Consumerist reader Chris decided to take advantage of GM’s please-buy-a-car Employee Discount sale that we wrote about yesterday, so he headed off to two different dealerships in the NY/NJ area. What he found were deserted showrooms with salesmen who ignored him or argued with him over the existence of specific models he’d looked at online. He adds, “tonight I’m off to Toyota for some hard numbers on a Corolla and Camry.”
rude
Help! Macy's Gave Us An "Invalid" $120 Gift Card
By 7.21.08
Nate and Ashley got some duplicate gifts from Macy’s and attempted to exchange them for store credit. The trouble is, when they tried to spend the gift card they’d be given — they found out that it had never been validated. They’re pretty much resigned to the fact that they’re not getting the $120 in store credit back, but they’d like to let Macy’s know that they were treated very rudely by several employees.
WaMu: "It Is Not My Problem If You Did Not Plan To Pay Your Bills On Time"
By 7.15.08
WaMu goes out of its way to convince you that it is staffed by friendly, outgoing people who want to help you if something goes wrong. Their “About” page on the WaMu website says: “We’re informal, friendly and fun. We take our customers’ money seriously, but not ourselves.” We suspect that reader Drew would disagree with the whole “friendly” part of that sentence. He arrived home a day late from a business trip to Europe and was in a rush to pay his rent before it was due. He made it to the WaMu branch 5 minutes before it closed, but it was already locked.
American Airlines Cancels Flight Because Their Customers Are Too Pissed Off To Fly
By 7.8.08
Can it actually be unsafe to fly a plane full of seething, rage-filled passengers from Florida to New York? Apparently so. Flight 1908 from Miami to LaGuardia was delayed because the flight crew didn’t arrive on time. When they did finally show up, the angry passengers started to boo.
Circuit City 24 Minute Guarantee Means Whatever Rob, The Supervisor, Says It Means
By 6.5.08
Reader Dustin is upset with Circuit City because they tried to tell him that their 24 minute guarantee meant he had to be waiting at the store for more than 24 minutes. After Dustin explained that the 24 minute guarantee was supposed to mean that the item would be pulled from the back within 24 minutes of his confirmation email, the supervisor said that Dustin ” would have had to come in within 24 minutes to qualify.” We’re pretty sure that’s not how it works, because Circuit City’s policy specifically says that’s not how the guarantee works.
Sam's Club Won't Let You Buy A Wii Because They're Saving It For Later
By 5.30.08
Shawn is a Sam’s Club member and on a recent shopping trip to buy a Wii he thought he’d snagged the very last one, but when the cashier tried to ring the item up something went wrong. Turns out that Sam’s Club was “saving” that Wii for a “Grand Re-Opening” party and refused to sell it to Shawn and his girlfriend.
Chase: Thanks For Depositing $3,193, Here's $200 In Non-Sufficient Funds Fees
By 5.27.08
Johanna deposited a financial aid check from her university into her Chase checking account. She’d done this before without incident, but this time something went wrong.
USAirways: Despite What Our Schedule Says, We Haven't Actually Had That Flight In 5 Years
By 5.27.08
Reader Jon made the mistake of trusting the USAirways website to have an accurate schedule of their Boston to NY shuttle service. Whoops.
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of No Audio
By 5.23.08
Reader Brenden went to see the new Indiana Jones movie last night, and spent the last 10 minutes of the movie watching it with no audio. Rather than stopping the movie and handing out free passes, the theater just let it play with no sound, then refused to rewind it.
Countrywide CEO Accidentally Emails Homeowner, Calls His Plea For Help "Disgusting"
By 5.21.08
Apparently Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide, has never made a mistake and needed help (from, say, Bank of America,) because he thinks that homeowners who are desperately trying to refinance out of their disastrous home loans and avoid foreclosure are “disgusting” if they look to the internet for help writing letters.
K2 Auto Group In Minneapolis Uses The "I Hate You, Get Out" Sales Method
By 5.20.08
Jesse sent us a copy of the letter he recently sent to CarSoup.com about the treatment his mother received at the K2 Auto Group car lot in Bloomington, Minneapolis.The salesmen who “greeted” them employed a novel sales technique whereby you treat the customer like she’s not rich or smart enough to even own a car, much less one of your beauties. Oddly, it didn’t work, and they left without buying anything. Read on for the salesman’s amazing technique in action.
T Mobile: Listen To The Most Pointless Customer Service Call Ever
By 5.12.08
Kapil’s brand new Blackberry arrived with a battery that won’t charge. He wants T-Mobile to exchange it, but he says T-Mobile wants to replace it with a refurbished Blackberry instead of a new model. Kapil is fighting back, but even at the executive support level all he’s found are rude, uncooperative T-Mobile employees who keep saying there’s a process, and that someone will call him back—which never happens. Kapil refused to hang up on the fourth day and demanded to know what happens next after nobody calls back, which seemed to confuse and anger the T-Mobile rep he was speaking with. And for those of you who can’t listen in, we’ve transcribed some of the juiciest parts.
Chase Telemarketing Tactics: Try Being Sneaky, Then Launch Vague Threats
By 5.7.08
A reader writes in to share his traumatic experience with a Chase telemarketer who first tried to sneak a sale into the one-way conversation, then launched into scare tactics like asking, “What are you going to do when someone steals your identity?” R. writes, “I feel like I need protection from Chase’s employees.”
OfficeMax Calls You A Thief For Trying To Recycle
By 5.4.08
OfficeMax called Chris a thief for recycling empty printer cartridges. OfficeMax’s MaxPerks program gives customers $3 for each empty cartridge they recycle, with a limit of 5 cartridges per customer per day. Chris runs a computer repair business that leaves him flush with empty cartridges. According to one cashier, this makes Chris a thief.
