Consumerism

Don’t mind if I do. The next time your pizza seems a bit skimpy on the toppings, you might want to consider asking your delivery guy if he was feeling particularly hungry. A pizzeria employee  in St. Petersburg, Russia responsible for ferrying a customer’s pie on its journey to consumption couldn’t resist the urge to snack before the pizza reached its final destination. Unfortunately for him, there just so happened to be a security camera in the elevator. In the video he walks in, all business, sets down the pizza bag, pulls out the pie and starts picking away, gobbling up bits of food at a rapid clip like he hasn’t eaten in days. He then closes up the box and puts the partially denuded pizza back in the bag, easy as you please. First of all — eww. Thinking about someone touching, picking and generally grubbing around on your food is enough to put anyone off their pizza for good. Or at least until they can can scrub these images from their minds. Second, according to a commenter on Reddit, who pointed to the incriminating video, the higher ups at the pizzeria weren’t too pleased with their employee’s snack attack either. He translated one of the comments on the YouTube video which is allegedly from the company, saying: This video has been received by us. This unprecedented event for our company. We found this deliverer and punished to the full extent. This man no longer works in our company. We’re sorry. While it’s grody and all, we hope “punished to the full extent” isn’t as ominous as it sounds. Removing this guy from food service should be enough. Watch him in action below, if your stomach can take it.

(Mary T.) When Debra placed an online order from Victoria’s Secret and then returned everything unworn, she didn’t know that she would have to pay an underpants rental fee. She returned $114.16 worth of merchandise, and received $96.69 back. Was that a shipping charge? No, Debra paid to ship the items back herself. Did the items go on sale and she didn’t have a receipt? No, that wasn’t it either. She bought them during a “$15 off a $100 purchase” promotion, and Vicky’s kept the $5 discount that they had given her. Huh? She writes: I made an online purchase of bland undies from VS. It added up to enough to get me a discount. I ended up returning EVERYTHING – paying for the shipping myself. This is from VC: “According to our records, the original order had a special offer of $15.00 off an order of $100.00 or more. When the merchandise was returned, your order fell below the dollar amount required to maintain this discount. Therefore, the $15.00 special offer was deducted from your refund amount.” Meaning I paid over $17 ($15 plus tax) for the privilege of returning the whole order. “That cannot possibly be right,” we said, and wrote back for clarification. Indeed, it was right. Debra forwarded the detailed explanation that she got from the retailer when she first complained about their keeping her $15. Hi Debra, Thanks, so much, for taking the time to get in touch with us. I understand you are concerned about the refund we issued you for your return. It is my privilege to personally assist you with your inquiry. According to our records, the original order had a special offer of $15.00 off an order of $100.00 or more. When the merchandise was returned, your order fell below the dollar amount required to maintain this discount. Therefore, the $15.00 special offer was deducted from your refund amount. If you would like to order qualifying non-clearance exchange items to reinstate your original special offer, we will be happy to waive the standard shipping handling costs. Either reply to this email and mention the order number below after you place the new order online at http://www.victoriassecret.com or call our Customer Service department at 1-800-475-1935 (or outside the United States 1-937-438-4197) to place the new order still referring the order number below. If you are placing your order online, please order a minimum of $100.00 of qualifying merchandise to reinstate the $15.00 special offer. Please note that qualifying merchandise does not include clearance items, gift cards, egift cards, gift kits, shipping and handling, or sales tax. Also, this new order cannot have any other special offers applied to it. Please click on the link below to view the details of this order and return on our Website. http://www.victoriassecret.com/order-status/ Debra, It’s our goal to touch our customers’ lives with quality products—from little luxuries to must-haves—along with memorable experiences and exceptional service. If there’s anything more we can do for you, please email or call us any time. That makes sense if she had returned half of the items, or had she only kept $95 worth. But how does it work if she returned everything? That was Debra’s question when she wrote back. Victoria’s Secret relented and refunded $15 to her credit card. That was a great consumer success, but how many other customers wouldn’t write back to complain twice? We wrote to Limited Brands, parent company of Victoria’s Secret, but they didn’t answer our message. If they do, we’ll let you know.

(artnchicken) Maybe you can’t be bothered with those pesky calorie counts on fast-food menus, or perhaps that info isn’t posted at restaurants in your area, and instead think, “Hey, I’m sure I’m just eating [insert best estimate] calories!” You’re probably off. Way off, says a new study that looked at just how wrong diners are when it comes to estimating how many calories are in their fast-food meals. Teens are the biggest underestimaters, says the study by the Harvard Medical School, published in BMJ, a journal of the British Medical Association. They underestimated calories by 34%, while parents who have kids in school were off by 23% and adults 20%, reports USA Today. Which means, for example, if you’re guessing that a burger has 500 calories, it’ll have 600. And since I’m just making up that calorie count, heck, it probably has more. The researchers surveyed 3,400 adults, teens and parents with kids who visited 89 fast-food joints, including McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Dunkin’ Donuts and Wendy’s. Participants were asked to estimate how many calories they were about to eat, and then researchers used their receipts to figure out the real number. “These large underestimations show that diners don’t really know what they are eating in terms of calorie content, and they need this information to help guide their choices,” the study’s lead author says, underscoring the importance of knowing what you’re eating. “They could get it from the company websites or in some other form in the restaurants, such as wall posters, napkins or cups, but soon they’ll be directly faced with it when they see it on the restaurant menu boards before they order their meal. Customers can already do this at McDonald’s — and in some cities,” he says. The truth is out there. But oh man, it’s going to be hard to swallow. Diners badly underestimate calories in fast-food meals [USA Today]

Greek yogurt is a delicious dairy product that’s produced by taking regular yogurt and straining it to a delicious, protein-rich thickness. The thing is, though, all of that straining means that you’re straining something out of the yogurt. That something is more than water: it’s post-fermentation liquid called acid whey. For every three or four ounces of milk that enter a yogurt plant, one ounce of acid whey leaves. They can’t dump it in sewage systems or waterways, and at least one manufacturer actually pays local farmers to take the liquid whey away and do something with it. Some creative uses for it: one local dairy farmer takes the whey, which is mostly water with some lactose (milk sugars), protein, and yogurt cultures, and mixes it up with his cows’ feed. It’s sort of full circle. An even more exciting use for the farm requires a huge investment up front that most farmers don’t have the resources for. Anaerobic digesters are a sort of septic tank for cow poo. They take in a slurry of animal manure and acid whey and let it brew, releasing stinky gases that the digester converts into electricity. Really, electricity. One upstate New York farmer’s digester produces enough electricity to run the farm and sell some back to the grid. Whey Too Much: Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side [Modern Farmer] RELATED: Greek Yogurt: Thick And Luxurious, Or Just Full Of Milk Powder?

(Rayce Sugitan)Usually, it’s owners of Android devices who get cast into the terrifying outer circles of Smartphone Replacement Purgatory, but owners of Apple devices aren’t immune. Reader Stephen first wrote to us back in February as he got his third replacement iPhone 5. Since then, he’s received two more phones. It’s nice that his phone is under warranty and all, but he’s on a two-year contract. Will he be stuck getting replacements every few months the entire time? At least this time, the phone has a different problem than before. I’m starting to lose count of how many replacements I have had. My latest one wasn’t a typical replacement (refurbished model), it was brand new as the supervisor wasn’t happy to give me another refurb after the string of issues which I have had. The brand new iPhone does not have the same green screen problem. This time, the GPS is busted. It intermittently tells me I am miles away from where I actually am and it has got me lost in places where I am unfamiliar. Am I just really unlucky or does everyone have to get their iPhone 5 replaced 5 times? Have you had your iPhone 5 replaced multiple times? Make Stephen feel better and let us know.

(frankieleon) Last summer, some of the country’s largest retailers reached a settlment with Visa and MasterCard that was supposed to put to rest qualms the businesses had with the credit card companies’ alleged practice of fee-fixing. The $7.2 billion settlement didn’t sit well with some, including Target and Macy’s, prompting a group of retailers to file a new lawsuit this week, effectively rejecting that previous agreement. It all started back in 2005 with retailers claiming that the credit card companies were colluding on the swipe fees they tacked on every time a store accepted a customer’s credit cards, wiping out any competition and keeping those fees high. When the retailers finally agreed to the settlement last July, we were worried we’d see extra surcharges popping up on our bills. But it seemed, even back then, that not all companies were onboard with the deal, and didn’t want to heap credit card surcharges on customers. Things are coming to a head with this new lawsuit, which could stem from the provision in the settlement that bars retailers from filing future lawsuits over swipe fees, reports the Associated Press. Welcome to an instance of a future lawsuit, everyone. The National Retail Federation urged its more than 9,000 retailer members to reject the settlement earlier this week. Included in yesterday’s lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, are TJX Cos., Office Depot Inc., Kohl’s Corp., Abercrombie & Fitch Co., and several others, as well as Target and Macy’s. Visa’s staying mum on the new legal brouhaha while a MasterCard spokesman only told the AP that his company remains confident that the settlement will ultimately be approved. Other retailers in the original settlement have until Tuesday to opt out if they want to pursue their own legal action. Those who don’t will automatically be bound by the settlement, and as such, might start tacking those credit card surcharges on to customers’ totals. Big stores nix credit card settlement, file suit [Associated Press]

(So Cal Metro) Start up the chorus of grumbling and shine up your best “What in the what now?” faces: AT&T has just added a $0.61 monthly administrative fee to wireless customers’ bills. It’s totally great for AT&T of course, as reports indicate the move could bring in about $518 billion in extra moolah for the company in 2014. So, yay for you, AT&T? Heralded as the “Mobility Administrative Fee,” the new tariff actually went into effect May 1. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t notice, because we didn’t either. Anyone with Consumer and Individual Responsibility User (IRU) lines should see this fee tacked on. But what is the fee for, anyway? And should we be grumpy about it? Grump as much as you want, but AT&T claims it’s necessary to help “defray certain expenses AT&T incurs, including but not limited to: (a) charges AT&T or its agents pay to interconnect with other carriers to deliver calls from AT&T customers to their customers; and (b) charges associated with cell site rents and maintenance.” An AT&T spokesperson defends the new charge by telling CNET it’s ”consistent with similar fees charged by other carriers.” To that end, Sprint and Verizon charge $1.50 and 90-cent administrative fees, respectively.

Here are twelve of the best photos that readers added to The Consumerist Flickr Pool this week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or just plain neatness. (#1 – Jason Cook) (#2 – Ryan Schaetzle) (#3 – Freaktography Urban…) (#4 – skg style) (#5 – Joanne Wong) (#6 – RedandJonny) (#7 – blindkosmik) (#8 – Joel Zimmer) (#9 – Karen_Chappell) (#10 – Shawn Miller) (#11 – pjseeger (#12 – Joanne Wong) Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Want to see your pictures on our site? Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

(frankieleon) Oooooh, someone’s in trouuuuble! Chastisements can come in tiny packages, as one nine-year-old girl proved at today’s annual McDonald’s shareholders meeting. She took to the mic with a pretty clear message for Mickey D’s CEO Don Thompson: ”It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time.” Oh, snap. The straight-talking little lady was the first one to step up once the meeting was opened to questions, reports NPR. She traveled from British Columbia with her mother as part of a contingent from watchdog group Corporate Accountability International. “We want them to stop their predatory marketing to kids,”explained one of the national campaign organizers with the group. That same group tried to convince McDonald’s to retire Ronald McDOnald as its mascot, ostensibly because his terrifying clown self is so closely linked to children. In reply to the little girl’s comment, CEO Thompson defended McDonald’s recent efforts to provide healthier options for everyone, including kids. “We sell a lot of fruits and veggies and are trying to sell even more,” he said, calling her “brave” for speaking up during a brief chat later. He also added later that he’s a big fan of Ronald, and said the company isn’t trying to get around parents to pitch food straight to kids. “We are not the cause of obesity,” Thompson said. “We are not marketing unjustly to kids…. . Ronald is not a bad guy. He’s about fun. He’s a clown. I’d urge you to all let your kids have fun, too.” You run into Ronald in your darkest fever dreams and let me know if it’s fun for you, Thompson. This 9-Year-Old Girl Told McDonald’s CEO: Stop Tricking Kids [NPR]

When you wish upon a star you still aren’t a Disney. Listen, if you want to go around and tell people, “Yeah, I’m related to Walt Disney,” even if it isn’t true, that’s up to you. But one man allegedly impersonating a Disney heir took that delusion to another level when he, again, allegedly, passed off stolen Disneyland tickets as the real deal. Police tell CBS L.A. that the 51-year-old man 51-year-old suspect identified himself as having the last name of Disney back in January when he handed over passes to Disneyland to be used in a nonprofit organization’s raffle. The not-so-lucky winner of that raffle was turned away at the gates to the theme park, however, as the tickets hadn’t been activated. Authorities say the man had allegedly stolen the passes from a retail business. Once police started poking around into this Disney guy, they found that he had a fake driver’s license under his assumed name, and even forged W-2 tax forms purporting to show income from the Walt Disney Corporation. Because you know, he’s an heir and all. The Walt Disney Corporation confirmed that the suspect is wholly unrelated to Walt Disney’s family and has no connection with the company. He was arrested on Tuesday on felony burglary charges, and was in possession of a driver’s license containing a forged state seal. Police believe he could’ve been in other schemes using that name. When the local news team spoke with the suspect, however, he claimed he has no idea what people are talking about because he’s not a Disney. No, really? “Somebody lived here before me named Disney. They’re confusing me with someone else,” he claimed, reiterating his real name, which, again, is not Disney. That should clear things right up. Disney Heir Impersonator Arrested For Allegedly Passing Off Stolen Theme Park Tickets [CBS Los Angeles]