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Consumer News & Alerts

February 20, 2007

THE METH-IDENTITY THEFT CONNECTION
How does a driver's license stolen from a St. Louis, Missouri, man end up in a cheap motel room hundreds of miles away? That's a question that initially baffled investigators when they found the ID in the Merriam, Kansas, flophouse.

But it didn't take long for police to solve the mystery once they learned the motel room doubled as an identity theft laboratory -- filled with computers, scanners, printers, and dozens of stolen ID's -- and the masterminds behind the operation were methamphetamine addicts.

"There's a close link between methamphetamine use and identity theft," says Prosecutor Vanessa Riebli, head of the Johnson County, Kansas, District Attorney's Economic Crime Unit. "ID's are traded or sold for drugs across the country, and drug users are supporting their habit with identity theft."

Learn more about how identity theft is financing the methamphetamine trade -- and what you can do to protect yourself -- in this week's cover story: The Amphetamine Connection: How Meth is Driving the Identity Theft Pandemic.

Among the latest identity theft incidents ...

• Stop & Shop Crooks tamper with card readers, swipe PIN numbers.

• Veterans Administration VA loses data on 1.8 million patients. Hard drive disappears from Alabama hospital.

• TJX Probes States want to know how and why massive data breach occurred.

FOOD RIOTS
Food safety used to be a fairly esoteric topic, something that kept public health types awake at night but didn't much bother anyone else. Those days are gone. Now everyone's fearful of that jar of peanut butter, that nice green sprig of spinach, those yummy tacos and, perhaps worst of all, that creamy smooth baby food.

It's not just people food that's potentially dangeorus. The feds warn that "Wild Kitty" Cat Food may contain salmonella.

A big part of the problem -- though by no means all of it -- is the hopelessly splintered responsibilities of the federal agencies who are supposed to keep an eye on food safety. One agency regulates chickens while another regulates eggs. Yet another regulates the labeling of the eggs. Legislation introduced in Congress would put all food safety responsibility under a single agency. Of course, this is always Washington's answer to problems -- create a new agency and shuffle the organization charts around, but it's a start anyway.

All of these outbreaks of salmonella, botulism and E. coli are bad enough but even worse is BSE, the so-called mad cow disease. Next week, we'll have an in-depth look at this mostly misunderstood, mostly ignored problem.

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
You've got to watch out for agencies like the Consumer Product Safety Commission. By putting the brakes on the import and sale of toys laden with lead, filled with tiny magnets and decorated with detachable choking hazards, they drive up the cost of doing business. To be sure that doesn't happen, the current Administration has named one political hack after another to head the CPSC, hoping to keep the agency in its place and let business do what it does best -- maximize profits whatever the cost. The White House is expected to go around Congress during the President's Day recess and name a longtime industry lobbyist to protect the safety of big business.

Consumers' Right to Criticize The Internet gives consumers great power to share their observations and throw their weight around, but there's no limit to what companies will do to try to stop them. We constantly fight off lawsuits, threats and dumb letters from bullying lawyers aimed at intimidating us into silencing the consumers who write to us. Lending some welcome support this week is New York's new attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, who stepped in to stop an Internet security company from squelching its customers' free speech rights.

XM GETS SIRIUS
Hey, it's been brutal out there, huh? All those satellite radio companies fighting for every last listener, cutting their prices and ... oh, wait, there've only been two companies -- XM and Sirius. And soon, there may be just one. XM and Sirius say they have agreed on a "merger of equals." Since the two of them occupy all of the bandwidth allocated to satellite radio, they already have an oligopoly, so it only makes sense to cast off all pretense and make it a full-scale monopoly, no?

XM has earned a place in our personal Rogues Gallery. When our subscription expired a few weeks ago, we duly renewed it and the damned thing has not worked since then. Calls and emails are as useless as the rest of the service.

Zenith's Nadir Zenith is one of those names like, oh, Oldsmobile, that sounds sort of trustworthy, something Grandmother might have used for 60 years or so. But now it's just a brand name, part of the LG empire. So when that big black line appears in the corner of the screen, getting your big-screen Zenith fixed may not be as easy as it would have been back in Grandma's day. If this has happened to you, please tell us about it.

CHIPPING AWAY
The iceman cameth last week and the East Coast was covered in a thick layer of solid ice. This was universally annoying but especially so to some Prius drivers, who tell us their little hybrids freeze up at the slightest sign of slippage. Toyota says this is to prevent accidents but stopping dead in traffic is not exactly the greatest accident prevention measure.

More automotive notes ...

• Opel Migration For years, travelers have returned from Europe, wondering why GM builds great-handling cars like the Opel for Europeans while giving the folks back home much duller fare. GM has taken the hint. Its Saturn Aura has already made the move and close behind is the Opel Astra, which will morph into the new Saturn Ion. Tailgating it is the Antara, the next Vue. We have been driving an Aura for the last three months and will report on it in more detail shortly. Quick answer: It's as much fun as our Alfa Romeo and a lot more reliable. Less torque steer too.

• Ford Revives the Taurus Struggling automaker hopes renaming the Ford Five Hundred will boost sales. Note to Ford: It might take a little more than that, guys.

• Five-Star Winners Twenty-four cars earned five stars but none earned five stars for both front and side impact plus rollover resistance, federal safety regulators report.

• Surprise: Gas Prices Rebound National average is up three cents over one month ago.

• SUVs That Stretch Fuel Dollars Ford Escape Hybrid, Saturn Vue Green Line rated best among small, midsized SUVs

SEAFOOD IN UTERO
We all know that, in theory, seafood is good for us but there's the nagging problem of mercury contamination. There's general agreement that seafood is fine for healthy adults but what about pregnant women? The latest study, published in the Lancet, finds that infants born to fish-fed moms did better than others. "We recorded no evidence to lend support to the warnings of the U.S. advisory that pregnant women should limit their seafood consumption," the authors wrote.

Pollution and Obesity? Who would think that pollution plays a role in obesity. Well, the jury's still out but at least one team of researchers say that the role played by endocrine disrupters in obesity needs more study. These are the environmental chemicals found in everyday plastics and pesticides, long suspected of being bad for us in a whole host of ways.

More health notes ...

• Seasonal Flu Shot and Bird Flu Antibodies that help ward off seasonal flu could provide some protection against bird flu as well.

• Airbags May Pose Threat To Hearing An airbag might save your life in an accident but it could also cost you your hearing.

• Can Seniors Exercise Safely? Advice for seniors on exercises they can -- and should -- do regularly, from the Healthy Geezer himself, Fred Cicceti.

POLICY CANCELLED
When Hurricane Katrina came ashore in Mississippi, it blew down just about everything in sight along the Gulf Coast, then flooded it. State Farm chose to see the flooding as the primary factor and wimped out on millions of dollars in claims. After vigorous court challenges, the company has agreed to pay at least some of the claims but now says the neighorhood is no longer to its liking. State Farm says it will stop writing homeowners policies in the coastal counties. Other insurers are likely to follow, leaving the state as the insurer of last resort.

MORTGAGE CRISIS?
Millions of homeowners are in big trouble as they struggle to pay rapidly escalating payments on their "creative" mortgages while the value of their real estate dips. If this includes you, it's no time for procrastination. There are steps you can take to avoid losing your home and ruining your credit. Fred Yager outlines what you can do to salvage the situation. Time is, as they say, of the essence. It's important to act now, not when the sheriff is at the door.

ON ICE
JetBlue has led sort of a charmed existence until last week. When its JFK hub became an ice palace, the spunky carrier was too slow to cancel flights, leaving planesful of passengers stranded on the tarmac, unable to take off and unable to return to the gate. This has given added impetus to a "Passengers Bill of Rights" now sliding through Congress. It has also ended JetBlue's lovely honeymoon. The airline is offering refunds and free tickets to delayed passengers but as it struggles to get back on track, skeptics wonder if management is up to the task.

Southwest, as usual, weathered the storm just fine, as did most other major carriers who were quicker than JetBlue to recognize the seriousness of the slippery situation and act accordingly.

More travel notes ...

U.S. Wants More Armed Pilots Having cheered on gun-toting pilots on U.S. carriers, the Bush Administration is now encouraging other countries to arm pilots flying into American skies. European airlines were polite but noncommital. No word yet from Iran.

Ferry Service to Link Hawaiian Islands Sure, the Hawaiian islands are nice but there are no roads between them. This leaves tourists to do their island-hopping by air, renting cars at each stop. A new ferry-boat fleet would end all that but environmentalists, at last word, were objecting.

COMPLAINT OF THE DAY
When we started this newsletter way back in the last century, the idea was to highlight the complaints we'd received the week before. Amidst all the subsequent blather, that's fallen by the wayside, so we're resurrecting it with a Complaint of the Day, appearing just about everyday in our daily newsletter, with a weekly compilation here as space permits. First up: Credit cards that aren't.

SCAMS & OUTRAGES

• BBB Phishers Email sent to businesses tricks recipients into downloading a virus.

• Direct Mail Companies Missouri goes after direct mail scam artists nationwide.

• Planned Obsolesence Comes to Ink Cartridges Some HP and Lexmark cartridges designed to shut down after a predetermined time.

RECALLS

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