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It looks like The Mail Carrier Of Shame may soon have a slew of new members: Federal officials have accused 16 Atlanta-area U.S. Postal Service workers of accepting bribes in exchange for delivering cocaine along their routes. Federal prosecutors say that 16 USPS employees working in locations around Atlanta have been charged with bribery in three separate federal indictments. According to officials, these individuals allegedly gave special addresses to a person they believed to be a drug trafficker, who in turn could use those addresses to ship packages of cocaine. The mail carriers then intercepted those packages and delivered them to the purported drug trafficker, prosecutors allege. Unbeknownst to them, the packages contained fake drugs and the drug trafficker wasn’t really a drug trafficker, but someone working with law enforcement as part of a sting operation. Some employees are accused of going further and recruiting others to take part in the alleged criminal scheme, off...

Anyone expecting to someday see Harriet Tubman’s image grace the front of the $20 bill may be in for a long wait. In a new interview, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin hinted that the Trump administration may back off the planned change that would have had Tubman take Andrew Jackson’s place on the bill. Speaking to CNBC today , Mnuchin would only say that the Treasury will “consider” whether or not to move forward with the change from Jackson to Tubman. The $20 bill is up for a scheduled redesign in 2020, regardless of whose face is on the front. However, the former Goldman Sachs vice president turned movie producer said today that the main reason for making a change to currency is to make it more difficult to counterfeit, “So the issues of what we change will be primarily related to what we need to do for security purposes. I’ve received classified briefings on that. And that’s what I’m focused on for the most part.” On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump called abolitionist a...

Days after insurance giant Aenta was accused of revealing the HIV medication use of 12,000 customers, CVS has found itself in a similar boat: The pharmacy giant allegedly sent letters to customers that inadvertently revealed their HIV status. CVS Caremark confirmed to Consumerist that the company recently mailed pharmacy benefit information to approximately 4,000 members of Ohio’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Those letters visibly referenced HIV. The mailing campaign has since been discontinued.   ADAP pays for HIV medication for low-income consumers without insurance, or whose insurance won’t cover the medication. One envelope viewed by The Blade included the notation “PM 6402 HIV” above a customer’s name and address, visible through the window of the envelope. A rep for CVS tells Consumerist that the reference code was intended to refer to the name of the program, not the customer’s health status. “CVS Health places the highest priority on protecting the privacy of our ...

Before the nationwide solar eclipse earlier this month, experts, including some at NASA, warned that solar eclipse glasses on the market may not meet normal standards for eye protection that one should normally wear when staring at the sun. The decentralized nature of Amazon’s marketplace meant that the site was a popular source for potentially insufficient eclipse glasses, and now people who bought them have filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon. A South Carolina couple accuses Amazon of selling “unfit” eclipse glasses that caused immediate headaches and made their eyes water, and later caused distorted and blurry vision in the days following the eclipse. In their initial complaint [ PDF ], the couple argues that they only looked into the sky while wearing their glasses, and that their symptoms must have been caused by defective glasses. “Defendant owed a duty of care to Plaintiffs and the proposed class to distribute and sell the Eclipse Glasses such that they were neither ...

The world is full of really horrible, lazy people looking to steal your money while putting in the least amount of effort. Take, for example, the scammers who are blasting out automated, pre-recorded robocalls that try to scare people into believing they have to pay up or lose their flood insurance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says that people in Texas have reported receiving robocalls with false alerts that their flood insurance premiums are past due. The fraudulent call then tells the homeowner that they must make a payment immediately in order to keep their insurance from lapsing. There are a number of problems with this, says FEMA. First, companies that sell flood insurance don’t blast out robocalls to homeowners who are behind on their premiums. Second, these companies would never demand immediate payment without prior warnings. If a homeowner with flood insurance does miss payments, FEMA says the insurer will contact them in writing, not via automated phone calls....

In a move designed to lure shoppers back to brick-and-mortar stores, mall giant Westfield is patterning up with Uber to offer dedicated drop-off and pick-up spots in 33 shopping centers — and some will feature real live humans to help with customer service. The new best friends announced a partnership today to create special areas for Uber customers to be dropped off or catch a ride home from their shopping trip. Starting this fall, these spots will appear on the map in the Uber app. Each of the 33 U.S. shopping centers involved will get anywhere between one and 10 Uber stations, some of which will include kiosks with customer service employees available to help with any ride-hailing issues, as well as “brand ambassadors trained to engage with customers and facilitate their Uber experience.” And at Westfield Century City shopping mall in Los Angeles, Uber will open a dedicated rider lounge so passengers can wait for their car while charging their phones, sipping a free beverage, or...

Once again, as part of its ongoing efforts to crack down on unscrupulous debt collectors , the Federal Trade Commission has accused a North Carolina company of running a “phantom” debt collection scheme that went after people for money that they did not actually owe. The FTC announced today that it had filed a complaint accusing the debt collection operation with using intimidation and deception to extract more than $2.1 million from consumers. The operation used a variety of names, such as Lombardo, Daniels & Moss; Barron, Gibson & Phillips; and Cohen, Daniels & Moss, in its attempt to collect debts. According to the complaint [ PDF ], since March 2013 the operation began to perpetrated a scheme to defraud individuals through the collection and process of payments for debts that were not actually owed, or which the companies had no authority to collect. To do so, the FTC alleges that the operation contacted individuals by phone, claiming that individuals were delinque...

The next time you’re even thinking about doing something you shouldn’t on an airplane, take a second and ask yourself: Is this worth tens of thousands of dollars? One Hawaiian Airlines passenger has learned not to mess with flight crew the hard way, and is now on the hook for almost $98,000. A federal judge ordered a passenger whose disruptive behavior forced the pilot of a flight from Honolulu to New York to turn the plane around last November to pay Hawaiian Airlines $97,817, reports the Honolulu Star-Advertiser . He’d pleaded guilty in February to interfering with flight crew, and has also been sentenced to three years of probation. RELATED: Could Badly-Behaved Airline Passengers Lead To A Better Flying Experience for Everyone? His bad behavior started before the plane took off, officials said, and he then threatened his girlfriend, her kids, other passengers, and crew members once the flight as in the air. He was also accused of making contact with a flight attendant on her sho...

It’s been nearly a year since Wells Fargo was slapped with a $185 million fine  for pushing their employees to increase their sales numbers by opening new accounts without proper authorization from the customer. Now the bank has revealed a new estimated number of so-called ‘ fake accounts ‘ that is 1.5 million higher than the bank had previously disclosed.  This brings the new total to 3.5 million. Wells Fargo revealed the increase today following the completion of a third-party review of retail banking accounts opened as far back as 2009. These accounts are referred to as ‘fake,’ but are very real for the customers who didn’t authorize their creation. Expanded Search In all, from Jan. 2009 to Sept. 2016, employees opened approximately 3.5 million unauthorized consumer and small business accounts. Originally, the bank said that about 2.55 million accounts were opened from May 2011 to mid-2015, following a review of 93.5 million accounts. After expanding the investigation...

If you need a gadget or cord on short notice and don’t have time to go to the store, same-day delivery from Amazon is probably the first option that you think of. Best Buy wants to change that, and is slashing the price for its own same-day delivery service while expanding the list of cities where it’s available. Best Buy announced today that it will be expanding same-day order availability to Austin, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, and Tampa. Previously, the service was only in 13 cities. The company is also cutting the price of each delivery from $14.99 per order to just $5.99 as of Sept. 6. The chain promises delivery by 9 P.M. of orders placed by 3 P.M. By the end of the year, the service will reach another dozen or so markets, which haven’t yet been named. By “end of the year,” of course, we mean the holiday gifting season. “We’re happy that by the holidays, many more...

You can fly over floods… but only if there’s a place to take off and a place to land. Houston’s airports, like the rest of the city, have been dealing with high water and torrential rain caused by Hurricane Harvey, and while the runways are dry, it’s going to take some time for air travel to and through the area to get anything like back to normal. Houston is home to two major airports, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU). Many major carriers fly through one or both, including Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, United, and a number of international carriers. The Houston airports announced today that they have resumed “limited domestic airline passenger service.” The airports will be slowly ramping up operations, with full service expected to resume over Labor Day weekend. Limited really does mean limited. As Bloomberg notes , IAH is a major hub for United, which usually operates 480 flights per day out of the airport (to say nothi...

Hurricane Harvey’s impact on fuel prices nationally might be more costly than first anticipated : The country’s largest fuel system, the Colonial Pipeline, shut down its main fuel lines. Colonial Pipeline announced Wednesday evening that it would temporarily close two of its fuel lines that send an estimated 100 million gallons of gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel from Houston to the East Coast. According to Colonial Pipeline, Line 2 — which transports diesel and aviation fuel — closed Wednesday, while Line 1 — which transports gasoline between Houston and the East Coast — stopped operations today. The company noted that the shutdowns were made “due to supply constraints caused by storm-related refinery shutdowns.” Once Colonial is able to ensure that its facilities are safe to operate and refiners have the ability to move product, the systems will resume operation. What’s It Mean For Your Wallet? While many drivers have seen an increase in gas prices in the days following Harvey’s...

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, flood waters have wreaked havoc on much of southeastern Texas. So when a Pizza Hut manager heard there were families trapped in their homes without food, she decided that if she couldn’t get to them by land, she’d send pizza over the water — by kayak. The manager of a Houston-area Pizza Hut says she acted after one of her shift managers told her there were people in a certain neighborhood who were hungry and running low on food. “When I heard there were families in need, I knew we needed to act fast,” she told Click2Houston . “I called my husband and asked him to gather up kayaks and meet me at the restaurant.” They then packed 120 pizzas into kayaks, and workers set out to deliver them. “The people in the houses didn’t expect us to come,” the manager told Chron.com . “It was so nice to see their smiles after so much gloom.” The franchisee said he was proud of the team “for seeing a need, stepping up, and helping the community in a time of dev...

Soap has one job. It’s supposed to help clean things. Instead, Dr. Brown’s soap, which is marketed as “natural” and sold for use on dishes and baby bottles, has been recalled because it may be contaminated with bacteria. What to do The bottles of dish soap are contaminated with what’s described as just “harmful bacteria,” and the company will replace them with new, reformulated soap. Call 877-962-2525 or visit the company’s recall page for information about getting a replacement bottle. The company asks that customers stop using the product immediately. If you’ve used the soap to wash bottles or dishes, you should boil them or run them through a sanitizer cycle on your dishwasher if it has that option. What to look for Products included in this recall were sold from September 2016 to June 2017. You might have purchased them from Amazon.com, or 4 Our Little Ones, Babies R’ Us, Bebeang, Buy Buy Baby, Drugland Pharmacy, Family First Pharmacy, Global Nutrition Trading, Macro, or Tur...

As the FCC winds down its lip-service commenting period on Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to roll back net neutrality rules that stop internet service providers from interfering with the things you do and see online, we wanted to remind you of that time we challenged more than a dozen cable companies — all of whom publicly claimed to love the core ideas of neutrality — if they would put those rules into a legally binding contract; not one of them said yes. by Chris Morran via Consumerist

PepsiCo, the snack corporation that has brought us simple culinary delights such as Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Doritos Locos Tacos flavored Doritos , has a new product line geared to current consumers’ tastes. The Simply line is organic versions of 11 of the company’s main chip brands, including Lay’s, Cheetos, Doritos, and Tostitos. Bloomberg News reports that the products are now in stores, including the grocery section of Amazon.com. That leads to an interesting question: Now that Amazon owns Whole Foods, a company with famously strict rules about what products it will carry , would Frito-Lay products from the organic line ever appear on the shelves of Whole Foods? Better-for-you brands from Big Food The new products meet all of the requirements that Whole Foods has for its food suppliers, and are made from certified organic ingredients. Unless the chain has some kind of philosophical opposition to PepsiCo itself, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be for sale there. “Amazon’s a...

If you’ve ever looked at the list of ingredients on a can of air freshener and wondered what, exactly, is involved in that “sea breeze” scent, you’ll have some more answers soon: Procter & Gamble is joining other companies in the push for transparency with a promise that eventually all of its smelliest home and personal care offerings will detail exactly what substances make up “fragrance.” Fragrance is… fragrance For example, if you check out the current ingredient page for Febreze products , things like “Alcohol” and “Citric Acid” are included along with “fragrance*.” Follow that asterisk and P&G says that Febreze perfumes are “formulated taking into account our stringent internal safety standards for every ingredient, as well as the safety standards set by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA).” If you dig a little further on P&G’s site, you can find a list of ingredients in its “fragrance palette,” as well as those it does not use at all. However, there ...

It was a big day in news for connected-home devices, with Google announcing plans to put its Home technology on a slew of new appliances, while two competing digital assistants — Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana — began to make nice with each other. Google Gadgets Maybe your notion of a voice-activated appliance is you screaming at your dishwasher to just please work properly for once. It’s becoming increasingly likely that your next washer will be able to listen and talk back to you. The Google Assistant launched with the Google Home smart speaker in 2016 and works on both the company’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS. This morning, Google announced a major expansion in platforms where Assistant can live. In addition to third-party connected speakers from Anker, Panasonic, and Mobvoi, the company is planning to integrate Assistant into a wide variety of appliances. Forgot to turn the dishwasher on before you went to bed? Tell your Assistant-enabled phone or speak...

Most of us can walk into any big box or warehouse store and buy a case of bottled water for less than $10. But one Best Buy store in hurricane-devastated Texas was caught charging between $30 to $43 just for cases of water, leading to claims of price-gouging. Amid the blowback for its egregiously overpriced water, Best Buy is apologizing and claims it was all a mistake. Skyrocketing prices A reader submitted a photo of the Best Buy display to a reporter at news site Grit Post , who shared it on Twitter and on the site. The image went viral, because even the least price-conscious shopper knows that $43 for a case of Dasani is several times what one should expect to pay. One Houston resident sent me a pic of water he saw being sold for *$42* at a nearby Best Buy. They were kind enough to offer $29 bottles too http://pic.twitter.com/8dKz3sJJM1 — ken klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 29, 2017 Best Buy apologized for selling this item, telling Grit Post in an emailed statemen...

Repeat after me: Map apps can be useful, but you should not follow their advice blindly. For example, if you’re on your bike and it tells you to cycle through a tunnel meant only for cars. Don’t do that. Port Authority police intercepted a delivery worker on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel after he biked through it on his way to drop off food for a customer, NJ.com reports. While it’s perfectly okay to cycle across many of the area’s bridges, bikes — and other “velocipedes” — are barred from entering the Lincoln Tunnel, according to Port Authority regulations [ PDF ]. The cyclist says he was simply following the directions on a mapping app. He showed the police his phone, “which supported his claim,” a Port Authority spokesman told NJ.com. In the end, traffic wasn’t majorly disrupted, and police issued a traffic summons for trespass. He’s not the only one who has blamed technology for leading them astray: • A lost truck driver once landed a big rig on a public park’s f...

If you need more evidence that we are living in an increasingly internet-connected world, look no further than a recent software update aimed at making sure 465,000 people with pacemakers don’t have hearts that are vulnerable to hackers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced this week that medical device company Abbott has issued a corrective action for implantable cardiac pacemakers made under the St. Jude’s Medical brand. According to the company there is a “risk of patient harm due to potential exploitation of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.” To address this heart-hacking vulnerability, Abbott is issuing a firmware update to the pacemakers. While this update is being treated as a recall, the devices will continue to function as intended “and replacement of implanted pacemaker devices is not recommended.” To that end, there are no known reports of patient harm related to the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the 465,000 radio-frequency-enabled implanted Abbott devices im...

Key cards may be a convenient way for hotels to issue room keys, but a bug in one popular model made it convenient to electronically pick the locks. An override code to open doors was programmed into the locks, making them easy to open after a quick shopping trip to RadioShack. One man took advantage of this bug and used it to gain access to rooms across the country, stealing stuff from hotels and guests alike. In an excellent feature story in Wired , you can learn the slightly horrifying story of how tens of millions of electronic locks in hotels have an easily exploitable flaw, but the manufacturer has no way to push an update out to all of them. Years after the flaw was discovered, many of them still haven’t been fixed. “Like a ghost” A man in Arizona had learned about the exploit from a TV news item just as he was about to be sent back to prison on charges that he thought had been dismissed. His crimes until then were minor forgeries and driving under the influence, and he decid...

Dedicated and effective government employees can come from many prior walks of life, it’s true; the path through any career can be winding and complex. But choosing someone with major ties to a for-profit college that engaged in questionable behaviors to head up a division tasked with investigating for-profit colleges that engage in questionable behaviors seems like a bad sign. There’s a new hire coming to the Department of Education, Politico reports : Julian Schmoke, currently a high-ranking director at a community college in Georgia, will be taking over as head of the Department’s Student Aid Enforcement Office. What’s the job? The Student Aid Enforcement Office was formed in early 2016, “as part of the Obama Administration’s aggressive action to protect students and taxpayers.” The Enforcement Office basically works with other divisions within the Department of Education to investigate instutitions’ shady actions around student lending. Basically, it’s the gorup that handles a...

Don’t select your plastic surgeon based solely on their Instagram posts. That feels like something we shouldn’t have to tell people, but the “bad idea”-ness of it all is being highlighted by a new report which found that fewer than 20% of cosmetic surgery posts on Instagram are from board-certified plastic surgeons. The report, published today in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal by researchers from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, looked at the most popular posts related to an array of common plastic surgery-related hashtags and found a variety of people — some doctors, some not — pushing cosmetic surgery services without certification from medical boards in either the U.S. or Canada. Becoming a board-certified plastic surgeon requires years of post-medical school training specifically in this field, in addition to several more years of surgical training and experience. In some cases, these surgeries are indeed being marketed by physicians, but ones who aren’t...

What’s that old saying, again? “When you love someone, say it with meat”? That’s how employees at one Los Angeles Whole Foods welcomed their new e-commerce overlords, sculpting Amazon and Prime logos out of ground beef in the display case. A few observant shoppers browsing the meat department at an L.A.-area Whole Foods spotted beef sculptures devoted to Amazon branding this week, apparently in celebration of Amazon and Whole Foods officially becoming one on Monday : More Amazon meat at another LA-based Whole Foods http://pic.twitter.com/kl9HYKnCbN — Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) August 28, 2017 . @amazon logo made out of ground beef at an LA-area @WholeFoods . #AmazonWholeFoods h/t @ChrisWoodyard http://pic.twitter.com/Jv0zLG4LMB — Zlati Meyer (@Zlatimeyer) August 28, 2017 But these were not displays commissioned by Jeff Bezos, as meat guys working at the store in question confirmed to Recode that they decided to get creative on their own: “One of the managers” appare...

Uber’s brand new CEO already has a lot to deal with: The U.S. Justice Department is in the first stages of investigating whether managers at the company ran afoul of a federal law that prohibits companies and their employees from bribing foreign officials in the course of doing business. Probing matters The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it unlawful for “certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business.” The DOJ is now looking into whether Uber managers violated that law, reports The Wall Street Journal . Uber confirmed to the WSJ that the company is working with the DOJ on the preliminary investigation, while the agency said that as a matter of policy, it doesn’t confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. Depending on what the DOJ finds, if anything, officials will then decide whether or not to pursue a full investigation. New CEO on the block The news of this investigation comes...

Sure, it might be convenient to do your own income tax preparation online, but it could be risky: Scammers all over the globe have exploited these risks , slurping billions of dollars’ worth of ill-gotten tax refunds into their bank accounts. In order to prevent even more of this, federal regulators have settled charges TaxSlayer violated federal rules on financial privacy and security. Tax returns include sensitive financial information, after all, including Social Security numbers, employment information, and the amount each person is really due in taxes. Access to a tax return gives the person filing them the ability to change addresses and bank accounts and receive someone else’s tax refund. While the Internal Revenue Service has taken steps to protect taxpayers against having their refunds shipped to scammers or even shipped out of the country, the Federal Trade Commission says that TaxSlayer’s lax security and privacy practices hurt their customers [ FTC ]. The FTC notes that ...

Google pulled nearly 300 malicious apps from the Google Play Store this week, after a team of researchers from several internet companies discovered that they were all hijacking phones’ power into a massive international botnet spanning more than 100 countries. The problem The issue is a botnet called WireX. Several different internet companies — Akamai, Cloudflare, Flashpoint, Google, Oracle Dyn, RiskIQ, Team Cymru, and others — worked together to identify WireX after it first appeared on Aug. 17. Researchers from all these organizations were able to identify that WireX was being powered by roughly hundreds of different, seemingly innocuous Android apps: video players, storage management tools, or ringtones, for example. After the researchers worked out the scope and details of the attack, they notified Google of their findings, and more than 300 apps were pulled from the Google Play Store. Several of the organizations jointly published a blog post explaining the technical detai...

When the flood waters left behind by Hurricane Harvey eventually recede, they will leave behind billions of dollars in property damage. However, a large majority of homeowners will likely have to spend their own money to make their homes livable again. The Consumer Federation of America  estimates  that — because of the limited availability of flood insurance and damage limitations placed on most homeowners’ policies — eight out of ten homeowners with flood damage from Harvey don’t have insurance that will cover their claims. Robert Hunter, CFA’s Director of Insurance and former Texas Insurance Commissioner and Federal Insurance Administrator, tells the Associated Press that the lack of insurance could result in Texas homeowners paying as much as $28 billion out-of-pocket for Harvey-inflicted repairs. Limitations On Coverage The CFA notes that insurance companies have gradually increased the deductibles associated with hurricane coverage while generally limiting the types...

Flooding in the Houston area continues today, as remnants of Hurricane Harvey continue to unleash unfathomable torrents of rain on the Gulf Coast. In addition to the destruction facing local homes and businesses, all travel into or out of the nation’s fourth-largest city — both for people and for things — has been hampered, and will likely continue to be for some time. Air Travel Houston is home to two major airports, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU). Several major airlines fly through Hobby Airport, including American, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest. Several more national and international carriers fly through Bush Intercontinental, including Air Canada, Air France, Alaska, British Airways, United, and others. Botth IAH and HOU have been completely closed since Sunday, Aug. 27, and it’s unclear how much longer they might stay that way. More: Southwest Airlines flies 500 stranded passengers out of closed Houston airport The airport autho...

The Trump administration  has not been shy about its desire to cut regulations , so perhaps it’s not surprising that the Food and Drug Administration could be pulling back on its efforts to hold companies accountable. The FDA has sent out fewer warning letters to date this year than in any year since 2008. If warning letters and enforcement actions are down, does that mean we’re all less safe? What warning letters are for The FDA sends letters of warning to companies for all kinds of reasons. They might receive warnings as a follow-up to an inspection, when they’re caught selling tobacco products to minors , or when the FDA learns about problematic labeling or marketing. Fewer letters going out could mean cutbacks in inspections, or cutbacks in enforcement actions. Compared to this point during the first year of the Obama administration, research by Bloomberg Politics shows , the FDA has sent 8% fewer warning letters. So far this year, the agency has sent 30% fewer letters than ...

It’s fairly difficult to get from point A to point B when the engine in your car suddenly stalls. For that reason, Volkswagen recalled nearly 281,000 vehicles that could contain a fuel pump issue.  Volkswagen announced recently the recall of 280,915 model year 2009 to 2016 CC and model year 2006 to 2010 Passat and Passat Wagon vehicles. According to a notice [ PDF ] with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an interruption of electrical power to the fuel pump control module may occur, causing the fuel pump to fail. If this occurs, the vehicle can lose power while driving and stall unexpectedly, increasing the risk of a crash. Conversely, the issue could also cause the fuel pump to run continuously, resulting in a drained vehicle battery. The carmaker says it is unaware of any injuries or crashes related to the issue. Volkswagen notes that parts to repair the vehicles are currently unavailable. However, the company mail interim notices to customers starting Oct....

Getting fired from a job is rarely something you want to declare publicly. But what if it gets you a free Whopper at Burger King? The fast food chain launched its “own your fire” giveaway promotion today, offering free Whoppers to customers who admit to having been dismissed from their job. And it’s not a matter of just walking up to the counter at BK and saying “I’ve been fired. Whopper me.” You actually have to go on LinkedIn and publicly share that you were fired. As “severance” for their admission, and their out-of-work status, Burger King will provide 2,500 of these customers with free Whoppers. Sure, it’s not a job, but it’s lunch. To take part in the promotion, customers must log into LinkedIn and post the public message, “I got fired. I want a free Whopper. #whopperseverance.” Once the message is received, Burger King will send the individuals a personalized link to register and receive a Whopper severance package, including a Burger King gift card, in the mail. It’s unc...

Two fast food chains with dedicated fanbases are set to square off in a courtroom over Smashburger’s new Triple Double cheeseburger, which In-N-Out Burger claims is illegally trying to copy its famous Double-Double and Triple-Triple sandwiches. California-based In-N-Out has been serving up the Double-Double (two beef patties; two slices of cheese) cheeseburger since before many of us were born, and the chain has state and federal trademark registrations on the phrase going back more than four decades. In 1990, the company added trademark registrations for sandwiches on its “not-so-secret” menu, like the Triple-Triple (three patties; three cheese slices) and Quad-Quad (if you haven’t figured this pattern out yet, oh well). Earlier this summer, Denver-based Smashburger — which operates around 350 locations in 38 states — launched a new Triple Double burger, which is two beef patties with three slices of cheese. Even though In-N-Out does not have a trademark on the “Triple Double” name...