uDish Taking Away Users’ Right To Sue Company In Court. Here’s How To Opt Outr

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  (Brady O’Brien)
  

  Over the weekend, a number of Consumerist readers wrote to us with the bad news that, like a growing number of companies, Dish Network is updating its terms of use to strip customers of their right to dispute legal claims in a court of law. There is a way for Dish subscribers to opt out of this restriction — but only if they do it right away.

  The updated Dish “Residential Customer Agreement” [PDF] includes a new provision that requires that all customers settle their disputes through either mandatory binding arbitration or in small claims court. Both situations put severe limits on the damages that can be awarded.

  Additionally, Dish customers are barred from joining other wronged customers in any sort of class action. So even if the company were to do something that negatively affected millions of customers, each individual subscriber would need to file his or her own dispute with the satellite service… and then have it heard by a third-party arbitrator, or in a small claims court without legal representation.

  However, Dish is providing subscribers with the ability to opt out of this provision, but only if they do so within 30 days. So if you’re a Dish customer, check your e-mail inbox because you probably have a boring-sounding message from Dish with details of the new arbitration rules. Your 30-day countdown started whenever that e-mail was sent.

  This form [PDF] must be filled out and returned to Dish within that time frame.

  Make sure you send the form to the correct address:
  DISH Network L.L.C.
  Attn: Dispute Resolution
  P.O. Box 9040
  Littleton, CO
  80120-9040

  “Any opt-out not received within the thirty (30) day period set forth above will not be valid,” according to the terms.

  For new Dish customers, the 30-day countdown clock starts the day your service goes active.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uAfter FDA Warning, Kim Kardashian Posts Corrected Endorsement Of Morning Sickness Pillr

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  Kim Kardashian issued a corrected endorsement for morning sickness pill after the FDA took issue with a first post’s lack of acknowledgement of associated safety risks.

  Weeks after federal regulators took issue with drug company Duchesnay for allowing mom-to-be Kim Kardashian to tout the benefits of its morning sickness pill on social media without properly disclosing the drug’s associated risk and limitations, the reality star posted updated endorsements, complete with acknowledgement of the pill’s side effects.

  The new “#CorrectiveAd” posts – which were quickly pushed down the page thanks to Kardashian’s posts about the MTV Video Music Awards – were mandated by the FDA after the agency issued a warning letter to Duchesnay in early August saying the lack of safety information included in Kardashian’s original July posts put consumers at risk.

  “I guess you saw the attention my last #morningsickness post received,” an Instagram post from the celebrity states. “The FDA has told Duchesnay, Inc., that my last post about Diclegis (doxylamine succinate and pyridoxine HCl) was incomplete because it did not include any risk information or important limitations of use for Diclegis. A link to this information accompanied the post, but this didn’t meet FDA requirements. So, I’m re-posting and sharing this important information about Diclegis.”

  According to the FDA letter, a review of the first endorsements by Kardashian found the posts to be “false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for Diclegis, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with its use and it omits material facts.”

  As a result, the FDA claims the post misbrands the pill, which makes its distribution a violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

  Regulators told Duchesnay that the misleading messages – which were quickly deleted by Kardashian in August – be corrected in the same format they were originally posted – meaning on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

  While the first posts included a link to the company’s website and Duchesnay sent out a press release providing more details about the partnership including information on Diclegis, the FDA claimed those steps weren’t enough to mitigate misinformation.

  Kardashian addressed those issue in her corrected ads on Sunday. The rather lengthy post goes on to include limitations – “Diclegis has not been studied in women with hyperemesis gravidarum” – and important safety information including a number of other medications that shouldn’t be taken in conjunction with the pill.

  Here’s the full text of the corrected ad:

  #CorrectiveAd I guess you saw the attention my last #morningsickness post received. The FDA has told Duchesnay, Inc., that my last post about Diclegis (doxylamine succinate and pyridoxine HCl) was incomplete because it did not include any risk information or important limitations of use for Diclegis. A link to this information accompanied the post, but this didn’t meet FDA requirements. So, I’m re-posting and sharing this important information about Diclegis. For US Residents Only.

  Diclegis is a prescription medicine used to treat nausea and vomiting of pregnancy in women who have not improved with change in diet or other non-medicine treatments.
  Limitation of Use: Diclegis has not been studied in women with hyperemesis gravidarum.

  Important Safety Information
  Do not take Diclegis if you are allergic to doxylamine succinate, other ethanolamine derivative antihistamines, pyridoxine hydrochloride or any of the ingredients in Diclegis. You should also not take Diclegis in combination with medicines called monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), as these medicines can intensify and prolong the adverse CNS effects of Diclegis.

  The most common side effect of Diclegis is drowsiness. Do not drive, operate heavy machinery, or other activities that need your full attention unless your healthcare provider says that you may do so. Do not drink alcohol, or take other central nervous system depressants such as cough and cold medicines, certain pain medicines, and medicines that help you sleep while you take Diclegis. Severe drowsiness can happen or become worse causing falls or accidents.

  Tell your healthcare provider about all of your medical conditions, including if you are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Diclegis can pass into your breast milk and may harm your baby. You should not breastfeed while using Diclegis.

  Additional safety information can be found at http://ift.tt/1DprUH2 or http://www.Diclegis.com. Duchesnay USA encourages you to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit http://ift.tt/xNUY9D or call 1-800-FDA-1088.”

  [via Bloomberg]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uGuy Buys Lottery Ticket With $20 He Found On The Street, Wins $1 Millionr

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  (Lisa Brewster)

  Here’s yet another story that’ll make you want to go out and buy a lottery ticket, even though let’s face it, this kind of thing will likely never happen to us: A guy who found $20 on the street and used it to buy a lottery ticket has won $1 million as a result of his lucky break.

  The California Lottery says a San Francisco Bay Area man spotted a $20 bill on the street outside the airport last week, and decided to buy two scratch-off tickets with it. One of them yielded the top prize of $1 million.

  “I scratched the ticket outside of the store,” he said, saying he was in shock when he won. “I told my friend who I was with that I didn’t know if it was real but, ‘I think I just won a million dollars.’ ”

  The man works as a bartender, and says he’s planning on saving the money for now. The store where he purchased the ticket will also receive $5,000 from the lottery for selling the winning ticket.

  Keep your eyes peeled for free money, as well: the winner joked that he might start leaving $20 bills on the street in random spots to spread his good fortune.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uUber Hires Security Researchers Who Hacked A Jeep To Protect Its Self-Driving Cars From Cyber Attacksr

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• As technology advances and our cars become more and more autonomous, they are also opened up more and more to a new danger that didn’t used to exist on the roads — hack attacks. To protect that new technology and reassure future customers that riding in self-driving cars can be safe, Uber has hired the same two vehicle security researchers who managed to remotely hack a Jeep earlier this summer.

  Uber Technologies announced that Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek would be joining the company as of this week, reports Reuters. Miller had been employed at Twitter and Valasek was working at security firm IOActive.

  They’ll be joining other autonomous vehicle experts hired away from Carnegie Mellon University at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center, a research center the company opened in Pittsburg in February.

  A spokeswoman said the duo will work with the company’s top security officers “to continue building out a world-class safety and security program at Uber.” It’s likely that their jobs will include figuring out how to protect the cars against attacks from people like themselves.

  If Uber didn’t have to pay the hundreds and thousand of contract drivers ferrying passengers around every day, it would mean it could pocket a lot more money from each fare. To achieve this dream, Uber has been hiring experts from universities and research centers to stock its talent pool.

  The company also announced a partnership last week with the University of Arizona that will put money toward research into the mapping and safety technology needed for autonomous vehicles. Uber will then test those prototypes on the streets of Tucson.

  After Miller and Valasek hacked a Jeep Cherokee, exploiting the system’s cellular network to sneak in through the entertainment system and get control of the car’s engine, brakes and steering, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recalled 1.4 million vehicles so users could install software to prevent hackers from replicating the attack.

  Jeep Cherokee owners have since filed a lawsuit against FCA and Harman International, the makers of the UConnect infotainment system that was breached. The three plaintiffs are seeking class-action status, accusing FCA and Harman of fraud, negligence, unjust enrichment and breach of warranty.

  Uber hires two security researchers to improve car technology [Reuters]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uMan Comes Home To Find Out Roommate Has Listed His Room On Airbnbr

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• If you only live in your condo part-time, you can imagine that the roommate who is there the rest of the time might get up to some hijinks while you’re away. But you probably didn’t think he would list your room on Airbnb without mentioning it.

  This is what happened to a man who splits his time between California and Chicago, and who recently came back from the West Coast to find that two random people sleeping in his bed and drinking his booze.

  “Your imagination goes crazy. What’s been going on?” The man, who owns the two-bedroom condo and sublets a room to another guy, tells CBS Chicago. “It could be everything from orgies to to drugs.”

  Suspecting that his roommate had listed the room online, the homeowner looked on the Airbnb site and found his condo was indeed available for rent. The roommate had even used some of the owner’s personal photos of the condo for the listing.

  Not surprisingly, that roommate has been given the heave-ho, while the homeowner looks for answers from Airbnb about how something like this could happen.

  Unfortunately for him, the online rental platform is distancing itself from the bad roommate’s actions.

  “Airbnb does not own, operate, manage or control accommodations, nor do we verify private contract terms or arbitrate complaints from third parties,” reads a statement from the company.

  One could certainly see Airbnb’s side, as the company positions itself as just a listing service for people to publicize spaces available for guests. Services like Craigslist have long made similar claims that they are merely platforms through which third parties conduct business.

  But you can also see how this “not our problem” stance would be incredibly frustrating to victims like this homeowner, who just wants to know how someone could list a room on Airbnb without showing that he owns the condo.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uT-Mobile CEO Has No Idea What People Are Doing With 2 TB Of Mobile Data, Vows To Stop Themr

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  (Patrick)

  Heads up, mobile data hogs: T-Mobile is on to your tethering shenanigans and your testing the limits of what “unlimited data” means. In a blog post, CEO John Legere says that the company plans to go after its biggest “network abusers,” and it will begin today. What’s “abuse,” according to Legere? Using as much as two terabytes of data per month.

  It’s hard to use that much data in a month with just a phone, but this all goes back to the users violating the terms and conditions of their accounts, which T-Mobile coincidentally declared war on about a year ago. They didn’t end up carrying out the plan last year, but this year the warnings and account downgrades are happening.

  Smartphones can be used as mobile wifi hotspots, which is useful, say, when you’re trying to put up a blog post in the waiting room at the dentist. While T-Mobile only lets its users with unlimited accounts use about 7 gigabytes of data on their phones as mobile hotspots every month, there are ways around that limit, using apps designed for the purpose of illicit tethering.

  There’s a difference between sneaking a desktop Web browsing session and whatever the heaviest users are up to, though, and Legere is threatening to check up on the top 3,000 data users nationwide. T-Mobile claims to have developed technology to find these users and stop them.

  Will T-Mobile follow through this time? Will people who aren’t abusing the network be swept up in this hunt for the perpetrators of alleged network abuse? We’ll find out soon, maybe.

  Stopping Network Abusers: An Open Letter to T-Mobile Customers [T-Mobile]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uNestle Announces Another Change To Supply Chain: All KitKat Chocolate Will Be Sustainably Sourcedr

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  (slgckgc)

  After saying that “forced labor has no place in [their] supply chain” for Fancy Feast cat food, Swiss conglomerate Nestle SA is now addressing another supply chain area, saying KitKat will be the first global chocolate brand to make all its products with sustainably sourced cocoa. This, as the chocolate industry has come under fire for allegations of child labor.

  All KitKat candy bars will contain cocoa made by independent third parties by the first quarter of 2016, the company said in a statement Monday.

  Nestle already uses only sustainably sourced cocoa in certain markets, but this move extends the practice worldwide, including in the U.S., where Hershey Co. holds the license to make KitKat bars.

  “We’re delighted to be a flag bearer for the industry, as the first global chocolate brand to announce such a move,” said Sandra Martinez, Head of Confectionery for Nestlé. “Sustainable cocoa sourcing helps safeguard the livelihoods of farming communities and delivers higher quality cocoa beans. This announcement will only strengthen consumer trust in KitKat as a responsible brand.”

  Bloomberg notes that the chocolate industry has come under fire for years for the practice of producers using child labor in cocoa fields: in 2014, random visits to 200 farms in the Ivory Coast that supply Nestle found four children under 15 working in cocoa fields, according to a report by the Fair Labor Association.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist