Taking out an expensive loan is often the only option when it comes to financing a new home. And while most prospective home buyers might expect their mortgage lender to find them the best deal, that isn’t always the case. Take for example a California-based mortgage lender being ordered to provide $730,000 in consumer redress for an illegal compensation system that offered bonuses to employees for steering borrowers into higher interest loans. [More]
refunds
CFPB: Mortgage Lender Must Refund Consumers $730,000 for Steering Them Into Costlier Mortgages
By 11.14.14
Company Touting Work-From-Home Opportunities Must Pay $25M To Consumers Who Made No Money
By 10.22.14
Here are a few clues that the employment “opportunity” you received in that email is a scam: 1) you’re required to pay your new employer hundreds of dollars for a starter kit or computer program; 2) once that program was purchased you’re encouraged to buy more programs for thousands of dollars; and 3) your new employer promises that you’ll be able to make thousands of dollars in a short period of time without ever leaving your couch. That’s about how it worked for a company the Federal Trade Commission recently ordered to repay consumers $25 million. [More]
Does Walmart’s “Savings Catcher” Actually Work?
By 9.26.14
Walmart recently began touting its “Savings Catcher” program, which allows shoppers to scan in their receipts and have Walmart determine if the customer could have paid less elsewhere. If so, the difference goes on a gift card (that can only be used at Walmart, of course). But should you trust putting your price-matching in Walmart’s hands? [More]
Dealership Gives Disgruntled Customer $100 Refund… In Loose Change
By 7.24.14
Usually when a consumer receives a refund from a company they get a check in the mail, or store credit, or a gift card. But for one Florida college student who got into a dispute with a car dealership, that refund came in the form of two bags full of scrounged-together change. [More]
Company To Refund Consumers $3.5M Because Cactus Juice Isn’t “Inflammation Relief Without A Prescription”
By 7.15.14
Advertisements featuring carefree, beautiful smiling people sipping on juice might not be enough to entice someone to buy a product, but plastering claims that the drink is a cure-all for pain could probably do the trick. But when those promises aren’t supported by, you know, actual science, then it’s called deceptive and federal regulators won’t stand for that. [More]
Man Stuck In Dell Hell Since 2010 Waiting For Late Girlfriend’s $14 Refund Check
By 5.13.14
On the one hand, a check for $14.73 doesn’t seem like that much to get worked up about. But for one man who lost his girlfriend to cancer in 2010, part of his role as her trustee is to recoup any debts owed to her estate. And that includes a refund check from Dell that the company took a heck of a long time to send. [More]
FTC: Deceptive Debt Collectors Must Pay $3.3 Million In Consumer Refunds
By 4.3.14
We here at Consumerist are always a little happy when deceptive debt collection businesses get what’s coming to ’em from the Federal Trade Commission. But those feelings grow exponentially when we find out said company will be forking over millions of dollars to refund abused consumers. [More]
Why You Should Ask For A Refund If The Wi-Fi Doesn’t Work On Your Next United Flight
By 3.12.14
You’re sitting pretty, surfing away on the World Wide Web at 35,000 feet when the wireless Internet on your United flight stops working. And a few minutes later, it’s still not working. But even if the service for the entire plane is out for a while, United crew members won’t make a plane-wide announcement about it, so you’re on your own to ask for a refund. [More]
That Guy On The Phone Offering A Tech Support Refund Is Probably A Scammer
By 1.3.14
We’ve written before about scam artists taking advantage of consumers’ unease with technology to trick them into handing over sensitive personal info, and now there are scammers hoping to prey upon consumers’ general dissatisfaction with customer service and tech support (and their general love of refunds). [More]
7 Examples Why You Should Always Check Inside That iPad Box Before You Leave Walmart
By 12.17.13
As most regular readers of the site know, iPad boxes seem to be the perfect fit for scammers who buy the device, take it home, remove it from the box, seal it back up and return it for a refund… only to saddle some unsuspecting future customer with a box full of useless crud later. [More]
What Should I Do If No One Accepts My Chobani Recall Coupons?
By 12.12.13
Remember the Chobani yogurt recall this past fall, when fungal contamination led to sour-tasting, occasionally-exploding yogurts distributed nationwide? Chobani made it up to their customers by sending coupons so they could replace their contaminated products. The problem with that is that some grocers won’t accept these coupons. [More]
Don’t Like Your Cruise? Carnival WIll Pay You To Go Home
By 9.13.13
The 2012 Costa Concordia disaster and the infamous Poop Cruise of the Triumph in February of this year did a lot to hurt the reputation of the cruise industry worldwide. So Carnival has a novel idea: try a cruise, and if you don’t like it within the first day, they’ll pay you to go away. [More]
Sears Settles With New York Over Deceptive Refunds
By 9.12.13
For more than two years, Sears offered “Come Back Cash” promotions that rewarded customers with Sears gift cards for purchases over certain qualifying thresholds. But if a customer returned an item, they would have the proportionate value of that gift card deducted from the refund, even if the total value of the purchase was still above the threshold for meriting a gift card. [More]
Chase: Refunding A Scam Victim Is The Same As Forgiving A Debt
By 9.9.13
When you successfully convince your credit card company that you were scammed out of thousands of dollars and that a chargeback should be issued, you’d think that would be the end of the story, but not for one Chase credit card customer who just found out — two years after receiving the money back — that Chase now says the refund is actually a forgiven debt, and that he must pay income taxes on it. [More]
Apple And TurboTax Pass The Buck, Can’t Decide Who Owes Me Refund
By 6.13.13
$65 is a lot of money to Jaden, but he was happy to pay it to file his tax return when of TurboTax for the iPad told him that he was getting a pretty sweet refund. He wasn’t: the app gave bad info and he wasn’t eligible for any refunds due to being on Social Security, which isn’t taxed. Well, boo. That’s where the real challenge comes in: getting the refund from Apple. Or Intuit. Or Apple. Or is it Intuit? [More]
After 6 Months Of Battle With Microsoft, Consumerist Post Gets Refund In 5 Hours
By 5.30.13
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]
Amazon Notices Our Streaming Video Was Glitchy, Proactively Issues Refund
By 5.2.13
We’ve always said that one of the true measures of quality customer service is how a company reacts to complaints. So it’s always good to hear about a company that doesn’t just respond well to a complaint, but preempts that complaint by proactively issuing a refund. [More]
Need To Change The Sears Order You Placed 15 Minutes Ago? Tough
By 3.5.13 — Updated: 3.6.13
Do you think there’s even a remote chance that you might need to change your Sears order after the fact? Then you should go to a physical store and place your order there. Heather was told that she needed to perform that bit of time travel if she wants to cancel her mattress order before two weeks have passed. She noticed a problem fifteen minutes after the order went through, but because the order had been placed, she can’t do a darn thing until after the proposed delivery date, March 15th. [More]
