Having to recall a line of premium, high-end smartphones once for exploding is bad enough. But when the replacement, supposedly safe phones also turn out to be unexpectedly flammable, well, that’s a sign that perhaps the phone is a dud and should be consigned to the scrap heap of device history for good. And, reports say, that’s exactly what Samsung is doing with the now-infamously defective Galaxy Note 7. [More]
lemons
Used-Car Dealer Admits To Selling Vehicles Flooded During Superstorm Sandy
By 8.26.14
A used-car dealer in New Jersey has admitted to selling cars damaged by flooding during superstorm Sandy in 2012 to unsuspecting customers. Some of those who drove off with lemons found their cars breaking down just minutes after leaving the dealership. [More]
Drivers Probably Considered Making Lemonade After Truck Spills Hundreds Of Lemons On Highway
By 8.14.14
When life spills lemons, do you refuse to cry and try to make lemonade? Or is that too much of a metaphorical mashup? At least a few sour tears were likely shed at the annoyance of a traffic snarl in California, when a truck carrying a load of citrus accidentally dumped hundreds of lemons across the highway. [More]
Scofflaw Lemon Tree Escapes Florida, Causes Interstate Incident
By 8.31.11
Florida is apparently under quarantine because of diseases that affect the quality of citrus fruit. This isn’t information your average person from Wisconsin is in possession of, so when the United States Department of Agriculture wrote to one Waukesha woman to let her know that she’d have to give up her Meyer lemon tree, she was a little confused. [More]
Upset At Being Sold A Lemon, Man Crashes It Into Six Cars At Dealership
By 7.21.11
A man who upset over getting sold a lemon by a dealership decided to vent his rage in an unusual fashion. After the salesman wouldn’t accept a return, the man waited until midnight and then drove back to the dealership. Then he revved the engine and began smashing it into the cars on the lot. [More]
How To Avoid Flood-Damaged Used Vehicles
By 6.10.11
Disastrous flooding, such as what the Midwest and Southeast has recently suffered, tends to, well, flood the used car market with damaged vehicles that pass the eyeball test. There are ways to avoid falling victim to unscrupulous resellers try to move water-addled rides, though. [More]
55 Ways To Use A Lemon Besides Eating It
By 1.20.11
When life gives you lemons, clean your microwave. That’s one of the 55 different ways you can use a lemon that don’t involve a food recipe detailed over at Coupon Sherpa. I also like the idea of using it to fend off roaches and fleas. Just add the juice and rinds to a 1/2 gallon of water and wash your floors with it. The little buggers hate the smell of lemons! Who knew? [More]
Mercedes-Benz Ordered To Pay $482k Over Lemon Car
By 3.9.10
Wisconsin’s lemon law for cars is pretty strict. If a customer demands a refund on a newly bought car that won’t run and can’t be repaired, the manufacturer has to comply within 30 days or pay double the purchase price plus legal fees. Marco Marquez has been fighting Mercedes-Benz for 4 years now over a $56,000 E 320 he bought in 2005 that immediately stopped working. He says the company deliberately stalled on giving him the refund in time, and last week a judge awarded him $482,000. [More]
After 8 iPhones And 14 SIM Cards, AT&T Still Won't Waive ETF
By 2.15.10
AT&T seems determined to fix Mike’s problem. Only they can’t, apparently, because in the past 9 months he’s gone through 8 iPhones and 14 different SIM cards, and still can’t get a phone that does everything it’s supposed to do. (Like ring when someone calls.) Normally an 8-smartphone customer might sound like someone who’s being too hard to please, and maybe that’s Mike, but let’s face it: this is AT&T and it’s the iPhone, so most of the issues he lists below sounds completely plausible. [More]
Southwest Airlines Will Save $100,000 By Getting Rid Of Lemons
By 9.18.09
Limes are cheaper than lemons and passengers seem to prefer them — giving Southwest airlines an opportunity to drop the yellow menace and save $100,000.
Best Buy Might Replace Your Lemon Of A Laptop If It Breaks A Sixth Time. Probably Not.
By 3.28.09
Please don’t pull the cord on Howard’s laptop or it will die. Best Buy‘s Geek Squad has failed five times to coax his laptop’s ailing battery into holding a charge, replacing both the battery and the hard drive, and shipping Howard the same incorrect replacement battery three times. Howard now wants Best Buy to honor their lemon policy by giving him a new laptop, but it seems like every Geek Squad agent has a different copy of the replacement policy, and none of them apply to Howard. It’s almost like he’s asking for a price match! Let’s read his story, inside…
Error-Ridden MacBook Gets Free Replacement After Nice Letter To Steve Jobs
By 11.25.08
After umpteen attempts to have his multiple MacBook Pro problems fixed, only to be told each time the laptop was working perfectly fine, Jordan wrote a polite email to Steve Jobs. He affirmed his Apple loyalty, laid out what happened to him, and asked for help. A couple of emails later and he was able to walk into an Apple store and swap his jalopy for one of the brand new MacBook Pros that just came out. You might analyze how the letter was written for clues to his success but really what it came down to was that he had gone in for repairs of the same problem more than three times, qualifying him for a refund or replacement under what is known as “lemon law,” and he got his issue under the nose of the guy at the top. Or at least the assistant who opens his email. Same difference. Jordan’s success story, inside…
Dealership Demands BMW Back, Then Claims You Never Returned It
By 11.20.08
Two years ago, an arbitrator ordered a car dealership in Queens, NY to refund a customer’s money under the “lemon law.” You’d think that would be the end of the story, but no… it’s the beginning. Jessica Harrison says she returned the “lemon” 2004 BMW to “Planet Auto Mall” but the dealer claims that they don’t know what happened to the vehicle. Now Jessica has to keep making payments on the missing BMW.
Beware Dirty Lemon Wedges At Restaurants
By 2.21.08
The slightly alarmist HealthInspections.com has a story about dirty lemon wedges in restaurants—apparently they’re a “witch’s brew of bacteria,” to use the hilariously over-the-top language of the video narrator, who speaks in a parody of a newscaster voice. Our favorite trick of theirs: overlaying gigantic bacteria animations on everyday objects, as you can see in this screen capture. But anyway, the point is a microbiologist from New Jersey found various bacteria on three quarters of the lemons she tested from 21 different restaurants: “The very first sample that we took was loaded with fecal bacteria.”
I Have 6 Kids And, For The Fourth Time, A Broken Fridge. Thanks, Best Buy.
By 2.1.08
Reader and Flickr Pool member Steve has 6 kids and no fridge thanks to Best Buy. He’s currently waiting around the house for his 4th repair guy in 8 months.
Xbox 360 Breaks Down 5 Times In A Row, But Microsoft Refuses To Replace It
By 1.22.08
Greg writes in to tell us that on January 2nd, his Xbox 360 unit broke down for the fifth time—it lasted eleven days this time, setting a new record for Shortest Period of Functionality. In the past year, it’s been out of commission for over 12 weeks total. He’s now asking for a new or refurbished unit, or else a refund, but Microsoft is determined to keep him in an extended warranty repair cycle indefinitely and won’t negotiate. Surely by this point it’s just cheaper to replace the defective unit, isn’t it?
Lemon Pricing At Meijer Is Very Straightforward
By 11.8.07
I saw this in a Meijer store in Grand Rapids, MI this summmer. Finally got it off of my cell phone and thought I’d send it your way. I’m still confused by it. I believe they were actually $2 per lemon when I rang one up.
So, apparently the sign really means: “Lemons $2.00 each.” That’s a pricey lemon, we hope you did not buy it.
New Hampshire’s Crappy Lemon Law
By 12.26.06
In New Hampshire, if you buy a car rated for over 9,000lbs, and that car is a lemon, you’re in trouble. New Hampshire’s lemon law has a loophole that classifies any vehicle over the 9,000lbs limit as a commercial vehicle, and thus ineligible for consumer protection. So what do SUV buyers do with their lemons? “They either have to fight it out with the dealership or perhaps even file a civil claim depending on the defect,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Fun.
