jikPrank Or Honest Mistake? Jimmy John’s Renames Customer “Blumpkin”de

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(Twitter: @jlump_PGA)

Anyone who has ever seen their name go from “Mark” to “Mork” on the side of a Starbucks cup, or “Morran” to “Moron” on restaurant reservations knows that names sometimes get lost in translation when scrawled by a foodservice worker in a hurry. So how can you tell when it’s an honest mistake or you’re the victim of a rude prank?

That’s the question before Jimmy John’s customer John Lumpkin, who wasn’t terribly thrilled to see that his last name had transformed into “Blumpkin” when written on his sandwich wrapper.

Thing is, “Blumpkin” isn’t only a misspelling of Lumpkin. It’s also a slang term so profane that we can’t even begin to describe it here. Anyone unfamiliar with the term is free to look it up, but you probably shouldn’t.

When John brought it to the attention of Jimmy John’s he eventually got a response from the company claiming it was an honest mistake and that the manager of the store had been spoken with.

However, he tells Consumerist he’s having a hard time believing that someone accidentally added a B to his name.

According to John, this wasn’t a case of him walking into a Jimmy John’s and saying his last name to an employee who might have misunderstood it.

Instead, he claims his sandwich was part of a group order that was placed online with his name spelled correctly. So it couldn’t be an issue of mis-hearing. Someone would have had to look at the list, then get confused in the few seconds it took to write his last name on the wrapper.

We’ve written to Jimmy John’s for more information, but they have yet to respond to our request. So for now we’ll leave it in the hands of Consumerist readers to decide whether this is a mistake or a prank:

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

jikTaco Bell Is Heading To Japande

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(Jeepers Media)

Will tacos, burritos and all the combinations in between work in a place where raw fish is the nation’s popular cuisine? One restaurant group in Japan seems to think so, with the announcement that it signed a franchise agreement with Yum Brands to open Taco Bell restaurants in the country.

Though Asrapport Dining Co. didn’t say when, where or how many restaurants it’d be opening in Japan, it did say the move would help expand its brand portfolio and usher in a new category of fast food in a place hungry for such fare, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company currently operates grilled meat restaurants called yakiniku in the country.

Currently the only Taco Bells in Japan are on U.S. military bases, which means the general public doesn’t have access to chalupas.

Asrapport isn’t alone in trying to lure in Japanese customers with fast food fare — though Burger King and Wendy’s both left the country a few years ago, they’ve both come back for another try. New York’s Shake Shack also recently said it would be opening several locations in Japan.

Please, please please — can we all just hope and pray that there will be no sushi burrito mash-ups on the horizon? Unless of course, you’re into that kind of thing, in which case, more power to you.

Taco Bell Makes a Run for Japan’s Border [Wall Street Journal]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikMorgan Stanley To Pay $2.6B To Settle Charges Of Selling Troubled Mortgages Leading Up To The Financial Crisisde

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(sparkle-motion)

The Department of Justice has struck a multi-billion dollar deal with Morgan Stanley in what is expected to be one of the last major steps in resolving investigations related to banks’ roles in the subprime mortgage crisis.

The New York Times DealBook reports that Morgan Stanley will pay $2.6 billion to settle a Justice Dept. investigation into the bank’s sale of securities backed by troubled mortgages.

Morgan Stanley’s deal comes after other large banks made similar settlements last year. Bank of America agreed to pay a record $16.7 billion, while Citi Group agreed to pay $7 billion. Back in 2013, JPMorgan Chase struck a deal for $13 billion.

According to DealBook, Morgan Stanley was responsible for a smaller volume of securities backed by troubled mortgages.

The settlement with Morgan Stanley centers on the bank’s purchase of mortgages from New Century and other subprime mortgage originators. Morgan Stanley then packaged those mortgages into securities that it sold to investors.

A 2012 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union provided emails and documents that showed Morgan Stanley executives knew about the low quality of loans when it purchased them.

Unlike settlements with Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan, the deal with Morgan Stanley does not provide homeowner relieve, DealBook reports.

With Morgan Stanley’s settlement now in the books, there is only one big bank holding out on reaching a settlement with the Dept. of Justice. Goldman Sachs, which is rumored to be in preliminary talks with regulators, has yet to reach an agreement to resolve its sale of troubled mortgages.

Morgan Stanley in $2.6 Billion Mortgage Settlement [The New York Times DealBook]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

jikIt’s Official: Owning And Using Marijuana Is Now Legal In Washington D.C.de

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(Brett Levin Photography)

It’s been quite a green week in the country, as the last few days have seen the recreational use of marijuana become legal in Alaska and now the capital of the United States, Washington D.C. But curb those dreams of toking up at the Lincoln Memorial, folks, because there are some limits to the new law.

After 70% of city voters weighed in last November, pot became an officially legal intoxicant as of 12:01 a.m. today, despite a last-minute intervention by the chairman of the House committee that handles D.C. affairs, reports the Washington Post.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and D.C. Council members said yesterday that they wouldn’t back down from the will of the people.

“We will uphold the letter and the spirit of the initiative that was passed last year, and we will establish the Initiative 71 Task Force to coordinate our enforcement, awareness and engagement efforts and address policy questions as they arise,” Mayor Bowser said in a statement.

Her office will also “put forward emergency legislation to clarify that the law does not allow private clubs to provide marijuana to their patrons.”

D.C.’s legalization will be a lot more like Alaska’s recent shift into greener pastures, and less like Colorado and Washington, which both allow for pot shops and dispensaries that are open to the public.

In D.C. it’s now legal for people 21 and older to possess two ounces or less of marijuana; share an ounce or less with another person of legal age as long as no one is exchanging money, goods or services for it; grow up to six marijuana plants but have no more than three mature plants in their main home and to use marijuana on private property.

Basically, home grow, home use, as D.C.’s city site says.

This means no large growing operations, no lighting joints on the National Mall or any other public place (including public housing, as those homes are government-owned) and no operating vehicles or boats under the influence.

With marijuana legalization, green rush is on in D.C. [Washington Post]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikCop Claims McDonald’s Served Him Toxic Teade

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(Mike Mozart)

Most of us have had fast food that didn’t taste so great, but we don’t end up in the hospital because we unwittingly ingested a McDonald’s iced tea containing heavy-duty degreaser.

That’s the allegation being made by a police officer in Indianapolis who says a recent trip to McDonald’s landed him in a hospital bed overnight.

According to 6 ABC in Indianapolis, the officer stopped by the fast food chain on Saturday and used the self-serve drink dispenser to get some tea. After gulping down some of the beverage, he says his throat immediately began to burn.

The customer claims in a police report that he complained and was told by a manager that the tea dispenser was actually in the process of being cleaned and that an employee should have put a paper cup over the tap so that customers knew to not use it.

He spent the night in the hospital and was released Sunday, though he was still experiencing throat-related issues as recently as Wednesday.

“Serving my customers safe, high quality food and beverages is a top priority at our restaurants,” says the franchisee who owns the location with the allegedly tainted tea. “We take this claim very seriously and are looking into the matter.”

The officer says he is consulting an attorney about the incident.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

jikIt’s Very Gross And Very Dangerous When Dogs Eat Diapersde

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Ginger the dog died after eating part of a baby’s diaper.

The very thing that makes disposable diapers so useful–their super-absorbency–can make them deadly to pets. While nobody goes around giving diapers to their dog as a chew toy, animals do have a gift for rifling through the trash, and one thing they can find there are diapers. KKTV in Colorado interviewed one family whose dog died after eating some of the absorbent material in a diaper.

The dog was kind of listless one evening, and they found her dead on the floor the following morning. What had happened? There was fluffy material around that looked like wall insulation, but there were no walls torn open where the dog could have eaten insulation. Finally, they discovered the answer: there was part of a diaper along with some dog vomit under a piece of furniture.

Material that absorbs liquid expands when it does so, since that’s how the laws of physics work. What seems to have happened here is that the dog shredded a diaper and ate some of the dry absorbent material inside. It came into contact with liquids in her digestive system and expanded, causing internal injuries.

“Don’t let dogs eat diapers” might seem like common sense, but pet owners that KKTV interviewed were surprised that there is no specific warning explaining the dangers of ingesting a diaper on the package. It’s not just diapers for babies, either: tampons, for example, are made out of different material but are also designed to expand when they come in contact with liquid, and can cause internal injuries.

11 CFA Investigation: Diapers Can Be Deadly For Pets [KKTV]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikStory Of The Returned $10,000 Walmart Debit Card May Be Hoaxde

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Green Dot, the company that services Walmart MoneyCard accounts, says an investigation gives it reason to believe this may be a hoax.

Earlier today, we told you about the odd story of a man in Alabama who claimed to have found a Walmart prepaid debit card containing more than $10,000 on it, and who says he did the right thing by trying to return it to the store. However, the more we learn about this story the more questions come up.

Initially, there was some confusion involved with Walmart’s response to the story as a rep for the company claimed the card could not hold more than $1,000. As we noted in our original story, that appears to have been the result of some confusion because people kept referring to it as a “gift” card, which would be subject to $1,000 limit. However, this is a Walmart MoneyCard, and users of those accounts can add up to $2,999/day to their card.

But as we dig deeper, some issues come to light. The card in the image is indeed a Walmart MoneyCard, but it’s the “dummy” card that you first get when you start an account at the store. You can tell by the “Valued Customer” name.

Once a MoneyCard user has gone through a verification process to confirm their ID, they can get the personalized card and then add the larger amounts to their account. However, further inspection of the MoneyCard terms [PDF] show that the “The overall maximum amount of value that can reside on the Card is $7,500.”

Even if there are ways around that maximum, there’s the issue of the man claiming to have checked the balance on the card. Multiple sources have told us he should not be able to do this without a PIN for the card, which calls into question the authenticity of the receipt seen in the image above.

We reached out to Walmart to discuss these issues and ended up speaking to Green Dot, the company that is actually responsible for servicing the MoneyCard.

Citing privacy policies, Green Dot could not provide any specific information about this account but did say that their investigation currently gives them reason to believe that this is a hoax.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist