What's On Your Mind? Costco, US Immigration Support, GE

Steve of Edgewood, N.M., says he had been taking his Toyota pick-up to Costco for tires for at least three years. Unlike most consumers, he knew that the Toyota factory specs called for 76 pounds of torque on the wheel lug nuts, so he was concerned when Costco began changing the torque to 101 pounds.

" I re-read my owners manual and checked with two local Toyota dealers, and all agreed that 76 ft lbs was specified by Toyota," Steve told ConsumerAffairs.com.

Why did Costco suddenly begin changing the torque? Steve says the change occurred after Costco switched to new third-party software, in which the 101 setting was embedded.

"I brought my concerns to the attention of both the tire department manager and an assistant manager and they both held fast that they were legally obligated to follow the setting in their third party software and couldn't care less what the manufacturer said," Steve said.

Steve thinks it's a dangerous situation that bears looking into.

"The moral of the story is that Costco knows how to be a warehouse and does that really well but there is more to being a Tire Store than buying machinery and sending your tire jockeys to Michelin School," he said.

Costly confusion

Consumers often become confused when they turn to the Internet for what they expect to be free help from a government agency, only to land on a site operated by a private company, and get charged a fee.

"On March 23, 2011, I went online to complete an application for US Citizenship," Phyllis of Brooklyn, N.Y., told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I got into a website that I thought was the official US Immigration website, called 'United States Immigration Support.'"

Phyllis said the website carried an offer to prepared the application, form N-400, for a fee of $680. She says she completed the application online but could not get it to print. In a communication with the Website, she was told they would it would cost another $680 to have the form mailed to her.

"I was shocked, because I did not expect to pay twice for filing this application," she said.

Phyllis shouldn't have paid once, and would not have been asked to had she landed on the U.S. Government's immigration site when she did her Internet search. If she needs help filling out the firm, there are many, lower cost options available. The moral of the story is to make sure that the website you visit is actually the one you were looking for in your Internet search.

Noisy appliance

Sophisticated, modern appliances are supposed to be quiet, not obtrusive. At least, that's what Daniel, of Louisville, Ky., thinks.

"We purchased a new GE side by side refrigerator that was delivered January 2010," Daniel told ConsumerAffairs.com. "When the compressor is running, a noise comes from the freezer side that sounds like a groan. We call it a cow giving birth to a calf."

Daniel said a repair technician made two visits and, on the last call, told him all the refrigerators of this type make the noise.

"He said the noise was coming from the capillary tube on the evaporator and sorry, there isn't a fix for the problem," Daniel said."

Daniel would like to hear from anyone else having this problem, and whether it's actually normal.

Sorry, you lose

The Internet told him he was a winner, but that's hardly the case.

"A pop-up window informed me that I had won one of four gifts and all I had to do was enter a cell phone number to claim it," Scott, of Avalon, Calif., told ConsumerAffairs.com.

So Scott entered his cell phone number. When he did he received a text from Grandprize.com that gave him a PIN and told him to enter it to win. The text also carried the following message.

"Play Grandprize 4 30 guesses/day+trivia. Reply HELP4help STOP2end 18666166079 $9.99/mo+msg&data rates may apply."

What that means is, by playing you will sign up for something that will charge your cell phone bill $9.99 a month, plus a very expensive data charge. And if you actually won a prize, it's in all likelihood worthless.

If Scott stopped short of entering the PIN he should be OK, but he should keep a close eye on his cell phone bill just in case.