Direct sales programs that call themselves “multilevel marketing” (MLM) companies run the gamut from being merely annoying to full-blown pyramid schemes, and the folks at the Federal Trade Commission are responsible for holding MLMs accountable when they cross that line from irksome to illegal. But two pieces of legislation, both backed by a trade group with direct ties to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, are attempting to limit the FTC’s ability to investigate and prosecute rogue MLMs. [More]
Group Tied To Betsy DeVos Is Trying To Block Feds From Investigating Multilevel Marketers
By 9.19.17
Senate May Vote On Latest Obamacare Repeal Bill Without Knowing How Many People It Will Affect
By 9.19.17
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have only a short window of time to vote on the latest Republican legislation to gut and replace the Affordable Care Act, and if the GOP is going to push forward with a vote on this bill they will likely have to do so without having an idea of how many Americans will be affected, or what impact it might have on insurance rates. [More]
Many Insurance Plans Cover Opioid Painkillers But Restrict Access To Less-Addictive Drugs
By 9.18.17
With an opioid addiction epidemic ravaging the nation, physicians are being asked to consider non-opioid treatments or opioids that are less addictive than the widely abused drugs on the market. But there’s a big problem with that suggestion: Many insurance companies won’t cover, or heavily restrict access to, a number of less-addictive painkillers. [More]
States Call On Equifax To Halt Marketing Of Its Paid Credit Monitoring Service
By 9.15.17
If you’re one of the 140 million or so people affected by Equifax’s failure to keep its data secure, the credit bureau is offering free access to its TrustedID credit monitoring service (though we don’t recommend you enroll in it). At the same time, the company is continuing to charge everyone else for access to TrustedID, and some consumers affected by the breach are inadvertently paying for a service they can get for free. That’s why dozens of state attorneys general are asking Equifax to stop trying to sell TrustedID for the time-being. [More]
Verizon Wireless Cuts Off Thousands Of Rural Accounts For Roaming Too Much
By 9.15.17
If you live in rural America, the odds are you do quite a bit of roaming on your cellphone. Even if your home or business is in an area covered by a major national carrier, you likely have to regularly travel to, from, and through places where other providers pick up the slack. This means that rural customers who use their smartphones frequently can cost their carrier as they use gigabytes of data on other company’s networks. This cost has apparently become too much for Verizon, which is once again cutting off a block of rural customers, giving them only a few weeks’ notice to take their business elsewhere. [More]
Motel 6 Admits Some Locations Were Sharing Lists Of Guests With Immigration Officers On Daily Basis
By 9.15.17
When you check into a hotel and provide a photo ID, your expectation is that the hotel will be holding this info for its records in case you mess up the room or try to skip out on your bill. What you don’t expect is that the hotel management is taking its daily guest logs and turning them over to federal immigration officials. [More]
Why You Should Care About South Dakota’s Controversial Online Sales Tax Law
By 9.14.17
There aren’t even a million people living in South Dakota, but the state’s efforts to collect sales tax from online retailers could eventually have an impact on the hundreds of millions of Americans in other states who shop online. [More]
If Someone Calls You From Equifax To Verify Your Account, It’s A Scam
By 9.14.17
Now that Equifax is part of the mass public consciousness for failing to secure sensitive financial and personal information for about half of the adult U.S. population, soulless scammers are trying to prey on this heightened awareness by blasting out fake calls to people, asking them to verify their account information. [More]
Shortage Of Insurance Adjusters May Delay Claims For Hurricane Irma Victims
By 9.14.17
If your home sustained damage from Hurricane Irma, you might have to wait just to get the insurance company to look at your property to see what repairs will and won’t be covered. Why? Because there aren’t enough claims adjusters to go around right now. [More]
Only One Bank Was Indicted For Mortgage Fraud Tied To The 2008 Collapse — And It Was Innocent
By 9.12.17
If you’ve walked Canal St. in lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, you’ve probably passed by the modest headquarters of Abacus Federal Savings, a family run community bank that has served New York City’s Chinese immigrant population for more than three decades. It’s more than a mile away — and a world apart — from the more famous banks on Wall Street whose reckless behaviors during the housing bubble led to trillions of dollars in economic loss, the failure of financial institutions nationwide, an unprecedented federal bailout of the banking and auto industries, and continued fraud by big banks in a rush to foreclose on large numbers of homes as quickly as possible. [More]
The ‘Monkey Selfie’ Lawsuit May Finally Be Over
By 9.11.17
Bad news for any artistic monkeys, apes, elephants, or dolphins who had dreams of selling their creations at a gallery someday: A federal lawsuit over a famous 2011 photo taken by a macaque has come to an end without any real decision on whether or not non-humans can hold a copyright. [More]
Equifax Drops Controversial Condition From Free Credit Monitoring Service
By 9.11.17
While the free credit monitoring service being offered by Equifax to the millions victims of its massive data breach leaves a lot to be desired, the company is remedying one of the more controversial aspects of the program — a condition that stripped consumers of their right to file a lawsuit in court. [More]
Equifax Already Being Sued Over Massive Breach; Company Criticized For Amateurish Response To Theft
By 9.8.17
Within hours of Equifax — one of the nation’s three major credit bureaus — confirming that the records of some 143 million people had been compromised in a data breach, the company now faces a lawsuit accusing it of failing to protect its stockpile of sensitive consumer information. Meanwhile, some critics are saying that Equifax’s response to the breach may be causing more harm than good. [More]
Marvel, Star Wars Movies Will Be Leaving Netflix In Breakup With Disney
By 9.7.17
When Disney recently announced that it was ending its exclusivity deal with Netflix and moving all Disney- and Pixar-branded content over to a new Disney-owned streaming service, it was unclear exactly whether Big D would also walk off with the Marvel and Star Wars movies that Netflix currently gets exclusive streaming rights to. At the time, Netflix was still hoping it could reach some sort of custody deal with Disney, but it looks like Iron Man and Kylo Ren will be living with Mickey and Nemo at their new house. [More]
Whole Foods Seeing More Shoppers In Wake Of Amazon Merger
By 9.7.17
Maybe it’s the slightly lower prices, or the curiosity of seeing Amazon Echo speakers being sold in the produce aisle, or even the ground beef sculpted into Amazon logos — whatever the reason, it looks like Whole Foods is seeing a boost in foot traffic in the weeks since it officially became part of the Amazon family. [More]
Feds Break Up $20M Shoplifting Ring That Stole Clothing From Coast To Coast
By 9.7.17
Federal authorities say they’ve arrested more than a dozen people and broken up a massive shoplifting network that trafficked in some $20 million in apparel and other items stolen from stores all over the country and then sold in Mexico. [More]
Lyft Will Soon Offer Free Rides In Self-Driving Cars In San Francisco
By 9.7.17
Ride-hailing service Lyft is nudging its way into the world of self-driving cars, announcing today that it will soon be offering rides in autonomous vehicles to customers in the San Francisco Bay Area. [More]
Sports Radio Host Arrested In $5.6M Investment Fraud Involving Non-Existent Concert Tickets
By 9.6.17
Longtime New York sports radio personality Craig Carton was arrested this morning on federal charges of securities and wire fraud in connection with a scheme that allegedly tricked investors into thinking their money was being spent on blocks of concert tickets that would then be resold at a huge profit. Problem is, say prosecutors, those tickets didn’t exist, and the money just went to cover Carton’s casino debts. [More]
