Current Events in May 2012

Steve Jobs wore a lot of hats. Designer, businessman, animator, inventor. But most associate him as being Apple's co-founder, as he was the face, the pitch person and the catalyst to giving people a bevy of fun, practical and cool looking gadets.

The question is how do consumers perceive the Apple brand now that Jobs is gone? Do they have the same amount of confidence in Apple products? A new survey finds that 11 percent say their perception of Apple have worsened -- results that are at odds with a ConsumerAffairs analysis of 36 million consumer comments on social media over the last year. 

Earlier this month, iGR conducted a survey among U.S. consumers that focused on today's gadetry craze, like how good are WiFi signals outside of the home? Or how mobile handsets, smartphones and tablets are really used by today's consumer. But one of the more intresting survey questions was how participants viewed the Apple brand since Steve Jobs is no longer at the company's healm.

The survey showed that only one percent of respondents said their image of Apple had "much improved" since Jobs passed away, about 3.5 percent said their perception of the company improved a small amount, and 84 percent said their image of the company had not changed at all.

The survey also reported that 9.4 percent of respondents said their view of Apple has gotten worse, and 1.7 percent said their perception of Apple had "greatly worsened."

The ConsumerAffairs analysis, however, found no significant change in the net consumer sentiment, which has hovered around the 50% positive mark for the last year, with a slight dip in October when consumers expressed sadness over Jobs' passing.

Casual users?

The question is though, whether the 11 percent of participants that considered the Apple brand worse off after Jobs died, are hard-core Apple users. It is typical for casual users of a brand to merely associate the success of that brand with one person, one product, or one era or period of time. This is the reasoning Apple executives are using to justify the percentages of respondents who have a lower view of the mega-company.

"iGR believes this is important for Apple's future. While a significant number of people said that their perception of the company had worsened, the core Apple user base seems to be unmoved in their views of the company," said Iain Gillott, president and founder of iGR, a market research consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile industry. "While they may mourn the passing of Jobs, it seems that the Apple faithful are staying put."

The survey also went on to show that  those with a worsening image of Apple were 12 to 18 percent more likely to be men over the age of 45. Also, the 11 percent that had a worsened perception of Apple are more likely to have higher household incomes, higher education, and married.

In closing, the survey went on to show that 12 percent of the unhappy Apple consumers are more likely to prefer Android smartphones, made by Samsung or Motorola.

If you are one of the millions of Americans who take specialty medications, you may have noticed your hand digging deeper into your pocket.

Specialty drugs are those medicines that are higher in cost, and used to treat complex and chronic ailments like multiple sclerosis, hemophilia or cancer for example. In recent years, specialty drug users only had to shell out a $20 or $50 copay, but now patients have to pay a percentage of the drug's cost, along with copays, which can amount to yearly costs in the thousands.

The Los Angeles Times reported of an HIV patient who paid a copay of $80 per month for his specialty medication, but now has to secure $450 per month to maintain his health. Many employers are no longer using the copay model for medicines, and they're able to do so by reclassifying certain medications, forcing patients to take on more of the financial responsibility or copayments.

Specialty drugs have no cheaper generic version; so many times patients have no alternative than to spend the high costs to remain well.

No alternative

"All of a sudden you're starting to count pills and asking friends to borrow some," said Robert Gomer in an LA Times interview. "It was a very stressful situation to be faced with."

Many drugs are made from chemicals; therefore they can be used to produce both generic and brand-name varieties. However, specialty drugs are often extracted from living organisms, so no alternatives can be used.

Employer health plans are also finding it more and more expensive to offer these drugs under coverage, as the cost can exceed $1,200 a month per employee, according to Ha Tu, researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Tu recently created a report on specialty drugs that breaks down the financial challenges for Employers, health plans and its enrollees.

Tu also says that although specialty drugs are prescribed for merely one in every 100 health plan enrollees, they account for nearly 12 to 16 percent of "commercial prescription drug spending", and costs are expected to keep rising.

VBID

In an effort to combat exorbitant treatment costs, many employers have adopted the "Value-based insurance design" (VBID), that provides employees with monetary incentive to select high-value health treatments, while turning down treatments that have a history of being ineffective or over prescribed.

According to a Mercer survey, 17 percent of employers with 500 employees or more, used VBID in 2011, in effort to cut out expensive and unnecessary treatments, and many believe this same policing can be applied to expensive specialty drugs.

But critics of VBID feel employers shouldn’t regulate what type of medicines its workers should use, and many of VBID’s selected treatments still come with high copays and coinsurance.

Julie Stone, a senior consultant with the benefits consultant company Towers Watson, says shopping around for cheaper medications isn’t the best method for patients with serious and chronic illnesses.

"With people as sick as the patients we’re talking about, I don’t think they’re going to say, ‘Is there a less expensive injectable drug I can take?’ " she says. "It’s a whole different dynamic," she told the Washington Post.

And the tug of war continues between insurance companies, employers, and the sick consumer who is in need of specialty medications. Hopefully there will be a time in the United States, when health and people come before dollars and profit. We'll see though.

Credit card lenders that use unfair or deceptive practices aren't just hurting consumers. They're also hurting themselves.

That's the underlying message of a recent report by the Center for Responsible Lending that finds onerous policies have unintended consequences. The study found that high-cost penalty fees and interest rates were not used to mitigate risk - as credit card issuers claimed - but instead were the risk that led to higher default rates.

Banks with more consumer-friendly policies in place had lower default rates. The researchers attribute that to the fact that customers aren't getting hit with as many expensive fees.

In fact, the study found that bad practices are a better predictor of consumer complaints and an issuer’s losses during a downturn than an institution’s type, size or location.

Safeguards

Consumer safeguards on credit cards enhance banks’ financial health, contrary to issuers’ past claim that safeguards undermine it, the research found. Credit card issuers with higher loss rates before the recession did not on average have a bigger jump in losses during the recession, indicating that having more high-risk customers did not predict which company’s problems would grow fastest.

New credit card rules have curbed or ended many of the unfair practices the study examined, such as doubling interest rates on existing balances for being a day late in making a payment. But some persist, and none of the new rules apply to business credit cards. The authors suggest regulators need to better police those areas.

“CRL thinks the report’s findings apply equally to high-cost fees and interest rates banks charge for overdraft and payday loans,” the consumer group said in its report. “These charges — like their predatory cousins in credit card lending — don’t reflect a borrower’s risk of default, but are the risk that too often pushes a customer into financial hardship or default.”

College graduation brings about many things. Feelings of accomplishment, feelings of closure, but for many what it doesn't bring is gainful employment.

According to career expert Don Philabaum, the economy is creating less than 150,000 jobs per month for a graduating class of 2 million in 2012. As grads walk across the stage to receive their degrees, their real challenge begins once they get off that stage and face the unforgiving and sometimes cut-throat world.

Philabaum who authored the new book The Unemployed Grad, And What Parents Can Do About It, says parents should be completely involved with their children's transition from the dorm room to the board room. 

Along with the book, Philabaum offers free Webinars so parents can be better equipped in helping their college graduates find good jobs. He also states that 80 percent of the 2012 graduating class will be unemployed upon graduation, and students' first course of action should be to sit down with their parents, and come up with an effective course of action to maximize their new degrees.

Could be worse

Although the 2012 graduating class will have their fair share of challenges locking down a job, graduates of 2011 had it even worse.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers recently reported that employers will be hiring 10.2 percent more new college grads in 2012 than they did in 2011. Also, 44.2 percent of of new grads who looked for employment actually received offers.

However, Philabaum believes a different course of action is needed for the grad who is stuck at home still looking for work. Many parents may attribute unemployment to a lack of ambition on their children's part, but the book and the Webinar suggest that it's a lack of true-world experience that makes it hard for young adults to compete with a competitive job market. Or, recent graduates simply don't know where to begin after leaving school.

Research shows that  27.2 percent of graduates will never visit the career center, 16.1 percent will visit only one time, and 18.2 percent will visit twice. Again, this may not always be attributed to laziness, as much as it should be attributed to students simply not knowing the proper course of action.

According to a survey from Talent Marks, 95 percent of grads didn't have a written or thought-out job search plan, and 60 percent spend only one and five hours weekly looking for a job. And once students leave the college campus once and for all, they no longer have career centers and counselors at their immediate disposal.

"Graduates don't have a clue about how to look for a job", says Philabaum. " Surveys show grads don't spend enough time looking for a job, have not learned how to professionally use social media, or network with alumni on LinkedIn. Why? The college career center is no different than a club on most campuses. Students are not required to visit, or for that matter take ownership of their career."

To assist both the grad and the parent Philabaum is offering three free Webinars that users can access here. The Webinars will be on June 12, June 21 and June 30, 2012, at 8:30 PM Eastern standard time.

The FDA is warning consumers and health care professionals about a counterfeit version of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries’ Adderall 30 milligram tablets that is being purchased on the Internet.

FDA’s preliminary laboratory tests revealed that the counterfeit version of Teva’s Adderall 30 mg tablets contained the wrong active ingredients. Adderall contains four active ingredients – dextroamphetamine saccharate, amphetamine aspartate, dextroamphetamine sulfate, and amphetamine sulfate. Instead of these active ingredients, the counterfeit product contained tramadol and acetaminophen, which are ingredients in medicines used to treat acute pain.

Adderall, which is approved to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) and narcolepsy, is a prescription drug classified as a controlled substance – a class of drugs for which special controls are required for dispensing by pharmacists.

The counterfeit Adderall tablets are round, white and do not have any type of markings, such as letters or numbers. Authentic Adderall 30 mg tablets produced by Teva are round, orange/peach, and scored tablets with "dp" embossed on one side and "30" on the other side of the tablet.

Anyone who believes they have the counterfeit version of Teva’s Adderall 30 mg tablets should not take or should stop taking the product. Consumers should talk to their health care professional about their condition and options for treatment.

Remember when you got to choose where you were going to sit on an airliner? Now, airlines place a fee on the most desirable seats.

As a result, families traveling together don't get to sit together unless they're willing to pay extra. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) says airlines that charge these fees should reconsider.

"Children need access to their parents and parents need access to their children," Schumer said. "Unnecessary airline fees shouldn't serve as a literal barrier between mother and child."

Robert, of Kingsport, Tenn., couldn't agree more. He says he and his family flew to Orlando, Fla., on Delta recently and said he was told when he bought his four tickets that his family could sit together.

“My wife and I have a 7-year old and a 5-year old,” Robert wrote in a ConsumerAffairs post. “When I got my seat assignments, we were not together. I was told to call within 24 hours of flight and it would be taken care of. I called today and now am told it will be an additional $10 per ticket! My children have never flown before and may not get to now. They will be terrified if we cannot sit together and we will not go if this cannot be taken care of.”

Premium seats

Some airlines, including Delta, set aside a certain number of seats on each flight for frequent fliers and passengers willing to spend more for an aisle or window seat, or a seat with more legroom.

Airlines began adding fees in 2008 when the cost of jet fuel skyrocketed. Rather than increase fares to cover the additional costs, airlines began charging a fee for a second checked bag. Then they began charging for all checked bags, as well as other things that were once provided as part of the ticket price.

Why not just raise fares? Most likely for competitive reasons. Consumers generally choose a flight based on the published fare. The Transportation Department is currently considering new rules that would provide more transparency in the actual cost of flying.

Schumer says the airlines should adopt a voluntary policy to allow families with children to sit together. Otherwise, he says the Transportation Department should adopt a rule to keep families together on a plane.

When it comes to teenage driving, most parents would probably prefer their teens drive by themselves, as opposed to having a car full of other teenagers to distract them. But a Consumer Reports survey shows that having peers in the car can actually keep teenage drivers from being distracted by cell phone use or texting.

Though the report shows that younger drivers are less likely to text or use cell phones when driving, many teens surveyed believed that distracted driving isn't really a big danger.

Only 36 percent of survey participants between the ages of 18 to 29 admitted to being concerned with the issue of distracted driving. A mere 30 percent felt it was very dangerous to use a handheld phone while driving, while 53 percent of respondents aged 30 or older said distracted driving is extremely problematic.

But more people believed that texting was a harmful act, as 76 percent felt that texting while driving is very dangerous, and 83 percent said to be in favor of distracted driving laws when it came to texting. This may be a response to national efforts by several organizations to build awareness of texting while driving and highlight its dangers.

Teens surveyed

The report also included a series of interviews conducted by Consumer Reports, that asked teen drivers what they thought needed to be done to eliminate texting and cell phone use while driving. Their suggestions included:

• "Make it safe and acceptable to pull over to do such tasks."
• "Stiffer penalties, parents applying consequences for minors, and more education/awareness programs."
• "Adults don't discipline like it's a problem; parents are blind to it. They tell us do not drink and drive, but don't say do not use the phone."
• "I think that apps … that prohibit a user from receiving or sending text messages while traveling over 10 mph are very helpful and should be more widely used."
• "Parents should let us kids have a Bluetooth headset so we wouldn't be tempted to use our phones and take a hand off the steering wheel."
• "I know that my friend texts a lot while she's driving, but whenever I'm in her car, I make her give me the phone and tell me what she wants me to write. …Peer pressure is such a powerful force when you have it in your corner."

In a written statement, Rik Paul, Consumer Reports auto editor said "Our survey showed that while far too many young people are driving while distracted, they are less likely to do so when their parents, friends or siblings set a good example."

Additional findings in the report showed that, 84 percent of younger drivers saw other younger drivers talking on their cell phones while behind the wheel, and 71 percent said they've witnessed teenagers texting while driving.

Also, 48 percent of respondents witnessed their parents talking on handheld phones while driving, 15 percent saw their parents texting, and 8 percent of the respondents even admitted to using a smartphone app while behind the wheel.

The distracted driver survey was conducted online, between Nov. 23, 2011 to Dec. 13, 2011. A total of 1,049 questionnaires were filled out by adults ranging from 16 to 21.

Just about everyone knows texting while driving is dangerous but what responsibility does the person on the other end of the text have?

None, a New Jersey judge has ruled. 

Morris County Superior Court Judge David Rand dismissed claims against Shannon Colonna of Rockaway, N.J., saying she bore no legal responsibility for an accident that happened after she texted Kyle Best, who was then 19, the New Jersey Law Journal reported.

Best was returning from teaching a swimming class on Sept. 21, 2009, when he got Colonna's text. While answering it, he lost control of his pickup truck, crossed the double yellow line and hit David and Linda Kubert on their motorcycle. Each lost a leg as a result of the accident.

The Kuberts argued that Colonna should share responsibility because she knew or should have known that Best was driving when she sent the text. 

But Judge Rand said he could find no precedent for such a claim and dismissed the Kuberts' civil suit against Colonna. Their case against Best remains intact. 

Many years ago, motel guests used to react with horror, feigned or otherwise, when it was suggested that the desk clerk might know which pay-per-view movies they had watched in the supposed privacy of their room.

Now, thanks to technology, you can be spied on in the comfort of your own home, according to a federal class action lawsuit that claims Hulu tells third parties what its subscribers are watching.

In their suit, six Hulu subscribers said the video site "repurposed" its browser cache so a marketing analyst service called KISSmetrics could store their private data, Courthouse News Service reported. The suit also claims Hulu shared their private viewing choices with Facebook, Google Analytics, and other online market research and advertising companies without their permission.

The suit claims Hulu viewers are entitled to coverage under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which was passed in 1988 after a Washington, D.C., newspaper published a list of videos rented by Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

A digression

The list, by the way, showed that Bork's taste in movies was unremarkable. So why did the Washington City Paper publish it? Reporter Michael Dolan justified the action by noting that Bork himself opposed reading anything into the Constitution that the framers had not consciously put there and therefore should not claim any right to privacy not guaranteed him by explicit legislation, since there is no mention of privacy in the Constitution.

Bork's nomination was rejected by the Senate after a rousing speech by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) Bork famously responded: "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate."

Hulu claims that it is not covered by the VPPA, which applies to "video tape service providers." The streaming video service also notes that the litigants are not "customers" in the ordinary sense of the term, since they did not pay anything for using Hulu.

"Concluding, as plaintiffs suggest, that 'consumers' under the VPPA include those who merely visited hulu.com without the payment of any money would dramatically enlarge the category of 'consumers' regulated by the statute," an attorney for Hulu argued. "This would be akin to saying that anybody who walked into a video rental store and watched a few minutes of video on an overhead television set, even if they didn't rent any videos or become a member, would be a 'consumer' of that video store." 

Hulu has also argued that the plaintiffs cannot prove injury and thus can't establish standing to sue.

More leverage

With gasoline prices at elevated levels in recent years, consumers are looking for more fuel efficient cars. In some cases that means looking at smaller cars with smaller engines.

But going small doesn't mean giving up power. Automakers increasingly are offering models with turbocharged, or “turbo” engines that offer fuel economy and power.

A turbocharger works by compressing a greater amount of air through the combustion chamber, resulting in more power and efficiency. A turbocharger uses exhaust gases that otherwise would be wasted to increase air flow into the combustion chambers providing big engine power performance with small engine efficiency and reduced emissions.

Better efficiency and power

It allows automakers to use a smaller, more gas-stingy engine without giving up zip. Turbo engines are popular in both gasoline and diesel powered engines.

As automakers introduce new turbo models, consumers appear to be gravitating toward them. Honeywell Turbo Technologies estimates the number of turbocharged commercial and passenger vehicles sold in North America is projected to reach 3.2 million in 2012, up from 2.2 million in 2011.

Passenger vehicles alone account for nearly 850,000 additional turbo engines – a 61 percent increase from 2011.

"With fuel prices being a significant concern for consumers and businesses, turbochargers are a smart choice for getting more miles to the gallon," said Tony Schultz, vice president for the Americas, Honeywell Turbo Technologies. "It's a proven technology that can be used across market segments and does not put the consumer in an extended payback period like other technologies to realize its benefits.”

Proven technology

And while hybrids and the emerging electric vehicles (EV) are relatively new automotive technologies, Schultz points out that turbocharging technology has been a fuel economy driver for decades in the United States for the on- and off-highway commercial vehicle market, as well as in global passenger vehicle markets like Europe.

While there are more turbos on the road, there are decidedly fewer eight-cylinder engines. According to J.D Power and partner firm LMC Automotive, turbochargers were fitted in only two percent of gasoline or flex-fuel vehicles produced in the United States in 2008, but that figure jumped to 9.5 percent in 2011 and is expected to more than double to 23.5 percent in 2017.

A smaller turbocharged engine can provide a 20 percent to 40 percent fuel economy improvement and deliver the same performance as a larger engine. Industry data illustrates the ongoing downsizing trend as the average engine size in North America is decreasing from 3.6L in 2007 to a projected average of 2.9L by 2016, according to Honeywell.

Turbocharged automobiles, such as Ford's EcoBoost lineup and the Chevrolet Sonic and Chevrolet Cruze have been among the best-selling vehicles in the U.S. this year. The Cruze Eco and Sonic, which both offer turbocharged engines among its models, can deliver 40 miles per gallon or higher on the highway and have starting prices below $20,000.

Working from home, not to be confused with home-based “business opportunities,” is a growing trend.

According to a new report from The Conference Board, the proportion of employees who work predominately from home or another remote location has, over the last decade, more than tripled in many industries, while nearly doubling nationwide among all full-time, non–self-employed U.S. workers.

"A confluence of factors, led by the rapid expanse of sophisticated, secure, and relatively inexpensive communication technologies, has sparked a quiet revolution in where and how many Americans do their jobs,” said Amy Lui Abel, director of human capital research at The Conference Board and a co-author of the report. “To take full advantage of the opportunities teleworking provides—while avoiding the many potential pitfalls—employers and employees must engage in an open dialog that establishes the mutual expectations and responsibilities that come with this new workplace culture. Our report should serve as a catalyst for beginning that conversation."

For the employee, the benefits are obvious. With no commute, employees enjoy time with loved ones during precious morning and evening hours. Based from home, they gain the flexibility to adjust their schedules as job and personal demands arise.

How do you convince your boss to let you telecommute? The Conference Board report offers some bullet points that you can use to shape your argument.

It saves money

Steady technical refinement has made teleworking an increasingly attractive business proposition. As a case study,the report cites IBM's long-term holistic strategy, which grew out of the 1970s and the idea of installing access "terminals" in employees' homes.

By 1995, 10,000 IBM employees were mobile, allowing the company to move from a traditional 1:1 workspace-to-worker ratio to 1:4. In just that first year, a $41.5 million investment in worker training returned $74 million in savings.

Teleworkers are often more productive

The Conference Board report notes that companies and organizations that have telecommuting employees have found those working from home are often more productive. They have the ability to focus on work priorities free of the stress of distractions and office politics. In addition, they arrive at their desks each day without having had to endure the stresses of a commute.

Accessibility

Employees who commute to the office often have a “time clock” mentality. Once the workday is over they punch out and head home, often not thinking about work until the next day. In some respects, telecommuters are “always on,” often returning to work in the evening or odd parts of the day.

Working for home can be used as incentive

Whether opportunities for telework are reserved for the best-performing employees, promoted across an organization, or used to attract standout applicants from a wider talent pool - such as disabled veterans, semi-retired experts, and parents with young children – offering a virtual office can help shape a happier, more motivated workforce. But leaders must establish formal, transparent guidelines if the concept is to be a real success.

"Research concurs that the dual lynchpins of effective teleworking are strong management and robust IT," said co-author Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research at The Conference Board. "With support from HR, managers at all levels must make the 'mental shift' to trusting that employees are getting the job done without seeing them every day—and to have the strength to act decisively when they're not. On the technology side, the right hardware and software choices backed up by abundant support staff can make the difference between a seamless transition and hundreds or thousands of man-hours lost to bugs and faulty connections."

U.S. consumers have been known to show levels of altruism towards the troubled and the unfortunate. Whether it's due to a natural disaster, a hunger problem, or a medical condition, consumers can be quite charitable at times.

But how does one know their money is ending up in the right place? New Jersey's Division of Consumer Affairs has answered this question by creating an app that lets you investigate before you donate. Consumers can also track  how their charities are applying the donated funds.

The app is called "Charity Lookup" and it's for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. In theory, the app provides the needed background information to a charity or cause, so users can become more educated and feel more confident when donating to a charity.

The New Jersey Division updates the app each week with info from its own database. It gathers the financial records of 26,000 charities and nonprofits that solicit New Jersey residents.

New Jersey state officials say not all charities use donated funds in the same way, and this app will allow users to not only feel better about donating, but also see exactly how much of their donations are being given to the actual cause.

Smart donors

"Savvy consumers do their research before they make a purchase or an investment-- and they should do the same before giving to a charity," cautioned Attorney general Jeffrey S. Chiesa.

"When you look at the numbers you'll learn some so-called charities dedicate only 10 or 20 cents of each donated dollar to actual charitable programs, and give the rest to fundraisers. Other organization spend virtually every penny on worthwhile charitable projects. With this app we've made it easier than ever to know where you money will go, before you donate, he said."

Like most apps, it's built to be very user-friendly. The user would simply type in the name of a nonprofit, then by clicking on the organization's name, users can view background information of the charities expenses and revenues. The breakdown of each organization is pulled from its most recent fiscal year report.

Eric T. Kanefsky, acting director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs said consumers have a right to know the full intentions of a charity, as with any other organizations they deal with.

"While the Supreme Court has ruled that states can't force charities to spend more money on charitable causes than on fundraising or management costs, we owe it to consumers to bring transparency to the ways charities use the donations they receive," he said.

"This app, like our Charities Registration Hotline, provides an important service. It will help shine a spotlight on the state's most un-charitable charities, and bring well-deserved recognition to the organizations that put donated dollars to valuable use."

65 percent

Kanefsky also added that charities should be donating at least 65 percent of its donations toward its charitable programs, and no more than 35 percent toward fundraising efforts.

For now, only those with Apple mobile devices can use the app, but Android users and those who use other devices will soon be able to use it too. Those interested can either download it here, or by going to an Apple App store on their mobile device and doing a search for "New Jersey Charity Search." 

But even those without the app can check the legitimacy of a charity or non-profit. Consumers can simply phone a charity and ask them how its money is spent. If a charity is unwilling to give this info to you, it may be an indication that it's not reputable.

Although rolled on in the State of New Jersey, other states should be seeing similar applications. But in the meantime, getting all of the background information on a charity, coupled with asking a bunch of questions, should allow the donator to make a more educated donation, since donating blindly to a cause can do more harm than good.

Looking for a way to take weight off and keep it off? Forget the fad diets and hyped exercises -- the answer may lie with remote coaching by email, financial incentives and other modification behavior techniques, according to a report of a randomized controlled trial published in the May 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. 

It's no secret that not following a physician’s lifestyle change advice is a common problem. Many physicians are skeptical that patients will change their unhealthy behaviors, and physicians also report a lack of time and training to effectively counsel their patients, researchers write in the study background.

“This study’s interventions leveraged handheld technology to create efficient interventions that make self-monitoring more convenient, extend decision support into life contexts where lifestyle choices are made, and convey time-stamped behavioral data to paraprofessionals who provide coaching remotely,” the researchers note.

Bonnie Spring, Ph.D., of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, and colleagues randomly assigned 204 adult patients (48 men) with elevated intake of saturated fat and low intake of fruits and vegetables, and high sedentary leisure time and low physical activity into 1 of 4 treatments.

The treatments were: increase fruit/vegetable intake and physical activity, decrease fat and sedentary leisure, decrease fat and increase physical activity, and increase fruit/vegetable intake and decrease sedentary leisure. Patients used personal digital assistant devices to record and self-regulate their behaviors.

Daily uploads

During three weeks of treatment, patients uploaded their data daily and communicated as needed with their coaches by telephone or by email. The participants could earn $175 for meeting goals during the treatment phase. In addition, there was a 20-week follow-up during which patients could earn from $30 to $80 for continuing to record and transmit their data.

“The increase fruits/vegetables and decrease sedentary leisure treatment maximized healthy lifestyle change compared with the other interventions,” the authors comment. They note that lifestyle gains diminished once treatment ended, as expected, but improvements persisted throughout the follow-up period.

From baseline to the end of treatment to the end of the follow-up, respectively, mean (average) servings per day of fruits/vegetables changed from 1.2 to 5.5 to 2.9, mean minutes per day of sedentary leisure from 219.2 to 89.3 to 125.7, and daily calories from saturated fat from 12 percent to 9.4 percent to 9.9 percent, according to the study results.

“This study demonstrates the feasibility of changing multiple unhealthy diet and activity behaviors simultaneously, efficiently and with minimal face-to-face contact by using mobile technology, remote coaching, and incentives,” the authors comment.

If you have a home mortgage, you are required to carry homeowners insurance. In nearly every case, the premiums are paid from an escrow account by the mortgage servicer.

Increasingly, homeowners like Tamara, of Houston, Tex., have complained that the mortgage company unilaterally insures the property and charges the homeowner. In Tamara's case, she said her premiums had always been paid out of escrow.

“One year we received a notice that Bank of America was attaching their own insurance because ours had been cancelled the year before,” Tamara wrote in a ConsumerAffairs post. “We never received any notice of this from our carrier or the bank until they attached their own insurance. They claimed they paid our home insurance from escrow, the money was definitely gone, but the carrier said they never received it.”

Calling on feds to investigate

The National Consumer Law Center is calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to investigate what it calls “forced-placed insurance” (FPI), calling it a growing problem for both borrowers and investors.

FPI, also known as lender-placed insurance, is insurance placed on the borrower’s home when the borrower fails to maintain their own insurance policy or provide evidence of insurance as required by the loan agreement.

FPI is a group credit insurance policy sold to the lender or loan servicer and names the lender or loan servicer as the insured. The lender or servicer pays the premium for the insurance when the coverage is placed and then bills the borrower for the FPI premium.

Profitable tactic

The National Consumer Law Center says the practice is increasing because it is lucrative for the lenders.

“FPI is much more expensive than regular, voluntary homeowners insurance—up to ten times more expensive,” the consumer group said in a report. “Because the additional cost of FPI is normally added to a homeowner’s mortgage payments, the high cost of this type of insurance can drive a borrower into default or prevent a borrower who is already in arrears from catching-up on missed payments. The difference in cost, however, is unjustified.”

The group notes that the recent mortgage abuse settlement federal and state governments reached with five major lenders specifically called for reducing instances of FPI. It says Fannie Mae has also revised its servicing guidelines in an attempt to address the problem.

Damage to the optic nerve robs people of their eyesight and it's long been considered an irreversible loss. But maybe it isn't.

A team of researchers at Boston Children's Hospital has not only grown new optic nerve fibers in mice, but also restored some basic elements of vision.

The researchers, led by Larry Benowitz, showed that mice with severe optic nerve damage can regain some depth perception, the ability to detect overall movement of the visual field, and perceive light, allowing them to synchronize their sleep/wake cycles.

Findings were published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

What does that mean for humans? The researchers are hopeful that patients blinded by optic nerve damage from trauma or from glaucoma, estimated to affect more than 4 million Americans, might be able to regain at least some visual function.

In other forms of vision loss, such as macular degeneration, people can sometimes regain visual acuity, but there is currently no way to recover from damage to the optic nerve.

Big step forward

Previous studies, including many by the Benowitz lab, have demonstrated that optic nerve fibers can regenerate some distance through the optic nerve. This development, however, takes it another big step.

"Dr. Benowitz and his group have, for the first time, established proof-of-concept that a damaged optic nerve can regenerate and attain lost function," said Nareej Agarwal, PhD, of the National Eye Institute, which supported the study. "This is an important advance in an effort to reverse vision loss in glaucoma and other neurodegenerative diseases."

Benowitz cautions, however, that the vision the mice regained was limited, and probably didn't restore the ability to discriminate objects.

"What lies behind what we call seeing is very complicated – so many subsystems contribute to seeing," he said. "We're in a sense just scratching the surface about functional recovery."

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has assessed a $100,000 civil penalty against Virgin America for filing incomplete reports with the Department about complaints registered by passengers with disabilities and for not responding adequately to these complaints.  

“We expect airlines to respond individually to disability-related complaints and to report those complaints to us,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.  “These are important parts of our rules protecting the rights of passengers, and we will continue to take enforcement action when they are violated.”

DOT rules require airlines to record disability-related complaints, categorize them by the type of disability and nature of the complaint, and submit an annual report on these complaints to the Department.  If a single consumer correspondence covers more than one issue, each issue must be counted as a separate complaint. 

In addition, if an airline receives a written complaint alleging a violation of the Department’s disability rules, the carrier must provide a written response within 30 days that specifically discusses the complaint, gives the carrier’s view of whether a violation occurred, and states that the complaint may be referred to DOT for an investigation.

In July 2011, the Department’s Aviation Enforcement Office conducted a routine on-site inspection at Virgin America’s corporate headquarters, where it reviewed all disability-related complaints received by the carrier. The Enforcement Office found that in many instances, Virgin America failed to provide a written response that addressed the consumer’s complaint. 

In addition, Virgin America failed to properly categorize and account for all the disability-related issues that were raised in the complaints the carrier received during 2008 and 2009.  As a result, a number of complaints were missing from Virgin America’s annual reports submitted to the Department in 2009 and 2010. 

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has been named to chair a new committee that will look out for the rights of air travelers. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the appointment of four members to the committee last week.

Besides Madigan, the committee members are David A. Berg, senior vice president at Airlines for America (A4A); Deborah Ale-Flint, director of aviation at Oakland International Airport; and Charles Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance (CTA).

“We are committed to protecting and strengthening the rights of consumers when they fly,” Secretary LaHood said. “The members of this committee will help us build on the Administration’s already strong record of protecting air travelers.”

All of the committee members have demonstrated experience in both advocating for consumers and working for additional consumer protections, LaHood said.

Madigan was elected the first woman attorney general of Illinois in 2002 and won a third term in 2010.  Under her leadership, Attorney General Madigan’s Consumer Protection Division has established a national reputation for aggressively advocating for consumer safeguards.  Her office handles on average 25,000-30,000 consumer complaints a year on issues ranging from financial fraud to product safety.

Berg was named senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for A4A, an airline trade association, in February 2011.  He is responsible for the association’s legal affairs and has been involved in a variety of aviation issues, including passengers with disabilities and airport landing fees.

Ale-Flint was appointed Oakland International Airport’s director of aviation in April 2010 and is the primary executive responsible for the operation, management and development of the airport.  Her previous experience includes serving as the assistant director of aviation, responsible for the operations of the airport, and managing the airport's $500 million capital program.

Leocha formed the CTA in 2009, following a career in journalism where he specialized in reporting on travelers’ rights.  His advocacy for travelers has included meeting government officials, testifying before Congress and developing travel information and resources.

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, signed by President Obama on Feb. 14, mandates the establishment of this committee.  The law requires the Secretary of Transportation to appoint to the committee four members with one representative each of air carriers, airport operators, state or local governments, and nonprofit public interest groups with expertise in consumer protection.  According to the law, the committee will terminate on Sept. 30, 2015. 

Members of the armed forces are not only in harm's way when serving in combat situations. They are also being targeted by a number scams claiming to provide mortgage assistance, federal agencies warn. 

“Members of the armed services community often face unique financial challenges and are at particular risk for this type of scam,” said Christy Romero, Special Inspector General at SIGTARP, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. “We want to empower service members and their families with information so that they can easily recognize and avoid these scams and also provide them with resources on where to turn for additional information and assistance."

Many of the scams claim to be part of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). 

“I applaud the new HAMP guidelines that have special provisions for military personnel. But at the same time it's important to remind military personnel and their families that there are scammers out there who may guarantee to get them a mortgage modification - for a fee up front. Don't lose your money on one of those offers - there are plenty of legitimate, free resources for you if you are looking to modify your loan,” explained Holly Petraeus, Assistant Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Office for Servicemember Affairs.

Hallmarks of HAMP mortgage modification scams include: the unofficial use of official program names or logos of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and/or lenders; the advertising of a very high success rate in achieving modifications; and the guarantee of a successful modification in exchange for an upfront fee. Free help is always available.

For servicemembers having trouble paying their mortgage, free help is available. Advice from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved housing counselors is always free, as are mortgage modifications under HAMP. In most cases, charging fees in advance for a mortgage modification is illegal. HUD-approved housing counselors can help you avoid scams and better understand your options.

Resources

The agencies listed a number of resources available to service members, including:

Consumer Fraud Alert – For tips on how to identify and avoid mortgage modification scams and to view the Consumer Fraud Alert issued by the HAMP Mortgage Modification Fraud Taskforce, visit f.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs – If you are an active-duty service member or veteran and have a VA loan, call the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs at 1-877-827-3702 or visit the Loan Guaranty Service Home Loan Program Web site at www.HomeLoans.VA.gov.

Making Home Affordable Program – For free mortgage-related advice and assistance from HUD-approved housing counselors or to apply for HAMP, call the Homeowner’s HOPE Hotline at 1-888-995-HOPE (1-888-995-4673) or visit www.MakingHomeAffordable.gov. You can apply to HAMP on your own or with free help from a HUD-approved housing counselor. Applying to HAMP is always free.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – For additional help and more information about mortgages, dial 1-855-411-2372 or visit www.ConsumerFinance.gov/mortgagehelp.