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Posted
Aug 12 2009, 06:20 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Some customers were likely breathless as they pushed the "add to cart" button at Best Buy's Web site. The big draw? A Samsung 52-inch HDTV that appeared on the chain's Web site for the unbelievably low sale price of $9.99.
Best Buy corrected the error hours later and announced that any orders processed at that price would not be honored. (You can find screen shots of the ad and an order placed by Augustine Fou at his go-Digital Blog.) But what's truly amazing about all this is that so many people are ticked off.
Bing: Best HDTVs
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Posted
Nov 08 2007, 05:50 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post is from David Wood at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com . As an expectant mom, Kendra of Brooklyn, N.Y., wanted the best for herself and her baby. Part of that care was a prenatal vitamin. "My doctor gave me a prescription for the prenatal vitamin Primacare One," wrote Kendra. "I dropped off my prescription at the CVS pharmacy and when I returned to pick up the prescription, I was instead given Prednisone." The problem Kendra encountered is one of the most common prescription errors -- the kind that occurs when a pharmacist can't read the prescription properly. Instead of contacting the authorizing physician to confirm the prescription, the pharmacist plays Russian roulette with someone else's life. Kimberly, of Hudsonville, Mich., ran into a similar problem at Walgreens . Kim wrote that the pharmacist couldn't read the prescription and assumed it said Corgard, a blood-pressure drug. However, Kimberly's husband didn't need a blood-pressure drug. He needed Cortef, a drug to treat
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Posted
Mar 30 2009, 10:19 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Scammers have learned that using the name of a legitimate business or organization often helps deceive victims. The National Association of Realtors is warning that its name is being used as part of a property-rental scam.
Victims targeted by scammers are led to believe that NAR is functioning as an intermediary to receive rental deposits from prospective tenants. NAR says nothing could be further from the truth.
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Posted
Sep 01 2009, 05:13 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Jon Hood at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Many of the prerecorded calls that seem to come just as you're sitting down to dinner are now illegal.
An amendment to the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, announced more than a year ago, took effect today, Sept. 1. It includes prohibitions against a large number of robocalls.
There are a few catches, however. First, purely "informational" calls are exempt under the new rules. Thus, those calls from Orbitz announcing that your flight is departing two minutes later than expected will not be subject to a penalty.
Perhaps more annoyingly, public service announcements are exempt from the new rules, as are political calls. Political robocalls are especially common during election season, and aren't likely to stop anytime soon. Banks and telephone carriers are likewise exempt.
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Posted
Jan 26 2009, 10:14 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We're on the Do Not Call list, but we still get prerecorded calls from the likes of "Heather" and her fellow drones. Why is this happening? It's terribly annoying.
Luckily we came across this post by Herb Weisbaum, aka ConsumerMan at MSNBC, while we were researching another topic. He says you can now opt out of these calls -- and can do it quite simply.
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Posted
Apr 30 2008, 10:38 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Lisa Wade McCormick at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. Consumers who buy professional hair-care products at major retailers -- or at grocery stores and drugstores -- are not getting the bargains they may think they are. They're also fueling a gray-market industry that deals in counterfeit, stolen or outdated merchandise. That's the warning issued by hair-care giants like Paul Mitchell, Redken and Matrix, which are trying to crack down on an industrywide problem known as diversion.
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 10:32 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We've read that some credit card companies may ding those who use their card in bars or tire-retreading shops, or live in an area with lots of foreclosures, but this takes the cake: If you're an American Express cardholder, your credit limit could be reduced if other customers who shop where you do have fallen behind on their Amex bills.
Is this yet another way credit card companies are penalizing responsible customers because their own bottom lines are hurting?
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Posted
Mar 23 2009, 08:16 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
We know that gethuman.com can help you reach a real person at a corporation that has an unyielding phone tree. But there are actually many ways -- about 50, in fact -- to get the attention of the right customer-service rep.
Tip o' the hat to "vh" at Funny about Money for directing her readers to "PBX hell: 50-plus hacks and tips to get a real person at any corporation in 10 seconds or less" at VoIP-News.
For those who've been hopelessly lost in the phone-tree maze, this list could restore your blood pressure to normal.
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Posted
Mar 27 2009, 08:37 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Jon Hood at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
A federal court in New York has given the green light to a class action alleging that Best Buy violated its "price-match" guarantee. Under the policy, the store guarantees consumers that it will match lower prices offered by local retail competitors. The lawsuit alleges, however, that Best Buy created an "anti-price-matching policy."
The suit, led by plaintiff Thomas Jermyn, describes an effort by the chain to encourage employees to "build a case against the price match." Using internal Best Buy documents and statements by current and former Best Buy employees, the suit describes the methods it says Best Buy used to try to convince customers that the guarantee didn't apply to their purchase.
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Posted
Jul 02 2009, 10:28 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Mark Huffman at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Consumers have been hit with huge interest rate hikes and increases in their minimum monthly payments, and now complaints about America's credit card industry are reverberating through the halls of Congress.
CitiGroup, Bank of America and Capital One in recent days have all begun raising customers' interest rates, in many cases saying it has nothing to do with the customers' performance and everything to do with making up for losses before new laws and regulations tie their hands early next year.
Chase has singled out its customers with the lowest interest rates -- raising their minimum monthly payment from 2% of the balance to 5%. In many cases this action turns the credit card bill into the size of a monthly mortgage payment.
"This is what many of us feared about a law that didn't take effect right away," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Washington Post. "It was never going to take this long for the credit card companies to get ready for the new reforms. Instead, issuers are using the delay in the effective date to wring more dollars out of their customers. It is against the spirit of the law, and it is just plain wrong."
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