Consumer News & Alerts

January 29, 2007

NIGHTMARE ON THE RUNWAY
Passengers held hostage for eight hours in a filthy airplane as toilets overflow, food runs out and vital prescription medications are locked away below -- is this the latest airplane hijacking story or Middle East terrorist act?

No, it's the holiday travel season in the United States, and passengers have declared war on airline travel nightmares as a result. American Airlines flight 1348, bound from San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth on Dec. 29 sat on an Austin runway for nearly nine hours while fierce but slow-moving thunderstorms pounded the state of Texas.

Furious passengers had plenty of time to organize while they sat on the runway. They've started a grass-roots lobbying effort to persuade Congress to enact strict regulations to prevent such fiascos in the future, as Dan Schlossberg reports in Nightmare On the Runway.

GAS PRICE SHUFFLE
At last, gas prices are edging downward, but now oil prices are heading back up, raising the possibility that gas prices will follow. Why are oil prices going up again? One possible reason is that President Bush plans to buy 11 million barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of his plan to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Another way to look at it is that declining gas prices have substantially reduced oil industry earnings and the decision to fill the strategic reserves is welcome news in oil company board rooms.

Big Three on a Treasure Hunt Ford, GM and the Chrysler Division were all over D.C. last week, promoting their hybrid and flex fuel projects with one hand while looking for a hand-out with the other. Corporate panhandling is always portrayed as "seeking help from Congress" but beware -- Congress has no money of its own, it simply spends yours. So any generous grants to the automakers come straight out of your pocket.

PRIUS NOT A SNOW BUNNY?
Sure, the Toyota Prius is cute and easy on gas but is it suitable for foul weather? The cars are popular in coastal regions of California, where it seldom snows or freezes and also in the D.C. area, which had been having a very summery winter until a week or so ago, which was when Christopher of Reston, Va., discovered that slippery conditions made his Prius neurotic.

Teens In Danger There are so many arrogant, reckless, incompetent drivers that it seems unfair to single out teens, who certainly are in dire straits when it comes to role models. But a new survey finds that today's teen drivers have a lot of bad habits -- including driving while yakking on their cell phones, driving while fatigued and failing to use seat belts.

BRAIN'S "ADDICTION CENTER" LOCATED
Researchers have long tried to figure out the mechanism behind addiction. As often happens, the answer may have been found accidentally. Doctors studying smokers with damage to the section of the brain called the insula discovered that the patients immediately stopped smoking. There was no tapering off, no backsliding, they simply stopped. The discovery may make it possible to "turn off" addiction to nicotine and alcohol not to mention heroin, cocaine and so forth.

Stronger Baycol Warnings Bayer has agreed to more prominently caution doctors and patients about possible side effects of Baycol, its prescription painkiller. Thirty states sued Bayer, which also agreed to establish a clinical trial registry that helps track reports of side effects and what are euphemistically referred to as "adverse outcomes."

MRI May Provide Early Warning Of Heart Attack Researchers say the MRI can provide a close-up look at the molecular activity of a patient's blood vessels, possibly alerting doctors to impending problems, including heart attacks and strokes.

Exercise Or Diet? Doesn't Matter A study finds that either or both will take off the pounds. "It's all about the calories," said the author of the study. "So long as the energy deficit is the same, body weight, fat weight, and abdominal fat will all decrease in the same way." So much for spot reduction theories.

Do Grandparents Get More Colds? You might surmise that seniors who spend a lot of time around their grandchildren would pick up more of the kids' colds. But is it true? The Healthy Geezer has the answer.

GOT GERMS? ZAP THEM AWAY
We worry a lot about cholesterol, suspicious additives, pesticide traces and so forth in our food but what's most likely to make us sick is bacterial infection, often caused by dirty sponges and cooking utensils. Researchers at the University of Florida say an easy way to sterilize such everyday items is to moisten them and zap them in the microwave oven on high heat for two minutes.

After we included the microwave story in our daily newsletter, we received a spate of what could charitably be termed hysterical emails from readers who contended that microwaving sponges and plastic utensils would cause fires, weird cancers and glacial meltdown. Maybe so, but kindly note that the study was conducted by environmental engineering researchers at the University of Florida, who assure us no such catastrophe is likely.

More health news ...

• Antidepressants Similar in Effectiveness, But Side Effects Differ Review of 300 studies finds about six in 10 patients experience some side effects.

• Canadian Case Targets Johnson & Johnson's Prepulsid Company settled similar U.S. case for $90 million.

• Why Doesn't Every Smoker Get Emphysema? It takes the right combination of genes, viruses and cigarettes, researchers say.

• Prilosec as Effective as Expensive Prescriptions, Study Finds Consumer Reports finds no difference in effectiveness of inexpensive OTC drug compared with expensive prescription products.

• AIDS Foundation Sues Pfizer Over Viagra Ads Drug company encourages "off-label" use, fueling the spread of sexually-transmitted disease, suit charges.

• Researchers Isolate Protein Key to Pneumonic Plague The "Black Death" plague is a potential terrorist weapon, spurring research for a quick-acting treatment.

ORIGIN OF CELL PHONE FIRE DISPUTED
Fire investigators in Vallejo, California, haven't been very forthcoming about a fire that severely burned Luis Picaso as he slept. At first, investigators said Picaso's cell phone ignited but refused to say what kind of phone it was. Now they say the fire was caused by "something else," not Picaso's Nokia phone. Picaso's lawyer and a consumer advocate aren't convinced. The lithium-ion batteries in cell phones, laptops and other gadgets are a known fire hazard in some circumstances.

Text Message Rates Climb The ten-cent text message is going the way of the 25-cent phone call. Verizon Wireless is the latest carrier to raise the price of a text message to 15 cents for customers whose calling plans don't include text messaging. Teens are the most avid text messagers, so if your household includes such creatures you might want to check your cell phone bill carefully. Note: Text message charges apply to incoming as well as outgoing messages in most cases, so it's welcome news that Illinois has sued a text-message spammer who allegedly ran up customers' bills and annoyed them with time-share pitches.

NATIONWIDE AETNA DATA STOLEN
In the latest data theft, crooks broke into a Masschusetts office and stole the personal records of Nationwide Mutual Insurance's 28,000-plus customers, along with backup data tapes containing information on the medical claims of 130,000 Aetna customers. The break-in took place at the offices of Concentra Preferred Systems, which audits hospital stay claims for Nationwide to ensure the company does not overpay.

The theft occurred on Oct. 26th, but Nationwide delayed notifying customers while it supposedly investigated the likelihood of identity theft. Later the companies made the usual claim that the thieves weren't after the data but instead were looking for "cash or pawnable items of value." Don't know about you, but we don't recall seeing many back-up tapes on pawn shop shelves.

Google Catch and Release Google's "anti-phishing" feature has been capturing -- and making public -- private user information. The list is supposed to safeguard against phishing scams but inadvertently gave away private data before the error was noted and corrected.

Act Fast in Data Theft Cases The attorney general of North Carolina notes that consumers are often slow to react when notified of a data breach involving their private information. Roy Cooper has put together an online victim's tool kit that provides step-by-step help.

A LUXURY IN 1898
Back when the U.S. was fighting the Spanish-American War, a telephone was a luxury enjoyed by only the wealthiest businesses and individuals. So Congress slapped an excise tax on telephones to help raise money to support the war effort. Although the telephone became a bit more commonplace in ensuing years, it took Congress 108 years to repeal the part of the tax that applies to long-distance service. Residential consumers can receive up to a $60 refund as reimbursement on this year's federal tax returns.

JUDGE NIXES KATRINA SETTLEMENT
A federal judge in Mississippi has rejected a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit against State Farm Insurance. The judge said the settlement could have left some Gulf Coast homeowners with little or no payment. Both sides say they will amend the agreement to resolve the judge's objections. Jim Hood, the state's attorney general (and no relation to your eponymously named editor), says he will drop his civil and criminal actions against the company once the settlement is finalized. Meanwhile, other insurance companies continue to quibble about whether homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina were knocked down by the wind or washed away by water.

Health Insurers Probed Connecticut is investigating John Alden and Fortis health insurance companies to determine if they improperly denied coverage to policyholders by claiming that patients' conditions were pre-existing.

Unsuitable Annuities Minnesota is challenging the sales practices of Allianz, charging that the company's agents exploited elderly clients by selling them inappropriate annuities. Annuities are fine but not when they don't pay out until the insured client is 90. For a primer on aunnuities, see Annuities: Fool's Gold or Fiscal Smarts?

A HAZY VISTA
Microsoft's new Vista operating system and its Office 2007 suite go on sale tomorrow, years late and who knows how many millions over budget. While these memory-hogging new progams undoubtedly have some benefits, they also have some drawbacks. Many workhorse progams, like Quickbooks, may not be compatible with Vista on Day One, so early adopters may find themselves wishing they'd waited a few months. Meanwhile, old headaches have a way of recurring. In Iowa, a class action suit charges that Microsoft continues to violate antitrust laws by failing to open its source code to developers of third-party programs.

We'll wait to load Vista, thanks. In the meantime, we've been playing with a pair of new programs from a start-up company called Humanized. Its programs take over the dread CapsLock key and turn it into an all-purpose command button that lets you launch new programs, run a spell check and do all kinds of other mundane chores using the same syntax in every program and without using a mouse. We're probably not explaining it very well but for what used to be called "power users" who are strong touch typists, these programs can save time and aggravation. The total purchase price for both is under $80. For us, disabling the cursed CapsLock key is worth the price of admission.

DELTA PILOTS PROTEST MERGER PLAN
To put it mildly, Delta pilots are not happy with the idea of a merger with US Airways. The pilots are running newspaper ads claiming the result of a merger would be lost jobs, higher fares, fewer flights and poorer service. Unfortunately, Delta, mired in bankruptcy, isn't in a position to be choosy.

Trendy Design Trumps Comfort Our Dan Schlossberg found a lot not to like at the new Hotel Indigo in Scottsdale. He found that while the rooms looked chic, they left a lot to be desired in terms of creature comforts.

Apple Technology Featured in Big Apple Hotel The Times Square Westin is featuring iPod accessories to soothe harried travelers, as hotels look for ways to win the loyalty of business travelers.

LEANRX.NET LIGHTENS CONSUMERS WALLETS
Consumers complain they're being charged for Hoodia weight-loss pills they didn't order and didn't receive. Complaints about this apparent rip-off began suddenly in early January. The company's Web site has disappeared and so, we fear, has the money consumers have lost, usually around $75.

Other scams and outrages ...

• Tax Audit Scam IRS says it never contacts taxpayers by e-mail.

• Arrow Financial Illinois alleges the debt collector used unfair tactics and deceptive practices.

• "Free Software CD" Consumers found they were billed for software they thought was free.

• Bogus Fuel Pill BioPerformance used pyramid scheme to promote bogus "secret" fuel pills, Texas charged.

• Phony Charity Scams Criminals always ready to rip off the well-meaning.

• Scam Targets U2 Fans Spam and small print ads selling tickets for non-existent tour.

RECALLS

SIGNING OFF
For the last few years, we've been providing consumer news reports to radio stations as part of our consumer outreach effort. It's been very successful and we're grateful to the many stations who've carried our material. But time marches on and we are turning our efforts to stepping up production of video reports for use on our site and elsewhere. Our radio news service will say, "Good night and good luck" Jan. 31.

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