Author: Laura Northrup

Theresa had a contract with Helio/Virgin Mobile that ended this month, putting her in a position to negotiate. She writes that by comparison shopping and politely asking for the customer retention department, she and her girlfriend were able to knock $35 per month off the bill for their family plan. Here’s how she did it.

Just thought I’d share a success story about the power of being a smart, polite, well-informed consumer!

My girlfriend and I have a family cell phone plan with Helio (now owned by Virgin Mobile) and our two-year contract ended this January. We like our service, but we wanted to pay less. Our company was already offering a new phone or $20 off our bill per month, but I thought I could do better.

So we started shopping around. We found a comparable plan at metroPCS that would cost us about $30 less per month. I didn’t want to end my service, but I know it’s important to be well-educated about other offers.

I called Helio to see if they could give me a better deal. They offered me $25 off my bill each month instead of $20–not enough for me. They also offered free extra minutes, but I explained that we don’t use up the few minutes we do buy each month, so that wouldn’t help us. The customer service rep said they couldn’t offer me anything more and I ended the call.

I called back a little while later and asked to speak to customer retention. Apparently that’s the magic word! I was soon connected to a friendly, helpful customer service rep. I explained that we like our service, but found a better deal elsewhere, and we were thinking of cancelling. She quickly escalated their offer to $35 off our phone bill each month! We got to keep the service we like while paying much less, and we didn’t even have to commit to a new one-year contract. My only regret is that I didn’t try to hold out for even more.

Keys to my success, which I’ve learned from Consumerist
1. I was unfailingly polite but firm in what I wanted.
2. I had researched my options and was able to back up my threat to cancel with proof of a better offer.
3. I didn’t give up before reaching someone with the power to give me what I wanted.
4. I didn’t jump at the first offer I received.
5. I was nice to the service reps–after I got the final offer, I even asked to speak to the manager to praise the woman who had helped me.

One frequent comment on posts such as Saturday’s ““This Weight Watchers Meal Includes A Free Frozen Frog” is that Americans are too far removed from where our food really comes from, and it’s unreasonable to expect that our food be 100% critter-free. Is it?

Alex wondered in an e-mail to Consumerist:

I was just wondering. Is it appropriate to freak out about bugs in fresh cut fruits and vegetables? I work at a grocery store and a customer came in and started freaking out over a small bug in her fruit salad. The fruit salad was $4.75 and we gave her something that was double the value for free. I’m just curious though – isn’t it kind of part of the risk you take when eating fresh fruits and veggies? The ingredients do originate where bugs also originate, and while we do try our best, sometimes they slip through and make it into the product as we’re cutting.

When I prepare fresh fruit or vegetables at home, I’m aware that the ingredients might contain bugs, worms, or even fecal material. So I wash it. Was it reasonable for a customer to hold a store’s packaged food to a higher standard than she might hold its produce?

You’re mad, you’re annoyed, or you’ve been ripped off. So you decide to take action, and open up your word processor or e-mail client to write a complaint letter. But that doesn’t mean you actually want anyone to take you seriously, or to help you. Follow these tips to make sure your complaint goes nowhere near anyone in power.

1. Make your letter as long as possible.

Cram every little bit of detail you can in there. Mention every interaction you have had with this company since your birth, or possibly your conception. Tell random, vaguely related stories about your career path.

Similarly:

2. Tell your entire life story.

Your education and career path up to this very moment? Relevant. The details of your relationship to the person who helped you pick out the product you are writing about? How could company representatives possibly understand without knowing that? Remember, the more you write about yourself, the more they’re sure to like you.

3. Don’t even try to write professionally.

You’re just a regular Joe or Josephine with a job, a family, and bills to pay. You’re no speechwriter or lawyer. Remind people of that through your careful use of language. This can be accomplished with liberal use of the caps lock key, brightly colored text, salty language, and punctuation marks for emphasis.

You can also emphasize your youth and the value of your future loyalty to a company through the use of up-to-the-minute slang and Internet or SMS abbreviations. For example, whenever possible, begin sentences with “idk” and complete them with “lol.”

4. Berate the company and its employees.

We’re not talking minor-league stuff like calmly recounting problems you have encountered with front-line customer service reps, or politely suggesting ways that a company can make up to you after you’ve been wronged. No, if you want your letter to be ignored, just go all out and vent. This is a good opportunity to use your most colorful language (see #3.) Here’s a great example: an excerpt from an actual that e-mail a Consumerist reader sent to their ISP:

I AM NOT CLEARING MY GOD DAMNED COOKIES, CAUSING ME TO LOSE INFORMATION I WANT, AND I HAVE SAVED, AND THAT WILL NOT RESOLVE THE PROBLEM YOU STUPID FUCKING UNEDUCATED IGNORANT FUCKING MORONS HAVE CREATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I RAN YOUR USELESS, “FLUSH DNS, ASSHOLE, AND IU REBOOTED THE FUCKING MODEM AND ROUTER. AND IT DIDN’T FUCKING WORK!!!!!! WHY, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE DOING ASSHOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I AM NOT CHANGING DNS EITHER., FIX YOUR GOD DAMNED PROBLEM JERKOFF. HIRE SOMEONE THERE WITH A FUCKING BRAIN, WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE DOING, AND FIX IT!!!!!!!!!!! STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE. JESUS CHRIST YOU ARE A DUMB FUCK.

5. Show off your poetic side.

sometimes there are problems…

important enough that they make you sad

and you can only express yourself

through free-verse poetry.

it’s okay to be that sad. if you are even too sad to use the shift key

that will get your point across.

6. Don’t ever get to the point.

Take five hundred words to get the concept of “my laptop screen is broken” across. Who cares? You don’t want anyone to read it.

7. Make unreasonable demands.

If the resolution you suggest is outlandish and completely out of line with your original problem, what’s the worst the company could do? Ignore your letter? Exactly.

8. Don’t bother with the normal channels.

Go straight to an EECB or call the CEO’s office without bothering to go through any of the regular customer service channels first. Show the company that they shouldn’t take you seriously by not taking their time and procedures seriously.

If, for some crazy reason, you want to write a complaint that companies will notice, I guess you could try reading the advice in these posts:

How To Complain
How To Write A Complaint Letter
How To Escalate To The Most Powerful Levels Of Customer Service
The Underlying Principle For Forcing An Uncaring And Adversarial Company Fix Your Problem
How To Launch An Executive Email Carpet Bomb

Here’s another consumer trend that should surprise absolutely no one. According to the Boston Globe, Americans are shedding their brand loyalties and flocking to generic products. What? No way!

Apparently, many Americans are just now discovering the savings available to those who ignore labels and just grab the cheapest thing on the shelf.

“Store brands used to be nothing you wanted to buy. It was a compromise you’d make in quality in order to get something cheaper,’’ said Alan Klein, of the Marketing Agency Paris New York, a consultancy. “But the recession has been an awakening for some consumers. They are realizing that they can get equal or superior quality.’’

Retail analysts say the trend has made it harder and more expensive for national brands to get their products on the shelves at a time when many of these companies have reduced advertising budgets.

We weep for these national brands. Snif. Pass the Target-brand tissues.

Seeking savings, some ditch brand loyalty [Boston Globe] (Thanks, RandomHookup!)

Ron in Utah tells Consumerist that he purchased what he thought was a brand-new HP printer, but ended up being more of a Box of Crap. The printer inside wasn’t just non-functional, it was so old that the warranty had expired. HP Customer service’s answer? Before they could help him, he had to fax his original receipt within thirty minutes GO NOW NOW NOW TO THE FAX MACHINE NOW!

Ron was not pleased. He writes:

I bought what I thought was a brand new HP photo printer from a local store. I immediately registered it on the HP website which was confirmed; then I turned it on to set it up and print a test page. The result was horrific, all the colors ran together so I rechecked everything and printed a second page with the same results.

I called to 800 customer service number, and yes, I was speaking to someone in India whom I could barely understand. I gave him the model and serial numbers and I was told that printer’s warranty had expired. I tried to explain to him that I just purchased it yesterday. Nope, he told me that printer with that serial # was registered about a year ago and that there wasn’t anything they could or would do, so I asked to speak to the manager.

The manager was rude and told me that I had 30 minutes to fax to him my receipt. Well here’s a news flash, not every American home has a fax machine in it and why should I incur a $50 phone bill faxing to India my receipt since HP just acknowledged registering my “new” printer?

In sum, its obvious someone bought a lemon, returned it, and HP just repackaged it and sold this defective product again as new. When I complained to HP no one responded, they just ignored me. Fortunately the place where I purchased the printer is very reputable and gave me a full refund.

We’re glad to hear that Ron had a happy ending. We’re not sure who else at HP helped him, but if the retailer had remained unmoved, we would have recommended calling up the friendly folks at the company’s executive customer service number to see if they could be much more help. Who knows? They might even be able to receive scanned receipts via e-mail.

RELATED:
5 Ways To Get Your Laptop Back From HP
Reach Hewlett-Packard Executivce Customer Service

Scott has been a longtime and loyal Sony customer, but the company finally disappointed him. He writes that his lovely 46″ LCD began to produce strange images on one side of the screen for ten minutes after powering up–not catastrophic, but not acceptable for a $3,000 TV, either. The regular channels of customer service were no help, so Scott took his case to his blog and to Twitter. The result? He heard from executive customer service within hours, and received a new TV for his trouble.

I have been a lifelong Sony customer and have been very pleased with their products. I have purchased computers from Sony – cameras, walkman’s, alarm clocks, stereos, headphones, and televisions. You name it I purchased it.

So in May of last year when I decided to upgrade my Sony XBR 40″ tube television, I didn’t hesitate, I bought a Sony 46″ LCD television, a KDL-46XBR to be exact. Sony never did wrong by me and my almost 10 year old 40″ tube is still working great to this day. Up to this point, I would recommend to all of my family, friends and readers.

Well, over the last few months, the Sony LCD panel has run into some issues. Whenever I turn it on, the right side of the screen produces mirrored, mis-colored and black images. The problem goes away after about 10 minutes but since I paid just under $3,000 for this tv, this type of behavior is unacceptable. A few pictures are attached.

I understand that the Sony warranty is 1 year; however, when someone pays close to $3,000 for a piece a television, one would expect it would last for more than a couple of years. This one didn’t even last 2 years.

So I called Sony Customer Relations yesterday. They told me that they could possibly help me, even though I was out of warranty and that they needed me to pay a Sony Technician to come out and provide a written estimate before they could determine if they were willing to fix the problem.

Acting as diligently as possible, I contacted the local Sony Technician right after that call. The technician came out yesterday afternoon and provided me with a written estimate of $1,911.00. After paying the technician $70 to provide a written estimate Sony requested, I called Sony Customer Relations this morning.

This time, I spoke to F. After reviewing my file (but without looking at the written estimate I had in my hand that I had not yet faxed to her), she said the television was out of warranty and that there was nothing she could do. She said that televisions are subject to wear and tear. WEAR AND TEAR? I don’t take it mountain biking with me. It just sits in my living room, just like that 40″ XBR did.

I asked her if there was any supervisor I could speak to. She said no. I then asked her where she was, she told me that the Customer Relations Department is in Florida. I again asked her where she was, she said she was in the Philippines.

Peculiar, there is no supervisor or any one else to speak to other than a customer service rep in the Philippines.

Money is not the issue, but as an attorney by trade (as well as an internet blogger and international magazine article contributor) I stand up for people that have been wronged. In this situation, I feel that I have been wronged. If I had that tv on for every minute of the 17 months it worked, I still would not have gotten the benefit of the bargain. Sony, I expected more from you and your product – much, much more.

Over my life, I estimate I have spent about $50,000 on Sony equipment. No more. I’m going to take my business elsewhere if I cannot get a satisfactory resolution to this matter.

A month later, Scott updated Consumerist about the situation:

After blogging and twittering about my dissatisfaction, Sony’s corporate office called me and offered me a new (not a refurb’ed) 46″ XBR9 LCD with a full warranty.

They do have good customer service (3 different people called me after my post) but it appears you have to yell, kick and scream before the people that can really do something to help will wake up.

Well done, Scott: you harnessed the power of the interwebs to get the attention of people in power at Sony.

I will NEVER Buy a Sony Product Again. I Hope You Do The Same. [ReadyandReach.com]

Beer and sausages may indeed be the perfect combination for your Super Bowl gathering, but there’s something about this grocery store display from Budweiser and sausage maker Johnsonville that is terribly wrong. I think it’s the man’s expression as he points to his, er, bratwurst.

Thanks to reader Adam, who found this display in his local grocery store.

During a recent trip to Best Buy to purchase a new laptop, Kristene was pleasantly surprised. She discovered that what our anonymous employee tipster told us in the post “Employee: Best Buy Scrambling To Clean Up Optimization Mess” is true, and customers at at least one Best Buy aren’t being forced to buy optimized computers.

The catch: they have to know to ask.

Last night I bought a new laptop at our local Best Buy and my experience absolutely matches what the anonymous employee described in this article.

I busted my HP laptop’s screen last September (I’m widely known as a total klutz), and I’ve managed to scrape up enough money over the past few months to buy a new one. I had read this article last week, and so armed with information, I went to Best Buy. Although I wasn’t specifically looking for a new HP, I found a great deal on one. We asked the saleswoman if they had any in stock that had not been optimized, and she took a look in the back and there were none.

When she came back to tell us this, she immediately told us outright that since we did not want an optimized machine, we could have any one of the optimization fees waived. We chose one that had just had restore discs made – it was the least touched out of all of them – and went to the Customer Service desk to pay. A manager had to come over to override the fee, but I had absolutely no trouble getting the fee waived.

We wiped the system last night and did a clean install (the restore discs turned out to be totally useless), and now I am writing to you from my new computer. I’m glad I didn’t have to fight with anyone about getting the fee waived, and overall it was a really good buying experience. We had no trouble finding someone to ask about the machines, and everyone was super friendly.

This story happened in Florida. Let us know if you’ve had a similar (or completely different) experience while making a purchase at your local Best Buy.

Reader IfThenElvis has a problem with his Newegg account. Well, technically, it’s not his account. It was just registered using his email address.

I have access to someone’s NewEgg account and don’t want it. If I was
a nogoodnik I could abuse their credit card. He inadvertently created
an account using my email address and I have been receiving his
welcome, invoice, confirmation, and UPS tracking emails. It took a
week but the package was delivered. I have not logged in but can see
his name, address, and phone number. Do I contact him?

If he’s forgotten his password then I don’t want to be in the position of
receiving his password reset email and then forwarding it to the wrong
person even if they are in the same household – I worry about abuse of
the credit card and my liability. NewEgg will not/cannot help. What’s
my next move? Contact him? Login, remove the card and/or cancel the
account? How do I get out of this while protecting myself?

I would give the other customer a call, awkward as it may be. What would you recommend?

You’ve probably heard of the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Alabama. It’s where all lost suitcases that are never reunited with their owners end up. This makes it both the world’s most amazing thrift store and a collection of pretty weird stuff. A recent mental_floss article rounded up ten of the strangest (and most valuable) things they’ve found.

1. Hoggle from the movie “Labyrinth.” Yes. Someone checked the orignal puppet.

2. A Gucci suitcase filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts.

3. A rattlesnake. Yes. A snake on a plane.

4. A $250,000 guidance system belonging to the U.S. Navy.

5. A Barbie doll stuffed with $500 in cash. Best. Birthday. Ever.

6. A suit of armor. Stupid TSA probably wouldn’t let the owner wear it in the cabin during the flight, as planned.

7. A 300-year-old violin. Has Dave Carroll taught us nothing? Don’t check your valuable musical instruments!

8. An ordinary-looking sock, which contained a 5.8-carat diamond set in a platinum ring.

9. A camera designed for the Space Shuttle. NASA flies commercial?

10. A 40.95-carat natural emerald.

The 10 Weirdest Pieces of Unclaimed Luggage [Mental_floss] (Thanks, Michael!)
Unclaimed Baggage Center [Official Site]

We know that the newspaper industry is suffering. Subscribers are fleeing, ad revenue is down, and things are generally dark and terrible. However, this does not mean that it is a good idea to throw sacks of junk mail on the lawns of people who won’t subscribe to your paper. It will not endear you to them. We’re looking at you, Baltimore Sun.

Jonathan is one such non-subscriber. He writes that he continues to do battle with the Sun’s circulation department…all for nothing.

I’m not sure how it works in other cities or with other newspapers, but the Baltimore Sun has a nasty habit of delivering what they call “Sun Plus” to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the newspaper. Sun Plus comes in a standard newspaper bag and is essentially a single sheet of newsprint wrapped around a stack of ads and flyers. They deliver it on a seemingly random basis and not on any set schedule.

The sheet of newsprint does contain instructions for unsubscribing. We’ve lived in our house for six years and I’ve probably unsubscribed 15-20 times. I’ve tried both options listed – phone and email – to no avail. Last time I emailed, I got a very nice note back from Sun employee B. saying, “Thank you for your email. We apologize for the delay. I will add you address to our do not deliver list. The carrier will be notified of your request.”

One week later, it was delivered again. I can’t seem to get The Sun to stop throwing their trash on my yard. If I drove up and threw a bunch of papers onto my neighbor’s yard it would be called littering. What makes this any different and how do I get it to stop? While it is annoying, I fear that when we go out of town they will pile up and make it obvious that we’re not home. It’s not like I can just call and suspend my service like a normal subscriber. Any thoughts?

Since a newspaper is, at its core, just a device to deliver ads to readers’ eyeballs, it makes sense to cut out the actual content and just throw ads at people’s doors in newspaper bags.

My thought is that a lazy paper carrier may be to blame–instead of looking at the list, they may simply be giving a Sun Plus to every house that doesn’t get a paper.

Any ideas? Have you successfully made your local fishwrap stop delivering unwanted ads? Share your secrets in the comments.

Cuisinart doesn’t just ignore consumer protection laws in California–reader Eatswell reports that Cuisinart has decided that the strong implied warranty laws in Maine don’t actually applied to them. Stuck with a non-working coffeemaker, Eatswell wants to fight back.

I contacted Cuisinart about 5 weeks ago about my 18 month-old coffee maker that bit the dust. While the coffee maker had a 12 month express warranty, my state (Maine) has implied warranty consumer protection laws that require the manufacturer to replace or repair the unit free of charge within the first 4 years of use. The customer service rep. informed me, and I quote, “Cuisinart does not recognize Maine’s implied warranty laws,” to which I replied, “Unfortunately, Cuisinart doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring my state’s consumer protection laws. If you want Mainers’ business, you have to comply.” They told me they would refer my claim to their “escalated” department and get back to me, which they never did. Another call placed this week resulted in the same thing.

I took to Twitter to try to shame them into remedying the problem, and so far, their customer service fail includes a social media fail as well. Within 10 minutes of my original tweet, it was retweeted to about 30,000 other people.

Eatswell hasn’t heard back from Cuisinart yet after this Twitter campaign, but is not giving up hope yet.

The Secret Service has apprehended an alleged ring of ATM skimmer crooks in eastern Massachusetts. The group set up skimmers with pinhole cameras on Bank of America and Citizens Bank ATMs in the greater Boston area. According to authorities, when one of the suspects was caught, he had almost $100,000 in twenties in his possession.

The Secret Service learned in December that a Bank of America ATM in Saugus had been rigged with the scanner device, called a skimmer, and a pinhole camera, according to a court affidavit from a Secret Service agent. A surveillance photo showed Vladev attaching the skimmer, the affidavit said. Another photo allegedly showed Hristov removing the camera.

Authorities were informed on Jan. 22 of ATM tampering at Citizens Bank locations in Quincy, Milton, Braintree, and Somerville, the affidavit said. Surveillance photos showed the same men at the Citizens locations, according to the affidavit.

Three days later, photos showed the men rigging Bank of America ATM machines in Saugus, Milton, Weymouth, Cambridge, Dorchester, and Roslindale, the affidavit said.

Watch your statements carefully if you think you may have used ATMs at any of these locations.

Two more arrested in alleged ATM scheme [Boston Globe] (Thanks, Greg!)

Kim’s Beauty.com order was eligible for a pretty neat “free gift with purchase” deal, but the free item ran out before her order went through. She, and other customers, took to the company’s Facebook page to complain about the situation. A company representative reached out on Facebook, offering to send a new free item out to the dissatisfied customers. This representative turned out to be the company president.

Yesterday, I was very, pleasantly surprised by the customer service of Beauty.com. I had posted a reply to their Facebook page, regarding a short-live promotion that had “ran out” unexpectedly. I had developed a love/hate relationship with “free gift with purchase” promotions that catered to my weakness to vie for any excuse to purchase more beauty products. However, my frustration was ultimately due to the lack of “free gift” with my previous purchase.

I posted my comment to Beauty.com’s Facebook page at 10:14 PM, and then at 10:59 PM, a woman named Kathleen asked me to send my order information to her so that she could pass it along to their customer service team to “send something special my way” to make up for it. So, I sent her the following message:

These [promotions] really bothered me because I wasn’t informed you were out of stock until the paid portions of my order had already shipped. I’ve been a loyal customer since 2007, and just find that some of the best promotions are misleading in the sense that the system will let you place the order, reflecting the gift promotion in your cart and in the order confirmation email. Furthermore, if I do get an email to inform me the gift is out of stock, I’m led to believe that it will later ship separately. It isn’t until after the paid portion of my order has been billed and shipped that I’m informed again by email that the free gift with purchase portion of my order had been canceled. I think that the system shouldn’t let you add the free gift promotion to your cart if it is out of stock.

Thanks for caring,
Kim

To which she replied:

Kim,
I am so sorry! We are trying to work with brands to get really high value offers and I hate when they run out and disappoint our customers.

Send your address to my work email at [redacted]@beauty.com, and I will have customer care send you something special.

Thank you for being a customer!

Have a great weekend!
Kathleen

President, Beauty.com
Vice President, drugstore.com

So, you see, not only was I promptly contacting in an attempt to reconcile the matter, but I was contacted by the president of the company itself! I thought this was definitely worth mentioning, given it is such a rare occasion that I feel people at the top of national companies still really care about their customers.

Noreen tells Consumerist that she made an exciting discovery yesterday. Her Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen meal, a fettucine alfredo dish that is supposed to be meatless, included a free protein-rich side dish. A tiny frog!

Noreen writes:

I have been eating a Weight Watcher’s Smart One for lunch just about every day of 2010. After microwaving yesterday’s Fettuccini Alfredo, I peeled back the plastic cover to find a small frog nestled among the broccoli. Ugh!

Weight Watchers graciously offered me coupons good toward the purchase of future products which I declined as I never intend to eat a SmartOne product again. They then reluctantly agreed to refund the price of the meal that included the frog. After first being told that they would not offer any refund for the as-yet-uneaten SmartOnes in my freezer because they were certain in was a one-time occurrence, I was told that WW might consider refunding those purchases but only if I could provide the UPC codes and receipts.

In addition to wondering just how a practically intact frog winds up in a frozen meal, I am left to ponder just how many points there are in frog. Oh well, the diet worked yesterday since all I could manage to eat was a 100 calorie yogurt.

What is it with frogs in food this year? They’ve showed up in a salad, frozen green beans, and their cousin, a toad, showed up in a can of Pepsi. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t a decomposed snake head.

Pictures? Of course we have pictures.

In order to save money and the total number of heavy bottles you need to haul home from the store, try buying ultra-concentrated cleaning supplies and adding your own water at home. Reader M. discovered these products at Big Lots, and shares his secrets.

One day while perusing Big Lots, I found that they sell bulk cleaning supplies that you can “water down” to get to the right concentration. Home Depot also has these, and they are in-stock more often compared to Big Lots. I looked at the bottle of the 409 concentrate and found out that it was enough to make 10 Gallons of 409 for $4. You only need to mix 3 tablespoons with water in order to fill one normal spray bottle, so when you buy the normal bottle you’re paying mostly for water and plastic. Each normal bottle of 409 is 1 quart, so I paid 10 cents per “bottle”. I don’t know how much a bottle of 409 costs in the store, since I haven’t purchased one in 3 years, but I assume it is significantly more than 10 cents. I have also found concentrated Windex as well and I’m sure other cleaners are also available.

One caveat, after 3 years the original Windex bottle we had started leaking around the sprayer, Home Depot also sells generic spray bottles for about $1, which we now use for the Windex.

My favorite concentrated cleaner is Simple Green, which I buy by the gallon at Home Depot and then dilute in a sturdy spray bottle at home. If you use diluted cleaning products, where do you find them?

Subway is offering a limited-time sandwich, the “Beef Barbacoa,” in a few markets. Skylar in California ordered this sandwich, being misled by the name into thinking that it contained a reasonable amount of beef. Don’t be silly, Skylar.

He wrote to Consumerist:

I submit to you my disturbing “Advertised vs. Reality” picture. It would seem I am getting ripped off and received about 1/4 the amount of advertised meat… so today I had a bread sandwich.

Now, now: there’s also some cheese and lettuce in there. Skylar sent an email complaint to Subway, and received this response from the franchisee:

Hello!

Thank you for your comments regarding our beef barbacoa sandwich.This sandwich is a new offering and consequently when new products are offered there are many issues to address with valuable feedback such as yours.As a matter of fact portioning on this sandwich has been a common complaint.As franchisees we are obligated to follow company standards and at [restaurant] we do that on every issue I can assure you that.Unfortunately the required amount of meat does appear a little skimpy and I am sure that Subway will re-address this issue.

Once again thank you for your comments and we hope to see you soon enjoying another of our tasty subs at Subway.

At least they admit the problem, but actually fixing it, as well as sending disappointed customers a coupon or two, might go a long way toward solving it.

If you were unfortunate enough to have one of the early low-flow toilets installed in your home, you probably remember it as an … unpleasant experience. Fortunately, the newer models have enough power to get their job done using surprisingly little water–as little as 1.28 gallons. Consumer Reports proves this by flushing what look like brightly colored toys down the toilet. This is very entertaining to watch.

Super Water-Saving Toilet [Consumer Reports]

Well, this is classy. The photo at left purports to be of a Honda dealer in Dallas taking advantage of Toyota’s own private carpocalypse. That is, the serious gas pedal issue that has led to the recall of 2.3 million vehicles and halted production and sales of Toyotas. Hondas, as we all know, are free of mechanical defects.

If you’re a Toyota owner, check out the great gas pedal recall coverage over at Consumer Reports Cars. We at Consumerist are the experts on explosions and cats, but they’re the car experts.

Video: Toyota accelerator recall advice and highlights [Consumer Reports Cars]

It’s never too early to teach your kids about financial responsibility. That’s why play money is a fun idea. What we find fiscally suspect, however, are plastic pennies from Learning Resources. 100 plastic pennies for the low, low price of $4.50. Yes, that’s four cents per penny, and even more than the U.S. Mint pays to make real pennies.

“You buy this toy to teach your kids the value of money, and pay four times the going rate for pennies,” mused our tipster Mark. To be fair, other play coin denominations cost about the same, but it’s still cheaper in the end to give your kids real pennies. Go with toy twenties and hundreds to stock your pretend cash drawer, though.

Money Skills [Learning Resources] (Thanks, Mark!)