Fingerhut.com Uses Over-Inflated Retail Prices To Make Rent-To-Own Look Affordable

On its TV ads, Fingerhut.com shows people making peace with their “budget” alter-egos by doing their shopping on the website that allows you to make “low” monthly payments. But what the site doesn’t say is that not only do those payments add up to a lot more than the original price of what you’re buying, but that Fingerhut’s sticker prices are grossly inflated over the actual retail prices.

Just take a look at the three following examples that we picked at random from the many items for sale on Fingerhut.

1. Sanyo 58″ TV

On Fingerhut, this Sanyo LED TV (it’s finally revealed in the details far down the product page that the model is a Sanyo DP58D34) lists a $999.99 retail price, which has been discounted to $899.

At that price, a $59.99/month payment might seem like an affordable alternative, even though you’ll end up paying around $1,300 for the TV by the time you finish.

(FYI, This total cost info is not easy to figure out as it requires scrolling through column after column of microprint on this page, where you need to find the exact right retail price, shipping category and monthly payment before learning how many months the payments go on for and what the total cost for renting-to-own will be.)

But then you look on Amazon and see that you can buy the exact same TV for $610, down from an original price of $642:

And you can get an even better deal with $529 at Walmart.com, though this site claims the original retail price was $799:

Regardless of what the original retail price was, it doesn’t appear to have ever been $999, nor $899. And if you go the Fingerhut monthly payment route, you’ll end up paying more than twice what you would at either Walmart.com or Amazon.

If, instead of paying Fingerhut $60/month for nearly two years, you just put aside $60/month for 9-10 months, you’ll be able to pay for that TV in cash.

2. iPad Air (16GB WiFi)

Since there is some disagreement with the original MSRP on the Sanyo TV, let’s look at a product where we know both the original and current MSRP. This model of Apple’s iPad Air tablet originally sold for $499 and has since been dropped to $399. And yet, Fingerhut inexplicably gives the device an original retail price of $649.99, which has been discounted to $520, still much higher than this tablet was ever priced by Apple:

And at 19 months of $35/month payments, you’re doing to spend about as much as the inflated retail price that Fingerhut apparently conjured out of thin air.

Just to make sure that Apple hadn’t suddenly decided to raise the price on the device — and to check that it was still available — we looked at Apple.com, where you can readily buy this tablet for $399 or for 24 payments of $18.97 ($455.28)

And lest someone claims that maybe Fingerhut mislabeled this product and meant to say it was a newer iPaid Air 2, we checked the price and availability on that item. Once again, all looked okay, with the device selling for $499 or 24 payments of $23.72 ($569.28).

So you could finance the newest iPad Air 2 for about $100 less than what it would cost you to get an older model through Fingerhut.

And again, rather than paying $35/month to Fingerhut for 19 months, save that same amount of money for 10-11 months and buy it at the lower price in cash.

3. Sony PlayStation 4

And here’s a product where the retail price has not changed since its release (not including holiday sales and promotions). In the fall of 2013, the PS4 sold for $399.99 and it still officially sells for $399.99. So why is Fingerhut not only listing it at $529.99 but also calling it a “Best Value!”?

And after 20 payments of $34.99, you’re looking at paying around 170% of the retail price. If you saved that amount of money — just like the iPad Air example — you’d have enough to buy a PS4 with cash in 10-11 months.

The Bottom Line

We know that rent-to-own can be a really tempting proposition for people who want to buy something now but can’t afford to pay for it or lack the credit for a more affordable payment plan. But be warned that you are just throwing money down the drain and consigning yourself to further debt.

Last month, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey called on both the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take a closer look at the rapidly growing rent-to-own (RTO) industry.

“I am concerned about the threat that the continued growth of the RTO market poses to the financial stability of millions of Americans,” he wrote at the time. “It is essential that customers entering into RTO deals are aware of the risks involved.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Slides Off The Road, Crashes Into Pole In Pennsylvania

Although its human passengers are just fine, the bad news is that one of Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobiles is in rough shape after a crash in Pennsylvania. The good news? The company has more than one hot dog vehicle. Whew.

The 27-foot roving sausage slid off the road in some wintry conditions and crashed into a pole on the side of the road near Harrisburg, PA, reports KDKA.com, snarling traffic. Because really, who’s not going to rubberneck a crash involving a giant hot dog?

Oh no! The Oscar Mayer #WienerMobile was in an accident in Enola! No one hurt, but the wiener is in bad shape. http://ift.tt/1DhpuhM

— Jesse Knutson (@JesseKnutsonCBS) February 15, 2015

No injuries to the driver or anyone inside the truck were reported, but we’re gonna go ahead and guess that the vehicle will be off the road for the time being, as the windshield was smashed and there’s some major damage to the front bun fender.

We prefer it when the Wienermobile crashes weddings instead.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashes on snow-covered Pennsylvania roads [Fox2Now]

No Bologna! Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Crashes Near Harrisburg [KDKA]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Forbes Now Including Advertiser-Created Content On Front Cover Of Magazine

If you can take your eyes away from the dreamy visage of Shervin Pishevar for a second, you’ll notice that little black box on the right hand side touting content paid for by Fidelity without disclosing that it’s actually an ad.

If you thought the demon who goes by many names — native advertising, advertorials, sponsored stories, promoted content, utter bullsh*t — was something that was relegated to the Internet, then go check out the new issue of Forbes, which not only comes complete with some of this bought-and-paid-for crap, but which actually lists it on the front cover of the magazine like it’s just another story.

See that box on the right hand side of the cover — The one says that “Fidelity Voice: Revving Up Your Retirement”? AdAge reports that this is nothing but a teaser for a story-length ad paid for by Fidelity.

“We view this as strong content that’s part of the retirement package,” explains Forbes Media’s chief revenue officer.

You’ll notice that this comment isn’t coming from the magazine’s editorial staff, though the revenue guy swears that Forbes Chief Product Officer Lewis D’Vorkin wrote the amazing cover copy for the Fidelity box.

“Lewis deemed it was appropriate for Fidelity to be called out on the cover just like any other great piece of content would be,” explained the guy in charge of revenue who should not be the one explaining why something is on the cover of a nearly 100-year-old magazine.

Again, you’ll notice that Forbes’ justification of this nonsense jumps from the Mr. Revenue all the way up to Mr. Chief Product without mentioning the magazine’s actual editor, Randall Lane.

Revenue Dude doesn’t see how anyone could be misled into thinking this story called out on the front cover of an established and respected magazine was something other than an ad for a financial institution.

“When you look at the color scheme and the box, it’s separated, it has a different background,” he explained, somehow managing to not burst into flames or be struck by lightning. “For readers of Forbes, they’ve known for four years that when you see FidelityVoice that that is content that’s coming from one of our partners.”

He sadly sums up the decision to put the sponsored content on the cover of Forbes as “the evolution of where we’ve come from and where we are in today’s world.”

So Forbes’ new slogan is apparently, “Aw screw it. Let’s make some money now before the entire magazine industry goes under.”

Regrettably, Mr. Revenue is accurate in stating that this is the ad-filled world within which we all live. In addition to the increasing use of native advertising, some publishers — most notably Conde Nast — have created entire departments to help advertisers craft top-dollar sponsored content that will get their talking points to readers in a way that best masks the distinctive stink of advertising.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Report: Gang Of Criminals Hacking Bank ATMs Has Stolen Up To $1B

(Todd Kravos)

Some of the world’s banks likely had a crummy Valentine’s Day after a new report from a computer-security firm came out this weekend, saying that a group of criminals has stolen millions of dollars since late 2013 from financial institutions in Russia, Eastern Europe and the United States. And it doesn’t seem like they’re done yet.

A report from Russian computer-security firm Kaspersky Lab Zao outlines the ways in which the cyber criminals were able to hack into ATMs so that they would spew out cash for criminals and move funds around between accounts without anyone being any the wiser, reports the Wall Street Journal.

People familiar with the briefings told the WSJ that some financial-services executives in the U.S. have been briefed on the report, as well as government officials. Kaspersky filled in a computer-security trade group for U.S. banks on his findings, but that group didn’t immediately raise its threat level, an insider told the WSJ.

The report details how the thieves would capture video of what bank workers were viewing on their computer screens at work, and then learned from there how to copy how employees access the banks’ systems. The criminals would then hack into the computers that control ATMs and basically make them do their bidding.

The security group estimates that all told, hackers were able to steal $1 billion since late 2013, many times exploiting weaknesses in Microsoft software for ATMs. While Microsoft issued patches for those holes, if a company didn’t update their software, that provided an easier way in for the hackers.

Where the hackers are is another question, as there are servers based in China that they’re using while some Web domains are registered to Chinese nationals — which are all things that have been faked in the past.

It’s unclear which banks were hit, or how many, though the report says it could be as many as 100 financial institutions. The report indicates that most of the banks that were hit appear to be in Russia, with 178 targeted IP addresses coming from that country and 37 linked to the U.S. Those numbers don’t necessarily correlate to the number of banks hit or indicate separate institutions.

While Kaspersky’s findings say there doesn’t seem to be any sign that the hackers are done with bank-robbing, the good(ish) news for customers is that it seems the attacks are targeting the banks themselves rather than their customers and their account information, Kaspersky principal researcher Vicente Dias told the Associated Press.

Basically, they’re in it for the dough.

“In this case they are not interested in information. They’re only interested in the money,” he said. “They’re flexible and quite aggressive and use any tool they find useful for doing whatever they want to do.”

New Report Says Computer Criminals Stole Millions From Banks [Wall Street Journal]

Hackers steal up to $1 billion from banks, security co. says [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

When Pizza Hut Loses Your Order, Don’t Drive Your Car Into The Building

Here’s the latest from the To-Go Food Overreaction File: Police in New York arrested a woman yesterday for smashing her car into a Pizza Hut after the eatery reportedly lost her order.

The Lower Hudson News reports that the Pizza Hut in New Rochelle, NY, was the victim of a hit and run after an angry customer backed her Volkswagen Jetta into the building and then drove off.

Witnesses on the scene gave reporters different explanations for what had set the customer off, but according to News 12 Westchester, police say the driver was upset because she’d placed an order online only to arrive at the Hut and find no pie waiting for her.

The woman drove off after the crash, which cracked the glass of the Hut’s doors, but police were able to locate her and put her under arrest.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Alaska Airlines Flight Delayed After Passenger Is Stung By A Scorpion

(zonaphoto)

Now that we’ve all finally gotten over the nightmarish scenario of snakes taking over a plane (well, we’re almost over it) there’s a new terror in the skies to occupy that spot in our fears: An Alaska Airlines passenger was stung by a scorpion aboard a flight to Portland, OR from Los Angeles just before the plane was set to take off.

The flight was taxiing on the runway on Saturday night when the woman was stung, an airlines spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press.

The plane went back to the gate after she was stung, where she was checked out by medics. She refused any more medical treatment but didn’t get back on the plane. Because you know, sometimes after you’ve been stung by a scorpion on a plane, you’d rather not go back to that place.

In the meantime, flight attendants killed the scorpion and checked the overhead bins for any other stowaways. The spokesman said it’s unclear how the arachnid hitched a ride, but the flight came from Los Cabos, Mexico.

The flight was delayed about an hour, and happened to be carrying Oregon State University men’s basketball team. Their coach was sitting two rows behind the stung passenger.

“The plane was coming from Mexico before us, and (the scorpion) was on the plane,” Coach Wayne Tinkle told ESPN. “The woman was a real champ. She acted like it was a mosquito bite. They got it off her, but the needle was stuck.”

Yup. Scorpions on a plane have now become the new aviation nightmare.

Woman stung by scorpion on Alaska Airlines plane headed to Portland [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Comcast Doesn’t Want To Improve Its ‘Internet Essentials’ Program For Low-Income Consumers

With Comcast’s $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable nearing the finish line, you’d think the company would be willing to do something as insignificant as make promises to improve its broadband program for low-income users. You’d be wrong.

As part of its deal to acquire NBC Universal back in 2011, Comcast convinced regulators that it would create a broadband program for lower-income Americans to help them get online in a world where Internet access is increasingly important.

Since that program, dubbed Internet Essentials, launched, it’s been criticized by consumer advocates as little more than window-dressing that erects up too many barriers to entry and provides too few benefits for subscribers.

Late last week, an administrative judge for the California Public Utility Commission issued a proposed approval [PDF] of the merger in the state, but brought up concerns about some possible issues — including Internet Essentials — that should be hammered out before the deal is done.

“We are… persuaded by evidence of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program’s weak performance in closing the digital divide in California and fulfilling universal service goals,” reads the report, “and thus do not view it as a mitigating factor without additional conditions.”

CPUC points out that Comcast has committed to offer Essentials to qualifying customers it acquires from TWC, but notes that the company “has made no promises regarding expanded IE eligibility, concrete enrollment goals for IE, faster download and upload speeds for IE recipients, continued provision of standalone broadband Internet access at reasonable rates, or the construction of additional Internet access points in underserved communities.”

The report makes some recommendations to mitigate Essentials-related problems. Not only does CPUC want Comcast to extend the existing service to qualifying California consumers, but also to increase the minimum broadband speed to 10Mbps downstream, twice the current rate for Essentials; but still far below the 25Mbps definition recently adopted by the FCC.

The commission also asks for Comcast to provide Essentials customers with a wireless router free of cost, which only makes sense since Comcast uses company-supplied routers to create public WiFi hotspots.

Those are easy. It’s the next bunch of recommendations that likely ruffled the peacock feathers at Kabletown HQ.

The report asks Comcast to revise the eligibility for Essentials so that it includes all households in its service territory “having household incomes equal to 150% of the federal poverty level or less.”

Currently, Comcast only offers Essentials to households with at least one child enrolled in the school lunch program. Critics have noted that this omits elderly, the childless, and adults with grown children who are no less harmed by not being able to access the Internet.

Another suggestion that undoubtedly irked Comcast is the proposed requirement that Comcast “enroll at least 45% of eligible households in Internet Essentials within two years of the effective date of the parent company merger.”

See, Comcast has loved making a big show about launching Internet Essentials programs in various cities; it’s not unheard of to see some Comcast bigwig shaking the hands of a mayor or city council leader when touting how great Essentials will be.

But compelling the company to actually go out there and openly alert consumers to the availability of Essentials means Comcast would have to spend money on more than a small-scale press event.

In his response to the mixed news from CPUC, Comcast’s Merger Whisperer, Exec. VP David Cohen acknowledges that “a number of the conditions” recommended by the Commission “are ones that will benefit consumers and the company can work with.”

However, warns Cohen, some of the conditions “could potentially prevent the full benefits of this transaction being realized by Californians, and create a more intrusive regulatory regime where innovative services could be hampered rather than helped.”

Read: They are things we don’t wanna do.

Interestingly enough, the only example he calls out involves Essentials.

“[T]he penetration rates and time frames suggested by the conditions are simply unattainable under market conditions, especially with populations that have been slowest to adopt broadband,” argues Cohen, ignoring the reason that maybe these people haven’t adopted broadband is because it costs too much.

He doesn’t seem to believe that it’s possible to attain the 45% penetration rate (even though CPUC offers a way for Comcast to reach a lower level of Essentials adoption).

“Nationally, across our footprint though we only have a penetration rate of 40% of homes we pass taking our broadband service. In California, it’s about the same,” he writes. “And that’s after we’ve spent billions marketing and advertising those services.”

Maybe Comcast shouldn’t have spent billions in advertising, especially since, as it has repeatedly pointed out in the last year, it has no competition from other pay-TV providers in most of its markets.

And perhaps people have been avoiding signing up for Comcast broadband service because they read stories about horrendous customer service and then how customers are labeled things like “A**shole” and “dummy” on their cable bills — or fired from their jobs — when they complain.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Meet The New Marlboro Spokesman: Jeff, The Diseased Lung In A Cowboy Hat

On the Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver took an in-depth look at how the tobacco industry uses expensive lawsuits and byzantine international trade agreements to keep countries from pushing for stronger regulation on cigarettes. But rather than just call Big Tobacco out for its bad behavior, Oliver also offered a helpful solution that might make all sides happy.

See, the big problem is that while a growing number of countries want to force larger and more graphic warnings on cigarette packaging, the tobacco industry has fought back in court.

Here in the U.S., where the percentage of smokers has dropped from around 42% to 18% in the last 50 years, Big Tobacco took its fight against proposed warning labels all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And even when a country does successfully beat the industry, Big Tobacco finds another way to sue. Oliver points to the way in which Philip Morris International recently shifted control of its Australian cigarette operations to Hong Kong-based Philip Morris Asia. Then, about nine months later, PM Asia sued the Australian government through an international court, saying the government’s plan to force all cigarettes into plain non-branded packaging violated and decades-old trade agreement with Hong Kong.

Additionally, the tobacco industry used its leverage to nudge other countries to file complaints with the World Trade Organization against Australia, claiming that the new packaging rules would hurt their tobacco exports to Australia — even though at least one of those countries, Ukraine, exports no tobacco to Australia to begin with.

“Ukraine is inserting themselves into something they have nothing to do with,” says Oliver. “They’re taking the Kanye West approach to international trade disputes.”

And it’s even easier to pick on the smaller countries that try to regulate tobacco, like Uruguay, which had to seek outside funding from the World Health Organization and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pay for its legal battle with Big Tobacco.

“On the scale of how sh*tty that has got to be, that’s barely higher than borrowing money from your ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend’s stepdad,” explains Oliver.

When one of the world’s poorest countries, the African nation of Togo, attempted to add graphic images to cigarette boxes as an additional warning for the country’s substantial illiterate population, PMI threatened the country with an “incalculable amount of international trade litigation.”

In a letter to the Togo government, PMI cited a High Court of Australia decision, claiming that it concluded “that plain packaging constitutes a substantial privation of property rights.”

But there’s one huge omission from that statement — it fails to mention that this was not the conclusion of the majority of the court, but of the lone dissenting justice in the case.

In fact, the justices in the case cited by PMI had labeled the tobacco industry arguments as “delusive” and “unreal and synthetic,” and compelled the plaintiff tobacco companies to pay some of the Australian government’s legal costs.

“This letter is bullsh*t,” says Oliver. “And yet Togo, justifiably terrified by threats of billion-dollar settlements, back down from a public health law that many wanted.”

The list goes on and on, with other countries like the Solomon Islands facing similar threats from tobacco companies for daring to consider tougher regulations.

“At this point it’s safe to say that it you live in an apartment with at least two other people and ask one of them to please smoke outside, you can look forward to a letter from a tobacco company very soon,” jokes Oliver.

“It’s clear what each side wants,” he continues. “Countries want to warn their citizens about the health dangers of smoking tobacco. Tobacco companies want to be able to present branded images that they have spent time and money to cultivate.”

And so he suggests a brilliant compromise — “The new face of Marlboro: Jeff the Diseased Lung in a Cowboy Hat.”

“We are offering Jeff to you Philip Morris, to use as you wish,” Oliver explains. “He’s already out there. You just need to claim him. Our lawyers, unlike yours, will not sue!”

In fact, the Last Week Tonight crew got a head start on Jeff’s public awareness campaign by putting him on a bus stop billboard in Montevideo, Uruguay:

And by putting his lovable lung-face on some T-shirts that the show already sent out to Togo:

Oliver is calling for public support to help get Jeff’s face out there with the #jeffwecan hashtag on Twitter and by suggesting that maybe if people upload images of Jeff to Google+ and tag him with “Marlboro,” it might push dear old Jeff to the top of the Google image search results for the cigarette brand.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

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Informe Horizon 2015: tendencias

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