CNN Goes Into Apparel Business With Headline T-Shirts [Clothing]

Michael wrote in to point out that CNN has a weird new feature on its site—now you can proudly display your favorite, uh, headlines(?) on your body with their "CNN Shirt" service. It's beta, naturally, and they pick the headlines you can choose from—so no "What drove dad who kept 'house of horror'?" tee to shame your parents during the next family holiday. (That's the current top headline on their home page.)

Michael seemed as confused as us:

I'm not sure what to make of it. "Nominee for 2008 Stupidest Web 2.0 Idea" comes to mind, along with "something I'd expect from Fox News before CNN". Or maybe it's funny, if I enjoy walking around with "40-lb. hunk of metal hits driver in face" on my chest.

• Sleepy bear can't stay awake
• Baby found in house of filth
• 7-minute battle with death

These Costco Guys Are Going To Assemble Your Table No Matter What [Above And Beyond]

Unlike Drew's story about IKEA from earlier today, Philip had what sounds like insanely good customer service from Costco—which is a good thing, since both the original table he purchased and the replacement table Costco's delivery guys brought were missing key pieces.

Here's Philip's tale of amazing customer service:

Today I witnessed what has to be some of the most outstanding customer service ever offered.
 
This past Saturday my wife & I purchased a large amount of garden furniture at Costco. One of the items was a marble topped table and chair set. When we got the pieces home we discovered that the table top had a flaw and there were critical pieces missing from the hardware. Compounding the problem, we had returned the rented truck we used to move this very heavy piece and no longer had any help either. My wife called the store to find out what our options were. Steve called her back and said that he would come by our house Monday morning with a complete replacement set of furniture.
 
True to his word, Steve and Jay arrived Monday at 11am and proceeded to unpack a new tabletop. The replacement was also slightly marked but not as deeply as the original and a little time and elbow grease had it good as new. We then started searching through the new boxes for the missing hardware. Eventually, we all agreed the hardware was not shipped either with my original purchase and the replacement they brought out. With the Costco guys standing there, I contacted the manufacturer and was told I would have to fax a receipt and to expect a 10 day turnaround for their missing hardware!
 
At this point Steve and Jay said this was not acceptable to them and they headed off to Home Depot to see what they could source themselves. They returned about 20 minutes later with a bag of parts and proceeded to assemble the table perfectly. In all the process must have taken at least 2 hours and they would accept nothing but a glass of water. We now have a beautiful table in our backyard.
 
I really can't thank Steve, Jay & Costco enough. We have always been big fans of Costco but this really went above & beyond.

Capital One All Hassle Credit Card [Capital One]

How hard should you have to work to pay your bills? No, not to make enough money to pay your bills, but to actually give your money to someone else? Reader Matt has been trying to convince Capital One to take his money for several months now. They're not taking his money, or his calls, but they are willing to send him to collections! Check out his story, inside.

Hi Consumerist,

So two things happened in January. One: I started leasing a dedicated server from Sago Networks, and two: I asked for paperless credit card statements from Capital One. Little did I realize this would cause me
headaches for the next 4 (going on 5) months.

Sometime in February I received an email from Blockbuster Total Access that my card was refused. I thought that was strange, so I tried to login to capitalone.com (as I did every month to pay my bill) to check it out. So one of two things happened here: right after logging in I was either sent to http://www.capitalone.com/?state=timeout or I received a standard 404 message. I thought that was even stranger so I decided to call and see what was up.

Over the next month or two I'd call about twice per week, stay on hold for about an hour, then hang up. As a good Consumerist, I'd call the collect number on the back of my card and try to blast my way through to a human by repeatedly dialing "0". This did little good. Every time I called I was on the phone for a minimum of an hour, at which point I had to hang up because I was calling during my lunch breaks.

Once I finally got a hold of an actual human, I was told I needed the fraud department, which added to my hold time. When talking to the fraud department, I asked several times why my card was marked as fraudulent. They wouldn't answer. I was asked some simple questions, like my mother's maiden name, city of birth, then, "Did you charge $69 with Sago Networks in January?" (Gee, I wonder who was responsible for my card getting stopped.) I said yes, and then they supposedly reactivated my online account and sent me a new credit card.

Next time I logged in to Capital One I could navigate the website without errors, but when I clicked "Pay My Bill," I got an EMPTY SELECT BOX when choosing which account to pay! Over the next TWO MONTHS I ended up playing phone tag with a mysterious "special division of the fraud department." Every person I talked to told me I needed the fraud department. When I was connected to the fraud department, they told me I needed some "special division." They wouldn't give me any names, but they did tell me that this special division is only open M-F 9-5 EST (very inconvenient for me on the west coast). After holding for my entire lunch break, I had to hang up.

HOWEVER: This did not stop them from calling me on Saturdays. I turn my ringer off at night, but when checking my phone later on I'd see up to 3 missed calls from Capital One. Apparently their collections
department works all weekend but the fraud department is only available M-F.

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