Author: Meg Marco

Over at Cracked.com they have a guide to making a Nicholas Sparks movie. It’s funny and all that but for our purposes we are only interested in this little part at the end about posters.

Nicholas Sparks[Cracked]

We hear stories all the time about people who are having trouble paying their mortgage, call the bank for help, and are then told there’s nothing the bank can do unless they stop paying their mortgage. Well, one couple is suing Chase after they followed that advice, and then got foreclosed on.

“When they called the 800 number, they were specifically told that as long as they were current on their mortgage they wouldn’t even be considered for a loan modification,” the couple’s attorney, Piotr Reysner, said, according to Courthouse News.

The couple then fell into the blackhole of paperwork that makes it damn near impossible to actually get a mortgage modification. Months of torture passed, and at the end, the house was sold at auction without their knowledge. Then the bank allegedly denied that it had been sold. From Courthouse News:

The Jahanis say strangers came to their house and told them that “the property had sold at auction, that plaintiffs no longer owned the property and that they (meaning the unnamed persons) were interested in buying the house from the bank.” (Parentheses in complaint.)

The Jahanis say they immediately called Chase, which told them that their house “had not been foreclosed and that the people who were approaching the property were doing so illegally.”

The Jahanis say this insanity continued for months. They called the bank again in February 2010, and asked why their house was still listed as having been foreclosed in October 2009.

Chase told them it was all a “mistake” and that the bank simply had not updated its records, according to the complaint.

“During that same conversation, plaintiffs asked why defendants continued to accept mortgage payments from plaintiffs if the house had been foreclosed. Plaintiffs demanded to know where their payments were going and demanded a payment history from defendants. Plaintiffs further demanded to know why defendants’ REO department had indicated that plaintiffs no longer owned the house and that it was now in fact owned by the bank.”

They say the bank rep, “Janet,” “again reiterated that this was a mistake and that she would take care of it. Janet further claimed that she, at that moment, was sending e-mails and correspondence ‘everywhere’ within the company to rectify the situation and to please allow her 10 days to clear up the mess. The mess, in fact, was never cleaned up. Janet further promised in that same conversation that someone would review the file and get back to them within 10 days. No one did.”

We hate to say it, but yeah, that level of insanity is apparently pretty common.

Thanks a Lot, JP Morgan Chase [Courthouse News via HuffPo] (Thanks, Augus99!)

It seems a jewelry store is experiencing some backlash on Facebook for a print ad that they say they did not approve. Here’s the ad and their statement.

The substance of the Facebook backlash can be summarized with this snippet from a comment: “My brother didn’t commit suicide on 11/23/08 by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger because he didn’t go to the right jeweler.”

The jewelry store is trying to “take it seriously,” but the folks on Facebook are calling for a real apology.

Here’s the statement:

Thank you to everyone who commented on our recent City Pages Ad. We take your comments very seriously and are taking action because of them. This ad ran without prior viewing or approval by RF Moeller management and was created and published at City Pages by their writer and our spokesman, TD Mischke. Mr. Mischke would like to personally field any questions or concerns. His email address is [email protected]. If you email him directly, he will give you his phone number if you would like to speak with him about this advertisement.Thank you again – James Moeller

What do you think? (Thanks, Dave!)

Reader Victor, a former WaMu customer who wasn’t exactly pleased to end up with Chase, thinks the bank’s Federal Reserve mandated on-line overdraft fee “opt-in” form is purposefully confusing. He’s sent a screenshot so you can take a look for yourself.

Victor says:

So my wife got an email today talking about the changes coming to our Chase account (well, WAMU, but we unfortunately inherited Chase). The email is REALLY confusing and tells that you can opt out of debit overdraft coverage, but adds other stuff that’s confusing and makes it SEEM like you’ll be charged an overdraft fee whether or not you opt out of overdraft coverage. It really confused my wife. Not happening until August automatically. Not good enough for me. I logged in to opt-out today.

Here’s where it gets better. Instead of a simple “opt out” yes/no, Chase has added TWO questions, with opposite answers necessary. The text below the first “Yes/No” seems to be explaining the first Yes/No, when in fact, it’s talking about the second. The first Yes/No is COMPLETELY unnecessary, and I think just put there to bamboozle people into selecting “Yes” on the overdraft coverage below.

What do you think?

Hmmmm. I see no reason for Chase to try to make it simple and straighforward for their customers to get out of a huge source of income for the company. Are they trying on purpose to make it confusing? Let’s ask the internet.

What do you think? Scroll down to look at the screenshot.

Reader Dan writes in with the tale of his friend Jack, who he helped with an Acer laptop that broke only two days after its warranty expired. Geek Squad was no help, but launching an email carpet bomb on Acer did the trick.

Dan says:

Thank you very much for your helpful guide to writing EECBs (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) AND for the Acer contact information. To give you backstory, my friend bought a laptop from Best Buy in early 2009. (Mistake 1). The warranty expired about 2 days before the laptop stopped even powering it up. My friend brought it to the Geek Squad. (Mistake 2). They told him it was dead, and the warranty was shot, and that the motherboard wasn’t worth replacing, so its better to buy a new laptop. Being a technician myself, I confirmed what Best Buy told him about the dead laptop, but felt 1 year + 1 week is too short a lifespan for $500-$600 laptop.

Shortly after sending this email, following your guides, I received a call from a man named Wade. He offered a one time out of warranty replacement, and my friend is backing his data now and sending it off for repair. Although I feel Acer has a long way to go for customer service, at least I saved my friend the cost of purchasing a new laptop. (Which would not have been Acer. )

Hey, you’re a good friend! Everyone should have a friend that reads Consumerist!

Kudos to Acer for being cool about the warranty. Got a problem? Ready to launch your own EECB? Give it a shot! (Psssst…remember to try regular customer service first.)

Comcast has won a key court battle as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks, reports the AP.

This is a serious setback for the FCC which is trying to establish “net neutrality” rules. The case revolves around an incident in 2007 when Comcast was caught interfering with BitTorrent.

Here’s the FCC’s statement about the decision:

The Court of Appeals has made clear that, in its view, the Commission does not have the authority to enforce its prior framework designed to preserve an open Internet. The Court’s decision, however, does not change the importance of our goal nor should it weaken our resolve.

Indeed, we now have the kind of guidance that will enable us to develop the most effective and legally sound rules of the road to preserve Internet openness and to achieve other important goals set forth in the National Broadband Plan.

I look forward to working with my colleagues and industry to ensure that we are able to protect consumers and cultivate a vibrant Internet ecosystem where economic and social opportunities can continue to flourish.

FCC loses key ruling on Internet `neutrality’ [AP]
STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MIGNON CLYBURN
REGARDING THE D.C. CIRCUIT’S DECISION IN COMCAST V. FCC (PDF) [FCC]

Oh no, the computer doesn’t work! Again! Is the internet out? Or is the laptop on fire? It’s a battle of service vs hardware…. to the death!

So tell us which one makes you want drag the phone book from its dusty shelf … and beat yourself to death with it?

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2010 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Print the bracket, here.

Say you’ve got a credit card you don’t want for whatever reason and have decided to cancel it. Here are some simple steps you can take to make sure the card a) really gets canceled b) it doesn’t harm your credit score.

How To Cancel A Credit Card:

Step 1: Pay off the card in full.

Step 2: Call Customer Service to make sure the balance is really zero. Interest may have still been accumulating.

Step 3: Once the balance is zero, cancel the account over the phone. Feel free to entertain any retention offers they might throw at you. That’s always fun.

Step 4: Follow up in writing and ask for written confirmation that the account is closed. Keep a copy of this stuff for your records. You never know when you might need it.

Step 5: Wait awhile, then check your credit report to make sure the account is really closed. Don’t do this the day after you close it, sometimes it takes awhile. Also, use www.annualcreditreport.com to check your reports for free. Don’t use any fake free credit report offers.

What about my credit score? Recently FICO, the company that calculates credit scores, came out and debunked the very, very pervasive myth that closing a credit card account shortens your credit history and hurts your score. So, don’t worry about that.

What may affect your score, however, is your credit utilization ratio. FICO explains it this way: “This ratio basically looks at your total used credit in relation to your total available credit; the higher this ratio is, the more it can negatively affect your FICO score. So, by closing an old or unused card, you are essentially wiping away some of your available credit and there by increasing your credit utilization ratio.”

“To close card accounts without impacting one’s credit score, you need to only have zero balances on your credit report for all of your active credit cards. That’s because if you have zero balances your credit utilization rate is therefore zero, and you can’t raise it — and potentially hurt your score — by closing one or more of the active card accounts,” says Craig Watts, public affairs manager for FICO.

So if you’ve got zero balances, go ahead and close that account. If not, figure out how much it will affect your credit utilization ratio and decide that way.

Just a little friendly advice, if you’re shortchanged at the register — don’t flip out and throw coffee and food at the McDonald’s workers.

Police in Des Plaines, IL say that a man is accused of kicking a register (good flexibility, we guess) and card swiping machine, then throwing coffee and food that struck employees.
From the Sun-Times:

The man became enraged after accusing an employee of shortchanging him $10, said Cmdr. Nick Treantafeles, of the Des Plaines Police Department.

“That’s what set this guy off,” he said.

The man was identified by his license plate, but is refusing to turn himself in, according to police.

There’s now a warrant for his arrest on battery and criminal damage to property charges. Perhaps next time try a strongly-worded letter to corporate?

Man threw food, coffee at McDonald’s employees: cops [Sun-Times]

This image, currently going crazy on reddit, speaks for itself. We hope it is real, but also hope that it isn’t. Ya know? For humanity’s sake? Or at least the City of Melbourne’s sake…

Now it’s getting tough. Two giants compete for the battle of the biggest. Will it be our biggest retailer? Or our biggest bank?

Which one causes an anger so big it blots out the sky?

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2010 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Print the bracket, here.

What would you think if this happened to you? This guy, Owen JJ Stone, says he walked into the Apple Store to get a laptop, and when he asked for a specific model, security went on lockdown. People were touching their ears, saying code words, and blocking the exits.

What would you think if this happened to you? He doesn’t want to call it “racism”, but he definitely feels weird about it.

We join Mr. Stone after he has just asked a male Apple store employee for a specific model Macbook:

“The girl looks at me and she says, “Oh would you like me to show it to you?” And I said, “No, I have a Macbook, I had one, I have an iMac, I know what I want. If you could just get me one, that would be great because I’m kinda in a rush, I’d appreciate that.”

So, the girl looks at the guy and says “forerunner.”

[…]

When she said, “forerunner,” the gentleman touched his ear, and uh, then the security guard came up to the middle of the register, two people went and stood by the door, people were standing around me, and I’m like “Dude, do think I’m gonna steal this Macbook?”

And he’s like, “Oh, no, no, no.”

Here’s the link to the video where he tells the story. He’s thinking about writing a letter to Mr. Jobs. Should he? What would you do?

Forerunner [OhDoctah] (Thanks, John!)

Congratulations to Bank of America, Cash4Gold, Anthem BSBC, GM, Apple, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, AT&T and more for making it to Round 2 of the competition!

Round 1 had some close matches, Anthem BCBS beat Assurant by only 38 votes! Apple and Microsoft traded leads until eventually Apple pulled away in what was our more popular poll yet. A whopping 16,295 votes were cast in the battle of the operating systems — with Apple eventually winning 65% to 35%.

US Airways narrowly beat Delta by a margin of 76 votes, while Comcast VS DirecTV was a bloodbath — with Comcast destroying their satellite tv competitor with 84% of the vote.

What will happen in Round 2? Voting starts tomorrow!

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2010 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america. Print the bracket, here.

Meet Matt. He’s is the writer of the most reasonable, calm, thoughtful letter we’ve ever gotten from someone whose bank misplaced a check for $14,000. That bank is Bank of America, and they’ve lost a customer. Was it because their ATM ate the check? Not really. It was because they couldn’t even bother to act concerned about it. Matt is ready for a bank that thinks $14,000 is important.

Matt says:

Earlier this week I deposited a check for just under $14,000 at a Bank of America ATM. It sucked up my check, went “clickety clack click,” said “This ATM is temporarily unable to accept deposits,” and then returned my card – but not the check.

I walked into the bank, explained what happened, and the rep helpfully directed me to the customer support line. This I found baffling – the problem and its solution were right there in the branch, and I would have expected a bit more concern and hands-on engagement regarding a malfunctioning ATM and a fairly large deposit. Anyway, the white glove service consisted of dialing the number for me, letting me use their phone for free, and wandering off.

So, I spent a bit of time on hold, then explained the situation once to the front-line rep, and again to the claims department. They informed me that they had no record of the transaction, but that they would investigate the situation and mail me a letter within the next ten days. (A letter? How quaint.)

A few days later I called back, and the front-line rep had no record of the claim – she collected all my information again, then forwarded me to the claims department, which collected all my information one more time, then located the claim. “We’re still looking into it.” “How long will it take for you to figure this out?” “We can’t say. We’ll mail you a letter with the results of the claim.”

It’s now been six days and the money has not appeared in my account, nor have I received a letter, phone call or even a telegram regarding the situation.

In their defense, they haven’t yet done anything outright wrong or fraudulent. I’m guessing that there are reasonable processes and policies that would prevent a bank employee from just cracking open an ATM and rummaging around inside. And I know that ATM deposits can be risky, although I’ve been making similar deposits every month for many years now, without incident. And I’m fairly certain the deposit would turn up eventually. Fingers crossed.

What bugs me about the situation is the bank’s rather lackadaisical attitude about the fact that they have misplaced a fairly large amount of my money, and their lethargic, stone-age approach to customer service. Direct me to a telephone? Promise to mail me a letter at some point? Lame.

If you publish this note, I might get a very friendly and contrite email or phone call from someone at the bank and the situation might get resolved a smidge faster. Who knows, maybe they’ll give me a free plastic check wallet for my trouble.

But that’s not the point. I shouldn’t have to write things like this in order to provoke my bank into at least pretending they give a crap that they’ve lost a bunch of my money. I have entrusted Bank of America with my day to day finances since 1993. They claim their business is built on maintaining that trust. Their Web site is littered with words like “secure,” “trust,” “confidence” and so on. And, for me, part of maintaining that trust is showing serious personal concern about a failure in one of the basic functions of a bank, which is to keep track of money.

Perhaps they could have called out the branch manager and had them get on the phone to figure out the problem rather than making me do it. Perhaps they could have given me a call every day or two to let me know if they’ve made any progress (or not) in locating the deposit. Perhaps they could have explained why it would take so long to fish a piece of paper out of a broken box rather than leaving me to puzzle it out for myself. Perhaps they could have immediately credited my account while they investigated the problem. (To their credit, they claimed they could do this if the situation was not resolved in ten days; however, I have a long history of making legitimate deposits of similar amounts from the same payer, so perhaps they could be a bit more proactive in offering me a bit of the same trust they so frequently ask of me.)

I can only imagine what this situation would be like if I were living paycheck to paycheck and needed to pay rent, buy groceries or post bail with that money. Thankfully I’m able to meet my obligations for the month with other funds, though it’s a hassle. I am lucky to be bemused and irritated by this experience, rather than outright harmed.

Needless to say, I am waiting out the situation a few more days but will likely stop payment on the check, close my accounts and find a new bank – probably a small regional bank or local credit union that would be more motivated to get personally engaged when problems like this arise (as they inevitably do). $14,000 is a lot of money to some people, and if a bank that aims to serve consumers cannot bring itself to appear as concerned about such an amount going missing as its customers would be, and be just as engaged and persistent about resolving the situation, then maybe they’re in the wrong business.

Matt

Sounds like a plan.

It’s like Friday Flickr Finds, only Eastery. Enjoy!

(SCHMEGGA)

(Karen_Chappell)

(turkeyjerky)

(Louis Abate)

(aloucha)

(Alan Rappa)

(Great Beyond)

(Lincoln Stein)

(EricaJoy)

Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers go and upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right, and start hitting “send to group” on your individual photos you want to add to the pool.

So, it’s Easter. You’ve found the eggs, and now you’re like WTF do I do with all these stupid eggs. Answer: Deviled Eggs.

We’ve scoured the internet and found some recipes for you to try, but what we really want is for our lovely commenters to post their favorites in the comments. By the way, we’ve tried none of these because we don’t care for eggs much, which is all the more reason we need your help.

Paula Deen Traditional Southern Deviled Eggs [Food Network]

Deviled Eggs with Tarragon [Chow]

Bacon Cheddar Deviled Eggs [allrecipes]

Spicy Deviled Eggs For Badasses [allrecipes]

Emeril Deviled Eggs [Food Network]

Extra credit to those of you who do this one:

Fried Deviled Eggs [Food Network]

Weird Al takes some time to help a grocery store with its grammar.

In what we can only assume is a bid to make sure you don’t spend too much time thinking about the fact that you just spent between $50,000 to $60,000 on a Hyundai, the new luxury Hyundai Equus will have an iPad as a manual.

The New York Times is reporting that the car will come with “a virtual owner’s manual on an Apple iPad that they can also use to schedule service appointments and operate other applications.”

Hyundai dealers will then pick up Equus models from owners’ homes, drop off a loaner, and return the Equus after service.

“Nobody wants to go to the dealership, not even a Lexus or BMW dealer,” A Hyundai rep told the Times.

New York Auto Show: 2011 Hyundai Equus [NYT]

The Consumer Products Safety Commission today released their long-awaited guidelines about the stinky Chinese drywall that has been linked to corrosion and is described in the report as “sulfur-emitting.” The bottom line? Get out the tools. That stuff’s gotta go. Here’s the really bad news: CPSC and HUD also recommend that you replace “electrical components and wiring, gas service piping, fire suppression sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms.”

Based on scientific study of the problem to date, HUD and CPSC recommend consumers remove all possible problem drywall from their homes, and replace electrical components and wiring, gas service piping, fire suppression sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms. Taking these steps should help eliminate both the source of the problem drywall and corrosion-damaged components that might cause a safety problem in the home.

Holy crap, that sucks.

For more information, check out a full text of the remediation guidance (PDF).

“Our investigations now show a clear path forward,” said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. “We have shared with affected families that hydrogen sulfide is causing the corrosion. Based on the scientific work to date, removing the problem drywall is the best solution currently available to homeowners. Our scientific investigation now provides a strong foundation for Congress as they consider their policy options and explore relief for affected homeowners.”

HUD and CPSC Issue Guidance on Repairing Homes With Problem Drywall [CPSC]

Attention saggy pants lovers: A state senator in NY has commissioned a billboard that calls on you to “Stop the Sag.”

Gothamist reports that State Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn is proceeding with a plan to post 6 billboards requesting that people stop looking like fools with their pants on the ground.

“I was on a subway train, and there was this young man,” State Senator Adams told the NYT. “His behind was showing, literally. He had underwear, but even the underwear was sagging. All the passengers were looking at each other in disgust, but nobody was saying anything.”

So, why worry about annoying pants? Sen. Adams, who used to be a police captain, says it’s about more than just people on the subway being annoyed:

“The first indicator that your child is having problems is the dress code. Prior to the sagging pants, it was the shoestrings out of sneakers. All this is born out of prison. We took the shoestrings and the belts from prisoners.This is probably not a perfect science, but if you start looking at how your child is dressing, it is an indicator of who his friends are and what group he’s associated with. It’s all in the clothing.”

In case you were wondering, our President has weighed-in on the sagging pants issue — he’s anti-sagging pants, but also feels that we have more pressing issues to concern ourselves with:

“Any public official who’s worrying about sagging pants probably needs to spend some time focusing on real problems,” he told MTV news during his campaign.

“Stop the Sag” Billboards Are Up [Gothamist]