All around the country, new and returning college students are being handed IDs they can use as debit cards or they’re being told they can have their aid disbursals deposited straight onto a school-branded card. It all seems incredibly convenient, especially for those who have limited experience handling their own finances, but these school-backed banking products are rarely the best available options for students, who could end up being nickel-and-dimed into debt.
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The Best Way For Students To Avoid High Fees With Campus Banking Products Is To Barely Use Them
By 8.28.14
The New Frontier In Fuel Savings: Cars Without Spare Tires
By 8.19.14
If you want to lose some weight, get rid of your spare tire. No not your abdominal fat: the emergency spare in the back of your car. Our car-buying colleagues down the highway at the Consumer Reports auto testing center note that many new vehicles lack spare tires. Why? To save weight and thus fuel, and because nobody knows how to change them anymore, anyway. [More]
Quick Fixes For When Your Air Conditioner Isn’t Working Like It Used To
By 8.8.14
We’re almost through the entire summer: has your air conditioner worked hard for you through the whole season? If it is no longer performing like it used to, here are some quick fix-it-yourself ideas from our optimal-temperature colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports. It’s possible that you don’t need to junk your A/C: just check a few things that you can probably handle yourself. [Consumer Reports] [More]
Consumer Reports Deems NutriBullet A Possible Safety Risk
July 10, 2014
Infomercials for the NutriBullet Pro 900 claim that “even the toughest ingredients don’t stand a chance,” but when our colleagues at Consumer Reports put it to a durability test that crushes 7 large ice cubes 45 times, they two instances in which the NutriBullet’s blades cracked or broke off, leading CR to judge the device a “Don’t Buy: Safety Risk.” [More]
Drain-FX: Another Infomercial Product That Actually Works
By 7.8.14
Have you seen the ads for Drain-FX, a product for unclogging pipes stuffed with things that really, really shouldn’t be in the plumbing of your house? You might wonder whether it’s all TV hype, or an infomercial product that does what it promises. Our colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports did, too, and they crammed their drains with a variety of substances to find the answer for all of us. [More]
Sbarro Is The Worst Fast Food Chain In America Because Its Food Doesn’t Taste “Fresh”
By 7.2.14
Whether you’re a burger guy or a burrito gal, you’ve probably got your favorite fast food joints. But in the interest of finding a culinary consensus, our best buds at Consumer Reports decided to make it official with a new survey of readers who chowed down on 96,208 meals at 65 chains. And um, we’ve got some bad news for you, Sbarro (clears throat awkwardly). [More]
Attention, Austin: Consumerist Is Hiring Technology Folks
By 6.30.14
You’re reading this site right now, if these words are beaming through your eyeballs into your brain — and you could be working for it, if you’ve got the technological savvy and happen to live in Austin, Texas. [More]
Graco Stroller Named A ‘Don’t Buy: Safety Risk’ By Consumer Reports
By 6.30.14
Because there’s really no point in having brakes on a stroller’s wheels if they still allow the stroller to roll, our colleagues at Consumer Reports have judged a double stroller from Graco a “Don’t Buy: Safety Risk” and shared their findings with both the company and federal safety regulators. [More]
4 Popular Cars That Aren’t Worth Your Money
By 6.18.14
While you’d like to think you can’t go wrong with a middle-of-the-road vehicle from a well-known car company, sometimes you’re still not getting the most for your car-buying dollar. [More]
Calling All Health & Electronics Editors: Consumer Reports Is Hiring
By 6.16.14
Are you all about electronics? Or maybe you’re in the trenches of health reporting, and seeking a change to your career. If so, today could be the day you find the job you want. Consumer Reports is hiring a Deputy Content Editor for Electronics, and an Investigative Editor and Editor in its Health department. [More]
Portable Air Conditioners: Not So Portable, Don’t Cool The Air
By 6.12.14
The concept of a portable air conditioner implies that the device is portable, and that you can cool a room with it. They would be a wonderful tool if this were were true, but tests by our breezy and cool colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports show that they compare unfavorably to window-mounted air conditioners in pretty much every way, and you might be better off with no air conditioner at all. [More]
4 Home Depot Exclusives For Shoppers To Avoid
By 6.10.14
While many of us go to stores like Home Depot for brands of tools, paint, flooring and other products that you could buy at other retailers, the Depot has several labels you won’t find elsewhere. Unfortunately, not all of these exclusive brands are worth the trip to the Despot. [More]
Video: Here’s How Easy It Is To Turn Off (And How Hard It Is To Steer) A Recalled Chevy Cobalt
By 5.16.14
Earlier today, General Motors was hit with a $35 million penalty for its decade-plus delay in recalling millions of vehicles with defective ignition switches that could be inadvertently turned off, leaving the car without power steering and braking and deactivating the air bags. GM has repeatedly stated that these cars are safe to drive because an accidentally turned-off vehicle could still be steered to safety. But is that true? [More]
Does Film-Coated Advil Really Work Faster?
By 5.1.14
Unless you’re allergic to certain non-active ingredients or have you have an unusual sensitivity, generally the brand-name and generic versions of over-the-counter medicines are pretty much the same. Manufacturers keep adding innovations to coax customers away from generic meds, like a film-coated version of Pfizer’s Advil that is supposed to relieve pain faster. Does it? [More]
3 Extremely Boring Ways To Save Money On Gas
By 4.29.14
We all like to think that there are special tricks we can learn or technology that we can use to improve our fuel economy and save money on gas. That’s not so: there are tricks we can employ, but they’re intuitive and extremely boring. [More]
It’s Not Just You: Pretty Much Everyone Hates Their TV & Internet Providers, Survey Finds
By 3.25.14
If you’ve got problems with the company providing your TV and broadband service, you are most definitely not alone. Our siblings over at Consumer Reports ran a national survey to find out how satisfied with their cable and internet providers subscribers really are. And the findings won’t surprise most Consumerist readers: when it comes to their telecom providers, most consumers are a lot less than pleased. [More]
Consumer Reports Deems Hamilton Beach Dual Coffeemaker “Unsafe,” Could Burn Users
By 2.27.14
The Hamilton Beach 2-Way FlexBrew 49983 seems like a really great idea. Indeed, there are other similar coffeemakers on the market. There’s a regular drip brewing setup on the left, and a K-Cup-compatible cartridge brewing system on the right. Yet our instantly-brewed colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports say that this model is potentially dangerous because the warming plate for the drip side heats up when the instant side is in use. [More]
Toaster Ovens: Good Tiny Ovens, Bad At Making Toast
By 2.24.14
Do you eat toast? Our lightly browned colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports spend a lot of time testing things that you might not think of to test. For example: the quality of toast produced in toasters vs. that produced in toaster ovens. Turns out that you’re better off with a plain old toaster, unless the “oven” part is important to you. [More]
