As far as the finished product is concerned, The Consumerist is a big fan of BMWs. Sure, there are the occasional hare-brained mistakes like iDrive, but even those missteps seem to be born of an attempt to improve the driving experience. Plus their cars go really fast around corners, our favorite variety of road.
complaints
Manhattan Shopping Alert: Bliss Blowout Sale; Update: Bliss Smells Like Flouride
By 12.8.05
Tony spa Bliss is clearing out lots of stock today through Saturday. We’d suggest arriving today, on your lunch break, with a knife.
Aunt Jemima Worm Horror
By 12.8.05
Poor Aunt Jemima can’t catch a break. First she is created whole cloth to remind middle class white children how nice it was back when our families could afford slaves. Then she has to serve her ungrateful, illusory masters meal worms.
Consumers Speak: SBC Global DSL Supports Macs ‘Probably Never’
By 12.8.05
s kind of sad for a company that should put being technologically current above all else, if you ask me.
Consumeristas Speak: Lenovo’s Free Thinkpad Battery Bait and Switch
By 12.7.05
If they were out of stock they could have sent it when they got some more. It’s not like this is a product that is rare. But no, the bait & switch was ‘cheapo printer or go to hell.’
TextDrive: Don’t Be a Dick
By 12.7.05
I don’t think it’s necessary at any level. It’s really no different then yelling “fat fuck” at a fat person on a treadmill.
That, friends, is how you talk to customers. (Before you .zip up their account and cancel them, like Hoffman did to the customer who was complaining.)
NyQuil Minus Pseudoephedrine: Now Pseudoeffective
By 12.6.05
When once we were Tiny Consumerists who ate dirt, our sniffling noses and mild fevers were accompanied by dread. Would we be subjected to that foul syrup Nyquil, the vile tincture that tasted like candied anise melted between the assfolds of Sammy Davis Jr’s scotch-soaked corpse? Even with a milk chaser and the (inexplicably effective) soothing sound of a running tap, we could barely choke it back. This quickly bred our propensity for bucking up, which will be useful come the day when we are dying of lung cancer and Gawker Media still doesn’t offer insurance.
PriceRitePhoto: Want to Cancel Your Order? We’ll Sue
By 12.6.05
Tech blogger Thomas Hawk has fallen prey to yet another crooked New York camera shop. This particular retarded retailer is called ‘PriceRitePhoto.com’—although we’re sure that they’ll be changing their name soon enough, after all the bad chatter flung their way.
The Limits of Unlimited 3G Wireless Broadband
By 11.30.05
The internet is all around you, flying invisible through the air, clawing silently at your eyes. Oh, and your wallet. New ‘3G’ cellular data services from Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular are top notch, technology-wise—seriously, we love the ability to have highish speed internet wherever we can get a cell phone signal—but the pricing is a bit out of hand. Wireless nerd Glenn Fleishman takes all three to task specifically for their used of the term ‘unlimited.’
Snapping Turtle Found Inside Woman’s Can of Coffee
By 11.11.05
One of the oft-stated consumer worries post-Katrina—besides the trepidation of a regional shortage in poor, underserved New Orleanians to clean up the beads and offal of exploded Mardi Gras tourists—was a fear that coffee prices would spike. A large portion of our coffee enters the country through New Orleans, which is why companies like Folgers put over half of their coffee production plants in the city.
Online Camera Retailer Leaves Death Threats for Customer
By 11.11.05
Online camera shopping is rough, should one stray from Amazon or other major retailer to explore the wilds of Froogle or Pricegrabber. Dozens of camera shops online are in fact fronts for scam artists. They are actual stores and will sell you a deeply-discounted camera, but only if you tack on loads of overpriced accessories. These crooks live, inevitably, in The Consumerist’s home of Brooklyn, NY.
Consumerites Speak: jetBlue’s New York -> Boston Route Snags
By 11.10.05
Reader Alexis offers this harrowing tale of jetBlue’s new New York-to-Boston route:
Mechanical problems on Tuesday. So we had to wait until they had a free plane. Last night they didn’t get the plane back from NY (might have been weather related). They handed out Dunkin’ Donuts to make up for everything. Right. [That’s actually pretty, well, not classy, but something. – Ed.]
Movable Type Creates “Perpetual Mugging Victim”
By 11.9.05
Considering the nature of our work, The Consumerist could almost feel bad about pointing out problems with Movable Type, the blogging content management system that has allowed us to type millions of nearly pointless words while nearly naked. But though Gawker Media must cop to a friendly relationship with some of Movable Type’s staff, we’ve never shirked from skewering a friend for the sake of a good kvetch.
Consumerites Speak: Is Chase Erasing Online Banking Data?
By 11.8.05
Reader Gaby writes:
[Chase.com’s Business Online Banking] Keeps losing User Permissions settings. Daily. Administrator has to go to Chase online banking to set users access permissions (to view, or transact, and transact levels etc) for the various accounts. With many accounts and many users that’s probably 50 clicks to set permissions. Save them, do something, come back and hey presto, no one can see anything anymore. Repeat process above. Cry. Scream. Do it again. And again.
The Consumerist Shops: Zalman Reserator 1
By 11.1.05
This water cooling tower was purchased to keep our loud, home-built PC from echoing off concrete walls. To that end, the Zalman Reserator 1 worked well. Unfortunately, it soon (two-three weeks) acquired a buzz all its own, likely due to a faulty impeller blade in the aquarium pump that circulates water through the entire system.
