complaints

Consumers Speak: Bob Bought Three Bombs

By consumerist.com 12.19.05

Bob writes:

1). Maytag Neptune front loading washer. They oughta call this the TwistMaster. Even on the hand-wash cycle, a garment with any length to it–pant legs, shirt sleeves–comes out twisted and knotted. The twisting also stretches the item. Further, even drying on a gentle cycle doesn’t always relax the wrinkles that the twisting imparts. Oh, and another thing: the rubber gasket around the door opening surpasses agar in a Petrie Dish as the perfect medium for growing mold. A real piece of shit, purchased at a premium price. Good for greasy shop towels, though!

Xbox Live Gold Breaks When Using Other Microsoft Premium Services

By consumerist.com 12.17.05

Some Xbox 360 users have found that signing up for Xbox Live Gold while also having another Microsoft premium service, like MSN Music or MSN Direct, causes the following message to be displayed. The not quite literal quote:

“Your account has been suspended due to a problem with your payment option. Please use a different payment option or update your current information in Account Management.”

Even worse, when trying to troubleshoot the problem with Microsoft Xbox tech support, some of the reps have recommended deleting the Xbox profile and creating a new one, leading to the loss of customers’ saved games. Microsoft community liaison ‘Major Nelson’ said they were testing a fix on the first of December, but it has yet to show up.

TypePad Blogging Service Eats a Weekend’s Worth of Posts

TypePad Blogging Service Eats a Weekend’s Worth of Posts

By consumerist.com 12.16.05

We were going to follow up post about something we wrote about a few days ago, but it would have involved linking to a Typepad blog. Too bad for us, then, because Typepad is seriously bloopsed at the moment. Not only is service not working—and hasn’t been for at least eight hours, we’ve been told—but posts made since Friday have been eaten by the system.

Consumers Speak: Chase Holds Deposits Unless ‘Special Forms’ Used

By consumerist.com 12.15.05

Crispin B writes:

I’ve been with Chase for a long time. I have money from the dot-com days. I’ve run a lot of that money through them – at one point just over a million dollars following the sale of my home. Did that earn me any respect? No. They treat me just like I was back in college, living from paycheck to paycheck. They’ve nickel-and-dimed me the whole time. Charges for this, charges for that, all the while providing me with piddling interest rates and crap customer service.

HP Techs Can’t Find Answer on Own Web Site

HP Techs Can’t Find Answer on Own Web Site

By consumerist.com 12.15.05

Reader Nick A’s experiences with HP’s tech support are disappointing, to say the least, especially when he finally fixed his problem with his HP computer by finding the solution on their website himself—after calling their phone support twice.

Customer Service as an Interface to Be Streamlined

By consumerist.com 12.14.05

It’s precious when web nerds use computer analogies to describe something that should probably seem obvious to those who have experienced the touch of real, human flesh, but Khoi Vinh has a good point: “Customer service lines are user interfaces, too.” On the whole, he’s pretty much just complaining about his phone company—which hey, we’re into it—but he’s clearly giving some thought to the inherent flaws in the customer service infrastructure, as well.

How Bad is American Express’s ‘My Wishlist?’

By consumerist.com 12.14.05

UPDATE: Check out this year’s post: AMEX’s MyWishlist: Everything You Need To Know

Consumers Speak: Earthlink Puts the DSL in DSL

By consumerist.com 12.13.05

This bad experience from “JJ” is eerily similar to an experience we had with Earthlink while in New Orleans. But it’s not us, we swear. In our case, we weren’t supposed to be signed up with Earthlink at all, ever. JJ writes:

Had quite a party with Earthlink last night. The skinny:

International ATM Mystery Fees

International ATM Mystery Fees

By consumerist.com 12.13.05

Since it looks like we’re having a Bank of America day, have another mystery. Gawker jocker Scott Kidder took a five-dollar hit to his BoA account each time he got out money in Europe. Painful, but in an ‘all banks ream you for international ATM fees’ way. But there were always additional percentage-based charge with each transaction, and the BoA customer care couldn’t tell Scott where it came from.

Vertical Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

Vertical Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

By consumerist.com 12.13.05

Could positioning the Xbox 360 vertically—the way it’s shown in almost all its ads—actually scratch game and movie discs? That’s the explanation offered by one Microsoft customer service rep, who went on to explain that Microsoft would not be replacing discs scratched due to using to the Xbox in the ‘improper’ position.

Bank of America’s Overdraft Policy Optimized for Maximum Penalty?

By consumerist.com 12.13.05

Reader Steve J writes:

A long time BofA account holder who enjoys living dangerously with his balance, I’ve had my pocket picked to the tune of $300-400 with this artful setup. It’s rather simple. If you have multiple transactions in a same day they process the largest dollar amount first. This means that if you overdraw your account on a day where you have a particularly large transactions, you end up paying the maximum overdraft fee allowed by math. A numerical example to illustrate:

Overdraft Charges: Fallen from Grace Periods

By consumerist.com 12.13.05

Though no representative of Bank of America will tell me what exact times each transaction occurred, they assured me that they know that the bad one came first, and that even though they have no specific record of it, they can assure me that I had a negative balance… for an undetermined period of time.

Cutting it close is user error, for sure, but we can remember (imagine?) a time when banks used to cover for a person when paychecks crossed the finish line just behind a check for eighty-nine cents. (We have a thing for those little brown coconut donuts.)

Reminder: We Want to Hear You Kvetch

By consumerist.com 12.12.05

Keep those consumer complaints rolling in, folks. We read each one, trying to determine if you’ve got a real beef (and you almost always do), and do our best to get the word out.

Consumers Speak: Covista Sneaking Money Out of Customer Account

By consumerist.com 12.12.05

Reader Scott G got burned by long-distance provider ‘Covista.’ Here is his woe:

I read a Newsweek article in I think 2003 about low-cost long distance providers, and one they recommended was Covista/Capsule. The service was fine, but when I later tried to cancel to back with SBC, they refused to stop charging my bank account.

Abercrombie & Fitch Tag Rip-Off

By consumerist.com 12.12.05

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that those little fuckers at Abercrombie and Fitch should be hung by their charm bracelets and have all the faux gay overtone spanked out of them. (Actually, that sounds sort of hot.)

The clerk had put them on the table behind him, so he turned his back to me for a minute, then said, “No, they’re $44.95.” When I had handed them to him, the store tag had a printed price (on the little perforated strip at the bottom) that said $39.50. Now the tag was gone. I told him to hang on a second and went back to check the display.

It’s a freakout at the Fitch when prices vary.

Why The Consumerist Won’t Use Westhost Again

Why The Consumerist Won’t Use Westhost Again

By consumerist.com 12.9.05

We apologize for the slower updates today, although we would also like to acknowledge that this is the first Friday The Consumerist has even been open for business, so maybe we should just pretend this is going to be standard operating procedure. We’ve been on the phone for about two hours trying to gain access to two domains that were registered about five years ago with Westhost. As you may have gathered from this post, it did not go very well.

What to Do When Retailers Want Your Unlisted Number?

By consumerist.com 12.9.05

This is exactly the sort of question we love being asked, despite the fact we don’t personally know the answer. We suspect one of you probably do.

FIFA’s World Cup Balls: ‘Worse Than Ticketmaster’

FIFA’s World Cup Balls: ‘Worse Than Ticketmaster’

By consumerist.com 12.9.05

More evil than Ticketmaster? That’s the accusation fielded by Grant WIlliams against FIFA, World Cup soccer’s governing body. Even better, he’s got the numbers to back it up. It seems FIFA requires you to put down money on tickets before the championships have shaken out. If the team whom you’ve pre-paid to watch doesn’t qualify, FIFA refunds your money—minus a per-ticket “modality” fee.

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