Current Events in June 2011

Food marketers who put “salad” or some other healthy-sounding word in the name of their product have a better chance of selling it to health or diet conscious consumers, according to a new study. 

University of South Carolina assistant professor of marketing Dr. Caglar Irmak found that that dieters eager to make good food choices are more at risk of being misled by food names than non-dieters.

His study found that dieters rate food items with healthy names such as “salad” as being healthier than identical food items with less healthy names such as “pasta.” Non-dieters made no such distinction.

He conducted the study with co-authors Beth Vallen of Loyola University and Stefanie Rose Robinson, a doctoral student in marketing at South Carolina.

Dieters vulnerable to 'naming traps'

“The fact that people’s perceptions of healthfulness vary with the name of the food item isn’t surprising,” Irmak said. “What is interesting is that dieters, who try to eat healthy and care about what they eat, fell into these ‘naming traps’ more than non-dieters who really don’t care about healthy eating.”

As part of his study, Irmak took identical candy and labeled half of it “fruit chew.” The other half was packaged as “Candy Chew.” He then offered it to his test group of dieters.

Not only did dieters perceive the candy named fruit chew as more healthful than the one named candy chew, but they ate more candies when the items were called fruit chews.

Why are dieters who want to eat well so easily duped by these labels?

What's in a name?

Dieters avoid forbidden foods based on product names, Irmak said. As they hone in on food names – salad versus pasta – they give less consideration to product information.

On the flip side, Irmak said, non-dieters tend to miss cues that imply healthfulness, including names, because of their lack of focus on healthy eating.

A salad in a restaurant may include items that dieters typically would avoid, such as meat, cheese, bread or pasta. Other examples Irmak gives are milkshakes listed as “smoothies,” potato chips called “veggie chips” and sugary drinks labeled “favored water.”

He says dieters should focus on reading nutritional information on food products and menus and not food names.

“These results should give dieters pause. The study shows that dieters base their food decisions on the name of the food item instead of the ingredients of the item,” Irmak said. “As a result, they may eat more than what their dieting goals prescribe.”

Irmak and his colleagues based their conclusions on surveys and experiments involving more than 520 participants.

Most consumer organizations are solidly againstAT&T'sproposed $39 billion takeover ofT-Mobile, citing the usual arguments about fewer players, less competition and so forth and a surprising number of news outlets have parroted the argument that T-Mobile is a low-cost provider.

But several high-tech companies that are heavily invested in wireless communications have come out in support of AT&T. Facebook has became the latest, joining Microsoft, Yahoo, Blackberry manufacturer Research In Motion and a number of Silicon Valley venture-capital firms.

Why? In a filing with theFederal Communications Commission(FCC), the firms say they buy AT&T's argument that the deal will strengthen its network and make wireless broadband available to more of the nation.

"The challenge of keeping pace with consumer demand and continuing to lead globally in wireless broadband services and products requires that we tackle the issue on multiple fronts," the companies said in their filing. (Google and Apple are staying mum, at least for the moment).

Consumer friendly?

T-Mobile, owned byDeutsche Telekom, is often portrayed by those who oppose the deal as a consumer-friendly, low-cost player that gives customers a fairer break than AT&T and its fellow behemoth, Verizon Wireless.

Perhaps, but judging from the nearly 2,000 complaints filed about T-Mobile with ConsumerAffairs.com in recent years, its customers encounter the same glitches, dropped calls and billing disputes as customers of the bigger carriers while making do with a network that exists mostly in major population centers.

"I was on a Family Plan for over 10 years with T-Mobile. ... I had poor reception throughout the years and was told that they were erecting more towers in the area and that would solve the 'no service' problem," said Lisa of Langhorne, Pa."We got the Android Mytouch 3G phones because we were told that we would have better reception and less dropped calls. That did not happen in fact the phones had poor reception and more dropped calls especially after an upgrade to their system in the winter of 2010. In fact our phones went dead and all information was lost."

Nor did T-Mobile do anything for Phoenix, who lives in a low-income section of Boston.

"On 11/15/10 I moved from one location in Jamaica Plain, MA to another about 1.5 miles away in the same city. I had been a T-Mobile customer for over 5 years without coverage issues at my former location. However, I immediately discovered I had low/no coverage at my new location," she told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I called T-Mobile customer service to complain and was told a tech would investigate.

"Two weeks later, I was told a service tech visited the neighborhood and reported that I live in a low coverage area, but T-Mobile has no plans to improve coverage and I would be held responsible for the early termination fees if I closed the account," she said.

Rural non-service

T-Mobile customers hoping to make calls in rural areas must hope that T-Mobile has negotiated a favorable deal with another carrier to provide "roaming" service, whereas AT&T and Verizon Wireless both provide service on their own network in most of the country. No. 3 carrierSprintis somewhere in between.

It's worth noting that no law prevents T-Mobile from building out its network nationwide, just as nothing prevents it from developing and deploying a robust 4g network that truly matches the speeds attained by AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

The only thing stopping either of these things from happening is that T-Mobile's German masters choose not to spend the money to make them happen. Instead, the parent company is investing heavily in the European markets where it is a much stronger player than in the U.S.

T-Mobile has been steadily losing customers in the U.S. It lost 99,000 in the first quarter of 2011, more than triple the number it lost in the fourth quarter of 2010.

T-Mobile USA CEO Rene Obermann has told regulators and Congress that his company lacks the spectrum space to deploy a true 4g network and has said that Deutsche Telekom is unable to cough up the financial assets available to acquire more spectrum, even if it was available.

Running out the clock

Instead, T-Mobile continues to hold its U.S. customers to rigid contract terms, milking them for monthly fees while basically running out the clock on its American venture.

This is perhaps why AT&T's bid also wins the support of many rural interests, labor unions and the governors of several thinly-populated states.

Vast sections of the country, after all, are without broadband service of any kind – no cable, no FiOS or Uverse and no wireless broadband. This is a blow to the economic, educational and cultural hopes of these areas and a particularly cruel one given all the advantages that were promised rural areas back in the days when the "Information Superhighway" was being rapturously promoted.

Oh it was built, all right. But like a real superhighway, there's no off-ramp to the small towns, farms and ranches that dot flyover country.

Nevertheless, antitrust law being what it is, it's likely the deal will be held up or, at the very least, AT&T will be forced to dismantle some or all of its business to satisfy the regulators and litigators who for much of the history of telecommunications have had more power than the lowly consumer.

Knowledgeable consumer advocates are hoping for at least a partial return to the days when telecommunications firms had to commit to provide service to their entire service area, not just the parts of it that were most profitable.

If AT&T is willing to commit to that, consumers might actually be the winners.

The tampering with Michaels' debit card readers last month is still having reverberations. We heard this week from Kathryn, of Buckeye, Ariz., who said she and her husband made a big purchase at Michaels last month and used their debit card.

“We are devastated to hear about the fraud that has happened and do not feel safe buying anything from Michael's stores anymore, knowing we could be at risk of identity theft,” Kathryn told ConsumerAffairs.com

Actually, the safest time to use a debit card may be after a store has gone through the experience Michaels has. Security has likely been beefed up significantly. It's the stores that haven't had the experience you have to worry about. But it certainly does point up the need to be very careful where you use a debit card, especially if you tend to keep a lot of money in your account.

Danny got scammed

We've written about this scam several times but obviously people still haven't gotten the message. It's the guy who calls and says he is collecting on an unpaid payday loan, and threatens the victim with jail. In a new wrinkle, the caller is now a female and she says she is calling for SGQ Processing. Danny, of Cassleberry, Fla., got the call at work.

“I didn't know what else to do so I called my wife back and told her what she said. My wife in turn had to borrow the money in fear I was going to jail and Western Unioned the money to them,” Danny said.

Of course, the money is now gone and there is no way for Danny to get it back. If he had been thinking clearly, maybe Danny wouldn't have acted in such haste, but then again, he had reason to be afraid.

“I have never taken out a payday loan but they had all my information, including last address, Social Security Number and my old bank account number,”he said.

That shows this scammer is not picking victims at random. They have sensitive data about these consumers. The question is, where did they get it? We have recently learned that federal law enforcement agencies are actively investigating this dangerous and growing scam. We hope it's true.

 Small charges add up

It's always a good idea to carefully review every bill you receive each month, to make sure the charges are correct. This has become a monthly ritual for Ronald, of Green Cove Springs, Fla., when he receives his Verizon Wireless bill.

“I have been getting billed monthly for data usage from $.20 to $1.99. I do not use text or any form of data and I have called them to remove this from my bill and stop any more charges,” Ronald told ConsumerAffairs.com. “They will credit my bill when I call them and they will state that they have stopped anymore charges, but the next time I get a bill there is a new charge for megabyte usage like my new bill for $1.99. I feel that they are doing this on a lot of their customer's who are not catching it on their bills.”

It's worth noting that back in October, Verizon agreed to pay $90 million in refunds to consumers who were wrongly charged for accessing the Internet with their mobile phones. 

Smokin' TV

In recent weeks we've had an increase in reports from consumers that their Polaroid flat screen TV sets started smoking, and in some cases, actually caught fire.

“I have the same problem as a lot of others 32" set owners, said Shelia, of Middleburg, Fla. I heard sizzling and saw a puff of smoke come out of the TV. If anything happens with a law suit, I would love to know about it.

Funny Shelia should ask. A federal class action lawsuit filed this week claims that the sets have a known defect that Polaroid has failed to fix and that the company has failed to warn consumers that their TVs are a fire hazard. 

The suit claims that Polaroid knew as early as 2006 that its LCD TVs fail, smoke and catch fire, but actively concealed the defects. failed to warn customers before or after the sale, failed to recall the sets and failed to amend the warranties or reimburse customers for the cost of repairing or replacing the TVs.

The news from the home front continues to be sobering. More than 22 percent of all U.S. homes with mortgages are “underwater,” according to new data from CoreLogic, a provider of business data.

That's a slight improvement from the fourth quarter of last year, when 23 percent of U.S. homes were in a negative equity situation. However, there was an increase of about 2.4 million homeowners whose equity was five percent or less. That's considered “near negative equity” because they are in danger of going underwater should home values continue their decline.

Nevada still leads

Not surprisingly, Nevada had the highest percentage of negative equity homeowners in the first quarter, with 63 percent of the mortgaged homes in the state owing more than the homes' value. Nevada, especially the Las Vegas market, has been one of the hardest hit areas in the nation in terms of foreclosures.

According to the data from CoreLogic, 50 percent of the mortgages homes in Arizona were underwater. Forty-six percent of Florida homes have negative equity, followed by Michigan at 36 percent and California at 31 percent.

Drilling down to specific metro areas, CoreLogic found Las Vegas to be the most underwater city with 66 percent negative equity, followed by Stockton, Calif., with 55 percent and Reno, Nev., at 54 percent.

Average negative equity of $65,000

According to the data, the average negative equity home was underwater by $65,000, although upside down homeowners in New York were an average $129,000 in the hole.

Economists worry that the extremely large negative equity numbers will make it hard for the housing market to recover because it fosters foreclosures. In addition to people who lose their incomes and can no longer afford their mortgages, homeowners in a negative equity situation are often tempted to default, even though they can afford to keep making the payments.

CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming says being underwater on a mortgage makes a homeowner much less willing to fight to save their home when they lose their job.

Mary of Ellijay, Ga., thought it was a fluke when her Polaroid flat-screen TV caught fire on May 7, but a federal class action lawsuit claims that the sets have a known defect that Polaroid has failed to fix and that the company has failed to warn consumers that their TVs are a fire hazard.

The suit claims that Polaroid knew as early as 2006 that its LCD TVs fail, smoke and catch fire, but actively concealed the defects. failed to warn customers before or after the sale, failed to recall the sets and failed to amend the warranties or reimburse customers for the cost of repairing or replacing the TVs.

In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Karen Hudson of Texas County, Mo., says she bought a 40-inch Polaroid LCD TV in June 2007. Within four months, the picture went dark and Hudson was told it would cost her $300 to have it fixed.

Upon further investigation, Hudson found consumers reporting that their Polaroid sets had not only failed to work but had caught fire.

The suit cites more than 30 reviews published by ConsumerAffairs.com (out of a total of nearly 600) from consumers whose TVs stopped working, worked intermittently or caught fire.

Life span

While industry buying guides rate LCD TVs to have a life span of 100,000 hours – or about eight hours of daily viewing for 20 years – thousands of consumers are instead finding their Polaroid TVs to fail or burst into flames much earlier than that. .

While most consumers assume that flat-screen TVs are simpler and use less electricity than the much larger cathode ray tube sets they replace, the opposite is actually true. As Hudson's suit notes, LCD televisions require much more electricity and operate at much higher temperatures, thereby subjecting the circuit boards and electrical components to higher temperatures.

She charges that the Polaroid TVs have a defective design that subjects electronic components known as capacitors to excessive heat and excessive voltage, causing the capacitors to fail.

The company can't claim ignorance of the problem, Hudson charges, saying customers have been grumbling about Polaroid TVs “for years.”

The earliest negative review published by ConsumerAffairs.com came from Jill of South Euclid, Ohio, on June 5, 2006.

“Bought undercabinet tv from Radio Shack and it went out twice. Polaroid just today told me there is a defect with the product,” she said. “I was told to send them $110 for a new unit. I told [Polaroid] that is not my fault that the unit was defective and that I should not have to pay an additional $110 for an up-to-date unit.”

UL warning

The company not only failed to acknowledge the defect but falsely claimed its LCD TVs were certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the suit alleges, causing UL to issue a warning in October 2010 that certain Polaroid models carried “an unauthorized UL Listing Mark.”

“The television has not been evaluated by UL to the appropriate standards for safety for the United States and Canada and is not authorized to bear the UL Mark,” the UL bulletin said.

The suit charges that Polaroid's actions violate various state consumer laws and are a breach of the express and implied warranty. It asks for an injunction, legal fees and actual and consequential damages. The action was filed by Garrett D. Blanchfield Jr., a St. Paul, Minn., attorney.

Why no recall?

Polaroid may also have some explaining to do if in fact it has failed to notify the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) about the problem.  Federal law requires manufacturers, importers, distributors, and retailers to report safety defects which "could  create a substantial risk of injury to the public or presents an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death" within 24 hours of the time they learn of the defect.

And how does a manufacturer learn of a defect? 

The CPSC has stated that “this information may be in the form of quality control data, product returns, warranty information, customer complaints, lawsuits, or any other information suggesting a product safety problem. Companies should have a system in place to make sure this kind of information is captured and channeled to responsible persons within the company so they may evaluate it and report if appropriate.” 

The agency routinely levies stiff fines against companies that fail to report defects.  In 2001, it fined Cosco/Safety 1st $1.75 million for failing to report safety defects in children's products.  In 2009, it fined Fisher-Price $2.3 million for violating the federal lead paint ban and in 2008, it fined Reebok $1 million for failing to report high lead levels in its products. 

What if you could roll up your sleeve and get a shot that would make you eat less? Such an idea is not that far-fetched, say researchers from Portugal.

“An anti-ghrelin vaccine may become an alternate treatment for obesity, to be used in combination with diet and exercise,” said Mariana Monteiro, MD, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Porto in Portugal and lead investigator in the study.

Currently, there are few drugs available to help combat obesity. Last October, Abbott Laboratories and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Meridia, also known as sibutramine, was being withdrawn from the U.S. market because of clinical trial data indicating an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

The popular weight-loss drug fen-phen was taken off the market in 1997 after clinical trials showed it to cause heart valve damage.

Suppresses appetite

The new obesity vaccine works by suppressing the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin. In tests, it decreased food intake and increased calorie burning in mice.

Ghrelin is a stomach hormone that promotes weight gain by increasing appetite and food intake while decreasing energy expenditure, or calorie burning. Recent research shows that bariatric surgeries, such as gastric bypass, suppress ghrelin.

“This suggests that there is a hormonal mechanism underlying the weight loss attained by the surgical procedures,” Monteiro said.

Monteiro’s group developed the vaccine using a noninfectious virus carrying ghrelin, which was designed to provoke an immune response—development of antibodies against ghrelin—that would suppress the hormone.

They then vaccinated normal-weight mice and mice with diet-induced obesity three times and compared them with control mice that received only saline injections.

More energy, less food

Compared with unvaccinated controls, vaccinated mice — both normal-weight and obese mice — developed increasing amounts of specific anti-ghrelin antibodies, increased their energy expenditure and decreased their food intake, the authors reported.

Within 24 hours after the first vaccination injection, obese mice ate 82 percent of the amount that control mice ate, and after the final vaccination shot they ate only 50 percent of what unvaccinated mice ate, Monteiro said.

The effects of each vaccination lasted for the two months of the study, which for the normal 18-month lifespan of mice, corresponds to four human years, she said.

The invention of the birth control pill unleashed the sexual revolution of the 1960s, but it was up to women to buy the prescription and remember to take the pill every day. Now, a half-century later, could men soon be sharing the responsibility?

Perhaps. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center say they are close to development of what may be the first non-steroidal, oral contraceptive for men. Tests of low doses of a compound that interferes with retinoic acid receptors (RARs), whose ligands are metabolites of dietary vitamin A, showed that it caused sterility in male mice.

The researchers found that low doses of the drug stopped sperm production with no apparent side effects. And crucial for a contraceptive, the effects were only temporary. The researchers say normal fertility returns soon after the drug is no longer used.

Long searach

Scientists have been on the trail of a male pill for quite some time. Earlier research led the investigators to the discovery that manipulating the retinoid receptor pathway could interfere with the process of spermatogenesis, which is necessary for sperm production.

Like many new drug discoveries, this one was the by-product of completely different drug research. Columbia's Debra J. Wolgemuth, Ph.D., stumbled across a paper by Bristol-Myers Squibb on a compound that was being tested for the treatment of skin and inflammatory diseases. The compound seemed to cause changes in the testis similar to the mutation that she and her team were studying.

Testicular toxin

According to the paper, Bristol-Myers dropped its interest when it found that the compound also was – in the company’s words – “a testicular toxin.” The paper did not elaborate on how the drug caused infertility, so Wolgemuth and her team tested the drug in mice to find out; they noted that the changes it caused were similar to the ones they were seeking.

“We were intrigued,” said Dr. Wolgemuth. “One company’s toxin may be another person’s contraceptive.”

The story is similar to the one involving Viagra, Pfizer's erectile dysfunction drug. It was originally developed to treat angina. It was adapted to its present use when researchers noted the side effects among healthy test subjects included erections.

Experimenting with mice

To investigate whether the Bristol-Myers compound prevented conception at even lower levels than those cited in the company’s study, Wolgemuth and her team placed the treated male mice with females and found that reversible male sterility occurred with doses as low as 1.0mg/kg of body weight for a 4-week dosing period.

One advantage of using a non-steroidal approach, the researchers say, is avoiding the side effects commonly associated with steroidal hormone-based methods. Male steroid-based options have been plagued with adverse effects, including ethnic variability in efficacy, as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Another side effect of hormonal options for men has been diminished libido, which sort of defeats the entire premise of a male contraceptive. But the Columbia researchers say that drawback will also likely be avoided if a method involving manipulation of the retinoid receptor pathway proves successful.

“We have seen no side effects, so far, and our mice have been mating quite happily,” said Wolgemuth.

So how much does it really cost your bank when you "swipe" your debit card to make a purchase? It seems like a pretty simple question but with untold billions of dollars riding on the outcome, doesn't it seem a little odd that no one really knows the answer?

Banks have been furiously lobbying Congress to delay a new Federal Reserve rule that would cap swipe fees at 12 cents per transaction, instead of the current 44 cents.

But now, a study by the National Credit Union Association (NCUA) finds that large credit unions say the median cost to process a debit card transaction requiring a PIN or signature is just 2 cents.

The Fed's 12-cent figure came from a survey of banks and payment card networks. It found the median transaction cost was 7 cents. The Fed then set the cap at 12 cents to take into account "other costs that are more difficult to estimate."

But no sooner had the NCUA issued its findings than it began backtracking, saying that there is no doubt that the 2-cent figure is "not inclusive of card services program costs," according to the non-profit iWatchNews.org.

Say what?

To some extent, the problem is one of definition. Are we talking about the incremental cost of processing a single debit card transaction? Or are we talking about the total cost of setting up, promoting, protecting, operating and insuring a card-processing system?

If it's the former, then a couple of cents may be about right. If the latter, it's most likely much more, since all parties agree that there's a lot more to running a card network than just processing transactions. There are telephone lines, equipment costs, computer centers, promotion, legal fees, insurance, data security, fraud and, ahem, lobbyists, which as we know do not come cheaply.

Complicating the issue further is the fact that card networks run their debit card transactions over the same infrastructure as credit card transactions, making it nearly impossible to break out separate costs of each.

Gee, it's enough to take us back to the days when telephone companies had to go argue before public utility commissions about how much it cost them to process a single phone call. (Answer: not much).

So, to get back to the consumer's stake in all this: retailers say that if the swipe fees are lowered, they will pass much of the savings on to the consumers, while banks say that's nonsense (and banks, after all, have a little experience with the delirious profitability of charging high fees for activities that cost next to nothing).

Tester to the rescue

Sen. John Tester (D-Montana), a big-hearted guy from Big Sky Country (or is that Wyoming?) knows a pathetic victim when he sees one so he has come galloping to the aid of the big banks and introduced a bill to delay the debit cap for, oh, a couple of years so that there can be more time to "study" the issue.

Tester's efforts on behalf of the long-suffering banks are not going unnoticed. The Hill newspaper reported that Tester was quickly showered with nearly $60,000 in contributions from credit card companies and their allies, who stand to lose a huge piece of the $16 billion in swipe fees each year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he plans to hold a vote this month on Tester's proposal to delay the fee cap, thus dispensing with the issue before election politics heats up.

The U.S. Department of Education, responding to intense criticism by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), has taken the first step in reining in abusive practices at for-profit colleges which pile deep debt onto their students in exchange for questionable credentials. 

It issued a new rule that sets a standard for these schools: their programs have to ensure graduates can earn enough to pay off the hefty student loans they must carry to pay for their enrollment.  But consumer advocates say the rule doesn't go far enough.

The activist group USPIRG said it was disappointed that the new standard “doesn’t go into effect soon enough, nor is it strong enough to adequately clean up the industry on behalf of student loan borrowers” and said it would continue pushing for further reform.

“The price tag for these colleges is so high that about half of all borrowers who default on their student loans attend for-profit colleges,” USPIRG said.  “The quality of the education is so weak that, in one survey, 57 percent of students departed without a diploma.”

Meanwhile, taxpayers are picking up the tab by underwriting billions in federal student loans and grant aid that pour into these colleges.  About one in ten college students attends a for-profit college, but these colleges absorb one in four federal loan and grant dollars.

Other groups responding to the new rule included:

• American Association of University Women (AAUW) “This final rule will benefit women, minority, low-income, and veteran students, in particular. Together, these groups constitute a disproportionately large number of students at for-profit schools, where students accrue almost double the median debt compared with their peers at nonprofit institutions,” said executive diirector Linda D. Hallman.

• American Federation of Teachers (AFT) “This regulation is a modest step to help protect students from inflated promises about job prospects and earnings by career education programs that often leave students with no gainful employment but a mountain of debt. This problem is particularly pernicious in the for-profit sector, where student debt and loan default rates are significantly higher than in the nonprofit sector,” said  AFT President Randi Weingarten.

• Campus Progress “Given the overwhelming evidence that the worst for-profit colleges are abusing students and taxpayers, the rule isn't strong enough, but it's still an important reform that could, over time, help millions of students. We believe that, collectively, the rules issued by the Administration, ongoing investigations by state attorneys general, and increasing scrutiny by Congress and the media will ultimately compel for-profit schools to clean up their act or else shut their doors,” said David Halperin, Director of Campus Progress, the youth arm of the Center for American Progress.

• National Education Association (NEA) “This rule advances the common-sense principle that federal financial aid should go to career education programs that consistently provide what they promise and don’t leave students buried in debt they cannot repay,” said Dennis Van Roekel, NEA president.

Harkin has said he will continue to investigate abuses in the private for-profit education sector despite vocal opposition from Republicans, including Republican members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, who boycotted the most recent hearings on the issue.

Harkin was criticized for inviting noted Wall Street short seller Steven Eisman to testify on the issue despite Eisman’s financial conflicts of interest, and over allegations from an internal GAO document he pressured investigators to include numerous details in a report on for-profit schools. GAO later corrected a slew of errors in that report.

College gets more expensive every year and paying for it isn't easy. But before signing up for student loans, you might heed some words of advice from Detroit-area bankruptcy attorney Michael Greiner.

If financial crisis strikes, you may be forced to declare bankruptcy. But student loans can't be charged off in a bankruptcy. By law they must be repaid.

With many parents applying for financial aid for their college-aged children, Greiner says this fact is rarely considered. And with the cost of college going up, and colleges expecting more and more of their expenses to be paid for with debt rather than grants, many parents and students are finding that most of their debt is non-dischargeable student loans.

"Every day I have someone come into my office with a mountain of debt," said Warren. "It is often heartbreaking to see that there is nothing I can do for these people."

Private loans

Greiner also pointed out that more and more of the student loans available are private student loans, not backed by the government. He says Sallie Mae has even gotten into the act of financing private student loans.

"The interest rates on these private loans are typically much higher than for government student loans,” he said.

When considering a student loan, Greiner says applicants must read the fine print and stay away from private student loans. Just because a loan is from Sallie Mae or similar entity, doesn't mean it is a lower interest loan, he says.

Check the fine print to make sure you're not getting a private student loan with high interest rates. In fact, student loans that are not financed by the U.S. Department of Education are likely higher interest, private student loans.

Greiner says a home equity loan, and even some credit cards, would be a better alternative to a private student loan. In a bankruptcy proceeding, they will be dischargeable while a student loan won't.

Don't delay repayment

One often-cited advantage of student loans is the ability to defer payments, but Greiner says the deferred repayment doesn't stop interest from increasing. In fact, even for relatively low-interest student loans, with compounding interest, deferrals can take a manageable debt load and make it unmanageable relatively quickly.

Greiner said that many students are graduating from college getting jobs that barely enable them to pay their student loans and nothing else.

"This is one of the untold stories about the economic crisis," Greiner said. "Though the government has taken steps to address this problem, it is still too little, too late."

A number of studies have focused on bisphenol A's (BPA) effect on human reproduction. Now, a new study has added to the data, suggesting the widespread chemical causes lower fertility in mice. The study was presented over the weekend at the 93rd annual Endocrine Society meeting in Boston.

BPA is a chemical used in many food industry containers. It provides rigidity to plastics, such as water and soft drink bottles. It's also used in the plastic liners of food cans.

Lower sperm count

Researchers at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, injected BPA daily into a group of mice. After two months, they said the mice had lower sperm counts than a control group that received injections of a saline solution without BPA. Compared with untreated controls, mice exposed to BPA produced litters that were 50 percent smaller.

The researchers say the same effects may be showing up in the human population.

“We are being exposed to BPA in our daily lives at a level much higher than the safe recommended exposure,” said the study’s principal author, Surya Singh, PhD, associate professor in the university’s biochemistry department. “In this study, we are trying to explore what the outcome can be if we are continuously exposed to BPA in our routine life.”

BPA-exposed mice received a dose that was twice the daily upper limit of safe exposure recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The mice in the experiment were considered “subfertile” after two months of exposure, but Singh speculates that exposure for more than two months might lead to complete infertility.

“Even short-term exposure to BPA could be dangerous to fertility, but we are still investigating this possibility,” he said.

Adds to evidence

These new research findings add to a growing body of scientific evidence that links exposure to BPA, an endocrine (hormone) disrupter, with numerous adverse health effects, including on reproductive function.

How do humans get BPA in their bodies? A 2009 study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that study participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles, the hard plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles, showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of BPA. The study was the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA, and thus suggests that drinking containers made with BPA release the chemical into the liquid that people drink in sufficient amounts to increase the level of BPA excreted in human urine.

While the food industry has vigorously defended against attempts to ban or regulate BPA, Wal-Mart announced in 2008 that it would stop selling plastic baby bottles that contain BPA and many other retailers have followed suit.

Warren and Maureen Nyerges were shocked last year when Bank of America initiated foreclosure proceedings on their 2,700 square foot Naples, Fla., home. Shocked, because the Nyerges purchased the home in 2009 with cash – they never even took out a mortgage.

Rather than making their way through the customer service maze at the bank, the Nyerges simply hired an attorney to set the bank straight. Eventually, Bank of America realized its mistake and dropped the matter.

But there was the small matter of the Nyerges' lawyer's fees. The Nyerges made several requests to Bank of America to pay the fees and said they got nowhere. So the lawyer took the matter to the courts.

Court order

In court, a judge ordered Bank of America to reinburse the couple for the legal fees. The Nyerges claim Bank of America steadfastly ignored them and the judge's ruling. No check was forthcoming.

Refusing to let the matter drop, the Nyerges' attorney, Todd Allen, ratcheted up the confrontation. He returned to court and secured a foreclosure order against the bank branch for failure to pay.

For the local media, the “man bites dog” story was irresistible. When Allen arrived at the branch with sheriff's deputies in tow, cameras were rolling. Allen instructed the deputies to take computers, furniture, even the contents of the cash drawers at the teller windows.

Only then, apparently, did the local bank officials realize the Nyerges and their attorney meant business. Within the hour, the manager of the local branch handed over a check for $5,772.88 to cover the original costs – plus late fees, of course. There was also an apology.

“We apologize to Mr. Nyerges that there was a delay in receiving the funds,” said the bank in a written statement to the Naples News. “The original request went to an outside attorney who is no longer in business.”

Consumer and academic groups that work on behalf of privacy and individual liberty will be receiving millions of dollars from Google as part of an $8.5 million class-action settlement that has won final approval by a federal judge.

San Jose U.S. District Court Judge James Ware gave final approval to the settlement, which had been reached last September.

The suit was brought on behalf of 31 million Gmail users who sued Google for exposing their personal information without their consent through a feature called Google Buzz.  

The Electronic Frontier Foundation will receive the largest payment – $1 million – and the American Civil Liberties Union will receive $750,000.

Other organizations receiving amounts ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 include:

• Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

• Berkeley Law School, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic

• Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

• Brookings Institution

• Carnegie Mellon, Cylab Usability, Privacy & Security Lab

• Center for Democracy & Technology

• Indiana University, Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research

• Stanford, Center for Internet & Society

• YMCA of Greater Long Beach

• The Electronic Privacy Information Center

• The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

• Santa Clara University

• Youth Radio

Legislation passed in 2009 gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enhanced power to regulate tobacco products and provide more food safety oversight. But the House Appropriations Committee has voted to weaken that law.

The vote came this week on an amendment that would restrict the kinds of scientific evidence used as a basis for FDA action. The result, say critics, is that the FDA's newly-granted authority to regulate cigarettes would be weakened. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is one group taking the committee to task.

Doctors take issue

"The FDA's ability to regulate tobacco products, dangerous drugs, and unsafe foods is essential for the overall well-being of children and the American public,” said O. Marion Burton, MD, president of AAP. “The amendment, introduced by Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT) during consideration of the fiscal year 2012 Agriculture Appropriations bill, limits existing FDA authority to assure the safety of the food and drug supply, prevents the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, and weakens the agency's ability to protect young people from dangerous tobacco products.”

Critics say should the amendment become law, it would be virtually impossible for the FDA to stop tobacco companies from adding ingredients that attract children, prevent unsafe food and drugs from entering this country, or stop antibiotic-resistant bacteria from causing human illnesses.

"The AAP strongly urges the U.S. House of Representatives to reject this dangerous proposal in the final version of the spending bill,” Burton said. 

Amendment called vague

The amendment states that the FDA will be prohibited from using funds to “propose rules and regulations that are based on factors other than science.” Critics say the wording is so vague that the agency could find itself unable to do much of anything.

The amendment passed 29-20, largely along party lines.

Sony has been hacked again. This time, it's not the PlayStation Network but SonyPictures.com that has managed to let hackers make off with more than 1 million users' personal data.

"We recently broke into SonyPictures.com and compromised over 1,000,000 users' personal information, including passwords, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and all Sony opt-in data associated with their accounts," a group of hackers who call themselves LulzSec said. "Among other things, we also compromised all admin details of Sony Pictures (including passwords) along with 75,000 'music codes' and 3.5 million 'music coupons.'"

The same group was behind a recent PBS website breach.

"From a single injection, we accessed everything," said the group. "What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted. Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plain text, which means it's just a matter of taking it."

It was just yesterday (Thursday) that Sony said it was fully restoring its PlayStation Network in the U.S., Europe, and parts of Asia. The service was shut down for several weeks after hackers stole customer data.

Sony shut down the network after a massive security breach that affected more than 100 million online accounts and embarrassed the tech giant. The company said last week that credit card companies have not reported any rise in fraudulent credit card transactions as a result of the attack.

Trust no one

What's this mean for consumers?

It means that no one should trust any website to securely manage its treasure trove of consumer information. Consumers should use a different user ID and password for each site and should be very cautious about sharing Social Security numbers, bank and credit card account numbers and any other information that could be used for financial gain.

After declining almost daily through the month of May, gasoline prices are moving up again, suggesting prices might have reached a bottom, at least for now. The reversal in average prices may also have been caused by sudden price spikes in three states.

The national average price of self-serve regular today is $3.789 a gallon, down from $3.809 last Friday but higher than the last two days, according to AAA's Fuel Gauge Survey. The average price was $3.784 a gallon yesterday.

The price of diesel fuel is $4.005, down from $4.025 a gallon last week.

It may be that gasoline prices have finally caught up to the level of crude oil, which dropped sharply at the beginning of May and has since fluctuated around the 100 a barrel level. Some analysts believe oil prices could fall even farther over the course of the summer because of weakness in the global economy.

Prices surge in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois

This week's turnaround may also be explained by a sharp spike in gas prices this week in the industrial Midwest. The average price in Illinois, for example, surged nearly nine cents a gallon this week. The price jumped 16 cents a gallon in Michigan and 13 cents in Indiana. The price jumps reportedly stem from supply disruptions, caused in part by a pipeline shutdown.

The price at the pump has gradually come down amid a drop in oil and gasoline prices on the futures markets, where Wall Street traders have been taking profits and liquidating positions. Traders have been less bullish about the economic recovery in recent weeks, revising their estimates for the world's oil demand.

The U.S., meanwhile, continues to enjoy plentiful stockpiles of both crude oil and gasoline. The latest report from the Energy Information Administration shows supplies of oil increased by 2.9 million barrels in the previous week to 373.8 million barrels, which is 2.9 per cent above year-ago levels.

At the same time, gasoline supplies rose by 2.6 million barrels to 212.3 million barrels. That's about three percent less than what was on hand a year ago.

Driving less

“According to the Federal Highway Administration, the number of miles driven by Americans declined 1.4 percent in March compared to a year ago,” said Avery Ash, AAA's manager of federal relations. “This marks the first year-over-year decline in the number of miles driven in 13 months, suggesting expensive fuel prices may have caused Americans to curtail driving.”

The states with the most expensive gasoline today are:

• Alaska ($4.270)
• Illinois ($4.146)
• Michigan (($4.139)
• Connecticut ($4.086)
• Hawaii ($4.057)
• Washington, DC ($4.045)
• Indiana ($4.039)
• California ($4.017)
• New York ($4.013)
• Washington ($3.928)

The states with the least expensive gasoline today are:

• South Carolina ($3.501)
• Mississippi ($3.542)
• Tennessee ($3.546)
• Alabama ($3.561)
• Arkansas ($3.591)
• Missouri ($3.614)
• Texas ($3.623)
• Louisiana ($3.624)
• Arizona ($3.646)
• Oklahoma ($3.658)

That super E. coli bug that has hit Europe may have turned up in three patients in the U.S. In all three cases, the victims had just returned from a visit to Germany.

The previously rare form of E. coli bacteria has made hundreds extremely ill throughout Europe and 18 people have reportedly died from it. It's origin so far is unknown. Early reports from Germany that it had been traced to Spanish vegetables turned out to be incorrect.

Officially, the bacteria is known as Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) and the results have been severe. Victims have suffered what is called haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which can be deadly. It can cause serious liver damage in its victims and so far, more than 500 people in Europe have been infected.

Little is known about the possible U.S. victims. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) told the French news agency AFP that it is still waiting for blood samples.

In Europe, cases have been identified in Germany, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Officials call the bacteria “highly infectious and toxic.”

Scientists say they aren't completely sure what they are dealing with. Chinese scientists say the strain of E. coli bacteria hasn't been seen before. However, officials at the CDC say the strain has appeared before, but is extremely rare.

While the source of the sickness is unknown, suspicion has focused on raw vegetables. Russian has imposed a ban in imports of vegetables from the European Union.

Kathy, of Hudson, Fla., has a La-Z-Boy chair that was purchased back in the 1960s and has been kept, she says, in mint condition. Except, after a half-century of use, a spring in the foot rest broke. No problem, she thought, the chair has a lifetime warranty. But Kathy says the lifetime warranty seems to have run out.

 “The only way they will even look at it is if we ship it to their headquarters,” Kathy said. “We have spoken to several individuals and the response is the same. They indicate there is nothing they can do.”

Kathy said she tried to find out the name of the company CEO because she thinks her chair would make a great advertisement for La-Z-Boy. It's in great shape after 50 plus year and just needs a spring replacement, testament to its quality. If Kathy could talk with someone at La-Z-Boy with some PR savvy, she might be able to work something out. She should start by calling the Warranty Inquiries number, 1-734-241-2435. If that doesn't get her anywhere, the CEO's name is Kurt Darrow, and the company address is 1284 North Telegraph Road Monroe, MI 48162-3390. We think the company might actually like to hear about Kathy's chair.

What's wrong with refrigerators?

Teresa, of Longmont, Colo., is another unhappy refrigerator owner. She says she purchased a Maytag bottom-freezer-drawer fridge a little over a year ago online from HomeDepot.com for $1300 plus taxes.

“The top part stopped cooling 26 days past the one-year warranty date,” Teresa told ConsumerAffairs.com. “After waiting on hold for 30 minutes, I was simply told there was 'nothing we can do.'”

Teresa thinks you should get at least five years out of an appliance if you spend $1,300 for it. In the last few months we've received hundreds of complaints about all kinds of refrigerators – not just Maytag. We're not sure what we would recommend if someone were refrigerator shopping. We'd like to hear from consumers who are happy with their refrigerators, so we can pass it along.

Same as cash

Enriqueta, of Fontana, Calif., was planning a trip to Mexico and purchased four tickets on a Mexicana Airline flight, paying with her debit card. Before the scheduled flight, the company ceased operations.

“I called Bank Of America and I talked to customer service to see what I could do,” Enriqueta said. “They told me that I had to wait to see if the airline would return my money, and if not to call back to Bank Of America for them to help me recover my money. I tried three times with the airline to try to get my money back but they had filed for bankruptcy.” 

Enriqueta is unhappy with Bank of America, saying they should have done more to get her money back. In reality, there was probably little the bank could do. It's not like a credit card purchase. Using a debit card is almost like spending cash. Yes, the bank can request that the airline return the funds, but in all likelihood they had already spent it.