When you walk into a store with an “AT&T” sign overhead, you might assume that the employees you’re speaking with work for AT&T. The telecom giant’s sweet-but-bemused store manager character “Lily” may have dominated the company’s TV advertising over the past three years, but what you may not know is that a growing number of AT&T-branded stores are actually owned and operated by third-party companies. [More]
There’s A Decent Chance Your Local AT&T Store Is Actually Owned By GameStop
By 6.21.17 — Updated: 6.22.17
The Very Quick Guide To Writing An Effective Complaint Letter
By 6.15.17
When the battery on your new phone blows up in your back pocket, or the hood of your car just flies up while you’re driving down the highway, or you find out your bank has opened three credit card accounts in your name, or you get bumped from your flight to make room for an airline employee… you’ve got every right to complain. But if you want your complaint to be heard, there are some best practices for presenting your case. [More]
FDA Requests Opioid Painkiller Be Removed From The Market, Citing Abuse Risks, HIV Outbreak
By 6.8.17
The Food and Drug Administration has asked Endo Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Opana ER, an extended-release semi-synthetic opioid painkiller, to remove the drug from the market, after the agency concluded that the drug’s potential for abuse outweighed its therapeutic value. [More]
New Home Depot Data Leak Exposes Gap In Consumer Privacy Protection
By 4.27.17 — Updated: 4.28.17
Recently, Consumerist received an anonymous tip pointing to an internet address that hosted digital images of bathtubs, garage doors, kitchen countertops, contractors at work on various projects, and customers picking out and paying for products in a home-center store. The site also hosted 13 Excel spreadsheets of customer records, including the full names, phone numbers, mailing addresses and email addresses of approximately 8,000 people, as well as other information chronicling the apparent installation complaints of each customer. [More]
Some Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums Than White Areas With The Same Average Risk
April 5, 2017
If you drive a car, you probably already know that your driving record affects the amount you pay for auto insurance. But what you might not realize is that that price you pay can be greatly affected by purely demographic information — like your zip code. [More]
Samsung Announces “Product Exchange Program” For Galaxy Note 7 — But Don’t Call It A Recall
By and 9.2.16
Despite confirming to media outlets earlier today that the Galaxy Note 7 would be “recalled” — implying that the company would soon go through official regulatory channels — Samsung has gone ahead and announced details of a “product exchange program” that is not, in actuality, an official recall. [More]
Samsung Will Recall Galaxy Note 7 After Reports Of Battery Explosions, Fires (But Hasn’t Done It Yet)
By and 9.2.16
Watch A Dude Bend His iPhone 6 With His Bare Hands
By 9.23.14
Let us begin this post with the qualifying statement that it has never until today occurred to us to try to bend a cellphone, subsequently, we do not know how much bendy-type pressure one should expect to be able to apply on a phone without warping it. I probably could go downstairs to the labs and start bending Consumer Reports’ test phones to establish a baseline, but I suspect they’d be sort of angry, and I really want them to like me. So, let it be known that we don’t know if this video of a guy bending his phone on purpose represents evidence of an unacceptable performance from the phone. But it totally does bend. Yes, it does. [More]
Watch A Guy Sit On Hold With Comcast Until They Close
By 8.13.14
The saga of what happens when you try to cancel your Comcast account continues this evening with a recording of the tail end of a more than three-hour wait on Comcast’s retention line. As far as we can tell, sitting on hold with Comcast for upwards of three hours isn’t a unique experience, but not everyone is creative enough to call Comcast with another phone while still on hold… only to hear a recording informing them that the company has closed for the day. [More]
Comcast Demands An Explanation Before Agreeing To Cancel Your Account
By 7.14.14
UPDATE: Comcast has issued a statement regarding the demanding customer service rep and Block’s phone call, saying it’s “very embarrassed” by the employee’s behavior. [More]
Aereo Shutting Down “Temporarily” At 11:30 AM Today, Refunds Will Be Issued
By 6.28.14
They mystery of when and if Aereo will be shutting down pending review by the lower courts after receiving a 6-3 smackdown from the Supreme Court has been solved. An email to customers signed by CEO and founder Chet Kanojia states that the service will be accessible to customers until 11:30 AM today. He also assured all users that they will be refunded for the past month. [More]
When You Give Silicon Valley Permission To Spy On You, It’s Kinda Hard To Say “No” To The NSA
By 5.20.14
The fundamental goal of the ad-supported web is to collect and capitalize on data from its users; rather unsurprisingly, that data is just as valuable to the government as it is to Facebook and Google. You may think you’d never willingly provide the FBI or NSA with a map of your entire private life, but, in fact, you probably already have. [More]
MakerBot Hopes You’ll Buy The Kids This Mini 3D Printer And Download Toys
By 1.6.14
When I was a kid and Disney’s Aladdin came out, I was extremely perturbed by the genie’s rule against wishing for more wishes, because it completely ruined the entire premise of the genie strategy that I had been working out since infancy. After much thought, I pivoted by deciding to wish for the means of producing whatever I wanted. This brings me to MakerBot’s new Replicator Mini. It’s basically a tiny toy factory, the object of my power-mad childhood dreams. [More]
Guy Who Was In Charge Of Quantitative Easing Apologizes For Quantitative Easing
By 11.12.13
“I’m sorry, America,” writes Andrew Huszar, formerly of the Federal Reserve, where from 2009-2010 he was in charge of “Quantitative Easing” — also known as “buying huge amounts of bonds with money created by the Fed for that purpose.” (For a good explanation of what that actually means, you might want to check out this Planet Money piece from 2010.) In an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal, Huszar concludes that QE (as the cool kids call it) was (and remains) a mistake. [More]
Dell Is Really Sorry Your Laptop Smells Like Cat Urine
By 10.30.13
First, Dell told them to try cleaning it with a soft cloth. That didn’t work. Then they suggested compressed air, but as the complaints of laptops with keyboards and track pads that smelled exactly like cat urine piled up, Dell was forced to admit there was a problem. Yes, you read that correctly: Dell Latitude E6430u laptops manufactured before October smell strongly of cat urine. [More]
We Are In The Era Of “Nightmare” Bacteria And Nobody Seems To Care
By 10.22.13 — Updated: 7.17.14
On March 5, 2013, the Centers for Disease Control issued a press released titled “Lethal, Drug Resistant Bacteria Spreading in U.S. Healthcare Facilities.” The warning that followed was dire. Drug-resistant organisms called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, were not only spreading more rapidly through U.S. hospitals, they were becoming more resistant to so-called “last-resort” antibiotics. “CRE are nightmare bacteria,” said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. How nightmarish? According to data from the CDC, 1 in 2 patients who contract a bloodstream CRE infection will die. That’s an ominous statistic, but it might not even be the scariest fact about CRE. [More]
LivingSocial Hacked, 50 Million Names, Emails, Birthdates, Encrypted Passwords Accessed
April 26, 2013
LivingSocial, the daily deals site partially owned by Amazon, has been hacked, with 50 million customer names, emails, birth dates, and encrypted passwords accessed. An internal memo from CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy says both the database that stores customer credit card information and the database that stores merchants’ financial and banking information were not affected or accessed. They are advising users to update their passwords. [AllThingsD] [More]
FireMe Helps The World Discover How You Really Feel About Your Job
By 3.29.13
Do you hate your job? Do you love social media? Do you make the mistake of combining the two? If so, you may find yourself featured on FireMe, a research project that highlights public tweets from people talking $@#% about their boss and/or employment situation. [More]
