Latisse, a new drug that promises longer, fuller lashes, started out as Lumigan, a glaucoma drug. Now’s been approved by the FDA to treat “inadequate” eyelashes, but there are some pretty crazy possible side effects. Like permanent changes to your eye color.
Government Policy
No More BPA Baby Bottles In US?
By 3.6.09
Philips Avent, the nation’s largest seller of baby bottles, announced today that it will voluntarily stop selling bottles containing the controversial chemical bisphenol A (BPA). Attorneys general from Connecticut and New Jersey had written a letter to several bottle makers asking them to stop, and the Washington Post says the six largest baby bottle manufacturers in the country have voluntarily complied.
Who The Hell Are These People Calling My Cellphone About A Car Warranty?
By 3.5.09
We’ve been getting a lot of emails from people saying that a company is using a robocaller to call their cellphones and pretend that their car warranty is expiring. Too bad that some of these readers don’t even have a car. Has happened to you? Do you know who is behind it?
Woman Finds Tiny Mammal Vertebra In Peanut M&M
By 3.5.09
A woman in Atlanta bit into a blue peanut M&M and discovered a tiny, blackened bone, probably from a nut obsessed animal who crept into the M&M to eat the peanut, then died of remorse. A Mars rep told the customer it was probably just a peanut twig. Whatever; by our estimations, this animal is most likely smaller than a peanut M&M, but has a comically wide and very short neck. Hmm, maybe we should instead ask an expert to deduce where this bone came from, which is what the customer did.
Do Not Give Money To People Who Say They Can Get You Stimulus Cash
By 3.5.09
Here we go again, scammers are using the recent headlines about the stimulus package to take advantage of people looking for a handout. Emails promising to help you qualify for a chunk of the new spending program in exchange for a small fee or some personal information are popping up in inboxes, according to the FTC.
Supreme Court Rules For Injured Consumer In Big Pharma Case
By 3.4.09
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Diana Levine in Wyeth v. Levine. Levine, a musician, had her arm amputated when an anti-nausea drug was improperly administered in her artery, and sued the manufacturer for failing to warn of the risks on the drug’s label. Wyeth claimed that her case was pre-empted by federal law.
McDonald's Apologizes To 911 Nugget Lady
By 3.4.09
We’ve made it pretty clear that we don’t condone Latreasa Goodman’s attempt to use 911 to report a McNugget Emergency, but in all fairness to Goodman, she was being shafted by the lying, uncooperative McDonald’s employee who said “all sales final” and refused to refund her money. McDonald’s has released a statement where they own up to their role in escalating things in the first place, and they’re sending her a free meal gift card as well as the refund she originally requested. Now she can enjoy a complimentary lunch on the day she goes to plead “no contest” to the judge for abuse of 911.
Woman Calls 911 Three Times Because McDonald's Is Out of McNuggets
By 3.3.09
A Florida woman called 911 three times because the McDonald’s where she was dining ran out of McNuggets.
AT&T Mobility And RadioShack Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over $5,000 Overage Bill
By 3.2.09
A woman in Oklahoma bought a 3G netbook from RadioShack for $100, subsidized by a two-year data plan from AT&T Mobility. That plan comes with a 5GB monthly data cap, which she exceeded, and as a result her first monthly bill was over $5,000. Now the two companies are facing a class action lawsuit that alleges they are not clearly disclosing to purchasers that overage fees could be “astronomical.”
Smart Television Alliance Asks "Feature Films For Families" To Stop Using Its Name
By 2.27.09
Feature Films For Families—the company that’s been phone-spamming random people over the past few weeks—follows no man’s law! The nonprofit Smart Television Alliance, which works to educate parents on how to improve the television experience for kids*, discovered that the company was using its name without permission.
Tainted Peanut Butter Problems Will Go On For Some While, Says FDA
By 2.27.09
Our sister blog at ConsumerReports.org notes that “current salmonella outbreak caused by tainted peanuts could drag on for as long as two years,” according to the FDA. The Peanut Corp of America may be history, but because peanut butter has such a long shelf life, and because they’re still adding products to the recall list, there may be food items lurking in pantries across the U.S. that are loaded with disease-causing peanuty badness.
Illinois Couple Swindles Best Buy Out Of $31 Million
By 2.27.09
The Chicago Tribune says that Russell Cole calls his $2.75 million Deerfield, IL home “the house that Best Buy built,” but now investigators are claiming that the Best Buy money was obtained through fraud.
Generic Drug Maker Ranbaxy Found Falsifying Data To FDA
By 2.27.09
The FDA has suspended all new drug applications from one of Ranbaxy’s plants in India—the Paonta Sahib plant—after “determining the facility was falsifying scientific data.” You may recall that last September the FDA banned the import of 30 popular generic meds made by Ranbaxy due in part to quality control issues from this very same plant. What do they think they are, a peanut butter factory?
Verizon Wireless Sues "Velveteen Rabbit" Telemarketers
By 2.26.09
Hooray for Verizon Wireless! Wait, what? The cellular carrier has just filed a lawsuit against Feature Films For Families for illegally telemarketing. Specifically, they’re accusing the company of using an auto-dialer to cold call hundreds of thousands of Verizon Wireless customers earlier this month, which is illegal according to NJ state laws (where the suit was filed) and the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Conspiracy To Sell Tickets Meant For Customers Who Assisted Southwest's Flight Crew
By 2.26.09
The AP is reporting that 10 people have been indicted in a conspiracy to sell 5,600 fraudulently obtained Southwest Airlines tickets. The tickets were supposed to be for passengers who helped flight crews with seriously injured or ill passengers.
Verizon Wireless Accused Of Wrongly Billing NY Customers State Tax
By 2.25.09
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Verizon Wireless accusing it of passing directly to customers a “metropolitan commuter transportation district” tax that the company was actually supposed to pay. Albert Levy, who filed the lawsuit, points out that Sprint has never charged the tax to customers. Verizon Wireless calls the accusation “silly,” and says they’re billing it correctly. Perhaps not surprisingly, the actual wording of the tax law leaves the matter up in the air.
The Comcast Throttling Scandal And Its Consequences, Summarized
By 2.25.09
NPR spoke with Daniel Roth, a senior writer at Wired Magazine, over the file sharing fiasco that Comcast found itself in about a year ago—the one where a Comcast customer discovered that the company was secretly impersonating his computer to interrupt bittorrent transmissions.
