http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/consumer.asp

Consumer Relations

One of the fundamental tenets of business is to treat your customers with respect. Slip-ups occur from time to time, however, as well as the occasional mischievous prank . . .

Ratings Key

        Green bullet = true
        Red bullet = false
        Multiple status bullet = multiple truth values
        Yellow bullet = undetermined
        White bullet = unclassifiable veracity

Select this link for an expanded
definition of our rating system.

White bullet Apology letter is marred by attached instruction to send the customer the standard grovel.

Green bullet Test message slips into live mailing, resulting in "Dear Rich Bastard" salutation.

Red bullet Coleco sends death certificates to children who return damaged Cabbage Patch dolls.

Red bullet Neiman-Marcus charged a customer $250 for their cookie recipe.

Yellow bullet Gangster Clyde Barrow once sent a fan letter to Henry Ford.

White bullet Airline promotion reveals husbands' infidelities to their wives.*

Green bullet Nike denied a customer's request to have his shoes personalized with the word 'sweatshop.'

White bullet A customer once successfully wheedled a refund for a tire out of Nordstrom, a chain of U.S. clothiers.

Green bullet Customers whose guaranteed hotel reservations were not honored protest by preparing humorous PowerPoint presentation.

Red bullet Designer Liz Claiborne announced on a TV talk show that she doesn't design clothes for black women because their "hips are too big."*

Red bullet Designer Tommy Hilfiger announced on a TV talk show that he does not want blacks and Asians to buy his clothes.*

Red bullet Continental Airlines CEO Gordon Bethune threw a passenger off an airplane for being rude to a flight attendant.

Green bullet Australian mine planner's letter expresses frustration at his difficulty in obtaining replacement parts for a Nissan-manufactured bus.

Green bullet Roofers mysteriously return to re-do a job that had been completed four years earlier.

Red bullet Domino's ended its "30 minutes or it's free" guarantee because a speeding delivery driver hit and killed a child.

Green bullet A teenager whose mother had died received a government check mailed to "Mrs. Passed Away."

White bullet Large company effects massive layoff via fire drill.

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