Many of you read last week’s story about the man in Washington state who spent the weekend in jail because a Chase employee was convinced that the completely legitimate cashier’s check he was trying to cash was a forgery. Well, it appears that the two sides have put aside their differences and worked out an agreement. [More]
Retail Services
Just Because You're Illiterate Doesn't Mean You Shouldn't Be Able To Use The ATM
By 7.11.11
If you’ve ever found yourself trying to get money from an ATM that doesn’t want to display its menus in English, you know it can be aggravating. But imagine what it must be like for someone with no understanding of any written language. Now there are new ATMs being created for use in developing regions with lower literacy rates. [More]
Free Shipping On Adult Novelty Fur Elephants At Sears
By 7.11.11
Tipster David notes Sears.com appears to have added some adult items to their online catalogue, resulting in some unusual search results. Is this “the softer side of Sears?” [More]
How A Sears Promotion Gobbled Up $25 Of My Money
By 7.8.11
Kenneth isn’t quite sure what to do. He bought enough men’s clothing items at Sears to trigger a deal giving him a restricted $25 gift card to Sears. Hooray! Only when he came back to return some of the items, the card’s value was deducted from his refund, forcing him to spend $25 more at Sears than he had ever planned to. [More]
EECB Leads To Dazzling Best Buy Service, Fridge Upgrade
By 7.8.11
Best Buy? Above and beyond? Yes, it’s possible! The new refrigerator that Sandy ordered was delayed by several days, leaving her fridgeless for a week. She wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of feeding her family without the modern appliance, so she fired off an email to all of the executives she could get her pixels on, copying us on all correspondence. Suddenly, she was summoned to the store to pick out any fridge she wanted for no extra charge, with immediate delivery. And a present for her son, too. [More]
Malls Even More Vacant Than They Were Three Months Ago
By 7.8.11
Following a first quarter of 2011 that saw mall vacancies rise to 9.1 percent, the second quarter was no kinder, with the vacancy rate inching up to 9.3 percent. Strip malls are having an even tougher time keeping tenants, with 11 percent of storefronts sitting empty. [More]
Bank Of America's Bad Decisions Could Turn JPMorgan Chase Into Country's Biggest Bank
By 7.8.11
When Bank of America swooped in to save swooning Merill Lynch and Countrywide in 2008, it achieved its goal of becoming the largest bank in the U.S. Three years on, those same acquisitions could be dragging BofA into a second-place position behind JPMorgan Chase. [More]
Judge Allows Amazon To Keep Using Appstore Name For Now
By 7.7.11
The legal war between Apple and Amazon over the term “App Store” continues, but a judge has handed the most recent battle to the e-tailer, denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against Amazon’s online Appstore. [More]
Bank Of America Freezes Customer's Accounts After Nearly $3 Million In Mysterious Overdrafts
By 7.7.11
An unemployed single mom in Orlando either managed to overdraft nearly $3 million from her accounts at Bank of America or the bank’s computers went haywire and mistakenly debited each of her three accounts to the tune of around $900,000. Regardless, the woman says BofA is attempting to close those accounts, leaving her and her family in dire financial straits. [More]
Chase Gets Man Thrown In Jail For Fraudulent Check. Except The Check Is Legit.
By 7.7.11
UPDATE: Chase and the customer tell Consumerist the situation has been resolved. [More]
Call To Chase Executive Customer Service Gets Bank To Stop Flooding Me With Mail
By 7.6.11
Sarah saw yesterday’s post about the reader who was awash in credit card offers from Capital One and wrote in to share her story of how she finally got Chase to stop filling her mailbox with shredder fodder. [More]
3D TV Prices Expected To Fall In Coming Months
By 7.6.11
If you’re in the market for a 3D TV, you’d do well to restrain your urge until the holiday season, when prices are expected to drop as much as $250 from current levels. While 3D TVs commanded a price premium of $900 last year, the premium has now plummeted to $400, and could slip to $150 by year’s end. [More]
Target, RiteAid, And Publix Change Policies To Cripple Extreme Couponers
By 7.5.11
In the past few weeks, three big stores have changed their coupon policies in ways to curb some of the more lucrative coupon tactics. It appears to be fallout over noob extreme couponers inspired by the TLC show Extreme Couponing, who are ruining the game for everyone else. [More]
Investors To Challenge $8.5 Billion Bank Of America Settlement
By 7.5.11
Last week’s $8.5 billion settlement agreement between Bank of America and 22 investment groups over tainted securities, is being challenged but not by BofA. Rather, one group of bondholders claim the bank got off too easy. [More]
Chase And BoA Quietly Cutting Balances For Option-Arm Mortgagors
By 7.5.11
It’s a lovely surprise to get in the mail from your bank, a letter telling you they’re going to cut your mortgage balance in half while increasing your interest rate slightly. NYT reports that tens of thousands of option-arm mortgagors, homebuyers with a loan that had a low introductory interest rate that shot up after a set period, have been getting such letters from Chase and Bank of America over the past year. [More]
Chase Drops Thousands Of Debt Collection Cases Against Borrowers
By 7.1.11
Chase is dropping thousands of pending debt collection cases against defaulted credit card borrowers, WSJ reports. Remember the big deal over robo-signing foreclosure cases a few months ago? The problem of bulk signing sloppy paperwork, and, in some case, filing fraudulent documents, could be even bigger when it comes to credit cards. It looks like JP Morgan Chase is trying to get its house in order before they’re forced to by government and legal forces. [More]
Sears Keeps Pushing Back Dishwasher Delivery, Charges When You Get Sick Of It
By 7.1.11
Perhaps it was unwise of Robert to order a dishwasher from Sears and expect to eventually receive a dishwasher. But his local Sears managed to do even worse than that. After they delayed his order six times, he had enough and canceled it. So, naturally, they went right ahead and charged his Sears credit card for the much-delayed, never-delivered dishwasher. [More]
