Here’s the video of the Consumerist/Consumer Reports panel Tuesday night with with Craig Newmark, Bob Sullivan, Rachel Sklar, and Ben Popken. Moderated by Consumer Reports Editorial Director Kevin McKean, the topic was “Protecting The Endangered Consumer: High Impact Journalism In A Low-Budget Era.” Highlights….
videos
Cuddly Banker Makes Way for Ducklings
Bankers have an bad rap these days, don’t they? Joel Armstrong of Spokane, Washington was nice enough to initiate an intensive bailout of his neighbors, who could no longer stay in their home. His neighbors: a family of ducks.
Video: Watch Shopaholic's Range Rover Get Reposessed
Watching this clip of a high-rolling lady who has to remove all her bags of designer clothing from her fancy Range Rover before it gets repossesed made my day. Schadenfreude so good. Even when I learned that Operation Repo is a faux reality show where they do re-enactments of real repossesion stories, it’s still all good, especially because of when the real reposesser says that if it weren’t for his kind, no one would be able to afford a car. Food for thought.
Consumerist Interviews Goolsbee On Credit Card Reform: Part 4 of 4
The final installment of our 4-part interview on credit card reform with Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s senior economic adviser. In this one we say, hey, what about mandatory binding arbitration?
Consumerist Interviews Goolsbee On Credit Card Reform: Part 3 of 4
Are credit cards set up like a horrible game of Chutes & Ladders that plays for keeps? In the 3nd of our 4-part interview series with President Obama’s Senior Economic Adviser, Austan Goolsbee, on credit card reform, we ask why credit card companies can raise the APR on stuff you already charged, and go into some of the credit card companies’ anti-consumer tricks like liquid and fickle terms and conditions, penalty fees that aren’t trying to discourage behavior anymore, they’re just pure profit, and teeny-tiny contracts written in “Bank-o-nese.”
Blockbuster Busted For Overcharging Customers, Must Pay $300k
What do you do when the foundation to your business is crumbling and bankrupcty lurks like the Grim Reaper just outside your drop box? If you’re Blockbuster, apparently you charge customers more at the register than what’s displayed on the product, at least in California.
Consumerist Interviews Goolsbee On Credit Card Reform: Part 2 of 4
In the 2nd of our 4-part interview series with President Obama’s Senior Economic Adviser, Austan Goolsbee, on credit card reform, we ask, what about the kids? Specifically, what is this bill going to do about those guys giving away shirts on campus in exchange for signing up for credit cards? Because these seems a really great service for college students, who, as we know, frequently go shirtless. Also, how one side of the debate on credit cards is essentially arguing that if you didn’t want to get carjacked you should have taken the bus… because an honest business model and a profitable one needn’t be mutually exclusive.
Goolsbee Video Fixed
If you had problems viewing the Goolsbee interview, this here video should work for you now. [Consumerist]
"Jam Wow" Remix: All We Can Say Is Sham Wow.
Fresh off the success of the Slap Chop remix, DJ Steve Porter has remixed another of Vince’s commercials into an auto-tuned, flat-topped masterpiece.
Consumerist Interviews Goolsbee On Credit Card Reform: Part 1 of 4
We took your credit card reform questions to DC yesterday and interviewed Austan Goolsbee, senior economic adviser to President Obama. In part 1 of our 4-part series, we ask how are banks getting billions in bailouts and can turn around and cut off millions of credit cards and raise rates? How does it make sense that credit card companies can raise the interest rate on an existing balance? And, most importantly, why don’t we treat credit cards more like Canadians do cigarettes?
Consumerist Interviews Goolsbee About Credit Card Reform: Part 1 of 4
We took your credit card reform questions to DC yesterday and interviewed Austan Goolsbee, senior economic adviser to President Obama. In part 1 of our 4-part series, we ask how are banks getting billions in bailouts and can turn around and cut off millions of credit cards and raise rates? How does it make sense that credit card companies can raise the interest rate on an existing balance? And, most importantly, why don’t we treat credit cards more like Canadians do cigarettes?
../../../..//2009/05/15/if-we-owned-a-blockbuster/
If we owned a Blockbuster franchise, we’d seriously think about just renting out the space to a bunch of Redbox kiosks. Blockbuster reported a 42% drop in revenue for the first quarter of 2009, which CEO Jim Keyes blamed on people going out to watch movies at theaters instead. Regarding the Redbox threat, Keyes said they hope to have 3,000 kiosks functioning by the end of the year. Redbox, on the other hand, has about 12,000. [Reuters]
Colbert's Credit Card Pre-Approved For Its Own Credit Card
“Being in a financial hole is as American as borrowing apple pie.” Colbert took on credit card reform last night. Here’s the clip. The best part is where his credit card is approved for its own credit card.
Consumerist Starts Taking It Seriously?
Why so serious? Can all these companies really be taking all of these incidents as seriously as they say? Or is “taking it seriously” really just “disaster ketchup,” an all-purpose phrase you can toss on any situation and mask the underlying bad taste it leaves in your mouth? We have no idea, we just know that as long as companies keep messing up, “taking it seriously” will still be with us. However, we have our own policy about “taking it seriously” on Consumerist, which you’ll have to watch this video of me inside the Consumers Union anechoic testing chamber to find out. And if it’s a policy you agree with, shove some bucks in our tipjar at donatetoconsumerist.com.
Great Moments In Commercial History: Domino's Pasta Dude
Back in early ’08, to promote their new line of pasta primavera items, Domino’s rolled out a screechy-voiced CGI rigatoni that raps about the joys of oven-baked pasta, reports SoGood. “Pasta Dude” some rhymes, then he busts out some dance moves that look like he’s bending over an imaginary dance partner and slapping them across the rear. This, apparently, was cause for controversy.
Former Domino's YouTube Gross Out Girl Can't Get A Job Now
Kristy Hammonds, the woman who filmed her friend Michael doing inappropriate things to the food they were supposed to be preparing, needs a job to feed her two kids. She says she’s been trying to get work at other fast food restaurants, though, which might be part of the problem.
Meg & Ben Dance-Fight The Shaky Machine
Ain’t no party like a shaky-machine party! Meg and I were cruising through the halls of Consumers Union, sporting our awesome lab coats, and then we came across this thing. It’s a machine whose whole purpose is to shake. Oh, and tap. That’s not a bad way to go through life. We tried to communicate with it through the universal language of dance. Not sure if what we were saying came out right, we were trying to tell it it should visit donatetoconsumerist.com and toss a few bucks in our tipjar, but I think what came out is that we all agreed to go on a bicycle tour of Europe together this summer.
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