Here at Consumerist, we receive a wide variety of e-mails: reader complaints, pleas for help, links to news articles and blog posts, bafflingly irrelevant press releases, grammar corrections, insider confessions, and funny photos. We read and appreciate all of it, but sometimes we receive messages that we simply don’t understand. [More]
Retail Services
Shoplifter Runs From Mall Security, Found Dead In Drainage Pond
By 7.9.14
A mundane crime occurred at the Arundel Mills mall in Maryland last night: an employee noticed three people shoplifting shirts and hats from a Zumiez store and alerted security. One of the trio escaped from security and ran away from the mall into a drainage pond nearby. Instead of escaping, he drowned. [More]
Walmart, Amazon, & Sears Pull Poster Featuring Concentration Camp Sign
By 7.9.14
Oh, those troublesome third-party vendors: In yet another example of why it’s smart to keep the corporate eye on what products you’re shilling, Walmart, Sears, Amazon and other retailers have quickly moved to pull a poster that features a sign from Nazi Germany’s Dachau concentration camp. Yes, that was really for sale. [More]
Amazon’s Latest Attempt To Resolve Feud With Publisher Involves Offering Authors 100% Of e-Book Sales
By 7.8.14
A deal between Amazon and publisher Hachette doesn’t seem likely anytime soon, but that’s not stopping the e-tailer from using its pocketbook to entice a new ally in the fight: Hachette authors. [More]
While Owner Shops At Walmart For 13 Hours, Dog Dies In Her Hot Car
By 7.7.14
Yet another reminder why you should never, ever leave your pet (or child) inside the car, even with the window cracked, during the hot summer months occurred this weekend in Florida. [More]
Amazon Willing To Pick Fight With Feds On In-App Purchases
By 7.2.14
Earlier this year, Apple agreed to refund $32.5 million to customers of its App Store in order to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission that the computer company did little to protect users from inadvertent in-app purchases. The FTC is looking to reach a similar deal with Amazon over its app store, but the online giant has said the government will probably have to make its case in court. [More]
Amazon Official Says Feud With Hachette Is In The “Long-Term Interest Of Our Customers”
By 7.2.14
Apparently, removing preorders and delaying the shipping of books from a publishing company you’re feuding with isn’t a big deal if you happen to be the top online retailer. That’s pretty much how one official with Amazon describes the e-tailer’s recent tactics in negotiating with Hachette Publishing Group. [More]
Stranger Offers To Pay For Fellow Walmart Shopper’s Diapers When They Cost More Than Expected
By 7.2.14
Usually when one hears a shopper has been caught on tape, the mind leaps immediately to troublesome behaviors we’ve seen in the past from bad consumers. That makes it all the more refreshing to see a stranger offer to pay for her fellow shopper’s purchase, after she’d realized she couldn’t get a price match on all four boxes of diapers and thus, could only afford one. [More]
Target Asks Shoppers Not To Bring Guns Into Its Stores
By 7.2.14
Target added its name to the list of companies asking customers not to bring guns into its stores. [More]
“Kmart At A Discount” Store Doesn’t Quite Live Up To Its Name
By 7.1.14
If outlet stores for mid- to high-end retailers give shoppers a way to find decent bargains, you’d think that a Kmart outlet store would have some real bottom-dollar deals on items that couldn’t be cleared from inventory at regular Kmart stores. But shoppers who visit a “Kmart at a Discount” location should enter with the caveat that saving money is a hit-or-miss proposition. [More]
Pretty Much Every Sears And Kmart Store Is For Rent Right Now
By 6.29.14
Sears Holdings Corporation, the company that runs Sears and Kmart, has a problem. They have a lot of real estate, and not enough sales to keep all of that real estate busy. One solution is to close stores as they underperform or as their leases expire, which is what the company has been doing. Another solution? Rent out that space. For the right customer, virtually every Sears and Kmart store is up for grabs. [More]
Walmart Chops Prices For iPhone 5c, 5s (With A 2-Year Contract)
By 6.27.14
In a move that could signal a purge of old inventory before Apple introduces its new iPhone, Walmart has cut its prices on the iPhone 5s and 5c — with a two-year contract, only in stores. The 5S now goes for $99, down from $429, while the 5c costs $29, a drop from its previous price of $49. [via CNNMoney] [More]
“Women-Owned” Labels Coming To Walmart Shelves This Fall
By 6.27.14
We already know consumers tend to purchase products that make them feel like they are making a difference in the world. But will a new “women-owned” label on goods have the same increased sales effect as “organically certified” or “locally sourced” labels have enjoyed? We should know more this fall when Walmart starts using the new label on a range of products. [More]
Report: Amazon Launching Local Takeout Service To Compete With The Likes Of GrubHub, Seamlesss
By 6.26.14
Hot on the heels of the news that the many-armed, grabby beast that is Amazon is set on providing local services for its customers, it’s reportedly working on another foray into the e-commerce world, this time with its test of an online local takeout service, similar to GrubHub, Seamless and others. [More]
Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Uncover Trio Of Vintage Software Packages
By 6.26.14
The Raiders of the Lost Walmart are the brave explorers who comb our nation’s retail outlets, finding the most ancient and most fascinating curiosities lurking in the electronics sections. Raider Wally recently found a trio of perfectly-preserved software packages from 2011 and 2012, their packages only marred by clearance stickers knocking a few bucks off the price. [More]
Best Buy Provides Pizza, Asks Employees To Contact Congress About E-Fairness Bill
By 6.25.14
“When I was at work today I went to the breakroom to relax, only to walk in to see a guy from the corporate office and [a] pizza,” writes reader S. Who doesn’t like free food in the breakroom at work? S. found that pizza’s side dish distasteful: a request for store employees to call their representative in Congress about a piece of pending legislation that’s important to Best Buy’s survival. [More]
Someone Returned $500,000 Taken In Wells Fargo Robbery: FBI Doesn’t Know Who
By 6.24.14
Last week, two masked robbers hit a Wells Fargo branches in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Police believe the same pair robbed a different branch in January. They were verbally abusive toward bank staff, threatened them with handguns, and entered the vaults, taking $500,000 in the second robbery and $1 million in the first. This week, something strange happened: someone brought a third of the money back. [More]
Humorist David Sedaris Acquires A Fitbit, Then A Debilitating Fitbit Addiction
By 6.24.14
Sometimes new technology and an addictive personality don’t really mix. At least when humorist David Sedaris acquired a Fitbit Flex wristband, the end result was that he spent hours walking back roads in the English countryside, racking up tens of thousands of steps. [More]
