If you’re going to buy an expensive electronic device from someone you met online or in a gas station parking lot, don’t close the deal until you’ve opened up the boxes and made sure that they really contain an iPhone, and not rocks, pieces of wood, or… fruit. There’s a report out of Australia that a woman bought two iPhones and opened the boxes to find apples instead. [More]
australia
Australian Smokers Think Plain Packaging Makes Tobacco Taste Worse
By 7.12.13
Plain tobacco packaging is a global movement aimed at undoing decades of ads and branding messages. Tobacco products get sold in identical plain boxes with only plain letters on the front: no logos, no pictures. Well, that’s not true: there are gruesome pictures of smoking-related illnesses. Plain packaging is now the law in Australia, and smokers don’t like it. Because they say their tobacco tastes different now. [More]
McDonald’s Apologizes After Employee Asks Customer If Her Breasts Are Real… Twice
By 7.11.13
Fast food transactions are often mechanical, rarely getting more familiar than discussing the weather, but one McDonald’s employee decided to cross that invisible line, twice asking a female customer if her breasts were real. Making matters worse, his manager didn’t seem to be bothered by his line of questioning. [More]
Stay At This Supermarket 61 Minutes, Pay $65 To Park
By 7.3.13
Sure, you could just put up a “no parking sign” if you don’t want anyone to park at your store. But a Woolworths store in suburban Sydney, Australia did want their customers to park there…just not commuters. Their strange-looking but sensible solution was to make parking free for the first hour, but cost $65 ($58.92) for more than an hour and $125 ($113.30) for overnight parking. [More]
Store Combats Showrooming With $5 ‘Just Looking’ Fee
By 3.25.13
While some bricks-and-mortar chains are trying to curb showrooming — using a retailer to check out an item in person before buying it online — with price-matching or store-exclusive brands, one business has come up with a possible solution… charging a $5 fee for shopping without buying. [More]
IKEA Wants You To Make A Baby Today, Offering Free Cribs To Kids Born 9 Months From Now
By 2.14.13
Today is a day of love, affection, chocolates, roses, cards and a bunch of other romantic whatnot. But for folks in parts of Australia whose Valentine’s Day fun results in offspring, IKEA is offering up free furniture. [More]
McDonald’s Down Under Testing Fancy Options Like Plates, Cutlery & Table Service
By 2.6.13
The number one complaint I always have with McDonald’s is that I just don’t feel fancy enough. Where’s the white linen, the gleaming silver, the deferential waiter? I’m not alone, as a McDonald’s in Australia has been given the go-ahead by the company to try out a more formal service style for five weeks. That means the option for plates, real cutlery and table service. [More]
A McDonald’s By Any Other Name? Chain Turns Into Macca’s In Australia This Month
By 1.7.13
You might call it something else — Mickey D’s, Snackdonald’s, whatever — but it’s doubtful that you’ll ever see McDonald’s labeled anything else in its official signage. Unless you’re in Australia for the month of January, where the chain is temporarily changing its name to “Macca’s,” the Aussie’s nickname for the fast food joint. [More]
500 Couples Actually Competed To Get Married In An IKEA
By 10.30.12
In the past when we’ve written about oddball retail or fast food weddings, it seemed like the entire planning portion of the nuptials involved asking a manager “Hey, is it cool if we get married here?” But it looks there were quite a number of Australian couples looking to say “I do” surrounded by Grundtals, Vidjas, and Hemneses. [More]
McDonald's Sponsors Prime-Time TV Documentary About McDonald's
By 4.3.12
If you were to flip open the pages of your TV Guide and see that there was a documentary called “McDonald’s Gets Grilled” airing in prime time, you might assume that it’s a bit of McMuckraking, or at least a news organization’s look behind the counter at the fast food giant. But as viewers of Australian TV found out this week, it’s really just a 30-minute infomercial paid for by McDonald’s. [More]
Australian Steals $30,000 From Nigerian Fraudsters
By 2.23.12
We all know the sad story: scam artists based in Nigeria dupe an innocent foreigner into forwarding fraudulent payments on to an accomplice, and end up out thousands of their own dollars and in legal trouble. A 23-year old Australian woman flipped the scenario around when she kept all of the ill-gotten cash she was meant to launder and spent it on herself. The best (worst?) part? She didn’t even know that her “employers” were out to scam her. [More]
Man Claims He Found Maggots In McDonald's Big Mac
By 3.2.11
A McDonald’s customer in Melbourne, Australia, claims he got a most unwelcome add-on to his Big Mac: maggots. [More]
Woman Sues Qantas Airline After Screaming Child Makes Her Deaf
By 7.26.10
A 67-year-old American woman traveling in Australia last year has sued Qantas, because she says a screaming baby on board one of their flights made her deaf. Now before shake your head, what she describes in her suit is pretty horrific: “The boy allegedly leaned back over his armrest toward [her] and let out a scream so severe that blood erupted from her ears, leaving her ‘stone cold deaf’.” On the other hand, Qantas maintains that it has no way of predicting when a child might scream, since children naturally do that sort of thing. [More]
Australia Customs Guys Live The Dream, Search Computers For Porn
By 5.21.10
People are up in arms that Australian customs officials have taken it upon themselves to go porn-hunting on travelers’ computers, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. If they find anything, they’ll confiscate the dirty stuff in order to prevent you from exporting it to the untainted island. [More]
Cookbook Called For "Ground Black People"
By 4.19.10
The “Pasta Bible” is getting pulped because a recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto called for “salt and freshly ground black people.” [More]
Inventor Of Box Wine Dies At 92
By 4.5.10
Days shy of 45 years after he patented the idea of wine in a box, Australian winemaker Thomas Angove has died at the age of 92. [More]
Banker Caught Looking At Nudie Pics On Live TV
By 2.9.10
An investment banker apparently forgot or didn’t know his colleague was doing a live interview and was caught looking at nudie pics in the background on live TV. The SFW fun starts at about 1:03. Hey, pushing around money is very stressful, a guy needs some kind of release. Two things make this video even better: 1. The guy keeps checking out pictures as he talks to another coworker and 2. At the very end he turns around and faces the camera, his face showing that he’s just realized that his appreciation for the female form has been caught on camera. [More]
Should Concert Promoters Have To Disclose Lip-Syncing?
By 11.9.09
Various people in the country of Australia are upset at Britney Spears for lip syncing — and feel that it is dishonest for the pop star not to disclose that sometimes she’s just mouthing along while she dances.
