banned
Hey, we helped get an
Ameriprise customer banned from the financial company's consumer advisory panel! Sorry about that, Brendan.
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negligence
[Note: The original headline for this post mistakenly identified Ameritrade as the subject of the post. It is actually Ameriprise Financial. I deeply regret the error.] Since March of this year, security expert Russ McRee of
HolisticInfoSec.org has sent 6 messages to Ameriprise Financial warning them of
easily exploitable security holes on their website. They ignored every request, while at the same time reassuring customers that "No one without the proper web browser configuration can view or modify information contained on our systems."
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comcast
Comcast's
new service agreement (PDF) has some curious details buried in the
fine print. Here's the short version: "customer equipment" includes your computer and TV set, and if Comcast somehow damages or breaks any customer equipment through "gross negligence or willful misconduct," they will pay you up to $500, no more. "This shall be your sole and exclusive remedy relating to such activity."
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toys r us
In 2006, Jennifer—the co-founder of popular parenting/consumer advocacy site
Z Recommends—took her two-and-a-half-year-old to the bathroom at the local
Toys R Us store. What she didn't know was that this particular store featured the awesome striking power of the Action Toilet Stall with Collapsible Mom Trap! As she closed the door, the
entire partition fell over on top of her and her daughter. Jennifer managed to protect her daughter from harm, but in the two years since the event, she's developed
chronic pain from the accident—and the response from Toys R Us has been "don't call us, we'll call you."
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transportation
The bus matron of a special needs bus owned by
Outstanding Transport, Inc. has been charged with felony reckless endangerment, after
forgetting about a 22-year-old passenger and leaving him strapped in his seat on the bus over New Year's Eve in below-freezing temperatures. He was found yesterday morning at 10:30am and is in good condition, although his sister can't imagine how he could have been overlooked in the first place: "He's like 6'2 and hunches over, the seats are not even high."
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greyhound
Unsafe road conditions in Seattle brought Greyhound's fleet to a standstill on Sunday, which apparently is why they
abandoned riders outside in 25 degree weather last night.
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equifax
"David" can't get Equifax to correct his credit report. Since 2006, he's been trying to get them to remove a misreported student loan, and they've repeatedly ignored him or said it's not their fault. Because of this, David's credit report says he owes a total of $56,910 in student loans, instead of the accurate $28,455.
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verizon
Verizon, which has no problem helping the government spy on its customers, suddenly turned stupid in June when a police department asked them for help finding the body of a woman who had been abducted on camera. Despite pleas from the woman's parents, the police, and the FBI,
it was four days before a technician was sent out to the appropriate cell tower. When that technician gave the police the location info, they found Kelsey Smith's body within 45 minutes. Verizon won't respond to requests for an explanation of why they couldn't help sooner.
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capital one
"Lisa" writes, "I recently found out that I was a victim of identity theft." What shocked her, and us as well, is that after Capital One notified her that they'd approved the card with another address, they followed up by sending their fraud claim to the criminal's address instead of Lisa's.
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delta
On July 20th, Julianna's (delayed) Delta flight landed in Atlanta at 7:30pm, with a connecting flight scheduled for 8:05pm. Julianna, who has
muscular dystrophy, missed the connecting flight because nobody came with a wheelchair until 8:05—the same time the connecting flight took off. To make matters worse, the plane crew told Julianna she might make the flight anyway if she stopped waiting for help and got off the plane
right now, so she crawled down the stairs on her own. When the wheelchair came she was "wheeled into a back room and advised" that her plane had taken off. But that was just the first half of her ordeal, and the next eight hours only got worse.
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verdicts
A Dallas court found U-Haul guilty of negligence for failing to maintain its vehicles properly, and
awarded 74-year-old Talmadge Waldrip $84 million in damages, $63 million of which are punitive. "The truck's parking brake did not work at all," said the man's lawyer. "He stepped out of the truck and it rolled right over him."
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scandals
Yesterday the FAA sought $10.2 million in civil damages from Southwest
Airlines for neglecting to inspect the fuselages of 46 of its planes. In documents the FAA submitted to Congress, it alleges "the airline flew at least 117 of its planes in violation of mandatory safety checks" over a 30 month period. Southwest says its passengers were never in danger, and that it was an honest oversight that they caught on their own and revealed to the FAA—but (here's where it gets interesting)
an FAA inspector has testified that Southwest continued to fly a plane after
he discovered the failed inspections and notified them. Now the U.S. Department of Transportation and Congress are asking why the FAA didn't ground the planes as soon as they knew about the missed inspections, and a couple of FAA whistleblowers are leaking internal docs to the press. Only after the issue became public knowledge did the FAA seek civil damages.
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airlines
A 44-year-old Brooklyn woman was returning from vacation in Haiti when she began to have trouble breathing. According to her cousin who was on the flight with her, she was refused help twice by the flight attendant, then she was brought two oxygen tanks with masks—but both were
empty. Her cousin requested an emergency landing, but before they could touch down in Miami she was dead, so the plane continued to JFK. The airline isn't commenting on why the emergency tanks were empty in the first place. "After the flight attendant refused to administer oxygen to Ms. Desir,
she became distressed, pleading, 'Don't let me die,' Mr. Oliver recalled."
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Consumerist
forgetfulness
It's been a few weeks without a BPA story, so here goes: Four parents in Ohio have sued Evenflo, Avent America, Handicraft, Playtex Products, and Novartis for using bisphenol A in their baby products. They're seeking class action status. [Washington Post]
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