uPolice: Women Steal TV From Walmart, Change Clothes And Steal Another Oner

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  Earlier this month, a man masquerading as a Walmart employee walked in the door, grabbed four big screen TVs and simply walked back out the way he came. While that was no doubt a brazen shoplifting incident, two women may have topped him over the weekend: police say the women swiped one TV from a local store, changed their clothing and then stole another TV — from the same store.
  

  Police in Connecticut are looking for two women they say stole two 40-inch TVs from a local Walmart store on Saturday, WTNH-TV reports.

  Authorities say the women walked in to the big box store, picked out a 40-inch flat screen, removed the spider wrap security device and simply walked out of the store without paying.

  The women then changed their clothes, reentered the store and allegedly repeated their shoplifting ploy, making off with yet another 40-inch TV.

  Women steal two 40-inch TVs from Wal-Mart [WTNH-TV]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uLocal Authorities Warn Public Not To Eat Cheese From Overturned Truck On The Highwayr

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  Listen. I know how tempting free cheese is — grocery stores put away their samples when I come sniffing around — but no matter how badly you want to save cheese from the horrible fate of going uneaten, don’t do it. Officials in Alabama had to warn local residents not to scoop up cheese strewn across the road after a truck overturned on the highway.

  The DeKalb County Emergency Management Agency felt the need to remind folks that cheese found in the road/inside an overturned 18-wheeler is not meant for the public to chow down on, posting a notice on its Facebook page on Saturday.

  “As result of the incident, the cheese product has been declared salvaged and not fit for human consumption,” the agency explained. “Please do not consume the cheese products at this time.”

  It’s hard to stand idly by while cheese is being wasted, but it’s the right thing to do. Just keep repeating that to yourself and we’ll get through this, I promise.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCinnamon Bun Flavored Oreos Are Coming Soonr

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  If you love frosting-laden cinnamon sweets and Oreos, the time is at hand: news about the next exotic Oreos flavor is out, and the lucky theme food is…cinnamon buns! The package promises cinnamon cookies with “cinnamon bun flavored creme.” That’s better than icing-flavored creme, which would just be… really solid icing.

  There are two interesting things about the package, as pointed out by the site that has presented it to the world, The Impulsive Buy. Do you see what’s missing from the package? It doesn’t have the words “Limited Edition,” and isn’t in the smaller limited edition size of 10.7 ounces. These could be offered indefinitely!

  The important question is, why didn’t they make things official and recognizable and partner with Cinnabon? Maybe the licensing fee was too high, but Cinnabon has already brought its brand to air fresheners and partnerships with Taco Bell and Burger King.

  COMING SOON: Nabisco Cinnamon Bun Oreo Cookies [The Impulsive Buy]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uWhole Foods Cutting 1,500 Jobs In Order To Offer Customers Lower Pricesr

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  Your next shopping trip to Whole Foods may come with a bit less interaction with employees, as the health food chain said Monday that it would be eliminating approximately 1,500 jobs in order to offer lower prices for its goods. 

  The company announced today that it would undergo a net reduction of about 1.6% of its workforce as part of its “ongoing commitment to lower prices for its customers and invest in technology upgrades while improving its cost structure.”

  The reductions are expected to take place over the next eight weeks, the company says, noting that many of the lost jobs will come from attrition.

  Affected employees have been offered several options, including transition pay, severance, or, in some cases, the opportunity to apply for other jobs.

  “This is a very difficult decision, and we are committed to treating affected Team Members in a caring and respectful manner….We will pay these Team Members in full over the next eight weeks as they decide which option to choose.” Walter Robb, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, said in a statement. “We believe this is an important step to evolve Whole Foods Market in a rapidly changing marketplace.”

  The workforce reduction is just the latest issue facing Whole Foods. Back in July, the company admitted to the “unintentional” overcharging customers for some prepackaged fresh food items.

  Investigators in New York City had turned up evidence of some 800 violations at Whole Foods stores since 2010, with overcharges ranging from $.80 to nearly $15.

  “By any measure, it had a significant impact on our sales,” admitted Robb during the earnings call in late July. “If trust is broken, it has to be rebuilt a step at a time.”

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uTaco Bell Rolls Out New Website For Online Ordering Without The Appr

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• Upon hearing the news that Taco Bell customers can now order and pay for food online by way of a new website, you might have some questions: Doesn’t Taco Bell already have an app for ordering and paying ahead? And doesn’t it already have a website? Yes and yes, but now the two things have become one.

  Before now, customers who wanted to order and pay ahead of time had to use the Taco Bell app on their smartphone. With today’s launch of the “new” website — ta.co, which is pronounced “tah-dot-co” and reroutes to the old site, tacobell.com — customers can order online wherever they can get to a web browser, without having to add yet another app to their mobile device.

  Just like with the app, customers can customize their orders, adding beans to tacos, guacamole to Mexican pizza and cheese to anything and everything because cheese belongs on as many menu items as imagination allows.

  So what’s with the trendy ta.co name? It’s not like it’s that much shorter than simply the name of the chain. It’s like shorthand, Tressie Lieberman, Taco Bell vice president of digital innovation and on demand told Nation’s Restaurant News.

  “It’s like using an emoji,” Lieberman said. “We think ease is the new loyalty.”

  Unfortunately for Taco Bell, there is no taco bell emoji, which could allow customers to actually order with an emoji like Pizza Hut does with the pizza emoji.

  Next up, Lieberman said, will be integrating a new loyalty program into the site, which will debut late this year. Perhaps mobile punch cards with a free taco every 50th taco? Because that’s not really that many tacos if you’re dedicated.

  Taco Bell launches online ordering and payment [Nation’s Restaurant News]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uAudi Confirms 2.1 Million Vehicles Affected By Volkswagen Emissions Scandalr

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  For more than a week, Volkswagen has been the center of an emissions scandal in which it admitted that nearly 11 million diesel engine vehicles worldwide come equipped with software that tricked emissions tests. While an order of violation from the Environmental Protection Agency included several Audi sedans, VW had yet to announce just how many of those vehicles were affected worldwide. Now we know: 2.1 million.

  Volkswagen announced on Monday that about 2.1 million Audi vehicles have the software – known as a “defeat device” – that disables air-emissions controls during normal driving conditions, the Wall Street Journal reports.

  A spokesperson for VW says that a majority of the more than 2 million vehicles affected by the issue were sold in Europe. Just 13,000 were sold in the U.S. and Canada.

  Affected models include the Audi A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, TT, Q3, and Q5.

  Additionally, Spanish brand Seat and Czech brand Skoda announced Monday that some of their models also include the defeat devices. However, the number of cars affected by those brands was not yet available.

  Audi Confirms 2.1 Million Cars Involved in Volkswagen Emissions Scandal [The Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

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

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• 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]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist