They say that behind every great man there is a woman who will eventually be his co-defendant when he is sued by the FDIC for his part in the largest bank failure in U.S. history. [More]
Retail Services
Even Celebrities Get Crappy Service At Best Buy
By 3.17.11
Here’s a familiar story to readers of Consumerist: Customer goes into a Best Buy to make a purchase. Best Buy staffer gives customer incorrect information. Frustrated by the situation, customer vents about it online. Of course, when that customer is big-time pop star Kelly Clarkson, Best Buy actually fixes the error. [More]
Chase Tests Out $5 ATM Fees
By 3.17.11
Banks are continuing to amp up the threat of making consumers pay for the price of increased regulation. Chase is testing out charging non-customers in Illinois $5 for withdrawal fees. In Texas, they’re trying a $4 charge on for size. Consumer advocates say its a scare tactic meant to muddy up Congressional waters, but banking experts disagree. “I think customers have taken for granted the cost of banks’ infrastructure,” says Margaret Kane, president and CEO of Kane Bank Services told ABC News. “ATMs are very expensive to install and maintain.” [More]
Los Angeles County Battles Puppy Mills With Law
By 3.17.11
In an effort to make it tougher for breeders to crank out dogs as though they were on an assembly line, Los Angeles County passed a law that’s meant to curtail puppy mills. [More]
Homeowner Turns SUV Into Anti-BofA Collage
By 3.16.11
A homeowner has affixed their SUV with a creative anti-Bank of America collage and slogans on posterboard and parked it outside a BofA branch in Austin, Texas. Reader Jeff is at the SXSW festival and sent in this picture he snapped of the scene. The driver of the car apparently has a loan with Bank of America and is accusing them of “fraud” though I can’t decipher from the medley of images what kind they had in mind. Nice pirate flag, though. [More]
Citi Beats Bank Of America At One Thing: Getting Bailout Money
By 3.16.11
The Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the TARP program has finally made public the data on exactly how much each of the various bailed-out banks received from the combined coffers of TARP, FDIC and the Federal Reserve. The winner: Citigroup’s $476.2 billion. [More]
Worst Company In America Round One: Walmart Vs. GameStop
By 3.16.11
It’s a retail riot in this afternoon’s WCIA session, with two perennial tournament qualifiers trying to prove they belong here. [More]
Internet Surpasses Print As News Source; TV Still Leads
By 3.16.11
The most surprising thing about the Pew Project’s State of the News Media study findings isn’t that online news is more popular than print, it’s that it took so long for the perceived reality of the past several years to come to fruition. As a result, newsrooms have shed workers as well as readers, operating with 30 percent less manpower than they did in 2001. [More]
Etsy Sort Of Listens To Internet, Changes Privacy Defaults
By 3.15.11
Whimsy emporium Etsy finally sort of listened to its sellers, customers, and the entire Internet this afternoon when they changed a controversial feature that users claimed was a privacy breach. Users’ feedback history on the site is now private, and they can change those settings to become less private. Why did this matter? [More]
Sears Delivers New Stove, Ends Family's 6 Weeks Without Cooking
By 3.15.11
Remember Ian, whose family was stuck with a series of defective Kenmore stoves and hadn’t been able to cook at home for six weeks? He reports that Sears delivered a new stove to his house on Saturday, and this one seems to be actually functioning. So far. Hooray! [More]
When Large Packaging Disguises Tiny Content
By 3.15.11
One way around the Grocery Shrink Ray is to leave packages the same physical size, but put less product in them. Two readers recently noticed that they weren’t getting as much value for their money as they thought when shopping at Walmart. [More]
Worst Company In America Round One: Bank Of America Vs. Citi
By 3.15.11
Consumerist’s 6th Annual Worst Company In America tournament tips off today with this battle of beastly bankers! [More]
You Want Your Real Name Associated With Your Etsy Purchase History, Right?
By 3.15.11
Have you ever made a purchase on the crafty marketplace, Etsy? If you have, consider checking your privacy settings, since the site is beginning to have more in common with Facebook than an old-fashioned online bazaar. The company behind the site managed to annoy sellers, buyers, and more or less the entire Internet by changing its privacy policy earlier this year.
The changes allow users to search for their friends and marginal acquaintances’ Etsy usernames and feedback histories by e-mail address. Not all that different from most social networking sites… but most people who sign up to use Etsy do so to buy things, not to socialize and spy on what their friends are buying. Now, the full names of users who provided them to the site are available to the public and indexed by search engines by default. Users must opt out of these exciting new privacy-defying features.
Norway Is Totally Jealous Of Our Relatively Low Gas Prices
By 3.14.11
The next time you’re staring in disbelief and a recently jacked up gas price at the pump, this thought might console you a little bit — they’ve got it much worse in Norway! [More]
Here's Your Lineup For Worst Company In America 2011!
By 3.14.11
For the sixth year in a row, we asked Consumerist readers to send us their nominations for our Worst Company In America tournament. And this year’s response was the greatest by far. [More]
Home Depot Rips Off Staples Easy Button
By 3.14.11
At least one Home Depot has been so inspired by Staples “Easy Button” that they came up with their own knockoff. Reader Ed sent in this photo of one of these buttons he spotted in his local Home Depot on the desk in the flooring department. When I first saw the picture, I thought that when you pushed it a giant mechanical hand would grab one of the experienced retired contractors who Home Depot fired and replaced with cheaper labor and drop him in front of you. Sadly, the reality is, as usual, much more mundane than my fevered imaginings. [More]
Consumer Electronic Association Wants To Standardize 3D TV Glasses
By 3.14.11
I don’t know about you, but when I ditch the 3D I have now and get a new one, I want to be able to still use 3D glasses on the new version, even if it’s a different brand, when I watch Justin Bieber’s life story. [More]
Madden Video Game Will Come Out Whether Or Not There's An NFL Season
By 3.14.11
Regardless of whether or not NFL owners and players can make nice in time for there to be a football season, all will proceed as normal in video game world. [More]
