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Bank Of America May Pay At Least Another $12 Billion For Mortgage-Related Hijinks

Bank of America has already agreed to mortgage meltdown-related settlements totaling more than $50 billion, so what’s another dozen or so billion dollars heaped on top of that pile? That’s the latest figure being thrown about in the seemingly never-ending series of complaints and settlements tied to the bank’s bad behavior in the home loan business.

According to the Wall Street Journal, BofA is currently chatting with the Justice Dept. and attorneys general from several states about paying at least $12 billion to close the books on multiple cases involving the bank’s mishandling of toxic home loans in the run-up to the collapse of the housing market.

The plan is for at least $5 billion of that total to go toward consumer relief in the form of things like principal reductions, lower monthly payments, and the clean up of blighted, abandoned properties in lower-income neighborhoods.

The Journal reports that the ultimate figure for this settlement could pass the $12 billion mark and may even surpass last year’s $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase as the DOJ’s largest ever deal with a single bank.

While many penalties on big banks have been seen as a slap on the wrist compared to the amount of money taken in by bad behavior, the Journal points out that $12 billion is more than BofA’s total profit for 2013. Of course, since almost half of it will be meted out in non-cash forms like loan reductions, it’s not like BofA will be handing Attorney General Eric Holder a larger poster board check with “Twelve Billion Dollars” written on it.

The bank is reportedly willing to pay up if more than half of the penalty is this so-called “soft money,” which would gradually ding the BofA coffers, easing the impact of the settlement on the bank’s finances. However, it appears that DOJ wants a significant portion of this penalty to come in cash, presumably to improve the government’s image of being too friendly to the banks that played fast and loose with the rules (and people’s money) in the years leading up to the housing collapse.

A failure to reach a settlement could result in the DOJ suing BofA. Given the many billions the bank has already spent (on top of the penalties) on lawsuits in the last five years, it likely wants to avoid more costly litigation.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Yahoo Ditching Google, Facebook Logins For Flickr Accounts By End Of The Month

Time to switch.

After announcing in March that it would phase out third-party logins for photo-sharing site Flickr, Yahoo says it’ll be killing off Google and Facebook logins on June 30. That means you’ll need a Yahoo account to sign in and access your photos.

Per the notification that pops up for Flickr users:

“Hi Flickr User, After June 30, Flickr will remove the option to sign in with a Facebook or Google account. Instead, you will be able to sign in using a Yahoo account.”

You can then either go through the steps to connect an existing Yahoo account with your Flickr page, or create a new username. It’s a one Flickr account per username system, however, so if you have more than one Flickr account you’ll have to sign up for multiple Yahoo accounts.

“Yahoo is continually working on improving the user experience,” a spokesperson told InformationWeek in March. “This new process, which now asks users to sign in with a Yahoo username, will allow us to offer the best personalized experience to everyone.”

This decisions has of course met from some opposition, because change is anathema to happiness for many people, no matter what’s evolving. Common complaints on the official thread for questions — the annoyance of having to manage another username and passwords, or general difficulty:

Have been contemplating moving to Google+ for sometime. Think I shall take this as a prompt and close my account.

I’ve lost all of my pictures from this switch. I am unable to figure out how to link my previous Gmail account to my new Yahoo account. I thought everything would switch over…ugh! My Gmail account has all of my pictures and my Yahoo account has nothing. I’m frustrated because I’ve been sitting here fooling with this for 3 hours. I do not want to start all over.

Adiós, flickr.

It’s worth noting that the third-party login option has only been around since 2011, so let’s hope this won’t affect too many people.

Yahoo Dumps Google, Facebook Logins For Flickr [InformationWeek]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Beastie Boys Win $1.7M In Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Monster

(Tracy O)

After seeking $2 million in damages from Monster Energy for using the band’s songs without permission in promotional videos, the Beastie Boys will walk away from the legal battle with $1.7 million. Monster had argued that it should only fork over $125,000, and the company says it plans to appeal the decision. [via NPR News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Think Your Commute Is Bad Now? Sorry, It’s Only Supposed To Get Worse

(dmuth)

The good news? As the economy gets better, people are heading off to new jobs. The bad news? The more people there are driving to work, the longer your commute is going to be. That was the case last year, when Americans spent an average of more than 20 additional hours in traffic.

That works out to losing two and a half work days sitting in your car, staring at the brake lights in front of and wondering how it came to this. That’s according a report from GPS company TomTom, reports CNNMoney, and is a two-hour increase from 2012.

Blame economic recovery, if you like, say the experts.

“That was one way to deal with congestion — have a recession,” says Rocky Moretti, director of policy and research at The Road Information Program, an organization that studies road traffic. But, he said, “as the economy comes back, so does congestion.”

L.A. drivers have it the worst, as if they don’t already know it, spending 40 extra minutes daily waiting out traffic jams on freeways. That works out to more than 11 work days every year. All those hours translate into money on costs like fuel, to the tune of an average of $832 in extra spending.

And the more people that hop in their cars to drive to new jobs, that gridlock is only going to get worse. But yay, economy!

Why your commute is getting worse [CNNMoney]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

eBay Says Etsy Is Wrongity Wrong To Blame It For Spam Problems

(Erik Gunther)

Yesterday, we reported that the craft honchos who run Etsy have noticed an increase in hijacked accounts sending out spammy messages, and they put at least some of the blame on users with the same passwords on both their Etsy and eBay accounts. However, eBay counters that this is not their fault, since unencrypted passwords weren’t part of last month’s account data breach.

EcommerceBytes brought this news to our attention yesterday, pointing to a blog post from Etsy that puts at least some blame for the spam on eBay, explaining that a breach at one site puts others at risk because people are lazy. “Whenever this happens, it can put accounts on other websites that have not been attacked at risk, especially if the same login information has been used across multiple websites,” the company’s VP of Technical Operations blogged.

Not so fast, eBay says: the baddies got customer data by breaking in with employee credentials, but not passwords. Customer passwords are encrypted and an employee couldn’t see them. An eBay representative told EcommerceBytes that everything is just fine on their end.

“We see no evidence at all of fraud activity and there are normal levels of buying and selling on our site,” the eBay rep wrote. No unusually rampant message-spamming or account-hijacking over at eBay.

Of course, all of this finger-pointing just brings one important issue to the spotlight: you should devise strong and varied passwords for each different sites that you use.

eBay Pushes Back on Etsy Hack Claims [EcommerceBytes]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

It’ll Only Cost You $20,000 To Get Horrifically Murdered In An Upcoming ‘Game Of Thrones’ Book

It’s your buddy, George.

Oh my gosh did you guys see that one episode of Game of Thrones where [spoiler alert] someone got horrifically and terrifically and bloodily killed? Looks like so much fun, right? Author George R.R. Martin is still busy writing the final installments of the GOT series, and for a mere $20,000, you can star as a character in one of those novels and get murdered in the style to which we’ve been accustomed.

It’s all for a good cause, or causes, rather, as Martin is offering up that prize in exchange for donations to two Santa Fe-based organizations, The Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary (but are they dire wolves?!?!? No. Sigh) and The Food Depot.

If you spend that big money to get your fictional self murdered, Martin will let you name your character, choose what he or she does, and rest assured that your character will “certainly meet a grisly death.”

And if you want to touch Martin’s crowning glory, $7,500 will get you “one of George’s old greek sailor caps (well worn!).”

Anyone who donates is also entered into a contest with the big prize of flying out to Santa Fe with a friend to spend the day at the wolf sanctuary with none other than Martin as a companion.

(H/T to Business Insider)

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Remember All The Great Donuts That Built This Nation With Free Donuts Today

(catastrophegirl)

We know that Friday is usually a time for upbeat thoughts as consumers’ minds turn toward frivolous weekend activities — coating the Slip’N Slide with cherry marmalade, improving your speed-run time on Half Life 2, perfecting your homebrew oxycodone recipe — but today, National Donut Day, we should all remember to pause to remember, and perhaps shed a tear, all those donuts that have perished to get us to this point. And then get free donuts while they last.

As usual, the nation’s larger donut (or doughnut, if you prefer) chains are giving away free stuff to honor the memories of the great donuts that came before and to serve as a beacon of sugary hope for those donuts still to come.

To get a free Dunkin’ Donuts donut, you’ll need to buy some sort of beverage. The promotion doesn’t spell out exactly what kind of donut you get, and we almost always hear stories of ornery franchisees putting tough restrictions on their participation in the deal. That said, if you’re passing a DD and want to score a free donut with your drink, today is the day to try.

Krispy Kreme is more into the spirit of National Donut Day, giving away one of any kind of donut to customers at any participating stores — except, for some reason, in Connecticut. Sorry CT folks, you’ll need to hop on the Interstate and head to a Krispy Kreme in one of your neighboring states to score a deal. Again, this comes with the caveat that franchisees may tell you no just because they are in a bad mood from the freeloaders who get a donut, go into the parking lot to put on a different hat, then come back in pretending to be someone else. You’re not fooling anyone buddy.

And while Tim Hortons might be based in Canada, the chain’s U.S. locations are giving away free donuts with any purchase, so long as you say “Happy National Donut Day” when you order.

But you shouldn’t need the dangled prize of a free donut to get you to say those words. No, you should be walking around the office today, declaring to all your co-workers and everyone else you meet, “Happy National Donut Day to all!”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Maureen Dowd Says Maybe Her Pot-Munching Experience Was “Ill-Advised”

(nadbasher)

After New York Times’ Maureen Dowd wrote about her epic freakout in Colorado after eating what was apparently too much of a marijuana-filled chocolate bar, she’s responding to the buzz by admitting that maybe chowing down on that treat was a bit “ill-advised.”

She gave a statement to The Cannabist, a marijuana news site run by the Denver Post, saying she’s just like other pot tourists.

“I wrote in the column that I take responsibility for not knowing enough about what I was doing,” Dowd wrote in the statement. “I was focused more on the fun than the risks. In that sense, I’m probably like many other people descending on Denver.”

The Cannabist also spoke this week to a Colorado tour operator, who claimed he had warned Dowd about edibles during the three to four hours he spent with her on her visit in January.

“[He] gave me a great tour,” Dowd said in her statement. “There is no mention of edibles in my transcript of our interview, but we were together several hours and no doubt we did chat about it at some point.”

It sounds like Dowd has learned a valuable lesson — and no, she didn’t actually eat the whole candy bar… just a lot of it.

“Obviously, however, I didn’t come away with the knowledge I acquired the hard way — that more than a small amount of an edible was ill-advised for someone with a low tolerance level and that edibles are ingested differently and reaction times are quite different. I ate approximately a quarter of the candy bar, which was too much for someone like me.”

In case anyone is confused by her various pronouncements on the topic, Dowd explains that she is pro-legalization.

“I favor legalization,” she said, “but given all the tourists streaming into Colorado, it would be better to err on the side of conservative cautions.”

As with anything you’ve never eaten, taken or otherwise ingested into your body, it’s always wise to ask, then ask again and make totally sure how much of it you’re supposed to take before you do it. And then ask again and maybe talk to your Uncle Larry the expert. That and make sure to lay in a stock of snacks and plenty of blankets to cocoon yourself in in case you get paranoid.

Maureen Dowd reacts: In quest for fun, risks downplayed [The Cannabist]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds

Here are eight 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.

(Fabio Cecchin)

(A Likely Story Creative Studio)

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

Competencias digitales del ciudadano del siglo XXI

via Educación tecnológica http://ift.tt/1pdAy60 www.bscformacion.com