As we all know, merchants are generally not supposed to mandate minimum credit card purchases. It’s a violation of the merchant agreements they sign with the credit card companies. (For more info, check out this article.) The proposed finance bill, however, may legitimize those handwritten signs if it ends up passing. [More]
changes
Watch Out For Changes To Your Flight Itinerary
By 11.23.09
Alexandros received an update from Orbitz about his trip and realized that United had changed the time of his flight. For various reasons he couldn’t make the new time, so he was lucky to have caught it—not to mention he could have missed the flight entirely had he not seen the change.
Need To Change Your UPS Delivery Address In Transit? There's A Fee For That
By 9.3.09
If you’re having a package delivered by UPS and want to change the delivery address while it’s in transit, be warned: this service will now cost you either $4 or $6 depending on whether you make the request online or over the phone.
Radio Shack Is Levying The Wrong Sales Tax In New York City
By 7.5.09
Radio Shack is charging New York City consumers an extra half-percent of sales tax, even though the State hasn’t approved a new tax rate. Before descending into a chaotic mess of embarrassing inaction, the New York State Senate was widely expected to hike the sales tax New York City’s local sales from 8.375% to 8.875%. That never happened, a minor detail that isn’t stopping Radio Shack from collecting more tax, as reader Jeff discovered…
Have A Discover Card? Check Your Due Date For June
By 6.1.09
An anonymous reader says both his and his wife’s Discover cards—the accounts are separate—had their due dates moved up by four days in June. He called Discover, “and they stated that they sent out notices in the mail 45 days in advance warning of the change, which I don’t remember seeing. Regardless, they were able to revert my due date starting in July. You may want to have your readers closely check their Discover Card statements.”
Capital One Changes Everything But The Design On Customer's Card
By 5.21.09
We’re starting to think Capital One isn’t just hurting financially, but also throwing a temper tantrum about the new credit card legislation. Eric received notice that they’re converting his current fixed rate to a “promotional rate.” In January 2011 they’ll switch it over to an adjustable rate and hike it to 17.9% (it’s currently 9.9%). Erik has until July 28th to agree to the new terms or they’ll close the account on August 2nd, 2009.
By 3.13.09
../../../..//2009/03/13/aol-has-a-new-ceo/
AOL Has A New CEO AOL has named Google Senior Vice President Tim Armstrong as its next chairman and chief executive officer. Current Chairman and CEO Randy Falco and Chief Operating Officer and President Ron Grant “plan to leave the company after a transition period,” Time Warner said in a statement. [UPI]
ThankYou Network Announces Changes To Its Rewards Program
By 2.25.09
What’s going to happen with Citibank’s ThankYou Network on March 1st? Is Vikram Pandit going to convert all of your points into executive bonuses? Will it be nationalized?!? Um, no, but here’s a copy of the letter one of our readers received today announcing the changes that are going in place next week.
Blockbuster Reduces Total Access Benefits, Disguises Change As "No More Due Dates!"
By 2.25.09
Blockbuster’s Total Access subscription service—their bid for relevance in the Netflix era—used to ship the next movie in your queue as soon as you dropped it off at a Blockbuster store in exchange for a free rental. Now the next movie won’t ship until you return that free store rental—in other words, now it will count as the next movie in your queue. Of course, in Blockbuster marketing-speak, that’s considered a great new benefit.
Great, Airplanes Are Cleaner. Do You Care?
By 1.31.09
No longer distracted by high oil prices, airlines now claim that they’re starting to focus on customer service. Two of them, American and United, think that their biggest issue is dirty planes. Wouldn’t it be great if that were true?
Putting The Wrong Name On An Airline Ticket Is An $800 Mistake?
By 12.15.08
Here’s an odd problem. Reader Austin bought some airline tickets for a business trip and wasn’t sure who was going to go, so he booked an extra ticket with his name on it — thinking that the name could be changed later. Whoops.
Kinko's Is Dead, Long Live "FedEx Office"
By 6.3.08
FedEx announced yesterday that they would be renaming Kinko’s “FedEx Office”
Are Starbucks Baristas Forgetting To Give You Your Free Refills?
By 4.11.08
The Starbucks card has some spiffy new benefits (including free refills on brewed coffee), but it seems that some employees didn’t get the message.
What Complaining About Starbucks Hath Wrought: Punch Cards?
By 4.4.08 — Updated: 10.15.12
We decided to check back in with Starbucks’ social “idea” site to see what ideas they were thinking of implementing.
Starbucks To Buy Fancy Coffee Machine Maker, Add Reward Program
By 3.19.08
Things are still changing at Starbucks. First off, they’re going to buy the maker of “Clover” the crazy $11,000 coffee machine that makes one cup at a time.
Starbucks, the world’s largest chain of coffee shops, also said today it would acquire Coffee Equipment Co., the maker of the $11,000 Clover machines that brew one cup of coffee at a time. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
An Interview With Sprint CEO Dan Hesse About Customer Service At Sprint
By 2.26.08
The author of the BuisnessWeek article “Sprint’s Wake-Up Call”, Spencer Ante, has posted his entire interview with Sprint’s new CEO, Dan “At Least I’m Not Gary Forsee” Hesse.
AT&T Is Exiting The Pay Phone Business After 129 Years
By 12.3.07
AT&T announced today that they are exiting the pay phone business, and will be phasing out 65,000 pay phones in 13 states, according to Bloomberg.
Sprint Joins The "Prorated ETFs, No Contract Extension For Rate Plan Changes" Pool Party
By 11.8.07
Sprint decided yesterday that the water was fine at the “prorated ETF/ no contract extensions for rate plan changes” pool party and has jumped right in. You can change your rate plan starting Monday, but will have to wait until sometime next year for the prorated ETFs.
