New York’s crusading Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, has a new target: social networking contact-spamming site Tagged.com. He intends to stop the company’s practices and seek fines from them. Were the fine $1 per spammy e-mail they’ve sent, the total would be $60 million. Too much?
york
NY Attorney General Unfriends Tagged.com, Files Lawsuit
By 7.9.09
Airlines Have Bumped 343,000 Passengers This Year
By 8.23.08
Over a quarter-million passengers were bumped from flights in the past eight months, a number that is set to grow as airlines try to boost anemic profits by slashing fleets. The Department of Transportation requires airlines to compensate bumped passengers with cash or vouchers, but savvy passengers can leverage their situation to negotiate heftier payments…
How To Spot IDT As They Snake Up Manhattan's Spine
By 12.22.07
A reader on Manhattan’s Upper West Side spotted an IDT energy salesman going door-to-door this week. The tipster nabbed a copy of IDT’s enrollment forms so you know what to look for when the scammy salesmen try to wrangle you into signing up for services that can triple the cost of your energy bill.
Is Express Taxing Tax-Exempt Items?
By 12.1.07
An Express in New York City charged a sharp-eyed reader tax on a belt that cost $34.50. Neither the city nor state levy tax on items costing less than $110.
Winter Coat Crisis of 2006
By 12.26.06
The New York Times is reporting on a phenomenon they call “Coat Crisis of 2006, a fashion fiasco measured in racks of unsold fur-lined shearlings at Saks Fifth Avenue and down puffer jackets at Bloomingdale’s.”
Restaurant Rounds Up to the Nearest Nickel?
By 12.8.06
Maybe this is something new that we’re missing out on, but since when is there a “rounding” charge? This restaurant in Brooklyn rounded up $.02 to make this bill an (even?) $22.95. Uh, what? Maybe it’s part of the war on pennies. —MEGHANN MARCO
Fly the Friendly Skies in a Coffin
By 4.25.06
Call it “Standing Tomb Only” airplane seating, a new cost-cutting measure proposes shuttling passengers across the sky strapped into coffin-sized spaces.
DirecTV Loses Customer Over Hi-Def, Doesn’t Care
By 4.5.06
Chuck from Brooklyn, “one of the lemmings who bought a HD TV recently” writes that he’s “puzzled by the nonchalance with which [DirectTV] let me switch over to their mortal enemy [TimeWarner].”
Consumerist Research Team Assemble: Buying Cigarettes in New York
By 1.24.06
Since today is turning out to be one of those days where we lay out all our shortcomings and ask you to help us fix them, we’ll see our own bad credit and raise ourselves one addiction. It seems that Bloomberg is threatening to raise cigarette taxes again, which would bring the tax total to $3.50, or more than most people pay for cigarettes in their entirety in most states.
