When an owner of an Alabama brewery lost 40 beer kegs in a heist, he took it upon himself to track down the culprits and the containers. Now comes the difficult part: Waiting for the legal system to get off its duff and allow him to reclaim the property he claims is his. [More]
detective work
What Should I Do When An Amazon Marketplace Vendor Disappears?
By 9.16.10
Darren tells Consumerist that the vendor that sold him a failing MacBook Pro battery through the Amazon Marketplace has disappeared. Since the replacement battery wasn’t made by Apple, he’d like to find out what kind of warranty the battery might have and seek a replacement. Amazon is no help, and the company’s domain name is no longer registered, so e-mails bounce back. What should he do? [More]
7 Ways To Tell Your Neighbors Are Running On Empty
By 4.1.10
Writing on LiveCheap, Karl Wolf put together a sad-but-funny list of signs that reveal the poverty of those who live near you. [More]
Man Uses Technological Detective Work To Recover Stolen iPhone
By 1.29.10
A blogger had his iPhone swiped on a flight but managed to track it down in a saga worthy of a TV movie of the week, if those still existed. He’s not the first guy to do this, but the story is inspiring every time. [More]
How Can We Determine Who Gave Us This $250 Wedding Present?
By 10.17.09
UPDATE: The gift-giver’s identity has been discovered! Perhaps this is a better question for Miss Manners than Consumerist, but Chris needs help. See, a beautiful red KitchenAid mixer, an item on his Target wedding registry, arrived via FedEx with no clues as to who sent it. Adding to the confusion, the item doesn’t appear to have come off the registry. Which seems to us to be the entire point of registries.
