UPS Loses Wedding Rings, Pretends They Were Held By Customs For 6 Weeks

(Zsolt Székely)

A few weeks ago, reader Melissa got married. Congratulations, Melissa! Only she and her now-husband had to celebrate their marriage without the nerdy custom wedding rings that they had ordered from a jeweler in Canada. At first, UPS told the couple that their package was being held at customs and would be on its way soon. Then they lost it. Or it had been lost all along.

Now, in theory, it doesn’t matter whether this package was a pair of wedding rings for a ceremony just a few weeks away, a bunch of crumpled-up newspaper and some floppy disks, or a $12,000 nitrogen calibration system: all packages deserve equal dignity. They paid for three-day shipping from Ontario to Tennessee, and they didn’t get what they paid for. However, a wedding does make their story extra sympathetic. Also, their rings came from a popular jeweler who has a lot of experience shipping internationally. He says that he has never experienced anything like this with UPS before.

Melissa did some research on how a customs hold is really supposed to work, and learned that normally the government actually tells the courier why their items are being held, and doesn’t just keep them indefinitely. UPS maintained that they couldn’t do anything more until 30 days after Melissa requested the investigation.

Here’s what the UPS tracking info for the rings looked like:

Earlier this week, UPS gave us their final verdict: they have no idea where the package is. “The customer has been advised that the package appears to be lost, and has been referred to the shipper to discuss the matter further,” a representative told Consumerist. Well, okay, so why has there been an imaginary customs hold on it for six weeks?

In her first e-mail to us, Melissa summed up the runaround she was getting pretty well.

We also were unable to have our rings in our wedding pics, which was heartbreaking, and while I’m not a cliche bridezilla, I was beyond excited to find these gorgeous super nerdy triforce rings, and the frustration of not having them as a new bride and the run around and change of story from UPS has been the cause of more tears than I would care to admit.

Even after that, UPS continued to tell her and the jeweler different things.

He has very generously offered to make new rings if the original package has really gone missing, but he tells Consumerist that he is currently checking with UPS in Canada to find out whether it will be possible to get the original rings back. If there really is an issue with importing them (clearly, the United States government fears the power of the Triforce) then he should get them back, and he could find another way to get the rings to Melissa.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Halloween en Estados Unidos #infografia #infographic

Hola:

Una infografía sobre Halloween en Estados Unidos.

Un saludo

You will find more statistics at Statista

Archivado en: Economía, Infografía Tagged: Economía, Infografía



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La evolución de Halloween en el Mundo #infografia #infographic

Hola:

Una infografía con La evolución de Halloween en el Mundo. Vía

Un saludo

La evolución de Halloween en el Mundo

Archivado en: Economía, Infografía Tagged: Economía, Infografía



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Ese olor , ese color y ese calor de los melocotones y ese tirarse al río ...ven transcurrir diez años de...

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Dollar General Extends Deadline For Family Dollar Offer, Hopes Shareholders Finally Give In To Advances

(Mark Clifton)

The drama that is the dollar store wars doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon, with Dollar General extending the life of its latest deal to buy Family Dollar out from under Dollar Tree.

Reuters reports that Dollar General extended its tender offer for shares of Family Dollar to December 31 in order to keep the deal viable until a shareholders meeting.

As of October 30, the day before the original deal was set to expire, Dollar General had only received offers for about 4 million Family Dollar shares of the total 114 million shares currently outstanding.

Industry analysts tell Reuters that Dollar General’s decision to extend the offer deadline was made in order to give Family Dollar shareholders time to make a decision after a mid-December meeting.

The No. 1 dollar store turned hostile and took its pursuit for the smaller dollar store straight to shareholders back in September.

The sordid dollar store love triangle began back in July when Dollar Tree made an $8.5 billion bid for North Carolina-based Family Dollar. Not one to feel left out, Dollar General proceeded to provide an unsolicited bid of $8.95 billion for the smaller chain.

But Family Dollar wasn’t feeling the love and rejected the offer citing “significant antitrust issues” because the two chains have similar business models. Both Dollar General and Family Dollar sell items at different dollar price points, catering to low-income shoppers, while Dollar Tree caters to more middle-income shoppers and sells most items at $1.

Dollar General came back with a second bid of $9.1 billion and in an attempt to ease Family Dollars’ anti-trust review fears it proposed closing 1,500 of the potentially combined companies 20,000 stores.

Yet, that still wasn’t enough and Family Dollar rejected the bid, choosing instead to stay with its true love, Dollar Tree.

Dollar General extends tender offer for Family Dollar shares again [Reuters]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Study: Broadband Still Slower, More Expensive In U.S. Than In Europe, Asia

(Tom Richardson)

American consumers have gotten a mixed bag of broadband news this year. Between mergers and net neutrality it’s been a rough twelve months, even while some consumers have seen better connections and dropping prices. But the news for most of us is the same as ever: on the whole, Americans pay more, for worse broadband service, than our peers in the rest of the world.

The Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation conducts a study every year comparing broadband speeds and prices nation- and world-wide. This year’s, which they released this week, is the third annual study.

Last year’s report found that Americans were paying more for broadband access than our counterparts abroad, and getting worse service for it.

This year’s data paint a similar picture. Overall, our national average broadband speeds are still lower, and our prices higher, than what customers in similarly-sized cities in Europe and Asia get.

That’s not to say that all consumers in the U.S. are chugging along with terrible connections, though. In fact, the seven top-ranking cities, all tied at first place with symmetrical gigabit connections, include three cities in Asia and four in the U.S. Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo are tied for first place along with Chattanooga, TN; Kansas City, KS; Kansas City, MO; and Lafayette, LA.

If that list of cities sounds familiar, it’s because Chattanooga is the country’s go-to example of just how great municipal broadband can be, and the Kansas City area is where Google Fiber first launched. Lafayette also has a well-regarded public fiber utility.

But in larger cities, where only big incumbent ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable operate, the picture is more dire. Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC all tie for 12th place on the list, with fiber connections of 500 Mbps. San Francisco, America’s high-tech hotbed, comes in near the bottom of the list with top speeds of 200 Mbps, just 20% of what consumers in Chattanooga can get.

American users aren’t just seeing slower service, though; even though prices have dropped since last year, we’re still paying significantly more for every gigabyte we get. Gigabit service in Chattanooga and Kansas City runs $70 per month, and in Lafayette it’s about $110. As compared to last year’s $1000 monthly fee, that’s great. But customers in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo — all cities with a high cost of living — are all paying between $30 and $40 USD for their connections.

Meanwhile, those 500 Mbps connections in New York and L.A. — literally half as fast — will run a subscriber a whopping $300 per month. American consumers are also paying more in other ways, for example, with high monthly modem rental fees.

So what’s keeping American broadband down? There seem to be two key factors: one, broadband is a government-sponsored or -subsidized utility in many other parts of the world.

Public or public/private partnerships for broadband are often very successful in the United States, as Lafayette, Chattanooga, and Kansas City show. But they’re very, very hard to get started. Not only do new ventures face logistical and financial hurdles, but also legal ones. Incumbent ISPs, especially AT&T, have successfully sponsored or lobbied for state level laws that prohibit the construction or expansion of municipal broadband projects.

The other major factor is related, and it’s competition. Or, more specifically, the complete lack of it. In most U.S. cities, customers seeking high-speed internet don’t really have a choice of what provider to go with. For connections faster than 25 Mbps, over 80% of us can go with, at most, one provider.

Big telecom companies are nominally expanding their gigabit fiber networks, but they aren’t there yet and it will be a long, slow slog before they are. And without competition, they aren’t really motivated to. Incumbent ISPs are more likely to pretend everything is great and rigging the rules in their favor than they are actually to spend the time and money it takes to make wide-scale change.

OTI has made their full data set available to anyone who wishes to dig around in it.

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Bag Of Cash Falls Out Of Armored Truck, Scatters Across Highway

(FastFords)

Some commuters this morning in Maryland encountered some unexpected excitement when they saw a huge amount of cash blowing across the highway. This was not the most dangerous radio station promotion ever, but a mishap when a bag of money fell out of an armored truck, scattering its contents across the highway. Naturally, motorists stopped to pick it up.

Bags of money are just falling out all over the place? No, this was an unusual situation. Police say that one of the GardaWorld truck’s doors malfunctioned, causing a bag of cash to fall out. They have not disclosed how much cash was in the bag, but the commuters were apparently very thorough: with the help of K9 officers they were only able to recover $200.

This is not a “finders keepers” situation: the Maryland State Police say that if they find any of the motorists who helped themselves to the money, those people could be charged with theft. At least one person has turned in the money they picked up so far, and the state police have encouraged others to do the same.

We appreciate the good samaritan who turned some of the money found on I-270 back into the Frederick Barrack. Thank you for your honesty.

— MD State Police (@MDSP) October 31, 2014

I-270 drivers scramble to snatch cash that falls out of armored truck [WTOP]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

This Target Call Of Duty Promo Is Either Not Bad Or Chintziest Thing Ever

(Reddit)

The new Call of Duty game comes out next week, and various retailers are doing what they can to lure in buyers. For example, Best Buy and others are putting the game on sale at the exact same time nationwide so that the West Coast doesn’t have to wait hours to gripe about the multiplayer server’s inevitable crash, and Target’s Canadian stores are offering what is either a not-horrible Dorito’s tie-in or the cheapest giveaway we’ve seen in years.

A Reddit user in Canada posted this screen grab of the “killer deal” he saw advertised online for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

Just casually looking at the ad, you’d assume — and you’d probably be correct — that the deal is for two free bags of Doritos when you buy the game; the ultimate value of that deal depends heavily on one’s love for Doritos and the size of the free bags, but hey — free Doritos.

But if you take the text literally, it doesn’t seem as appealing.

“2 select Doritos chips when you buy 1 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare video game,” along with an asterisk next to the “free” that indicates in the fine print below that items are packaged separately.

We’re just imagining a bunch of hungry CoD fans showing up at Target ready to take home two bags of Doritos, only to find that they are actually getting a pair of individually wrapped Dorito chips.

(Before anyone writes us, we know this isn’t actually going to happen. There is no need to send us a 1,500-word e-mail explaining that it would be cost-prohibitive to individually wrap each Dorito chip.)

And as for the $69.99 price on the games, remember that this is in Canadian dollars. In USD this is only around $62, about two dollars more than the retail price of the same game here.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

New Crash Test Dummies Will Gain A Few Pounds To Better Reflect Fatalities Of Obese Drivers

Humanetics announced this week that it will begin making an obese crash test dummy.

We’ve all seen the dummies used in tests to determine if vehicles are safe before hitting the streets. Remember that picture, because the dummies are getting a makeover to better represent Americans’ growing waistlines.

CNN reports that one of the world’s largest makers of dummies will soon provide an obese model in order to help determine why larger consumers are more likely to die in a car crash.

The new obese dummy, which will weigh about 273 pound and have a body mass index of 35, will be used to measure seatbelt and airbag loads generated during crashes. Traditional crash test dummies weigh 167 pounds.

Christopher O’Connor, president and CEO of Humanetics, tells CNN that the larger dummies were created after reports found that obese people are 78% more likely to die in a crash.

“The reason is the way we get fat,” he says. “We get fat in our middle range. And we get out of position in a typical seat.”

Officials with the Center for Injury Biometrics tell CNN that the idea behind the updated dummy is to do a better job of prediction injury.

O’Connor says a prototype of the new dummy has already been tested in Europe and are expected in the U.S. next year.

Are obese crash test dummies the key to preventing road deaths? [CNN]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

NY Pols Want Free Broadband For Public Housing, WiFi For Parks If Comcast Deal Approved

(Vivienne Gucwa)

Usually by this point in the review process of a mega-merger like the one pending between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, there are discussions about things the parties are willing to do or give up in order to make the deal more palatable to critics. But because Comcast and TWC proactively offered to spin off some 3 million customers, and because Comcast already made a bunch of promises and concessions when it acquired NBC back in 2010, there hasn’t been much chatter. But some folks in New York are making known their demands for signing off on the deal.

Earlier this week, the NY Times reported [via DSLreports] that a group of city and leaders, with NYC public advocate Letitia James at the helm, are pushing for a commitment from Comcast to provide free broadband to the city’s public housing and to extend its low-cost Internet Essentials plan (which was created as a condition of the NBC deal).

While New York City might be the center of finance and commerce in the U.S., about 1/3 of households don’t have an Internet connection, highlighting the huge “digital divide” between the city’s wealthy residents and those who can’t afford broadband service.

In addition to the free service for public housing, the group wants gratis access at shelters for the city’s homeless and its victims of domestic violence.

While they’re at it, the pols are also calling for free WiFi in city parks, along with promises of faster connections.

And much like a group of U.S. Senators recently requested, the New York folks are asking Comcast to extend its current obligation to abide by the 2010 net neutrality rules, even though they were gutted earlier this year by a federal appeals court, and even though the FCC is currently working on more relaxed rules.

“We need our city to remain competitive in the 21st century,” explained James.

What right do these city and state politicians have to make these demands on Comcast? After all, they are not members of the FCC or the Justice Dept., the two federal regulators that are currently weighing the pros and cons of the merger.

Well, these folks have a lot of pull with the New York state Public Service Commission, which was informed of these requests on Wednesday.

The Commission could seek to block the merger in New York, which would effectively take away Comcast’s main reason for acquiring TWC — so that it can have a virtually continuous monopoly on broadband and cable from D.C. to Boston.

While Comcast would probably win in a legal battle with the Commission, it would be a delay and an expense the company doesn’t want. The company’s path of least resistance might be to give into some demands so it can acquire the customers and the geographic continuity it desires.

A rep for Comcast told the Times that it has been working closely with the Commission.

Meanwhile, in honor of Halloween, our colleagues at Consumers Union took out the below full-page ad this week, calling attention to the huge potential problems of the merger — higher prices, poor customer service — whether or not there are any concessions made:

by Chris Morran via Consumerist