Red Lobster Ditching Low-Priced Specials, Introducing Fancier Plating Because It Wants To Be Classy

Red Lobster’s new vertical plating.

Love a good deal on 30 shrimp for $11.99, or lobster dishes on the cheap? You won’t be able to get those kinds of steep discount dishes at Red Lobster anymore, now that the former Darden restaurant is with a new company and trying to class its act up. Instead, you’ll get fish plated in a fancier way than before and some higher priced offerings.

Red Lobster’s new CEO Kim Lopdrup says the company is axing the promotional discounts — though Crabfest and Endless Shrimp will live on — in an attempt to recapture its spot in the casual dining category, reports the Associated Press.

In this effort to look more like a fancy restaurant and less like fast food restaurants, Lopdrup says Red Lobster can win back customers who see it as “fine-dining for the middle class.”

“At the end of the day, people are not going to go a Chipotle for their anniversary or their birthday,” he said.

But when they get there, those familiar specials won’t be there to greet them.

“You’re not going to see any of these low-priced specials that we’re not proud of,” he said.

And food will look different, too — instead of serving fish dishes on rectangular plates with fish, rice and veggies occupying separate sections of the plate, the fish will now be stacked vertically atop other items on a circular plate, like it is in fancier eateries.

“The food arranged in a way that’s more like you’d see at a fine-dining restaurant,” Lopdrup said. “The seafood is the star.”

Essentially, it’s just about presentation — the plates will be different, but the actual food on the dish will stay the same for now.

In the future, Lopdrup says the company is using a “barbell strategy,” which means it’ll still offer more affordable menu items as well as dishes that cost more than $30. Which means Lopdrup is right — there’s nothing for $30 at Chipotle — but will anyone pay that much at Red Lobster?

Red Lobster tries acting like a fancier restaurant [Associated press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Walmart Says Dad Can’t Buy Beer Because He’s Shopping With Teen Daughter

Dear Walmart: Your price may not be beatable, but some would rather shop at a store that doesn’t treat them like criminals. (photo: Alex Nobunaga)

Back in college, I’d to the grocery store with friends and we always had to separate the beer from the other items being purchased because anyone chipping in money (yes, this was a time when most people paid by cash or check) had to be of legal drinking age. But if anyone under 21 just happened to be standing in line near the beer, no one cared. This is apparently not the case at Walmart, where a dad was told he couldn’t purchase beer and booze because he was shopping with his teen daughter.

The man tells the Des Moines Register that, along with some groceries, he took a couple of Bud six-packs and some vodka up to the register at a Walmart in Ames, IA, earlier this month.

But rather than ask the 57-year-old for ID, the cashier carded the teen girl.

Being 15, she had no form of ID to share with the cashier, who then refused to sell the alcohol to the man who was trying to buy it.

A rep for the store said requesting ID from everyone who appears to be under the age of 40 is a policy that has been around for a decade.

“In order to ensure that alcoholic beverages and tobacco are not sold to minors, Walmart is testing point-of-sale age checks in some locations across the country,” reads a customer service statement given to the dad. “By testing this, we hope to discover the best methods for ensuring that products are not sold illegally to minors. In addition, to comply with federal laws, stores may ask for the ID from individuals within a group other than the person making the purchase.”

The dad, who estimates that his family has spent about $3,000 at this particular Walmart in just the first half of 2014 was confounded and embarrassed by the situation.

“If Walmart is so worried about underage drinking and smoking, why do they sell alcohol and tobacco to begin with?” he asks. “Are they going to do this with other potentially dangerous things they sell, like ammo?”

The Register’s Lee Rood says he gave Walmart HQ two weeks to comment on this story, but did not receive any response.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

T-Mobile Unveils $100, 10GB Family Plan. Is It Any Good?

Family plans are all the rage with wireless companies. Get groups of customers to buy a bucket of data together for a discounted price. This morning, T-Mobile announced a new plan that it hopes will lure customers in from AT&T, but the company isn’t making a big deal out a major restriction that could make the offer unattractive to some families.

On its face, the T-Mobile Simple Choice family offering is a good deal — 4 lines for a total of 10GB of data for $100/month. That’s $60/month cheaper than comparable plans from AT&T or Verizon.

But there’s a catch, and it involves how those 10GB are allotted.

See, on the AT&T plan the users in the group get 10GB to share however they wish, meaning broadband-hungry teens can stream music and movies while borderline luddite dad only uses a little bit of data to check e-mail.

But the T-Mobile plan portions out the 10GB into four equal allotments of 2.5GB each. That’s still more than most people use in a month, but it does mean that the family data hog will hit a wall while the family’s data-averse members will not be using the large majority of the data available to them.

Additionally, like the comparable plans from AT&T and Verizon, the T-Mobile plan includes tethering. If there is a student or frequent traveler on this plan who might need to use their wireless device to connect their computer to the Internet, that 2.5GB allotment could be eaten away easily.

In its defense, the T-Mobile plan does not charge overages for users who go over their 2.5GB; it just throttles their data. So you’d get slower data, but you wouldn’t have to pay the ridiculously high overage fees charged by the competition.

So who is the T-Mobile plan right for? I’d venture that a family of four people who are each frequent users of data, but who aren’t gobbling up gigabytes streaming videos over their wireless network (obviously, streaming over your home WiFi doesn’t count). It could be a chance to save some money and may be worth considering.

Of course, T-Mobile isn’t giving people much time to think it over. The plan launches on July 30, but will only be available until Sept. 30. Those who sign up lock in the rate through Jan. 2, 2016.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

AirBNB Squatter’s Kickstarter Backers Revolt After “Would Squat Again” Comment

No one can prove with 100% certainty that the person who left a glib comment on the Kickstarter page for the game Confederate Express was Maksym Pashanin, game creator and alleged AirBNB squatter. However, the comment did prompt backers to declare the project a “scam” and demand refunds.

“After your contemptuous comment, the backers have now been left in no doubt that you are a bottom feeding lamprey,” one particularly articulate backer said, “and as such had never had any intention of ever working on a game or a honest job.”

Here’s the comment left from Panashin’s account:

The problem with Kickstarter is that backing a project is neither a purchase from a store nor an investment vehicle, and it has all of the disadvantages of both. If you’re an early backer of a company that, say, gets acquired by Facebook for 2 billion dollars, all you get is the reward that you chose during the company’s initial Kickstarter campaign. However, if the project falls through, you have no consumer protections, because Kickstarter isn’t a store. A legitimate company with one project that falls through may offer a different product, like Yogscast did when its $567,000 Kickstarter campaign was canceled.

Airbnb squatter: “Would squat again” [San Francisco Chronicle]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Shave Ice Purveyor Facing Jail After Beach Town’s Ban On Street Vendors

(Morton Fox)

There’s perhaps nothing so nice as a cool treat on a hot day at the beach, but in one Rhode Island seaside town, opponents of street vendors say the mobile businesses cause too much traffic congestion and other problems. The town has now banned street vendors — except during certain times like festivals or fairs — but one purveyor of Hawaiian shave ice isn’t ready to roll out of town and away from all those beach dollars.

A man who sells $3 cups of shaved ice is refusing to back down from his spot in a private parking lot near the popular summer destination of Westerly, reports the Associated Press.

The town recently told street vendors to take a hike where daily business is concerned, saying there were safety concerns over lots of cars parking to get to carts and potentially causing traffic jams or accidents.

The shave ice seller thinks the fact that celebrities have recently started snapping up real estate nearby is the reason the town wants to clean up the look of things, despite the fact that there are plenty of normal, unfancy customers around.

“It’s a blue-collar beach,” he explains. “Justin Bieber is not going to move in.”

And he’s not going anywhere yet — he pleaded not guilty in municipal court last week to 16 counts of violating the ordinance, and is facing up to 30 days in jail and $500 for each count. It’s business as usual though, with the tip jar at his stand saying any money will go toward a bail bondsman.

So far, of the 10 to 15 vendors who used to set up in the town before the ban, two have challenged it so far. One is a hotel owner who was cited for selling ice cream from a truck on his property.

The shave ice purveyor is due back in court this week.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” he claims. “I just want to work.”



Beach town’s ban prompts battle over shave ice [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Nissan Expands Recall For Vehicles With Possibly Defective Takata Airbags

(Russ Swift)

In a year marred by vehicle recalls, Nissan remained relatively under the radar with fewer than 500,000 cars recalled. But that changed on Saturday when the car company expanded a previous recall over defective Takata-produced airbags, bringing its total to more than 664,000.

The expanded recall includes 226,000 model year 2002 to 2004 Infiniti, Maxima, Pathfinder and Sentra cars, the Associated Press reports.

According to a filing [PDF] with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a safety defect in the passenger side frontal airbag which, in the event of a crash, may produce excessive internal pressure causing the inflator to rupture upon deployment of the airbag.

Officials with Nissan tell the AP they are unaware of any accidents or injuries related to the issues.

The expanded recall addresses both the passenger side frontal airbags that were originally installed in the vehicles, as well as replacement airbags that may have been installed as replacement service parts. A replacement airbag may have been installed, as one example, if a vehicle had been in a crash necessitating the replacement of the passenger side frontal airbag.

In June, Nissan, along with Honda and Mazda, announced recalls of vehicles with Takata-produced airbags, bringing the total number of affected cars to roughly 10 million in the past five years.

The most recent issues with Takata airbags began in early June when Toyota reissued a 2013 recall of more than 766,300 vehicles because the company may have received an incomplete list of potentially defective airbags from the car part manufacturer.

Just a day later, NHTSA announced an investigation [PDF] into whether Takata airbags made after 2002 were prone to failing after receiving six reports of airbag ruptures in Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda and Chrysler vehicles. Regulators are also looking to determine if high-humidity climates contributed to the reported airbag explosions.

While Takata officials say [PDF] they are working with regulators on the investigation, they have yet to admit the airbags include a safety defect.

Nissan expands recall prompted by faulty air bag [The Associated Press]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

USPS Sued By Feds For Labeling Whistle-Blower A Drug-Using “Terrorist”

(Taro the Shiba Inu)

If you think an employee of yours might be too quick to gripe or prone to exaggerated complaints, there are proper ways to handle that situation. Among those accepted methods is not falsely telling others that he’s a terrorist and that he’d threatened to blow up your building.

This is why the U.S. Department of Labor has sued U.S. Postal Service in federal court on behalf of a maintenance employee at the St. Louis Network Distribution Center.

The employee, a 35-year vet of the USPS who was responsible for the heating and air-conditioning systems at the center, says it all began back in late 2009, when he told his supervisors about a suspected carbon monoxide leak, along with a fuel oil spill and a pile of oil-soaked rags in the boiler room. He says supervisors would not give him a carbon monoxide detector to test if there was indeed a leak, nor did they do anything to dispose of the rags

He also contacted OSHA with his concerns. But when the inspector arrived the next day, management took him to the boiler room via stairs that avoided the adjacent room containing the pile of rags. Additionally, the inspector did not have a carbon monoxide detector on him, so he could not perform that test.

Two days after initially trying to bring his concerns to his supervisors, the employee tried to contact a fire marshal about possible leak. When he couldn’t reach the marshal, the employee called 9-1-1.

According to the complaint [PDF], when authorities arrived to investigate, the employee’s supervisors allegedly characterized him as “disgruntled” and alleged that he was “attempting to sabotage the facility,” even though he’d given no such indication.

This alone, according to the Dept. of Labor, is a violation of Section 11 (c) of the OSHA Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee for, among other things, reporting a safety concern to the fire department.

Even so, the employee was suspended the next day for 15 days without pay, a further violation of the law, according to the complaint. The suspension continued well past the 15 days, though the employee received payment for those days.

This is when, says the DOL, the USPS management began to engage “in a concerted effort to pressure the county prosecutor’s office to criminally prosecute” the employee because he’d contacted the authorities about his safety concerns.

The complaint states that USPS supervisors told people the employee was a drug user, dangerous, unstable, and “a terrorist” with no factual evidence to back up these statements.

On March 30, 2010, the employee — still suspended at this point — filed a complaint with OSHA for this alleged retaliation against his whistle-blowing. On April 3, local police arrested him and charged him with making a terrorist threat and making a false report. The man spent 18 hours in jail before being released.

Two weeks later, the USPS Office of the Inspector General cleared the employee of allegations that he’d been responsible for a destructive act performed by a different employee. And yet his indefinite suspension continued.

In late September 2010, the employee was given a “Notice of Removal,” claiming he would be dismissed from the USPS for making the 9-1-1 call, as well as the then-pending charges of making terrorist threats and false reports. The notice also stated that the employee should have just disposed of the oil-soaked rags on his own.

He was given a “Notice of Decision” saying his employment would be terminated in Nov. 2010, but the employee appealed and continued to amend his OSHA complaint to include these further alleged retaliations.

In March 2011, almost a year after he’d been arrested, the St. Louis County prosecutor dismissed the criminal charges against the USPS employee.

Eventually, in May 2011, the USPS rescinded its earlier removal notices and reinstated the employee. He received back pay and benefits for the months between Nov. 2010 and May 2011, but not for the 15 days he’d been suspended without pay in 2010.

Nor did this reinstatement compensate the employee for his legal fees or the damage to his personal and professional reputation during the entire ordeal.

And so the DOL suit seeks damages to deter such conduct by the USPS, compensatory damages for the employee’s emotional distress, restoration of lost pay and benefits and compensation for attorney and other fees.

“The Postal Service not only disciplined this long-term employee for reporting unsafe working conditions, but also pursued a baseless criminal complaint against him resulting in his detention by law enforcement and the disparagement of his reputation,” said Marcia Drumm, acting regional administrator for OSHA. “No American worker should be subject to such treatment.”

In a statement to BusinessWeek, the USPS defends itself as an organization but does not comment on this particular case: “The U.S. Postal Service cares very much about our employees and we always place employee safety as a top priority. As this matter is the subject of ongoing litigation, we are unable to comment further.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Samsung Galaxy Catches Fire Under 13-Year-Old Girl’s Pillow

It’s not all that unusual to fall asleep with your smartphone under your pillow: they make fine alarm clocks, and can hold so much important information that you don’t want it out of your reach, even while unconscious. Yet a Samsung smartphone woke up a 13-year-old girl near Dallas in the middle of the night when it began smoldering.

Like many teens, the 13-year-old really likes her smartphone. “It’s really, like, nice and pretty. It’s high tech,” she told TV station KDFW. She’s glued to the device all day, and says that it somehow slipped under her pillow one night as she slept with it at her side.

However, the phone didn’t have all of its original parts. Its battery had been replaced with a third-party part. The girl’s father told reporters that he had no idea that replacing the battery with a non-Samsung part was a bad idea. “We have a reasonable expectation that the products we buy are going to be safe,” he said. If there’s a risk that using a third-party battery could lead to your kid’s bed catching fire, he noted, there should be a great big warning like the Surgeon General’s warning on the outside of a cigarette package.

Actually, why not take it a step further? In some countries, like Australia, cigarette packs have gruesome or depressing photos of people suffering from smoking-related illnesses. Maybe Samsung could put pictures of the Galaxy battery fire on each phone’s battery cover.

Nah, consumers would probably ignore that warning, too, assuming it was only a ploy for Samsung to sell more batteries.

Samsung has promised to replace the phone and burned bedding, even though a spokesperson pointed out that the phone’s documentation clearly says not to use other companies’ batteries, since the company can’t guarantee compatibility and lack of fires.

On Your Side: Samsung cell phone fire [KDFW]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

The End Is Nigh For Room Keys At Hilton-Operated Hotels

(Adam Fagen)

Arriving at the door of your hotel room after a long day of traveling only to find that the key doesn’t work can be a frustrating experience. But that could be a situation of the past for guests at Hilton Hotels now that the company plans to rollout an initiative that would do away with flimsy, magnetic strip keys.

Hilton is expected to announce this week a plan to implement a new technology that would allow guests at the companies’ 4,200 properties to enter their rooms with the use of their smartphones, The Wall Street Journal reports.

While customers can already check in and out of the hotel chain via their phones, the new plan, which is part of an ongoing $550 million technology investment, will allow guests to see the location of and select their own rooms by phone at six Hilton brand hotels by the end of the summer.

Officials say the subsequent phases of the initiative will begin to rollout over the next year, including the ability for guests to use their smartphones to unlock the doors to their rooms. Most of the company’s hotels should be equipped with the technology by the end of 2016.

“We are giving customers unprecedented choice and control at scale, and in the palm of their hands,” Christopher Nassetta, Hilton’s chief executive, tells WSJ.

Hilton joins other hotel brands such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Marriott and InterContinental Hotels in offering guests a more virtual – and possibly hassle-free – experience.

Starwood announced in January that it would begin implementing technology to allow guests to skip check-in and open their hotel rooms with a virtual key on their smartphone at two hotels in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan and Cupertino, Calif.

Marriott International Inc. introduced mobile check-in, which allows loyalty program members to check-in using their phone, at 350 of its hotels, with another 150 hotels to be added this summer.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the use of mobile-phone services by hotel companies is one way chains are competing with online travel agents such as Expedia and TripAdvisor. Additionally, the services are an additional way for hotels to collect more information about their guests’ preferences.

While the new services could streamline the guest experience, previous attempts to implement similar technology has been met with mixed reviews.

Check-in kiosks at two Holiday Inns were pulled after guests showed a preference for talking to an actual person, which could mean we’re not quite ready to abandon all of the older ways of doing things.

Hilton Books Upgraded Technology [The Wall Street Journal]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Amusement Park Ride That Swings People 125 Feet In The Air Shut Down After Cable Snaps

The Skyhawk (via Cedar Point)

The last thing you want to have happen when you’re flying 125 feet above the ground at 60 miles per hour is to have something break. So when a cable snapped on an Ohio amusement park’s ride while visitors were in mid-air, witnesses say things got a bit scary.

Two people were injured when a cable snapped loose on the Skyhawk ride at Cedar Point on Saturday, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The ride swings people 125 feet into the air at high speed.

One visitor described it as “something whip, then bang and screaming,” right after the cable broke loose.

“After the cable broke, the ride slowed down and eventually stopped. Everyone was screaming and very scared,” he recalled.

He said at least one of the injured people was not on the ride but was watching when he was apparently hit with wood debris after the cable broke through the fence where spectators often watch the giant arms swinging people through the air.

“At approximately 10 p.m., a cable on one of the Skyhawk swing ride’s carriages disconnected. The ride’s crew immediately shut down the ride and notified the park’s emergency personnel,” the park said in a statement. “The cable came in contact with two guests. One was treated and released at the scene. As a precaution, the other was transported to a local hospital for evaluation.”

A Cedar Point spokesman says that the guest who was taken to the hospital has been treated and released, and that the ride will be shut down for the time being.

The same ride was shut down for a few weeks in 2013 for mechanical problems that the park says are unrelated to the latest incident.

Two injured in ride accident at Cedar Point; Skyhawk has had problems before [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist