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Pedal Recall

If you drive a recent vintage Toyota, chances are you need an accelerator modification. The carmaker says it will replace or reshape accelerator pedals on 3.8 million vehicles in an attempt to deal with an unintended acceleration problem that has resulted in at least one fatal accident. It's the largest recall in the company's history. Read more

Best Buy – John of Edgefield, S.C. “I purchased a Sony computer from this store in August of this year. I have had numerous problems with it, all verifiable through the Sony technical support records. I recently took the machine back to the store at the recommendation of both Sony and Best Buy's own customer service department. The manager refused to refund my money or to replace the unit. His reason was because I did not purchase an extended warranty at the time of purchase…” Read more Black and Decker – Claudette of Dieppe, Canada “Toaster oven TRO964 is a fire hazard. Caught fire twice when toasting bread. Wall started to change color first time it happened. Problem is with design of control. Works on a timer and it is impossible to know how much time you need because it varies with types of bread. ..” Read more

Game Over

Microsoft's decision to ban a swath of Xbox 360 users from Xbox Live has prompted calls for a class action lawsuit. Microsoft banned as many as 1 million users from Xbox Live after learning that users illegally downloaded pirated games from file-sharing sites. Read more

Glug, Glug…

More and more homeowners, it seems, are slipping below the water line. The latest report from First American CoreLogic, a real estate tracking firm, finds that 23 percent of homeowners with mortgages owe more than their home is worth. You might expect those who bought at the top of the market to be in trouble but 11 percent of 2009 buyers are also under water. Read more

Crib Death

Babies aren’t always safe in bed. More than 1.2 million Stork Craft and Fisher-Price cribs are being recalled in the United States because of an infant entrapment and suffocation hazard blamed for at least four infant deaths. Nearly 1 million additional cribs are being recalled in Canada. Read more

The Upsell

McDonald's pioneered the upsell with “you want fries with that?” Now, hardly any consumer escapes a retail chain store checkout line without being asked if they’d like a credit card or want an extended warranty. Retailers want to get as many dollars out of each customer as possible, but with the holiday season approaching, there are signs consumers are getting fed up. Read more

Enter the Nook

Barnes & Noble, the giant bookstore chain, is hoping its new Nook e-reader will stop Amazon's Kindle from continuing to ravage the book business. The Nook is pretty similar to the Kindle and costs about the same but -- guess what -- it's sold out until at least January. Makes it hard to see how that makes the Nook a holiday shopping best-seller, our Andrew Huffman reports. Read more...

Disappearing Eggos

Kellogg's has blamed the shortage of its popular Eggo Waffles on flooding and equipment changes and repairs at the company's bakery in Atlanta, Georgia. But ConsumerAffairs.com has confirmed the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) in September found Listeria monocytogenes in a sample of Eggo Buttermilk Waffles made at the Atlanta plant. Health officials took the sample during a routine inspection of the facility. Read more...

Marketers Under Fire

The Senate Commerce Committee is applying some heat to those companies that try to sell you something without telling you. In marketing circles it's called "negative option" sales. For most consumers, its known as fraud. Read more...

Contemptible

The Federal Trade Commission got a court order last year to force Blue Hippo to end its abusive marketing practices. After a year the FTC said the computer seller hasn't changed anything at all, and is asking a federal court to hold the Baltimore-based company in contempt. Read more

Pedal To The Metal

Toyota's problem with sudden acceleration has been blamed on floor mats that slide over the accelerator, but that explanation is beginning to look a little weak. Federal safety regulators have let the car company know it must address the problem from a design angle. So now what? Reports from Tokyo say Toyota has set aside more than $5 billion to replace the accelerator pedals on all of the 3.8 million vehicles, although the company has so far denied those reports. Read more...

Expanding Hope

When Congress expanded the homebuyers' tax credit and President Obama signed it, the move produced a sigh of relief among real estate agents. Instead of a very bleak winter, the Realtors are now seeing new signs of hope in the housing market, thanks to a government incentive to buy a home. Read more...

Fat Chance: A Simple Approach to Weight Loss

Obesity is becoming so prevalent in the U.S. that it's starting to seem normal. To our wandering scribe Tom Glaister, it seems a bit odd. And, he reports, it seems even odder when he tries to describe it to, for example, a Napalese mountain dweller. By bringing a visitor's perspective, Tom tries to clarify what sometimes seems more confusing than it really is. Read more...

Unintended Consequences

The Fed's newly unveiled rule allowing consumers to opt-in to a bank's overdraft protection should go a long way toward eliminating a lot of abusive fees that have drawn loud consumer complaints for years. But some people think the rule doesn't go far enough. Still others caution that people making policy should consider how the banks are likely to react. Read more...

Graphics by Marisa Lisante. Photos, unless otherwise noted, by iStock.

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