The New GameStop Rewards Card Isn't Worth Your Time Or Privacy

The New GameStop Rewards Card Isn't Worth Your Time Or Privacy: "

Last week, we learned that at least one Gamestop employee won't even sell to you unless you sign up for a rewards card. Why might that be? Reader Dragonfire81 has mysterious inside knowledge, and warns all good Consumerists to stay far, far away from the new rewards program that Gamestop is pushing.

Firstly, the program rolled out nationally just last week, so every Gamestop employee in the country is under orders to sign up everyone under the sun for the program. The company expects that with the rewards program being available in a free option that they can get 90% of customers signed up for these cards.

If you go into any Gamestop between now and Christmas (and probably beyond) you can expect to be badgered mercilessly about the card and given the stink eye if you don't want one, even a free one.

Secondly, the program is not a very good deal anyway. You get points on every purchase (10 points per new dollar, 20 per used dollar) than can be redeemed on the poweruprewards,com website. That sounds cool, until you realize the breakdown is roughly 1000 points = 1 dollar on most items.

A 3 month Xbox live membership that costs $20 will cost you 20 000 points to get through the rewards program. Do the math on that and you'll realize you have to buy either $2000 worth of new stuff or $1000 of used stuff just to get a 'free' 3 month card. Point being, very few consumers spend enough money at Gamestop to get much out of the card.

Lastly, when you go to activate on-line, you can't do anything until you answer a slew of questions, including your age range, number of people in your household, gaming preferences and a whole section about how often you preorder games, buy used and trade in. You have to cough up a lot of info just to get the 250 bonus points for 'activation.'

The easiest way to avoid being signed up for the program (aside from saying no course) is to NOT give your e-mail address to any Gamestop employee who asks for it. An email address is required to sign up for the program. If you don't give them one, they can't sign you up. If they try to do it anyway (which some managers encourage), make a complaint to a manager or district manager.

Good to know. This situation raises an interesting question, though: with the proliferation of retail rewards programs, are there any that are worthwhile?

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Read This News Site And They Will Hunt You Down And Sue You

Read This News Site And They Will Hunt You Down And Sue You: "

The North Country Gazette, an online-only publication based in Chestertown, NY, wants you to know that reading their site without a subscription is serious business. How serious? Well, if you read more than one page on the site without a subscription, the site owner claims that she will use your IP address to track you down and sue you.

The site is now entirely password-protected after earning negative attention for the policy. (This probably would have been a better option in the first place.) BoingBoing captured the warnings while they were still up. For emphasis, one was in red Comic Sans.

This isn't the site owner's first experience with creative interpretations of copyright law. The North Country Gazette's fair-use policy also made a cameo appearance in a legal ethics blog in 2006. The site publisher, in turn, sued the blogger for defamation.

Local newspaper boasts ultimate passive-aggressive paywall policy [BoingBoing]

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McDonald's Ordered To Pay $17,500 To Employee Who Got Fat On The Job

McDonald's Ordered To Pay $17,500 To Employee Who Got Fat On The Job: "

A former manager at a McDonald's in Brazil won a lawsuit against the fast food giant, in which he claimed the company was the cause of the 65 pounds he packed on during his 12 years on the job.

From the AP:

The 32-year-old man said he felt forced to sample the food each day to ensure quality standards remained high, because McDonald's hired 'mystery clients' to randomly visit restaurants and report on the food, service and cleanliness.

The man also said the company offered free lunches to employees, adding to his caloric intake while on the job.

In a statement released after the ruling, McDonald's said that not everything on its menu will make you fat: 'The chain offers a large variety of options and balanced menus to cater (to) the daily dietary needs of its employees.'

The company says it is weighing the decision of whether or not to appeal the court's ruling.

Judge: McDonald's must pay obese employee $17.5K [AP]

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Debt Collection Firm Accused Of Setting Up Phony Courtroom

Debt Collection Firm Accused Of Setting Up Phony Courtroom: "

Call it 'theater of the real.' A debt collection firm is accused of setting up a fake courtroom, complete with a raised 'bench' and judge in black and other decorations and furniture, to trick and holding bogus hearings to extract payment from debtors.

Men dressed like sheriff's deputies also went to clients' homes and delivered paperwork and 'summons' for the phony hearings. The documents implied the recipients would be arrested by the sheriff if they did not comply.

In a lawsuit, the Pennsylvania AG accused the firm, Unicredit, of using the courtly trappings to intimidate consumers into giving access to their bank accounts, making payments, and handing over title to cars and other assets.

'This is an unconscionable attempt to use fake court proceedings to deceive, mislead or frighten consumers into making payments or surrendering valuables to Unicredit without following lawful procedures for debt collection,' Attorney General Tom Corbett said in a statement.

The president of Unicredit told the Erie Times-News that he wasn't aware of the lawsuit.

If you're being pursued by debt collectors, make sure to read and understand your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. And scrutinize any paperwork you receive, just because it looks official doesn't mean it is.

Attorney General goes to court to shut down Erie debt collector [GoErie] (Thanks to Double Echo and Jeff!)

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Woman Uses Cell Phone In 1928?

Woman Uses Cell Phone In 1928?: "

In what's either evidence of time travel, an impossibly elaborate hoax or just a clip of an insane woman talking to a shoehorn, an independent filmmaker has sifted through the DVD special features of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 movie The Circus to find footage of what appears to be a woman talking on a cell phone.

The clip defies logic, but is fascinating to stare at and hyper-analyze in a Zapruder film sort of way. A skeptic will say that a cell phone wouldn't have worked in 1928 because there were no cell phone towers or satellite. And a believer would counter that a society capable of time travel would figure out how to make a device that could pick up signals through the space-time continuum.

Take a look and tell us what you think:

Chaplins Time Traveler [via Hollywood-Elsewhere]

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