The first point they make is: No junk comments:

Your comment should be a meaningful response to the issue raised in the post. Objections to an editor’s headlines or writing style should be emailed directly to the post’s author. Verboten: “Why is this on Consumerist?“, “tldr”, “Why did they even shop there in the first place?”, “This is a non-issue”, “Slow news day?” “Pwnd” “Yawn”, “First”, “People still ______” (use dialup, eat fast food, breathe air, and so forth), “Old news”, “lol”, “This is why I don’t shop there,” etc.

My comments aren’t exactly “Why is this on Consumerist?”. Usually I provide one or more reasons why it should not be on Consumerist.

What happens if I break these rules?

You may be banned. We might warn you in the comments. We also might not. If you ignore a warning, you will probably be banned. If you feel your ban is unwarranted, email your appeal to moderator@consumerist.com and we’ll see if we can work it out.

I find it quite useless to try to warn users inside the comment section. Often times I would post a comment and never return to see the story again. I wonder why they don’t just email the user giving him the warning.

Anyway, Consumerist recently posted this article: Risk-Based Pricing Is A Myth and I have long wondered a very similar question.

How exactly does increasing interest rates or charging late fees help you in getting money from someone who’s already late paying the bill? Logically, I’d try to make it easier for them so they actually can pay you.

As noted in the article, late fees and high interests rates don’t mitigate risk, they just make credit card companies filthy rich. I like the idea of how if you’re late on a payment or if your financial situation has changed (loss a job), decreasing your credit limit sounds like a good way to mitigate risk. If someone can’t ever make enough money to utilize their full credit line, I don’t see how increasing interest rates is going to make it work any better.

Though I do have to say, thanks to all you “high-risk” credit card holders, “low-risk” credit card users like myself can reap the benefit of rewards and cash back. For that, I thank you.

One such story was: Buy Super-Cheap Costco Gas Without Costco Membership. This was a story advocating readers to defraud Costco, where there was a trick to allow any American Express card user to purchase Costco gas without having a membership. This trick has been around for quite some time, but it does NOT belong on Consumerist, nor should they be advocating readers to defraud a company.

I posted the following comment:

Consumerist has long forgotten the difference between a “deal” and “illegitimate loophole”. I’m waiting for the day they start posting price mistakes. Whatever gets readers, right?

I’m not saying I’m all high and mighty and won’t try my hand at ordering what is obviously a price mistake once in awhile. I’m saying crap like that does NOT belong in Consumerist.

It’s like those security hole researchers. When they find a security hole in a software, they don’t go and tell everyone how to do it and then ask if it’s ethical. They try to contact the software company first and hope the issue a fix fast.

I guess we can never really expect Consumerist to be of that quality. And yet I had high hopes when they just started. Sigh…

I guess it finally struck a nerve because when I went to post a comment yesterday, I saw this:

Comments are not enabled for this account but you can still clip articles and follow friends. If you have any questions about your status, please send us an email from your profile page.

Then I went to my profile and saw this:

I guess Consumerist has no problem criticizing other companies, but when people start criticizing them, they ban users from commenting. I’m actually surprise that comment hasn’t been deleted yet.

I’m not really that avid of a commenter, but I do have 125+ comments) under my belt and they’re not junk comments like half of what gets posted on Consumerist these days.

I’ve sent an email to them asking why comments were not enabled for my account anymore and am awaiting their reply.

Interestingly, they posted a story I had submitted to them earlier this week: Wal-Mart Fails To Change Your Oil And Lies About It

Tipster Toland pointed us toward the Stonecipher Report which contains an entry about a weary traveler who, against his better judgment, decided to get his oil changed at Wal-Mart [...]

Anyway, I’m much more of a fan of this new anti-consumerist site: Not Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes

Update: Just got a reply back from them:

You’re a go for comments!

Guess I got a nice moderator this time, though I didn’t really get a reason why I was banned in the 1st place.