It’s a big deal when Consumer Reports awards a “Don’t Buy” rating to a vehicle, and when it announced earlier today that the 2010 Lexus GX 460 should be avoided because of safety risks, the story started popping up all over the web. Now only 12 hours later, Lexus has announced that it is asking dealers to temporarily stop selling the vehicle while it looks into the situation, and that it’s taking the Consumer Reports claim “very seriously.”
T&J Towing of Kalamazoo, MI wants to send a message to anyone in the town who feels like complaining about the company online. They’ve filed a $750,000 defamation lawsuit against a Western Michigan University student for starting a Facebook page about them.
The student, Justin Kurtz, told the local news station,
“It’s not like I was making untrue claims or anything. It’s not like I had control over anything that everyone had posted the whole time. I told everyone to be professional, don’t post any threats. Just tell your story and that’s what pretty much everyone did.”
“Towing co. wants $750K from WMU student” [WOOD TV8] (Thanks to Dustin!)
“Kalamazoo Residents against T&J Towing” [Facebook]
A former BoA IT worker has agreed to plead guilty to installing malware on the bank’s ATM machines in order to withdraw money whenever he felt like it, reports Wired. According to the plea agreement, his total take from the crime was between $200-400k. The bank won’t disclose how he did it or what the malware was like, but earlier this month Visa announced that new malware has hit the U.S. that could not only capture customers’ PINs and card data, but also give the criminal the ability to empty the machine of any cash that was in it.
It’s bad enough that banks have been negligent at implementing the government’s loan modification program, but now a BoA mortgage loan officer is being sued for making extra money illegally on struggling homeowners. According to the Boston Globe, a new lawsuit claims the employee was demanding as much as $1,500 from each borrower before offering help foreclosure help, and routing the funds through his own company, Foreclosure Alternatives. The lawsuit also alleges that the man falsely represented himself as an attorney for BoA.
“Suit says loan officer took illegal fees” [Boston.com]
Executives love to justify price increases or staff reductions by hauling out the customer service argument, because then any complaint you make can be framed as self-defeating. (“Don’t you want better service?”) On that note, Spirit’s CEO Ben Baldanza told travel blogger Christopher Elliott last week that the new carry-on bag fee is really intended to reduce gate delays. Remember to send a thank-you card to Baldanza.
Baldanza told Elliott, “Last fall, we identified excessive carry-on baggage as the number-one controllable reason that our planes were being delayed at the gate.” Spirit’s solution is to change the pricing structure so that nobody can avoid a checked baggage fee, thereby reducing the incentive to bring your bag onto the plane yourself.
The baggage fees disclosed on the Spirit website support his claim. In fact, starting August 1st it will be $5 cheaper to check your bag than to carry it with you (online only; all bag fees jump to $45 at the gate). Or to look at it another way, starting August 1st you’ll have to pay $5 extra to keep your baggage with you on a Spirit flight. If you don’t like this, then you hate customer service.
When Elliott asks if Baldanza thinks $45 is a little high, he responds, “It sure is!” Then he tries to upsell Elliott’s readers on a $40 annual “Fare Club” membership (with auto-renewal) that drops the online baggage fees by $10.
Baldanza also adds that “while the basis for this new fee was founded in improved customer service, it has not been communicated this way through the media.” Well, I did my part, Baldanza!
“Spirit’s Baldanza: ‘The basis for this new fee was founded in improved customer service’” [Elliott.org]
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“Senator Joins DOT Secretary In Blasting Spirit’s New Carry-On Bag Fees”
If all this iPad iPad iPad Apple Apple Apple gyrating has got you hot and bothered for an iPhone, take a deep breath and calm down. Now is probably the worst time to take the plunge, notes The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Historically, mid-summer is when Apple ugprades the hardware, so if you wait a couple of months you might be able to get a faster or more feature-rich iPhone for the same cash you’d be shelling out today.
If you were thinking of saving money by buying the older 3G model, make sure you know what you’re settling for. Not only is it a two-year-old model, it won’t be capable of using the multi-tasking feature that Apple’s next OS upgrade promises.
“Buyer’s Advice: Now is a really bad time to buy an iPhone 3G” [TUAW]
MasterCard has decided to expand into online retailing, so it’s opened a store that’s sort of Amazon lite. Well, Amazon several design iterations ago. Actually the site looks like one of those themed mini-stores eBay keeps promoting these days, but the merchandise is all new and tailored to your shopping patterns. And by “tailored,” I mean that the card issuer is using special customer behavior software to predict the things you’re most likely to buy, which it then shows to you.
A third-party company called Next Jump provides the behavioral targeting service, which the New York Times says is already in use on Yahoo’s shopping site and on an earlier MasterCard rewards site. Be prepared to guard your credit card closely if you check it out; Next Jump says its software is accurate enough to convert 1 out of every 11 browsers into buyers.
“MasterCard Set to Open an Online Shopping Mall” [New York Times]
When you see a free gift card offer on Facebook, just stay away. Last Friday a fake IKEA gift card scam attracted over 37,000 eager Facebook users, and it’s at least the third one to successfully go viral on the site since late March.
The offer will ask you to hand over contact info for your Facebook friends, then directs you to a site where you have to sign up for paid offers like Netflix or CreditReport.com. Of course, no gift card ever arrives, and in the meantime the skeevy Facebook page owner will have made thousands in affiliate fees, and will probably have sold your personal info to some other marketer.
“Ikea gift card scam takes in nearly 40,000 Facebook users” [MacWorld]
Now that everyone is so obsessed with their credit reports and FICO scores, credit monitoring services have popped up everywhere. For a modest recurring fee–one that easily adds up to over $100 a year–you can have a company constantly watch your credit report and alert you of any changes in it, so you can always be on top of your creditworthiness. But should you bother? The consumer director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups federation (U.S. PIRG) tells BusinessWeek that credit monitoring is a “protection racket” that turns people into “financial hypochondriacs… who are scared of their own financial shadows.”
Naturally, the people who work at credit monitoring companies disagree, pointing out that when you pull a credit report, it’s technically no longer accurate after one day (assuming it’s accurate to begin with), and that a credit monitoring service can alert you almost immediately if you’re a victim of identity theft.
On the other hand, the U.S. PIRG director notes that if you really need to always know your credit history, it would be cheaper to just pay for credit reports several times a year:
Mierzwinski says nobody needs ongoing credit monitoring. He advises anyone applying for a mortgage to audit their three credit reports several months before closing on a home to make sure they know what’s on them and to clear up inaccuracies that could affect their mortgage rate. For those who want to look at their credit reports more often, it’s cheaper to buy once or twice a year than to pay monthly credit-monitoring fees because the reports cost only $8 to $15, he says. Mierzwinski disapproves of the 7-day trial period companies typically offer because most commercial offers give consumers 30 days to cancel purchases.
Remember that you can always get three free credit reports every 12 months–one each from Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax–only at annualcreditreport.com.
“Monitoring Sites Draw Credit ‘Hypochondriacs’” [BusinessWeek]
Spirit Airline’s ballsy new $20-45 fee for carry-on bags has already caught the attention of the Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and now New York Senator Charles Schumer is rattling his sword.
Last week, LaHood told Elliott.org that this is “absolutely not” the way an airline should be handling fees, and says that Spirit is trying to deceive passengers with super cheap fares up front and hidden fees disclosed in fine print.
You can read the full interview here, but the gist is that LaHood thinks all fees or potential fees should be disclosed before the consumer makes the decision to purchase the ticket. As far as what the DOT plans to do about it, he says, “We have a rule in process [scheduled for release in June], and all the things we’re talking about, they’re being considered. We’re on this. Stay tuned.”
Senator Charles Schumer is taking more immediate measures to counter Spirit’s new fee. The NY Daily News reports that he has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to reverse a recent ruling that allows Spirit to keep the entire carry-on baggage fee tax free. Airlines don’t pay taxes on fees charged for “unnecessary” in-flight items like peanuts and pillows, and currently carry-on bags are also considered unnecessary by the Treasury Department. Schumer has told various media outlets that if the Treasury Department doesn’t reverse the ruling, he’ll introduce legislation to stop carry-on bag fees altogether.
“LaHood on Spirit’s carry-on baggage fees: ‘We’re gonna hold the airline’s feet to the fire on this’” [Elliott.org via USA Today]
“Sen. Schumer demands action over airline’s new $45 fee for carry-on bags” [NY Daily News]
Tina Fey’s new fake commercial for a product called “Brownie Husband” is delicious and gross. (Whoever made the prop should get a special award.) It captures in one ridiculous product all the promises advertisers make about filling your emotional needs, with just a microwave and a vacuum-molded plastic tray. It’s also kind of food porn-y. Watch it below.
“Saturday Night Live Recap” [New York]
I was at a Rite-Aid a couple of weeks back and went to pick up some cheap dish detergent, and the bottles that I remembered being less than $1.50 were all in the $3-4 range. I left and found sanely-priced soap at another store a few blocks away. Our reader Stan just wrote in with a similar example, where he caught his local CVS charging him three times as much as a nearby competitor.
Stan writes:
Caught this while shopping at CVS yesterday. Apparently, a “Jumbo” styptic pencil costs $4.89 @ CVS. Stopped at Wegman’s down the street and the exact same item (same brand/packaging) cost $1.49. When I returned the styptic pencil to CVS, the sales clerk told me that “items at CVS are more expensive than at other stores” but agreed that the over 3x difference was a bit exorbitant.
A man in Tennessee has been banned from ever entering any Regions Bank branch again, because the bank says he was so disruptive and hostile to their employees that they were forced to seek a restraining order. The cause of the dispute was a $29 late fee on an account where the bank had moved up the due date but hadn’t noted it on the online version of the account.
Regions says William Weintraub cursed during his calls, and would call back immediately whenever employees hung up on him. Weintraub says he intentionally took a harsh tone with customer service reps, but that he has always had a cordial experience with branch employees. More likely, the following incident was the trigger for the lifelong banning:
Among other things, [Weintraub] said he used a Google search to find the phone number of Grayson Hall — who took over as Regions CEO on March 31 — and called him at home, in a discussion that lasted for about 20 minutes.
[…]
They have a wall between you and their executives or anybody else in the bank but customer service people,” he said, adding that “they didn’t like me penetrating that wall.”
“Regions to Knoxville man: Stay away. Forever.” [Knox News] (Thanks to Kevin!)
Michael says his local Walgreens in Illinois can’t seem to unload its inventory of last year’s Hanukkah candy–so it just brings it back out with every other holiday.
The funny part is that when they bring out a batch of each holiday candy, they jack back up the prices of the Hanukkah candy. And then when that holdiay’s candy goes on sale, they also put the Hanukkah candy on sale. Attached is picture of the Hanukkah Dreidels and Candy coins that they’ve been bringing out every holiday this year.
Bebo is a social network a few rungs down from Facebook, which for all practical purposes means it may as well be someone’s WordPress blog. That’s why AOL is finally admitting it missed the window for social network dominance and will sell it or close it “soon,” according to an internal memo. If you’ve been hanging on to a Bebo account and hoping the tide would turn, you might want to start checking out the other more popular social networks out there.
“AOL Plans to Sell or Shutter $850 Million Bebo Acquisition” [Wired]
Up until today, if you lived near a certain street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and wanted some pot, you just had to go to the nearby variety store. Or the music store. Or the take-out restaurants. MyFox New York says police “made a sweep of the neighborhood” today and shut down six businesses for selling drugs either in the back or right alongside the regular merchandise. They also arrested 8 people, including a few store owners and employees, and are planning more arrests. Video below.
“NYPD Busts Alleged Drug Sellers at Retail Stores” [MyFoxNY]
Erica and her fiance are tired of waiting for a lamp to arrive from Lamps Plus, especially now that it’s been three months and the company hasn’t kept any of its promises so far. She wants to know what to do next.
Here’s a portion of the letter she snail-mailed to the company over a week ago, because she couldn’t find working email addresses and the company’s web form wasn’t working. She says she hasn’t received any response from them yet.
On December 28th, my fiancé and I came into your Lamps Plus store in San Diego in order to find a floor lamp for one of our rooms.
Not finding our lamp of choice in the showroom, an employee brought our attention to your Berkeley bent three-light lamp, which was available from another warehouse. We decided on it and made a down payment of $90. We were told by your employee to expect our lamp within six to eight weeks.
Four weeks passed during which we received no word from your store. I looked on my receipt and discovered that special orders could take from six to eight weeks for delivery, so I waited four more weeks before calling in with my query. I was told that my lamp would be delayed until March 15th.
I waited till then and once again called the store when I had not heard from them. I was greeted with a salesperson who had no clue what sort of order I was talking about. I was transfered to another sales rep who told me to call later the next day when the original employee who took the down payment would be in. I did so and talked to him, and he assured me the lamp was on its way, and that someone would call me when it arrives because they “wouldn’t want it taking up space in their storeroom either.”
Perhaps he was trying to be jovial, but with the abysmal service I have experienced while trying to purchase one floor lamp, I did not find the situation to be such a lighthearted affair. As I write this letter, it is exactly three months since we placed our order, and I am still without a lamp.
At this point, we just want a reasonable assurance that we will get our lamp soon or to have our down payment refunded. This is the first and last time my fiancé and I will shop here.
Erica, I hope you put that down payment on a credit card, because if so you should just initiate a charge back for non-receipt of goods. Since Lamps Plus doesn’t have any reliable way of contacting them for customer service, this may in fact be the best way of making sure someone takes notice.
If you plan to visit Los Angeles and want to stay at the W Hollywood, don’t expect to get to see the rooftop pool. The hotel contracted the running and maintenance of its pool out to a Las Vegas promotion company, and now it’s been turned into an exclusive club and is off-limits to paying customers of the hotel.
Gadling’s blogger Jason Cochran was a guest at the W Hollywood last month and discovered this new rule first hand, when a bouncer doorman turned him away and said that members of the “general public” weren’t allowed in the pool. Apparently paying $230 a night for a room at the hotel makes you a member of the general public as far as pool privileges go.
“The W Hollywood won’t let guests use its pool” [Gadling] (Thanks to Laura!)
There’s a funny post at the blog Fair Trade Photographer about cheap stock photography, particularly how companies who try to cut corners end up using the same image over and over. Barton has a serious message for companies, too: if you want us to trust you, maybe you shouldn’t put a generic stock photo of generic office people on your generic website.
“Microstock: why would a reputable company do this to themselves?” [Fair Trade Photographer] (Thanks to Melissa!)
Maybe Calgary’s residents didn’t like being eclipsed by the Olympics, or maybe there’s just an awfully high number of bored crooks living there. Either way, the city has now reported 11 cases of food tampering, mostly involving shards of metal inserted into food items, in grocery stores across the city since January.
One of the first ones was alleged to have been the work of an angry shoplifter who had been banned from a supermarket, but police think copycat perps are behind the other cases. They say they’re going to stop holding as many news conferences, and will take a lower-profile approach to future incidents in order to avoid giving anyone any ideas.
You can watch Calgary’s police Chief Rick Hanson hold a short press conference–probably his last one on the matter–on the CBC website.
“Food tampering has Calgary shoppers wary” [CBC]
“Mom who shoplifted at supermarket charged with food tampering” [Vancouver Sun]
“Food vandals attention-craving misfits: criminologist” [CNews]