“Dongguan Qing Xi Juantiway Plastic Factory” isn’t a household name, but you’d probably recognize the products it made for the world’s largest entertainment company: the factory was one of thousands making official products featuring Disney characters. The company put another supplier on notice as well for its own labor violations.
Disney doesn’t hire the factories, but licenses its products to suppliers, which in turn contract with the factories. Still, products with its characters on them are an important part of Disney’s image, and customers don’t want to hear that their Moana or Elsa or Snow White toys were made by workers who are underage, suffering, or both. Bloomberg reports that Disney has its own standards for the tens of thousands of factories making its products, called the Disney International Labor Standards Program, and the nonprofit China Labor Watch flagged these two factories as making Disney products and problematic.
In a memorandum made public yesterday, Disney noted that Dongguan Qing Xi Juantiway Plastic Factory “failed to remediate hiring and human resource issues identified during an investigation of the facility last year, despite our encouragement of remediation and their contractual requirements to us.” Disney did not specify what those issues were.
Aother company, Lam Sun Toy Limited Co., received a warning about its failure at “accurate record keeping, health, fire safety, and human resources practices.” It has the choice to shape up or lose its right to manufacture Disney products.
He only had about 20 seconds of distraction, but that’s all it took for one thief to walk off with about $1.6 million worth of gold flakes on a busy New York City street.
Surveillance video obtained by NBC 4 New York (warning: link contains autoplay video) shows how the theft went down on a September afternoon in midtown Manhattan: the suspect is seen dilly-dallying near an armored truck while two guards bustle around it. One guard leaves to make a pickup, and the other goes toward the front seat of the vehicle to grab his phone.
In that moment, the suspect walks up to the 86-pound bucket of gold flakes, picks it up, and flees the scene — albeit slowly, as it’s clearly no easy thing to carry off such a heavy haul. Indeed, in the video, you can see as he scurries a few feet, then sets the bucket down to take a breather. He hoists it onto his shoulder, walks, and sets it down again.
Eventually, after shuffling along for an hour — taking a route that would normally be just a 10-minute walk — the suspect got into a van and drove off.
“I think he just saw an opportunity, took the pail and walked off,” an NYPD detective told NBC New York. Police don’t think he had any idea what was in the bucket when he boosted it.
Investigators believe he’s now hiding out in Miami or Orlando with his pot of gold, and hopes someone who recognizes him will come forward with more information. Any leprechauns out there looking to get back at this guy, now’s your chance.
Earlier this year, federal vehicle safety regulators reached a voluntary agreement with nearly two dozen car manufacturers to make forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking features standard in their cars starting in 2022. But some consumer safety advocates believe this is too long a wake and have gone to court in the hope of pressing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into taking more immediate action.
Consumer Watchdog, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen filed the lawsuit [PDF] in federal district court in Washington, D.C. Wednesday claiming NHTSA failed to respond to the groups’ formal request that the agency require automakers to adopt advanced safety technologies.
The groups sent NHTSA a petition [PDF] back on Jan. 16, asking the regulator to begin the rule-making process to require cars to use Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB).
AEB is composed of a set of three technologies that use combinations of radar, reflected laser light, and cameras to alert the driver of a likely collision and intervene if needed. Specifically, AEB can warn drivers that a forward collision is imminent, intervene when the driver does not respond to the warning, and apply supplemental braking when the driver’s braking is insufficient.
The groups contend that such features could prevent or limit the injuries and property damage sustained in nearly one million crashes each year.
According to the lawsuit, NHTSA failed to follow federal law in responding to the petition in a timely manner, and asked a court to require the agency respond to the request within 30 days.
Under federal law, NHTSA is required to grant or deny a petition within 120 days of receipt. That, the groups say, didn’t happen.
Instead, NHTSA — which estimates that such braking systems could save up to 110 lives a year — announced in March a voluntary agreement with carmakers to put AEB technology in almost all the cars they make starting with 2022. However, under the deal, manufacturers of manual transmission vehicles, and some heavier SUVS and trucks would have more time to equip cars with the safety features.
While the agreement was meant to placate concerns and get the ball rolling on such safety systems, Consumer Watchdog, the Center for Auto Safety, and Public Citizen claim the deal essentially allows manufacturers to “roll out weak versions of the technology on an unenforceable ‘voluntary’ basis.”
The groups contend that the voluntary agreement announced does not require that AEB become standard equipment in cars, and that carmakers who do not include the systems in vehicles by 2022 will face no repercussions.
“Voluntary standards don’t work,” Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator and president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. “They protect manufacturers, not consumers. AEB is one of the most important lifesaving automotive systems available today.”
Instead of responding to the petition and focusing on a timely issue that the groups believe could save lives, the groups say NHTSA has wasted time on initiatives and rule-making that won’t be necessary for years to come.
“This year, NHTSA devoted enormous agency resources to ‘driverless vehicles,’ which are years or even decades away, while a safety system that is ready to start saving lives right now has been relegated to the whims of the auto companies,” Harvey Rosenfield, Consumer Watchdog, said in a statement.
Claybrook brought up the possibility of an AEB lawsuit last March before a Consumer Federation of America panel on autonomous driving. She asked panelist and NHTSA Associate Administrator Nathaniel Beuse why the agency had allowed carmakers to establish the timeline themselves rather than issue a rule.
At the time, Beuse argued that the sometimes-lengthy federal rulemaking process — and the inevitable heavy lobbying and legal challenges that can result — would have likely taken as much, if not more, time than coming to the voluntary agreement with the industry.
Federal safety regulators are hoping the fourth time is the charm for millions of recalled dehumidifiers that have now been linked to 450 fires and more than $19 million in property damage: Gree Electric Appliances — the manufacturer fined a record $15.45 million over the fiery dehumidifiers earlier this year — has re-announced the recall.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, along with Gree, re-announced the recall — which covers nearly 2.5 million dehumidifiers — Tuesday aiming to get more consumers to replace their defective, and dangerous, machines.
Gree manufactured the recalled 20, 25, 30, 40, 45, 50, 65 and 70-pint dehumidifiers with brand names Danby, De’Longhi, Fedders, Fellini, Frigidaire, GE, Gree, Kenmore, Norpole, Premiere, Seabreeze, SoleusAir, and SuperClima.
The CPSC originally recalled the devices back in Sept. 2013 after receiving reports of dehumidifiers that overheated and caught on fire. A month later the agency updated the recall.
In 2014, Gree and the CPSC expanded the recall to include additional models.
Under the recall, consumers were urged to stop using the dehumidifiers immediately and to contact Gree about a refund.
However, that process quickly frustrated customers who contacted Consumerist. Their main complaints were that their refunds were significantly delayed, or that the amount they received didn’t cover the expense of buying a new appliance – when they were able to find any dehumidifiers available in stores at all. In some areas, they were responsible for hefty recycling fees to get rid of the appliances as well.
Of course those complaints came from customers who owned dehumidifiers that hadn’t caught fire. In March 2016, the CPSC fined Gree a record $15.45 million to settle charges that it failed to report fires to the Commission, “knowingly made misrepresentations to CPSC staff,” and put UL safety marks on products that didn’t meet UL standards.
At the time, the agency said that the dehumidifiers had caused approximately $4.5 million in property damage Today, that cost has jumped to nearly $19 million, according to the CPSC’s latest announcement.
Consumers who still own a recalled Gree dehumidifier should contact the company for a refund, and, of course, stop using it.
The dehumidifiers were sold for between $110 and $400 from Jan. 2005 until Aug. 2013 at retailers such as AAFES, HH Gregg, Home Depot, Kmart, Lowe’s, Menards, Mills Fleet Farm, Sam’s Club, Sears, Walmart and other stores nationwide and in Canada, and online at Amazon.com and Ebay.com.
Affected dehumidifiers can be identified by the brand name and pint capacity printed on the front of the dehumidifier, as well as the model number and date code printed on a sticker on the back, front or side of the unit.
After decades of making money off brands like Marlboro, Philip Morris is looking to shift its focus away from traditional cigarettes and toward smokeless products. As part of that effort, the company’s CEO says it may stop making cigarettes altogether — eventually.
“There will come a moment in time where I would say we have sufficient adoption of these alternative products… and sufficient awareness to start envisaging together with government a phaseout period for cigarettes, and I hope this time will come soon,” Calantzopoulos said.
It won’t happen immediately, however, as there is still a lot of demand for traditional tobacco products. But Calantzopoulos says the company is focused on moving away from cigarettes, admitting that those products “cause disease,” and notes that the company’s “primary responsibility”, once the technology is available, to commercialize less harmful alternatives.
“I think we’re transforming our company to achieve this,” he said. “We’re moving very massively our resources and the focus of the organization from our existing traditional business to the new one so, as far as we are concerned, we will do everything we can to accelerate the reaching of consumers to this product.”
The IQOS system — which Philip Morris has invested more than $3 billion in over the last decade — has a device that’s a little bit like an e-cigarette, which heats up mini tobacco sticks that are about half the size of a normal cigarette. Users heat up the sticks with their device and smoke without really smoking: the device is considered a hybrid between e-cigarettes and the analog type. Philip Morris says IQOS will be available in 35 countries in 2017.
According to those ever-mysterious “people familiar with the matter,” the northeastern grocery chain Price Chopper is in “advanced talks” with national chain Albertsons in an acquisition deal. The acquisition could still fall through, but it would mean that the closely held grocer could have a new owner after more than 80 years as a mostly family-run company.
The current mega-Albertsons, the country’s second-largest grocery chain, was formed in the 2014 merger of Albertsons and Safeway, making it the parent company of familiar brands like Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, ACME, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star Market, and Carrs.
Reuters reports that the proposed sale price of the chain was $1 billion. If the deal goes through, it would only be the latest in a trend of national mega-chains gobbling up local chains as standalone grocery stores prepare to fight competition from Walmart and potentially from Amazon, as both mega-retailers open online pickup grocery centers, and Amazon makes a big push to expand its grocery business across the country.
Looking at a map of Albertsons subsidiaries and their territories, it’s notable that two states where the company has no business are Price Chopper’s home state of New York and neighboring Connecticut: two states full of Price Chopper stores.
The Northeastern Price Chopper is not connected to the small Midwestern chain of the same name. The larger Price Chopper recently announced an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in rebranding itself as Market 32, a more upscale brand with more prepared food and less chopping of prices.
It’s been whispered and buzzed about for a long time now, but it’s happening at last: Netflix says it will allow users to download select TV shows and movies to their mobile devices so they can watch them even when they’re not online.
Titles that are available for downloading will feature a download button on the details page. There are some streaming series and movies already available for offline viewing, including Netflix originals like Orange is The New Black, Narcos, and The Crown, “with more on the way,” Netflix says.
The new feature is available on all plans as well as any phones or tablets running on Android and iOS — you’ll just have to update your Netflix app to the most recent version. Thus far, the download option doesn’t seem to include downloads to a desktop computer or laptop.
Is there something lurking in your phone that shouldn’t be? Malware designed to look like real Android apps has taken control of more than a million Google accounts since August, according to a new report from security researchers.
According to Check Point, the new malware campaign, Gooligan, has been busy breaching accounts since August, slipping in under the radar with names like StopWatch, Perfect Cleaner, and WiFi enhancer.
Gooligan is infecting 13,000 devices every day, Check Point says, targeting devices on Android 4 (Jelly Bean, KitKat) and 5 (Lollipop), which amounts to about 74% of Android devices out there. It’s installing at least 30,000 fake apps on breached devices, every day, or more than two million apps since the attacks started.
Using stolen information like email addresses and authentication tokens, attackers can gain access to users’ sensitive data from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite.
“This theft of over a million Google account details is very alarming and represents the next stage of cyber-attacks,” said Michael Shaulov, Check Point’s head of mobile products. “We are seeing a shift in the strategy of hackers, who are now targeting mobile devices in order to obtain the sensitive information that is stored on them.”
Check Point says it alerted Google immediately when it realized what was happening.
“We appreciate Check Point’s partnership as we’ve worked together to understand and take action on these issues. As part of our ongoing efforts to protect users from the Ghost Push family of malware, we’ve taken numerous steps to protect our users and improve the security of the Android ecosystem overall,” stated Adrian Ludwig, director of Android security, Google.
If you’re worried about your account, Check Point has a free online tool that will tell you if your device has been breached. If so, you’ll need to reinstall your operating system, Check Point says.
“This complex process is called flashing, and we recommend powering off your device, and approaching a certified technician or your mobile service provider, to re-flash your device,” said Shaulov.
While most federal agencies will soon see a change in leadership and direction after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is supposed to be shielded from such sudden changes. A recent court decision put that protection — and the future of the CFPB itself — in question, but today a group of 21 federal lawmakers, along with a coalition of consumer advocates and civil rights groups, asked the court to keep the CFPB’s structure intact.
A quick round of catch-up for those coming in late: The CFPB has only one director — currently Richard Cordray, who still has a few years left on his term — and under the law that created the Bureau, the CFPB Director can only be removed from office by the President “for cause,” meaning the Director would need to screw up really badly.
In most cases where a federal agency has only one director, the President has the authority to remove that director at will. On the other side of the coin are the agencies with multiple commissioners (and usually a chairperson) who can’t be easily removed by the President, but where no single commissioner’s vote counts more than the others.
While it is rare for an agency to have a leadership structure like the CFPB’s, it’s not unheard of. The heads of the Social Security Administration, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Office of Special Counsel are each protected from removal at the whim of the President.
Even though nothing in the Constitution provides details on independent federal agencies, and no law exists requiring that an agency have either a commission that can’t be fired or single director that can, a split three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in October that the CFPB’s structure is unconstitutional.
“The independent agencies collectively constitute, in effect, a headless fourth branch of the U.S. Government,” wrote Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the majority opinion. “They exercise enormous power over the economic and social life of the United States. Because of their massive power and the absence of Presidential supervision and direction, independent agencies pose a significant threat to individual liberty and to the constitutional system of separation of powers and checks and balances.”
Earlier this month, the CFPB petitioned full D.C. Circuit to rehear this case, arguing that the the Supreme Court has held that the President can “create independent agencies run by principal officers appointed by the President, whom the President may not remove at will but only for good cause,” and that the Constitution did not give the President “illimitable power of removal” over the officers of independent agencies.
If the D.C. Circuit grants the CFPB’s petition for a rehearing, it means the earlier appellate panel decision has no legal effect and Director Cordray’s position is protected pending the outcome of the full-circuit hearing.
Which brings us to today, when 21 Senators and Congresspersons filed a brief [PDF] with the appeals court, calling on the judges to rehear this case.
“[T]he panel decision fundamentally altered the CFPB and hampered its ability to function as Congress intended,” write the lawmakers. “It also called into question the constitutionality of other regulatory agencies with similar structural features… Moreover, the panel’s decision is at odds not only with the text and history of the Constitution, but also with long-standing Supreme Court precedent.”
In addition to the lawmaker’s brief, a coalition of consumer advocacy groups — including Americans for Financial Reform, Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Responsible Lending, and the National Consumer Law Center — filed a brief of their own [PDF] in defense of the CFPB’s structure.
The advocates contend that the judges in the earlier decision reached their conclusion “without even once addressing why Congress took such care to structure the CFPB as it did or how the CFPB’s design is so critical to its proper functioning… This structure allows the Bureau to make decisions that protect consumers — even when those decisions are opposed by intense lobbying.”
The lawmakers’ amicus brief was signed by Sen. Sherrod Brown (OH), Rep. Michael E. Capuano (MA), Rep. John Conyers Jr. (MI), Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD), Sen. Dick Durbin (IL), Rep. Keith Ellison (MN), Rep. Alan Grayson (FL), Rep. Al Green (TX), Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (MA), Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (NY), Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ), Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR), Rep. Gwen Moore (WI), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA), Sen. Jack Reed (RI), Sen. Harry Reid (NV), Rep. Brad Sherman (CA), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), Rep. Maxine Waters (CA), and former Congressmen Barney Frank (MA), and Brad Miller (NC).
The full list of groups signing the other brief: Americans for Financial Reform, California Reinvestment Coalition, the Center For Responsible Lending, Consumer Federation of America, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the National Consumer Law Center, the National Council Of La Raza, United States Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, Inc., and Woodstock Institute.
The threatened strike of low-paid workers at Chicago’s O’Hare airport didn’t happen at Thanksgiving time as originally proposed, but did occur today as part of a nationwide series of strikes. In some cities, protesters blocking public streets were arrested, but the predicted disruption of air travel at the country’s busiest airports didn’t happen.
According to the Chicago Tribune, O’Hare officials say that the protest isn’t having a noticeable effect on travelers. Employees who walked off the job today included janitors, baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, and cabin cleaners, part of a protest backed by the Service Employees International Union that topped 1,000 people just at O’Hare, about 500 of them airport workers.
Organizers of the airport protest told media outlets that they expected to disrupt operations, but airport officials said that they did not expect disruptions for travelers. (If you flew through O’Hare today and observed anything, let us know.)
One passenger flying American told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter that the wait was a little longer than usual for a wheelchair attendant, but not enough to cause problems.
“I think attendants need more money,” the woman, who uses a wheelchair and flies about twice a year, told the newspaper. “I’m happy to have them strike for it.”
The minimum wage varies across the country and from city to city: it’s $10.50 per hour in Chicago, for example. Protesters who are part of the movement seek a $15 minimum wage and the opportunity to join a union.
Other workers who joined protests included fast food workers, home care workers, and drivers for ride-hailing apps, especially Uber. Fight for $15 says that protests took place in 340 municipalities across the country, with major gatherings at O’Hare, Boston’s Logan Airport, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
One of the attendants at O’Hare, Oliwia Pac, wrote about the harder parts of her job for the Guardian. She is a college student who works mostly as a wheelchair attendant, and is also the person who accompanies unaccompanied minors between flights.
“I have stood out on jetways in -30F weather with only a thin flannel to keep me warm,” she wrote. “I have been told to push two wheelchairs at once. I have worked 17-hour shifts. I get cuts and bruises all the time. But every day I go home and do not know if I have earned enough to get by.”
This is shocking, we know, but: big businesses really like to make money. And when you’re already as huge as, say Comcast, one of the best ways to make oodles more money is to snap up another company and start raking in its revenues, too. Could Comcast snap up Verizon? Charter grab Sprint? At least one tech stock analyst thinks that deals like this, which might sound outlandish today, could be on the table soon.
A UBS investor memo, noticed by DSL Reports, shows that for some Wall Street investors, the future looks bright.
Based on the transition team President-Elect Donald Trump has named, it seems likely that incoming, as-yet-unnamed FCC leadership will be less focused on consumers and more focused on business than the current Commission has been. (Although the FCC has hardly been hostile to all mergers — AT&T/DirecTV and Charter/TWC/Bright House were approved since 2015, even though Comcast/TWC was blocked.)
The full memo [PDF] looks at prior mergers in the cable and telecom space, and then lays out a whole bunch of potential new mergers we could theoretically see proposed in the coming years: Comcast/Sprint, Comcast/T-Mobile, Charter/Sprint, Charter/T-Mobile, Sprint/T-Mobile, Dish/T-Mobile, Verizon/Sprint, Verizon/Dish, Verizon/Comcast, and Verizon/Charter
These aren’t deep-dives; each theoretical merger gets a brief one-page overview with a few positives, a few negatives, and a handful of industry implications. For example, the Comcast/T-Mobile page posits that the two would see a great deal of synergy from integrating wired and wireless products and infrastructure, while the Comcast/Sprint page points out that such a merger would result in high spending to upgrade Sprint’s network.
Sprint is the most-likely acquisition target, the memo posits — specifically citing the changing political climate as why.
“With the confirmation of Jeffrey Eisenach to oversee the FCC transition, we believe consolidation could be back on the table with Sprint as a likely participant,” the company’s profile begins. And indeed, in a table reviewing all of the suggested mergers, purchasing Sprint is full of check marks in every column — all of which equal “more money” — for every other business.
FCC makeup aside, though, the memo also points out that to a certain degree, continued consolidation might be all but inevitable. The delineation between “phone” and “TV” is no longer as strong as it once was, and with the internet everywhere and available on all devices, formerly-separate industries are slowly drifting together anyway.
In investor speak, that drift is “secular changes in technology and usage [leading] to the convergence of the cable and wireless industries.”
The memo continues, “The transformation of the internet into a mobile-first platform combined with the rapid migration of video from proprietary networks to digital and the rise in in competitive pressure this entails increases the value of an integrated fixed and wireless service to cable providers.”
In other words: even without a huge shift in the regulatory landscape making the business end seem like a good idea for investors right now, we’re getting there anyway. Video — through Netflix and Amazon, Sling TV and DirecTV Now — is increasingly decoupled from video providers, so everyone may as well go all-in on being an internet company… and internet means mobile.
Not that long ago, you might have bristled at the notion of paying a stranger to chauffeur you around town in the back of their car, or that you could easily rent out the extra room in your house like a hotel. Is turning your laundry room into a laundromat the next step?
Electrolux is testing an Uber-like laundry service that matches people who have dirty clothes with those who have machines in which to wash those clothes.
Engadget, citing a Financial Times interview (behind a paywall) with Electrolux CEO Jonas Samuelson, reports that the company is testing a system in which customers would play to clean their clothes at someone else’s house.
Samuelson didn’t elaborate on how long the tests had been going on, or if they had been successful so far.
The system has a dual purpose: provide a place for machine-less consumers to do their laundry that isn’t a cramped coin-operated room and assist those who own the machines to pay for them.
The latter purpose would come in handy, Engadget notes, as using such an Uber-like system would require owners to either have connected devices or be on their smartphones regularly to fill out schedules and availability of machines.
Although actual details on how the system will work were unclear, Engadget points out several concerns that would have to be addressed before it could go be rolled out more widely: who pays if clothing is damaged in the washing machine or dryer? What if a non-owner damages a machine?
And what the heck are you supposed to do for the couple of hours it takes while some stranger is doing their laundry? Do you put out magazines for them to read? Install a snack machine; maybe a video game?
Perhaps you’ve been here before: you’re waiting patiently, albeit a bit anxiously, for the moment when you can buy tickets to a concert or sporting event online. But despite your best efforts and quick action, you find that someone has swooped in and snapped up all the tickets, leaving you to the mercies of online resellers that may jack up the cost of tickets.
That scenario could become less frequent now that New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that makes using so-called “ticket bots” — software designed to manipulate systems that are designed to limit the numbers of tickets sold to an individual — illegal.
Previously, NY law barred the use of ticket bots, but only imposed civil sanctions for brokers who violate that law. Now, using ticket bots, maintaining an interest in or control of bots, and reselling tickets knowingly obtained with bots constitutes a class A misdemeanor. As such, violators could face substantial fines and imprisonment.
The new legislation also expands the definition of ticket bots to include any of the many systems out there used to quickly amass tickets before the general public can get their hands on them, whether that tool functions on its own or with human assistance.
“It’s predatory, it’s wrong and, with this legislation, we are taking an important step towards restoring fairness and equity back to this multi-billion dollar industry.”
After more than a year of waiting, Congress has finally okayed a piece of legislation that, if signed by the president, will stop companies from using so-called “non-disparagement” or “gag” clauses to prevent or discourage customers from writing honest reviews.
The Consumer Review Freedom Act gives the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general the authority to take enforcement actions against businesses that attempt to step on customers’ First Amendment rights by requiring that they sign a non-disparagement agreement.
The Consumer Review Freedom Act was initially passed by the Senate in late 2015, with support from both parties and no need for roll call vote.
An identical bill in the House — the Consumer Review Fairness Act — took a little longer. That bill, in spite of bipartisan support, did not pass until Sept. 2016.
Even though both the House and Senate had passed virtually identical bills, they hadn’t technically signed off on the same bill yet, so lawmakers needed to figure out who would get credit for the bill that eventually ended up on the desk in the Oval Office.
Of course, that process was delayed by the whole election thing, but now that the Senate is back in session they unanimously voted yesterday to send the Consumer Review Freedom Act on to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it into law.
“By ending gag clauses, this legislation supports consumer rights and the integrity of critical feedback about products and services sold online,” said Sen. John Thune (SD), sponsor of the Senate version of the bill and Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. “I appreciate the bipartisan efforts of my Senate and House colleagues to get this legislation over the finish line.”
This year, both Black Friday and Cyber Monday set sales records… for online shoppers. Americans armed with mobile devices, tablets, and computers pulled out their credit cards and placed orders, turning yesterday into the biggest sales day in the history of online shopping. Apparently, Cyber Monday isn’t as pointless as we thought, and rampant discounting does draw shoppers.
Reuters reports that online sales during the non-holiday were up 12% from the Monday after Thanksgiving last year, leading to total online sales of $3.36 billion, the most money ever spent online in a single day.
That statistic comes from Adobe, which has access to sales data from the top 100 online retailers, capturing about 80% of all sales. Adobe can also tell us what people bought, noting that big-ticket items included new video game consoles from PlayStation, televisions from Samsung, new iPhones, and tablets from Amazon. LEGO blocks, Barbie dolls, and Nerf dart guns were hot sellers in toys yesterday.
Cyber Monday began in 2005 as in invention of the National Retail Federation, with online retailers creating exclusive sales to entice shoppers to go online at work. It’s clear that shoppers are not yet suffering from deal fatigue, and instead went on a shopping frenzy. Some of those items might even be gifts for other people.
Is it a sign of nationwide economic health, or of consumers who can’t resist great discounts? Perhaps the record shopping day is a little of both.
While it might be reassuring to see a sign posted in your favorite restaurant or other food establishment that it’s earned the approval of the city health department, that doesn’t necessarily mean health inspectors have actually been by recently to do their job.
An audit [PDF] of recent health inspections in Chicago found that the city’s Department of Public Health inspection program is “seriously understaffed,” with not even half the number of inspectors it would need to comply with state requirements.
In order to complete all the inspections necessary, CDPH would need 94 inspectors. It currently has 38 on staff.
Under Illinois law, there are three categories of restaurants, based on the level of risk: High-risk eateries — generally meaning restaurants, hospital kitchens, schools where the food is prepared on-site; Medium-risk — grocery stores, bakeries, delis; and Low-Risk — gas stations, convenience stores and other places where only beverages and pre-packaged foods are served.
The state requires that high-risk establishments are inspected twice annually. Medium-risk shops get a check-up every year, and low-risk stores are to be inspected every two years.
The OIG says that CDPH inspected only 3,566, or 43.9%, of high-risk establishments at least twice in 2015; only 2,478, or 80.1%, of medium-risk establishments at least once in 2015; and only 1,078, or 24.8%, of low-risk establishments at least once in 2014 or 2015.
All told, the city conducted 20,900 food inspections in 2015, falling far short of the 30,026 it was supposed to do.
“CDPH’s inability to meet the state standards not only undermines public trust in the city’s capacity to fulfill this fundamental local governmental function. It also places at risk millions of dollars in annual grant funding,” funding,” writes Inspector General Joseph Ferguson.
That being said, CDPH did conduct timely re-inspection of violations identified during initial inspections, the OIG noted, as well as timely inspections when responding to public complaints about restaurants submitted by consumers through the city’s 311 system.
The OIG is now recommending to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration that it collaborate with the Illinois Department of Public Health to design and implement a new inspection schedule that is “feasible to execute and sufficiently rigorous to promote food safety.”
If that doesn’t happen, OIG suggests that CDPH work with the Office of Budget and Management, “as well as the state officials charged with awarding grant funds dedicated for this purpose, to secure sufficient funding to achieve compliance with the existing inspection-frequency rules.”
The CDPH responded to the audit by agreeing with the OIG’s recommendation, and says it’s committed to achieving compliance with the help of the state.
What does the term “autopilot” mean to you? For many people, it applies to a machine that can steer itself with minimal human intervention, but for electric carmaker Tesla it’s a marketing term to describe a feature that is decidedly not hands-off — and which consumer safety advocates believe can cause potentially dangerous confusion.
Consumer Watchdog recently sent a letter [PDF] to California DMV director Jean Shiomoto, urging the agency to act on specific regulations proposed in September that would, in part, put restrictions on how carmakers can advertise self-driving vehicles.
Under the proposed rules [PDF] — which mainly pertain to the future development of self-driving vehicles — no car could be advertised as autonomous unless it meets the definition set forth by vehicle codes and was manufactured by a company that holds a valid autonomous vehicle permit.
Additionally, carmakers would not be able to use terms, such as “self-driving,” “automated,” “auto-pilot,” or other statements that are likely to persuade a “reasonably prudent person to believe a vehicle is autonomous” when it isn’t.
The DMV must immediately start the process to enact these “regulations protecting consumers from misleading advertising that leaves the dangerous – and sometimes fatal – impression that a car is more capable of driving itself than is actually the case,” argues the letter.
Watchdog contends that Tesla’s Autopilot features are the most prominent in the public eye, and the most confusing.
Autopilot – which steers the car more actively than similar systems that rely on automatic braking, steering assist or adaptive cruise control to aid drivers – has been aggressively marketed by the company.
Additionally, the company recently announced that it would make all new cars self-driving, but wouldn’t actually turn the system on yet.
“Manufacturers must not be allowed to advertise cars as, or describe them as, ‘self-driving’ when a human driver must actually monitor or control the vehicle,” the letter states. “Tesla, with its promotion of its so-called Autopilot feature, is a prime example of the deadly consequences of such unjustified hype.”
According to Consumer Watchdog, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long hyped the feature, leaving the impression that the vehicle is autonomous. The group cites several Tweets, press conferences, and other announcements from Musk that allude to the feature being fully autonomous, including a video in which he sits in the driver’s seat of a Tesla vehicle demonstration with his hands off the steering wheel.
“That is too long to wait to stop Tesla and its CEO from risking even more lives by falsely promoting Autopilot technology as self-driving,” the group claims.
Still, Consumer Watchdog urged the DMV to take immediate action on the advertising portion of the rules, as enacting the full regulation would likely take a year.
“Currently there is nothing to stop the sort of hype spouted by Elon Musk with its potentially deadly consequences,” the letter states. “DMV should extract the advertising regulatory language from the rest of the draft autonomous vehicle regulations and start a formal rulemaking to enact that section immediately.
Consumer Watchdog’s concerns about Autopilot’s marketing was echoed by our colleagues at Consumers Union.
“The ‘Autopilot’ name is misleading to consumers, and Tesla should stop using it,” William Wallace, policy analyst for Consumers Union, said. “What’s more, this type of marketing can be dangerous, by giving consumers a false sense of security in the ability of a car to drive itself when it actually requires the constant attention of a human driver. We support the work of federal and state authorities to crack down on false, misleading, or unfair marketing claims about automated driving systems.”
A rep for Tesla tells the Los Angeles Times that “owners have communicated that they understand how Autopilot works and should be used, and this is clearly explained and reinforced every time a customer uses the feature.”
The company contends that the “inaccurate and sensationalistic view of Autopilot put forth by [Consumer Watchdog] is exactly the kind of misinformation that threatens to harm consumer safety.”
The car maker said in July that it would not disable Autopilot after the fatal crash, but a number of consumer safety advocates — including our colleagues at Consumer Reports — have called Tesla out for the potentially confusing messages surrounding the Autopilot feature.
In August, the owner of a Tesla in Beijing said he crashed his vehicle into the side of a vehicle that was partially parked in the road while using the feature. Tesla says the driver is to blame for taking his hands off the wheel, while the driver says he was misled about the Autopilot feature.
Shortly after the incident, Tesla said it removed that word, along with another term that means “self-driving,” from its website for customers in China.
If you win a $1 million Keno game twice within a matter of minutes, you may be the luckiest person on Earth. Or you could also be trying to take advantage of a computer glitch.
This distinction is at the center of a legal dispute between a pair of Keno players and the Delaware Lottery.
The News Journal of Wilmington reports that in Dec. 2015, one of the plaintiffs purchased a $1 million winning Keno ticket. Minutes later, he and the other plaintiff bought another ticket that also won — for another $1 million. reports.
But when they tried to claim their reward, the Delaware Lottery refused to honor the tickets.
Lottery officials said [PDF] that there was a computer glitch on that date that lasted for about 20 minute. During that time, the Keno system transmitted the same numbers that had been drawn earlier in the day, rather than randomly drawn numbers.
An investigation found that the glitch wasn’t the result of tampering, but that some players noticed the re-transmission of the duplicate numbers and tried to take advantage of the malfunction, explained Delaware Lottery Director Vernon Kirk. Five winning draws were voided as a result, “because the numbers were not randomly selected and thus did not constitute a game of chance and were not otherwise in compliance with the lottery’s rules for Keno.”
The lottery refunded the purchase price of the tickets, but that wasn’t good enough for the two players now claiming they’re owed $2 million. Their lawsuit, filed in Delaware Superior Court, claims that the Delaware Lottery and Kirk violated state law and the rules governing the lottery system.
Former JCPenney CEO Allen Questrom told CNN’s Squawk Box that department stores’ tendency to offer a sale when business goes bad is probably doing more harm than good.
“The sale has become a cancer,” he said. “When business gets tough, we add another sale, but you add run out of days and discounts.”
Questrom isn’t saying that retailers shouldn’t offer sales at all, they just shouldn’t make it the focus of business.
“Sales can not be the only driver [of business], it has to be a part of it,” he said. “I think many department stores have failed, they put too much emphasis in sales. But product, presentation, excitement in the stores, the salespeople in terms of servicing the customer” are part of the equation.
“It’s not that you can’t have sales, but you need the right fashion,” he says, noting that companies like Zara and PreMark have the right balance.
Questrom’s thoughts on sales comes as many designers and retailers have cut back on coupons, adding to exclusions or limiting the number of promotions offered to customers.
These promotions often hurt department stores trying to appeal to millennials, Questrom tells Squawk Box.
“Millennials need inspiration not aspiration, they come from a different area,” he said noting that many retailers have been slow to transition from their long-time customers to younger shoppers.
One way to do this, besides shifting away from sales, would be to embrace the internet, just as many online-only stores — like Warby Parker — have adopted physical locations.
“I think stores will always be around, they’ll always be the majority of the business, but the retailers of the past have to understand how to utilize the internet,” he said.
Outdoor outfitter Patagonia attracted positive attention when it announced that it would be open on Black Friday, but donate all of its sales (not its profits: all sales) from retail stores and its website to environmental charities. Now the sales have been tallied, and the retailer took in a total of $10 million.
The idea of closing on Black Friday used to be out of the question, until competing outdoors retailer REI began doing that last year, encouraging customers and employees alike to go enjoy the outdoors. The co-op harvested lots of good publicity for that move.
If you want to be crass about it, this is also a good business move: some of those sales may have been to people new to the brand who will return on a day when the company isn’t raising funds for charity.
The company’s leaders were surprised and delighted at the response, noting that the high sales just mean they can give five times as much money to small, local environmental charities.
“The enormous love our customers showed to the planet on Black Friday enables us to give every penny to hundreds of grassroots environmental organizations working around the world,” the company said in a statement.
It’s always important to know where the exits are on an aircraft, but it’s also important that you not use the exit until the plane has come to a stop — and even then, you should not take it upon yourself to open the door. These are lessons that one United Airlines passenger apparently forgot.
According to Police in Houston, the United flight had just landed from New Orleans at Bush Intercontinental Airport on Monday when a female passenger opened a hatch on the plane to exit and jumped out into an airport operating area, KHOU-11 reports.
“I look over and sunlight and I just see a figure essentially step out of it,” one passenger recalled to the news station. “And then I’m like, ‘What was that?’”
He posted a video from across the aisle, showing the door open after unexpected exit:
Another witness said the woman opened an over-wing exit door, and said nothing before jumping out of the plane, then about 15 feet from the wing to the ground below.
Authorities chased her down and detained her. After she finished neuropsychological testing, authorities said she will be released and is not facing any charges.
There might be something about Houston that makes people overly excited to arrive: In April, a United Airlines flight attendant deployed a plane’s slide after it had landed at the same airport, rode it down, and walked away from her job.
Here at Consumerist, we have seen more than our fair share of stories involving unruly or otherwise disruptive passengers who have gotten themselves kicked off flights for bad behavior. But upon hearing that Delta Air Lines had banned a passenger for life after he was caught on video yelling at his fellow travelers, we had to wonder: What do you have to do to get banned from an airline forever, and which U.S. carriers have such a policy in place?
On Monday, Delta’s CEO Ed Bastien confirmed in a company memo that a passenger who was filmed shouting politically-charged insults while boarding a flight from Atlanta to Allentown, PA, will no longer be allowed to fly on the airline.
“This individual displayed behavior that was loud, rude and disrespectful to his fellow customers. After questioning the customer, our team members made the best decision they could given the information they had and allowed him to remain on the flight,” Bastien wrote. “However, if our colleagues had witnessed firsthand what was shown in the video, there is no question they would have removed him from the aircraft. He will never again be allowed on a Delta plane.”
We reached out to Delta to ask what the airline’s official policy is regarding lifetime bans, and what kind of actions could lead to such a verdict.
A representative for the airline declined to provide more information on the ban, referring Consumerist to Bastien’s memo in regard to this specific incidence.
But in general, the rep said, “Delta employs a variety of security methods both seen and unseen to protect our customers and employees.”
We reached out to the other major U.S. carriers as well, and thus far have received responses from some of them.
American Airlines: A company spokesperson didn’t point Consumerist to a specific policy, but instead noted that “the safety and security of our passengers, employees, and aircraft is always our top priority.” While the rep said American would not discuss internal procedures, the airline did confirm it has “the ability to ban a passenger.”
Southwest Airlines: “Southwest does not have a related policy and we have not implemented a customer ban,” a company spokesperson told Consumerist in response to our questions.
Spirit Airlines: A representative for Spirit told Consumerist that the airline does ban people from flying, usually if they’ve assaulted the company’s employees, or threaten to do so.
“We would also ban people who threaten any terrorist activity,” a spokesperson explained to Consumerist in an email.”Essentially any reason that makes our employees, customers, or aircraft in physical harm, would lead to a ban.” There is no lifetime ban, per se, but when Spirit makes the decision to ban an individual, the airline determines the level of the threat, an appropriate timeframe for a ban, and then works with the company legal department to notify the customer of the ban’s duration, and what steps they could take to get reinstated.
The spokesperson noted outright bans are rare, and that the longest ban anyone at the company could recall was five years.
“Our security team reviews reports after incidents of law enforcement being called, and then reviews each incident and makes a decision to pursue a ban — or not — on a case-by-case basis,” the rep told Consumerist.
We also reached out to United Airlines, JetBlue, Virgin America, Alaska Airlines, and Frontier Airlines, and will update this post when we hear back.
In yet another attempt to better align its menu with customer tastes, McDonald’s is expanding its year-old test of fresh ground beef — to Oklahoma.
Business Insider reports that the Golden Arches is ditching frozen patties in favor of fresh beef patties at 75 restaurants in Northeast Oklahoma.
The patties — used in the fast food giant’s Quarter Pounder burgers and the Bacon Clubhouse Burger — are made from the same grade of beef as the frozen stuff, and are being cooked to order.
“These burgers are hotter and juicier than our previous quarter pound patties, and are made with fresh 100% North American beef that’s simply seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper,” McDonald’s Chef Chad Schafer said in a statement.
McDonald’s began testing the fresh beef patties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area back in November 2015. Since then the company says it has received positive feedback from customers and franchisees.
Despite the expanded test and apparent acceptance of the fresh patties, taking the option nationwide could prove to be difficult, Business Insider reports.
While the concept of serving fresh meat might appeal to customers, it could open the company up to a slew of food safety issues, as franchisees pointed out in a recent survey. The franchises also noted that it could be arduous to serve customers quickly with fresh meat — which would need to cook longer to an appropriate temperature.
The bankruptcy of RadioShack at the beginning of 2015 probably seems like a distant event to you now, but the business entity that used to be the massive electronics chain is still wrapping up its affairs. One of those last pieces of business is the end of gift card redemptions. The Shack’s estate will stop accepting requests on Friday, Dec. 2, 2016.
“No one could possibly still have a RadioShack gift card lying around,” you might be saying right now. That’s not true: between Sept. 24 and Nov. 21 of this year, almost one year after RadioShack and state attorneys general negotiated a deal that put RadioShack cardholders first, 269 people apparently found RadioShack cards in their junk drawers and turned them in.
A total of $131,491.39 in priority claims, which were gift cards purchased from RadioShack stores or third-party retailers, have been returned to consumers under this program. That doesn’t count cards redeemed just after the bankruptcy. The rest of outstanding cards were promotional gift cards or cards with store credit for returned items, which were not considered “priority” cards but were still paid out.
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As Wells Fargo continues to dig itself out of a years-long — if not decade-long — fake account fiasco perpetrated by employees under strain from high-pressure sales goals, federal regulators are warning other financial institutions that these sorts of programs could harm consumers and possibly lead to stiff penalties.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a compliance bulletin Monday urging supervised financial companies to take steps to ensure their incentive programs for employees and service providers to meet sales goals do not lead to improper — and illegal — actions.
According to the CFPB bulletin [PDF], tying bonuses or employment status to unrealistic sales goals or to the terms of transactions may intentionally or unintentionally encourage illegal practices such as unauthorized account openings, unauthorized opt-ins to overdraft services, deceptive sales tactics, and steering consumers into less favorable products — all practices that Wells Fargo employees were found to engage in for nearly a decade as a means to meeting sales goals and keep their jobs
While the Bureau recognizes that incentive programs have been used for years by financial institutions to reward and retain employees, it is concerned that if left unchecked, such programs could lead to additional Wells Fargo-like fiascos.
To that end, the CFPB outlined existing guidance on how to properly monitor and implement incentives.
• Board and Management Oversight — Executives, managers, and supervisors should work to ensure that customers are only offered products likely to benefit their interests; the programs should be viewed not only for their overall outcome, but also how they could harm consumers.
• Policies and Training — Financial institutions should provide employees with clear policies for incentives and provide training seminars to ensure that these policies are understood and implemented.
• Monitoring — Companies should design overall compliance monitoring programs that track key metrics that may indicate incentives are leading to improper behavior by employees or service providers.
• Corrective Action — If a company finds evidence of improper actions by employees tied to an incentive program, corrective action should be taken immediately; this could include termination, changes to incentive programs, and remediation for harmed customers.
• Independent Compliance Audits — Audits should be scheduled to address incentives and consumer outcomes across all products or services. Theses audits should be conducted independently of both the compliance program and the business functions.
The Thursday night games are branded under the league’s NFL Network umbrella, but the network also shares broadcasting of many of these games with CBS and NBC. That lack of a dedicated major network may have something to do with Thursday’s low ratings.
On Sunday, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reported that the NFL was looking at whether to reduce or get rid of Thursday Night Football after the 2017 season when its existing Thursday arrangement with CBS and NBC comes up for renewal.
Before my Eagles got thumped by Packers last night, the league released a statement, claiming it is “fully committed to Thursday Night Football and any reports to the contrary are unfounded.”
The Wall Street Journal notes that the league has not yet met with CBS and NBC to discuss the future of the Thursday night games, but that it’s unlikely they would vanish entirely. That’s because the NFL Network must carry at least eight games per season, and Thursday is really the network’s only opportunity to air a game that wouldn’t go head-to-head with another game broadcast on a major network.
One good piece of news from the Journal story is that the NFL will no longer air its London games at the ungodly hour of 9:30 a.m. ET/6:30 a.m. PT. Instead, those games will once again air in the afternoon.
Are we heading toward a future where you control everything in your home by speaking to a disembodied voice? Amazon certainly seems to be going in that direction, with a new report that it’s working on a premium speaker powered by Alexa, a sort of souped-up Echo, featuring a large screen.
According to a report from Bloomberg, citing those ever-mysterious “people familiar with the matter,” the new technology will feature a seven-inch touchscreen, which is a departure from Amazon’s current lineup of screen-free Echo devices.
A screen will help users access content like weather forecasts, calendars, and news, the insiders said. The device will also be larger, and tilt upwards so the screen is visible when it’s sitting on a counter and the user is standing. Alexa will sound better as well, as the new tech will have high-grade speakers, one of the insiders explained.
So when can we expect to see this new speaker hit the market? The screen-speaker combination is expected to be announced as soon as the first quarter of 2017, and will likely be priced much higher than Amazon’s current sparks (which cost $50, $130, and $180).
If the report is true, this could be a sign that Amazon is inching toward that sci-fi reality where everything you do in your home — from watching TV to shopping for toilet paper — can be accomplished by speaking to one device that’s connected to everything.
Amazon has some competition in this arena: Google is pushing its Home speaker, while Apple is reportedly working on its own home device controlled by its Siri digital assistant.
We hear that Wisconsin is a pretty good place to live if you like cheese, but a new local offering from McDonald’s has made it an even better one. That’s because as a limited-time offering, the fast food chain is selling deep fried cheese curds in its restaurants across the Badger State.
This is the latest in the chain’s local foods promotions, the most successful of which was the Gilroy Garlic Fries that eventually reached 240 restaurants around San Francisco. Wisconsin has the honor of two of these promotions going on at once, since its McDonald’s restaurants are also selling Johnsonville bratwursts now that grilling season is over.
The box of curds costs $3, and is also on the McPick 2 for $5 menu, so you can buy two boxes of them for a discount. There are apparently other items on the menu that are not fried cheese.
Since our normal Wisconsin correspondent is out of the state, we resorted to a review of the curds (and the bratwurst) from a local publication in Madison. The verdict: the breading on the curds could be better, and someone thought it would be a good idea to put both ketchup and mustard on the brats. The Milwaukee Journal concurs: yep, these foods definitely exist, and they aren’t bad, but that doesn’t make them good.
“Maybe what McDonald’s needs to do is put cheese curds on the menu in any every state except Wisconsin,” observes Rob Thomas of the Cap Times, “letting folks in Delaware, New Mexico and Alabama know what they’ve been missing all this time.” Maybe that’s what McDonald’s could do for everyone: bring mediocre versions of our best regional foods nationwide.
Last year, L.L. Bean hired 100 additional workers to ramp up production of their iconic, unglamorous USA-made duck boots. Nonetheless, the popular footwear was quickly put on backorder. Now, the long-time retailer is once again putting some styles on backorder, despite increasing production, hiring additional employees, and making plans for a larger facility.
Boston.com reports that a sense of nostalgia and a desire for functional winter footwear has caused Maine-based L.L. Bean to revamp its production processes, but those efforts haven’t yet done the trick.
In fact, sales of the boots have increased from less than 100,000/year a decade ago to an estimated 600,000 this year.
The renewed popularity of the boots is part of a larger resurgence in the “what is old is new” mantra, Boston.com reports.
“There can be times when true classics become trendy,” Dan Hess, CEO of Merchant Forecast, an independent research company, says. “Teenage girls in Malibu are not always going to be wearing L.L. Bean boots, but they are right now.”
While other brands have seen revived interest in the past, only to be brought down a peg when the novelty wears off, L.L. Bean believes its product is different.
“They’re gravitating to the past and anchoring themselves into it,” Willie Lambert, Bean’s merchandising manager for footwear, tells Boston.com.
However, those increases come with a few hiccups. A look at L.L. Bean’s websites shows several varieties of the company’s Original boots are already on backorder, some listing an estimated availability of late January.
A similar situation played out last year, when the company — despite hiring 100 more workers — put the shoes on backorder.
“We are doing our best to keep up with demand, but there are a few styles and sizes that will show a backorder at any given time this season,” a rep for the company tells Consumerist.
Although summer months aren’t exactly the time when consumers are shopping for winter boots, a Consumerist staff member recalls seeing a lot of boots available at an L.L. Bean outlet in Lake George, NY just a few months ago. However, a rep for the retailer says the availability wasn’t a result of excess production last year.
“We had backorders through the year,” the rep said. “However, at one point there were limited quantities of boots at some of the outlets – they were not first quality. Overstock or year-old product does sometimes go to the outlets, but Bean Boots produced this summer would have gone into stock for this fall.”
After months of teasing the eventual launch of DirecTV Now — a live-TV streaming service that doesn’t require a subscription to cable — AT&T has finally announced the important details of the product that will kick off on Nov. 30 at a price ranging from $35 for around 60 channels to $70 for more than 120 channels.
The service will launch in four different tiers: $35 (dubbed “Live a Little); $50 (80+ channels, “Just Right”); $60 (100+ channels, “Go Big”); and $70 (Gotta Have It). Each tier will allow users to have two simultaneous streams going at any given time.
At launch, the “Go Big” package will sell for only $35/month. AT&T claims that customers who take advantage of this promotion will be grandfathered in after the price increases. For subscribers willing to commit to multiple months, AT&T will offer free Apple TV streaming devices. A single month commitment can also get you an Amazon Fire TV streaming stick for plugging into your TV.
We’ll update this post later when we have more on the individual channels, but AT&T claims that each tier is not padded out with random music channels or super-niche offerings.
That said, the company acknowledged the lack of CBS and Showtime, though AT&T says it is still working on a deal with the network.
DirecTV Now also doesn’t offer 4K streaming yet, though the company repeatedly made the point that the service is software based and that this is “just the beginning.”
“People expect choice, flexibility… options,” explained AT&T exec John Stankey at the Monday afternoon press event in Manhattan.
He explained that, with more than half of AT&T customers now buying video content on screens other than their TVs, the company took a mobile-first approach to building the DirecTV Now platform.
“Every piece of content can be used on mobile and in the living room,” said Stankey.
Given that AT&T and DirecTV already have a combined pay-TV audience of more than 25 million in the U.S., why is the company selling a service that is more affordable and portable than its current big-ticket products?
According to Stankey, the notion is to “open up a whole new segment of the market” — meaning cord-cutters, cord-nevers, and people with bad credit who can’t currently get traditional pay-TV service.
The hope is to “establish a relationship using DirecTV Now” and then sell these customers on other AT&T products and services.
More to come after we get some hands-on with the service after the press conference.
The premise of the Golden Ticket promotion in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the two movies based on it was simple: there were five pieces of gold-colored paper hidden in chocolate bars all over the world, and the bearers of those tickets would get to visit Willy Wonka’s candy factory. The grown-up version of this promotion involves 37,000 golden-colored cans of beer hidden in cases of Budweiser, but only seven winners.
Wait… the people who find the golden cans don’t win anything? Most of them won’t. Finding a can means that you’ll be able to submit your entry by posting a photo with the can on social media or on Budweiser’s website.
Six people who enter their photos will receive season tickets for their favorite NFL team for one season. The grand prize winner receives a pair of Super Bowl tickets every year for life, or 51 years. That means Budweiser has a more optimistic view of its customers’ lifespans than Starbucks, where free coffee for life gets you 30 years’ worth of daily drinks.
The other 36,993 winners will have to console themselves with their shiny gold beer cans, since they don’t even get a tour of a Budweiser brewery.
If you live in California, the contest is easier to enter and doesn’t require buying or drinking any beer. The cans won’t be sold in that state, and you can enter by “take a picture showing [your] fan spirit” and posting it on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter using the contest hashtags, #SBTix4Life and #Sweeps, adding #CA to signify that you’re entering from California.
There’s no way to tap-dance around this one: healthcare access is an incredibly politicized and partisan issue in this country. And yet even while our two major political parties disagree vehemently, at every level, about whether existing healthcare laws are effective or worthwhile, at least one part now proving popular in a surprisingly bipartisan way.
The AP reports that Republican-led states that expanded health coverage through Medicaid aren’t necessarily in a hurry to go on and roll that back — even though that’s one of the top promises of the incoming Congress and administration.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), both pejoratively and affectionately called Obamacare, expanded insurance coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans. But that expansion came with challenges at every step, from getting it through Congress in the first place to a Supreme Court case that sought (and failed) to overturn it.
One big component of the ACA was the Medicaid expansion, a push to allow a higher percentage of poor and low-income adults to be able to enroll. That expansion set the universal eligibility threshold at 138% of the federal poverty level. So in 2016, for example, that cap would be at $16,394 for an individual or $33,534 for a family of four. By now, a total of 31 states have expanded Medicaid coverage, and those states have had both Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures.
But as early as 2012, two years before the ACA went into effect and four years before it would cost states any money, several states declared they would block any Medicaid expansion. A total of 26 states sued, and the Supreme Court ruled that the states could not be penalized for failing to expand Medicaid coverage. There are now 19 states that still don’t participate.
And that brings us back to the current day. When President-Elect Donald Trump takes office in January, Washington-watchers expect the ACA to be one of the very first things on the chopping block. With both houses of Congress and the White House all aligned under the Republican party, dismantling the law is indeed politically possible.
They may face challenges, however, not just from Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the states, but from members of their own party. Because in states that did expand Medicaid, leaders want to keep it.
The AP points to the example of Arizona, which despite being one of the 26 states that filed suit to block the Medicaid expansion, ended up adopting it in 2014 under then-governor Jan Brewer. Since then, nearly 400,000 Arizonans have gained health coverage through the program.
Brewer is using her political capital — she was one of Donald Trump’s early supporters — to push him to save that portion of the ACA even while he promises a major overhaul. “I don’t know how much of that, and I mean it sincerely, is going to be affected,” Brewer told the AP.
“I don’t know how you could deliver that population any more services better, more cheaply, than what we’ve already done here,” she added.
Doug Ducey, the current governor of Arizona, told the AP, “We want to see all of our citizens have access to affordable health care,” although he didn’t specify how. He signaled openness to new approaches, however, adding, “That was the objective. That’s not where we are. We’ve got a new president and a new Congress, and a fresh start.”
The office of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder also said he planned to sing the praises of his state’s expansion to the new Trump administration. “How we continue that success is important, and he’s willing to discuss how to do that with anyone who has other ideas to consider,” a spokesman for the governor said.
Since 2005, Cyber Monday has been the end of Thanksgiving week, as office workers’ brains haven’t quite returned to work, and they use the time to shop online. At least, this is what online retailers must themselves as they schedule sales and other promotions for the additional shopping holiday. Yet is Cyber Monday still a thing, or do we all have shopping holiday fatigue by the time it comes around?
You probably aren’t in a shopping frenzy right now, and few other people are, because shopping online is now commonplace. We carry small computers full of shopping apps in our pockets, and our email accounts are stuffed full of solicitations from our favorite retailers year-round. Mere discounts aren’t enough.
Then there’s the problem specific to the holiday season. Over the last few years, retailers both online and offline have been engaging in Black Friday creep, making their sales start earlier and last longer. Consumers have deal fatigue.
This year, according to the Associated Press, Adobe projects that we’ll spend about as much online today as on Black Friday. Cyber Monday shopping has increased every year since the non-holiday began, but online shopping on Black Friday simply increased more.
While Airbnb and New York City continue to battle it out over new restrictions that would penalize hosts with hefty fines for subletting whole apartments for less than 30 days, a California couple says the law — which isn’t currently being enforced — led to a costly and frustrating scenario while visiting the Big Apple.
The New York Post reports that the couple, who were in town for 10 days visiting their daughter, were kicked out of their Airbnb rental after neighbors took issue with the technically illegal stay.
Issues began for the couple when they arrived at the $170/night Chelsea apartment Nov. 15 and another tenant of the building began asking questions.
The fellow tenant then threatened to call the police, noting that he “would knock on the door all night long and let other tenants know you are here illegally if you don’t leave now.”
While the threats didn’t bother the couple, they received an email from the Airbnb host the next day, asking them to leave immediately.
The host said he had sent the couple an email telling them to be discreet about the stay in light of the latest New York regulations.
“I never got an email like that. If I did, I would have canceled the reservation,” the man recalls.
The renters say Airbnb offered to refund about $1,200 of their stay, which cost $170 per night, plus a $45 cleaning fee and a $166 Airbnb service charge.
The company also offered to facilitate another Airbnb to rent or to find them a hotel. The couple chose the hotel.
“We didn’t want to risk being kicked out of an Airbnb every night,” the California man said.
But finding new digs didn’t clear up the issues. Instead, the couple found that the chosen hotel was charging $809/night.
“The clerk told me that if a hotel has under five [vacant] rooms, they can charge whatever they want for the first night,” the man says. “I was ready to turn around and go right back to California.”
Instead, they chose to stay after the hotel dropped the rate to $249/day the following day.
To make matters worse, the couple says they are still waiting for their Airbnb reimbursement.
“Our dealings with Airbnb were awful,” the man said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone in the world.”
In a letter also filed in the court docket, one of the city’s representatives told the federal judge that the two remaining parties in that case are expected to come to an agreement early in December.
We all know that kale is trendy, but if it were up to some American consumers, it wouldn’t be, well, quite so kale-y.
Horticulture professor Philip Griffiths from Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Science and his graduate student, Hannah Swegarden, are working on a new variety of kale designed with Americans in mind, NPR’s The Salt reports.
See, kale has usually been bred both to withstand whatever Mother Nature throws at it — like insects and rough weather — as well as to appeal to consumers’ palates. But the resulting traits don’t necessarily translate into a pleasing taste for consumers, so the team is trying to change that.
As part of that effort, they’re crowdsourcing consumers’ feelings on kale — and finding that some don’t necessarily like everything about the leafy green. To that end, they’re finding that many participants in their focus group were recommending things that could change the definition of what makes kale, kale. In one example, participants thought kale could have a softer, less fibrous leaf.
“It’s difficult to do that because that’s changing the plant a lot,” says Swegarden, adding that a softer plant could also prove tastier to insects.
The scientists will now use the feedback they received to craft a survey and send it to a wider population of consumers.
Don’t like how bitter and tough kale is now? Sorry, but it will be at least eight years before the new breed will end up on shelves, the researchers say, because of the time it takes to grow and produce kale.
To put it simply: you can keep it. According to the Federal Trade Commission, you have a legal right to keep unordered merchandise and consider it a free gift. That’s because federal law prohibits mailing unordered merchandise to consumers and then demanding payment.
This question came up recently for Consumerist reader M., who says she ordered an iPad for her mother during Target.com’s Black Friday promotions. Her mom ended up with two iPads instead of one, and she asked Consumerist what she should do — how could she trust that the returned item would be put back into Target’s inventory if she brought it to a store? Would she get an accidental refund on the item if she initiated the return process online?
We reached out to Target for answers to her questions, and will update this post when we hear back.
In the meantime, though you’re not legally obligated to tell the seller, if your conscience is pushing you in that direction, the FTC suggests that you notify the seller and offer to return the merchandise, so long as the seller is the one who will pay for all of the return shipping.
“Give the seller a specific and reasonable amount of time (say 30 days) to pick up the merchandise or arrange to have it returned at no expense to you,” reads the FTC’s FAQ on this topic. “Tell the seller that you reserve the right to keep the merchandise or dispose of it after the specified time has passed.”
Consumerist reader M. is far from alone in receiving merchandise she never asked — or paid — for:
• And then there was the year Best Buy seemed intent on sending folks five iPads instead of only one — not once, but at least twice, to two different shoppers.
