uFarmers Voice Concern About Possible Monsanto Mega-Mergerr

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  (ken fager)

  Last month, Monsanto, the world’s largest biggest seed seller and a major manufacturer of pesticides, announced its desire to buy Syngenta, the Swiss company that is the world’s largest pesticides and also a seller of seeds. Though Syngenta has twice said no to the takeover attempt, U.S. farmers are concerned about the impact that a merger of these two companies could have on their crops.

  Monsanto’s corn seeds account for 35% of all corn grown in the U.S. each year, only slightly higher than its share of the soybean seed market in the country. Syngenta’s U.S. seed business isn’t as sizable as Monsanto but the company accounts for 25% of all pesticides sold here. A combined Monsanto-Syngenta would control more than 40% of the U.S. pesticide market.

  Over the last 20 years, the cost of seed has tripled in the U.S. and the cost of pesticides have increased 11%. Some farmers worry that removing Syngenta from the market as a competitor would negatively impact farmers’ bottom lines.

  “When you have that much market power, there’s too much money to be made using your market power to push the company’s interests forward,” John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, tells the Wall Street Journal.

  Another farmer, who uses Monsanto seed for his corn but goes elsewhere for his other crops says that Monsanto’s patented seeds are overpriced.

  “The only way you stop that attitude is there needs to be a competitor or competitors who can put same-level quality product out there and compete with them toe to toe,” he explains.

  Monsanto claims that farmers would actually benefit from the merger by allowing growers to buy both their seed and pesticide from the same company.

  In spite of Monsanto’s proposal to sell off Syngenta’s seed business and shed some overlapping pesticides, and thrown in a $2 billion break-up fee if the deal falls through, the company has yet to convince Syngenta that the $45 billion acquisition is worth taking to U.S. regulators.

  In addition to questions of consolidation and competition, there is concern that Monsanto may try to shift its tax base to Switzerland; a move that would definitely draw heat from U.S. lawmakers.

  “The regulatory hurdles are more challenging than implied by the announcement,” explains a Syngenta spokesperson about the company’s most recent decision to rebuff the merger proposal. “Syngenta as a stand-alone company has unrivaled scale and reach, with a strong presence in all regions and a crop-based strategy covering eight key crops.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uRaiders Of The Lost Walmart Find Ancient And Mysterious Feature Phoner

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• The Raiders of the Lost Walmart are a brave band of explorers who comb the darkest corners of the world’s discount stores to find the ancient gadgets with inappropriately high prices. We call these finds “retail antiquities,” and share the explorers’ field notes with the world.

  Walmart’s discounting practices make it a popular spot to find retail antiquities, and Richard found these treasures at one of the mega-retailer’s stores in New England. First up: the Kyocera Loft featurephone, which features a teeny but full keyboard, and went on the market back in 2010. It could still be a useful phone…but not for this price.

  

  

  In the past, we’ve reviewed why a 56K modem is not necessarily obsolete or useless technology. However, this particular model of modem first came out in 2004. The Windows Vista logo on the box dates this specific item to sometime between 2007 and 2009. If you’re not experiencing a modem-related emergency, you can get one from Amazon for almost half the price that Walmart is charging here.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uBest Buy Can’t Stop People From Using My E-mail Addressr

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• More than 10 years ago, when Gmail was first born, Jeff signed up early enough that he was able to snag [nickname]@gmail.com as his address. As years passed, this seems like less of a coup: it seems that people who shop at Best Buy love using this address as a throwaway.

  Jeff himself no longer uses the address for much of anything, but has it forwarded to his current main account so he can receive anything that is sent there. What’s actually sent there is, well, other people’s software codes and reward coupons from Best Buy. He estimates that he’s received software and activation codes worth hundreds of dollars, and other signups.

  He has been pleading with Best Buy customer service to make this stop since 2011, and they haven’t listened. Maybe they don’t care where these codes go if customers can’t be bothered to give their real e-mail address, or maybe they don’t have the capability to ban an e-mail address from their system.

  “I just received two separate $10 reward codes with the full name of that person, which I can redeem by printing or using online at any time apparently.” After receiving these codes, he sent Best Buy one last e-mail before referring the case to us. He explained the situation, and then added a completely reasonable threat:

  If I continue to be sent software licenses, product keys and activation codes, I will assume they are gifts from this point on and redeem them myself. That will likely leave you with a very unhappy customer (the one who actually makes the purchases from you), so I advise you to take action and permanently remove [nickname]@gmail.com from your system.

  They didn’t respond to this last missive, so we inquired about his situation. Things got real, and Best Buy’s “Corporate Resolution” team followed up with Jeff. It turns out that they are able to eradicate e-mail addresses from their systems: you just need to find the right person, apparently. Corporate Resolution did this, but Jeff suspected something and called back.

  “Does that include Geek Squad?” he asked. Turns out that it didn’t, and the corporate team has promised to remove his address from the Geek Squad database, too. No more random software licenses…maybe.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uTaco Bell’s Unholy Cap’N Crunch-Coated, Cream-Filled Donut Concoction Going Nationalr

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• Today may be National Doughnut Day, but there’s another date lovers of fluffy, sweet indulgences might want to mark on the calendar: July 2. That’s when Taco Bell plans to take its Cap’n Crunch-coated donuts (or doughnuts, whatever) to the masses.

  The Associated Press reports that the balls of cream-filled dough, known as Cap’n Crunch Delights, have moved past the testing phase in Bakersfield, CA, and will grace the newly artificial ingredient-free menus at Taco Bells across the country next month.

  On that note, Taco Bell says the icing filled throwbacks to Cap’n Crunch Berries cereal will be an exception to that recent rule, as they contain artificial colors, flavors and high-fructose corn syrup.

  That’s because when Taco Bell announced it was ditching the preservatives, it declared that co-branded items like the new desert treats/breakfast item and Doritos Locos Tacos wouldn’t be altered.

  When Taco Bell first decided to test the calorie bombs, they said the delicacies were meant to appeal to something called “kid-ult,” presumably consumers who consider a balanced meal incomplete without a stream of icing dripping down their chin.

  Taco Bell: Artificial ingredients OK for Cap’n Crunch treat [SFGate]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uRoofing Company Sends Me A Postcard Of My Own Houser

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• Rebekah received an advertising flyer in the mail recently from a local roofing company. It was addressed to “Current Resident,” and she glanced at it before throwing it away. Wait…that house printed on the postcard looked familiar. It was her house. Unnerved, she sent the postcard over to us, asking, “Is this common?”

  None of us here at Consumerist headquarters had ever heard of an advertiser taking pictures of houses and using them as part of a direct-mail campaign. It seemed kind of creepy, but not illegal.

  Rebekah says that this is a new photo of her house: it wasn’t pulled from Google Street View or Bing Maps, since she knows what her house looks like on those services. She estimates that the picture was a few weeks old based on the landscaping and other things that only a homeowner would notice.

  “I can imagine my big dog sitting in that window howling in anger as someone snaps this photo of my house,” Rebekah wrote to us. Yes, the photographers probably were barked at a lot. What they were doing must have offended the sensibilities of many household pets, but as long as they took photos from the street and didn’t photograph from any lawns or driveways, they weren’t doing anything illegal. Was it intrusive or creepy? People have differing opinions on it.

  We contacted Tech Roof Pros, the company in Georgia behind the mailing, and they were very transparent about this ad campaign. Yes, those were original photos taken recently. Some customers thought that a picture of their own house had been mailed to everyone else, like this recipient who posted to Facebook and who definitely doesn’t need a new roof:

  

  Consumerist asked Tech Roof Pros to clarify, and they explained that each flyer had a picture of the house that it was mailed to.

  The campaign got recipients’ attention, and was very effective marketing, but the company would prefer not to confuse or frighten the very people they’re trying to sell new roofs to.

  “Because of the confusion you mentioned, we will not be using this type of advertising again,” a spokesperson told Consumerist. “We were very disappointed that some people were confused (and justifiably so) and that is not our goal at all as a service provider of top quality roofing services.”

  There you have it: they tried something, customers complained that it upset them, and the company listened.

  If you’ve received a flyer similar to this, or any other mailing that seems intrusive, let us know! We’d like to hear about it.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uH-E-B Posting Signs In Stores Asking Customers Not To Buy More Than 3 Cartons Of Eggs Amid Shortager

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• Following on the heels of Whataburger’s recent announcement that it’s shortening its weekday breakfast hours due to the recent egg shortage caused by an especially bad outbreak of avian flu, Texas supermarket chain H-E-B is posting signs in its stores asking customers to please not buy up all the eggs at once.

  After customers started posting photos of signs noting that eggs are not for commercial sale, and as such, the chain is “limiting the purchase of eggs to 3 cartons per customer,” reports the Dallas Morning News. The chain has more than 340 stores in Texas and Mexico.

  @kwtx Signs like this one have popped up at HEB's across CenTX due to the shortage of eggs and the increased prices. http://pic.twitter.com/vPHrW9oBzw

  — Ethan Hutchins (@ehutchinsKWTX) June 4, 2015

  A spokesperson says the company’s priority is “household customers,” and that the signs are meant to deter commercial users — like restaurants — from buying eggs in bulk.

  In addition to that, other shoppers are seeing signs warning that egg prices have increased.

  “The avian flu this year has impacted a significant portion of the egg laying population in the United States (over 30 million birds),” says the statement from H-E-B. “This temporary constriction in the US market has caused an increase in price and shortage in availability of eggs. H-E-B works hard to absorb price increases and to level out the volatility in the commodity market for our customers. H-E-B’s egg procurement team is monitoring the situation closely; we understand the importance of this product to all customers and take market availability matters seriously.”

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture says this “highly pathogenic” avian flu has been discovered on 207 farms in more than a dozen states, resulting in the loss of 45,027,793 birds as of just this week.

  Guys, Ron Swanson would not be be pleased with this development, to say the least.

  Central Market, parent company H-E-B limiting egg purchases as bird flu causes shortages [Dallas Morning News]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uTesla Will Pay You Up To $1000 To Break Their Website — But Don’t Try It On The Carsr

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  (catheroo)
  

  
  If there is one truism we can count on in the digital era, it is that everything has bugs. No matter how carefully designed or nominally secure something is, someone, somewhere, can find a vulnerability in it.

  Thus the development of the “bug bounty.” If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: go ahead and encourage people to find flaws in your software, and then give them lots of money when they turn those flaws over to you. It’s a simple way to tackle a whole bunch of problems at once: with crowdsourced QA, you get more eyes looking. And with a bounty attached, you make it easy, lucrative, and desirable for the hackers who find them to be helpful white-hat types who clue you in instead of selling or abusing the information.

  Electric automaker Tesla is now the newest tech company to offer a bug bounty program to its users, Forbes reports. The car (and energy) company is using an online platform called Bugcrowd to offer users between $25 and $1000 for every vulnerability they find.

  Like United, however, Tesla is only asking bug hunters to look for vulnerabilities in their website — not in their vehicles. Anyone who does find a vulnerability in the car’s software is requested to contact Tesla directly, instead of using the crowdsourced platform.

  As Forbes suggests, tampering with a website is one thing — but tampering with a car is another. Accidentally crashing a website doesn’t kill people. Messing with the systems under the hood of the hardware, so to speak, could be much more risky. And if someone does muck around with their car software at Tesla’s urging, and someone is hurt or killed as a result, Tesla could find itself in hot legal water.

  Tesla Offers To Pay Hackers $1,000 To Find Its Web Weaknesses, But What About Its Cars? [Forbes]

  
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist