Lab tests are back on the side dish serpent an upstate New York man found on his plate at T.G.I. Friday’s (a story we broke, with pictures). The snake wasn’t cooked with the broccoli. It wasn’t cooked at all.
followups
UPDATE: USPS Agrees To Pay Insurance Claim On Lost Laptops
By 5.8.09
After our story about USPS losing a reader’s five insured computers then only valuing them at $74 generated a lot of response (and turned into a vowel-less debate on health care), a couple readers sent us the contact info for the insurance agent who denied our reader’s request.
Clip: Consumerist, Domino's, On Nightline
By 4.22.09
Here’s the clip of Consumerist on Nightline last night talking about the nasty Domino’s videos. Check out the Ogilvy & Mather offices to see how the elite spin doctors monitor the internet – with hi-tech tag clouds! And a graph that charts the number of twitter, blog, and media mentions! Fancy. They point to the chart and say that because the spike went down the incident is somehow over and the pizza company won after they started responding. What doesn’t show up on that chart is two friends driving by a Domino’s this weekend and one says to the other, hey dude, how about some booger pizza?
Amazon Gay Book Removal Was Massive Prank, I Did It, Claims Troll
By 4.13.09
An online miscreant named Weev is taking credit for this weekend’s fiasco where reams of GLBT books were removed from Amazon sales ranking, sparking a massive online riot. Weev, pictured, says he organized an army of off-shore computer users to make a bunch of fake Amazon accounts and flag all the gay and lesbian books they could as inappropriate. Also, he got several friends with high-trafficked websites to embed an iframe code that made their visitors automatically send the flags without their knowledge. If true, this recent post by a formerly profligate troller provides insight. However, no one can verify Wee’s claims as Amazon appears to have deactivated all the ways he used to ply his prank. It’s hard to trust a professional liar like Weev, even the idea’s plausibility doesn’t speak well for Amazon.
Roy & Friends Find Used Skeeball Machine
By 4.10.09
Roy and his friends in Austin, TX would like to thank Consumerist readers for helping them locate a skee-ball machine they could all chip in on and practice on for their Brewskeeball league. They ended up finding one on in College Station, TX on Craigslist for $800. Score!
3 ATM Skimmers Found In One Week At Chase/WaMus – What?!
By 4.9.09
Three different ATM skimmers were found this week and reported on blogs, raising the question of what the heck is going on considering these are supposed to be a rarity. First, our reader Dan found a skimmer on a WaMu/Chase ATM in LA. Gizmodo picked up the story and subsequently their reader Sean Seibel found a skimmer on a Chase ATM in Manhattan’s East Village. Then this kid Nick McGlynn found a setup similar to the one Sean did, also on a Chase ATM. Now, when our reader Dan took the credit-card snagging device skimmer to the police he said they, “got a big kick out of the skimmer, saying they’d never seen one in person.” Hmm… Let’s look at a bunch of sexy ATM skimming photos and figure out what’s up with all these skimmers cropping up…
Rogue's Gallery Of ATM Skimmers
By 4.7.09
Since you guys liked yesterday’s post where a reader found an ATM skimming device so much, Network World has got a bit of “Rogue’s Gallery” of the credit card-number stealing machines so you’ll better know what to look for out in the wild. For instance, this photo shows how thieves will mount a camera on the ATM so they can record you typing in your PIN. It’s placed over the statement dispenser using plastic that matches perfectly with the “host” ATM. Sneaky.
Best Buy Gives Reader $30 Gift Card For Selling Her "New" DVD Player Preloaded With XXX Movie
By 4.7.09
After Lisa’s story of how she bought an ostensibly new DVD player from Best Buy only to find an adult DVD already in it went up on Consumerist, the retailer contacted her and sent her a $30 gift card. The original DVD player cost $29.99. That was nice of them, as Lisa was more amused than bothered at the situation in the first place. She wrote, “It was pretty funny! At first my husband was thinking, “Sweet!!! Score…” when we opened it up. We got a good laugh, but then I started thinking, “Wait a second, we bought it as a regular item, not open boxed. Why is there a DVD in there then?”
Blog Gets Some Stupid Capcom Credit Card Fees Removed
By 3.20.09
It turns out that Chun-Li, of Street Fighter fame, does not want to charge you so many onerous fees on your Capcom credit card that attack over and over on your neck like that stupid bitch, Blanka. Just some of them.
Best Buy Goes Above And Beyond To Make Up For Selling Busted Camera As New
By 3.11.09
Michael is happy to report that he got a really great resolution from Best Buy, who had sold his grandma a broken camera as new and then accused them of breaking it themselves. The shots of Best Buy employees Michael found on the camera, and the repugnant attitude he encountered when they tried to return it and disinterest when he complained to corporate multiple times, only made the story that much juicier. After Micheal’s story went up on Consumerist and hit Digg, Best Buy contacted him. Here’s what they did to make nice:
Vincent To Get Car He Wants
By 3.4.09
Yesterday we brought you the story of Vincent who got “gold misted” at a Chevy dealership. After his story went up he learned that his brother-in-law’s cousin works at a Chevy dealership and will get him the car he wanted. “Life is good :-)” announced Vincent.
RyanAir Mighta Just Been Making Up Toilet Fee Idea
By 2.27.09
“Maybe O’Leary was just taking the piss this morning… Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and while this has been discussed internally there are no immediate plans to introduce it,” said a RyanAir spokesperson in response to the CEO announcing this morning they were thinking about having coin-operated lavatory doors onboard the aircraft.
Landlords Drop Demands For Murdered Woman To Pay Back Rent
By 2.6.09
The landlords that sent a demand for unpaid rent and citing “insufficient notice to vacate” to the estate of a mother who was murdered in a Christmas kill-spree say they will not go after the rest of the rent after all. They say the request for payment was just the management company’s standard procedure and they didn’t know the woman was a murder-victim.
Sprint Closes Crappy Teleperformance Call Center We Exposed
By 1.30.09
Sprint is closing a call center we posted ex-employee accounts about that alleged on-the-scene drug use, sex, and theft of customer credit card numbers, among other infractions.
Cash4Gold Offers Blogger $3,000 To Remove Negative Post
By 1.30.09
Want to get rich in blogging? Just write negative posts about sleazy companies and wait for them to bribe you to take your post down. That’s what the Cockeyed blog learned after blogging about their experience in using Cash4Gold’s servicess…
Tennessee Suspends And Opens Investigation Of Police Officer Who Shoved Walmart Receipt Checker
By 1.30.09
Earlier this month, we wrote about a Tennessee police officer who shoved a 71-year-old Walmart greeter to the ground after he tried to check his receipt. He originally wasn’t going to face charges; now he’s been suspended and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into it.
Update: HP Laptop Runs 200°F, Support Says "Buy A Cooling Mat"
By 1.29.09
The boy whose HP was running 200°F and was told by tech support to “buy a cooling mat” used some of the higher-up phone numbers readers posted in the comment on the original post to get in touch with a Senior Case Manager. Despite being out of warranty, they reopened the case and had him send in his laptop. Lo and behold, they fixed it! “It is running great now,” writes Travis. Huzzah!
White House To Citi: Don't Even Think About Buying Luxury Jets With Taxpayer Money
By 1.27.09
Yesterday, we wrote that Citigroup had decided to spend $50 million of its bailout money on a French luxury jet to ferry execs around town. The White House was not pleased about this.
