Jun 12, 2008
AT&T settles suit over third-party cell phone fees
First nationwide settlement over the business of third-party content
Jun 8, 2008
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May 31, 2008
May 28, 2008
If there are toddlers nearby, be especially careful backing out of drive ways.
Right after WISC-TV in Madison warned about toddlers being killed and injured by cars when drivers are backing out of drive ways, it happened again in Wisconsin. A 15-month-old girl was killed Thursday (May 29)in Rock County. Last Sunday, a 13-month-old girl was killed in a Whitewater church parking lot.
May 23, 2008
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May 12, 2008
May 11, 2008
Don't get stuck with a disposable HDTV
Fasten your safety belt if you bought one of those better buys and it needs repair.
Kicking the tires on Chrysler's new gas gimmick
Wall Street Journal
Let's Refuel America is a terrific marketing maneuver by Chrysler. But consumers need to check it out carefully before signing up.
May 8, 2008
Can a steamer replace your iron?
I think this article maybe directed to the older generation because from what I observe wrinkled clothing is in with many young people.
May 4, 2008
Pictures of these scary looking dustmites are sometimes shown to consumers by questionable vacuum cleaner salespeople trying to sell machines priced a thousand dollars higher than most good vacuums.
The latest medical information on dust mites suggests that vacuums don't help: Getting rid of dust mites—worthwhile?
By the way, some salespeople have also used AIDS to frighten people into buying vacuums. When AIDS became a known problem, consumers were told that the vacuums were air filtration systems that would protect families from the disease!
May 3, 2008
Green Bay area woman nicked by Nigerians
And here is Dateline video of another Wisconsin victim and a Dateline sting of the Nigerian scammers.
Want to work at home stuffing envelopes?
When I started as a Consumer Protection reporter in 1971 the stuffing envelopes scam dotted almost every newspaper classified ad section--because the scam worked like a chain letter. Instead of receiving envelopes to stuff when you sent in your money you got instructions on how to make money putting the same rip-off ad into other newspapers.
Thirty-seven years later, the envelope stuffing scam is still going fairly strong. Fact is there have never been any envelopes to stuff at home. Every last one of those ads is meant to deceive and steal money.
Here is the latest prosecution.
Speeding Up Safety
With the government slow to act and consumers quick to mobilize, companies have learned to take swift action on potentially dangerous products. Washington Post
Apr 26, 2008
They are coming! When salespeople knock on your door.
Clarification: Investments are exempt from the three-day right to cancel.
Have you seen those colon cleaning TV infomercials? Here is a second opinion:
...Some approaches to "detoxification" are based on notions that, as a result of intestinal stasis, intestinal contents putrefy, and toxins are formed and absorbed, which causes chronic poisoning of the body. This "autointoxication" theory was popular around the turn of the century but was abandoned by the scientific community during the 1930s. No such "toxins" have ever been found, and careful observations have shown that individuals in good health can vary greatly in bowel habits. Quacks may also suggest that fecal material collects on the lining of the intestine and causes trouble unless removed by laxatives, colonic irrigation, special diets, and/or various herbs or food supplements that "cleanse" the body. The falsity of this notion is obvious to doctors who perform intestinal surgery or peer within the large intestine with a diagnostic instrument. Fecal material does not adhere to the intestinal lining...
Apr 25, 2008
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Apr 2, 2008
NCAA cheap seats? Take an oxygen bottle.
This story is dated because it's about the Badgers in the NCAA's playoffs in Detroit. But it is worth a look just to see the creativity used by Reporter Mark Lovicot of WISC-TV in Madison to demonstrate questionable ticket sales.
Apr 1, 2008
Consumer Protection in the digital age
At some time in our lives, we, or someone close to us, will experience a questionable consumer transaction.
Mar 29, 2008
Plastic to pay taxes?
We are being encouraged to pay our taxes with plastic for "rewards" back. Should you take the bait?
Mar 22, 2008
Mar 12, 2008
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Mar 5, 2008
See the Grand Canyon flooded for beach restoration and read how this process endangered rafters in 2005
Here is my personal story about what happened when the feds flooded the Canyon for a similar restoration attempt in 2005:
Facing my 65th birthday, I was perplexed. I had been striving for retirement for many years and now, when I could retire comfortably, I couldn’t let go of my career. I was having too much fun.
After deciding to stay on for another five years or so, I began experiencing a letdown. I had worked for more than forty years and now I was just going to keep on working?
Adventure offer
Then—three days before my birthday—a friend on the verge of early retirement told me he was lifting weights to get in shape for a private whitewater rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. I admired my friend (and still do) for having this kind of adventure in his life and told him so.
Later, he sent me this email: “No promises here, but if you want to stay on a backup list for this year’s trip, let me know. Perfect conditioning is not a must, but you would have to be in condition to descend 5,000 vertical feet over a nine-mile route.”
I told him I was interested, and began walking six miles a day instead of my normal three—just in case.
The day before my 65th birthday, my friend told me there was an opening for the second half of the trip. I said I would think it over and give him an answer the next day.
I woke up after 1.00 a.m. and realized I was now 65. It just seemed so old…older than I felt. I decided to go rafting.
Research Reveals
I was bragging about the trip now, telling just about everyone I knew. Instead of turning 65 and having people inquiring about my retirement plans, they were asking me about my adventure.
But checking recent news releases from the Canyon, I was shocked to learn that multiple deaths occur there every year. For example, rafters drown, runners die of heat exhaustion, teenagers fall over the rim, campers get struck by lightning…And climbers fall to their death on Bright Angel, the trail I would be taking down to the river.
I had to sign a waiver acknowledging that I was participating in a risky adventure and would hold no one liable if I was injured or killed.
Adventure Ho
I met up with a group of the rafters in Phoenix and we drove to the Grand Canyon by car. They were nice church-going professional men, but that night some were drinking to excess and slurring their words--despite the potentially dangerous trip we were about to make the next day.
It was 28 degrees the following morning and Bright Angel Trail was icy, muddy, narrow and straight down the Canyon if you stepped off it. Suddenly I was having second thoughts as:
A fear of heights kicked in;
I realized you can die doing what I was about to do;
My new friends were drinking too much; and
I had just learned that the federal government was going to be flooding the river while we were rafting!
So I changed my mind and didn’t make the climb down.
Before I made that decision, I’d been troubled about what I’d gotten myself into. As soon as I said I wasn’t going, I instantly felt better. And I laughed at myself for taking on too much adventure.
After saying good bye to my companions, I waited around and watched climbers coming up Bright Angel after completing the first half of the trip.
They trudged wearily over the rim, one by one, after a five-hour climb. Most wanted a drink at the hotel bar to toast their great accomplishment. A rafter in his early thirties told me he had been so drunk in the Canyon that, “I couldn’t remember my name.” Another man in his late fifties told me privately that, while he would remember the beauty of the Canyon for the rest of his life, he didn’t condone the excessive drinking. The rafters hauled whiskey, gin, wine and at least sixty cases of beer, enough for each to have a six pack a day.
Back in the Canyon, a tragedy was about to take place. The feds released a flood from Glen Canyon Dam for more than four days. It was an experiment to restore sand to the Colorado’s beaches and it created peril for my rafting friends. The river rose more than seven feet in some places and generated faster currents than normal. Beaches and camps disappeared under water. Hurtling downriver, the rafters had nowhere to land and dodged dangerous logs and driftwood ripped from the shoreline.
Unfortunately, a fireman from Phoenix who was rafting with another group drowned. His friends abandoned their rafts at Phantom Ranch and headed for the funeral.
Downriver, where there were not trails out of the Canyon, my friends had to scramble for high ground, where they were forced to stay for three days.
The rafts were too heavy to lift so day and night the crews floated, dragged, and pushed them to a shoreline that rose higher and higher. Then, as the water receded, the crews struggled to move the rafts to the river, hoping not to get stranded on land.
The rafters were not prepared for the flood because a river ranger told them it probably wasn’t going to happen and had no advice if it did.
When I got home to Madison I was so relieved to have bailed out , I was ready to accept ribbing about Glen’s Great Adventure. It didn’t come.
I’m sixty-eight now, still working--and not signing any more risk waivers!