This story combines two immutable laws of nature in a surprising twist: that executives don’t always know what their front-line employees are doing, and that airline employees don’t give a f*ck who you are and will call the police if you annoy them.
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Behold Dell's "Buy One Wireless Card, Get 120 Free" Promotion
By 9.27.09
Dell accidentally skipped Andy in Canada’s wireless card upgrade while putting together the laptop he ordered. He called them and they sent the card along at no cost to him. Great service! The service was so great, in fact, that instead of just one wireless card, Dell went right ahead and shipped Andy a case of 120 of them.
Bank Sends Sensitive Customer Info To Some Random Gmail User
By 9.24.09
Here’s the problem with Gmail: so many people use it that a mistyped e-mail address probably will not result in a bounced message. It will result in your message going to the wrong person, since nearly every derivation of a name is probably a working address.
Lenovo Forgets To Charge Customers, Then Sends Them To Collection Agency
By 8.21.09
Bart wrote to us about a strange experience he had after purchasing a new Thinkpad from Lenovo. He had a perfectly smooth transaction, until months later when he received a letter from a collection agency. The agency was demanding payment for the laptop he had already paid for. Or so he thought.
Quick, Grab This $10 HDTV Before It's— Oh Never Mind
By 8.12.09
It looks like Best Buy‘s servers decided to call in sick this morning—Casey writes, “This was on their site this morning for about 45 minutes before they corrected the ad.” We have a feeling Best Buy isn’t going to pull a neat “just keep it, our bad” maneuver like ThinkGeek, however.
Sears Won't Deliver Air Conditioner Until Customer Pays Fee Sears Forgot To Charge
By 7.24.09
Eric wrote to us this week with a tale of such epic dysfunction while trying to purchase air conditioners from Sears that there’s not much we can add to it. Inside: Imaginary deliveries, super-secret New York City surcharges, and the hazards of daring to order anything over the phone.
Shop Owner Caught Driving Customer's Jaguar Home
By 7.10.09
Darryl Taylor received a traffic ticket in the mail for running a toll booth in his 2000 Jaguar S-series. The only problem was, the Jaguar was at a repair shop on the day of the violation.
DC Area Mall Pulls Ads That Turn Vietnam Memorial Into Store Directory
By 6.10.09
Tysons Corner, an upscale mall in the Washington, D.C. area, just pulled down over 400 ads that were recently posted in the city’s metro system because they looked an awful lot like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, except instead of names of soldiers they had names of famous retail stores. We’re sure they would have gone with soldier names if any of the soldiers offered great deals on today’s hottest fashions. This is really on you, America’s Finest.
FiOS Installer Drills Through Wife's Wedding Dress
By 4.17.09
A Verizon FiOS installer showed up yesterday to install the service in Sam’s house, but misjudged the location of the laundry room by 4 feet and drilled directly into the closet where his wife kept her wedding dress.
Everything At This Supermarket Tastes Just Like Chocolate!
By 3.25.09
Justin sent us this photo of his neighborhood Associated Supermarket in NYC, where a printing error on the latest sales posters didn’t stand in the way of putting them up. We guess it was cheaper to just run around throwing handfuls of cocoa powder on everything than to reprint them.
US Airways Delivers Corpse To Pet Store
By 3.11.09
If you’re a pet store employee, probably the only thing worse than opening up a shipment of live tropical fish to find them dead is opening up a shipment of live tropical fish to find a human body intended for a research facility in a neighboring town. That’s what happened at a Pets Plus in Philadelphia yesterday, and US Airways says the mixup was caused by a “verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative” and that they’re deeply sorry.
Customer Apologizes For Guitar Center Screw-Up
By 2.19.09
Mitch wrote to us last week to complain that he was sent a used guitar instead of the new one he ordered. Musician’s Friend and/or Guitar Center (they’re related) followed up with Mitch and corrected the mistake, but it turns out that Mitch was in the wrong on this one. Here’s his explanation for what happened.
Time Warner Cable's 1 Cent Movie Weekend Just Annoys Customers Even More
By 2.15.09
Update: TWC says sorry, offers coupons to affected customers.
United Sets Woman's Luggage On Fire
By 2.11.09
United may be trying out a new revenue idea: the don’t-set-my-bags-ablaze fee. Shannon Tadel’s luggage was incinerated as she boarded a plane in Syracuse, NY on December 1st, 2008. The cool thing about this sort of story is she got to see the inside of a cockpit! The not so cool part is what happened next:
Papa John's Founder Says Don't Eat Too Much Of His Pizza
By 2.6.09
Marketing and PR folks probably dread stories like this one: John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s, said on a BBC radio interview yesterday that you shouldn’t eat too much of their pizza.
Don't Draw Genitalia As Your Signature When Paying Via Credit Card
By 2.3.09
After accidentally scribbling nonsense on a verification screen and seeing that it didn’t trigger any alerts, Kingpin at DrunkRepublic decided to start goofing around with his signature when using his credit card. It led to some fun times for a while. Then it backfired. (Warning: the image after the jump is cartoonishly NSWF in a Comcast-at-the-Superbowl sort of way.)
1800mattress.com Will Give You Free Pillows, But That Doesn't Mean It Has To Like You
By 1.27.09
We love it when what’s supposed to be internal communication leaks out to the customer—it gives you such clear insight as to how a company really feels about you. In the case of 1800mattress.com, calling to complain about a missed delivery date makes you “difficult.” But hey, they’ll still send you some free pillows.
