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With only hours to go before we bid adieu to 2015, it’s time to look back and see how much you can recall about the year that was.
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четверг, 31 декабря 2015 г.
uHow Well Do You Remember 2015? Take Our Quiz To Find Outr
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uFacebook Congratulates People Who Aren’t 46 On 46 Years Of Friendship With Their Friendsr
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Friendship is great, and it should be celebrated. But Facebook is jumping the gun on honoring some of those relationships by dozens of years.
As Facebook users may know, every once in a while you’ll receive a “Facebook Friendship” message from the network reminding you that you clicked “accept” on a friend request with your neighbor X number of years ago.
While this can be a fun reminder of how you’ve interacted on the social networking site in the past, some users are reporting that they’ve received notifications that are way off, Mashable reports.
An apparent glitch on the social media site has resulted in some users receiving congratulations on 46 years of friendship with others, only most of those people are much younger than 46.
Case in point: me. I just checked my Facebook “On This Day” function and found that on Dec. 31, 1969 I became friends with 146 people.
First, I wasn’t alive in 1969, and Facebook only launched a decade ago.
It’s unclear what has caused the incorrect notification, but theories abound, including the belief that someone at Facebook is just having a bit of fun with a bug in the system, Mashable reports.
We’ve reached out to Facebook about the apparent glitch. We’ll update this post when we hear back.
Facebook mistakenly congratulated all these people on 46 years of friendship [Mashable]
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uProcter & Gamble Explain Why Powdered Tide Suddenly Needs A Bigger Scoopr
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Earlier this week, we shared a reader’s photo of the new and larger scoop in her box of Tide detergent. Normally, we’d be happy when a company offers something bigger, but in this case it appeared that Tide-maker Procter & Gamble was trying to make customers use more detergent and finish off their boxes faster. Someone from the company’s “Fabric Care Communications” team reached out to explain why they made this change.
The team explains:
Washing machines (on average) today (in 2015) vs. just 5 years ago are up to 4x the size! This means that machines are washing more clothes (and more soils) than they did in the past- and in order to effectively clean soils from these larger loads, there must be sufficient detergent to address the cleaning and anti-redeposition of soils in the load.
Washing machines are getting bigger: high efficiency washers have grown in the last few years, and high-efficiency washers are available on the market that take loads that are up to four times bigger. While it’s important not to over-detergent your HE load, under-dosing on detergent is bad, too.
Tide sent over this helpful infographic for our readers that explains how all this works:
The problem is that the change depends on consumers re-reading the directions every time they buy a new box, or actually reading the box the first time they buy a new detergent. They must have more faith in the laundry-doing public than I do.
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uUber Is Thinking Of Getting Into The Travel Businessr
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While yes, you certainly travel some distance when you’re riding in a car you had pick you up, Uber is apparently considering expanding its travel business beyond ride-hailing.
A patent filed by the company with the U.S. Patent Office this month lays out Uber’s ideas on becoming an all-in-one travel agent.
Fittingly enough, the patent images call the service “Uber Travel,” with what looks like a fairly typical flight search you might see on travel sites like Expedia or Orbitz. The Uber part of the whole thing comes in by including cars in the travel plan: a traveler would supply the start location, date, time and destination for their trip and the system would do its “magic” by setting up the flight, choosing a hotel and organizing car transportation to and from different points in the trip, all with one price.
Uber says it would tap into the airlines’ information network to take into account things like a plane’s on-time performance and a user’s preference for aisle and window seats. It will also work with hotels and “shared-economy systems” like Airbnb that let people rent out their apartments.
Once you’ve got your flight scheduled, the system is designed to track it so that when it actually lands, calculate the time it takes to get your bags and go through customs if that’s included, and then suggests a good time for you to hail your ride.
“The information may include a location at the airport where the user can be picked up in connection with receiving the on-demand transportation service, and a timing indicator to indicate when the user should make a request to receive the on-demand transportation service based on a real-time determination of a number of available service providers in a vicinity of the airport,” the patent states.
Uber hasn’t commented yet on the news of the patent.
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uFor Reasons Good And Bad, 2015 Was A Big Year For McDonald’sr
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By now you’ve probably heard that McDonald’s may have managed to turn years of slumping sales around by offering customers the ability to munch on an Egg McMuffin (or biscuit, if you live in the right place) after 10:30 a.m. But before the company ultimately went the all-day breakfast route, it tried a lot (we mean a lot) of other ideas in 2015 in an attempt to claw its way back to the top of the fast food restaurant pyramid.
The road to semi-redemption for McDonald’s was a long and arduous one over the last 365 days, taking shape in a variety of ways: new leaders, many new menu items, revamped recipes, and changing perspectives on the use of antibiotics in the meat used to feed the masses.
While these changes likely caught the eye and the wallets of some patrons, nothing the Golden Arches did this year can top its foray into all-day breakfast. But despite this, we’d be remiss if we didn’t look back on the “Year of McDonald’s,” what with its head-scratching ideas and conflicting, unspoken ethos of “less is more, but more is always better.”
JANUARY
Image courtesy of Mike MozartThe new year kicked off with the notion that the fast food giant’s menu – what with its Extra Value Meals, Happy Meals and $1 Menu – was just too cumbersome for customers. Among items franchisees wanted to see on the chopping block: the entire McCafe line. They also called for making Happy Meals less complicated
Next up, the company announced that CEO Don Thompson, who had taken much of the blame for slow sales and the revolving door of supposedly revolutionary menu changes, would retire from the top spot effective March 1.
In lieu of throwing their hands in the air like they just didn’t care, the powers-that-be over at the fast food giant opted not to appoint Mayor McCheese as Thompson’s successor, going instead for someone with a more traditional background (and an English accent), Steve Easterbrook.
But the company still had one big marketing holdover from the Thompson regime: Its much derided sunshine-and-rainbows “lovin'” campaign.
The fast food chain created a Super Bowl ad promising to reward touchy-feely customers with free food, in exchange for such legal tenderness like selfies, hugs, high fives and anything else the company deemed to be in line with the misguided marketing plan.
“From selfies, hugs to high fives – we have a bunch of fun ways to express your Lovin’,” the commercial said, showing people embracing each other in front of the cashier or calling a loved one. Customers were to be chosen randomly by McDonald’s employees to “Pay with Lovin’.”
In the end, surveys showed that people remembered the ads, but that they did nothing to get anyone hungering for a Big Mac.
February
Image courtesy of Mike MozartThe month of love got started with McDonald’s announcing the return of Chicken Selects – at least for a limited time. McDonald’s added the menu item, in spite of professed plans to trim the number of offerings, as a way to increase its focus on poultry after reports that beef prices would increase throughout the year.
February was also the first time (at least in 2015; rumors had been whispered for years) that we started hearing inklings that something breakfast-like might be coming to the afternoons.
A poll found that 70% of fast food patrons for all restaurants wanted all-day access to breakfast, but would McDonald’s finally give the people what they really wanted?
Toward the end of the month, just days before incoming CEO Steve Easterbrook started his tenure, talk turned to McDonald’s use of antibiotics, and whether the company’s new fearless leader would cut down on the use of drugs that result in bigger cows, pigs, and chickens, but also put us all at risk for drug-resistant pathogens.
MARCH
Known for its burgers, fries, and assorted desserts, McDonald’s has never been the first place to come to mind when a health-conscious eater is looking for a quick lunch. But that didn’t stop the company from thinking about those would-be customers, as reports surfaced the eatery would add kale to the menu. The move was a bit odd, considering that McD’s had created advertisements bashing that very same veggie not long before.
Following up on consumers’ desire for breakfast, McDonald’s officially dipped its arched toes in the all-day morning meal market with tests in the San Diego area.
McDonald’s also replied to consumers’ and advocates’ concerns about antibiotic usage in its meat products, announcing it would use chickens raised without controversial antibiotics.
APRIL
While McDonald’s continuously talked about simplifying its menu, the company also decided to cut down on the ingredients that go into each item: dropping six components of its grilled chicken recipe.
For years, a number of McDonald’s franchisees had been griping with their corporate overlords about constant menu tweaks, limited-time offerings, and a push for bargain pricing.
Things seemed to come to a head in April, when a survey of franchisees indicated that the relationship wasn’t getting any better, noting the company had “jumped the shark.”
Everyone’s excitement (or the people who cared, at least) for all-day breakfast was tempered in mid-April, when the company announced that tests of the new offering wouldn’t include the full breakfast menu.
After two months on the job, CEO Steve Easterbrook proclaimed that he had a few turnaround ideas up his sleeve. While the man on top was quick to say he had a plethora of ideas, he wasn’t actually willing to share them.
The month closed out with two rather big announcements from the company. First, it cut nine items from its menu, including chicken sandwiches and Deluxe Quarter Pounder meals. Next, essentially undoing the whole simplifying thing, the eatery announced it would test another version of its elusive build-your-own program, and allow the ability for drive-thru customers to create their own burgers.
MAY
Image courtesy of Matt McGeeSteve-E’s big announcement came in early May: the company would try to turnaround its poor sales by simply getting rid of stores, selling them to franchisees. The plan had a few holes, though: franchisees already own some 81% of all the McDonald’s restaurants in the world, so it’s not like the company-owned locations are a huge financial burden.
Still, Easterbrook said McDonald’s corporate would refranchise around 3,500 of these company-owned stores to put them in the hands of franchisees, reducing the corporate ownership to just 10% of locations worldwide.
That attempt to attract customers looking for healthy meals? It’s really happening with tests of kale actually popping up at certain McD restaurants.
And just like – slapping a few leaves of kale on a burger – McDonald’s was poised to become the largest buyer of kale in the world.
The company continued its mission to simplify things in mid-May by announcing it would pare down its drive-thru menu to show only top-selling options in an attempt to speed up orders. At the same time, the company expanded its (limited) all-day breakfast test to Nashville.
Is the reason you’re not running to McDonald’s because of the buns used for its sandwiches? If not, then it probably doesn’t matter that the company said it would start toasting its sandwich casings.
“It’s these little things that add up to big differences for our customers,” Easterbook said of the company’s turnaround progress.
JUNE
Image courtesy of @McD_TriStateLittle happened in June at the Golden Arches, unless of course you count pushing hot cheese on susceptible Wisconsinites and testing a new flavored hot coffee in just one area of the country.
McDonald’s officially beefed up its Quarter Pounder burger in August. The Golden Arches quietly increased the size of its Quarter Pounder sandwich from 4 ounces before cooking to 4.25 ounces before cooking and hasn’t yet decided if more beef should equate to a higher cost.AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
In a bit of perfect timing, McDonald’s kicked off September with a pair of announcements.First sources close to the company announced it would start using real butter in its McMuffins, biscuits and bagels, with some stores already ditching the typically used liquid margarine.
Next up, the company’s franchisees made consumers’ dreams of an all-day breakfast menu a reality by voting to take the still-limited breakfast menu nationwide starting Oct. 6.
McDonald’s followed up its double-dose of announcements with the promise to transition to only using cage-free eggs in its Canadian and U.S. restaurants… eventually.
While the company was mum on an actual deadline for the shift, Marion Gross, chief supply chain officer of McDonald’s North America, said that the shift advances “environmentally and socially conscious practices for the animals in our supply chain.”
Toward the end of the month, the company once again revamped its fancy burgers created via kiosk. In an attempt to apparently seem a bit more fancy, the burgers were rechristened as “Chef Created.”
OCTOBER
Image courtesy of @McD_TXPanhandleWho wants plain fries when you can have sweet potato fries? That’s the question McDonald’s asked customers in October when it began tests of the sweeter fries in Texas.
NOVEMBER
Image courtesy of Consumerist Dot ComMenu boards are a staple for just about every fast food eatery in the world: they display options, prices, calories, and other pertinent info for customers. But they don’t necessarily make it easier for people to choose their meal.
To help with this dilemma, McDonald’s announced that in 2016 it would start rolling out digital menu boards that recommends meals depending on the weather.
November was also the month for “out with the old, in with the new” at the Golden Arches: the company said it would ditch the Dollar Menu for a new McPick 2 micro menu. With the deal, customers choose two times from the menu for $2.
The McPick 2 menu includes just four options: a McDouble, a McChicken, small fries and the company’s new mozzarella sticks.
DECEMBER
Once again McDonald’s attempts to show its classier side by confirming that 600 restaurants in Southern California will serve as testing grounds for a new table service experiment.
Additionally, the company says the 600 SoCal McDonald’s locations will test the newly expanded Taste Crafted Burgers and Chicken menu.
Options on the menu include a beef patty, and grilled or buttermilk chicken paired with either a sesame seed, potato, or artisan roll. The sandwiches can then be finished with “bundled toppings” like “Buffalo Bacon,” which includes blue cheese spread, spicy buffalo sauce, applewood smoked bacon, tomato and shredded lettuce.
Mid-month brought news that the company had been looking for: all-day breakfast is bringing back customers, and their wallets.
A study found that 1-in-3 people who purchased McDonald’s breakfast during the afternoon or evening hadn’t eaten at McDonald’s at all in the previous three months, indicating that the chain is either luring in new customers or wooing back some who had given up on McD’s.
Finally, the company capped out the year with, what else, another menu addition: announcing the limited-time test of mac and cheese cups in Happy Meals.
Only time will tell if all-day breakfast and pared-down menus are enough to get people back into McDonald’s on a regular basis, or if customers are just buying McMuffins at 2 p.m. out of curiosity (hint: they still taste the same; your appreciation will depend entirely on whether that conjures up pleasant or unpleasant feelings.)
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среда, 30 декабря 2015 г.
uTimes Square Toys’R’Us Is Full Of Empty Shelves And Sadnessr
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Earlier this year, we learned that the huge flagship Toys”R”Us store in New York City’s Times Square would be closing after the toy-centric holiday of Christmas. Today, the store still stands, full of empty shelves and sadness. Also, there’s still a big Star Wars display.
Over at Gothamist, they have photos from the scene, which includes employees packing up the dregs, empty bulk candy bins, and the Ferriss wheel that will turn no more.
Toys”R”Us owns FAO Schwarz, which closed its last remaining physical store in July. It’s hunting for a new home, and presumably the giant stuffed animals are hanging out in a warehouse somewhere, awaiting a new home.
Tour The Surreal Wasteland That Is The Times Square Toys R Us, Closing Today [Gothamist] (via Racked)
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uTake Your Christmas Tree Down Before It Burns Your $#&^! House Downr
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In the weeks leading up to Dec. 25, you were probably pretty good about keeping your Christmas tree watered, hoping to maintain the lush greenness you paid for. But now that you’re in that post-Yule, pre-New Year’s limbo and just haven’t gotten around to ditching the tree on your neighbor’s curb, you might have forgotten to add water to that doomed tree. If so, you could be risking a disastrous and potentially deadly fire.
A dried out Christmas tree can quickly go up in flames, spewing smoke and flames throughout the room. Just check out the below video from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which estimates that there are around 200 tree fires a year, resulting in nearly a dozen deaths, twice as many injuries, and millions of dollars in property damage.
So if you’ve been remiss about keeping your tree watered, it’s in everyone’s best interest for you to recycle that well-decorated kindling now rather than risk a fire later.
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uX Ways To Improve Your Finances With Minimal Effortr
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Improving your finances doesn’t always require a big investment. Sometimes a single phone call or a small tweak are all you need to improve your financial future or present. Looking for some ideas as you change to your new “366 Kitten Photos” desk calendar? Here are some changes to get you started.
- Claim Your Unclaimed Funds. Even if you’ve done this in the last few years, check again. Abandoned bank accounts, checks sent to an address you’ve long since left, or in my case an entire week’s paycheck might be waiting for you. Start at the website of the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, checking any state where you’ve lived. If you’re in a hurry, just search the multi-state MissingMoney.com, but I’ve found that isn’t updated as often.
- Change your tax withholding. While it might feel like you’re getting free money when your tax refund arrives, you are not. That’s your money, which could have been in your paycheck all year. If you use a tax preparer, discuss your withholding with him or her, or calculate how much tax you should be paying in the coming year and adjust how much you have taken out every pay period accordingly.
- Contribute more to your retirement plan. If your employer offers a retirement plan with matching as a benefit, make sure you’re contributing the full amount that’s matched. That actually is free money. Otherwise, remember that contributing to some retirement funds lowers your tax liability and is a gift to your future self.
- Check your car insurance coverage. Staying loyal to an insurance company usually doesn’t pay, so you can even check other insurers to see whether they’ll save you money.
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Correct errors in your credit report. This won’t immediately save you money, but could save you money in the future when applying for credit or a loan. If any information is incorrect, fix it before the already stressful time of buying a new house or car.
Free Money Moves to Make in 2016 [Consumer Reports]
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uNew York Lawmakers Call For Legalizing “Hoverboards” As One Explodes In Brooklyn Apartmentr
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So-called “hoverboards,” which don’t actually hover, are illegal to use on the streets of New York City. Two lawmakers are trying to change that, but their timing couldn’t be worse, as one of the self-balancing scooters caught fire in a Brooklyn apartment Tuesday.
DNAinfo New York reports that a hoverboard started smoking and burst into flames as it was being charged on Tuesday evening.
Fire officials say the owner of the device was able to quickly move it to the apartment building’s hallway before it burst into flames. Firefighters put the fire out a short time later.
While no one was hurt in the incident, the New York Fire Department Tweeted a photo of the incinerated scooter.
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro issued a warning Wednesday, telling New Yorkers that he’d personally steer clear of the popular scooters.
“We could have had a tragedy,” Nigro told reporters. “I wouldn’t plug one in in my home.”
The official’s concern about the devices comes at the same time that two New York lawmakers have started a push to legalize hoverboards.
CNN reports that state senator Jose Peralta and assemblyman David Weprin are working to reclassify the devices in NYC, where the police department and Dept. of Motor Vehicles deem the scooters illegal.
Hoverboards are considered to be in line with Segways, and other “personal transporters” that are prohibited under New York State law, the NYPD tells CNN.
“There is no evidence to suggest that an all-out ban on hoverboards is in the public interest,” reads a statement from the lawmakers.
Let These Charred Hoverboard Remains Serve as a Warning to You, FDNY Says [DNAinfo New York]
New York lawmakers want to legalize hoverboards [CNN]
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uNYC Postal Worker “Overwhelmed” By Holiday Deliveries Accused Of Dumping 1,000 Pieces Of Mailr
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If you live in the New York City area and didn’t receive as many gifts and holiday cards this year, there could be a reason for that beyond the usual U.S. Postal Service mistakes: according to a criminal complaint filed in Queens, one mailman was under so much seasonal pressure that he just dumped about 1,000 pieces of mail in the trash.
The New York Post reports that the 25-year-old carrier was “overwhelmed” by his heavy December mail load that he purchased three white garbage bags on Dec. 2 — his first day on a new route — to dispose of the stuff he didn’t want to deliver.
Federal court documents allege that he then threw those bags full of holiday mail in a residential garbage can, where they were discovered two days later.
He reportedly admitted to “ripping open” some of the mail “to see what it contained,” according to the criminal complaint. He’s been arraigned on charges of unlawfully delaying and destroying the mail, and is facing up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
‘Overwhelmed’ mailman accused of throwing away Christmas gifts [New York Post]
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uAT&T Ditching New 2-Year Contracts On January 8r
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It’s been in the offing for some time, but AT&T has officially declared that after Jan. 8, 2016, the company will no longer be offering 2-year contracts to most customers.
For the last couple of years, AT&T has been nudging customers away from traditional 2-year contracts (and their affordable, subsidized phone prices) and toward AT&T Next plans, where the customer pays full price for their device but pays less each month for data.
In May of this year, it made it a lot more difficult for retail customers to get a 2-year deal by taking away that option from service resellers like Walmart and Best Buy. Then in June, AT&T stopped selling 2-year contracts to iPhone buyers through Apple’s online store.
A rep for AT&T confirmed the news — first reported by Engadget — to Consumerist.
“With $0 down for well-qualified customers, the ability to upgrade early and down payment options available with even lower monthly installments, our customers are overwhelmingly choosing AT&T Next,” reads an AT&T statement. “Starting January 8, AT&T Next will be the primary way to get a new smartphone at AT&T. This does not apply to business customers under a qualified wireless service agreement.”
What does all this mean? If you’re currently on a contract with AT&T (it applies to all phones; not just smartphones), when it ends you’ll have to pick from the following:
• Keep your device and pay the “no-commitment” rate. At some point, you’ll probably want to get a new phone, which means you have to go out of pocket and pay for it in full, or…
• Switch to an AT&T Next plan and purchase a new phone at full price, paying in monthly installments. This has largely the same effect as a contract, in that you can’t leave without having to pay off the balance on the device.
• Switch to a new provider. Of course, both T-Mobile and Verizon have already done away with contracts and phone subsidies. So you’re not going to get a subsidized phone/contract from either of them.
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uDispute May Kill AMC On Small Cable Provider; CEO Hints That Maybe Bundles Are The Real Zombier
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Disputes between cable networks (or their parent companies) and the distribution companies that carry them are nothing new. It seems like we see at least a half-dozen channel blackouts happen every year, when the contract negotiations between the two break down.But the New York Post, based on one of the most recent fights, has a theory: if this continues we might just see more than one set of negotiations break down. We might actually see the entire system go.
The provider in this case is actually a consortium of small providers, the National Cable TV Cooperative (NCTC). Together, the NCTC represents about four million subscribers — a drop in the hat as compared to the more than 20 million Comcast boasts, or even the 6 million you’d find at Cox. The network they’re fighting with is AMC, currently of The Walking Dead (and formerly of Mad Men and Breaking Bad) fame.
The story is the same as ever: AMC wants more money than NCTC is willing to pay, and talks between the two have come to a stalemate. The network may very shortly go dark for those four million subscribers, but instead of trying to embarrass AMC into a lower rate, NCTC is basically shrugging, and telling their subscribers that their favorite AMC programming, when it returns in February, will be available on Hulu, iTunes, and other digital services.
The two are, at least still talking. Rich Fickle, the head of NCTC, told the Post that AMC is due for some kind of rate increase — just not one as large as they’re asking for. “The bundle was great for many years, but it’s under pressure and that’s what’s at stake,” he told the Post. “We’re hitting an inflection point. We’re a leading indicator, the thread on the sweater.”
AMC, for what it’s worth, released a statement saying, “We have extraordinarily high regard for the NCTC and for its members. We have long supported smaller cable operators, and the particular challenges and considerations that they face in the service of their markets. We will continue to endeavor to do everything we can to make them successful.”
Fickle, though, might have a point. The smallest cable companies, with the least margin for error money-wise, have been on the forefront embracing cord-cutters for a while now. Back in 2014, a few of them simply dropped TV altogether, and their subscribers, on the whole, neither minded nor cared. The Post theorizes that going forward, this trend could well see an uptick among the smaller providers and from there, snowball into the larger companies as well.
That scenario sounds somewhat apocalyptic to the content networks, and probably not desirable to the distribution companies either. But even though it is somewhat plausible, it is almost certainly premature at this point. Even though investors are kind of starting to freak out about the demise of forty years’ worth of cable TV arrangements, cable isn’t dead yet.
Pay TV has been seeing a consistent decline in subscriber numbers every quarter for the past few years, but there are still nearly 100 million households paying a cable or satellite company to bring programming to their homes. It will be years yet before the Comcasts, Dishes, and Charters of the world actually keel over, let alone rise again to shamble menacingly along.
How a threat to drop AMC could kill the cable bundle [New York Post]
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uLetter To Macy’s CEO Gets Changing Tables Installed In Men’s Restroomsr
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Sometimes taking your concerns with a company to the top level really does get the job done. Case in point: a Maryland man shared his disappointment that a local Macy’s didn’t equip the men’s bathroom with changing tables to the retailer’s CEO. One week later, the store’s bathrooms were renovated.
Fox 5 D.C. reports that the Maryland father had stopped by a local Macy’s in early December to do a little holiday shopping when his 4-month-old son started getting upset.
The man realized a clean diaper would likely help his kiddo get though the shopping experience. But when he hit the restroom, he quickly realized that might not be possible. In fact, all three men’s restrooms in the three-story department store lacked changing tables.
“Every father knows you’ve got to change the diaper before you get started,” he says. “I couldn’t find a changing table. At that point, I was stuck because unless the baby is content, you’ve got to have a dry diaper.”
So he did the only thing he could: he left the store and wrote a letter to Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren on behalf of all fathers who need access to changing stations, reports Fox 5 D.C.
Macy’s executives contacted the store’s manager, who started putting a team together to address the issue.
Now the store boasts not only changing stations, but a renovated men’s room.
“I was quite surprised, actually, that it was within the same week,” the man’s wife tells Fox 5 D.C. “I am very surprised.”
In addition to addressing the changing table situation, Macy’s sent the family a gift card as apology for the inconvenience.
Frustrated father’s letter to Macy’s CEO spurs new changing table inside store men’s room [Fox 5 D.C.]
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uYour Cable Company Will Not Ask You To Make Your Payment At A Gas Stationr
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Some scams are so outrageously stupid, we have a hard time believing anyone falls for them. But scammers would pull these obvious tricks if they didn’t work at least some of the time.
According to the Chicopee, MA, police department, a person in neighboring Holyoke complained that they had received a call from someone identifying himself as “Louis M” and offering a great deal on Comcast cable service.
First problem with this offer: Comcast doesn’t serve this particular area. So even if Louis could offer someone a great deal, it would be for someone in another town.
Then things get even stranger. To get this good deal, the person only needs to bring $400 — on a prepaid debit card, of course — to the address provided by Louis. A quick check of that location shows that it’s not a Comcast office, or even a home, but a random Hess Express location.
The police say they tried calling the number, but the man who answered hung up on them.
While the Chicopee incident is definitely a ruse to trick you out of your money, it’s not unheard of for people with an inside hookup at a cable company to illegally sell discounted pay-TV access on their own.
Back in 2012, police busted a ring of scammers who had cheated Comcast out of more than $2 million by illegally giving pay-TV service to nearly 6,000 customers. Those people paid upwards of $200 each to have someone inside a Comcast office (in my hometown, no less) put permanent discounts on their accounts.
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uKickstarter-Funded LinkWallet Misses Promised Deadline For Refundsr
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Last year, we shared the frustrations of people who backed a product called PingWallet, (later LinkWallet) on Kickstarter. The wallets were supposed to ship at the end of 2013, then were delayed to the end of 2014. When that deadline passed, the founders declared that they would issue refunds to backers by December 22, 2015. That would be a satisfactory result if those refunds had ever been sent.
Yes, it’s December 2015, and those promised refunds have never come. We tried to contact the co-founders for another interview, and found that the contact information that we had for them is no longer valid. It also happens that no one from the company has logged in to their Kickstarter account in over a year to receive messages there.
What should backers do going forward? They could draw inspiration from two other cases of crowdfunded projects that were never delivered, Asylum playing cards and the board game The Doom That Came To Atlantic City, the creators of which were sued by the Washington state attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission respectively.
Here in New York, for example, that department is called the Consumer Frauds Bureau. In Florida, the state where the founders of LinkWallet lived at the time, it’s called the Consumer Protection Bureau. Contact the equivalent department in your state or territory for help.
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uMan Arrested For Selling Stolen Gift Cards Re-Arrested For Allegedly Using More Stolen Gift Cards To Pay Lawyerr
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When you’ve been arrested for allegedly selling stolen gift cards and it comes time to pay for an attorney, there might be one predictable route to go — but it’s not likely to work out so well.
A Florida man who found himself behind bars after his arrest for allegedly peddling ill-gotten gift cards repeated that scheme a second time to cover his legal costs, according to police in Volusia County.
On Dec. 14, the 27-year-old and his father were arrested after a seven-month Sheriff’s Office investigation found that as part of their business venture, stores that pay cash for gift cards, they’d bought gift cards from people who stole merchandise from stores, reports The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Investigators said the men would then resell the gift cards in bulk for a profit to Internet-based outlets, raking in $1.98 million in a nine-month period. Law enforcement said they seized 10,443 gift cards in a bust two weeks ago.
On Tuesday, six days after he was released from jail on bail, the son was arrested and charged with one count of dealing stolen property, after allegedly contacting an Internet-based company to try to sell another 1,000 cards to pay for his legal fees. He’s currently being held on $20,000 bail, which one would think he won’t try to pay for with gift cards.
Volusia man in gift card ring rearrested, deputies say [The Daytona Beach News-Journal]
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uFrom The Heart Or Wallet: Get The Most Of Your Last-Minute Charitable Donationsr
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Whether it’s the lingering holiday spirit or just the desire to lower your annual tax burden before the deadline, you might be feeling a bit of a tug to donate your time, money, food, clothing, or other items to charity. But before you make your last-minute gift, make sure you’re doing it right.
As we’ve previously noted, there are a number of ways to not suck at charitable giving.
GOING THE FOOD BANK ROUTE
If you’re doing a little winter pantry cleaning to make room for all those holiday-themed products you scooped up at the grocery store, you might be tempted to make a donation to your local food bank. But before you head over with your cans of tartar sauce and sardines in oil, keep a few things in mind.• Why has this product been in your cupboard so long? If the answer to that question is that you would never dream of consuming it, then other people probably don’t want it either.
So instead, xoJane’s Deb Martinson suggests, would-be donors should think of it like this: What would you want to eat, using only nonperishable foods?
• Not everyone has the same things available to them that you might. For instance, some people might not have can openers or microwaves. That means some of the better items to donate might be things that would help produce on-the-go meals like peanut butter, tuna (with pop-tops) or crackers.
• Just Ask. If all else fails and you just feel completely unknowledgeable about what others would like to eat, simply call the local food bank. Many donation centers have a specific list of foods that are in constant need, some might not even be food but other necessities like toilet paper, soap, and diapers.
DONATING TO A CAUSE OR ORGANIZATION
When it comes to larger donations, consumers might pick a cause or organization that is near-and-dear to their hearts. While this is always a great option, there are certain things we should all remember before signing the check.• Is it a legitimate organization? If you’re giving to charity because you’re a good person, and because you want to lower your tax burden, then you must consider how you donate. To include a donation on your 2015 return, you must give to a legitimate, qualified organization — like, for example, Consumerist — before December 31.
Consumerist’s “How Not To Suck,” column previously suggested that consumers readying to give a donation double-check that their charity of choice is eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions exempt with the Internal Revenue Service.
• You can’t deduct contributions to individuals. While we would never suggest you don’t help out an individual in need, consumers should keep in mind that those types of donations can’t be deducted. This also includes donations to political organizations and candidates.
GIVING YOUR TIME
While it is admirable for consumers to provide financial donations to charities, there may be no donation more valuable than your time.• How far will you time donation go versus your monetary donation? WalletHub has a calculator to help consumer determine what a charity can accomplish with their cash donation. By using the calculator, would-be donors could compare their time contribution to their financial one.
• What skills can you offer the charity that they might be lacking? Consumers might be able to offer a volunteering donation that can’t be matched by a financial donation. For example, if you’re web-savvy, you might be able to help the organization revamp their online presence – a gift that could continue giving for years to come.
• Donations of time can also provide tax deductions – kind of. Consumerist previously reported that consumers can deduct $0.14 a mile if they drove to the organization. You can also add the cost for tolls and parking. Make sure to keep good records. While the travel costs can be deducted, you can’t actually deduct an hourly rate for your volunteering since you’re not actually being paid.
BE AWARE OF TIME AND PROCESSES
• There’s A Deadline: With the end of the year just days away, our colleagues at Consumer Reports remind would-be donors to make sure they’re aware of important tax-related deadlines tied to charitable giving when it comes to sending checks in the mail or transferring investment securities to their favorite charities.• Is The Tax Deduction For You? While it might be nice to get a little break on your taxes for all that charitable giving, it’s important to remember that such deductions must be itemized. So if you don’t already itemize your taxes, it might not be worth seeking the tax benefit. After all, it’s really all about giving right?
DON’T GET TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF
No matter how you decide to give this holiday season, make sure your donation is put to good use by checking that the organization is genuine.Parts of your donation might not go to the rightful pockets. A report from New York state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman last year found that only about 38% of all donations collected by telemarketers actually went to the charitable organizations.
If you’re contacted by a person over the phone soliciting charitable donations for a non-profit organization, it might be best to resist giving on the spot.
Instead, do your homework by researching the charity before you give. The National Association of State Charity Officials provides information on who to contact in your state to research information about charities and fundraising companies.
Additionally, keep in mind that some charities have been found to use donations for other costs, such as paying administrators instead of those in need.
The past year was rife with ne’er-do-wells that promised to give collected donations to those in need, but lined their own pockets instead.
In May, four cancer charities were accused by federal regulators of swindling donors out of $187 million.
The Cancer Fund of America, Inc. (CFA), Cancer Support Services Inc. (CSS), Children’s Cancer Fund of America Inc. (CCFOA) and The Breast Cancer Society Inc. (BCS) allegedly deceptively raised $187 million in donations by portraying themselves as legitimate charities and told prospective donors that funds would be used for help cancer patients by providing direct support and needed medical assistance.
In reality, the regulators and state officials, claim the charities spent just 3% of the donations on actual cancer patients.
Just two months ago, NY AG Schneiderman reached a settlement with a for-profit company accused of collecting donated items, like clothing, and then selling them for a profit. Under the settlement, Thrift Land USA agreed to pay a $700,000 in penalties.
To better ensure your donations are ending up in the right hands used these tools offered by CharityNavigator.org, GuideStar.org and the Better Business Bureau to do some sleuthing.
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uThis Year’s Avalanche Of Online Orders Won’t Be So Great For Retailers When Everyone Starts Returning Giftsr
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While many retailers were surely over the moon with an increase of online sales this year, that same burst in orders will have one effect that likely won’t make companies happy. Because when it comes time to return gifts purchased online, retailers are often on the hook to cover the costs involved.
It’s always been costly to handle returns, but when customers shop online, there’s invariably going to be a lot more gift returns, especially when it comes to clothing that the recipient hasn’t had a chance to try on. According to a Bloomberg report citing Customer Growth Partners, shoppers are expected to return 30% of clothing and shoes bought online, which is twice the return rate of items purchased in a physical store.
Those costs will add up for the 80% of retailers who offered free shipping on returns over the holidays, with companies shelling out $5 to $7 for shipping, along with the cost of process a return. That can come to about $5 in credit-card fees and labor costs to get an item ready to resell it.
Even if the retailer does manage to sell off that returned item, they’ll likely lose money in the process as many items won’t be in the right season any more. Heck, getting even $0.20 on the dollar for returned goods is a good price, Johnson explained.
In addition to all of that, there’s a lot more fraud these days: 3.5% of holiday returns, or $2.2 billion worth, will be bogus, compared to 3.5% in 2014, says the National Retail Federation.
“Return fraud remains a critical issue for retailers with the impact spanning far and wide, in-store and online,” Bob Moraca, vice president of Loss Prevention for the NRF, said in a statement. “While technology has played a significant role in deterring many in-person fraudulent transactions that would have otherwise gone unseen, there is little that can be done to prevent a determined criminal who will find a loophole one way or another.”
Online Surge Means Many Not-So-Happy Returns for Retailers [Bloomberg]
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uWhen The Biggest U.S. Airlines Try To Compete With Low-Cost Carriers, Travelers Winr
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Usually we wouldn’t be fans of fighting, but when it comes to companies vying for consumers’ hard-earned dollars, the more they try to one-up each other, the better it is for us. So it’s cause for celebration now that the three biggest airlines in the U.S. are paying attention to their low-cost rivals, bringing down ticket prices for everyone.
American, Delta, and United are all responding to moves by the likes of Spirit and Frontier, which offer fares on the cheap in exchange for charging fees for things like printed boarding passes and seat assignments. Spirit has been growing in scope, doubling its seats in Chicago since 2012, and added 27% in Dallas notes the Wall Street Journal, while another cheaper option, Southwest, has grown its capacity in Dallas.
The Big 3 are taking note: instead of avoiding broad fare battles with their low-cost rivals, they’re responding more aggressively now that fuel is so cheap. For example, a round-trip flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to New York’s LaGuardia Airport starting out Jan. 15 and returning Jan. 14 was $87.19 on Spirit, $116.20 on United, $136.20 on American and $206.20 on Delta.
An associate from a firm that tracks about 300 big domestic routes from the three largest airlines estimates that the lowest leisure fares in late December were down 24% on average from a year ago. In Chicago prices were down even more at 54%, while Philadelphia saw a 48% drop and Dallas fares dipped 40%.
For the entire year, prices didn’t drop quite as dramatically: a study by Expedia and Airlines Reporting Corp found that most North American economy-class ticket prices fell 5% through the first 10 months of 2015 compared to the same period a year before.
Southwest wasn’t included in the study, but told the WSJ its average one-way fare dropped 4% in the third-quarter over last year.
But although the big carriers have been under pressure by politicians, the government, and consumer groups who claimed they were colluding to keep fares high, executives say they’re just responding to market dynamics.
“We are being price competitive really across the board,” Scott Kirby, president of American told the WSJ. “And that has been an evolution.”
He noted that the company’s response to discounters is now “more comprehensive” than the former “hit or miss approach,” because 87% of its customers — representing half of American’s revenue — fly once a year or less and are very sensitive to price. That group can’t be ignored, he says.
United’s chief revenue officer Jim Compton said recently as well that his airline felt the heat after American started trying to price-match Southwest at O’Hare, by cutting fares at Chicago’s Midway Airport.
“Once a large competitor does that, it’s a lot of inventory at O’Hare that’s exposed competitively,” he said.
For its part, Delta has been offering “Basic Economy” fares on some routes that overlap with discounters as a defensive move, the company’s chief revenue officer Glen Haunstein says. Those low fares are now available on about 450 routes.
Airlines Challenge Low-Cost Foes on Fares [Wall Street Journal]
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uDOJ Investigating Blue Bell Listeria Outbreak, Could Result In Criminal Chargesr
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Is it a crime to knowingly ship food to customers that may be contaminated with deadly foodborne pathogens? Earlier this year, executives from the Peanut Corporation of America were sentenced to federal prison for their roles in an outbreak that made thousands of people sick, killing nine. The beloved ice cream brand Blue Bell may be back on store shelves, but federal investigators are currently asking whether anyone should be held criminally responsible.
CBS reports that the Department of Justice has started to investigate the company, trying to determine what the company’s leaders knew and when they knew it. Front-line workers told reporters that they had tried to call bosses’ attention to unsanitary and potentially unsafe conditions, including water leaks onto ice cream processing equipment.
An investigation by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this year turned up evidence that the company found Listeria bacteria on surfaces in the plant, but elected not to do anything about it and kept the ice cream lines churning.
Dept. of Justice investigating Blue Bell for deadly Listeria outbreak [CBS]
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uFCC Report Finds Cable Internet Is Getting Faster, But DSL And Satellite Still Likely To Miss The Markr
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The FCC’s job — well, one of the FCC’s jobs — is to make sure that everyone has access to decent broadband connections. You can’t understand what you can’t measure, though, so as part of that, the commission has to measure just how broadband is holding up. They issue a report, called Measuring Broadband America, roughly once a year to share their findings. The new one, the fifth, has just been released and while there’s still a lot of room for improvement, on the whole it seems to be a high note on which to end the year.
The last time the FCC updated this report, in June, 2014, the FCC found that while the news was, on the whole, trending positive, some ISPs were still falling short on delivering consumers what they paid for. Over a year later, the new report shows that there’s been some improvement… but some users, particularly DSL customers, are still being left behind.
Let’s lead off with the happy part: for many of us, the internet is getting faster. Over the past five years, cable and fiber ISPs have promised and delivered significant technological improvements that boost the available network speeds dramatically, and even DSL has seen a slight increase. Unfortunately for rural subscribers, available satellite internet speeds, on the whole, have stayed level or even fallen.
Those speeds, of course, are what ISPs say they’re delivering to you — but consumers’ reality may be different from the one businesses push on paper. And that brings us to the FCC’s other key question: are you getting what you’re paying for?
The FCC compares an ISP’s actual speeds to its advertised speeds to find out. If a company promises you 50 Mbps download speeds, and you get 50 or higher, that’s 100% or more. If that company promises you 50 Mbps download speeds, and you get 40 Mbps or less, that’s less than 80%, and it’s no good.
On average, though, cable and fiber companies are indeed coming very close to the promised mark for most consumers’ download speeds, and they’re even more likely to hit or exceed that mark for upload speeds. Satellite companies are underpromising and overdelivering hugely, which is great for consumers… but DSL companies, with a couple of exceptions, appear to miss the mark rather broadly.
Of course, sometimes crap happens, and so the FCC doesn’t ask ISPs to meet a perfect standard. Those advertised rates are “up to” for a reason, after all; even the best-maintained, most-robust network is sometimes going to have too many people using it, or weather interfering, or whatever. Instead, the commission want companies to deliver at least 80% of the speed they promised you, at least 80% of the time. For cable and satellite customers, ISPs are pretty consistently meeting or exceeding that standard. For DSL and even some fiber ISPs, though, the results are a lot less good.
Hughes satellite consumers are seeing their ISP significantly overperform the promised level of service, which is great. ViaSat/Exede customers are, well, not so lucky. That huge gap between the two bars, for those that service, indicates that the download speeds consumers get are pretty wildly inconsistent and hugely variable, based either on when or from where subscribers access it.
In general, though, things are looking up. “Today’s report confirms that advances in network technology are yielding significant improvements in broadband speeds and quality,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. “Faster, better broadband will unleash new innovations and new services to improve the lives of the American people. This comprehensive assessment of broadband performance helps to keep consumers informed and hold ISPs accountable.”
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uNetflix “Making A Murderer” Documentary Inspires Viewers To Seek Justice… Through Yelpr
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Netflix recently premiered a 10-part true-crime documentary Making A Murderer, about controversial murder investigation in Milwaukee. Some viewers of the show have been so moved by what they’ve watched that they’re forming virtual picket lines on Yelp and other review sites.
This feels incredibly wrong to write this, because I’m not sure how one can “spoil” a matter that’s in the public record and has been the subject on ongoing news coverage — some of it national — for more than a decade. BUT, if you know nothing about the Steven Avery case and don’t yet want to know how the documentary concludes, then maybe go read something else.
Ken Kratz, the special prosecutor who handled the Avery trial, continues to use the case to promote his private law firm in Wisconsin, boasting on his site that he “Successfully tried one of the largest and most complex homicide cases in Wisconsin history” —
And even including news articles about his performance in the case and his involvement in the prosecution of Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey, who was convicted of taking part in the murder despite a lack of physical evidence:
Anyone who has seen Making A Murderer knows that Kratz does not exactly come across well in the documentary. He claims — in spite of the fact that the crew spent a decade filming just about every aspect of this case — that he was not given an opportunity to provide his side of the story for the series, a claim the producers deny.
With the Avery and Dassey cases in legal limbo — both have exhausted their state-level appeals — viewers who are convinced that the two men are victims of prosecutorial misconduct (or who just don’t like Kratz) have taken their protest to the virtual sidewalk of his law firm’s Yelp page.
Below are just a smattering of the more than 100 Avery-related reviews posted:
It’s gotten to the point where visitors to the page now see an “Active Cleanup Alert,” indicating that some of the reviews you read might be motivated more by headlines than by, per Yelp terms, actual business dealings with the firm:
Len Kachinsky was Brendan Dassey’s perma-grinned defense lawyer. In the documentary, he is depicted as being convinced of his client’s guilt, to the point of having his investigator talk the teen into a written confession (complete with explicit stick-figure drawings that don’t mesh with the physical evidence). While his law firm’s Yelp page has not yet been demolished by angry viewers of the show, there are more than a handful of protest posts:
In fact, according to the Inquistr, since the release of the documentary, his firm has scrubbed Kachinsky’s name and bio from its website.
Interestingly, the firms for Avery’s two prominently featured defense attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, show no signs of any criticism or praise on Yelp. In fact, we couldn’t locate a Yelp page for Strang’s firm in Madison, Wisconsin.
One company that is receiving 5-star reviews from viewers of the documentary is the Avery family salvage and auto repair business in Two Rivers, WI. While it only has about a half-dozen Yelp writeups at the moment, they are all positive and supportive of the family.
The outpouring of pro-Avery sentiment is even more noticeable when you look at the Google reviews, where more than 200 have been written in the last week, nearly all of them voicing outrage over the case or support for Steven’s family:
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