Four Major Sponsors Call For FIFA President To Resign Immediately, He Refuses

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Sure, sure, the president of global soccer association FIFA is under criminal investigation in Switzerland, but that doesn’t mean that he should make any rash decisions, like resigning in advance of the emergency presidential election in February. Now some of FIFA’s deep-pocketed sponsors are calling for Blatter to resign immediately, and he… refuses.

What happened this week that sponsors are so upset about? Well, there’s the investigation of Blatter for “suspicion of criminal mismanagement and suspicion of misappropriation” of FIFA funds, specifically involving a large payment made to the head of soccer federations in Europe, who happens to be one of the candidates running to replace Blatter as president next year.

Then there was the sort of feeble symbolic move by FIFA of banning former vice-president Jack Warner from soccer for life. Yes, now, even though he was indicted on corruption charges in the United States four months ago, and resigned from his posts four years ago.

Sponsors that have spoken up as of this posting are Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Visa, and Budweiser, all longtime sponsors: Coca-Cola has been one on and off since 1950. While the sponsors haven’t publicly threatened to back out of their deals, all condemned FIFA’s behavior and asked that Blatter step down immediately.

Coke’s statement was the first:

For the benefit of the game, The Coca-Cola Company is calling for FIFA President Joseph Blatter to step down immediately so that a credible and sustainable reform process can begin in earnest. Every day that passes, the image and reputation of FIFA continues to tarnish. FIFA needs comprehensive and urgent reform, and that can only be accomplished through a truly independent approach.

How many dollar menu items and Lime-A-Ritas will poor John Oliver have to consume this time?

FIFA President Sepp Blatter defies calls from FIFA sponsors to quit immediately [U.S. News and World Report]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Unconfirmed: Cupcake-Flavored Oreos Are Coming

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Nabisco vowed to stop the Oreo flavor leaks, but it looks like they’re back! This flavor appears to be… chocolate and creme filling. That’s not actually a flavor, but the theme is a filled chocolate cupcake. The leaker says that it’s due out in January 2016. As always, we’ll check with Nabisco, and they probably won’t answer. [Instagram]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

AT&T Doesn’t Think Other Carriers Should Enable iPhone WiFi Calling, Either

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A few weeks ago, we shared the news that AT&T was delaying adoption of the WiFi calling feature in the new version of Apple’s operating system for mobile devices. The carrier said that it was awaiting FCC approval of the feature, which other carriers have enabled already. Now AT&T has tattled to the FCC on those other carriers, pointing out that they should b waiting for approval too.

The problem isn’t with using smartphones to make calls over WiFi: the problem is that the FCC hasn’t approved that feature for use with devices that some people with hearing and speech disabilities use with iPhones, teletypwriters or TTYs.

The TTY became widespread technology in the ’70s and ’80s, and other technologies, including video chat, video relay, and text messaging have come to replace it for more affluent and tech-savvy people. Yet TTYs remain in use, especially among older people who have always used them. Someone could theoretically use one with an iPhone, and the FCC requires that they be compatible.

AT&T wants to be sure that they have approval to allow TTY users to use the devices over WiFi calling, especially when calling 911. (Texting 911 is possible, but available in very few markets.)

That’s what they tattled about to the FCC: AT&T has an alternate technology called Real-Time Text that works more reliably over WiFi, and they requested a waiver to use that protocol instead of TTY. Other carriers, notably T-Mobile and Sprint, let customers use the feature without waiting for a waiver.

AT&T says T-Mobile and Sprint Wi-Fi calling violates disability rules [Ars Technica]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Restaurant Group Behind 17 N.J. Houlihan’s Sued For Allegedly Pocketing Workers’ Tips, Failing To Pay Overtime

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A New Jersey company that operates 17 Houlihan’s restaurants in the state is being sued by the U.S. Department of Labor over claims that bosses were skimming tips from employees, to the tune of $40,000 that should’ve gone into tipped workers’ pockets, but instead were allegedly “unlawfully” distributed to non-tipped employees.

The lawsuit, which also names the company’s president and part-owner as a defendant, alleges that A.C.E. Restaurant Group required servers and bartenders at Houlihan’s to hand over a percentage of their tips for a tip pool, reports The Record. That pool was then divvied up to pay wages of non-tipped workers, like janitors, kitchen workers and management, in an alleged violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In one incident described that happened last year, the lawsuit says employees forked over $2,212 to the pool, but management handed back $1,877 to staff. Another location gave out $2,387 after receiving $2,594 in tips, the complaint claims.

By May 2014, the suit says the defendants collected more $40,000 in tips that were withheld from its employees from all 17 locations.

In addition to the allegations of tip skimming, the lawsuit also claims A.C.E. didn’t pay employees for overtime and took the cost of meals out of their paychecks — food they were also charged for. Some employees who were custodians allegedly received below the hourly minimum wage, the lawsuit claims.

The Department of Labor is seeking reimbursement on behalf of 1,430 employees for unpaid minimum wages, tips and overtime compensation, an equal amount of liquidated damages, and for costs of the suit.

Saddle Brook company that owns 17 Houlihan’s accused of pocketing employees’ tips [The Record]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Woman Claims Lucille Roberts Gym Accused Her Of “Trespassing” For Working Out In A Skirt

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Should you be able to wear whatever you want when you exercise? A New York City woman says that employees of the Lucille Roberts gym chain were so upset about her insistence on wearing a skirt while working out that they harassed her and even threatened to call the cops on her.

This is according to a lawsuit [PDF] filed today in a federal court in New York by an observant Jewish woman who says she was just trying to follow her religion’s guidance on modesty by a skirt over her tights while at the gym.

In the complaint, the elementary school math teacher notes she became a Lucille Roberts member in 2011 and always wore the skirt while working out. She claims it wasn’t until Oct. 2013 that anyone mentioned a problem with her outfit. The plaintiff was using an elliptical machine when a manager told her she could not wear a skirt.

In spite of this, she continued to dress as she saw fit and says no one mentioned the skirt again until Oct. 2014 when yet another manager told her the skirt was a no-no.

When the plaintiff tried to explain her religious motivation for the skirt, the manager suggested she replace it with a long T-shirt. The plaintiff contends that not only would a long, loose-fitting tee not be accordance with the rules of modesty, but that the shirt would be more likely to interfere with equipment than the knee-length skirt in question.

She never returned to that location but continued to use another Lucille Roberts gym, taking classes and working out in her skirt without incident until June 2015.

This time, after explaining to yet another manager about the reason for her skirt, the plaintiff says she was told she was “trespassing” at the gym because she refused to wear the proper outfit.

She says she later confirmed with local police that this would not have been grounds for a trespassing arrest.

A couple weeks later, she returned to the gym, where a woman at the front desk told her that the skirt was not allowed. The plaintiff continued on to her kickboxing class anyway. The front desk employee later interrupted the class, with the instructor allegedly telling everyone that they could not continue until the plaintiff removed her skirt.

She claims that as she left the gym that day she was once again told she was trespassing and that “the police are on their way.”

The lawsuit claims that the Lucille Roberts dress code [PDF] discourages street clothes and dirty sweatpants, but makes no mention of prohibiting skirts. It accuses the fitness chain of religious discrimination in violation of federal, state and city statutes, and seeks unspecified damages, a reinstatement of her membership, and an injunction against practices that discriminate against religious customers.

[h/t NY Post]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Scottrade Data Breach Leaks Contact Info For 4.6 Million Customers

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If you’re a T-Mobile customer who donated money through Patreon, you’re already having a bad enough day due to massive breaches of user data. Here’s hoping you’re not also one of the 4.6 million Scottrade customers whose contact info was compromised.

According to KrebsOnSecurity.com, Scottrade has confirmed to customers in an e-mail that hackers may have stolen their contact info, possibly including Social Security numbers. The target of the breach, according to Scottrade, was “client names and street addresses.”

“Based upon our subsequent internal investigation coupled with information provided by the authorities, we believe a list of client names and street addresses was taken from our system,” reads the e-mail. “Importantly, we have no reason to believe that Scottrade’s trading platforms or any client funds were compromised. All client passwords remained encrypted at all times and we have not seen any indication of fraudulent activity as a result of this incident.”

The breach is not recent, reports Krebs. Rather it appears to have occurred sometime between late 2013 and early 2014.

Krebs theorizes that, rather than traditional ID theft, the contact info could have been used to target Scottrade customers in e-mail stock scams.

The company is offering a year of free credit monitoring to affected customers. As always, anyone whose info is stolen in one of these breaches should keep a close eye on their finances and credit, and report anything out of the ordinary right away.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

CPSC: 129,000 Dishwashers Recalled Over Power Cords That May Burst Into Flames

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Because washing dishes shouldn’t result in a fiery inferno, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is recalling 129,000 dishwashers in the U.S., after reports that power cords used for multiple brands can overheat and burst into flame.

The dishwashers were sold under the labels Bosch, Gaggenau, Kenmore Elite and Thermador according to the CPSC, at a variety of appliance and specialty retailers, department stores, authorized builder distributors, home improvement stores nationwide and online between January 2009 and May 2014 for between $850 and $2600. An additional 45,000 washers sold in Canada are also included in the recall.

So far, 10 reports of fires have been linked to the dishwashers, causing property damage in five of those blazes — but no injuries have been reported.

Consumers are advised to stop using the appliances immediately, and call the recall hotline at 888-965-5813 to arrange for a free inspection and repair

Check the chart below for the brands and model numbers affected — the CPSC also has instructions on how to locate your washer’s serial number if you think it might be included in the recall:

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Yesterday Was Walmart’s Goal Date To Significantly Improve Its Stores

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Yesterday marked two soft deadlines for Walmart: the EMV shift at payment terminals and a pre-holiday “line in the sand” that the company’s head of U.S. operations set for the retailer to shape up its stores. That includes making checkout lines shorter and other changes that might seem invisible, but which affect how friendly and easy to use shoppers find their local Wally World. More importantly, he shows up to visit stores unannounced.

Sure, he’s only stopped by 150 out of more than 4,000 stores this year, but that doesn’t really matter. The important part is that managers know that the bosses could walk through the automatic doors to evaluate their work at any minute.

Customers’ main complaints have been about dirty stores with empty shelves and long wait times at the checkout. All of these have their roots in under-staffing, which leads to a delicate balance for Walmart stores between deliberately under-staffing stores to save money, and needing to cut costs because that’s how Walmart rolls.

If workers are happier and compensated better, they’ll work harder, right? That’s the logic behind changes that Walmart has made in the pay scale for new employees, as well as turning the store thermostats up a few degrees and relaxing employee dress codes.

Wal-Mart Reaches ‘Line in Sand’ Moment in Push to Improve Stores [Bloomberg News]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Target Will Be The Second Outside Retailer To Sell Apple Watch

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Apple is spreading around where consumers can buy its Apple Watch, adding Target as the second retailer aside from the brand’s mothership to offer the gadget. Best Buy was the first retailer Apple allowed to sell its newest gadgets, which went on sale in June.

Target says the Apple Watch will be in some stores this week, and all locations by Oct. 25. For those who prefer shopping online, it’ll be on sale at Target.com starting Oct. 18.

Just like the deal with Best Buy, shoppers will be limited to a certain assortment of watch styles — so no 18-karat rose gold wrist pieces for $17,000. You’ll have to go straight to Apple for that. There will be 20 models to choose from in both the 38mm and 42mm sizes, including space gray and rose gold colors.

Select models and bands will be available at all Target stores, with more Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch styles available online, ranging from $349 to $599 in price.

The deal with Target has a wider reach for Apple than the Best Buy partnership — Target has about 1,800 stores nationwide, while Best Buy clocks in at around 1,047 stores.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Google To Officially Become Part Of “Alphabet” Holding Company This Afternoon

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Nearly two months after Google announced its plan to restructure its entire business under a new holding company called “Alphabet,” that transition is minutes away from happening.

Google confirmed this morning that after the close of trading today, it will complete its “merger” with Alphabet and that the new company’s Class C Capital Stock and Class A Common Stock will begin trading under the Alphabet name on NASDAQ on Monday. The stocks will retain their ticker symbols of GOOG and GOOGL, respectively.

The brand of “Google” isn’t going anywhere. But instead of being the name for the entire company, it will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Products and businesses that are directly related to Internet services and advertising, like YouTube and Android, will remain part of Google.

What will fall under the wider Alphabet umbrella will be other subsidiaries like the company’s venture capital business, the Nest connected-home products, and its research-oriented operations like Google Life Sciences and Google X.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Chuck E. Cheese Trying To Woo Parents By Tweaking Its Food, Expanding Beer & Wine Options

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After getting new owners last year, animatronic pizza wonderland Chuck E. Cheese is trying to lift flagging sales by aiming at a new — albeit very familiar — target demographic. We’ll give you a guess — it starts with an “M” and rhymes with “shmillennials.”

Now that private-equity firm Apollo Global Management is in charge, the restaurant is switching its focus from appealing to kids (pretty easy to do thanks to pizza, arcade games and those robot animals playing guitars) to trying to get parents on board. Specifically, notes Bloomberg News, millennial moms, that younger generation that goes for higher-quality food than the usual fare at Chuck E. Cheese.

The chain is remaking its pizza, pumping up the salad bar and adding more options to its beer and wine lists, as well as giving Chuck himself a new look — he’s less cartoonish and more computer-animated looking, and without that backwards baseball cap the chain added in recent years:

“Her kids know it’s a fun place to go, but millennial moms want to provide that great experience without sacrificing for themselves,” Greg Casale, the head chef at CEC Entertainment, Chuck E. Cheese’s parent company, told Bloomberg. “Before she was a mom, she was going to places like Panera and those concepts. She wants something that fits into her millennial lifestyle.”

CEO Tom Leverton said company research showed that on average, kids want to go to Chuck E. Cheese 11 times a year, but they only get to go three times. Why? Mom and Dad don’t want to eat what’s on the menu.

“For my kids, it could do no wrong, but I wasn’t very excited about going,” Leverton, who has two children, said. “We want to protect and enhance what we do for children, but wildly improve what we do for adults.”

For what it’s worth, I’d suggest giving adults special glasses that completely block out the animatronic creatures, so they won’t be reminded of all the nightmares they had as kids after a trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Those things haunt you forever.

Chuck E. Cheese’s Latest Tune: an Ode to Millennial Moms [Bloomberg News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Aldi Has Removed Hydrogenated Oils, Artificial Colors, And MSG From Its Stores

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For restaurants and packaged food brands,the current hot trend is eliminating additives and ingredients that the public has come to see as unhealthy or unnecessary. These include things like trans fats, artificial colors, and artificial flavors. Restaurant chains like Panera and food companies like Campbell Soup have pledged to not sell products with these substances in them, but Aldi is pledging to do so store-wide.

The substances that are no longer allowed in Aldi’s products are certified synthetic colors, partially hydrogenated oils, and added monosodium glutamate. “Since more than 90 percent of the products we sell are under our exclusive brands, CEO Jason Hart said in a statement, “eliminating these ingredients will have a real impact on the over 30 million people who shop in our stores.”

As their CEO points out in the announcement that these ingredients are off the menu, Aldi mostly sells its own private-label items to keep prices low. It also gives them significant control over what’s sold in the stores, which is how a discount grocer can make a change that most people would associate more with a health food chain. They didn’t make the announcement until the substances were already out of their products until they had already been removed.

(via Supermarket News)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Airlines Eager To Offer Flights To Cuba, So What’s The Delay?

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Now that U.S.-Cuba relations are thawing, a lot of Americans would love to visit the nearby island nation that had been a no-go zone for five decades, and U.S. commercial airlines really want to start regularly scheduled flights to Cuba. But it’s not as simple as flipping a switch.

The Miami Herald reports that U.S. and Cuban officials have been hard at work hashing out how to open up routes between the two countries.

If it were just a matter of giving U.S. carriers more access to Cuba, we might have a timeline for when we could expect regular flights. But, explains the Herald, Cuban airlines want to be able to offer service stateside, which brings up some legal issues.

After Fidel Castro came to power, many people fled or were exiled from Cuba. Some of these folks filed civil suits in the U.S. against the Cuban government for its abuses. Because Cuba never defended itself in these cases, billions of dollars in judgments have been granted against the country.

So if a plane operated by Cubana de Aviación, which has been run by the Cuban government since 1959, were to land in the U.S., it could possibly be seized as payment for some of these judgments.

One official tells the Herald that this is a “theoretical possibility” that has come up in the discussions with Cuban aviation officials.

One possible solution would be for the Cuban airline to lease planes for its flights to the U.S., but that may not be a tenable long-term answer. The U.S. could also try to have the lawsuits vacated, but that would be both a drawn-out process and politically unpopular among those who support the judgments against Cuba.

For now, some U.S. carriers are continuing to offer limited charter service to Cuba. JetBlue has even been leasing its planes to charter operators as a way to get its brand seen by Cuban travelers for when regular flights do start operating.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Today In Trends We Didn’t Know Existed: Beard Transplants Are All The Rage

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Whenever one of the men in my family says he’s growing a beard, I can’t help but laugh — anytime they try it, the result is a patchy, sparse thing that looks like they fell in a pile of hair at the barbershop with glue on their face (sorry, family). There’s hope for the follicle-challenged faces out there, however: because we’re living in a time where you can get exactly the look you want, it’s not surprising that there’s been a recent uptick in beard transplants.

Yes, you read that right — guys are getting hair from their heads transplanted onto their faces, one follicle at a time, to go from baby-faced to swarthy lumberjack with a visit to the surgeon.

Though the idea of a beard transplant might conjure up images of the awful hair plug jobs you may’ve been witness to in the past, the popularity of such procedures has surged partly due to advancements in the transplanting process, reports the New York Times: in the past, hair was transplanted in clumps of about 15 follicles, resulting in pluglike grafts that looked… not great, and not something you’d likely want on your face.

Now, however, surgeons harvest thousands of individual hair follicles from hairy spots to bare ones, whether scalp or beard, resulting in a look that’s more natural, and can be shaved and grown just like real hair.

Business in the lumbersexual era is booming: One doctor who has offices in Miami and Manhattan told the NYT he used to perform four or five facial hair transplants per year, a decade ago. Nowadays, it’s more like three per week. To that end, beard transplants have grown from 1.5% of all hair restoration procedures around the world in 2012 to 3.7% in 2014, according to the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, a nonprofit medical association.

One recent beard transplant patient paid about $7,000 to get the works — from sideburns to chin — because his bare face made people think he was younger than he is.

“It does play a role in me looking more mature, more manly, and just kind of getting respect from people,” he told the NYT.

But come on — can they really look like a natural beard? Yes, said another transplant patient.

“No one suspected,” he told the NYT. “It’s like I was never a beard guy, and now I grew a beard, so I would say it was pretty stealth.”

Baby-Faced Men Opt for Beard Transplants [New York Times]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Walmart Employee In Trouble Over Facebook Video Of Shoplifter Scuffle

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We’ve told you before of Walmart employees who were fired for intervening in violent or potentially dangerous situations at the store, but here’s a story of a Walmart worker who’s in trouble for not stepping in. Of course, it doesn’t help that he posted video of the incident along with his wisecracking running commentary.

CBS Dallas has the tale of the Arlington, TX, Walmart employee who posted a video on Facebook of what appears to be a customer attempting to steal items during the self-checkout process. As he films the shopper, the employee mocks her efforts at thievery.

He then follows along as she tries to leave the store.

“Have fun,” he taunts, as someone grabs the bag containing the allegedly stolen items. “Have a good day.”

The cashier-cum-cameraman also got footage of the wannabe shoplifter getting into a scuffle with another woman in the parking lot.

Other employees stepped in to try to break up the fight while the cashier continued capturing it all on video.

That’s when he says something that probably sealed his fate at the retailer.

“Yup, and I let it happen,” he says to his own camera, “on the Walmart clock.”

Rather than just show the footage to pals privately, the employee posted it on his own Facebook page.

Not surprisingly, this didn’t go over well with Walmart HQ.

“This type of behavior by a Walmart associate is completely unacceptable,” the company tells CBS. “We are conducting an internal investigation into this matter at this time and will take action as appropriate.”

The employee who shot the video has apparently “resigned” from his gig at the store. No word on whether or not any other workers will be penalized.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Verizon Tells Judge: Porn Copyright Troll Is Wasting Everyone’s Time With “Defective” Subpoenas

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Porn producer Malibu Media, which has filed more than 4,000 copyright lawsuits since 2009 — several times more than any other company — is currently trying to compel Verizon to reveal the identities of Internet users Malibu believes are illegally sharing its movies. But lawyers for the telecom titan are telling the court they’ve had enough of Malibu’s “defective” and “unenforceable” subpoenas.

As is the usual tactic with porn copyright trolls, Malibu has filed lawsuits against “Doe” defendants. It has issued subpoenas to Internet service providers like Verizon to get the ISP to translate anonymous IP addresses to actual customer names.

Once identified, these customers will then be approached by the troll’s legal team with the offer of paying a cash settlement to keep their potentially embarrassing porn predilections out of the public record.

Verizon, like some other ISPs, is tired of being involved in these questionable legal actions and is telling one federal court that Malibu is abusing the system.

In a filing [PDF] this week regarding one ongoing Malibu copyright case, Verizon’s lawyers explain to the judge that the company’s time is being wasted on subpoenas from the porn purveyor.

“Plaintiff’s subpoena of Verizon is defective on its face and would impose an undue burden on Verizon, which has been required to respond to many hundreds of subpoenas from Malibu Media alone,” reads the letter.

The lawyers accuse Malibu of dumping the subpoena on Verizon less than a week before the deposition date, while also seeking “a wide range of information from Verizon that is not discoverable.”

Beyond that, Verizon says the subpoena in this case is “unenforceable” as federal rules on subpoenas limit the distance Malibu can compel someone to appear for a deposition.

In this case, Verizon says Malibu is trying to force Verizon employees who work in the D.C. area to travel to San Angelo, TX, with only a few days notice — and for these employees to bring relevant documents with them to the deposition.

And Verizon argues that some of the documentation sought by Malibu — correspondence between Verizon and the subscriber, information about the rental of modems or other equipment, and Verizon’s general policies and procedures — is “either irrelevant, more properly sought from a party to litigation, or outside the scope of discovery contemplated by the Cable Act.”

That law prohibits cable operators from disclosing, among other things, the “extent of any viewing or other use by the subscriber of a cable service or other service provided by the cable operator, or… the nature of any transaction made by the subscriber over the cable system of the cable operator.”

“This is precisely the information Malibu Media seeks from Verizon,” the company’s lawyers argue. “The information is not discoverable and an extension of the discovery cut-off to pursue it should not be permitted.”

[via TorrentFreak]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Chicago Residents Want City To Buy Their Homes, Claiming Living Near O’Hare Airport Is A Noisy Nightmare

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A group of residents living near O’Hare International Airport are suing the city of Chicago, seeking to make the city buy their homes. They claim their houses have become unlivable after a spike in jet noise from O’Hare, after a new runway opened two years ago.

About 50 homeowners have joined the cause, saying that since the new runway opened, there’s been a major shift in flight patterns that has forced them to live with the drone of jets flying above their homes night and day.

“They now have a volume of eight or nine hundred planes literally coming over the treetops of their houses,” the homeowners’ attorney tells CBS Chicago. The noise from a “constant barrage” of jumbo jet airliners, cargo carriers and commercial aircraft has turned their lives into a nightmare, he added.

The area had few planes overhead before the new runway opened in October 2013, prompting new flight patterns at O’Hare that have sent hundreds of flights over their homes, which don’t lie within the existing O’Hare noise contour map. That guide hasn’t been revised since the first new runway opened at O’Hare in 2008. Those homeowners included within the contour map qualify for taxpayer funded soundproofing.

They can’t sell their homes because of the near constant jet noise, the group’s attorney says, so Chicago should buy them out.

“You’re saying the city essentially condemned your property without giving you compensation,” the lawyer said. “The city of Chicago has essentially wreaked havoc on their lives, and diminished the property value, and just made the area unlivable.”

The lawsuit seeks to force the city to buy their homes at fair market value — based on what they were worth before the new runway was installed — at a cost estimated at between $10 million to $15 million.

Bensenville Residents Sue City, Claim O’Hare Noise Makes Homes Unlivable [CBS Chicago]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Hospital Doesn’t Know The Difference Between Copay And Deductible, Sticks Patient With $3,900 Bill

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When a California man checked with the hospital about the copay for his daughter’s treatment, the hospital told him it would $500. Except what they meant to tell him was that his insurance deductible would be $500, but that he’d be stuck with a bill for nearly $4,000.

The man tells the L.A. Times’ David Lazarus that he got the $500 copay estimate in writing from UCLA Medical Center.

But after his daughter’s first treatment, a simple injection administered by a nurse, he received a bill for $3,908.

Making matters worse, his 9-year-old daughter’s full treatment would require multiple visits. At this rate, he’d be looking at a final bill of closer to $20,000.

After Lazarus got involved, a rep for UCLA explained that the problem was an “error in our insurance verification process,” and that the father should have been told that he’d still have the pricey copay on top of his deductible.

UCLA defended the high price of the treatment by saying that the hospital adds “our overhead expenses to the wholesale cost [of the drug] which was paid to our supplier.”

But as Lazarus notes, the hospital may be grossly overpaying for this medication. It put a price tag of $19,827 on a single injection, but the drug can be found elsewhere at the still-expensive-but-not-outrageously-so price of between $5,000 and $7,500 for the same dose.

The father says had UCLA not misled him about the copay, he would have looked around for other providers to make sure he wasn’t getting taken for a ride. Now that he knows how much UCLA charges, he says he’s looking elsewhere for the remainder of his daughter’s injections.

Even after realizing it screwed up, UCLA continued to tell the dad that he needed to pay the full $3,908. It wasn’t until after the L.A. Times got involved that the hospital agreed to only charge him the $500 it had put in the estimate.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Crowdfunding Site Patreon Hacked, 15GB Of Donor Info Dumped Online

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Patreon, a website that allows donors to give regularly to sites, artists, projects and other creators, yesterday evening that it’d been hit by a hack attack that accessed some registered names, email addresses and mailing addresses. And according to reports, 15GB of data was then dumped online, exposing information about donors and the projects they’ve funded.

Hackers published almost 15 gigabytes’ worth of password data, donation records, and source code snagged during the attack, reports Ars Technica. Patreon said on Wednesday that someone had managed to access a “debug version” of the website that was accessible to the public, but that all payment information was safe as full credit card numbers aren’t stored on its servers.

“Although accessed, all passwords, social security numbers and tax form information remain safely encrypted with a 2048-bit RSA key,” Jack Conte, co-founder and CEO of Patreon said, adding that user passwords are cryptographically protected with bcrypt, but that patrons should change their passwords immediately as a precaution.

Even so, it’s possible that hackers could find programming mistakes that would allow them to crack the hashes eventually, though it’d likely take a lot of time and resources. Access to the source code could expose the encryption key that’s said to protect social security numbers and tax IDs, Ars points out.

Security researcher Troy Hunt, who’s inspected the contents of the data dump, says it includes a fair amount of private messages sent and received by users.

“Obviously all the campaigns, supporters and pledges are there too,” he Tweeted. “You can determine how much those using Patreon are making.”

If you’re a Patreon subscriber, make sure you change your password on that site as well as anywhere else you’ve used it. You should also be aware that it’s very likely that your identity, any project you donated to and possibly private messages you exchanged using the site is now available to the Internet at large.

Gigabytes of user data from hack of Patreon donations site dumped online [Ars Technica]
Patreon: Some user names, e-mail and mailing addresses stolen [Ars Technica]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

AT&T Testing Wireless Home Broadband In At Least 4 States

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AT&T helped grease the wheels for its recent acquisition of DirecTV by promising to bring high-speed wireless broadband to homes in rural America. Now that the merger is official, it’s look like AT&T is beginning to make good on that promise, though a number of questions about the new service still remain.

Back in March, we were the first to report on the rough details of AT&T’s plan to use “wireless local loop” (WLL) technology to deliver Internet access into customers’ homes.

Though AT&T said that it needed the AT&T merger would help deploy its WLL offering, it does not use the satellite service to deliver Internet access to customers. Instead, WLL customers get a dedicated receiver and antenna in their homes that connect wirelessly to nearby AT&T towers.

The idea is to provide service that doesn’t require running an expensive cable/fiber line but which offers a connection that’s more reliable and consistent than a mobile hotspot.

FierceWireless reports that testing of WLL has begun in parts of at least four states — Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Virginia — and that users there are reporting seeing data speeds of 15-25Mbps.

That’s not blazing fast, but it’s sufficient for many consumer’s current data needs. The two things we still don’t know — price and whether there are any data caps — will probably determine whether WLL has the legs to succeed.

In order to make WLL marketable, AT&T would need to charge a heck of a lot less per gigabyte than it does for its LTE wireless data.

Most home broadband plans include data limits of at least 250GB a month. AT&T’s largest LTE data plan tops out at 50GB and costs $350. That’s $7.50 per gigabyte. The company can’t charge anywhere near that amount — or, conversely, try to limit use to only a few gigabytes per month — and hope to win over the 13 million home broadband subscribers it said it would try to reach.

[via DSL Reports]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

8 Items You’ll Find Deals On In October

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The season is changing, and that doesn’t just mean pumpkin spice lattes and piles of leaves to jump in. It also means that shoppers can get deals on a mix of products from three different seasons in the coming months, if they know where and when to shop. Fortunately, our pals over at Consumer Reports watch prices on items as well as testing them, and here’s what they say you should shop for in October.

Bikes: As appropriate biking weather ends in areas of the country with four seasons, you can get great deals on bikes being cleared out for next year.

Computers: The back-to-school shopping season is over, but some computers are left behind.

Digital Cameras: We’re not sure why prices on these fall: maybe retailers want to clear out old stock before the holidays? Know your own camera needs and research what type is right for you before you start to shop.

Gas Grills: Yes, grilling season is over in much of the country: deal with your sadness by shopping for a new one for next year, maybe.

Lawn Mowers: This, too, will lurk in your garage until needed next year, but the discounts should console you.

Patio Furniture: They have to clear it out to make way for Christmas decorations, so there are deals to be found.

Sporting Goods: Items like camping gear and baseball items may be on sale in your local sporting good store.

Winter Clothing: Using impeccable fashion logic, you need to buy your winter coat long before winter starts. If you need one now, shop now that the first fashion collections of the season have come and gone.

8 Products on Deep Discount in October [Consumer Reports]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Five People Injured During Unexpected Turbulence On American Airlines Flight

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Five passengers aboard an American Airlines flight from the Caribbean island of Grenada to Miami were taken to a local hospital for minor injuries on Thursday, after experiencing some unexpectedly rough air along the way.

American Flight 982 left Maurice Bishop International Airport in Grenada yesterday morning and landed in Miami with 74 passengers and a five-member crew, with five of those passengers heading to the hospital shortly after, reports the Miami Herald.

The bumpy air seems to have come upon the plane somewhat unexpectedly, as American said in a statement that the plane “encountered turbulence during flight. The seatbelt sign was illuminated at the time and the pilots did not have any indication of severe turbulence in the area.”

After hitting that rough patch, American said the Airbus A319 “landed without further incident.”

And though everyone is probably looking to blame Hurricane Joaquin, which is currently heading for the East Coast, American noted that the turbulence was not related to the storm system, reports CNN: the turbulence hit about 80 miles south-southwest of of Nassau, Bahamas, at 36,000 feet, while Hurricane Joaquin was located 230 miles east-southeast of Nassau.

5 airline passengers injured by turbulence on Grenada to Miami flight [Miami Herald]
Five airline passengers injured during turbulence [CNN]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds

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Here are six 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.

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