CVS Gives Out Free Cigarette Packs Stuffed With Help For Quitting

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You can’t buy tobacco products anymore at the newly-renamed CVS Health, but you can get the cashier to give you a free pack. While the little red box is shaped like a cigarette pack, that isn’t what’s inside. These packs are available for free, and have coupons and materials inside meant to inspire customers to quit smoking.

Reader Randy reorts that cashiers at his local CVS were putting these statements inside customers’ bags.

Behind the counter, cashiers had these free packs, whcih reportedly have at least one generous (CVS-only, of course) coupon for smoking-cessation aids.

What caught Randy’s eye was this warning on the outside of the pack:

CVS pharmacies had originally planned to stop selling tobacco products on October 1, but instead emptied the shelves at the beginning of this month. The chain used to make about $2 billion per year from selling tobacco products, but lawmakers nationwide have been making the case that stores shouldn’t sell smokes alongside medicine.

PREVIOUSLY:

CVS Yanks Tobacco Products From Its Shelves A Month Earlier Than Planned

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

EA CEO: We Don’t Want To Win Worst Company Award For 3rd Time

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In 2013, video game giant Electronic Arts became the first business to be named Worst Company In America twice by Consumerist readers (a feat that has since been matched by Comcast). EA made the brackets again this year, but narrowly lost out to Time Warner Cable in the early rounds. And if relatively new EA CEO Andrew Wilson had his way, his company would never be up for WCIA consideration again.

“We didn’t even make it out of the first round this year,” Wilson tells The Guardian, apparently taking his company’s two wins with a sense of humor missing from his predecessor. “When I came into this job, the board didn’t want the company to be perceived that way.”

He claims the company is learning from its mistakes, like the decision to unleash a broken Battlefield 4 on the market earlier than it should have been, resulting in glitches galore and people unable to play the game they’d spend at least $60 on.

Wilson points to what he maintains was a successful beta test of the upcoming Battlefield Hardline title as evidence that EA is living up to its supposed “player-first” philosophy.

“We learned about scalability and stability [from Battlefield 4] and that allowed us to let gamers in earlier and give us feedback,” explains Wilson. “What we got from the community was, ‘this is cool, but we think the fiction should go deeper’. We were then able to make a judgment call on that. I don’t think it would have been possible before.”

EA has a couple opportunities in the near future to prove that its business plan isn’t to release half-baked, cookie-cutter titles that are merely cash-ins of well-established series. Next week sees the release of Madden NFL 15, which has already resulted in one of the more hilarious glitches we’ve seen in a while:

Then later in the fall EA will release the third title in its popular Dragon Age series. It’s both the first DA title for the latest generation of gaming consoles and it follows the tepidly received Dragon Age 2, a game that annoyed many fans of the first with its repetitive settings and other corner-cutting that resulted from EA’s rush to release the game on time.

“I hope we never appear on that list again, I truly do,” says Wilson. “But I expect that, as we push the boundaries of entertainment, we will get feedback from time to time that people want us to do different things. That’s okay. That’s the cool thing about our industry.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Cheese Makers In Switzerland Fight Counterfeits With Secret Bacteria

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(Rusty Clark)

Did you know that counterfeit Swiss cheese is a problem? It certainly is if you’re a cheesemaker in Switzerland. Industry experts recently estimated that as much as 10% of all Emmental cheese (that’s the pale yellow cheese with holes in it that Americans usually refer to as “Swiss” cheese) sold outside of Switzerland was fake: not made in Switzerland. How are the Swiss protecting their cheese industry, which has exports in the hundreds of millions of dollars? DNA tests.

Cheese DNA tests? Yes, cheese-makers in Switzerland are adding secret microbes to their products to prevent fakes. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that it took ten years for government scientists to find bacterial markers that would be detectable in the cheese after aging, but not change the texture or flavor in any way.

What it allows the government to do is perform spot checks on even the smallest slices of cheese found in grocery stores abroad. Yes, miscreants who make fake Emmental and gruyère are an actual problem. If the bacterial marker isn’t there, the cheese didn’t come from an approved producer that meets the stringent rules that cheesemakers must follow in order to use the traditional names.

How to Make Sure That’s Really Swiss Cheese [Bloomberg Businessweek]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Comcast: Approve TWC Merger Because Broadband Will Still Suck Just As Much

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(Kevin Burkett)

Yesterday, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler surprised a lot of people by publicly discussing the woeful state of broadband competition in the U.S. Some viewed his remarks as an indicator that the commission is leaning toward blocking the pending Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger, but the ever-optimistic (read: delusional) Comcast argue that Wheeler’s words actually support the deal.

“The facts are simple,” writes Comcast’s merger whisperer, Exec. VP David Cohen. “Our transaction will have no negative impact on the competitiveness of the broadband consumer market… Every consumer in America will have the same choices among broadband providers after this transaction as before.”

As we’ve said repeatedly, this lack of competition — and the fact that it’s only going to remain the same — is precisely the problem with this merger.

We should not reward a fundamentally flawed industry that has allowed Comcast to grow, not by being the best at what it does, but by purchasing smaller companies and acquiring their exclusive contracts with local governments.

Comcast brags about spending billions to improve its network. Why doesn’t it take the many billions of dollars it plans to spend on this merger and offer a service that brings competition to consumers?

Google is trying. AT&T is trying (though they don’t want anyone else to). Even ViaSat’s Exede is starting to offer a satellite broadband plan that is semi-competitive to terrestrial service.

But Comcast doesn’t want to take the risk of having to win over consumers when it could just force them to become Comcast customers by acquiring Time Warner Cable.

And what about the options for the millions of customers who are being passed around like hot potatoes in this deal?

1.6 million current Charter customers will become Comcast subscribers, while 1.4 million Time Warner Cable customers get turned over to Charter without any say-so in the matter.

Then there are the 2.5 million Comcast customers being dumped off into a completely new company, GreatLand, that is 33% owned by Charter.

That’s 5.5 million Americans, most of whom had no choice in cable provider, that will be handed over to a new company within months just because Comcast doesn’t want to compete for customers in California, New England, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and Virginia

This sort of passing around of customers happened for a long time in the wireless market, as regional players consolidated and swapped. The difference there is that most Americans still have multiple options for wireless service, so if you were a Cingular customer unhappy about becoming an AT&T subscriber, you could jump ship to T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, or numerous regional and prepaid carriers.

Even with four major national wireless providers, the FCC and Justice Dept. successfully blocked AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile because it would have left consumers with only three options for wireless service.

Meanwhile, as Chairman Wheeler’s presentation demonstrated, fewer than 10% of Americans have access to even three options for decent broadband service.

In reiterating his stance, Cohen makes perhaps his most inane statement yet on competition:

“[W]hether you are satisfied with the robust state of broadband competition today or deeply troubled by an absence of broadband competition, our transaction will simply not have a negative impact on the current competitive state of the broadband market in America today.”

This is like someone serving up bowl of hot rocks for dinner and saying, “Whether you’re satisfied with this warm filling bowl of mineral-rich goodness or deeply troubled by the fact that I’m telling you to eat a bowl of hot rocks, it doesn’t change the fact that this is all there is to eat.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

CompuServe In 1994: Here, You’ll Never Outgrow 60 E-Mails Per Month

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Decades ago, our ancestors would purchase or receive in the mail “magazines,” primitive information delivery devices printed on shiny paper. Most of these magazines featured advertisements for products and services. In 1994, an ad for Popular Mechanics promoted CompuServe, a service that you could dial into with your modem. One that connected you to news, sports, weather, shopping, information, and included sixty e-mail messages per month. Sixty!

For our readers who are using mobile devices or screen readers, here’s the text of the ad:

No matter what you’re into, you can get more out of CompuServe.

You can range widely over a wide list of services that will help you, entertain you, teach you, and challenge ou. Or delve deeply into your favorite topics, learning (or even teaching) more, meeting experts, and making friends with people who share your interests.

CompuServe lets you do everything from keeping in couch with our comunication services, to getting advice from online hardware and software experts. It’s the one computer information service you won’t outgrow.

But you will have a good time trying.

For a low one-time membership fee and $8.95 a month, you can use our most popular services as often as you like: news, sports, weather, shopping, reference materials, our electronic mail service of up to 60 messages a month, and more. Plus there’s a whole universe of other, extended options available at nominal additional charges. Your first month on CompuServe will be free, and we’ll give you a $25 usage credit to explore our extended services.

To buy a CompuServe Membership Kit, see your computer dealer.

We really don’t have much to add to this advertisement, but do have to question the part about CompuServe being an online service you won’t outgrow. Then we did some idle checking, and learned that CompuServe still exists. No, really. They were purchased by powerhouse competitor AOL in 1998, news that I probably missed because I was too busy a GeoCities Community Leader at the time. We can’t figure out where to join CompuServe, but its site is still there, looking like it stepped out of 1998 straight onto the screen of my MacBook. Some of its members really never did outgrow the service since 1994, after all.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Home Depot Already Being Sued Over Apparent Data Breach

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(Nicholas Eckhart)

As of right now, Home Depot has yet to confirm multiple reports that its in-store payment system was hacked, or given any indication how extensive the breach might be. But that hasn’t stopped people from suing the retailer.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a potential class-action claim was filed against Home Depot yesterday in a U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia.

The plaintiffs allege that Atlanta-based Home Depot failed to protect customers’ credit card data, and that the retailer did not alert customers to the possible breach.

All that’s known at this point is that multiple banks traced fraudulent transactions on customers’ cards and found that these cardholders all shopped at Home Depot.

Following that revelation on Tuesday, Home Depot said it was investigating “unusual activity” and that it was working with authorities. It has not, however, confirmed the breach.

Data reviewed by KrebsOnSecurity.com, which broke the original story (along with numerous other recent hacks), showed a near 100% overlap between the ZIP codes of a batch of stolen credit cards that went on sale on the black market earlier this week and the ZIP codes of Home Depot stores in the U.S.

Only a small number of the approximately 2,200 Home Depot stores in America did not have their ZIP codes turn up in that list. However, the batch of stolen card numbers likely only represents a fraction of the total amount of pilfered data, so it’s possible that all stores were involved in the breach.

The other question that remains unresolved is exactly when this possible hack might have started. Some have reported that it could go back as far as April or May of this year.

If that’s true, this apparent hack has the potential of being significantly larger than the one that hit Target stores for a few weeks during the 2013 holiday shopping season.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

GetTaxi Offering $10 Flat Fees For All Rides In Manhattan For The Rest Of The Year

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(Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie)

Another on-demand car service has fired a shot in the war with Uber and Lyft for customers — GetTaxi, also known as Gett, is offering a $10 flat fee for any and all riders in Manhattan through the end of the year.

Gett’s offering the fare “Any time of day, any route, any Manhattan neighborhood,” with no limit on how many rides you can take, the company announced on its blog.

What’s the catch? There isn’t one, per se, but there are a few things riders will have to keep in mind. For one thing, tips aren’t included, so good customers should be prepared to still tip their drivers the appropriate amount for the ride.

And a major bummer for those in the outer boroughs is that all the rides must take place completely in Manhattan, so no zipping home to Brooklyn or the Bronx on the cheap.

Extra stops are also not included and any ride over 60 minutes will cost more as well, so you can’t just drive around town all day picking up your pals. I know, sad.

One might imagine that if everyone starts cashing in on the deal, wait times could be extended, rendering the offer useless if you need to get somewhere quick. Or perhaps Gett will hire more drivers to cover any uptick in business. We shall see.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Netflix Hoping Shorter Clips Can Win Over Mobile Users

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Your Netflix mobile app might already be serving up short clips under the heading of “Have five minutes?”

Netflix says that 87% of its mobile users stream videos from the service for fewer than 10 minutes at time. After all, it’s hard to keep the attention of a user looking at a small smartphone screen, especially when it competes with incoming texts and other messages. Wireless users may also be reluctant to check out more than a few minutes of video out of fear of hitting their monthly data caps. Problem is, Netflix doesn’t really have any content shorter than 10 minutes. The solution? Go shorter.

According to GigaOm, a Netflix design manager revealed today that the company is looking at the possibility of having loads of short clips aimed at giving mobile users something that is brief enough to keep their attention and not drain their monthly data bucket.

But before you freak out that Netflix will suddenly be overrun with user-generated video blogs or ice-bucket challenge clips, the idea is apparently more in line with what you find on many network TV websites — short clips of movies and TV shows culled from an Netflix’s existing library.

You may even be a test subject for this cut-down content and don’t even know it. The company has quietly been offering shorter selections on some mobile users’ home screens under the category heading of “Have five minutes?”

The company says it has received “very positive results” so far and could make the short segment category permanent as part of an upcoming mobile relaunch.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Albino Cobra Captured After Days On The Loose In Southern California

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Free no more.

Residents of a Southern California neighborhood can rest a little easier now, after animal-control officers tracked down and captured an albino monocled cobra on the loose that had been slithering around the Thousand Oaks neighborhood since at least Monday. The owner still remains a mystery, while the snake will now have a new home at the Los Angeles Zoo. [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Linkwallet Emerges, Says Wallets Will Ship By End Of 2014

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Since backing a hardware project on a crowdfunded site feels like shopping, people get annoyed when the things they “bought” don’t show up when expected. Like the Ping Wallet, which we featured here on the site yesterday. A year after raising $59,000, the smart wallet is the subject of a Kickstarter backer revolt. However, the company’s CEO has re-emerged and says that the delays are just because he wants to send backers a wallet that doesn’t suck.

“I didn’t want to do an update until the wallet was perfect,” Narcise told Consumerist in an interview on Friday. “I’m a perfectionist.” Plus, producing and selling a product that doesn’t work as promised to backers and other customers leads to refunds and returns, something that startups can’t really afford. The company has apparently spent all of the Kickstarter funds, and then some, on the first production run of wallets.

Linkwallet, as the product and the company are now called, experienced problems with the wallet’s battery life early in production. As the product was originally described, the wallet would connect to your phone using Bluetooth, and the battery would last about two years. Linkwallet CEO Alix Narcisse told Consumerist that the delay has been due to the battery issue and finding the right company to produce the wallets. However, he says, they’re definitely going to ship by the end of 2014 and be available for holiday giving.

We can understand the barriers that exist in bringing new hardware from an idea to production to consumers. Narcisse himself is a veteran of a failed attempt to develop and bring a super-thin Android tablet, the OGT Eros, to market.

Most people have dealt with or know someone who has dealt with contractors building, repairing, or renovating a house. Imagine the time and cost overruns that typically happen in that case. Then imagine that you’re having the contractor make, say, ten thousand houses for you, and you and the contractor are in drastically different time zones and don’t speak the same language. Having hardware made in China can be something like that.

Kickstarter has reminded us for two years now that the site is not a store. It’s a process to back projects that you want to support and bring them to life, and not a mall. Receiving stuff is a perk, not the point. For example, I recently backed a campaign to send a French bulldog to meet children across the country with craniofacial issues. I sent the campaign $15, and I got…a sticker. That’s not a commercial transaction; that’s the modern equivalent of an NPR tote bag.

So, is Linkwallet on the up and up? We can’t say for sure. No one will know for sure until customers have working wallets in their hands. We’ll keep track of the situation, and the backers will certainly let us know when that happens.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Esurance: No, Our Billboard Didn’t Actually Suggest You “Cover Your Home In A D**k”

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Blurred because we have moms.

Gather round to hear the tale we like to call, “Not Everything You See On The Internet Is Real.” It’s a story that has been heard round the world, and is ever-changing in its sneakiness. This installment of NEYSOTIIR, Esurance says a billboard reading “cover your home in a d**k” was Photoshopped, and didn’t actually suggest potential customers do such a silly and impractical thing.

Earlier this week, a photo emerged across the wide plains of the Internet, purportedly of a billboard in Chicago that contained the crude reference to a man’s genitalia.

But it was a Photoshopped job, a company spokesperson said, according to RedEye Chicago. The real billboard actually reads, “cover your home in a click.”

Well, that does make a lot more sense.

The spokesman says that all the billboards in question were taken down on July 24 anyway, because they could’ve been read in error from a distance. He says that the d**k pic was “clearly photoshopped.”

RedEye says the Instagram user who posted the original photo admitted that it was something he’d made as a joke — he didn’t even notice the thing had gone viral.

“My initial reaction was to be upset for not receiving credit, but then I realized that it was most likely not a malicious or plagiaristic act,” he explained.

And for those media outlets who thought it was real, well that’s ridiculous, he says, as he was surprised they reported on it.

“After you Photoshop something and have it end up [in the media], the slightest trust that you still had in the media is now lost,” he said.

Esurance picture of lewd billboard was photoshopped [RedEye Chicago]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Science Sez: No Evidence That Bras Cause Breast Cancer

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(Allison)

Some people believe that wearing a bra might interfere with lymph circulation and waste removal from the breast, possibly increasing the risk of breast cancer. But according to newly published research, there’s no evidence indicating that sporting a bra leads to a heightened cancer risk.

The research, funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and published today in the journal Cancer Epidemiology , looked at around 1,400 post-menopausal women — about 2/3 of them who had one of two types of breast cancer, with a cancer-free control group making up the remaining third — and studied what types of bras they wore, how long they’d been wearing bras, and how much of their day was spent in a bra.

Data included in the research includes cup size, underwires or lack thereof, family histories of breast cancer, height and weight, education level, race, income, whether they used hormone replacement therapy and whether they had had a recent mammogram.

“We found no evidence that wearing a bra is associated with breast cancer,” said study author Lu Chen, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “The risk was similar no matter how many hours per day women wore a bra, whether they wore a bra with an underwire, or at what age they first began wearing a bra.”

Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, a professor of cancer prevention at Harvard School of Public Health, says that the research confirms “the obvious, the logical, that it is safe to wear a bra.”

He blames the Web for spreading unfounded concerns about bras and cancer: “The Internet is a treasure, but it contains plenty of nonsense.”

Case in point:

[via HealthDay]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Teen Counterfeiter Blames Crime On “Too Much Freedom” From Mom

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(Evan Jackson)

Reason #6,721 I have no interest in ever being a parent: My child would someday try to pin the blame for his or her misdeeds on my parenting, just like the teenage counterfeiter in Pennsylvania who says the reason he created bogus $100 bills was because his mom was too easy on him.

The Sharon Herald reports on an 18-year-old recent high school grad who somehow only got probation for printing and passing 18 fake $100 bills.

The teen somehow scrubbed a bunch of $5 bills and then printed bogus C-notes on the newly blank papers.

When the judge asked him why he did what he did, the young criminal responded that his mother had given him “too much freedom.”

“I didn’t need the money,” explained the teen, who probably should learn when to shut up if he’s going to continue on this path.

“Was it fun?” asked the judge.

“No,” replied the young man.

“Did you get a rush out of it?”

“Not at all.”

And when the judge asked the defendant why he wrangled a 17-year-old pal into his scheme, the counterfeiter responded that the friend needed money to buy a car, even though he already had a job and wheels of his own.

Letters of support for the teen argued that putting him in jail would only increase the likelihood of his doing more stupid, illegal things in the future.

“All of this shows a sophisticated and criminal mind,” countered the judge. “Some people would call it a master mind.”

And in spite of the judge’s stance that the small-time counterfeit operation “is the exact kind of crime that demands a jail sentence,” the judge only hit the young man with four years of probation.

However, if the teen gets in trouble, his suspended sentence of 1-3 years behind bars could be enforced.

“If you are not the person the people say in their letters you will be back and you will be smacked,” explained the judge. “You probably better leave now before I change my mind.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Apple CEO Promises To Improve Security Following Nude Photo Theft

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(Samuel M. Livingston)

While Apple maintains that the recent mass theft and publication of hundreds of revealing photos of female celebrities was a result of clever guessing and not an actual breach of the company’s iCloud service, CEO Tim Cook says Apple is adding safeguards to reduce the likelihood of another embarrassing incident.

Cook tells the Wall Street Journal that upcoming improvements will include e-mail and push notifications on devices whenever someone tries to change the password on an account, or when someone tries to restore iCloud data to a new device, or when a new device logs into an account for the first time.

The changes will kick in at some point in the next few weeks, says Apple. However, critics are quick to point out that these are not preventative measures. Instead, they are just ways of telling the user that his or her account may be compromised. By the time the user notices the alert, the damage may be done, as it does not take long to siphon off images and other sensitive files.

In terms of the human element, Cook says not enough was done to educate users on the risks of targeted attacks by hackers, and the need for strong passwords.

“When I step back from this terrible scenario that happened and say what more could we have done, I think about the awareness piece,” he tells the Journal. “I think we have a responsibility to ratchet that up. That’s not really an engineering thing.”

To that end, Cook says Apple will expand the use of two-factor authentication, which requires that anyone trying to access sensitive information on a new device will not only need the password, but a unique 4-digit code. So a password alone would not be sufficient for cracking open someone’s account.

An upcoming iOS update will add two-factor coverage for iCloud access.

But even with the additional coverage, Apple still faces the challenge of getting users to turn two-factor authentication on. Most users don’t use it, so the company says it will be making a push to remind consumers to turn it on.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

NYC Pays Out $33,000 In Settlement After Police Mistake Jolly Ranchers For Meth

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(DonkerDink)

In a country enamored with a show about two guys making bright blue methamphetamine, it’s no wonder New York City policemen might’ve had drugs on the brain. But after cops mistook a few Jolly Rancher hard candies for meth and arrested three men in connection with the “controlled substance,” the NYPD has agreed to pay $33,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by one of the men who was in custody for 24 hours.

Three men will get a total of $33,000 from the City of New York to settle the civil rights lawsuit, reports the Smoking Gun.

Two of the men had just come from a candy store in Coney Island and were nabbed by cops. Police said they’d found a “quantity of methamphetamine” on the men, and reported that a field test tested positive for narcotics.

One of the officers said in a sworn criminal complaint that “has had professional testing as a police officer in the identification of methamphetamine.” But apparently he’s never seen a Jolly Rancher…

Further lab tests showed that the “crystalline rocks of solid material” in pretty red and bright blue didn’t have any controlled substances in them, and the charges were dismissed.

A third man was arrested in connection to the others, after he protested what was going on. He was charged with obstruction and resisting arrest, and his case adjourned in contemplation of dismissal.

And now I want some candy, because there’s no better feeling like hard candy stuck to your teeth with the potential to lay waste to any dental work in its way.

NYPD Pays Arrested Men For Mistaking Jolly Rancher Candies For Meth Rocks [The Smoking Gun]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

American, Delta Sue Operators Of Scammy Travel Clubs

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This is the sort of misleading letter being sent out — under numerous company names — promising travel vouchers, but which is really just bait to get people to pay to join a travel club.

We’ve told you before about travel club scammers who send out notices claiming that you’ve won free trips from Travelocity or travel vouchers from airlines that sound like they exist (but don’t). The airlines have always responded to these stories by saying they would have their lawyers look into these types of scams, but at least two major carriers are actually doing something about it.

Travel writer and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott writes in the Washington Post that both American Airlines and Delta have recently sued operators of travel clubs like the ones mentioned in our previous stories, alleging that these companies tricked consumers into thinking the airlines were legitimately involved in these schemes that promise free travel but try to snare victims into paying thousands of dollars to join travel clubs that are supposed to provide discounts and travel vouchers but rarely, if ever, offer anything useful.

(NOTE: We don’t know if the defendants in either of these lawsuits were involved in either the fake Travelocity or “United Airways” scams we wrote about. These “clubs” often operate under many bogus names but generally use the same tactics.)

American recently sued a network of travel clubs, alleging that they used the airline’s intellectual property on the scammy letters sent to consumers. The airline believes the clubs were intentionally trying to confuse consumers into believing that the airline had given its blessing to the promotion.

“These promotions are a naked attempt to deceptively lure people into sale presentations for useless travel-club memberships by playing off of American’s famous and valuable trademarks,” reads the complaint filed in a U.S. District Court in Texas.

Meanwhile, Atlanta-based Delta has filed a lawsuit in Georgia against a similar travel club that the airline accuses of operating a “well-organized ring of intellectual property pirates,” who allegedly used Delta’s trademarks to deceive consumers.

Delta claims the clubs use the carrier’s logo and name “to further their enterprise of selling travel club memberships pursuant to which members are promised (but do not receive) steep discounts in future travel expenses and other gifts and awards.”

One defendant in the Delta suit tells Elliott that the airline is overreacting to what he claims was not a deliberate misrepresentation.

“My companies and I had a very limited role in one promotion involving use of the Delta mark,” he explains. “We received a notice from Delta that contended that we were using its trademark without authorization, which was news to me, and we immediately informed our printer of the problem and told them that we did not want to use any trademarks that were not authorized to use.”

Sure. Blame the printer.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Whole Foods Pulls Yogurt With Bogus Nutrition Info From Stores

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Food companies put nutrition information on the labels of their products, and we consumers assume that information is, you know, true. Maybe naively so. When tests by our calorie-crunching colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports showed that there was more sugar in Whole Foods’ plain Greek yogurt than the label claimed, the grocery chain pulled the product from shelves.

While containers said that the product had only 2 grams of sugars per cup, it really had 11.4 grams. Here’s the thing: if you pay attention to nutrition information, particularly to the sugar content of the food you eat, you know that it isn’t possible to have only 2 grams of sugars in a container of cow milk yogurt. That’s because milk already contains a form of sugar, lactose. It’s not that Whole Foods was dumping additional sweeteners in the container: most Greek yogurts have 5-10 grams of sugar per serving. A glass of skim milk has 12 grams of lactose.

“Indeed, no Greek yogurt on the market actually has only 2 grams of sugar per serving, because all Greek yogurt – even yogurt to which no sugar is added and/or which is artificially ‘sweetened’ – naturally contains more than 2 grams of sugar lactose,” one of the class action lawsuits points out.

The class actions, which Consumer Reports wasn’t involved in, have been filed so far in California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs asking for refunds for yogurt that Whole Foods customers had already purchased with the erroneous nutrition information. One suit filed in California asks includes people in the class action who have bought this type of yogurt from Whole Foods any time since the year 2000.

Whole Foods pulls yogurt from stores following Consumer Reports’ test [Consumer Reports]

Jackson et al v. Whole Foods Market Inc. [Lawsuit - PDF download]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Family Dollar Spurns Dollar General’s Latest Advances, Turns Down $9.1B Offer

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(stevendepolo)

Who needs to watch soap operas when there’s so much drama going on in the dollar store world? Love triangles, spurned advances and complicated affairs — the plot continues to thicken as Family Dollar has rejected Dollar General’s latest takeover offer of $9.1 billion, in favor of a merger with Dollar Tree. We imagine someone slapped someone else by this point.

This, despite an apparent warning from Dollar General that if its offer was refused, it would “consider taking our persuasive and superior proposal directly” to Family Dollar’s shareholders.

Family Dollar said today it had formally rejected its would-be suitor’s offer, saying it still has issues with antitrust issues and that Dollar General hadn’t done enough to convince it there wouldn’t be a problem if the deal didn’t get approved.

The company is staying true to its current steady Dollar Tree and plans to go ahead with that $8.5 billion merger deal, reports DealBook. Under that deal, Dollar Tree will sell off as many stores as needed to get the deal past regulators in a “hell or high water” provision.

“We are focused on delivering to Family Dollar shareholders the highest value with certainty, and the Dollar Tree transaction does just that,” said Edward Garden, the chief investment officer of the hedge fund Trian Fund Management and a director of Family Dollar. “Dollar General’s revised proposal, on the other hand, does not eliminate regulatory risk for Family Dollar shareholders.”

Family Dollar Rejects Revised Bid by Dollar General [DealBook]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Taco Bell Testing Biscuit-Shell Breakfast Tacos Because It Can

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No, that’s not a hash brown covered in epoxy resin and shoved into a pita. It’s supposed to be a piece of chicken with “jalapeno honey” sauce on a taco-shaped biscuit.

Once again proving that its definition of “taco” is “something placed in something else that is folded or at least vaguely U-shaped,” Taco Bell is now shoving a variety of breakfast meats inside a folded biscuit and calling it a taco in some test markets.

According to FoodBeast, the newest test addition to the fast food chain’s breakfast menu is described as being served in a “warm, flakey, golden brown biscuit that happens to be shaped in the form of a taco.”

There are apparently several options for the slop that gets placed in this busted biscuit “shell,” including: Sausage, Egg and Cheese; Bacon, Egg, and Cheese; Sausage and Cheese; Egg and Cheese; Sausage and Gravy.

The biscuit thing has already been tested in some Atlanta and San Antonio Bells, but FoodBeast says it’s now being fed to paying human lab rats in four eateries in the L.A./Orange County area in Southern California.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Florida Restaurant Won’t Provide Ketchup Or Salt For Customers Over The Age Of 10

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(NBC-2)

Listen, you’re old enough now and it’s time we had the talk: Not everything you eat needs to be slathered in ketchup and encrusted in salt. I know, it’s harsh, but that’s what happens when you choose to eat at one Florida restaurant, where ketchup and salt won’t be provided to patrons over 10 years old.

The Fort Myers restaurant says it on its website and right there on the menu in big red letters — “Chef reserves the right to refuse service of ketchup!!!” reports NBC-2.

There’s also no salt on tables, or other extraneous condiments, as the chef says he just wants people to trust that he knows how to season things.

“The worst I had was a woman who pulled parmesan cheese and ketchup out of her bag, and I said ‘don’t do that,'” he said of one condiment-crazed patron. “She never came back.”

He spent two years studying French cuisine, and isn’t about to change his mind on how he cooks for anyone.

“That’s the way I make it,” he said. “You eat it or don’t come back.”

Hold the ketchup at one Ft. Myers bistro [NBC-2]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Twitpic Shutting Down Over Trademark Spat With Twitter

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While Twitter has allowed users to upload photos directly to their feeds for quite some time, some users still prefer Twitpic for hosting and sharing their images. But Twitter apparently has an issue with the “Twit” part of Twitpic’s name, so the service will soon cease operations instead of getting caught up in a drawn-out legal fight over a name.

In its announcement about the shutdown, Twitpic said that it recently received a demand from Twitter that it abandon its 5-year-old trademark application for the Twitpic name, which it’s actually been using since 2008.

If Twitpic didn’t abandon the application, Twitter would pull the service’s access to the Twitter API. So Twitpic could either give up its claim to the Twitpic name, throwing away a half-decade of brand identity, or it could lose access to Twitter, taking away a good chunk of the service’s reason for existing in the first place.

“Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours,” writes the company. “Therefore, we have decided to shut down Twitpic.”

As of now, Twitpic plans to close up shop on Sept. 25. It says that users will be able to export all their photos and videos but has not yet provided details on exactly how to do this.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

United Airlines Flight Diverted After Report Of Kidnapped Child Onboard

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(afagen)

Passengers on an International flight from Dulles International Airport to Beijing were caught up in the middle of a custody battle turned potential kidnapping situation last night, when the FBI ordered the United Airlines flight to to turn back because a kidnapping suspect was on board with her child.

When the flight hit Canadian air space, the FBI sent the plane back to Dulles, after an American citizen contacted the FBI and said he was worried his son’s mother was taking him to China and wasn’t going to come back, reports CBS News.

At first, the pilot told passengers the plane was turning around due to mechanical problems, one passenger explained, before explaining the custody battle.

“After they left, the pilot came back on and said that he deliberately mislead us, he thought that, in his judgment that it was the best thing to do, given the circumstances of potential abduction that that’s the reason we had diverted,” he said.

The planed landed at Dulles five hours after it took off, and the mother was arrested on attempted kidnapping charges. The boy was returned safely to his father.

United Airlines flight diverted over child custody battle [CBS News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Starbucks Opening Upscale Roastery In Seattle, Testing “Express” Stores In NYC

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(sunilgarg)

While there already seems to be a Starbucks on every corner, apparently the company thinks there’s always room for a few more. The coffee slingers announced today that it’s opening a new upscale roastery offering only its Starbucks Reserve line of coffee in Seattle, along with an express mini-store in New York City.

Starbucks is facing competition on every front, with fancier options like Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Blue Bottle Coffee offering craft javas, while fast food chains are nudging their products onto supermarket shelves and pushing their cheaper coffee products.

The 15,000-square-foot small-batch reserve roastery — which to be honest, sounds something like a craft distillery or brewery — will open in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle in December, Starbucks said in a press release, and will feature a store, tasting room and cafe for its reserve coffees.

From there, it’s aiming to own at least 100 more of those cafes around the world in the next five years.

“Everything we have created and learned about coffee has led us to this moment. The Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting room is a multi-sensory experience that will transform the future of specialty coffee,” said Howard Schultz, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Starbucks. “We plan to take this super premium experience to cities around the world, elevating the Starbucks experience not only through these stores but across our entire business.”

See? Fancy.

The first express store will be tested in Manhattan in 2015, and will be basically micro stores with only a few food and beverage options. Those stores will use digital payment and mobile ordering to speed customers through the line.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds

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Here are seven of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

(Hammerin Man)

(Eric Arnold Photography)

(Great Beyond)

(Plump Panda Photography)

(Skip Nyegard)

(Carbon Arc)

(Eric Arnold Photography)

Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Want to see your pictures on our site? Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist