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Baby Trend back pack baby carriers are being recalled because a strap can break and caused infants to fall to the ground.
About 4,000 of the Chinese-manufactured carriers, sold through department stores, are defective. There’s been at least one report of an injury.
Details of the recall can be found here.
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has been getting numerous complaints about “Michigan Divorce Online” from consumers who say they paid the company money and provided personal information to start their Michigan divorce proceeding and then the company did nothing in return.
Mr. Cox’s office found that Michigan Divorce Online uses a Lansing address that doesn’t exist. Consumers calling the phone number listed on the Web site get a recording, but their calls are never returned. Michigan Divorce Online also leads consumers into believing they are associated with the State of Michigan through an unauthorized display of Michigan’s coat of arms, Mr. Cox said.
“Michigan Divorce Online has repeatedly misled consumers and taken their money,” Mr. Cox said. “But the most egregious practice is requiring consumers to provide their Social Security numbers and other personal financial information. This puts consumers at great risk of becoming victims of identity theft. Consumers should use extreme caution whenever they provide their Social Security numbers or other personal financial information on-line, especially if they are dealing with a company they are not familiar with.”
On March 2, 2007, Mr. Cox’s issued a Notice of Intended Action, and is continuing to investigate the company.
Mr. Cox encouraged consumers who had contact with Michigan Divorce Online to contact his Consumer Protection Division and also to immediately apply for a free credit report. To contact the Consumer Protection Division by mail, write: Department of Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division, P. O. Box 30213, Lansing, MI 48909, or call toll-free, 877-765-8388.
The U.S. General Services Administration has available its updated 2007 Consumer Action Handbook, which is packed with consumer tips and free for the asking.
The 176-page guide tells techniques for getting the most from your money and provides guidance on how to deal with consumer problems, including how to write a complaint letter.
The booklet can be viewed online or its paperback version can be ordered here.
With gasoline prices edging upward in recent weeks, consumers might be tempted to bite on those ads touting additives that will improve mileage greatly.
Various products are advertised in magazines, newspapers and elsewhere touting the benefits of liquids or pills that you simply add to your gas tank to boost mileage.
Most of these products have been tested by government or consumer labs and most seem to do little for mileage. Test results on a few of the products are, at best, inconclusive.
The Federal Trade Commission has background on these kinds of products. The AARP has an interesting article that explores the phenomenon.
Some of the gas-saving products have been marketed in the Monroe area, and some of the companies have advertised in The Monroe Evening News.
The federal government finished an extensive investigation into the E. coli contamination found on Dole brand spinach last fall that sickened people in several states.
It can’t say for sure what caused it, but the report notes that the presence of wild pigs near the spinach field and irrigation wells could have been a factor.
Read a synopsis of the report here.
Did you know there are a bunch of hard-fighting soldiers in Iraq who are in desperate need of your help?
Major Brian Smith is one. Sgt. David Smith Fitte is another. Sgt. John Mark Fitte is another.
The help they need doesn’t involve sending cookies or clean underwear to Iraq. They need you to help them get millions of dollars out of the country that has been recovered from insurgents and other bad guys.
It’s a scam, of course, but the appeals for help are littering e-mail boxes from the U.S. to New Zealand and Hong Kong. It might be a phishing scam or an advance-fee scam or it could merely be a computer virus, but simply reading one of the messages surely would lead a reasonable person to hit the “delete” button on their e-mail.
The terrible thing is there probably are some soldiers or veterans out there with these names and they might not even know their good names are being used to try to scam people all over the world.
In doing an Internet search, I did find a Major Brian Smith who lead a British military engineering team in Afghanistan, though he returned home last year, probably without the $25 million in U.S. dollars the bogus e-mail claims he and his fellow soldiers uncovered in a cave.
Some built in smoke detectors made by Digital Security might not be triggered by a fire.
They are being recalled. Check out the details here.
Mystery Shopper Link, a firm that promised consumers work at home income for a $99 up front fee, now is facing federal charges of deceiving consumers.
Mystery shoppers generally visit businesses and evaluate their products and services, fill out a form and the anonymous evaluations then are forwarded to the company that paid for the mystery shopper services.
Click here for more information about the new case.
A Canadian company that billed businesses for listings in an industrial directory is settling fraud charges with the Federal Trade Commission.
The firm simply sent billings to company for listings, which were never authorized and, in some cases, never published, the feds say.
Here are the terms of the settlement.
About 100,000 slinng-style baby carriers have a strap that can break and sling babies to the ground.
The manufacturer has at least 10 reports of the strap breaking and causing injuries to babies that required emergency room treatment in some cases, including at least one fractured skull.
The slings were sold at Target, Babies R Us and other stores nationwide.
Details of the problem can be found here.
Federal testimony before the Senate put concerns about identity theft into some context.
The Federal Trade Commission says it gets as many as 15,000 contacts a week from consumers trying to figure out how to prevent identity theft or recover from it.
The agency suggests that businesses and others be less insistent on obtaining personal information and work to protect identities better. A survey finds a good number of consumers are more reluctant to buy stuff on line for fear of identity theft.
Here’s are more details about the testimony.
The first lawsuit has been filed over a pet death in connection with a nationwide recall of pet foods made by Menu Foods and marketed under various names.
Its owner says Special Kitty killed this cat.
Nearly 300,000 Maytag or Samsung models of front-loading washing machines are susceptible to a water leak that could produce an electrical short and cause a fire.
Owners can get them repaired for free. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has the details.
Some Casio electronic keyboards sold through Best Buy, Wal-Mart and other stores as well as some online retailers have keyboards that can overheat and catch fire.
There have been two instances of the models actually catching fire, so about 12,000 of them are being recalled.
Federal authorities are cracking down on Canadian fraudsters who marketed advance-fee credit cards to consumers.
Consumers were lured into putting up money to acquire VISA or MasterCards, but the company never delivered the cards.
The Federal Trade Commission convinced a federal court to take action against the firms.
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