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Fish Is So Fresh At Costco, One Package Of Cod Still Had A Live Worm Wriggling Around In It

(joelgoodman)

Because most of us don’t buy our fish straight off the dock, finding a worm with your fresh fish is bound to be a bit of a surprising event. And while a Costco customer’s video of a fresh package of cod doesn’t show the kind of wriggling worm you’d put on a hook, seeing a parasitic nematode snuggled in there is still enough to warrant a “careful if you’re eating lunch while reading this” warning.

The video (seen here, but again, it’s your lunch you’re risking) shows a parasitic roundworm known as a nematode doing a little worm dance inside a package of fresh wild pacific cod fillet earlier this month at a South Carolina Costco, and has shot to viral status since it was first posted to Facebook.

So should you be worrying checking every package you pick up carefully, or this one of those wild and wacky isolated incidents? Well… you should probably check, as a Costco spokesman confirmed the nematode finding and told WSPA.com this isn’t a rare thing by any means.

“Although it’s, quite frankly, disgusting, I wish I could tell you it’s very very uncommon,” Vice President of Quality Assurance and Food Safety Craig Wilson for Costco told the news station.

He adds that ground fish like cod and sole are particularly susceptible to nematodes, but that the company tries its best to nab’em all before they get to you, with fish going through a process called “candling” that involves laying them out on a lit table.

“Around these conveyor tables are employees of the seafood company that are doing nothing but looking for parasites,” said Wilson, adding that the fish in question wasn’t sold, and was instead removed by managers.

You’re probably wondering whether its safe to eat fish that have been packed with these little stowaways, and Wilson says it’s totally fine, there’s no health risk to humans — unless you eat the parasite along with the raw fish. Or eat the parasite without it, don’t do that. Make sure to cook your seafood fare thoroughly before eating.

Fear of parasites is probably why Frodo looks so concerned here:

Worm In Package Of Fish At Spartanburg Costco; Video Goes Viral [WSPA.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Appeals Court Resurrects Fed’s Debit Card Swipe Fee Limits

(Aubrey Arenas)

In a move that will please banks and annoy retailers, a federal appeals court has overruled a lower court decision on swipe fees — the amount banks charge retailers for each debit card transaction — and revived the previous controversial standards put in place by the Federal Reserve in 2011.

Back in 2010, the Dodd-Frank financial reforms passed by Congress directed the Federal Reserve to set swipe fees at a level that represented the actual costs of processing transactions. At the time, the average fee was around $.44 per swipe. The Fed’s initial proposal slashed that to only $.12 per transaction, causing banks to cry poverty and scream bloody murder about how they’d have to sell their children to afford the mortgages on their second vacation homes.

And so the Fed’s final compromise put a ceiling of $.21 on swipe fees, causing retailers to cry poverty, et cetera, et cetera.

That limit went into effect in the fall of 2011, prompting a lawsuit from the National Retail Federation and others who claimed that the Fed had failed to follow the directions set forth in the financial reform legislation.

Last July, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., sided with the retailers and struck down the Fed’s limits, saying it had “clearly disregarded Congress’s statutory intent by inappropriately inflating all debit card transaction fees by billions of dollars and failing to provide merchants with multiple unaffiliated networks for each debit card transaction.”

The cap remained in place while the Fed appealed this ruling, and today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a ruling [PDF] that came down on the Federal Reserve Board of Governor’s side.

In its ruling, the court finds that the Fed performed the task it was given by lawmakers, and that the limits set in 2011 are “reasonable.”

“Congress directed the Board to issue rules that would accomplish a particular objective, leaving it to the Board to decide how best to do so, and the Board’s rule seems to comply perfectly with Congress’s command,” reads the ruling.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

8 Tips To Get The Best Bargains On Your Next Outlet Shopping Trip

(the_justified_sinner)

Everyone loves scoring a great deal, right? Outlet malls are the perfect place to do just that. With warmer weather on the way, it’s the perfect time for a wardrobe or living room update. But how do you know you’re getting the best bargain possible?

Outlet malls are the retail industry’s response to consumer demand for merchandise that’s similar to what’s sold in the regular retail stores, but at a lower price point, the Federal Trade Commission reports.

As long as consumers know what they’re getting into, outlets can be a treasure trove of good deals from your favorite stores like Nike, J.Crew, Prada and many more.

1. Do some research before hitting the stores. Look for coupons on outlet mall and store websites. Often outlet coupons can be combined with the store’s sales.

2. Timing is everything when it comes to outlet shopping, according to US News & World Report. Get to stores early in the week to avoid crowds and find the best selections.

3. Be familiar with the retail prices of items you want to buy to ensure you’re truly getting a bargain, the FTC reports. There are even apps to help consumers compare prices with the regular store.

4. When starting at any given store, ABC News says it’s best to begin at the outer edge. Bigger markdowns can typically be found in those areas, while pricier items are in the center of the store.

5. Did you know that most of those clothes, shoes and home furnishings were manufactured specifically for the outlet store? They were and sometimes those products can be of lesser quality than what you’d buy at a traditional store. So to clear up any confusion about a product just ask a staff member if it’s “made-for-outlet”.

6. If an item looks new and undamaged, there may be a different reason for its lower price. And many times that reason is a difference in material or quality. For example, plastic might replace leather trim on a jacket, or a t-shirt may have less stitching and lighter-weight fabric than it’s counterparts.

7. Off-season merchandise is often the best deal at outlet malls. So go ahead and stock up for next year.

8. Be sure you understand the store’s return policy. If the outlet is a long distance from your home it may not be economical to drive to the store to return your merchandise. Additionally, most regular retail stores don’t accept returns from their outlet counterparts.

Now that you know the tips and tricks it’s time to start those shopping engines.

Outlet shopping: Getting your money’s worth [Federal Trade Commission]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Tourist Admits She Did A “Stupid Thing,” Returns $5,500 Shoe Stolen From Hulk Hogan Store

(Clearwater PD)

Shh, ease your worried minds, my sweet little lambs! We can all rest easy in our beds tonight knowing that the unforgivable crime of stealing a shoe autographed by wrestler Hulk Hogan has been remedied. A tourist who snagged the shoe from the wrestler’s Florida store has fessed up to her infraction.

The daring heist took place earlier this week in broad daylight, when CBS Detroit says workers at the Clearwater, FL store were distracted when a Hogan statue outside toppled over.

That’s when the store’s security footage shows a woman strolling toward the $5,500 autographed wrestling shoe while the attention was on the disturbance, calmly plucking it from its display and walking out.

The 55-year-old tourist from Michigan is now regretting walking on the wild side and has called up the store to arrange the return of the shoe.

“She wanted to get the shoe back to the store where it belonged, but she was not in possession of the shoe,” a police spokesman said. “So she had to get in touch with people down here that she had met and they were in possession of the shoe. And then late last night, they brought the shoe in question back to the Hogan Beach Shop.”

In her admission of the crime, the woman says she’d done “a stupid thing.” She hasn’t been charged at this time.

“Our officers and detectives need to still do a thorough investigation and that might include talking to Mr. Hogan and to the state attorney’s office as well to figure out whether or not this woman will be charged,” the police rep explained.

Downriver Woman Returns Stolen Hulk Hogan Shoe To Florida Beach Shop [CBS Detroit]

You can follow MBQ on Twitter but don’t expect her to know a darn thing about wrestling or Hulk’s flowing locks: @marybethquirk

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Victim Of Attempted Robbery Says Walmart Manager Asked Her To Not Call Cops

(NOTE: We did have the original KTLA video report embedded here, but the clip began to auto-play so we removed it. If you want to watch the video, it’s available at the link in the story below.)

Just because a robbery is unsuccessful doesn’t mean the police shouldn’t be involved. But try telling that to the manager at a Walmart in California, where a customer says she was urged to not contact authorities after being assaulted in the store.

In the incident, a would-be thief attempted to steal the customer’s gold necklace while she was still wearing it. He failed in his snatching efforts, and the customer says Walmart management failed at showing any interest in getting the police involved.

“I yelled from the back of the store, where I was, yelling for security, yelling for help,” the woman tells KTLA. “Nobody came.”

Meanwhile, the man who’d attempted the necklace theft got out of the store. And the customer says the manager didn’t see why police needed to be involved.

“They just made me feel unimportant, like… you got your chain back so what are you complaining about,” she recalls.

A rep for the mega-retailer points out that it’s impossible to prevent all in-store crime but admitted, “we can definitely do a better job of how we respond in a situation like this.”

The rep said Walmart is reaching out to apologize to the customer and has gone over company policies and expectations with the employees involved in the incident.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Google Beefs Up Gmail Security In Attempt To Keep Out Any Prying Eyes (Cough, NSA, Cough)

(frankieleon)

In a move that’s likely to make mass-surveillance of its email customers a whole lot harder to pull off, Google announced that it’s just beefed up security for Gmail by only using an encrypted HTTPS connection for all incoming and outgoing messages.

Gmail Security Engineering Lead Nicolas Lidzborski wrote in a blog post last night that while HTTPS encryption has been available since Gmail’s start, and the default option since 2010, it’ll be the only way any messages move through Gmail from now on.

“Today’s change means that no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between you and Gmail’s servers—no matter if you’re using public WiFi or logging in from your computer, phone or tablet,” he writes.

Going beyond any kind of National Security Agency monitoring, this means hackers lurking on public WiFi will have a tougher time getting past the HTTP encryption, as well as employers who might be tempted to snoop.

Lidzborski adds that there’s more — all email messages moving internally will also be encrypted.

“This ensures that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Gmail’s servers, but also as they move between Google’s data centers—something we made a top priority after last summer’s revelations.”

And by “last summer’s revelations,” he’s likely referencing Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents, that eventually showed that the NSA had been tapping the fiber-optic cables between big tech companies’ data centers.

This protection will only be available for messages kept within Google, however, points out CNNMoney — so if you’re emailing your friend with a Yahoo! account or something, your message won’t be HTTPS encrypted on its way into that user’s inbox, because other companies don’t necessarily support encryption between email providers.

Yahoo! said last year it’s working on encrypting emails moving between its servers, but hasn’t mentioned inter-email provider encryption. Microsoft is working on both.

Staying at the forefront of email security and reliability: HTTPS-only and 99.978% availability [Gmail Blog]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Rejoice! The Talking E-Trade Baby Is Being Retired

TV viewers who can’t always fast-forward through commercial breaks have reason to smile this morning after the announcement that the long-running and ever-creepy E-Trade talking baby ads are finally coming to an end.

The online broker and bank declared and end to the CGI infant’s 7-year reign of TV terror during an ad that ran Thursday night during the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament (better known as the second-most important bracket of March).

Apparently it featured a singing cat that interrupted one of the shill-baby’s commercials and said it was going to fund the uber-creepy infant’s retirement — but who cares about details, it’s time to celebrate a world that has one less fake-talking baby on television! Call a parade! Ready the fireworks! Erect a statue (so long as it keeps its mouth shut)!

“The baby was a wonderful iconic expression of what we were,” E-Trade’s chief marketing officer told Reuters, presumably while popping champagne corks and feasting this great occasion in advertising history. “But we want something that better reflects our present and where we are going.”

Now if that singing cat would only give Progressive’s Flo enough cash to retire, we’d be heading in the right direction.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds

Here are ten 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.

(HofmanPhotos)

(Derelict Compositions)

(Mike Matney Photography)

(ash™)

Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Want to see your pictures on our site? 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