investigations
State Investigators Find All Sorts Of Dirty Tricks At Mercury Insurance
Beware Secret Surcharges On USPS Mail At UPS Stores
(Photo: crschmidt)
Homeless Charity Revealed As A Fraud
Gibson CEO Takes Leave Of Absence From Rainforest Group While Feds Investigate Imported Wood
When agents raided Gibson Guitar's manufacturing facility earlier this week, some articles pointed out that the company's CEO Henry Juszkiewicz was on the board of the Rainforest Alliance, a group that certifies businesses to sell their goods under an environmentally sustainable label. Now the group has postponed its annual certification of Gibson Guitars, and Juszkiewicz is temporarily stepping down from the board. More »
Wow, Wendy's Really Does Take It Seriously
We're always making fun of companies who overuse the phrase "taking it seriously," but it looks like Wendy's isn't playing around. An anonymous tipster found a chicken bone in his Wendy's sandwich, and got taken very seriously when he reported it. More »
Toyota Says It's Not Hiding Anything In Runaway Cars Investigation
One of Toyota's execs said today that the company isn't covering up information about its suddenly accelerating cars, but the Department of Transportation doesn't seem to agree. More »
FAA Continues To Investigate American Airlines, May Charge Individual Mechanics
The FAA has been investigating American Airlines for a while now over allegations that it wasn't repairing its planes properly, and yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the agency may widen its investigation, and even bring charges against individual employees who signed off on substandard repairs. More »
Chipotle Says Their Food Does Not Cause Underwear Blood
South Park managed to combine the late Billy Mays, the unfortunately still around Ghost Hunters, and the beloved Chipotle chain in their latest episode, with surprising results. More »
FBI Charges 100 People In Phishing Investigation
Since 2007, the FBI and authorities in Egypt have been running an investigation they've called "Operation Phish Phry," sigh, and this week it paid off with 53 charges against U.S. defendants and 47 against people in Egypt. Three of the 53 in the U.S. have been arrested, and the FBI are looking for the other 50. To prove you're not one of the remaining 50, please send the FBI your login credentials to your bank. Ha ha, we kid. More »
Hidden Cameras Catch LA Valets Breaking All Kinds Of Laws
An excellent piece of investigative journalism by NBC Los Angeles catches valets all over the city putting up fake no parking signs, jamming meters, and using customers' cars to shuttle valets around. More »
Consumer Columnist Sues Paper, Says Advertiser Criticism Squelched
Consumer watchdog George Gombossy this morning filed a 1st Amendment lawsuit against his former employer, Tribune-owned Hartford Courant. There's some gangbusters stuff in the filing, like the part where he says the new owners told him to "be nice" to one of their key advertisers: More »
Baristas Flash Their Hoohas At The Grab-n-Go, Get Charged With Prostitution
We're not at the "full body latte" stage just yet, but Grab-n-Go Espresso in Everett, Washington has apparently taken us right up to that edge with their espresso stands where baristas show skin while serving coffee. Now five Grab-n-Go baristas have been charged "with multiple counts of prostitution and violating the city's adult entertainment ordinance." More »
Why Can't Microsoft Help Get This Guy's Stolen Xbox Live Account Back?
Erik has been patiently trying to get his stolen Xbox Live account back for a month and a half now, but all Microsoft has done to help is lie and fail to follow up on phone calls or emails. Oh, and there was that one point where they sent "how to get your account back" instructions to the person who had stolen the account, which sort of defeated the point. More »
Bank Of America Board Members Subpoenaed
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office is gathering information in order to file fraud charges against some BoA executives over what they knew, and what they hid, when they acquired Merrill Lynch & Co. a year ago. Earlier this week, his office subpoenaed 5 board members to find out "what they knew regarding the mounting losses and bonus payments at Merrill before the deal closed on Jan. 1 and what role they played in deciding whether to disclose that information to shareholders," according to the Associated Press. More »
Data Recovery Corp Invents Terms To Convince You Your Hard Drive Is Broken
Fox 11 News in LA went undercover with an intentionally damaged hard drive to find out whether online complaints about Data Recovery Corp, Inc. were true. Can you guess what the result was? More »
Cash4Gold Activates Magical Press Release Machine
Since we posted our feature investigation into their business practices, Cash4Gold has been busy sending out one new press release per day. More »
The Article Cash4Gold Doesn't Want You To Read
By Ben Popken and Meg Marco More »
FCC Launches Large Scale Investigation Of Cellular Industry
Uh-oh, the FCC is getting serious about doing its job, which probably means more memos like the one Apple posted last week from companies like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Yesterday the FCC announced three "Notices of Inquiry"—all unanimously voted for by a full, bi-partisan commission—that will look at different aspects of the cellular industry. More »
Apple, Google, And AT&T Respond To FCC's Google Voice Questions
Apparently, Apple didn't reject the Google Voice application for iPhone. They "[continue] to study it." Yesterday, Apple, AT&T, and Google all turned in their responses to the FCC's questions as part of the investigation into the bannination of Google Voice from the iPhone App Store. More »
Sleepy's Exec Says Bedbugs Come From People
Buried in the controversy surrounding the exit of consumer reporter George Gombossy from the Hartford Courant was his article that looks at complaints against mattress company Sleepy's. We though this bit of wisdom from Sleepy's COO was worth repeating: More »