What would you do if you received a bill credit that you didn’t deserve? How about if you received a bill credit that’s enough to buy you a modest house in most of the country? Just ask the Ohio Sprint customer who opened his wireless bill and saw a credit for $139,419.89. [More]
error in your favor
Surprise Delivery From Neiman Marcus: $40K Worth Of Purses You Didn’t Order
By 6.23.17 — Updated: 6.26.17
Imagine you get a delivery to your house that you weren’t expecting. Not only is it something you didn’t order, but it’s a very expensive something — almost $40,000 worth of Chanel purses from Neiman Marcus. What would you do? [More]
Reminder: If A Retailer Sends You Something You Didn’t Order, You Can Keep It
By 11.28.16 — Updated: 5.15.17
In the madness of the holiday shipping season, mistakes are not uncommon. Sometimes, lucky shoppers find themselves on the winning end of those mistakes, like when you get 99 extra knives or when a retailer sends four iPods instead of one. So what’s an honest consumer to do? [More]
Reminder: If A Store Won’t Sell You A Laptop For $10, It’s Not Bait And Switch
By 8.27.14
It’s not the fastest or best computer you’ll see, but the laptop that reader J. spotted for sale at her college’s online bookstore was a deal she couldn’t pass up. An AMD E300 processor! 2 gigabytes of RAM! A 320 gigabyte hard drive! All this for only $10. She placed an order and waited…only to have her order rudely canceled with no notice. [More]
Snapfish Wants To Be Really, Really Sure That You Have Enough Envelopes
By 12.31.10
Maybe photo-printing service Snapfish wasn’t purchased by HP. No, the company just might have been acquired by Santa Claus. This holiday season, they just couldn’t stop giving things away. When Paige’s mother was missing half of the envelopes for her order of 40 holiday cards, Snapfish was quick to send new ones. Three times over. [More]
Yankee Candle Too Swamped To Answer Phone, Sends Free Candle Instead
By 12.29.10
Is a company that goes the extra mile to fix their own error during the key holiday season really going “above and beyond”? I would have to say “no,” but Robin was still impressed with the way that Yankee Candle handled an error they made with her order. Except for how they wouldn’t have had to send a replacement item had anyone been available to answer the phone when Robin called. [More]
Snapfish Sends Another Copy Of Photo Book, No One Knows Why
By 12.22.10
A few weeks ago, we shared Karina’s complaint about Snapfish. She wrote that when she took advantage of a “buy one photobook, get two free” deal, the company kept canceling her order instead of printing the books. Shawn has the opposite problem: Snapfish sent him another copy that he never asked for of a book that he had already printed. Of course, they haven’t charged him. Is there some kind of Law of Conservation of Photobooks at work here? [More]
Lowe's Travels To The Future To Discount Your Appliances
By 12.6.09
Mary was purchasing a washer and dryer set for her home at Lowe’s. Just as she was finalizing the purchase, a sales circular with a lower price on the very appliance she was buying dropped through the time/space continuum, and visited the store from the future. Or maybe an employee put it out early. Either way, the store’s manager very generously let Mary buy her washer and dryer for the much lower future price because of an employee’s mistake. [More]
SIGG Gives Customer $50,000 Gift Card For Two Water Bottles
By 10.22.09
After SIGG USA announced that their metal water bottles contained plastic additive BPA, they offered to exchange consumers’ offending bottles for new ones. Karen sent her BPA-riddled water bottles in for replacement, and received her gift certificate to buy two new ones for a total of $46.98. But something went horribly wrong, and now she has a store credit for just under $50,000.
Behold Dell's "Buy One Wireless Card, Get 120 Free" Promotion
By 9.27.09
Dell accidentally skipped Andy in Canada’s wireless card upgrade while putting together the laptop he ordered. He called them and they sent the card along at no cost to him. Great service! The service was so great, in fact, that instead of just one wireless card, Dell went right ahead and shipped Andy a case of 120 of them.
Dell Offers You $310,000 – What Credit Crunch?
By 6.4.09
Travis is well aware that there’s a credit crunch on. That’s why he was surprised when, according to a mailing he received, Dell decided to increase his credit line. Not by a little, either. They increased it from $2,500 to $310,000. Wha? How does that happen? He’s just a regular consumer. Does anyone who isn’t an IT professional need a $310,000 Dell credit line?
Time Warner Gives You $1,271, Won't Take It Back
By 5.9.09
Melissa isn’t sure why she has a $1,271.25 credit from Time Warner Cable, but there it sits in her account, baiting her to order a slew of pricey extras. Melissa asked Time Warner to reverse the credit, figuring the random payout had to be a mistake. “We can’t fix it,” they told her. “It’s an error on our part. Enjoy!”
IRS Sends 15,000 Stimulus Checks To The Wrong Bank Accounts
By 5.17.08
That economic stimulus check you were expecting may have accidentally stimulated your neighbor’s bank account. Newsday is reporting that 15,000 checks tumbled astray thanks to an IRS “computer programming glitch.”
This Sprint Plan Lets You Talk For 1.9 Years Per Month. What?
By 3.29.08
BG’s Sprint plan lets him talk for 1,000,499 minutes per month and only costs $50. How did he find this stupefyingly amazing plan? Hit the jump for his story.
Meijer Accidentally Marks Everything 50% Off, Doesn't Want The Money Back
By 5.24.07
Midwest grocery giant Meijer experienced a computer glitch that marked nearly everything in their 179 stores (including their gas stations) 50% off for about 60 minutes. From the Palladium-Item:
“It happened at the end of the night,” [Meijer Manager Sandi Wagenknecht] said. “So we weren’t very busy. We caught it early and just rang things up differently to accommodate it.”
