complaints

Reader Gets SHARP To Take Back His Defective TV 1 Month Out Of Warranty

Reader Gets SHARP To Take Back His Defective TV 1 Month Out Of Warranty

Dan bought an Aquos LC-32D40U 32″ LCD TV’ and one month out of warranty it developed a thin black line on the right side of the screen. Sharp didn’t want to talk to him. Best Buy wanted to charge him $100 just to come out and look at it. Something had to be done. Dan writes:

Charter Decides To Care That Reader Can't Watch Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Charter Decides To Care That Reader Can't Watch Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

After we posted Charlie’s complaint, “Charter Doesn’t Care If You Can’t Watch BBC America,” a Charter Communications Corporate Escalation Specialist emailed The Consumerist and we put her in touch with Charlie.

Discover Lowered APR When Asked, But High Rate Still Applies To Old Balance!

Discover Lowered APR When Asked, But High Rate Still Applies To Old Balance!

“I took your advice a while ago on asking your credit card company politely for a lower APR. I asked Discover Card to give me just that.

Blogger Who Wrote About A Business Wins Defamation Lawsuit

Blogger Who Wrote About A Business Wins Defamation Lawsuit

Considering the lifeblood of The Consumerist is publicizing stories of bad businesses and bad business practices—including drawing attention to personal stories on other peoples’ blogs—we were happy to read that blogger Philip Smith won the federal defamation and trademark dilution lawsuit brought against him by a company he wrote about on his personal blog. Although it doesn’t guarantee that other angry business owners or their legal teams won’t come after you for writing about your unpleasant experiences with them, it cheers us to know that, at least in this case, a federal judge felt that Smith should be protected from retaliation for telling his side of the story. “It’s not about the title, it’s about the content, said Judge Henry Hurlong, Jr.; a journalist turns out to be anyone who does journalism, and bloggers who do so have the same rights and privileges under federal law as the ‘real’ journalists.”

So What You're Saying Is Bank Of America Is Basically Powerless To Stop Credit Card Fraud?

So What You're Saying Is Bank Of America Is Basically Powerless To Stop Credit Card Fraud?

“Got a charge on my credit card from “Member Services” for $19.23. This is a card I use for 3 specific bills, and I pay them off the day after the charge shows. I know it’s coming so this stood out.

News Team To Home Depot: Fix Your Customer's Problems

News Team To Home Depot: Fix Your Customer's Problems

WBAL news in Balitmore did the usual investigation into Home Depot’s notoriously crappy contractors and were hit with a tsunami of similar complaints after the story aired.

Sur La Table Mug Handle Found Scorchingly Hot After 2 Minutes In Microwave

Sur La Table Mug Handle Found Scorchingly Hot After 2 Minutes In Microwave

“Dear Consumerist,

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US Airways had the most consumer complaints of any airline for the month of September, with 2.13 complaints for every 100,000 passengers. [Phoenix Business Journal via Consumerama]

Capital One Bills You Twice In One Month

Capital One Bills You Twice In One Month

I had an interesting experience with Capital One this morning. After paying our bill in full promptly for 10 years we were notified today that we owe the company a couple of hundred dollars due tomorrow November 09, 2007.

How Do You Decide Which Stories To Run?

How Do You Decide Which Stories To Run?

Like your high school guidance counselor, our door is always open. Drop your gripes, story tips, musings, rantings, or fabulous ideas in the box at tips@consumerist.com. Unlike your counselor, we will help you get into college. The college of good consumerism.

Complain Like A Pro In 10 Easy Steps

Complain Like A Pro In 10 Easy Steps

MSNBC has 10 ways to be a more effective complainer. We’ve added some twists of our own and linked back to relevant posts on making them happen.

Blockbuster Chides You For Losing The Movies In Your Queue

Blockbuster Chides You For Losing The Movies In Your Queue

I have been a long time reader of consumerist, and hoped I would never have to send in anything to you guys. Leave it to Blockbuster to force me to do this.

Qwest Can't Get Wireless Working Because Macs Are "Practically An Obsolete System"

Qwest Can't Get Wireless Working Because Macs Are "Practically An Obsolete System"

“This year I moved in May 2007. My new housemates and I decided that we wanted to share wireless internet in our house. We order Qwest wireless the first week of June 2007.

Charter Doesn't Care If You Can't Watch BBC America

Charter Doesn't Care If You Can't Watch BBC America

“I have a TIVO HD that uses two cablecards. On 9/27/2007, I realized that channel 196 (BBC America) was not working on either card; it did not appear to be authorized. I called Charter customer service (as I have had to do for many problems over the last couple months), and their immediate response was, as usual, to send out a technician. I called back a bit later and suggested that they try removing the tier from my account and adding it back in – this technique had fixed another random outage affecting all HD channels that had occurred earlier in the week. As with most calls to Charter customer service, I felt that the representative didn’t really know much of anything about the service and that I had to troubleshoot my own issue. The technique didn’t fix it, so the technician came the next day (9/28/2007). This was the 4th technician to come to my home in the last 2 months (all because of problems with Charter service), and like the others, he did nothing that I couldn’t have done myself…”

ComcastMustDie.com Seeks Theme Song

ComcastMustDie.com Seeks Theme Song

ComcastMustDie, a blog about how much Comcast sucks, is looking for someone to make a theme song for an upcoming podcast. They want it to be 90 seconds or less, contain instrumentals, vocals and it would be nice if they contained these suggested lyrics:

Crazy Moving Scam In San Jose Area

Crazy Moving Scam In San Jose Area

RipOffReports has two claims—one of which was also sent to us by a reader—about Champions Movers and/or A.S.A.P. Relocations of San Jose, California. Or Fremont, California. That’s part of the problem—they seem to be intentionally using a mixture of names and addresses to help hide from what’s shaping up to be a terrible reputation.

One complaint claims that in June they bumped their quote from $1,070 to $2,460 after they’d loaded up her furniture and boxes, and threatened damage to her belongings if she didn’t pay up and sign a new contract on the spot. She paid and signed, but immediately put a stop payment on the check, and she hasn’t seen her furniture since.

Written Apologies Are Worthless

A reader showed us a letter he was going to send to AT&T. At the end, among his demands, he listed, “a written apology.” We told him to get rid of it. He asked why. He said the apology would actually be worth more to him than the refunds for which he was asking.

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Blue Shield lies to popular political blogger, his wife, and anesthesiologist, to avoid paying fully for an epidural. [Daily Kos]