Bananas thrive in a subtropical climate: a place where the temperature is warm, the humidity is high, and there’s about twelve hours of sunlight per day. You know, like Ohio. [More]
Retail Services
SeaWorld Edges Out Ticketmaster, Joins Walmart In Worst Company Quarterfinals!
March 28, 2014
Round Two action continued today, with two Worst Company tournament newcomers each taking on established WCIA vets. In the end, one of those freshmen fighters was sent packing, while the other managed to eke out a victory against a company who has left such an indelible mark on the tournament’s history that it belongs in the WCIA Runner-Up Hall of Something That Rhymes With Fame But Means The Opposite. [More]
Amazon Denies Report Of Free Video, Music Streaming Service
By 3.28.14
The Internet has been buzzing since yesterday afternoon with all manner of speculation about what streaming video thingamajig Amazon plans to unveil next week. The report that has gotten the most traction is the one that is the least interesting — that Amazon would be launching a free, but ad-sponsored, streaming service. Most companies are fine with letting the media have fun guessing what’s behind the curtain, but Amazon apparently thought this was such a dumb idea that it felt compelled to deny the rumor. [More]
25 Tons Of Edible Peanut Butter Dumped In Landfill After Dispute Between Plant And Costco
By 3.28.14
Yesterday we told you that Sunland Foods Inc., the peanut butter plant behind the Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2012, was being sold at a bankruptcy auction. Sure, you could say that makes the company the big loser in peanut-gate. But today we learned the real losers are all the lovers of the creamy, nutty food. Why? Because the company is dumping 950,000 jars of safe, edible peanut butter into a New Mexico landfill following a dispute with Costco. [More]
Walmart Slaps Visa With $5B Lawsuit For Allegedly Fixing Card Swipe Fees
By 3.28.14
Thought retailers were done fighting credit card companies over those credit and debit card swipe fees? You thought wrong! Or not wrong, because no one can predict the future, but Walmart is steamed up and suing mad at Visa, alleging in a new lawsuit that the card company set ridiculously high card swipe fees. [More]
People In Alaska Are The Best Tippers, People In Delaware The Worst
By 3.27.14
Sure, Internet comment threads seem to be evenly split between generous tippers and people who resent the practice, but what about the population at large? Credit card payment service Square analyzed their transaction data and found some interesting patterns in tipping by state. We don’t want to draw any wider conclusions, but we’re also giving Delaware a sidelong glance. [More]
Latest Worst Company Voting Results Confirm: People Hate Banks
March 27, 2014
After a brief breather, it was back to pummeling the living heck out each other for the remaining contenders in this year’s Worst Company In America tournament. And even though the nation’s largest airline and biggest fast food chain looked like they might have had what it takes to challenge for the Golden Poo, one has to always remember an ages-old truth: People just plain hate banks. [More]
Former BofA CEO To Pay $10 Million, Is Barred From Being An Exec For 3 Years
By 3.26.14
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, the acquisition-happy buffoon who thought it would be a grand idea to buy Countrywide without doing any due diligence on all those worthless loans written by the failing company. And it will be another few years before he’s allowed to climb back to the top of the corporate ladder, as he’s agreed to a 3-year ban from serving as an officer or director of any public company. [More]
Facebook Gets The Thumbs-Up From Haters, Takes Final Spot In Worst Company Not-So-Sweet 16
March 26, 2014
After more than a week of bloodshed, half of the contenders that dared to dip their toes into the Worst Company wading pool (stocked with laser-equipped piranha and some ill-tempered guppies) have been carried out in Consumerist-branded body bags. The 16 fighters that remain are bruised, but not broken, and one of them will soon be crowned with the coveted Golden Poo. [More]
Senate Report: Target Missed Multiple Warning Signs Leading Up To Data Breach
By 3.26.14
A new Senate staff report from the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released last night charges Target with missing multiple warning signs before hackers stole the personal information of up to 110 million customers late last year. [More]
Walmart Recalls 174,000 My Sweet Love/My Sweet Baby Dolls Because Burnt Flesh Isn’t So Sweet
By 3.25.14
Though a handful of kids’ dolls have been known to become possessed by the souls of deceased serial killers — not to mention the occasional murderous, self-aware ventriloquist dummy — it’s generally accepted that dolls are not supposed to hurt the children who play with them. That’s why Walmart has issued a recall on 174,000 dolls that can overheat and cause burns or blisters. [More]
Sally Beauty Credit Card Breach Could Include 280,000 Card Numbers
By 3.25.14
Sally Beauty Supply admitted that about 25,000 credit card numbers were compromised when they were hacked earlier this year, but there’s evidence that the breach was much, much larger than that. Security reporter Brian Krebs is the person who first reported the extent of the 2013 Target breach, and he thinks that there could be a lot more compromised numbers than Sally will admit. It could be eleven times as many. [More]
Would Expanding The White-Collar Overtime Exception Change This Walmart Manager’s Life?
By 3.25.14
You might have seen the news a few weeks ago that President Obama issued an executive order that would expand how many workers who are eligible to receive overtime pay. Under current rules, salaried workers with administrative or supervisory duties, like retail managers, are exempt from federal overtime rules as long as they earn more than $455 per week. That includes an anonymous assistant manager at Walmart who spoke to Salon’s Josh Eidelson about what that really means in his life. [More]
Parker Farms And Store Brand Cheese Snacks, Salsa, And Peanut Butter Recalled For Possible Listeria
By 3.25.14
Whenever we forget how massively inter-connected our food supply is, a huge national recall of prepared foods comes along and reminds us. This time, the reminder comes from Minnesota-based manufacturer Parkers Farm Acquisition, LLC, which packages salsa, cold pack cheeses, peanut butter, and pepper spreads under its own name and also store brands. Some of their products were contaminated with the very nasty foodborne pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes.
Tiny Walmart Proliferation Continues With “Walmart To Go” Convenience Store
By 3.25.14
Since 2011, we’ve followed the proliferation of tiny Walmarts across America (well, mostly Arkansas) as they fan out and threaten to take over our retailscape like the splinters that grew into enchanted brooms in the “Sorceror’s Apprentice” section of Disney’s “Fantasia.” In the chain’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, they’re experimenting with yet another new store format: the “Walmart To Go” convenience store, complete with gas pumps and a deli counter.
Amazon Issues Surprise Refund For Poor Video Playback
By 3.25.14
Keiko’s husband used Amazon’s streaming services to rent a movie that she wasn’t interested in seeing, and watched it on his iPad. He had no complaints about the experience, maybe because he was watching it on a relatively small screen. Yet Amazon went ahead and issued the couple a full refund anyway, just in case he might have had a problem with it. Keiko is impressed.
Amazon Begins Issuing Credits From E-Book Price-Fixing Lawsuit
By 3.25.14
While Apple is still fighting the court’s ruling that it was involved in e-book price-fixing with America’s largest book publishing companies, those publishers have all reached settlements with the various regulators, attorneys general, and others over the same allegations that they colluded to set an inflated price on e-books. Today, Amazon began issuing credit to its customers who paid too much because of the publishers’ actions. [More]
Bank Of America Says It Shouldn’t Have To Pay For School Employee Who Stole $840K
By 3.24.14
For more than four years, an employee of a Catholic school in Connecticut got away with siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school’s account at Bank of America. In 2012, a court ordered BofA to pay $840,000 to the diocese for its failure to catch on to the swindle. Today, the bank was scheduled to appear in court to make its case for why it shouldn’t have to pay that tab. [More]
