Free Shipping Is Expensive For Retailers, Bad For Profits

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(Rrravenita)

Customers love free shipping, but retailers do not. Well, that’s not quite true: retailers love the sales that the availability of free shipping drives, but it isn’t very good for their profit margins. While customers have become used to free shipping and view it as the default for shopping online, retailers still haven’t been able to figure out how to provide free shipping without losing a lot of money.

According to Reuters, a ComScore analysis of online purchases showed that 68% of online purchases made in the third quarter of 2014 (the summer and fall) included free shipping. That number is sure to go up in the fourth quarter, which includes the holiday season.

While Amazon brags that its free shipping for orders over $35 and Prime program saved customers $2 billion, outside analysts estimate that Amazon loses somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion from providing free shipping. Other retailers say that providing free shipping with purchase is hurting their margins. Even Walmart hasn’t been able to make it work yet. Cutting down on the need for e-commerce warehouses by shipping orders from stores has been helpful, and encouraging in-store pickup has been good for stores, even if it isn’t much of a time-saver for consumers.

How much will this free shipping frenzy hurt retailers’ profits? We’ll find out in the coming weeks when they report their fourth-quarter results.

Free delivery creates holiday boon for U.S. consumers at high cost [Reuters]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

McDonald’s Just Wants You To Love Them Again

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What brings even the worst of archenemies together? If we’re to believe a delightful new ad from McDonald’s, ancient enemies can put aside their differences over a tasty, familiar meal from the fast-food empire. Is that true? We’re not sure, but what McDonald’s wants is to spread the love, and for that love to maybe flow back to McDonald’s as well.

Millennials simply aren’t lovin’ it, which is why the chain is reviving its love-themed ad campaigns in addition to assuring us all that its food really does contain food and not strange nugget-shaped polymers.

In this ad, sworn enemies like Gargamel and the Smurfs and Bears and Packers fans find common ground with gifts, some of which happen to be McDonald’s foods like nuggets, fries, and ice cream cones. This is the first piece leaked from a bigger ad campaign where McDonald’s pleads with us to love them again. Kind of. They’re calling it a “brand transformation,” and the company’s chief marketing officer says that the company’s aim is to start listening to its customers.

Of course, the public’s first question seemed to be “What the heck is in your food?” which is probably not a good sign.

McDonald’s: All You Need is ‘Lovin’ It’ [BurgerBusiness]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Sony Offers Membership Extension, 10% Store Discount In Wake Of PlayStation Network Outage

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(Alan Rappa)

A week after gamers on Sony’s PlayStation Network were stuck battling connectivity issues for days, the company is now trying to make peace for by offering a five-day extension for PlayStation Plus members, as well as a 10% off discount code for all PSN members as a “thank you.”

While Sony at first only extended a pair of sales it was holding as a make-good for the outage, which was reportedly caused by hackers, this is the first freebie it’s held out since the incident that started Christmas Eve and continued through Christmas and after.

The company wrote in blog post that all active members or those who were on a free trial of Plus on Dec. 25 will get an extra five days that should be automatically applied.

It also promises that “sometime this month” Sony will announce a 10% off discount code good for one use, off a total cart purchase in the PlayStation Store “as a thank you to all PSN members.”

The full blog post is below:

Happy New Year! Since access to PlayStation Network was impacted during the holidays, we wanted to show our appreciation for your patience by offering all PlayStation Plus members that had an active membership or free trial on December 25th a membership extension of five days. The extension will be automatically applied, so no action is necessary to receive the extension. We will post additional information here on PlayStation.Blog when the extension becomes available. If your membership or trial ends before the extension is available, you will receive five days of Plus to enjoy once the extension becomes available (we will notify you when).

In addition, sometime this month we will announce that for a limited time, we will be offering a 10 percent discount code good for a one-time discount off a total cart purchase in the PlayStation Store as a thank you to all PSN members.

This discount can be used toward content available on PS Store including blockbuster new releases, award winning indie games, game add-ons and season passes, and an enormous selection of TV and Movies.

In case you missed it, click here to read about all the great games included in the January 2015 PlayStation Plus Instant Game Collection lineup.

Thanks again to all our loyal PlayStation fans and welcome to our newest console owners. Wishing you all a very happy holiday.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Report: FCC To Vote On New Net Neutrality Proposal In February

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After months of comments, discussions, hearings, statements, and delays, the FCC is reportedly preparing to vote on a new Open Internet Rule — net neutrality — at their February 26 meeting.

The Washington Post reports that FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is planning to circulate the draft proposal to the other members of the commission in January, in preparation for having it on the agenda at the FCC’s monthly open meeting the following month. The FCC’s February meeting is currently scheduled for Thursday, February 26.

It is still unclear what form the proposal is likely to take. Critics, consumer advocates, and the White House have all called for the FCC to adopt Title II-based regulation going forward, while ISPs have strenuously argued against it.

This month will mark the one-year anniversary of the old rule being struck down. The FCC voted to consider a new proposal in May, but that suggestion version of the rule met with an overwhelming, highly critical response from millions, including two FCC commissioners.

As the WaPo reports, a one-month window between circulating and voting on the proposal would indicate that Wheeler does not see the need for another protracted public comment (and reply-comment) period. The Post also points out that as the incoming Congress has a net neutrality bill in it’s sights, the FCC is likely to face opposition on all fronts… no matter what the proposed rule says.

Get ready: The FCC says it’ll vote on net neutrality in February [The Washington Post]

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

If Your iCloud Password Is ‘Password1,’ Choose Something Else Right Now

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(Dev.Arka)

If you use Apple’s iCloud service, you know that Apple has some limits on what your password can be, which are meant to make your account harder to break into. The password must have at least one letter, at least one number, at least one capital letter, and have at least 8 characters. However, it’s still possible to come up with a terrible password within these parameters.

Many sites block people from registering terrible passwords like “Password123,” but others leave us to our own idiocy. Even less obvious passwords than that are susceptible. That’s why iDict, an ostensible iCloud account-hacking tool uploaded to GitHub, should serve as a reminder to us all to change our passwords to something a little less obvious.

The key isn’t the program itself, but the weakness it’s meant to exploit: iDict is a tool that tries all 500 of the common passwords in the program’s dictionary to find out whether you’re using Satan666, Jesus123, ZAQ!1qaz, or any of the 497 other passwords pre-loaded in the program. The author says that the release is meant to prompt Apple to fix the security loophole that it exploits. Don’t download it and go password-cracking: that’s not really what it’s meant for.

Do read over the list of passwords in its dictionary to find out whether you’re using any of them. If you are, change your password.

If Your iCloud Password Is On This List, Change It Before You Get Hacked [Gizmodo]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Some ESPN Customers Missed First Hour Of Streaming Rose Bowl Coverage Because Of Server Problems

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(Sylvia Syracuse (gothamiste) iPhone and Canon DSLR)

If you were one of the people left wondering what was going on during the first hour of the Rose Bowl while the WatchESPN app wasn’t working, you weren’t alone. ESPN is now blaming what it calls a “technical issue” with its servers for the streaming outage, which lasted at least an hour for some folks and persisted longer than that into the college playoff game for others.

“A technical issue relating to servers” is the reason ESPN’s spokesman gave the Associated Press for whatever it was that caused yesterday’s streaming coverage blackout.

That meant anyone trying to watch the game on tablets and computers were left staring at an error message for around the first hour of the stream, with other viewers saying they had problems for “a while longer” than that, the spokesman confirmed.

ESPN said today that it “will be working to prevent a recurrence in the future,” while your father-in-law is still cursing over the hour of his life that he will never get back.

Server problems shut down ESPN’s Rose Bowl stream [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Police: Man Arrested For Snipping Dollar Tree Shopper’s Hair

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(frankieleon)

Hide your ponytails and send those braids home, folks: There just might be someone out there looking to snip off your locks while you shop. Police say they’ve arrested a man in Oregon accused of cutting the hair of one of his fellow Dollar Tree shoppers.

It sounds like he’s been here before — the suspect has a history of indecent acts, including stroking women’s hair while touching himself on buses in Oregon, reports KPTV.com.

the 27-year-old suspect was arrested this time after cops said he cut a woman’s hair at a Dollar Tree store. He allegedly followed a 31-year-old woman around the store and snipped her hair with scissors as she waited to check out, and then quickly left the store.

Officers apprehended him later, and he was arrested on charges of harassment and parole violation.

In the previous incidents, he was accused of applying glue to women’s hair on the bus before cutting it off and engaging himself in a not-so-private act.

Police: Man with history of lewd acts cut woman’s hair at Dollar Tree [KPTV.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Why Are The Netflix Episodes Of ‘Friends’ Shorter Than Those Included In My DVD Set?

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This might be your view right now.

As we hit the afternoon of second day of the new year, many Friends fans might already be eyeballs deep streaming the entire series after its Jan. 1 release on Netflix. But with the super fans come super powers of observation, including a discrepancy noticed by a Consumerist reader we’ll call Gunther. He wondered why the Netflix episodes seemed to be shorter by about three minutes on average than the episodes included in his complete DVD set, noting that the originally aired episodes would’ve been closer to the length of the Netflix episodes.

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing Friends on Netflix for months now. It finally hit the streaming service yesterday,” writes Gunther. “The problem is that the DVDs I have of the show average 25 minutes an episode and the shows on Netflix are averaging 22 minutes.”

He adds that there’s no mention on his DVD set that it’s an expanded edition, and on Netflix there’s nothing saying that the episodes are cut or clarifying that they’re shown “as originally aired.”

“What is going on?” Gunther asks.

It’s a good question, and one that has been answered before, at least in terms of varying episode length between different releases of this particular series. (If you’re worried about discrepancies in other shows and their various releases, well, that’s another question for another time.)

Back in 2012, TVGuide.com addressed the question of why the newly-released BluRay set of Friends touted lots of extra goodies and behind-the-scenes action, but didn’t include deleted footage that had previously been added to the DVD sets.

“The deleted footage was, frankly, added specifically for one home video release,” explained co-executive producer/director Kevin S. Bright. “If fans are particularly interested in additional footage, those versions are still available. But for this, we wanted something that we, the creators, felt represented the show as we always wanted it to be remembered, which is the original NBC broadcast versions, which have never before been released as that, combined with fantastic new picture and sound, a new documentary and other new features.”

We got in touch with a Netflix representative who confirmed to Consumerist that yes, the episodes airing on Netflix are the same length/content as those that aired originally on TV, which should be the same as those included in the BluRay sets.

Consumerist also reached out to Warner Bros. in regards to Gunther’s DVD set, and why, if indeed his claim is correct, there’s no indication that the episodes are longer than originally aired/contain deleted footage. We’ll update this post if we hear back.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Family Wants United To Apologize For Treatment Of Special Needs Daughter

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(Adam Fagen)

A family from New Jersey had previously flown with their daughter, who is a stroke survivor in addition to being quadriplegic. While FAA regulations require kids over 2 to have their own seats, their daughter is the size of a 1-year-old and unable to sit up on her own. This led to a dispute between the family and a flight attendant that kept their plane grounded for an hour. Now the family wants an apology.

In a blog post about the incident, the girl’s mother explained their daughter’s travel restrictions, adding that they purchase a seat for her, as the regulations require, but she isn’t physically able to sit up in it. Her parents hold her on their laps, as they would for a smaller child. This hadn’t been a problem during past travels for the family, but one literal-minded flight attendant on a United Airlines flight from the Dominican Republic wouldn’t tolerate this alternate seating arrangement.

The remaining 3 flight attendants pleaded our case, in fact one was in tears, but this one attendant dug her heels in and wouldn’t budge. The other 3 attendants scoured the Flight Attendants’ Handbook and found a clause that stated that if a passenger was unable to sit independently they were allowed to sit on a lap. She had the opportunity to make a justifiable exception and chose not to.

My husband pleaded with her, my other 3 children were sobbing, my niece was sobbing, other passengers were getting involved yet this woman still displayed zero compassion. The end result occurred when my husband finally approached the pilot and asked for help coming up with a solution that worked for everyone.

This compromise involved the girl being buckled into a seat per the regulations during takeoff and landing, with part of her body lying in her father’s lap. Her mother told ABC News that the family doesn’t want money or flight vouchers: what they want is an apology from United for the way the flight attendant treated them.

United With Ivy [Tumblr]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Nobody’s Going To The Movies Anymore: Theater Attendance At Its Lowest In 19 Years

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(Scoboco)

The next time you’re at the movies, look around — does there seem to be more empty seats than they’re used to be? Your eyes aren’t lying, as we just left one of the worst years for movie theater attendance since 1995. That is the year of Waterworld and Show Girls, so you know it’s bad.

North America had its lowest number of folks heading to the movies in two decades in 2014, reports the Hollywood Reporter, citing about 1.2 billion consumers who purchased movie tickets between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31.

The last time things were this slow was 1995, when only 1.21 billion people went to the movies.

The figures for 2014 aren’t set in stone just yet — though without a working time machine it’d be tough to go back and change them that much — as they won’t be released until the National Association of Theater Owners calculates the average movie ticket price for the year. It’s expected to be around $8.15, up from $8.13 in 2013.

Admissions have been up and down over the years, HR notes, especially when there are more expensive fees for 3D or IMAX movies.

Box Office 2014: Moviegoing Hits Two-Decade Low [The Hollywood Reporter]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

CVS Customer Accused Of Taking Naked Nap On Dog Beds In Store’s Bathroom

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(Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie)

There are unwanted guests, and then there are customers who overstay their welcome and get a bit too comfortable in their own skin. A CVS customer in Florida falls into the second category after cops say he stripped down naked and dragged some dog beds into the store’s bathroom, where he proceeded to take a nap atop his new resting place.

According to the Smoking Gun, a 22-year-old man entered the CVS on Tuesday night and headed for the men’s bathroom, where he “intentionally removed his clothing exposing his genitals in a lewd and lascivious exhibition.”

He then allegedly walked out of the bathroom and rummaged through “6 dog beds,” before selecting three and taking his loot back to the bathroom. Once there, he was seen “laying on top of them.” (It is unclear what he was laying while lying there — surely not eggs).

The dog beds were damaged during the in flagrante delicto experience, meaning CVS can’t sell them and depriving the company of the “lawful right to ownership and sale of said items.” Meaning, he shoplifted.

He’s now facing indecent exposure and theft charges in connection with his naked nap.

Naked Man Took Cat Nap On Store’s Dog Beds [The Smoking Gun]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

General Motors Recalls 83,572 Trucks And SUVs For Ignition Switch Problems

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(frankieleon)

General Motors’ Recallapalooza of 2014 now extends into 2015, with the company announcing yet another batch of vehicles recalled due to a possible ignition switch defect. Yes, the defect that caused cars to abruptly lose power and has caused 42 deaths that we know of. GM has recalled 83,572 Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac trucks and SUVs, but says that only about 500 of them potentially have the ignition lock defect. They just don’t know which ones.

Here’s the list of affected models. Model year info for each vehicle wasn’t included, but we’ll add it as soon as we find it:

• Chevrolet Silverado


• Chevrolet Avalanche


• Chevrolet Tahoe


• Chevrolet Suburban


• GMC Sierra


• GMC Yukon


• GMC Yukon XL


• Cadillac Escalade


• Cadillac Escalade ESV


• Cadillac Escalade EXT

Vehicles from 2011 and 2012 were affected, but cars from model years 2007 to 2014 could have been repaired with defective parts, and must be checked as well.

General Motors issues three new recalls, cites ignition systems [Reuters]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

This Year Will Bring Plenty Of Free Hotel WiFi, But Beware New Cancellation Policies

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(afagen)

Because you can never totally have it all, 2015 will be a mixed bag for travelers looking for good deals and great perks at hotels: While many larger chains will be touting free WiFi in the new year, many hotels will also be a lot stricter about guests who cancel their reservations.

Scott Mayerowitz over at the Associated Press notes that the mega-hotels that see lots of business travelers week in and week out are going the route of free WiFi, which is obviously a perk for guests.

But two of the largest hotel chains are also going to make it tougher for travelers to cancel their rooms starting this year, bringing that free WiFi joy down a notch for some.

Most chains will require guests to sign up for their free loyalty programs before granting access to that free WiFi, meaning basically that you’ll be paying for it with your personal information.

InterContinental Hotels Group, the parent company of Holiday Inn, was the first major chain to offer free Internet access to all its member loyalty programs participants in early 2014, a benefit that before that was usually reserved for frequent guests with elite status.

Marriott International joined the free WiFi club late last year, saying that all reward club members would get basic free WiFi starting Jan. 15. Elite members will get a faster Internet service for free.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide will also offer free Internet for guests, starting Feb. 2 for anyone booking directly and not through a service like Orbitz, while Hyatt Hotels will give gratis WiFi with no strings attached starting in February.

“Internet connectivity is no longer an amenity. It has become an integral part of travelers’ daily lives and a basic expectation,” Kristine Rose, vice president of brands for Hyatt told the AP in a statement. “Travelers shouldn’t have to remember which brands or locations offer it for free or the strings attached to get it.”

Hilton Worldwide is the only holdout in the big chain category not to have some sort of free WiFi at all properties.

Along with this happy change, there’s some bad news for travelers this year as well: Both Hilton and Marriott are instituting new cancellation polices that require guests to make up their minds about staying or not earlier than they used to: As of Jan. 1, both chains will require travelers to cancel by midnight the day before they arrive to avoid a fee, which will typically be up to one night’s room rate. Before now, many properties allowed guests to cancel as late as 6 p.m. on the night of arrival.

That limitation will hamper some travelers’ plans, especially those who use last-minute deal sites and apps to book rooms well, at the last-minute, that allow them to cancel original reservations that may have been more expensive only hours before checking in.

Hotels make Internet free but tighten cancellation policies [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Clothing Company Sues Sears Claiming It Routinely Canceled Orders, Then Refused To Pay

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(Nicholas Eckhart)

When you’re a company that’s struggling not to lose customers and you’ve been trying to build yourself up to some semblance of your formal glory, everything matters and any negative news isn’t going to help. Sound the pity horn if you have one, because there’s yet more bad news for Sears: One of its suppliers is suing the company, saying Sears would “routinely and deliberately” cancel already placed orders and then refuse to accept delivery or pay up.

SCI Apparel, a children’s clothing company formerly known as Sprockets, is suing Sears Holding claiming that it’s owed about $4 million in clothing orders and another $750,000 for fixtures and sighs, reports the Chicago Tribune.

The lawsuit claims that Sears would order stuff, then cancel the orders after they’d already been placed and the items had been produced and shipped. Sears would allegedly refuse delivery of those items, SCI claims.

SCI says it also let Sears withhold some of those payments as Sears was buying signs that were supposed to turn into a “store within a store” idea that would feature Sprockets clothing. But alas, that never came to pass, the lawsuit says, so SCI claims Sears owes a hefty chunk of change that it previously held back, $750,000.

An attorney for SCI says the incidents took place between 2010 and 2011, while a Sears spokesman didn’t comment on pending litigation.

Sears has lost money for 10 straight quarters, including $1.5 billion it just leaked in the 39 months leading up to Nov. 1. It’s been closing hundreds of Sears and Kmart stores as it tries to turn its rapidly sinking ship of a company around.

Clothing company sues Sears, says it wasn’t paid for orders [Chicago Tribune]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds

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Here are eight 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.

(Corey Templeton)

(Renee Rendler-Kaplan)

(Janet Ulliott)

(frankieleon)

(Steve)

(Mateus André)

(rik-shaw)

(Nicholas Eckhart)

Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. 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

iPhone Users Sue Claiming False Advertising, Cloud Storage Hawking

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(iDiapo)

Two iPhone owners who live in Florida have filed a class action suit against Apple, claiming that the company advertises devices as having more storage capacity than they really do, of loading creating an operating system download that requires excessive space when first downloaded, and pushing paid cloud-storage services on customers who fill up the smaller-than-advertised hard drives on their phones.

As most people with electronic devices realize by now (even if they aren’t sure exactly why) an iPhone advertised as having, for example, 16 GB of storage doesn’t necessarily have 16 GB of space available: the iPhone 6 advertised as having 16 GB of storage really has around 12 GB available.

This isn’t a new problem, and it’s certainly not the first time that consumers have filed a class action over the issue, but there are two very specific complaints being made here: that Apple’s mobile operating system takes up too much room, and that the company is taking advantage of its phones’ small and non-expandable storage capacity to upsell users on cloud storage.

In the complaint, the iPhone users’ attorneys claim that users aren’t told how much of their already meager storage capacity they will lose when upgrading their phone’s operating system. “Apple fails to disclose that upgrading from iOS 7 to iOS 8 will cost a Device user between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space – a result that no consumer could reasonably anticipate,” they point out. What happens when those users run out of space? It’s time for an upsell! Once space runs out, the iDevice asks the user whether they’d like to rent some additional iCloud space. “For this service, Apple charges prices ranging from $0.99 to $29.99 per month,” the complaint notes.

The plaintiffs demand that Apple stop their false advertising of device capacity, and would like their suit certified as a class action so other affected consumers can join them in asking for damages.

Complaint [PDF]

Apple Customers Sue Over Shortage of Storage Space in iOS 8 [Bloomberg News]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Hotel Employs Adoptable Dogs As Greeters, Finds Them Homes

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A couple visiting Asheville, North Carolina were hanging out in the hotel bar when they approached a petite young lady and invited her to come home with them. No, this story isn’t quite what it sounds like: that young lady was a four-year-old homeless dog wearing an “Adopt Me” vest, and at this particular hotel, dogs available for adoption greet guests and even mingle with bar patrons.

The hotel already had special appeal for animal lovers, allowing customers to bring their pets for no additional fee. The doggie greeters are a new amenity, part of a partnership between the hotel and a local dog rescue. There’s one hound-in-residence at a time, and it can also visit other parts of the building on a leash. Guests cannot bring the dogs to their rooms, but they do like being able to borrow a friend to visit the rooftop terrace or the restaurant with.

Since the program started, fourteen of the rescue dogs in residence have been adopted by hotel guests and people who live in the community. Dog number 14 is in the photo above, and her name is Ember. She’s been adopted already.

North Carolina hotel welcomes you with open arms and dogs to adopt [AP]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Let’s See How Well You Can Predict What’s Going To Happen In 2015

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In case you hadn’t checked the calendar, 2014 is over but there’s still a lot of unfinished business oodles of uncertainty in front of us. So let’s see what images your crystal ball is conjuring.

Just take the quick 10-question survey below to see where you come down on things like the pending telecom mergers, electric cars, streaming video, wireless providers, and more.

We’ll share the results of your prognostications when we return in the new year.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Banks Report Possible Data Breach At Chick-Fil-A Restaurants

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(frankieleon)

2014 has been a year of point-of-sale data breaches, so why should the last day of the year be any different? Chick-Fil-A is the newest member of the Possible Breach Club, and is currently investigating reports of fraudulent transactions on customer credit cards. The reported breach would have started on December 2, 2013 and lasted until September 30, 2014.

One bank employee who contacted the ever-vigilant blog Krebs on Security reports that more than nine thousand of their employer’s cards were part of this breach. More than 9,000 of its customers’ cards are part of this particular batch when the card numbers went on the market. For this particular bank, that meant more compromised cards than were affected during last year’s holiday season payment breach at Target. That may be an indication that the bank has a lot of customers who enjoy delicious fried chicken, but also the result of this being a very, very long breach.

Chick-Fil-A representatives said that they have received reports of customer payment cards used at their stores that have been used in fraudulent transactions, and they are investigating those reports. The company hasn’t confirmed that there was a breach or provided a list of locations. Banking sources told Brian Krebs that breached cards were used at Chick-Fil-A locations nationwide, but seemed to be concentrated in only a few states. In case you want to start checking your card statements early, those states were Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.

Here’s part of the statement that the company issued addressing the breach:

Chick-fil-A recently received reports of potential unusual activity involving payment cards used at a few of our restaurants. We take our obligation to protect customer information seriously, and we are working with leading IT security firms, law enforcement and our payment industry contacts to determine all of the facts.

Banks: Card Breach at Some Chick-fil-A’s [Krebs on Security]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Video Of Confused Lady At Gas Station Leads To Useful Driving Tip

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(James LeVeque)

It’s not often that a viral video that gives you giggle fits leads to learning an actual useful piece of information, but it does happen sometimes. Today’s important lesson: how to determine which side of an unfamiliar car the gas tank is on before you park on the wrong side of the pump and make an idiot of yourself.

Not that I’ve ever done that while driving a rental or a friend’s car. You haven’t, either, I’m sure. This post is for all of those other people. Like this woman somewhere in the United Kingdom, who is having some trouble figuring out how to make her gas tank leap from one side of the car to the other.

We admire her determination, but there may have been an easier way. You see, in most cars, there’s a subtle indicator of which side the fuel tank is on. It’s so subtle, you may have been paying attention to it without realizing it every time that you get in a car. There’s an arrow next to the picture of a fuel pump on the gas gauge that points toward the side of the car where the fuel pump door is. Simple.

Obviously, not everyone does. Also, the system isn’t perfect: there’s no arrow in this 1997 Nissan Altima, or in this newer Honda Accord, or in this VW Golf. Where you don’t see an arrow, the car-maker may have taken a less subtle approach, like this one that actually says “FUEL DOOR.” My car, which has the fuel tank on the passenger side, does this.

(SpaceAgeSage)

Keep that in mind the next time you’re driving an unfamiliar car. Or try doing laps around the pump and checking the same side repeatedly. That might work.

I’m sure my petrol cap was on this side [YouTube] (via Gawker)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Test Your Memory (And Kill Some Time) With Our Year-End Quiz

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Let’s be honest for a moment — even if you’re working today, chances are that you mentally checked out before you even stepped into the office. It’s okay; you can probably afford to daydream a bit today while you clockwatch and stare at your boss’s empty office wondering why they always get to take the day off but you have to take one for the team. So here’s a way to kill a few minutes by testing your recall of some of the stories we’ve covered in the last year.

So dig into the quiz below and see how much you remember from the consumer-related news of 2014. It’s fun for the whole family.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist