uAdvances In Candy Technology Mean More Edible Conversation Heartsr

4 4 4 9

• Never underestimate human ingenuity. It was just a few short years ago that if you wanted to eat conversation hearts, your only choice was to crunch or suck on some chalky, hard candies. Today, there are even more alternatives available for people who enjoy word-laden sweets, and the latest is conversation kisses from Hershey.

  

  Really, the maker of a candy called “kisses” should have thought of this decades ago, but people who like to communicate using candy have it now, and that’s what’s important.

  Last year, Brach’s introduced conversation jelly beans and gummy hearts, which was an amazing way to diversify Valentine’s Day candy offerings while also extending the jelly bean season. (That’s not to imply that that jelly beans aren’t on stores shelves in January to begin with, but these are seasonal.)

  Last year, red velvet was the Unofficial Flavor of Valentine’s Day. This year, it’s strawberry shortcake. So far, the flavor has showed up in M&Ms, Dove Promises, and Oreos will probably be next. If not, someone over at Nabisco is probably running to the flavor lab right now to plan for 2017.

  I’ve always associated strawberry shortcake with early summer, when strawberries are in season where I live, but what do I know?

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uTwo Payday Lenders Agree To Pay $4.4M In Fines, Release Borrowers From $68M In Loans, Feesr

4 4 4 9

• 

  Federal regulators continued an ongoing crackdown on deceptive payday loan players by reaching a multimillion-dollar agreement with two lenders to settle accusations they illegally charged consumers with undisclosed and inflated fees. 

  The Federal Trade Commission today announced that Red Cedar Services Inc. and SFS Inc. — operating as 500 Fast Cash and One Click Cash — would each pay $2.2 million and waive a total $68 million in customer fees to settle a years-long investigation into the operation.

  The settlement with Red Cedar and SFS stems from the FTC’s April 2012 complaint against a multi-company payday loan scheme.

  According to that complaint, SFS, Red Cedar and other lenders — including AMG Services and MNE Services –engaged in a plethora of deceptive tactics in order to entice borrowers to take out payday loans.

  Among the deceptive practices employed, the companies misrepresented how much loans would cost customers.

  For example, a contract used by Red Cedar, AMG Services and MNE Services (both of which previously settled FTC charges) stated that a $300 loans would cost $390 to repay. However, in reality, the companies charged consumers $975.

  Red Cedar and SFS also allegedly failed to accurately disclose annual percentage rates and other loan terms, and made preauthorized debits from consumers’ bank accounts a condition of the loans.

  Under the final court orders, Red Cedar [PDF] and SFS [PDF] are prohibited from misrepresenting the terms of any loan product, including the payment schedule and interest rate, the total amount the consumer will owe, annual percentage rates or finance charges, and any other material facts.

  Tuesday’s settlement makes the FTC’s case against Red Cedar, SFS, AMG Services, MNE Services, and other entities the agency’s largest recovered related to deceptive payday lending.

  In all, the FTC has collected $25.5 million in fines and required the operators to waive $353 million in debt.

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uMonopoly Games Omit Star Wars’ Lead Female, Relocate Des Moines To Ohio Inr

4 4 4 9

• 
  It’s not a good week for Hasbro’s long-running (and apparently inexhaustible) Monopoly franchise. First, the company has to explain why its new Star Wars-themed game leaves out the new film’s female lead character, and now comes news that Hasbro has decided that Iowa’s capital city is actually located hundreds of miles away in Ohio.

  The Monopoly Star Wars game includes four characters from fictional galaxy far, far away: Two good guys and two bad guys. And we do mean “guys” — all four of the characters are dudes. No Leia from the original trilogy, no Padmé from the prequels, and no Rey from the new series.

  In response to fan’s concerns about Hasbro and Disney pushing only the male stars of the series, the company told EW.com yesterday that Rey was left out to avoid [spoiler alert for the one person who hasn’t seen the movie but felt compelled to read this story anyway] “revealing a key plot line that she takes on Kylo Ren and joins the Rebel Alliance.”

  Um. I don’t think anyone watching even the very first trailers were of the mind that Rey was not going to be a Rebel. But given how mad some people were about the fact that early photos of Rey’s action figure showed her [spoiler alert #2… seriously, just go see the movie or stop reading stories about it] brandishing a lightsaber, maybe there’s something to keeping this rather obvious plot point a secret.

  While we don’t fully understand Hasbro’s decision to omit a buttkicking female character from its Monopoly game, we do understand that Des Moines is a city in Iowa… not Ohio.

  KCCI-TV in, where else, Des Moines reports that the Monopoly: Here & Now game describes the Iowa capital as full of “Fairs and farmers’ markets, miles of trails,” and even mentions the city’s world-famous cow sculpture made from butter.

  All of that seems reasonable enough, except for the part about Des Moines being located in a time zone (and around 600 miles) away in Ohio.

  “I’m used to people pronouncing Des Moines incorrectly, but it’s not often you hear them placing the city in the wrong state,” an anonymous Iowan who may or may not also be a Consumerist staffer explains. “Does the Ohio state fair even have deep fried butter on the menu?”

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uAirline Temporarily Bans Checked Bags To Prevent Jets From Running Out Of Fuelr

4 4 4 9

• 
  Checked bags are often heavier and larger than carry-ons, which is one of the reasons why many airlines now charge travelers for the luxury of having their luggage stowed in the cargo hold. But one airline is telling some long-haul passengers to not check their bags because of safety concerns.

  In an alert on its website, Malaysia Airlines advised passengers flying from Kuala Lumpur to Paris and Amsterdam today and tomorrow that they should try to not fly with checked bags.

  The concern is that the extra weight, combined with unusually strong headwinds and longer flightpaths, could put the carrier’s planes at risk for running low on fuel before they reach their destinations.

  Bloomberg reports that even carry-on bags are being limited to one piece weighing no more than 15 pounds. Travelers who do check luggage will have to wait for it to eventually arrive at their destination via other means.

  Affected passengers are being the given the option of rebooking travel at a slightly later date. If they can neither reschedule nor fly without checked bags, the airline is offering to let them cancel their reservations and apply the value of that ticket toward the purchase of a new ticket at some point within one year of whenever that original ticket was first issued.

  In 2014, two Malaysia Airlines flights tragically never made it to their destinations. Flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea en route to Beijing in March 2014. Four months later, flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine.

  In Sept. 2014, the carrier had to apologize for its misguided “bucket list” promotion that many thought was in bad taste, given these two incidents that killed hundreds and left no survivors.

  [via Bloomberg]

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uJPMorgan Chase Fined $48 Million For Failing To Comply With Robosigning Settlementr

4 4 4 9

• 
  Years after being hit with billions in penalties, and after being told by federal regulators to stop screwing up the foreclosure and mortgage adjustment process by providing borrowers and courts with inaccurate and unchecked information, some banks continue to pay for the fact that they didn’t quite learn their lesson.

  Back in 2010, regulators learned that the nation’s largest mortgage servicers — including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — were using so-called “robosigners” to expedite foreclosures on the growing number of houses with delinquent mortgages. These untrained employees had no understanding of the documents they were supposed to be reviewing, and merely rubber-stamped them regardless of their accuracy.

  As a result, both homeowners and courts received information that banks swore was true, but which didn’t always stand up to scrutiny.

  In 2011, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency brought enforcement actions against several of these servicers, including Chase [PDF], directing them to put an end to these practices and to bolster protections for borrowers.

  Two years later, the OCC reached a deal with these banks [PDF] that resulted in a settlement worth a total of $9.3 billion ($3.6 billion in cash payments, plus $5.7 billion in other assistance — loan modifications and forgiveness of deficiency judgments — to borrowers).

  Yet this wasn’t enough for Chase to hit the brakes on its bad behavior.

  In a consent order [PDF] released this morning, the OCC alleges that, between Dec. 2011 and Nov. 2013, Chase filed thousands of problematic documents with bankruptcy courts.

  These include:
  • 460 inaccurate Payment Change Notices (PCNs) that did not provide the borrower with the correct payment change amount or the correct date that the new payment change would go into effect;

  • 4,380 PCNs bearing the signature of bank employees who no longer worked for Chase at the time the PCNs were filed;

  • 2,285 PCNs signed by Chase employees who no longer worked in the bank’s bankruptcy department at the time they were filed.

  The OCC says that such practices are unsafe and unsound, and violate the earlier agreements made by Chase, which now must fork over $48 million, even though it neither admits nor denies the allegations made by the government.

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uTwitter May Finally Be Getting Rid Of 140-Character Limit On Tweetsr

4 4 4 9

• 

  Even if you’re not a Twitter user, you’re likely familiar with the restriction that limits the expression of every thought, comment, and desire to a mere 140 characters. But once again Twitter is mulling over the idea of making Tweets a lot longer — though your actual feed wouldn’t look much different.
  

  Re/code reports that Twitter’s “Beyond 140” program aims to up the character count from 140 to 10,000 at some point in the first quarter of 2016.

  While this gives the user a vast slate on which to Tweet, don’t expect to start seeing novella-length updates clogging your Twitter feed.

  Instead, it would only show the first 140 characters in the timeline with a button to reveal the rest of the content.

  Sources close to Twitter tell Re/code that the new product is currently being tested within the company, but features and a timeline for the launch aren’t set in stone.

  A 10,000-character limit isn’t a new idea for Twitter, the company previously expanded its direct message feature to include a 10,000-character limit.

  In September, rumors started swirling that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had decided to revisit the idea of increased character counts in order to boost the platform’s user base.

  Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets [Re/code]

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uMan Accused Of Meat Theft Shoves Steak Down Pants, Beer Cans Up Shirtr

4 4 4 9

• 
  The Internet puts stories from news outlets all over the world at our fingertips, which leads to one inevitable question: why do people steal meat by stuffing it down their pants so often? It’s a crime that has suddenly increased in some areas, and people commit crimes against meat out of either hunger or desperation for cash. The latest alleged meat thief was making a nice meal out of a package of steaks, two 24-ounce beers, and a package of cream cheese.

  This happened at a Food Lion store in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at 9:30 on Sunday morning. According to the police, two men entered the store, and employees spotted one of them picking up the package of steaks and putting it down his pants. He wandered to the dairy department to grab the cream cheese, then picked up two beers, shoving all of these items up his shirt.

  The man with meat down his pants and refrigerated goods up his shirt joined his companion, who was actually buying some items, in the checkout line, and they headed for the door together. That’s when the cops showed up, ruining the steak party and preventing the theft.

  The 45-year-old alleged thief was arrested: it was his first recorded incident of shoplifting.

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist