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The Article Cash4Gold Doesn't Want You To Read

The Article Cash4Gold Doesn't Want You To Read

By Ben Popken 9.2.09

By Ben Popken and Meg Marco

If you have any broken, ugly jewelry lying around in a drawer somewhere, you’ve probably taken notice of a company called Cash4Gold that promised to pay “top dollar” for your not-so-precious precious metals. If you’re like us, you might have even seen a post on ComplaintsBoard.com by a former employee exposing Cash4Gold.

The whistleblower’s post appeared on ComplaintsBoard last November. We featured it this February, as part of our ongoing coverage of Cash4Gold, after the company raised its public profile with a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad. The post was indeed written by an ex-employee, Michele Liberis, who is now being sued by the company for defamation. Recently, Cash4Gold added Consumerist and ComplaintsBoard as co-defendants in its lawsuits (PDF) against Liberis and another former employee, Vielka Nephew (PDF), in an attempt to force us to take the information down. Liberis and Nephew have chosen to stand up to Cash4Gold’s legal attack, and so have we.

Netflix Refunds Your Money Without You Even Asking

Netflix Refunds Your Money Without You Even Asking

By 9.1.09

If other companies were smart, and they mostly aren’t, they would adopt Netflix’s strategy of having periodic outages then apologizing and offering credits without their customers having to do anything. Whenever this happens (as it apparently did on August 30) we get a flood of delighted emails from their customers, many of whom didn’t even notice the outage in the first place.

How To Identify Astroturfers And Front Groups

How To Identify Astroturfers And Front Groups

By cwalters 9.1.09

Everyone likes to hate on spammers, but they’re basically the houseflies of the Internet. Far more insidious and damaging are astroturfers and front groups—those corporate-funded, agenda-pushing people who don’t disclose who they’re really working for while they participate in online culture and the media. The Center for Media and Democracy has put together a list of tips to help you identify them from real grassroots movements, while Free Press has created a widget that reveals front groups for five large companies you frequently see on Consumerist.

Bank Of America Wants To Begin Paying Back Bailout Money, Avoid Government "Fee"

Bank Of America Wants To Begin Paying Back Bailout Money, Avoid Government "Fee"

By 9.1.09

The Wall Street Journal says that Bank of America is interested in paying back a portion of the bailout money it received, with the goal of getting out from under the purview of the salary czar and reduce a “layer of federal involvement in its affairs.”

EECB To Toys R Us Results In Refund, Personal Apology, Free Toy

EECB To Toys R Us Results In Refund, Personal Apology, Free Toy

By 8.30.09

Seth had what should have been a fairly simple problem. His son’s radio control car broke after only a few weeks of use. The toy was purchased at and manufactured by Toys R Us, and an e-mail to the support address included with the toy bounced. No one in the company’s usual customer service channels could resolve his problem, and the people whose job it was to help customers in this situation never managed to contact him.

Target Charges $1.50 For Free Nalgene Bottle

Target Charges $1.50 For Free Nalgene Bottle

By 8.30.09

Regular Consumerist readers are familiar with our exposure of Target’s absurdist pricing policies, and this is a particularly confusing example. Reader Rob in Minnesota noticed a nice promotion on a 3-pack of Brita water filters, which came with a free small Nalgene water bottle and a few packets of drink mix. Nice deal, but he couldn’t help noticing that the identical 3-pack of filters without the “free” water bottle cost $1.50 less. See a bigger picture and a twist to the story, inside.

Banks Once "Too Big To Fail" Now Even Bigger After Meltdown

Banks Once "Too Big To Fail" Now Even Bigger After Meltdown

By 8.30.09

Remember those banks that the federal government bailed out because they were “too big to fail?” Well…after mergers and bank takeovers (some encouraged by the government) those banks bailed out because they were “too big to fail” now are much bigger. JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America combined now control more than 20% of all bank deposits in the United States.

If The Bank Accidentally Gives You $11,000 And You Won't Give It Back, You're Gonna Get Arrested

If The Bank Accidentally Gives You $11,000 And You Won't Give It Back, You're Gonna Get Arrested

By 8.28.09

“Bank error in your favor” may help you out in Monopoly, but in real life — you gotta give the money back. One New York man didn’t agree, and now he’s been arrested and has been charged with grand larceny.

WSJ Discovers EECB, It Works On Insurance

WSJ Discovers EECB, It Works On Insurance

By Ben Popken 8.27.09

The venerable Wall Street Journal recently discovered the classic “EECB” technique we’ve been telling you about for years. This time, it’s health insurance companies, an industry so predicated on denial-of-care-for-profit that a few years ago a class action lawsuit based on RICO statute, invented to prosecute Mafia families for racketeering, was able to make significant headway. Lucky for you, email is much faster than the wheels of justice…

Energizer Responds To Weak Rechargeable Battery Claims

Energizer Responds To Weak Rechargeable Battery Claims

By Ben Popken 8.27.09

Energizer responded to Are Energizer Rechargeable “D” Batteries “AAs” In Disguise? by explaining why D size rechargeable batteries are made the way they are:

Not All Camaro Owners Got Free Pizza From Papa John's

Not All Camaro Owners Got Free Pizza From Papa John's

By 8.27.09

Like Quizno’s and KFC before them, Papa John’s went and set up a cute promotion without making sure that all of their franchisees have signed on. Papa John’s founder John Schnatter was reunited with his long-lost 1971 Camaro, and to celebrate, promised free pizza to anyone who drove up to a Papa John’s restaurant in a Camaro. Except, you guessed it, not at all Papa John’s locations.

Is Verizon Randomly Charging You $1.99 Per Line For "Data Usage"?

Is Verizon Randomly Charging You $1.99 Per Line For "Data Usage"?

By 8.27.09

On August 14, the Cleveland Plain Dealer printed a column by a business writer who described her 6-month-long ordeal with Verizon concerning a mysterious $1.99 charge for “data usage.” The paper says that over 400 Plain Dealer readers responded with complaints similar to the one in the column. Now the paper says they have a promise from Verizon to refund these mysterious and erroneous charges.

SIGG Will Replace BPA-Containing Bottles For Free

SIGG Will Replace BPA-Containing Bottles For Free

By 8.26.09

Last week, Swiss company SIGG splashed a bunch of ice water in the faces of consumers who go out of their way to avoid products containing bisphenol-A (BPA). The company announced that the linings formerly used in their aluminum bottles did, in fact, contain the controversial substance.

Repair Shop Saves Brett-Favre-Themed Goat From Certain Slaughter

Repair Shop Saves Brett-Favre-Themed Goat From Certain Slaughter

By 8.24.09

It’s lucky for a Brett-Favre-themed goat that the car broke down, otherwise he’d have probably been slaughtered, says the Winona Daily News. A woman driving a Chevy Malibu came into the Winona, MN Tires Plus last Friday asking if they could replace a belt. She then informed the employees that there was a live goat in the trunk that she planned to slaughter later.

AT&T To Require Smartphone Data Plans For Smartphones

AT&T To Require Smartphone Data Plans For Smartphones

By 8.23.09

Bad news, smartphone-owning AT&T customers. Starting September 6, customers will not be permitted to use a smartphone on the network without purchasing a smartphone data plan. Exceptions: unlocked phones and customers who currently have a smartphone (think Blackberry or Palm) but use a non-smartphone data plan.

iReel.com Offers Free Trial, Downloads Your Money Instead

iReel.com Offers Free Trial, Downloads Your Money Instead

By 8.23.09

iReel.com seems like a pretty neat and reasonably priced service, which allows you to harness the power of the interweb to beam recently released movies directly to your home computing device. However, two Consumerist readers have contacted us about the company, and their misleading or just plain dishonest “free trial” billing practices.

Gold's Gym Applies Fitness Shrink Ray To Membership Privileges

Gold's Gym Applies Fitness Shrink Ray To Membership Privileges

By 8.23.09

Most complaints that we receive about gyms involve memberships that refuse to die (even when the customer does), but Laura in Indiana has a different problem. Her local Gold’s Gym is changing its services and membership structure with no regard for the facility’s current members.

Apple, Google, And AT&T Respond To FCC's Google Voice Questions

Apple, Google, And AT&T Respond To FCC's Google Voice Questions

By 8.22.09

Apparently, Apple didn’t reject the Google Voice application for iPhone. They “[continue] to study it.” Yesterday, Apple, AT&T, and Google all turned in their responses to the FCC’s questions as part of the investigation into the bannination of Google Voice from the iPhone App Store.

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