Deceiving consumers is a trademark for most unscrupulous operations attempting to collect debts that aren’t actually owed. Shady collectors have been known to lie about debts, misrepresent themselves as officers of the law, threaten lawsuits and, in the case of one operator, threaten Spanish-speaking residents with deportation. [More]
lies
Fraud Victim’s Impossible Choice: Eat $1,500 In Charges Or Be Banned From PayPal Forever
By 3.13.15
When a customer’s chargeback scheme left one PayPal customer down $1,500 and without the pricey headphones that they had sold, the person who sold the headphones was understandably upset. It’s wrong to rip anyone off, but they’re an individual seller rather than a faceless corporation. PayPal reduced the amount that this person owed to $700, but that was still $700 more than they really owed anyone. What’s a consumer to do? In this case, post to Reddit. [More]
Ads Offering Tax-Relief Are Full Of Broken Promises, Just Want Your Money
By 4.11.14
This may not come as a surprise to any of you, but those ads on the radio that offer to settle your debt to the Internal Revenue Service for a fraction of the bill may be a scam. [More]
Bank Of America Ordered To Repay Consumers $727M For Sketchy Marketing Practices
By 4.9.14
Bank of America just received a hefty bill from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to repay $727 million to consumers wronged by the bank’s deceptive marketing practices regarding credit card add-on products. [More]
Sprint Sells Me iPhone With No Coverage, Lies About It
By 7.18.12
When Ryan purchased a new iPhone 4S from Sprint for his partner’s use, it didn’t work very well. Assuming that the problem was the phone, he brought it back to the store. No, the store employees assured him, it just takes a few weeks for all of the information to “flow” to the new phone when a customer ports a number from another carrier (T-Mobile, in this case.) This is, of course, complete nonsense, but they also claimed to not have another iPhone to exchange it for. So he went home to wait for the information to flow. It didn’t. The two-week return deadline passed, and then Ryan learned that the problem was with the towers, not with his significant other’s number port. [More]
Best Buy's Game Replacement Plan Is Not A Free Upgrade Plan
By 10.21.11
Blah, blah, when something seems to be good to true, it probably is. Kevin knows that, but was still tricked into buying an extended warranty for last year’s copy of Madden ’11 by a misinformed or unscrupulous Best Buy employee. Customers who buy sports games where a new edition comes out every year, the cashier told him, could get the next year’s game for free by purchasing a $5 replacement warranty for the game and returning it to the store the following year when the new edition comes out. Nice plan if it were true. It’s not. [More]
Hotel Frames Pool Photo So You Don't See The Giant Macy's Next Door
By 10.28.10
We all know that hotel site photos lie. Here’s proof! [More]
Suss Out Fakers At Farmers Markets
By 10.12.10
As an undercover hidden camera investigation recently revealed, not every bearded and overall-wearing guy behind the stand at farmers markets is selling food he grew himself. Some of them just load up a local produce warehouses and sell it to you at a feel-good-about-saving-the-earth premium. So how do you tell who’s real and who’s shoveling you fertilizer? [More]
Los Angeles Farmers Markets Full Of Lies, Warehouse Produce
By 9.27.10
If you’re in California and need to make a little extra cash, why not buy a bag of baby carrots from the supermarket, throw some potting soil on them, and sell them at your local farmers market as fresh-from-your-farm organic treats? Okay, maybe technically that’s not permitted, but who’s going to stop you? An NBCLA investigation found vendors at several farmers markets were lying to customers about their produce, and sourcing it from local warehouses instead of their own farms. [More]
AT&T Customer Service Rep Says Store Employees Are Commission-Chasing Liars
By 9.7.10
One of our readers just switched over from T-Mobile to AT&T, but he discovered that pretty much everything the salesperson promised him at the retail store turned out to be a lie. At least, that’s what the angry AT&T customer service rep told his wife when she called in to dispute her first bill. [More]
Dick's $10 Off Coupon Good For Most Things, Not The Item You Want
By 6.26.10
Silly Sean, he filled out a survey for Dick’s Sporting Goods because he thought his receipt’s promise of “$10 off your next purchase of $50!” meant that he would get $10 off his next purchase of $50. Nope! [More]
Johnson & Johnson Hired Fake Shoppers To Buy Up Bad Motrin, Avoid Public Recall
By 6.14.10
Ever since the FDA and Congress started asking Johnson & Johnson to explain why it keeps recalling medicine, there have been references to an unpublicized “recall” that happened in November 2008. Last month, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a J&J executive swore that the company didn’t mean to mislead anyone. It turns out that wasn’t exactly accurate: Bloomberg has obtained emails from J&J’s company, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, that show executives knew the secret recall would trigger an FDA reaction if the agency got wind of its full scope. [More]
Internet Turns Bullsh*t Detector On Facebook CEO
By 5.27.10
Yesterday afternoon, while everyone else was cheering about how Facebook’s supercool new privacy settings were going to bring about world peace and end hunger, Marshall Kirkpatrick actually took the time to listen to what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to say about the changes, and noticed something interesting: Zuckerberg, as Kirkpatrick put it on ReadWriteWeb, “said a number of things that seemed of questionable…truth.” [More]
HDTV Lies Exposed By Industry Expert
By 5.24.10
The next time you go shopping for a new HDTV, keep in mind that the brightness and contrast settings don’t adjust brightness and contrast, and most of the fancier-sounding image quality controls don’t do anything except possibly degrade the image. Also, motion blur in live video is largely imaginary, which is good because advertised response times are highly exaggerated. And hey, that impressive “dynamic contrast ratio” the manufacturer is crowing about? Most of the extra contrasty goodness happens when there’s no image on the screen. [More]
Don't Count On That Rebate From MSI
By 3.22.10
My advice on mail-in-rebates is to ignore them when you’re trying to decide on a purchase. They take too long to receive, during which time you’ve paid a higher amount on the product. Even worse, it’s easy for a company to deny a claim and refuse to cooperate with you, and it’s hard for consumers to get misbehaving companies to play fairly. [More]
Don't Believe The Phone Call That Says Your Card Has Been Deactivated
By 3.22.10
Nick received an automated call from some scammy outfit this morning that told him his debit card had been deactivated. The scam looks simple enough, but it’s probably worth looking at as a reminder to others. [More]
Charter Communications Rep Says Cable Companies Taking Over All Streaming Video On May 1st
By 3.16.10
The Charter Communications CSR who spoke with Dustin has some pretty astounding news about what’s on the horizon for all of us. It looks like starting May 1st, cable companies will have total, FCC-sanctioned control over streaming video and will take down all competing services. [More]
Fry's Wouldn't Give Me Advertised Price On Printer, Lied To Me
By 3.15.10
Mike blogs that Fry’s advertised a good deal for a printer, but when he ordered it and tried to pick it up, the electronics store told him it was out of stock. Mike discovered that Fry’s did have the printer, but says customer service lied to him, and even admitted doing so. [More]
