uDisruptive Passenger Leaves Fellow United Travelers Stranded In Belfast Terminal For Nearly 24 Hoursr

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  (Adam Fagen)

  United Airlines had a decidedly less-than-stellar week when it came to dealing with larger-scale customer service issues. Just days after the company faced the ire of travelers who had to spend the night hunkered down at a cold Canadian military base, the airline found itself on the receiving end of more backlash after nearly 300 passengers and crew were made to wait five hours on the tarmac and sleep in a closed terminal after their flight was diverted and they were forced to sleep in the empty terminal.

  NBC Chicago reports that issues with the Rome-to-Chicago flight began shortly after takeoff on Saturday, when the plane’s pilot made a decision to divert to a Belfast, Northern Ireland airport because of an unruly passenger.

  While law enforcement officials met the plane upon arrival at the airport to take the disruptive customer into custody, by the time the incident was resolved the United crew had reached the maximum work hours set forth by the Federal Aviation Administration.

  Passengers tell NBC Chicago that at that point they sat on the tarmac for nearly five hours. A spokesperson for United couldn’t confirm how long passengers were waiting on the tarmac.

  As with the Canadian military base incident last week, there weren’t enough hotel rooms available for the 269 passengers and they were asked to bring their pillows and blankets off the plane to use in the terminal.

  “[United] had us sleeping on the baggage claim floor and then moved us to departures,” one passenger tells NBC Chicago. “They never sent us someone to explain what was going on.”

  Customers were given food vouchers and “other services” to make them comfortable during the overnight stay, the spokesperson says.

  Other passengers expressed their displeasure that the airline didn’t move more quickly to resolve issues.

  “I fully understand the compliance with FAA regulations but there was zero sense of urgency,” a passenger tells NBC Chicago. “Our bags are still on the plane. I can’t imagine why they didn’t [have] a different crew in here as quickly as possible.”

  The flight finally left Sunday afternoon, about 21 hours after first landing at the Belfast Airport and 24 hours after departing Rome.

  United Airlines Under Fire Again After Forcing Passengers to Camp Out in Terminal [NBC Chicago]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uNiagara Bottled Water Recalls Products Under Several Brand Names Due To E. Coli Concernsr

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• If you’ve got bottled water in the fridge or pantry, you might want to check if it’s included in a recent recall of several brands under the Niagara umbrella, after the company issued a voluntary recall for all spring water products produced from its Pennsylvania manufacturing facilities between June 10-18.

  Niagara says the spring source for its water was potentially compromised and contaminated with E. coli. There haven’t been any reports of illness or injury related to the products, the company says, “and finished product testing detected no contaminants or issues of any kind.”

  But because the spring source didn’t notify Niagara “in a timely manner,” the company says, it’s issuing the recall out of an overabundance of caution and will not be using the source from here on.

  Here’s a list of the affected brands:

  • Acadia
  • Best Yet
  • Nature’s Place
  • Shaws
  • Acme
  • 7-11
  • Pricerite
  • Shoprite
  • Big Y
  • Niagara
  • Superchill
  • Western Beef Blue
  • Morning Fresh
  • Wegman’s

  To check if your product is affected, Niagara tells customers to check the code on the products: The only affected products have codes that begin with the letter F (for Hamburg) or A (for Allentown), where the products were produced.

  The first digit after the letter indicates the number of the production line. The next two numbers indicate the day, then the month in letters, the year, and then the time, based on a 24-hour clock.

  Example: A610JUN15 2000

  Niagara cautions consumers not to drink the affected water without boiling it first, or use other bottled water.

  For more information, contact: Niagara Bottling, LLC Consumer Service at (877) 487-7873 or check out the company website.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uAmazon To Start Paying Some Authors Per Page Readr

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  (Danny Ngan)

  Less than a week after Amazon announced it had reached a deal with the world’s largest book publisher over sales, the company announced it would begin a new payment system for some authors: paying by the page read rather than the book purchased.

  Starting July 1, the e-commerce giant will change the way authors receive royalties for books listed on subscription services, Amazon Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited.

  For now, the new system will only apply to authors enrolled in Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Select program, which essentially functions as an avenue for authors to self-publish their work.

  “We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read,” the company said in a statement. “Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”

  In order to determine how much an author should be paid, Amazon will use what it calls Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC).

  Calculations will be made based on standard setting – font, line height, line spacing – starting with the Start Reading Location (SRL) – typically the start of the first chapter – to the end of the publication.

  Non-text elements such as images, charts and graphs will also count toward the KENPC.

  As with the current payment system for the Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited, Amazon will pay authors through a monthly pool of cash, which varies from month to month.

  So for example, Amazon estimates that if the fund is $10 million and 100 million total pages are ready that month, the author of a 200 page book that was borrowed or read completely 100 times would earn $2,000.

  However, if that author’s book was borrowed 100 times but only ready halfway through on average would earn $1,000.

  Kindle Unlimited Pages Read [Amazon]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uAt Target And Walmart, Save More Money By Not Buying In Bulkr

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• Target has its own special variety of math, where putting an item on sale means raising the price, and buying in bulk means that you pay more per unit. This strange method of calculating prices isn’t exclusive to Target, though: you can find it at other retailers, too.

  For example, Carol found this example on some batteries at Walmart and posted it to Consumerist’s Facebook page.

  

  It always comes back to Target, though. Ilana submitted this example, where one of the prices listed has to be wrong. Has to. right?

  

  Howard noticed that you can buy two separate brushes for less money than a two-pack of the same brush.

  

  Target has reminded us in the past that when you see issues like this, if you have time you should take a moment and point the discrepancy out to an employee. If you want to buy the item, you could get a discount for your trouble. If you don’t, think of it as doing something nice for future shoppers who come along.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uUnhappy Subway Customer Hurls Sandwich, Soda, And Car At Employeer

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  Not for throwing. (Mandy Jansen)
  

  There are many ways to express your dissatisfaction when you aren’t happy with a product or service, but we do not recommend any of the methods that a woman in California used earlier this week when a sandwich displeased her. According to local police, first she hurled words at the employee, then her sandwich, then her beverage. After that, things got even worse.

  Police say that the store employee followed the customer and her companion out of the store, and the woman, who was driving, allegedly swerved out of her way to try to hit the Subway employee. Police are now trying to find this very dissatisfied customer.

  Woman Doesn’t Like Her Sandwich, Tries To Hit Worker With Car [CBS Sacramento]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uGoogle Giving Revenge Porn Victims A Way To Remove Pics From Search Resultsr

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  (Joshua Leners)

  This past spring a number of tech companies took steps to crack down on so-called revenge porn – the posting of nude photos or videos online without the consent of the subject. Today, Google announced it was joining those sites by honoring requests to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without the featured person’s permission from search results.

  Google announced in a blog post Friday that it has created a “narrow and limited policy” that will treat the photos and videos in the same manner it treats other sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may appear in search results.

  “Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web,” Amit Singhal, the company’s vice president for search, said in the blog post. “But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims— predominantly women.”

  The company plans to accept requests for removal via a web form that will be available in coming weeks.

  “We know this won’t solve the problem of revenge porn – we aren’t able, of course, to remove these images from the websites themselves – but we hope that honoring people’s requests to remove such imagery from our search results can help,” Singhal writes.

  Some victims of revenge porn have been able to have images delisted from Google Search my making copyright claims on the images. But if the victim isn’t the copyright holder of a revealing photo — say it was taken by an ex or a friend — this method falls short. Google’s new policy may close such loopholes that allowed these search results to remain.

  Revenge porn is an issue many social-based sites have been dealing with in recent years.

  In March, Twitter outlawed revenge porn through new terms of service. Just days before that, Reddit banned revenge porn with an update to its privacy policy that prohibits the posting of nude and sexual images without the consent of the subject.

  Additionally, sites that existed solely to publish such content have come under fire from lawmakers and federal regulators.

  In January, the operator of one now-defunct site dedicated to revenge porn called “isanybodydown.com” was the focus of a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges he used deception to acquire nude content to post online, among other things.

  He settled with the FTC and was ordered to destroy all images and personal contact information he collected from victims and people who knew them.

  Shortly after that case, in February, the operator of a similar venture called yougotposted.com was found guilty of identity theft and extortion for running the site, which included thousands of sexually explicit images, mostly of women, that were published by anonymous users without the subjects’ consent or knowledge. He’s facing up to 20 years in jail as a result.

  “Revenge porn” and Search [Google Blog]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uCampbell’s Soup Claims They Really Do Know How Percentages Workr

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• What is going on in this photo? These are two identical cans of soup, except for what it says on the banner at the top of the label. Only one says that it’s 30% bigger than the standard 10.75 ounce size, and the other says that it’s 40% bigger. Both cans are the same size, so how can both cans be true?

  When the picture was posted to Reddit last week, one commenter pointed out that the 40% label isn’t true, either. The size increase is actually 41.4%, but you can’t blame Campbell’s for going for the multiple of 10, which is easier to absorb when scanning the supermarket aisle.

  We accepted the challenge, and contacted Campbell’s about the discrepancy. A company spokesperson acknowledged that this is confusing, especially with two cans side by side, but there is an objective truth: “the can that says 40% is accurate,” the spokesperson explained by e-mail. “We launched the can that says 30% first and we’re being conservative with the number. But they’re both right.”

  That makes sense if the original design said “more than 30%,” but it doesn’t. If both banners said “more than,” both would be very literally true.

  We hope that stores have sold out of the 30% design so there isn’t a nationwide epidemic of confused people staring at soup cans in stores.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist