uSouthwest Flight Veers Off Runway After Landing; Eight Injuredr

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  A 90-minute Southwest Airlines flight went smoothly for 133 passengers, at least until the plane landed in Nashville Tuesday night, veering off the runway and injuring eight people. 

  The Associated Press reports that Southwest flight 31, traveling from Houston Hobby Airport to Nashville, went off the runway while taxiing toward an arrival gate around 5:20 p.m. (EST).

  A spokesperson for Southwest said the 133 passengers and five crew members evacuated the plane safely and were bussed to the terminal.

  Airplane ran off runway at BNA! http://pic.twitter.com/gugUrmDj0r

  — Andrew Borchers (@andyborchers) December 15, 2015

  Upon arriving at the airport, fire officials say seven people were transported to a hospital with minor injuries and one with chest pains.

  While it’s unclear what caused the aircraft to veer off the runway and into the grass, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the Agency is investigating.

  Southwest Airlines plane off the runway, Nashville http://pic.twitter.com/MTl2M1mwRx

  — Richard Keppler (@RichardKeppler1) December 16, 2015

  Southwest Airlines plane landing in Nashville skids off runway, injuring 8 [The Associated Press]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uCustomer Says Box Of Pasta Contained Free Mummified Frogr

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• Poor frogs. We keep accidentally scooping them up and serving them in our food. The latest case of a free frog found where it wasn’t supposed to be is a very strange one: a woman in Minnesota says that she found a petrified frog in her box of pasta.

  (If you want to see the frog, head over to the TV station’s site.)

  How does that happen? Did the amphibian end up in the machine that dries the pasta, somehow hop through various quality controls, and end up in a box on the shelf in the midwestern United States? Why would a frog be in a pasta factory in the first place?

  The customer doesn’t have an answer to that question, but she knows that she didn’t put the frog there. She explained to local TV station KMSP that she had used about half of the pasta, and then her husband knocked the box off the shelf, spilling its contents across the floor. Those contents included the frog.

  Barilla now has the pasta, the box, and the frog, and the company says that they’re investigating the incident. The customer isn’t sure that employees of Barilla believe her, but she also knows that there wasn’t a dried frog on her floor before the pasta box fell. “My kitchen floor is very clean, and I would not have a petrified frog laying on it,” she told KMSP. “I could eat off my kitchen floor.”

  Here’s the statement that Barilla sent to the TV station:

  Barilla is aware of the isolated report regarding a foreign element in a box of Barilla pasta,. Once we received this report, we immediately took action to coordinate directly with the consumer and have connected via phone, email and mail. We have also retrieved the product in question to investigate any deviation from our manufacturing and packaging processes.

  Woman allegedly finds frog in her box of Barilla pasta [KMSP]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uComcast Hit With $26M Penalty For Dumping Hazardous Waste AND Revealing Personal Customer Infor

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  Wow. Just wow. It takes a truly awful company to dump hazardous waste. It takes an equally bad business to reveal private customer info. But it takes a Kabletown to do both at the same time.

  According to a complaint [PDF] filed last week by California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, cable colossus Comcast warehouses and dispatch facilities in the state have allegedly spent the last ten years unlawfully disposing of hazardous waste products, including electronic equipment (remote controls, modems, power adapters) and batteries, in local landfills that were not permitted to receive these items.

  At the same time, California Comcast offices were tossing out documents containing sensitive customer information — names, addresses, phone numbers — without shredding them or otherwise redacting the personal info. Leaving this info available for anyone to find put Comcast customers at risk for identity theft.

  Today, Harris and O’Malley announced that they had reached a deal with the nation’s largest cable company. Per the proposed deal [PDF], which still must be approved by the court, Comcast agrees to penalties worth $25.95 million, including $1.6 million that will go to provide lab equipment for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and $2.25 million over the course of four years in public service announcements about proper handling of hazardous waste. Comcast must also spend a minimum of $700,000 to enhance its environmental compliance policies.

  “Comcast’s careless and unlawful hazardous waste disposal practices jeopardized the health and environmental well-being of California communities and exposed their customers to the threat of identity theft,” said Harris in a statement.

  “Today’s settlement represents a victory in California’s ongoing efforts to ensure that hazardous waste is disposed of in a safe, legal and environmentally sustainable manner,” explained O’Malley.

  The Comcast complaint comes a little more than a year after Harris’ office reached a similar $23.8 million settlement with AT&T. In that case, California investigators found that more than 235 AT&T facilities in the state had illegally dumped electronic equipment, batteries, aerosol cans, as well as certain gels, liquids and other items used by AT&T service technicians in delivering telephone, Internet and video services to residential and business customers.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uProblems At Snapfish Lead To Pre-Christmas Photo Scramble, Angry Customersr

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• Five years ago, shortly before Christmas 2010, a reader complained to us that the photo-printing service Snapfish over-promised on their Christmas shipping deadlines, running late on a customer’s photo calendars and failing to get them to her before the holiday. This year, they seem to be doing the same on a massive scale, missing their advertised shipping dates due to “unprecedented volume.”

  Snapfish has long been owned by Hewlett-Packard. It probably seemed like a good acquisition at the time, but as HP decided to split into two separate companies, one business-focused and one consumer-focused, it seemed like a good time to send Snapfish out on its own. The company lets users order prints of their digital photos, including prints on calendars, books, ornaments, mugs and other items that can have photos printed on them.

  The new owner is District Photo, a commercial printing business based in Maryland. Snapfish’s first holiday season with its new parent company is not going smoothly. Customers report long waits in customer service chat queues, orders canceled by the company without customers’ knowing about it, and orders promised weeks ago that are significantly delayed.

  Gwendolyn, for example, ordered prints from photos that were already uploaded to the service, then simply assumed that the company would print and send them. Two weeks later, she learned that her order had been canceled, and she received no notification.

  She needed them for an event on Saturday, and a customer service rep promised that if she placed the order again with overnight shipping, she would receive a refund. Then the photos in the new order were delayed again, and a different customer service representative told her that they may or may not arrive on Friday with overnight shipping.

  A social media representative responded to her complaint, and they began a conversation through private messages. This person apologized for not responding sooner, and expressed sympathy, wishing that he or she could help “in some way.” That’s nice, but that’s not the answer that Gwendolyn wanted.

  “How was I able to buy prints of photos you no longer had stored in the proper format?” she responded to their message in part. “How did my order get canceled without explaining to me why? Why do your customers service reps end chats with customers before the customer is done speaking with them? Why did the customer service rep tell me there was a problem with ONE photo when clearly there was a problem with multiple?”

  Since this exchange happened over Facebook, she knows that the company saw her message and hasn’t responded to it. That probably isn’t because of any malice on their part, but because the person responsible for answering Facebook messages simply doesn’t have the answers to her questions.

  She isn’t alone in experiencing problems with Snapfish, though. The company posted this acknowledgement on their Facebook page over the weekend:

  We are currently experiencing some slight delays with card orders due to unprecedented volume. We apologize for any delay and are working hard to get all orders produced and delivered to customers as soon as possible. As soon as your order ships you will receive a shipping confirmation email. In the meantime, we sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding.

  Sincerely,
  The Snapfish elves

  Their fans responded with a parade of customer service misery. “Why do you say slight delays?” wrote one customer. “I placed two orders on November 30th, and they are both ‘still in process.'”

  We left messages for Snapfish and for their parent company, and they haven’t yet responded. If you’re waiting for an order and encountering problems like this and want to share your story, let us know at tips@consumerist.com!

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uClothing Retailers Lost $185 Million In November Because The Weather Is Too Nicer

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  As the weather continues to be great in much of the country, the situation is getting worse for retailers. Now we can put some numbers on that: a firm that combines research on weather and retail reports that clothing stores lost $185 million just in November of this year.

  Yes, all of that excess stock means that shoppers can expect great markdowns after the holidays, but the unseasonable warm snap will hit companies in the profits. While consumers have more money in our pockets due to lower fuel prices, they’re spending that money somewhere other than the mall.

  Normally, the first very cold day of the year prompts shoppers to head to the store for a new winter coat if they need one. While there, they shop for other seasonal clothing. This hasn’t happened yet, which leaves retailers with stacks of coats, sweaters, hats, mittens, and boots and nowhere to put their spring fashion offerings.

  If you plan to do last-minute shopping in clothing stores before Christmas, be warned: weather prognosticators believe that temperatures will plummet in much of the country next week, and shoppers might run to the malls to buy parkas and sweaters that week, whether the items are marked down or not. At least that’s what retail executives hope is going to happen.

  Stores Lost $185 Million in Sales Due to Warm Weather [AdAge]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uMore Than 500,000 People Ask CenturyLink To Help End Robocallsr

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  Even though the FCC has said that landline operators can offer robocall-blocking technology to their customers, many of them have so far chosen to not do so. That’s why our colleagues at Consumers Union hand-delivered a petition with more than 500,000 signatures to CenturyLink this morning, hoping to drive home how fed-up consumers are with these unwanted interruptions.

  As part of its ongoing End Robocalls campaign, CU lugged its boxes and boxes of petition pages to the front door of CenturyLink’s office in Phoenix, one of the company’s largest markets, on Tuesday.

  “What we wanted to do is deliver a petition from over half a million people, calling on CenturyLink to provide customers with free and effective tools to end robocalls,” explained Tim Marvin, who has headed up the anti-robocall campaign for CU.

  “My husband and I are retired, so when we start getting calls at eight in the morning it’s very disruptive,” said Susan, a CenturyLink customer who was on hand for the petition delivery. “My mother is 100 years old, and she gets the same call every day. She’s tried and tried to get them to stop, but they won’t.”

  “Everyone gets robocalled,” said Marvin, pointing out that the Federal Trade Commission alone received
  more than 3.5 million complaints about these calls last year — and those are just the consumers who take the time to file a grievance with regulators.

  While the Do Not Call list and strict FCC rules prohibit many unwanted autodialed and/or pre-recorded calls, many robocallers are scammers who don’t care if they violate the rules.

  There are a number of options available to telecom companies to help consumers cut down on these phony phone calls, but the telecom industry has been dragging its feet in offering them. A frequently given explanation for the inaction is a concern that any sort of phone number blacklist may result in the occasional legitimate call being blocked.

  So instead, telephone companies have left it for the customer to use some third party device or service to moderate suspicious calls.

  “The onus right now is on the consumer to navigate these complex problems,” explained CU’s Delara Derakhshani at a recent panel discussion on the issue. “The options are limited in their capability to block calls and they cost money. Consumers are being forced to pay for tools to block calls they shouldn’t be receiving in the first place.”

  Marvin said this isn’t about making call-blocking mandatory, but about giving consumers a simple option to rid themselves of these likely illegal nuisance calls.

  “What we want CenturyLink to do is start to provide some relief to that annoyance,” he explained outside the telecom company’s office. “CenturyLink has the technology and the ability to give people free and effective tools to block these robocalls before they even get to their houses.”

  “I think it’s an invasion of our privacy,” said CL customer Susan, “and if CenturyLink has a way to stop them, I think they should.”

  This is the second petition delivery for CU in recent weeks. The End Robocalls team knocked on the door of Verizon’s D.C. office a few weeks back, where the company agreed to sit down with CU to discuss the problem. The folks at AT&T HQ can expect to hear from consumers about robocalls in the coming weeks.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uFacebook Taking On Yelp, Angie’s List To Provide Users With Highly-Rated Professional Servicesr

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• Finding a reliable service provider can be a test of patience for some consumers, despite sites like Angie’s List and Yelp that aim to connect customers with local professionals focused on repairs, installations, or other jobs around the house. Facebook thinks it has what it takes to make the quest for a dependable handyman, lawn care service, plumber, and other local businesses with its new “Professional Services” feature. 

  The new venture, currently only available on the desktop version of the social networking site, is Facebook’s latest attempt to reach small businesses, USA Today reports.

  Professional Services provides users with a list of “local businesses with the best Facebook reviews and ratings” after they select from an extensive list of categories on the features homepage.

  Results display a businesses’ contact information and hours of business, and excerpts of reviews, as well as a link to see more reviews on the company’s Facebook page.

  

  “We’re in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they’re interested in,” the company tells USA Today.

  Facebook didn’t provide details on how the service determines a businesses’ rating, but Search Engine Land, which reported on the feature Monday, suggests the results take into account Facebook’s five-star rating system found on businesses’ “pages” into account.

  According to USA Today, Facebook currently hosts more than 50 million active business pages.

  Facebook tests local business feature [USA Today]
  Is “Facebook Professional Services” Facebook’s Stealth Project To Beat Yelp? [Search Engine Land]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist