You could cut the tension between two women, both working for a contractor hired to hand out free samples in Walmart, with a knife. All you’d need is a cutting board, which also happens to be the item at the center of a fight that ended with one woman in a fruit display and the other being arrested. [More]
Retail Services
Court: Woman Can Keep The Mortgage Modification Bank Of America Said Was An Error
By 6.22.12
What happens when Bank of America offers a customer a mortgage modification then tries to foreclose on her home anyway? In the case of a New Jersey woman who was paying her mortgage when BofA claimed her modification offer had been an error, a court took her side, allowing her to keep her home. [More]
Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Uncover Star Wars Sandtroopers, Free Games, Windows Vista
By 6.22.12
The Raiders of the Lost Walmart have been busy since April, finding the oldest and obsoletest items on the shelves at Walmart. No old cameras this time, but plenty of (now) free games, old memory, and not-quite-vintage action figures. Almost as if our readers are experts in that sort of thing.
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Woman Forcibly Removed From Home, In Spite Of Restraining Order Against Citibank
By 6.21.12
A woman in El Paso has been fighting foreclosure for several months, saying she was making payments and that Citibank was crediting them to an escrow account without telling her or explaining why. A federal court recently issued a temporary restraining order preventing the bank from foreclosing while the case is litigated, but that didn’t stop county constables from forcibly removing her from her home last week. [More]
TV Demand Slumps Because We’re All Making Do With What We Already Have
By 6.21.12
TV in the living room, in the den, in the kitchen, the bathroom (no judgment) and in the family room? You’re not alone — for the first time, LCD TV sales are falling, along with other flat-screen models, partly because we’ve already got all the TVs we need. [More]
Best Buy CEO-For-Now Promises Change, End To Showrooming
By 6.21.12
Best Buy has been shaken up by the recent, unexpected departures of both CEO Brian “My Work Here Is” Dunn and company founder Richard “I Need a Better Nickname” Schulze. And interim CEO Mike Mikan says more changes are coming to the electronics retailer. [More]
Bank Of America’s House Winterizing Crew Results In A Missing Muscle Car
By 6.21.12
All Aaron wants is his 1973 Dodge Challenger back, and all Bank of America wants to do is act like it has no idea whatsoever what happened to his car. Aaron had been storing his pride and joy in his late mother’s garage, when a winterizing crew hired by BofA showed up. The next thing he knew, the garage was padlocked from the outside and his car was gone. [More]
NYC Restaurant Selling $1K Pizza With Six Kinds Of Caviar On It
By 6.21.12
Some nights all you want is a nice simple slice of cheese-laden, tomato sauce-slathered pizza. And then maybe, if you’re the kind with a fancy hitch in your britches, there are the times when all you want is to pay $1,000 for a pizza with a ton of fancy ingredients on it. [More]
Best Buy Sells Me Exciting New Geek Squad Anti-Warranty
By 6.21.12
What is an extended warranty? We were under the impression that it is a plan that extends the original manufacturer’s warranty, paying for repairs in the case that a consumer product is defective in some way that is not the owner’s fault. That’s what Pam thought, too, and she purchased one for the new Westinghouse TV that she bought from Best Buy. When the set broke down–six months into a four-year Geek Squad service plan, naturally–she tried to get both Best Buy and Westinghouse to repair the set, but no one carries the part she needs, and Westinghouse isn’t picking up the phone. Literally. [More]
Fun Reads For Father’s Day: ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’
By 6.21.12
Fifty Shades of Grey, a current bestseller that’s lightly rewritten Twilight fanfiction the erotic tale of chance meeting gone terribly, terribly right, might make an appropriate gift for some people. A friend who shares your love of popular fiction. Your favorite librarian. Your grandmother. We’re pretty sure it wouldn’t make an appropriate Father’s Day gift, though, no matter what this Target display says. [More]
Where Do All Your Used Clothes Ultimately End Up?
By 6.20.12
When you clean out your closet and fill up a bag to donate to Goodwill or the Salvation Army with stuff that no longer fits or you just don’t want, it might be the end of your time with those high-waisted jeans or Barenaked Ladies concert tee. But it’s just the beginning of a long, winding path that can terminate thousands of miles and an ocean away. [More]
Chase Does Us All A Favor, Nixes Overdraft Fees For Purchases Under $5
By 6.20.12
Remember when you began vehemently swearing upon realizing that before you used your bank card to buy a $3 iced coffee, you were in the red already, making that a $37 iced coffee and overdrawing your account even more? That’ll change for Chase customers, as the bank announced its going to do its customers a solid by dropping overdraft fees for purchases under $5. [More]
We Are Apparently In The Midst Of A Canned Beer Renaissance
By 6.20.12
In my youth, canned beer was king, though there was the one guy on the block whose recycling buckets were always overflowing with empty Rolling Rock bottles. But then came the craft beer revolution of the ’90s and slowly but surely cans gave way to bottles and draft beer. For seven years starting in 2002, bottled and draft beers equaled or outpaced the canned stuff in the U.S., but ever since the economy took a nose dive, a growing number of Americans have been cracking open cold cans for their beer-based refreshment. [More]
Dear Target Employees: Lying Is Not A Valid Extended Warranty Sales Tactic
By 6.19.12
It’s one thing to repeatedly push extended warranties on customers. We’re not fans of this particular revenue-drivng tactic (or of most extended warranties in general) but there’s nothing fundamentally dishonest about it. What is dishonest is what David says that an employee at a midwestern Target store did. While selling him an iPod Touch, the employee told David that Target’s extended warranty covers accidental damage. It doesn’t. [More]
Put That Cruise On Layaway, Please: Sears Launching Vacation Service
By 6.19.12
Vacations can be quite the costly endeavor — especially if you’ve got a lot of family members coming along, which might cause you to write off certain trips as too expensive. That’s exactly why Sears wants to lure in customers with its new service, SearsVacations.com, which will allow customers to put vacations on hold or pay off the total cost, in its familiar layaway style. [More]
The Denver Post Really Doesn’t Want To Entice Long-Term Subscribers
By 6.18.12
The amount of money newspapers and magazines charge to advertisers is closely tied to their reader base. That’s why print media will often give discounts to people willing to subscribe for longer periods of time. But not the Denver Post, which wants you to pay significantly more per week if you go with the lengthier subscription. [More]
See A Price Drop On A TV You Bought From Amazon? Act Fast For Your Refund!
By 6.18.12
It’s not that Steve was begging for any special favors, or violating the policies that Amazon itself has posted. He saw the price on the TV he had already purchased drop by more than $200 as part of a special sale, and he contacted Amazon for a price adjustment, per their policy. And they denied him, because the sale price didn’t apply at that exact moment he called. A screen grab and Amazon’s own records weren’t enough proof. [More]
Zombie Bank Of America Account Makes Me A ‘Delinquent’
By 6.18.12
The last time that Jen had visited a Bank of America branch, her deposit of more than $3,000 had been credited to the wrong customer, and she was there to make sure that she got her money back. A branch manager denied her assertions, denied that there was a mistake, and told her that she must have deposited the money in another bank. There was no other reasonable explanation…or so it seemed until she pulled out the receipt from her deposit. Oh. She closed her account that day, and assumed that her relationship with Bank of America was now over. She was incorrect. [More]
