Credit cards are so much worse than you thought, according to the 2008 Consumer Action credit card survey. Creditors have carte blanche to do pretty much whatever they want, including randomly changing terms, conditions, and rates, even to cardholders with perfect payment histories and pristine credit scores.
survey says
The 20 Best And Worst Cities For Unemployment Benefits
By 7.6.08
Losing a job is bad enough, but your unemployment benefits can vary wildly depending on where you live. The L.A. Times compared unemployment benefits to the cost of living and picked the twenty best and worst cities to be unemployed.
Travelers Leave 12,000 Laptops In Airports Every Week
By 7.5.08
Absentminded travelers flummoxed by airport security leave 12,000 laptops in airports every single week. Only 30% are ever recovered.
Which Popcorn Pops The Most Kernels?
By 6.5.08
I can’t help but feel a little ripped off when you finish a bag of popcorn only to find a bunch of unpopped kernels at the bottom. Am I really paying for defective popcorn? Which is I’m glad reader Wade, a popcorn junkie, conducted a home experiment to see which brand of popcorn pops the most kernels, and which one is the best to buy. They’re not the same. In his test of Newman’s Own, Pop Secret, Jolly Time, Best Choice, Act II, and Orville Redenbacker popcorn, Newmann’s popped the most kernels, but Wade dubbed said Act II the winner. Why? It’s the cheapest, came in 2nd for popped kernel percentage, it comes decently close to providing the claimed amount of servings, and his subjects said it tasted the best. Check out his site for the full results and methodology.
81% Of Americans Hate Mandatory Binding Arbitration
By 5.27.08
According to science, even the President is more popular than mandatory binding arbitration. A recent poll shows that Americans hate everything about the extrajudicial resolution system, from its inescapable omnipresence, to its unappealable decisions that rob consumers of their day in court. The poll provides a refreshing contrast to a different study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which found that Americans love mandatory binding arbitration more than pie.
Money Can Apparently Buy Happiness
By 4.5.08
Feeling down? Money might help, according to Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. The Wharton economists released a paper arguing that countries with higher gross domestic products have happier citizens. The study shatters the conventional wisdom known as the Easterlin Paradox, which holds that GDP and happiness are largely unrelated.
U.S. News: It's Your Own Damn Fault You Can't Redeem Rebates
By 1.27.08
U.S. News & World Report hates our inability to redeem rebates. If we only tried harder, they say, we might be able to conquer our “tendency to procrastinate and inability to follow multistep directions.” Yes, that must be the problem.
National Institutes Of Health: Cola Causes Kidney Problems
By 1.26.08
Do you like kidney stones? Great! Coke and Pepsi are the drinks for you. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that drinking just two cans of cola per day doubles the risk of chronic kidney disease.
Expensive Flowers Are Better Than No Flowers On Valentine's Day
By 1.26.08
According to enterprising scientists, people buy last minute Valentine’s Day gifts to avoid a fight, rather than to express love—as any lazy lover can attest. The marketing researchers devised three experiments to prove that our susceptibility to negative advertising is directly impacted by how long we wait to whip out the wallet.
Shopping Begets Shopping
By 1.20.08
Put down the credit card, you unstoppable spending machine. Groundbreaking research shows that shopping leads to more shopping; not, as some predicted, happiness. Once you start buying, you build up what researchers call “shopping momentum,” and then you can’t stop.
Drug Companies Spend Almost $60 Billion On Marketing, $30 Billion On Research. What?
By 1.5.08
It’s okay for drug companies to spend oodles on advertising because they spend even more making sure their drugs are safe and effective, right? Not so much, according to a study in PLOS Medicine.
The Best Deals Are Not Found On Black Friday
By 12.30.07
Stores offer the steepest discounts the day before Christmas, not on Black Friday. A Boston Globe study found that the orgy of mindless early-morning consumerism is good for cutesy door prizes and savings on one or two items, but provides no discount for the vast majority of surveyed goods.
TSA Declares Victory, Achieves Same Vaunted Status As IRS
By 12.23.07
The IRS is celebrating the results of an AP poll that ranks the TSA as the most hated arm of the federal government. More than anything, Americans apparently hate being inconvenienced by seemingly pointless and arbitrary security checks.
The AP poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, found that the more people travel, the less they like TSA.
Best Buy Says You Don't Know What You're Doing With HD
By 9.25.07
Best Buy hired a firm to take a survey of the state of the American public’s knowledge of HDTV, and sad results are in. You don’t know what the hell is going on with your television.
Customers Seeking Better Customer Service Buy Bundles From Telecoms, Not Cable Companies
By 8.2.07
Well done Charter, people would prefer to buy bundled services from AT&T because they think phone companies provide better customer service than cable companies. Both cable companies and telecoms rank towards the bottom of the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
Continental and JetBlue Win Overall Satisfaction Awards From J.D. Power
By 6.23.07
Continental and JetBlue were the big winners in the annual J.D. Power North America Airline Satisfaction Study. The study asked 10,000 respondents to judge airlines on seven factors: cost and fees; flight crew; in-flight services; aircraft; boarding/deplaning/baggage; check-in and reservations.
