Author: Meg Marco

Yes, we suppose the only way to beat this sale is to have a store give you money for taking the thing off their hands.

(Thanks, David!)

Reader CJ decided to order cable after not having it for several years. Turns out Time Warner Cable in LA is out of HD cable boxes… until June.

CJ says:

Recession? Or just stupidity?

I called Time Warner Cable to order cable for the first time in two years. I had canceled my service because I didn’t have the money but I recently started a new job and thought, naively, that I could now return to enjoying ‘Charles in Charge’ reruns on Nick at Nite (can you tell I don’t have cable?).

So I called Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles, where I live, and went through a 10-minute cheerful conversation with the customer service rep, who was no doubt whistling away in glee as I added tiers and packages and whatnot that would make him look really awesome to his boss. Except we get to the end part, and he goes, “Oh, by the way, we don’t have any HD receivers in stock, so you can just order the DVR receiver instead and then return it to a store when we do have them in stock.”

I informed the guy that I had no intention of “going to a store” to return anything, because my point of getting cable installed — by someone other than I — was not to make my life more difficult — in fact, just the opposite.

I asked him when Time Warner Cable would have the normal HD receivers in stock. His answer?

“June.”

I calmly informed him that I would be taking my business elsewhere.

Not that you shouldn’t just take your business elsewhere, but this makes us wonder– what other options are there for HD DVR-ing yourself?

Anything good?

GM has announced that it is recalling 1.2 million vehicles to address a power steering problem that has been linked to 14 crashes and one injury.

A loss of power-steering assist sometimes occurs at speeds of less than 15 mph in the following cars:

• 2005-2010 Chevrolet Cobalt
• 2007-2010 Pontiac G5 in the United States;
• 2005-2006 Pontiac Pursuit sold in Canada,
• 2005-2006 Pontiac G4 sold in Mexico.

The recall follows an investigation by NHTSA after 1,132 complaints of power steering failures that could make the cars hard to control.

“After our in-depth investigation, we found that this is a condition that takes time to develop. It tends to occur in older models out of warranty,” said Jamie Hresko, GM vice president of quality, in a statement. “Recalling these vehicles is the right thing to do for our customers’ peace of mind.”

The cars are apparently safe to drive even if the outage occurs, but it will require more effort to steer the vehicle. You’ll know its happening when the steering becomes difficult and you hear a chime and see a “Power Steering” warning light coming on.

GM says they are developing a recall plan and will notify owners soon.

GM to recall 1.3 million cars over Cobalt, G5 power steering complaints [Detroit Free Press]

Some of Madoff’s investors took money out of the scheme — not knowing it was a scheme. Now it seems those people might be out of luck — and will have to pay the money back, says Reuters.

A bankruptcy judge has decided that the trustee overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC is allowed to use a “money in, money out” method to determine who should get what. This means that if you invested but took more out than you put in— you might have to give that money back.

This is obviously not too popular with some of the Madoff victims.

In a written opinion on Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Burton Lifland agreed with Picard, a New York lawyer appointed by the court, despite what he called compelling arguments by investors.

“Equity is achieved in this case by employing the trustee’s method, which looks solely to deposits and withdrawals that in reality occurred,” Lifland said in a written ruling. “To the extent possible, principal will rightly be returned to Net Losers rather than unjustly rewarded to Net Winners under the guise of profits.

“In this way, the Net Investment Method brings the greatest number of investors closest to their positions prior to Madoff’s scheme in an effort to make them whole,” he said.

Madoff investors have previously said they would appeal any decision made in favor of applying his method.

They argue that victims could not have known they would not be entitled to $500,000 – the maximum allowed under the Securities Investor Protection Act to a single investor.

“Unless and until this decision is reversed, no American who invests in the stock market with the hope of retiring on his savings, has any protection against a dishonest broker,” said Helen Davis Chaitman, attorney for hundreds of victims.

Using his formula, Picard has already begun validating claims and paying fleeced investors. Still, his methodology means that some investors may receive nothing and others who may have withdrawn fictitious profits could be forced to pay back the trustee.

U.S. judge backs Madoff trustee claims method [Reuters]

Xfinity is Comcast’s new name for itself. We said it sounded like a porno company and you agreed. We tried our best (or at least the best we could do in, like, 15 minutes) to make the logo as porn-o-riffic as possible. You guys took it to the next level. Comcast, here are three new logos for you to chose from.

These are all so good, you guys. Comcast should totally use them. Even if they don’t, however, we’re sure we will.

(By Molly D.)

(By shalegac)

Would you like to achieve fame and glory by helping Comcast redesign its logo? Well, we see no reason not to continue to post things you send us. Send your designs to [email protected] or submit them to our Flickr pool. (Make sure to tag them “Comcast”.) No actual nudity, please!

Reader DW sent us a gross picture of some nasty gray ham from Walmart (see below) and also let us know that there is mysterious non-Walmart chicken showing up in the store. The people who work at Walmart don’t know where the chicken is from, but they will give it to you for free.

We picked up a bagged whole chicken from the poultry section. When we went to the register to ring it up, the cashier said, “That’s odd, this isn’t ours….it doesn’t show up on the system.”

She called a floor manager over who looked at it and said, “Huh…well do you want it? It’s not something we sell.”

At which point we asked why it would be in their chicken section and they both shrugged and the manager said, “Sometimes people return stuff that isn’t ours”

We refused the “free” chicken.

We think you did the right thing. By the way, this is the second time a picture of this brand of shaved meat has been on Consumerist.

Reader C wants to know if it is possible for a restaurant’s service to be so bad that you are justified in walking out. We’re thinking he means “morally” justified because we’re pretty sure you need to pay if you eat the food.

To start with, upon entering the the restaurant around noon, we noticed there was no hostess. A waitress called from the floor “oh just sit anywhere”. Not a big deal really.

We sat and a few minutes later a some disinterested looking waiter came and took our drink orders. A reasonable amount of time later, he brought them to us and promised to come back and take our order. Almost 20 minutes later we still hadn’t ordered. At that point we questioned whether or not he was actually our server. We asked another waitress who our server was, only to be asked “was it a guy or a girl?” which didn’t really answer our question.

A few minutes later the earlier guy did come back and my wife told him immediately (as she does normally) that it was 2 couples, separate checks. He takes our order WHICH HE WROTE DOWN and then read back to us WRONG. Between the four of us we got 3 cups (not bowls) of soup as appetizers, 4 entrees, and 3 beers. Now, our mistake thus far was not asking how much the soup was, as it was on the specials menu.

Almost 30 minutes later, our food had yet to arrive, not even the soup, which we had specified was to be an appetizer. Other tables who had been seated significantly later than us, were not only eating their food, but where almost done.

My wife went and asked the floor manager exactly “I don’t want to be rude, but we ordered almost half an hour ago and we’ve still not even gotten our soup appetizer.” The manager’s response was “look, I’m sorry, we’re really busy” but her tone was very unapologetic and I know a brush off when is see it. Not 2 minutes later we had the soup. They had literally lost or forgotten our order and had to be reminded.

It should be noted that THIS moment was around when they started getting busy. There were empty tables in the place before. The manager saw an influx of people and used that as a quick excuse on us.

Another 20 minutes or so later, we finally got our food and it was wrong. My wife and the other woman’s chicken kabobs were a sad state of affairs, the side of pasta salad was a measly thrown down portion. The other guy’s burger was dressed wrong. My gyro pita was a sad, wilted thing with like 2 strips of gyro in it (anyone who’s had gyro knows that that’s measly), plus it was the prepackaged kind. Yes, I waited over an hour for a pita I was pretty sure had been microwaved.

Around this time they started telling people that they weren’t seating anymore, come back in an hour. Not “there’s an hour wait”, COME BACK IN AN HOUR. One server said “we’re closed until 2.” Incredible, considering that a number of tables had opened up and they just hadn’t been cleaned yet.

After four failed attempts over about 15 minutes, we finally flagged down our server to get our bill, which apparently was less important than brewing a pot of coffee and disappearing into the kitchen for 10 minutes, because he did both of those things before we got our bill which of course, was not separated. That’s when my eyes fell out of my skull.

He had charged us for 3 bowls of soup instead of cups, and 6 beers instead of four (one of the ladies ordered another). The bill was 90 bucks. Now, it was our fault for not checking the price of the soup. However, they charged us for the wrong size and charged us foe 2 extra beers. Rather than potentially waste another half hour getting it corrected, we just got up and left making sure to tell the patrons foolishly waiting outside about our experience. It was around 2 pm.

All in all, we were in there in the restaurant for close to 2 hours. The service as atrocious on every level, and the food wasn’t even that good.They may have been short handed or something, I don’t know. The largest problem was the uncaring and downright surly attitudes of the staff at times. I get that they might be stressed out, but I fail to see how being snippy and short with the customers is going to fix anything. I also understand that this is very detailed account, I apologize, but it’s a very small place and we were seated right in the middle and therefore could see everything that went on. I’ve been an avid reader for a number of years now, and I’d really value your input. Do you think we were in the wrong for walking out?

It depends on what you mean by “wrong.” Do we think you are a bad person? No, it sounds like you got really upset and did something impulsive. Were you justified in being upset? Sounds like it.

Obviously if you’re writing in here asking us what we think, you know, on some level, that you should have disputed the bill and tried to work something out with the awful restaurant. We took a look at the Yelp reviews for the place to see if they were just having some sort of off day and it seems like this is exactly how they treat all their guests. So at least you know it wasn’t just you. (The name of the restaurant was not included to protect the innocent and all that. Like Dragnet.)

We’ve provided a poll that should help you get an idea of your restaurant ditching approval rating.

Tiger Woods has been fired from his job as a spokesgolfer for Gatorade. We guess they prefer that the “Is it in you?” slogan refer to their product.

Gatorade told CNBC, “I can confirm that we no longer see a role for Tiger in our marketing efforts and have ended our relationship.”

Gatorade to Tiger Woods: See Ya Later, Alligator [TMZ]

This January, Citibank sent out 600,000 mailers with their customers’ social security numbers printed on the outside of the envelope. Whoopsie!

Here’s their statement:

We regret that a processing error caused the nine digits of some customers’ Social Security numbers to be printed on an envelope we sent to them in late January via the U.S. Postal Service. The digits were not identified as a Social Security number, and they were printed at the lower edge of the mailing envelope with other numbers and letters that together resembled a mail routing number. We believe there is little or no risk to our customers. The error has been corrected for all future mailings.

Although there is little or no risk to our customers, we decided to be completely transparent to our customers by notifying them of the error. It is an important part of our commitment to our customers to be fully transparent and to give them the peace of mind that comes from banking with people they trust. Over several days, beginning early the week of the 15th, we sent notification letters to the customers involved, apologizing for the error and giving them the option of enrolling in a credit monitoring service at no cost to them.”

If this happened to you, should be getting this letter:

We are writing to inform you that due to a processing error the nine digits in your Social Security number, along with a string of other numbers and letters all resembling a mail routing number, were printed on the lower edge of an envelope containing a year-end tax statement that we mailed to you recently.

We believe there is little or no risk to you. However we wanted to bring this to your attention, apologize and confirm that changes have been made for all future mailings.

Should you nonetheless remain concerned, we have arranged for you at your option to enroll in a credit monitoring service at no cost to you for the next 180 days. To activate this coverage, please call the toll-free number or visit the website listed below and enter the redemption code. The redemption code is required for enrollment. As always, we encourage you to regularly review activity on your accounts.

For credit monitoring service coverage:
Toll-Free Number: 1-866-212-9114
Website: www.identityguard.com/alert

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Do not hesitate to contact us at 877-478-6597 if you have any questions.”

Citibank Exposes Personal Info On Envelopes [WBZ]
Citibank prints customer Social Security numbers on envelopes [Consumer Reports]

Reader Lindsay wants to give money to Verizon FiOS because she likes the product so very much. Sadly, there’s some sort of glitch with her address and Verizon won’t fix it, or call her back, no matter how many times she calls.

Lindsay writes (in her EECB to Verizon):

My name is Lindsay [redacted] and I been a Verizon customer for a long time—first with Verizon Wireless, and now with FIOS for a little over a year. Until this past Monday (February 22), I have never had a complaint with our FIOS service or with the customer service at Verizon.

On Monday, I called to have another standard TV box sent and to setup an appointment for a technician to come out and install it for a new roommate who just moved in. I made my first phone call on Monday around 6pm and was told the wait time was approximately 15 minutes and was given the option to provide my phone number and receive a call back within that time frame. I waited 45 minutes and decided to call back.

This time the wait time was approximately 20 minutes, during which time I remained on the phone. When someone finally answered the phone to help me, we went through the full process of setting up an appointment, only to find there was something wrong with my “profile/address.” I was told by the woman on the other end of the line that she had to send an email request in to another department, which would need to correct the issue with my “profile” and then she would get back to me within 24 hours after this issue had been corrected.

By Thursday, I had not heard anything. I chose to call again during my work day. I again waited on hold for approximately 15 minutes. Again, we went through all of the steps necessary in setting up an appointment, only to find there was still something wrong with my “profile/address” even though I have had boxes sent to this address in the past, and receive my Verizon bill at this address.

The Customer Service Representative took down my phone number and said she would call me back later that afternoon. Again, I waited. By 7pm, I had not heard anything and decided to call back. Again I waited approximately 15 minutes only to go through all of the same steps again to find that the issue with my “profile/address” had still not been corrected, 3 days after my initial call.

At this point, I was very frustrated and asked if there was someone I could speak to directly regarding the account issue/profile/address and was told there is no one I could speak with. I asked if there was anything I could do in the meantime and was told there was nothing that could be done until it is taken care of.

Additionally, while on the phone with a representative, I was told that my contract was expiring and would need to reselect a bundle or remaining on a month-to-month contract would result in an increase in charges amounting to approximately $40. To avoid the extra charges, I agreed to renew my contract and reselect a bundle, however they were not able to complete this because of the “profile/address” issue. Despite the friendly and professional representatives’ efforts, they have not been able to help me through this issue. After making four phone calls within the past week and spending 3 hours on the phone with customer support, I am at my wit’s end.

All I want is to receive a new box and ensure that is properly installed. I have been incredibly patient thus far, but I really cannot go on like this much longer.

I love FIOS, I really do. Its absolutely the best Internet and TV package I have ever used. The internet speed is great and the picture quality is far better than what we had previously. Until now, I have always been a huge proponent of FIOS, encouraging my friends and their families to make the switch from Comcast (which I hated because of their poor customer service) to Verizon. After this experience, however, I feel really let down by what was previously a great service. So I plead with you, please help! Any assistance that any of you are able to provide will make a huge difference, if only in encouraging me to stick with Verizon now that my contract has expired. Please call me at [redacted] or email me at any time, day or night, if you are able to provide assistance.

Ah yes, the impossible to fix address glitch. Comcast has that sometimes, too.

Maybe its an epidemic, like the H1N1.

The IRS tells Tax Cat that the rules have changed slightly this year. Learn how you can benefit.

The IRS sez,

Here are the top five changes that may show up on your 2009 return.

1. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

ARRA provides several tax provisions that affect tax year 2009 individual tax returns due April 15, 2010. The recovery law provides tax incentives for first-time homebuyers, people who purchased new cars, those that made their homes more energy efficient, parents and students paying for college, and people who received unemployment compensation.

2. IRA Deduction Expanded

You may be able to take an IRA deduction if you were covered by a retirement plan and your 2009 modified adjusted gross income is less than $65,000 or $109,000 if you are married filing a joint return.

3. Standard Deduction Increased for Most Taxpayers

The 2009 basic standard deductions all increased. They are:

* $11,400 for married couples filing a joint return and qualifying widows and widowers
* $5,700 for singles and married individuals filing separate returns
* $8,350 for heads of household

Taxpayers can now claim an additional standard deduction based on the state or local sales or excise taxes paid on the purchase of most new motor vehicles purchased after February 16, 2009. You can also increase your standard deduction by the state or local real estate taxes paid during the year or net disaster losses suffered from a federally declared disaster.

4. 2009 Standard Mileage Rates

The standard mileage rates changed for 2009. The standard mileage rates for business use of a vehicle:

* 55 cents per mile

The standard mileage rates for the cost of operating a vehicle for medical reasons or a deductible move:

* 24 cents per mile

The standard mileage rate for using a car to provide services to charitable organizations remains at 14 cents per mile.

5. Kiddie Tax Change

The amount of taxable investment income a child can have without it being subject to tax at the parent’s rate has increased to $1,900 for 2009.

For more information about these and other changes for tax year 2009, visit IRS.gov.

Five Tax Changes for 2009 [IRS]

Today’s Toyota hearings featured a lot of amusing defensive yelling by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and, of course, the long awaited testimony by Toyota President Akio Toyoda. In addition, Yoshimi Inaba, CEO of Toyota North America, revealed that the company knew of the sticking pedal issue in Europe a year before accidents in the US.

Most of Toyoda’s testimony was in given in Japanese, with a translator present, but his written prepared testimony was in English.

The most interesting revelation in the more than 4 1/2 hour hearing was that Toyota knew about the sticking pedal issue in Europe.

“We did not hide it,” Mr. Inaba said, “but it was not properly shared. We need to do a much better job sharing what we knew in Europe with the United States to see if there is any danger to American consumers.”

Mr. Toyoda explained that he would be personally overseeing a new quality control group within the company that would share information from all over the world and thus prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

As for the embarrassing presentation with the recall savings numbers, Mr. Inaba said: “It is so inconsistent with the guiding principles of Toyota.”

Mr. Toyoda, through his translator, said that the presentation did not reflect “the drifting of the entire company.”

In Congress, Toyota Chief Takes ‘Full Responsibility’ [NYT]
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF AKIO TOYODA PRESIDENT, TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION [CSPAN]

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced today that his office had negotiated improved “accommodations” for owners of recalled Toyotas. In short, Toyota agreed to come to your house and get the car if you’re too freaked out to drive it.

The accommodations include:

• Pickup and return of the vehicle by a dealership representative or by flatbed truck
• Transportation for the customer to the dealership and/or to his or her place of work
• Alternate transportation – such as a rental car, a loaner vehicle, or taxi reimbursement – for the period that the customer is unable or unwilling to use his or her car
• Expedited scheduling of repairs

“It is unacceptable that New York consumers should face additional burdens when dealing with a safety problem that is Toyota’s responsibility,” said Cuomo in a press release. “New Yorkers who own recalled vehicles understandably may be reluctant to drive their cars and assume the risk of harm to themselves and others on the road. The agreement we have obtained from Toyota will help ease the fears of Toyota owners and protect their families at no cost to them.”

You can check out the AG’s new Toyota-specific website at www.nytoyotahelp.com.

Although this information seems specific to New Yorkers, in today’s hearing Yoshimi Inaba, President of Toyota Motor North American and CEO of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.,confirmed that the new accommodations will be available nationwide.

‘Are you doing this just in New York?” Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y asked.

”No, this is happening nationwide,” said Inaba.

Toyota to Cover Costs Related to Safety Problems [NYT]
ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO SECURES AGREEMENT WITH TOYOTA MOTOR SALES USA TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE TO NEW YORK OWNERS OF RECALLED VEHICLES [NY AG]

Do you teach at Central Falls High? Not for long. You’ve all been fired. The school is one of the lowest performing in the state and apparently the teachers couldn’t come to an agreement about how much they should be paid to do something about it.

From CNN:

Of the 800 students, 65 percent are Hispanic, and for most of them, English is a second language. Half of the students are failing every subject, with 55 percent skilled in reading and 7 percent proficient in math, officials said.

In a proposal based on federal guidelines, Gallo asked teachers to work a longer school day of seven hours and tutor students weekly for one hour outside of school time.

She also proposed teachers have lunch with students often, meet for 90 minutes every week to discuss education and set aside two weeks during summer break for paid professional development.

The two sides couldn’t agree on compensation so all the teachers were fired. Some may be rehired.

“When we had to move from the transformation model, the next best move was the turnaround model. And that requires us to remove the teachers and rehire, of those who reapply, up to 50 percent,” [Frances Gallo, superintendent at Central Falls School District] said.

All teachers fired at Rhode Island school [CNN]

The Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation announced today that it had added 450 more banks to its troubled bank list. The list is secret, because announcing that a bank is in trouble is a good way to kill it for good.

And now the NYT brings us a depressing recap:

The troubles may get worse in the coming months. Once the Fed starts tightening credit, banks will no longer be able to rely on the easy profits of the last two years to cushion their losses. The extra strain could causes dozens of additional banks to fail, just as similar interest-rate swings dealt hurt many lenders following the saving-and-loan crisis.

So far, the F.D.I.C. has seized and sold about 20 banks in 2010, compared with 140 bank failures in 2009. That was the largest number of failures in 17 years. Analysts expect at least several hundred more small lenders to collapse over the next few years, a prospect that seems more likely given the surge in the number of problem institutions last year. The number of problem banks rose by 150 in the fourth quarter alone, bringing it to nearly 1 in 11 lenders.

As far as whether or not the FDIC will have enough money to deal with all these failing banks… well… nobody seems real confident. The FDIC is funded by fees levied on banks themselves. Once that money is gone they have an emergency line of credit with the US Treasury.

In late August, Ms. Bair [FDIC boss] said she did not anticipate having to tap that line of credit immediately, although she did not rule it out. “I never say never,” Ms. Bair said at the time.

List of Troubled Banks at 16-Year Peak, F.D.I.C. Says [NYT]

NBC has been running a commercial featuring Jay Leno in one of his 9 f*ckzillion automobiles. In this commercial, he is seen driving while the Beatles song “Get Back” plays. This song includes the lyrics “get back to where you once belonged.” Now someone who we can only assume is part of Team CoCo has remixed the commercial with a, um, different song. Enjoy.

Southwest Airlines will let you know if you’re too fat to fly, but what about too sick to fly? Well, it’s your call. As the recent H1N1 epidemic taught us — your sense of altruism better be awesome because you’re probably going to be paying a fee to stay home.

Travel guru Chris Elliott writes:

A recent poll by TripAdvisor suggests 51 percent of air travelers say they’d rather fly while infected with the flu than pay a $150 airline change fee. A similar survey by msnbc.com found nearly 60 percent of travelers would fly infected instead of taking the hit to their pocketbook.

That’s something worth considering as we approach the peak of the flu season. For every one Margolis, there’s at least one other passenger who refuses to cancel. Like Amanda, who asked me not to reveal her last name. She flew with the flu, even though she didn’t want to.

“I called Southwest to bump my flight by a day, and while the rep was kind, she couldn’t do anything but offer me the opportunity to pay the $300 change in fare,” she says. “Since this was not a possibility for me, I reluctantly dosed myself with cold medicine and endured the unending stares of everyone on the shuttle, in the security line and boarding around me on my flight and endured the most miserable six hours of my life flying.”

In case you’re wondering why Amanda wouldn’t let me publish her last name, have a look at the comments other travelers left for her when she confessed to being an infected passenger.

Of course, it’s not just other passengers you should worry about. You shouldn’t be trying to fly somewhere if you’re really sick — you could just make it worse.

Too sick to travel? [MSNBC]

Reader James writes in with a story we hear a lot lately. During the run up to the credit meltdown –Bank of America kept raising James’ limit. He ran up a balance while caring for someone who eventually died — and now that he has paid off his debt, his limit has been cut. In the long run, however, he feels that he’s better off without credit cards.

James writes:

Bank of America is off to an impressive post-CARD Act start in cutting customers’ credit lines. I’ve been a cardholder since shortly after starting business school, and they steadily increased my limit (while I was still a student, and then unemployed) to $10,000. To their credit, it’s stayed at a great interest rate under 10%.

I was unemployed for a while and then dealing with a family member’s terminal illness for a couple of years, and my card was maxed out for most of that time. I managed to scrape by, though, and didn’t miss a single payment, which ought to show that I’m a responsible cardholder.

I called BoA last month to ask for a temporary credit increase to cover funeral expenses, for which they turned me down. Once the life insurance came through, I paid off my balance in full, as well as about a quarter of my student loans.

The day after they received my payment, BoA called me first thing in the morning to say that they were freezing my account until I provided a W-2 and a bank statement to show that my payment wouldn’t bounce. Not fun, but understandable; I faxed everything over within half an hour. The check cleared my bank the next day, but there was no word from BoA.

Four days later, I called and was told that only the credit analyst I had spoken with could unfreeze my account. Three days after that, he called to say that my account was unfrozen, but that after a “very extensive review of my account history and credit file,” my credit limit was being lowered from $10,000 to $2,500. I mentioned that I had now paid off many of the other debts that appeared on my credit report, but he wouldn’t budge, as my monthly disposable income after rent and student loan payments is “only about $1,200.”

$1,200 sure seems like a lot of disposable income to me. The life insurance proceeds changed my situation from desperate to very comfortable overnight. The traditional rule is that you can only get credit if you don’t need it; I somehow got credit when I did need it, but I guess BoA’s new rule is that you can’t get it at all. It’s nothing to be too upset about, though: given the many evils of credit cards, I know I’m better off without them.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Your credit score might have taken a small hit when they lowered your amount of available credit, but the important thing is that you still have the card (and the credit history that comes with it) and that you are a responsible borrower. Seems to us that you’re still on track and have the right attitude, even if Bank of America’s lending decisions seem hypocritical.

Are you kinda bored? Want to watch movies on Netflix’s website. Nope. Can’t. It’s mysteriously down.

Apparently, the site started barfing up errors messages early Friday evening. As of this posting, the message reads:

We’re sorry, the Netflix website is temporarily unavailable.

Our shipping centers are continuing to send and receive DVDs , so your movies will be processed as usual. And you can still instantly watch movies via your Netflix ready device.

Our engineers are working hard to bring the site back up as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and, again, we apologize for the inconvenience. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-636-3079.

The great boredom epidemic of Friday, February 19th continues. Yawn.

According to the error, you can still watch Netflix on streaming devices. Hope you put some awesome stuff in your queue recently, or you’re going to be watching all that crap you sort of want to watch but not enough to put it on the real DVD queue.

Jim owns a cable modem. It got old, so he got a new one. Now Comcast has claimed the old one as their property, says it has not been returned, and wants money. Jim does not want to relinquish the money, or the modem, to Comcastlandia and their colonization attempts.

Jim says:

In December, I bought a new cable modem to replace my aging Motorola SB5120 (which I own). On my next billing cycle, I see a $40 charge for non-returned equipment!

For some reason, the “purchased” status of my old modem reverted to leased. On January 19th, I went to my local Comcast Service center to show them my proof of purchase. The service rep made a note on my acccount and told me to call Technical Support to get this issue resolved. You may now see where this is going. I called Technical Support, and (unsurprisingly) they claimed that I had to get this resolved by going to the Service Center. Great! The lady was nice enough to submit a form to prove my purchase to the warehouse, and she claimed that they would call me within the next seven days.

Seven days pass, and I receive no phone call. On February 5th, I go to a different Service Center to see if they can resolve my issue. The service rep copies my proof of purchase and faxes it to the (mythical) warehouse, and she claimed that she would call me if any problems arise.

Today (February 18th), I call Comcast to check the status of my modem, and I find out that it is still leased. Again, the technical support rep tells me to go back to the service center with my proof of purchase. He makes another annotation on my account. I am pretty frustrated right now.

After 3 phone calls, 2 trips to the service center, and 2 account annotations, nothing is resolved.

Consumerist, any ideas on what I can do?

Note: Even though it shows up as leased, I’m not paying the monthly fee for it. The status changed from “purchased” to “leased” when I deactivated it.

They probably want to sacrifice your modem to to Xfinity, the god of Terrible Rebranding Attempts.

We’d try reaching out to the Comcast Twitter team, either at @comcastcares on Twitter or email them at [email protected].