Delta has got some explaining to do. Not only did the airline hand over a 7-year-old unaccompanied traveler to the wrong person when she arrived at her destination, but that wrong person happened to be the mother who recently got out of jail for kidnapping and beating the girl back in 2008. [More]
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KFC Apologizes For Workers Who Said Scarred Girl Was Scaring Customers
By 6.16.14
Wow, this weekend was full of big companies apologizing to traumatized girls. First came the JetBlue incident with the youngster barred from using the bathroom, now comes a “Sorry about that” from KFC, which is having to do damage control after the family of a little girl in Mississippi claimed they were told to leave the restaurant because their daughter’s facial scars were scaring other customers. [More]
Target Says Glitch That Caused Sunday’s Long Lines Was Not Result Of Hack
By 6.16.14
If you shopped at Target yesterday evening, there’s a chance your wait in the checkout line was longer than usual after a vague “glitch” caused long delays at a number of stores around the country. The retailer is now proactively trying to calm concerns by saying that the hiccup was not related to any sort of data breach. [More]
GM Is Super Sorry It Sent Recall Notices To Families Of Crash Victims
By 6.4.14
By this point, most owners of recalled General Motors vehicles don’t need a notice from the car maker to know their ignition switches need work. One group of people who definitely don’t need reminding of this fact are the families of those who died in crashes tied to the ignition defect. [More]
New Jersey Mistakenly Tells 2,000 People They Underpaid On Taxes, Doesn’t Tell Them About Error
By 5.17.14
It’s one thing for a state with nearly 4 million people filing tax returns to screw up on a couple of thousand of those filings. It’s another when the state realizes it screwed up but doesn’t make any effort to let people know of the error. [More]
Travel Agency Spells Couple’s Last Name Wrong On Plane Tickets––Twice
By 5.14.14
International air travel and typos don’t mix. A California couple booked the tickets for their vacation in Cancun over the phone. If they had made the reservations online, at least they would have been the ones to blame for their last name being spelled incorrectly. The agency assured them that two transposed letters in their last name would be no problem. Aeromexico, the airline they’ll be flying, disagrees. [More]
Seattle Apologizes For Labeling Stuck-In-Traffic Drivers As “Scumbags”
By 5.6.14
When government organizations try to be funny on social media, it usually falls flat. And when that attempt at humor is directed at people who are likely in a humorless mood — like, say… people stuck in a traffic jam — it will probably end in an apology. [More]
GM CEO & NHTSA Director Admit Maybe They Messed Up This Ignition Recall
By 4.1.14
This afternoon, two people who inherited the crud-storm that is GM’s ongoing, massive ignition-related recall sat before lawmakers in Congress and tried to both defend their respective organizations while admitting that mistakes were made, resulting in at least 13 deaths. [More]
Senate Report: Target Missed Multiple Warning Signs Leading Up To Data Breach
By 3.26.14
A new Senate staff report from the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released last night charges Target with missing multiple warning signs before hackers stole the personal information of up to 110 million customers late last year. [More]
Carnival Sends Out E-Mail With Boarding Advice For Cruise You Didn’t Book
By 2.24.14
It’s nice to get helpful advice from a cruise operator in advance of departure. But it can be alarming when that advice is for a cruise that you know nothing about and a ship you never booked travel on. [More]
Dear Five Guys: Don’t Copy Customer On E-mail Where You Call Him A “Douche”
By 2.19.14
Have you ever penned a harshly worded e-mail about someone and then panicked for a moment when after you hit “send” out of fear that you may have copied the target of your vitriol on the message? 99.9% of the time, you did not… but when it does happen — and when you represent a major fast food chain — the results make for good Internet. [More]
Bank Of America Addresses Junk Mail To “Lisa Is A Slut”
By 2.7.14
Only a couple weeks after OfficeMax sent out some junk mail addressed to “Daughter Killed in Car Crash,” a California woman says a mailing from Bank of America showed up at her mother’s home with her name printed as “Lisa Is A Slut” McIntire. [More]
Verizon Wireless To Honor Unintentional Upgrades For Unlimited Data Customers
By 10.1.13
There are still some Verizon Wireless customers holding on to the unlimited data plans the company killed off in 2012. Over the weekend, VZW accidentally allowed some of these customers to upgrade to new phones without requiring that they switch to a new, shared data plan. In a move that makes the company look slightly less evil, it has decided to honor these upgrades without forcing the subscribers to change plans. [More]
Bank Cleans Out, Forecloses On Wrong House
By 8.28.13
The crew got their orders from the bank: a house was getting repossessed, and it was their job to clean it out. They did. What they didn’t know was that they had the wrong house. The real target was a home on a street with the same name in a different town. Who screwed up? The repo crew? The bank? The person who named the streets? [More]
Same Crew Demolished Wrong House Two Days In A Row
By 8.23.13
Everyone makes some mistakes at work sometimes. Usually, though, someone else catches the error before something catastrophic happens. That wasn’t the case in Fort Worth, Texas, where the crews hired to demolish condemned buildings knocked down the wrong one. Worse: they did it again the following day. [More]
Emeritus Assisted Living Asks Employees To Do Damage Control After Frontline Exposé, Accidentally CCs Reporters
By 7.31.13 — Updated: 8.1.13
One day after Emeritus Senior Living, the nation’s largest for-profit assisted living chain, was the subject of a Frontline/ProPublica exposé, the company reached out to its employees, asking them to do damage control. Emeritus also made a classic mistake straight out of the Worst Company In America handbook when it accidentally copied ProPublica on the staff-only e-mail. [More]
Punked TV Station Fires Producers Over Bogus Asiana Pilot Names
By 7.25.13
Nearly two weeks after Oakland TV station KTVU became the laughing stock of the season for airing an “exclusive” list of obviously bogus Asiana airline pilot names, three producers at the station have been given the axe. [More]
Here’s Why You Should Always Read The Rules Before Cashing In A Guarantee
By 7.11.13
Guarantees can be tricky things. If you want to take advantage of a company’s low price guarantee, no matter how widely advertised it is, it’s a good idea to take a minute to read the terms and conditions of that guarantee before taking advantage of it. Even if it’s advertised on TV. Even if you think you know how the guarantee works. Just ask Marc. [More]
