[Update: Marriott has dropped the appeal.] If you want to live dangerously, why not try an unrelaxing visit to the Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa? It features a game room, a BBQ/picnic area, $10 a day Internet access, and the occasional mentally unhealthy transient wandering for days around the parking garage waiting to attack you. Best of all, if you are attacked Marriott will let you take all the credit for it, and then subpoena your friends and professional contacts, thereby permanently ruining any anonymity you hoped to maintain. Because at Stamford Marriott, if you’re raped in our parking garage by a guy our security should have noticed and kicked out, don’t come crying to us!
accusations
Etsy Fraudster Goes After Beadmakers Who Got Her Banned
By 7.27.09
A woman named Ullja Kuntze was booted from Etsy after word got around that she was buying handmade beads and reselling them as her own. Her original Etsy pages read, “All my beads are made by me in my private glass studio in Milan Italy.” Kuntze was actually doing business from Waco, Texas, and now that legitimate beadmakers have gotten her kicked off of Etsy and Artfire, she’s trying to get their own websites shut down under false spam accusations, and/or get them investigated by the IRS for tax fraud.
More Business-Owners Accuse Yelp Of Review Extortion
By 3.9.09
The review website Yelp is being accused again of extorting small business owners — but this time the business owners say that Yelp used the guarantee of positive reviews to get free products for their events. The Chicago Tribune has a quote from the owner of a cupcake shop who says that Yelp “guaranteed us good reviews on the site if we catered one of their parties for free.”
Companies Accuse Yelp Of Review Extortion, Yelp Says No Way
By 2.20.09
Some San Francisco companies have accused the review website Yelp of manipulating reviews, either in exchange for buying advertising or as punishment for refusing. Yelp flat out denies the charges. They say that the posting and removal of reviews are determined solely by an algorithm and that their sales staff has no access to the reviews. But in this detailed article published this week in the East Bay Express, several restaurants cite phone calls and emails that they say indicates otherwise.
Bank Of America Blames You And Your Dead Mother For Financial Crisis
By 2.6.09
CSR: Oh, that’s really not the way to look at it. I know that if it were my mother, I’d pay it. That’s why we’re in the banking crisis we’re in: banks having to write off defaulted loans.
USDA Accused Of Bullying Inspectors Who Reported Safety Violations
By 4.18.08
First the FAA makes their own inspectors cry in front of Congress and now the Associated Press says that the head of the federal inspectors’ union is alleging that the USDA told him to “drop the matter” when he reported food safety violations at slaughterhouses. When he refused, he was placed on “disciplinary investigative status.”
Best Buy Switches Laptop Cover, Then Accuses Customer Of Fraud
By 2.1.08
Jed’s Gateway MX6030 laptop worked pretty well for a couple of years, then the problems started—faulty power adapter, kaput motherboard, dead hard drive. Luckily, he’d bought a 3-year extended service plan. Unluckily, when his motherboard was replaced, the bottom of the laptop—where the serial and model numbers are located—was swapped out with one from a different model, so that when he brought it back for the hard drive repair, the store manager accused him of fraud.
