jikDairy Queen Free Cone Day Is March 16de

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(JeepersMedia)

I scream. You scream. You know what happens next — we all scream… for ice cream. And on Monday, all that screaming will be greeted with free cones at Dairy Queen as part of the company’s 75th anniversary celebration.

Customers can pick up a free five-ounce vanilla soft-serve cone all day on Monday, March 16, at participating Dairy Queen and DQ Grill & Chill locations throughout the United States.

Much like other restaurants’ food giveaways, these aren’t free cones just in the name of feeding hungry customers — DQ locations are promoting free cone day to fuel donations to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, with participating stores accepting donations.

All donations collected will stay in the communities where they’re raised to support the local kids at CMN Hospitals.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikGM Recalls Chevrolet Volts That Can Silently Emit Carbon Monoxidede

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(Blue387)

It’s possible for a car engine to be too quiet. Two people so far have suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning when their Chevrolet Volt cars switched imperceptibly to their gasoline engines. When this happens, the engine remains so quiet that it’s possible to forget that the car is running, and the combustion engine gives off the silent gas that can be deadly in an enclosed space. Like a garage.

Chevrolet is recalling Volt cars from model years 2011 through 2013, but the only repair is a software upgrade that will limit how long the car can run while parked. The number of cars affected has been reported as both 50,249 and 64,000: the discrepancy probably represents cars sold outside of the United States.

The dangers of electric and hybrid cars being too quiet go far beyond the walls of owners’ garages: it was almost four years ago that the NHTSA noted that they have a higher rate of accidents involving pedestrians, because people on the street–and not just blind pedestrians–can’t hear them.

General Motors also recalled some Chevrolet Trax and Buick Encore crossover vehicles to correct a possible problem with power steering, but those vehicles hadn’t been sold to the public yet, presumably making it a lot easier to get the recalled vehicles in to the service department.

GM recalls Chevrolet Volt over carbon monoxide [USA Today]

GM recalls 64,000 Volts over carbon monoxide risk [AutoNews]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikTiVo Gets Approval From Bankruptcy Court Judge To Buy Some Aereo Assetsde

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(mikeandanna)

If Aereo wasn’t dead already, the announcement from TiVo that it’s successfully snagged the former streaming service’s trademarks and customer lists will certainly send any hopes that the company could resurrect itself six feet into the ground. After an assets auction last month where companies picked over Aereo’s bones, TiVo says a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge has approved its purchase of those assets.

TiVo said in a statement today that the judge’s approval on Thursday in Manhattan finalizes the sale held in late February, and that it will use the customer lists to target more consumers.

“This strategic acquisition of Aereo’s trademarks and customer lists will enhance our ability to serve the growing segment of consumers who want access to both broadcast television and over the top content,” CEO Tom Rogers says. “TiVo has found success in providing a more comprehensive offering and sophisticated user experience than any other player in the marketplace and we look forward to expanding on that success.”

While it’s unclear exactly what form the Aereo name could take now, we pointed out back when news of the sale first hit that TiVo might decide to use it for an upcoming DVR that records over-the-air network feeds.

After the Feb. 24 sale reportedly brought in only about $2 million and not the $100 million Aereo was hoping for, Aereo said the whole thing was a bummer.

“We are very disappointed with the results of the auction,” Aereo’s counsel told GigaOm at the time. “This has been a very difficult sales process and the results reflect that.”

A quick primer on the rise and fall of Aereo for those not in the know: The streaming start-up employed arrays of tiny antennae set up on tall buildings to capture freely available over-the-air TV feeds. It then streamed the content to paying customers, in a method that the company and its supporters likened to a rooftop antenna with a very long cord.

But though each antenna had a single-end user and only allowed users to see broadcast feeds in their own market — something anyone with a good antenna could do on their own — TV networks accused Aereo of violating their copyright by rebroadcasting their signals and charging for it, without their permission and without paying retransmission fees cable companies pay.

Aereo fought its way to winning multiple federal appeals, but ended up losing when the issue was put to the Supreme Court of the United States. A majority of justices ruled against Aereo, saying the company was operating a service that was substantively no different than a cable TV provider.

Aereo shut down its streaming business shortly after, and then tried to argue that if it was going to be classed as a pay-TV operator like the others, it should be able to license the content for a reasonable fee. The last life went out of Aereo however when the U.S. Copyright office disagreed, and a federal appeals court said it wouldn’t listen to the company’s case.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikNHTSA Chief Says Takata More “Forthcoming” With Investigation, Senators Send Letter Urging Cooperationde

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A week after Japanese auto parts maker Takata said it would double its production of replacement airbags and three weeks after U.S. federal regulators began imposing a $14,000 per day fine against the company, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the company is being more forthcoming with information related to an investigation into millions of defective airbags.

Speaking during a portion of the Consumer Federation of America Assembly in D.C. on Friday, Mark Rosekind, the new chief of NHTSA, revealed that Takata has started to be more cooperative about documents involving their products.

“They’re starting to become forthcoming,” Rosekind said. “My understanding is that yesterday, things started changing around.”

While Rosekind didn’t elaborate on what the company had done to be more forthcoming, he said that additional information about the matter would be available in the next several days.

NHTSA imposed the $14,000 per day fine on the parts maker after, Rosekind says, the company handed over more than 2.4 million pages without giving indication where specific information about the airbag inflator could be found.

The NHTSA opened an investigation into the defective airbags – which have been found to spew pieces of shrapnel at passengers and drivers upon deployment – in June 2014 after Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda and Chrysler began recalling millions of vehicles.

Rosekind’s statements on Takata and the federal investigation into the company’s defective airbag parts comes a day after Florida Senator Bill Nelson gave an update about a senate committee’s ongoing investigation into the company during a speech on the Senate floor.

Nelson told his colleagues that so far only two million of the 17 million vehicles recalled for the defect have been fixed.

“People are driving around with a lethal bomb in their steering wheel, and if it’s defective and it goes off, they are filled with shrapnel,” Nelson said. “That has killed five people; that’s documented. In this country, it’s killed five people. Nobody ought to be driving, therefore, a car for months when, in fact, they have a known defect that can seriously kill them.”

Nelson went on to say that he and South Dakota Senator John Thune, committee chair for the Senate Commerce Committee, sent a letter [PDF] to Takata Chairman and CEO Shigehisa Takada saying requests for information from the company hadn’t been fully complied with.

The senators sought information from as far back as 2011, including emails from Takata supervisors that may have included warnings about a possible airbag defect.

Several months ago, reports began to surface showing that Takata – which uses an unusual chemical explosive in its airbags – was aware of issues with deployment for years before recalls began.

Since then the auto parts maker has become the center of a number of criminal investigations and lawsuits from families of victims.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

jikHow A Fight Over $255 Carpet Installation Led To Death Threatsde

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(KHOU-11)

It all started with a 10 x 10 foot piece of carpet, and now an argument over its installation has erupted into threats from both the customer and the business, police in Indiana say.

A Fort Bend resident says he set up a deal to install carpet in a bedroom at his mother’s home, reports KHOU 11 (warning, link has video that autoplays). His father was set to come home from the hospital after suffering a stroke and the son wanted the room to be carpeted before that.

The customer says after he’d reached an agreement with the company and made two payments for a total of $255, the carpet business kept putting off the installation, and finally stopped returning his calls.

When he reached the owner’s wife on the phone, he says he demanded the carpet get installed or he’d call the police.

“I threatened his wife by saying ‘hey, I’m gonna turn you guys into the police at this point because at this point it’s theft,” he told the station.

A minute later, he says he got an angry phone message threatening to kill him and his mother.

“Hey you, whoever the hell you are, you call and threaten my wife and threaten her one time I will kill you and kill your mother,” said the caller. “Don’t threaten my wife or my family ’cause I will kill you. I will find you and I will kill you.”

When the station got in touch with the carpet business owner, he says he made the threatening phone call because the customer had threatened his wife and made her cry.

In the meantime, the customer has contacted the county sheriff’s office. A spokesperson for that office says that while they’re aware of the case and the death threats and is planning on providing the information to the District Attorney’s office, it’s doubtful that charges will be filed since it’s believed both parties made threats against each other. Instead, they’re advising the installer to return the $255 and have the whole thing end there.

The customer has since had the room re-carpeted by another company. This does go to show, however, that if you’re upset with the service you’re receiving, making threats against a business could return to haunt you. A better move would be to get in touch with the Better Business Bureau to lodge a formal complaint, and contact authorities before saying anything you’ll regret.

$255 carpet dispute leads to death threats [KHOU-11]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikFraud Victim’s Impossible Choice: Eat $1,500 In Charges Or Be Banned From PayPal Foreverde

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(Jeremy Gillick)

When a customer’s chargeback scheme left one PayPal customer down $1,500 and without the pricey headphones that they had sold, the person who sold the headphones was understandably upset. It’s wrong to rip anyone off, but they’re an individual seller rather than a faceless corporation. PayPal reduced the amount that this person owed to $700, but that was still $700 more than they really owed anyone. What’s a consumer to do? In this case, post to Reddit.

That doesn’t really solve anything for other consumers, but it does prove that making the front page of Reddit has mystical powers that can prod immovable entities like PayPal’s fraud department into action.

The scheme is very simple:

1. Order an expensive thing.

2. Tell your bank that you didn’t order that thing by filing an identity theft claim.

3. The charges are reversed, and you get your money back.

4. You also get to keep the expensive thing that you ordered. Woo-hoo!

From the victim’s point of view, of course, it isn’t nearly as simple. Reddit poster 24bits explained how an identity theft complaint from a customer can cost $1,500–even if that customer never bothers to file a police report.

I was put into negative -$1,414. Paypal took this out of my account without permission, without notification and did not let me contest it. It was automatic. As soon as his bank called Paypal, they deducted $1,414 out of my account and never notified me of any of it.

Sure, the seller filed a police report, but that doesn’t matter to PayPal. Meanwhile, 24bits claims that filing a Better Business Bureau report knocked the balance owed down to $700. Being required to pay half as much money that you never really owed in the first place is an improvement, we suppose, but not by much.

Eventually, having a post on the front page of Reddit ended with PayPal making contact and forgiving the entire balance. That’s awesome for this one user, but what about the rest of us? Short of getting that much attention on your issue, how can you prevent similar problems?

We don’t know how to do that with PayPal, especially after an executive reshuffle following its divorce from eBay. We contacted PayPal to ask what people who have problems with the payment service that don’t achieve Internet infamy should do. We’ll let you know what they say if and when they do.

I see your PSN problem, I raise you my case where I got scammed with a Paypal charge back and forced to repay $1,414.00 or be banned forever. [PayPal]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikPolice: Active Meth Lab Discovered In Backpack Abandoned In Walmart Bathroomde

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(JeepersMedia)

While running a successful meth lab isn’t easy even under the best circumstances — and this is coming entirely from watching Breaking Bad, obviously — keeping an active operation going in a Walmart bathroom doesn’t seem like a guarantee for success. To that end, police say they’ve discovered an active meth lab, hidden inside a backpack, abandoned in an Indiana Walmart’s bathroom.

After employees reported a suspicious backpack last night in the Walmart bathroom and alerted a local meth suppression team, state troopers were called in to investigate as well, reports WTHR.com.

Officials on the scene put on protective masks and suits to dismantle the lab and remove the chemicals. Both the men’s and women’s restrooms are now closed and will have to be thoroughly decontaminated, the health department says.

Instead of cooking meth in their home and potentially contaminating where they live or blowing up their own house, some meth cooks will apparently leave behind the explosive chemicals in public places and come back later pick up the meth when it’s done.

Often, notes WTHR, meth makers will dump their trash filled with drain cleaner bottles, over-the-counter medication blister packs, battery casings and bottles with white residue in them in alleys or vacant lots, making it dangerous for anyone who comes across them.

The Indiana State Police Meth Suppression Section is now reminding people to be aware that these traveling labs and their detritus contain chemicals that are toxic, flammable, corrosive, and acidic. They could combine and explode, or burn someone by coming into direct contact with skin, along with damaging internal organs if the fumes are breathed in.

Police are still looking for the owner of the abandoned backpack lab.

Meth lab found inside backpack in Muncie Walmart restroom [WTHR.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist