uFounder Of Jelly Belly Looking For Re-Entry Into Candy Industry With Caffeinated Jelly Beansr

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  We’ve already seen caffeinated Cracker Jacks, chewing gum, and peanut butter (some of which are already off the market), and now the founder of Jelly Belly is hoping to give a jolt to the candy market with caffeinated jelly beans. 

  Back in the mid-’70s David Klein came up with the idea of Jelly Belly — a jelly bean that would have flavor throughout the bean, not just on the outside — which he then sold off a few years later for a few million dollars.

  Now, the L.A. Times reports, Klein is trying to get back into the candy game with a caffeine-infused jelly bean.

  Unlike traditional jelly beans that tend toward sweet — or really gross with flavors like grass — the new candy fits more with its “slightly caffeinated” concept with coffee-inspired flavors.

  The idea for Original Coffee House Beans was cooked up by Klein and his business partners as a way to cater to adults looking for a more sophisticated candy, you know, with a kick.

  “Everybody goes to Starbucks or those kinds of places, but nobody has actually made a line of jelly beans that was inspired by the flavors of the coffee that they drink there,” Klein said.

  With flavors like hot cocoa, peppermint, chai tea, coffee and doughnuts and caffe macchiato, Klein believes the candy will appeal to all kinds of coffee drinkers.

  Klein and his partners recently launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking $10,000 to launch the new brand.

  “We have seen people that have been able to fund their business almost immediately, and you don’t have to give up any equity portion,” he said. “We felt with Kickstarter, people would be aware of our product.”

  Analysts tell the L.A. Times that the unusual candy-coffee-caffeine combination could end up being a lucrative concept.

  Viraj D’Costa, an anylst with IBISWorld, says the coffee and snack industry has seen an increase in revenue in recent years, and a niche candy would be a welcome addition.

  “Those actually might be things that adults are actually interested in buying,” he said. “He might have a good shot at having a product that fits in to the market.”

  Still, the idea of caffeinated anything doesn’t always sit well with health advocates and regulators.

  In May 2013, Wrigley pulled its Alert Energy caffeinated gum just months after it was released, shortly after the Food and Drug Administration announced it would investigate the gum and other products with additional caffeine.

  And in November 2015, lawmakers urged the FDA to look into the safety of caffeinated peanut butter.

  Jelly Belly inventor hopes caffeinated jelly beans will fuel his comeback [Los Angeles Times]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uFired St. Louis Cardinals Exec To Plead Guilty To Hacking Houston Astros Front Officer

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  Sports-related chicanery often ends in suspensions and the occasional expulsion, but rarely does it rise to the level of actual crime. Then again, it’s not every day that one team illegally breaches the private network of another.

  Last year, we told you that the FBI was investigating whether or not someone at the St. Louis Cardinals had hacked into the Houston Astros’ network to gain access to sensitive and proprietary information about the team.

  Now the Wall Street Journal reports that former Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa is going to plead guilty to five of twelve charges related to the hacking, which first occurred as far back as 2012.

  Back in 2011, Houston hired general manager Jeff Luhnow away from the Cardinals front office, where he had been the Vice President of Baseball Development.

  Once he arrived at Houston, Luhnow built a database called “Ground Control” — containing information like stats, player evaluations, and trade negotiations — that was similar to the “Red Bird” one he’d used at St. Louis.

  After some of the stolen information was leaked online, an investigation tracked the source of the breach to a computer in a home where Cardinals staffers had lived.

  In July, the Cardinals fired Correa, reportedly for his involvement in the breach. His attorney pointed the finger back at Luhnow, effectively accusing the Astros GM of misusing proprietary info gleaned from his years with the Cards. Luhnow and the Astros have denied these claims.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uWoman Files Lawsuit Against Applebee’s Claiming She Found Bloody Fingertip In Her Saladr

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  Unless it’s of the chicken tender variety, finding a finger in your food would no doubt be an unwelcome and highly unpleasant experience. Enough for one California woman to sue Applebee’s, after she says she found a bloody fingertip in her salad, after she’d already consumed some of the dish.

  The woman and her family were eating at Applebee’s on Dec. 20, and she had ordered the Chinese chicken salad, her attorney said in a statement, and she’d shared it with her husband and their young child. That’s when she says she found a small slice of fingertip in her food.

  “It was so gross,” the woman said in a press release from the attorney’s law firm. “I’m on pins and needles worrying about what my family might have been exposed to,” adding that she was particularly worried because she’s pregnant.

  The family notified the restaurant, which confirmed that the fingertip belonged to an employee at that location. Applebee’s counsel sent a letter to the family nine days later, informing them that they wouldn’t require the cook to undergo any medical tests.

  The claim is seeking unspecified damages for emotional distress, medical expenses for testing and lost income.

  A spokesman for Applebee’s forwarded a statement from the area director of the franchisee, Apple MidCal, to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, calling the incident “unacceptable.”

  “We take matters involving the health and safety of our guests and team members seriously,” the statement reads. “Accordingly, we immediately investigated and determined that an accident did occur in our kitchen. We discussed the matter with the [family] while still at our restaurant, shared our sincere apologies, and have continued to speak with [the woman] in an effort to address her concerns.”

  The statement adds that the employee involved volunteered to undergo any screening that would provide peace of mind for the customer, and that the franchisee is retraining team members on safety protocols “and will take any necessary actions to prevent anything like this from occurring again.”

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uFCC Chair: 39% Of Rural America Lacks Broadband Accessr

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  If you live in the city, it’s almost a certainty that your property can get high-speed Internet access from at least one company. But for rural America, it’s a different story, with nearly 4-in-10 people lacking access to fixed-line broadband service.

  This is according to FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, who will issue his latest annual Broadband Progress Report later this month.

  In a fact sheet [PDF] released in advance of that report, Wheeler notes that, as of 2014, 39% of the U.S. rural population didn’t even have the option of calling up a cable or phone company to provide their homes with broadband service. While that’s an improvement over previous years — it was up at 55% in 2012 — the urban/rural gap still represents a very wide and deep digital canyon.

  Only 4% of Americans in densely populated urban areas lack access to broadband (that doesn’t mean that 96% of people have it; just that they could purchase it if they chose to), while the nationwide average shows that 90% of Americans can get acceptable landline Internet service.

  A big part of the problem with providing high-speed Internet to rural America is infrastructure. Many of these areas are served by old copper-line networks that telecom companies have repeatedly been accused of neglecting and allowing to fall into disrepair.

  Unless these companies are willing to improve their rural networks — and not just wait until the FCC eventually relents and lets them replace copper-line service with wireless tech — there will likely still be a significant portion of the country’s rural population that lags behind in Internet connectivity.

  Likewise, the telecom industry is fighting efforts by some government-owned broadband providers to expand the availability of high-speed Internet to areas in need. In 2015, the FCC voted to overturn two industry-backed state laws — one in North Carolina, another in Tennessee — that prevented municipal broadband providers from selling their service to other towns and counties, but nearly half the states have some sort of law either barring municipalities from operating broadband networks, or from making that service available directly to consumers.

  In better news, earlier this year, the FCC announced deals with 10 Internet service providers, including Verizon and AT&T, to spend a total of $1.5 billion each year over the course of six years to improve rural broadband service in 45 states and one U.S. territory. The goal is to reach some 3.6 million U.S. households that are currently unserved or underserved.

  Tribal lands and U.S. territories lag even farther behind in connectivity, with 68% of people in rural tribal lands lacking broadband access (41% for all tribal residents), and 66% of everyone in U.S. territories unable to get high-speed Internet in their homes.

  [via DSLreports]

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uWalmart Employee Drags Unconscious Woman From Her Burning Carr

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  When employees of a Pennsylvania Walmart learned that there was a car on fire in the parking lot early in the morning on New Year’s Day, they didn’t sit around, stare into space, and wait for the fire department to show up. An overnight employee ran outside with a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze… and that’s when he noticed an unconscious woman inside the locked vehicle.

  “We all responded as quickly as we could,” he told TV station KDKA (warning: auto-play video), “I got out there first. I believe I was the first one from the store.”

  She was sitting in the driver’s seat, passed out or napping, with her head against the window. This was around 7 a.m. on New Year’s Day. While the car was locked, its windows were open, and the employee was able to reach in, unlock the car, and pull the woman out of the vehicle.

  It was mostly the front of the car that was on fire, and the employee was unable to put the fire out before rescuing the driver. The brave employee then woke up the still-unconscious driver and walked her into the store. Police said that the woman smelled of alcohol and was charged with drunk driving, but wasn’t injured. They didn’t share the cause of the fire.

  Don’t call the Walmart employee a hero, though. He rejects that label, saying, “I work with a lot of amazing associates. If it hadn’t been me out here, somebody else would have done what needed to be done.”

  Walmart Employee Saves Woman From Burning Car In Parking Lot [KDKA] (warning: video may start automatically)
  Wal-Mart employee pulls unconscious woman from burning car [Sharon Herald]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWalmart Employee Drags Unconscious Woman From Her Burning Carr

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• When employees of a Pennsylvania Walmart learned that there was a car on fire in the parking lot early in the morning on New Year’s Day, they didn’t sit around, stare into space, and wait for the fire department to show up. An overnight employee ran outside with a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze… and that’s when he noticed an unconscious woman inside the locked vehicle.

  “We all responded as quickly as we could,” he told TV station KDKA (warning: auto-play video), “I got out there first. I believe I was the first one from the store.”

  She was sitting in the driver’s seat, passed out or napping, with her head against the window. This was around 7 AM on New Year’s Day. While the car was locked, its windows were open, and the employee was able to reach in, unlock the car, and pull the woman out of the vehicle.

  It was mostly the front of the car that was on fire, and he was unable to put the fire out before rescuing the driver. The brave employee then woke up the still-unconscious driver and walked her into the store. Police said that the woman smelled of alcohol and was charged with drunk driving, but wasn’t injured. They didn’t share the cause of the fire.

  Don’t call the Walmart employee a hero, though. He rejected that label, saying, “I work with a lot of amazing associates. If it hadn’t been me out here, somebody else would have done what needed to be done.”

  Walmart Employee Saves Woman From Burning Car In Parking Lot [KDKA] (warning: video may start automatically)
  Wal-Mart employee pulls unconscious woman from burning car [Sharon Herald]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uCDC: Americans Are Eating Too Much Sodium And Food Companies Are Partly To Blamer

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  Even if you’re not pouring mountains of salt over everything you eat, you still might be consuming more sodium than the recommended 2,300 milligrams per day. It’s easy to see why, the Centers for Disease Control says, when food companies and restaurants are pouring salt into their products.

  An analysis in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report from the CDC says that 89% of U.S. adults were consuming more salt than recommended between 2009-2012, citing National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data.

  Men between the ages of 19-51 ate about 4,400 mg a day, while women consumed around 3,100 mg a day, the CDC says. Adults 51 and over had slightly lower numbers. About 90% of children of all ages exceeded their daily amounts of salt intake as well, with boys and girls 9-13 getting about 3,300 mg and 3,000 mg respectively, which is a big increase from the recommended 2,200 mg for that age group.

  Again, it’s not like we’re all whipping out the salt shaker every time we face a piece of broccoli. The CDC says most of the sodium we consume is coming from processed foods and meals served in restaurants. You might not be aware of that fact, or have any way to find out how much sodium you’re getting.

  “It’s very difficult for individuals to lower consumption on their own, because there’s so much sodium in everything they eat,” Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, told NPR’s aptly named blog, The Salt.

  Though many food companies have made an effort in the past few years to reduce sodium in their products, it’s not enough, Frieden says.

  “Some companies have made significant progress, but across the whole industry we need to see steady reduction,” he says. “The bottom line is we want to put choice into consumers’ hands about putting it in, since you can’t take it out once it’s in there.”

  Some of the saltiest products out there: Bread, deli meats, pizza, poultry, soups, cheese, pasta dishes, meat mixed dishes and savory snacks like popcorn.

  If you’re worried about your sodium intake, read the label when you can. If it’s a deli meat, well, just assume it’s chock-full of sodium. And for those living in or visiting New York City, you’ll soon be able to spot foods with high levels of sodium just by looking for the salt shaker warning labels that became a requirement for chain restaurants in the city in December.

  We Eat Too Much Sodium Because Companies Keep Dumping It In Our Food [The Salt]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uU.S. Marshals Raid CES Booth To Seize Alleged Knockoff Scootersr

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  We’ve seen lots of odd things at CES International over the years — live kangaroos, stormtroopers, boxing matches, Seth Rogen — but one thing we’ve never seen before is U.S. marshals seizing knockoff products for alleged patent infringement.

  According to Ars Technica, that’s what happened yesterday to a Chinese manufacturer accused by a California-based startup of ripping off their design for a one-wheel scooter.

  Future Motion, the U.S. company, filed a patent infringement complaint [PDF] in federal court on Tuesday against Changzhou First International Trade Co.

  Future Motion’s Onewheel scooter, whose development was bolstered by a successful $630,000 Kickstarter campaign, is a self-balancing, one-wheeled (as the name implies) device that currently sells for $1,499. Future Motion has patents related to the device’s design and tech that don’t expire for at least another 14 to 20 years.

  The company’s lawsuit alleges that Changzhou blatantly violated those patents, selling a knockoff product on Alibaba — and even bringing it to CES — for significantly less money.

  “Defendant Changzhou is making, using, offering for sale, selling, and/or importing a self-balancing electric vehicle under the name ‘Surfing Electric Scooter’ that appears to copy the ONEWHEEL® design,” reads the complaint.

  According to Ars, after filing the lawsuit, Future Motion was granted a telephone hearing with a U.S. District Court judge who then granted an emergency motion authorizing the marshals to shut down the booth, halt any sales, and seize relevant Changzhou products. In the end, the marshals grabbed about a half-dozen of the alleged knockoffs from the booth.

  A lawyer for Future Motion tells Ars that, following an in-person hearing before the court, the judge could decide that Changzhou is not obviously infringing on the patents and return the seized products, but, adds the lawyer, “I feel confident that would not happen.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uVW Reportedly Considering Buying Back More Than 50,000 Emissions-Cheating Cars In The U.S.r

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• Volkswagen may buy back tens of thousands of vehicles in the United States if the company can’t find an easy way to remove “defeat devices” that allow the cars to evade emissions standards. 

  The potential buyback is just one of several options being weighed by the carmaker in order to satisfy federal regulators who uncovered the emissions cheating scandal in September, Bloomberg reports.

  VW, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the California Air Resources Board are currently in discussions on ways to resolve the emissions issues plaguing more than 500,000 vehicles in the U.S. and 11 million worldwide.

  According to sources who were briefed on the matter, VW has concluded that it would be easier after to repurchase some of the more than 500,000 vehicles equipped with defeat devices in the U.S. than it would be to fix them.

  For now, the figure being linked to a potential buyback is about 50,000 vehicles, but that number could increase.

  “We’ve been having a large amount of technical discussion back and forth with Volkswagen,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told Bloomberg on Thursday. “We haven’t made any decisions on that.”

  So far, McCarthy says proposals brought forth by VW have been “inadequate.”

  “We haven’t identified a satisfactory way forward,” McCarthy said, noting that the EPA is “anxious to find a way forward so that the company can get into compliance.”

  A spokesperson for VW tells Bloomberg that the company is working with regulators to reach a solution, but declined to provide details on the discussions.

  The company is also working to create its own remedies for the three generation of VW and Audi vehicles found to be non-compliant with emissions standards.

  Sources tell Bloomberg that the oldest cars in the mix are currently being equipped with SCR catalytic converters, which includes the installation of a tank of urea-based solution that reduces emissions.

  VW Weighs Buyback of Thousands of Cars in Talks With U.S. [Bloomberg]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uReport: American Apparel Receives $200M Takeover Bid From Investor Backing Former CEO Dov Charneyr

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  Last month, we heard rumblings that American Apparel’s founder and former CEO Dov Charney was working with an investment firm to figure out a plan to buy the company out of bankruptcy. The chain said at the time that Charney hadn’t made any kind of formal offer. Today, a new report says an investor working with Charney has offered up a takeover bid of more than $200 million for American Apparel.

  Bloomberg cites people familiar with the situation, who say that if American Apparel accepts the offer and deal goes through, Charney would be back in the saddle again in some capacity. He was ousted more than a year ago amid allegations of misconduct.

  It might not be so easy for Charney, however, as American Apparel’s bankruptcy case is wrapping up. The retailer filed for bankruptcy protection in October of this year, after earlier admitting it’d run out of financing to keep things going. The proposed bankruptcy plan would give ownership of the company to bondholders in exchange for a reduction in debt, and was supported by 95% of secured lenders. They’ll get all their money back under the proposal.

  If the plan goes through as expected, a judge would make a final decision on Jan. 20. That means Charney doesn’t have much time to get the company and its creditors to accept his offer. If he fails to woo them, he and his financial ally would have to convince a judge to put the kibosh on American Apparel’s reorganization plan. He’s moving in that direction already, filing an objection on Thursday to the current reorganization plan and saying he has advanced an alternative restructuring proposal by well-funded investors, Bloomberg says.

  American Apparel declined to answer Bloomberg’s specific questions about the offer, instead saying that it “evaluates all bids consistently, and in the ordinary course. The company remains focused on pursuing the completion of its financial restructuring following its planned bankruptcy court hearing at the end of this month.”

  American Apparel Said to Get Takeover Bid From Charney Ally [Bloomberg]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uUnited Airlines Fined $2.75M For Tarmac Delays, Treatment Of Disabled Passengersr

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  In October, United Airlines apologized to a disabled passenger who ended up crawling off the plane after he was told he’d have to wait up to 50 minutes for a wheelchair. This is just one of several complaints related to United’s treatment of disabled passengers. When combined with penalties for stranding passengers on the tarmac for more than three hours, the airline now faces federal fines of $2. 75 million.

  The Department of Transportation announced on Thursday that it had fined United $2 million for violating rules protecting air travelers with disabilities and $750,000 for violating rules prohibiting long tarmac delays.

  An investigation into United was initiated after the Dept. received a “significant increase in the number of disability-related complaints” in 2014.

  “A review of these disability-related complaints revealed that United failed to provide passengers with disabilities prompt and adequate assistance with [boarding] and deplaning aircraft and with moving through the terminal,” the Dept. said in a statement.

  Additionally, the investigation found numerous instances in which United failed to return passengers’ wheelchairs, other mobility aids, or other assistive devices in a timely manner or in the condition in which the airline received them.

  These issues were found to have occurred at Houston International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Denver International Airport, Newark International Airport, and Dulles International Airport.

  A separate investigation by the Dept. found that United violated federal laws related to the length of time passengers can be stuck on the tarmac on a delayed flight.

  Under federal rules, airlines operating aircraft with 30 seats are prohibited from allowing domestic flights to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours and international flights to remain on the tarmac for more than four hours at U.S. airports without giving passengers an opportunity to leave the plane.

  Specifically, United will pay $750,000 for five lengthy tarmac delays that took place at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Dec. 8, 2013 and one lengthy tarmac delay of a flight that was diverted to Houston Hobby Airport on May 20, 2015.

  Although the delays were a result a multiple factors at O’Hare, including severe weather, the DOT’s Enforcement Office found that mismanagement at United’s gate caused five flights to exceed the Department’s three hour limit on the tarmac for domestic flights.

  In Houston, the DOT found that the airline failed to attempt to deplane passengers after their flight was diverted to the airport because of severe weather and the need to refuel.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uCampbell Soup To Label Products Containing GMOs, Supports Mandatory Labelingr

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• 
  While some large food producers contend that mandatory labeling of products containing genetically modified or genetically engineered ingredients would be a burdensome and unnecessary requirement, the folks at Campbell Soup Company have decided to not only voluntarily label their GMO-containing products but to publicly support mandatory GMO labeling.

  About 75% of Campbell’s products — in addition to its namesake soups, Campbell also makes brands like Pepperidge Farm, Bolthouse Farms, Arnott’s, V8, Swanson, Pace, Prego, among others — use ingredients made from corn, canola, sugar beets, or soybeans. Almost all of the farmers producing those crops in the U.S. use GMO seed.

  So for a company like Campbell, there’s no way it can simply stop using GMO ingredients and still produce the quantity of product that its customers demand. In fact, the company has no intention to make such a change because it maintains that GMOs have been repeatedly proven safe and that they may be needed to meet the increased demand for food around the globe.

  “I want to stress that we’re in no way disputing the science behind GMOs or their safety,” explains Campbell CEO Denise Morrison. “The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence indicates that GMOs are safe and that foods derived from crops using genetically modified seeds are not nutritionally different from other foods.”

  So if Campbell contends that GMOs are safe and necessary, why does it support nationwide mandatory labeling? Because 9-in-10 consumers want to at least know whether the foods they eat contain these ingredients.

  Campbell cites that figure — from a survey conducted by our colleagues at Consumer Reports — as evidence that American consumers have a desire for more transparency from the companies that produce their food.

  “We are operating with a ‘Consumer First’ mindset,” says Morrison. “We put the consumer at the center of everything we do. That’s how we’ve built trust for nearly 150 years. We have always believed that consumers have the right to know what’s in their food.”

  Campbell has fought state-level GMO labeling requirements in California and Oregon, arguing that labeling regulations that vary from state to state create a patchwork that is too complex and costly for large food producers to deal with. Instead, it believes that a national GMO labeling standard would be best for everyone.

  “We now believe that proposing a mandatory national solution is necessary,” says Morrison. “Printing a clear and simple statement on the label is the best solution for consumers and for Campbell.”

  Campbell currently labels its products sold in Vermont like the soup can shown above. Below the ingredients list, it includes a disclosure stating something like “Partially Produced With Genetic Engineering,” directing consumers to its whatsinmyfood.com site for more information, including a list of the various GMO ingredients it uses across its range of products.

  The company tells the NY Times that it will be working with the FDA and other regulators to craft the language for standard, nationwide GMO label for its products.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uBlue Bell Still Finding Listeria In Factories, Not In The Ice Creamr

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  Beloved ice cream brand Blue Bell is still expanding its distribution again after last year’s Listeria contamination and massive recalls. The company issued an update last night about its production facilities with some potentially frightening information: there’s still Listeria in certain spots in their production facilities that can’t be eradicated. However, they assure the ice cream-eating public that new ice cream isn’t contaminated.

  In their “facilities update,” the company explains that since Listeria is present in the environment, it’s impossible to eradicate it from a building entirely. What they can do is identify those areas and sanitize them frequently while also conducting tests to check for new sites of bacteria in the factory.

  They also want customers to know that every batch is being tested. This is so important that they mention it twice in the update, and is clearly meant to reassure the public. While fans are happy to have the products back in stores, it’s understandable that customers might be skittish after recent reports about alleged conditions inside facilities and management cutting corners and failing to listen to employee concerns.

  Listeria happens to be a foodborne pathogen that can survive being frozen, which is why its presence in ice cream is a particular threat. The Blue Bell outbreak killed three people and sent twelve to the hospital. In healthy people, infection with listeriosis causes fever and muscle aches, along with diarrhea and abdominal pain. Infection can be life-threatening to people who are elderly, young, or who have compromised immune systems.

  Listeriosis is especially dangerous for pregnant women, since the infection generally goes beyond the intestinal tract (causing those muscle aches) and can affect the fetus, leading to miscarriage or stillbirth.

  An update on our enhanced procedures at our production facilities [Blue Bell Creamery] (via Food Safety News)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uConsumerist Friday Flickr Findsr

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• Due to Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Fridays, it’s been two weeks since our last installment of Flickr Finds. Let’s see what treasures have been submitted to the Consumerist Flickr pool in that period. Selection here were picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the lace where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uFinish Line Will Close 150 Stores Over The Next Four Yearsr

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• 
  Finish Line, a mall retailer that sells athletic clothes and sneakers, has had a rough year. Specifically, they’ve had supply chain and order management issues that began in the fall and lost them an estimated $32 million in sales. Today, the company announced that they’ll be closing as many as 150 stores over the next four years, almost a quarter of the chain.

  In typical corporatespeak fashion, they call this a “Store Profitability Improvement.” That’s true: while many “sneakerologists” will lose their jobs, the company notes that the closing stores are all under-performers, with an average of $1 million in sales per year. According to Buzzfeed News, that’s about half what the average Finish Line store takes in. The company’s leaders assume that business from those stores will either migrate online or to a Finish Line store at a nearby higher-end mall.

  That’s what this is really about: high-end malls are thriving, but midrange malls are… not. In your area, the mall with Nordstrom and a Cheesecake Factory is probably doing a lot better than the mall with JCPenney and a Friendly’s, or regional equivalents.

  Macy’s announced late yesterday that they plan 36 store closings this year; interestingly, the two chains have partnered up, and there are Finish Line mini-stores in some Macy’s locations.

  Finish Line Reports Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2016 Results [Finish Line]
  Finish Line Is Closing 150 Stores But The Mall Isn’t Dying [Buzzfeed]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWe May Never Know What Caused Chipotle’s E. Coli Outbreakr

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• 

  A month after an E. coli outbreak was linked to Chipotle restaurants in the Northwest, health officials believed the culprit was a vegetable of some kind. Now, nearly three months later, an exact cause still hasn’t been uncovered, and some analysts say it might never be. 

  Business Insider reports that after thousands of tests, both by Chipotle and state and local health officials, health investigators are no closer to determining the source of a nine-state E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 50 people.

  Infectious disease specialists say that it’s unusual for the cause of a foodborne illness to remain unresolved after months. In fact, five other major outbreaks in the last decade were resolved rather quickly.

  The passage of time and the number of tests already run don’t exactly bode well for Chipotle, Dr. William Schaffner, infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told Business Insider.

  He believes the cause of Chipotle’s problems may never be found, as most of the tests conducted by various agencies are so rigorous they would have already discovered the source if it were going to be found.

  Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that even if tests found the food that was the cause of the outbreak, it might not make much difference.

  “When a food is identified as the source of an outbreak, up to 50% of the time a specific food item is not pinpointed as the cause,” Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the CDC, told Business Insider. “What is making this particular outbreak difficult to pinpoint is you have lots of different food items that are going into the product that consumers are buying.”

  Part of the problem is Chipotle’s menu. Because most people eat a combination of the same ingredients, it’s harder to pinpoint which one was contaminated.

  Adding to the mystery of Chipotle’s foodborne illness problems is the fact that a second strain of E. coli was found to have sickened five people in two states months after the outbreak in the Northeast.

  “The fact that Chipotle has an outbreak is not in and of itself unusual, but there are some unusual features,” Schaffner tells Business Insider. “Even the E. colis are different and then they had this norovirus outbreak. One of the questions that comes up immediately is: Is this a coincidence or is this a systematic problem of food handling distribution at Chipotle?”

  To that end, Chipotle announced last month that it would revamp its cooking procedures to ensure food is handled safety.

  The mystery of Chipotle’s E. coli outbreak is stumping scientists and fueling conspiracy talk [Business Insider]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uHere’s How To Recognize A Fake Couponr

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• Fake coupons: you’ve seen them online. Maybe you’ve even tried to print or share them. Yet at best, you won’t get a discount. At worst, you’ll end up with malware on your computer. How can you tell the difference between a coupon that’s fake and a legit printable online coupon? Here are a few hints.

  These tips come from the seasoned deal-hunters over at Rather-Be-Shopping, and will help you identify bogus coupons that you might see on the Web or passed around through e-mail.

  It defies common sense. Applying common sense to online couponing is apparently harder than it seems at first glance, but the temptation of getting 50% off everything you buy at Target, Kroger, or whichever fake coupon is circulating this week is simply too great. Before you click, though, ask yourself whether the coupon you’re looking at is an actual thing that a business that wants to make a profit would put online. For most fake coupons we’ve seen, the answer would usually be “no.”

  It’s for a free item. Sometimes companies offer free item coupons when they introduce a new product, but they generally are for small items and aren’t circulated online.

  It doesn’t come from the company’s site. Is the coupon on a survey site, and not on some variation of Target.com, or a legitimate coupon site like Coupons.com or Smartsource.com? Run away!

  It appears on the CIC blacklist. Yes, there’s a list of fake coupons circulating, and you can find it at the Coupon Information Center. It probably won’t work for the very newest fake coupon that your high school lab partner’s ex-wife just shared on Facebook ten minutes ago, but the list is good for identifying coupons that have been circulating for a while, and it also gives you a sense of what kinds of too-good-to-be-true deals are out there so you can recognize similar ones in the future.

  8 Ways to Spot a Fake Coupon…Everytime [Rather-Be-Shopping]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uT-Mobile CEO John Legere To Critics Of Binge On: “Who The F**k Are You?”r

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• Earlier today, I predicted that there would be further slinging of words between T-Mobile and critics of its Binge On video streaming program. What I didn’t know at the time was that T-Mo CEO John Legere would go on Twitter to respond to, and profanely insult, those critics.

  At issue, as detailed in the earlier stories, is the way in which T-Mobile’s Binge On downgrades streaming video feeds over the company’s cellular networks, even for content providers that are not part of Binge On, like YouTube, which has been very public about its concerns.

  Earlier this week the Electronic Frontier Foundation — a 25-year-old non-profit that has been instrumental in supporting things like net neutrality and cellphone unlocking — released the results of tests that raise doubts about T-Mobile’s claim that it is “optimizing” streams for mobile users.

  This afternoon, EFF Tweeted a question at Legere, asking him “Does Binge On alter the video stream in any way, or just limit its bandwidth?”

  As you’ll see in the video below, Legere’s response starts out reasonable, with the MIT- and Harvard-educated CEO explaining that Binge On “includes a proprietary technology” that will “not only detect the video stream, but select the appropriate bit rate to optimize to… the mobile device.”

  Then Legere shifts gear abruptly for “Part B” of his answer, choosing a tactic you won’t see in most CEO handbooks:

  “Part B of my answer is: Who the fuck are you anyway EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble and who pays you?”

  .@JohnLegere Does Binge On alter the video stream in any way, or just limit its bandwidth? #AskJohn

  — EFF (@EFF) January 7, 2016

  With regard to who pays the EFF, the apparent implication is that T-Mo’s competition is footing the bill. That seems unlikely, given how strongly the telecom industry opposes many of the EFF’s most staunch positions — more privacy, net neutrality, increased corporate transparency. Would AT&T or Verizon fork over big bucks to an organization that could just as easily use that money to make their lives more difficult?

  The answer to some of Legere’s question is already available on the EFF website, where its 2014 revenue breakdown shows that corporate donations only account for about 4% of all the money it brought in that year.

  A number of people were surprised either by Legere’s apparent ignorance — or simply trolling — of a high-profile, pro-consumer organization like the EFF:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  We’ve certainly cheered on Legere’s brash pronouncements in the past, but this sort of schoolyard posturing in response to a reasonable question only makes it look like he’s not prepared to answer what is being asked of him.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist