u7 Things We Learned About The Shady Past And Problematic Business Practices Of JustFabr

4 4 4 9

• Have you ever heard of JustFab? They’re a startup worth about $1 billion, and they sell clothes and shoes on a subscription model. They also own similar sites like Fabletics, FabKids, FL2, and Shoedazzle. Its founders, however, have an interesting history: they began as marketers of diet “supplements” and wrinkle creams, and brought the most anti-consumer business practices (mostly, subscriptions that can’t be canceled) from that industry to the selling of shoes and yoga pants.

  We had seen complaints about the company in our inbox before, but the names didn’t really register until Buzzfeed’s Sapna Maheshwari looked into the history of JustFab, its business model, its parent company, and its founders. It’s fascinating, and makes subscription clothing services seem even less appealing.

• The founders met while working for the original parent company of MySpace, Intermix Media, in the division of the company that actually made money. It sold diet pills and wrinkle creams using “free trials” and recurring subscriptions.
• They began their own company after News Corp. acquired MySpace. It evolved into a company called Intelligent Beauty, which sold the diet supplement Sensa, beauty treatment Kronos, and Raw Minerals makeup.
• You might recognize the name Sensa from their particularly infuriating commercials… or maybe it was their multimillion-dollar settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for unfounded weight loss claims and misleading endorsements.
• They started JustFab, which acquired other similar businesses like FabKids and Shoedazzle. All use a subscription model to sell exclusive clothing: since they control the supply chain, this business model can be lucrative.
• The subscription model is the cause of consumer complaints: new customers think they’re getting a deal on some shoes, and don’t realize that they’re signing up for a subscription that will be difficult to cancel. “I thought I was buying ONE pair of shoes. Unbeknownst to me, I was signing up for this VIP ‘club’ that charges me 40 dollars every month,” one Consumerist reader wrote to us about JustFab in 2012, detailing her months-long struggle to cancel the unwanted subscription.
• JustFab has received $300 million in investment from venture capital firms in Silicon Valley that helped bring startups that you’ve actually heard of, like Spotify and Dollar Shave Club, into existence.
• While the shoes and clothes actually do what they promise, unlike the diet pills and wrinkle creams, the brands all use negative-option marketing, where customers get charged for their “VIP membership” unless they remember to opt out. In theory, you can opt out of a month’s shoes or outfits, but only if you remember to do so in the first five days of the month.

• The Dark, Scammy History Of JustFab And Fabletics [Buzzfeed]

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

u98-Year-Old Traveler Says Airline Rolled Her Into Baggage Claim, Forgot About Herr

4 4 4 9

• Every year, a 98-year-old woman who lives in Spain flies to Texas to visit her daughter. She took American Airlines this year, and everything went well until she arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where she was supposed to be met by an attendant. A miscommunication meant that instead, she was left in the baggage claim, strapped to a wheelchair and unable to find anyone to help her.

  How does this happen? While the woman is pretty mobile for her age, the family requested to have someone wheel her around the airport. That attendant apparently thought that she would be taking a connecting flight, and left her in the area where international travelers pick up their baggage to go through customs for the next attendant to pick up. She wasn’t catching another flight… and her family wasn’t allowed in the customs terminal.

  She was left there for ninety minutes in a wheelchair that she couldn’t operate herself, needing to use the restroom and quite upset. Her family reports that she pleaded for help in Spanish, and either no one passing by or working in that terminal speaks any Spanish, they thought she was a confused person with dementia, or they’re all meanies.

  Eventually, another attendant noticed a passenger who didn’t belong, and reunited the woman with her family. He also asked for a tip, pointing out that the mixup wasn’t his fault.

  In a statement, American Airlines representative said, “We are immediately contacting the contractor we work with, AirServ, and are taking this matter very seriously.” The contractor didn’t get back to CBS Dallas-Fort Worth before the broadcast.

  98-Year-Old Says She Was Strapped, Left In Wheelchair At DFW Airport [CBS DFW]

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uCops Looking For Suspects Who Dressed As Rick James, ‘Super Fly’ Character To Rob Indiana Bankr

4 4 4 9

• 
  It’s not quite time for Halloween, but two bank robbers in Indiana are already in the mood for costumes: police are on the lookout for two men who dressed up as legendary musician Rick James and Youngblood Priest, a character from the 1972 movie Super Fly, who are accused of holding up bank tellers at gunpoint.

  Eschewing the bank robber’s uniform of pantyhose worn over the face, on suspect sported a braided wig and sunglasses in the style of the “Super Freak” singer, while his accomplice was styled in the manner of the classic ’70s film in a fedora and shoulder-length locks, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (h/t USA Today).

  The robbery went down on Sept. 19, but it has somehow taken this long for the Internet to catch wind of the nattily dressed duo and freak out accordingly over the novelty of the situation. Police say the armed twosome entered the bank around noon last Saturday and demanded money, eventually fleeing with an “undisclosed” amount of cash.

  They’re also suspects in another robber a few days later, where Rick James guy stuck with his outfit, but Youngblood decided to go more for that modern “guy in a Colts hat” look. Awk-ward.

  Two suspects sought after robbery on northwest side: http://t.co/45oxSKDjCZ http://pic.twitter.com/GAkGjChSaY

  — FOX59 News (@FOX59) September 22, 2015

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uWalmart’s Streaming Video Service VUDU Discounts All Of This Year’s Emmy-Nominated Shows To $.67r

4 4 4 9

• For folks who might enjoy, say, Game of Thrones and Veep, but not enough to pay for HBO or HBO Now just for those two shows, or someone who wants to watch House of Cards without getting a Netflix subscription, Walmart’s streaming service VUDU might make sense: it charges per episode for TV shows, instead of requiring an upfront subscription fee for access to its libraries. VUDU is now sweetening the deal on some shows, knocking the per-episode price of all 2015 Emmy nominees and winners down to $0.67.

  It’s worth noting that that price is only for the standard definition version of those titles, which usually costs about $1.99 — HD will still cost $2.99 and HDX is $3.99 for most TV shows.

  That being said, it’s still a good deal for folks looking to knock out a few seasons of popular TV shows that everyone keeps telling them they need to watch, but that they just haven’t gotten around to yet because seriously, it was a really busy summer and work has been crazy, so they just don’t have time to start a new show right now.

  It isn’t just the most recent season of the show, either — all episodes in each show are included in the $0.67 deal, ostensibly priced in honor of the Emmy’s 67th awards show.

  As MarketWatch points out, this means users could watch all five seasons — 50 episodes worth — of Game of Thrones for $33.50. Homeland? You’re in for $30.15 for 45 episodes. In comparison, you could try to watch 50 episodes of GoT in one month on HBO Now and pay just $15, but then you’ll be paying with time spent watching 50 episodes of one show in a month.

  It’s unclear at this point how long the deal will last, but we’ve reached out to VUDU and will update this post when we hear back.

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uMy VW Was Recalled For Emissions Issues In April, Does That Mean It’s Fixed?r

4 4 4 9

• 

  When Consumerist reader Jan bought her 2014 Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen with a “clean diesel” engine, the thought she was going to get great gas mileage and maybe help the environment. Sure, there was an emissions-related recall earlier this year, but she had that fixed at the dealership. Except, as she’s learning in the wake of the latest VW recall, her car is still in need of fixing.
  

  Jan’s story is like that of about 472,000 consumers who also own VW and Audi vehicles that the Environmental Protection Agency says contain “defeat devices” that only turn on a vehicle’s full emissions control system when it’s being tested. So a car using this software might be producing more pollution than state and federal standards allow when it’s on the road.

  What makes Jan’s story a little different is that back in April she was one of thousands of California residents to received a recall notice [PDF] from VW saying her car was in needed of an “emissions service action.”

  “When I got the recall notice in April, I was a little suspicious,” Jan says. A friend of hers who received a similar notice was also concerned.

  We now know this recall was an attempt by the carmaker to stave off federal regulators who were questioning discrepancies in lab tests and real world emission levels for the vehicles.

  Like thousands of others presumably did, Jan took her car to the dealer [PDF] for the software upgrade.

  “When I took it in at the dealer, they said they just had to update computers, so I didn’t think much of it,” she says of the fix administered in June.

  Five days later she took it to be smog tested. California requires vehicles be tested every two years. It passed and she has a certificate of correction that says her car is in tip-top emissions shape.

  

  But in the wake of the Sept. 18 EPA order recalling model year 2009 to 2015 Volkswagen Jetta, Beetle, Golf, and Audi A3, as well as model year 2014 to 2015 Volkswagen Passat sedans for violating the Clean Air Act, the question is now: Was Jan’s car really repaired?

  Jan says she’s been told by other VW owners and in news reports that while the car company took the lead back in April, there are now questions whether or not that software update fixed anything.

  “I am kind of suspicious – when I took it in in June and they did the update, does that mean they fixed the issue [of bypassing emissions tests] or did they do something else,” asks Jan. “Does that mean my car’s okay?”

  In short: no.

  Dave Clegern, a spokesperson with the California Air Resources Board, tells Consumerist that the April recall was part of a 2014 agreement between the manufacturer, the EPA and CARB to fix what VW deemed a “technical glitch.”

  The April recall was part of  to fix what VW called a technical glitch.

  “They told us it would fix the testing anomalies we found, but it did not,” he says.

  For now, Clegern says consumers such as Jan should sit tight.

  “At this point consumers don’t need to do anything. We’re meeting with VW to fully understand the scope and impact of what they’ve done,” he tells Consumerist. “They must then bring us a fix which is viable from an engineering standpoint. At that point we will tell them to go forward with a recall. When a consumer receives that letter, they should get the repair done.”

  Of course, consumers such Jan who feel they were tricked into buying their car can file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, and may want to consider doing the same through their particular state’s attorney general’s office.

  “You try to do something good, especially in California with the smog issue,” Jan says. “You try to walk softly on the earth, the thought of driving around in a gross polluter doesn’t make me very happy.”

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uMan Takes $900 Worth Of Drills From Sears, Leaves Making Chicken Noisesr

4 4 4 9

• 
  One way to commit a crime is to create a distraction, and maybe that’s what a man at a Sears store in New Hampshire was trying to do when he allegedly filled a cart with power drills and made chicken noises when employees tried to stop him. It did work: he got away, and now police would like to know his whereabouts.

  CBS Boston has a still image from surveillance video, and fortunately for everyone, there’s no audio. It would be interesting to find out what kind of chicken noises startle Sears employees: did he cluck, or crow like a rooster? Would he have escalated to dancing like a chicken if they had confronted him further, or if police had caught him in the movie theater parking lot where he was last seen?

  The four drills are worth a total of $900, so police would like to catch up with him. The man is described as white and dark-haired and in his twenties or thirties, and he is able to run in flip-flops.

  Man Making Chicken Noises Steals Drills From NH Sears [CBS Boston]

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uMcDonald’s Now Offering A 100% Organic Burger… In Germanyr

4 4 4 9

• 

  In an attempt to turn around sluggish sales and capture the always desirable millennial market, McDonald’s has introduced new and revised old menu items: offering kale, beefing up the Quarter Pounder, and adding all-day breakfast just to name a few. The company’s latest ploy: an organic hamburger. But there’s a catch — it’s only available in Germany.

  Starting Oct. 1 to Nov. 18, McDonald’s in Germany will offer customers what it’s calling “McB” burgers, sourced from organic beef in the country and Austria, Reuters reports.

  “We have made a great effort to secure sufficient quantities of meat which satisfies the organic requirements and our own quality claims,” Holger Beeck, chief executive of McDonald’s Germany, says.

  The limited time sale of a 100% organic burger is the latest initiative by the Golden Arches to revamp its sourcing.

  Earlier this month, the fast food giant announced it would switch to cage-free eggs by 2025. Before that the company said in March that it would stop buying meat from chickens raised with antibiotics.

  McDonald’s to offer first-ever organic burger, in Germany [Reuters]

  
• 
  

ribbi

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist