субота, 31 травня 2014 р.
пʼятниця, 30 травня 2014 р.
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MetroPCS is now part of T-Mobile. Last year, before the merger was finalized, we speculated that their union could result in better service for T-Mobile customers, but price increases for MetroPCS customers. One potential consequence of the merger that we hadn’t considered is that that some MetroPCS customers will have to get new phones.
It’s not all MetroPCS customers; only those who purchased their phones since the two companies got engaged in July of last year. The good news for customers is that the company will let them swap their current phones for a comparable one. This swap won’t be entirely free, though. Customers will owe sales tax on their new phones, for a maximum of maybe $50. The trade-in value on their now-useless old phones will offset the taxes, though.
Are you affected by this change? Do you think the phones T-MetroPCS is offering are really comparable, or were you planning to upgrade anyway? Drop us a message at tips@consumerist.com and put “T-MetroPCS” in the subject line.
Call Kurtis: Millions of MetroPCS Phones Could Stop Working After Cell Tower Upgrades [CBS Sacramento]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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We aren’t in the car business. We won’t pretend that we know how automakers should run things. However, the evidence shows us that maybe the current system of evaluating dealerships isn’t working out so well. It gives them incentives to lie and falsify data, not to provide good customer service.
Reader Neil scanned this document that he received from his local Honda dealer, even though it looks like he ran it through a copier five times and then faxed it to us from 1994. “Normally when I encounter survey pleading it is done verbally by an individual,” he notes.
This kind of document was new to Neil, but it’s familiar to us here at Consumerist. It’s a desperate act by the local dealership that’s only a symptom of a bigger problem at American Honda and in the whole auto industry.
In the past, we’ve shared shady doings on the other end of those customer satisfaction surveys. In 2007, an insider told us that dealerships fake those survey results whenever possible. “Customer satisfaction surveys are a joke, at the dealer I worked for we would bribe customers with free gas if they let us fill out their surveys when they come in the mail,” a helpful Kia salesperson told us. Our readers have been told that if they put down anything but the very highest ratings, they are effectively stealing food out of the mouths of the salesperson’s children. They’ve also been offered free stuff for giving the dealership a perfect score.
A salesperson wrote in to tell us that this is more or less true: one customer who takes the survey and maybe doesn’t like the coffee in the dealership’s showroom or the finance department and answers a few questions with an 8 out of 10 means that the salesperson who helped them is penalized $100 on the sale.
It’s not just car dealerships, either: other franchised businesses use the same model, and require rows of perfect scores or the store gets a failing grade.
The customer experience is important, and we like surveys. It’s not fair to use surveys to hold employees to an impossible standard
morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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While we’ve heard about plenty of thieving airport workers in the past, rifling through luggage and picking up money and merchandise as they go, officials at Boston’s Logan International Airport arrested five airline employees for a different kind of luggage crime — smuggling cash in bags as part of an alleged money laundering operation.
Four JetBlue employees and one Delta Air Lines employee were arrested on charges of abusing their airport security clearances to shoo bags full of hundreds of thousands of dollars past security checkpoints, reports the Boston Globe.
The JetBlue workers are all ground crew, while the Delta employee is a customer service ramp agent.
A federal agent said in a sworn statement that the arrests were the result of a sting operation, involving a witness in cahoots with the government. That witness told the suspects a drug-trafficking organization needed help smuggling cash from sales past the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints.
According to officials, the workers smuggled $417,000 in cash, bringing it from areas like the curbside drop-off or other public places and slipping it past locked doors straight to areas like departure gates.
Beyond that, two of the suspects are accused of smuggling cash aboard commercial flights from Boston to Florida nine times. Nine times (consider your John Hughes knowledge if you think that was a typo).
“Security at our nation’s airports is paramount, and the conduct alleged today is alarming,” US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a statement. “Thanks to the hard work and commitment of the federal and state investigators and airline security personnel, a potentially dangerous breach in security was identified.”
Airline employees allegedly smuggled cash past Logan security [Boston Globe]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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“Let’s show two women connecting over the phone over an undetermined distance,” someone must have said. “We want people to make long-distance phone calls while they do other things, so maybe show them in skintight leotard and tights ensembles, in a yoga pose that pulls all focus to their crotches.”
(Thanks to Flickr pool member SA_Steve for bringing this ad to our attention.)
morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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NFL producer Chris Law Tweeted this photo of the cleaning crew taking care of the doggie dump while grounded in Kansas City.
While human beings can apparently urinate in the aisle of a passenger jet without the plane needing to make a pit stop, and it’s fine and dandy to fly a plane full of people sick with the norovirus to their destination, a little dog poop on a US Airways flight is cause to bring a transcontinental flight to a screeching halt and bring in a clean-up crew.
This is what happened earlier this week aboard the US Air flight from L.A. to Philadelphia, when a dog in the cabin just couldn’t wait a few more hours to go for a W-A-L-K.
The canine was apparently brought into the cabin as a service animal for one of the passengers on the flight, but lost control of his bowels. It didn’t help that passengers (and the dog) sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours before they even took off.
“About an hour into the flight, I started smelling this terrible smell,” one passenger tells Inside Edition. “I look up the aisle way and there’s a dog pooping right in the middle of the aisle. It’s a big dog, three or four feet tall or long, and he was just going!”
He says that the smell was so bad that some people were dry-heaving and others actually vomited.
And it got worse when the dog let loose for a second round of poo. The passenger says that the cabin crew ran out of paper towels, at which point the pilot announced they would be making an unscheduled pit stop.
So the plane landed in Kansas City, where a cleaning crew boarded and took care of the toxic dump.
The passenger says the dog’s owner was apologetic and offered to send Starbucks gift cards to everyone.
Of course, this being the age of Twitter and in-flight WiFi, the entire ordeal was shared in real-time by passengers. You can read a mess of poo-related Tweets at NBC Philadelphia.
morez срочный автовыкуп by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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What would you do for 52 free meals? Would you forgo the delights of home and sleeping in your own comfortable, dry bed to camp in line overnight through the rain? Because that’s what 100 people hungry for free Chick-fil-A did in Baltimore.
In what sounds like one of those situations where the poor souls stuck together for extended periods of time come together in shared misery, the first 100 people in line at the local Chick-fil-A seemed pretty pleased with the whole thing, rain aside.
“I’ve got one year, 52 meals, for chicken. I’ve waited 24 hours. This is the seventh time I’ve done this,” one customer told CBS Baltimore. “I’m happy. It’s good friendship. Good community. We get to be with friends and we love it here.”
Others are repeat waiters too, and have been rewarded yet again for their fortitude in the face of 24 hours of awfulness with a card loaded with 52 free meals.
The store just opened, and its owner says the staff is ready to go, with this first wait just a test of what’s to come.
“We had a dedicated crew through the rain and everything. They stayed happy. There were here all night. They were raring to go first thing this morning. I’ve never seen people so excited,” said the owner.
Really? Never? Free food is great and all, but then there’s the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, teenage boys at a comic book convention and me on payday, so, start looking around. Excitement is everywhere.
Despite Rain, 100 People Don’t Chicken Out & Get A Free Meal For A Year From Chick-Fil-A [CBS Baltimore]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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After filing similar suits against Well Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America, the city of Los Angeles is now going after JPMorgan Chase for allegedly pushing minority loan applicants into riskier and less-affordable mortgages than they were eligible for.
The complaint [PDF], filed this morning in a federal court, alleges that Chase “has engaged in a continuous pattern and practice of mortgage discrimination in Los Angeles since at least 2004 by imposing different terms or conditions on a discriminatory and legally prohibited basis.”
These sorts of allegations have dogged many of the nation’s largest lenders since we first reported on the practice back in 2008. These banks have been accused of systematically steering minority applicants into subprime loans that were not generally offered to white loan applicants.
This process is known as redlining, wherein banks deny credits based on an applicant’s particular neighborhood or race; or reverse-redlining, in which lenders target certain neighborhoods and racial groups with subprime financial products.
“JPMorgan engaged in redlining, and continues to engage in said conduct, by refusing to extend mortgage credit to minority borrowers in Los Angeles on equal terms as offered to non-minority borrowers,” reads the complaint. “JPMorgan engaged in reverse redlining, and continues to engage in said conduct, by extending mortgage credit on predatory terms to minority borrowers in minority neighborhoods in Los Angeles on the basis of the race or ethnicity of its residents.”
The complaint includes statements from whistle-blowers with information on Chase’s redlining practices.
“If you wanted to target the Hispanic community you had to have certain words in there that you’d want to use to attract [the borrowers],” reads one statement, which adds that it was easier to get minority applicants approved for adjustable-rate loans but that loan officers did not always explain the repercussions of what happens when that sweetheart 1% APR starts to take off like a rocket a few years into the loan.
“That’s where a lot of clients were misled,” continues the statement. “They thought it was a 1 percent fixed [rate].”
When the cost of adjustable-rate loans jumped in 2007-2008, these borrowers were no longer able to afford their homes and many were lost to foreclosure. This drove housing prices down.
This rash of foreclosures — which the city contends could have been prevented had these borrowers received loans they deserved — resulted in a loss of property tax revenue for the city. The city cites one report claiming that there were 200,000 foreclosures in Los Angeles from 2008 through 2012, resulting in a $481 million loss of city property tax revenue.
“L.A. continues to suffer from the foreclosure crisis — from blight in our neighborhoods to diminished revenue for basic City services,” L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer said in a statement. “We’re fighting to hold those we allege are responsible to account and to help bring back every community in our City.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Chase has failed to live up to its obligations post-recession.
“JPMorgan has induced foreclosures since 2009 by failing to extend branch support to minority neighborhoods, pulling existing Bank support from minority neighborhoods, declining to offer refinancings or loan modifications to minority customers on fair terms, and otherwise denying minority borrowers equal access to fair credit,” reads the complaint.
Chase denies the allegations and says it intends to fight the city’s complaint.
“We are disappointed the L.A. City Attorney is pursuing an adversarial approach to address city finances impacted by the recent economic downturn,” reads a statement from Chase to the L.A. Times. “While the downturn was beyond our control, we will continue to partner with Los Angeles in the recovery.”
The city’s suits against Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Bank of America are still pending, and the banks all deny any wrongdoing.
However, Wells Fargo did reach a $175 million settlement with the Justice Dept. in 2012 over similar allegations, and Bank of America settled for almost double that amount in 2011.
And last fall Wells agreed to pay out nearly $40 million to settle allegations made by the National Fair Housing Alliance and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development that it neglected bank-owned homes in minority neighborhoods.
morez срочный автовыкуп by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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First things first — make sure you’ve already ingested and digested your midday meal fully if you’re the squeamish type, or very much dislike Silence of the Lambs. Because a medical company sales representative has been charged with boosting more than $350,000 worth of human skin from a hospital over several years.
The 54-year-old man was arrested this week and charged with theft, receiving stolen property and tampering with records, reports the Associated Press. No word on whether arresting officials were all like, “Eww, seriously? Just eww.”
According to authorities, the man worked until September as a sales rep for a regenerative medicine firm, managing accounts for the bioscience department of a Philadelphia-area hospital. He was allowed to order as many skin grafts for the hospital whenever he wanted as part of that job.
But the hospital only needed a few grafts at the time, officials said, and he allegedly ordered up more than 200 without authorization between November 2011 through July of that year. The hospital didn’t receive them, so authorities eventually went looking for the missing skin.
Police say they don’t know why he allegedly stole the grafts, worth $1,700 each, or what became of them. A spokesman for his former employers says he would have had no use for human skin grafts as part of his job as a sales rep. But the fact remains that you can’t steal skin without some repercussions.
And here is where we all try to banish the thought of a human skin suit from our brains. Sorry, had to do it. You were warned.
Man charged with stealing human skin from hospital [Associated Press]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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Not according to these projections from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which estimate that the total cost (tuition, room, board, fees) of a college education will continue to increase at a rate of 5% per year.
That means that the school that cost someone $40,000/year in 2013 will more than double to $90,000 by 2030. That adorable toddler whose every move you’re documenting on Facebook could be putting you in the poorhouse in 17 years when he starts working on his degree in Frisbee history.
Even the significantly less expensive public colleges will exhaust most parents’ bank accounts, with costs expected to jump from around $18,000 a year in 2013 to nearly $41,000 by 2030. So even if your local Big State U. has an acceptable Frisbee Studies department, your kid will still probably need to take out student loans just to get through.
And since those costs could continue to increase each year, by the time a child born today graduates from college, her education could run her anywhere from $186K for four years to more than $400K. Not many jobs being offered to recent graduates that will help pay down that level of student loans:
morez срочный автовыкуп by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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Full disclosure: I grew up in Wisconsin (as some may have noticed due to frequent mentions of cheese and the almighty Green Bay Packers) but hear me out when I say everyone should just move there: According to a new report, Wisconsin has more bars than grocery stores — at a rate of 2.7 times more.
Over at FlowingData.com is a handy chart culled from Google Places API based on two things: The number of bars in the United States and the number of grocery stores. Unlike earlier versions of the same kind of mapped data, this time the magnitude of bars vs. grocery stores was included on the map.
So in the map below, the greener the area, the more grocery stores there are than bars. And the browner you go on the scale, the more bars. And voila! We have Wisconsin, now known as “the beer belly of America.”
It’s worth pointing out that if you’re looking at the numbers from a per capita perspective, Wisconsin only clocks in at the third highest rate, with about eight bars per 10,000 people. North Dakota (9.9 per 10k) and Montana (8.6 per 10k) come in at first and second, respectively.
Delaware, Maryland, and Mississippi have a lot more chow and a lot less boozing going on, with under 1.5 bars per 10,000 people.
To those states and the rest of the country, Wisconsin is throwing its loving, boozy arms open to you. It’s a land of cheese and cheese, where beer flows in the streets and I won’t even make you pledge allegiance to Lambeau Field. Because that would be crossing the line, so far as Boss Meg Who Is From Chicago is concerned, at least.
Where Bars Outnumber Grocery Stores [FlowingData.com]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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Krebs on Security is the place to learn about scams like these, explaining both the crimes and how they work. In this case, police say that the two suspects aren’t from Macau (a Chinese territory west of Hong Kong) but are from Ukraine. They stole $100,000 by corrupting the automatic tellers.
They allegedly used these green objects, which were connected to a laptop, then inserted them in the card slot. This is the best picture that we have of them so far, but the strips are about as wide as a credit card and maybe five times as long. They resemble a circuit board, but no details on exactly how they were constructed have been made public yet. Obviously.
According to a source at the bank in question, inserting the circuit board card thingy caused the machines to crash and restart, then run normally while slurping up card number and PIN data from customers. The government says that the two suspects returned to the ATM to gather their virtual loot, extracting it from the machine using the same green strip.
It’s almost enough to make a person refuse to withdraw money from anywhere other than a metal box in her backyard. (Not really. Stay out of my backyard.)
Thieves Planted Malware to Hack ATMs [Krebs on Security]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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For a woman in Moses Lake, WA, the answer was clear — grab a golf club and tee off on the jerk trying to get away with her cash drawer.
The almost-nonagenarian, who has owned the store for 60 years, tells KREM-TV that the incident happened last Sunday.
She came upon the robber trying to pry open her cash register, and first thought about stabbing him with the scissors that were already in her hand.
“But I didn’t. I didn’t have the nerve to stab him,” she admits.
The man kept trying to scare her into opening the drawer for him but she refused, until… “He pulled out his little sword out of his little jacket, and he just kind of waved it a little bit.”
The storeowner says rather than feel threatened by the weapon, “It just probably made me a little bit more brave.”
The robber pushed her and she fell to the floor, where she found the golf club.
“I tried to swing this club at him and I tried to hit his head a couple times but I couldn’t reach it,” she recalls, saying she ended up hitting the man in the legs.
The robber was able to make off with the cash register, but he inexplicably left behind some souvenirs — his clothing, which he shed outside of the store.
“He must have been running around in his underwear and no shoes because that’s what they said, they found all his clothes,” says the storeowner.
The man also dumped the sword and register, both of which were recovered by police.
morez срочный автовыкуп by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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Most of the time, we can rest assured that we’re living a way cooler life than our toothbrushes. What do they do all day but sit around in a cup by the sink, bristling at the sound of rushing water and just hoping they get used at least twice in 24 hours? Unless you’re a toothbrush that’s been to space, and in that case, you can fetch a pretty penny for having lived such an abnormal toothbrush life.
A toothbrush used by an American astronaut who flew to the moon sold at auction for $11,974 this week, proving that it’s much cooler than most humans and a lot more interesting than your average dental hygiene tool.
The clear Oral-B40 brush was used by command module pilot Jack Swigert during the 1970 Apollo 13 mission, reports the AFP, and was sold to an anonymous buyer this week.
You’ll remember Swigert as the guy Kevin Bacon played in the 1995 movie Apollo 13. So no, not Tom Hanks’ toothbrush.
Swigert flew around the Moon as part of the Apollo program, but wasn’t one of those who stepped foot on the surface. He passed away in 1982, but his toothbrush lives on and again, is a lot cooler than anyone I know.
Apollo 13 astronaut’s toothbrush sells for $11,794 [AFP]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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Last year, the General Motors engineer who quietly signed off on a fix to an ignition problem that has resulted in at least 13 deaths claimed in a deposition that he had no knowledge of making this incredibly important improvement. But after Congressional investigators have turned up all sorts of evidence showing that he did indeed give the okay for this fix, the engineer reportedly says he simply forgot about it.
He is one of two engineers suspended in April for their part in allegedly trying to sweep this defect under the rug while more than a dozen people died.
The NY Times reports that Congressional investigators recently put him through a 10-hour round of questioning over his involvement.
To recap for those not entirely familiar with the case — In 2001, before any of the defective cars hit the road, GM noticed the possibility that the ignition switches in certain new vehicles could be easily turned off if the key in the ignition is attached to a heavy keychain, or gets bumped by the driver. This causes the engine to quit, and results in a loss of power steering and brakes. Most importantly, the car’s airbags become useless.
As owners and dealers complained about the problem, GM mulled over various fixes to the problem but did not act. Meanwhile, accidents were happening and people began to die. Then in 2006, the engineer in charge of these ignitions gave the go-ahead to the third-party manufacturer of the switch to start producing a new version that would not turn off so easily.
However, the part number was never changed to reflect this fix, so new switches commingled with old, defective ones in dealerships’ inventories. When GM finally got around to issuing the recall in 2014, it not only had to recall all the vehicles made before the ignition switch was fixed, but it had to subsequently add on another million vehicles made after that upgrade because some of those newer cars might have the old switches in them.
Signing off on a change to an ignition switch is no small thing, and the failure to change the part number after this fix gives a stink of cover-up to the engineer’s actions. But in a 2013 deposition for a lawsuit brought against GM by the parents of a woman who died while driving a Chevy Cobalt, the engineer stated, “I don’t ever recall authorizing such a change.”
Then on May 19, while being grilled by Congressional investigators, the engineer admitted he did indeed make the change, but that it must have just slipped his mind because it had been seven years and the ignition fix was not the only change he was making at the time.
The family involved in that lawsuit has asked the court to reopen its case against GM, claiming the engineer perjured himself by saying that any changes made to the ignition switch happened without his knowledge or say-so.
morez срочный автовыкуп by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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We love to use wedding imagery when discussing corporate mergers, because it’s a useful metaphor: months of preparation and due diligence lead to a joyous union and (we hope) decades of happiness as life partners. In the case of the acquisition of Zale Corp. by Signet Jewelers Ltd., the comparison is just poor writing, since all companies involved are mall jewelry stores, where Americans buy their wedding bling.
You might remember the name Signet because it comes up whenever a reader has a problem with an item purchased at Kay or Jared. We always recommend that people take their complaints up the food chain at the company’s corporate parent. Signet also owns Piercing Pagoda, a chain of large kiosks that sell less expensive jewelry. Combined, the companies will control 14.6% of the retail jewelry business in the United States. Taking over Zales will also give the company a bigger presence in Canada.
The last decade has been rough on Zales, and the chain’s competitor is taking the company over as its comeback succeeds. The companies say that Zales will continue to exist as an independent subsidiary, with its current CEO staying on as president and CEO.
Mall jewelers Zales and Kay get hitched [Dallas Morning News]
Signet and Zale tie the knot, create mall-based jewelry giant [CNN] (via Chain Store Age)
morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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What if you could pay only $1,000 and be guaranteed a freshly-poured beer whenever you felt like it? That’s not a feasible deal for most of us, but for early investors in one Minnesota brew pub, that dream has come true.
When three business partners wanted to raise $220,000 to get a bank loan and open up their own restaurant, the Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub in southern Minneapolis, they at first tried to the usual rout of finding investors and offering a voting share in the restaurant, reports The Atlantic’s City Lab.
But those investors didn’t know much about the restaurant business, so they tried a different tactic when friends and family offered up a few grand here and there.
“They were, like, ‘I’ve got a few grand, but I don’t have too much money,’ ” one business partner recalls. “And people kept saying this over and over, and we latched onto the idea. Why not just take a couple grand from everybody and then we’d have all the money we’d need?”
Ding ding ding. The plan they settled on? Those who invested $1,000 could get free in-house beer forever and ever, or as long as the pub stayed open. Or they could receive 0.1% nonvoting equity in the company for every $1,000 invested. A $5,000 investment got investors 0.5% equity AND beer.
The brewpub is now a registered LLC and hit its $220,000 goal, and has been thriving for two years now, giving away about 17 free beers per day. All told, there were 46 investors who took the first option, 42 chose the second and another 30 who took the third.
Yes, that means 72 people have free beer for life, and you don’t. Better start looking for another brewpub offering that kind of deal, good luck!
Would You Pay $1,000 Once to Get Free Beer for Life? [City Lab]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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Yesterday at the Code Conference, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son spoke about the (terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad) state of internet service in the United States. But there was a distinctly self-serving undercurrent to Son’s speech.
As GigaOm reports, the clear implication behind Son’s “well-received” speech was that regulators should be happy to bless a merger of Sprint and T-Mobile, because then there will be valid competition to the internet-controlling juggernaut that Comcast is lined up to become if and when it acquires Time Warner Cable.
Son has worked this angle before, and Comcast too is happy to claim that mobile broadband is true competition for their internet offerings.
But just because a bunch of people say the same thing over and over doesn’t make it true. We’ve been down this path before. Mobile broadband is still too expensive, too inconsistent, and too slow to be a reliable full-time wired broadband replacement.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, speaking (and slamming Comcast) at the same conference, said that mobile data doesn’t really support Netflix very well. And at an average download speed of 6-7 MBps, there’s a whole lot else that mobile broadband can’t necessarily support yet, either.
As for the costs, GigaOm did the math and worked out that swapping out home broadband for a mobile-only solution could cost an average cord-cutting Sprint user about $10,000. And that’s not annually. That’s per month. Of course, the highest network users wouldn’t be able to hit a bill that high, because Sprint would be throttling their service anyway.
Still, maybe Son doesn’t mean Sprint could fix things today. As we’ve seen clearly over the past few decades, the technology landscape changes extremely rapidly. The world of 2014 is not the world of 2020, and in fact probably not even the world of 2015.
So what about the not-so-distant future? If Sprint did buy T-Mobile, as it has been murmuring about for months, it would have more reach and resources with which to improve its network, that much is true. But that still wouldn’t be nearly enough leverage to make mobile data a meaningful replacement solution for most consumers in the near term.
GigaOm also makes the critical point that while Sprint would be working on bringing two brands together under the same roof and getting that new improved network up and running, the rest of the world would just keep evolving around them:
Yes, one day we will be able to able to consume 100 or 200 GBs of mobile data for the same cost we pay for a home broadband connection. But it’s not like wireline broadband technologies or our internet consumption habits are standing still. We’re moving away from coaxial cable and copper to fiber links to the home. Meanwhile the resolution of our video programming is increasing and our apps and data storage are moving into the cloud.
Five years from now, when Son is ready to offer 200 GBs for $50 on the cellular network, 200 GBs a month will seem like a paltry amount. Son is chasing a moving target, and the simultaneous advancement of both wireless and wireless access technologies dictate that he’ll never catch up.
Sprint and T-Mobile are the 3rd and 4th largest mobile companies in the country, and although Verizon and AT&T are still far and away the most dominant, T-Mobile is beginning to catch up. It’s easy to see why Sprint would want to buy the company, but it’s also easy to see why consumers will benefit more if they don’t.
Why you shouldn’t buy the miracle broadband network Softbank’s Masayoshi Son is selling [GigaOm]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Kate Cox via Consumerist
четвер, 29 травня 2014 р.
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Yesterday, Apple and Beats Electronics announced that their union is official: Apple will acquire the headphone and streaming-music company for about $3 billion. As the news made headlines, one national brand wanted to nudge its way into the “trending topics” spotlight, and achieved the best current events/brand promotion tweet that we have ever seen.
Denny’s, please step up and accept your crown. Which is made of beets, probably. The previous greatest current events/brand promotion tweet that we know of was when Arby’s saw a familiar-looking hat during the Grammy awards and turned Pharrell’s strange headgear choice into a flood of good publicity and a charitable donation.
We’re more likely to post about social media gaffes, which usually result when well-meaning people try to take advantage of trending topics or hot news stories. Sometimes we think that brands should just forget about making timely and amusing updates altogether. (Sometimes ignoring the news can get you in trouble, too.) This is an example of brand tweeting done well.
What does $3 billion worth of beets look like, anyway? From my misspent public television-watching childhood, here’s a start:
morez срочный автовыкуп by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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Need to fit people outside of that size range? No problem; just slap on an X and sell extra-small. Switching to what people in the biz call “alpha sizing” saves manufacturers money and resources, making it easier to stock clothes when they arrive and to sell out of a given size once they hit the racks. The Wall Street Journal reports that some clothing companies are making this switch with some or all of their items.
Why is that? Each size in an alpha sizing system replaces two numbered sizes. Think of a typical size run of one item that you might see on a rack at a mall clothing store: you would find sizes 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16. Nine different sizes. Alpha sizing cuts that same size range down to five sizes: XS, S, M, L, and XL. (The Wall Street Journal ignored plus-sized clothing for the purposes of this story, maybe because most plus-sized clothes are already sold in a numeric extension of the alpha size scale: 1X, 2X, 3X and so on.) Stocking fewer sizes makes manufacturing the clothes and running a retail store easier.
It’s not easier on the end user, of course. Even a simplified sizing system isn’t consistent from one manufacturer to another, because that would be too easy. Alpha sizing does give consumers an additional nightmare: clothing specifically designed to fit a wider range of people. Wrap dresses, elastic and drawstring waists, stretchy blazers, and baggy tops are all designed to accommodate a wider range of people than one numeric size.
If you’ve been thinking about learning how to tailor your own ready-to-wear clothes, now may be the time to do it.
Shopping for Clothes? Forget a Size 4, You’ll Have to Try a Small [Wall Street Journal]
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When we saw that Ford announced a recall of 1.39 million cars and sport-utility vehicles, we had to check back in the archives. Hadn’t we just posted about a Ford recall? Yes, it was only earlier this month that 692,000 vehicles were recalled because their airbags might not deploy. This latest batch mainly involves power steering failure in SUVs.
Ford reports that that they know of fifteen crashes that may be the result of loss of power steering in Explorer SUVs. According to the company, no one sustained serious injuries in any of these crashes, which all occurred at low speeds.
Here are the Ford vehicles recalled:
Ford Explorer, model years 2011 to 2013 – 195,527 vehicles recalled for power steering issues
Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner, model years 2008 to 2011 – 915,216 vehicles recalled for power steering issues
Taurus, model years 2010 to 2014 – about 200,000 vehicles recalled for a mysterious “corrosion issue”
Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln Zephyr and MKZ, model years 2006 to 2011 – 82,576 vehicles recalled for floor mats that may interfere with the accelerator
If you’re the original owner and your information is on file with Ford, you should receive a notification about the recall: if not, and if your car is one of the model years listed, give your friendly local Ford dealer a call.
Ford recalls 1.39 million vehicles in North America [Reuters]
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Government regulators create laws and initiate investigations in order to protect consumers from an array of hurtful products and companies. One such consumer fraud investigation by the Justice Department is “Operation Choke Point” and it’s resulted in criminal and civil probes by U.S. prosecutors. But some legislators see the investigation as more hurtful than helpful.
According to a report by Reuters, U.S. prosecutors have opened criminal and civil probes into at least 15 banks and payment processors as part of “Operation Choke Point” over the last year.
The investigation aims to crack down on fraud by going after firms that handle and move money with suspect businesses.
As of November 2013, the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee reported that criminal probes had been opened regarding four payment processors, one bank and several officials. Additionally, civil fraud law investigations were opened against at least 10 banks and payment processors.
An official with the Justice Dept. wrote in a memo to the Oversight Committee that the investigation had already cause some banks to stop processing payments for firms believed to be involved in fraud against consumers.
But that has some congressional members unhappy saying the Justice Dept. conducted a shadowy effort to put firms with legal activities out of business by pressuring banks to stop working with them, Reuters reports.
“Operation Choke Point is the Justice Department’s newest abuse of power,” Rep. Darrell Issa, Oversight panel leader said in a news release. “If the administration believes some businesses should be out of business, they should prosecute them before a judge and jury.”
A spokesperson for the Justice Dept. tell Reuters maintains that the department only investigates firms that break federal laws.
“When financial institutions choose to process transactions, even though they know the transactions are fraudulent or are willfully ignorant of that fact, they are breaking federal law and we will not hesitate to hold them accountable.”
U.S. probing 15 banks, payment processors for fraud [Reuters]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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Strap on your jetpacks and shine up your moon boots, because we’re going to space, y’all. Maybe not this minute or even this year, but if you can dream it, you can achieve it. At least if you’re super rich Sir Richard Branson and the U.S. government just told you you can start planning space flights.
Branson’s Virgin Galactic has been revvings its engines to take to the stars (or at least the Earth’s orbit) and now it’s got official clearance to start mapping those flights out, reports CNNMoney.
The company has said in the past that it’d like to send the first commercial flights up by the end of this year, with Branson and his family traveling on the initial voyage on SpaceShipTwo.
Flights will take off from New Mexico’s Spaceport, which was built solely for the purpose of sending off commercial space flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration is also on board, as it were, and will figure out particulars with local air traffic control to make sure those flights aren’t interfering with any others in the airspace.
It’ll be a bustling business for Virgin, as the company says it’s already received more than $70 million in deposits for spots from around 580 people.
morez срочный автовыкуп by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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While a U.S. Supreme Court decision yesterday in the case of a Michigan Native American tribe’s allegedly illegal casino appears to have nothing to do with payday lending, experts say it’s a game changer in states’ efforts to rein in the often predatory industry.
The National Consumer Law Center reports that the court decision [PDF] has serious repercussions for illegal online payday lenders who claim to have affiliation with Native American tribes in order to avoid repercussions.
While Wednesday’s court decision in the case of Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community affirmed that the state could not sue an American Indian tribe for operating an off-reservation casino, it also made clear that the state has other, equally powerful, options when a tribe conducts activity off-reservation.
“The game is up for payday lenders who attempt to cloak illegal conduct in tribal immunity,” National Consumer Law Center Associate Director Lauren Saunders, says in a news release [PDF]. “The Supreme Court’s decision makes clear that purportedly tribal payday lenders who loan off-reservation must comply with state laws, including interest rate caps and state licensing laws, and that courts can enter an injunction stopping illegal lending—even by tribal entities.”
The Supreme Court emphasized that when a tribe conducts off-reservation activities they are subject to any generally applicable state law. Meaning the state can deny a license and if a tribe goes ahead with the unlicensed activity the state could bring suit against tribal officials and employees seeking an injunction or pursue criminal charges.
Officials with NCLC say the decision makes a clear statement that states can “shutter, quickly and permanently, an illegal casino” and that the same is true for illegal payday loans that claim tribal affiliation.
Payday lending businesses that align themselves with American Indian tribes have come under greater scrutiny by federal regulators in recent years.
In March, a U.S. District Court judge upheld a magistrate judge’s 2013 ruling that the Federal Trade Commission has authority to regulate certain companies associated with Indian tribes.
That ruling revolved around Colorado-based AMG Services’ claim that it was exempt from FTC enforcement because of its affiliation with American Indian tribes.
Last November, New York State sent cease and desist orders to dozens of online payday lenders to make them stop pursuing residents through advertisements in the state.
In August 2013, Western Sky Financial, a payday lender operating out of a tribal reservation in South Dakota, announced it would discontinue offering loans after facing lawsuits from around the country over three-digit interest rates for its loans. The company had perviously claimed they were not bound by state law because of their tribal affiliation.
These lenders are just a few of the payday operations that claim they are not bound by state law because they operate on tribal reservations.
Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision gives new life for a push by states to rein in the payday lending industry.
“Tribal sovereignty is an important principle that respects the dignity of nations mistreated throughout American history,” Andrew Pizor, staff attorney at the NCLC, says. “Fortunately, the Supreme Court decision affirms that states need not tolerate payday lenders attempting to use tribal sovereignty as a shield for illegal conduct.”
Supreme Court Decision Strikes Blow against Tribal Online Payday Lenders [National Consumer Law Center]
morez срочный автовыкуп by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist