This Mother’s Day story is a bit of a mixed-bag—ProFlowers clearly failed to deliver the arrangement they sold to M., but they refunded him the entire amount of his purchase when he contacted them about the issue. It’s a “fail” for execution, but a perfect example of how to own up to and correct a wrong for your customer.
mistakes
Regal Cinema In Boise, Idaho Is Awesome, Even When You've Clearly Screwed Up
By 5.6.08
Dave did something really stupid last weekend (no offense Dave), and bought two tickets to see “Iron Man” on the wrong day. He didn’t realize his mistake until Saturday, when he thought he was going to go see the movie. We would have never even bothered to call Regal to beg for ticket leniency, but Dave tried it anyway—and the theater actually exchanged the expired tickets for two new ones.
CenterPoint Energy Thinks Your Fish Tank Is A Meth Lab, So Police Kick In Your Door
By 4.30.08
You’d think between the reactionary CenterPoint…
"Comcast Treats My Bank Account Like A Cookie Jar"
By 4.30.08
Of all our random corporate screw-up stories, this is one of the funniest, if only because it’s so random and so persistent. Oh wait, Kelly’s out over $100 now and Comcast keeps debiting her account whenever they feel like it. Maybe that’s not that funny after all.
Sprint Customer's Number Gets Ported Without Authorization; Email To Executives Gets It Back
By 4.19.08
Robb spent almost two and half hours with Sprint CSRs trying to find out why his phone had stopped working, and eventually he was told that it had been ported to AT&T, and that it would “take 4-5 days to try and get this number back if at all.”
Aer Lingus Accidentally Sells Transatlantic Flights For 5 Euros Each
By 4.18.08
Aer Lingus is apologizing to some 100 customers to whom it accidentally sold transatlantic tickets for a measly 5 Euros.
Sears Takes Customer Account Security 80% Seriously
By 4.10.08
On Wednesday, April 9th you received an email with the subject line “Get $25 From Citibank”. We recently discovered that the email we sent to you incorrectly contained the salutation “Dear Donna Robinson” rather than “Dear MATTHEW F”. We apologize for the confusion this may have caused and want to assure you that the email is a legitimate Sears card email.
Oh Sears. Well, according to Matthew F, at least the account number was his.
Shipping Is Getting Expensive
By 4.7.08
Emily noticed that the weird puppet crap she was thinking of buying on Ebay would make her PayPal account explode:
I know shipping products can be expensive, what with the rising fuel costs and all, but this shipping charge from the UK to Utah is ridiculous! Maybe the seller’s just padding the fee, I don’t know. 🙂
Gold Medal Travel Demands $200 To Correct Typo, Won't Issue Ticket Otherwise
By 4.4.08
Gold Medal Travel, a UK-based travel agency, is holding a woman’s ticket hostage. Even though Northwest airlines says the ticket will be fine and they have no policy like what Gold Medal claims, Gold Medal says the ticket will be forfeited if the woman doesn’t give them an extra $200 to correct a…
Dear Microsoft, Please Send This Man A Shipping Box
By 4.2.08 — Updated: 10.25.12
He just wants to send his Xbox in for repair, and you keep losing his request. He swears he’s not a “crazy blogger,” but despite that, we still want to help him. So please? You’ve got all his phone numbers and contact info now. Can you send a box?
Prison Officials Lose Flash Drive With Data On 3,500 Volunteers And Visitors
By 3.31.08
The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that “a flash memory drive containing names, birth dates and driver’s license numbers of more than 3,500 people who either volunteered or visited San Quentin State Prison in a group tour has been lost.” Our reader Paul, who sent us the tip, adds, “When I read it my first thought was, “Gee, I wonder what the chances are of this personal data ending up in criminal hands? Mmm, maybe 100%.” Our favorite part of the story: the data wasn’t encrypted, but prison officials have said that now they’re going to start encrypting it.
Frontier Airlines Insists Man Who Missed Flight Was On Plane
By 3.28.08
Matthew is the center of a Hitchcockian mystery over at Frontier Airlines. He missed his flight from New Mexico to Texas with a connection through Denver (there was a total of 4 segments to the flight), and when he tried to rebook the flight and pay the change fee, Frontier told him he’d already flown to Denver. So who took the flight? One of the flight crew’s friends? A woman too pretty for Southwest? A killer? There’s probably a killer roaming the streets of Denver now.
Mary at Frontier keeps promising Matthew she’ll look into it, but “after weeks and several calls,” nothing’s been fixed, and Matthew still can’t rebook the flight he already purchased.
Walgreens Fills High Blood Pressure Prescription With Generic Allergy Pills
By 3.24.08
Tina claims that last December she had her prescription filled at a Dallas Walgreens store, and was surprised to see that the pills had changed.
Amazon Offers Mail-In "Instant Rebate"
By 3.21.08
Two days ago, Shawn bought a video card from Amazon and was surprised when the advertised “Instant Rebate” 
wasn’t applied to his shopping cart. Turns out, it’s a mail-in rebate, sorry for the confusion. Unfortunately Amazon still hasn’t corrected the error as of the timestamp on this post, despite assuring him two days ago that they’d remove the icon. Remember to always click the “Rebate” link to see the actual details of the offer—it’s not listed on the main product page, and mistakes happen.
By 3.20.08
../../../..//2008/03/20/getting-the-wrong-kidney/
Getting the wrong kidney removed is bad enough, but what if you went in for leg surgery and had your anus operated on instead? [Fox News] (Thanks to Gregg!)
Doctors Remove Wrong Kidney
By 3.18.08
A surgical team at Park Nicollet Heath Services in Minnesota removed the healthy kidney from a patient last week, and left behind the possibly cancerous kidney.
California Hospital Takes Botched Operations Seriously
By 3.15.08
THE QUOTE: “Members of the clinical team involved in these cases have been deeply affected, and as a hospital we take this very seriously and regret that it happened,” [Dr. Raymond Casciari, St. Joseph’s chief medical officer] said.
Medical Records Sold As Scrap Paper
By 3.11.08
A fourth grade teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, bought a box of scrap paper for $20 and discovered it was actually a box of medical records of 28 patients from Central Florida Regional Hospital. The hospital shipped the box via UPS to an audit company in Las Vegas last December. The hospital claims it had been tracking the box since February, but hadn’t told the patients. As for the teacher’s class, her next assignment for the students will be, “Apply for credit card offers using SSNs from the scrap paper box.”
