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Have you been looking to get a new car but you’re stuck in the lease on your current vehicle? A Nissan dealership in Texas has been advertising that it will get you out of your present lease for only one dollar, but the Federal Trade Commission says the fine print tells a very different story.
According to the FTC, Trophy Nissan in suburban Dallas started running this $1 marketing campaign in Feb. 2014, with ads like this one that appeared in a local newspaper:
Given that many car owners might still owe several thousands of dollars on their current lease, there has to be a catch, right? Yup, and it’s there in the microprint below the marketing pitch:
Can’t read it? We’ll help you. It states that “Any Negative Equity applied to new loan.” So you’re really just rolling over the balance of your current lease to another form of financing. You haven’t actually gotten out of any obligation to repay the money owed on that leased vehicle.
The same tiny print can be found if you squint really hard at the video at the top of this story.
Regardless of whether or not you noticed these conditions, the disclosure omits important details like the fact that people with auto leases would probably need to pay a lease termination fee that would certainly be higher than one dollar.
And according to a complaint [PDF] filed by the FTC, when the dealership touted the $1 offer on Facebook and Twitter, there was no fine print or further information about the conditions anywhere to be found.
It wasn’t just this marketing campaign that drew the attention of the FTC. The dealership also ran a “Max Your Tax” promotion that promises to match a customer’s tax refund so that it could be used as a down-payment and declares that “There will be a tax advisor on-site.”
But the fine print clarifies that the refund match maxes out at $1,000 and that, in spite of the presence of a tax advisor, no tax advice will be provided.
These misrepresentations are violations of the FTC Act, according to the complaint.
In addition to the allegations of deception, the FTC further claimed that the dealership violated the Consumer Leasing Act and the Truth in Lending Act for failing to properly disclose information about leasing plans in other ads it ran.
Trophy has agreed to a proposed consent order [PDF] in which the dealership promises to stop misrepresenting it will pay off a consumers’ trade-in; misrepresenting material terms of any promotion or other incentive; misrepresenting the cost of leasing or purchasing a vehicle; and failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose material terms of a promotion or other incentive.
These come courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While they aren’t comprehensive, there are a few things that you may not have thought of.
It starts even at the grocery store while you load your cart: in order to avoid cross-contamination, keep raw meat, poultry, and seafood in an area of your cart away from other food. That’s because if the liquid from, say, your chicken makes contact with tomatoes that you plan to serve raw and in a salad, that’s how cross-contamination happens. They also suggest buying cold foods at the end of your shopping trip, which is a good idea and why most stores are laid out precisely that way.
Back at your house, how can you best inhibit the growth of disgusting and harmful bacteria? Don’t leave any perishable food out for 2 hours or more without some way to heat or cool them, like ice, a crock pot, or chafing dishes.
Employ a meat thermometer to avoid over- or under-cooking your roast beast, but make sure to not re-use cutting boards that have made contact with raw meat for any other purpose.
NPR’s always interesting The Salt blog brings us the tale of the Christmas carp, the traditional holiday meal for centuries in Slovakia and nearby countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and Croatia.
It’s the fact that fish is served on Christmas that’s got our attention though — it’s that the Christmas carp is traditionally kept in the family bathtub for a few days before the big event, before it’s killed, cleaned and prepared to eat.
This, of course, means some fish get named and treated like pets, and no one can bathe until the carp is done swimming.
“In my childhood, I remember thinking ‘poor carp,’ ” one Bratislava resident told The Salt, while others say they ended up freeing the poor guy after being unable to face eating what becomes a family pet.
So why the bathtub? Because carp are bottom feeders, you don’t want to eat all the things they’ve been eating before they’re killed. The thought behind it is that leaving the carp in unmuddied waters for a few days will clean out its digestive tract (which isn’t really enough time, according to a fisheries scientist who spoke to The Salt).
Others simply like keeping the fish as fresh as possible before serving it up — this way they can shop in advance of the rush and just let the fish hang out until it’s time to get cooking.
Tradition dictates that the father of the family slices the carp’s head off when it’s ready to go, a feat that can be harder than a simple snick of a knife.
“These are strong fish that move quickly,” says an American living in Bratislava. His wife, who is Slovak, told him sometimes the fish needs to be stunned first with a mallet or similar tool.
But as the times change, so do traditions. Many now would rather buy the fish ready to cook, instead of becoming attached to a new pet and then having to worry about killing it later.
After the hard work is done, whether by the fishmonger or the family, the carp is often soaked in milk to make it less fishy smelling, and sliced top to bottom in pieces shaped like horseshoes for good luck. It’s then served breaded and fried, often alongside cabbage soup and potato salad, and I can only imagine, seasoned with the tears of any kids in the house who’ve become attached to Mr. Carpy McCarperson.
In Slovakia, Christmas Dinner Starts In The Bathtub [The Salt]
In a statement, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg explains that the agency has “carefully examined and considered the available scientific evidence relevant to its blood donor deferral policy for men who have sex with men, including the results of several recently completed scientific studies and recent epidemiologic data.”
As a result of that review, the FDA will now move forward in the process of recommending a change to the policy so that men who’ve had sexual contact with other men will be allowed to donate blood if it’s been a full year since their last sexual contact with a male.
Hamburg says this change would effectively treat these men the same as policies for donors considered to be at an increased risk for HIV infection.
Because the wheels of government turn slowly, there is no specific timeline given for when the all-out ban will be lifted. Instead, Hamburg says that the FDA will go through the process in the coming year of issuing draft guidance and seeking public comment, before issuing a final policy change.
The American Red Cross, the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks), and America’s Blood Centers, along with the American Medical Association, have previously called for a revision of the ban on donations from gay and bisexual men.
Some critics of the ban believe that the one-year celibacy requirement is still too restrictive, as it continues to prevent perfectly healthy men in monogamous relationships with longtime partners from donating blood — or forces them to lie about their sexual history if they do donate.
“We have never given up on releasing The Interview, and we’re excited our movie will be in a number of theaters Christmas Day,” says Sony Entertainment Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton in a statement to the Dallas Morning News. “At the same time we are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience.
Sony is calling the small debut of the James Franco/Seth Rogen comedy “the first step of the film’s release,” which we hope is an indication that people will be able to decide whether or not they want to see the movie in a wider release.
The Morning News first reported that the Texas-based chain of Alamo Drafthouse theaters had been given the go-ahead by Sony to show the film on its original planned release date.
“I don’t think anyone could have predicted how this whole thing would have played out,” says Alamo Drafthouse DFW programmer James Wallace.
When Sony scrapped plans last week for the Christmas release, Alamo tried to screen the 2004 comedy Team America: World Police — which also mocks the leadership of North Korea — in its place. However, Paramount, the studio behind that film, refused to let it be seen.
“We tried to have some fun with an otherwise tough situation and then somehow became the unlikely champions for freedom of expression,” continues Wallace. “The response has been truly overwhelming and we were all absolutely amazed by the international outpouring of support for cinema and freedom of expression.”
The Alamo Drafthouse website is currently being overrun with visitors, so we can’t tell if The Interview will be screened at all Drafthouse locations or only a few. CBS News reports that the movie will be running at the Alamo near Consumer Reports HQ in Yonkers.
We’ll update when we’ve confirmed more locations.
One major problem in finding stolen cars? Usually whoever swipes them is not inclined to go ahead and then register that vehicle with the department of motor vehicles, you know, because it’s stolen.
But in this case, a man who’d had the car for the last 23 years says he decided to finally bring it in to get registered, reports The Monterey Herald, and it came up as a stolen vehicle.
“It had been out of the system for so long that it came back with no file. All of the files for the vehicle had been purged,” a California Highway Patrol officer explained. “The officer did some digging and found out the car was stolen in 1986 from Salinas.”
The man who tried to register it said he’d bought it from a storage facility and had been working on it for the last two decades, before deciding it was time to register it. Officers are looking into whether he knew it was stolen.
“I never thought I would see it again,” the owner said. “It’s like winning the lottery. It happens to very few people and for it to happen to me, it’s just an amazing feeling.”
After 28 years, a woman and prized Mustang reunite [Monterey Herald]
Newly identified bugs discovered by security researchers could let hackers take over Mac computers, reports Reuters.
Apple pushed the software yesterday to fix critical security vulnerabilities in OS X’s network time protocol (NTP), says an Apple spokesman. NTP synchronizes clocks on computer systems.
The bugs were brought to light in security bulletins last week by the Department of Homeland Security and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, alerting dozens of companies along with Apple that their products might be at risk to attack.
In the past, Apple has issued security patches using its normal software update system that requires users to take action in order to implement it. But this one was pushed automatically because Apple wanted to make sure customers had the right defense as quickly as possible because of how severe the vulnerabilities are. So far, Apple hasn’t been made aware of any cases of vulnerable Macs being targeted by hackers to exploit the bugs yet.
“The update is seamless,” the spokesman said of the update. “It doesn’t even require a restart.”
Apple pushes first ever automated security update to Mac users [Reuters]
Maybe you knew this, but not everyone does, and even the fan site StarbucksMelody felt the need to share the news with readers that the refill policy hasn’t changed in recent years.
Wait, so how does this work? Does being able to get a “refill” of something that you didn’t get in the first place present an existential problem?
The Starbucks Refill Policy: First Beverage Can Be Anything [StarbucksMelody]
The real McDonald’s Twitter account is having to deal with the fallout of the faked Tweet declaring the death of the Big Mac.
As you can see above, the McDonald’s Twitter feed is now working overtime (but probably not getting paid for it; after all, this is McDonald’s) reassuring folks that the fast food chain’s signature sandwich and dessert aren’t going anywhere.
The source of the hoax is a story on a site called Daily Buzz Live, which displays a faked Tweet from the same McDonald’s account stating, “It is with a heavy heart that we must announce that the Big Mac will no longer be apart of our menu. It is our sincerest apologies.”
Aside from the improper use of “apart,” there is no evidence that this was ever actually Tweeted by McDonald’s.
Compounding the confusion are made-up quotes in the Daily Buzz Live story. One is attributed to an actual spokesperson for the company while the other quote comes from “Mark Andrés,” the President of McDonald’s U.S. operations.
Problem is, the head of McDonald’s U.S. is Mike Andres and he certainly didn’t recently tell investors, ““Why do we need to have preservatives in our food?… We probably don’t.”
The “article” also misstates the nutritional information for the Big Mac, overstating both the calorie count and fat content.
As The Inquisitr points out, unlike sites like The Onion, DBL posts occasional satire stories but mixes them in among actual news headlines.
McDonald’s is indeed trimming its menu, but as the company recently explained to us, the reduction will be about reducing redundancy in its offerings — offering only one Quarter Pounder with Cheese instead of four, or one premium sandwich instead of three.
