uNation’s Biggest Employment Background Screeners Must Pay $13M Over Inaccurate Reportsr

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  Before offering a prospective employee a job, many companies will first perform a background check. As with credit reports, any inaccuracies in these transcripts can affect an applicant’s eligibility for employment. To that end, federal regulators have ordered two of the country’s largest employment background screening report providers to pay $13 million in penalties and refunds for providing inaccurate information. 

  The Consumer Financial PRotection Bureau announced that General Information Services (GIS) and its affiliate, e-Background-checks.com, Inc. (BGC), will provide $10.5 million in relief to consumers who were negatively affected by the companies’ erroneous reporting.

  Employers routinely use these background reports – which include criminal history information and civil records – to determine hiring eligibility of applicants and make other types of employment decisions

  According to the CFPB consent order [PDF], GIS and BGC – which collectively generate and sell more than 10 million reports about job applicants each year – failed to employ reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in reports provided to potential employers.

  The CFPB found that GIS did not require employers to provide consumers’ middle names, and neither company had a written policy for researching applicants with common names.

  As a result, the companies provided prospective employers with inaccurate reports that included criminal records attached to the wrong individuals, dismissed and expunged records, and misdemeanors reported as felony convictions.

  In fact, the CFPB found that between 2010 and 2014, nearly 70% of criminal history disputes filed with GIS resulted in some change or correction to the information in the consumer’s background report.

  Additionally, the Bureau found that GIS and BGC unlawfully included certain information in consumer reports they provided to prospective employers. Specifically, the CFPB found that GIS and BCG failed to take measures to prevent non-reportable civil suit and civil judgment information older than seven years from being illegally included in its reports.

  The CFPB claims that GIS and BGC’s actions likely resulted in the denial of employment, missed economic opportunity, and reputational harm to otherwise qualified applicants.

  Under the Bureau’s consent order, the two companies must pay $10.5 million in relief to harmed consumers.

  The companies must identify individuals who were negatively affected by their conduct and provide approximately $1,000 to each.

  GIS and BCG are also required to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty, revise their compliance procedures, retain an independent consultant, and develop a comprehensive audit program.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uBuffalo Wild Wings Blames Sluggish Sales On NFL Season’s Late Startr

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  Did you notice something different about the first week of September this year — perhaps a noticeable lack of wing sauce covering your fingers? Sports eatery Buffalo Wild Wings wasn’t able to score as much in the third quarter, blaming its lack of customers on the late start to the NFL season.

  The chain reported $455.5 million in sales this week, which is off from the $466.8 million expected by analysts, sending shares diving by as much as 18%. This, because the professional football season started on Sept. 10 instead of Sept. 4 as it did in 2014, Buffalo Wild Wings said on an earnings call reported by Business Insider.

  Where there are football fans, there are piles of chicken wing bones and full cash registers, something Buffalo Wild Wings says was a major contributor to its less-than-stellar third quarter sales, along with food and labor costs.

  “If you looked at September as a month, there were six days in which we didn’t have college or pro football when we did last year, and then also a UFC fight and a boxing match,” Buffalo Wild Wings COO James M. Schmidt said on the call (though it should be noted college football’s first week started Sept. 3 this year). “That really impacted both the month and the quarter as a whole.”

  Things aren’t going to get much better during the holidays, executives said, as festivities will keep people busy until the Super Bowl. Unless you want to go as a greedy wings eater for Halloween, in which case you’re going to need some food for your costume.

  Buffalo Wild Wings is blaming the NFL for a slowdown in business [Business Insider]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uFanDuel CEO Calls For “Sensible Regulation” Of Fantasy Sportsr

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• Two weeks after Nevada gaming regulators barred daily fantasy sports sites like FanDuel and DraftKings from operating in the state, claiming they were unlicensed forms of sports betting, the CEO of FanDuel has acknowledged that maybe his virtually unregulated industry could do with a tiny bit of oversight.

  Fantasy sports contests are currently exempted from federal laws that restrict most online gambling. The rationale behind the exemption was that fantasy sports betting is more of a game of skill than a game of chance.

  However, a number of things have come up in recent months questioning that position. First there was the report of a DraftKings employee who had access to potentially useful inside information and made $350,000 in a single weekend by entering a FanDuel contest.

  While both sites said the employee did nothing wrong, it didn’t quiet concerns about behavior that, to some, reeked of the sort of insider trading that is illegal on Wall Street.

  It also raised questions about why employees of these companies are allowed to take part in these contests at all. Both FanDuel and DraftKings have subsequently barred staff from entering tournaments on fantasy sites, but a DraftKings co-founder had previously stated they couldn’t enact such a policy because the company’s employees — many of them pulled from the elite of fantasy sports betting — were making too much money on their competing sites.

  These reports led to investigations by various attorneys general, including New York AG Eric Schneiderman, who questioned the policies and practices at these two sites.

  The FBI is also reportedly looking into the business models of fantasy sports businesses.

  “In any disruptive fast-growing industry, important questions are often raised about how the industry should operate – fantasy sports is no different,” writes FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles. “Real questions have emerged.”

  Eccles explains that the fantasy sports business has “grown to a size where a more formal, industry-wide approach is needed,” and that these sites need “strong, common sense, enforceable consumer protection requirements.”

  The CEO says there are state-level laws in the works that would cover things like age/location verification, protection of user info and of proprietary contest data, independent auditing requirements, and other facets of the business.

  These, he believes, “can serve as the basis for the sensible regulation of the fantasy sports industry.”

  FanDuel and DraftKings have soared to prominence this year thanks to a huge influx of capital investment, along with prominent partnerships with broadcasters and professional sports leagues.

  Eccles claims that the heads of those pro leagues “share support for sensible regulation of fantasy sports that protects consumers, without sacrificing their enjoyment of the game.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uRaiders Of The Lost Walmart Find Rich Vein Of Overpriced Electronics From 2008r

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• Kevin is one of the bold explorers who form the Raiders of the Lost Walmart, checking dusty clearance racks for secret caches of ancient flash drives and defunct multiplayer games. While exploring a retail archaeolgy site, or “Walmart store,” in upstate New York, he found an especially rich collection of finds.

  You may remember that Sirius and XM merged into one company in 2008. This receiver with Sirius-only branding dates back at least to then. It probably works, but isn’t woth the price.

  

  

  That’s also true of this desktop wireless card, which is old enough that it only goes up to 802.11g, yet somehow has only been marked down 35%.

  

  

  You don’t need any PC parts? How about a new camera? This one takes photos with lower resolution than your smartphone, and has been on the market since 2009. Doe that affect the price? Of course not!

  

  Perhaps that camera is too new for you. Howa about this one, which is a little downcale anda ittle oldr?

  

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uCouple Plead Guilty To Scamming Kohl’s Of $600,000 In Rewards Cashr

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  Sure, sometimes that Kohl’s cash you earned goes to waste: you forgot about it or found there simply wasn’t anything in the store you could use it on. One New Jersey couple apparently didn’t have those problems. Instead, police say they created a system to scam the retailer’s rewards program to the tune of $600,000 in products. 

  The couple pleaded guilty Wednesday to defrauding the Kohl’s Cash rewards program by creating a computer system that stole cash certificate numbers belonging to other customers, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

  Kohl’s Cash is a loyalty program in which the retail chain gives customers $10 certificates when they spend $50 in stores or online.

  Authorities say the pair – one of which is a computer programmer – employed their scheme to obtain cash benefits totaling roughly $587,526 from more than 7,000 legitimate customers between June 2014 and June 2015.

  With the cash vouchers in hand, the couple reportedly placed more than 1,000 online orders for items like electronics, jewelry, sports memorabilia, clothing and household products.

  In some cases, the couple sold the items to others who didn’t know they were stolen, returned them for store credit or sent them overseas to relatives as gifts, records show.

  The alleged fraudsters also sold some stolen numbers to others, including businesses that resell gift cards, the Journal Sentinel reports.

  The scheme was uncovered by FBI agents following an investigation into complaints that Kohl’s customers were unable to redeem cash rewards certificates they had received.

  Investigators believe the couple was able to pilfer the Kohl’s cash by using an automated computer process that “located, identified and provided certificate bar code and PIN numbers for rewards cash certificates in a sequential manner.”

  The Journal Sentinel reports that Kohl’s tested the theory and was able to get both the certificate number and the current balance for about 3,000 Kohl’s Cash certificates.

  The New Jersey couple’ sentencing is set for January. The man – deemed the mastermind of the scam – faces a decade in prison. Although, it could be reduced per a plea agreement. The woman faces less than a year.

  New Jersey couple plead guilty to scamming Kohl’s Cash rewards program [The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uUber May Be Shooting Itself In The Foot With Surge Pricingr

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  While it might be more difficult to hail a taxi at rush hour in Midtown Manhattan, the base rate for your ride is no different than if you’d flagged down that cab two hours earlier. But if you try to summon an Uber driver, you might he hit with increased “surge” pricing. Uber says the higher cost is intended to lure drivers to these high-demand areas, but a new study claims that surge pricing may have the opposite effect.

  This is according to a paper [PDF] from researchers at Northeastern University who gathered data from 43 Uber accounts in Manhattan and San Francisco over a four week period.

  The justification for surge pricing is that Uber drivers, who can see when rates spike in a city’s different surge zones, will be attracted to that area to meet the increased customer demand.

  While the researchers did see a “small effect on attracting new cars,” the higher prices also appear to “have a larger, negative effect on demand, which causes cars to either become idle or leave the surge area.”

  These results indicate that Uber users may be seeing the higher prices and deciding against using the service.

  “What happens during a surge is, it just kills demand,” Christo Wilson, one of the researchers behind the study, explained to ProPublica. “So the drivers actually drive away from the surge.”

  Savvy Uber users may simply be walking a few blocks to get out of the surge area.

  The study found that Uber customers in New York’s busy Times Square section could sometimes save at least 50% off surge pricing by moving to the neighboring zone on the Uber map.

  That information is not made available to the general public, but Uber drivers can see the distinct surge areas on their version of the Uber app. And an industrious customer could probably figure out the general boundaries of their local surge area by walking around and checking out rates every few blocks.

  If walking around isn’t your thing, the research also found that surges tend to not last very long. So frequent users may be aware that they can save money by waiting out the temporary price hike.

  While Uber is attempting to downplay the results of the study, saying that it uses a too-small data set that does not jive with the company’s experiences of surge pricing, some drivers are saying they do tend to avoid surges.

  “The seasoned drivers don’t pay any attention to surge,” one cabbie-turned-Uber driver tells the San Francisco Chronicle. “By the time you get to that part of the city, the surge is over. Often, even when I’m sitting dead center in the middle of a surge area, I don’t get a ride request. Then, as soon as the surge is off — bam! — here comes a ride.”

  An economist for Uber tells the Chronicle that the company is updating the driver-facing app with more granular surge data intended to give drivers more confidence in responding to short-term fare increases.

  “We can tell you that if you are two-tenths of a mile away, you will make significantly more money” he explains. “Or we can tell you that by the time you get there, it won’t have been worth your time to make that trip.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uReport: T-Mobile May Let Customers Stream Video Without Eating Into Their Data Plansr

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  Maybe you’ve had that moment, the one where you’re 47 minutes deep in a Star Trek: The Next Generation binge session on your phone (because you can’t be bothered to find a larger screen) and you suddenly realize you haven’t switched over to WiFi. Visions of your swiftly dwindling data plan may no longer dance in front of your eyes at such times if you’re a T-Mobile customer, if a new rumor proves to be true.

  The Un-Carrier is reportedly going to announce that streaming video on apps like Netflix and HBO will no longer ding customers’ data plans, according to Tweet from tech journalist Evan Blass (h/t The Verge):

  T-Mobile's Uncarrier 10 to offer unlimited high speed data for watching select streaming video services like Netflix, HBO, etc.

  — Evan Blass (@evleaks) October 29, 2015

  This is already the case for T-Mobile’s Music Freedom perk, which allows customers to stream music from Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music and Soundcloud without any effect on their data plans.

  It’s unclear if only HBOGo and Netflix will be included in the reported new perk or if other services will also have punishment-free streaming. Again, at this point this is just the buzz around the water cooler — T-Mobile has yet to comment officially on the report. We’ll keep our ears open on Nov. 10, the date of T-Mobile’s Uncarrier X event.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist