Mark bought the new Star Wars trilogy Blu-Ray set from Best Buy on release day, but wasn’t aware that it came with some secret double features. Like doubling as a clipboard. A clipboard that Best Buy employees can commandeer at any time after purchase. [More]
Retail Services
It Should Not Take Six Attempts To Deliver A Dishwasher
By 10.20.11
Ariel has read Consumerist for long enough that, given a choice, she probably wouldn’t order a dishwasher from Sears. But she rents, and her landlord is not so wise. Here is their sad but familiar tale: lots of delivery appointments, missed days of work, and no dishwasher. [More]
Barnes & Noble Now Selling Electronics, Furniture, Rugs & Just About Everything Else
By 10.20.11
For years, Barnes & Noble’s website has been competing with Amazon for the online book market. The two companies even square off directly in the realm of ebooks, each selling its own proprietary eReader. But aside from dabbling in music and movies, B&N has let Amazon be the online superstore where you can buy almost anything. Until now. [More]
Family With Crappy-Sounding Casio Piano Saved By… Best Buy?
By 10.20.11
Last Christmas, Jennifer bought her daughter a digital piano, and it hasn’t sounded very good since June or so. What sounds even worse is that manufacturer Casio and the local piano repair shop were dragging their feet on getting it working again before the one-year warranty was up. We shared this story a few weeks agoand things looked bleak…until Jennifer’s husband thought to call the retailer they had ordered the piano from: Best Buy. [More]
Toys 'R' Us Must Pay $20.6 Million In 2006 Pool Slide Death
By 10.20.11
We enjoy mocking Banzai and their tendency to put wildly inaccurate photographs of their products on the boxes. But another wild inaccuracy led to tragedy in Massachusetts in 2006, when a 29-year-old mother went headfirst down an inflatable waterslide that collapsed. She broke her neck and later died as a result of the injuries. The jury deliberated for less than an hour before awarding her survivors $20.6 million–and they weren’t even allowed to hear about the other person allegedly paralyzed by a similar injury while using the same product. [More]
Bank Of America Can't Help With Warning Of Possible Future Fraud
By 10.20.11
Ralph knows that mysterious deposits in your bank account from unknown entities are probably not a good thing. They’re much more likely to be harbingers of fraud than tiny, mysterious gifts. So he alerted his bank, Bank of America, that someone might be trying to steal from his account. The bank proceeded to do… not all that much, since no fraud had been committed yet. [More]
Bank Of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Visa, MasterCard Sued Over ATM Fees
By 10.19.11
Have you ever glared angrily at the ATM, knowing that you’re going to be saddled with fees and wishing you could sue everyone involved? Well, it looks like more than one person has followed through on this idea. [More]
Home Depot Salt Pellet Deal Shrivels Under Scrutiny
By 10.19.11
Whether it’s a signage error or a stacking error, this pile of salt pellets is not what it seems at first blush. [More]
Costco, Amazon Top Most-Trusted Company Survey; Comcast Brings Up The Rear
By 10.19.11
We live in a time where very few companies engender a lot of trust in the buying public. But some businesses still do a better job than others at developing a positive relationship with consumers. [More]
Target Store Has Great Black Friday Idea: Only 30 People At A Time
By 10.19.11
Here’s a crazy idea: let’s construct a Black Friday sale in such a way as shoppers aren’t hospitalized in a mad dash for deals. That’s what one Target store in Indiana is doing, where the plan is to only let 30 people in the store at a time on the sale day after Thanksgiving. [More]
Survey: 30% Of Consumers Would Leave Bank Over Debit Card Fees
By 10.19.11
With financial institutions like SunTrust and Bank of America implementing fees for using debit cards to make purchases — and a number of other banks doing regional tests on similar fees — a new survey says that nearly one out of three American consumers would leave their bank if it introduced such a fee. [More]
People Are Back To Making Late Payments On Their Credit Cards
By 10.19.11
Two months ago, the number of people making late credit card payments was at its lowest since Justin Bieber was a twinkle in his parents’ eyes. Of course, when you reach a low like that, there is often nowhere to go but up. [More]
Walmart Sends Me Cheaper Bed Frame Than I Ordered, Shrugs
By 10.19.11
Cassandra had a confusing problem with Walmart. She ordered a bed frame to be delivered to her local store. She happened to order a black frame, which was more expensive than the similar (but out of stock) bronze-colored frame. When she got the box home, though, she noticed that new labels had been put over the areas on the box identifying the frame’s color. The labels identified the frame as black. The box itsef identified it as bronze. The frame inside was bronze. So who altered the box, and why? [More]
HomeDepot.com Rejects Your Overbilling Complaint
By 10.18.11
Jeffrey was overbilled for a garbage disposal by Home Depot and had a bad experience with the service technician. Then, we he tried to submit a complaint about it through the Home Depot website, the site rejected his story and said it violated their terms of service agreement. [More]
Protesters Arrested At Citibank For Making A Scene, Closing Their Accounts
By 10.18.11
Video shot around the ‘net this weekend of a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters at a New York City Citibank who were arrested after they entered the bank with placards, began holding an open forum inside the bank where they talked about how they were saddled with debt, and then tried to close their accounts. At one point a woman wearing a suit is forcibly arrested after telling the police several times, “I’m a customer.” [More]
Target Manager Sues, Says Was Fired For Working Through Lunch
By 10.18.11
An ex-Target manager is suing his former employer, accusing the retailer of firing him for working during his lunch break. Ironically, he says it was retaliation for the complaints he had made about being denied uninterrupted breaks. [More]
Consumers Union Urges Bank Of America CEO To Drop Debit Card Fee
By 10.18.11
Two weeks after asking regulators to investigate Bank of America’s plan to charge some customers a $5 fee to make purchases with their debit cards, our cousins at Consumers Union have taken their case directly to the bank’s CEO. [More]
BlackBerry Outage Apology: Here Are Some Free Apps You Might Not Want
By 10.18.11
In an attempt to placate millions of BlackBerry users who suffered service outages for up to three days last week, the smartphone’s makers, Research in Motion, have announced they’ll offer up a $100 credit for certain apps. Yay…? [More]
