Direct mailers don’t believe in the concept of opting in, so if you want to cut down on the amount of straight-to-the-trash mail you receive, you’ll need to contact them directly and request that your name is removed. ForestEthics—the group behind the Do Not Mail Registry petition we blogged about earlier, has gathered several ways to contact the offending parties.
how-to
Break The PayDay Loan Death Cycle
By 3.12.08
Are you trapped in a payday loan death cycle, or have a friend or family member who is? See, the problem with a payday loan is that some people aren’t able to pay the first one off (if you don’t have money in the first place, you’re not going to be any better off two weeks later!), and then have to take out more and more loans to cover each loan they couldn’t pay off. Not only is there high interest, there’s fees. A former PayDay loan lender on personalbudgettraining.com shares his advice for breaking out of the debt trap.
If you can’t get out of this right now, start by advancing $50 less per pay period. Take the difference of what you were paying us in fees and start paying it into an emergency fund. Grab a job delivering pizzas, babysitting, whatever, and pay it into an emergency fund. Borrow less and less from us. Use the EF for actual emergencies. Once you are out of this, don’t get back into it.
Earn more, borrow less, and pay off more.
Don't Lose Your Cellphone Number When Porting
By 3.12.08
Impatient consumers can shoot themselves in the foot when trying to port their number from their old cellphone provider to their new one, reports the NYT. Instead, make sure you follow these basic steps:
Use Wildcards In Google To Uncover Company Email Address Formats
By 3.10.08
One of the stumbling blocks when launching an EECB is figuring out the company email address format. There is actually a very easy way to do this. Just use wildcards in Google. What are those? We’ll tell ya, inside…
Don't File Taxes? You Gotta To Get A Stimulus Check
By 3.10.08
People who are not normally required to file taxes will have to do so this year if they want a piece of the 2008 economic stimulus rebate. This applies to low-income works, and Social Security, Veterans Affairs Recipients, and Railroad Retirement recipients. In partnership with the IRS, the following sites are offering free tax prep and electronic filing if the only reason you need to files is to receive a stimulus check:
Inoculate Kids Against Advertising
By 3.8.08
Lisa made her kids impervious to advertising by asking pointed questions that forced them to think about the source and truthfulness of ads. She knew action was needed when when her kids, who weren’t old enough to read, stopped in front of the bleach while shopping to ask the advertiser’s dream question: “Mom, aren’t we going to buy some Clorox?” Hit the jump to see how she responded.
50 Ways To Get Through Phone Systems
By 3.6.08
VOIP-News has a list of 50 ways to get through to a real, live, not necessarily well-trained CSR on phone systems. We’re posting this not just because their first tip is “Read the Consumerist,” but because there are some really good ideas here, like hitting up EDGAR to search for contact info on public companies.
Claim Benefits In Airborne Class Action Lawsuit
By 3.3.08
The Airborne dietary supplement, which claims to help ward off the cold and flu, has reached a tentative settlement in a class action lawsuit that the company misrepresented its product. You can file online or by mail here. Boxes of Airborne used to cite a study by “GNG Pharmaceutical Services Inc” that said it tested 120 people and 47% showed little or no cold flu symptoms, versus 23% of a placebo. However, an ABC news investigation revealed that GNG was a two-man operation started up just to make the Airborne study, and had no clinic, scientists or doctors. Following the negative publicity, Knight-McDowell Labs removed references to the GNG study from its packages. Maybe people just weren’t reading the box carefully and failed to apply directly to the forehead.
Nissan Dealership Won't Refund Deposit
By 3.3.08
Jay writes in with a question: how do you get back your deposit from a car dealership when a deal goes sour? The salesman jacked up the price after an initial negotiation, and now won’t refund the deposit: “He said we’d be surprised at what he can make up to keep the deposit.”
Choose A Qualified Tax Preparer
By 3.2.08
A qualified tax preparer can be the difference between a meaty refund and a soul-crushing audit. The Washington Attorney General has several excellent pointers to help you find the right professional to prepare your return.
Complain Like A Nice Old Man
By 2.29.08
If you want to have a successful complaint, it helps to complain like Gerald. That’s the father-in-the law of this WSJ writer, and he’s able to perform daring feats of consumer action, like the time he got the hardware store to replace the $800 grill that stopped working a year after he bought it. Here’s how he does it:
Get Countrywide To Remove Your PMI With An 80% LTV
By 2.14.08
Is Countrywide telling you your Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio needs to have reached 75%, not 80%, in order to get the private mortgage insurance (PMI) removed? Throw the book at them: tell them they’re in violation of the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998. The law clearly states that PMI is to be removed after 80%:
Cancellation date.–The term “cancellation date” means…the date on which the principal balance of the mortgage…is first scheduled to reach 80 percent of the original value of the property securing the loan.
One reader (different from the guy we posted about before) says he was having trouble getting Countrywide to remove the PMI. They twice told him in writing that he needed a LTV of 75%. Then on the phone with them he mentioned the Homeowner’s Protection Act and then all of a sudden they were magically able to remove the PMI.
How To Recession-Proof Your Career
By 1.31.08
With the economy on the brink of recession, many folks are concerned about their jobs. Will the company downsize or have temporary layoffs? Will employees be asked to forego raises or (gasp!) take pay cuts? The Wall Street Journal addresses this issue head-on and lists eight tips for recession-proofing your career. They offer some good suggestions, but here are two we especially like:
Don't Want RFID On Your Plastic? Call Your Credit Card Company
By 1.31.08
There’s all sorts of advice online about how to disable RFID chips and tags, and now that they’re starting to show up uninvited on credit cards, you might be tempted to try some of those tactics. But as a reader found out, many credit card issuers will simply swap out your newfangled RFID-enabled card for a traditional one if you just ask.
Stuck On The No Fly List? Use Your Middle Name Instead
By 1.30.08
If you find yourself mistakenly on the terrorism no-fly or government watch lists and always get hassled at the airport, there’s a simple way to avoid the trouble: use your middle name when you buy your tickets. It’s certainly a lot easier than trying to use the Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP), which was set up to help people get off the no fly lists if they’re on there by mistake. Passengers complain that TRIP is slow to respond to requests and it doesn’t stop them from still getting taken aside for secondary screenings much more than other passengers. It’s a good thing the terrorists will never figure out this amazing and advanced alternate name technique.
Cable Box Reset Codes To Ask For When Cable Is Wonky
By 1.30.08
If your cable television is giving you trouble, you can call up your cable company and ask the rep to send what are known as “reset codes” to your cable box. Here are some that we found:
30 Free Ebooks On Personal Finance
By 1.28.08
Mint has gathered 30 of what they consider the best free personal finance ebooks around, grouped into categories like “Basics,” “Saving & Investing,” and “Security & Privacy.”
Nest Comments On Consumerist
Once people start replying to each other’s comments on Consumerist, it can be hard to keep track of all the various sub-discussions going on within a comments thread. That’s why it’s so great that YogurtEarl has updated his nested comments script for Consumierst once again. This is an optional add-on that makes it so comments that reply to one another appear below each other and indented. If you’re a Firefox user, you can install this script if you have GreaseMonkey, Internet Explorer users if you’ve installed Trixie, and Opera users if you have Opera UserJS.