Repossessing a car or mobile home is one thing, but a furnace? [More]
legal
Fed Clamps Down On Credit Card Loopholes
By 11.5.10
To shut down “fee harvesters” and other crafty tricks credit cards cooked up to escape the CARD act, the Federal Reserve has proposed three ways to tighten and clarify the rules. [More]
Law Firm Opens Drive-Thru Window
By 10.27.10
Instead of bricking over the drive-thru window when they set up shop inside a former Kenny Rogers Roasters, one law firm decided to keep it and offer its clients drive thru service. [More]
NY To Make Foreclosure Lawyers Verify Paperwork
By 10.21.10
The chief judge in New York Wednesday ruled that lawyers handling foreclosures will have to verify that all paperwork is correct. [More]
Bureaucrats Abuse Gov Databases, Snoop On Neighbors And Lindsay Lohan
By 10.15.10
Low-ranking government apparatchiks are wasting taxpayer dollars and violating our trust by exploiting their access to massive government databases to look up private information on their neighbors and ex-spouses, and “doc gawk” on celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Matt Damon, James Taylor, and Tom Brady. [More]
Elderly Woman Evicted From Home Due To Deed Mix-Up
By 10.7.10
An elderly woman in Kansas City was forced out of her longtime home this week because of a deed mixup. No, Bank of America didn’t foreclose on her by mistake. Why are her belongings on the lawn? The situation dates back to 1998, when her friend and roommate, the owner of the house, died without properly transferring the deed. A probate battle ensued. Now a real estate company owns the house, and has offered to sell it for $60,000. They paid $13,000 at auction. [More]
NY Bar Rules It's Ethical For Lawyers To Scour Facebook For Damaging Info
By 9.27.10
The New York Bar Association has decreed that it’s okay for lawyers to troll through Facebook and other social media sites for damaging info on their opposition. There is an important caveat, though. It’s only ethical if the info is publicly available. “Friending” someone for the purpose of accessing data the person only makes available to their “friends” is not kosher, nor is it cool to ask someone else to do it for you. [More]
Zero Witnesses Back Slater's Story
By 9.9.10
Authorities have interviewed every single passenger that was on Steven Slater’s last flight, and not a single one says events went down the way he’s been describing them, according to a Port Authority police official. [More]
New Rule Makes It Easier For Shareholders To Usurp Board Members
By 8.26.10
As of yesterday’s 3-2 SEC ruling, the little guy just got a little more power in the boardroom. When shareholders want to nominate people to the board, the company now has to include those names on the regular ballots passed out to everyone before the annual meeting, even if the company doesn’t like them. [More]
Federal Court Rules Recording Your Own Conversations Ok As Long As It's Not For A Crime
By 8.24.10
In a heated dispute over how to handle a woman’s estate, the son secretly set his iPhone to record a conversation that happened between him and the other members of his family days before she passed. The stepfather tried to get it tossed out by saying it violated the Wiretap act, but the case was dismissed and also lost on appeal. This has important implications for people who are interested in recording their customer service calls. [More]
Wells Fargo Ordered To Pay $203 Million For Processing Transactions High To Low, Maximizing Overdraft Fees
By 8.11.10
A California judge ordered Wells Fargo to pay California customers $203 after finding that the bank had deliberately manipulated the way it processed transactions in a way that turned one overdraft fee into as many as 10, at $35 a pop. [More]
Illinois Town Wants To Outlaw Eye-Rolling
By 7.21.10
Next time you’re in line at the grocery store and you roll your eyes at the person with two carts full of items refusing to leave the 10-items-or-fewer line, you might be in trouble with the law — at least if you live in Elmhurst, Illinois. Officials of the Chicago suburb are looking into finding a way of putting an end to the practice by legal means. [More]
Bully Landlord Tries To Steal Security Deposit
By 7.2.10
Sara thought she was being a good tenant. She moved cities and rather than pay the stiff penalties for breaking the lease, she continued to pay rent on the old place. She even turned off the electricity before she left. Ever since she told the old landlord she won’t be renewing the lease, he’s been going all aggro on her on the phone, demanding payments for electricity she didn’t use, insinuating she’s a criminal and is still living there, and generally being a jerk. Sara wants to extricate herself from his clutches but is afraid for her $700 security deposit. What can she do? [More]
Hurt Locker Lawyers: Time Warner Cable Hearts Pirates
By 6.2.10
If you’re one of the 5,000 “John or Jane Does” accused of illegally downloading copies of The Hurt Locker, and your ISP is Time Warner Cable, you may be safely airlifted out of the battle zone. According to the law firm representing Hurt Locker producer Voltage Pictures, TWC is “a good ISP for copyright infringers” because it won’t hand over the names of its customers as quickly as the lawyers would like. [More]
No More Eating Shark Fin In Hawaii
By 5.30.10
A new law has made Hawaii the first state in the country to outlaw the possession of shark fin — a delicacy that goes for $48 a plate, according to the AP. [More]
Subway's Lawyers Tell Rest Of World To Stop Selling "Footlong" Sandwiches
By 5.13.10
Subway has been sending legal letters to sandwich places informing them that Subway “has applied for the trademark FOOTLONG (TM) in association with sandwiches,” and instructing them to stop calling their sandwiches “footlongs” or else. [More]
These Antenna Installation Instructions Are Surprisingly Specific
By 3.29.10
I am typing this post with a digital TV antenna stuck in my ear, and all because nobody told me that this wasn’t the right way to install it. Ow! Apparently Antennas Direct of Missouri knows that there are people like me out there, because they’ve included some very specific warnings on their installation instructions (PDF). (Thanks to Billy!) [More]
FCC Leaks Summary Of National Broadband Plan
By 3.15.10
The FCC has released a scan (PDF) of the five-page executive summary of the National Broadband Plan that it will present to Congress in two days. Although the summary is packed with recommendations, here’s a couple that a lot of broadband customers might be interested in: the FCC wants to develop “disclosure requirements for broadband service providers” so that consumers can make the best choice for service, and it wants to map broadband services across the country to better identify “specific geographies or market segments” where there’s not enough competition. [More]
