Last spring, my first in a new apartment, I was careful to order my air conditioner way ahead of the first heat wave. I picked out a window unit from Home Depot online and scheduled delivery for a Friday in mid-May that I'd chosen as a spring-cleaning vacation day.

That morning, I woke up and looked up my order online, only to see that it had been suddenly (I'd checked the day before) back ordered and wasn't coming for nearly two weeks. I was furious! I would not be one of those people who didn't have an air conditioner when it got hot outside! I had done everything right, [...]

A Los Angeles resident who cashed a $1,000 money order at a local post office got a bit of an unpleasant surprise — as it turned out, his payday included eight counterfeit Benjamins, which turned out to be $5 bills that had been bleached and altered. According to the police officers who were called in when David Lipin's bill got rejected at a gas station, holding the bills up to the light would have revealed the visage of Abe Lincoln. Would the special relationship that the Postal Service and the Federal Government have resulted in Lipin getting his money back, the Los Angeles Times wondered? "Not really. The post [...]