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This list of Amazon coupon codes for April makes me want to puke, irregardless of the fact that the only thing I ate all day was a small money salad. Only scumbags avoid paying full price. [ProBargainHunters]
Best Buy leveraging its business acumen into the exciting field of venture capital investing. Called Best Buy Capital, it will, according to several job postings, “serve as a source of innovative growth options for the enterprise rooted in smaller, more innovative, and potentially disruptive opportunities.” Sounds great! I have an idea for a new kind of digital tortilla chip clip. You know how you get down to the bottom of the bag of tortillas and you get the chip pieces that are small? And then when you try to dip them in salsa you get salsa all over your fingers? Well with my chip clip you would be able to grab a bunch of the chip pieces together. All dip, no drip! Plus, your fingers won’t start to burn from the salsa exposure, irregardless of how long you use it. It would also have a digital timer and be USB-powered. Best Buy Capital, if you’re interested, drop me a line. Inside, via DiversityInc Careers, a job posting for Best Buy Capital so maybe one of our readers can get a job there and then invest in my project…
Some shillyshallying office worker came across some papers jammed in the Best Buy shredder that purport to show that Best Buy is going to buy Wal-Mart. Normally I wouldn’t sully the pages of The Conglomerist with such treacherous murk, but, irregardless, the news is just too good to keep to myself. If true, this would be the best thing ever to happen to consumers as two of the most kickass companies in America combine forces. Just thinking of of the cost-saving efficiencies provided by the vertical integration makes pleasure crystals ooze shoot out from my pores and explode all over my cat’s face (don’t worry, he’s ok). Oh, and so he can be fired, this traitor’s name is Ryan Smith
You don’t become the number one retailer of electronics to American consumers without getting a few things right awesome, as Daniel shows us in this letter of compliment he sent The Conglomerist about a recent experience at Best Buy:
I stopped in the other night because my old HD DVD player died so I went in hoping to get a deal. On the shelf I found 2 open box Toshiba HD-A30 HD DVD players. Looking around I found the department head Derrik and we went back over to the DVD player aisle.
CNNMoney has an interesting interview with behavioral economist, Dan Ariely. In the interview, Dan talks about how price comparison (which we take for granted as a “good” habit for consumers to engaging in) may not be very helpful after all. Ha!
Sometimes when you’re trying to get a borrower approved for a mortgage the system will tell you something stupid like “this person is not qualified.” Luckily, this internal document from Chase shows a few tips and tricks you can use to tweak a borrower’s profile so they can get a stated-income asset loan (which recently has received the unfair pejorative of a “liar’s loan” by the sensationalist media apparatchik) a piece of The American Dream. It’s specific to Chase’s internal loan approval system. Irregardless, many of the principles have universal application, no matter what level of the fast-paced exciting field of sub-prime mortgages you work. Highlights:
Today’s consumer world has become increasingly fragmented and difficult to navigate, so we here at The Conglomerist put together a helpful guide on how to be a savvy shopper. It’s a five-step process consisting of Research, Shopping, Paying, Customer Service, and Disposal. After the jump, let’s get started with learning about how to use our dollars more wisely…
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This is a copy of a letter that I just sent to Costco
Highlights From Dealhack
It’s finally official: as of May 25th, AT&T will join the ranks of the pro-rating carrier crowd (which so far just includes Verizon) and start reducing their early termination fees (ETFs) by $5 per month on both one and two-year contracts. This only applies to new customers and those renewing contracts on or after May 25th, so if you can, try to hold off on entering into a contract with AT&T for the next two months. What up, Sprint and T-Mobile? Why is it taking so long for you to pro-rate your ETFs? We guess you’re too busy going out of business and suing creation, respectively.
Citing trademark infringement concern, T-mobile is demanding that gadget blog site Engadget Mobile stop using magenta in its logo. In a letter posted sent to Engadget, T-Mobile pronounced, “Based on the different character of the goods and services offered by the Deusche Telekom Group and Weblogs, we assume that it is in the best interest of both of our entities to ensure that the particular services can be clearly separated and that consumers are not confused…” And it’s not an early April Fool’s joke, they say. It’s not totally unreasonable, there is precedent for this sort of thing. Like the time T-Mobile sued a small a book-on-demand-publisher for having magenta in its logo.
Costco is issuing a voluntary recall for 10,368 pounds of Discover Cuisine frozen chicken entrees under suspicion that the chicken may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause headaches, neck stiffness, and, uh, spontaneous abortions.
A man who worked on the front line of Sprint’s customer service department sent us some dirt on what goes on over there, including officially designated fake supervisors, obnoxious personal notes left in your account from your last call, and credit quotas of about $2.50 per call. “I was once punished by a Supervisor and written up because I was giving too many courtesy credits. Apparently Sprint doesn’t feel that being transferred 7 times and then hung up on is worth $10 in return.”
Georgetown law professor and Credit Slips blogger Adam Levitin is having trouble disputing an erroneous $176.96 charge on his Citibank Amex card from PACER, the federal court’s online docket system, which he accesses for free. The professor is a consumer credit expert and should have no problem understanding and fixing the error, right? Fat chance.
BG’s Sprint plan lets him talk for 1,000,499 minutes per month and only costs $50. How did he find this stupefyingly amazing plan? Hit the jump for his story.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed in California against Verizon and several third-party companies, alleging that they promoted illegal gambling by enticing customers to pay to enter contests in which there was an “infinitesimally” small chance of winning, reports RCRWireless. “The suit centers on 99-cent charges levied on wireless consumers who played contests associated with popular TV shows like ‘Deal or No Deal’ and ‘Sole Survivor.'” The plaintiffs claim that the contests were less promotional sweepstakes than “illegal lotteries designed to generate revenues far in excess of the value of the cash awarded.”
Nathan’s been having trouble this week buying a prepaid GoPhone from AT&T Mobility’s website. He finally found out the reason: they couldn’t verify his credit history. This is confusing because it’s a prepaid GoPhone and because his credit history is superb. “Cheryl refused to transfer me.
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