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Can’t Make It Up: GM Recalls Vans For Explosion Risk, Fiat Recalls Cars For Leg Airbag Irregularities

The only time I want to see a car blow up is in an action movie where it’s filled with bad guys. I don’t want to see a van driving down the highway burst into flames because of a natural gas leak. That’s probably why General Motors issued yet another recall Thursday, just a few hours after Fiat Chrysler announced the recall of several thousand cars because of an issue with leg airbags.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, GM issued a recall [PDF] of nearly 3,200 natural gas-powered vans because of an increased risk of fire or explosions related to a leak.

The recall covers Chevrolet Express vehicles made between September 10, 2010 and April 28 of this year, as well as GMC Savana vehicles made between May 23, 2011 and April 21 of this year.

The affected vans may leak gas from their compressed natural gas high-pressure regulators, which could, in some situations, lead to fire or explosions.

In an unrelated issue, Fiat Chrysler announced [PDF] that it would recall nearly 25,500 model year 2014 and 2015 Fiat 500L vehicles because of issues in the driver’s knee airbag.

Yes, that’s right, the Fiat 500L comes equipped with a knee airbag designed to protect the driver’s leg in the event of a frontal impact crash.

According to the NHTSA, irregularities in the “knee airbag folding process,” which was done at a plant in Serbia, could prevent the airbag from inflating properly.

The issue was first detected during crash tests conducted by NHTSA. The tests found the airbag did not meet requirements set forth by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard “Occupant Crash Protection.”

In the event of a crash, the improper deployment could cause injury to drivers if they are not wearing a seatbelt.

In both recalls, dealers will notify owners and fix the issue free of charge.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

No, You Can’t Shampoo Your Hair With Mayo (Or Anything) In Public Fountains

Another unrelated fountain that you cannot bathe in. (Hammerin Man)

Sure, public fountains look just like giant showers, but the thing is, they’re not. They’re available to the public for viewing, listening to, sometimes throwing money into, but definitely not for bathing. Not with mayonnaise in your hair, not for any other reason.

It seems we must be clear on this point, because there are those out there who apparently don’t understand — or don’t want to understand — how public resources are to be used.

NewsOK.com reports that an Oklahoma City man was arrested this week after people reported that a guy was freaking everyone out and causing a ruckus in a public fountain.

When an officer arrived, she talked to the suspect, who happened to be soaked and breathing hard, and he had a good reason: He said he’d been washing his hair with mayonnaise in a nearby fountain. So you know, you get wet when you’re shampooing your hair, unless you’re very careful or at the salon.

The 23-year-old man was arrested on a complaint of bathing in a prohibited public area. He also probably has very shiny hair right now because I heard somewhere that mayo is great for getting a bit of a glow.

Arrested man tells police he was washing hair in fountain with mayonnaise [NewsOK.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Busch Gardens Guests Find Severed Head Halloween Displays A Little Too Timely

The terrorist group ISIS (or ISIL) is in the headlines on a daily basis, and the group uses films and displays of their captives’ and opponents’ heads and bodies as a potent weapon. How potent? Complaints from guests led the theme park Busch Gardens to change a Halloween display that features (fake, rubber) severed heads.

headguy

When TV station WAVY interviewed theme park guests, their opinion was mixed on whether the heads were all a bunch of harmless Halloween fun, or too close to what’s currently in the headlines.

headrow

Here’s the full statement from Busch Gardens:

Many of the scenes depicted at Busch Gardens’ Howl-O-Scream are graphic in nature, but they are fictional and are not intended to provide commentary on current world events. The props in this year’s event were designed and purchased several months ago. In light of recent events, some of these props have the unintended consequence of appearing insensitive and are being removed. Busch Gardens apologizes for any offense they may have caused.

Busch Gardens pulls gory display amid complaints [WAVY]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Chick-Fil-A Customer Buys $1,000 Worth Of Food For Customers In Drive-Thru Line Behind Him

(frankieleon)

The one and only time it’s probably great to still be in the drive-thru line instead of already through it? When someone in front of you decides to shell out $1,000 to pay for the orders of all the strangers in line behind him, like one generous Chick-fil-A customer did this week.

It was a normal busy evening at the Abilene, TX restaurant, until a man handed over $1,000 and asked workers to use it to pay for all those in the drive-thru line behind him, reports KTXS News.

The man only gave his first name, and said he’d given the money to make Monday a better day for everyone.

The franchise owner says the money paid for a whole lot of people, in just over an hour.

“He paid for 88 cars in a little over an hour,” he explained. “He pretty much bought everyone’s meal in the drive-thru for a little over an hour.”

The employees said they saw a whole lot of emotions during that hour, including some tears of joy.

“One lady actually cried because she had a really tough day,” one worker said. “She had a lot of bad stuff happen to her.”

This reminds us of a pay-it-forward chain, except with the paying part already done. Either way, we all get to feast on warm and happy feelings, right? (Except for whoever was in the car right in front of the generous donor, of course. That person is probably bummed to have missed out.)

Man pays $1,000 to feed those in drive-thru at Abilene Chick-Fil-A [KTXS.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Power Company Screw-Up Results In $2,113 Electric Bill For Customer

After years of paying only around $20/month for her electricity, a woman in Seattle was recently hit with an electric bill worth ten times that amount because the city’s power utility didn’t realize it had screwed up her meter four years earlier.

KOMOnews reports that the meter on the woman’s rented South Seattle home has been under-reporting her usage since June 2010. In all that time, neither the City Light utility company nor the meter reader who made regular visits to the property noticed anything was amiss.

And when City Light finally did realize there was a problem with the meter, it didn’t send the customer a notice explaining the issue and suggesting a payment plan. No, she just got a bill for $2,113.56 that she was supposed to pay in full by the end of the monthly billing period.

“That’s a lot of money,” says the tenant, “and a lot of money I don’t have.”

A rep for City Light tells KOMO that the figure was arrived at by averaging the previous use and then calculating what wasn’t collected over the time period during which the meter was under-reporting. Additionally, the company apparently can’t just say “our bad” and write off the debt, saying it is required by law to collect payment for any electricity used.

“If any one customer is not paying for the energy that the consumer uses, that shifts the cost to everyone else,” the City Light rep explains, adding that the customer should probably have known something was wrong when her bill was showing zero usage. Of course, one could argue that the meter reader should have noticed this lack of usage in an occupied home.

The company says it has offered to accept payment for the past bills through monthly installments of $88.07, but the tenant says even that will be an issue on her fixed income.

City Light is now trying to get the customer onto a discounted energy plan for low-income residents, but doesn’t know if it can apply that discount retroactively to bring down the total owed for the four years the meter was screwed up.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

CFPB Proposes Rule To Oversee Automakers’ Financial Units, Stop Discriminatory Lending

(frankieleon)

The lending arms for national car dealers, such as Ford and Toyota, may soon have to answer to federal regulators. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a proposed rule that would give the agency oversight of automakers’ financing units in a step to prevent discrimination and other harmful practices.

Under the proposed rule [PDF] the Bureau would extend oversight to cover 38 auto finance companies providing financing for more than 10,000 loans and leases each year.

According to the CFPB, these entities originate about 90% of nonbank auto loans and leases, and in 2013 provided financing to nearly 6.8 million consumers.

While the CFPB currently oversees large banks making auto loans, it does not supervise nonbank auto finance companies; meaning indirect financing provided when a dealer facilitates a loan from a third-party.

In some case, the nonbank finance companies are “captive” nonbanks, meaning they are finance companies owned by auto manufacturers.

If the oversight rule goes into effect, the CFPB will have the authority to conduct on-site examinations that could result in enforcement actions.

Officials with the Bureau say the oversight rule was born out of concern that consumers are being misled about the loan in which they qualify for and about the terms and benefits of product add-ons.

Auto loans make up the third largest category for household debt in the United States, which currently has 87.4 million outstanding auto loans valued at about $900 billion.

Additionally, officials are troubled by what they call discriminatory pricing practices in the auto-lending market.

“When consumers receive indirect financing, often the finance company or other indirect lender authorizes the dealer to mark up the interest rate. Markups lead to dealers and indirect lenders charging different rates to similarly situated consumers, which increases the risk of discrimination. Discriminatory markups on auto loans may result in tens of millions of dollars in consumer harm each year.”

When examining banks offering auto-loans that are currently under CFPB supervision, investigators found that indirect lenders had discretionary pricing policies that resulted in discrimination against African-American, Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander borrowers and these consumers paid more for their loans than similarly situated non-Hispanic white borrowers, the CFPB reports.

Under the proposed rule, the CFPB aimed to make sure auto lenders treat consumers fairly and discontinue discriminatory actions by:

• Fairly marketing and disclosing auto financing: The Bureau wants to make sure that auto finance companies who market directly to consumers are not using deceptive tactics to market loans or leases. The Bureau would be concerned if consumers are being misled about the benefits or terms of financial products. The Bureau is also looking to ensure that consumers are getting terms they understand and accept.

• Providing accurate information to credit bureaus: The Bureau wants to make sure that information provided to the credit bureaus is accurate. The CFPB recently took an enforcement action against an auto finance company that distorted consumer credit records by inaccurately reporting information like the consumer’s payment history and delinquency status to credit bureaus. The CFPB is looking to prevent inaccurate information from being reported in the future.

• Treating consumers fairly when collecting debts: The Bureau wants to make sure that auto finance companies are not using illegal debt collection tactics. The Bureau has received complaints from consumers who say that their autos have been repossessed while they are current on the loan or have a payment arrangement in place. The Bureau also is looking to ensure that collectors are relying on accurate information and using legal processes when they collect on debts or repossess autos.

CFPB Proposes New Federal Oversight of Nonbank Auto Finance Companies [CFPB]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Apple: We Won’t Unlock Devices When The Police Ask, Because iOS 8 Doesn’t Let Us

(713 Avenue)

After nude photos of celebrities stolen off the iCloud showed up all over the Internet, Apple had a whole lot of egg on its face from customers worried about their own privacy. It seems the company is taking steps to counteract some of those concerns, at least so far as devices are involved, announcing last night that with the iOS 8 software update comes another layer of privacy: The company itself will no longer be able to unlock customers’ devices, even when served with a search warrant.

The company announced a new privacy policy last night in connection with the release of iOS 8, and also wrote on its website that even with a warrant in hand, law enforcement won’t be able to make Apple open up any device running the software, because only the customer’s passcode will unlock it.

As Apple explains it:

On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.

Eventually, only those devices incapable of running iOS 8 — which means any iPhones or iPads a few years old — will be able to be unlocked by Apple.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to the iCloud, from which Apple still has a legal responsibility to turn over certain user data if its served with the right paperwork from law enforcement. So if you don’t want your photos, videos, emails, music or anything else that could go to the iCloud accessed by the police, you’ll have to adjust your settings to keep that data from going to the cloud.

So while the Supreme Court says that police will most likely always need a search warrant to check out your phone or collect data from it, now Apple won’t have to comply with those requests based on the fact that it can’t do anything. Only you can.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

FCC Chair: Current Definition Of Broadband Isn’t Fast Enough

(frankieleon)

The FCC’s current definition of “broadband” Internet is 4Mbps downstream and only 1Mbps up. These were adequate speeds in a world where you occasionally watched a grainy YouTube video, but they don’t reflect the needs or uses of most consumers, and those benchmarks are only going to grow more irrelevant with each passing day. FCC Chair Tom Wheeler admitted as much to Congress yesterday.

“When a single HD video requires 5 Mbps of capacity, it’s clear that the FCC’s current benchmark for broadband – 4 Mbps– isn’t adequate,” wrote Wheeler in his prepared remarks before the House Committee on Small Business.

Earlier this summer, the FCC proposed that if broadband providers wish to receive Universal Service funds from the Commission — money raised through phone bill surcharges and disbursed to help deploy needed services — these companies would need to adopt 10Mbps downstream as the new benchmark.

“When 60% of the Internet’s traffic at prime time is video, and it takes 4 or 5Mbps to deliver video, a 4Mbps connection isn’t exactly what’s necessary in the 21st century,” Wheeler explained to the Committee. “And when you have half a dozen different devices, wireless and other connected devices in a home that are all going against that bandwidth, it’s not enough. What we are saying is we can’t make the mistake of spending the people’s money, which is what Universal Service is, to continue to subsidize something that’s subpar.”

Both AT&T and Verizon have come out against increasing the benchmark to 10Mbps, claiming it is a “casual, back-of-the-envelope calculation of bandwidth requirements of the highest-volume households that are simultaneously using multiple bandwidth-intensive applications.”

[via Ars Technica]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist