Current Events in July 2014

A federal judge has brought to a halt the operations of a Buffalo, N.Y.-based debt collection operation that's accused of using lies and threats against consumers in violation of federal and state law.

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the New York Attorney General’s Office, the court also froze the operation’s assets, and appointed a temporary receiver to take over the defendants’ business pending trial.

The FTC and New York AG, in a joint complaint, allege that the defendants misrepresented that consumers had committed check fraud or another criminal act; falsely threatened to arrest or imprison consumers, sue them, garnish their wages, or put a lien on their property; failed to back up their claims that consumers owed the debt; charged illegal fees; and improperly revealed consumers’ debts to third parties.

The defendants have collected at least $8.7 million dollars in payments since February 2010, for purported debts, according to the complaint.

Consumer harassment charged

“These debt collectors continued to harass consumers and violate the law after the validity of the debt was called into question, and after the New York Attorney General’s office ordered them to stop,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “By working together with our state partners, we can leverage our resources to stop these illegal tactics.”

“All too often, innocent New Yorkers are relentlessly harassed by predatory, abusive debt collectors,” Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said. “My office, along with partners like the Federal Trade Commission, will keep fighting to protect hardworking consumers and put a stop to unfair financial bullying once and for all.”

The agencies have charged 3 individuals -- Joseph C. Bella, III, Diane Bella, Luis A. Shaw -- and 9 interrelated companies they control. Going by various names including National Check Registry, the operation began using another name -- eCapital Services, LLC -- to evade detection and continue its illegal behavior after signing an agreement with New York State authorities in October 2013 that prohibited it from violating federal and state debt collection laws, according to the complaint.

Lies and intimidation

Also, according to the complaint, the defendants:

• told one consumer in Washington State that they would have the “Washington County Police” issue a warrant for her arrest, and another serving in the military that they would bring an action against him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice;
• said the only way to avoid arrest, imprisonment, lawsuits, wage garnishments, and seized assets would be to make an immediate payment over the phone;
• continued to accuse consumers of check fraud and other crimes even after they produced evidence showing they didn’t owe the debt in question;
• contacted friends, family members, and co-workers of consumers whom they claimed owed a debt, and in some cases, not only revealed the supposed debt but also said the consumers had committed check fraud, and would be arrested or imprisoned if the debt was not paid;
• added an illegal $8 “processing fee” when consumers made payments on supposed debts over the phone;
• failed to provide consumers with debt collection notices and disclosures that are required under state and federal law, making it difficult for consumers to determine whether they owed the debt, and how they could dispute its validity; and
• continued trying to collect a debt from a consumer who had discharged the debt in bankruptcy.

In addition to Joseph and Diane Bella, Luis A. Shaw, National Check Registry, LLC, and eCapital Services, LLC, the complaint names as defendants Check Systems, LLC, Interchex Systems, LLC, Goldberg Maxwell, LLC, Morgan Jackson, LLC, Mullins & Kane, LLC, Buffalo Staffing, Inc., and American Mutual Holdings, Inc.

If you read ConsumerAffairs and other review sites, you might think Americans hate and distrust businesses. Perhaps they do, but a Gallup poll finds that four in five Americans (81%) say the U.S. would be better governed if more people with business and management experience were in political office.

A majority -- 63% -- say the country would be better governed with more female political leaders, up slightly from 57% in 1995 and 2000.

Americans also favor governance by those who "think it is more important to compromise to get things done" (63%) over those who "think it is more important to hold firm to their principles" (56%) -- although the overlap between the figures shows that some Americans view both types of leaders favorably.

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say electing more political moderates would improve the way the country is governed, while fewer say this about political conservatives (47%) and political liberals (33%). Thirty-two percent believe the country would be governed better if more people backed by the Tea Party movement were in office, while more, 48%, believe it would be governed worse.

About half of Americans think the country would be better governed if more people who are religious (51%), and more racial and ethnic minorities (48%) were in office.

More women

The 63% of Americans who believe the U.S. would be better governed if more women were in political office includes 69% of women and 55% of men.

Overall, self-identified liberals (78%), unmarried women (78%), and women aged 18 to 49 (76%) express the most optimism in female leaders.

A large majority of blacks (75%), Democrats (75%), and people aged 18 to 29 (73%) also believe having more women in office would improve the government.

Pennsylvania has sued two online furniture companies, Furniture XO and Furniture PM, after consumers around the country complained their orders had gone unfilled.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said the Philadelphia-based companies allegedly took money from consumers for furniture purchased on their websites but failed to deliver. Kane's lawsuit seeks an injunction against the companies.

According to the lawsuit, Furniture XO suffered cash flow problems and, as a result, the defendants used money from new consumers to pay for orders they placed with the manufacturers and/or distributors to fulfill orders from earlier customers or to provide refunds to earlier customers, leading to "significant delays" in filling orders.

The defendants also allegedly opened Furniture PM in an attempt to fulfill outstanding orders from Furniture XO and to provide refunds to the consumers.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants never recovered from their cash flow problems and in many cases failed to submit the furniture order to the manufacturer or distributor, failed to deliver the consumers' furniture and failed to provide refunds to the consumers who paid for furniture but did not receive it.

Consumers who believe they may have been harmed by these companies' business practices are encouraged to call the Bureau of Consumer Protection at 1-800-441-2555 or file a complaint at www.attorneygeneral.gov.

"Plastic wood" is getting to be a popular product with suburban homeowners looking for cheap, long-lasting material to use in decks, benches, picnic tables and so forth.

Even better, much of the plastic wood on the market claims to be made mostly -- or even entirely -- from recycled material. The only problem with this claim is that it often isn't true, the Federal Trade Commission charges. 

An Illinois firm, Engineered Plastics Systems LLC is the latest to find itself in trouble with the FTC, after allegedly making deceptive claims in its advertising and marketing material that many of its products are made entirely of recycled plastic. In reality, according to the FTC, the products were made of less than three-quarters recycled plastic.

Under a proposed FTC settlement, the company must have credible evidence to support any environmental benefit claims it makes, with scientific proof, if necessary. It also requires EPS to be able to specifically substantiate any claims it makes about the amount of recycled content in its products.

“This is the second case the FTC has brought in the last two months related to environmental claims for plastic lumber products,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Companies know that consumers are increasingly looking to buy products with ‘green’ attributes. But companies can’t sell products by making false environmental claims – that’s against the law.”

EPS is based in Elgin, Illinois, and makes, advertises, sells, and distributes plastic lumber products, including picnic tables and benches. According to the complaint, since at least June of 2011, the company has run ads and distributed promotional material for its plastic lumber products describing their environmental attributes. For example, the company claimed, among other things, that some of its benches and tables were:

• “Made entirely of recycled plastic lumber”;
• “All recycled plastic design”; and
• “Constructed using 2x4 recycled plastic lumber profiles.”

The FTC alleges that while a reasonable consumer would likely interpret EPS’s claims to mean that its products are made from all, or virtually all, recycled plastic, in fact, between June 2011 and 2014, they contained, on average, only about 72 percent recycled plastic. The products also contained some non-recycled plastic and a mineral component.

Wegmans Food Markets is recalling several in-store baked desserts that may contain fresh peaches, nectarines, and/or plums.

The fruit was supplied by California-based Wawona Packing Company, which issued a recall when testing showed potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

No illnesses associated with this recall have been reported to Wawona or to Wegmans.

The following recalled products may contain the affected Wawona-packed fruits. The products are labeled with a store-printed scale label that will identify the product and UPC.

Recalled Cakes and Pies

• Peach Melba Whipped Cream, 34 oz. UPC 7789033104
• Fruit-Topped Short Cake, 1/4 sheet, 49 oz. UPC 7789032772
• Genoise Cake,1/4 sheet, 64 oz. UPC 7789027385
• Fruit-Topped Cheese Cake, large, 54 oz. UPC 7789026438
• Fruit-Topped Cheese Cake, small, 18 oz. UPC 7789026441
• Fruit-Topped Cream Cheese Pie 40 oz. UPC 7789018953

Recalled Tarts and Other Pastries

• Vanilla Trifle, 8 oz. UPC 7789080600
• Peach Melba Tart, 26 oz. UPC 7789098553
• Rectangular Fruit Tart, 37 oz. UPC 20823800000
• Mixed Fruit Tart, 30 oz. UPC 20819500000
• Square Fruit Tart, 48 oz. UPC 20823700000
• Lg. Fruit Strip (Puff Pastry), 11 oz. UPC 20829200000
• Sm. Fruit Strip (Puff Pastry), 3 oz. UPC 20829100000
• Frangipane (tart), 30 oz. UPC 7789091064
• Lg. Fruit Crostata, 21 oz. UPC 20829300000
• Sm. Fruit Crostata, 7 oz. UPC 20829900000
• Lg. Nectarine Crostata, 21 oz. UPC 20823100000
• Sm. Nectarine Crostata, 6 oz. UPC 20832600000

Customers who purchased the recalled products from Wegmans between June 1 and July 20 should discard the product at home and visit the service desk and identify the product for a full refund.

Wegmans will place automated phone calls to customers who purchased the recalled products using their Shoppers club card.

Consumers with questions may contact Wegmans consumer affairs department toll free at 1-855-934-3663 Monday through Friday, between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern time.

BMW of North America is recalling 573,935 model year 2000 323i sedans, coupes, convertibles, and Sports Wagons; 2000 328i sedans and coupes; 2001-2005 325i sedans, coupes, convertibles, and Sport Wagons; 2001-2005 325xi sedans and Sports Wagons; 2006 325i coupes and convertibles; 2001-2006 330i sedans, coupes, and convertibles; 2001-2005 330xi sedans; and 2001-2006 M3 coupes and convertibles.

A safety defect in the passenger side frontal air bag may produce excessive internal pressure that could cause the air bag inflator to rupture upon deployment of the air bag.

In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the passenger's frontal air bag, excessive internal pressure could cause rupturing of the inflator resulting in metal fragments striking and potentially seriously injuring the passenger seat occupant or other occupants.

BMW will notify owners, and dealers will replace the passenger side frontal air bag, free of charge. An interim notice will be mailed to owners in August 2014. A second notice will be mailed when an adequate supply of parts is available, currently anticipated to be in October 2014.  

Wawona Packing Company of Cutler, Calif., is issuing a nationwide recall for these lots of whole peaches (white and yellow), nectarines (white and yellow), plums and pluots packed between June 1, 2014, through July 12, 2014.

The fruit has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

No illnesses have been linked to this recall to date.

The recalled products were shipped directly to retailers and wholesalers for resale.

Those with the recalled products in their possession should not consume them and should discard them.

Consumers with questions may contact Wawona Packing at 1-888-232-9912, M-F, 8am-5pm ET.

General Motors is recalling 90,750 model year 2013-2014 Cadillac ATS vehicles manufactured April 23, 2012, to March 20, 2014, and 2014 Cadillac CTS vehicles manufactured June 10, 2013, to March 20, 2014.

The transmission shift cable in the affected vehicles may detach from either the bracket on the transmission shifter or the bracket on the transmission.

If the transmission shift cable detaches while the vehicle is being driven, the transmission gear selection may not match the indicated gear and the vehicle may move in an unintended or unexpected direction, increasing the risk of a crash.

Furthermore, when the driver goes to stop and park the vehicle, despite selecting the 'PARK' position, the transmission may not be in 'PARK.' If the vehicle is not in the 'PARK' position there is a risk the vehicle will roll away as the driver and other occupants exit the vehicle or anytime thereafter. A vehicle rollaway increases the risk of injury to exiting occupants and bystanders.

GM will notify owners, and dealers will inspect the vehicles to make sure the cable is properly seated at the transmission and shifter brackets, free of charge. The recall is expected to begin in early August 2014.

Owners may contact Cadillac customer service at 1-800-458-8006. GM's number for this recall is 14179.

B. Roberts Foods of Charlotte, N.C., is recalling approximately 202 pounds of individual serving grilled chicken entrees.

The product contains milk, an allergen, which is not declared on the product label.

There are no reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.

The following product is subject to recall:

• 10 oz. (248 g) Refrigerated Packages of "Harris Teeter, Fresh Foods Market, Deli-Bakery, All Natural Grilled Chicken Strips (minimally processed, no artificial ingredients)"

The top label on the packaging incorrectly reads "All Natural Grilled Chicken Strips (minimally processed, no artificial ingredients), Net Wt 10 oz. (248g)" and the bottom label incorrectly reads "Grilled Chicken Breast with Lemon Spaghettini" when both labels should read "Grilled Chicken Breast with Sundried Tomato Pasta."

The product was produced on July 10, 2014, and bears the establishment number "Est. 19198" inside the USDA mark of inspection with package code "50223" and "Sell By" date of "07/27/14".

The product was distributed to retail stores in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Consumers and media with questions about the recall should contact Antonio Gilges at (704) 944-5311 or via email at agilges@brobertsfoods.com.

Can you stop type 2 diabetes with a single shot? Salk scientists, writing up their latest findings in the journal Nature, say that you can and that they have.

The result could be a whole new generation of drugs that could safely and effectively stem the rising type 2 diabetes epidemic.

The magic bullet in this case is the protein FGF1. The Salk experiments discovered that a single injection could restore blood sugar levels to the safe range for several days.

More than just managing the disease

More significant, perhaps, the experiments showed that sustained treatment doesn't just act as a controlling mechanism but actually reduces insulin insensitivity, the underlying cause of the disease.

Type 2 diabetes is different from type 1, in that type 1's cause is mostly genetic while type 2 is largely caused by obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle. Not surprisingly, type 2 is now the more common form of the disease.

When you have diabetes your body causes blood glucose, or sugar levels to rise higher than normal. It's a condition known as hyperglycemia.

When you have type 2 diabetes your body does not use insulin properly, a condition known as insulin resistance. The pancreas tries to compensate for it but over time it isn't able to keep up and can't make enough insulin to keep your blood glucose at normal levels.

No cure – yet

According to the Mayo Clinic there is currently no known cure for type 2 diabetes but the disease can be managed through diet and exercise and maintaining a healthy weight. Medication and insulin therapy helps where lifestyle changes fall short.

No one is using the word “cure” just yet but the Salk scientists say the results of the FGF1 experiments may be a big step in that direction. So far they have found no side effects that might reduce the effectiveness of the treatment or prevent some patients from receiving it.

“Controlling glucose is a dominant problem in our society,” said Ronald Evans, director of Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory and corresponding author of the paper. “And FGF1 offers a new method to control glucose in a powerful and unexpected way.”

The diabetes drugs currently approved for use attempt to boost insulin levels and reverse insulin resistance by altering the expression levels of genes to lower glucose levels in the blood. But the researchers say drugs that increase the body’s insulin production can also cause glucose levels to fall too low and lead to life-threatening hypoglycemia, as well as other side effects.

Pleasant surprise

As many breakthroughs are, this one was something of a surprise. The experiment used obese mice as stand-ins for obese, diabetic humans.

Evans’ team injected doses of FGF1 into the obese mice with diabetes to see how it affected metabolism. Researchers said they were stunned by what happened: they found that with a single dose, blood sugar levels quickly dropped to normal levels in all the diabetic mice.

“Many previous studies that injected FGF1 showed no effect on healthy mice,” said Michael Downes, a senior staff scientist and co-corresponding author of the new work. “However, when we injected it into a diabetic mouse, we saw a dramatic improvement in glucose.”

More research is ahead before an FGF1 drug is submitted for FDA approval, but the scientists hope to move next to human trials. Evans says there are still many questions from the study that need to be answered. But, he says, “the avenues for investigating FGF1 in diabetes and metabolism are now wide open.”

You tend to think of the U.S. armed forces as pretty self-sufficient. They don't need much protection from civilians since they are busy around the world protecting us.

But the men and women in the military are by and large young and vulnerable to the sinister machinations of everyone from outright scammers to less than scrupulous businesses that abuse them financially.

In years past payday loans were a big problem. Service personnel, who don't earn a lot of money, were often strapped and turned to the payday loan stores usually clustered around military bases.

Then in 2006, at the urging of the Department of Defense, Congress barred lenders from charging active duty service personnel more than 36% APR interest. While that may sound high, it effectively meant payday lenders – who typically charge fees amounting to around 400% APR – couldn't loan to the military.

That move prevented a lot of service personnel from getting tangled up in an endless cycle of debt. Yet, there are other threats.

Tracking complaints

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau keeps track of complaints it receives from consumers in uniform. By April 2013 the agency had received over 5,000 financial complaints from servicemembers, veterans and their families.

In one complaint, an active-duty army officer was informed by her student loan servicer that they were going to terminate her SCRA rights unless she provided a new set of orders that contained an end date. But because she was an officer, she did not have orders with an end date.

As a result the CFPB said the servicer terminated her interest-rate protection while she was still serving on active duty. Acting on the officer's complaint, the CFPB said it was able to communicate with the servicer and ensure the rate was reinstated.

"No one should be victimized by financial abuse, particularly the military," said Gail Cunningham, spokesperson for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). "One way to avoid financial abuse is through financial education, as an educated consumer is always a better consumer, one more equipped to identify fraud or deception and make wise financial decisions."

Financial literacy program

NFCC, which represents non-profit credit counselors around the U.S., has announced a new financial literacy program designed for members of the armed forces. Cunningham says it is tailored to the unique financial challenges facing members of the military community.

The program presents 10 individual lesson topics ranging from the basics of banking to planning for retirement, so it is appropriate for servicemembers at any stage of their career.

But in some respects, an NFCC survey suggests service personnel are no different from consumers who aren't in uniform. In the survey, 77% admitted that they have financial stresses and concerns. Fifty-five percent said they don't feel prepared to meet a financial emergency. Sixty percent said they had to look outside of traditional institutions and utilized alternative, non-traditional lenders to meet their financial needs.

"Stressful situations can result in poor choices, with decisions often made out of desperation," Cunningham said. "To avoid this, servicemembers should take advantage of the opportunity to improve their financial skills.”

Scams

Servicemembers are also popular targets of scams. A car may be offered for sale with a “military discount,” but the money has to be paid in advance. Later, it turns out the car doesn't exist.

Sometimes apartments are rented with a discount for those in the military or veterans. But after a deposit has been paid, it turns out the person making the offer doesn't even own the property.

Adding insult to injury, online scammers have begun assuming servicemembers' identities on mainstream dating sites, striking up a relationship before asking for money. It's promoted the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CIC) to speak up.

“We cannot stress enough that people need to stop sending money to persons they meet on the Internet and claim to be in the U.S. military,” said Chris Grey, Army CID’s spokesman. “It is heartbreaking to hear these stories over and over again of people who have sent thousands of dollars to someone they have never met and sometimes have never even spoken to on the phone.”

Grey says the majority of the “romance scams,” as they have been dubbed, are being perpetrated on social media, dating-type websites where unsuspecting females are the main target.

Much attention has been focused on undocumented children entering the United States but Sen. Bernie Sanders thinks a more pressing issue is the number of corporate giants leaving the country to avoid U.S. taxes.

The Vermont Independent today announced legislation to ban those businesses from receiving lucrative U.S. government contracts.

Sanders said that he will file an amendment to a Department of Defense authorization bill to prohibit the U.S. government from awarding federal contracts to companies that reincorporate overseas to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.

“I have a message for these corporate deserters: You can't be an American company only when you want corporate welfare from American taxpayers or you want lucrative contracts from the federal government. If you want the advantages of being an American company then you can’t run away from America to avoid paying taxes.”

AbbVie and Walgreen's

Sanders announced the legislation on the same day pharmaceutical giant AbbVie said it plans to take over Shire, its European rival, in a merger that would allow the Chicago-based drug maker to reincorporate in Britain and lower its effective U.S. income tax rate from 22 percent to just 13 percent by 2016.

Walgreen’s, the giant drugstore chain, recently announced that it is considering moving its corporate headquarters from the U.S. to Switzerland to avoid $4 billion in U.S. taxes over the next five years. According to a recent report from Americans for Tax Fairness, nearly a quarter of Walgreen’s $72 billion in sales last year came from Medicare and Medicaid.

At least a dozen other major companies are considering abandoning America through a loophole in the tax code known as corporate inversion. Such inversions allow U.S. companies to move their corporate headquarters overseas by merging with a foreign company in a low-tax country, even though most of their profits and sales occur in America.

“Companies that have received billions in corporate welfare and have made billions in profits should not be allowed to renounce their U.S. citizenship to avoid paying U.S. taxes,” Sanders said.

Oregon has sued Living Essentials and Innovation Ventures, the makers of 5-hour Energy drinks, alleging deceptive advertising. The companies issued a combative response, saying the state is "grasping at straws."

The state takes exception to claims that the drinks contain a unique blend of ingredients that provide consumers with energy, alertness and focus. In reality, the lawsuit alleges, the only ingredient that provides any effect is the concentrated dose of caffeine.

“This lawsuit is about requiring truth in advertising,” said Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. “Plainly and simply, in Oregon you cannot promote a product as being effective if you don’t have sufficient evidence to back up your advertising claims.”

The lawsuit also targets allegedly misleading claims that the product will not cause consumers to experience a "crash." The suit also focuses on allegedly false claims that the product has been recommended by doctors and that the product is appropriate for adolescents age 12 year and older.

5-hour and other energy drinks have been blamed for deaths and illness and have been the target of numerous lawsuits. In 2012, the Food and Drug administration (FDA) said the drinks may have caused 13 deaths and made 33 people seek hospital care.

Companies respond

Living Essentials and Innovation Ventures, seemingly energized by the lawsuit, say they won't give up without a fight.

"When companies are being bullied by someone in a position of power, these companies roll over, pay the ransom, and move on," the companies said in a prepared statement. "We're not doing that. Oregon's Attorney General, Ellen Rosenblum, is grasping at straws, and we will fight to defend ourselves against civil intimidation.

"Ms. Rosenblum alleges that the only ingredient in 5-hour Energy that has any effect is the caffeine. If so, is Ms. Rosenblum going to sue Starbucks for selling coffee? Obviously she has nothing better to do."

Living Essentials has previously said that customers should be following the instructions of how to use the product very closely and although the company advertises 5-hour Energy as a product for daily use, people shouldn’t be consuming more than two bottles in one day. And if you do drink two per day, the portions should be spaced out between several hours.

Today's driving tip: Watch the road!

When you are driving, it is very important to look where you're going, because even if you have the most reliable, advanced and up-to-date GPS mapping software in the world, it still only notices permanent landmarks and is completely incapable of seeing things like the gigantic bright-yellow parked schoolbus you're about to crash into because you ignored the “look where you're going” safety rule in lieu of gazing at your GPS instead.

No exaggeration. It actually happened in Oklahoma this week. Police in the Oklahoma City suburb of Warr Acres said that a driver distracted by his GPS drove into a middle-school parking lot, where he crashed into a parked schoolbus some time around 1:45 in the morning.

Nobody was hurt, and police say they will not give the unidentified driver a ticket, since the accident didn't happen on a public street.

Spilled its load

The other GPS driver who made the news this week doesn't even have that consolation, though. Gerald Valeanu, a semi-truck operator from Milwaukee, is now facing several charges (including driving in a prohibited area) in Dubuque County, Iowa, after an incident last month where police say he drove his vehicle onto the Heritage Springs recreation trail, after his GPS told him it was a thoroughfare of some sort.

When news station KCRG-9 reported the incident it said, in a bit of understatement, “The soft-crushed limestone that lines the Heritage Trail could not support the weight of a 53-foot semi.”

Indeed, to the untrained eye, the limestone-lined Heritage Trail looks remarkably similar to a dirt walking path, which can easily handle the weight of most pedestrians but not Valeanu's truck, which sunk into the soft earth and rolled over onto its side, spilling its load onto some Iowa farmland.

Valeanu passed a field-sobriety test at the scene, which is not surprising: there's no shortage of anecdotes involving perfectly sober drivers who still caused ridiculously stupid accidents because they paid more attention to their GPS than to actual road conditions.

Remember the Pennsylvania man who blamed GPS after he drove his car into the Susquehanna River? Or the Washington State woman who blamed GPS after she drove her SUV down a boat launch into a lake? The Oregon couple lost in the wilderness for days after they believed their GPS when it told them an unpaved logging trail was actually the Interstate? Stone-cold sober, every last one of them.

Sobrety is important while driving but it's not the only thing that matters: you also need to remember that, no matter what your GPS tells you, you must always keep an eye on the road conditions. And make sure you're actually on a road.

An acceptable rating in the small overlap front crash test and a basic rating for front crash prevention have earned the 2015 Hyundai Sonata the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) "Top Safety Pick+" award.

The midsize moderately priced car also earns good ratings in each of the IIHS other four tests -- moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraints.

Hyundai redesigned the Sonata for the 2015 model year, improving the car's small overlap front rating from the previous generation's marginal rating.

Adequate protection

The driver's space was maintained well in the small overlap test. During the test, the safety belt allowed the dummy's upper body to move too far forward. The dummy's head hit the steering wheel through the airbag, indicating that head injuries would be possible in a real-world crash of this severity. The side curtain airbag deployed and had sufficient forward coverage to protect the head from contact with side structures.

In the small overlap test, 25% of a vehicle's front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph. It replicates what happens when the front corner of a vehicle strikes another vehicle or object like a tree or a utility pole.

The Sonata has an optional forward collision warning system. The IIHS rates vehicles as basic, advanced or superior for front crash prevention depending on whether they offer autobrake and, if so, how effective it is in the tests at 12 and 25 mph.

Forward collision warning systems that meet performance criteria set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and autobrake systems that provide only minimal speed reduction in IIHS tests earn a basic rating.

The Sonata is the second Hyundai model to earn the institute's highest award for 2014. To qualify for Top Safety Pick+, a vehicle must earn a good or acceptable rating for small overlap protection, a good rating in the Institute's other four tests, and a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention.

Families will spend slightly more on back-to-school items this summer than they did in 2013, according to the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 2014 Back-to-School Survey.

The survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, found the average family with children in grades K-12 will spend $669.28 on apparel, shoes, supplies and electronics -- up 5% from the $634.78 they laid out last year.

However, total spending on back to school will drop slightly to $26.5 billion as the survey found there are slightly fewer students in households this summer.

Still, combined spending for back to school and college is expected to reach $74.9 billion.

Ups and downs

“Slow improvements in the economy may have contributed to the growth in confidence among back-to-school shoppers, and while we are encouraged by the overall tone of the results and expect to see continued improvement in consumer spending through the year, we know Americans are still grappling with their purchase decisions every day,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “Throughout the history of this survey, spending has fluctuated based on family needs each year, and this summer, we expect parents to continue to use caution, but also make smart decisions for their family budget that is a good balance between what their children ‘want’ and what they actually need.”

NRF this year broke out spending by grade, and according to the survey, families with high school students will spend the most. The survey found the average family shopping for high school students will spend $682.99, while spending on middle school/junior high comes in a close second at $682.13. Parents with elementary school-age children will spend an average of $580.94.

Across-the-board increases

Overall, every category will see an increase in spending, including healthy increases in average spending on supplies and electronics. According to the survey, back-to-school shoppers will spend an average $212.35 on electronic items -- up 7% from $199.05 last year, with total spend expected to reach $8.4 billion. High school students and their families specifically will spend an average $229.88 on electronic items.

Perhaps due to school districts’ growing requests for classroom supply contributions, spending on school supplies will increase 12% to an average of $101.18, versus $90.49 last year. Additionally, shoppers will spend an average of $231.30 on clothes, up from $230.85, and $124.46 on shoes, up from $114.39 in 2013.

Big year for mobile shopping

As more consumers become comfortable with the notion of using their mobile devices to shop, families this summer are planning to turn to their handhelds to aid in their shopping. The survey found 36.7% of smartphone owners shopping for school items will research products using their mobile device -- 2% more that in 2013 and the highest since NRF started asking in 2011. Another 1 in 5 (21.8%) will make a purchase via their smartphone, compared with 18.2% last year and another survey high. And while many will simply shop online directly through their smartphone, one-quarter (25.1%) will use their device to find information about a physical store.

School shoppers who own tablets will also use their device more to shop this summer; 31.4% will purchase school items via their tablet, versus 29.9% last year, and 45% will research products, compared with 41.8% last year. Specifically, 37.4% will research products, and 27% will use their tablet to purchase items.

Cycling Sports Group of Wilton, Conn., is recalling about 153 GT downhill mountain bicycles in the U.S. and Canada.

The wheel hubs can break and cause the brake system to fail, posing crash and injury hazards to the consumer.

The company has received five reports of broken hubs. No injuries have been reported.

This recall involves all 2014 GT Fury Expert and 2014 GT Fury Team downhill mountain bicycles. The recalled Fury Expert model is blue with red and white accents. The recalled Fury Team model is black with lime green and blue accents.

The bicycles have front and rear disc brakes, rear shock absorbers and front suspension forks. "Fury" is printed on the top tube and the bottom of the chainstay, the GT logo is on the down tube and the top of the chainstay.

The model names are printed in small letters on the top tube of the bicycles just above the word “Fury.”

The bicycles, manufactured in Taiwan, were sold at authorized GT dealers from February 2014, to June 2014, for between $4,300 and $6,000.

Consumers may contact Cycling Sports Group at (800) 726-2453 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or by email at custserve@cyclingsportsgroup.com.

As a smart consumer always seeking the best value for your money, here are two words to keep in mind anytime you're shopping: “Psychological warfare.”

That's shorthand for the thousands of tricks designed to convince people like you to not merely buy things, but to buy more and spend more than you otherwise would. Remember: marketing and advertising are multibillion-dollar industries for a reason.

It's not that companies are engaged in some nefarious mind-control conspiracy which shoppers are near-helpless to resist; it's more along the lines of, “Market research consistently shows we make more money under these conditions than those conditions, so let's establish these conditions in our businesses.”

What are “these” conditions? They vary, depending on what's being sold and who it's being sold to – are you selling luxury items or practical items? How much money do your customers have to spend, and how much of it are they willing to part with? And how much can you change their mind, where that last question is concerned?

Common tactics

Here's a trick you've probably heard about before: supermarkets are always laid out so that common, perishable staple goods are kept as far apart as possible – if you only want milk, eggs, bread and vegetables you must walk the whole length of the store, to increase the chances you'll see something else you'll want to buy.

A similar principle applies in the enclosed shopping malls that dominated suburbia in the 1980s and '90s (as well as the outdoor “shopping villages” of today): the major, big-name “anchor stores” people are most likely to visit are at the ends, so you can't go from one to another without passing lots of little specialty shops offering other enticing things for sale.

The packaging of goods and their very placement on store shelves is also studied intensely and modified as necessary to increase sales. Last April, for example, researchers at Cornell University discovered that children's cereal boxes – the sort decorated with colorful trademarked cartoon characters – were all designed so that the cartoon figures made direct eye contact with the young (and short) children tagging alongside their parents in grocery aisles.

Not that there's any shortage of tricks aimed at adults. This week, Business Insider ran a listsicle about “11 psychological tricks restaurants use to make you spend more money.”

Don't mention money

Most of those tricks are merely restaurant-specific versions of techniques many businesses use in some form or other, especially the first item on the list:

“1. They don't use dollar signs. A dollar sign is one of the top things restaurants should avoid including on a menu, because it immediately reminds the customers that they're spending money.”

“Help the customer forget they're spending their own actual money” is one of the most commonplace marketing tricks (or psychological-warfare weapons) out there. If ever you've visited a casino, or even seen a realistic one on TV, you'll notice they never allow people to gamble with actual cash money — instead, you must buy casino chips, and gamble with those.

Why is that? Because, due to a weird quirk in our psychology (perhaps a tendency to confuse the distinction between symbols and what they actually symbolize?), many people simply do not view a $10 casino chip as equivalent to a $10 bill, even if they personally spent the bill to buy the chip, so they're more likely to gamble their money away in chip form than if they could directly use actual cash.

Credit cards offer the same problem for many people who have a hard time truly grasping “Putting $10 on a credit card is just like spending a $10 bill — worse, actually, because credit card purchases rack up interest fees if you don't pay them off in full.”

Countless studies show people who pay for things with credit cards are likely to spend far more than people paying in cash. Business Insider mentioned researchers at Cornell University who discovered a related principle with restaurant menus without dollar signs:

guests given a menu without dollar signs spent significantly more than those who received a menu with them. Even if the prices were written out with words instead of numbers, such as "ten dollars," guests spent less money because it still triggered the negative feelings associated with paying.

Friendly 95

Item two on the list is a restaurant-specific twist of the old 99-cent trick, where a price is listed as $7.99 rather than $8.00 (with or without dollar signs):

Menu designers recognize that prices that end in 9, such as $9.99, tend to signify value, but not quality. In addition, prices that end in .95 instead of .99 are more effective, because they feel "friendlier" to customers. Most restaurants just leave the price without any cents at all, because it makes their menu cleaner, simpler, and to the point.

The extremely descriptive language restaurants use on their menus is no accident either:

… menu engineer Greg Rapp poses an example of Maryland Style Crab Cakes. They are described as "made by hand, with sweet jumbo crab meat, a touch of mayonnaise, our secret blend of seasonings, and golden cracker crumbs for a rich, tender crab cake." This brings the ultimate sensory experience to the reader, and the descriptive labeling will make customers more likely to be satisfied at the end of the meal.

“Ultimate sensory experience?” “More likely to be satisfied at the end?” Sounds like menu engineers and sexy-pornographic-story writers follow the same style guide: “Use explicit language to make the reader want what you're describing.” Try our hot, steamy, spicy fajitas ….

Business Insider also calls attention to the ways the order of things listed on a menu can influence what you buy (and, once again, this is something you should watch out for not only in eateries, but any place offering items or services for you to buy).

They analyze your reading patterns. Restaurants consider scanpaths, which are a series of eye fixations that can be studied to see how people read certain things.

According to a Korean research study, a third of participants are likely to order the first item to which their attention is drawn. As a result, restaurants will put the most profitable items in the upper-right corner, because it is where people's eyes go first.

This strategy is based on the primacy effect, which means people remember the items at the beginning of a list better. Another reason this works is that seeing a really expensive dish at first glance will make the rest of the menu appear reasonably priced in comparison.

The trick of showcasing an expensive item to make others look reasonably priced by comparison is similar to the “save money” price tags you'll often see in tourist-trap “outlet malls”:

RETAIL PRICE: $40

OUR PRICE: $10

YOU SAVE: $30

These retailers know that if you can think of a purchase as “I'm saving 30 dollars” rather than “I'm spending 10 dollars,” you're more likely to buy it. (Indeed, if you're not careful, you can actually buy so many low-price amazing-savings items that you come full circle and end up wasting money instead: “I don't need this thing, I might not even have any use for it, but I'm buying it anyway because it's such a fantastic bargain!”)

The full 11-item list is worth reading in its entirety, because the psychological techniques it describes aren't only used in restaurants, but in every industry. It's easier for consumers to keep hold of our money when we can recognize the tricks used to make us part with it.

The so-called “grandmother scam” has snared so many victims that the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging held a brief hearingon yesterday (July 16) in an attempt to find some solution to the problem – including, perhaps, increased cooperation and awareness from phone companies and various retailers.

The Grandma scam is actually a type of “imposter scam” -- the thief contacts the victim pretending to be a friend or relative in distress which can only be alleviated if the victim sends or wires money, usually in some untraceable form. Many of the victims or would-be victims are elderly people fooled into thinking the scammer is actually a beloved grandchild.

An 81-year-old Cincinnati resident named Roger W. (his full name is being withheld for fear additional con artists will seek him out) told the Senate committee his story, which is sadly typical: last December, Roger got a call from a scammer claiming to be his grandson.

Supposedly, the grandson had been arrested for speeding and drug possession, and needed bail money. Roger and his wife eventually bought and sent $7,000 worth of prepaid (and untraceable) money cards before finally speaking to their actual grandson on the phone and learning he was fine – no speeding tickets, no police encounters at all and certainly no calling his grandparents to request thousands of dollars for bail.

What to do

Realistically speaking, what can anybody do to prevent such crimes? Of course, would-be scam victims (read: pretty much everybody, these days) need to be on guard, protect themselves, know the signs of a scam – but the sad truth is: there will always be people who fall for such cons no matter how many warnings they hear.

What's worse is that, while grandmother scams are distressingly common, catching and prosecuting the scammers remains distressingly rare. The FBI's Criminal Investigative Division assistant director, Joseph Campbell, told the Senate subcommittee that in the past three years, he could only think of one federal prosecution of a grandmother scammer.

Could retailers who sell prepaid money cards help keep scams in check? It already happens, sometimes. Take this incident from last week, for example (which was not mentioned before the Senate committee):

On July 10, a CVS clerk in South Windsor, Connecticut, saved an elderly couple from falling victim to the grandmother scam. They had received a call from someone claiming to be a police officer in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, requesting prepaid money cards to bail out their just-arrested grandson. So they went to CVS intending to buy the cards, where the clerk warned them about grandmother scams.

Only then did they call Springfield police, who confirmed that no, they did not have the grandson in custody. So the couple then informed police in South Windsor, who issued the same public warning every police department does in such situations: if you ever get a call like this, call the actual police department to verify the information before handing over any money.

No money orders

Also important -- never use prepaid money orders, wire transfers or other untraceable transactions to pay for any supposed legal bill or fine; when real cops, tax collectors or any other authorities collect money as part of some actual government action, they don't mind leaving a traceable paper trail.

The Senate committee did raise the issue of wire transfers and their popularity among scammers. Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida threatened to subpoena Money Gram and Western Union, to force the companies to testify about whatever they are doing (or not doing) to stop the problem.

The July 16 hearing was short, lasting less than an hour before the senators involved had to leave for a vote. Presumably the committee will hold future hearings on the issue, and might even subpoena some wire-transfer companies to demand testimony about it. For now, though, it's up to consumers to protect themselves.