Earlier this month, we shared with you the story of Sephora’s Epic Rewards promotion that quickly ran out of rewards. Customers were upset after the promotion, believing that they had been misled into racking up points for special “rewards” when there were so few rewards to go around that it might as well have been a raffle. Today, as promised, Sephora is starting to e-mail these customers with their final offering: a $50 gift code. [More]
epic fail
Angry Sephora Customers Invent Mass Returns As A Form Of Consumer Protest
By 8.19.15
What happens when a retailer encourages customers to buybuybuy in order to rack up rewards points for a special event, and then that event turns out to be a massive disappointment? If you’re the super-loyal, big-spending Sephora customers who tried to take part in the beauty retailer’s recent Epic Rewards promotion, you pack up all of your recent purchases and bring them back to the store. [More]
Loyal Sephora Customers Unhappy With Company’s Non-Apology For Unrewarding Rewards Promo
By 8.11.15
Yesterday was a special event for loyal customers of makeup retailer Sephora who have accumulated points in the retailer’s loyalty program, where unusually fabulous rewards came out. The company hyped the event for days in e-mails and on its social media pages, then was apparently surprised when a large number of customers were ready to pounce on the rewards, and most of them left disappointed. Update: Sephora has promised to do something for these customers, but can’t say what and will get back to them in two weeks. Or in September. [More]
Developer: My Video Game Isn't Broken, You're Just Playing It Wrong
By 12.9.10
If you play the Wii game Epic Mickey and are frustrated by the way the game’s unpolished camera system obscures your view of the hero and obstacles, developer Warren Spector — the industry giant behind Deus Ex and System Shock — has a message for you: It’s your own fault because you don’t understand what he and his team were trying to do. [More]
The Virtual Boy And Other 3D Gaming Failures Throughout Time
By 7.7.10
With Sony releasing 3D-capable games for the PS3 and Nintendo readying its 3DS, it would seem the video game world is trying something new and innovative. Not so. As those with long memories of pathetic game products from the past will remember, the industry has danced with the third dimension for decades. [More]
This May Be The World's Least Competent Geek Squad Outpost
By 6.24.10
Cyndi writes that she has had her HP computer for just about 20 months, and a two-year extended warranty with Geek Squad along with it. From the very first months that she owned the computer, things have gone wrong with the computer, but things have gone even more terribly wrong with Geek Squad’s repairs. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. [More]
Sony Takes "Play" Out Of PlayStation 3 With Global Outage
By 3.1.10
Remember when all you had to do to get a glitchy video game working was pull the cartridge out of the Atari, blow into it, and re-insert? Well, not so much anymore. Millions of PlayStation 3 owners around the world are justifiably irate at the moment because an outage of Sony’s PlayStation Network isn’t just preventing users from playing online; it’s also keeping them from playing offline. [More]
T-Mobile: We Won't Swap Out Your Sidekick For A Different Phone
By 10.15.09
Amber is a pre-paid Sidekick owner who has been a T-Mobile customer for 7 years. After the recent T-Mobile data disaster, she doesn’t intend to get burned again. She wants to switch to a different phone, and she wants T-Mobile to buy back her Sidekick since they can’t deliver the data security they promised. Initially T-Mobile agreed, but then they pulled a Sidekick Data Outage on their promise and it disappeared forever.
T-Mobile Sidekick Data Outage Turns Into Epic Customer Data Fail
By 10.11.09
This time last week, we thought of the T-Mobile Sidekick data outage as a mere inconvenient outage, but a temporary one. We grossly misunderstimated how badly T-Mobile and Danger/Microsoft could screw things up.
FDIC Low On Funds After Record Bank Failures In 2009
By 8.29.09
Given how many banks have failed and been taken over by the FDIC this year (84, including three yesterday), it’s not one bit surprising that the FDIC isn’t doing too well, funds-wise. It’s down to $22 billion, the lowest the failed bank fund has been since the savings and loan crisis of the early ’90s, when it needed to borrow money from the Treasury Department to keep going.
Xbox 360 Failure Rate is 54.2 Percent, Game Informer Finds
By 8.17.09
The Xbox 360 breaks five times as often as its closest failure-prone competitor, the PlayStation 3, a print edition-only Game Informer survey found.
You Can't Bend Your Knee? Here, We're Bumping You To Coach
By 6.18.09
What does it take for an airline to retain customers these days? Here’s a tip: given the graying of America, try not treating elderly people with medical emergencies like crap. Livejournal user urzepatriz details how American Airlines added insult to his or her grandfather’s injury. Literally. By bumping him to coach on a cross-country flight after an injury sustained during the trip required major surgery and left him unable to bend his knee.
Commerce Bank/Metro Bank Shows How Not To Handle A Bank Changeover
By 6.16.09
Commerce Bank in central Pennsylvania is changing its name. Former Commerce Banks in that area will now be called Metro Bank. Yawn, right? Banks merge and change names all the time. What they don’t normally do is cancel ATM cards with no notice, and lock customers out of their accounts due to those changes. Maybe this is a new trend.
