discrimination
David C. Richardson, the owner of Rhode Island Refrigeration in Providence, Rhode Island, overheard two customers speaking Spanish to each other, so he asked them to
produce proof of citizenship. According to them, he then threatened to call Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and make a citizen's arrest, although Richardson denies he picked up the phone, but not that he made the threats. In fact, he says he's done this "fifteen or twenty times" in the past and refuses to do business with those who won't show their Social Security cards.
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stupid laws
According to Ars Technica, in a few states its going to be harder to sell used CDs than it will be to get a Driver's License. What?
...you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the "right" to treat their customers like criminals. ...
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fraud
Wondering how the Stop & Shop thieves stole credit card information from right under the cashier's nose? They built their own working card readers and installed them while the Stop & Shop employees were distracted. Pretty clever, but pretty dangerous for consumers. From the Wall Street Journal:
In the Stop & Shop case, police say that late at night — after shopping crowds had thinned and the staff was whittled to a skeletal crew — four young men entered several stores in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, distracted employees and replaced several card-swiping machines with devices that looked similar. The thieves' systems, however, housed mini circuit boards that recorded customers' data and PINs.
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stop and shop
Grocery store clerks and consumers can sleep better at night, knowing that the bad guys have been caught. From Computerwold:
Police in Rhode Island have arrested four people in connection with a recent security breach at Stop & Shop Supermarket Cos.
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t.j. maxx
Massachusetts and Rhode Island are opening probes into T.J. Maxx after the retailer lost millions of consumer's credit cards in a recent breach.
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Consumerist
New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut are preparing legislation similar to New York State's airline passenger's bill of rights. [San Francisco Chronicle via ConsumerWorldBlog]
