“Recently Sears had a serious competitive edge on a single aspect of buying a dryer,” writes Bedford. If you’re curious, that aspect is that Sears will set up a dryer to vent from the side while most appliance retailers won’t, but that isn’t really important: what matters is what went wrong when the delivery team showed up with his fresh new dryer, and how Sears dealt with the issue. [More]
happy endings
Bank Of America Customer Battles $245 In Cascading Overdrafts, Wins
By 2.10.14
We don’t want to admit it, but most of us have done it before. We’ve misjudged how much money was in our checking accounts, leading to a cascade of overdraft fees. It happened to Bob: he used his Bank of America debit card for each transaction during a night out and was hit with a total of $245 in fees. Sure, he could have taken the fees as an expensive lesson, but he chose to fight back instead. [More]
Thanks To Consumerist, Customer Wins Game Of ETF Chicken With ADT
By 9.12.12
You may remember reader Matthew, who a few weeks ago was playing chicken with alarm company ADT over having to pay an early termination fee for moving. After we posted his story, an ADT representative showed up and posted a comment, which got the ball rolling on an actual solution for him. They refunded him for the months that he had been paying for service that his local ADT salesman wasn’t willing to provide him. [More]
Chase Is Now Surprising People With Mortgage Adjustments
By 9.11.12
While we’ve seen many a story during the last few years of people stuck chasing their tail in an attempt to get a mortgage modification from their lender, some Chase customers are now finding out they’ve gotten a loan adjustment without ever having to lift a finger. [More]
Which Of Your Purchases Have Kept Working Long After They Should Have Quit?
By 8.23.12
In this age of built-in obsolescence, it’s more than a pleasant surprise when you get an extra year out of that old laptop, a few additional miles out of those comfortable shoes, or a couple hundred cups of coffee you hadn’t thought you would get from that machine on your kitchen counter. [More]
iRobot's Outsourced Customer Service Tired Of Me, Dumps Me As A Customer
By 8.21.12
“Outsourced” doesn’t always mean that work is shipped overseas. An outsourced call center can be anywhere. Well, anywhere with a low cost of living. What it always means is that the people doing outsourced customer-facing work are stuck reading from scripts and have limited information. That’s what Charles’ wife discovered this past weekend when dealing with an issue with her Scooba floor-cleaning robot. When she tried to order a replacement core for her broken Scooba, she received cryptic e-mails telling her that the company was “unable to complete [her] order” and that they would be “unable to assist [her] with this or future orders,” according to the corporate office. Wait, was iRobot breaking up with her? [More]
Update: State Decides Man No Longer Needs To Repay $19K In Unemployment Benefits
By 8.10.12
Back in April we told you about a New Jersey man who was stuck in a bureaucratic battle between church and state, as he tried to figure out why he needed to repay more than $19,000 in unemployment benefits he’d believed he was entitled to. After pulling their heads out of the sand at the shore, officials have realized the man was right all along. [More]
Computer That Touches Itself Comes Back From Dell In Worse Shape, Michael Dell Swoops In
By 8.9.12
Remember Travis, the college-bound student whose touchscreen Dell laptop keeps moving the mouse pointer around on the screen, among other problems? When we last heard from him a week ago, he was waiting for the computer to return to him from Dell’s repair depot after two in-home tech visits, and he hoped the problems would be fixed. They weren’t. All Dell did was replace the wireless card. So he turned to the advice we gave in the post, and wrote to Michael Dell. This got him a new laptop for his trouble. [More]
Couple Duped Into Not Actually Booking Tom Petty For Their Wedding Ends Up With Tom Petty Anyway
By 8.7.12
Talk about a heartbreaker: Can you imagine thinking you’ve managed to book your favorite musician to play at your wedding, only to find out you’ve been duped to the tune of $165,000? An Amazon exec was dazzled by the tales of a booking firm that said it could not only get Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to play at his July nuptials, but also boasted a roster of artists such as Run-DMC and Ludacris. Had to be legit, right? Wrong. [More]
Fans Of The Who Allowed To Exchange Tickets From Cancelled Concert… 33 Years Later
By 8.1.12
Back in 1979, a little band out of the UK called The Who was slated to play a show in Providence, Rhode Island. But after 11 people were killed during a stampede at a Who show in Ohio, the venue nixed the concert. In a few months, that same band will be playing that same venue, and folks who still have tickets to that cancelled performance are being allowed to exchange them for seats at the upcoming show. [More]
Saucony Wins Dedicated Customer By Replacing Worn-Out Sneaker Without Hassle
By 7.27.12
It’s Friday, the Olympics are starting, the sun is shining (though maybe a bit too much for some folks) and well… like we said, it’s Friday. So let’s start the weekend off with a story of a company that looked at a customer’s complaint, dealt with it quickly and without hassle, and earned a loyal supporter in the process. [More]
How I Took On Johnson & Johnson In Small Claims Court, And Won
By 6.21.12
Desitin, the diaper rash treatment, is not a nice-smelling substance. Joyce’s husband, Ben, could tell that much before using it to treat the aftereffects of some severe gastrointestinal distress. What he didn’t realize was that the unholy stench could not be defeated. It soaked through his clothing, and when he tried to launder those clothes, the smell didn’t go away: it spread to those other items as well. Annoyed at having to toss $600 worth of clothing, the couple contacted Johnson & Johnson, seeking compensation and encouraging the company to do more to deter people who do not currently wear disposable diapers from using the product. After some letters and an offer of $75 passed in the mail, they went to small claims court. And won. [More]
Lenovo Reads Consumerist, Lets Customer Buy Laptop
By 6.20.12
A couple of weeks ago, we shared the story of Devotee, who tried to buy a computer directly from Lenovo’s site, only to have the order canceled out from under him with no explanation why. You may remember reading this story, and so did Lenovo employees. They wondered what happened, too, and reached out to Consumerist to help Devotee and figure out why they weren’t able to sell him anything and what went wrong. [More]
