Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan posted an email to the company’s intranet telling the rank and file to keep their chins up amidst their sinking stock price and news that they would be sued by AIG for selling crap mortgages. [More]
Retail Services
The Daily Show: Couple "Forecloses" On Bank Of America
By 8.9.11
The couple who “foreclosed” on Bank of America got The Daily Show treatment last night. John Oliver caught up with the homeowners to find out how they showed up with repo men and sheriff’s deputies at a Bank of America branch office and got the bank to pay them money they were owed. It all began when the bank tried to foreclose on them, even though they had no mortgage at all, and owned their home free and clear. [More]
Startup Swears Hardest Of Hard Discs Can Save Data Forever
By 8.9.11
The trouble with traditional disc-based data storage products is they decay over time, potentially allowing information that isn’t backed up to vanish. A startup, working with LG, plans to rectify the problem with a disc that promises to etch data in virtual stone. [More]
How To Untangle Yourself From Big Buys You Regret
By 8.8.11
Remember the time you bought that replica Batmobile in a moment of idiotic whimsy and then you were like, oh, crap, shouldn’t have done that? Good news! There are ways to slip out of big ticket items, although we’re not sure about Batmobiles. [More]
AIG Suing Bank Of America Over Bad Mortgages
By 8.8.11
In a legal battle that could be dubbed an all-star edition of our Worst Company In America tournament, AIG intends to sue Bank of America to get back $10 billion it lost investing in toxic mortgages made by BofA and two of its most infamous acquisitions, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. [More]
Macy's Admits It's Totally Peeping On You In The Fitting Room
By 8.8.11
If you live in Florida and feel like someone’s peeping on you in the department store fitting room to make sure you’re not thieving, well, they could be! [More]
Woman Claims Sushi Restaurant Added Semen To Spicy Sauce
By 8.8.11
What is it about bodily fluids going into professionally prepared food these days? Ugh! A woman in New York is suing a sushi restaurant, claiming there was semen in the spicy sauce that came with her delivery of tuna rolls. [More]
Report: Walmart Cutting 3DS Price Early
By 8.8.11
On Friday Nintendo will cut the price of the 3DS handheld from $250 to $170, offering 20 free downloadable games to those who log on to the eShop by Thursday. The gesture is meant to comfort those who overpaid for the device by buying it before the rollback. Walmart, though, is reportedly offering the best of both worlds by marking the 3DS down to $170 Tuesday, giving opportunists time to qualify for the free games while netting the discount. [More]
$300 Disappears From Pre-Paid Walmart Debit Card, Store Has No Idea Why
By 8.5.11
A California was stuck without car insurance and unable to pay her bills after $300 she’d put on her pre-paid Walmart debit card had vanished into the ether. Making matters worse, the retail giant has no idea how the money disappeared. [More]
You Can't Write A Check To Target Until You Successfully Write A Check To Target
By 8.4.11
J.’s debit card has a limit on how many transactions he can use it for in a day, so he often kicks it like it’s 1993 and writes checks for things. This isn’t normally a problem, but it is at Target, where their third-party check verification service, Certegy, is incorrectly convinced that he’s been writing bad checks. Fine, he dealt with Certegy, but still can’t write checks. Why? Target’s internal check verification department says so. He won’t be able to pay that way until he has a history of successful check writing at Target. What’s wrong with this picture? [More]
Walmart.com Has Slowest Shipping, Costco.com Has Fastest
By 8.3.11
Two days before school starts and you need those pencils and TI-89 calculators, stat? If online shopping is the route you’re going, Costco will get it to you faster than Walmart, says a new survey. [More]
Went To Firestone To Fix Flat, Got $1,600 Estimate
By 8.3.11
A Redditor has posted images of his repair estimate he got from Firestone after taking their car in to fix a flat. The Firestone mechanic said they couldn’t just put a plug in, they needed to replace the whole tire. And while they were at it, they said the Redditor should overhaul their electrical system for $1,600 because the blinkers didn’t work, even though they did work. [More]
Sears Can't Repair My Fridge, Won't Declare It 'Unrepairable'
By 8.3.11
All that Consumerist reader Jill wants right now is a fridge with a working ice maker. Alas, after four repair visits and months of finger-pointing and runaround from Sears, her 6-month-old fridge still lacks a functioning ice maker and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. [More]
How Record Companies Spend More Than $1 Million To Manufacture Each Hit
By 8.3.11
It’s easy to imagine a famous singer-songwriter whipping up musical magic in a flurry of inspiration, then pushing it through the studio system and onto iTunes and the radio with minimum interference. But that’s not the way the pop music factory manufactures its sausage. [More]
Best Buy Sends Us Wrong Stove, Actually Does Something About It
By 8.2.11
The vast Consumerist archives are not lacking for tales of customers left holding the short end of the stick following a Best Buy purchase. And for a while it looked like Jon and his wife would be adding their names to the roster of fist-shaking Best Buy customers. But, as occasionally happens in this wacky world, this couple came up a winner when they spun the customer service wheel of fortune. [More]
Ticketmaster Makes Deal With Walmart, Devil Confused As To Whose Soul To Collect First
By 8.2.11
Earlier today the nation’s largest retailer, Walmart, announced a deal with the nation’s least essential company, Ticketmaster, to sell overpriced tickets via in-store video screens at hundreds of Walmarts around the country. [More]
The 8 Largest U.S. Retailers With The Worst Sales
By 8.2.11
If we’d told you 10 years ago that Borders and Circuit City would vanish off the face of the planet and Blockbuster Video would be auctioned off to a satellite TV provider for pocket change, many people would have expressed disbelief. But those once-great stores have had their heyday in history, so now it’s time to look into the magic 8 ball to see if doom lies ahead for other major retailers. [More]
9 As Last Number On Pricetag Has Magical Effect On Sales
By 8.1.11
The rational consumer, like the black unicorn, is a myth. Otherwise how could you explain this study that showed that customers buy more when the last number on the pricetag is nine, even if the item is more expensive? [More]
