We Consumerist editors kind of wish that companies would put us out of business. We wish that all consumers could resolve their problems with a few calm, reasonable phone calls or e-mails, and that getting anything done in a massive bureaucracy didn’t require hours of phone calls. We’re still here, though, and Steve’s story is a good example of why. [More]
public relations
PETA Sends Case Of Soy Milk To PR CEO Who Threatened To Fire Next Person Who Doesn't Replace The Milk
By 10.3.11
Today PETA sent a case of soy milk to Beckerman Public Relations CEO Keith Zakheim, who last week generated buzz for sending around an email that threatened to fire the next person in the office who finishes the milk in the staff refrigerator without replacing it. I don’t care what kind of milk people choose to drink, but tweaking aggro CEOs is funny. [More]
PR Firm CEO Threatens To Fire Next Person Who Doesn't Replace The Milk
By 9.30.11
In a company email that reads like a rejected new column for the Onion, the CEO of a PR company threatened this week to fire the next person who neglects to replace the empty milk carton in the refrigerator. [More]
100 Animals Die At Petco In Flood, Company Blames City
By 9.12.11
Nearly 100 animals died last week at a Johnson City, NY, Petco after flooding filled the store with several feet of water. Outrage over the incident was fanned when the company posted an apology notice on its blog that at first blamed the city for incident for not adequately warning the store about the flood risk. [More]
American Airlines Disputes Survey Saying It Had Crappiest Call Wait Times During Irene
By 9.1.11
American Airlines issued a statement disagreeing with a STELLAservice survey that placed its average customer service hold times in last place during Hurricane Irene. During the eight calls placed by the survey team, the average hold time they experienced was 1hr and 32 minutes, while American Airlines say their internal metrics showed an average hold time of 21 minutes. [More]
Abercrombie & Fitch Offers To Pay "The Situation" To Stop Wearing Its Clothes
By 8.17.11
Abercrombie & Fitch issued a press release last night saying that they would pay Michael ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino from The Jersey Shore to stop wearing its products. Is it stunt marketing or trying to preempt an anti-all-things-Jersey-Shore-related backlash? [More]
Samsung Investigates Report Of Keyloggers On Its Laptops
By 3.31.11
Samsung is investigating after an IT consultant reported in Network World that he had found installed in two different brand new Samsung R series laptops he bought a keylogging program that could be used by someone remotely to capture his every keystroke. In response, a Samsung spokesman said, “We take these claims very, very seriously.”
UPDATE: Threatpost reports that Samsung says there’s no keylogger, the results were a false positive when an antivirus program mistakenly identified Microsoft’s Live Application multi-language support folder, “SL” folder, as StarLogger.
Sheriff Says Tmobile Delayed Murder Investigation
By 6.24.10
The head of the Major Case Squad of St. Louis is calling out Tmobile for delaying a 20-person double-murder investigation by several days by demanding an unusual $50 fee for accessing victims’ phone records. [More]
United Breaks Guitars Song 3: The Grand Finale
By 3.3.10
The final leg of Dave Carrol’s anti-United Airlines musical trifecta is here. He’s not mad anymore. He’s got his big break and two new Taylor guitars. What about all the customers who write David every day with their own United horror stories? [More]
Mysterious JetBlue Creature Offers Free Tix To Passengers
By 2.1.10
If you wish hard enough on your next JetBlue trip, maybe the airline’s People Officer will magically appear and hand out free tickets. That’s what happened on David’s flight home over the weekend. To be fair, the free ticket giveaway probably happened because JetBlue asked everyone to show up two hours early due to a computer glitch. It’s still a much nicer airline story than what passengers usually send us. Also, this People Officer hinted to the OP about the airline’s future Wi-Fi plans. [More]
UPDATED: TD Bank's Statement On Resolving This Week's Meltdown
By 10.2.09
TD Bank sent us the following statement – UPDATE: and now a new, revised one – about all the transaction and fee snafus that happened this week after they became one with the Commerce Bank customer data:
Amazon Offers $30 Credits To Orwell Kindle Swindle Victims
By 9.4.09
A post on Amazon’s Kindle support forum yesterday says the company is sending out emails with offers of $30 to customers who had their George Orwell purchases erased from their devices earlier this summer.
Did Dave Carroll's Broken Guitar Videos Cost United $180 Million?
By 7.25.09
The Times of London claims that public relations fallout from Dave Carroll’s catchy videos panning United Airlines for breaking his beloved $3500 Taylor guitar and then denying his damage claim may have cost the airline’s shareholders up to $180 million.
Royal Caribbean Caught Infiltrating Review Sites With Viral Marketing Team
By 3.8.09
Meet the “Royal Caribbean Champions,” a group of fifty prolific posters to popular online communities that Royal Caribbean rewards with special access and free cruises in exchange for their frequent and positive commentary. The Champions were outed by their creators, the Customer Insight Group, which boasted on their company blog that the potent group is “regularly leveraged for ongoing marketing initiates. Members of the popular reviewing site Cruise Critic, one of the main targets of the program, are understandably pissed.
RyanAir Employee Calls Blogger "Idiot," And Their Spokesperson Publicly Agrees
By 2.25.09
So blogger Jason Roe finds what he thinks is an error on the RyanAir site that would let you buy airfare from the zero-frills a-la-carte Irish airline for free. An employee decided t make nasty comments in Jason’s comments section, calling him “idiot and a liar!” and saying that he probably can’t get a date. Which was not that surprising. Nor was it surprising that a RyanAir PR rep responded to the situation. What was surprising was that the PR rep sided with the commenter and heaped further abuse on the blogger!
Muzak Not Planning On Dying Anytime Soon
By 2.16.09
A Muzak PR rep would like you to know that their filing for Chapter 11 status is just so they can reorganize their debts and that they and their creditors expect Muzak to be in business for years to come (yay?). Also that they mainly sell music by original artists to retail stores (read: cleaned up for mass market appeal but tailored specifically to the stores’ demo), as opposed to the elevator music their company name became synonymous with. For a more in-depth look, The New Yorker did an interesting feature on them back in 2006, in which we learn the company HQ has a fantastic sound system that goes to even their parking lot, but, “for deeply felt symbolic reasons,” not their elevator.
Amazon Lets You Do The PR For Them
By 11.26.08
Amazon.com is doing holiday PR a little differently this year. They’ve announced something called the “Holiday Customer Review Team,” which is comprised of “six of its top reviewers.”
Verizon's Policy Blog V. SmarterChild
By 10.11.08
Verizon’s so-called “policy blog” is a grotesquely self-serving marketing orifice, perhaps the worst corporate blog we’ve ever read. We decided to stack Verizon’s inane sales schmaltz against the internet’s preeminent bullshit-spewing chatbot, SmarterChild….
