Consumerist user, Crispin B., is pissed at his bank, Chase. I’ve been with Chase for a long time. I have money from the dot-com days. I’ve run a lot of that money through them - at one point just over a million dollars following the sale of my home. Did that earn me any respect? No. They treat me just like I was back in college, living from paycheck to paycheck. They’ve nickel-and-dimed me the whole time. Charges for …
Low Tar Claim Ruled Okay
Adweek: The Illinois Supreme Court handed Altria Group's Philip Morris USA a significant victory today, overturning a lower court ruling that the tobacco company had misled smokers about the health risks of so-called "light" cigarettes. The original decision said the company had "intended to deceive consumers" into thinking that its Cambridge Light and Marlboro Light cigarettes were somehow less harmful than regular …
Oops! Someone Does Read The Fine Print.
Ad Age: T-Mobile USA has paid a $135,000 fine to settle a deceptive-advertising claim brought by New York’s Department of Consumer Affairs. Last summer, the department took action against T-Mobile, as well as Sprint and Nextel, charging that while newspaper ads promised cellphone deals, the fine print contradicted the terms of the deal. Sprint and Nextel have since merged, and the case against them is still …
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Don’t Touch That Dollar Bill. It’s Been Near A Gay Person.
Rangelife points to this story from Focus on the Family (a misnomer if there ever was one): Focus on the Family has fired its banker; Wells Fargo because the bank is among the largest corporate contributors to homosexual causes. In 2003 alone, Wells Fargo gave $2.1 million to more than 95 non-profit agencies serving the homosexual community. That brings their total giving since the 1980’s to more than $14 …
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Organized Resistance Vol. 1
As protestors get creative with their continued attacks on Wal-Mart, it pays to look back in American history at protest campaigns with like-minded goals. Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), has written eloquently on the anti-chain store campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s. With Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward corporations trying to squeeze local merchants with their mail-order version …
Yum! Shows The Way
Associated Press: A coalition of American churches joined farmworker advocates Thursday to urge McDonald's Corp. to pay more for its tomatoes to help boost the wages of tomato pickers. The National Council of Churches request comes after the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced their campaign last month to pressure the fast-food giant to pay more for the fruit. "Every so often there comes a moment …
Freegans Are Not Only Resistant To Advertising, But Commercialism Itself
The Times: The Thanksgiving holiday is over and the frenzied Christmas shopping season has begun. This is bonanza time for the tribe of rummaging Americans known as “freegans”. The anti-capitalist freegans — the name combines “free” and “vegan” — are so appalled by the waste of the consumer society that they try to live on the leftovers, scavenging for food in supermarket dustbins. “It’s fun. It’s a thrill. It’s more …
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Talk To A Human
American consumers spend 42 minutes, on average, talking to machines and pushing buttons to nowheresville on customer service calls. Actually, I just made that up. In all likelihood, the number is much higher. Now, thanks to the kindness of one netizen, Paul English, you can get right through to that call center on the outskirts of Bombay. Happy dialing! [via Micropersuasion] …