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According to one reader’s report, Amazon free shipping for Prime users and free Super Saver shipping isn’t working. An Amazon rep told that their system is experiencing a major problem and that his account is among the first to be affected. Anyone else seeing this?
Toys R Us has written a reassuring letter to its customers outlining its toy safety policies and threatening to discontinue selling products from any company that ignores them. Since Toys R Us still sells Mattel toys and Thomas & Friends wooden train sets, it’s hard to imagine a company that wouldn’t make the cut.
Are you buying gifts for kids this year? Let us save you the trouble of asking them what they want: for the 5th year in a row, Barbie has emerged at the top of the list of toys most desired by little girls. For boys, the top item was Transformers. (Hey! Why not a Barbie Transformer? That would be awesome.) In a development that we imagine caught toy executives totally off guard, neither group of kids placed “toys made with lead, GHB, or intestine magnets” anywhere on their lists.
Amazon’s “customers vote” shopping game is back and it seems very fun.
JC Penney isn’t doing so well this fall and has cut its forecast, admitting sluggish same store sales and citing bad weather and the subprime meltdown as the reasons for the downturn.
Should you ever venture into a live auction, you know, gavel, real chairs that you sit in, etc, Consumerama has some tips on auctioneer scams to watch out for. Let’s say the price drops to $300, and three hands shoot up. By law, he’s supposed to just accept one bid at $300 and move on, but:
Boston-based World Against Toys Causing Harm Inc., or W.A.T.C.H., has announced its top-10 list of the worst toys you can buy kids this Christmas. This is a rather pointless year for a list like this, considering the massive expansion of the Unsafe Toy Industry; in fact, the first item on their list was recalled back in October for lead paint. Still, there are some fun discoveries on the list, like “Sticky Stones,” small piles of easy-to-eat magnets, and the “Spider Man 3 New Goblin Sword,” because its “spring-loaded blade expands to more than 3 feet long, creating the potential for facial injuries.” If they could just combine the Goblin Sword with the Oozinator, we’d have a Dateline special on our hands.
While the information in yesterday’s post, “Don’t Let Gift Cards Become Free Money For Stores” was good, the title was erroneous. Actually, depending on the state, unused gift cards may be classified as unclaimed property. The value is then turned over to the state in a process called “escheatment.” It would appear, however, that in some states, the stores do get to keep the money. This PDF gives a breakdown of how the laws generally apply state by state.
Consumer Reports will take a full-page ad in the New York Times tomorrow to warn consumers about the pitfalls of giving and using gift cards. Their telephone survey found 27% of all gift cards go unused, and retailers took in an extra $8 billion because of unused, lost, and expired gift cards. Here’s their tips for making the most of the plastic:
Like candy canes and drunken family dinners, gift cards have become a Christmas staple. Bankrate has reviewed a wide number of them and published the results to help you pick the best one for your needs. To avoid fees, you should stick with “closed-loop” cards—that is, a card issued by a specific retailer for use only with that retailer. Almost all retailers now offer cards that don’t expire and don’t charge maintenance fees, with the notable exceptions of Macy’s and Bloomingdales, whose cards both expire two years after purchase. However, several retailers—CVS, for example—still charge “dormancy” fees on cards that have been inactive for anywhere from 6 to 24 months, so be sure to check the fine print to see how this is addressed.
Black Friday is coming. That’s the day after Thanksgiving when retailers start their Christmas shopping price drops. The basic idea is to whip consumers into a buying frenzy with a few deals and specials and limited inventories, and use the ensuing madness to also offload crappy products they couldn’t otherwise move. You can come out with a deal, but you gotta know the tricks. Mike Elgin has got 10 of them, we like: [More]
What Would Jesus Buy? is a new documentary from producer Morgan Spurlock, who made Supersize Me, and director Rob VanAlkemade, following Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir “on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse (the end of humankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt.)”
Another consumer confidence index has plummeted to its lowest post-Katrina level, and retailers are crying in dark corners of their bedrooms, waiting for the inevitable disastrous holiday season.
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