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( The.Comedian ) Five months after American Express and Costco announced they would go their separate ways and end their exclusive relationship – essentially allowing members of the warehouse club to use other cards – shareholders for the credit card company have filed a lawsuit claiming it blindsided investors with the loss of the contract. The lawsuit [ PDF ], filed by Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 137 Pension Fund, accuses American Express of failing to reveal how significant the 16-year long contract with Costco had become to the business. According to the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status on behalf of all shareholders who bought stock between Oct. 16, 2014 and Feb. 11, 2015, American Express had accelerated its talks with Costco regarding renewal of its exclusive deal that was set to expire in March 2016 without the knowledge of investors. “Defendants never disclosed the financial impact of the U.S. Costco co-branding agreement on AmEx’s reported financial resul...

( Tracy O ) One might think that the average adult would be aware that the playground rule of “finders, keepers” doesn’t apply to most situations in life that aren’t scavenger hunts. But one would be wrong, if the police investigating the theft of a bag filled with $150,000 in cash are correct. Authorities say a man picked up the bag, which was left outside a New Jersey business by ATM workers on Monday, and took the money home, reports the Associated Press . Not content to simply rest on a pile of cash , police say he took some of that money and bought an SUV with it a few hours after the find. His time with the new Chevrolet Tahoe was short-lived, as police arrested him on Wednesday as one of two suspects they believe made off with the bag of moolah. Police said a white van caught on surveillance video pulling up to the loot had a passenger who hopped out to grab the cash. That same van was seen in another video where the suspects allegedly stole tires from an auto repair busin...

( Adam Fagen ) Despite Southwest Airlines’ recent admission that charging for bags would be a financially irresponsible policy change, it doesn’t appear that other airlines feel the same way. Reuters reports that United Airlines, for one, has no plans to stop charging check bag fees, no matter what other airlines do. The airline’s CEO Jeff Smisek defended the fees, noting that some passengers have “difficulty recognizing that we’re now a business.” “They criticize us if we charge for more legroom. Let me tell you though: that’s what businesses do,” he said during an industry lunch on Thursday. Smisek said that customers should expect checked bag fees to be based on a sliding scale, like extras offered by other businesses. “If you want more data on your data plan so you can watch faster, better cat videos, you call AT&T, and they’re happy to increase your data plan,” he said. “And they charge you for it. That’s what businesses do.” Airline checked bag fees, which range fr...

Maybe you saw a photo of Converse’s new version of their classic Chuck Taylor All-Stars and wondered what the big deal is. “So they changed the eyelet color,” you say. “What’s the difference?” To appease people like you, Converse virtually exploded one of their new shoes so you can see what’s inside. Since we routinely call out bad ads, here we’re calling out a good one for once. It would be interesting to see this YouTube spot aired as a TV commercial: for once, a shoe ad that isn’t about branding or lifestyle or the athlete it’s named after, but just what’s inside the shoe. ( via Adweek ) by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

(via NBC News ) If we’re going to hear stories of children being left in hot cars, we’re at least glad to report on those that end well. That includes the report of a New Jersey sheriff’s officer who bashed open a minivan window to free a child who was locked inside it as it sat parked at a Costco supermarket. Witnesses said the crying two-year-old was drenched in sweat when a Bergen County police officer broke open one of the van’s windows, reports NBC News (warning: link has video that autoplays). Passersby worried about the girl in the van parked in Costco parking late had gathered on the scene, with at least two people attempting to push down a window that had been cracked open a few inches. In a video taped during the rescue, you can hear the child crying inside the car. “I’m telling the girl, ‘Don’t cry, we’re gonna get you out,'” one of the men who tried to get into the van told NBC News. “She was drenched in sweat and crying constantly.” Bystanders wondered if the pa...

( MeneerDijk ) Hundreds of former students at Kaplan Career Institute and Lincoln Technical Institute in Massachusetts will receive redress from the for-profit colleges after the schools settled charges they engaged in unfair practices with the state’s Attorney General’s office. The Boston Globe reports that Kaplan Higher Education LLC and Lincoln Educational Services Inc. have agreed to pay millions of dollars to students in order to resolve claims the companies used unfair recruiting tactics and inflated job placement numbers to lure students into enrolling at the colleges. “We allege these for-profit schools lured hopeful students into enrolling in their vocational programs by promising certain careers, but only left them with substantial debt,” Attorney General Maura Healey said. “Students trying to better their lives through education are instead being left financially ruined. These settlements will provide the relief these students deserve and prevent deceptive practice...

( Misfit Photographer ) Modern cars are designed to get around just fine with gasoline containing ethanol in their tanks, but not all gasoline that you buy at the corner gas station is healthy for other items that you own that use gas. Think outdoor power equipment like push mowers, string trimmers, and chainsaws. Cars made in 2006 and afterwards can take fuel that’s up to 15% ethanol, but that mixture can be disastrous for small gas-powered appliances. There’s a trade group for these items, the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, and they are not happy that higher-ethanol blends are becoming more common in gas stations, but lack consumer warnings at the pump that explain this clearly. Something like “Hey dude/dudette, don’t put this stuff in your chainsaw,” it might say, but most consumers say that they don’t notice the puny warnings that the EPA requires. Why shouldn’t you use these cheaper blends in your outdoor power equipment? Since you probably don’t use your lawn mower as of...

( Consumerist Dot Com ) Though you might not even have been aware it existed, the last full-service Dunkin’ Donuts diner is preparing to close, and will be renovated to look like the rest. That means no more wait staff serving fried fish and grits, something many customers will miss: while the Lake Park, FL restaurant serves doughnuts and coffee like other Dunkin’ Donuts locations, it also has a grill, serving up hot food and sandwiches. The Palm Beach Post spoke with a few of the diner’s customers who will miss the old days once the place is remodeled. “I’m so sad,” one said, adding, “We can go anywhere to get the doughnuts but you can’t go everywhere and find food like this.” It was the first Dunkin’ location to open in Florida, in 1962, and the last full-service spot left standing. For now — the restaurant’s last day of dining room service is Saturday, with the fast-food side closing Aug. 16. The place is expected to reopen with its new look on Aug. 31. The owner says he made...

( ronnyg ) A Utah woman has filed a $2 million lawsuit against Starbucks and several employees claiming she was given a drink that contained a cleaning solution. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the woman filed the suit after she suffered severe damage to her esophagus at a Utah Starbucks in July 2012. According to the lawsuit, the woman experienced severe nerve damage and chronic burning mouth pain after ingesting Urnex, a speciality cleaning product for coffee and espresso equipment. The suit, which names Starbucks and John Does one through five as defendants, alleges the company was negligent in more than one way and failed to adequately train workers. As for the employees, the suit claims they created a dangerous situation and failed to remedy it, and knew or should have known of the dangerous condition but failed to take adequate steps to prevent injury to customers. The woman, who is seeking $2 million in damages, contends that the incident has already cost her $186,00...

( Alan Rappa ) It’s a classic caper: passing yourself off as your brother or sister to squirm out of trouble when you’re caught doing something you shouldn’t. But New Jersey police say one man didn’t quite pull off the sibling switcheroo when he was stopped for $7,500 in unpaid tolls. Port Authority police in New Jersey say officers stopped a 44-year-old man after he drove through an EZ-Pass lane on the George Washington Bridge toll without paying, reports NJ.com . A police spokesman said the man couldn’t provide any documentation for the motorcycle he was riding and the license plates didn’t match the bike. After a search, police said they found baggies of cocaine in his pocket, which he at first said was just candy. While he was being taken into custody, officers say he gave them a government ID card that had his brother’s name and photo on it. Unaware that it wasn’t him, police issued the man a summons under his brother’s name and let him go. When Port Authority police figured...

( Chris Rief ) The country’s second largest pharmacy chain is the latest party in a class-action lawsuit that accuses CVS of deliberately overcharging hundreds of thousands of patients for generic prescription drugs. Bloomberg reports that the pharmacy customers claim in the class-action seeking lawsuit that CVS intentionally overcharged them for prescription drugs by submitting claims for payment to third parties at inflated prices. According to the lawsuit, since 2008 CVS has engaged in “massive fraud” that led to “substantial ill-gotten gains” by charging three or four times the typical price for generic drugs. At issue in the lawsuit is CVS’s Health Savings Pass, a discount program for patients paying cash for prescriptions. The plan costs $15 per year to join and offers 90-day supplies of some generic drugs for $11.99. The complaint contends that patients who purchased prescriptions through third-party plans paid higher prices than those who paid through CVS’...

( Mike Mozart ) A Florida woman with Tourette’s syndrome is suing Walmart, claiming she was banned from the store, in violation of the American with Disabilities Act. She and her husband are seeking more than $2.2 million in damages for emotional distress. People with Tourette’s may exhibit facial tics and other involuntary repetitive movements, and have outbursts of profanity, known as “coprolalia,” according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke . The woman was shopping at Walmart with two of her children in August 2011 when she was ordered to leave and not come back by a manager and a security officer, according to a circuit court filing complaint, reports Florida Today . Her lawyer says the Walmart workers also called the police, who issued a no-trespassing order against her. “It’s putting part of her hometown off-limits for her. And it’s a place she’s accustomed to frequent, and she has the right to frequent. They used to do this to people who had bl...

( БРАТСТВО ) Dead people do not need cars, and they also have trouble making the payments. That’s probably why one woman’s credit score plummeted to zero when a lender accidentally put her down as dead. It was due to human error, but she’ll need to wait 30 days to move on with her new car purchase because someone at Lexus Financial Services picked the wrong thing in a drop-down menu. Yes, that is literally what happened. Unfortunately, it just takes one creditor accidentally telling the bureaus that you’re deceased to send your credit score plummeting to zero and to make it impossible to sign up for new lines of credit. What can you do about it? You can’t prevent people from clicking on the wrong thing at your lender, unfortunately, but the best thing to do is check your credit periodically for errors like this. Use AnnualCreditReport.com at least 30 days before you plan to start shopping for a new home, car, or other thing that requires credit bureaus to believe that you’re alive...

( fblumongoose ) Twenty years after passing a law that banned prisoners from financing higher education with federal grants while incarcerated, the government is ready to begin investing in the education of inmates. The Washington Post reports that the government announced plans today that it will initiate an experiment — called the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program — to offer a limited number of prisoners Pell grants to finance their education from a select number of colleges starting as soon as next year. The move, which is being made under the Obama administration’s authority for limited financial aid experiments, doesn’t immediately change the status of the ban put in place in 1994. At the time, Congress decided it was unfair for prisoners to claim a share of federal financial aid dollars that were in limited supply at the time — $5 billion, compared to the $29 billion available today. The Second Chance program aims to help prisoners who are eligible for release...

( yooperann ) An American Airlines flight pulling away from the gate at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Thursday was evacuated with the use of emergency slides, resulting in minor injuries for three passengers. NBC-DFW reports that the flight – carrying 141 passengers and five crew members – was readying for travel to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport when smoke was reported in the cabin. Five emergency exits, including two over the wings and one through the plane’s tail, were opened during the incident. Two inflatable slides were utilized at the passenger access door and a rear service door, American said. During the evacuation three passengers were injured, suffering from minor burns. “Our fleet service team was still on the ramp and assisted passengers and crew with a successful evacuation of the aircraft,” a spokesperson for the airline said. The airline said that passengers were being put on other flights to Chicago Thursday afternoon. Emergency S...

( Ryan Holloway ) Sen. Ed Markey of Massachussetts and Sen. Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut recently posed a handful of questions to the nation’s cable and satellite providers about their set-top boxes — Are they required? How many customers have them? Is there an option for customers to purchase their own? etc. While some providers were more transparent in their responses than others, but one thing they all agreed on: We’re not telling you how much we make from leasing these devices. For example, even though Comcast [ PDF ] says that virtually all 22 million pay-TV customers have set-top boxes, with a total of 59 million devices currently being used, and that the monthly lease per box ranges from $1-$2.50/month, it balks — citing “competitive sensitivity” — at providing the senators either the average per-customer revenue from these leases or the total revenue. AT&T, which filed the response [ PDF ] before its merger with DirecTV was approved, likewise acknowledged that its e...

( www.GlynLowe.com ) Back in May, Whole Foods announced it’d be making a play for that coveted category of customers, the almighty millennials,  by launching a new line of lower-cost stores . The company has now revealed which cities will see those first cheaper stores. If you’re on the East Coast and hoping for lower prices, well, you’re out of luck for now: the first of five “365 by Whole Foods Market” locations the company is opening in the second half of 2016 is slated for the Silver Lake neighborhood of L.A.  The company says it made the “strategic decision to renegotiate the lease in development for the Silver Lake location,” transforming the Whole Foods Market there into a 365 by Whole Foods Market store. The other locations getting a millennial-baiting store include Houston; Bellevue, WA; Portland, OR and Santa Monica, CA. These spots were chosen due to a “high demand for both quality food and value in a convenient format,” according to a statement by ...

The state of Colorado no longer outlaws recreational marijuana use, but the U.S. government still considers it a Schedule I controlled substance , so many businesses making money from the locally legal sale of cannabis are having trouble finding banks to handle their cash. One credit union formed with the goal of providing financial services to those in the marijuana industry received a charter from Colorado, but has filed suit against a regional Federal Reserve bank for blocking its ability to work with other banks. Denver-based Fourth Corner Credit Union, whose stated mission is to “service the unique financial needs of the cannabis and hemp industries and their supporters,” received a charter from Colorado regulators in late 2014. The credit union then reached out to the Federal Bank of Kansas City to apply for what’s known as a “master account.” Master accounts at Fed branches allow banks to not only deposit their cash reserves, but gives banks the ability to easily transact busi...

Here are eleven of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. ( 吉姆 Jim Hofman ) ( Skip Nyegard ) ( Corey Templeton ) ( Nicholas Eckhart ) ( Freaktography ) ( Skip Nyegard ) ( Paula S ) ( 吉姆 Jim Hofman ) ( Ann Fisher ) ( Joel Zimmer ) ( Skip Nyegard ) Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here , and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool. by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

(JeepersMedia) If the leadership of a company knows that they’re about to file for bankruptcy, should they stop selling gift cards? That’s what the Attorney General in Texas contends: that RadioShack knew after the 2014 holiday season ended that it would be declaring bankruptcy soon, and that gift cards they had issued would lose their value at the time of the bankruptcy or shortly afterward. Yet they sold ’em anyway. The AG says that 16,700 gift cards were sold between January 1 and the Shack’s bankruptcy filing. In their June lawsuit , which this count has been added to, they declared it unfair that customers with gift card balances would have to file claims and get in the metaphorical line behind the company’s creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings to get any money back at all. The smoldering remains of Radioshack, or RS Legacy Corp as it’s now known, have now been charged by the Texas AG of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by selling gift cards that it knew w...