If there’s one thing we’ve learned from movies and TV shows about prison, it’s that cigarettes are a popular currency behind bars, and apparently the same holds true for e-cigarettes. But if you’re a sheriff caught running a lucrative e-cig business for prisoners, you could end up one yourself.
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Sheriff Gets 4 Years In Prison For Running E-Cigarette Business Behind Bars
By 5.9.17
Charter Continues To Charge Wildfire Victims For Service They Don’t Have
By 12.29.16
Charter cable and internet customers in Tennessee who recently lost their homes to wildfire say the pay-TV giant, which recently merged with Time Warner Cable, is continuing to charge them for services that they can’t possibly access, and to return equipment that no longer exists. [More]
Intoxicated Best Buy Worker Can’t Hold Store Liable For Letting Him Drive Home, Crash His Car
By 12.2.16
If you show up to work so overly medicated that you won’t remember it the next day, it’s pretty likely that your employer is going to notice and send you home (and maybe tell you to never come back), but if you wreck your car on the way home, can you hold your employer responsible for letting you drive away? [More]
Appeals Court: Municipal Internet Is Great, But States Can Still Restrict Access
By 8.10.16 — Updated: 1.25.17
More than a dozen states have laws that either prohibit counties and cities from operating their own broadband internet networks, selling service directly to consumers, or expanding their service behind a prescribed footprint. In 2015, the FCC voted to preempt two of these laws — in Tennessee and North Carolina — but this morning a federal appeals court says the FCC lacks the legal authority to do so. [More]
Nursing Students Sue ITT Tech Over Misleading Enrollment Practices, Substandard Program
By 4.8.16
The lawsuits continue to pile up for embattled for-profit college company ITT Education Services. Just days after the Massachusetts Attorney General filed a suit alleging the operator of the ITT Technical Institute brand engaged in a slew of abusive and misleading practices, a group of 11 Tennessee nurses have filed their own complaint accusing the company of deceiving students during the recruitment process about the school’s accreditation prospects. [More]
Appeals Court Questions Tennessee & North Carolina Lawsuit To Restrict Community Broadband
By 3.18.16
More than a year after the FCC voted to preempt state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that heavily restrict city- and county-owned utilities from providing broadband to consumers, the states and the federal regulator finally had their day in court. [More]
Comcast, AT&T Lobbyists Help Kill Community Broadband Expansion In Tennessee
By 3.16.16
When cable and telecom companies go through the effort of writing anti-consumer legislation for states, they can later be counted on to lobby to keep those laws in place when challenged. Case in point: Lobbyists for Comcast and AT&T recently helped kill a small piece of legislation in Tennessee that would have allowed a city-run utility to expand the reach of its broadband service. [More]
Internet Giants Come Out In Support Of Municipal Broadband
By 11.13.15
Nearly half the states in the U.S. have laws that ban or severely limit cities and counties from operating broadband networks or from selling that service directly to consumers. This week, a trade group representing the biggest names on the Internet — Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, reddit, Yelp, among others — came out in support of breaking down these anti-consumer barriers. [More]
There’s a Vending Machine For Used Cars In Tennessee
By 11.12.15
These days, just about anything — candy, DVDs, a new phone — can be purchased through a vending machine. And if you live in Nashville, you can now help yourself to a used car.
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Chattanooga Introduces Internet 10X Faster Than Google Fiber, Same Price As Slower Comcast Service
By 10.16.15
While Nashville residents await the introduction of Google Fiber, their fellow Tennesseans a couple hours away in Chattanooga will be getting access (if they can afford it) to broadband that’s ten times faster than Google’s top-speed. [More]
Comcast Hits Man With $2,789 Fee For Moving To Area Not Served By Comcast
By 11.19.14
When a Tennessee graphic designer decided to move an hour away, Comcast originally told him that he could move his business-class service and even set up an appointment for installation. But when the Comcast installer never showed up, the company finally told the man that (A) his new address wasn’t served by Comcast and (B) he owes the company nearly $3,000 in early termination fees. [More]
Woman Sent To Jail For Failing To Mow Lawn
By 10.17.14
If you’ve ever looked a lawn that needed trimming and said to yourself, “I’ll get around to it. What are they gonna do, arrest me?” this story of a woman in Tennessee might have you dusting off the mower and hedge clippers. [More]
Comcast Sat By As ID Thieves Set Up Multiple Accounts, Ran Up Thousands In Charges
By 10.16.14
A local news report in Nashville about a local man whose ID was stolen and used to open up two bogus Comcast accounts hundreds of miles away in Louisiana has uncovered numerous additional complaints from consumers in the area who say they have also been sent to collections for fake Comcast accounts opened in the same city. [More]
How ISPs “Compete” With Municipal Networks: Lobbying and Campaign Donations That Block Them
By 8.28.14
Say you’re mayor of a small city. Your city is small enough and far enough away from other cities that the big cable companies don’t want to spend what it would cost to run wires through your town, because the amount they will make in return isn’t worth it. That’s reasonable, from a business perspective. So you and the residents of your city get together and come up with a plan to make a public broadband utility instead. Makes sense, right? You’d happily pay someone else to do it for you, but since they don’t want to take your money you’ll do it yourself. Only — surprise! In come those self-same cable companies to block you from doing that, too, and they get your state’s legislature and governor to pass a law against you for good measure, so you can never try again. [More]
Now You Can Tell The FCC What You Think About Bans On Municipal Broadband
By 7.29.14
Last week, a pair of city-operated utility companies petitioned the FCC, daring Commission Chair Tom Wheeler to make good on his promises to overturn ridiculous, industry-backed state laws that ban or severely limit municipal broadband. The FCC has opened the issue up for public comment, so it’s time to make your opinion heard. [More]
FCC Chair Now Has Two Chances To Overturn Bans On Municipal Broadband
By 7.25.14
Thanks to deep-pocketed telecom lobbyists, 20 states in the U.S. have laws that either ban or heavily restrict local governments from creating or investing in public broadband networks, and more states are trying to jump on that ban-wagon. For months, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler has been saying that his agency could use its authority to preempt these anticonsumer laws and give municipalities the ability to invest in Internet infrastructure if they want. Now it’s time for Wheeler to put up or shut up, as the FCC ponders petitions from groups in two states. [More]
Tennessee Becomes First State To Offer Free Tuition To All Graduating High School Students
By 4.16.14
Earlier today, Consumerist reported on a town in Michigan that is footing the bill for recent high school graduates to attend public universities and community colleges. Little did we know that was small potatoes compared to a program brewing in Tennessee. [More]
Tenn. Official Warns Residents That Water Quality Complaints Could Be Seen As Terrorism
By 6.21.13
Taking a page straight out of the book Things You Should Not Compare To Terrorism, Especially While You’re Being Recorded, a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director is under fire after warning a group of residents from one county that any unfounded complaints they made about water quality in their area could be considered “an act of terrorism.” [More]
