uPapa John’s Promises To Go Antibiotic-Free For Its Chicken Toppings, Poppersr

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  We’ve never really understood the appeal of chicken on pizza, but hey — some people really like it. So this should be good news for them, as Papa John’s has announced plans to only source chickens raised on vegetarian diets and without antibiotics.

  Papa John’s uses chicken both as a chicken topping and in “chicken poppers,” but the company said today that by summer 2016 these would both come from drug-free chickens.

  One thing the announcement didn’t mention: Papa John’s chicken wings. We’ve reached out to PJ’s HQ for clarification. Given that you need multiple birds just to make a single 8-piece order of hot wings — whereas you can probably get a couple pizzas’ worth of grilled chicken breast toppings from a single full-grown chicken — it might not yet be feasible for a company the size of Papa John’s to make that switch.

  And of course, chicken represents just one of many meat toppings used on Papa John’s pizza. The company has not yet indicated any plans to change how it sources the beef and pork it uses for sausage, pepperoni, and other toppings.

  But this is at least an improvement for the pizza chain, which recently earned an “F” on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s antibiotics report card for having no apparent policy with regard to antibiotics.

  Unfortunately, PJ’s was not alone in receiving that failing grade. In fact, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Little Caesars were also slapped with an “F” in that report card, giving big Papa the distinction of being the first of the pizza mega-chains to do anything about curbing the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals.

  However, a number of big fast food names have at least begun the process of reducing the amount of drugged-up meat they buy.

  Chipotle and Panera already avoided meat from animals raised on antibiotics. Then Chick fil-A got the ball rolling in early 2015 by declaring its intention to eventually phase out the use of drugs in its birds. In March, McDonald’s announced its plans to source chickens raised without using antibiotics that are medically important to humans.

  More recently, Wendy’s began testing antibiotic-free chicken in a handful of cities. Finally, Subway announced in October that it plans to have its entire menu antibiotic-free… over the next ten years.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uSnapfish Promises To Upgrade Some Christmas Card Orders, Customers Not Placatedr

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• In response to customers who are angry that they haven’t yet received their orders for photo Christmas cards and other time-sensitive items, photo-printing company Snapfish announced that they’ll be sending out some orders––specifically, photo cards printed on stationery paper–– with expedited shipping. Everyone else? You’ll have to wait in the customer service chat queue to be hung up on.

  Snapfish hasn’t responded to any of our inquiries, but it appears that they’re behind on printing cards on stationery paper, and customers upset about that are making the customer service queue even slower than it would normally be the week before Christmas. The company posted this notice to Facebook:

  Dear loyal customers,

  We appreciate your patience during this busy holiday season! Here is an update on your card orders:
  Starting tonight, we are upgrading all stationery card orders placed prior to 12/9 with expedited shipping, free of charge. You will receive an email from Snapfish if this applies to your order. All cards printed on photo paper are shipping on schedule.

  Thank you for your understanding!

  – Your friends at Snapfish

  That doesn’t solve all customers’ problems, though. Gwendolyn would still like to know why the company canceled her order of photo prints with no warning,, and other customers report similar cancellation issues. All customers also struggle to get through to customer service.

  Kate ordered an album of photos from her wedding as a Christmas present for her wedding, and it hasn’t yet arrived. “They said that they’re working to get all orders delivered by the originally expected date,” she wrote to Consumerist.” My order should have arrived by now if that’s the case and it hasn’t. It’s still in process.”

  Kathy is still waiting for her Christmas cards, and is mostly upset with how customers have been treated. Sending out slightly late Christmas cards isn’t a disaster, but she doesn’t appreciate that she seek out information about her delayed order. “It was only after searching for Snapfish on Twitter and Facebook that I realized there was an issue,” she writes. “As a customer, I shouldn’t have to go searching for information to find out what’s wrong with my order.”

  What was wrong with her order wasn’t her fault, and Kathy points out that the bigger problem that all complaining customers have is that unresponsive customer service means that they can’t even contact the company to cancel orders that haven’t been printed, even when they’re turning to other vendors to receive their photos, cards, and calendars out on time.

  PREVIOUSLY: Problems At Snapfish Lead To Pre-Christmas Photo Scramble, Angry Customers

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uCollusion Scandal Grips Rug Accessory Industryr

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  We’d like to think that only huge corporations — titans of telecom, colossi of crude, barons of beef — run by guys who look like Rich Uncle Pennybags are involved in sketchy backroom collusion. But even players in “I didn’t know they even existed” markets try to get overly clever and rig the system to their advantage.

  Take, for example, the U.S. rug accessory industry — something you probably had never considered, but which is nevertheless real.

  According to a complaint [PDF] filed by the Federal Trade Commission, Step N Grip LLC — the makers of a rug accessory called NeverCurl — has been trying to talk a competitor (yes, it has one) into fixing prices.

  Starting on June 1, 2015, Step N Grip and the unnamed “Competitor A” engaged in a very brief price war, with Competitor A lower its price from $16.99 to $13.49 to undercut NeverCurl, which dropped its price to $12.99, and so on.

  This went on for a week, at which point someone from Step N Grip sent off a one-sentence email to Competitor A, reading, “We both sell at $12.95? Or, $11.95?”

  Competitor A didn’t take the bait and reported this invitation to collude to the FTC.

  Today, the agency announced that it reached a deal with Step N Grip, in which the company agreed to stop communicating with its competitors about prices, and is barred from entering into, participating in, inviting, or soliciting an agreement with any competitor to divide markets, to allocate customers, or to fix prices; all of which is against the law to begin with. It’s also a no-no for Step N Grip to — as it allegedly did in the Competitor A case — urge a competitor to raise, fix, or maintain its price or rate levels.

  No, this isn’t earth-shattering, but it does show that this sort of bad behavior takes place at even the smallest, arguably frivolous levels of commerce.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uFederal Appeals Court Won’t Reconsider Plan That Would Pay College Football, Basketball Playersr

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  If you’re a college athlete hoping to score some cash from your time on the basketball court or on the football field, you’re out of luck: a federal appeals court has decided against reconsidering its ruling striking down a plan to pay some NCAA athletes.

  A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals followed up on its September decision to put the kibosh on a proposal that would’ve allowed schools to pay football and basketball players up to $5,000 a year in deferred compensation, by voting 2-1 not to have a larger panel of judges rehear the case, reports the Associated Press.

  The same court ruled earlier this year in a lawsuit brought against by the NCAA by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon that colleges are violating antitrust laws by profiting from student-athletes’ names and likenesses while these same students are forbidden from receiving any money.

  But the court said student athletes shouldn’t be paid in cash — which would go into a trust fund until the athletes graduated — and instead determined that scholarships covering the full cost of an education would suffice as compensation for the use of players’ names and likenesses.

  In issuing its judgment this fall, the appeals court said allowing cash payments would have an effect on the positive aspects of colleges’ amateurism rules.

  “[I]n finding that paying students cash compensation would promote amateurism as effectively as not paying them, the district court ignored that not paying student-athletes is precisely what makes them amateurs,” read the opinion. “Having found that amateurism is integral to the NCAA’s market, the district court cannot plausibly conclude that being a poorly-paid professional collegiate athlete is ‘virtually as effective’ for that market as being as amateur.”

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uAnother “Layaway Angel” Pays For $106K In Gifts At Two Ohio Walmart Storesr

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  Just hours after “Santa B.,” a so-called layaway angel, shelled out $79,000 to pay for toys and other gifts at a Pennsylvania Walmart, another generous person was paying off $106,000 in balances on layaway orders at two Walmart stores just a state away in Ohio.

  NewsNet5 reports [warning: link has video that autoplays] that the mystery donor paid a visit to two Walmart stores in northeast Ohio this week, to celebrate his birthday and bring a little cheer to others.

  In all, the man paid for $70,000 in layaway balances at one store, and $36,000 at the second.

  “Christmas is a time of year when many people go above and beyond to give back to their neighbors and communities. When customers anonymously pay off others’ layaway items we’re reminded of the amazing things people will do to support each other,” Walmart said in a statement. “We’re proud to be a small part of these random acts of kindness.”

  While the donor asked to remain anonymous, word of his generous gift spread quickly.

  “It made me happy because I know a lot of customers walked out of the store or are coming in the store very positively impacted by it,” a store manager for one of the Walmart locations tells NewsNet5.

  Customers impacted by the good deed shared their thanks with the unknown Good Samaritan.

  “It’s such a blessing to know there are still people out there that care,” one woman tells NewsNet5. “It’s like Santa, like a real Santa to me.”

  Mystery donor pays off more than $106,000 in Walmart layaways at 2 northeast Ohio stores [NewsNet5]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uColleges Warned About Making Secret Deals With Credit Card Companiesr

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  In spite of rules intended to crack down on the once-rampant mis-marketing of credit cards to college students, some schools have not been fully transparent about lucrative agreements they’ve made with card companies, and could face federal penalties.

  Not so many years ago, credit card company reps regularly descended on college campuses like birds of prey circling a herd of wounded animals, offering cheap T-shirts and other swag in exchange for signing up for high-interest credit cards that many students were not prepared to use responsibly.

  Then came the 2009 CARD Act and its restrictions on on-campus marketing, and requirements that colleges disclose any marketing agreement made with a card issuer. While you no longer see credit card booths at college orientation days, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says some schools are failing to comply with the transparency rules.

  This morning, the CFPB sent letters to 17 colleges around the country, warning them that they are not properly disclosing information to students about the schools’ marketing deals with credit companies.

  The Bureau has not yet identified which schools received these warning letters, but did provide a copy [PDF] of the standard text used in the warnings.

  As explained in the letter, a number of schools are only making these disclosures available upon request, rather than making the agreements public online for anyone to see. Making matters even more problematic, explains the CFPB, is that the majority of schools that only provide disclosures when asked for them “failed to provide the agreements when requested.”

  According to the CFPB, 80% of college-sponsored credit card accounts failed to disclose their credit card marketing contracts on their websites. Only about 28% of them even took the step to publish information for the public on how to obtain their agreements, and a mere 8% provided the agreements upon request.

  “Your school is receiving this notice because this agreement could not be publicly obtained using reasonable procedures and in a reasonable timeframe,” states the letter. “We have not yet made a determination whether your failure to disclose this agreement violates the CARD Act, but we urge you to reconsider your approach to public disclosure.”

  CFPB Director Richard Cordray notes that, “History tells us that when schools and financial institutions get together behind closed doors, students can pay a steep price.”

  The warnings come at the same time that the CFPB released its annual report [PDF] to Congress on the state of college credit card agreements.

  According to the Bureau, more than 10 million college students attend a school that has either made a deal directly with a payment card company, or has allowed an affiliated organization — often an alumni group — to make a marketing deal using the school’s name.

  That doesn’t include the many millions of students at schools that provide joint ID cards/payment cards to their students. The schools often reap financial benefits from these cards, giving them an incentive to push certain banks and products on students, even if better financial options might be available.

  In fact, a recent report from the Center for Responsible Lending found that many of these ID/payment card combos carry hefty fees for overdrafts.

  Last August, the CFPB urged college students to not assume they were getting a good deal from these college-sponsored cards and to shop around to find out for themselves if they could save money elsewhere.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uFacebook Users Can Now Use The Messenger App To Hail A Rider

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• In its ongoing effort to keep Facebook users inside the Facebook universe at all times, the social media giant is adding a new feature to Messenger that will allow folks to hail a ride with Uber and other on-demand car services from within the app.

  The new feature, aptly enough dubbed “Transportation” by Facebook, will allow users to request a ride from a car service, even if you don’t have the Uber or the Lyft app on your phone, without leaving a conversation.

  To hail a ride inside the app, users have to download the latest version of Messenger. When you’re in a conversation with a friend, you can then tap the “more” menu and select Transportation. Users can also search for Uber and tap the car icon to request a ride.

  All updates regarding the driver’s status will then appear within Messenger, you’ll be able to pay for the ride, and your friends will be notified that you’ve called a ride. Ostensibly, this just means the friends you’re in the conversation with, and not all your Facebook friends in general.

  To encourage Messenger users to get onboard with the in-app travel tool, Facebook is offering the first ride for free (for a limited time, up to $20) with Uber. You’ll have to claim your free ride by linking your existing Uber account to Messenger, or setting up a new account inside Messenger and requesting a ride.

  Facebook says it’s currently testing the service with select users in locations where Uber operates, and that other countries and more transportation partners will also be included in the future.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist