When you hear about a big salmonella outbreak that’s sickened hundreds, you know there’s got to be a problem somewhere along the supply chain. But hearing the words “cockroach” and “infestation” linked to a chicken processing plant is just so… real. And gross. Which is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture has shut down a plant in California, saying live cockroaches running around at such a place are not good for public health. [More]
Government Policy
New Rule Requiring Banks To Make Sure Borrowers Can Actually Repay Mortgages Goes Into Effect This Week
By 1.7.14
Want a mortgage? Go for it! But thanks to new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the banks are going to need some proof first that you can actually, you know, pay it back. [More]
FTC Settles Charges Of Deceptive Advertising Against Four Weight-Loss Marketers For $34M
By 1.7.14
Put down that shaker of Sensa. Those promises of shedding 30 pounds while eating french fries and sitting on the couch aren’t real. We know — who would have thunk it? Well, the Federal Trade Commission for starters, which announced today that four marketers of fad weight loss products settled FTC charges on deceptive advertising for $34 million. [More]
When Giving Used Electronics As A Gift, Maybe Check For Porn First
By 1.6.14
Buying used or refurbished technology can be a great way to save money, but it can also be a great way to put a great big cache of porn in the hands of your kid. That’s what happened to one man who bought his daughter a Kindle Fire from a pawn shop for Christmas. Worse: it might be child porn. Now police are investigating. [More]
Buckyballs Founder Could Be Found Personally Liable For $57 Million In Refunds
By 1.6.14
Buckyballs: cute office toy, or powerful balls of magnetic doom? The inventor insists they’re the former, the Consumer Product Safety Commission insists they’re the latter, and the lawsuit fighting it all out just keeps getting uglier. [More]
That Guy On The Phone Offering A Tech Support Refund Is Probably A Scammer
By 1.3.14
We’ve written before about scam artists taking advantage of consumers’ unease with technology to trick them into handing over sensitive personal info, and now there are scammers hoping to prey upon consumers’ general dissatisfaction with customer service and tech support (and their general love of refunds). [More]
Walmart Recalls 73,400 Card Table And Chair Sets Because Finger Amputations Are No Fun
By 1.3.14
The thing about fingers is that they work best when each one is nice and complete. Since it’s much harder to complete everyday tasks with only half a finger, not to mention it’s a very uncomfortable experience to have the tip of your digit squeezed off, Walmart has issued a recall for 73,400 card table and chair sets. [More]
SEC Head Wants Companies That Break Laws To Actually Admit They Broke Laws
By 1.2.14
Businesses are in the habit of making amends for their errors without actually admitting they made any errors. Weasel words hide a multitude of sins; “mistakes were made” and “customers were affected.” A company can agree to pay millions of dollars to rectify a mistake or action they do not legally agree to having made. It’s a legal tangle that would be funny if it weren’t tied to so much real-world wrong: “Here’s a billion dollars to fix a crime that we don’t acknowledge we committed.” [More]
Imagine How Upsetting It’d Be If Donkey Meat You Bought At Walmart Was Actually Fox
By 1.2.14
If I had a nickel for every time my donkey meat snack turned out to be fox meat instead, I’d have no nickels. But there would be plenty of coins coming in for customers at some Walmart stores in China after tests showed that what was labeled as “Five Spice” donkey meat was tainted with the meat of other animals. [More]
Double-Dipping Resale Scammers Targeted Spanish Speakers With Fake Designer Goods
By 1.2.14
At the urging of the FTC, a court in California has shut down a telemarketing racket that has a little bit of everything: resale scams, fake designer goods, and illegal legal threats. It’s a scam trifecta! [More]
Coming Soon: Vending Machine Calorie Counts
By 12.30.13
The Affordable Care Act doesn’t just mean highly entertaining conversations over dessert amongst your relatives this holiday season. There’s one new requirement that’s been sort of overshadowed by health insurance exchanges and electronic medical records: companies that own more than 20 vending machines will have to post calorie counts for the items they sell. [More]
Report Claims NSA Intercepted Computer Deliveries To Fit Electronics With Spyware
By 12.30.13
Another day, another claim that the National Security Agency has been dipping into things in ways that you might not expect: A German magazine report says that a special NSA team was in charge of boosting data in extra-sneaky ways, including intercepting computer deliveries in order to rig them with espionage hardware before they reached the customer/targets. [More]
Judge: NSA’s Mass Collection Of Telephone Data Is Legal
By 12.27.13
A U.S. District Court judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and others over the National Security Agency’s mass collecting of information about U.S. consumers’ telephone use, saying that the program is legal while leaving it up to lawmakers to decide whether it’s a program that should exist at all. [More]
American Express To Refund $59.5 Million Over Bad Billing & Deceptive Marketing
By 12.26.13
About 15 months after getting slapped around by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the tune of $112.5 million for a variety of bad business practices, the CFPB put another huge lump of coal in American Express’s Christmas stocking, spanking the credit card company for nearly $70 million, including $59.5 million in refunds to customers. [More]
Data Miners Collect More Of Your Information Every Day; Good Luck Finding Out What They Know
By 12.23.13
Every time you use the internet, you leave a huge trail of information in your wake–and it’s not just your browser history full of cat videos. Companies called data brokers are constantly collecting a thousand little nuggets of information behind you, adding them up into a profile of you, and selling the profiles for lots of money. Data brokers still move in mysterious ways, leaving unanswered questions: how are they getting their data? Who’s buying it? And, perhaps most importantly: can you, the consumer, do anything about it? [More]
The TSA Kids Website Is Gloriously Hilarious (And A Bit Scary)
By 12.23.13
Whether it’s removing a family from a flight because their 18-month-old is on a “no-fly” list, demanding that a 4-year-old get a pat-down because she hugged her grandmother, patting down an infant, evacuating a terminal because one parent passes a baby to the other without receiving a secondary screening, or screaming at the parents of a child with cerebral palsy, the TSA has shown time and again that it has a masterful touch when dealing with young children. That unique sensibility is definitely on display at the agency’s new site dedicated to educating children about security theater. [More]
The 10 Colleges That Received The Biggest Payouts From Credit Card Issuers Last Year
By 12.20.13
Last year, a group of around 15 credit card issuers paid a total of more than $50 million to various schools and school-affiliated organizations in order to market credit cards to people at those educational institutions. Around 70% of that money came from a single Bank of America-owned credit card company, and though hundreds of schools received some sort of payment for helping introduce cards to college students, just the 10 largest single payments account for nearly 30% of the $50 million. [More]
Is Your Food Genetically Modified? Senator Asks President To Change Rules So You’ll Know
By 12.20.13
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California today urged the Obama administration to change FDA food labeling regulations to include a provision for indicating when foods or ingredients come from a genetically modified source. [More]
