Sure, we all put off certain household tasks like changing the battery in the smoke alarm — but what if you could score a free pizza just for keeping things in working order? [More]
surprise
Amazon Buying Whole Foods For $13.7 Billion
By 6.16.17
Amazon really, really wants to sell you groceries. But starting a new grocery service — especially online — from scratch is hard. It seems, however, Amazon has found a solution: Just buy a well-known chain that already operates nationwide, instead. [More]
Piece Of ‘Costume Jewelry’ From Flea Market Was Really Diamond Now Worth $454K
By 5.22.17
Have you ever wondered whether there’s something very valuable sitting around your house, and you don’t even know it? A woman in England bought what she thought was a costume jewelry ring 30 years ago, and wore it all the time. It turned out to be a 26-carat diamond, which is expected to sell for up to $454,000 at auction this summer. [More]
Wells Fargo To Stop Giving Branches A Heads-Up Before Inspections
By 1.24.17
Wells Fargo has rightly concluded that it should overhaul a lot of its sales practices after the fake account fiasco that cost the company $185 million in refunds and penalties and could cost it $4 billion in lost business. One change that the bank announced today is that it will no longer give branches a heads-up a day before corporate inspectors are scheduled to arrive. [More]
AT&T Ends Snooping Program, Stops Charging Internet Users Extra For Privacy
By 9.30.16
AT&T offers GigaPower subscribers in several cities two options: pay $70 for your connection and get your data snooped on, or keep your privacy and pay $99. The company has regularly defended the program from critics, and claimed that it’s basically the wave of the future. And yet today, seemingly out of nowhere, A&T has suddenly announced that it will be dropping the option nationwide, and charging all consumers the same — lower — price. [More]
What Happens When Pokémon Go Turns Your House Into A Gym
By 7.12.16
The world is still new to this Pokémon Go thing, Nintendo’s mobile game that has seen instant success since its release last week and sent players stumbling around in public with their smartphones out. But of course, there are bound to be things that go a bit funny in any game, like when Pokémon Go thinks your house is a gym for training all the virtual creatures people have captured. [More]
Twitter Has Turned On Algorithmic Timeline As Default View For All Users
By 3.17.16
If you like seeing Tweets on your timeline as they happen in real time, you’ll have to change your settings: after testing out an algorithmic timeline that shows users Tweets they might be interested in, the social media platform has quietly turned on that feature as the default option. [More]
Seasonal Bags Of Dove Chocolate Recalled Due To Surprise Snickers, Allergy Concerns
By 12.21.15
Food allergies can be a life-threatening condition, which is why the maker of Dove candies has recalled a winter-themed assortment of chocolates available only from one nationwide food retailer and distributed to 35 states. Which nationwide food retailer is that? Mars didn’t bother to include that information, which might have been helpful. [More]
That 40% Off All Kroger Purchases Coupon Circulating On Facebook Is Just A Big Fat Scam
By 12.17.15
File this one under things we’ve said a million times and will say as many times as it takes to keep all shoppers away from scammy things: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is… especially if it’s showing up all over Facebook. So it goes with the most recent coupon scam circulating social media, a fake Kroger coupon offering 40% off all store purchases. [More]
Apple, Google Pull Unofficial Instagram App That Harvests Usernames And Passwords
By 11.11.15
In yet another example of why unofficial apps aren’t always to be trusted, Apple and Google have yanked an app from their app stores that was supposed to let users know who was viewing their profiles. That’s not a thing, and a developer says that the app instead acted as malware, secretly collecting usernames and passwords and using them to post spam to users’ accounts. [More]
StubHub Backs Away From “All-In” Ticket Pricing: What You See Might Not Be What You Pay, After All
By 9.14.15
Despite announcing a plan to be more transparent about its ticket prices with a shift to an “All-In” pricing model that told customers exactly how much money they’d be paying for their purchases with all the extra fees applied, StubHub has now backed away from that system, and is instead displaying prices that are lower than what buyers will end up forking over at checkout. [More]
McDonald’s Evacuated Because Live Hand Grenades Do Not Belong In Parking Lots
By 8.10.15
It’s not every day that grenades are found lying around, and when we do hear about them, it’s usually a case of an inactive bomb that’s discovered during an airport security screening process. In a recent incident in Maryland, however, officials say that not only was a grenade found — by mere chance — under the pavement of a McDonald’s parking lot, but it was live. [More]
Study Shows The Obvious: Amazon Prime Members Spend More On Amazon
By 1.27.15
It should be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of how shopping works that Amazon.com customers who have a subscription to the company’s Prime service probably spend a lot more with Amazon than people who don’t. The temptation to order all of our daily needs without reaching the magical $35 free-shipping total beckons to our inner very lazy or very efficient people. [More]
Snake Pops Out Of A Cabinet At Lowe’s, Bites Customer On The Head
By 1.20.15
Imagine you’re hanging out in a nice, dry, safe room away from all the worries of the world. Suddenly, someone throws a door open to the big, scary world. Wouldn’t you want to bite that interloper right on the head? If you were a snake, totally, as one surprised Lowe’s customer found out after accidentally intruding on a snake’s privacy in the store. [More]
Michigan Cops Playing Sneaky Santa Pull Over People To Give Them Gifts Instead Of Tickets
By 12.10.14
What’s the worst thing you can see in the rearview mirror? Police lights flashing as a cop tells you to pull over (that or an avalanche/tornado/mob of goblins chasing you). So for Michigan drivers who stopped for the long arm of the law realized they were getting a treat instead of a ticket from sneaky Santa police, Christmas came extra early. [More]
Diner Leaves Waitress $1,000 Tip On $15 Meal After Waiting For The Right Chance To Pay It Forward
By 11.7.14
Sometimes we see things on the Internet that inspire us to do really ridiculous things (cut to: actually attempting to open a wine bottle with a shoe, wine bottle shards flying everywhere). But then there are the times when the good stuff cuts through all the muckety muck of the daily grind, inspiring people to perform acts of kindness we might not otherwise have thought of on our own. Such was the case for one diner at a Colorado restaurant recently. [More]
Company Apologizes For Including Penis-Shaped Gummies In Candy Marketed To Kids
By 9.10.14
Having the “birds and the bees” talk with your kids is an important moment, I imagine, so it’s no wonder parents in New Zealand don’t want that conversation to arrive sooner than it should because of a surprise found in packages of candy aimed at the younger set. A candy company is now apologizing after penis-shaped gummy candies ended up mixed in with their less phallic brethren in products kids could easily get their hands on. [More]
Man’s License Suspended Over A Ticket From 1981 After DMV Fixes Its Typo
By 8.18.14
What’s the last thing you remember about that time you didn’t get a notice that your license was suspended? That’s right, you wouldn’t remember it if it never happened to you. One man found himself with a suspended license over a ticket from 1981, something he wasn’t warned about back then because the notification letter had his name misspelled on it. [More]
