Category Archives: Latest In Consumer News
FCC: Phone Companies Posted Private Info Online
by Anne Flaherty, Associated Press
An online search into TerraCom resulted in a Lifeline application that had been filled out and was posted … Eventually, Wolf and his editors discovered more than 170,000 records that included Social Security numbers, home addresses and financial accounts. … Proponents of the Lifeline program say the federal subsidies are critical to ensuring that households that fall well-below the poverty line have access to at least one phone in case of emergency and to aid job prospects. The $10 million fine was the FCC’s first data security case and its largest privacy action. Read More ›
Overwhelming Majority of Doctors Concerned About Use of Antibiotics in Healthy Livestock
by Consumers Union, press release
Consumer Reports’ poll found that 97% of doctors are concerned about the growing problem of drug-resistant infections — an understandable worry given that nearly a third of doctors polled have had a patient die or suffer significant complications within the last year from a multi-drug resistant infection. Those numbers are even higher for doctors who work in both outpatient and hospital settings. Some 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used not on humans but on animals. Read More ›
It’s the Worst Year Ever for Auto Recalls. Why Are So Many Dangerous Cars Still on the Road?
by Drew Harwell, The Washington Post
Those defective cars can then spread widely to used car lots and the driveways of unsuspecting buyers. About 3.5 million recalled cars and trucks were listed for sale last year, according to Carfax. Keeping track of what cars are problematic can also prove a hassle: Stericycle, a recall consultant and service firm for automakers, said there have been 544 separate recalls announced this year, or nearly two recalls a day. Read More ›
It Looked Like a Stabbing, but Takata Air Bag Was the Killer
by Hiroko Tabuchi and Christopher Jensen, The New York Times
Ms. Tran became at least the third death associated with the mushrooming recalls of vehicles containing defective air bags made by Takata, a Japanese auto supplier. … Safety experts say that more rupture cases could be going unnoticed, or underreported, leaving affected cars on the road. For example, a California lawyer says that a fourth driver, Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed in September 2013 by an air bag that ruptured in his 2002 Acura. The authorities have not determined a reason for the injuries, though his coroner’s report cited tears in his air bag and facial trauma from a foreign object.
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CPUC Lawyers Say Bosses Kept Quiet on Judge-shopping Order
by Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
“To our knowledge, the commission has not taken appropriate steps in the past months to preserve evidence, such as notifying all relevant commission officers and staff of their obligations,” the lawyers wrote to the five commissioners. They said some agency offices were planning “clean-out days” in preparation for a return to the commission’s renovated headquarters on Van Ness Avenue, “and that records may be destroyed in the process.” Read More ›
Private Student Loan Companies Provide Few Options for Borrower, Driving Them to Default
by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist
Officials with the CFPB say these shortcomings reflect an industry that has done little to make good on commitments by lenders to expand alternative repayment options. “The response by the private student loan industry to distressed borrowers is failing to help them avoid default,” Rohit Chopra, CFPB student loan ombudsman says in the report. “Too many borrowers are barely treading water, losing hope that these companies will throw them a lifeline.” Read More ›
AB 2667 Update: State Settles with RTO Computer Firm over Consumer Protection Violations
“Aaron’s violated California state privacy laws by permitting its franchised stores to install spyware on laptop computers rented to its customers. A feature in the spyware program … allowed the Aaron’s franchisees to remotely monitor keystrokes, capture screenshots, track the physical location of consumers and even activate the rented computer’s webcam,” the announcement alleges. Gov. Jerry Brown last month signed CFC-sponsored Assembly Bill 2667 (Bloom) to expressly outlaw such computerized snooping in the rent-to-own computer industry in California in the future. Read More ›
Lawyers Ask Supreme Court to Review Medical Data Breach Case
by Marisa Kendall, The Recorder
A thief broke into Sutter Medical Foundation’s Sacramento office in 2011, smashing a window and stealing a computer that housed records for 4 million patients. The data was password protected but not encrypted. The Third District dismissed the case on appeal, ruling the medical privacy statute was not triggered because plaintiffs lacked evidence the stolen information was actually viewed by an unauthorized person. Plaintiffs lawyers argue the affected patients suffered an invasion of privacy that constitutes real harm, even if it does not amount to quantifiable damages. Read More ›
Do You Ever Shop Anywhere? Congratulations: Your Data Will Be Hacked
by Kate Cox, Consumerist
The annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report finds that the vast majority of attacks, hacks, and breaches are motivated by plain old financial gain. Security expert Brian Krebs — the man who discovered and broke the news about both the Target and Home Depot hacks, among others — has delved into the markets where stolen card numbers are resold. When the cards stolen from Target were new, he found, they went for between $26.60 and $44.80 each. By February, prices were as low as $8 because the card numbers were less likely still to be valid. Read More ›
AT&T to Pay $105 Million over Unlawful Billing
by Edward Wyatt, The New York Times
AT&T Mobility, one of the country’s largest mobile phone companies, agreed to pay $80 million to the Federal Trade Commission to provide refunds to customers who were billed “hundreds of millions of dollars” in unauthorized charges for items including ringtones and text messages with love tips and horoscopes. In addition, AT&T will pay $20 million in penalties and fees to 50 states and the District of Columbia and a $5 million penalty to the Federal Communications Commission for the practices, known as mobile cramming. Read More ›
Federal Prosecutors Probing PG&E-CPUC E-mails
by Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
Among the documents was a 2010 e-mail in which one utility executive told his boss that Michael Peevey, president of the state commission, expected PG&E to spend “a lot more” than $1 million opposing a ballot measure that would have put on hold California’s law capping greenhouse gas emissions. PG&E announced its opposition to the measure, Proposition 23, less than two months later. It contributed at least $500,000 to the campaign against the initiative, according to the nonprofit campaign-money watchdog Maplight. Voters overwhelmingly defeated the measure in November 2010. Read More ›
Ways to Protect Yourself After the JPMorgan Hacking
by Tara Siegel Bernard, The New York Times
Personal information from 76 million households may have been compromised as part of the cyberattack. The biggest risk is that the thieves will try to extract more sensitive information from affected consumers. “I would be very conscious of the email you get in the next year, which could be related to this hack,” Pam Dixon, executive director at the World Privacy Forum, said. Those who want to add a layer of security to their financial life should consider a “security freeze,” which prevents someone from trying to open a new account in a consumer’s name. Read More ›
JPMorgan Chase Hacking Affects 76 Million Households
by Jessica Silver-Greenburg, Matthew Goldstein and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times
A cyberattack this summer on JPMorgan Chase compromised the accounts of 76 million households and seven million small businesses, a tally that dwarfs previous estimates by the bank and puts the intrusion among the largest ever. Unlike retailers, JPMorgan, as the largest bank in the nation, has financial information in its computer systems that goes beyond customers’ credit card details and potentially includes more sensitive data. Even if no customer financial information was taken, the apparent breadth and depth of the JPMorgan attack shows how vulnerable Wall Street institutions are to cybercrime. Read More ›