Current Events in May 2017

A JetBlue flight from New York's JFK Airport to San Francisco made an emergency landing in Grand Rapids, Michigan after a laptop stored in a carry-on bag exploded and caught fire.

The plane landing without incident and there were no injuries, according to the airline.

Officials at Gerald R. Ford Airport told WZZM-TV Flight 915 refueled and took off again for San Francisco and the flight was completed without further incident.

The scare draws new attention to the potential hazards of lithium ion batteries on an aircraft at 30,000 feet. It comes as the Trump administration is considering a ban on laptops aboard all commercial aircraft coming in and out of the country. But the ban is being considered as a way to mitigate the threat of terrorism, not as a way to prevent accidents.

Samsung Note 7 ban

Last year when the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone triggered a number of similar explosions and fires, resulting in its recall, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned the phone from all commercial flights, fearing some consumers would continue using their phones, despite the danger.

The FAA reports that as of May 22, 2017, there have been at least 160 incidents in the air or at an airport involving lithium batteries since March 20, 1991. In an incident report from May 2, the FAA says a shipment of 13 laptop computers in a cargo facility was bumped, causing one box to fall to the ground.

"Upon impact, the box began to smoke and apparently produced a dangerous evolution of heat," the FAA wrote. "The box and the laptop inside were charred and partially melted. The box contained a laptop computer with a 94 watt-hour lithium-ion battery installed in it."

Eight incidents in fewer than two month

According to the FAA report, there have been at least eight lithium ion battery incidents -- either airborne or at an airport -- between April 4 and May 31.

Lithium ion batteries are prone to overheating because they contain a liquid in their core. When demands are placed on the battery -- by apps or other factors -- the liquid can overheat, producing a fire and explosion.

While ConsumerAffairs has reported on numerous incidents over the years in which laptop computers have caught fire and destroyed vehicles -- and even homes -- the issue is of particular concern when an incident occurs aboard a commercial jet that's in the air.

In 2015, aircraft manufacturer Boeing issued a formal warning to its customers, urging them to stop accepting large shipments of lithium batteries until safer packaging and fire protection efforts can be worked out.

It's true that there is an organization for just about everything, but a Bureau of Trampoline Review? That was taking it a bit far. The Federal Trade Commission took action against two brothers who it said boosted their trampoline business with review sites that were a bit less than legit.

Under an administrative consent order announced today, Son “Sonny” Le and Bao “Bobby” Le are barred from engaging in deceptive behavior in the future and must clearly and conspicuously disclose any material connections between a reviewer or endorser and the product being reviewed.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the brothers used several fictitious names to help sell their Infinity and Olympus Pro brand trampolines. The sales websites prominently featured logos from supposedly independent review entities, including “Trampoline Safety of America,” the “Bureau of Trampoline Review,” and “Top Trampoline Review.”

Consumers who clicked on the logos were directed to the websites, which claimed to provide objective information, including unbiased “expert reviews” of specific brands and models, as well as ratings based on safety, performance, and other qualities.

Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that each review site recommended the Les’ Infinity and Olympus Pro trampolines.

"Strong frames"

One of the sites, Trampoline Safety of America, claimed to be "a third-party organization involved in studying the technical aspects of all the major trampoline sites in America” comprised of structural engineers, trampoline gymnastic coaches, and professionals whose goal was to educate the public about “the safeties of trampolines.”

The FTC also charged in its complaint that Bobby Le posted online reviews that appeared to be from ordinary trampoline owners – praising the “strong frames” and other attributes of the Les’ products, while disparaging other brands – without disclosing his connection to the products he was promoting.

If you're on Medicare, you'll be getting a new Medicare card in the next year or two, with one big difference. The new card won't have your Social Security number on it.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said it is reacting to the huge increase in fraud targeting seniors. It's concerned that having a Social Security number on the card would lead to identity theft in a case where a wallet is lost or stolen.

Instead of the Social Security number, the new Medicare cards will have a randomly-assigned number called a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). CMS said it will begin mailing the cards by April 2018 and complete the process by the following April.

“We’re taking this step to protect our seniors from fraudulent use of Social Security numbers which can lead to identity theft and illegal use of Medicare benefits,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “We want to be sure that Medicare beneficiaries and healthcare providers know about these changes well in advance and have the information they need to make a seamless transition.”

Growing number of older victims

The government is taking these steps in response to the growing cases of identity theft that increasingly target people 65 and older. CMS says older identity theft victims increased to 2.6 million from 2.1 million over a two year period.

While it is distressing emotionally, identity theft also takes a huge financial toll, with two-thirds of all victims reporting a financial loss as a result.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), seniors commonly are victims of identity theft when their Social Security number is used to bill Medicaid for services they did not receive. They are also common victims of fraudulent tax returns, where an identity thief uses a senior's stolen Social Security number to file a fraudulent tax return and collect a large refund.

Your new MBI number will be made up of a combination of numbers and uppercase letters. Once Medicare recipients get their new Medicare cards, they will be instructed to safely destroy their old ones. Just as you would protect your Social Security number, CMS says those on Medicare also need to secure their MBI number.

If you're planning a summer vacation to Europe, you may need to get a visa for each country you'll be visting. That's because the European Parliament has voted to end visa-free travel for Americans within the EU, in retaliation for the U.S. failing to live up to its agreements.

The reciprocity agreement in question provides visa-free travel for citizens of all the countries within the EU and the United States. But the U.S. has failed to grant visa-free travel to citizens of five EU countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland, and Romania.

The vote urges the revocation of the agreement within two months, meaning Americans would have to apply for visas for each European country they want to visit.

There are several more steps that must be taken before the agreement is revoked. The European Commission has two months to act. After that, the Parliament can go to court to force the change.

Tourism promoters throughout Europe were said to be aghast at the proposal, fearing it will cut American tourism, which are already somewhat tepid because of terrorism fears. 

Some people who shelled out greenbacks for green coffee in hopes of losing weight will be getting some welcome mail soon. The Federal Trade Commission is mailing 38,553 refund checks totaling $1.9 million to people who bought Pure Health or Genesis Today green coffee bean extract supplements from retailers such as Walmart.

It's the second round of payments. In June 2016, the FTC used the defendants’ sales records to mail full refunds to nearly 200,000 people who bought the products online.

When the first checks were mailed, the FTC announced a claims process for people who bought the supplements in retail stores. People who submitted valid claims before the deadline are now receiving full refunds, averaging $49.66 each. Recipients should deposit or cash their checks within 60 days.

The FTC’s January 2015 complaint charged Pure Health LLC, Genesis Today, Inc., and their principal, Lindsey Duncan, with deceptively claiming that the supplement would cause people to lose 17 pounds and 16 percent of their body fat in just 12 weeks without diet or exercise, and that the claim was backed up by a clinical study. 

Analytics, the refund administrator for this matter, began mailing refund checks this week. If you have questions, please call 1-844-449-3586. To learn more about the FTC’s refund program, visit www.ftc.gov/refunds.

After initially delaying the start date of the Fiduciary Rule for financial advisors, the Labor Department will allow the rule to go into effect June 9 as scheduled.

While praising the decision not to further delay the rule, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes that some key provision of the rule have been delayed until January. It also questioned the Labor Department's decision not to enforce the rule until the beginning of next year.

The rule faces strong opposition from within the financial services industry. The rule requires financial advisors to place the client's best interests ahead of their own. While that might not sound all that controversial, some have suggested that advisors who are not also earning commissions on a product would have to charge a lot for their services, pricing many investors out of the market.

Conflicted investment advice

But the rule's backers say conflicted investment advice -- a broker recommending a fund or investment because he or she earns a commission -- ends up costing consumers a lot of money. In a new analysis, EPI has put a figure on it.

In a state-by-state breakdown, EPI's director of policy Heidi Shierholz and economist Ben Zipperer estimate financial advisors who have a conflict of interest cost Wyoming investors $24.2 million a year and California investors $1.9 billion.

“The fiduciary rule will require financial advisers to act in the best interests of clients saving for retirement,” said Shierholz. “The Department of Labor should fully implement and enforce the fiduciary rule to protect the savings of working people.”

Administration 'hostility'

The EPI analysis charges the Trump administration remains hostile to the rule, demonstrating that "weakening or rescinding the rule is a core priority." Zipperer says people in the financial services industry are doing quite well, while most workers’ wages have been largely stagnant for 35 years.

“It’s long past the time for a common sense rule that requires the financial services industry not to rip off America’s working people who are saving for retirement,” he said.

AARP has also strongly supported the Fiduciary Rule, calling it critical for retirement savers. It says some advisors already adhere to a "fiduciary standard," but the standard only requires brokers to make sure recommendations to clients are "suitable," a weaker benchmark than the Fiduciary Rule.

AARP estimates conflicted advice lowers investors returns as much as a percentable point a year, a loss of $17 billion a year just for investors with individual retirement accounts (IRA).

The Tiger Woods case may be the most prominently reported recently, but it's far from the only one involving drivers being arrested or ticketed for driving while under the influence of prescription drugs.

Woods, who had back surgery last month, was arrested early Monday near his Florida home. Police said they found him sleeping in his car with the engine running. He tested negative for alcohol but was ticketed because of his slurred speech and for failing roadside sobriety tests.

“I take full responsibility for my actions. I want the public to know that alcohol was not involved. What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications,” Woods said in a statement.

The incident highlights the role of prescription drugs in traffic accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that in 2015, 21% of the 31,166 fatal car accidents in the U.S. involved a driver who tested positive for drugs.

Increasingly prominent

“Use of marijuana and prescription drugs is increasingly prominent among drivers on America’s roads, which raises a new safety challenge,” NHTSA said. “While it’s illegal across the United States to drive while drunk the laws involving drugged driving vary across the states.”

The increase in traffic incidents involving drugged drivers coincides with the rising tide of drug overdose deaths, which was 2.5 times higher in 2015 than in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The overdose deaths are blamed on lower prices of heroin and easier access to prescription drugs. The biggest spike in fatal drug overdoses took place among Generation X and Baby Boomers, the CDC concluded.

You've probably heard of knee replacement surgery, and you might even know someone who has had a hip replaced. Both are becoming more common as the large Baby Boom generation gets older.

But in truth, almost any joint can be replaced with an implant to allow unfettered movement without any pain. Recently, there has been a huge increase in ankle replacement surgeries.

The biggest reason patients opt for ankle replacement surgery is arthritis. Just like the knee joint, the ankle bears most of a person's body weight. And as we know, the average American is carrying around a lot more body weight these days.

Dr. Adam Schiff, an orthopedic surgeon at Loyola Medicine, says ankle braces and corticosteroid injections can help relieve the pain of ankle arthritis, at least for time. But arthritis generally gets worse, and as it does these treatments become less effective. At that point, Schiff says surgery can be an option.

Total ankle arthroplasty

Total ankle replacement is known as total ankle arthroplasty (TAA). According to the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS), some surgeries are prompted by normal wear and tear on the joint due to aging, or from an injury. But increasingly, arthritis is a motivating factor, as the condition wears away cartilage and leads to chronic pain.

AOFAS says the surgery is an option when a patient experiences significant mobility limitations because of ankle pain after trying conservative management techniques. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis are usually good candidates for the ankle joint replacement.

Patients might not be good candidates if they've suffered significant deformity or dead bone in the bottom bone of the ankle joint. Other conditions making the surgery an unfavorable option are previous ankle infections or diminished leg muscle function.

In the past, the typical way surgeons have addressed arthritic ankles was to fuse the lower leg bones to a bone in the back of the foot. It eliminates pain, but also eliminates motion. And Schiff says the arthritis may return to other parts of the foot.

Schiff says ankle replacement preserves motion in the joint. The joint itself is replaced with metal implants on the top of the foot and the bottom of the shin, with medical-grade plastic in the middle.

Every dog may have its day, but a multi-state class action suit against Wellpet LLC’s pet food products will not go forward after being dismissed in a Chicago federal court. In the suit, lead plaintiff Dale Sabo alleged that Wellpet made false and deceptive claims surrounding its “Made in the USA” labeling.

The claims were false, Sabo said, because the products contained vitamins and minerals sourced from outside the U.S., a fact that he alleged violated consumer fraud statutes in nine states. However, while District Judge Elaine E. Bucklo conceded that the plaintiff made persuasive arguments, she ultimately ruled in favor of Wellpet because the class could not prove any actual financial damages as a result of the labeling.

“Where the plaintiff’s claim loses traction…is on the issue of actual damages. To prevail on an ICFA claim, it is not enough to establish a violation of the statute; plaintiffs must also plead and prove actual damages, i.e., ‘actual pecuniary loss.’,” she said.

Couldn't prove damages

As part of his argument, Sabo claimed that the vitamin C present in Wellpet’s Wellness Large Breed Puppy and Adult Foods came in the form of ascorbic acid, which has not been produced in the U.S. since 2009. And, since these minerals tend to come in packs, he argued that it was likely that other vitamins were sourced from outside the U.S. as well.

Sabo further claimed that he puts a premium on American-made products, and that he and other Americans are generally willing to pay more for them. He alleged that he and other members of the class were misled by the products’ labeling and “paid more for them than they were worth in reliance on the false ‘Made in the USA’ label.”

However, in her decision Bucklo points out that there was no proof that the class members in fact paid more for the pet food. “Indeed, [the plaintiff] does not claim that [Wellpet] charged more for its pet food products because they were (supposedly) ‘Made in the USA,’ nor does he claim that comparable pet food products that lacked domestic-source designations were less expensive,” she said.

Bucklo went on to dismiss the suit, saying that the damages allegations were too speculative and that adequate arguments were not made for future damages.

If you or someone you know has survived a heart attack, chances are good that beta blockers were prescribed afterwards to help lower blood pressure and help the heart work more effectively. But a recent study suggests that these medicines aren’t always the best choice in every situation.

Researchers from the University of Leeds say that beta blockers are best used when patients suffer a heart attack and heart failure, a complication from the event that damages heart muscle and stops it from functioning properly. However, their findings show that the vast majority of patients who did not suffer from heart failure were given the medicines anyway, and that it did not improve patient outcomes.

"There is uncertainty in the evidence as to the benefit of beta-blockers for patients with heart attack and who do not have heart failure. This study suggests that there may be no mortality advantage associated with the prescription of beta-blockers for patients with heart attack and no heart failure,” said Chris Gale, a consultant cardiologist and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Leeds.

Over-prescribed?

The study analyzed anonymized data from over 179,000 patients who had a heart attack but did not suffer from heart failure. The researchers found that 95% of the sample were given beta blockers after their cardiac event, but that the mortality rate one year later was statistically similar between those who received the medicines and those who did not.

"If you look at the patients who had a heart attack but not heart failure -- there was no difference in survival rates between those who had been prescribed beta blockers and those that had not," said lead investigator Dr. Marlous Hall, a senior epidemiologist at the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine.

The findings raise the question of whether beta blockers are over-prescribed or medically necessary for certain patients, since some people experience side effects such as dizziness and fatigue from taking them. The researchers say their next step will be to conduct a randomized, controlled trial to corroborate their results.

The full study has been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 

A car title loan company operating in Massachusetts without a license faces huge losses, while its customers in the Bay State won't have to pay back their loans.

A state court has issued a permanent injunction against Liquidation LLC at the request of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. As a result of the court order, the company is barred from operating in Massachusetts and the 200 consumers who took out loans don't have to pay them back.

Sending a message

Consumers whose vehicles were repossessed because they couldn't repay their loans will get their cars back. Liens placed on vehicle titles have been dissolved and new titles have been issued to the affected consumers. Healey says the ruling should send a message.

“With this judgment, Massachusetts borrowers will be freed from paying the illegal loans made by this sham company,” she said. “This unlicensed auto title lender is prohibited from ever doing business in Massachusetts again.”

Car title loans are similar to payday loans, except instead of being secured by a paycheck, the loan is secured by a car title. But both are short-term loans that consumers often have difficulty repaying on time. If a consumer doesn't have $300 for an emergency repair and has to borrow the money, chances are they won't have the money to repay the loan two weeks later.

Car title loans usually have a longer term, but often have to be repaid in full after a year. Healey's suit charged Liquidation did not inform borrowers of the extent of final payments when the loan was due.

20% lose their vehicle

While payday loan customers are often trapped in a cycle of debt, taking out one loan after another to pay back the previous loan, many car title loan customers end up losing their vehicles. In fact, research compiled by the Center for Responsible Lending earlier this year found one in five consumers taking out a car title loan end up losing their vehicles.

Healey says several vehicles that Liquidation repossessed are now at auction houses waiting to be sold. But the court has ordered them removed and returned to their owners. In addition, the company has to pay $197,600 restitution and $1,135,000 in civil penalties.

Healey filed the suit more than a year ago after an investigation found Liquidation was making loans ranging from $700 to more than $9,000, with interest rates ranging from 181% to 619%, in violation of state law.

Back in October, the Education Department finalized rules that were intended to help students discharge their student loan debt if their school was found to be fraudulent or misrepresentative in its claims. Critics have argued that the process was rushed because regulators wanted the rules pushed through before President Trump took office.

Now, only a few weeks before the rules are set to roll out, a school trade group has filed a federal complaint saying that the regulations threaten their financial existence, according to Courthouse News.

“The final rule is a sprawling mass of thinly studied new requirements that, by the [Education] Department’s own estimates, will cost schools almost $1 billion dollars per year,” the complaint reads. “The ten-year impact on the public is estimated at $14.9 billion. It is necessary and important that regulations with such a profound fiscal impact be justified and supported by reasoned decision-making. This rule was not.”

"Crippling" regulations

The group heading the complaint – the California Association of Private PostSecondary Schools (CAPPS) – says that the new rules make it too easy for students to charge a school with fraud or misrepresentation in order to have their loans discharged.

The complaint argues that it was already possible under the previous system for students to claim borrower defense against loan repayment if they were subject to adversarial debt collection. But under the new rules, it says that the increased financial burden may very well put many schools out of business.

"The department has transformed the borrower ‘defense’ into a wide-ranging affirmative cause of action that a student can use to have all of his or her Title IV debts cancelled, or even recover loan amounts previously paid, with the student’s financial liability transferred to either the student’s school or federal taxpayers,” CAPPS said.

“The increased costs and the dramatically escalated threat of meritless claims and litigation, both before the Department and in court, will be crippling for many schools. The lack of procedural safeguards and clear standards throughout the final rule severely exacerbates these problems.”

No reasonable justification

In addition to the increased cost and liability, the complaint says that the new regulations allow schools to be labeled as “financially unsound” if they face litigation from a public entity, regardless of whether the case has any actual merit.

Under this provision, the group says that schools would be forced to negatively report their financial standing to current and prospective students and notify them if alumni have not paid their loans back quickly enough, a stipulation that the complaint says unfairly targets institutions whose students rely on income-based repayment plans or financial aid.

“The final rule creates a seismic shift in multiple areas of higher education regulation without legal basis or reasonable justification,” CAPPS said.

The complaint alleges that the rules violate First and Fifth Amendment rights and the Administrative Procedures Act and is seeking for the final regulations to be vacated by the Department of Education.

BrightFarms is recalling packaged produce sold in Giant Food stores due to the potential presence of metal as a result of construction at its Elkwood, Virginia, (Culpeper County) greenhouse farm.

The recalled BrightFarms branded products are sold at the Giant Landover, Giant Carlisle, Peapod and Martin’s Food Markets in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

The produce may also have been distributed via the Capital Area Food Bank.

The following salad products, packaged in clear, plastic clamshells with best by date of 5/22/17, 5/23/17, 5/24/17, 5/25/17, 5/26/17, are being recalled: 

• BrightFarms Baby Spinach (4 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Spring Mix (4 oz. and 8 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Spinach Blend (4 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Baby Kale (3 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Arugula (4 oz. and 8 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Mixed Greens (4 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Baby Romaine (4 oz. and 8 oz. Package)

The following basil products, packaged in clear plastic clamshells with best by dates 5/18/17, 5/19/17, 5/20/17, 5/21/17, 5/22/17, 5/23/17, are being recalled:

• BrightFarms Basil (.75 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Thai Basil (.75 oz. package)
• BrightFarms Lemon Basil (.75 oz. Package)

Best by dates are located on the package label.

What to do

Customers who purchased the recalled products should discard them or return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.

Consumers with questions may contact the company at l (646) 480-5262 between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (EST) Monday through Friday, or by email info@brightfarms.com with the subject line: Recall.

Greeting every young shopper who wonders if they can just order a mattress online, one that will arrive in a box somehow small enough to fit through their apartment elevator, is a hip and slick mattress company announcing that this is in fact possible, thanks to their heroic efforts alone.

"Tuft & Needle is a bootstrapped, Phoenix-based company that pioneered the disruption of the mattress industry," Tuft & Needle says about itself. "Founded in 2012 by John-Thomas Marino, 31, and Daehee Park, 28," two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, "T&N is leading the revolution against unfair mattress markups."

The revolution has been well-publicized. "If Warby Parker could disrupt the eyewear business and TOMS the footwear market, why not use technology to try to disrupt mattresses?...The result is Tuft and Needle," wrote Fortune Magazine, just one of many magazines to report on Tuft & Needle's disruptive mattresses.

But the mattress retailer Brooklyn Bedding, a competitor, has a different story about the origins of the direct-to consumer, online-only boxed mattress. On their website, Brooklyn Bedding writes that the idea of turning mattresses into an e-commerce industry came from founder John Irwin's wife in 2008. "John was very hesitant, 'Who is going to buy a mattress without trying it,' but his wife convinced him.”

Now Brooklyn Bedding has an Instagram endorsement from Kevin Jonas of Jonas Brothers fame, who promotes a photograph of his mattress, still in its impossibly small box, with the company's hashtag, #bestmattressever.

Not to be outdone, Casper Sleep launched in 2014 with an estimated $70 million raised in venture capital. Investors included actor-turned businessman Ashton Kutcher and rapper Nas. Now Casper mattresses can be seen on display at the South by Southwest musical festival and on the Instagram account of Kylie Jenner. Casper COO Neil Parikh framed the idea for his boxed bed company this way an interview with Inc Magazine: "Let's disrupt the mattress industry. It's broken." 

Casper's founders told the press it occurred to them, almost suddenly, that there is no way to carry a queen-sized mattress up to a fourth-floor New York City apartment. "We said, 'What if we could compress a mattress to fit into a box the size of a dorm refrigerator?'" 

So Casper did. And then Casper began suing professional mattress bloggers who gave better reviews to the other mattresses compressed to fit into a box the size of a dorm refrigerator, charging that Casper’s lesser competition was paying the reviewers. "Casper’s success has spawned numerous 'imitators' that duplicate Casper’s innovative approach without investing in any of the innovations that led to Casper," Casper claims in one such lawsuit. (By some counts, there are now an estimated 50 boxed bed e-commerce companies on the market.) 

The growth of the boxed bed industry is both amusing and a source of pride to Susan Chase and Mary Thomas. Their father Bill Bradley, an 84-year-old welder who still goes to work every day, trademarked the phrase Bed-in-a-Box in 2006, records show, well before the better-known competitors who claim to have developed this idea entered the fray. He and a business partner created their own machine to compress the mattresses and in 2007 began selling the boxes directly to consumers from the web, well before it was considered normal to do serious shopping online.

Asked about the rise of the “copycat” e-commerce boxed mattress companies, the sisters simply laugh. Even Tempur Sealy, part of the Big Mattress old guard that the hipster mattress startups were supposed to disrupt, has launched its own discounted bed-in-a-box. Cocoon by Sealy advertises that their boxed bed line is “A NEW WAY TO BUY A MATTRESS.”

"It's not really a new way,” Thomas says. The sisters will ping their company lawyer when they catch a competitor using the phrase “Bed-in-a-Box.” A cease-and desist letter will get the offending company to change the wording to something like mattress-in-a-box, which is not trademarked. As long as the competitor respects the family’s “Bed-in-a-Box” trademark, the family will leave the rest alone. 

“They've been able to very well pinpoint their market,” Chase says of the competition, “and probably take some of the things that we initiated and improve on them." And, she added when we first talked, “I’m not interested in making lawyers really wealthy.”

The boxed origins

Armed with degrees in industrial art and chemistry, Bill Bradley owned a fabrication company and worked as a manager for a brick company when he was younger. He later purchased a machine shop. "Anything that needed to be built out of metal, he built it,” Thomas tells ConsumerAffairs. 

The Bed-in-a-Box he eventually trademarked in later years did not come without previous inspiration. The idea of compressing mattresses into a small box was actually something that Bradley’s business partner had seen companies in China do. But Bradley and his partner wanted to roll-pack higher quality mattresses, produce the mattresses in the United States and use the Internet to sell them.

"At that time there wasn't anyone else selling mattresses in a box online,” Chase says. Bradley and his partner had apparently tapped into the public’s growing thirst for e-commerce as well as the frustrations of buying a mattress from a store, where prices still run much higher.  And with his background in machinery, “it was kind of a natural fit for him to be able to make that compression machine.”

The sisters agree to describe the compression process in layman's terms: the mattress is heat-sealed, which compresses all of the air out of the memory foam. It is then shrink-wrapped to hold its circular shape and stored in a heavy-duty duffel bag. Once the mattress is removed from the packaging by the customer, it takes the atmosphere of the air with it and literally grows before a customer’s eyes. 

The sisters say that Bed-in-a-Box averages $20 million annually in sales. Their factory and offices in Johnson City, Tennessee employ 35 people.The memory foam is produced by a company in North Carolina, but the sisters say that nothing else in the production process is outsourced. They estimate that they have sent around 100 cease-and-desist letters to the other boxed mattress companies who have advertised with the “Bed-in-a-Box” phrase. "It’s important for us to protect our name and protect our brand,” Chase says. 

Tuft & Needle, in a telephone interview, similarly gives credit to Bed-in-a-Box for pioneering aspects of the industry, taking a much more modest attitude than the Tuft & Needle marketing material might suggest. “We definitely did not pioneer Bed-in-a-Box,” spokeswoman Brooke Medansky tells ConsumerAffairs. She says that Tuft & Needle, which came on the scene in 2012, describes itself as a pioneer because they sell only one style of mattress, eliminating what she describes as “a paradox of choice” in the mattress buying experience. “We find that only providing one option is really best for most people.”

"The other things we have pioneered, that really caught on, are being the first to offer the online sleep trial with no hassle returns," Medansky says. (Tuft & Needle says all their returned mattresses are donated to charity).

Tuft & Needle’s stylish online advertising and business model is clearly a hit. Last year, their sales reached $100 million, Medansky says, more than double $40 million from the year prior, and vastly outpacing its $8 million the year before that. 

Like the family behind Bed-in-a-Box, Medansky credits the competition that came on later with boosting the industry as a whole. "With their funding, they were able to make a lot of noise," she says of Casper.

“I think all of the companies that have come after us have really helped prove this concept, and really what we set out was to change the mattress buying experience."

Casper, on the other hand, is not as generous in its characterization of the competitors. 

Legal battle between Casper and mattress bloggers in Federal court

During South by Southwest this year, advertising executives piled on praise for Casper as reporters listened and tested out Casper mattresses themselves. It was just the latest peek into the trendy company's successful advertising and media campaign. Casper has been the star of the boxed mattress media buzz since it launched in 2014, immediately getting a wave of celebrity endorsements, and is still regularly written about, recognized as one of the “most innovative” companies by Fast Company in February and then featured in Architectural Digest the following month. “For a specific yet sizable market in the United States, Casper is utterly synonymous with the word mattress,” the magazine gushed. 

Casper chief executive Parikh told the Digest that the company faced hurdles initially when it launched in 2014. “Almost everyone said ‘no one will ever buy a mattress online’ but we set out to prove that that's not true, especially if you offer amazing service and you have the best product,” Parikh said.

With its glowing reputation, a reported 250 employees in multiple cities and “hundreds of millions of dollars” in annual sales, one might assume that Casper would have little interest in what professional mattress bloggers have to say about the company, but one would be mistaken.

“In early 2014, Casper launched as an innovative new sleep start-up, radically disrupting the traditional mattress industry with one mattress sold directly to consumers online with a risk free in-home trial—eliminating mattress stores and their inflated prices,” the company wrote last year in a federal lawsuit.

Casper filed suit in federal court in 2016 against the review site Sleepopolis and then followed with lawsuits against two more mattress review sites. While the legal fight itself focuses on the technical boundaries between honest online reviews and online advertising, the suit also gives Casper the opportunity to further assert its role as chief disruptor of Big Mattress.

Tellingly, Casper cites press reports as proof of its pivotal role in the creation of the boxed bed industry; “TechCrunch, a leading media publication, recently noted that since Casper launched in April 2014, 'the past two years have also seen a boom in mattress startups. . . Casper does seem to have started a trend.’”

The company stresses this claim repeatedly in its complaint against Sleepopolis. “Casper’s ascent has also inspired competitors. Since Casper pioneered the digital mattress marketplace, dozens of online mattress retail start-ups have followed suit, selling mattresses on their own websites and on third-party platforms such as Amazon… In the wake of Casper’s success and disruption of the traditional retail model, consumers can now purchase a wide variety of competing mattresses without ever stepping foot in a mattress store.”

In comes Derek Hales, the operator of Sleepopolis. Casper writes in its suit that independent product review sites such as Sleepopolis have an important role in the e-commerce industry, as shoppers are now similarly doing their research online instead of in the store. They charge that Hales is taking advantage of this, misleading consumers with his reviews, and that he makes his money off the site by directing customers to affiliate partners--or mattress companies which have paid him. Therefore, they argue that the unbiased reviews he is presenting to the public are really just a form of advertising, potentially violating FTC guidelines.

Hales declined an interview. On his website, he portrays the legal fight as a fight to assert his First Amendment rights. "The lawsuit has already taken a heavy personal and financial toll, but I refuse to be bullied or silenced," Hales writes online. He also provides readers with links to the federal court documents.

On his site and in court, Hales says that he makes sales commissions off of “referral links,” or links to mattress companies. Should a customer purchase a mattress that came from a Sleepopolis link, Hales receives a referral fee, but he says that fee does not influence his reviews. 

“Hales has been mildly critical of Casper’s mattresses,” he writes in court filings, referencing reviews in which he told readers that he felt Casper charged too much for its boxed mattresses. (With a king mattress for $950, Casper mattresses are vastly cheaper than the $3,000+ mattresses found in traditional stores, but not as cheap as some of the newer boxed mattress competitors).

“A Sleepopolis visitor who looked only at the facts asserted in Hales’ reviews would have seen that the Leesa, Brooklyn Bedding, and GhostBed mattresses Hales compared were all less expensive than Casper’s, and at least as fully-featured as Casper’s,” Hales continues in court filings, referencing some of the cheaper boxed mattress companies. 

Casper forwarded an interview request from ConsumerAffairs to a spokeswoman at a public relations firm, who said the company had declined the request. They did not return follow-up questions from ConsumerAffairs.

In the federal lawsuits, which are ongoing, Sleepolis and Casper continue to tussle over the difference between protected speech and commercial speech and which category Sleepopolis falls under. 

Whatever happens with the suit, at least one thing is clear. Everyone wants to claim credit as the chief disruptor in the boxed bed industry. To Bed-in-a-Box, the original Big Mattress disruptor, it's obvious that competitors like Casper and Tuft & Needle have better funding and are doing a volume in sales that Bed-in-a-Box can’t compete with. But they don’t sound too bitter about it. "I think we can all work together in this particular industry to provide a positive customer experience,” Thomas says. 

Learn more in the ConsumerAffairs Mattress Buyers Guide

What do travel and art have in common? Increasingly, they are enjoyed together.

Whether it's a long-planned trip or a spur-of-the-moment outing, people like to view, listen to, even participate in art when they arrive at a destination. It's all part of the cultural tourism trend.

Hotels and resorts in Palm Beach County, Fla., have gone all in recently. The Boca Rotan Resort & Club has started an artists-in-residence program. It's also the home of the Baker Sponder Gallery, surrounding visitors with sculptures and other contemporary artworks. The gallery features internationally known, museum-represented artists.

You'll find another gallery on-site at The Brazilian Court, a hotel just a block from the beach. The Paul Fisher Gallery is named for the longtime Palm Beach art curator, with works ranging from modern art to contemporary classic.

Some of the hotels are actually works of art themselves. The Breakers Palm Beach was rebuilt in 1926, with the help of 73 artists brought in from Italy. They remodeled the building in the Italian Renaissance style, creating frescoed and artisan-gilded public spaces that start in the hotel's spacious lobby.

Southwest Airlines' 'Destination' Music series

Southwest Airlines this week launched Destination: Red Rocks, the first of its new "Destination" music series and its foray into destination art. The airline has selected six up-and-coming music artists and groups from cities around the country to compete for the chance to open for The Fray at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado next month.

To compete, the artists will perform aboard select Southwest flights at 35,000 feet. The passengers, and those who later view the performances online, will pick the winning artist or group.

"We've always been known for our warrior spirit and perseverance, which aligns us well with the emerging artist community," said Linda Rutherford, Southwest's vice president and chief communications officer.

Santa Fe Studio Tour

Art shows around the country also provide a chance to mix art and tourism. Santa Fe will host the 11th Annual Santa Fe Studio Tour the last two weekends in June. This year's tour features the work of 70 established and emerging artists, working in a wide range of media. Santa Fe artist Erica Elliott says the annual show has become a destination event.

"There are a lot of people who come from outside the area," Elliott told ConsumerAffairs. "I've had Hotel Santa Fe call me because a guest wanted to make an appointment to see the studio, and she was a travel writer from Sweden. We also get people from surrounding cities like Los Alamos, and Albequerque, people coming up for the tour."

Elliott says the New Mexico city has become an art destination over the years because it has so many artists. It attracts both artists and art lovers.

"When I moved here from San Francisco it was the light and the big skies that attracted me," she said. "And while my work has shifted from representational to more abstract, it is the landscape that is still my inspiration."

The studio tour is free and self-guided. Visitors choose the open studios they want to visit and get to meet the artists, and in many cases watch demonstrations. It kicks off Friday, June 16 at 5:00 p.m. with an artists reception and preview gallery. You can find more information here.

Getting there

Santa Fe Municipal Airport is served by American Airlines, with daily non-stop service to and from Dallas/Ft. Worth and Pheonix. It's also served by United Airlines, with daily non-stop service to and from Denver.

Efforts to repeal all travel restrictions to Cuba are moving forward after a group of U.S. senators reintroduced a bipartisan bill that would once again allow tourists to visit the island nation.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, which was first introduced in 2015, received support from 55 co-sponsors on Thursday, only five votes short of the needed number to advance the legislation. If passed, the bill would shore up travel numbers, which airlines say have lagged since they were allowed to open routes to Cuban cities last year.

The chief sponsors of the bill, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), have said that lifting the travel ban would benefit both the American and Cuban people by giving the entrepreneurial and private sectors room to flourish.

“It is Americans who are penalized by our travel ban, not the Cuban government,” said Sen. Flake, according to a Reuters report.

Lagging travel numbers

While the number of U.S. visitors to Cuba rose by 74% last year, experts say that many consumers are foregoing travel to the country because of restrictions and economic factors that still make the trip difficult.

Currently, travelers need to fit into one of a number of categories that qualifies them for a visit to Cuba, since tourism to the island is still banned under a 54-year-old U.S. embargo. And for those who do manage to make the trip, the prospect of carrying around large amounts of cash isn’t all that appealing, since no debit or credit cards work in the country because of the embargo.

President of the Washington-based Engage Cuba group James Williams commended the leaders of the bill, saying that he applauded the senators’ “leadership in supporting the American and Cuban people by eliminating archaic, outdated policy."

Strong opposition remains

While the bill has gained traction over time, some lawmakers still heavily oppose any ending of isolationist policies towards Cuba. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) say travel to Cuba should not be made easier until the country has made a concerted effort to move towards democracy.

President Trump has also expressed reservations about opening relations with Cuba. After his 2016 election campaign, he said that he would scrap normalization efforts unless the U.S. gets a “better deal.”

At this time, there has been no indication that Republican leaders would allow the proposal to come up for a vote.