There was a time when the best place to charge our cellphone was near an open window in our apartment. One day, it stopped working and we took it into the Verizon store to get it fixed. The first thing they did was open up the battery case. On top of the Verizon LG phone battery was a small dot, normally white, that changes color when the battery has been exposed to water. As such, they phone was no longer covered under warranty and we ended up signing a new contract just so we didn’t have to pay full retail for their phone. We wished that instead we had known about these neat tips (again, at WikiHow) on saving your wet cell phone.
warranties
Whose Warranty Is Best?
By 9.13.06
That got Homerjay thinking. We all know to avoid these in-store warranties, but which manufacturer warranties are up to snuff? Apple is famous for their level of service (as long as it’s not an iPod). Who else’s warranty wins it for you?
Don’t Be This Consumer
By 8.21.06
Instead, he used the oldest black hat consumer trick and bought a new video ipod, put the old ipod in, and returned it.
Best Buy Vacuum Sales Clogged With Lies?
By 7.17.06
At first we were excited by Lisa’s story. It seemed that Best Buy was running a scam, tricking consumers into buying vacuums and service plans and then not fixing the vacuums when they broke. Lisa complained, “until she was blue in the face” to multiple supervisors, to no avail
Best Buy Repair Melts Meat, Not Hearts
By 6.15.06
There is some use crying over spilt ice cream, though Best Buy won’t shed too many tears over it. That’s just as well. The resulting mix would leave a bad taste in your mouth, just like their customer service, as Nikki found when trying to get her refrigerator repaired.
TV Shipping in the Valley of the Amazons
By 5.19.06
Man buys TV from Amazon. UPS keeps dropping it. Perhaps Amazon should use better packing.
Best Buy Fulfills Its Name
By 5.19.06
Man goes to Best Buy. Buys iPod. Has good experience. Universe implodes.
How Many Tales of iPod Can We Tell? Best Buy Adds One More…
By 5.16.06
Gothamgal purchased an iPod from Best Buy, along with the product replacement plan. Times passes, product needs replacing. Best Buy says, “no problem, bring it on down.”
Huffy Gets Basketball Right
By 5.15.06
We remember Huffy for their bikes. Those first, off-the-rack bikes given by a grandfather hefting one down from the K-mart rack. He puts it down and says, take this for a ride and see how it does you, sport. Eagerly we climbed on, not knowing of course at that tender age that we would later mock the very transportation device for its middling charm, simplicity and inability to traverse mud splattered boulders.
Duped by Dell
By 5.11.06
We think our Dell XPS Laptop is the cat’s pajamas and can’t understand why all these strange people around the internet have such a burn against the computer maker. Maybe that’s because we’ve never needed it to get repaired or otherwise tickle the warranty.
O. Henry Gets a Flat
By 5.9.06
Drew writes in what surely has to be one of our more literary, if not in style, at least in structure, stories we’ve received to date.
Man’s Overpriced Trash Can Ain’t Garbage
By 5.3.06
When the odd silver trash can with foot-operated sits on a curb, awaiting scavenging or garbage man pickup, invariably we find the pedal slurred to one side. This critical component is often the first piece to blow on a trash can and results in the receptacle being left on the side of the street like so many teenager hookers before.
Buying Bargain Nokia Bears Bitter Ironies
By 4.11.06
It’s time for The Consumerist to play matchmaker.
HOWNOTTO: Buy a Laptop
By 3.6.06
UPDATE: Patricia wrote in how she purchased a defective laptop from the Uniwill corporation who didn’t respond to her requests for them to live up to their warranty for on-site service. Even after finally getting through to the repair center and sending her laptop in, it was sent back in exactly the same condition: it powered down whenever a CD was inserted.
Lease Your Way to the Hi-Tech Stratosphere
By 2.17.06
Four years ago she bought two Creative Zen 40GBs for under $300 apiece, along with a 2-year Replacement Plan for $40.
