Donna was all set to fly to Rome for a beautiful two-week 60th birthday trip with her friends. They had been planning and preparing for it for a year. It was to be the trip of a lifetime. Then they flew American Airlines. [More]
complaints
Walgreens Thinks $1.99 Mouthwash Is Worth $2.99
By 6.29.11
Reader Joy spotted an odd price discrepancy between the MSRP on the label of this bottle of mouthwash at Walgreens and the price on the shelf. So she whipped out her iPhone and sent in a picture of it to us using our new Consumerist Tipster App. She chose “2” as her “Anger Level,” indicating “a failure to communicate.” The real question is whether the rinse rings up as $1.99 or $2.99 at the register. Either way, annoying. [More]
If I Hadn't Checked, CVS Would Have Charged $228 For A $28 Generic
By 6.22.11
Had David’s wife not probed closely, she could have ended up paying $228 for generic Fosamax that could have been easily gotten for $24. He’s sharing the story as a cautionary tale so that other people who are getting their maintenance prescriptions covered by their employer’s insurance don’t end up overpaying for generics. [More]
Delta Traveler Says He Got Bag Back Reeking Of Urine
By 6.22.11 — Updated: 9.8.16
Sy has vowed to never fly Delta again after a colossal followup left his bag bouncing back and forth between three cities and two continents, and once he finally got his bag back, it stank of urine. [More]
How To Lose A 5-Year Customer Over $3
By 6.22.11
Lynn has been using Terminix four times a year for five years, but after Lynn’s recent experience on the phone with them, no longer. At the center of the dispute is a $3 increase in the service. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s not really about the money. It’s how they treated Lynn when our reader asked about it. And that, my friends, is how you lose a customer who has been with you for half a decade. [More]
TWC Ends Chat When You Ask Them To Honor To On-Time Guarantee
By 6.16.11
In New York City you are entitled to a free month of service if the cable guy doesn’t show up on time. It’s part of the franchise agreement the cable companies have with the city. But here’s a chat transcript showing what happens when a informed consumer tries to claim their credit from Time Warner Cable… [More]
I Just Want A Nintendo 3DS That's Not Broken
By 6.15.11
Ray is a huge Nintendo fan. Which is why it hurts so much that every time he tries to get his defective 3DS replaced, they send him another one that has a different defect. The first 3DS had dead pixels, the second had deep scratches, and the top screen was sliding on the third. Now he’s on his fourth DS, and it too has troubs. The touch screen keeps slanting to a greater and greater degree. Why, Nintendo, why have you forsaken your loyal follower? [More]
Sprint Tries To Convince You Your Phone Sucks, Not Their Tower
By 6.14.11
Cal is at his wit’s end. After the third service outage in the past three months and going through the laundry list of troubleshooting procedures, an upper-level Sprint tech assured him there was no problem with the towers near his house. It was his phones. But when he drives just a few miles away, the signal is perfect. Then when he returns to within 250 meters of the towers near his house, his phone goes into roaming. He’s sick of the runaround and just wants Sprint to fix the towers. Here is the letter Cal wrote Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and several other top Sprint execs: [More]
Buying Laptop At Best Buy Ends In Misery And Failure For All
By 6.13.11
All Rob wanted to do was buy a laptop at his local Best Buy for the price shown on the website. As we know, sometimes this can be a bit of a problem. What followed was a comedy of errors as the guys in the khaki pants try to foist off on him a display model laptop that doesn’t even have the right battery. When Rob gives up and orders one directly from Best Buy with in-store pickup, it turns out to be defective. The experience of then trying to get a straightforward refund is then equally defective. Go big blue! [More]
Chase Repos Wrong Car
By 6.13.11
At first, this woman thought her used car, financed through Wells Fargo, had been jacked from the front of her house. She reported the car as stolen and filed a claim. It was a bummer because she had been only two years away from paying off the five year loan. Then she got a call from Chase Auto Finance who said they had repo’d the car because the previous owner didn’t finish his payments. Whoops! Chase had taken the car without securing a lien on the title! [More]
Verizon Sends Software Updates To Man While He Helps Sick Grandma In Japan, Charges $600
By 6.13.11
Chris had to go to Japan recently to help out with his deathly ill grandmother. He brought his new Verizon iPhone4 with him. While he was there, Verizon pushed a series of updates to his phone, and that racked up over $600 in global roaming charges. When he called customer service, they told him the charges were valid and nothing could be done. He couldn’t even get retroactively added to an international plan as Verizon says they don’t have one anymore that covers Asia/Japan. [More]
Man Gets Freezer Burned On Defective Maytag Fridge
By 6.9.11
Frank has had to use up five days of timeoff because of his leaky new Maytag fridge that they just can’t seem to ever repair correctly. Like when he told them to bring out the UV light since the last tech had installed a dye so you could find leaks. The rep said oh yeah, we’ll make a note of that. Then the guy shows up with only a mulitimeter and says, hm, we’re going to have to send another guy out here with more tools. No kidding! [More]
TCF Bank Won't Close $.05 Account, Prefers To Charge $149 In Fees
By 6.7.11
Reader DFCL says that he asked TCF Bank to close his account back in April as it only had a $.05 balance. Now it’s June, his account is still open, and he’s in collections for $149 in fees. Some very exciting things happened between those two points, including him offering to donate $500 to charity if they waived his fees. They declined his offer. [More]
Why I Will Never Ship With UPS Again
By 6.3.11
Reader Tyler shares the list of reasons he will never use UPS again on purpose. A shot-putted package, $1,000 of computer parts left outside the wrong house with no signature, customer service shenanigans and finally, a smooshed box. That’s it! He’s had it! Brown is no longer welcome in Tyler Town. [More]
FioS Install Rips Up Your Azaleas, Cuts All Your Lines, And Disappears
By 6.2.11
Well at least they didn’t start a fire. That seems to be the only thing Verizon FiOS didn’t mess up with they did an install for reader janvir. They destroyed our reader’s new flowerbeds, mucked up the mulch, and cut several lines going into their house. Phone, alarm, TV, and internet were all cut. Despite promises to fix it, FiOS was a no-show. Oddly enough, Comcast actually had better customer service than FiOS, coming out and promptly fixing the lines FioS had cut. Here’s Janvir’s complaint letter: [More]
Dell Makes Good For Man Whose Life They Wasted 400 Minutes Of
By 6.1.11
After Bill’s story of spending 400 minutes in Dell Hell to get his dead laptop replaced went up on Consumerist, Dell gave him a call [More]
Did US Airways Use This Luggage As A Pinata?
By 6.1.11
Apparently some baggage handlers working for US Airways must have thought there was candy inside our reader’s luggage and went to town on it in a fun game on the tarmac involving blindfolds and bats. That’s the only possible explanation for the abused condition he got it back in. More beatings, of the psychic sort, ensued after he tried to seek recourse from US Airways before being finally told he would have to drive 45 miles back to the airport so they could inspect the bag. Fed up, our reader emailed this letter to the CEO of US Airways: [More]
Man's 400 Minutes In Dell Hell Could Cost Them Millions
By 6.1.11
By pissing off this one customer, Dell may have lost millions of dollars. Bill is a corporate account holder and a consultant who makes recommendations to Fortune 500 companies on how to spend their IT money. Usually he recommends Dell, but after his trip to Dell Hell, that will no longer be the case. [More]
