Seven people were injured and three taken to the hospital after an airplane caught fire on a Florida runway Thursday afternoon. The incident marks the third time in two months that an aircraft has caught fire before takeoff. [More]
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Walgreens Shoplifter Walks Out Of Store With $100K In Prescription Drugs
By 10.7.15
In the past, Walgreens has been a target for ne’er-do-wells: there were the three people caught with more than 125 stolen credit cards, and before that, the shoplifting ring accused of stealing more than $15,000 in merchandise. But those cases pale in comparison to a brazen robbery in Florida this week in which a man forced open the pharmacy department door and made off with $100,000 in prescription drugs. [More]
ThinkGeek Will Open First Real-Life Store On September 25
By 9.3.15
Earlier this summer, GameStop acquired ThinkGeek in a $140 million transaction that observers thought might put great geeky collectibles inside GameStop stores. While the two companies have done that, there’s another phase to their plan: later this month, the first offline ThinkGeek store will open on September 25 at the Florida Mall in Orlando. [More]
Don’t Want To Go Over Comcast’s Data Cap? That’ll Be Another $30
By 9.1.15
Comcast has been testing data caps — they adorably call them “data thresholds” — in a number of markets around the country since 2013. In those markets, if customers cross the threshold, they can be hit with overage fees. But if you live in the Miami area and want “unlimited” data, you can get it — for an additional $30. [More]
Florida Says Skim Milk Is “Imitation Milk Product” Unless You Add Vitamins
By 8.20.15
Is “skim milk” just the same as “whole milk” with the cream skimmed off? Not according to the state of Florida, where producers of skim milk must either add vitamins to their product or be forced to carry the stigma of it being categorized as an “imitation milk product.” [More]
Florida Officials Warning People Not To Pet Armadillos Amid Spike In Leprosy Cases
By 7.22.15
In case you didn’t hear it from us the first time we mentioned it, petting armadillos could give you leprosy. Yes, seriously, you can get leprosy in the United States, and Florida health officials want to make sure you avoid it: experts in that state are warning residents to resist stroking the little armored creatures, due to a recent uptick in leprosy cases. [More]
Florida’s New Toll Road Express Lanes Mean Drivers Who Use Them Will Be Paying Twice
By 7.16.15
How do you feel about paying tolls? They’re probably not your favorite thing, but if you want to drive on certain roads, they’re a necessity. Drivers in Florida who want to use new express lanes on some of the state’s roads will now be facing a unique situation — double-tolling, the first instance of such a thing in the U.S. [More]
Regulators Shut Down Debt Relief Operation That Took Millions From Consumers
By 7.7.15
The Florida Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Trade Commission make a pretty effective pair when it comes to putting an end to companies and operations taking advantage of consumers. Just a day after the regulator and state’s attorney general teamed up to sue a company behind medical alert robocalls, the two entities announced they shut down a debt relief scheme that took million from consumers with credit card debt. [More]
Florida Nursing Home To Pay $17M After Allegedly Using Medicare Money For Doctors’ Kickbacks
By 6.17.15
When a nursing home receives Medicare funds, it’s supposed to use that money for patient care, and it’s actually a felony offense under the Medicare and Medicaid Patient Protection Act to use that money to pay kickbacks to physicians for referring patients. In a record settlement for this sort of case, a the operator of a network of Florida nursing homes will pay $17 million to close the books on allegations it ran this sort of kickback scheme for seven years. [More]
Comcast Gives Woman’s E-Mail Address Away To Someone Else, But Bills Her For That Person’s Service
By 6.11.15
Given that Comcast has more than 20 million customers spread out around the country, you’d think it would have figured out how to handle billing two subscribers with the same name. But apparently the company is utterly baffled by this notion and has no problem with taking away one customer’s longtime e-mail address and giving it another subscriber, while at the same time sending the new customer’s bill to the wrong person. [More]
Consumers Can’t Void Second Mortgage In Bankruptcy, SCOTUS Rules
By 6.1.15
Consumers taking out a second mortgage will now have to consider the fact that if they encounter financial difficulties and file for bankruptcy, they won’t be able to strip off the additional loan obligation. [More]
Investigation Found 103 Card Skimmers In Florida Gas Stations
By 5.20.15
If you’re still using your debit card and PIN at self-pay gas pumps, here’s a reminder of why that isn’t such a good idea. Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services sent inspectors out to look for card skimmers in gas pumps all over the state. They found more than 103 of the devices. [More]
CVS Feels Pain Of $22 Million Penalty For Florida Painkiller Pill Mills
By 5.14.15
When you think of Florida and the Drug Enforcement Administration, your head might be filled with images of cocaine-packed speedboats or propeller planes sneaking in pallets of marijuana. But in recent years, the DEA has also been focused on major drugstore chains that looked the other way as stores filled massive numbers of questionable painkiller prescriptions. Nearly three years after shutting down a pair of CVS pharmacies in the Orlando area, the company has agreed to pay $22 million to put the matter behind them. [More]
Police Seek Woman Who Stuffed $1,140 In Electronics Inside Her Skirt
By 4.24.15
A dress with a flowing full skirt is a great fashion choice for a hot day, so the woman who walked into a RadioShack in Florida dressed that way back in February didn’t really stand out. No one really noticed the full skirt of her floral dress…not even when she and her shopping companion began cramming electronics under the skirt, into some kind of criminal crinoline with pockets. [More]
Wedding Company Contract Tries To Ban Bride & Groom From “Encouraging” Negative Feedback
By 4.20.15
Wedding and party rental companies often rely on positive word of mouth to find new customers, and negative feedback can do real damage to a small business. But one Florida wedding vendor is trying to preempt customers from saying bad things by including a clause in its contract that prohibits the bride and groom not just from making disparaging remarks, but from also encouraging others to make disparaging remarks. [More]
Don’t Be Shocked When Lowe’s Won’t Sell You A $2,999 Fridge Mistakenly Priced At $298
By 4.17.15
No matter how many times we remind everyone that stores are generally under no legal obligation to honor a pricing mistake, some folks still seem to think that a retailer must make good — and lose hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars — on something as obvious as a decimal error. [More]
Walmart Raises Suspicions After Closing 5 Stores In Same Day For “Plumbing” Problems
By 4.16.15
There are thousands of Walmarts in the U.S., so the fact that five of them were temporarily shut down all on the same day, all for the same reason, and all for the same estimated amount of time, may be statistically insignificant. But some workers and city officials are raising questions about what’s actually behind these six-month shutterings. [More]
Judge Says An IP Address Is Not Enough To Identify A Movie Pirate
By 4.10.15
Since the dawn of online piracy, media companies have been serving subpoenas on Internet service providers to try to compel them to match up IP addresses of alleged pirates with the names on the accounts tied to those IP addresses. Unless the ISPs put up a fight, courts frequently grant these subpoenas, but one federal judge in Florida has said that a mere IP address is not sufficient to identify someone as a pirate. [More]
