Corvallis, Oregon has finally gotten its moment in the sun.
The television commercial keeps popping up like a bad penny.
“My name is Karen and I’m the head pharmacist at Corvallis Drug,” it begins. “We’ll get customers come in and they’re looking for a brain supplement and Prevagen is the one I recommend…It’s just a product I believe in.”
Well, good for you, Karen, and probably for your pocketbook, but not so good for your customers.
Because Prevagen is marketed as an over-the-counter dietary supplement rather than a prescription drug, standard celebrity or professional testimonial rules apply rather than strict prescription drug broadcast laws enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That’s Karen’s the escape hatch.
Quincy Bioscience, the privately held company that manufactures Prevagen, used to hype that’s its secret was “an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish”, a protein called Apoaequorin found in bioluminescent crystal jellyfish, scientifically known as Aequorea victoria.
equorea victoria
In 2024, a jury found Quincy’s advertising deceptive and fraudulent. The ruling, which came on charges first filed by the Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General of New York in 2017, forbid Quincy from making claims that Prevagen-branded products can improve memory or cognition, that Prevagen can show results within 90 days, and that Prevagen is “clinically proven” to work.
But you still see the Prevagen commercials and the product can be found at most major retailers. How come? It’s because Quincy shifted its marketing to vague taglines like “For Your Brain” instead of pulling ads its entirely. And the commercials still work.
Quincy launched Prevagen in 2007. According to the FTC, the supplement had already generated more than $165 million in sales by 2017. Because Quincy is a private company, sales since then are not public, but are believed to be substantial, and the product isn’t cheap. Amazon, for example, is advertising 60 capsules of Prevagen Extra Strength with 20mg of Apoaequorin for $193.89.
Unfortunately, Prevagen is not the only heavily promoted brain supplement. Another is Neuriva, an over-the-counter dietary supplement, not an FDA-approved drug.
Neuriva is marketed to fuel multiple “indicators of brain health” such as focus, memory, learning, accuracy, and concentration. Its key active ingredients are 100mg of coffee cherry extract and 100mg of plant-sourced phosphatidylserine.
But its brain health claims also lack strong support from well-designed clinical trials and Neuriva, like Prevagen, has faced legal challenges over how its products are advertised.
So, don’t take Karen’s advice or rely on yucky jellyfish to make you sharper.
“There’s no evidence to suggest there’s an ingredient in supplements that can improve brain health,” says Dr. Pieter Cohen, an internist with Harvard-affiliated Cambridge Health Alliance, whose research focuses extensively on dietary supplements. “Nothing legally contained in supplements has been proven to improve your thinking or prevent memory loss.”
It used to be that if you didn’t read your local newspaper you simply didn’t know what was going on.
When I was growing up in the small town of Wallingford, Connecticut in the 1950s, my family read the Meriden Record, established in 1867, at the breakfast table and the New Haven Register, around since 1812, in the afternoon.
When I moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, in 1987, one of the first things I did was subscribe to the local paper, the Lake Oswego Review.
In 2006, Lake Oswego spent $20 million to acquire some property featuring an 89,000 sq. ft. office complex, intending to transform the site into a community center. But all hell broke loose when local opposition to the plan surfaced. Over coming years, the issue generated persistent news coverage in the Lake Oswego Review.
A couple years in, I asked a local friend, an educated professional, “So, what do you think about the controversy over the proposed community center?”
“Huh,” he replied. “Don’t know much about it.” I was shocked. He didn’t subscribe to the Lake Oswego Review, the principal news source for local residents.
That was back when as many as 8,500 local newspapers still played a critical role in the civic health of communities across America.
But since 2000, more than 3,200 newspapers in the country have simply vanished. In 2025, only about 36% of U.S. adults said they got news from their local daily paper at least sometimes, down from around 55% in 2000, and I suspect that percentage has continued to slip, particularly among young people. Overall news trust is also continuing to decline, although the most trusted news brands continue to be local television outlets and regional or local newspapers.
The loss of local media coverage in Oregon has been painful for the producers and consumers.
The Chronicle, which had served the southern Willamette Valley region in Lane County since 1909, focusing on Springfield, Creswell, Cottage Grove and Pleasant Hill, died a painful death earlier this month.
The staff of the Chronicle on their last day.
“We never put our heads down or ran on muscle memory,” Executive Editor Erin Tierney-Heggenstaller wrote in the last edition. “We were strategic, offering communities with virtually no other credible journalistic outlet what people say they want: award-winning hyper-local news about family, friends, and neighbors; practical reporting to make daily life easier; and curated content edited with standards that social media, AI slop, and corporatized commodity news no longer offer. “Build it, and they will come.” But they didn’t.”
The Lake Oswego Review hasn’t been spared from the same tumult.
Founded in 1921 as the Western Clackamas Review, renamed the Oswego Review in 1928, and then the Lake Oswego Review in 1961, the paper underwent several transformations, gradually expanding its readership and impact. By 1976, the paper was being published twice a week, totaling 90 pages and with a circulation of 8,200. In 1978, Eagle Newspapers, an Oregon regional newspaper group rooted in John Day, purchased the paper.
In 1996, former Review editor Steve Clark and his wife, Randalyn, bought the Review and its parent company, Community Newspapers Inc. Over the next few years, the company grew to include nine community newspapers. In August 2000, Lake Oswego residents Robert and Marilyn Pamplin bought Community Newspapers and transitioned it to Pamplin Media Group. Over the next 24 years, Pamplin grew to include two dozen newspapers in Oregon and their corresponding websites, including the Lake Oswego Review and the group’s flagship, the Portland Tribune, which had launched in February 2000.
“The Tribune and its family of newspapers provides the ‘right stuff’ that citizens need to engage effectively — with government, with each other, with the bigger world,” former Metro councilor Rex Burkholder said in 2016. “News, especially news that is about what is happening here and now, in one’s own community, is essential nourishment for anyone wanting to make a difference.”
On June 1, 2024, Mississippi-based Carpenter Media Group bought the entire Pamplin Media Group for an undisclosed sum. Carpenter, founded in 2023, says on its website, “The newspapers, websites and magazines we lead are the cornerstones of their communities, allies to businesses, incubators for innovation, and cultivators of journalistic talent. We aim to forge a well-informed, interconnected, and prosperous society – one community at a time.”
So much for that. In Oregon, a massacre followed.
Among the victims was the Lake Oswego Review, which had built a strong track record of publishing award-winning investigative and enterprise journalism, and two other Pamplin papers in adjacent cities, the West Linn Tidings and the Wilsonville Spokesman.
On February 11, 2026, the three papers were merged into one,The Review, a pale imitation of its three predecessors. The entire August 12, 2026 issue of The Review ran just 24 pages, including one self-congratulatory page promoting local stories in The Review, three pages of public notices and one page urging readers to let Oregon legislators know they value access to public notices in their local paper. The August 19 issue had just 15 pages of news.
With that kind of shrinkage in news coverage, it hardly matters whether my Lake Oswego friend subscribes to the local paper today.
Meanwhile, other local news outlets have shriveled as well.
In October 2024, Carpenter Media Group bought the EO Media Group, which owned Oregon’s Bend Bulletin, the East Oregonian and other rural Oregon newspapers, and proceeded to slash and burn the papers’ staffs. John Carr, Senior VP of Oregon and Washington at Carpenter Media, said the cuts were “necessary financial changes and cost-cutting measures that will stabilize these publications for the future.”
The Portland Tribune had 40-50 newsroom staffers when it launched in February 2001. It ceased printing in June 2025 following major newsroom cutbacks and layoffs and now operates strictly as a digital, online-only news service that requires a paid subscription to access. Although Multnomah County still describes the Tribune on its website as a ” Portland city newspaper, offering comprehensive coverage of news, sports, business, people and entertainment”, it now has just one reporter, Hannah Seibold , who describes herself as “the sole survivor of the Portland Tribune at this point”.
The Oregoniannewspaper, once the Portland area’s dominant local news source, has suffered as well. Founded in 1850 as a four page weekly, its first issue printed in a log shack on Portland’s SW First and Morrison,
I joined The Oregonian as a business reporter in 1987. It was a robust, well-respected paper then, with a proud past and a much-anticipated future. Daily Monday-Friday circulation was 319,624; Sunday circulation 375,914. When I left the paper 10 years later in 1997 to take a corporate communications job, daily Monday-Friday circulation was 360,000, Sunday circulation 450,000. We were on a roll.
Much of that success was attributed to Sandra Mims Rowe, who came on as editor in 1993 and tried to energize the newsroom with a hiring spree, bringing on reporters and editors from around the country. Under her leadership, the newsroom distinguished itself by winning five Pulitzers.
But the paper wasn’t able to escape the tumult of the newspaper business during her tenure. By the time she left the paper in Dec. 2009, she had to cut staff, salaries and benefits as circulation and revenue declined.
In 2009, The Oregonian’s daily circulation sat at 268,572 and Sunday circulation at 344,950, causing the paper to lose its position as one of the top 25 Sunday circulation papers in the country. That same year, the paper announced a long-term policy that protected full-time employees from layoffs for economic or technological reasons would end.
By 2012, daily circulation sank to 228,599, only slightly higher than circulation in 1950, and the declines continued. Talented reporters began departing in droves, some pushed out, others motivated by buy-outs. At the same time the once powerful paper saw its clout diminish as it abandoned rural Oregon and 7-day-a-week print distribution.
When I left The Oregonian in 1997 to take a corporate communications job, the paper employed a newsroom staff of about 400 journalists (reporters, editors, and photographers). The newsroom staff now consists of about 66 employees.
The paper publishes print editions just four days a week, while continuously updating its digital content. Average daily print circulation is 29,325 copies and Sunday print circulation is 44,294 copies. The days are long gone when what was in The Oregonian, particularly its opinion section and columnists, dominated local conversations all day.
So here we are. A once mighty paper hollowed out and humbled. A growing population served by a smaller paper. A weakened paper that no longer drives the daily discussion at the proverbial water cooler (or over a latte). A diminished, editorially impotent presence with a dwindling ability to hold powerful interests accountable.
But is the local news environment as depleted as often presumed? Is the gloomy view unwarranted?
As the size and impact of the traditional major dailies and weeklies in the Portland metro area have shrunk, other news outlets are working to fill the gap. Some of their audiences are limited and their coverage is not very deep, but together they are beginning to fill a continued need and judicious selectivity can provide unexpectedly broad local news coverage.
There is still, however, too much online coverage of national news and not enough of local. As Public Media Company CEO Tim Isgitt recently said to Poynter, “…public media is facing a perfect storm. We’re part of a rapidly changing media and technology landscape that is providing unlimited content — but perhaps not the content we need. We can get any national journalism we need, but we can get very little local journalism from this landscape…We’re part of a media and technology landscape that is largely failing our society — with detrimental societal impacts, whether it’s misinformation, lack of trust or the effects it’s having on polarization, teen mental health or the loneliness epidemic.”
Some local media in Oregon are trying to do better.
Willamette Week, an alternative paper and digital media outlet, continues to offers cultural, civic and political coverage and reaches hundreds of thousands of print and online viewers, even if it tends to focus on only a few topics each week and its daily local online news coverage is limited.
The Portland Mercury, an alternative bi-weekly, offers coverage of local arts, music, and city culture.
Other options include the solid news site OPB, City Cast Portland, a website and a daily podcast for local news, Oregon Capitol Chronicle, part of the States Newsroom, and a relative newcomer, Axios Portland, with two reporters, Meira Gebel and Kale Williams.
And there’s still Oregon Business, around since 1981, that reports on a wide range of topics such as leadership, innovation, technology, culture, politics and environment, and the Portland Business Journal, published since 1984, which delivers local commercial news, data, and networking opportunities for the Portland, Oregon metro area.
Another innovative outlet focusing on local business news is Portland Inno, a digital media outlet powered by the Portland Business Journal, focused on Portland’s local startup, technology and innovation economies. A recent story, for example, broke the news that Mark Ronay, who founded materials company Liquid Wire in 2016, had launched a company is called Spectralsurf, aimed at bringing down the costs of semiconductor manufacturing, with funding from Portland Seed Fund and ONAMI .
Then there are Portland’s television stations, KGW 8, KOIN 6, KATU 2 and KPTV Fox 12, offering varying levels of useful local news.
Portland’s local news outlets sometimes provide mindless drivel and poorly-researched gossip, comparable to the blitzing of the podium done by the Trump administration on a regular basis, and there’s a lot of slop out there, but they can also produce substantial deeply-researched impactful stories and the fact is the public is hungry for reliable local news.
Increasingly, however, that hunger for local news is being met not by the news outlets noted above, but by social media. Young people, in particular, move between podcasts, X accounts and YouTube livestreams where there’s no editorial control, no reviews and no accountability, where skepticism is required, but not often employed. Of course, young people will eventually grow older, but there is little likelihood that they will grow into accessing media as their parents did.
For the first time globally, more people are getting their news from social media platforms featuring independent online news personalities and commentators on platforms like Substack, TikTok and YouTube than television or news websites, according to a new report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. This is particularly the case with younger audiences who often stumble upon information passively, consuming news that is automatically served to them through algorithm feeds, comment sections, and trending topics.
“…most Americans now get their information and form their opinions through creators, podcasts, Substacks, group chats,” says Renée DiResta, an Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. “Most traditional institutions have only minimal engagement or presence in those spaces. So that ecosystem runs on a very different model of legitimacy. People are following people, not institutions. They’re following people that they find appealing or relatable. Somebody coming to you from their kitchen.”
Substack is one beneficiary off this trend. One of the more prolific, and controversial, Substack commenters in the Portland area is Keven Dahlgren, who writes on homeless issues in Truth on the Streets. Another widely read site is Oregon Roundup by Jeff Eager, which says it covers “Oregon’s uniquely dysfunctional state government and the politics that create it.”
One problem, though, is that of the strong, reliable news, even local news, is only available if you are willing to shell out for a subscription, and many people are not. As one commenter on a substack post, Second Rough Draft, recently noted, “…the press sells what the public wants to buy. If there was a greater market for light, the media would cut back on the heat…elite audiences willing to pay are getting ample good information and others choose to pay less and get less.”
The Reuters Institute notes in a report, another troubling sign, that it is seeing stagnation or decline in overall online news engagement. People are turning away from the news. “The trends are worse among younger people and those without a university degree,” Reuters says.
Some of that decline may be simply due to the way social media works. “Social media algorithms are optimised for engagement, with the goal of keeping people on the platform as long as possible, ” according to Reuters. “This has seen social media companies prioritising things like entertaining short-form video and de-prioritising news…Political news caused headaches for them, so they turned away.”
The problem is locally-focused social media can be a swamp and it can be hard to separate truth from the muck.
“… in different, darker corners of the internet, it has become a source of endless misinformation and disinformation dispensed by a panoply of influencers, conspiracy theorists, edgelords, grifters and con men, DIY gurus, hostile foreign actors, and partisan echo chambers full of dittoheads and doxers,” observes John Ramage, a former and Arizona State University professor of English, on Substack. “It is a world without gatekeepers, regulators or arbiters, an epistemic wild, wild west where anyone who relies on evidence-based reasoning is dismissed as an establishment tool.”
Then there’s the problem of what’s happening when news-searchers engage with social media, such as items on X. 404 Media recently noted that X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X’s feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site’s algorithm prioritized engagement above all else when it generated a user’s For You Page.
“When a user on X sees a post that makes them mad — like a press release from a politician from a political party they don’t like — sometimes they’ll fight about the post in the replies,” 404 Media noted. “It doesn’t matter who you follow or what your stated values are, X reads replying as engagement and will send more of the infuriating posts the user’s way.”
Reviewing The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything, New York Times book critic Alexandra Jacobs noted that with social media,”All was sweet, innocent fun for awhile, then the algorithm came along and ruined everything, like a drifter in a Cormac McCarthy novel”, with all sorts of deleterious effects.
Or as historian Anton Jäger said recently on the Ezra Klein Show, “…our attention is fundamentally shaped now by algorithms that care about controversy, that care about newness, that are hunting amorally and constantly for whatever will get a rise out of people.”
It’s also important to realize that slop is proliferating on the web — some studies say 50 percent of online articles are now artificially generated. Then there are so-called “pink slime” sites, publications that mimic the appearance and output of traditional news organizations. Snopes, an online fact-checking and myth-busting website, can help sniff out such sites.
However you consume local news, “Studies have shown that the supply of local news is correlated with higher rates of civic engagement,” says the Agora Journalism Center at -the University of Oregon. “Robust local journalism matters to how informed citizens are, and according to another recent Knight Foundation report, a healthy news and information ecosystem creates “a virtuous circle whereby improved information contributes to improved community outcomes.”
If you want an educated, informed public in a position to make wise judgments, quality local journalism is key. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787, “The way to prevent irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs through the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people.”
The Portland City Council approved a term sheet for a possible Moda Center renovation on August 12, one more step in a potential misguided commitment to a billionaire and his buddies.
The term sheet commits what The Oregonian has dubbed “a torrent of taxpayer money” of up to $573 million in public funds for the renovation of the Moda Center, including a state commitment of $365 million, a Portland commitment of $120 million and a Multnomah County commitment of $88 million. Portland would also commit up to $275 million in maintenance costs on the arena over the next 20 years and Multnomah County would chip in $13 million for capital expenses.
Don’t cry for Texas billionaire Tom Dundon and Rip City Rising, the group he leads in the Blazers deal, under which the group purchased 80.1% of the Trailblazers at a $4 billion valuation and the remaining 19.9% at a $4.5 billion valuation. Whatever they pay is likely to be rewarded with a much bigger payday down the road. At some point they are going to turn it over and probably make a bundle.
On august 21, it was reported that Marc Lore had agreed to sell his control stake in the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx to billionaire investor Marc Stad at a $4.5 billion enterprise value. Lore and Alex Rodriguez purchased their initial controlling stake in the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx from Glen Taylor based on a $1.5 billion valuation, completing the process in June 2025.
And look at what one owner just pulled off selling the Los Angeles Lakers.
Earlier this month, Mark Walter sold the Los Angeles Lakers to Bob Iger, the former Disney CEO and Los Angeles notable, and Josh Kushner, a venture capitalist. The deal came together in three days: $12.5 billion for a team that Walter bought less than a year ago for $10 billion.
Dundon and his investment group also stand to reap billions from the Blazers acquisition down the road. What makes ordinary people who would never go along with subsidies for billionaires become willing supporters of such rewards when they become politicians?
The payoffs for other buyers of NBA teams who have subsequently sold their teams have been eye watering.
Boston Celtics: Bought by an investment group, Boston Basketball Partners L.L.C, led by Wyc Grousbeck that purchased the team in 2002 for $360 million; sold to an investment group led by private equity mogul Bill Chisholm in August 2025 for $6.1 billion.
Phoenix Suns: Bought by Robert Sarver, leading an investment group called Suns Legacy Partners, in 2004 for $401 million; billionaire mortgage lender, Mat Ishbia, purchased the majority stake of the Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury for $4 billion in 2023.
Dallas Mavericks: Mark Cuban purchased a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. in January 2000 for $285 million; Cuban sold a majority interest in the team to Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont of the Adelson family casino empire for $3.5 billion in 2023.
Charlotte Hornets: Michael Jordan bought a majority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats (now the Hornets) from founder Bob Johnson in March 2010 for $275 million; sold his majority stake for $3 billion to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall in July 2023.
Golden State Warriors: Bought from Chris Cohan by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber for $450 million in July 2010; current valuation estimated at $10.8 – $11.3 billion.
Milwaukee Bucks: Bought by former U.S. Senator Herb Kohl in 1985 for $18 million; sold by Kohl to Wes Edens and Marc Lasry in 2014 for $550 million; current estimated valuation $4.1 – $4.5 billion.
LA Lakers: Bought by Jerry Buss in 1979 for $67.5 million; in June 2025, Buss family agreed to sell controlling interest to Mark Walter, a minority owner since 2021 and owner of the L.A. Dodgers, for $10 billion.
And the money changing hands in these deals is likely to get bigger. “I am absolutely convinced that we have not reached anything close to a ceiling,” Irwin Kishner, a partner at the law firm Herrick and co-chair of its sports law division, told The New York Times. And particularly with the most recognizable teams, he said, “you could only envision the numbers going further north.”
Who knew a remodeled bathroom could change your life. You’ve probably seen one of Jacuzzi Bath Remodel’s TV ads. “Is your bath or shower old and outdated? Our design experts can work with your style to create the customized bath of your dreams without breaking the bank. Jacuzzi Bath Remodel can make your dream bath a reality.”
For many people, one reason Jacuzzi Bath Remodel is assumed to be a high-quality company offering superior service at a reasonable price is because of its tie-in with Costco. Jacuzzi Bath Remodel is one of many companies that have an official marketing and sales partnership with Costco. In this case, it gives Costco members an exclusive promotional rebate in the form of a shop card on qualifying purchases.
But look behind the curtain.
Jacuzzi Bath Remodel is a national brand that operates across the country through a network of authorized dealers and franchisees. There are 33 reviews for Jacuzzi Bath Remodel of Portland on Yelp. They are overwhelmingly negative:
“Jacuzzi customer service is an absolute joke…Trying to get them to do anything or treat us like our issue is a big deal is like pulling teeth…Customer service acts like they are bored to tears when we call.”
“We found out about Jacuzzi from a sales representative at Costco. When we had the sales appointment at our house we were guaranteed to get updates about our materials and project completion date, neither happened. After multiple tries to contact the company we settled on a project date. 2.5 months later. The morning of the jacuzzi employees showed up without a previous courtesy call or text. They worked for 2 hours and 45 minutes and left because “their van broke down”.
“Our 2 day shower replacement was more like 2 or 3 weeks and they had to come back several times later to fix misaligned panels…We thought with their top tier pricing, we’d get a quality product and workmanship. Obviously, high price is no guarantee of either. Very disappointed in this big-name brand.”
“If able I would give Jacuzzi Bath and Remodel a ZERO We arranged a shower remodel with them through a Costco promotion.”
Reddit is replete with complaints about Jacuzzi Bath and Remodel as well:
“Jacuzzi came out with high pressure sales tactics, $26k to replace a walk-in shower if I agreed the day of otherwise it went to $32k for their “1-year” guaranteed quote. Needless to say I laughed them out of my house. I had previous quotes to remodel the entire bathroom for less than what they wanted for just the shower.”
“The project was supposed to start April 6th 2026 And I still haven’t gotten the job completed. I have No shower and now my toilet isn’t working…This was supposed to be a 2 day job. 3 months and still nothing.”
Trustpilot reviews are critical, too, as the site’s summary notes:
“…most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Many people found the pricing to be excessively high, often tens of thousands more than other contractors, and felt pressured by aggressive sales tactics to commit quickly. Customers also reported significant dissatisfaction with customer service, including unreturned calls, missed appointments, and persistent unwanted contact after expressing disinterest. Furthermore, many encountered poor product quality, with issues like staining, loose parts, and components not working correctly shortly after installation. Installation processes were frequently criticized for not being completed in the promised timeframe, causing damage to homes, and often involving subcontractors whose work quality was inconsistent.”
And then there’s something else to watch out for – financing costs. A Jacuzzi Bath Remodel website says: “Financing offer available through third-party lenders under terms of applicable loan program. No interest for 12 months if paid in full within 12 months. Interest will be charged to you from purchase date if purchase balance is not paid in full within 12 months.” If the cost of your project is $20,000 and you still owe $15,000 after 12 months, the interest due at a 28%. interest rate, for example, would total $2,371.08.
An Oregon City, Oregon couple’s experience with a Jacuzzi Bath Remodel contractor serves as a warning.
The couple, both in their 70s, hired Jacuzzi Bath Remodel in March of 2025. According to their daughter, the total cost of the project was expected to be about $20,000. They paid $10,000 upfront as a downpayment with the understanding that installation would begin in approximately six weeks and that the remodel itself would take about two days.
What followed, however, was months of delays, failed installation attempts, poor communication, and an unbelievable amount of disruption to their home.
About 14 weeks passed before the contractor came to the couple’s home to begin the project, only to discover that the wrong bathtub had been ordered. After another installation attempt was scheduled, the bathtub arrived damaged. A third attempt brought a third damaged bathtub. Meanwhile, the bathroom sat with exposed framing, unfinished walls and an opening in the floor to the basement below.
“Communication had also been extremely frustrating,” their daughter said. “Phone calls and messages would routinely go unanswered for days, and at times, weeks.”
The couple finally gave up on the contractor, but the company tried to charge them a penalty for cancelling their order and they “had to beg for their money back”, their daughter said. Then they spent $20,463 at Home Depot in October 2025 to have the remodel done correctly.
Costco has an overwhelmingly positive public reputation, built on high customer trust. Its membership renewal rate is reported to be over 90% If it wants to maintain its reputation it needs to ensure its marketing and sales partnerships are reliable, on the up-and-up and consistently meeting consumer expectations. Right now it looks like they aren’t.
ThinkingOregon 