Free Urdu English Islamic, IT, Urdu Story , Ebooks Library | PDF Docx Format | Learn Online

Two years ago, we told you about the not-at-all a discount retailer called USA Discounters that targeted active-duty servicemembers, and not only trapped a number of them in high-cost installment payment plans but then sued customers who fell behind, knowing it was highly unlikely the customer would ever be able to defend themselves. Since then, the company has changed its name , only to go bankrupt , but that hasn’t stopped prosecutors from coming after it. Today, the defunct retailer reached a multi-state settlement deal that could result in USA Discounters customers receiving millions of dollars in forgiven debt. To recap: USA Discounters was a Virginia-based chain of stores — also doing business as USA Living and Fletcher’s Jewelers — with locations that were frequently found in close proximity to large military and naval bases. In spite of the name, many of the items sold through USA Discounters were marked up above their retail price. For example, back in 2014 an iPad Mini at ...

If you’re the kind of person who would rather fall asleep at your desk than venture inside a Starbucks during rush hour, avoiding the crush inside the store could change everything about your morning routine. To that end, the Seattle-based chain is testing curbside pickup. Because not every Starbucks location includes a drive-thru lane, the company is testing the new system at one store in Snoqualmie, WA, Business Insider reports, citing a recent research note from Nomura analyst Mark Kalinowoski. “Customers using the Starbucks mobile app to order and pay (apparently for this store only) can choose to have their order delivered to them curbside by a barista, so that they don’t even have to get out of their car to get their order,” he writes. It’s unclear at this point whether Starbucks is, or will be, testing the curbside pickup option at any other locations. We’ve reached out to Starbucks for more information, and will update this post when we hear back. “We’ll be curious to see ...

Chipotle customers who joined the chain’s temporary loyalty program — a program aimed at winning back customers after a spate of food-borne illness outbreaks at its restaurants — are finally getting a reward, in the form of free catered food. About 85,000 Chiptopia members who completed the program’s top tier of requirements will get free catering for 20 people at a value of $240, which shakes out to about $20.4 million, company spokesman Chris Arnold told CNBC . Chiptopia’s three levels — mild, medium, and hot — rewarded customers who visited the restaurant since June. To get to “hot” status folks had to buy 11 or more entrees every month for all three summer months. They earned nine free meals already for hitting that tier, so the free catering is just the guacamole on the burrito (this time, it doesn’t cost extra). They sound pretty hungry after all that hard work: Killian hit Hot Status at Chipotle all 3 months so he gets free catering from them for 10 people what a champ ...

Best Buy isn’t the only retailer looking to work with hot new startups , Target was just a bit more quiet about the whole thing. Last week the big box retailer stealthily launched a website aimed at collecting ideas from startups interested in working with the company.  The website solicits pitches from early-stage companies that are looking to run pilot programs that would enhance customers’ experiences with the retailer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Unlike Best Buy’s recently announced plans that would put new products on shelves, Target’s “Pitch to Pilot” initiative isn’t a way for companies to hawk product ideas, but instead to provide insight on services the retailer could one day offer in stores or online. Pitch to Pilot is Target’s way of dealing with an influx of information from startups, that are apparently dying to work with the retailer ever since it launched its Techstars accelerator program last year. That program, which recently graduated its f...

Eighteen months after Corinthian Colleges Inc. completed its collapse – closing the remaining Heald College, Wyotech, and Everest University  – tens of thousands of former students are still waiting to received some form of relief from the mountains of student loan debt they incurred to attend the defunct college.  Nearly 80,000 former CCI students are facing some type of debt collection related to the loans they took out to attend the schools, despite the Department of Education’s ability to provide defense of repayment discharges — a process that would wipe away the debt based on the company’s alleged fraudulent actions. This debt relief delay is unacceptable, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) wrote in a letter [ PDF ] to Secretary of Education John King, urging him to immediately provide relief for students of the now-defunct schools. The road to obtaining discharges has been mired with issues, most stemming from the fact that the process has seldom ever been used, and ce...

If you’re the kind of person who visits New York City just for the sandwiches, you’ll probably want to pay attention: the famed Carnegie Deli announced it’ll be closing its flagship location by the end of the year. The midtown restaurant’s owner told staff today that she’s keeping the deli open through Dec. 31 so workers can make good money through the holidays, but the delicatessen will shut its doors after that, ABC 7 reports . “Moving forward, Marian Harper hopes to keep her father’s legacy alive by focusing on licensing the iconic Carnegie Deli brand and selling their world-famous products for wholesale distribution,” a spokeswoman said. The family has owned the deli since 1976. It first opened in midtown Manhattan in 1937. In 2015 it shut down for nine months over an illegal gas hookup, opening its doors again last February. There’s still hope for pastrami lovers, however: the flagship location could reopen under new management. In the meantime, there are licensed Carnegie Del...

Every awards season, the internet fills up with pristine, pirated copies of Oscar-contending movies, many of them ripped from screeners sent out by the studios to promote the films. One staffer on the Dr. Phil Show who has admitted to leaking a copy of The Revenant online was recently sentenced to fork over $1.12 million to the studio. Prosecutors say the man, using the screen name “clutchit,” uploaded a digital copy of the movie to the torrent-tracking site Pass The Popcorn on Dec. 19, 2015 — nearly a week before the film hit U.S. theaters. TorrentFreak reports that an FBI investigation ensued, eventually identifying the uploader as a 31-year-old California man in the TV industry whose account had also apparently been used to leak a copy of The Peanuts Movie , which we didn’t see but we’re pretty sure doesn’t include a scene of Linus being mauled by a bear. In Feb. 2016, two days before The Revenant ‘s Best Picture hopes were slammed against a tree by Spotlight , the Department ...

Sears had a deal with the Holly Hill Mall in Burlington, NC that isn’t unusual: the retailer gave the mall a small percentage of its sales instead of paying a fixed rent. That amount has evidently fallen over the years as the popularity and business prospects of Sears fell, and now the mall has sued Sears for failing to keep up its end of the lease. The Times-News reports that Sears has been part of that mall for about 40 years, and it last signed a new lease in 2013. That lease spelled out that the retailer had to pay 2% of its net sales, and provide the mall with monthly sales reports. According to a lawsuit that the mall filed, Sears failed to file those reports for some of the months between either 2010 or 2014 and this year, and that the department store chain also hasn’t been promoting its business enough to justify a net-sales rent agreement. The mall seeks a $25,000 settlement, and to kick Sears out so it can rent that 65,000 square feet to another tenant. Meanwhile, the T...

When you hear the name “Teddy Ruxpin,” perhaps you’re hit with a wave of nostalgia tinged with a lingering wariness of the animatronic talking teddy bear that read stories off a cassette tape shoved in his back. But now that there’s a new Teddy Ruxpin on the scene with bright blue, lidlessly blinking LCD eyes, your nightmares may have a new face. The Teddy Ruxpin update comes from a company called Wicked Cool Toys, and is the fifth version of the bear that was first introduced in 1985, Gizmodo reports. Instead of jamming a cassette tape in the toy’s back, there’s 4 GB of onboard storage that can hold about 40 stories at once. And of course, this being the internet of things era, he can wirelessly connect to a free accompanying app via Bluetooth to download new content and let kids read along with an interactive book. And then there are those eyes… While the original Teddy Ruxpin’s lidded eyes and moving mouth might have creeped you out a little bit as a kid, there’s something abo...

AT&T offers GigaPower subscribers in several cities two options: pay $70 for your connection and get your data snooped on, or keep your privacy and pay $99. The company has regularly defended the program from critics, and claimed that it’s basically the wave of the future. And yet today, seemingly out of nowhere, A&T has suddenly announced that it will be dropping the option nationwide, and charging all consumers the same — lower — price. Ars Technica reports today that AT&T has confirmed it is, indeed, scrapping the program. We have to admit, we’re pretty surprised — in a good way, to be sure. As recently as yesterday we were writing stories about AT&T executives lamenting the uneven playing field if they are not allowed to do as they like with your data. The company first launched Internet Preferences in 2013 . When it brought GigaPower service to the area, it told customers they could get service for as little as $70 per month — if subscribers let AT&T snoop...

It’s got to be hard enough working on an airplane — serving drinks thousands of feet in the sky, smiling at strangers when you maybe want to scream at them — without having to deal with uncomfortable clothing. But some American Airlines flight attendants say they’re breaking out in hives and suffering horrible headaches from their brand new uniforms. The airline just debuted the new uniforms on Sept. 20 and already there are reports coming in that they’re causing physical discomfort among staff: Chicago Business Journal cites inside sources who say more than 400 flight attendants have informed their union and company management that they’re itchy and breaking out into hives, and experiencing headaches since they’ve put on the new uniforms. An American spokeswoman confirmed to the Journal that the airline has gotten some complaints about the uniforms, which are believed to be related to a wool allergy. She said anyone feeling uncomfortable in the uniforms has been given the option o...

Shortly after ITT Educational Services announced it would close all of its ITT Technical campuses across the country , the Department of Education swooped in to try to placate students’ concerns  by announcing that it would forgive currently or recently enrolled students’ federal student loans. While the process to wipe out that debt will no doubt be complicated and take time, former students who used veteran benefits — like the GI Bill — will likely be waiting longer and have more hurdles to jump through.  Cleveland.com reports that there were about 7,000 veterans attending ITT Tech schools when the company collapsed. While federal student loans can be discharged through the Department of Education, any additional aid provided through the Department of Veterans Affairs is currently in limbo. That’s because, under VA rules, once veteran education benefits are used, they’re gone, you can’t get them back. And legislation that would have changed that stipulation — at least fo...

We don’t know how Apple wronged this customer in Dijon, France, but he caught everyone’s attention when he walked calmly around a store, smashing iPhones and at least one computer with a heavy metal ball. During his smashing spree, he told employeees and shoppers about his grievances with the company, then tried to leave the store before mall security caught up with him. This is not a recommended way to get Apple’s attention about your dispute with the company, in case you were wondering. A local news report said that the man wore a single glove and held a hollow steel ball used for the game pétanque (the most similar thing we play in the United States is Bocce). The total carnage was ten to twelve iPhones and one MacBook Air, and of course a bystander captured the attack on video. The man was rather calm throughout the smash attack, even if his anger at Apple is what originally prompted it. He then tried to leave, and seemed surprised when mall security wouldn’t let him walk ...

Cord-cutting is, as we know, a real trend. It’s not what the majority of viewers do — huge numbers of consumers subscribe to cable, satellite, or fiber TV service — but it’s definitely on the rise. And one new analysis thinks the cable industry could be losing at least $1 billion a year in revenue from customers who say “so long.” A new study, the Wall Street Journal reports , estimates that in a 12-month period, at least 800,000 subscribers are going to cancel their pay-TV service, or cut the cord. Cord-cutting is more of a trickle than a flood, other surveys — and, for that matter, quarterly financial reports — have shown. Companies each tend to lose a few tens of thousands of viewers per quarter, but tens of millions of households still subscribe to something. Still, those small quarterly losses for each individual company add up across the board. And analysis firm cg42, which ran the study, estimates that pay-TV companies can lose about $1,248 per cord-cutter per year. Every s...

September began with news of a New York City mom whose unaccompanied 5-year-old son somehow ended up on the wrong JetBlue flight , and now the month comes to an end with that mom filing a lawsuit against the airline that misrouted her child. If you’re coming into the story late, here’s a quick catch-up: On Aug. 17, the 5-year-old was supposed to fly home on JetBlue from Cibao International Airport in the Dominican Republic to JFK International in New York City. The boy’s family had booked him an unaccompanied minor ticket for the trip, meaning JetBlue staffers were responsible for making sure he arrived safely at his destination — which, again, was supposed to be New York. The mom says she waited at JFK for her son to arrive, only to have JetBlue present her with a child that, well… it wasn’t her son. Thirty minutes of confusion pass, and the mom says the airline told her they had located her son and he was waiting near the baggage claim. But, once again — not her son. According to...

Wells Fargo’s bad month has just gotten worse. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have fined the big bank $24.1 million for allegedly violating the law by repossessing military servicemembers’ cars. Wells Fargo on Thursday agreed to pay $4.1 million to settle a Justice Department investigation and $20 million to settle allegations from the OCC that it repossessed vehicles from servicemembers without proper court orders. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) a court order is required to repossess a vehicle if the servicemember took out the loan and made a payment before entering military service. According to the DOJ settlement [ PDF ], from 2008 until the middle of 2015, Wells Fargo lacked that court documentation when it repossessed 413 vehicles owned by servicemembers. The bank’s alleged actions came to light when the DOJ received a complaint in March 2015 claiming the bank had an Army National Guardsman’s used ...

What’s that sound? It’s Google knocking on Uber and Lyft’s doors to tell them it’s come out to play: the technology giant is taking one step further into providing transportation by expanding its pilot ride-sharing program to San Francisco. Anyone in San Francisco with a smartphone — surely, there must be a few people — can now download the Waze Rider app and request carpooled rides to and from work, The Wall Street Journal reports . Drivers on the platform use Google’s Waze navigation app. Last May Google launched a test of the service for workers at some area employers, but Waze Rider has been slowly rolling out to San Francisco users for several weeks, Google confirmed to the WSJ. As for how well the service works, a WSJ reporter went on a Waze Rider trip this week and said there were a few hiccups, like the app’s failure to show the rider where the driver’s car was before it arrived, and the driver had trouble using Waze’s navigation service. All told, he gave it a thumbs up. ...

Since its launch in 2012 Instacart has offered consumers a way to shop at their local grocery store without actually going to the store. Instead, hired shoppers would be sent a list of products, grab them off shelves, and drive them to a customer’s home or business where they often — but not always — receive a tip. But starting next month, the company is changing the way it handles tips, leaving some contractors and customers up in arms. Instacart announced last week that starting Oct. 1 it would no longer collect tips online, but would collect a service amount from customers instead. The company says that customers can choose how much of a service amount they want to provide and Instacart will then pass those funds along to its contractors — the driver or shopper handling orders. Instacart claims that the change was intended to create “more consistent pay with fewer variables” and provide “higher guaranteed delivery commissions.” TechCrunch reported that Instacart COO R...

A restaurant might already have enough competition from other eateries next door, across the street, or even in the same building, so they probably don’t want yet a competing restaurant on wheels parking on their block. But when restaurants and food trucks share a similar menu, can a city require that they not share the same general space? Earlier this year, we told you about Baltimore food truck owners who were challenging a new city ordinance that prohibits these rolling restaurants from operating within 300 feet of “any retail business establishment that is primarily engaged in selling the same type of food product, other merchandise, or service as that offered by the mobile vendor.” A pair of truck owners sued the city, claiming that the so-called “300-foot rule” violates their rights to equal protection and due process under the Maryland state constitution. The city responded by filing a motion to dismiss [ PDF ], arguing that the rule is a “wholly local economic regulation t...

Another day, another major auto manufacturer announcing plans for a self-driving vehicle: this time it’s Volvo, which says it will offer a fully autonomous car to luxury buyers in five years. The vehicle will be sold to individual buyers, who can fork over about $10,000 extra to purchase autopilot features, Bloomberg Technology reports. The feature will allow occupants to completely disengage from driving but there will still be a steering wheel for when the owner feels like using it, according to Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson, speaking to reporters at the Global Mobility Leadership Forum near Detroit on Thursday. “To make a car even more premium, one of the most interesting things is a full autopilot,” he said. “Not a supervised version, but really the one that you can sit back and watch a movie or whatever. That will make the premium car even more premium.” He says Volvo’s autopilot features will be different from others like Tesla, because those require drivers to ke...

Going to an actual attendant and paying cash for gas is something fewer and fewer of us do every year. But for all the problems of cash, it might be less risky than sticking your credit card in any old gas pump, where a skimmer can grab and steal your data with very little effort. And those skimmers are everywhere. Case in point? Arizona. Security expert Brian Krebs this week delved into the scourge of pump skimmers showing up in The Grand Canyon state of late. Why Arizona? Well, for two reasons. One, because the state has kept accessible records handy for researchers like Krebs to read, and from which he could create a cool map of incidents . But also because gas stations there have proven to be super-easy targets, Krebs writes: the vast majority of stations that have been hit are missing fairly low-tech counters. They don’t have security cameras, nor do they have tamper-evident seals on the pumps. That means basically anyone can mess with the pump’s payment system, and nobody wil...

There are travel hiccups that keep passengers from getting to their destination by a few hours. And then there are ordeals that keep people in limbo for days. Case in point: a Southwest Airlines flight from the Dominican Republic to Atlanta that turned into a three-day real life nightmare.  Southwest Airlines flight 1239 was set to take off from Punta Cana on Sunday night with its 160 passengers when travel plans went out the window, 11 Alive reports. According to passengers, they had been waiting inside the plane for about an hour when the pilot announced there was a mechanical issue and they would have to spend another night in paradise. “They told us that we were gonna have to stay they night and they would put us in a hotel,” one passenger recalls. ”We were fine with that. We thought, safety first.” Except, it wasn’t paradise, as the passengers quickly found out. Instead, they tell 11 Alive that the hotel was dirty and all around unacceptable. “It was so fi...

Joining Starbucks bottled beverages on store shelves next year will be Dunkin’ Donuts, which says it’s teaming up with Coca-Cola to launch ready-to drink iced coffee products. Dunkin’ apparently timed the news to National Coffee Day , announcing that Coca-Cola will be in charge of manufacturing, distributing, and selling, but the products will be branded by Dunkin’. The iced coffee drinks will use the same Arabica coffee blends Dunkin’ uses in its other coffee offerings, and will be available with milk and sugar in a variety of flavors in grocery and convenience stores, by mass merchandisers, and inside Dunkin’ restaurants across the U.S. Dunkin’ is hoping its first foray into the ready-to-drink coffee category will give it a chunk of the $2.3 billion a year market. Also: millennials. “This new product introduction will increase consumption of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and increase our brand relevance with existing and new consumers, including many younger customers, which we believe ...

While the number of borrowers defaulting on their federal student loans didn’t increase this year, the number of consumers who remain in default hasn’t really change either, creating a stand-still of sorts.  A new report from the Department of Education  found that for the third consecutive year, there was a drop in the percentage of borrowers who are defaulting on their student loans within three years of entering repayment. This is known as the cohort default rate. According to the report, among the 5.2 million borrowers who entered repayment in 2013, 11.3% (or 593,182) had defaulted on their loans by 2015. That figure is down slightly from the 11.8% of borrowers who entered repayment in 2012 and subsequently defaulted in 2014. In 2013, 13.7% of borrowers who began repaying their debts in 2011 had defaulted. In all, the default rate dropped for two of the main college sectors. The default rate was 11.3% for students at public schools; 15% for students at for-profit colle...

Things got a bit heated at a Walmart in Massachusetts recently, after a employee allegedly set three fires inside the store. Police responded to the store around 5:25 p.m. on Tuesday after a report of a fire in the store’s jewelry section, MassLive.com reports. When they arrived they found it wasn’t just the one fire — there were three set throughout the store. “All three fires had been extinguished by Walmart staff and several customers who used the fire extinguishers that were located throughout the store,” police said, adding that no one was injured. After officials determined that the fires had been deliberately set, the suspect was identified on a surveillance video. She had been seen fleeing, police said, and investigators called her to ask her to come back to the store — but she hung up on them. The next day she turned herself in and was arrested. She’s now facing three counts of burning a building’s contents, three counts of destruction of property over $250, and one count...

Imagine you’re a politician who received tens of thousands of dollars in recent years from a bank, and hundreds of thousands from a banking industry that wants to do away with new consumer protections. Then that bank is caught opening up millions of fake accounts without authorization. If you’re one of these bank-backed legislators, this huge scandal is apparently an opportunity to take shots at the federal regulator the banking industry has been trying to undermine since its creation. This morning’s House Financial Services Committee hearing on the ongoing Wells Fargo debacle spent an awful lot of time on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that recently hit Wells with a $185 settlement over the mountain of bogus bank accounts, and which has been the target of pro-bank lawmakers since it was created as part of the 2010 financial reforms. “We are here today because millions of Americans were ripped off by their bank and seemingly let down by their government,” said c...

While moving walkways have become ubiquitous at airports around the country — along with the rage that comes from getting stuck behind the person who chooses to stand still and block everyone else from walking on them — conveyor belts that shuttled people around were invented long before air travel became the norm. USA Today takes a look back at moving sidewalks, flat escalators, or Trav-O-Lator machines, which is what the Otis Elevator company called their patented version in 1955. “No matter what you choose to call it, a moving walkway is a simple variation of the conveyor belt,” Steve Showers, corporate archivist for the Otis Elevator Company, told USA Today. Moving walkways first showed up at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, followed by a “Moving Pavement” experience at the Paris Expo in 1900, but weren’t commonly used until air travel and airports expanded in the 1950s, Showers notes. Dallas Love Field Terminal — which opened in 1958 — was the first to instal...

We are sure you will be shocked, shocked to hear that a major telecom company that currently makes some money from having customers pay to keep private data private wants to be able to continue doing so whenever possible. And yet, here we are. FierceWireless reports that at a conference this week, AT&T Mobility CEO Glenn Lurie offered some thoughts about the ISP privacy rule the FCC is mulling over . “There always should be a level playing field,” Lurie complained. That stance is neither new nor surprising from AT&T, which has complained before about how unfair it will be if Google and Facebook can collect, share, and sell your data but carriers like AT&T can’t. Lurie was also asked directly about AT&T using its wireless customers’ information to provide targeted advertising. He promised the company respects customers’ privacy, saying “We’ve always been very, very transparent about our policy … We have earned the trust of our customers and we have to keep that trus...

It looks like Spotify could be preparing to shore up its streaming music service amid competition in the digital field: according to a new report, Spotify is in advanced talks to buy SoundCloud. The Financial Times cites one of those mysterious, all-powerful “people brief ed on the discussions,” who said it was unclear how much Spotify would be willing to shell out for the company, and discussions could well result in a dead end. Insiders at Spotify say SoundCloud has been viewed as a threat as long as it was considering offering a cheaper, mid-tier subscription service that might have rivaled Spotify. But when it decided not to go that route — offering a standard $9.99 monthly option instead — things changed, sources say. The acquisition would bring SoundCloud’s community of independent creators along with it, folks who have uploaded, recorded, and promoted their original mixes and DJ sets on the platform. Apple recently announced that its Apple Music Service has 17 million subsc...

Yet another former Wells Fargo employee has come forward to talk about the high-pressure atmosphere created by the bank, where she says there were only two types of employees: those who sold customers on products they didn’t want, and those that were shown the door. Today’s Washington Post features a first-person account from a former Wells Fargo personal banker, who recalls working late on Christmas Eve, after the bank had closed and her co-workers had all gone home, trying to persuade her family members and friends to open accounts with the bank so she could meet sales quotas. “During my time at Wells, my colleagues and I were pressured to sell, sell, sell accounts to people who really didn’t want them — blurring ethical lines along the way,” the former employee writes. She says she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, unless she wanted to be out a job. Instead, she observed fellow co-workers, who were making their goals, and took their lead with “assumptive sales.” “We’d...