After a woman’s story about a Starbucks worker she allegedly saw getting forced to hand in his keys while being told by a shift supervisor his co-workers didn’t want to hear about him being gay anymore went viral, the coffee giant has pledged to investigate. [More]
readers
If You Get This Green Postcard, Don't Call The Number
By 6.14.11
Reader Michael reports he got a funny little green postcard in the mail telling him he had a package waiting for him. It said that he should call this toll-free number to schedule a pickup. Suspicious, he Googled around and it turns out that if you call the number they try to pitch you on vacation rentals. The “package” is simply a packet of brochures pimping their services [More]
The "Don't Join A Union" Video Target Makes New Employees Watch
By 6.14.11
Behind Target’s “we’re hip and different” veneer lurks a company that intensely discourages its workers from joining a union. Gawker has posted a copy of an anti-union industrial video Target shows its new employees called, “Think Hard Before You Sign.” It’s kinda creepy. Here’s a transcript of the video. Some highlights: [More]
HasSonyBeenHackedThisWeek.com Does What It Says
By 6.14.11
With hit after hit coming on a regular basis it can be hard to keep track of whether Sony has been hacked this week or not, and it’s easy to tune out. Thankfully, a simple new service has stepped in to make it a lot easier to find out if Sony has been hacked recently. It’s called HasSonyBeenHackedThisWeek.com. [More]
Sprint Tries To Convince You Your Phone Sucks, Not Their Tower
By 6.14.11
Cal is at his wit’s end. After the third service outage in the past three months and going through the laundry list of troubleshooting procedures, an upper-level Sprint tech assured him there was no problem with the towers near his house. It was his phones. But when he drives just a few miles away, the signal is perfect. Then when he returns to within 250 meters of the towers near his house, his phone goes into roaming. He’s sick of the runaround and just wants Sprint to fix the towers. Here is the letter Cal wrote Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and several other top Sprint execs: [More]
Buying Laptop At Best Buy Ends In Misery And Failure For All
By 6.13.11
All Rob wanted to do was buy a laptop at his local Best Buy for the price shown on the website. As we know, sometimes this can be a bit of a problem. What followed was a comedy of errors as the guys in the khaki pants try to foist off on him a display model laptop that doesn’t even have the right battery. When Rob gives up and orders one directly from Best Buy with in-store pickup, it turns out to be defective. The experience of then trying to get a straightforward refund is then equally defective. Go big blue! [More]
Burning Bananas Leave Diner Covered In Flames
By 6.13.11
A family was helicoptered to the hospital with severe burns after a tropical dessert ended in tragedy. The waiter poured the 151 proof rum over the plate of bananas Foster, a treat consisting of bananas sauteed in butter and soaked in alcohol and often served over ice cream, and then lit it. The liquid fire then spilled onto several members of the family, leaving one woman’s body covered in flames as her dress caught fire. [More]
Man Gets Freezer Burned On Defective Maytag Fridge
By 6.9.11
Frank has had to use up five days of timeoff because of his leaky new Maytag fridge that they just can’t seem to ever repair correctly. Like when he told them to bring out the UV light since the last tech had installed a dye so you could find leaks. The rep said oh yeah, we’ll make a note of that. Then the guy shows up with only a mulitimeter and says, hm, we’re going to have to send another guy out here with more tools. No kidding! [More]
Get Cash In LA Fitness Class Action Settlement
By 6.9.11
Gyms are notorious for not letting people get out of their membership contract and making it difficult to cancel. Now a settlement has been proposed in the class action lawsuit against LA Fitness for making customers pay a fee to end their contracts before the contract term was up. [More]
TCF Bank Won't Close $.05 Account, Prefers To Charge $149 In Fees
By 6.7.11
Reader DFCL says that he asked TCF Bank to close his account back in April as it only had a $.05 balance. Now it’s June, his account is still open, and he’s in collections for $149 in fees. Some very exciting things happened between those two points, including him offering to donate $500 to charity if they waived his fees. They declined his offer. [More]
Aldo Sends Free Pair Of Shoes After Dog Eats One
By 6.6.11
Reader Dan was hoping Aldo would sell him just one shoe after his roommate’s dog ate one, but they ended up sending him a whole new pair for free. Regular customer service told Dan that they don’t sell shoes in singles but after sending his note to the folks at the top of Aldo, his story starting making the rounds internally and they shined down on him with rays of benevolence. [More]
Extreme Savers Stealing Coupons From Newspapers
By 6.6.11
For some people, coupons are those annoying things in newspapers you toss out on your way to the funny pages. For others, they’re like crack. There’s been a big uptick in Boise of people stealing the coupons from newspapers they haven’t paid for. People buy just pay for one paper from the newspaper box, then reach in and grab the coupons from the rest. The local newspaper has even gotten complaints about coupons being taken from newspapers in front of houses. [More]
Why I Will Never Ship With UPS Again
By 6.3.11
Reader Tyler shares the list of reasons he will never use UPS again on purpose. A shot-putted package, $1,000 of computer parts left outside the wrong house with no signature, customer service shenanigans and finally, a smooshed box. That’s it! He’s had it! Brown is no longer welcome in Tyler Town. [More]
I Solved Citibank ATM Pen Shortage With Duct Tape, TD Bank Pens
By 6.3.11
Reader Greg was sick of there never being any pens at the Citibank ATM at 8th ave and 16th st in NYC. They had those metal pens attached to wire like they always do, but people had stolen the pen innards and they were never replaced. (Probably because the bank got sick of replacing them.) So Greg came up with his own solution. He grabbed some free pens that are always in abundance at TD Bank and duct taped them to the empty Citibank pen barrels. [More]
Court Threatens BofA Bank Manager With Jail Over Foreclosure
By 6.3.11
A Bank of America bank manager could end up in jail if the bank doesn’t demolish a fire-damaged eyesore, a Georgia court has warned. [More]
Man Uses Consumerist Tips To Gets Xbox Repaired For Free
By 6.2.11
Reader Ben was sad. His Xbox was doing the ol’ Red Ring of Death. He thought that was quits for his trusted gaming companion but then he started doing some research on Consumerist. Perusing our archives, he realized from some of our old posts that included in the price of the repair to the machine he had done not too long ago was a one-year warranty extension. Huzzah! Here’s what he did next: [More]
Boy Wishes He Hadn't Sold His Kidney For An iPad 2
By 6.2.11
A 17-year-old boy in Shanghai is experiencing extreme buyer’s remorse after his health has begun to falter after selling his kidney to buy an iPad 2, reports the Global Times. [More]
FioS Install Rips Up Your Azaleas, Cuts All Your Lines, And Disappears
By 6.2.11
Well at least they didn’t start a fire. That seems to be the only thing Verizon FiOS didn’t mess up with they did an install for reader janvir. They destroyed our reader’s new flowerbeds, mucked up the mulch, and cut several lines going into their house. Phone, alarm, TV, and internet were all cut. Despite promises to fix it, FiOS was a no-show. Oddly enough, Comcast actually had better customer service than FiOS, coming out and promptly fixing the lines FioS had cut. Here’s Janvir’s complaint letter: [More]
