A customer at a Wisconsin Texas Roadhouse restaurant complained that his steak was overcooked, and a spiteful staffer who thought he was lying to scam free food stuffed pieces of his facial hair inside the meat. The same employee later claimed to have stuffed a steak with pubic hair. This story may sound familiar to old-school Consumerist fans: we posted it in 2008, and it appeared on our list of all-time grossest food stories. The hairy steaks are in the news again. What’s happened in the intervening four years? Lawsuits. [More]
lawsuits
Makers Of Recalled Nap Nanny Sued By CPSC Following Deaths Of 5 Infants
By 12.5.12
In 2010, the death of an infant in a Nap Nanny baby recliner led to the recall of 30,000 of the devices. But since then, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has learned of additional fatalities and more than 70 potentially harmful incidents involving the Nap Nanny. [More]
Court Rules Passengers Can’t Sue Continental For Sex Toy Taped To Outside Of Bag
By 12.4.12
In May 2011, two men flying on Continental from Costa Rica to Virginia, via Houston, went to claim their luggage and discovered a sex toy had been removed from one bag, smeared with some sort of substance, then taped to the outside of the bag. Last week, the judge in the case threw the suit out, saying an international accord prevents the suit from going forward. [More]
Porn Companies Sue Verizon For Refusing To Name Alleged BitTorrent Pirates
By 11.27.12
Months after Comcast refused porn companies’ requests to hand over names of Internet customers allegedly involved in illegal file sharing, a trio of porn purveyors are going after Verizon for its denial of such requests. [More]
Charter Admits It Shouldn’t Charge Customer Modem Fee, Keeps Charging Her Anyway
By 11.26.12
When your cable company owns up to its own billing error, it should be a good thing. But there’s no point in admitting to the error if the company isn’t going to stop making that same error every month until you finally file a lawsuit. [More]
You Only Have Until Dec. 6 To Claim Portion Of $1.1 Billion LCD Price-Fixing Settlement
By 11.16.12
In the late ’90s, when most of us had TVs that weighed more than a teenager and could only dream of having a thin, widescreen TV, several manufacturers were fixing prices on the LCD screens that were about to revolutionize the industry. More than a decade later, consumers have a chance to get money back from this international criminal conspiracy. [More]
Avandia Makers Hit With Another $90 Million Settlement
By 11.15.12
Pharma biggie GlaxoSmithKline has already been slapped upside the head with a $3 billion settlement with the federal government regarding the marketing of, among others, the once-popular diabetes drug Avandia. Today, the attorneys general of 37 states rubbed a bit of salt in the wound with a $90 million settlement of their own. [More]
Moving Company Realizes It Probably Shouldn’t Have Threatened Lawsuit Over Negative Yelp Review
By 11.15.12
Yesterday, we told about the Massachusetts moving company that decided it would be a good idea to threaten a Yelp reviewer with a lawsuit if she didn’t remove the review ASAP. Now the movers are saying they don’t want the review deleted, just corrected. [More]
Lawsuit Aims To Call BS On Microsoft Surface Memory Size Claims
By 11.15.12
Is it misleading to advertise a tablet as having 32 GB of storage memory when only half of that number is actually available to the user? According to a new lawsuit over the new Microsoft Surface, the answer would be “yes.” [More]
Moving Company Picks The Wrong Person To Threaten To Sue Over Bad Yelp Review
By 11.14.12 — Updated: 6.28.16
In May 2011, Kristen’s parents had a bad experience with a Massachusetts-based moving company. So on their behalf she wrote a negative, one-star review of the incident on Yelp. Just the other day, 18 months after the review was posted, she received a letter demanding she remove the review by Nov. 21 or face a lawsuit for libel. [More]
Two Class-Action Suits Filed Over Time Warner Cable’s Modem Rental Fee
By 11.13.12 — Updated: 11.14.12
We had a hunch this would happen when Time Warner Cable unceremoniously gave customers two-weeks notice that they would soon be paying a monthly modem rental fee for equipment that was already installed — the cable company is now a defendant in two identical lawsuits filed earlier today. [More]
Exec Who Looked Other Way As Countrywide Sold Off Bad Mortgages Is Now Running Chase’s Foreclosure Review Dept.
By 11.9.12
The federal government recently filed a lawsuit over a Countrywide scheme dubbed “The Hustle” that removed impediments to a mortgage approval so the company could sell as many mortgages as possible to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now comes news that a Countrywide exec who ignored warnings about the Hustle is currently running Chase’s foreclosure review initiative. [More]
FTC Hangs Up On “Rachel From Cardholder Services”
By 11.1.12
For several years, American consumers have been receiving unwanted robocalls with a recorded message from “Rachel” or one of her fictional co-workers at the vaguely named “Cardholder Services.” Not only are these calls often in violation of do-not-call regulations, they are also a scam to trick people our of their cash. Today, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had pulled the plug on five companies behind these scammy robocalls. [More]
Homeowners Win Lawsuit Over Fraudulent Foreclosure But May Still Lose House
By 11.1.12
A California couple recently won a lawsuit claiming that their mortgage servicer fraudulently foreclosed on their home, but limits on the damages in the case mean that the homeowners can’t even cover their legal bills, let alone keep their house. [More]
Can Bank Of America Argue Its Way Out Of Federal Lawsuit?
By 10.29.12
Last week, the federal government reminded Bank of America once again of how stupid an idea it was to acquire Countrywide Financial, filing the latest in a slew of lawsuits that have already cost BofA an estimated $40 billion. But some say that the bank might have some legal wiggle room in this case. [More]
Sherwin-Williams, PPG Agree To Stop Lying To Consumers About ‘Zero VOC’ Paints
By 10.25.12
Many interior paints contain Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the form of solvents, some of which can be harmful to your health. So when a container of Dutch Boy Refresh paint proudly declares “Zero VOC,” one might reasonably think “Yay, no volatile organic compounds for me.” Well… maybe so, maybe not. [More]
Feds Sue Bank Of America Over $1 Billion In Bad Loans Sold To Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
By 10.24.12
Bank of America continues to crawl through the legal spanking machine because of its ill-fated, idiotic, utterly stupid decision to buy Countrywide Financial and its mountain of toxic mortgages in 2008. This time, it’s the U.S. government that has sued the bank over all the rotten loans it sold to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, both of which were bailed out by the feds in 2008. [More]
Lawsuit Accuses Big Pharma Of Using Bogus Expiration Dates To Trick Customers Into Buying More Meds
By 10.24.12
When it comes to over-the-counter pain pills, many people don’t even think to look at the expiration date on the side of the bottle. But a new class-action lawsuit claims that three of the biggest names in the (legal) drug business are deliberately putting early expiration dates on their products to encourage customers to throw them out and buy new ones. [More]
