Lisa made her kids impervious to advertising by asking pointed questions that forced them to think about the source and truthfulness of ads. She knew action was needed when when her kids, who weren’t old enough to read, stopped in front of the bleach while shopping to ask the advertiser’s dream question: “Mom, aren’t we going to buy some Clorox?” Hit the jump to see how she responded.
BLOGS
In Breach Of Federal Law, Banks Hide Fees
By 3.7.08
The Red Tape Chronicles reports bank fees are so hard to find that even the government can’t find them. A recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office released this week couldn’t find the fee schedules at 1/3 of the nation’s banks. Not only does this make comparison shopping impossible for the consumer, they’re breaking federal law, the 1991 Truth in Savings Act and Federal Reserve Regulation DD, which requires fees to be posted clearly and conspicuously. Violations are rarely punished with any severity, meaning, as Red Tape Chronicles writes, “it’s far more likely that you’ll get a parking ticket for breaking parking rules outside a bank than it is the bank will be fined for disobeying federal lending laws.”
Is Your CEO Getting Kickbacks Off Your 401k Fees?
By 3.6.08
Author David Loeper over in the WiseBread forums explains how your CEO could be getting a kickback from excessive fees on your company’s 401k. The “administration fees” on some company’s 401ks are sometimes 20 times as much as what it actually costs to run the fund. Part of these fees go back to the 401k admin via “revenue sharing.” Usually the admin keeps it but sometimes they’re so big that they go back to the employee’s accounts. But instead of being credited back equally… [More]
The 5 Stages Of Dealing With Comcast Customer Service Grief
By 3.5.08
This video is a promotional spot for Comcastmustdie.com, your one-stop shop for bitching about the cable-provider. People who submit their complaints over there in the comments along with their account numbers have gotten them fixed.
Choose A Qualified Tax Preparer
By 3.2.08
A qualified tax preparer can be the difference between a meaty refund and a soul-crushing audit. The Washington Attorney General has several excellent pointers to help you find the right professional to prepare your return.
Burger King: Your House Burned Down?! The Red Cross Is Coming?! Get Out!
By 3.1.08
Burger King ejected 25 low-income residents who were waiting for the Red Cross to arrive after their Minneapolis apartment caught fire and burned to the ground. An assistant manager explained that the fire had slowed foot traffic to “virtually nothing,” and that the crowd had to either wait somewhere else or deal with the police.
By 2.29.08
../../../..//2008/02/29/a-debt-blogging-couple-in-their/
A debt-blogging couple in their forties celebrates one year of paying off debts, going from over $41,000 in the hole to owing only $11,596. [NeedToBeDebtFree via BloggingAwayDebt]
Comcast Stacks FCC Hearing Seats With Sleepy Shills
By 2.26.08
Comcast admitted to paying its employees to sit in at a F.C.C. hearing on net neutrality at the Harvard Law School today, depriving angry protesters from their right to sit in those folding chairs. Despite the venue being filled to over capacity, keeping some people from entering, not everyone inside seemed appreciative of their privilege. One Comcast employee admitted on tape, “I’m just getting paid to hold someone’s seat, I don’t even know what’s going on.” According to SaveTheInternet.com, the Comcast employees, “arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon which many promptly fell asleep.” The stacked audience’s behavior was limited to wearing a yellow highlighter, sleeping during the proceedings, and loudly applauding when Comcast VP David Cohen got on the mic.
TSA Takes "Rights Of Traveling Public" "Very Seriously"
By 2.26.08
THE QUOTE: “TSA takes the rights of the traveling public very seriously, and in implementing security screening measures, carefully weighs the intrusiveness of those measures against the need to prevent terrorist attacks involving aircraft. Balancing the same considerations, the courts have long approved searches of airline passengers and their bags for weapons and explosives as constitutionally permissible under what is now commonly referred to as the “administrative search” or “special needs” exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.” (emphasis added)
CompUSA Sells "Defective" DVD Player That "Does Not Work" "As Is" For $179.98
By 2.24.08
CompUSA is selling a broken Sony DVD player for $179.98—that’s 40% off the sticker price! The Wife over at Bastion of Mediocrity noticed that the sticker also reads: “Defective,” “Does Not Work,” “As Is.”
All Saints Apparel Plagiarizes Shirt Design From Gaming Site 4 Color Rebellion
By 2.23.08
Posh London retailer All Saints Apparel plagiarized a shirt design from the gaming site 4 color rebellion. The site originally unveiled the ‘You Complete Me’ tetris-heart figure for Valentine’s Day in 2006. Designer Mitch was surprised to find that All Saints had plastered the exact same design on a shirt selling for £40—that’s like, $90! Mitch asked All Saints for an explanation, which was enough to prompt a decent resolution.
BusinessWeek: "Consumers Are Fighting Back"
By 2.22.08
BusinessWeek’s cover story from their March 3rd issue, “Consumer Vigilantes,” looks at last year’s wave of stories about consumers who took matters into their own hands, either by smashing up a Comcast office with a hammer, starting a “Comcast must die” blog, or sending EECBs to unsuspecting executives. “Frustrated by the usual fix-it options–obediently waiting on hold with Bangalore, gamely chatting online with a scripted robot–more consumers are rebelling against company-prescribed service channels,” BusinessWeek writes. What we can’t figure out is how they got those three guys to actually pose with those goofy masks on—sometimes it’s okay to say no to the photographer.
Great Moments In Commercial History: "Al'z Place"
By 2.19.08
The Stay Free! daily blog was watching the telly and nearly spit out its wheatgrass juice when it noticed an ad for a senior care facility in Brooklyn that has blessed its Alzeimer’s ward with a delightful moniker. They call it, “Al’z place.” That marketing decisions strikes us as, shall we say, unfortunate. What’s the message here? “He forgot his name and so did we so we just call him Al.”
Do Presidential Candidates Care About Credit Card Reform?
By 2.16.08
All Presidential candidates should have a plan to wean America off its credit card dependence. We collectively owe almost $1 trillion to credit card companies, but only the Democratic candidates have written plans to reform the credit card industry. Alpha Consumer wrote an excellent summary of their competing plans to strike at some of the industry’s most harmful practices.
US Bank Doesn't Read Its Own Memos Leaked On Consumerist
By 2.14.08
Just because we posted the internal US Bank memo saying that customers could turn off courtesy overdraft protection doesn’t mean that the rest of the US Bank employees got it, or read it. Here’s what happened to Jason when he tried to get it turned off:
CompUSA Employees Jerking Off As They Await Store's Death
By 2.14.08
Now that they’re either liquidated or being sold to TigerDirect, it’s getting pretty chillax around CompUSA land. Here are some pictures reader Jon snapped when he went to snag some computer deals. In the left you can see a CompUSA employee whiling away his last remaining hours by playing a first-person-shooter. In the right, you can see the manager of the store talking to his friends and buying tickets for rap concerts. Jon says he stood in the computer section for twenty minutes before anyone helped him. Jon isn’t mad, really, as he got some good deals, “but what an interesting way to close out the store,” he writes on his blog. What was that, something about not with a bang, but a whimper? Full size pics inside.
