my wife and I immediately contacted them to drop a very unneeded contract. It took two days to cancel, but everything in your post was accurate and made our case a slam dunk. To be fair, Verizon may have dragged it out a bit, but they didn't fight it and their rep, Becky, called us back three times ( as promised ) to finish the request. A big thanks to The Consumerist!More »
—> One problem with ordering furniture online: you may not get what you saw on the website. Then, when you contact the store to explain that the light wood sitting in your living room is nothing remotely like what you ordered, you might get this response: "I would like to inform you though that we do not state that the wood for this chair is black, although the photo we do have shows that the wood is dark we do not state that it is black." More »
—>Reader Brendan's TV decided to die right after the manufacturer's warranty expired. He tried asking Polaroid to extend the warranty. (They wouldn't.) He tried getting the TV repaired. (Too expensive.) Not knowing what else to do, he sent us a 1,000-ish-word-long complaint detailing the frustrations one could expect when dealing with Polaroid. (It was very well written.) More »
Shawn has a nice success story with the Seagate company that provides an interesting twist on the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) technique that we've been telling you about for months:
I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB external harddrive about two or three months ago, and backed up several harddrives to it. Everything was going awesome on every computer I had, but then it had an issue on my desktop. "Delayed Write Failure" WHAT? I try to read the information on the drive, it won't allow me.More »
—>Victory has found the reader reader who couldn't get any calls on his Tmobile phone, and yet they wouldn't let him leave service without paying the dreaded Early Termination Fee. First he called the Retentions department number we gave him. They said they would cut the fee in half, but still charge him. "Considering the amount of time I spent on the phone, they should be paying me," wrote Evan. Then one of Tmobile's PR people stepped in, waved a magic wand, and now Tmobile is doing what they legally should have done all along, let Evan go without charging an ETF. More »
Hi, Consumerist. More »
—>David and Jenn were sick of Comcast's unreliable service and decided to switch to Verizon FiOS. It only took 5 appointments and nearly two months. More »
—> Reader Gabe writes in to tell us that he reported a gas station to the Wisconsin Department of Weights and Measures because he noticed that the pump started charging him before he ever pulled the trigger. More »
—>Krystl and Sprint tell us that the cellphone provider has seen the error of its ways and decided that Krystl no longer owes them over fourteen thousand dollars:"They dropped all the charges and had told me that the person who had initially signed me up for sprint was supposed to put me on the new EVDO technology system at which they didn't." More »
—>Reader Rob tells us that the CSRs manning the Sprint Consumerist Hotline get the same runaround you do when they try to talk to other departments of their own company. More »
Hey guys, More »
—>Huzzah! Dan's quest to not live in an icecube has succeeded. He writes:
The boiler's been replaced and I've had consistent heat and hot water since xmas. Now i just have this unholy clanking coming from the steam pipe every morning b/t 3 and 5 am which jolts me from my bed in fear that its about to explode and take me with it. The super says hopefully it will get resolved this week. More »
Reader gets $200 refunded, a rate cut on her home equity line of credit, and a personal apology after using some of the Bank of America email addresses we posted. [Pamela Kruger] More »
I wanted to follow up about the 'Time Warner Cable Sends You A Random Bill, Can't Explain Why' tip I sent in. A Consumerist reader suggested I contact the N. Dallas Time Warner president and provided his email. I did on Sunday (yesterday) and received a call today (Monday) from Barbara at his office. More »
I recently read this story. More »
—>A Consumerist reader reports his success with escaping Sprint without paying an early termination fee by calling the Sprint Consumerist Executive Help Line (703-433-4401), who were the only people who didn't give him a line of bull when he called. He argued that the new fees Sprints was imposing were a material change of contract (see "Sprint Mails Customers A "Get Out Of Sprint Free" Card") and thus voided his agreement so he could now switch carriers and port his number without penalty. More »
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Dear Editors, More »
My brother directed me to your site after I had a rather crappy time with the Apple Care people over the phone. Long story short, I sent my MacBook in to get fixed while I was at school in Pittsburgh and contacted them to have it redirected to my home in Canada once it was all done. Lo and behold, it got sent back to Pittsburgh even though I gave them plenty of information on how to contact me and strict instructions that it shouldn't go back. More »
—>Cable companies must constantly prove their worth to local franchise authorities. The authorities grant the cable providers permission to operate, and can whip them into action for failing to meet basic customer service standards, as reader Darren shows. More »
—>Mitch writes:
There are several types of people out there, but I'm the kind of person who believes people should stick with what they say. Circuit City offered a Sharp 46" Aquos on Black Friday this year, but they weren't about to let me have it easily. Now, having done Black Friday in the past I knew I would be in for a fight to get my TV, but what I had to go through was just ridiculous. More »
—>Dan, whose Xbox360 was "lost in transit," spent the past six months trying to get either UPS or Microsoft to give him what he had paid his hard-earned money for, has finally succeed in his quest. After we posted his story (see Microsoft Presents: UPS And The Case Of The Vanishing XBOX 360) and he sent executive email carpet bombs (EECBs) to both UPS and MIcrosoft, they are shipping him a brand new Xbox360. We briefly spoke with Dan over IM about his harrowing journey... More »
—>Reader Alison is enjoying her Sunday morning even though Overstock.com failed to send her the shipping label she needs to return a defective DVD player. At 10 a.m., she launched the feared Executive Email Carpet Bomb at twelve Overstock executives. Shortly before 1 p.m., CEO Patrick Byrne personally responded. Read her story, after the jump. More »
—>I was going insane the last two days. I had signed a renew contract for two years with Sprint in exchange for my first born a new Centro for each of the two lines on my acct. Lo and behold, the Centros arrive and I go to activate one while at work. Activation goes fine and the girl is more than helpful even though she has to do a couple of hoop jumps to get the phone working. I didn't have time to activate the second one and decided to wait til that night at home. After being transferred to seven representatives, I asked for a supervisor and got Ben in the North Carolina call center who said he had found the problem and had submitted a ticket to get it taken care of and he would call back in three hours after the ticket was completed. You guessed it, no call back. More »
—>George, who was called a liar by an ill-tempered Comcast CSR (who didn't believe that George had been quoted a lower price than the one that was noted on his account) has written in to let us know that Comcast apologized: More »
—>Reader G writes in with a success story. After her husband took off work to meet a Time Warner technician, they found out that their appointment time had been mysteriously changed. A quick search on Consumerist for some Time Warner executives and a polite email later, G had a technician at her home. More »
—>Richard went to Target to purchase Call of Duty 4 and saw an offer for a free $5 gift card with purchase. When he inquired about the offer, the employees at Target said it was expired. More »
—>Dan bought an Aquos LC-32D40U 32" LCD TV' and one month out of warranty it developed a thin black line on the right side of the screen. Sharp didn't want to talk to him. Best Buy wanted to charge him $100 just to come out and look at it. Something had to be done. Dan writes: More »
—>After we posted Charlie's complaint, "Charter Doesn't Care If You Can't Watch BBC America," a Charter Communications Corporate Escalation Specialist emailed The Consumerist and we put her in touch with Charlie. More »
—>Adam writes us to say that Circuit City has apologized for not honoring their advertisement and have offered to compensate him with both games for free. More »
DENVER, Nov. 8, 2007 — The Denver division of Centex Homes has offered to give a house to Veronica Baca, one of the original finalists in a disputed home give-away contest in Denver. In addition, the Company has offered to provide furnishings for the home and payment for all reasonable legal fees that Mrs. Baca has incurred. More »
—>"I woke up this morning particularly frustrated and decided today was the day I was chaining myself to the local t-mobile counter. You know they make you feel like you could be capable of these things. I thought if I wore my best shoes and handbag, people would know I wasn't crazy :). Deciding against this course of action after about 3 coffee's, I searched on the internet. After about 30 minutes, I found your article." More »
—> Score another point for consumers making it over the unyielding wall of "customer service." Keith writes in about his recent struggles with Vonage, over an account he thought had been completely canceled six months earlier, "The carpet bomb instructions were inspired and within 3 weeks of sending my carpet bomb I got my resolve... The great part is I got my credit from the same person who stone walled me the months previous. Oh success is sweet." More »
Eric and Sarah write:
Thanks to the executive email listing found on Consumerist, I was able to fight back against the invasive marketing of Verizon Fios! Here's the email I sent last week: More »
—> We've posted recently about how to fight back when a business screws you over, and we've posted a lot of executive contact info over the years. Now we're packaging the two together into one big mega-post of usefulness: a one-stop-stop for figuring out what you need to do to start a customer complaint, or how to escalate a stalled one so that it can be resolved. More »
—>David went online last night to pay his Chase VISA bill and was shocked to see a late fee. For 18 months, the bill has been due on the 31st. This month, Chase arbitrarily decided to change it to the 26th. More »
—>After reading our posts about getting your credit card APR lowered by threatening to do a balance transfer to a lower rate credit card, Brandon got his Citibank Mastercard APR lowered from 15.74% to 1.99%. It's an introductory rate that goes up to prime plus 4.99% after a year, but it's definitely worth it for the time being. A factor that probably helped him was the $10,000 balance he was carrying, making his business more valuable to Citibank. More »
—>Remember "Mr. Pants," the guy that was canceling Comcast? Well, a Biblical-grade swarm of technicians descended upon his home like locusts with service trucks. So he's keeping them. More »
—> Sometimes people are so surprised that they've reached an actual human being with their complaint email that they write in and tell us about it. More »
One of our readers, Colin Madine, was able to get his consumer complaint resolved after contacting the Chicago Sun-Times "The Fixer" consumer advocacy columnist. More »
—>Reader Matt screwed up. He forgot to cancel his reservation with US Airways when his friend's delayed passport application forced them to change their travel plans. The situation was entirely Matt's fault, and US Airways justifiably refused to reissue the ticket. Matt, however, swayed the airline by wrapping an excellent mea culpa cum plea into the feared Executive Email Carpet Bomb. More »
—> According to ABC News, Kyla Ebbert, the pantie-flashing patriot who was harassed by Southwest airlines has found a new best friend, Richard Branson. More »
—>Most companies with recurring services have a group of shiny sphincters known as the retention department, but doing battle with them and knowing how they operate can get your monthly bill reduced. They're also sometimes called the "saves" department, because they're supposed to "save" you from leaving for another company. Here's how Jonathan recently turned the Tivo retention department to his advantage:.. More »
—>Reader Clayton launched the feared Executive Email Carpet Bomb against Time Warner executives after learning that the cable installation he scheduled for this week would not occur until November. Within an hour of launching the EECB, Clayton received a call from Time Warner promising to reschedule his installation for this weekend. Clayton's EECB: More »
—>This success story on utility watchdog TURN's site illustrates the power of developing an effective argument strategy before calling customer service. More »
Dear Consumerist: More »
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I want to share a recent experience that involves a cell phone spammer. I would never think I'd be writing to tell you a positive story, but in the light of what happened I think it would be worth sharing. Last week, on 8/16 to be exact, I was spammed with an unsolicited text message to my cell phone. I recall reading a post on Consumerist about the Attorney General for Illinois along with Cingular would be suing a cell phone spammer. I also recall your Executive Email Carpet Bomb postings and decided to try it out. More »
—>The manager of the TigerDirect that unlawfully detained reader Shaneal Manek for his refusal to show a receipt called him this afternoon and apologized for his store's behavior. Shaneal told The Consumerist by phone that Tony, the store manager, pledged to retrain his staff on proper procedures and that they wouldn't retain the services of the security guard involved in the dispute. More »
—>After being dissatisfied with his United ticket being changed without notice, and the fact that he called three times and each time there was some sort of birthday party in the background rendering the conversation incomprehensible, Bob got his story posted here. We advised him to send an executive email carpet bomb (EECB), and CC his complaints to the Department of Transportation. Now, the godly hand of United customer service has reached out of the ether and given him a scratch behind the ears, and Bob has gone from peeved consumer to pleased... More »
—>Roger's bank messed up and his Verizon bill didn't get paid, resulting in his account being shut off for non-payment. While the phone and internet were back on almost immediately, Roger toiled fruitlessly trying to get the TV service turned back on, finally writing to Consumerist in frustration. More »
—>Remember JD? 32 hours of tech support from Apple and AT&T couldn't coax his replacement iPhone into working with his prepaid SIM card. After we posted his story, representatives from both companies had a powwow and traced JD's problem back to mismatched IMEI numbers. Now JD's replacement iPhone works, and he has advice for anyone in a similar bind:
Received a call from an extremely helpful AT&T representative yesterday. She was informed of the situation by Apple, and worked with them to resolve it. Along with AT&T, I received a call from an Apple executive, who was also extremely helpful. Thanks to them both for getting to the bottom of this situation. More »
—>IKEA waived the shipping costs on two Hemnes bedside tables after reader Inderjit loaded the dreaded Executive E-Mail Carpet Bomb with the names of 16 IKEA executives. Inderjit's repeated attempts to purchase the tables at IKEA stores over the past two months were unsuccessful, but within thirty minutes of launching the EECB, he received responses from three IKEA execs who promised to ship the tables free of charge. Read Inderjit's complaint letter, after the jump. More »
—>Why pay full price for a Starbucks concoction when a little ordering jujitsu can produce the same drink for less? Reader Kelly devised a way to order her Starbucks Tazo Chai latte for half the price:
I spend far too much money there, and lately have been experimenting with combinations to get my delicious drinks for cheaper, but tasting the same using the Secret Menu codewords and with the help of the confessions of a Starbucks barista. The newest version? A knock off Tazo Chai latte for half price. More »
—>One reader says that after Cingular overcharged her, she sent them a letter informing them they were committing mail fraud. More »
—>Remember the Atwoods? They were facing the possibility of losing their home after it was sold to pay $1.63 in property tax. More »
—>Russ writes and reminds us how pounding irrefutable legal truth into a customer service rep's ear is the key to escaping your cellphone contract without early termination fee... More »
—>Reader Marcy writes to tell us about Illuminations candles and their excellent customer service. More »
—>"In March, I went to a ski resort on my way to a job interview. I stopped at a grocery store to pick up a granola bar [update: and a vitamin water]. I had to put it on my debit card, and the one I used was my (RARELY used) TD Banknorth card. I don't usually keep much money in there because I hate Banknorth, but I bring it with me to go skiing to secure demo equipment without risking my real bank accounts. As soon as I got to Boston for my interview, I deposited $10 to cover the $8 I charged at Shaws, even though I knew there was supposed to be money in the account." More »
—>Terry got overcharged for his U-Haul rental but by using three of the most basic tools in the consumerist toolkit, persistence, politeness, and escalation, he was able to get the amount refunded (plus an executive assistant contact number and name to boot). More »
—>"A week ago, I had the opportunity to go to Chicago to teach a class. As I normally do, I booked the trip through Expedia.com. I took one of their package deals - hotel, car, airfare. Since I had never been to Chicago before, I simply selected the first hotel that came up on their rankings for the suburb in which I was staying. More »
Apple contacted me over the weekend and arranged for me to pick up a new macbook on Tuesday... More »
—>Ahh, the pleasures of emailing Steve Jobs. Once again a reader writes in to tell us that after a warranty repair was denied, emailing Steve Jobs resulted in, uh, undenial. Undenial is not a word, but it is what happens when you email Steve Jobs. More »
—>By far the most common "Apple" complaint we get at Consumerist is about our readers being denied warranty repairs because of some sort of "damage". More »
—>Remember Richard? Microsoft and numerous commenters mocked him for trying to get his XBOX360 fixed under warranty repair because he had a random tech pry open the box, thus voiding the warranty. More »
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I've been a Consumerist reader going on a year now. I haven't missed an article. Reading my Consumerist RSS feed is a standard part of my daily routine. Come to think of it, maybe I have a problem. Ha ha ha More »
—>Andy and his partner would just like some raspberry syrup in their Iced Venti Raspberry Soy Mocha, but in the midst of a change from old raspberry syrup to something called "juicy" raspberry... chaos at Starbucks. The use of juicy raspberry before the "juicy raspberry" promotion was simply not allowed. Attitudes were copped. Customers were offended. Business was lost. Apologies were issued. Gift cards were mailed. More »
—>Steve thinks he may be getting a new dishwasher. Steve's old dishwasher was part of Feburary's potentially flammable dishwasher recall. He called for the repair kit, and never received anything. Someone from Maytag called to follow up and was shocked to hear the dishwasher was still out of commission. So they're sending Steve a new one. More »
—>Nathaniel is a Milage Plus member with United who has been saving his miles in the hopes of cashing them in for two tickets to Ireland for his honeymoon. When he finally got enough miles, he called United to book his reward seats and got a nice "talking to" by their customer service rep for not booking far enough in advance. More »
—>One of the best techniques for escalating a seemingly hopeless customer service problem is the "Executive E-Mail Carpet Bomb," or as we lovingly refer to it, the EECB. Phill ran into some problems with his Office Depot order, so he followed our instructions for launching an EECB. More »
—>Using tips from How To Launch An Executive Email Carpet Bomb, Evan got 500 Sky Miles and a $50 change fee refunded, along with a $200 travel voucher. More »
—>Here at the Consumerist we have the vague idea that we are helping people save money, but when a story comes along like Joe's that really shows how someone can take the information from this site and use it to save hundreds of dollars, well, it makes us feel really good. More »
—>Remember Charlie? She couldn't buy a computer from Apple because they wouldn't accept more than 4 gift cards in one transaction over the phone or on the website. Charlie lives 3 hours away from the nearest Apple store, and the product she wanted to buy wasn't available in the store anyway. Hardly worth a 6 hour commute! More »
—>We and our girlfriend's 12 month apartment lease ran out and so we signed another lease, but our rent stayed the same. More »
We helped reader Michael leave his Cingular cellphone contract without early termination fee. More »
—>If your cellphone contract is ending, you can haggle the next one into a much better deal. Here's how: More »
—>Chris sends in a happy story about Macy's messing up, then going above and beyond to not only remedy the problem, but assuage its effects. His letter details exceptional service, but not surprising for a department store counter known for high levels of customer care. More »
