“The youngest children’s reactions ranged from disinterest to fear.” “Marc, 14 months, was interested in the toy at first, but lost interest quickly, opting instead to dig in the dirt. One-year-old Julia was scared of Elmo and cried whenever the toy was activated.”
evil
AT&T Obeys Only The Laws They Like
After being fined millions of dollars for engaging in “misleading marketing practices”, AT&T is taking advantage of “new rules that allow California phone companies to unilaterally change certain regulatory provisions without prior approval from state officials.” What? Who the hell decided to let them do that?! AT&T will be ignoring the disclosure agreement, which forced them to reveal to new customers its cheapest service first and to seek permission before making marketing pitches, because…
Amazon Unboxed Is Also Unhinged
Those copyfighters over at BoingBoing have uncovered some tasty tidbits in the user agreement of Amazon’s new Video-on-Demand service. The gist?
WalMart. Always Low Compassion, Always.
Running low on gas and stuck with nothing but a gift card WalMart won’t let you use? Far from home? Screwed? In your desperation, don’t try to sell the card at a loss to another customer. Wal-Mart will call the cops on your soliciting ass. Then they’ll throw you out of their parking lot and call you a “vagrant.”
We (Maybe) Called Fran
Doing some social engineering, we found Fran’s last name and home phone number (we think). It’s hard to say, because twice when we called her, she hung up immediately after we asked for her.
Target Don’t Like Talkin’ ‘Bout Fran
By popular demand, we tried to followup on the reader complaint about her disabled mother getting treated poorly at at Target. We made some calls and learned what happens when you try to go in the front door. It gets slammed in your face.
MPA Hates Sharing Guitarists
The MPA has a new public enemy: guitar players. Yes, those scurrilous knaves who share how to play popular songs through secret code, called “tablature.” These heinous n’er do wells notate songs or copy them from song books and share them online. For free. Shudder.
UPDATE: Boiled Walmart Baby
Yesterday we spoke at length with Ritta over the phone. According to her statement these are the
UPDATE: Boiled Walmart Baby, With Pix
Dramatic photos of Ritta’s car in the Walmart parking lot after they broke the window to get her trapped baby. Note, these were taken a few hours after the incident occurred.
The News: Evil Had a Birthday
• Inspired by The Antichrist’s birthday, Google admits being to being evil after all. [CT]
T-Mobile Rep Parries Consumerist Complaint
Back in February, we ran Sam C’s complaint about a T-Mobile price increase for text messages, raising it from five cents to ten cents per message. On the page detailing the change a footnote remarked how long the “discounted” price would remain in effect. Our complainant compared it to the novel 1984, wherein, “Winston notes that people had demonstrated to thank Big Brother because their chocolate ration had been increased to 20 grams. (when it had actually be reduced to 20 from 30).”
What Would Jesus Do in a Suit?
What’s the most unethical thing you’ve ever done in business? There’s a new blog, Ethics Crisis, asking just that and the responses are starting to get interesting. And If the business people aren’t honest with each other, they just might not be honest with their customers, doncha think? Here’s the best one so far:
Memo to The Evil Toymakers
An open letter from a tort professor and dad to the makers of lead-laden products targeted at children:
See You in the Funnies, MPAA/RIAA
Hi-larious webcomic skewering the DRM Nazis’ ‘business model.’
Battery Complaints Lead to Mystery Harrassment: UPDATE
Back in February, we told you about Michael Harrison’s complaint about Battery-Geek. According to Michael, he posted some unflattering comments about the company and then, according to ip records, employees of the company then signed him up for all sorts of spam.