A new ThinkB4YouSpeak school-focused ad campaign is out to stamp out the hurtful practice of referring to things as “gay” in a negative way.
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Funai Knows TV Broke Under Warranty, Hopes You Go Away
By 8.12.09
Back in February, Funai put a Consumerist reader on hold for two and a half hours before telling him that there was nothing they could do about selling him the entirely wrong DTV converter box. Now Funai has decided to head those long hold times off at the pass, and their warranty division has stopped answering the phone entirely.
How Outlet Malls Fool Shoppers
By 8.11.09
Alternet is running an excerpt from Ellen Rupel Shell’s fascinating new book, Cheap: the High Cost of Discount Culture. The piece handily illustrates Shell’s argument that outlet malls are for suckers.
BoA Strands Customer In Siberia With No Money
By 8.11.09
Bank of America has cut off Shannon’s debit card and says she has to get a new one. This would otherwise be a minor inconvenience except for the fact that Shannon is in Irkutsk, Russia on a 2-week Trans-Siberian trek.
36 Risk Factors Creditors Use To Deny You Credit
By 8.11.09
Lenders can use the data from your credit report to deny you credit for any one of several reasons. If you are denied, you receive a letter identifying the credit reporting agency that provided the report, along with a risk factor reason code. Bargaineering published a list of the common risk factor codes that lenders use to deem you unworthy of credit. For all three reporting agencies, the cardinal sins are owing too much and failing to pay your bills. The list of codes, inside.
7 Restaurant Dishes That Are Too Embarrassing To Order By Name
By 8.10.09
Perhaps you have noticed that restaurants like to give their food interesting names. Perhaps you have also avoided ordering the food by its interesting name because it’s completely ridiculous. We looked through dozens of chain-restaurant menus to find the 7 most painful-to-order names out there. Enjoy.
47 Passengers, Including Two Babies, Trapped On Continental Flight For 11 Hours
By 8.10.09
When will airlines realize that when a flight gets diverted and things go wrong — you just should not force people to stay on an airplane for 11 hours with only a bag of pretzels to eat. What was ExpressJet’s (operator of the Continental flight) excuse? The TSA screeners had gone home for the night, so they couldn’t let anyone get back on the plane if they let them off. Oh no!
AmEx, Discover Ditch Overlimit Fees
By 8.8.09
American Express and Discover will no longer bill customers who exceed their credit limits, according to company spokespeople. The creditors aren’t eliminating the fees because they care about their customers. No, they’re providing what American Banker calls “the first concrete examples of how a new law will restrict issuers’ abilities to turn a profit.” The new CARD Act that Congress passed in May requires consumers to opt-in before they can exceed their credit limits. Since overlimit fees, which can reach $39, aren’t very profitable for creditors, they decided to ditch the fees altogether.
Do Not Back Your Car Into A KFC Employee Because She Forgot Your Condiments
By 8.7.09
Here’s some advice for you. If the KFC employee forgets your condiments, do not back your car into her. This is an overreaction on your part.
A Farewell To Careys
By 8.7.09
Next Tuesday will be Carey’s last day posting on Consumerist full-time. He’s off to law school, where he will get schooled in a “combination of consumer law and legislative drafting with a dash of administrative law.” Laura will be taking over the weekend slot.
AIG No Longer Hemorrhaging Money, Actually Makes Profit
By 8.7.09
Big news! AIG, poster child of the economic meltdown, has reported a profit. The company says it had a net income for the second quarter of $1.8 billion, which is much better than in 2008 when it lost $5.8 billion. So, how much did we-the-people get for our investment? $1.5 billion.
The NYT Offers Budgeting Advice For Would-Be Car Owners… In 1907
By 8.7.09
We were poking around the NYT archives when we stumbled across this gem, car maintenance budgeting advice for people interested in owning a car … in 1907. Some of the advice remains the same. Other parts, like how much to pay your driver and how much to budget for repainting the car once a year — not so much.
Save Money On Groceries By Buying The Ugly Ones
By 8.7.09
Salvage grocers are stores that stock all the dented, crushed, slightly past their “best by” date products that consumers have been trained to avoid. Because of this, they’re the Dollar General or Big Lots of supermarkets, with prices up to half off regular store prices, says the Associated Press.
Behold, The 10 Most Pet-Friendly Cities
By 8.7.09
Rent.com — which fans of the Broadway musical will be devastated to learn is devoted to home-finding and not the play — has named the 10 most pet-friendly cities in a press release.
Giving Birth And Covered By Health Insurance? $22,000, Please
By 8.5.09
The individual health insurance market can be a scary place for Americans who turn to it for health coverage. If they’re accepted to a plan at all, patients often find that their coverage isn’t quite what they were promised, and limits and restrictions lead to high medical bills for covered services that aren’t really covered.
Dallas Cowboys' New Stadium Offers $90 Pizza With No Toppings
By 8.5.09
If man were to dig a fancy pit that rich people would fight to throw money into, we suppose it would look a lot like the Dallas Cowboys‘ new $1.2 billion stadium. For only $800,000 you can rent a suite that doesn’t include tickets to the game — or food and drink.
Petland Employees Drowned Rabbits, Posted Photos on Facebook
By 8.5.09
We’ve written about pet store chain Petland before, due to their documented use of puppy mills and snarky response to groups that protested said use of puppy mills. Now PETA claims to have found photos on a Petland employee’s Facebook page that show her grinning while holding up the wet, lifeless bodies of two rabbits she had just drowned.
Jobless College Grad Sues To Get Tuition Back, Misspells "Tuition"
By 8.4.09
The job market is tough. No one seems to know it better than our nation’s fresh-faced recent college graduates. They’ve discovered a harsh truth—despite hounding alumni for donations, colleges aren’t able to find jobs for them. One recent college grad in New York City is fighting back, since she graduated three whole months ago and her alma mater hasn’t found her a job yet.
