If you’ve seen something with a too-good-to-be-true price in the Amazon Marketplace lately, there’s probably a good reason for that. Or, rather, a bad one, as it seems some fraudsters’ new favorite trick is to hijack unsuspecting Amazon sellers’ accounts and fleece shoppers for every penny they can. [More]
caveat emptor
Settlements Allow Auto Dealers To Continue Selling Unrepaired Recalled Vehicles As “Safe”
By 12.16.16
If you bought a used car from a dealership that proudly claims to put each vehicle through “125-point” or “172-point” inspections, you might assume that your vehicle is safe to drive and that it isn’t under recall for a potentially deadly defect. However, a number of big names in used cars — including CarMax and General Motors — have recently entered into settlements with federal regulators that could allow used car dealers to continue marketing their vehicles as safe even while they may have unrepaired defects. [More]
Buyer Beware: Travel Insurance Likely Won’t Cover Mental Health
By 5.2.14
Travel insurance can be a boon if you suddenly find yourself cradling the toilet and nesting on the floor of your bathroom like it’s the only place in the world you can possibly exist, to be sure. But if the reason you have to cancel your trip is a mental health issue, it’s not likely that travel insurance will cover you there. [More]
Why Doesn’t The Teavana Tea I Brew At Home Taste Like It Does At The Store?
By 2.15.13
Although they might seem like free food stands to those of us roaming the grocery store or say, coffee chain, in search of a snack, any food industry business knows that setting up sample stations serves one key purposes: Get the customer hooked and get them to buy the product. But is it misleading if that taste experience isn’t replicated once you get the product home? [More]
One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other: Beware Knock-Off Books On Amazon
By 4.16.12
It’s not just fake Louis Vuitton purses and Prada shoes getting knocked off and sold on the Internet — you could get scammed by a book title as well if a self-publishing author plays their game well enough. And yes, this kind of thing happens under Amazon’s watch. [More]
I Would Like To Name My Own Price & Not Get Trip Insurance Automatically, Priceline
By 4.2.12
Alli says she’s stumbled upon something she thinks is new on Priceline — when she named her own price for a , $25 worth of trip insurance was included with no opting out screen. Of course, Priceline doesn’t announce clearly that this is going to happen, instead just hiding it in the Terms of Service agreement. [More]
Credit Card Bumper Crop Boasts Low Teaser Rates, New Snags
By 11.4.11
After being such prudes for so long, credit card companies are raising their hemlines and lowering their standards. They’re actively deluging customers with credit card offers and using low teaser rates as a crooked finger. However, they’re also coming with new hidden baggage you need to watch out for, like cash back rewards that are high, but have to be opted in again every few months. [More]
Buyers, Beware Of Irene-Damaged Used Cars Flooding Dealer Lots
By 9.1.11
Even if you live thousands of miles away from where Irene hit, that’s no guarantee that you won’t run into a storm-damaged car on the used car dealer lot. These cars could be salvages or total losses, with screwed up engines and rotting components. Here are signs to watch out for. [More]
Meth House Haunts New Homeowners
By 6.16.11
A pregnant mother of two in Colorado and her husband are stuck making $1,114 a month payments on a house they can’t live in. Shortly after they bought their dream home, they discovered needles in the window well. It turned out their dream house used to be owned by meth heads, and the house was contaminated with meth residue. [More]
Dream Home Is Actually A Meth House
By 11.29.10
A young couple thought they got a great deal, $190,000 for a two-story house in the historic district of Bristol Borough, PA with a yard and plenty of space. After they moved in, the headaches, sore throats and difficulty breathing started. Three weeks later, one of their new neighbors told them something the seller had neglected to mention: their new home used to be a meth house. [More]
7 Clauses To Beware Of In Your Cruise Contract
By 8.23.10
Cruise line contracts are drafted by the company’s lawyers and contain nothing in the way of consumer protection. For instance, if you get sick and the ship’s doctor treats you and you die, your family can’t sue the cruise line for malpractice. [More]
Oops, You Didn't Buy A House, You Bought Its Worthless 2nd Mortgage, And Now It's In Foreclosure
By 8.2.10
A couple thought they were snagging a $97,606 foreclosure fixer upper at a courthouse sale, only to find out months later they had actually bought its worthless second mortgage. The original was in arrears, and now the house would be sold at another courthouse auction. [More]
Gold Buyer Ripped Off Consumers With Spring Rigged Scale
By 7.7.10
It sounds like a carnival trick, a spring secured underneath the weighing platform that would push back when items were weighed. [More]
Couple Discovers Secret Room In New Home, Secretly Filled With Moldy Garbage
By 6.1.10
Every kid talks about how they’re going to have a secret room in his house when they grows up… so imagine the delight of reader Jeannine to discover the house she bought actually came with one! And then imagine how that delight turned to revulsion as she and her partner opened it up and found countless piles of garbage covered with white puffy mold! It would turn out to be only the first of many secrets the house revealed to them, including a basement with 75% secret asbestos tiling! Oh, it’s like something out of a fairy tale! [More]
Travel: Is That Online Deal For Real?
By 5.27.10
Our inboxes and search results are filled with great-sounding travel deals, $35 airline tickets, $399 three-day all-inclusives and the like, but have you ever actually tried to snag one? Oftentimes it seems a low “landing prices” shoots up after all the fees are added, or if you try to get a date other than a very narrow set, or you want to do something crazy like return home afterwards. NYT took a look and found that while that’s true, there are a few things you can do to improve your chances of getting a price close to the advertised one. [More]
Harper's Magazine: Insider Reveals How You Get Jacked When Selling Jewelry
By 5.19.10
Struggling to make next month’s rent, you might be tempted to dig out some necklaces and rings you don’t wear and try to sell it to your friendly neighborhood jeweler. But you might actually be buying a ticket to a sick magic show. The jeweler performs a blistering series of slight of hand tricks, whipping out calculators, spouting off fees, keeping your eye on the supposedly worthless diamonds under a tenth of a carat while double-deducting for the base metal. By the end, you slink out in a dizzied blur, accepting 1/5th of what the piece is actually worth. In this exclusive excerpt from the latest issue of Harper’s, ex-jeweler Clancy Martin takes you on a journey to the dark underbelly of the jewelry game. [More]
Ex-Jeweler Dissects "Buying Roadshow" Ads
By 5.18.10
The ads are cheesy as all get out: “Buying Roadshow” “Instant Cash For All” “Will pay up to 1100%” in giant block letters and starbursts. And the crazy thing is that they’re really good at packing in suckers eager to sell their “scrap jewelry,” dreaming of riches, but eventually convinced to be happy walking away with a few bucks. Over at Harper’s Magazine, ex-jeweler Clancy Martin takes apart these ads piece by piece and reveals what really goes on behind the black curtain. For instance: [More]
Is Kohl's Systemically Overcharging Customers?
By 5.3.09
Don’t walk out of Kohl’s without first double-checking your receipt. The store apparently has a penchant for overcharging customers, according to the Sacramento County Department of Weights and Measures, which fined the chain $2,000 for repeatedly failing surprise inspections. CBS sent an enterprising reporter to see how long it would take for them to uncover a pricing discrepancy of their own. Almost immediately, they found a woman who was charged $64.99 for a pair of shoes marked $59.99.
