Apparently BJ Novak from The Office mentioned The Consumerist on Conan O’ Brien last night because last year we wrote about how he went on Conan to expose how Cadbury Eggs keep shrinking, and it soon blew up into a big deal with a bunch of other places picking up the story. I can’t wait for The Office to do an episode where Michael outlaws the use of paper and pens. Here’s the clip.
videos
Milfs Mortified By Urban Outfitters' Bawdry Books
By 5.6.08
Marci Milfs was appalled to see risque books being sold at her local Urban Outfitters store in Lynwood, Washington. According to The Herald, she was out clothes-shopping with her son when she came across the racy books. The titles included, “Pornogami: A Guide to the Ancient Art of Paper-Folding for Adults,” a how-to for making anatomically correct paper artwork and “Porn for Women,” a photo book showing men doing housework. Details, inside…
Is The "Unbreakable Autolock" Actually Just "Gone In 60 Seconds?"
By 5.6.08
Reader Alan thought that installing the Unbreakable Autolock would give him some peace of mind and enhance his vehicle’s security. But those thoughts were quickly dashed when his Toyota Rav4 was stolen in the middle of the night. The device is supposed to immobilize the brake or clutch making a car impossible to drive. Alan did some research, and to his amazement, found a video of a young boy picking an identical lock in under a minute. The lock-pick video and his letter, inside…
Darque Tan Prevents You From Dying Of Vitamin-D Deficiency
By 5.1.08
According to an article in The Daily Texan, law student Emily Prewett, has filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General against the company Darque Tan because of their misleading and irresponsible ads. One of their television commercial begins with a man in white lab coat saying, “Science has discovered that UVB from tanning converts cholesterol into Vitamin D.” Then the narrator says, “Mmm yeah. Vitamin D-licious. Come get yours with a free week of level 1 tanning.” The TV ad and more details, inside…
Halve Your Shipping Costs With Amtrak
By 4.26.08
Express shipping from Amtrak is a cost-efficient way to ship packages between cities, sometimes costing half the price of UPS or FedEx.
Satire: Home Depot Honors Fallen Veterans With "Memorial Decks"
By 4.25.08
The Onion News Network delivers a mock news sketch where an interview with the mother of a fallen US soldier is interwoven with bald-faced Home Depot ads.
Consumers Use Shopping Spree To Get Store To Make Energy Efficient Choices
By 4.23.08
Carrotmob leveraged the power of several hundred San Francisco consumers to get a local liquor store to make environmentally friendly choices. How did they do it? Organizer Brent Schulkin went to all the liquor stores and asked if he got a ton of people down there to buy on one day, how great of a percentage of their spending would the store be willing to dedicate to making environmentally friendly improvments? The store with the greatest percentage won and the Carrotmob got several hundred people to show up on one day. The line stretched around the block and bouncers had to be used to regulate the inflow. The consumers spent about five times what the store pulls in on a normal day, generating enough money for the store to redo its lighting system and its refrigeration gaskets. “We can harness the buying power of the casual consumer, get businesses to make environmental choices, and we can do it with the carrot,” says Brent in the event video after the jump. Pretty freakin’ awesome, a total win-win, imagine what could this look like if it were scaled out on a national level…
8 Monthlong Dodge Charger Problem Fixed After Consumerist Post
By 4.22.08
Whenever Brian drove his Dodge Charger in the rain, all the dash lights flashed and he had trouble restarting his car, but after 8 months of strife, his problem got fixed after his story posted to The Consumerist. The next day after the post went up, Brian got a call from Paul at Danbury Dodge, his dealership. Paul wanted Brian to bring his car in so the Chrysler tech could inspect it. Brian brought in the car during a rainy day, the problems were recreated, and the Chrysler tech diagnosed and fixed the problem in less than four hours. On repeated visits before this, the dealership kept claiming they couldn’t recreate the problem. A rep for Chrysler VP TP Lassdora also called Brian up, apologized profusely, and offered five years of free oil changes and extended Brian’s service contract. “In the end, I believe that the Consumerist story forced Chrysler to get involved, whereas Danbury Dodge was content to ignore my complaints,” writes Brian. “Thank you to the staff and the readers of the Consumerist for motivating Chrysler and Danbury Dodge to fix my car.” Inside, the original video showing how Brian’s dashboard reacted in the rain.
How To Wean People Off Doctors
By 4.18.08
It’s Friday and since no one gives a damn about our groundbreaking Verizon expose, here’s a 1999 Daily Show video where a fake HMO spokesperson played by Paul Mercurio presents his case for “How To Wean People Off Doctors”. To wit: “Giving birth eats up a lot of time, something today’s busy working women don’t have much of. That’s where our next project comes in. Drive-through maternity clinics. Or, as we like to call them, Stop & Pops.” Wasn’t Walmart thinking about installing those this year? Full video inside.
Dateline Investigates Shady Annuity Salesmen Targeting Seniors
By 4.15.08
Dateline did a hidden camera investigation into the world of shady annuity salesmen targeting seniors and playing on their emotions to lock their life savings away in funds they may never live to receive the benefit from, or pay stiff penalties, not disclosed in the sales pitch, for early withdrawal. In this clip, Dateline producers attended “Annuity University,” a two-day session run by Tyrone Clark to teach them how to sell to elders. He settled with the state of Massachusetts after he published a sales pamphlet that told salespeople to treat seniors “like they were selling to a twelve year old” and to hit their “fear, anger, and greed buttons” to make the sale. He also sells questionable self-promotional tools and services. In one of them, a fake radio guy will call up the salesperson and interview them like they’re a financial expert on the radio. The session is recorded and the salesman gets CDs to pass out, so they can pass themselves off as legitimate financial advisers. Video, inside…
Buy True Love Online At Harmotrex
By 4.7.08
eHarmony gets sent up in this spoof video made by Consumerist reader Will. True love can be bought on the internet! Settling for less has never been so easy. Transcript inside…
Running Low On In-Store Exchanges Under Your Total Access Plan? Try Visiting A Different Blockbuster Location
By 4.6.08
Hacking Netflix reports that many Blockbuster locations don’t use a centralized network to keep tabs on Total Access usage. The tip was originally reported by Kevin Tostado, who took down his post after a ball-busting conversation with Blockbuster in which they asked him to cease and desist. Fortunately, Google’s marvelously efficient spiders reached Kevin’s site before Blockbuster and preserved the post.
Ric Romero Reports: Battle Of The Dishwashing Detergents
By 3.29.08
Consumer Reports cut through the greasy claims of competing dishwasher detergents to find out which one is best suited for Ric Romero’s “dirty dish-duty.” The winner? Much like the Special Olympics, everyone won. Each detergent works fine if you scrub long enough. Efficiency comes with a price, and Dawn direct foam was the costliest and speediest of the twelve brands tested, followed closely by Ajax Lemon Dish Liquid.
Geek Squad Feels "Unfairly Targeted" By Consumerist Expose
By 3.28.08
When personal finance magazine Kiplinger asked the Geek Squad about our video that caught one of their technicians stealing porn from our harddrive (peeping tomism, hardly limited to Geek Squad, is just as rampant in the computer repair industry as the photo developing industry), an unidentified Geek Squad spokeswoman ingenuously responded, “We have been the target of a blog that prefers to focus on the exceptions to our service and not the overall, vast majority of successful services we provide to clients.” That’s like saying dirt is unfairly targeted by a broom. Where there’s a valid complaint, we’ll post. Where there’s a consumer whose rights aren’t respected, we will defend. We don’t have a vendetta against the Geek Squad, or any other company. We have a vendetta against bad customer service. That’s our bottom line. After the jump, the original undercover video…
Interview: Ralph Nader Says We're Living Under Corporate Fascism
By 3.28.08
On activism: You want a better country, you’ve got to spend more of your time more time away from american idol, and more time on your members of Congress. We’re millions of people, but corporations don’t have a single vote, and members of congress are there because of our votes, so make those votes count.
How To Haggle
By 3.24.08
The pricetag is no longer the final word, stores are playing “let’s make a deal,” and haggling is in. Consumer Reports Todd Marks tells The Today Show the secrets to haggling success:Be open and friendly in your discussion with the salesperson, ask for them to “work with you” on the priceBe…
