If you’re stranded or heavily delayed at the airport this holiday season, you may want to have 1(877)FLYERS6 saved in your cellphone contacts. That’s a special free flyer hotline set up by the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights. They offer a variety of services, like emailing your family or business associates and let them know where you are, offering real-time weather and flight status information, and let you know about hotel or rental options, as well as help you deal with refund situations. If you’re stuck on the tarmac and not being let off the plane, they will pass the info on and try to get media out to the airport.
tools
By 12.5.07
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You can enter your kids’ toys here and find out if they’ve been recalled for toxins. [HealthyToys.org]
Find Out What Your IRS Refund Will Be
By 12.4.07
What’s your tax refund for 2007 going to look like? Go to this withholding calculator at the IRS website with your paycheck at your side, answer the questions, and they’ll give you a good estimate of what your refund will be. They will also give you suggestions for changing your withholdings.
Is It Legal To Record My Customer Service Calls?
By 11.29.07
One important tool in dealing with companies is customer’s ability to record customer service calls, but many wonder if it’s legal or not. Well, until a company actually takes someone to court for doing it, we’ll never know for certain. However, we can look to the state by state wiretapping laws for guidance. Let’s begin.
Tape Customer Service Calls With RecordMyCalls.com
By 11.28.07
RecordMyCalls is a super-easy way to record your customer service calls. Just sign up, call their 1-800 number, then call the number on which you wish your call to be recorded. After the call is over, the recording is immediately available on the site for review, downloading, and sharing. The main drawback is that it will cost you a $4.95/month or $9.95/month subscription plan, with recording rates of 20 cents and 15 cents per minute, respectively. We personally prefer using Skype + HotRecorder but for lazy people or those with no technical aptitude or really need to record a call and are aware from their “base” computer, RecordMyCalls is a viable option.
Find Out Who Keeps Calling
By 11.19.07
Here’s three sites you can use when you want to find out more information about a number that’s calling you. Maybe it’s a telemarketer, recording, or a harassing caller, chances are, they’re targeting others. At these sites, you can enter the phone number from your caller ID and see if other citizens are sharing intel about the number. People find their way to the sites either directly, or by Googling the number and stumbling across the site.
Probably Why HomeDepot.com, et al, Doesn't Accept Gift Cards
By 11.19.07
Here’s a probable answer for that reader who complained Friday that HomeDepot.com won’t let you use gift cards, forcing him to drive 20 miles away to get his tool fix. It’s probably better than driving all the way there, only to find his gift card was empty. If you recall, last year there was a big problem with thieves stealing git cards….
Consumer Reports: Man Vs. Leaf Blower
By 11.13.07
Consumer Reports wanted to know if leaf blowers were really worth the money and ear damage, so they marked off a parts of lawn, filled it with leaves and had the ultimate man vs. blower showdown.
Know Your Passenger Rights When Flying In Europe
By 11.8.07
If you’re flying in Europe, considering printing a copy of this consumer rights document (PDF) and putting it in your wallet. It’s “Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004,” but all you need to know is that it stipulates what airlines have to do when flights are canceled, delayed, or they lose your luggage. Like in America, they don’t have to give you jack if the delays are due to weather. Airfarewatchdog Blog has a good breakdown of what the rules mean.
Home Depot: The Women's Restroom Is A Good Place For This Sign
By 11.7.07
You know what? We’re just going to buy our own. Thanks.
The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back (Revised Edition)
By 10.30.07 — Updated: 8.14.13
[protected-iframe id="14eedff4c1ed081d42f5a75be4931995-40783744-40309798" info="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.php?u=http://digg.com/business_finance/The_Ultimate_Consumerist_Guide_To_Fighting_Back_2" width="55" height="82" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"] We’ve posted recently about how to fight back when a business screws you over, and we’ve posted a lot of executive contact info over the years. Now we’re packaging the two together into one big mega-post of usefulness: a one-stop-stop for figuring out what you need to do to start a customer complaint, or how to escalate a stalled one so that it can be resolved.
By 10.28.07
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100 Sites to find user product reviews. [InsideCRM]
See All CPSC Toy Recalls On One Page
By 10.25.07
So the CPSC is always recalling all sorts of crap, like the surprising candles which could lead to fire, or the snowboards which could lead to falling, but as a concerned parent, all you care about is the toys. The freakin’ toys. The ones with the lead and the chokey parts. Well, even though their website coder probably doubles as the meatloaf server at lunchtime, they’ve got a catchall page that is your go-to spot for all the toy hazard related recalls. Just memorize the simple URL: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/category/toy.html.
Track Accounts Online With Geezeo
By 10.25.07
Geezeo is a personal-finance management site that helps you keep track of all your accounts in one place. Like Mint.com, you give it all your account user names and passwords to use it. Also like Mint, Geezeo is a front-end system, but based on CashEdge instead of Yodlee. Unlike Mint, it has support for tracking your car loan, mortgage, and brokerage accounts (although they don’t interface yet my my fave, Vanguard), with plans to add support for student loans….
Mint.com Responds To Security Concerns
By 10.23.07
Some people think that using Mint.com is crazy because of the security risk of handing over all your banking user names and passwords. FiLife asks them some tough questions about their security procedures and gets straight answers, like:
Let’s say you get hacked. Banks normally would protect me if they get hacked, but do I lose my protection if I’m using Mint to access the bank but the breach happens through your systems? You’re legally protected for $0 liability on credit cards and $50 on bank accounts if fraud is reported within two days. These rights are not voided by using Mint, Yodlee, Quicken, Microsoft Money or similar programs.
They also say all user names and passwords are kept on Yodlee’s servers, not anyone else’s. Every lock can be picked, but we’re more concerned about identity theft resulting from our local big box retailer’s lax security procedures than from Mint.com.
Find The Real Reason For Delays With Airline Cargo Sites
By 10.19.07
It can be hard to get a straight answer out of airlines sometime about the real reason a flight is delayed. For some reason, though, they’re more straight up about their packages than their passengers. See, the airlines have special cargo websites which are supposed to be for people tracking packages they’re shipping through the airline. Here’s the cargo sites for some of the major carriers…
Quickly Find Good Deals On SlickDeals And FatWallet With WiredDeals
By 10.18.07
One of the sites I visit every time I scour for items for Morning Deals is WiredDeals, a free registration site that tries to aggregate the best deals from the SlickDeals and FatWallet forums.
How To Find An Executive's Phone Number Or Email Address
By 10.15.07
So you’ve exhausted the normal customer service routes and want to shoot your complaint to the top, but you don’t know how to reach that CEO or executive. Our resident contact info bloodhound, Dyan Flores, put together the tools and tricks she uses to sniff out executive customer service information.
