If you buy groceries at ShopRite, you might start seeing special shopping carts with little monitors attached later this year, when Microsoft and MediaCart roll out a new loyalty program that tracks shoppers’ purchases and displays targeted advertising while they shop. Ostensibly, the monitors will also provide useful information, such as the location of products within the store, access to recipes, and personalized shopping lists. We’ll be curious to see whether any of these services are actually implemented in a useful way or are just used to disguise the advertising.
Retail Services
Target Refuses To Talk To Bloggers And "Non-Traditional Media Outlets"
By 1.16.08
A Target billboard depicting a woman spreadeagled over a Target logo with her vagina centered squarely on the bullseye has some parents and feminists all riled up. One of them, Amy from ShapingYouth.org, contacted Target to see if they realized, you know, that their ad had a woman’s crotch centered on a bullseye.
Are The New Apple Products Worth Buying?
By 1.16.08
The dirty-sounding finance blog “Make Your Nut” works through the pros and cons of the latest Apple products, so that you can “make sure you enter into your purchases with eyes wide open.”
Phishers Turn To Text Messages
By 1.16.08
Phishers are now turning to text messages to get people to fork over their personal banking information. Con artists targeting southwest Missouri sent text messages to hundreds of cellphone users, telling them that their bank account expired and directing them to a fake website with a URL containing the bank’s name. There the website captured the login and password of anyone who logged in. Phishers will use any medium they can. If you receive a message purporting to be from your bank and you’re not sure if it’s legit, call your bank directly to verify its authenticity
"Green" Walmart Has Decorative Moldings Made From "The Leg Holes In Disposable Diapers"
By 1.16.08
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the first of Walmart’s new “high efficiency” stores is slated to open Jan 23, in Romeoville, IL. It’s part of Walmart’s super awesome PR-tastic, yet characteristically stingy plan to make its stores 25 to 30 percent more energy efficient by 2009.
Man Escapes Verizon Contract Based On Text Message Rate Raises
By 1.16.08
Wayne writes:
I read one of your post last week concerning Verizon Wireless changing the terms of agreement concerning text messaging and my wife and I immediately contacted them to drop a very unneeded contract. It took two days to cancel, but everything in your post was accurate and made our case a slam dunk. To be fair, Verizon may have dragged it out a bit, but they didn’t fight it and their rep, Becky, called us back three times ( as promised ) to finish the request. A big thanks to The Consumerist!
By 1.16.08
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Bank of America will “scale back its structured products unit, stop offering collateralized debt obligations and sell the prime brokerage that caters to hedge funds, eliminating 650 jobs.”
Best Buy Busts Middle-school Janitor For Having Child Porn
By 1.15.08
Best Buy’s Geek Squad tech repair service helped bust a middle-school custodian for having child porn on his hard-drive. Fox9 reports:
Geek Squad employees viewed over 800 images contained in a folder titled XXXYOUNGS. The images featured young girls believed to be between the ages of 7 and 15. In some of the pictures the children were nude; in others, they were engaged in sexual acts with adult males.
You would think they could stop after the first couple or so. Pedophiles should die a thousand deaths, but no doubt police appreciate that some tech services are now performing warrantless searches of citizen’s hard drives for them.
Poison: The High Cost Of Cheap Batteries
By 1.15.08
Cadmium batteries are cheap and safe to use, but hazardous to manufacture. They’ll save you money—about $1.50 for the average cadmium-powered toy, says the Wall Street Journal.
Uh Oh, Retail Sales Down, Wholesale Prices Up
By 1.15.08
The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007, reflecting a huge increase for the year in various types of energy costs ranging from gasoline to home heating oil.
Thief Buys $812.28 In Shoes Using Personal Finance Columnist's Stolen Identity
By 1.15.08
A Washington Post personal finance columnist got her identity stolen and someone tried to use it to buy $812.18 worth of running shoes. Somehow, the thief had gotten access to the Nancy Trejos personal information and stolen her Bank of America debit card number. The crook placed an order online with the store and arranged for an in-store pickup. The clerk grew suspicious when the woman couldn’t produce the card used to place the order.
Morning Deals
By 1.15.08
Best Buy Refuses To Sell You An XM Radio Without Your Phone Number
By 1.14.08
Reader Travis would like to purchase an XM radio from Best Buy. Sadly for him, Best Buy refused to sell him the radio without first learning his phone number. Travis does not want to share his phone number with Best Buy, therefore Travis has no radio.
Sears Expects To Lose 60% Profit This Quarter. Good.
By 1.14.08
Sears Holding Company, a conjoining of two defective retail companies, Sears and Kmart, expects to lose 60% this quarter. “Come see the poorer side of Sears.” Lack of price competition, Abysmal customer service, warranty repair services contracted out to incompetent skeezebags, oh, and let’s not forget two bollixed attempts at getting jiggy with the internets only to violate customer’s privacy (exhibit A, exhibit B)… what’s there to like? That shiner looks good on you, baby, you deserve it.
By 1.14.08
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Sprint is laying off several thousand employees, says the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, you know, if there’s one word that always springs to mind when we think of Sprint it’s “overstaffed.” [WSJ]
Best Buy Forbids You From Buying Assassin's Creed, Insists You're Buying It For A Minor
By 1.14.08
Matt writes:
Yesterday I went through the horror of taking my 15 year old brother to the Best Buy in Orland Park, IL on LaGrange Ave. I had close to $100 in Best Buy Gift Certificates given to me for Christmas. My brother and I were en route to dinner and we decided to swing by the aforementioned Best Buy to pick up a video game, Assassin’s Creed, and XBOX Live Gold. We entered the store. I browsed the camera aisle looking for a cable to possibly purchase for our flat screen then headed to the video game section. I picked up the said items and headed to check out where hell will shortly ensue.
A Stranger Is Using The Bank Of America Debit Card That Is Sitting In My Desk Drawer
By 1.14.08
The other day reader Dave wrote us because he’d noticed a bunch of strange debits from Sprint on his bank account. Since he uses Sprint, he thought it was a billing error, albeit a serious one, because Sprint had debited $1,717.49 in the past two weeks. Dave hadn’t been able to find anyone at Sprint to help him reverse the charges and wrote to us for advice. Yikes!
