Current Events in January 2017

American Honda Motor Co. is recalling a total of 882 Goldwing motorcycles.

Included are model year 2006-2009 and 2012 Honda GL1800 (Goldwing) motorcycles originally sold, or ever registered, in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan), and the U.S. Virgin Islands, or "Zone A."

Additionally, if not included in "Zone A," Honda is recalling certain 2006-2009 Honda GL1800 (Goldwing) motorcycles originally sold, or ever registered, in Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, or "Zone B."

Additionally, if not included in Zone A or Zone B above, Honda is recalling certain 2006-2008 Honda GL1800 (Goldwing) motorcycles originally sold, or ever registered, in the states of Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

These vehicles are equipped with airbag inflators assembled as part of the air bag modules used as original equipment or replacement equipment. In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the front airbags, these inflators may rupture due to propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to absolute humidity and temperature cycling.

An inflator rupture may result in metal fragments striking the operator resulting in serious injury or death.

What to do

Honda will notify owners, and dealers will replace the air bag module, free of charge. The recall is expected to begin January 24, 2017.

Owners may contact Honda Motorcycle Customer Support at 1-866-784-1870. Honda's number for this recall is KE5.

Volkswagen Group of America is recalling a total of 33,421 Audi vehicles.

Included are model year 2009 Audi A4 Cabriolet, S4 Cabriolet, A6 Avant, A6 Sedan and S6 Sedan vehicles originally sold, or ever registered, in Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, or "Zone B."

Additionally, unless included in "Zone B," the company is recalling 2005-2008 Audi A4 Avant, A4 Sedan, A6 Sedan, S4 Avant and S4 Sedan vehicles, 2007-2008 A4 Cabriolet, RS4 Sedan, S4 Cabriolet and S6 Sedan vehicles; and 2006-2008 A6 Avant and 2008 RS4 Cabriolet vehicles originally sold, or ever registered, in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

These vehicles are equipped with airbag inflators assembled as part of the passenger front airbag modules used as original equipment or replacement equipment.

In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the front airbags, these inflators may rupture due to propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to absolute humidity and temperature cycling.

An inflator rupture may result in metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants resulting in serious injury or death.

What to do

Audi will notify owners, and dealers will replace the passenger front air bag inflator, free of charge. The recall is expected to begin in February 2017.

Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834.

A drug company violated antitrust laws when it bought the rights to a drug that threatened its monopoly for a life-saving drug, allowing it to raise prices by 85,000 percent, the Federal Trade Commission and five states charged.

Mallinckrodt ARD Inc., formerly known as Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc., will pay $100 million to settle FTC charges that it violated antitrust laws when it acquired the rights to a drug that threatened its monopoly in the U.S. market for adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) drugs.

“Questcor took advantage of its monopoly to repeatedly raise the price of Acthar, from $40 per vial in 2001 to more than $34,000 per vial today – an 85,000 percent increase,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “We charge that, to maintain its monopoly pricing, it acquired the rights to its greatest competitive threat, a synthetic version of Acthar, to forestall future competition. This is precisely the kind of conduct the antitrust laws prohibit.”

Infantile spasms

Acthar is a specialty drug used as a treatment for infantile spasms, a rare seizure disorder afflicting infants, and a drug of last resort to treat several other serious medical conditions – including nephrotic syndrome, flare-ups of multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid disorders. According to the complaint, Acthar treatment for an infant with infantile spasms can cost more than $100,000.

The FTC charged that Questcor illegally bought the U.S. rights to develop a competing drug, Synacthen Depot, stifling competition by preventing any other company from developing a synthetic ACTH drug using the Synacthen assets.

That allowed Questcor to preserve its monopoly and charge extremely high prices for Acthar, the FTC alleged. In addition to the $100 million monetary payment, the proposed court order requires that Questcor grant a license to develop Synacthen Depot to treat infantile spasms and nephrotic syndrome to a licensee approved by the Commission.

The company said it was "pleased" to settle the matter "although we continue to strongly disagree with allegations outlined in the FTC's complaint, believing that key claims are unsupported and even contradicted by scientific data and market facts, and appear to be inconsistent with the views of the  FDA," a spokesperson for London-based Mallinckrodt said.

Alaska, Maryland, New York, Texas, and Washington joined in the FTC’s complaint. Under the settlement, the states will receive $10 million from the $100 million judgment and an additional $2 million as payment for attorney’s fees and costs.

Before the rise of digital and social media, brands could easily control their image by spending money on advertising. Less-informed consumers based their opinions of companies on the ads they ran, and if nothing too egregious came up in the news, that view could be mostly positive.

However, things are a little bit different now. Consumers face a barrage of news every day from traditional and social media sources about what companies are doing, and all that chatter greatly informs public opinion.

Companies can still try to improve their image through advertising, but too much negative press will now warp consumers’ brand perception regardless of how much money is spent. To illustrate the point, researchers at YouGov conducted a survey to see which brands improved and which declined in consumers’ eyes in 2016. The results were compiled from 1.2 million consumer interviews covering 1,500 different brands, with scores ranging from -100 to 100. The questions were designed to make participants consider all news sources.

“We poll people to consider advertising, but also what they’ve heard in the news media and social media, so it’s very broad,” said YouGov CEO Ted Marzilli.

Most improved brands of 2016

Marzilli points out that improvements in brand perception don’t necessarily indicate that a company is perceived positively by consumers.

For example, the most improved brand on YouGov’s ranking is RadioShack, which improved from a -8.2 score in 2015 to a -1.6 score in 2016. 2015 was a particularly bad year for the top performer due to its highly publicized bankruptcy and the closing of over 1,800 stores. Similarly, extremely negative perceptions of customer service in 2015 put Comcast’s rating at -6.4, but a lessening of consumer tensions on that front brought it up to -2.2 in 2016.

However, other companies on the top 10 list are seeing solid, positive growth in brand perception. Ride-sharing service Uber came in second on the list, rising from a 0.2 score in 2015 to a 4.6 score in 2016. Facebook continued to climb in consumers’ esteem, rising 3.9 points year-over-year, and Nike improved 3.1 points to a score of 19.0. The full top ten list can be seen below.

Biggest brand busts of 2016

The companies with the worst brand perception in 2016 all suffer from negative news that came out about them in the past year or so. The biggest drop came from Chipotle, which went from a 4.2 score in 2015 to a -8.1 score in 2016, mostly due to the E. coli and food safety scandals it suffered through.

Wells Fargo came in second on the list, dropping from a score of 2.6 in 2015 to -8.2 in 2016 – due most likely to the scandal that involved millions of fake customer accounts. Wells Fargo Advisors came in fifth on the list, dropping from a score of 1.6 to -4.2.

Samsung came in third on the list after it was discovered that its new Galaxy Note 7 phones had a tendency to catch fire, dropping from a score of 22.8 in 2015 to 15.1 in 2016. Trump Taj Mahal came in at fourth on the list after it shut down in October, falling from a -3.2 score in 2015 to -9.7 in 2016. However, negative views of Donald Trump and his political run for president likely affected the score. 

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Note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly connected Chipotle with ebola. This has been corrected to E. coli. 

As Obama Era safety regulators head for the exit ramps, they leave behind a lot of unfinished business. That's pretty much par for the course in Washington, where "long-term" means until the incumbent administration leaves office.

But departing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration head Dr. Mark Rosekind is philosophical and says he knew what he was getting into when he took the job.

"When I came in, I knew I only had two years,” he said in a recent interview with the Detroit Free Press. “I knew coming in I only had a limited time. And I also used that to push people really hard.”

President Obama nominated Rosekind to head the agency in November 2014, after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and NHTSA head David Strickland resigned shortly after working out a secret deal with Chrysler to resolve complaints that Jeep Cherokee SUVs were prone to burst into flame after rear-end collisions. They wasted little time finding lucrative lobbying positions.

Trump has nominated former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to replace Anthony Foxx as Transportation Secretary, but there has been no word on who, if anyone, is being considered for the NHTSA post.

Rosekind has not said what he plans to do after leaving government, but he is credited by safety advocates with shaking up an agency that was seen by many critics as being too slow to act and a bit too cozy with the industry it regulates.

Over at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates non-auto safety, Chairman Elliott F. Kaye's term runs through October 2020.

Stiff fines

Under Rosekind, NHTSA was much faster to impose stiff fines on automakers who failed to report safety issues. He also developed new policies on testing self-driving cars, data sharing among automakers, and accident prevention initiatives. He presided over the massive Takata airbag scandal, which is likely to include a $1 billion penalty against the Japanese company.

Obama, like many presidents before him, was often criticized for naming lawyers to positions that might more logically have gone to engineers or scientists with a deep knowledge of the subject matter. No such criticism was attached to Rosekind, who was previously a member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

A psychologist who specializes in the study of human fatigue and its effects on people's ability to perform various intellectual or mechanical tasks, Rosekind quickly took up the issue of distracted driving and urged automakers to avoid loading up dashboards with flashy gadgets that took drivers' eyes off the road.

Rosekind said in the Detroit Free Press interview that his intention was always to put safety first, and he urged the Trump Administration to follow the same principle.

“I think there is a lot of work that has gone on for the last two years that will stand on its own,” he said.

Right now, the biggest controversy in the healthcare field is the price of prescription medications. Politicians from Elizabeth Warren to Donald Trump have blasted them as being too high.

What often escapes notice is the cost of seeing an out-of-network specialist, but researchers at Johns Hopkins, writing in JAMA, say privately-insured consumers are often blindsided with huge bills from these providers.

When you choose a provider, you likely do a little research, especially making sure the provider accepts your health insurance. When you see internists, family doctors, or psychiatrists, you have some choice in the matter and have a way to control costs.

But the Hopkins medical and business school researchers, who looked at cases where patients were treated by out-of-network providers, found a huge difference in costs.

Emergency situations

In many cases, patients have no choice in the matter because the situation is an emergency. They don't have time to find an in-network provider.

In those cases, the researchers found the average anesthesiologist charged six times what Medicare pays. An emergency room doctor charged four times more.

As the study points out, these charges don't just affect the uninsured, but also the well-covered when they see physicians out of their insurer’s network. Yes, you probably expect to pay more if you have to go out-of-network, but the researchers say patients are often shocked at how much more it costs.

“The doctors with the highest markups are often the ones that patients don’t actually choose,” said Gerard F. Anderson, PhD, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School and the study's lead author.

Bill shock

What happens, he says, is two months later the patient gets a bill from a doctor he or she never really met. In nearly every case, he says, the price is outrageous.

While the numbers are based on a national average, the researchers note that distinct geographic variations exist. For example, doctors in Wisconsin have almost twice the markup of doctors in neighboring Michigan. The largest mark-ups were for anesthesiologists.

What's especially infuriating, the researchers say, is when patients deliberately select a hospital and physician that are in their insurance network, only to learn after-the-fact that one or more of the doctors was out-of-network and outrageously expensive.

What's the remedy? The researchers say Congress should require physicians to disclose their network status to each patient before delivering the service. It would also improve transparency, they say, if doctors were required to post out-of-network prices.

If you have a Gmail account, you may be vulnerable to a phishing scam that is fooling even the most sophisticated users.

These days most phishing emails are pretty easy to spot. They appear to be from a financial institution you have never patronized or from a utility company in another part of the country.

In an alert posted on its blog, Wordfence, which produces security products for Wordpress, explains how the Gmail scam is different.

For starters, the objective is to learn the user's log-in credentials, so the Gmail account can be used to perpetuate the scam and eventually assemble an army of compromised accounts that can be used to distribute spam.

Dangerous familiarity

The first thing that makes this scheme so effective is familiarity. The bogus message comes from someone you know. That's because that person's account has been compromised and the scammer is sending phishing emails to everyone in the contacts list.

So instead of coming from a bank you've never heard of, the message appears to come from a friend.

At the bottom of the email there is an attachment -- or what appears to be a Gmail attachment. But it's not. It's actually a graphic representation of what Google uses to indicate an attachment.

If you click on the "attachment," a file does not open as a normal attachment would. Rather, you are taken to a page that looks exactly like Google's Gmail log-in page. There, you are asked to enter your credentials to log into your account again. If you do, the scammer immediately seizes your account information, logs in, and begins sending the phishing email to everyone in your contacts.

Looks just like the real thing

Wordfence says everything about the bogus sign-in page looks authentic, down to the Google logo and slogan. There's only one way to tell it isn't the real thing -- the browser's address bar.

The URL, which at first glance might appear legitimate, is preceded by the prefix "data:text/html." It's known as a data URL, which embeds a file instead of directing you to a location on the internet.

How can you protect yourself? Wordfence says when you check the URL, make sure there is nothing before the hostname "accounts.google.com" other than ‘https://'. You should also look for a green color and lock symbol that appears on the left.

Also, be wary of all email with attachments, even from friends. If you click on an attachment and, instead of opening a file it asks you to log into your account again, back out and delete the email.

Wordfence has published a response it said it got from Google, instructing users to pay close attention to the URL. The company response said any fix that would to try to detect phishing pages based on their look "would be easily bypassable in hundreds of ways."

In other words, you're on your own.

For social drinkers, a new wearable called Proof may prove to be a helpful accessory. The upcoming Proof wristband, by Milo Sensors, tracks how much alcohol is in a person’s system in order to let them know when they have had too much to drink.

The smartphone-connected wristband essentially does the job of a breathalyzer, but faster and more discreetly. The device, set to become available for pre-order later this year, gives users the ability to view information on their blood alcohol level right from their smartphone.

“When you’re at the end of a drink and have to decide whether or not you’re going to have another, it can be a bit socially awkward to pull out a breathalyzer,” Milo Sensors CEO and co-founder Evan Strenk told Digital Trends.

With Proof, users can see if it may be in their best interest to refrain from ordering another drink and even see if they're sober enough to drive home.

‘Fitbit of Alcohol’

In addition to being less obvious than a breathalyzer, Proof works slightly differently. While breathalyzers track your motions with an accelerometer, Proof tracks alcohol molecules in your skin via an enzyme-based electrochemical sensor.

“The alcohol that’s in your bloodstream diffuses through your skin, and we pick up those trace amounts that would naturally just go off into the air,” explained co-founder Bob Lansdorp. “We capture those and turn them into a signal that relates to the alcohol content in your blood.”

With its continuous blood alcohol level tracking, users can also sidestep the hassle of waiting 20 to 30 minutes for an accurate reading on a breathalyzer.

Users can set limit

“The idea is that you put it on when you’re getting ready to go out, pair it with your smartphone, and then use that to access all of the information you need,” Strenk said.

If a user’s blood alcohol level is too high, Proof can let the person know when they can drive safely. The wearer can even set an alcohol limit prior to going out. When the preset BAC level is detected, users will receive a vibration alert on the band and on their smartphone, letting them know that it may be time to call it quits.

Proof was designed to “empower people to make educated decisions about alcohol,” said Strenk. The alcohol-sensing wearable (which will initially become available for pre-order on Kickstarter) uses affordably-priced disposable cartridges that can track a user’s BAL over 12 hours.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is called "the silent killer." Elevated blood pressure can eventually lead to heart attack and stroke, and millions of people with hypertension don't know it.

There is very effective medication to control blood pressure -- and a healthy lifestyle also helps -- but first you have to know that your blood pressure is too high.

As we first reported back in early December, doctors have begun to worry about what they call "masked hypertension." A patient goes to the doctor and his blood pressure reading is a perfectly acceptable 129/82.

But then he goes about his daily life -- going to work, picking up the kids, cleaning out the garage, and while he's doing all that his blood pressure might be an unhealthy 147/96. He doesn't know, of course, because he doesn't have a blood pressure cuff at home to measure it.

Numbers are alarming

Researchers at Stony Brook and Columbia universities have studied this phenomenon by attaching 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitors to subjects in their study. They now say that not only is the condition real, the numbers associated with it are alarming.

They found 12.3% of people display a normal blood pressure reading in the clinic, are not taking blood pressure lowering medicines, have never had a heart attack or stroke, but have high blood pressure during their daily activities. This amounts to about one in eight adults over age 21 -- approximately 17.1 million people in the U.S.

Lead investigator Joseph Schwartz of Stony Brook says the study is breaking new ground in estimating the size of the problem. He says it could lead to new guidelines to help identify patients with high blood pressure and improve hypertension preventive methods.

What to do

Until then, it is helpful to know the hypertension risk factors. People over age 50 are at risk of developing hypertension. So are those who are overweight or obese, or have a sedentary lifestyle with little physical exercise.

Diet can also be a big risk factor. Eating unhealthy foods, especially those high in sodium, can increase the risk for hypertension. African-Americans are at a higher risk than other races.

If you think you might fall into one of those risk categories, consider investing in a home blood pressure monitoring cuff and learn how to properly use it.

Measuring your blood pressure two or three times a week, at different times of the day, might let you know if you are suffering from "masked hypertension," even though your readings at the doctor's office look just fine.

In recent years, vaccinations for infants and children have become entangled in controversy. Vaccinations for older people, on the other hand, trigger much less debate.

Still, many seniors go without them, either because they don't think they're necessary, or they're too expensive. Or maybe, they just don't think much about them.

Dr. Cathleen Veach, Chief Quality Officer for PinnacleHealth Medical Group, says there are four vaccines in particular that seniors should not skip.

Influenza

The first is an annual flu shot. That's because people age 65 and older are more at risk of developing complications if they come down with the flu. These complications include bronchitis, sinus and ear infections, and pneumonia.

If you have chronic health conditions, such as asthma, getting the flu can make them worse. Every year these flu-related complications send older adults to the hospital, where some die.

Shingles

Another vaccination Veach recommends for seniors is the shingles vaccine. Also going by the names zoster or herpes zoster, shingles affects an estimated one million people in the U.S. each year. If you've had chickenpox, you have the shingles virus inside you. It comes out when your immune system is weakened.

When you develop shingles, you get a painful rash on one side of your face or body. The rash takes the form of blisters that create scabs in seven to 10 days and may take a month or longer to clear up.

While anyone can develop shingles, older people are more at risk. Veach says the vaccine is approved for people 50 years and older. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests anyone over 60 get vaccinated. The vaccine isn't bulletproof, but Veach says it reduces the risk by 51%.

Pneumonia

Before antibiotics, people died from pneumonia all the time. People still die from it today, though not as much. A vaccine can reduce the chances even more.

The condition is the result of pneumococcal disease, which can cause severe infections of the lungs. Symptoms include fever and chills, cough, rapid breathing or difficulty breathing, and chest pain.

Pneumonia cases can be mild. However, it can turn deadly when the patient is already in a weakened condition.

Veach says there are two vaccines for pneumonia. She says seniors may need both. PREVNAR covers 13 strains and PCV23 covers 23 strains. Adults under age 65 with conditions affecting the immune system should check with their healthcare provider before getting vaccinated.

Whooping cough

The final vaccine is for whooping cough. Veach says it is normally given as part of a group of vaccines that also protects against tetanus and diphtheria. Booster doses of these vaccines are recommended every 10 years for adults.

Naturally, since everyone's health condition is unique, seniors should discuss any vaccine with their healthcare providers first.

Maintaining a healthy heart is vital to having good overall health, but there are many issues that can get in the way. Being obese or smoking, for example, can stress the heart and lead to cardiovascular problems, but a new study shows that there is another condition that can be just as harmful.

Researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München, along with colleagues from the Technical University of Munich and the German Center for Cardiovascular Disease, have found that depression poses just as great a risk to heart health. Further, they believe that finding how it interacts with other risk factors is of paramount importance.

“There is little doubt that depression is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases,” said group leader Karl-Heinz Ladwig. “The question now is: What is the relationship between depression and other risk factors like tobacco smoke, high cholesterol levels, obesity or hypertension – how big a role does each factor play?”

Comparable risk factor

For the purposes of the study, Ladwig and his colleagues analyzed data from nearly 3,500 male patients between the ages of 45 and 74 for a total of 10 years. During that time, they tracked how depression impacted four other major risk factors for cardiovascular health.

The results indicated that depression led to the development of a fatal cardiovascular disease just as often as elevated cholesterol levels or obesity. The only risk factors that had a greater association were high blood pressure and smoking. Across the entire sample, the researchers say 15% of cardiovascular deaths could be attributed to depression.

“That is comparable to the other risk factors, such as hypercholesterolemia, obesity and smoking,” said Ladwig, pointing out that other risk factors caused between 8.4% and 21.4% of cardiovascular deaths.

The researchers believe that their work may have large implications on how the medical community evaluates depression as a condition. They point out that the findings indicate that the disorder has a “medium effect size within the range of major, non-congenital risk for factors for cardiovascular diseases.”

Ladwig says diagnostic investigation of co-morbid depression should become an industry standard, especially for high-risk patients.

The full study has been published in Atherosclerosis.

Stability is key when it comes to raising happy, healthy kids. For this reason, parents often make an effort to put down roots sooner rather than later.

Deciding where to live can be a daunting task, but knowing which states are the most family-friendly could make the deliberation process easier. So, which states boast the best combination of qualities that matter to parents?

To find out, personal finance website WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia to see which ranked as the most family-friendly in 2017. The ranking was determined by looking at 40 key indicators, including median family salary and housing affordability.

Key findings

North Dakota tops the list for family-friendliness, and New Mexico was found to be the worst for families. New Hampshire, which ranked second best, had the lowest share of families living below poverty level (5.6%).

Divorce rates were also considered in the study. WalletHub found that Utah has the lowest divorce rate. At just over 16%, Utah’s divorce rate is 1.8 times lower than in DC, where it is the highest at nearly 30%.

Additionally, the study revealed that Mississippi has the lowest child-care costs (adjusted for median family income), around 6% -- 2.8 times lower than in the District of Columbia, where they are highest at 17.41%. California was found to have the lowest infant-mortality rate.

These were the ten best states for families, according to the analysis:

• North Dakota
• New Hampshire
• Vermont
• Minnesota
• Nebraska
• Massachusetts
• New Jersey
• Iowa
• Connecticut
• South Dakota

Worst states for families

New Mexico was ranked worst for families, as it had one of the highest violent crime rates and among the highest percentage of families living below poverty level.

WalletHub ranked these states among the worst for raising a family:

• Alabama
• West Virginia
• Georgia
• Arizona
• Alaska
• Nevada
• Louisiana
• District of Columbia
• Mississippi
• New Mexico

In the strange world of U.S. commercial air travel, the latest "innovation" is denying overhead bin space and assigned seating to customers looking for a cheap seat.

Economizing travelers are apparently supposed to wear all of their clothing and stuff other essentials into their pockets. Actually, this is not much different from the current policy under which passengers -- even those who have paid full fare -- are ordered not to even think of putting their coats in the overhead bins. 

As one who recently sweated through a six-hour flight from frosty New York to balmy California while wearing a fleece-lined coat despite having purchased a "premium" seat on JetBlue, this does not impress me as a consumer-friendly initiative.

Me-too marketing

Delta originally dreamed up this variation on the "No soup for you" school of customer service. United quickly said it would follow suit and now American has done the same.

Besides being denied bin space, those taking advantage of the ultra-low fares will have to board the plane last and take whatever seat they can find. This could actually be seen as a benefit, since the less time one can spend on a legacy carrier the better, but that's not how the airline marketers see it.

In fact, Delta says its no-bin-space program is so effective that many passengers reject it when they learn more about it. About half of those who start out shopping for the lowest-fare seats on Delta's site trade up a notch or two when they view all the restrictions that come with the cheapest seats, the airline said.

Only in commercial air travel would a program that customers reject be hyped as proof of its success, but sit back and relax. Something even more bizarre will no doubt be along soon.

FitTea, a supposed health beverage, posted paid Instagram endorsements on its website without disclosing that they were, in fact, advertisements, according to the National Advertising Division, a watchdog group administered by the Better Business Bureau.

The company reposted numerous Instagram endorsements under the heading "Results and Reviews," even though some of the postings came from people who had been paid to promote the company.

After the organization began investigating FitTea, the company modified its Web site to include the hashtag "#ad" on the paid Instagram endorsements. FitTea also said it will require paid endorsers to disclose their connection to the company, and will monitor posts to ensure compliance, according to the NAD.

"NAD appreciated the advertiser’s changes to the endorsements and testimonials on its website," the organization said in its opinion.

Health claims

The NAD also took issue with the content of some endorsements -- including ones that claimed that drinking FitTea helped with weight loss.

"While the diet and exercise program that FitTea promotes to customers who purchase FitTea might result in weight loss or other weight-related health improvements, there was no evidence in the record that drinking FitTea by itself will boost metabolism, boost immunity, burn fat or otherwise result in weight loss," the NAD wrote. The organization recommended that FitTea stop reposting testimonials with those claims.

While some endorsements and reviews were authentic, the NAD said it found it problematic that FitTea posted the authentic consumer reviews next to the paid endorsements.

"It is important for consumers to be able to distinguish between independent reviews and testimonials or endorsements used as advertising for a product," the organization wrote.

One of the goals of savers, besides putting money away for retirement, is to have a “rainy day” fund, enough money on hand to cover a financial emergency, such as car repair bill or trip to the emergency room.

Other emergencies can include a sudden loss of income, such as losing your job. Personal finance experts generally recommend, as a rule of thumb, to have savings equal to six months of income. But how many households can actually do that?

A recent report by personal finance site Bankrate says more than half of consumers do not have enough money on hand to pay an unexpected $500 car repair bill. While these bills don't crop up every month, they do occur.

And even if you do have an emergency fund, it might not have enough money in it to meet today's unexpected expenses. After all, car repair bills can be a lot more than $500.

62% say they would struggle

A survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Oasis Financial found that even though 63% of consumers said they have an emergency fund, 62% of consumers think they would struggle financially if their income were interrupted for three months.

"The survey illuminates the need for Americans to evaluate their finances honestly, with an eye toward the unexpected," said Ralph Shayne, CEO of Oasis Financial.

Sometimes emergency situations are covered by insurance, but the coverage can be spotty in some cases, the survey found. A wide majority of consumers in the survey think consumers have to fight insurance companies to get a fair and timely settlement.

How much to save each month?

Shayne says consumers should dedicate a portion of their income to savings each month. How much? Experts at TIAA say the percentage will vary, depending on your goals. But as far as an emergency fund goes, it recommends between three and nine months of current income.

To get there, it suggests identifying all the non-essential spending in your monthly budget, such as cable TV, and divide that number in half. That, the company says, is the amount you need to put away each month to get an adequate emergency fund within a year.

Forbes counsels that three months of income in savings may only be adequate if you're single, renting, and have the option of moving back in with your parents.