u‘Tis The Season For High Energy Bills: Tips To Keep Warm And Lower Costsr

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  Unless you enjoy living in a dark icebox, the winter months can be a real drain on your wallet, especially if you’re still reeling from holiday shopping. But keeping warm doesn’t mean you might as well throw money on a bonfire (seriously, don’t do that). Our colleagues at Consumer Reports, along with the Department of Energy, have the following energy-saving tips that could save you money while keeping the heat and lights on.

  • Replace Your Most-Used Lightbulbs: Consumers who replace just five of their most frequently used lightbulbs with energy-saving ones can save up to $75.

  According to CR, LED bulbs save the most money and prices are coming down now that the technology is more widely used.

  • Use A Smart Thermostat: Households that use a programmable thermostat to raise or lower the temperature depending on occupancy can save at least 10% a year on heating and cooling costs.

  To recoup those savings, owners should turn the heat down when they aren’t home or in parts of their homes that are less frequently used.

  • Let The Sun In: Just because it might be a frozen tundra outside, doesn’t mean the sun isn’t still providing warmth. CR suggest opening your curtains during the day to let the sunshine in.

  Of course, the amount of sunlight that makes it inside a home depends on your windows. Those that are dirty or may have air leakage can deplete that extra warmth.

  Still, CR found that energy star-qualified windows can lower your energy bill by 7% to 15%.

  • Keep Air Moving: Always keep your heating and cooling systems in running order by checking your furnace filter monthly and replacing it every few months.

  • Replace Old Appliances With Energy Star Models: While replacing an appliance just to save a few dollars on your energy bill isn’t exactly productive, if your appliances are outdated or simply stop working, CR suggests you look into energy efficient options.

  Appliances account for nearly 20% of electric bills, so taking advantage of energy-saving machines – which can use 10% to 15% less energy and water than standards devices.

  Keep Energy Costs Down When Temperatures Drop [Consumer Reports]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uPolice: Shoplifter Bit Off Finger Of Walmart Worker Who Confronted Her For Stealingr

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  While it’s surely upsetting to be caught shoplifting, one Walmart shopper accused of trying to steal condoms, lubricant, and underwear took things to an extreme when she allegedly bit off the finger of a store employee who attempted to stop her.

  According to police in Myrtle Beach, SC, a 23-year-old woman </awas confronted by two loss prevention officers as she was leaving the store on Sunday afternoon. The workers had approached her “after they observed her conceal merchandise,” the Smoking Gun reports.

  She allegedly fought with the two staffers, punching one woman in the head and causing her to bleed. That’s when, police say, she bit down on one of the worker’s fingers, “causing a portion of [the employee’s] finger to be bitten off.”

  Police say she also fought with a shopper who had dropped her phone while dialing 9-1-1, pulling her hair. The shopper allegedly responded by punching the shoplifting suspect in the face.

  When law enforcement arrived on the scene, they noticed that a a piece of a finger belonging to the worker was ah, present, and though it was rushed to EMS workers, it “was not able to be reattached.”

  The suspect was arrested after police retrieved her from a minivan parked in the parking lot. She’s been charged with aggravated assault, a felony, simple assault, and larceny, and is being held without bond in advance of a court hearing next week.

  Cops: Shoplifter Bit Off Walmart Worker’s Finger [The Smoking Gun]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uIt’s Official: Former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney & His Pals Offer $300M For The Companyr

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  A report last week that said Dov Charney had teamed up with a financial backer to make a bid for his former company, American Apparel, has been confirmed. Though instead of offering up $200 million for the retailer, as orinaally reported, Charney and his ally have sweetened the deal, throwing $300 million on the table.

  Investors Hagan Capital Group and Silver Creek Capital Partners announced the news today, calling the offer superior to a bankruptcy plan that would see the company going to bondholders.

  This is a big move for Charney, who was kicked out of the company in December 2014 following allegations of misconduct. American Apparel has seen worsening sales since at least 2010, and things didn’t get much better after Charney’s departure. The retailer filed for bankruptcy protection in October of this year, after earlier admitting it’d run out of financing to keep things going.

  “Dov’s creativity, entrepreneurialism and dedication are the cornerstone of American Apparel,” Chad Hagan, managing partner of Hagan Capital, said in the statement. “Removing him from the company’s board and leadership was a shortsighted mistake, and we are seeing the results of this error unfold in the declining performance of the company today.”

  In the meantime, American Apparel’s management is going forward with its bankruptcy plan, saying on Monday that it has unanimous approval of all voting classes to accept that transaction.

  It also signed a new deal with senior lenders and lower-ranking creditors to throw a little more money at the plan, adding another $0 million for the retailer once it exits bankruptcy.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uTrial Starts In First GM Ignition Switch Defect Civil Lawsuitr

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  The first of six planned civil trials involving General Motors’ faulty ignition switches that resulted in at least 124 deaths is slated to start today in a federal court in New York City.

  Reuters reports that the trial, which centers on a May 2014 Tulsa, OK, crash that left the driver injured, will provide the first glimpse of GM’s defense and the severity of cases against the carmaker.

  According to the lawsuit, the 2014 crash occurred when the man’s 2003 Saturn Ion ran off the highway, became airborne, and then struck the ground and trees.

  The man, who suffers continuing neck and back pain as a result of the crash, contends that the airbag did not deploy as a result of GM’s ignition switch defect in which ignitions have been found to inadvertently turn off while the car was in operation, thus disabling power steering, braking, and airbags.

  The car’s owner, who seeks punitive damages based on GM’s “intentional post-bankruptcy conduct,” says that GM put him at risk by delaying the recall and did too little for customers

  As previously reported, some at GM knew about the defect as early as 2001, before the affected vehicles even went into production. The design flaw was quietly fixed several years later but without issuing a recall to fix vehicles on the road. Additionally, the part number was not changed, meaning there was no easy way to differentiate between the defective switches and the improved parts.

  The company claims that upper management at GM did not learn of the problem until shortly before issuing a recall in 2014, a decade after people began dying in accidents related to the ignition issue. Even though documents turned up during a federal investigation showed that at least one current GM VP was made aware of the defect in 2005, the carmaker has denied any sort of cover-up and instead blames a “culture of incompetence.”

  GM denies the man’s claims, arguing there is no proof that he switch caused the man’s injuries.

  “Each bellwether case will be tried on its own merits,” GM spokesman Jim Cain told Reuters.

  The beginning of trials related to the ignition switch defect comes just a month after the carmaker announced it had wrapped up its victim compensation claim process that found 124 deaths and 275 injuries were a result of the ignition switch defect. In all, the company paid out $594.5 million in compensation.

  In addition to the six cases set to be heard in New York, GM still faces more than 200 wrongful death and injury lawsuits in the U.S. and Canada, as well as more than 100 suits related to reduced value of affected vehicles.

  GM agreed in September to pay $900 million to the Justice Department to settle criminal charges tied to the long-delayed ignition recall.

   

  General Motors to face trial over recalled ignition switch [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uUniversity Ripped For Pushing Chocolate Milk As Concussion Treatmentr

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  A University of Maryland program that “promotes the development and commercialization of products and processes through industry/university research partnerships,” is being criticized for not just declaring that a particular brand of chocolate milk can improve cognitive skills of athletes who suffered a concussion, but for making that declaration without releasing any data to back it up.

  Right before Christmas, the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program, which teams up state school researchers with local companies, sent out a press release claiming that some new brand of chocolate milk “helped high school football players improve their cognitive and motor function over the course of a season, even after experiencing concussions.”

  But a panel at HealthNewsReview.org, a site that evaluates news stories and press releases on health-related issues, recently shredded the chocolate milk announcement, saying that facts are “are almost absent from this boastful release touting vague neurological benefits of a specific chocolate milk.”

  The panel criticizes the release for not providing specifics on the extent of the measured improvement. Additionally, researchers used a test with 36 different measurements, but did not specify which of these metrics showed improvement.

  MIPS also throws out terms like “protein,” “calcium,” and “electrolytes,” which are “likely to be critical for the recovery process after brain injuries,” but glosses over the fact that a single serving of this chocolate milk contains the equivalent of eight teaspoons of sugar.

  Obviously, press releases can’t be expected to contain all of the information in a piece of scientific research, which is why scientists publish their work — so it can be reviewed and reproduced.

  However, in this case, the press release is all anyone has to go on, as MIPS has not yet published this study, nor does it appear to have been peer-reviewed by an outside source.

  But even though the study is not being made available for public vetting, the MIPS release includes a statement from a school superintendent who says “Now that we understand the findings of this study, we are determined to provide [the chocolate milk] to all of our athletes.”

  Health-issues writer Casey Hinds contends that this statement runs counter to “peer-reviewed and published research which show high-sugar diets increase the risk of chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cancer.”

  We reached out to MIPS and the University of Maryland to see if they had any response to the criticism.

  “The findings from the study conducted by the University of Maryland and funded by the Maryland Industrial Partnerships program are preliminary,” reads a statement from a university spokesperson. “While the study results are promising, university researchers advise that more in-depth studies are required to be conclusive.”

  That is true. The press release does include this caution about the need for more research, though it’s worth noting that it comes in the eleventh paragraph of the announcement, and after a headline that make a much more definitive statement: “Concussion-Related Measures Improved in High School Football Players Who Drank New Chocolate Milk, UMD Study Shows.”

  We also asked the school it it would be willing to make a copy of the study available, but received no reply on that question.

  Criticism of MIPS comes in the immediate wake of the collapse of the Global Energy Balance Network, a Coca-Cola-funded anti-obesity program based at the University of Colorado.

  After it was revealed that Coke had provided the funding for GEBN, which downplayed the role of sugary drinks and food in obesity, the organization denied that the soda giant was directly influencing its agenda.

  However, subsequently unearthed emails show that Coca-Cola’s active participation in GEBN was “non-negotiable” and that the company viewed the organization as the equivalent of a “political campaign” to “develop, deploy and evolve a powerful and multi-faceted strategy to counter radical organizations and their proponents.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uMan Orders Kindle, Receives Someone’s Tumor Insteadr

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  Two important packages traveled the United Kingdom via FedEx recently, but one was arguably more replaceable and less important than the other. One package contained a Kindle headed for a residential address in Bristol, and the other contained part of a tumor bound for a hospital in London, about 120 miles away. The Amazon customer who found a tumor instead of an e-reader was understandably rather confused.

  How does that kind of thing happen? Amazon hasn’t started selling tumors that we know of; the mixup happened somehow though FedEx, which shipped both packages.

  The customer observed that the tracking numbers on the tumor package and on his Kindle package had some digits in common at the beginning and end, but that shouldn’t have been enough to cause a mixup.

  “I haven’t opened the sealed box, which says exempt patient tissue, as it doesn’t belong to me,” the aspiring Kindle owner told the BBC. Since then, FedEx has stopped by to pick up the mystery tumor, but the Kindle hasn’t showed up yet. That’s okay: electronic devices are interchangeable and replaceable; medical samples aren’t necessarily.

  Man orders Kindle and receives ‘tumour sample’ in courier mix-up [BBC]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uUber Cuts Prices In 100 Cities — But Don’t Expect The Discounts To Last Foreverr

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  It’s that time of year again, when the cold has seeped into your bones, and winter’s relentlessly gray sky has you huddled under a pile of blankets inside where it’s safe and warm. But if you’re holed up at home, how is Uber going to make money? By trying to draw customers out of their winter dens with steep discounts in a slew of cities.

  Don’t get your hopes up for a cheaper Uber era, however, as discounts that will likely disappear before the snow melts. Uber has pulled this same move in the past, and it wasn’t a permanent cut.

  For some cities, this will be the third year in a row that the company has offered a January discount.

  “Seasonality affects every business, and Uber is no exception because when people hunker down at home, demand for rides drops,” the company said in a post on its site. “Fewer trips are tough on drivers, many of whom want to save money and pay off their holiday credit card bills now that January is here.”

  It’s unclear which cities will have discounted prices, with Uber’s statement just saying more than 100 U.S. and Canadian cities will benefit. Pricing will depend on your city, as well.

  “While pricing is a science, every city is different: different economic circumstances; different regulations; different competition,” Uber’s post reads. “We’ve learned over the years that we do best when we test new things. With each new test—small or large—we learn more about the choices riders make, and how those choices impact earnings for drivers.”

  We’ve reached out to Uber to ask which cities will be seeing lower prices, as well as how long customers can expect discounts, and will update this post if we hear back.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uUniversity Of Phoenix May Be Up For Saler

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  Increased government scrutiny and falling enrollment at the University of Phoenix may be too much for Apollo Education Group, the parent company of the for-profit college mega chain. The company is reportedly exploring its options on what to do with the school, including a sale.

  The Wall Street Journal reports that Apollo’s board is in discussions that could lead to a change of control for the company.

  News of the possible sale or other strategic change sent Apollo’s already floundering stock prices down by $0.56/share. Apollo’s stocks have fallen 42% in the past three months.

  In addition to revealing a potential sale or other measure, Apollo reported on Monday that new degree enrollment at the University of Phoenix had fallen once again, this time by 38% to 176,900 for the quarter ending Nov. 30. Overall, the for-profit chain’s total degree enrollment fell 22% to 227,400.

  Apollo CEO Greg Cappelli and other executives tried to placate investors last year when the chain revealed enrollment at the college had declined once again to 214,000 students, a stark contrast to the 470,800 students enrolled back in 2010.

  At the time, Cappelli blamed the continued decline in enrollment on the transition the career college has undergone and a decrease in marketing expenditures.

  “University of Phoenix is going through a transition, but we’re building a stronger foundation for future success,” Cappelli said at the time. “We’re working to build a much more competitive and efficient university for the long-term.”

  The company has since reportedly stopped enrollment at 14 campuses and 10 learning centers.

  Additionally, it’s been placed at the center of more intense federal scrutiny related to its recruiting practices.

  In October, the Department of Defense put University of Phoenix on probation, meaning the schools are barred from recruiting on U.S. military installations, and participation in the DoD Tuition Assistance Program for active duty military personnel is on hold.

  “We’re cooperating fully,” Cappelli vaguely said of investigations into the for-profit college chain. “We’ve taken appropriate action to correct any area where there is even the slightest perception that we are not appropriately serving our students or complying with requirements.”

  Apollo Education to Explore Strategic Options [The Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uVolkswagen CEO: We Are Not Crooksr

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  While Volkswagen is currently the target of numerous civil lawsuits — including one filed last week by the federal government  — there is still the possibility VW could face criminal charges. But the company’s CEO contends that no real crime was actually committed.

  According to USA Today, VW CEO Matthais Mueller told reporters at the Detroit Auto Show that the carmaker is “not a criminal brand or group.”

  “We haven’t been that. We have made a huge default, technical default, but there was no intention against customers or authorities,” explained Mueller. “Whether we did lie or not – that is the issue of the investigation.”

  While the company’s legal future is in limbo, there is still the matter of fixing the hundreds of thousands of cars that Volkswagen rigged with “defeat devices” to cheat U.S. emissions tests.

  VW execs are slated to meet with federal and state regulators on Wednesday. According to Reuters, the company is expected to propose adding catalytic convertors to the recalled vehicles with EA 189 diesel engines.

  Michael Horn, head of VW’s U.S. operations told a Senate committee in October that the company was looking to add the converters to some emissions-cheating vehicles

  He told the Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee that the company was having a difficult time finding a remedy for the first generation cars affected by the scandal, noting that they couldn’t be fixed with a simple software upgrade.

  Those vehicles currently don’t include an after treatment system – such as a urea tank, which injects fluid into the exhaust pipeline in order to reduce the amount of NOx (nitrogen oxides) emitted into the environment.

  Reuters reports that the possibility of adding a catalytic converter isn’t a done deal. Mueller will meet with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board on Wednesday.

  Those agencies must approve of any remedy that VW proposes. Last week, sources close to VW said the company was considering buying back some vehicles from customers, as it would be easier than actually fixing them.

  VW proposes catalytic converter to fix U.S. test cheating cars – Bild am Sonntag [Reuters]
  Volkswagen CEO: ‘We are not a criminal brand’ [USA Today]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uTesla Announces Software Upgrade That Allows A Car To Park Itselfr

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  As carmakers continue to push for fully autonomous vehicles that will take the hassle out of driving, Tesla Motors is taking another step in that direction with a software upgrade that will allow Model S owners to park them in a garage or perpendicular spaces without anyone behind the wheel.

  Owners will be able to park from outside the car as long as the sedan is within 33 feet of a garage or narrow space, Elon Musk said at a press conference on Sunday, ahead of the Detroit auto show, reports Bloomberg. Cars can also be called to the owner from the spot, though the tools remain in beta for the moment.

  Drivers will be able to use the software in a few weeks, the company said, with CEO Elon Musk calling the move a “baby step” on the company’s way to making cars that can be driven completely without human intervention. Musk says he thinks within two years, a Tesla owner will be able to summon an electric car to drive autonomously from Los Angels to New York.

  “I might be slightly optimistic on that, but I don’t think significantly optimistic that we can do that in two years,” Musk said at the press conference, adding that it would be technically likely to have fully autonomous vehicles within 24 to 36 months.

  Musk Predicts Your Car Will Be Able to Drive You Cross-Country Soon [Bloomberg News]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uAT&T Brings Back Unlimited Plans. What’s The Catch?r

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  Years after ditching the unlimited data plans that it used to convince so many consumers to switch from boring old feature phones to the iPhone (and other smartphones), AT&T has announced it is bringing back its “unlimited” offering starting at $100 a month. Oh, but it’s only for DirecTV and U-Verse customers.

  While that does mean that more than 20 million people could be eligible for the plan, it also means that the vast majority of AT&T customers are not able to get the unlimited data offer.

  But for those who do have DirecTV or U-Verse service and want to combine their pay-TV bill with their wireless bill, they can get another $10/month discount.

  In terms of cost, it’s $100/month for a single phone. Each additional phone is $40. For phone-filled families with four phones, AT&T says there will be no monthly charge for that fourth line. That means you could have unlimited data on a quartet of smartphones for $180/month. Of course, that discount doesn’t kick in until the third billing cycle, so you would pay $220/month until then.

  The one big difference between the grandfathered unlimited data plans that AT&T had allowed to continue and the new ones that the company will start tomorrow is that customers can no longer get discounted phones by agreeing to a two-year contract. That’s because AT&T did away with two-year contracts last week. Thus, anyone signing up for this plan will need to purchase their phone outright or through an AT&T Next installment plan, which has the same effect as a contract.

  So is the data really “unlimited”? Nope. As with the grandfathered unlimited offering, AT&T reserves the right to throttle customers’ data, but only after they hit 22GB in a single month. That’s a pretty large amount of data for most consumers, but something to keep in mind if you’re someone who loves to stream HD movies on your device everywhere you go.

  

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uUnited Passenger Leaves iPad On Plane, Has Joyful Reunion With Airline’s Helpr

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• Denise made a very understandable and common mistake: she stashed her iPad in the seat-back pouch in front of her during a United flight, and didn’t realize it until later. She ran the always handy “Find my iPad” app, and found that the iPad was in the hands of United staff at George Bush airport in Houston. The problem: she lives in Indiana, and no one at United was interested in helping her.

  Her iPad was still still turned on, it turned out, and the app even showed her where in the terminal it was: depending on which floor it was on, either at the customer service desk or the baggage claim. Yet she couldn’t get anyone at the airline to help her, when she knew the exact location of her iPad, in the hands of United.

  

  Here’s a map of United’s terminals at the G.H.W. Bush airport, showing where we’re guessing Denise’s iPad was hanging out. Here was the challenge: she had learned that items that aren’t picked up in 7 days get sent to a mysterious “warehouse,” from which they probably won’t return. If she wanted her iPad back, time was running out.

  

  “I’ve been trying to reach United Airlines in every way possible (their online claim site, Facebook, Twitter, phone calls),” she explained to Consumerist in an e-mail. “All I get are automated responses.” She couldn’t really afford to buy a new iPad, but even if she could, why would she have to? She knew exactly where it was. She just needed someone to fetch it for her.

  Even actual humans who did reply to her on Twitter weren’t all that helpful, she later noted. While Twitter customer service reps did respond to her and promised that the “team” would get back with her with instructions for how to get her iPad back, they weren’t able to actually help.

  “I’ve noticed that quite a few of the United Tweets are “feel good” wishes and sympathetic “Gee, that’s awful” condolences,” Denise wrote. While empathizing with customers is important, it’s not the same as actually helping or getting Denise her iPad back.

  That’s when Denise contacted Consumerist, and we got involved, contacting to United’s media relations team. We don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but about 12 hours after our last e-mail exchange with United, someone from the airline called Denise to let her know that her iPad was, indeed, on its way to the Warehouse of No Return. He was able to intercept it and ship it overnight from Houston to Indiana, waiving the fees.

  Would Denise have been able to get her iPad back without a media outlet getting involved? We would like to think so, but despite her many methods of contacting the airline, it doesn’t look like she was able to find anyone with the actual power to help her.

  “When they offered ‘fees waived’ for the Fedex return, I knew that something larger (than me) was at work,” she wrote after her happy reunion with her iPad. Maybe. Or maybe it was because Denise posted the Find My iPhone screenshot on social media repeatedly, yet United did nothing about it.

  Either way, she and her cat Gracie have their iPad back. Let this serve as one of our semi-regular announcements: check your seat pouch before you get off the plane.

  

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uChipotle Sued For Not Disclosing Food Quality Control Problems To Stockholdersr

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  Customers don’t trust fast-casual Mexican-ish restaurant Chipotle very much right now, after a series of foodborne illness outbreaks in different parts of the country. The outbreaks of e. Coli, Salmonella, and norovirus were unrelated to each other, but demonstrated problems with the chain’s food-handling procedures. Now an investor has filed a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders who bought stock in the company in the lsat year, claiming that the company should have known about the problems with its food handling processes, and disclosed them.

  The company’s food safety woes have undermined customers’ confidence in the chain, and sales are down 30%, according to Chipotle’s most recent quarterly report. That has hurt the company’s share price, making the value of customers’ investments fall even further than their sales–down 35% as of Friday afternoon.

  According to Reuters, the lawsuit claims that the burrito chain hurt investors by failing to let them know that “quality controls were inadequate to safeguard consumer and employee health,” something that its own management evidently didn’t know. While the eatery has changed its cooking and chopping procedures since the outbreak, it hasn’t yet regained the public’s trust despite the company founder and co-CEO going on a national media apology tour.

  All that was needed to cause an outbreak of the massively contagious norovirus in Boston was for one manager to not force a sick employee to go home. The food safety failures may have been chain-wide, or may have been caused by one person somewhere in the company failing to do his or her job just one time. All its victims know is that the company’s “food with integrity” slogan is rather hollow when you’re in gastrointestinal distress.

  The company declined to comment to Reuters about the lawsuit.

  Chipotle sued for misleading investors over food safety [Reuters]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uMazda Adds 374,000 Vehicles To Takata Airbag Recall Listr

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  Weeks after federal regulators announced that additional vehicles would be added to the long list of those affected by Takata’s airbag defect, Mazda recalled 374,000 automobiles in the U.S. 

  The recently recalled vehicles have been linked to defective front passenger side airbags made by the Japanese parts maker.

  According to a notice [PDF] filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recall includes 374,519 model year 2003 to 2008 Mazda 6, model year 2006 to 2007 MazdaSpeed 6 and the 2004 RX8.

  “In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the passenger’s frontal air bag, the inflator could rupture with metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants potentially resulting in serious injury or death,” Mazda said in the notice.

  The company will notify owners of affected vehicles and dealers will replace the frontal airbag with a new one.

  For more than a year now, Takata has been at the center of a massive recall centered on airbags that can rupture with such force that pieces of shrapnel fly at drivers and passengers causing injuries and even death.

  So far, eight deaths in the U.S. and nine worldwide have been linked to the defect.

  Consumers looking to see if their vehicles are part of the largest auto recall in history can check by entering their 17 digit VIN on the SaferCar.gov website, which produces a list of all recalls associated with a particular vehicle.

  [via Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uAmazon Prime Now Drivers In Arizona Sue Company For Misclassification, Wage Theftr

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  Last year, a group of delivery drivers for Amazon’s Prime Now service who worked through third-party services sued Amazon and their employers in California. Now a group of couriers in Phoenix, Arizona are doing the same, pointing out that being required to wear Prime Now uniforms, ask customers to take Amazon surveys, and work fixed hours from an Amazon warehouse should have made them employees of the mega-e-tailer, not independent subcontractors.

  In the suit, filed this week in federal district court, the three lead plaintiffs allege that they and other couriers were misclassified as “independent contractors,” and should have been considered employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Employee status would make them them eligible for overtime, vehicle expense reimbursement, and would mean that the employer’s portion of their payroll taxes would be covered by their direct employer, Courier Logistics Service.

  The drivers claim that they’ve been misclassified as independent contractors, even though their jobs really have all of the features of being employees. They report to an Amazon facility at specific times, check in and out with a dispatcher, and are not allowed to refuse assignments.

  Yet they also frequently worked more than 40 hours per week, and also were required to make deliveries in their own vehicles, paying any expenses incurred in the process. They received $16 per hour plus any tips collected through the app. Amazon suggested $5 per delivery, but customers could alter that or give the driver no tip at all. They were prohibited from accepting cash tips.

  They are requesting a jury trial, and that Amazon pay all drivers in Arizona the overtime they would be owed had they worked the same hours while classified as employees, as well as the self-employment tax that they were forced to pay.

  Curry et al. vs. Amazon.com and Courier Logistics Services [PDF download] (via Courthouse News)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uStates Say Volkswagen Won’t Turn Over Documents In Emissions Investigationr

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  A group of state attorneys general called out Volkswagen on Friday for allegedly withholding documents related to its use of “defeat devices” to skirt emissions standards in 500,000 vehicles in the U.S. 

  Reuters, citing a source close to the matter, reports that VW referenced German privacy law when refusing to share emails between its executives and other communications regarding the emissions scandal with the 48 attorneys generals.

  “I find it frustrating that, despite public statements professing cooperation and an expressed desire to resolve the various investigations that it faces following its calculated deception, Volkswagen is, in fact, resisting cooperation by citing German law,” Connecticut AG George Jepsen said in a statement to Reuters.

  Jepsen said the AGs are working on an investigation that would “hold Volkswagen accountable for its behavior to the extent possible under the law, and we will seek to use any means available to us to conduct a thorough investigation of Volkswagen’s conduct.”

  VW declined to provide comment on its use of German privacy law or the withholding of documents.

  “We are in permanent exchange with U.S. authorities and are cooperating closely with them. We are not commenting on ongoing investigations,” a spokesman for the carmaker tells Reuters.

  Volkswagen blasted for shielding emissions documents from U.S. probe [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uColorado AG Investigating Scammers Who Hoard DMV Appointments, Sell Them To Undocumented Residentsr

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  When something is free, but it’ll take a long time to get it, there’s always the chance that someone will try to take advantage of the situation to make a profit off impatient people. In Colorado, the attorney general’s office is investigating a scalping scheme that involves scammers hoarding driver’s license appointments with the Department of Motor Vehicles, then turning around and selling them to undocumented residents.

  Many undocumented residents want to get a driver’s license, but are experiencing a long wait to obtain one, more than two years after the IDs were made legal, reports CBS Denver.

  It’s a slow process: there are only three offices in Colorado offering the program, and there’s a three-month wait once you’ve made an appointment. Thousands have yet to get that appointment — which is free — in the first place, which is where the scam comes in.

  “Someone, and we think it’s more than one, have started to hoard the appointments and make them and sell them,” said Attorney General Cynthia Coffman. Her office says they’ve received reports of victims paying up to $1,000 for an appointment.

  “We started receiving complaints November of last year and so did the Division of Motor Vehicles,” she added.

  It’s unclear how many people have been targeted by the scam, or how the scalpers are finding their prey. Groups that work with undocumented residents think victims might be paying for the appointments at neighborhood corner stores, the kind that offer help with taxes, insurances, and other filing duties.

  Coffman says the investigation’s goal is to close any loopholes that have allowed the scam to succeed, and is asking for victims to come forward. Undocumented residents don’t need to be nervous about working with a state agency, she says, and are allowed to remain anonymous.

  “We’re interested in finding who took the money, not the people who have been victimized,” says Coffman.

  Scalpers Sell DMV Appointments To Undocumented Residents [CBS Denver]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uVictoria’s Secret Giving Away $70 Workout Pants When You Buy $30 Sports Brasr

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  Usually, when someone offers a “Buy X, Get Y Free” deal, Y is something that costs the same or less than X. But that is apparently not the case for a deal currently being offered by Victoria’s Secret. 

  Consumerist reader Kenny was confounded by the math behind the offer: buy a sports bra and get a free “sport pant” to go with it.

  Makes sense for VS to be pushing workout gear, with so many New Year’s resolutions waiting to be fulfilled, but it struck Kenny as odd that lingerie-loving Vicky would give away sport pants that can go for as much as $72 just because someone bought a sports bra, which can cost as little as $30.

  Here’s the deal:

  

  The promotion, which runs until 11:50 p.m. (EST) on Jan. 10, has several caveats, including one free pair of pants per customer, and the purchase can’t include a clearance item. Additionally, to actually redeem the deal, shoppers must enter a code during checkout.

  Of course it’s possible the retailer is offering the deal as a way to move inventory, or in the hopes that once shoppers have one pair of pants in their bag they won’t be able to resist adding another pair. Or the company could be hoping that people forget to enter the code for their free pants, if they have a cart full of items.

  We reached out to VS to ask these very questions, but have yet to hear back.

  It looks like some VS shoppers have already caught on to the unusual offer, since a number of items have already sold out.

  
  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uHow StubHub’s Policies Let Greedy Ticket Sellers Screw Fans Overr

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• If you buy tickets on StubHub, they come with a guarantee, which is great. Additionally, any seller who cancels tickets after they’ve been sold could face a financial penalty for doing so. But that penalty doesn’t seem to be enough to stop the most unsavory sellers from violating the rules.

  This week, an L.A. Lakers fan made national news after he complained to The Lead Sports about having his StubHub tickets to Kobe Bryant’s final game canceled after he’d already purchased them.

  Back in November, before Bryant officially announced that this season would be his last, the fan and three of his friends figured they might as well buy tickets for the last game of the season just in case it was also Kobe’s final outing in a Lakers uniform.

  So he bought the tickets — four seats in row 17 of Sec. 106 of the Staples Center — and then got incredibly lucky (or so he thought) when Kobe subsequently confirmed his plan to retire.

  Then, on Dec. 15, two weeks after dropping the retirement bomb, the fan got an email from StubHub giving him the bad news: The order had been cancelled because the “seller let us know that they were listed incorrectly.”

  Rubbing salt in the wound, StubHub said that no replacement tickets could be provided because similar seats were now going for nearly $2,000 each — ten times what he’d paid for his seats.

  You can read the full, disheartening email chain on The Lead Sport, but it basically involves the fan fruitlessly banging his head against a wall of incompetence and general shruggery at StubHub, where someone actually had the temerity to conclude a response with “I do hope you find cheaper tickets very soon.”

  Speaking with SFGate.com, a rep for StubHub was apologetic and pointed out that the company’s user agreement states that “Under no circumstances may Sellers cancel orders at one price and repost the same tickets for a higher price. Failure to fulfill your orders will lead to charges as stated in the Seller Policies.”

  But as Sports Illustrated’s Brendan Maloy noted, that penalty is only “20% of the ticket price.”

  The fan originally paid $195 each for his tickets. So the seller was hit with about a $40/ticket penalty.

  Right now, if you want to purchase four tickets in that same section, you’ll pay at least $1,325 — per ticket. In fact, there are four seats in the very row where he was supposed to be sitting… at a price of $1,500 a pop:

  

  Assuming the original seller for these tickets was able to get at least $1,000 each for the seats he’d originally sold for $195, that means he made $4,000 minus the approximately $80 in penalties… so $3,200.

  We’ve seen the same thing happen with ticket resellers at the Super Bowl, where they realize — as late as the day before the very game — that they can make more money by canceling bona fide orders and selling to some deep-pocketed latecomer.

  “The reality is that these instances happen less than 1% of the time,” says the StubHub rep, who probably doesn’t realize how huge that small percentage actually is in real-world terms.

  Think about it: The Staples Center seats 19,000 people for a basketball game. One percent of 19,000 is 190. Even it’s one-tenth of 1%, you’re still talking about 19 fans who could be getting screwed over by greedy resellers — and that’s for a single game at a single venue, for a team that is really, really horrible at basketball right now.

  Even if it’s just this fan and his four friends, that’s still not acceptable. There is no reason to give sellers such an easy out.

  And in fact, it’s possible that StubHub could have done something to compel this seller to make good on his offer.

  In addition to the 20% penalty for canceling purchased tickets, StubHub “reserves the right in its sole discretion to charge your payment method the full amount of the replacement costs StubHub incurs under the FanProtectT Guarantee (including costs in excess of 20% of the ticket price).”

  To us, that means that if StubHub had to go and get this fan some pricey new tickets from someone else, the company had the legal right to charge that cost to the greedy reseller who canceled the original order.

  There is a happy ending to this story. After his tale of woe got heard ’round the world, various NBA sponsors and other companies looking for good publicity reached out to offer him better tickets than the ones he’d been screwed out of.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uMan Shoved 5 Bags Of Frozen Shrimp Down His Pants At Family Dollarr

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  At Consumerist, we do our best to bring you the latest news about people stuffing meat, shellfish, or power tools down their pants. It’s only the second week of the year, and there’s already a second “crimes against meat” incident in the news. In Albany, Georgia, a man was caught on camera with three bags of frozen shrimp stuffed down his pants, and two in his back pockets.

  A store employee told police that she had seen the shopper place shrimp bags down his pants, and heard the characteristic “crunch” of frozen food when stopping him at the door. The suspect unhanded (unpantsed?) the five bags of shellfish at the store entrance, then ran away.

  Video? Of course there’s video. If you happen to know this suspect, the Albany police and CrimeSTOPPERS would like to hear from you: contact them at 229-446-9252.

  Shoplifter hid shrimp in his pants [WALB]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uMotorola Heading To That Cellphone Store In The Sky As Parent Company Lenovo Starts Phasing Out Brand Namer

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  Clutch your Razr tight and give the StarTAC under your pillow a pat — the Motorola name will soon be a thing of the past.

  After buying Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014, Lenovo has decided to put the brand name out to pasture as it combines its two phone businesses under the company name.

  Don’t shed too many tears, however, the Motorola name will live on in the corporate realm as a division of Lenovo, Motorola Chief Operating Officer Rick Osterloh told CNET.

  “We’ll slowly phase out Motorola and focus on Moto,” Osterloh told CNET Thursday at the CES conference in Las Vegas.

  The M “batwing” logo will also stay, but the full name won’t appear on Moto products in the near future, and will instead be called Moto by Lenovo. Rhyme-y.

  Goodbye, Moto(rola). Iconic brand name to be phased out [CNET]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCool Mist, Warm Mist; Large Unit, Small Unit: There’s A Lot To Consider When Buying A Humidifierr

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  Humidifiers come in all shapes, sizes, and apparently, animal likeness. While variety is always a good thing for consumers, knowing which product is best for your specific needs and home can be a daunting task. 

  To clear up some of the confusion, our colleagues at Consumer Reports put together an interactive video for humidifier-buyers, detailing the various tests they perform, along with a few tips for picking the unit that makes the most sense for their needs.

  The video is divided into five chapters — Cool Mist, Warm Mist, Key Features, Room Size, and Maintenance — that viewers can use to jump to features that matter most to them in their search for a new device.

  There are generally two types of humidifier: cool mist and warm mist. Each device is suited for a different need. While cool mist humidifiers are great for warm, dry climates, warm mist humidifiers are suited more for dry, cool climates.

  Cool and warm mist devices also differ in their construction, cool mist uses filters, while dry mist doesn’t. Warm mist uses more electricity, while cool mist doesn’t.

  These are all factors CR suggests potential buyers keep in mind, as well as whether or not a unit is convenient for your home and lifestyle.

  For example, size really does matter. If you opt for too large of a unit, you could end up with excess condensation, which can result in a mold problem.

  The interactive video also has you covered once you bring home your unit, with tips and tricks to keep your humidifier in tip-top shape.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uShuttle America Flight Diverted After Passenger Allegedly Became Violent Toward Flight Attendants, Othersr

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  We get it, sometimes you want to shove your seatmate’s elbow off the armrest, or maybe wish evil upon the person taking up all the overhead space. But cooler heads should prevail, lest you find your flight making an unscheduled stop. A Shuttle America flight yesterday had to be diverted after a passenger allegedly attacked a flight attendant and her fellow travelers.

  The flight was operating as United Express, heading from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare International airport with 69 passengers and four crew members, reports CBS Chicago, when a female passenger allegedly attacked a flight attendant and threatened other travelers.

  Four passengers helped restrain her, using belts and seat belt extenders to keep her in her seat until the plane landed in Detroit. Police then removed her from the plane.

  “She went to hit [another passenger] more towards the face, and she started kicking me, so I grabbed her legs, he grabbed her arms,” one of the men who wrangled the suspect told CBS Chicago, adding that another man “came flying over and jumped in the middle of it. He grabbed her legs, and then another gentleman got involved” while he grabbed items to tie her with.

  On video recorded by some passengers, the passenger can be heard swearing and cursing at the men as the hold her down. Witnesses say it’s unclear what set her off, but he and others didn’t want to take any chances.

  The flight continued onto O’Hare without further incident. It’s not immediately clear if the passenger was charged.

  Chicago-Bound Flight Diverted After Passenger Attacks Flight Attendant [CBS Chicago]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist