As back to school season kicks into high gear, retailers across the country are competing to fill students’ backpacks with supplies and adorn their dorm rooms with TV, mini-refrigerators, and other college-esque paraphernalia. Target just happens to be one of those retailers, and the big box store is upping its back to school game by opening smaller format stores, offering new pickup options, and hosting pop-up shops on campuses. [More]
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Instead Of Busing College Students To Stores, Target Opens New Locations, Tests Pickup Options
By 7.31.17
JCPenney To Revamp Loyalty Program, Make It Easier To Earn Rewards
By 7.10.17
If you’re a frequent shopper at JCPenney, listen up: The retailer is poised to debut a new, revamped loyalty program making it easier for customers to earn free stuff more quickly and more often, as the retailer seeks to pad its bottomline amid store closures. [More]
Have Loyalty Programs Made Airlines Complacent About Customer Service?
By 6.9.17
If you show your loyalty to an airline by continually flying that carrier (and maybe using their co-branded credit card), you might expect that this would result in better customer service. However, one top airline executive thinks the industry’s reliance on loyalty rewards programs are actually making customer service more impersonal. [More]
Airline Bumpings Were Up, But Complaints Went Down In First Months Of 2017
By 5.17.17 — Updated: 5.25.17
The first few months of 2017 haven’t exactly been great for airlines, what with system outages, bumped passengers being dragged off planes, and other customer service fiascos. In fact, new federal data shows that bumpings were slightly up during the first quarter of 2017, while complaints filed against airlines actually dropped 19%. [More]
Starbucks Apologizes For Outage, Says All Stores Should Be Operational Again Soon
By 5.16.17 — Updated: 5.25.17
After Starbucks stores around the country had to shut down or give out free food when their payment system stopped working, the coffee giant says that most affected locations are back to normal and that all stores should be back online soon. [More]
Santander Bank To Pay $26M Over Subprime Auto Loan Practices
By 3.29.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
One of the nation’s largest providers of automobile financing, Santander Bank, has agreed to pay $26 million to end a two-state investigation into the financial institution’s alleged violation of state consumer protection laws related to its auto loan underwriting practices. [More]
Chipotle Revamping Online Ordering With “Smarter Pickup Times”
By 2.21.17
Last fall, Chipotle said it would begin making improvements to its online ordering system as a way to entice customers to return to the fast casual restaurant following its public bout with food borne illnesses. Now, four months later, the company is finally implementing some of those changes and reducing online order wait times. [More]
New Account Openings At Wells Fargo Drop 44% A Month After Fake Account Fiasco
By 11.18.16
Since Wells Fargo’s decade-long fake account fiasco came to light in September, analysts have warned that revelations about bank staffers opening millions of unauthorized accounts would result in consumers shying away from Wells. Those analysts may be right, with the bank confirming that new customer accounts fell dramatically during October. [More]
Waitress Receives “Tip” Telling Her To Stay Home With Nonexistent Husband, Kids
By 10.18.16 — Updated: 10.19.16
Here at Consumerist, we’re no stranger to the occasional restaurant receipt story: whether it’s a customer leaving a rude message, a discriminatory tip, or an employee calling customers names. In the most recent incident, a couple reportedly left a note to inform their waitress “her place is in the home.” [More]
4 Things Former Wells Fargo Workers Revealed About Pressure To Meet Sales Goals
By 9.19.16 — Updated: 9.30.16
On Tuesday morning, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf will face the Senate Banking Committee to answer questions about how the bank’s high-pressure sales goals led a number of employees to fraudulently open up millions of unauthorized accounts. In advance of that hearing, a group of former Wells employees shared their insider views on this scandal. [More]
U.S. Bank CEO Warns Employees: Make Fun Of Wells Fargo And You’re Fired
By 9.16.16 — Updated: 9.30.16
It’s been a (deservedly) bad month for Wells Fargo, what with the bank being ordered to pay $185 million in penalties because employees opened millions of bogus accounts, not to mention the ongoing Justice Department investigation. It would seem like a prime time for the competition to pile on the misery and steal away customers, but the CEO of U.S. Bank is demanding his staff not give into that temptation. [More]
More Restaurants Push Order-Ahead Apps, But Customers Worry About Cold Food
By 9.13.16
From Domino’s emoji ordering, to Starbucks’ cut-the-line-order-ahead app, fast food restaurants around the country are jumping at the chance to get customers to place orders on their phones. For the restaurants it all comes down to sales, but persuading customers to use those apps is harder than one might think, despite the obvious draws: no line, no wait, food ready and waiting. [More]
Chipotle Settles 100 Customer Complaints Over Food-Borne Illness Outbreaks
By 9.9.16
More than 100 customers who fell ill after dining at Chipotle restaurants last year will receive an undisclosed financial settlement as the fast-casual restaurant continues to put a series of E. coli and listeria outbreaks behind it. [More]
Taco Bell Customer Allegedly Shoots At Store Over Forgotten Sour Cream
By 6.29.16
It’s understandable that a customer may be a bit ticked off when their bag full of tacos doesn’t include everything they asked for at the drive-thru. But it is never acceptable to take that frustration out on an employee in a violent manner. [More]
Staples, Office Depot: FTC’s Opposition To Billion-Dollar Merger Is “Flawed,” “Wrong”
By 3.18.16
Three months after federal regulators filed a lawsuit to stop the nightmare dream formation of the $6.3 billion StaplesMaxDepot Voltron , the CEOs of the mega-office supply chains are fed up, and they’re taking that frustration to the customers by airing their true thoughts on the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to stop the deal. [More]
Customer Slashes Dunkin’ Donuts Worker’s Face After Being Asked To Leave
By 3.2.16
A disgruntled Dunkin’ Donuts customer in New York City lashed out at employees who told him to leave the eatery, allegedly slashing one worker in the face with a razor blade. [More]
Possible Food-Borne Illness Sickens 77 At California Chipotle
By 8.25.15
Health officials in Ventura County, California, are investigating a possible outbreak of a food-borne illness after dozens of people who either ate or work at one local Chipotle fell ill.
[More]
T-Mobile Officially Passes Sprint, Clocks In At No. 3 Among Wireless Providers
By 8.4.15
After months of speculation that T-Mobile might finally surpass Sprint to become the nation’s #3 wireless provider, the numbers are in and the two companies have officially switched positions. [More]
