There are lots of ways to get a free car to drive on your next road trip . TransferCar makes it even easier to find free one-way rental cars by showing specific routes and perks that come with the drive (such as free gas, expenses, or insurance coverage).
Here's a quick tip for knowing when butter is hot enough to saute in: wait until it stops foaming.
When you're heading a collaboration of any kind, the number of people you bring on board can change how effective your team's output is. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, suggests employing the "two pizza rule" to help keep yourself from including too many people.
I am, as the French say, a migraineur: a sufferer of migraine headaches. My condition leaves me susceptible to dizzying, tearful, nausea-inducing head pain with the change of the breeze. Did I walk up a flight of stairs too quickly? Migraine. One too many cups of coffee? Migraine. Coworker look at me a certain way? Migraine.
If you've got some books that have been sitting around in the attic, they might pick up "old book smell". Sprinkling some cornstarch helps get rid of the smell without damaging the book.
Packing up for a big move is tedious work, but with a bit of extra preparation, you can make unpacking much easier. Take a photo of the back of your TV (and other devices) so you know how to plug everything back in.
Doesn't this look delicious? The incredibly versatile waffle iron can turn batter into churros—saving you the hassle of deep-frying the dough in a pot of oil.
Kids with ADHD have trouble concentrating and staying motivated in school. They often need something new and different to grab their attention. Changing out the school supplies might help.
Pantries never seem to have as much space as you need. Try sticking a sponge holder inside your pantry or cabinets for extra usable space.
Nothing sucks more than having a gadget break down and finding out it'll cost hundreds of dollars to fix. Don't have the cash to spend on a repair? Here are some tricks for fixing it even if your warranty doesn't apply.
Centreville Dog Park, 'Ruff' Around the Edges, to Get a Makeover The Centreville Independent A Centreville resident hopes to revamp the Centreville dog park with help from the community. Molly, a young flat-coated retriever mix, takes a break from playtime at the Centreville dog park. Rock Hill District Park, a huge open area off Old Lee Road ... |
The Military Lending Act attempts to shield military personnel and their families from some predatory lending practices, but a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts claims that some traditional banks on military bases are nickel-and-diming members of the armed forces with excess overdraft fees, and a general lack of transparency.
Pew’s latest report [PDF], Checks and Balances, Stars and Stripes, found that while some banks and credit unions on military bases employ practices to provide transparency and protect consumer they could do more.
Because military personnel are required to receive their paychecks via direct deposit, it makes opening and maintaining a checking account crucial to their financial well-being.
Unlike some consumers who may have a plethora of options to choose from when looking for banks and credit unions, many active duty military members face unique circumstances such as being deployed or moving frequently between bases that limit their access to banking institutions.
Additionally, under federal regulations, only one bank and one credit union are permitted to operate on a Department of Defense installation at any time, further limiting military members’ options for banking.
For these reasons, officials with Pew says it’s even more important for banks and credit unions that cater to military members and their families to have policies that promote transparency and protect account holders from unsafe and hidden practices and costs.
In the report, Pew analyzed the checking accounts offered by 18 of the 31 Association of Military Banks of America (AMBA) on-installation member banks and 111 of the 134 the Defense Credit Union Council (DCUC) on-installation member credit unions—which, because they are located on Department of Defense bases, primarily cater to service members and their families.
Disclosures
The study found that 42% of banks and 17% of credit unions failed to provide any disclosure information online, making it extremely difficult for deployed service members to access critical information about the terms and conditions governing their accounts.
However, of the banks that did provide account information online, nearly three-quarters of them offered a summary disclosure box and half offered boxes that meet Pew’s criteria for effective disclosures.
Pew’s summary disclosure box was developed to provide consumers with clear and concise highlights of important fees and features for checking accounts.
Overdrafts
When it comes to overdraft fees, military personnel are in the same boat many consumers find themselves: high costs and little protection.
Earlier this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau likened overdraft fees as a short-term, high-interest loan. The agency described the typical overdraft situation as comparable to a small dollar loan with a 17,000% interest rate; a rate that far exceeds the Military Lending Act’s 36% interest rate cap.
Pew found that 17 of the AMBA-member banks charge overdraft penalties ranging from $25 to $38.50 per overdraft, with a median fee of $35.
Of the DCUC-member credit unions, 12 don’t disclose information about overdraft fees in their fee schedules or on their websites. The remaining 94 credit unions charge between $20 and $39 for each overdraft, with a median of $29.
In the past, consumer advocates have said the best way to ensure consumers don’t overdraft is to decline transactions that would result in negative balances. However, only two banks and four credit unions decline ATM transactions that would result in negative balances, while only two banks and three credit unions decline point-of-sale transactions that would result in the same outcome.
For the past several years, groups such as Pew and the CFPB have spotlighted one of the more devastating practices banks and credit unions have used to drive up consumers’ overdraft costs: reordering transactions to create the illusion of more overdrafts.
Pew found that more than half of the banks and three-quarters of the credit unions that cater to military personnel reorder transactions in a manner that would result in more overdrafts.
Dispute Resolutions
Pew found that many account agreements provided by the AMBA and DCUC institutions contain clauses that restrict a military members’ ability to seek legal recourse when it comes to disputes over their accounts.
Pew found that nearly 65% of the banks analyzed include mandatory arbitration clauses in their account agreements, while only 6% of credit unions analyzed employ the clauses.
Of the banks that do have mandatory arbitration clauses, four allow consumers to opt out of arbitration before a dispute, but it must be done in writing and within a certain time period after opening an account.
Officials with Pew say the new study, while highlighting some of the good practices banks and credit unions catering to military members have implement, underscores the need for new rules to make checking accounts safer and more transparent for all consumers.
“Safe financial products are essential for all consumers, but they are especially important for Americans serving in the military,” Susan Weinstock, director of Pew’s consumer banking research, says. “We urge the CFPB to take concrete steps to improve checking account safeguards for both military and civilian customers.”
The report suggests that the CFPB could create safer banking products for consumers by implementing rules requiring:
Have you ever banked at a financial institution on a military base? Let us know about your experience by sending an email to tips@consumerist.com, using the subject line: Military Lending.
The Great Dish Haul is happening at the former Syracuse China factory in my hometown of Syracuse, NY. The brand itself still exists, as the foodservice dishware division of parent company and glass-maker Libbey. The former factory stands, too, but not as a dish factory. Instead, on November 8 and 9, any random adult will be able to fill their vehicle with as many pieces of dishware as they can cram into any vehicle they bring to the site. The problem is that these dishes are unglazed, since no one bothered to run the kiln after the factory closed. Glaze is what keeps food residue and bacteria from soaking into the porcelain of your dishes; it’s why you can’t eat out of a clay pot. That means these dishes are not usable for food service–less so after sitting out in a field for three years.
The $10 will not go to the current owners of the building, even to help with their “take this junk to the dump” fund. Instead, it’s a fundraiser for the local neighborhood association and a nearby daycare, which are the organizations running the sale.
What is it good for? No one has condoned skeet shooting as a possible use, but some local art classes have used pieces for projects.
The Great Syracuse China Giveaway: 11 things to know [Syracuse Post-Standard]
In a Gallup survey announced this week, the fear many Americans may be feeling in light of recent credit card data breaches at major retailers is showing in the numbers, reports the AFP.
A total of 69% of Americans said they frequently or occasionally worry about computer hackers liftig their credit-card info from stores’ databases. And the only other crime that worries a majority of our countrymen? Hacking and data theft of their computers and smartphones, at 62.%
After that comes home burglaries when they’re away from home (45%) and having a car stolen or broken into (42%).
“Americans today are more worried about their credit card information being hacked from stores than about any other crimes they are asked about, and a relatively high percentage say they have been victims of this hacking,” Gallup said.
To that end, 27% of Americans reported that they or someone else in the household had info from a credit card used at a store stolen by hackers in the last year. That was the most frequently experienced crime on Gallup’s list of nine.
Lower on the list? Being a victim of terrorism got 28%, fear of getting murdered clocked in at 18% and finally, being assaulted or killed on the job by a coworker was at the very bottom at 7%.
So while it seems we’re not too concerned about bodily harm these days, if you shop anywhere ever, the fear of having your credit card hacked not only real, but justified..
Credit-card hacking is Americans’ top crime worry: poll [AFP]
KHOU-TV reports that officials in charge of maintaining the Taylor Creek Visitor Center in South Lake Tahoe are threatening to shut down the area if people don’t heed their warning to stop taking selfies with wild bears.
Officials with the U.S. Forest Service say the area is a popular spot for people to watch the annual run of kokanee salmon and that bears are often seen lurking nearby.
While that didn’t used to be much of an issue for the service, lately people have begun approaching the bears in order to take photos with the animals.
“We’ve had mobs of people that are actually rushing toward the bears trying to get a ‘selfie’ photo,” Lisa Herron, a spokesperson for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, tells KHOU.
Herron says the new photo sensation poses a threat not only to the photo taker but also surrounding visitors.
While bear attacks on humans are extremely rare, those hassling the animals in their natural habitat face an increased likelihood of being harmed.
Recently visitors have been charging off trails, through the forest and over the rushing creek to get closer to the bears.
So far, Herron says she’s heard of one incident where a bear charged a group of people, no one injuries were reported from the incident.
This isn’t the first wild animal selfie game that’s been stopped in its tracks. Earlier this year New York banned tiger selfies – better known as the practice of paying to have your photo taken with a large cat.
Forest Rangers Warn Visitors: “Stop Taking ‘Selfies’ With Bears” [KHOU-TV]
Yes, the peasant malls that we shop at might rent out strollers and maybe even provide valet parking during the busy holiday season, but that’s not much when compared to the attention that customers at a mall catering to rich people receive. There’s a very good reason for such a mall to provide service that brings customers back, of course: people with expensive tastes who travel extensively can shop pretty much anywhere they want.
“We know our customers can shop anywhere — and they travel a lot — so we have to go overboard with service,” the president of the mall owner’s retail group explained to Bloomberg Businessweek. They have to: the mall offers a variety of luxury brand names, but those stores certainly aren’t exclusive. They need to offer something extra to keep customers from shopping at sibling stores in Manhattan instead.
One Percenters Drop Six Figures at Long Island Mall [Bloomberg News]
For all those moments when the words escape you and you’re thinking strictly in pictures, search engine Bing announced this week that it’s launching a new option to cruise for answers on the Internet using emojis.
“As you likely know, emoji are small pictures used to express an idea or emotion,” Bing helpfully explains to those of us out there who are woefully unhip.
In all English markets, you’ll now be able to use emoji characters to find what you want, with results based on “the semantic meaning of the emoji” — because it’s just so tough to write the words “Fuji apple,” as in the example Bing gives above.
Or perhaps you don’t know what the heck that emoji is supposed to be — this way you can search for it directly, instead of trying to describe it.
The possibilities are endless, if not a bit baffling. Like the time (20 minutes ago) when I wondered about lip sweat and sleep dancing:
But some things don’t work out quite so well, in terms of results, depending on how crazy you decide to get:
Words escape us all sometimes, it seems.
Not so long ago, before the rise of the mega-hardware chains, you could walk into your local home improvement store and find a helpful employee who knew exactly what you needed and where to find it on the shelves. We’ve now reached a point in customer service where Lowe’s has chosen to create a robot to replicate this experience.
In the above video, Lowe’s shows off its OshBot, a customer service robot that is going to be tested at the Lowe’s-owned Orchard Supply Hardware store in San Jose, CA, (because heaven forbid anyone outside of Silicon Valley got the chance to try anything cool).
The OshBot can greet customers at the door, ask them what they need help with and use its 3-D camera to view pieces of hardware to identify them and direct the customer to where they could be found within the store.
This is exactly the type of experience I grew up with going with my mom to local hardware stores. Tell them you need to patch a hole in the wall, and an employee would ask you pertinent questions and walk you around to each of the various items you’d need.
And there are still plenty of people offering this level of service at both smaller and incredibly large hardware stores, but many consumers I know often assume — because of previous bad customer service experiences — that they won’t find someone who is both helpful and knowledgable. So perhaps Lowe’s decision to try out a robot says just as much about what consumers have come to expect from dealing with humans as it does about the stores themselves?
“What our sales associates are amazing at doing and what they love spending time on are consulting and helping customers with their projects and solving their problems,” explains Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, and owner of a head of incredibly intriguing hair. “We can let the robots answer questions like, ‘where are the hammers?'”
One thing the Lowe’s robot offers that stores often can’t is a multilingual interface. That’s incredibly important to many hardware stores, especially in markets where a large part of the local construction labor force is made up of recent immigrants for whom English is not their first language.
For now, Lowe’s is just in the testing phase of OshBot, without any specific timeline for expanding the test or rolling out a fleet of robots anytime in the near future.
“The big unknown is the human component,” says Nel. “We have the technology that works really well. But there’s some basic questions that there’s just no way to answer until you actually view it.”
Trick-or-treaters could be meeting Porky this year. (WESH.com)
Of all the things that could dampen Halloween spirits, perhaps nothing is weirder than the threat of wild boars in one Brevard County, FL neighborhood.
WESH.com reports that a gang (or gangs) of boars has been running amok quite a lot recently, making plans for Halloween somewhat dicey. Because having little kids walk around with the possibility of running into some new, cranky porcine pals isn’t something most parents want to attempt, the homeowners association is concerned about pigs looking for a snack on the night when everyone else is out doing the same.
A local wildlife trapper’s haul this week goes to show just how rampant the pig problem is — he says he’s captured eight hogs so far this week, while 17 homes have had their grass rooted around in by boars. He’s sure there are more out there, as well.
“Some of the homeowners are telling me they’re walking out on the sidewalk, they’re pooping, they’re crossing the road,” he explained, adding that he’s used traps baited with corn in backyards to try to get a handle on the situation, and will bring in dogs to catch or at least scare them away for the time being.
Thus far, the largest hog spotted around town is reportedly about 350 pounds. He could probably put away his fair share of Twix bars, that’s for sure.
Hogs running wild, destroying lawns in Brevard County neighborhood [WESH.com]
Walmart announced Tuesday that it has begun to sell certified, pre-owned video games at more than 1,700 stores across the country, Forbes reports.
While Walmart previously said it would resell the old titles brought in by customers, it took nearly seven months to do so.
For Walmart the foray into the used video game market could prove to be a lucrative deal.
“With 117 million gamers in the U.S., we are constantly looking to provide new and game-changing offerings to those customers,” Laura Phillips, senior vice president of entertainment for Walmart, tells Forbes. “We’ve said that we would focus on the $2 billion pre-owned market, and we’re continuing to deliver on that today.”
Although Walmart’s new gig may be encroaching on number one video game retailer GameStop’s territory, the company didn’t sound to shaken up by the new-found competition back in March.
“We win those market share battles because we’ve been at it a long time,” CEO Paul Raines told the Wall Street Journal at the time.
Walmart Starts Selling Used Video Games [Forbes]
Calling itself “America’s first cat café,” Cat Town Café works with Oakland Animal Services to find homes for cats by allowing visitors to interact in a “cat zone” area of the coffee shop with prospective new feline friends who are free to wander around and interact with people, reports Eater San Francisco.
Cat lovers are always welcome to walk in, the cafe says, but a $10 donation will get you a reservation for one hour in the Cat Zone, where cats play in front of bright murals depicting — what else? — cats.
The schedule was reportedly full over the weekend after the cafe’s first day in business on Saturday. The Cat Zone’s hours run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday, while the cafe itself open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for now.
Cat Town Cafe, America’s First Cat Cafe, Now Open In Oakland [Eater San Francisco]
Manassas Park hosts Halloween activities Inside NoVA Manassas Park is hosting a trunk or treat Halloween night, and a celebration for dogs the next day. From 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 31, families can stop by the Manassas Park Community Center parking lot for the annual Trunk or Treat event. Area businesses ... |
Overprotective parenting has become a lifestyle for many families, as parents hover over their children in fear that they might get hurt. But kids also need to experience the world firsthand in order to learn and grow. How do you find the balance between freedom and protection when it comes to your kids?
Every car enthusiast has questions they think are too silly to ask so they go unanswered. Until now, that is.
If you are unable to tell which tomatoes are ripe or if that lettuce is fresh, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a helpful guide on how to select vegetables at the supermarket.
While house-hopping, you may find the home of your dreams only to find the seller has taken it off the market. Someone's made an offer. With a backup offer, you could still buy that home.
Apple Pay allows you to easily scan cards into the Passbook app, but Citi is allowing some cards to be added without additional verification if they meet certain conditions.
That was the question posed by our Consumer Reports colleague Glenn Derene, who put Apple Pay’s easy scanning ability to the test, with surprising results.
After familiarizing himself with the scanning and verification process by uploading a couple of cards that actually belonged to him, Derene then attempted to add two of his CR co-workers’ cards (presumably with their knowledge).
“[A]t first it looked as if those cards were going to be approved,” he writes, but the attempt to scan other people’s cards hit a roadblock when the issuing banks requested additional verification via text message, e-mail, or over the phone.
This is the typical sort of two-factor authentication that most financial institutions employ for people logging onto their websites or mobile apps for the first time. Without being able to provide the requested security info, Derene was unable to add his colleagues’ cards to his Apple Pay.
But when he scanned in his wife’s Citibank MasterCard (with her knowledge but without any verification info that would give him access to her account), Derene says there were no additional steps required to authorize the card.
“That was unexpected, since it is my wife’s private card, and she has never authorized me as a user,” he explains. “Also, that card isn’t associated with our family iTunes account. In fact, I have no current financial relationship with Citibank at all.”
But that didn’t stop Derene from going on a wild spending spree with his wife’s card at McDonald’s, where he used Apple Pay to purchase five (5) cheeseburgers and fries; none of which he shared with his wife (or with any Consumerist staffers).
The spree continued at Walgreens, where he purchased cleaning supplies using Apple Pay.
“All the transactions were quick and seamless with the Apple Pay system,” writes Derene.
Just in case this was some sort of glitch, Derene convinced one of his married co-workers to see if he could use Apple Pay to get the same unfettered access to his wife’s Citi MasterCard.
“He was able to add her card to his account with no additional verification, and he bought several items using Apple Pay with her card,” writes Derene, adding that the co-worker’s wife did receive an e-mail from Citi welcoming her to Apple Pay and letting her know that she could remove the card from the system if she had concerns.
When contacted for comment on the ease of scanning and using their spouses’ cards, Apple pointed to the card-issuing banks, saying it is up to these institutions to decide how to authorize their customers’ cards for use on Apple Pay.
A rep for Citi shed a little light on the issue, saying that since Derene was able to provide all the relevant info from the card — number, expiration date, CVV code — and since the address on the family’s iTunes account is the same as the address for his wife’s card, the account was verified.
The rep also pointed out that, as part of the authorization process, Derene had agreed to the terms and conditions, certifying that the card was his.
Derene points out that easy access to a spouse’s credit card is nothing new, and that he could have just as easily added her card info to his Amazon account before going on a spending spree, all without an iPhone of Apple Pay.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the Apple Pay system of adding cards could be improved to prevent this sort of unauthorized access.
“Since the system already has the ability to do two-step verification, why didn’t the banks and Apple make it the only way to authorize a card for use?” asks Derene, who says it only takes a few seconds to legitimately verify a card.
“Sure, it’s not as convenient as simply pointing a iPhone camera at your credit card and instantly authorizing it for use,” he concludes, “but I know that my wife would have appreciated the extra verification step—and she also wishes I had brought her home at least one of those cheeseburgers she paid for.”
In a standard machine, excess detergent just rinses off, and you could use too much soap for decades without even realizing it. Apparently, many of us were.
We can’t have been over-pouring by that much, right? Apparently, we have. A market researcher tells Bloomberg Businessweek that detergent sales are down by 6.4% since 2009. That period also coincides with sales of machines with larger capacities than in the past, which means fewer loads overall and less soap used per load. High-efficiency machines started to catch on about a decade ago, and it took a little while for consumers to figure out how much soap to use.
What is Big Detergent’s solution to the problem? Better prices. All of the major brands, from Tide to Purex, are offering coupons, deals, and price cuts to coax customers back to their brands.
Laundry Detergent Makers Want More Suds [Bloomberg Businessweek]
