Last week, United Airlines decided to shutter two of its customer service call centers — one in Detroit and one in Honolulu — but did so without plans to lay anyone off. Instead, these airline staffers could either move to Chicago or Houston to work in a call center, or they could work from home, but with a pay cut. [More]
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Man Comes Home To Find Out Roommate Has Listed His Room On Airbnb
By 8.31.15
If you only live in your condo part-time, you can imagine that the roommate who is there the rest of the time might get up to some hijinks while you’re away. But you probably didn’t think he would list your room on Airbnb without mentioning it. [More]
Southwest Airlines, TSA Blame Each Other For Unusually Long Security Lines At Midway Airport
By 8.14.15
People traveling out of Chicago’s Midway International Airport on Friday aren’t getting very far, as travelers are said to be waiting an hour or more to get through unusually long security checkpoint lines. [More]
Punching Another Passenger Will Get You Booted From A Plane, Arrested
By 8.6.15
Every once in a while we’ve reported on airline passengers behaving badly – throwing drinks on people, groping fellow passengers, attempting to open doors and other potentially dangerous actions. One such case – that included a few punches – occurred yesterday on a United Airlines flight and ended with one person arrested. [More]
Uber Driver Claims Dog Urinated In Car, Sends Pictures Of Different Car
By 7.23.15
It’s not news that someone did something inappropriate in a hired car: that, unfortunately, has been happening for as long as taxis have existed. No, but one woman in Chicago disputed Uber’s claim that her dog relieved himself on the floor of an UberX vehicle and that she owed $200. [More]
Backpage.com Sues Sheriff For Persuading Visa, MasterCard To Stop Serving Site
By 7.21.15
Earlier this month, the sheriff of Cook County, IL, persuaded both Visa and MasterCard to end their relationships with online classifieds site Backpage.com, alleging the site is known to “promote prostitution and facilitate online sex trafficking.” Today, the website fired back with a lawsuit against the sheriff. [More]
Chicago Will Have The Highest Sales Tax In The U.S. At 10.25%
By 7.15.15
Sales taxes are variable from place to place and very visible, and they’re visible day-to-day as we dig in our pockets for change to pay a coffee tab of $3.14. Starting next year, Chicago will have the highest sales tax in the country, with state, county and city taxes adding up to 10.25%. [More]
Spirit The Latest Airline To Suffer Delays, Cancellations Because Of Computer Glitch
By 7.15.15
Customers flying Spirit Airlines to or from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago faced a few hiccups today, as the company reportedly suffered a computer glitch, which has since been fixed. [More]
Delta, American, United & Southwest Face Passenger Lawsuits Over Alleged Collusion For Higher Airfares
By 7.7.15
Following news that the Department of Justice opened an investigation into alleged collusion between major airlines to keep ticket prices high, it was only a matter of time before consumers began filing lawsuit against the major U.S. carriers. [More]
Chicago Residents Now Stuck With A New 9% “Cloud Tax” On Netflix And Other Streaming Services
By 7.1.15
There used to be a whole world of brick-and-mortar retail stores and transactions a city could gather some sales tax from and build into a revenue stream. As more and more goods instead become online services, though, those streams have dried up. Now one city wants to go back to gathering its cash… from your transactions in the cloud. [More]
Disruptive Passenger Leaves Fellow United Travelers Stranded In Belfast Terminal For Nearly 24 Hours
By 6.22.15
United Airlines had a decidedly less-than-stellar week when it came to dealing with larger-scale customer service issues. Just days after the company faced the ire of travelers who had to spend the night hunkered down at a cold Canadian military base, the airline found itself on the receiving end of more backlash after nearly 300 passengers and crew were made to wait five hours on the tarmac and sleep in a closed terminal after their flight was diverted. [More]
Passengers On Diverted United Airlines Flight Recall Sleeping On Cots At A Canadian Military Base
By 6.15.15
From time to time a fight is delayed, canceled or diverted for unforeseen reasons, leading to often annoying and unanticipated disruptions for travelers. Such was the case over the weekend when a United Airlines flight was diverted to a Canadian military base. But it wasn’t the unplanned change of course that left passengers unhappy with the airline, it was their only option for accommodations: a cold military base. [More]
Uber Expands Food Delivery Service UberEATS To Chicago, New York City
By 4.28.15
Since opening for business, ride-sharing company Uber hasn’t been content with simply giving customers rides from point A to point B. After dabbling in all kinds of pilot programs including on-demand drop-offs of everyday essentials and courier services, the company seems to have found a second niche: food delivery. And so, Uber plans to expand UberEATS to Chicago and New York this week.
Chicago Suburbs To Get AT&T’s Gigabit Broadband; Comcast High-Speed Coming To Florida
By 4.21.15
Both Comcast and AT&T have announced the newest markets for their highest-speed residential broadband services, with people in the Chicago, Miami, and Jacksonville areas being the ones to benefit. [More]
Uber Adding “Panic Button” To Mobile App In Chicago
By 2.13.15
A few weeks after announcing that Uber would implement a panic button feature in its app for users in India after allegations of rape against a driver there, the company now says it’ll be launching the safety feature in Chicago soon as well. [More]
Man Arrested After Allegedly Going On Fast Food Robbery Spree At Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, And White Castle
By 1.16.15
Visiting more than one fast food joint in a single day isn’t unheard of, but robbing three restaurants and attempting to rob a fourth in one day isn’t so common. But that’s exactly what police in Chicago say a man did earlier this week. [More]
Southwest Fined $1.6M For Lengthy Tarmac Delays
By 1.15.15
Southwest Airlines is once again feeling the ire of federal regulators, as the Department of Transportation on Thursday imposed a $1.6 million fine against the airline for forcing passengers to stay on planes for hours at Chicago’s Midway airport in January 2014. [More]
Comcast Customer Says Company Pulled Credit Report Even After He Paid It Not To
By 1.15.15
When a Chicago man recently contacted Comcast to set up a new broadband account, he was told the company would have to run a credit check — or he could pay a $50 deposit to waive that requirement. But the customer claims that Comcast went ahead and pulled his credit anyway, which is why he’s now suing the nation’s largest consumer broadband provider. [More]
