Grocery Shoppers Ignore Stabbing Victim’s Blood, Just Want Their Milk

(AJ Brujstein)

The grocery shoppers of Philadelphia are a determined bunch. Well, that, or they really want some cereal. Police say that after a stabbing at a Pathmark supermarket yesterday evening, customers weren’t really fazed. Mostly, they were annoyed that they couldn’t get to the dairy case. Unobservant shoppers walked and pushed their carts through the puddle of blood.

To be fair, a puddle of blood in a grocery store that features a meat department isn’t completely unthinkable, but it isn’t something that I would want on my shoes, either. Did they think it was tomato juice? Did they actually not see the blood? Did they think it was fluid that had leaked from a very large steak? The more I think about this, the more it bothers me.

The stabbing itself was nothing unusual: the two men involved had a pre-existing dispute. Police found a kitchen knife in the store, and later arrested a suspect. The victim survived, and is in critical but stable condition at a nearby hospital. However, the shoppers of Northeast Philadelphia really do not let a little thing like a stabbing and the presence of police to get between them and their dairy products.

“Some people actually asked the police if they could reach on the shelf and grab some dairy products that were where most of the blood was, [because] we had that area cornered off,” one officer explained to TV station WTXF.

Bonus points for pragmatism, we suppose: why should someone have to go to a whole different store when the item they need is right there, on the other side of the crime scene tape?

1 Injured In Stabbing Inside Northeast Philadelphia Pathmark [WTXF]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Neiman Marcus Fantasy Gift List Features $425K Trip To The Oscars (Well, An Oscars Party)

(estheregg)

You’ve been staring at that pile of money in your money room forever, it feels like, and George Clooney simply refuses to answer your calls. What’s someone with a hefty lump of cash supposed to buy for the loved one who has everything? If you’ve got $425,000 to spare, you could give the gift of a trip to the Oscars from Neiman Marcus. Or at least, you can get in the vicinity of the Oscars and play dress-up.

Every year, Neiman Marcus releases its holiday gift book featuring 10 fantasy gifts, which are things that are actually for sale but will likely never bought by the likes of you or me in our lifetimes.

The $425,000 Oscars package is actually more like a trip to Hollywood with a hotel suite in Beverly Hills, free food, a personal stylist, loaner jewelry and a gift card to — where else? — Neiman Marcus for each of two guests before you head off to the Vanity Fair after party.

It’s just perfect “for someone who wants to live the celebrity life but hasn’t had the opportunity to,” the company’s VP of corporate communications tells the Dallas Morning News.

Also on the list of things that will never be in your possession: Designing a personal fragrance with a master perfumer in Paris and having it bottled in 14-karat gold bottles for $475,000, a $35,000 cocktail shaker that ostensibly pours cocktails mixed from the fountain of youth, a $300,000 custom mini race track and $55,000 worth of linens.

In other news, looks like I’ll be hand-making Christmas ornaments sourced from the discount bin at the craft store again this year.

Neiman Marcus’ wild fantasy gifts this Christmas include $475K perfume, $300K toy race track [Dallas Morning News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Percentage Of Rich Kids Needing Student Loans Has Doubled Since 1992

The percentage of students from affluent families that leave college with student loan debt more than doubled in the past 20 years.

At one time, prospective college students from affluent families could count on having their tuition paid for by their parents or college savings accounts. But times have changed and now even students from the highest income brackets are borrowing to finance their high education dreams.

A new Pew Research Center analysis [PDF] of National Postsecondary Student Aid found that the share of college graduates from high-income families who took out student loans to pay tuition has more than doubled in the last two decades.

Nearly 50% of 2012 high-income graduates – those with a parental income of $125,700 or more – left college with student loans. The figure represents a staggering increase from just 20 years ago when just 24% of students in the same income level graduated with loans.

The report only examined loans taken out by students, not those taken by parents.

An increase in borrowing was also fairly significant for students in the upper-middle class with 34% borrowing in the 1992-93 school year and 62% borrowing for the 2011-12 school year.

While borrowing may have increased for more affluent students, those in lower-middle and low-income families continue to borrow the most, Pew found.

Nearly 70% of students in the lower-middle class graduated with student loan debt in 2012, while 77% of students in the low-income class graduated with debt.

While those numbers represent a staggering amount of debt, it has been a more modest increase over the past 20 years. In 1993, 45% of low-middle income student graduated with debt, while 67% of low-income students left college with student loans.

So what exactly has caused such a monumental increase in the number of well-off students borrowing for college? Pew reports there could be several factors including the fact that the Great Recession deteriorated a large amount of household wealth and recent policy changes that have expanded the eligibility for federal loan program borrowers.

With student loan debt well over $1 trillion dollars, it’s no surprise that the average amount of debt students leave college with had doubled since 1993.

With more students of every income class borrowing to pay for college, it should come as no surprise that the amount of debt students graduate with is at an all-time high.

The study found that among graduates of the class of 2012, the typical borrower owed about $26,900 in student deb. That amount is roughly double the what was owed by the typical borrower in the class of 1993 – $12,400.

The Pew report’s author, Richard Fry, says the new analysis sheds additional light on a correlation between income levels and student loan borrowers with low credit scores.

“At least among those completing a bachelor’s degree, however, student borrowers are not increasingly from less affluent circumstances,” he reports in the study. “The decline in the credit quality of student borrowers may not be due to a change in the economic profile of student borrowers.”

The Changing Profile Of Student Borrowers [Pew Research Center]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Hal The Sweating Nike Mannequin Exercises All Day Testing Clothes On The Walk To Nowhere

(Brian Sozzi on Vine)

The next time you’re running miles upon miles without sliding around in a pool of perspiration, you might want to offer up a quick breath of thanks for the people who make the kind of moisture-wicking clothes you’re wearing. Although Nike’s case, you’ll want to thank Hal, the sweating mannequin.

While poor Hal has to go through the slog of working out all day on a treadmill, he doesn’t get that rush of adrenaline a human does, and his walk is never over. Nope — Nike’s copper man live in its sports research lab at company HQ in Beaverton, Ore., and his main function is just to sweat while wearing new moisture-wicking materials.

The Street got a peek at Hal and other ways Nike tests its athletic clothing at an event that recreated the Nike Sports Research Lab in New York City this week.

Hal has 139 ports that simulate sweating, and he helps keep costs down as “human testing is expensive,” a Nike spokesperson pointed out. Here’s Hal doing his thing, as seen in a Vine by Brian Sozzi of The Street:

He’ll also be used to help Nike develop a material that prevents rubbing and chafing, an experience that anyone with any amount of body fat will tell you is just the worst.

Other product testing at the lab involve live athletes working out in clothing to see how it helps or hinders performance.

Cheer up, Hal. You might not ever get anywhere despite all that walking, but at least everyone knows your name now, unlike nameless live athlete up there.

Inside Nike’s Sports Research Lab: A ‘Sweating’ Mannequin Named Hal [The Street]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

The Grocery Shrink Ray: Quietly Stealing Our Food For Decades

The Grocery Shrink Ray is what we call it when the manufacturers of food and consumer goods make their products smaller––sometimes almost imperceptibly smaller––rather than raise prices. You know what it looks like: it’s why your toilet paper doesn’t quite fill the holder anymore, and why you don’t get as many servings of hot chocolate as you used to. We know that it’s been in action for decades, but is there proof? Yes: one need only turn to collectors of consumer ephemera like boxes and cans.

There are a surprising number of vintage food packaging and ad collectors out there, and one of them is one of the generous and talented frequent contributors to the Consumerist Flickr pool that we use to illustrate many of our posts. Bluwmongoose has provided us with quality vintage artwork for years now, and we decided to check on the current sizes on some cool pieces from her collection that had been submitted to the pool.

Our first example comes from the vegetable aisle. It’s not clear when this can of Libby’s creamed corn was sold, but the label has a very ’70s look. The can is 16.5 ounces.

In addition to losing two of the iterations of “Libby’s” on the label, the same product has lost 1.75 ounces over the years. Here’s the contemporary version for sale at Walmart:

It’s only 14.75 ounces. As far as I’m concerned, cream corn is an evil and vile food and the less of it there is in the world the better. That could also be my 6-year-old self talking about my parents’ love of bowls of the stuff served plain and cold.

How about elsewhere in the canned food aisle? Hunt’s pasta sauces are a staple for many consumers. Similar products across brands tend to shrink to the same size over time, and we know that competitor Del Monte shrank their cans a little bit earlier this year. Even when we can’t find original cans or cardboard packaging, the evidence of a product’s former size remains in classic recipes. For example, this recipe for Hunt’s from 1989 calls for one can of sauce. How big is that can?

If you look for recipes from food manufacturers today, the evidence shows something different. Here’s a recipe for a Beefy Ziti Skillet that also calls for a can of Hunt’s pasta sauce.

That can is 24 ounces, just like the Del Monte example from February.

Or how about some nice shelled walnuts? Here’s a nice vintage can. Surely as a “pound” of coffee or other nuts have lost a few ounces over the years, so have walnuts. Right?

Nope! I have almost the same exact can on my counter right now, but here’s the same pound of nuts available at Walmart in the same full pound. A bag is easier to transport and store than a can, but the whole 16 ounces is there in either type of packaging.

Sometimes the changes were not what we expected. For example, back in the ’80s, Pop-Tarts came in boxes of six. Here’s a box from 1983:

Today, the standard smallest box you can find on the shelf is a box of 8.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Family Upset At Lack Of Answers After Dog Dies At PetSmart Hotel

The death of a beloved pet is a horrible experience. It’s even more heart-rending when that pet dies while in the care of someone else while you’re away. So it’s not surprising that a Texas couple is upset that they couldn’t get information about what may have caused their 3-year-old dog to pass away while staying at a PetSmart Hotel.

The couple tells CBS Dallas/Fort Worth that they had boarded their pair of miniature poodles, Max and Rex, at a PetSmart Hotel operation in the area while they were out of town on a cruise.

Only a few days into their vacation, PetSmart began contacting them with worrying updates about Max.

“They said he threw up clear bile,” recalls the couple. “They watched him through the day and then sometime during the night he passed away.”

The couple say that Max had a clean bill of health before being left at the PetSmart, and they have been trying to get an explanation from the company as to what happened.

But they tell CBS that the store won’t have over any documentation or provide any answers.

When reporters got involved, employees at the PetSmart said they needed to contact company HQ in Arizona for comment.

“We care greatly about the health and safety of the pets entrusted in our care, and we are truly saddened by the loss of Max in our PetsHotel,” reads a statement from the company. “This incident is still under investigation, and at this time, we’re waiting on test results and will work with the pet parent to convey those results.”

The couple were then able to get the results of an autopsy commissioned by PetSmart, but were saddened to find that the results were inconclusive.

PetSmart is now telling the couple that more tests are needed to determine the cause of Max’s death.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Man Desperate To Sell Home Will Accept An iPhone 6 For It

(iDiapo)

With a house languishing on the market in Detroit, one homeowner who claims he paid way too much in 2010 — $41,000 — is so desperate to unload the property, he’s willing to give it up for a song. Let me clarify: This “song” comes in a white box and makes phone calls, connects to the Internet… Okay, it’s an iPhone 6, and that’s all he’s asking for.

The three-bedroom home in a Detroit neighborhood the real estate broker calls “a little dicey” has no front door and broken windows, reports ABC News. The homeowner, who lives in Austria, has never been to Detroit and claims he was tricked back in 2010 into thinking he’d make a quick profit on the home, which the previous owner bought a few weeks before him for only $10,000, he says.

“This house is really not worth much at all,” the broker explained.

With $6,000 in back taxes attached to the house, any buyer would have to take on that debt and arrange to pay what’s owed, after trading the owner an iPhone 6.

He’s gotten a few hours from his pitch so far, though it’s not clear how many are actually serious buyers. One prospective buyer is “interested in the house for the wood,” the broker said, while another was only willing to hand over an iPhone 5.

Man Tries to Trade Decrepit Detroit House for New iPhone [ABC News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Former Employer Of Man Fired For Complaining To Comcast Speaks Out (But Doesn’t Say Much)

Knight725

Earlier this week, we brought you the story of Conal, the former Comcast customer who says he was fired from his job at one of the nation’s biggest accounting firms after the cable company called his employer. Now that firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, is speaking out about the situation.

In a statement to Ars Technica, a rep for PwC explains that the company “terminated [Conal's] employment after an internal investigation concluded that Mr. O’Rourke violated PwC’s ethical standards and practices, applicable to all of our people. The firm has explicit policies regarding employee conduct, we train our people in those policies, and we enforce them. Mr. O’Rourke’s violation of these policies was the sole reason for his termination.”

What continues to trouble us about this story is that neither Comcast nor PwC is providing specifics of what Conal allegedly said that was worthy of losing his job.

If Comcast has no issue with contacting a customer’s employer following an allegedly unpleasant complaint call, then surely it would be willing to at least provide the audio recording it claims to have of that call.

Failing that, a transcript would do, or even a detailed paraphrasing.

There is also the question of the e-mail that Comcast sent to PwC detailing the call. Neither company will say what is contained in that message.

Conal maintains that he did not mention PriceWaterhouseCoopers during the call and that he did not try to leverage PwC’s business connection to Comcast to get a desirable result.

I have been told by several servers in high-end restaurants here in Philadelphia that certain top Comcast executives can be incredibly rude and demanding, and that a number of them have used the “Don’t you know who I am?” card to get better service or get a table.

Maybe some of those servers and hosts should call up Comcast HR and try to get these execs fired?

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Is Whole Foods Still Overcharging California Customers?

According to Michael, he was charged $.71 plus tax for this empty container at an L.A.-area Whole Foods.

Only a few months ago, Whole Foods agreed to pay $800,000 to close a one-year probe by prosecutors in three different Southern California cities into allegations that the pricey supermarket was overcharging customers even more by, among other things, failing to deduct the weight of containers when ringing up charges for self-serve foods. Whole Foods promised to stop the practice and right its wrongs, but one Consumerist reader believes the company isn’t doing what it’s supposed to.

Michael recently went to a Whole Foods in Los Angeles County and bought a bunch of items from the hot food and salad bars. In his rush to get in and get out, neither he nor the cashier noticed that one of the seven opaque paperboard containers he brought to the checkout was still empty.

Of course he did realize this when he got back from the store, when he not only noticed the empty container, but that he had been charged $.71 plus tax for the purchase:

At $.71 each for just the container, Whole Foods made $4.26 (not including the accidental empty), and he was charged sales tax on all but two of these.

The receipt states the one container weighed .11 lbs, which seems to be in line with the empty weight of some similar box/lid combinations we found available from wholesalers.

At $6.49/pound, that comes out to $.71. If that’s true, then even if Michael hadn’t accidentally brought the empty container to checkout, he’d have still been charged around $4.26 (plus tax) for the others that he remembered to put food in.

And he’s lucky that he just happened to go on a Wednesday, when the hot food bar price was reduced from its usual $8.49/lb. At that higher price, he’d have been charged around $.93 plus tax for these containers.

We reached out to the office of L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer, who investigated the Whole Foods allegations with the City Attorneys for San Diego and Santa Monica.

A rep for Feuer confirmed that the injunction against overcharging is statewide in California, and any consumer who believes they have been overcharged should file a complaint with either the California Division of Measurement Standards, or the local weights and measures officials in their county.

The state office has this list of links to each county’s relevant department.

In Michael’s case, he would want to file a complaint with the L.A. County Commissioner of Weights and Measures.

We also contacted reps for Whole Foods’ regional and national office but have not received any reply as of this morning.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

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