pileofcrapola

“Recently Sears had a serious competitive edge on a single aspect of buying a dryer,” writes Bedford. If you’re curious, that aspect is that Sears will set up a dryer to vent from the side while most appliance retailers won’t, but that isn’t really important: what matters is what went wrong when the delivery team showed up with his fresh new dryer, and how Sears dealt with the issue.

The transaction went through successfully and the delivery crew showed up, which is already pretty good by normal Sears standards. Then the time came to unload Bedford’s new dryer from the truck. Except by “unload” we mean “drop on the gravel driveway.” First it fell, and then one of the installers managed to make matters worse. “He quickly grasped the dryer with both hands and twisted the dryer as it sat on the gravel driveway, and you could hear my new appliance scream,” Bedford explains. When he asked why on earth the installer would have tried moving the appliance off the truck by himself, all he could offer to Bedford was that the damage was only on the bottom of the dryer. For some reason, Bedford was not placated.

He had his old dryer re-installed and sent the new one away. Delivery errors and accidents happen all the time, but a good retailer will make it up to the customer and make sure that they receive the undamaged appliance that they paid for, right? After the botched delivery, Bedford drove over to Sears to straighten this all out and asked to speak with a manager.

“The operations manager balked at even coming to speak with me,” he says. “Then he was so very flippant, it blew me away.” Someone who contacted him by phone from the delivery department was equally flippant, and Bedford closed his first message to us by wondering whether he should just go ahead and put up some clothes lines. He held off until the company’s next delivery attempt, the following week. When the truck arrived, Bedford got a surprise.

“Today, a delivery army brought my new dryer home,” he wrote to us earlier this week. “It consisted of 3 delivery men (if you can believe that) driving a lift truck and the manager of the [local store] delivery operations. The new manager that is.” There had apparently been a change in staff in the last week, and the store manager dispatched the small dryer-delivering army.

“So there we have it, Sears still has some spunk left in it,” notes Bedford. Maybe so: if they keep going with this whole “hiring people who aren’t actively hostile to customers” thing, they just might make it.

Because you might as well call this site Catsumerist considering the all-consuming love we have for the furry little felines, we thought our readers should know that Mouse and WiFi, aka the kittens who survived 130 miles packed in a box as newborns, are now up for adoption. Ready, set, awwwwww you’ve got a new cat. [via San Diego Humane Society]

No business could survive on a model that allows employees to give away its products willy nilly, but does a few free condiment packets a corn muffin mean someone should lose their job? A73-year-old greeter at a Florida Cracker Barrel says he’s out of work after passing a muffin, a tartar sauce and a mayo packet to someone who looked needy.

The veteran has been working at Cracker Barrel for the last three years, and while he admits he’s been written up for violating company policy twice before — for getting a fountain drink without paying for it and giving a customer coffee (which he claims she paid for — this time he’s out of a job.

According to WWSB News, the worker said he thought a man who might be homeless walked into the Cracker Barrel where he works as a greeter, and asked for mayo and some tartar sauce because he was going to cook a fish.

“I got it for him. As I walked out I put a corn muffin in,” he tells the station.

Afterwards, the general manager took him aside and let him know that he’d been let go.

“It’s a rule. They legally can do this because I did break the rule. I completely forgot about it,” he explains. “I am a host at Cracker Barrel with a little above minimum wage job.”

And now that he’s out of work, he says it’s going to be tough to supplement his Social Security, so he’ll need another job. But that doesn’t mean he’s angry, necessarily, at Cracker Barrel.

“I feel badly. It shines a bad light on the company,” he says of some of the backlash against Cracker Barrel now that the situation has come to light. “I would not want that on any company, but it happened.”

A Cracker Barrel spokesperson issued a statement on the situation, noting that he’d been employed since April 2011 with the company.

“During the time he was employed, he violated the Company’s policies regarding consuming food without paying or giving away free food, on five separate occasions. [He] received multiple counselings and written warnings reminding him about the company’s polices and the consequences associated with violating them. On the fifth occasion, again per Company policy, [he] was terminated.
Cracker Barrel is grateful for and honors [his] service to our country as we honor all service men and women and their families.”

Venice veteran says he lost job after giving muffin to needy person [WWSB News]

Washington state’s first bunch of licensed retail marijuana sellers are slated to open on July 8. But when they do, it looks like they might not be selling a wide variety of pot-infused edibles that don’t meet new packaging guidelines intended to make sure that the products A) aren’t marketed to kids, and B) won’t be confused with other snacks that don’t contain tetrahydrocannabinol.

SeattlePI.com reports that the state’s Liquor Control Board, which will oversee the new pot retailers, has approved a new slate of rules that give the LCB the authority to approve the packaging of all edible marijuana products.

“A marijuana processor licensee must obtain approval from the liquor control board for all marijuana-infused products, labeling, and packaging prior to offering these items for sale to a marijuana re­tailer,” reads the rule. “The marijuana processor licensee must submit a picture of the product, labeling, and packaging to the liquor control board for approval.”

The new rules also clarify that any pot-infused product must state on the label that “This product contains marijuana.”

This appears to be a preemptive attempt to make popular edible products — like lollipops, gummy bears, cake pops, and others — less potentially attractive to youngsters, along with avoiding any possible confusion that could lead someone who didn’t know better to chow down on what they think is a handful of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers only to soon find out they are something a little more exotic.

There are additional new rules aimed at preventing another Maureen Dowd-like incident, where a curious newcomer to marijuana edibles bites off more than should be chewed.

Thus, marijuana-infused edibles that are served in solid form — think chocolate bars or brownies — must be scored to indicate single serving sizes. And the manufacturers must make an effort to homogenize the distribution of the drug within these products so one serving doesn’t unexpectedly provide much more punch than the other.

Legalized marijuana for non-medical use is still in its infancy in the U.S., with retailers, producers and regulators all still sorting issues out as they come up.

For example, a number of edibles have product names that spoof or poke fun of existing food product names. This generally went unnoticed or unregarded when these items were just being sold at medical marijuana dispensaries, but they have recently caught the attention of manufacturers like Hershey’s, which recently sued one edibles company for making several products that Hershey’s claims are too similar in name and packaging to existing candy and chocolate products.

“When I was at work today I went to the breakroom to relax, only to walk in to see a guy from the corporate office and [a] pizza,” writes reader S. Who doesn’t like free food in the breakroom at work? S. found that pizza’s side dish distasteful: a request for store employees to call their representative in Congress about a piece of pending legislation that’s important to Best Buy’s survival.

Some states require online sellers to charge sales tax as long as the seller has a physical presence in the customer’s state. If you’re Best Buy, with a physical retail presence nationwide, that’s problematic when competing with out-of-state, online-only sellers of electronics and accessories. That’s why a final push to convince the House to pass this seemingly dead bill is important to retailers. Like Best Buy.

S. took photos of the flyers given out at the pizza table: a flyer explaining why e-fairness should be important to retail workers, and a sheet telling employees who to call and what to say.

We’re only providing part of the flyer so we can conceal S.’s location a little bit. At the top was information about how many Best Buy stores there are in the representative’s district, and how many people those stores employ.

S. really, really didn’t like this outreach effort. “It didn’t seem like many of the people working with me cared much,” he writes, “but a friend and I were in shock that this was allowed at work. It seems like something they shouldn’t be pushing on the people who work for them.”

Was Best Buy really pushing this on their employees? We called up the company’s communications department and asked whether this was a real push from corporate. Indeed, it is, a spokesman confirmed. Representatives didn’t visit every store, but brought pizza, flyers, and scripts to Best Buy locations in “key Congressional districts.” For Best Buy’s purposes, that means members of Congress who are known to be on the fence or opposed to the bill. Backers of the Retail Fairness Act, a bill that passed the Senate in May of 2013, want the House to just vote on it already, instead of drastically changing it or drafting a new bill.

As for providing a script, form letters and phone scripts are common all over the political spectrum, arming citizens who might have never called a politician before with what they should say and how they should phrase it.

Best Buy sent us a statement on their Marketplace Fairness Act efforts aimed at employees:

We are engaged in a grassroots campaign to convince Congress to act on the issue of tax fairness, and nothing is more grassroots than working with store employees who live in key congressional districts. We ask these employees to make a call to their congressman, but it is just an ask and nothing more. The pizza is for everyone in the store, whether they make a call or not.

The question is: is this appropriate for an employer to do? As S. describes, most people are probably apathetic, but many people would contact their legislators when they support or oppose a bill that could affect their own jobs or careers. I certainly have. Efforts like this become problematic when calling or writing in is a requirement for continued employment or favorable scheduling.

Yet some employees might walk away with the impression that this is something that they have to do, or feel somehow coerced by having a representative of the company push political action right there in the store. S. had the impression that pizza was only or people who were going to contact their representatives, but that’s not the case. As the Best Buy spokesperson told us, the pizza was for everyone, and the flyers and phone scripts just an optional side dish.

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We want what we want, when we want it, right? So of course a guy with $7,000 to spare would call up his favorite Indian restaurant before he heads to the World Cup, and ask if he can pick up some curry takeout for 12 of his buddies and fly it to Brazil. Of course.

This particular customer called up a restaurant in Essex, England that he’s fond of, and asked if it could prepare a feast for him an 12 of his friends so he could fly the dishes to Brazil this week.

“I thought he was making a joke,” the restaurant’s owner told the Worthing Herald. “I couldn’t believe it. In the beginning it was a little bit funny for me. I said how can this happen?”

The customer happens to be the director of an aircraft company that provided planes to be blown up on the set of a recent Tom Cruise flick. The restaurant catered the food on that set, and the director got a taste for it.

“We are from Bangladesh and on a regular basis we eat curry and rice, and fish is part of our diet. There’s not a single restaurant in Brazil that does it,” the customer explains, adding that he wishes it could’ve been a celebratory dish if England had gone through. He does have tickets for the final, however.

The plan is for him to fly on a chartered plane to pick up the food today, then hop another flight to London, before taking the dishes with him on a commercial flight to Brazil. It’s unclear if each one gets its own seat, but the total cost for his plan comes to about $7,000.

Footy fans get curried away at the World Cup [Worthing Herald]

Reader Phil sells on eBay, and has a specific e-mail address that’s only for use with PayPal. The only people he has given this address to are eBay/PayPal itself, and to his customers. That’s why he was surprised to receive a phishing e-mail specifically addressed to his business name and his PayPal address, and wondered where the baddies got it.

Phil hypothesized that this may have something to do with the eBay data breach, since both his PayPal address and company name are on file with his account information. “Phishing mails always start with a generic ‘Dear customer’ or ‘Dear Client,’ but this one not only addresses me by my full name,” he wrote to Consumerist. “It was also sent to an email address that I use EXCLUSIVELY for my Paypal account.” Another likely explanation is that one of his customers fell for a similar phishing scheme and had the contents of their inbox harvested, including Phil’s company name and that limited-access PayPal address.

We’ve blocked out the return address above, but the message did not originate from PayPal. The idea is to entice the recipient to click on the link in order to set things right with PayPal, which will lead him to a PayPal-like site that asks for his username and password.

Have you received any highly personalized scam e-mails like this? If so, let us know at tips@consumerist.com. Also be sure to forward them along to spoof@paypal.com or spoof@ebay.com.

These days when we think of Barnes & Noble, there’s always a second thought immediately after — “What the heck is going on with that company?” After years of whispers, exits, and declining sales, Barnes & Noble says it’s finally going to go ahead and spin off its Nook business, separating it from the retail part of the company.

Barnes & Noble has seen sales sliding at its bookstores and in the e-reader business, which is likely a big part of the reason why they’re splitting off now into separately traded companies. The idea being, they can sink or swim on their own without dragging the other down with them.

Bloomberg reports that the spinoff will be all signed and sealed by the first quarter of next year, according to the company. Sales are still dropping, with fourth-quarter results today showing continuing Nook losses as well as a dip in comparable sales at its stores.

“We have determined that these businesses will have the best chance of optimizing shareholder value if they are capitalized and operated separately,” Michael Huseby, Barnes & Noble’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “We fully expect that our Retail and Nook Media businesses will continue to have long-term, successful business relationships with each other after separation.”

It’s unclear who gets the kids on which weekends, but at least it sounds like no one is blaming each other.

Barnes & Noble Agrees to Spin Off Nook Unit as Sales Decline [Bloomberg]

Imagine you’re just minding your own business, waiting in line for some fast food breakfast at your local McDonald’s when a man walks in. Something seems a bit off about him. Is it the way he walks? Perhaps it’s something about the conversation he’s having on his phone. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the huge, bloody kitchen knife sticking out of his back.

That was exactly the scene at a Queens, NY, McDonald’s on Tuesday morning, reports CBS NY.

The tall man in a white hat and blood-streaked T-shirt had managed to walk a full block from where he’d been punctured with the knife, go into the McDonald’s, all while also apparently making a phone call about his less-than-stellar situation.

“He was on the phone, I’m pretty sure he was on the phone talking to somebody in his family or a loved one or something,” a witness tells CBS. “He was talking to them and telling them it might be the last time he’s speaking to them.”

The stabbing victim began to pass out and customers rushed to the man’s aid to make sure he didn’t do anything to push the knife further in. Someone also managed to snap some photos with their camera… you know, for the scrapbook.

An ambulance eventually came and took the stabbee to the hospital where he was listed in serious condition.

Can’t get enough refreshing fruit-flavored Oreos? Have you made your way through lemon, watermelon, and fruit punch flavored sandwich cookies, and you’re ready to try a new (but not terribly different) flavor? Great news! Limeade Oreos are here.

For most people, this is just a strange expansion of the ever-stranger Oreoscape. Don’t worry: it’s a limited-time flavor like so many other seasonal Oreos. Most likely, it will taste like butter cookie and citrus, just like its lemon Oreo cousin.

Some limited-time flavors are exclusive to a specific store (generally, Walmart.) While these cookies were sighted at Meijer, that doesn’t mean they are an exclusive.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES – Nabisco Limited Edition Limeade Oreo Cookies [The Impulsive Buy]

Fairfax County adopt a pet Washington Post Rumble, left, a 4-month-old male Abyssinian guinea pig, is available from the Fairfax County Animal Shelter. Fenway, center, a 35-pound, 1 1 / 2-year-old male Boston terrier-pug mix, is available from the Humane Society of Fairfax County. Bina, a ... and more »

Prince William County community calendar, June 26 to July 2, 2013 Washington Post Senior caregivers job fair, applicants should bring a driver's license, Social Security card, proof of car insurance, car registration, addresses for past seven years and four personal and four professional references. 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Home Instead ... and more »

Prince William County crime report Washington Post These were among incidents reported by Prince William County police. For information, call 703-792-7245. BRISTOW AREA. THEFTS/BREAK-INS. Elliston Ct., 10100 block, 1:30 p.m. June 6. An attempt was made to enter a residence by breaking a basement ... and more »

Washington City Paper

Jury finds HIV/AIDS grant money was used to build DC strip club Washington Times A D.C. jury found that a nonprofit group and its director misappropriated more than $300,000 from the city's HIV/AIDS program for renovations on a proposed job-training center that instead was used to open a strip club. The jury found damages of $329 ... Jury: Nonprofit Director Used DC Money to Renovate Stadium ClubWashington City Paper (blog) all 4 news articles »

Iran is rushing to try to save one of the world's critically endangered species, the Asiatic cheetah, and bring it back from the verge of extinction in its last remaining refuge.

A California wind farm will become the first in the nation to avoid prosecution if eagles are injured or die when they run into the giant turning blades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

The waters off Hawaii's largest island are home to a half-million brightly colored tropical fish that are scooped up into nets each year and flown across the globe into aquariums from Berlin to Boston.

Prince William County Democratic state Sen. Charles J. Colgan plans to retire next year when his term expires.

Liberty University plans to construct a 252-foot bell tower that would be the tallest structure in Lynchburg.

Delaware's beaches have ranked first in water quality out of 30 states, and Dewey Beach is among the best.

Summer has finally arrived for students in Fairfax County, but it turns out many students skipped out before the end of the school year.

The market of online grocery delivery services is saturated, but a new-to-D.C. company promises quality foods, delivered in one to two hours.

Startling new health findings could make TV fans think twice before curling up on the sofa to watch their favorite shows. Researchers say adults who watch TV for three hours or more each day may double their risk of early death compared to those who watch an hour or less a day.

The Smyth County Animal Shelter is seeking homes for 18 kittens found abandoned in a box on Pugh Mountain.

It's the time of year when allergy season is making many people miserable -- and one of the culprits may be a parasite lurking in your home.

A seventh person faces a murder charge stemming from a fatal drive-by shooting in Lynchburg.

In an effort to cut out a bigger piece of the online retail pie, Target has announced that almost all Target.com orders that total at least $50 will qualify for free shipping.

The retailer had previously offered free shipping on select products, but the new policy applies to all but the largest and heaviest items available on the Target website.

The company says that shoppers had been confused by the old policy, as free shipping applied to some items but not all. Putting the $50 threshold in place is intended to make things more clear to visitors to Target.com.

Shoppers will still need to be mindful of the possibility of handling fees for certain items. For example, while smaller dining table sets don’t come with any additional charges, some sets — like this one — have handling fees that can tack on up to $60 to the price. And yet, this large, 7-piece outdoor dining set has no handling fee.

Likewise, this kid’s bed has no handling charge, while this much-cooler kid’s bed will cost an additional $40.

Most of the handling fees seem to involve furniture, which is about the largest thing you’ll buy at Target, since the store doesn’t really get into the full-size appliance business like some of its competition. TV shoppers will be happy to know that we couldn’t find a single TV in the Target.com selection that didn’t include free shipping.

The delivery window for Target.com orders is 3-5 business days. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune points out that this is faster than Walmart.com’s 6-9 day window for purchases that qualify for free shipping.

Health officials say a rabid bat has been found in an apartment complex in Glen Burnie.

Disclosures from railroads about volatile oil shipments from the Northern Plains show dozens of the trains passing weekly through Illinois and the Midwest and up to 19 a week reaching Washington state on the West Coast.

Officials are identifying a man found dead in Arlington National Cemetery last week.