Delta Air Lines passengers may have been a bit confused last night, when their flight landed at the wrong airport in South Dakota. The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating to figure out how the heck that happened. [More]
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Turns Out It’s Easy To Pinpoint A Grindr User’s Location, Even With Privacy Settings Enabled
By 5.23.16
Usually when you think of “privacy,” that comprises ideas like, say, other people not knowing who you are, or being able to locate you down to the nearest meter. And yet that last bit seems to have been grossly overlooked by the developers of certain dating and hookup apps, which, it turns out, leak your exact location even if you have location-based services turned off. [More]
In 6 Cities, Amazon Same-Day Delivery Available In More White ZIP Codes Than Black Ones
By 4.21.16
Effective same-day delivery is kind of the holy grail of online retail right now: being able to get your hands on that thing you need right now when you need it is the one advantage brick-and-mortar stores still have, and it’s the one Amazon in particular wants to chip away at. The list of cities where Amazon promises Prime subscribers access to same-day delivery keeps getting longer, but there’s a snag: not all addresses within a city are considered equal, and the pattern to the areas without access looks distressingly familiar. [More]
Comcast Tells Florida Customers They’ll Be Losing Channels; Won’t Say Which Ones
By 4.8.16
Comcast giveth (by accident) and Comcast taketh away (via form letter with no pertinent information). The cable giant is telling some Florida customers that they will soon be losing channels they weren’t supposed to get, but isn’t telling them which ones. [More]
Citibank Caught Screwing Up Credit Card Debt Collections, Must Refund $5M
By 2.23.16
If you had a hunch that Citibank’s credit card division wasn’t terribly good at its job, you were right. Citi sold credit card debt to buyers with inflated interest rates, failed to tell those debt buyers when it accepted payments on these cards after the debt had been sold. [More]
Lawyer Bombarded With Errant Texts Demanding Free Chipotle Burritos
By 2.9.16
On one end of the wrong-number spectrum is the lawyer who still gets calls and texts intended for Sir Mix-A-Lot, on the other end is the D.C.-area attorney who received some 300 text messages yesterday from people seeking free burritos from Chipotle. [More]
Mall CEO’s Comment About Amazon Stores Not Meant To Represent Amazon’s Actual Plans
By 2.3.16
Yesterday, everyone from book lovers to Barnes & Noble shareholders reacted to a tiny piece of news about Amazon during another company’s routine earnings call. The CEO of mall operator General Growth Properties told listeners that one factor affecting the future of mall traffic would be the 300 to 400 stores that Amazon plans to open in malls nationwide. “The what now?” everyone else on the call said. Now the company has walked back that comment. Sort of. [More]
Tesla Recalling All Its Model S Sedans Over Seatbelt Issue
By 11.20.15
Tesla is known for their cutting-edge 21st-centry all-electric cars, but today the company is recalling all 90,000 of them over an issue with a much older tech: the seat belts. [More]
Pitfalls Of Big Data: Test Prep Company Charges By Geography, Ends Up Charging More By Race
By 9.3.15
Many teenagers’ parents want to give their kids every possible advantage when it comes to the SATs. They pony up a few thousand dollars and buy Junior a test-prep course. It’s expensive, but at least it’s the same kind of expensive for everyone, right? Well, no, it’s not. And worst of all: there sure is an awfully high correlation between the race of the family doing the buying and the price that they get charged. [More]
Court: You Have No Right To Privacy When You Butt Dial Someone
By 7.22.15
Today in issues we never thought a court would weigh in on: if you accidentally pocket dial someone, pulling the move we all know as “butt dialing,” don’t expect anything you say during the call you don’t know you’re making to stay private. [More]
![United Airlines’ Computer System Back Up, Delays Linger Nationwide [Update]](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/united.png?w=680)
United Airlines’ Computer System Back Up, Delays Linger Nationwide [Update]
By 7.8.15
Travelers trying to fly to anywhere from anywhere on United this morning are being met with delays, confusion, and misinformation as a massive computer system outage has struck the airline. [More]
QR Code On Ketchup Bottles Points To Porn Because Of Expired Domain
By 6.19.15
When you’re setting up a 4th of July barbecue in a couple of weeks, you might want to make sure none of the kids or sensitive souls nearby scan the QR code on the Heinz ketchup. That’s because, thanks to an expired promotion, the site it leads to isn’t fun ketchup marketing… it’s hardcore porn. [More]
Colorado Family Rents Car, Finds Pot Left Inside After Driving Cross-Country
By 6.18.15
Marijuana is legal for recreational use in Colorado now, sure, but that doesn’t mean that it’s legal on the federal level or everywhere else in the country. This caused a dilemma for a family who rented a car in their home state, then drove across the country before they found 1/8 ounce of pot in one of the backseat pockets. [More]
New Exploit Leaves Up To 600M Samsung Galaxy Phones Vulnerable To Hack
By 6.17.15
Bad news for up to 600 million Samsung Galaxy phone owners worldwide: a big fat new vulnerability has been found that could let anyone with the inclination to cause trouble into your phone to read your messages, listen to your mic, watch your camera, and push malware at you. Oops. [More]
Report: TSA Agents Failed 67 Out Of 70 Undercover Tests
By 6.1.15
UPDATE: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has since reassigned the head of TSA and directed the agency to address the vulnerabilities identified in the report. [More]
Apple Working On Fix For Text That Instantly Crashes iPhones
By 5.27.15
It sounds like something out of a horror movie…if mobile phones watched horror movies. A certain string of Arabic characters, when sent to an iPhone, can crash the device and force it to restart immediately. It’s a hilarious prank, but also a nasty security flaw that could disrupt important phone calls. [More]
IRS Investigating How Woman’s Tax Call Ended Up On Howard Stern Show
By 5.20.15 — Updated: 2.14.17
A woman in Cape Cod thought she was just talking to an IRS representative over the phone, but what she — and apparently the agent — didn’t realize was that their call, including her personal info, was being broadcast to listeners of Howard Stern’s radio show. [More]
NJ Residents Call For Info On Sprint Refund, Get Phone Sex Line Instead
By 5.14.15
Earlier this week, Sprint and Verizon reached multimillion-dollar settlements with federal regulators for allowing third parties to bill for unwanted and unauthorized add-on services. But when New Jersey residents tried to call the Sprint information number given out by the state’s attorney general, they were in for another telephonic surprise. [More]
