I’m a big fan of Consumerist, well, at least used to be. I still read their blog posts, but they have a very different agenda than what I’d expect. I thought their main goal was to educate and help protect consumers, but through misinformation, I often question if the good they do offset the damage they cause. Along the way, they might protect consumers, but when you spread both truth and lies, it becomes hard to as a reader to distinguish making me cautious in trusting anything they put out.
Of course it could be due to the different authors they have. Some may be genuinely good, while others I can only describe as having a questionable agenda.
Take for example this recent post: Forever Stamps Are A Scam, I would like you to share my comment:
Actually, Consumerist were the ones that decided to spin what Slate said. Just look at the title and the 1st sentence:
Forever Stamps Are A Scam
By law, “Forever Stamps” won’t save you any money, says Slate.
First of all, the word “scam” and the phrase “save money” never appear in the article. All the article talks about is the absurdity of some people wanting to invest in “forever stamps”, which to be honest, did cross my mind, however after simple calculations and later on this article further solidified, was in fact a bad investment choice.
Consumerist decided to take this article and spin it to make you believe that Slate said these stamps are a scam and won’t save you money.
I honestly question if the author of this Consumerist piece actually read the article…
This is one in many many questionable posts that I’ve replied to and it angers me that the authors take these things lightly and won’t come out and correct their mistake, even when I tell them about it. I’ve submitted fewer and fewer stories to them as I don’t think they deserve my support anymore. They take a story and try to make the most absurd headline to attract readers. Their main agenda appears to be attract readers in hopes to generate ad revenue.
Other questionable posts include advertisement of a sandwich shop (twice) as a main story. What does that even have to do with Consumerist. If it was a restaurant review blog, I wouldn’t have cared. But the story has in no way a helpful consumer story. Then there’s the garage sale post awhile back where they talk about getting rid of junk (good thing) and goes on to list all their stuff on sale on eBay. They welcomed others to post their eBay listings on that page, but you know the sole purpose of that post was to get more eyes on their eBay auctions. Then there was an rather useless article about how Chase is spending money putting up posters around New York. What the *beep* was that about!?!? This is just simple marketing. Why pick on Chase? This list can go on and on…
I really want the old Consumerist back, but that’s like asking for the old Slashdot back, probably something that won’t happen.