Corinthian Colleges discloses Fed’s probe of job placement numbers
by Ricardo Lopez, Los Angeles Times
Federal regulators are investigating for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges Inc. for falsifying job-placement rates, adding to at least a dozen other state and federal investigations into the company’s business practices, Corinthian disclosed in an earnings statement Wednesday. Read More ›
True cost of transporting a $25 checked bag? About $2
by Ellen Creager, Detroit Free Press
When airlines began charging for checked bags in 2008, they blamed the high cost of jet fuel for the move. But how much does it actually cost an airline in jet fuel to transport your suitcase? About $2 and maybe less. That means the airline is charging you more than 12 times its cost when it makes you pay a $25 baggage fee. Read More ›
Daily Deal Sites Now Full of Deceptive Discounts
by Patricia Lopez, ABC 13 Houston
Flash sale and discount websites are hot shopping destinations for consumers who want to find bargains on luxury and designer goods. But some of these sites are now selling their own trademarked brands and advertising an original and discounted price. In many cases the merchandise is not available anywhere else. Read More ›
Can You Trust the Hotel Review Sites?
by Robert McGarvey, MainStreet
When real people, who have spent their own money, offer commentary on a hotel, you have to want to listen. You need, however, to know about the many fake reviews – self-congratulatory reviews posted by a hotel on itself and some even post smears of competitors. How common is this? Read More ›
Swiping your plastic: Cards with microchips could become more common
by Claudia Buck, Sacramento Bee
The buzz is about switching U.S. credit and debit cards to ones embedded with a tiny microchip containing a customer’s data. Widely used in Europe, Asia and Latin America, these so-called “smart cards” have sharply curbed financial losses due to counterfeit, lost or stolen cards. Until now, they’ve been almost unheard of in the United States, but that’s changing.
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After the Breach: Protecting Your Identity
by AnnaMaria Andriotis, Wall Street Journal
Target is offering one year of free credit monitoring and identity-theft insurance from Experian to in-store shoppers. Neiman Marcus is giving the same services to all its shoppers, and Easton-Bell is using another provider for shoppers whose information was stolen. But affected consumers still might get tripped up. Read More ›
Are there too many products on store shelves?
by WCPO Staff, WCPO Cincinatti
Back in 1975, your average supermarket carried around 9,000 products. Fast-forward almost 30 years, and that number has swelled to nearly 47,000. But could so much selection be leading to supermarket overload? Read More ›
Inside a for-profit college nightmare
Jaqueta Cherry did not have a glittering GPA or a résumé loaded with internships and varsity letters. She dropped out of high school at age 17. But last fall, right after she received a general equivalency diploma, for-profit colleges and universities besieged her with offers of admission. … Read More ›
Businesses gather more information than they need from consumers
by David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times
You could say that no one forces people to join rewards programs. But the upshot is that people who care about their privacy end up paying higher prices than people who don’t. That’s a form of retail extortion: Cough up your confidential info or pay more money. Read More ›
California Senate approves Internet privacy measure
by Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
Californians routinely use their credit cards to buy songs and videos on the Internet, so a worried state Senate on Thursday approved a measure to protect consumers’ information from being misused. Read More ›
FCC To Consider Move Toward Ditching Existing Landline Networks
by Chris Morran, Consumerist
On January 30th, the FCC is scheduled to vote on whether or not to allow regional trials that, if successful, would be the first step toward the end of the road for the copper landlines. Read More ›
Easton-Bell Sports reports data breach at its online vendor
by Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post
Yet another retailer has disclosed a data breach — this time affecting only online customers. The hacked servers contained information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers and the three or four digit credit card security code. Read More ›
See a $9.84 Charge on Your Credit Card Bill? You’ve Been Scammed
by Selena Maranjian, Daily Finance
There’s a new Better Business Bureau warning that is very specific. It is telling consumers to look on their credit card statements for a charge of $9.84. It turns out that there are gobs of these charges popping up, and they’re most often evidence that you’ve been scammed. Read More ›