Because a few days can’t go by without one of the few remaining big banks agreeing to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars (without ever admitting any wrongdoing), Wells Fargo has agreed to settle with Freddie Mac for $869 million over — you guessed it — toxic mortgages from the Bubble Era. [More]
Retail Services
Watch CNBC Rush To The Defense Of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
By 9.30.13 — Updated: 10.1.13
If you go on TV to argue a controversial viewpoint, it’s to be expected when the host of the show questions you on your allegations. But what happened last Friday on CNBC’s Closing Bell is just an embarrassing example of how far a financial “news” network will go to defend the head of a huge bank just because that institution is performing well on the stock exchange. [More]
Gustbuster Umbrella Works As Promised, Withstands High Winds
By 9.30.13 — Updated: 10.1.13
If you’re standing outdoors in winds over 50 miles per hour, you may have bigger problems than a broken umbrella. In case it happens, though, don’t you want the strongest possible rain protection? You can find the Gustbuster online and in an awful lot of golf stores, but is that any kind of endorsement? Lab coats flapping in the breeze, our sibling publication Consumer Reports decided to test the Gustbuster’s claims. [More]
Retail Nightmare Before Christmas Reaches Pier One, Canadian Walmart
By 9.30.13
In the classic animated film “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” the Pumpkin King learns about Christmas and convinces the other scary creatures of Halloween Town to take over the holiday. In the North American retail Nightmare Before Christmas, retailers begin to set out Christmas merchandise as soon as the school supplies are off the shelves. [More]
Man Holds Protest Vigil Outside Of Sears Over Radiator Warranty
By 9.30.13
The nice thing about being retired is that it gives you lots of time to pursue old or new hobbies. You could plant an expansive garden, take up woodworking, do volunteer work, or play bingo. Then there’s what a 70-year-old Idaho man is doing: spending 6-8 hours a day picketing a Sears store in Virginia. [More]
Goodwill Fires Cashier, Presses Felony Charges For Giving Discounts To Poor People
By 9.27.13 — Updated: 9.29.13
Goodwill is a charitable organization that sells donated goods in thrift stores to raise money for its job-training and employment programs. So it’s an organization that helps people. Just not the people who shop in its stores. That’s what a teeenage cashier learned recently when he gave some broke customers off-the-books discounts, and got arrested on felony charges (and fired) for his trouble. Update: The store decided not to pursue the charges. [More]
Salmon From Costco, Trader Joe’s Beat Out Fancy, Expensive Fish In Taste Test
By 9.27.13
The Washington Post recently provided a top chef with a variety of wild and farmed salmon, ranging in price from $6/lb. to $20/lb., and had him prepare dishes for a table of food-snob judges. In the end, farmed salmon handily defeat the wild stuff and the Post concluded that you don’t always get what you pay for. [More]
Shoppers Find $100 Bills Hidden Throughout Portland Grocery Stores
By 9.27.13
Buying some coffee at the grocery store? How about an extra $100 with that? Or perhaps you need cookies? Here’s $100 for your excellent dessert decision. Lucky shoppers in Portland grocery stores this week might’ve thought there was a band of money fairies roving the area, stuffing hundred-dollar bills into items on the shelves, but of course, it was a publicity stunt. At least, at first. [More]
Grandmother Of Poisoned Boy Asks Procter & Gamble To Stop Making Tide Pods Look Like Delicious Candy
By 9.27.13
Since their introduction in 2012, Tide detergent pods have been a lightning rod for controversy. Initially packaged in clear plastic, candy jar-like container, the glossy, orange, blue and white pods tempted an alarming number of children into taste-testing them. Procter & Gamble, the makers of Tide, have subsequently made the packaging opaque and more secure, but one woman who says her grandson almost died after biting into a Tide pod says more can be done to make the product less yummy-looking to children. [More]
Walmart Will Spend The Next Three Months Getting Rid Of Its Leftover Paula Deen Items
By 9.27.13
When retailers like Walmart dropped Paula Deen in the midst of the controversy surrounding her use of racially-charged language, it’s not like there was a ginormous magnet that could snag all her products from shelves and whisk them away like magic. Because while Walmart announced back in June that it wouldn’t place any new orders for her branded merchandise, it still has a bunch to get rid of already in stock. [More]
Meanwhile, Here’s Walmart’s Costume Offering For School-Age Boys
By 9.27.13
I don’t know about these kids today, but I don’t imagine this blood-soaked white coat and creepy would have gone over well at my elementary school’s Halloween costume parade. Yet the “demented doctor” is among Walmart’s offering for boys, advertised for kids as young as 7. [More]
Dick’s Promotes Great Sale That Only Applies To 12 Random Items (Update: Not So Fast)
By 9.26.13 — Updated: 9.27.13
There’s a very prominently featured sale on the website of Dick’s Sporting Goods for the next few days. It’s a pretty good deal: $20 off with a $100 purchase! Only reader Dave couldn’t figure out which items on the site were eligible for this promotion. He sought help from a customer service chat rep and learned the sad truth: only twelve items are part of this promotion. [More]
Will Bank Of America Balk At Taking Washington State’s Marijuana Money?
By 9.26.13
We’ve already written about how owners of legitimate marijuana businesses are being forced to pay their taxes in cash because federally insured banks are unwilling to let them open bank accounts. These payments then pose a problem for the state, which has to worry about finding a place to deposit the tax revenue. [More]
Walmart Pulls “Naughty Leopard” Costume From Shelves, Will Research What Leopards Look Like
By 9.26.13
Since we posted a picture of a little girl’s costume that was labeled “Naughty Leopard,” the story has spread worldwide, irking feminists and horrifying parents everywhere. Now we’ve learned that Walmart plans to pull the costumes from shelves. [More]
Amazon Debuts New Kindle Fire HDX Tablets With Live Pop-Up Video Help
By 9.25.13
There was a show on VH1 wherein music videos would play (yes, on TV, kids!) and little bubbles of information about the artist or the video would pop up so you could learn while you listened. Maybe someone at Amazon was a fan of that show too, because the company’s new Kindle Fire HDX tablets have a sort of pop-up help feature on the desktop. But instead of just words, a tech-support rep appears. [More]
Wells Fargo Fails At Getting Federal Mortgage Lawsuit Dismissed
By 9.24.13
The same day that trial began in the Justice Dept.’s lawsuit against Bank of America, the DOJ had another victory in a similar suit filed last year against Wells Fargo, as the bank failed this morning in its attempt to have the suit dismissed. [More]
Bank Of America On Trial Over Countrywide’s “Hustle”
By 9.24.13
There are children in elementary school who were not yet born in 2007, when Countrywide Financial allegedly launched a program dubbed the “Hustle,” which removed virtually all the roadblocks in the mortgage approval process so the lender could write as many loans as possible and quickly sell them off to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for billions of dollars. Many of those mortgages proved toxic, and six years later, Bank of America has to answer in court for the bad behavior of the mortgage company it must now regret acquiring. [More]
Hanes Throws In 2 Undershirts For Free, Charges More For Them
By 9.24.13
Here’s a puzzle: if a company adds more of an item to a package and advertises that you “get X items” or get X ounces free,” don’t they have to keep the price the same? Well, no. I suppose not. Reader Scott found this fascinating example of fuzzy math on various packs of undershirts at Walmart. [More]
