Consumer Reports has compiled a list of common car shopping mistakes from their Smart Buyer’s Guide to Buying or Leasing a Car, which, of course, you can find in bookstores.
mistakes
Please, Citibank, Stop Sending Us Random Amounts Of Money!
By 10.24.08
Readers M & C are honest people, so when Citibank started randomly depositing money that clearly wasn’t theirs into their account, they called to tell them about it. And Citibank took the money back. And deposited it again. And then sent them a check. M & C say that they’ve begged, they’ve pleaded Citibank to stop sending them random checks — but nothing has worked.
Why You Should Never Order Anything From Sears.com
By 10.17.08
Mike sent us two stories of back-to-back merchandise fiascos with orders he placed on Sears.com for in-store pickup. What’s worse, the problems can’t just be blamed on a lone rotten employee, or attributed to bad luck—several Sears stores were involved. Our verdict: there’s something seriously messed up with the Sears fulfillment chain, and it’s not worth your time or energy to bother with it. But you knew that already, right?
AT&T Says Your Jesus Phone Can Be In Three Places At Once, So Pay Up
By 10.9.08
Wow, those iPhones really are amazing. Chris’ iPhone can make a call from Nicaragua the same time it’s incurring a data roaming charge in Mexico—all without leaving Chris’ side in the U.S. Some skeptics will probably just say there’s a problem with AT&T’s records, or the phone’s SIM card was cloned or something, but AT&T believes. That’s why they want Chris to pay that bill each month it keeps happening.
Honey, Was That PotBelly's Sandwich $4.23 Or $858,432?
By 9.28.08
Sorry PotBelly Sandwich Works customers, you can’t order the Chicken Salad Sandwich unless you qualify for a mortgage. Ashley’s husband thought his usual lunchtime meal cost $4.23, but, as his wife discovered when trying to pay their credit card bill, the sandwich actually costs $858,432.06.
Knoll 'Authorized Dealer' Tries To Charge 300% Restocking Fee
By 9.22.08
Ethan emailed us to ask if we’d ever heard of a company charging a 300% restocking fee, and guess what, we hadn’t. Who does that? The authorized dealer Ethan is working with ordered the wrong parts for his Knoll Life chair, and now he’s trying to sidle his way out of treating Ethan fairly. We called Knoll and found out their real return policy, and it’s nothing like what the dealer is telling Ethan.
Ever Used A Gift Card At Buy.com? Surprise, You May Owe Them Money
By 9.15.08
Seth was recently contacted by Buy.com and told that due to an error, an order he placed over a year ago had a balance due. They’ll be debiting his credit card “on or about 09/22/08.” Seth emailed them back to ask why they were just now settling the billing issue—surely it hadn’t taken them this long to notice it. Apparently, it had, and it’s not just Seth’s account that’s messed up.
Citibank's Website Glitch Tricks Man Into Overpaying $755, But They Won't Issue Refund
By 8.12.08
Citibank’s website isn’t reliable, at least according to them. Matt assumed that a website from a bank could be trustworthy, and that if there was no scheduled payment showing up, then he must have forgotten to arrange it. He scheduled a second payment, but then both payments went through one day apart. Now Citibank refuses to give him a refund: he should have called or emailed before rescheduling, they’ve told him, and not trusted what the website was telling him.
Kum' N Go Accidentally Gives You Diesel, Makes Your Gasoline Car Sad
By 7.24.08
Reader James said that a trucker dumped diesel fuel in the wrong tank at a distribution center, and this caused a bit of a problem because (as you might imagine) gasoline cars won’t run on diesel. The gas station in question, Kum ‘N Go, is compensating James for his mechanic’s bills, but he wanted to let other drivers know what to do if this happens to them.
Funeral Home Switches Grandma's Body For Different One
By 7.17.08
The Mount Auburn Funeral Home in Stickney, Illinois, mixed up the tags on a couple of bodies, so that when mourners showed up to view 91-year-old Lillian Grogan on Monday, they instead saw a different lady wearing Grogan’s clothes and jewelry. When a granddaughter tried to find out what the funeral home had done with the real Grogan, she discovered the woman had already been buried. She was exhumed and reburied yesterday. Hey, at least cremation wasn’t involved.
Help! JetBlue Let Me Get On The Wrong Plane!
By 7.2.08
All our lives we’d been walking around with the mistaken impression that when they scanned your boarding pass at the gate, they were making sure you were getting on the right plane. We assumed this for two reasons: 1) Because an airport isn’t like a movie theater, where you can buy a ticket for a G-rated movie and go see “Killer Naked Women From Planet Sex And Violence.” 2) To prevent people from accidentally ending up in New York when they were trying to get to Long Beach, CA.
Profitable Farmers Insurance "Error" Has Been Going On for A Year And A Half Now
By 6.4.08
Susan in Wisconsin was charged an extra $10.30 last October, even though she’d already paid the next six months of her premium in full a month before. “I thought maybe I had misread my initial bill and paid the amount said to be due,” she writes. But then it happened again last month, so she began to investigate.
Oops! Verizon Sells 12,500 Unlisted Phone Numbers And Addresses
By 6.3.08
Verizon announced last week that they accidentally sold over 12,500 private addresses and phone numbers to a phone book company in West Virginia. “We certainly apologize to those customers whose numbers were published. … We’re taking accountability for that,” said a Verizon spokesman. Translation: they’re calling customers to let them know what happened, offering to change their phone numbers for free, and offering to pay the fee to have an unlisted number ($1.98 a month) for a year. Since this is the second time Verizon has made this mistake in the past four years, we wonder if “accountability” can also include taking steps to find out how the numbers keep getting offered up for sale.
United Airlines Glitch Drops Fuel Surcharge And They Won't Be Able To Fix It Until 8pm Tonight
By 5.15.08
You can save up to $130 due to a “human error” that is causing United Airlines to drop the up to $130 fuel surcharge, says the Wall Street Journal. The airline says they won’t be able to fix the glitch until 8pm tonight, so hurry up and book it:
WaMu Backs Down, Returns The $1500 To Bill's Bank Account
By 5.13.08
Bill, whose small business checking account had been inappropriately drafted $1500, sent us the following email late last night:
