If you liked Harold And The Purple Crayon, boy are you going to love the new $5 bill. Lincoln’s last stand after the penny will inherit the same counterfeiting countermeasures found on more valuable bills, and will come bruised with a large purple five “to help those with visual impairments distinguish the denomination.’ That’s right, never again will you confuse a $5 bill for a $50 bill.
polls
What Are The Most Important Factors Of Good And Bad Customer Service?
By 3.14.08
We spill a lot of pixels on The Consumerist about good and bad telephone customer service reps (ok, mainly bad), but what really is the nitty gritty of each experience? How do we dissect the exact aspects of what make for a good and for a bad customer service call? To that end, we’ve devised two polls that hope to get to the heart of this issue (with thanks to Peter Leppik at Vocal Labs for letting us borrow the methodology from their own survey about the same). Vent your heart and spleen, in our two polls, after the jump…
Round 3: Ticketmaster vs Wachovia
By 3.14.08
This is round 3 in our Worst Company In America contest, Ticketmaster vs. Wachovia. Their crimes?
Round 2: Facebook vs The American Arbitration Association
By 3.13.08
This is round 2 in our Worst Company In America contest, Facebook vs The American Arbitration Association. Their major crimes: The American Arbitration Association is the main supplier of kangaroo courts to companies who want to deprive consumers of most of their rights in the event of a legal dispute. Most contracts you sign with companies these days contain a mandatory arbitration clause. Facebook is a social networking site for yupsters that for a while was spying on all your purchases and selling the data to big big advertisers so they could sell you more ads. Which is the greater threat to our way of life? Choose!
Announcing The Worst Company In America 2008 Contestants
By 3.11.08
Your votes are in and we have seeded the initial brackets for Worst Company In America 2008. It’s bigger, the companies are badder, and the bloodshed and gore is going to better than ever before. Inside, see the full bracket breakdown. Tomorrow, the first battle begins, Comcast vs Menu Foods!
The Treasury Secretary Hates The Penny. Do You?
By 3.1.08
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson hates the penny because it is a worthless dingleberry of a coin. In an interview sure to have kids thinking they know enough to run the Mint, Paulson simplistically noted: “The penny is worth less than any other currency.” Don’t sing the penny’s swan song just yet.
…he quickly added that he didn’t think it was “politically doable” to eliminate the one-cent coin and it wasn’t something he planned to tackle in the final year of the Bush administration.
Great, add the penny to the slate of issues over which the parties disagree. Put it right next to war spending and social security.
Worst Company In America 2008: Preliminaries: Frontrunners
By 2.27.08
Early leaders in Worst Company in America 2008 preliminary voting round: Comcast 21%, Best Buy 8%, Bank of America 5%, Fox News 5%, Walmart 5%, Countrywide 4%, Verizon 3%, AT&T 3%. Somewhere in our heart is a flicker of hope that dark horse Video Professor will pull into the running (currently with 0% of the vote). Voting for who gets to be seeded in the tournament brackets is still open, cast yours today.
Worst Company In America 2008: Preliminaries (2nd Try)
By 2.27.08
The poll machine is fixed and it’s time to vote on which companies will get to compete in Consumerist’s Third Annual Worst Company In America contest. This year, you nominated 121 different companies, a new record. The poll is inside (it may take a few seconds to load). You get one vote. The companies receiving the most votes will get seeded in a tournament-style bracket. Then the clash of the customer service midgets begins! Remember that as this contest goes on you can visit consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america to keep track of all the proceedings.
Worst Company In America 2008: Preliminaries
By 2.26.08
It’s time to vote on which companies will get to compete in Consumerist’s Third Annual Worst Company In America contest. This year, you nominated 121 different companies, a new record. The poll is inside. You get one vote. The companies receiving the most votes will get seeded in our March Madness-style brackets. Then the clash of the customer service midgets commences! Note: because there’s 121 companies, the poll may take some time to load.
Worst Company In America '08: Nominate
By 2.14.08
It’s time for Consumerist’s 3rd Annual Worst Company in America Contest! Last year, RIAA won. Before that, Halliburton took the prize. Who will climb to the top of the nadir this year?
Would You Scan Checks At Home For Deposit?
By 2.9.08
Banks have hesitated to adopt technology that would let us scan paper checks at home for deposit. The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act allows banks to exchange electronic images instead of paper checks, but USAA, a credit union associated with the military, is currently the only bank to offer customers a check scanning option. Sure, it’s easy enough to stand on line for a teller or wait for an ATM, but we fear sunshine and people and prefer to stay indoors, thank you. Assuming it was free, is this something you would use if it was offered by your bank? Vote in our poll, after the jump.
Poll Results: How Will You Spend Your Tax Rebates?
By 1.28.08
Last Thursday we polled our readers for what they plan on doing with their money when they get their tax rebate checks. The result is that Consumerist readers mainly plan on using their money in precisely the opposite way that the politicians want them to, paying off debt (46.3%) and saving it in the bank (30%). All the other options combined, which would have a supposedly more directly stimulating effect on the economy, add up to only 23.8%. Food came in at 1.5%, depreciating assets 8.2%, discretionary spending 4.5% and stimulating the critical beer and cigarette industries 9.6%. It seems our readers are more concerned about their personal finances than the national economy. Good. Maybe if more people were like them we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
How Will You Spend Your Tax Rebates?
By 1.24.08
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"Will I Ever Get My Office Depot Refund?"
By 1.21.08
Reader Marshall writes in to ask if we think he’s going to get his Office Depot (technically, Ativa) refund by the end of the month. Currently, the company’s excuse for not sending him his money is that they’re “out of gift cards.”
44% Normally Disbelieve Any And All Company Statements
By 1.17.08
A recent survey found that 44% of Americans don’t trust a damn thing that comes out of the mouths of companies. The poll asked, “Which of these industries do you think are generally honest and trustworthy – so that you normally believe a statement by a company in that industry?” and then posed a variety of industries, from supermarkets, airlines, to tobacco companies. Since the poll began in 2003, the amount of people answering, “none of these,” increased 7 percentage points. Either companies are getting more deceitful, or somehow, Americans are getting smarter. When queried about the poll, Big Business, Inc. told The Consumerist, “We’re aware of the results, and we’re taking them very seriously.”
AOL Moviefone Aks Everyone To Choose Hottest MILF
By 12.26.07
Question #17 of Moviefone’s year-end poll asks, “Who was the hottest movie star MILF?” At first glance, we were a little surprised to see an all-ages website asking whose mom you’d like to engage in sex with. On the other hand, maybe Moviefone is intentionally an adults-only site—the copy on the front page says, “Vote on your favorite movies, celebrities and nude scene,” and we don’t imagine too many of the “Enchanted” demo is going to have much of an opinion on that last category.
TSA Declares Victory, Achieves Same Vaunted Status As IRS
By 12.23.07
The IRS is celebrating the results of an AP poll that ranks the TSA as the most hated arm of the federal government. More than anything, Americans apparently hate being inconvenienced by seemingly pointless and arbitrary security checks.
The AP poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, found that the more people travel, the less they like TSA.
