John Brownlee here, slipping outside of the XXL Threadless brand ‘Royal We’ t-shirt I flabbily cohabitate with life partner Ben Popken.
complaints
Paypal’s PR Agency Promises to Help Resolve Consumerist Reader Complaint
By 5.16.06
Last week we wrote about Max, who tried to send money to his friend through Paypal but found himself ensnarled in a technical and customer service nightmare. In the end, his road of good intentions lead to B”anned from Paypal and Ebay Land,” a decidedly unhappy place excised from The Wizard of Oz as it frightened the focus group children terribly so.
Customer That U-Haul Hates Sics BBB On Their Ass
By 5.16.06
We just got a great story from David H. concerning a run-in he had with some incompetent assholes at U-Haul. After taking his reservation and promising to let him know the day before when he could pick up his truck, David — like many people who incredulously discover that reservations don’t actually mean that a company will reserve anything for you — discovered that he didn’t have a truck on moving day. Worse, when he finally did get him a truck, it looked like Evel Kneivel had used it to jump over the moon. But the best part of his story is that when David complained, the manager looked him straight in the eye, told David that he “was the kind of customer I hate” then kicked him out of the store, slapping a canceled order fee on his credit card on top of it!
Sears Ignites Searing Blaze in Customer’s Skull
By 5.15.06
“I needed to buy a new water filter for my GE Refrigerator,” Bruce writes The Consumerist. “Although I could find better prices from internet merchants, my immediate desire for fresh water made me seek out a local source, and that was Sears.”
MCI Loses The Sandman as a Customer
By 5.15.06
MCI has an impressive array of overlaid customer service systems. They have an automated email reply which carefully deduces your problem and sends back possible solutions, a guy in India and then another robot system of multiple steps you have to take so they can determine whether you’re actually an MCI customer and worthy of opening a ‘trouble ticket.’ Which might be dandy if any of these multi-million dollar apparatchiks worked, or, if in the first place, Neil Gaiman, of The Sandman fame, could call his daughter’s cellphone in the UK on MCI long distance lines.
Delta Go Videoblog Boom Boom
By 5.15.06
The Show with Ze Frank has a riff on some crappy Delta customer service he experienced this weekend, with bonus live-action footage of the total stranger Delta put him with after enjoying a multi-hour flying debacle. [NSFW]
You Can’t Take A Picture Of This Starbucks!
By 5.15.06
Kate is a sweet Canadian photo bug who just happened to be taking some pictures of a Toronto Starbucks when a goonish barrista burst out of the store’s chocolate-hued facade and started claiming she couldn’t take photographs of the building. Luckily, a group of tourists happened to be passing, overheard the exchange and staged an impromptu mass rebellion, snapping hundreds of photographs of the Starbucks in question before the Starbucks manager could even speed dial Russel Crowe to sort the whole thing out.
eBay’s Soviet Style Moderation
By 5.12.06
At first he though it was a phish but it turned out to be for real. Adam’s flawless eBay account was suspended for being “associated” with a previously suspended user.
Paypal Penalizes Good Samaritan
By 5.11.06
Thanks to some zealous Paypal security, mixed with tech snafus and a little lack of information about how Paypal works, Max had to go through leaps and hurdles to retrieve his money after he committed the crime of lending money to his friend.
Duped by Dell
By 5.11.06
We think our Dell XPS Laptop is the cat’s pajamas and can’t understand why all these strange people around the internet have such a burn against the computer maker. Maybe that’s because we’ve never needed it to get repaired or otherwise tickle the warranty.
T-Mobile Juggles Lies For Sales
By 5.10.06
Mat has a sad story. He’s a gentleman variety show performer (pictured) who travels throughout Europe during the summer and wanted a good way to stay in contact with his wife.
US Bank: The Turning of the Screw You
By 5.10.06
From reader Pointed Cap, a finely crafted and amusing tale of US Bank customer service ineptitude with a real kicker at the end.
Monday Morning Reminder: Feel Good Wankery
By 5.8.06
Here at the Consumerist, we like saying this is your site a lot — the ballooing war cry that tickles an avalanche of tips and complaints from the glaciers of your consumer dissatisfaction. Not only does it allow us to get paid for your hard work, but it also happens to be a good example of feel good wankery that’s actually true. A lot of times, we think of ourselves less as editors as moderators of a consumer awareness forum where customers (pleased, homicidal or indifferent) can share their experiences with one another. And we’re always pleased when we can actually help you get satisfaction, either by putting our paws into the mess ourselves or by giving your issue a wider audience of expertise.
Bull Dog Breeders Raise Prices On Pups
By 5.5.06
Michael wrote us in about his experience trying to buy an expensive, pure-bred bulldog pup from Sharon and Mitchell Hipsley of Bulldogs of Ft. Mountain. When he approached the breeders for a small male bulldog pup, he was quoted a price of $1650 per pup. But when Michael tried to close the deal, the breeders claimed that they’d been hit by a financial emergency relating to the death of one of the breeder’s mother and so they were only going to be able to sell him the pup for $2500. Michael is wondering what he can do to get the pup at the original price.
Mobile With a Capital T And That Spells Trouble
By 5.4.06
My T-Mobile horror story is actually related to our business account. I work for a relatively small telecom company (we don’t do wireless) and for about a year my job here was to dispute any errors in billing with our vendors (sad that that’s a full time job).
UPDATE: Time Warner Cable Hoists Customer on its Own Petard
By 5.4.06
Last week B wrote in about his struggles with Time Warner Cable. His signal was fine until a neighbor got his cable installed.
