Consumer News & Alerts

June 11, 2001

POWERFUL FINE FOR POWER WHEELS
Fisher Price has been fined $1.1 million for failing to report safety defects in its Power Wheels toy cars and trucks. It's the biggest fine ever levied by the Consumer Product Safety Commission against a toymaker. The commission said Fisher Price did nothing even after nine children were hurt and at least 22 fires were started by electrical problems in the toys.

GET WHAT'S COMING TO YOU
It's estimated that five million seniors are missing out on benefits they're entitled to under federal, state and local programs simply because they don't know the programs exist or don't think they meet the guidelines. A new Web site from the National Council on the Aging helps older persons find out which of nearly 1,000 programs they qualify for. The best thing you could do today for an older friend or relative is to point them to www.benefitscheckup.org.

throwmoneyaway.com
Nikki signed up for goingplatinum.com, which claims to be a "cooperative community" that pays its users to surf the Web. "Profit from it whether you are online or not," gushes its Web site. But somehow Nikke wound up paying nearly $30 and so far not only hasn't started making money while she sleeps, she hasn't gotten her free Internet access either.

ZERO PLUS ZERO EQUALS ...
Generally speaking, giving stuff away is not much of a business. Juno and NetZero both started out giving away Internet access, which is neither cheap nor simple to provide. Not surprisingly, they haven't made any money, even though they have lots of customers. What's the logical solution? A merger, of course. So now we have United Online, an even bigger company with lots of expenses and very little revenue.

WATCH OUT FOR RISING PRICES
On the other hand, the telco-cable oligopoly is comfortably in control of high-speed Internet service and doing just fine, thanks. Now that Wall Street has yanked the rug out from the scrappy new entrants, the hard-to-dislodge Dilbert contingent at AT&T, Verizon and Comcast is doing what it does best -- raising rates.

A MILE HIGH BUT HOW DEEP?
Greater minds than ours have observed that all too often sports teams don't appreciate their fans. In the case of a team like the Denver Broncos this is a little much. The Broncos, you'll pardon our noting, have had a good many bad years and just a fairly finite number of good ones. On top of that, there's this little matter of a new stadium built at ruinous cost. So you'd think the Broncos would be a little accommodating when their longtime season ticketholders are a few minutes late sending in their thousands to watch this year's attempt at running the ball down the field, wouldn't you?

TIME WAITS FOR NO WATCH
Andrea's fiance wanted to find just the right watch for her birthday. He found it online at a site run by a Philadelphia jewelry store. He ordered it, the package arrived and a week or two later he gave it to Andrea. There was a moment of suspense as Andrea opened the package and found inside ... a pale purple watch. Unfortunately, Andrea hates purple. But time ticks away and now the jewelry store is saying the purple watch is Andrea's whether she likes it or not.

SCAM BUGGY STEAMS AWAY $$
Among the gadgets currently making the infomercial rounds is the Steam Buggy, sort of a teapot on wheels that claims to steam dirt and grime off just about anything, humans excepted. Whether the thing works is highly doubtful. Worse yet, ordering one is a good way to get signed up for even more worthless products, as Carolyn now knows.

RECALLS

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