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49ers Fan Sues NFL For $50 Million For Letting Teams Sell Locals-Only Tickets

During the most recent NFL playoffs, some teams opted to only allow people in certain areas to buy tickets. The idea was to make sure as many home team fans had access to these important games as possible, but some claim it’s an illegally discriminatory practice.

The AP reports that a San Francisco 49ers fan from Las Vegas has sued the NFL in a U.S. District Court for allowing the Seattle Seahawks to limit credit card purchases of tickets for the ‘Hawks vs. Niners NFC Championship game to people with billing addresses in Washington state, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta.

According to the plaintiff, the NFL’s use of public subsidies and taxpayer money to construct stadia means teams should not be able to cherry-pick which people have access to tickets.

“‘The practice of withholding the sale of tickets from the public at large and allowing only credit card holders limited to certain areas is a violation of the Federal Consumer Fraud Act and/or common law,” alleges the complaint, which says the plaintiff suffered “economic discrimination and violation of public accommodation solely” because his credit card didn’t have a billing address in one of the selected states or provinces.

“[B]y allowing the NFL to decide who can or cannot attend the games, you make it an unfair game. Seattle fixed it,” the plaintiff explains to the AP. “This selected process is contrary to the spirit of the NFL and contrary to public accommodation.”

The suit seeks $10 million in punitive damages and $40 million in real damages.

Seattle wasn’t alone in selling locals-only tickets to a playoff game. That same weekend, the Denver Broncos only allowed fans with billing addresses in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, and Western Kansas to purchase tickets to the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots.

Both home teams ended up winning and moving on to the Super Bowl, though we doubt the ticket policies can be thanked for that.

Regardless, we polled Consumerist readers at the time of these games and nearly 60% of you said that the NFL should not allow teams to sell tickets based on billing addresses, while another 15% said that only a portion of tickets should be set aside for area residents. Only 25% of readers sided with the teams and said they should be able to sell tickets to whomever they choose.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Man Behind Hijack Scare On Virgin Australia Flight Was Just Exhausted, Looking For Bathroom

(Travelin’ Librarian)

An Australian man who caused a hijacking scare on a recent Virgin Australia flight to Indonesia when he banged on the cockpit cabin’s door won’t be charged, officials say, because he was just exhausted and confused at the time. And he just needed to find the bathroom, which can make anyone act a little scary.

Indonesian authorities won’t be charging the 28-year-old man and will instead be focusing on the airline’s procedures for false alarms, reports The Australian Associated Press.

The man told police he’d awoken confused after being asleep, and when he banged on the cockpit door, he thought it was the bathroom. He also insisted that he hadn’t any booze, just soda, and some mild painkillers akin to aspirin or ibuprofen.

Whatever happens now will go down in Australia, said a Bali police rep.

“Regarding the legal process, it will be conducted in Australia because what he did in that plane was within a plane registered in Australia,” he said.

According to cops, the man was heading to Bali looking for his Indonesian wife after being separated for weeks, and was just really stressed out.

Aviation officials are also probing what happened before the hijacking alert was sent, resulting in an emergency response at the airport with police troops. Virgin Australia says it’s standard protocol for the crew to send an “unlawful interference code” to air traffic control when someone tries to get into the cockpit who shouldn’t be there.

“This is used by all airlines internationally to ensure the safety of passengers, crew and the aircraft,” Virgin Australia said. “The captain and crew ensured the highest level of safety was maintained on flight VA41 and followed standard operating procedures.”

Airport authorities say, however, that there was radio silence from the plane for 30 minutes after it landed, prompting officials to only board the plane after making visual contact.

Virgin says there was no lack of communication and that the captain was in contact with those on the ground before landing, “in line with correct protocols to keep them informed of the status of the disturbance prior to landing.”

Indonesia will not lay charges against hijacking scare man [Australian Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Coffee “Price Drop” At Meijer Means You Pay 10 Cents More

“Walmart and Target aren’t the only ones with weird ‘value’ pricing,” a reader pointed out to us in an e-mail over the weekend. Indeed, wherever there are price tags, sales, and workers who are not encouraged to use common sense, you will find fuzzy math.

meijer-price-drop

Reader i8junk_stuff spotted this “price drop” at Meijer, noting that the discount chain is clearly trying to stay competitive. “Not to be outdone by Target, Meijer continues to impress with ‘low’ prices,” they write.

Toaster-Strudel

Jack was shopping at Winco and noticed that toaster strudels get more expensive when you buy more. “Buy a package of 12 apple Toaster Strudels and pay 80¢ (19%) more than the cost of two 6-count packages. Such a bargain!”

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Microsoft: Internet Explorer Security Flaw Responsible For “Limited, Targeted Attacks”

(Northwest Dad)

Another day, another computer security problem that could be opening up people to hack attacks: Microsoft says there’s a security hole in versions 6 through 11 of Internet Explorer, the default browser for many a PC user. And hey, remember when you were warned to stop running Windows XP? This is why.

The company warned users of the coding flaw that essentially rolls out the welcome mat to a hacker on a network computer, the same way as if they were an official user, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Thus far Microsoft says it knows of “limited, targeted attacks” trying to exploit the flaw, but hasn’t said much else.

“On completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to protect our customers,” Microsoft said in a security bulletin. The company that claims to have found the hole, FireEye, says it’s part of a bigger effort to hack into U.S. financial and defense companies.

Microsoft didn’t say, however, what help, if any, will be available for Windows XP users. The company stopped supporting the 13-year-old operating systems as of April 8, which means anyone running it will likely not receive a patch from Microsoft to fix the vulnerability.

“XP users are not safe anymore and this is the first vulnerability that will be not patched for their system,” a Symantec Corp. researcher wrote about the flaw.

The best case scenario? Microsoft decides to take pity on Windows XP users and issue a patch to fix the security issue. But don’t hold your breath — it’s probably best to update and finally stop using XP, as this will likely only be the first of many times it could put your computer’s security at risk.

Microsoft Web Browser Has Security Flaw [Wall Street Journal]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Comcast/TWC Reveal Plan To Hand Over 4 Million Customers To Charter

As expected, Comcast and Time Warner Cable confirmed this morning that, through a combination of customer swaps and spin-off, shed themselves of around 4 million customers who will land, at least in part, in the lap of Charter Communications.

There are three aspects to the deal:

1. Charter gets 1.4 million TWC customers.

Charter will pay TWC approximately $7.3 billion for around 1.4 million of TWC’s current pay-TV customers. These customers will primarily be in Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Alabama.

2. Charter and TWC trade 1.6 million customers.

TWC and Charter will each shuffle around 1.6 million customers. The result will be a zero net gain of users for the parties, but will lead to more geographically contiguous service, with Charter shedding itself of business in California, New England, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and Virginia. The map at the bottom of this post shows what Charter’s new footprint would look like.

3. Comcast to spin off customers into new company partially owned by Charter.

Comcast will spin off 2.5 million customers into a company — dubbed SpinCo for the moment — in which Charter will have a 33% stake. SpinCo (or whatever it ends up being called) would serve customers in Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Alabama, Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky, and Wisconsin. Between this and the TWC divestitures, Charter would then control a sizable chunk of the Midwest cable market.

Comcast and TWC are hoping that this plan will satisfy regulators reviewing the massive merger that would make the nation’s largest pay-TV and Internet provider even larger. It would also remove the second-largest cable TV provider from the market, leaving a huge gap between Comcast, which would have around 30 million customers, and Charter, which would become the #2 terrestrial provider with around 5.7 million full customers, plus the 33% stake in the 2.5 million SpinCo subscribers.

Today’s announcement is unlikely to quiet voices of opposition to the merger as it does nothing to increase competition in the cable marketplace — if anything, the swap of 1.6 million customers would only give both a merged Comcast/TWC and Charter a higher level of concentration in the markets they serve.

Below is a map, from the Comcast announcement, showing how Charter’s coverage would be clustered in the Great Lakes and Midwestern region of the country:

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Despite Jail Sentence, Scammy Pitchman Kevin Trudeau’s Infomercials Still Running

Last month, a court sentenced bestselling author, TV pitchman and scam artist Kevin Trudeau to 10 years behind bars for repeatedly lying to and defrauding consumers. And even though Trudeau is locked up for years to come, his infomercials continue to air.

Alas, Trudeau has not had some sort of jailhouse awakening leading him to release the next Caged Wisdom. No, the Chicago Tribune reports that these are just the same tired ads for his book Free Money “They” Don’t Want You to Know About.

How can this happen? It’s a number of factors.

First, the get-rich book pedaled in this particular ad was not the one that landed Trudeau in jail. The multiple Federal Trade Commission complaints that ultimately led to his being sentenced dealt mostly with another book, the similarly titled The Weight Loss Cure “They” Don’t Want You to Know About.

And it wasn’t the claims made in his books that got Trudeau in trouble with the law; it was the claims made in the ads and marketing of the weight-loss book… like not revealing to consumers that the “easy” weight-loss program he sells actually requires, among other things, prescription injections of hormones found only in pregnant women.

So his books continue to be sold, and infomercials can continue to run, so long as those infomercials don’t contain misleading information.

Additionally, Trudeau no longer directly owns the rights to those books. Those have been sold to another company that pays Trudeau a royalty (which now goes to to the U.S. government to pay down the $37 million debt the convicted scammer owes for his crimes).

Thus, the ads will continue so long as they continue to sell books or until someone proves these infomercials are also misleading and should not be allowed to air.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Definitely Don’t Print Out These Fake Labels And Put Them On Real Products

Frosted Mini Wheats… arguably preferable to hunger.

As Coca-Cola recently argued before the Supreme Court, you should be able to call your product anything you want so long as it embodies the essential character of that product… even if that means calling a beverage “pomegranate” juice when an entire bottle contains barely an eye-dropper’s worth of that ingredient. So what’s good for the goose is good for the consumer, right?

That was the argument made Sunday night by John Oliver on his new HBO show Last Week Tonight. In covering the Coca-Cola case (along with other specious food claims — like those made by Kellogg about its Frosted Mini Wheats, or POM Wonderful’s bogus health benefits), Oliver said that if the First Amendment covers companies who want to stretch the truth to the breaking point, then it should cover consumers who want to replace questionable labels with ones that are just as sketchy.

While we certainly hope Pom doesn’t contain actual pomeranians and we’re too scared to find out just how much rodent urine could legally make its way into a bottle of not-exactly-pomegranate juice, we do think it’s safe to say that Mini Wheats are indeed arguably preferable to hunger. That’s certainly more accurate than the ad campaign that tried to convince parents that the cereal was some sort of secret brain food.

Of course, as funny as it might be to print out the below label sheet posted on the show’s Facebook page, cut the images out, place them on products, and then post those photos online, it’s arguably illegal — or will, at the very least, get you kicked out of a store for doing so.

As you can see from the above image, there’s always fun to be had with Photoshop, especially if you’re more skilled than I am, like this guy.

So here are the labels that you shouldn’t print out and have a lot of fun with, because we would certainly never suggest you do anything like that…

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Burger King Resurrects Creepy Subservient Chicken, Minus The Chicken

Ten years ago, Burger King launched what is still one of the more bizarre marketing ploys of the Internet era — the Subservient Chicken, a “webcam” featuring a person in a chicken suit doing the bidding of visitors to the site. Because there are now people old enough to drive cars and go to college who missed this exceedingly creepy campaign the first time around, BK has (sort of) brought it back… though not quite.

The fast food chain doubled-down (oops, wrong restaurant) on its attempt to revive the obedient, oversized poultry over the weekend, both relaunching the subservientchicken.com site — though with a “Missing Chicken Error” that reads “Help. There’s a chicken on the loose and we are desperately trying to find him.” — and in “Have You Seen This Chicken?” bulletins that ran in papers around the country.

The original Subservient Chicken site, with its grainy, security cam look attracted around 1 billion visitors, most of whom would then either sit there and argue with their friends about whether it was an actual live cam (it wasn’t), or who would type things in to see how subservient the chicken actually was (not very).

It remains to be seen if BK will eventually get the chicken back in front of the cam or if its lawyers have advised the company that it may be breaking USDA regulations regarding the treatment of poultry.

Because I still occasionally have nightmares featuring the Subservient Chicken and his pal — that monstrous big-headed Burger King I pray never returns — I’m perfectly fine with this particular chicken remaining free range.

Burger King Resurrects Subservient Chicken [AdAge]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist