When perusing Amazon for a too-good-to-put-down book, consumers often assume the site’s vast library of titles includes all that’s available in the literary world. But the e-tailer is now putting pressure on one publisher by making it hard to find and order that company’s books. [More]
Retail Services
Police Seek Man Who Smacked Ice Cream Truck Driver With Fudge Bar
By 5.23.14
Perhaps kicking off the summer in his own way, a man in South Carolina reportedly hit an ice cream vendor with a piece of his own merchandise. The suspect’s daughter was the customer, but her father believed that the driver hadn’t given the girl all of her change. He took up her cause, struck the driver with the ice cream, and drove off. [More]
Hummus Sold At Target, Trader Joe’s, Giant Eagle Recalled For Potential Listeria Contamination
By 5.23.14
Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that can have unpleasant consequences for most people, and serious, life-threatening consequences for people who are very old, very young, already ill, or who are pregnant. A company called Lansal, Inc. that manufactures hummus for Tryst Gourmet and the private-label brands of retailers Target, Trader Joe’s, and Giant Eagle, reports that the pathogen may be in their hummus and related products. [More]
Sure, A Terrorist Attack Map Cheese Plate Sounds Like A Fine Idea
By 5.22.14
The new 9/11 Museum at the former site of the World Trade Center might be New York City’s hottest tourist attraction right now, and both the museum and its gift shop of items in questionable taste have been in the news lately. Here’s the latest head-scratcher featured online: a map-shaped cheese plate marked with terrorist attack sites. [More]
Amazon Using 30-Day Try-Before-You-Buy Offers To Attract Fire TV Customers
By 5.22.14
While the idea of free trial periods for streaming video subscription services like Amazon Prime is nothing new, the online retailer is now applying that same try-before-you-buy concept to streaming hardware. [More]
Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Have Your Router From 2003
By 5.22.14
There is nothing wrong with this Linksys wireless router, exactly. It was a best-seller, and there are many of them still in use. It was the first of a very popular product series. Unlike some unplayable online games featured in our Raiders of the Lost Walmart series, you can even use it for its intended purpose. It’s just… really old. [More]
Walmart Lets Alleged Credit Card Thief Try 9 Different Cards
By 5.21.14
You don’t have to steal someone’s actual credit card to defraud them: all you need is their card number and a magnetic-encoding machine. Then you can take your new cloned card shopping, and hope that the victim hasn’t shut down their account yet. Last month in Virginia, a Walmart store let a customer try nine different credit cards before his transaction was approved. Nine? [More]
Top Laundry Detergents At Medium Prices Available At Warehouse Clubs
By 5.21.14
Looking for a reasonably-priced but effective laundry detergent? Consider signing up for a warehouse club if you aren’t already a member of one. Our high-efficiency colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports just put out their list of great performers at reasonable prices, and two of the top three are house brands from Sam’s Club (Member’s Mark) or Costco (Kirkland). Non-members can check out Wisk Deep Clean instead. [More]
Target Reality Vortex Now Runs Its Own Spell Check
By 5.20.14
We often make fun of Target for being a reality vortex where words and numbers have no meaning. Yet at reader JD’s local Target, the store’s own loose relationship with words and marketers’ need to spell words in distinctive and incorrect ways combined to…spell something correctly. [More]
Walmart Policy Requires Customers To Fork Over Their Credit Card’s 3-Digit Security Code
By 5.20.14
In light of recent, high-profile data breaches, consumers are constantly on guard when it comes to their credit card information. So it might come as a surprise that the country’s largest retailer is asking customer to fork over the sacred three-digit security code on the back of cards in order to make purchases. [More]
Fill Out This Simple Survey, Get Actual Help From Sears
By 5.19.14
Over the last nine years or so of Consumerist, we’ve chronicled the tragic decline of Sears, an American institution. This has happened under the leadership of manifesto-writing hedge fund manager/CEO/intra-company deathmatch impresario Eddie Lampert. Shoppers’ biggest complaint: profound dysfunction and incompetence in stores. A manager at Sears slipped Consumerist a bit of information that people locked in a customer service battle with Sears might find useful. [More]
Restoration Hardware Dumps 17 Pounds Of “Sustainable” Catalogs On My Porch
By 5.19.14
Two years ago, Restoration Hardware got some media attention for putting out a 5.5 pound, almost 1000-page-long “Source Book,” which is effectively a catalog. Maybe they want even more attention this year, which is why they’ve dispatched UPS to dump 17 pounds of catalogs on customers’ doorsteps. [More]
Portland Will No Longer Invest In Walmart
By 5.16.14
In its continuing quest to become a caricature of outsiders’ clichés , the city of Portland, Oregon has decided to stop investing in Walmart. Wait, Portland invests in Walmart? Yes, just under 3% of the city’s portfolio consists of Walmart bonds, the last of which will mature in 2016. The city’s total Walmart holdings were $36 million. [More]
Here’s Why Florists’ Websites And Reality Will Never Match Up
By 5.16.14
A common consumer complaint about flower deliveries is that the arrangements that show up on our loved ones’ doorsteps isn’t as tall or full as the pictures we saw of the arrangement online. A former florist wrote to Consumerist to explain why this is. The photos from FTD, Teleflora, and other Big Flower companies are staged to look nice for the camera, but real-life is three-dimensional. [More]
What Could Possibly Be Inside Car-Sized Amazon Locker With A Nissan Logo On It?
By 5.16.14
Yet again, Amazon and Nissan have teamed up to bring the world a mystery involving an enormous Amazon-branded container out in public. Last time, the massive Amazon box on a flatbed truck contained a Nissan Versa, which was a great cross-promotion. What could be inside the mysterious giant Amazon locker in San Francisco? Maybe the Nissan logo on one side provides a clue. [More]
GameStop Customer Charged With Keying Employee’s Car
By 5.15.14
When we compiled our list of “9 Bad Consumers Who Make Things Worse For The Rest Of Us,” apparently there was one customer type we missed: “The Car-Keyer.” That’s what one woman in Nashville has been accused of doing to an employee, supposedly because she was jealous of items that other gamers received. [More]
Webrooming Is Showrooming In Reverse, Marketers Pretend That It’s A Thing
By 5.14.14
Showrooming, as many people who walk into Best Buy stores know, is when customers check out an item in a local store, then turn around and purchase it online at a lower price. What happens if you do the opposite of showrooming, though? What about when you check out a product online, then buy it locally because they have the best price or you’re impatient? One marketing firm thinks that we should call that “Webrooming.” [More]
Walmart Subcontractor To Pay $21M To Settle Warehouse Workers’ Wage Theft Lawsuit
By 5.14.14
It’s common practice that when an employee does a job, he or she gets paid for that work. That compensation was at the crux of the issue in a lawsuit against Schneider Logistics Inc., one of Walmart’s largest distribution subcontractors, who reached a settlement for the alleged wage theft of 1,800 employees. [More]
