jikUse Your RadioShack And Deb Gift Cards Right Nowde

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(Phillip Pessar)

Do you have gift cards lingering in your wallet from RadioShack or Deb? If so, put down the device you’re reading this post on and head over to the store right now to spend that card. That’s only slightly hyperbolic, but card holders will need to get to RadioShack before March 5 and to Deb before March 8 to cash in their cards before they’re worthless.

When a retailer declares bankruptcy, they do not have to honor gift cards purchased before the bankruptcy at all. They usually request to be able to do so, and judges usually grant this request. It isn’t just good for consumers in general, but prevents customers from making claims for their unspent gift cards in bankruptcy court.

Holders of Borders gift cards tried to reclaim some of their money in a class action lawsuit, which was dismissed.

Retailers usually to accept gift cards for 30 days after the bankruptcy, which is the case with Radio Shack. Deb filed on January 7, and will accept gift cards until March 8.

Sometimes competitors will let you exchange unredeemed gift cards for a discount: Toys ‘R’ Us, for example, would give holders of K-B Toys gift cards 15% off one item. The reader who contacted us six months after that chain went out of business was out of luck, though, which is why you should hurry to the store to spend your gift cards when you hear that a chain is in trouble.

RadioShack Gifts That Don’t Keep On Giving [Bloomberg News]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikSuspected Walmart Masturbator Says He Has “A Problem With Sticking His Hands In His Pants”de

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(JeepersMedia)

While no stuffed animals were involved this time, yet another Walmart patron has been arrested and accused of pleasuring himself in front of his fellow shoppers.

Police in South Carolina say a man was seen masturbating in several sections of a Myrtle Beach Walmart Saturday afternoon, with customers and employees alleging that they saw him expose himself several times, reports The Smoking Gun.

One Walmart worker told police that a female customer had reported that the man was acting “weird” in the men’s department. When the worker went to check things out, she saw that the man “had his penis out of his pants and was rubbing it.”

While he’d cover himself when someone moved toward him, the worker said, he’d go right back to doing what he’d been doing “when he thought no one was watching him.”

Two other workers also reported seeing the man doing his bedroom business in the store. When a police officer approached him, he placed his jacket “over the front of his pants” and tried to walk away.

Upon arrest for indecent exposure, he reportedly told police that he “had a problem with sticking his hands in his pants.”

Another Satisfied Walmart Customer Gets Arrested [The Smoking Gun]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikCostco Announces New Credit Card Partnership With Citi, Visade

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(Rick Takagi)

It seems Costco is not one to sit around pining for old flames very long, as the shopping club announced today that it’s rebounding from the end of its relationship with American Express with a new partnership with Citigroup and Visa.

Costco has dubbed the two companies as its new credit partners starting in April of next year, reports the Wall Street Journal. Previously, only AmEx credit cards and debit cards were accepted at the wholesale retailer.

This means only Citi will be able to issue Costco co-branded credit cards, and it will make Visa the exclusive credit-card network for Costco’s stores. While it’s clearly a big win for Visa and Citi, Costco hasn’t revealed any financial terms of the deal.

It would seem that whatever the agreement involves, it’s more favorable for Costco than the arrangement it had with AmEx: Costco had been trying to come to new terms in its AmEx deal, but the two sides couldn’t reach a mutually beneficial decision, the company said. Instead, Costco said that ending its relationship with AmEx was about saving money for customers.

As of March 31, 2016, AmEx Costco-branded credit cards will be useless, giving customers just over a year to make the switch — if they want to. Customers can still use debit cards from either Visa or MasterCard, as well as Costco cash cards, which can be purchased online.

Costco Names Citi, Visa as New Credit Partners [Wall Street Journal]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikIKEA Making Furniture With Built-In Charging Stationsde

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(Steve/a>)

Rummaging through drawers to find the right power cord for your smartphone, tablet and other electronic devices can be a frustrating task. Soon, though, you might be able to juice up your device simply by placing it on the IKEA bookshelf, desk or nightstand littering your home.

Mashable reports that the Swedish furniture company will incorporate technology into several product offerings to allow consumers to charge their devices by placing it on the “X.”

The technology, called Qi, is already available in many public locations, including some Starbucks stores.

Although the new technology will eliminate much of the cord clutter we’ve all become accustomed to, IKEA says the furniture will still need a power source to facilitate the energy transfer.

In addition to offering the new furniture with built-in stations, IKEA will also sell wireless charging kits that can fit into existing furniture.

The new technologically advanced furniture doesn’t appear to break the bank, with pieces averaging about $22 more than typical IKEA pieces. But there’s no word on whether or not the charging stations will make assembly anymore difficult than it already is.

IKEA furniture will soon be able to wirelessly charge your mobile device [Mashable]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

jikHyundai Recalls 200,000 Vehicles For Steering Issuesde

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(Van Swearingen)

Here’s the thing about driving a car: no one wants it to be more difficult or dangerous than it needs to be. That’s why Hyundai is recalling more than 200,000 with steering issues.

According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notice [PDF], Hyundai will recall 204,768 model year 2008 to 2010 Elantras and 2009 to 2010 Elantra Touring vehicles.

Hyundai says the electric power steering (EPS) electric control unit (ECU) may sense a discrepancy in the steering input signals and, as a result, disable the steering power assist.

Although steering control can be maintained, the manufacture says the vehicle could revert to manual steering mode, requiring greater driver effort from the driver, especially at low speeds. Additionally, the changes could increase the risk of a crash.

Hyundai will notify owners of affected vehicles, and dealers will examine the EPS and update software if needed.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

jikChrysler Adds 467,000 Vehicles To 2014 Recall Of Jeep, Durango SUVs With Fuel Pump Issuesde

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(Ralph Krawczyk Jr)

Nearly five months after Fiat Chrysler issued a recall of 230,000 Dodge and Jeep SUVs for fuel pump issues that could lead to a vehicle stall, the company expanded the number of affected vehicles by more than 467,000.

The automaker announced today that it would recall an additional 467,480 model year 2012-2013 Dodge Durangos and 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokees in order to fix an issue with the vehicle’s fuel pump function.

Engineers with the company determined that a condition in a 2014 investigation may now extend to later model vehicles. The issue centers on a pattern of repairs to fuel-pump relays that are susceptible to deformation, and could prevent the vehicle from starting or lead to an engine stall.

The company says it is unaware of any injuries or accidents related to the problem.

In all, the recall covers 338,216 vehicles in the U.S., 18,991 in Canada, 10,829 in Mexico and 99,444 outside the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Chrysler will notify owners of affected vehicles when they can schedule service to install a new relay circuit.

In the meantime, the company says customers who experience no-start or walling ins sues should advise their local dealer.

Statement: Fuel-Pump Relay [Fiat Chrysler]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

jikWho’s Making The Money When Your Smart TV Watches You Back?de

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(JKehoe_Photos)

We’ve heard plenty of times in the past few years that if you have a smart TV — one that’s internet-enabled, for all that app goodness — that it might be watching you just as much as you watch it. Samsung in particular generates a lot of questions about how secure your data is with your TV, as do LG and Vizio. But there’s a missing piece to the equation. If your TV is watching you, why? Who stands to gain (in the sense of cold hard cash) from your data?

That’s what our colleagues over at Consumer Reports (Consumerist’s parent company) decided to find out.

Your TV is collecting and sending data about everything you watch — TV, streaming content, or discs — to a third party, CR explains. And those three companies have been doing it since as far back as 2012. The process is known as automatic content recognition (ACR), and there’s an entire industry now built on collecting and making money from viewer behavior data.

And the data is indeed valuable, to the right buyers. After all, if the TV is recording everything you watch, isn’t that more accurate and granular than relying on a Nielsen estimate? Content providers would pay well to get to-the-second viewership data.

And of course, there’s endless advertising potential. Companies could buy ad space directly on your TV, bypassing the network level altogether. If you’re watching a TV show with a certain actor in it, why wouldn’t the TV want to try to sell you that actor’s book? Or a movie they were in? Or airplane tickets to the glamorous place they’re visiting?

There are several different companies whose software is embedded into smart TVs. CR names Cognitive Networks, Enswers, and Gracenote as just a few. Those companies monitor the video and/or audio that the user is consuming. The software then captures a “fingerprint” of the content, phones home with it, and a remote server reads the fingerprint and reports back, “That’s Game of Thrones, season 2, episode 4″ or whatnot.

And since all this data does fly back and forth among so many points, it’s leaving a lovely trail of breadcrumbs that adds up to a pretty significant picture of your household’s viewing history, all in the hands of some middleman company (or companies) you’d otherwise never hear of.

Even worse, CR points out, consumers have no real way of knowing what they’re agreeing to when they buy and set up their new TVs. One LG set that Consumer Reports tried had more than 6000 words of legal disclosures to read through in order to be fully informed. The Samsung user agreement spanned 47 separate pages… all of which you can of course agree to with a single click.

The end result? Consumers who are having the most boring and innocuous evening possible, kicking back with an hour of reality TV and a frothy beverage, are being watched and targeted in their own living rooms in ways they may not even realize.

The good news, CR says, is that consumers can opt out. They just have to dig through their TV settings for a few hours to find the right setting first.

Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TVs are recording—and sharing data about—everything you watch [Consumer Reports]

by Kate Cox via Consumerist