After many months of bad press, recalls, and legal woes, Volkswagen earlier this year reached a settlement with U.S. regulators over its emissions-cheating dirty diesel “defeat devices.” But just because the case is mostly closed (at least on paper) here in the states doesn’t mean Volkswagen’s out of legal hot water yet. There are, after all, more than 190 other nations in the world, and some of them are ticked off too. [More]
cheating
Olympics Committee Considering Ban On All Russian Athletes From Rio Games
By 7.19.16
A month after an ongoing doping scandal led to Russia’s track and field athletes being barred from competing in the upcoming 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the International Olympic Committee says it is looking into its options for enacting a ban on the entire Russian team. [More]
Reminder: Selling Or Buying A Pokémon Go Account Counts As Cheating
By 7.18.16
Although it might be tempting to make a few bucks off the stable of rare or valuable Pokémon you’ve collected so far in Pokémon Go by selling your account, according to game maker Niantic’s player guidelines, that’s cheating. [More]
VW Offers Amnesty To Whistleblower Employees, But Only For A Few Weeks
By 11.12.15
A week after an internal investigation – aided by company engineers – uncovered carbon emissions issues with 800,000 Volkswagen vehicles, the carmaker says it will keep the door open for employees to share any cheating within the organization – as long as they do it by the end of the month. [More]
Survey Says: Financial Cheating Common In American Couples
By 1.21.15
Have you been keeping a close eye on your joint piggy bank? Or perhaps you’ve got your very own credit card you keep separate from your significant other, the one you use to buy the things you don’t want to admit to (season 5 of that awful reality TV show, a giant wheel of cheese, etc.). You aren’t the only financial cheater — a new survey says there are a whole bunch of us taking financial matters to motels that charge by the hour, so to speak. [More]
Woman Climbs Airport Fence To Try To Stop Her Cheating Husband From Flying Away
By 8.12.14
A word to those hurting hearts out there: We feel your pain, but if you think your husband is flying off to see another woman, there are other ways to go about mending that broken heart other than climbing a 10-foot high barbed wire fence at an airport to try and stop his plane from taking off. [More]
Mom Admits Autistic Son Cheated On Xbox Live, Meriting Label
By 1.31.11
After complaining to a Seattle news station that her autistic 11-year-old son was unfairly labeled a cheater by Xbox Live, the mother has admitted that her son solicited help in racking up his copious achievements, meaning Xbox Live was right to reset his Gamerscore and affix a “cheater” label to his account. [More]
Gift Card Error In Your Favor: When Do You Tell The Hotel?
By 8.3.10
A reader emailed us to ask what he should do about an accounting mistake he discovered with some gift cards. He suspects the different parts of the hotel don’t update the card balance in real time, but it could also be that the hotel’s employees aren’t processing the card correctly. Now he’s wondering whether he should have said something. [More]
Energy Star Introduces Stricter Rules In Attempt To Prevent Cheating
By 4.19.10
Last year the Department of Energy, which co-administers the Energy Star certification program with the EPA, admitted that it allows many companies to certify their goods themselves. That was somewhat worrying, but nothing like what happened earlier this year when government auditors successfully got ludicrously power-hungry designs approved for the Energy Star label. The EPA and Energy Department have responded by announcing a new, stricter certification process. [More]
Investigation Reveals Widespread Fraud In Seafood Packaging
By 3.30.10
It’s a common, legal practice to protect seafood with a layer of ice before packaging it up for retail sale. It’s also apparently a common practice to add that ice into the total weight of the seafood, and in some cases to add more ice than necessary just to bump up the total weight, which isn’t legal and which defrauds the consumer. The National Conference on Weights and Measures recently investigated seafood packaging in 17 states and pulled more than 21,000 packages of seafood from store shelves, noting that in one particularly bad case ice made up 40% of the total listed weight. [More]
Top Five Hotels For Having Affairs
By 9.3.09
ABC News has named the top five hotels for having an affair, and the No-Tel Motel and Easy 8 are nowhere on the list.
UltimateBet Poker Site Admits Players Cheated, But Won't Name Names
By 9.18.08
Here’s a mystery story to distract you from the U.S. Banking Apocalypse. UltimateBet.com, “one of the top 10 poker sites,” has admitted that employees manipulated the software to cheat from at least January 2005 to January 2008, when some players started noticing an unusually high rate of wins for a certain user name. An Australian player mapped that user’s wins against accounts that had played a similar number of hands, and realized that “NioNio’s” wins were “less likely than ‘winning a one-in-a-million lottery on four consecutive days.'” But NioNio is just one part of the mystery.
ResellerRatings Cracks Down On TheCellShop.net's Review Bribing
By 5.6.08
The CEO of ResellerRatings, Scott Wainner, emailed us to say they’re busting TheCellShop for bribing customers to submit perfect reviews on his site. He wrote:
TheCellShop.net Caught Bribing Customers To Submit "Perfect" Reviews
By 5.5.08
If you use resellerratings.com to check out companies before doing business with them, don’t take any perfect ratings for TheCellShop.net as legitimate. A reader forwarded us the following email that shows they bribe their customers to leave them perfect ratings in exchange for a $5 coupon.
Two Georgia Gas Stations Closed For Shorting Customers
By 2.19.08
Georgia state inspectors closed two large Cisco gas stations just across the state line from Florida last week in what the Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture described as “one of the worst cases of shorting gas customers he’s seen since he took office back in 1969.” (Why Ag? Why not?) An inspector found that a five gallon test pump turned up over a quart short at the Cisco Travel Plaza off Interstate 95’s Exit 6, and a similar test revealed a suspiciously similar shortage at another Cisco Travel Plaza off Exit 1.
Attention All Coaches: Belichick's Cheating Is A Business Expense
By 9.18.07
According to the WSJ Law Blog, the common consensus is that Patriots coach Bill Belichick will be able to deduct his $500,000 cheating fine as an “ordinary and necessary business expense.” Hooray?
Today's Tip For Adulterers: Don't Use 1-800-Flowers
By 8.8.07
A Texas man is suing 1-800-Flowers for $1 million after a thank you note from the web florist outed him as an adulterer. Leroy Greer specifically asked 1-800-Flowers not to send him a receipt for the cuddly stuffed animal and dozen long stemmed roses he ordered for his mistress. Despite his request, 1-800-Flowers sent a thank you note to his house several months later, prompting his wife to ask who the hell got flowers. She called 1-800-Flowers, which gladly faxed her a copy of Leroy’s order form that included the following message meant for his mistress: “Just wanted to say I love you and you mean the world to me! -Leroy.” Above The Law has the legalese:
