With the Mets allegedly involved in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and near league-wide attendance problems, the last thing Major League Baseball needed was yet another headache. But that’s exactly what it got when the Dodgers front office imploded, forcing the league to step in and take control of the team for the time being. [More]
ownership
New Jersey Dealership Goes Under, Leaves Customers Without Titles To Their Cars
By 9.21.09
When Patrick Dunn’s auto dealership in New Jersey went out of business a few months ago, something weird happened to “40 or 50” customers who had bought cars from him, writes Bob Braun at NJ.com. The company Dunn had taken out business loans with, Automotive Finance Corporation (AFC), went to Arkansas and asked for reposession of the cars in New Jersey. The Arkansas department of motor vehicles assumed AFC meant for unsold cars on the lot, so they granted the request—and now AFC says it owns titles to cars that people are already driving and paying for.
Brooklyn Judge Rejects Improperly Documented Foreclosure Motions, Shocks Banking Industry
By 8.31.09
There’s a judge in Brooklyn, NY, who has tossed out nearly half of the foreclosure cases brought before him over the past year, because the lenders have such messy paper trails that they can’t prove ownership anymore.
Amazon Tries To Clarify Download Limits For Kindle Books, Doesn't Quite Succeed
By 6.23.09
Dan, the Kindle owner who last week found that some of the books he’d purchased were no longer available to download due to unspecified limitations set by the publisher, spoke to more Amazon reps on Sunday. They clarified the DRM policy. Well, sort of.
Amazon Kindle Books Can Only Be Downloaded A Limited Number Of Times, And No You Cannot Find Out That Limit Before You Hit It
By 6.22.09
[The CSR said] that there is always a limit to the number of times you can download a given book. Sometimes, he said, it’s five or six times but at other times it may only be once or twice. And, here’s the kicker folks, once you reach the cap you need to repurchase the book if you want to download it again.
Facebook Voting Has Ended; New Terms Being Considered Despite Small Turnout
By 4.24.09
When voting ended yesterday on the Facebook terms of service, around 600,000 people had voted, and about 70% of those votes were cast for the new documents drafted over the past couple of months. Although the voting total was nowhere near the 30% of active Facebook users that Facebook said would be required, the site is still considering validating the vote and implementing the new terms after the audit is complete.
Amazon Can Ban You From Your Kindle Account Whenever It Likes
By 4.15.09
Amazon recently banned a customer for making what they considered too many returns, and when they did this they also disabled his Kindle account, although the returns were never related to Kindle purchases. So what happens when your Kindle account is taken away? Your Kindle still works, and the books you already bought for it will work, but you can’t download those books ever again (better have made a backup on your PC!), you can’t receive your magazine, blog, or newspaper subscriptions on it anymore, you can’t email documents to Amazon to have them converted and sent to your Kindle, and you can’t buy any new books for the device. That $360 device only works so long as Amazon decides it will work.
Halt Foreclosure Proceedings By Challenging Your Bank's Claim To Your House
By 7.27.08
Banks don’t always own the homes they’re trying to repossess, a crucial oversight that residents facing foreclosure can exploit to stay in their homes—though not without effort. Mamie Ruth Palmer successfully sued the Bank of New York after the bank tried to foreclose her home without possessing the note securing the property. After six years in court, the bank agreed to slash her outstanding mortgage in half and waive $12,000 in foreclosure fees so she could keep her home.
