There’s a reason why companies that handle sensitive billing information may ask customers to verify their email addresses before sending any communications. It’s to prevent customers from seeing things they shouldn’t. So why doesn’t AT&T have such a safeguard in place for its customers? [More]
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Why Doesn’t AT&T Require Email Verification Before Sending Sensitive Account Information?
By 3.24.16
Someone Sent $270K Worth Of Pot To The Wrong Clothing Store
By 11.19.14
I’ve never mailed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marijuana to anyone, but if I were going to do it, I’d at least make sure that it was properly addressed. But that’s apparently not the case for whomever sent 90 pounds of pot to one Philly-area clothing store over the course of two days. [More]
Homeowner Loses Condo Because City Messed Up Address On $95 Tax Bill
By 10.21.14
For the last few years, a woman in Georgia has been living in her condo and paying her local tax bills — except for one $94.85 city tax bill she never received because the address on the notices was incorrect. But that error didn’t stop the city from auctioning off her home. [More]
Thousands Of People Posting Makeup-Free Selfies Are Donating To The Wrong Charity
By 3.26.14
You might’ve seen British pals on social media posting selifes of themselves wearing no makeup with the hashtag #nomakeupselfie, as part of an effort to donate funds to Cancer Research UK. But a new report says many of those good intentions are going to UNICEF instead — or to polar bear adoptions — due to a texting mixup. [More]
Google Is Sorry If Your Mom Accidentally Got A Talk Message Intended For Your New Crush
By 9.26.13
Perhaps you sent a sassy little message to your work crush this morning on Google Talk, the chat application Gmail users employ on iPhones and Android devices. But then your mom is all, “Honey, what’s this about ‘tackling me, gently of course’ the next time you see me?” Google Talk users were up in arms on the Internet this morning, claiming that their chat messages were going to the wrong recipients. [More]
Do Cable Companies Deliberately Make It Hard To Return Set-Top Boxes?
By 7.8.13
One of the most frequent complaints we receive from readers is cable companies making it difficult to return equipment (or claiming equipment was never returned in the first place). Most people chalk this up to the cable industry’s ingrained ineptitude, but what if it’s a deliberate attempt to make customers weary of returning their equipment — and thus staying with their current provider? [More]
Post Office's Plan To Save Itself Involves Cutting Jobs, Ending Saturday Delivery & Raising Stamp Prices
By 2.17.12
The U.S. Postal Service is in danger of losing billions of dollars in the next few years, so in an attempt to check that money leakage, they’ve proposed some drastic measures, including cutting more than 150,000 jobs. [More]
Rescue Messages From Facebook's De Facto Spam Filter
By 12.15.11
When Facebook thinks you don’t particularly want to read a message that’s sent your way, it redirects it into a folder dubbed “other.” Some users forget to check the box regularly, and others may not even be aware that they have it. [More]
IRS Is Stuck With $153.3 Million It Wants To Give Away
By 12.12.11
The Internal Revenue Service has $153.3 million in tax refunds burning a hole in its pocket, but can’t find any takers. The agency says mailing address errors have rendered 99,123 refund checks undeliverable. [More]
Postal Service May Default Without Congressional Intervention
By 9.5.11
Predictions of coming doom have been coming from the United States Post Office for months, with the service expected to suffer a $9.2 billion deficit this fiscal year and unable to make a $5.5 billion payment to cover employee health coverage due at the end of the month. Now the postmaster general has raised the stakes of the organization’s financial crisis by declaring that it will default if Congress doesn’t intervene. [More]
Postal Service May Lay Off 120,000
By 8.12.11
The U.S. Postal Service continues to deliver awful news, proposing job cuts of as many as 120,000 workers in an attempt to temper costs in the wake of massive financial losses. Projecting to lose more than $8 billion for the second straight year, the USPS also wants to set up its own health plan, pulling employees out of the federal system. [More]
Report: 30 To 40 Percent Of Some Android Device Purchases Are Returned
By 7.27.11
Android phone sales surpass those of iPhones, but to compare the popularity of the two classes of smartphones you have to take returns into account. According to a report, customers return Android devices at a far higher rate than they do their Apple rivals. [More]
I Don't Want Some Justin Bieber Fan's Redbox Receipts
By 6.30.11
Andrew has a common problem: he keeps getting someone else’s mail. Not in his paper mailbox, but someone else’s e-mail. A Justin Bieber fan in a different state entered his e-mail address when renting a DVD, and Andrew received the receipt. When he contacted Redbox to straighten out the mixup, their unhelpful solution was to block all e-mail receipts from Redbox. Yep, including his own. [More]
USPS: We'll Be Out Of Money By October
By 3.3.11
USPS is in crisis mode, stuck in an unsustainable business model that threatens to run the service into the ground by the end of the fiscal year in October. [More]
USPS Shutting Down 2,000 Locations
By 1.25.11
A year from now, you may be driving a little bit farther and waiting in longer lines to do your mail-related business. The USPS set a goal to shut down 2,000 branches and stations in 2011. No post offices are on the chopping block, but the new cuts are in addition to nearly 500 closures that are all ready in the works. The locations under threat of closure are smaller satellite offices that don’t process mail and sometimes don’t have mail carriers. [More]
BBB Offers Tips On Returning All The Unwanted Stuff You'll Get Tomorrow
By 12.24.10
Face it — you don’t actually want anything you’ll receive tomorrow, otherwise you would have found a way to have gotten it yourself by now. So you’ll either be lazy and shove all your gifts in a closet, or get ambitious and go on a returning spree. [More]
What Did This Woman Do To UPS To Get On Brown's Blacklist?
By 11.18.10
An Oregon woman whose medical problems leave her unable to drive thought that being able to buy almost anything online would make her life easier. That was before UPS began its mysterious war with her. Now, she’s forced to either buy from stores that use a different carrier, or have her packages delivered to a neighbor’s house. Why? The Oregonian tried to find out. [More]
Why Do Stores Keep Sending Me Someone Else's Stuff?
By 11.16.10
Consumerist reader Valerie is in a bit of a pickle — over the last couple of weeks, packages have been piling up at her doorstep, which would be nice if she had actually ordered them. [More]
