Current Events in July 2019

CM&R of St. Paul, Minn., is recalling approximately 25 pounds of ready-to-eat beef sticks.

The products contain milk, an allergen not declared on the label.

The recall products are labeled as “Smoked & Uncured Maple Beef Snack Sticks” products but contain “Smoked & Uncured Mild Beef Sticks with Cheddar Cheese.”

There are no confirmed reports of adverse reactions .

The following item, produced on June 19, 2019, is being recalled:

• 6-oz. plastic vacuum packed packages of “MARKET SAUSAGES SMOKED & UNCURED MAPLE BEEF SNACK STICKS” with lot code 1712019 and Sell-By: 9/15/19.

The recalled products, bearing establishment number “EST. 45394” inside the USDA mark of inspection, were shipped to retail locations in Minnesota.

What to do

Customers who purchased the recalled products should no consume them, but discard or return them to the place of purchase.

Consumers with questions may contact Charles Cory at (651) 738-3636.

Southeast Toyota Distributors (SET) is recalling 1,325 model year 2017-2019 Toyota Camrys, Corollas, Rav4s, Siennas and Yaris iAs equipped with factory-installed floor mats.

The load carrying capacity modification label may be incorrect, which may lead to unintentionally overloading the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash.

What to do

SET will notify owners and provide a corrected label for placement over the inaccurate label free of charge.

The recall is expected to begin August 27, 2019.

Owners may contact Toyota customer service at (888) 270-9371. SET's number for this recall is SET19A.

Throughout the month of August, the IRS will be sending out warning letters to roughly 10,000 taxpayers reminding them that earnings from cryptocurrency trades must be reported in federal tax filings.

The agency said it found the names of taxpayers known to have a cryptocurrency trading account “through various ongoing IRS compliance efforts.” 

"Taxpayers should take these letters very seriously by reviewing their tax filings and when appropriate, amend past returns and pay back taxes, interest and penalties,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a press release about the letters. 

“The IRS is expanding our efforts involving virtual currency, including increased use of data analytics,” Rettig added. “We are focused on enforcing the law and helping taxpayers fully understand and meet their obligations."

Enhancing compliance efforts 

Cryptocurrency investors who receive a letter aren’t necessarily slated to be audited; the letters mainly serve as a reminder to pay taxes on any cryptocurrency sold. However, one of the three types of letters being sent out does require a response or the recipient will be audited. 

Those who receive a letter and have not accurately reported virtual currency transactions from the past few years are “urged to correct their returns as soon as practical.” Failure to accurately report earnings through cryptocurrency trading can result in penalties including jail time and a fine of up to $250,000. 

“The IRS will remain actively engaged in addressing non-compliance related to virtual currency transactions through a variety of efforts, ranging from taxpayer education to audits to criminal investigations,” the agency said.

In a note to investors over the weekend, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple will offer 5G support on all three models of its 2020 iPhones. The move is intended to help the tech giant compete with Android, which is adding 5G support to its lower-cost Android smartphones.

Earlier this summer, Kuo said he believed two of the three upcoming iPhones would support 5G. The analyst now says Apple will add 5G support to all the new devices. 

Kuo said Apple's recent acquisition of Intel's smartphone modem chip business bolstered its resources for developing iPhones with 5G capabilities. However, the company doesn’t plan to drop Qualcomm technology in favor of using its own in-house 5G chip until 2021, according to Reuters.

“Apple has more resource for developing the 5G iPhone after the acquisition of Intel baseband business, ” Kuo said in a note seen by MacRumors. “We expect that the prices of 5G Android smartphones will decline to $249–349 USD in 2H20.” 

“Consumers will think that 5G is the necessary function” by the time they are launched, he added. “Therefore, iPhone models which will be sold at higher prices have to support 5G for winning more subsidies from mobile operators and consumers' purchase intention.” 

All three versions of the 2020 iPhone will likely support both the mmWave and sub-6GHz versions of 5G. Meanwhile, Android phones will only support sub-6GHz. 

The number of millennials living under the burden of student loan debt has been well-documented, but credit card debt may be a much bigger problem for this generation.

A new report from CompareCards.com found that only 13 percent of millennials with a credit card pay the balance in full each month, meaning the other 87 percent are running up credit card debt. The average credit card debt in the U.S. is $5,700, according to the Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve.

"Most conversations around millennials and debt center around the nation's trillion-dollar student loan crisis, but the truth is, credit card debt is far more prevalent,” said Matt Schulz, am industry analyst at CompareCards. “With many millennials juggling student loan or car payments on top of credit card bills, it's no wonder some think they'll never be debt-free."

‘Financial death sentence’

Schulz says the survey measured all generations and found Generation X was in slightly worse shape than millennials when it comes to credit card debt. Only 11 percent of that age group pays off their credit card balance each month. Across all generations queried by pollsters, 25 percent said they expect to die in debt, a finding Schulz calls shocking.

“Viewing debt as a financial death sentence only makes matters worse, and those in debt should commit to action wherever and whenever possible,” he said. “An extra $10 or $20 toward monthly debt payments can really make a difference in the long run, especially when coupled with reduced spending or a side gig."

For millennials, credit card debt is much more of a problem than student loans. The survey found 67 percent owe money to their credit card company, but just 36 percent are saddled with student loan debt.

Only 7 percent of cardholders with children under 18 have no debt, while 20 percent of those with older children or no kids at all have no debt, suggesting that trying to raise a family makes it harder to make ends meet without credit card spending.

Double-digit interest rates

Credit card debt is also more of a burden than most other types because of its high interest rates. Since it’s unsecured, debt lenders charge double-digit rates to offset the risk of default. In June, the average credit card default rate was nearly 4 percent, while defaults on other types of loans were less than 1 percent. 

The average credit card rate is around 18 percent APY and goes up every time the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates. 

Now that Dish Network has been set up as a fourth wireless provider in the wake of Sprint and T-Mobile’s merger approval, the satellite TV company isn’t waiting for the ink to dry.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen has made clear he plans to push ahead immediately in building out a 5G wireless network, an enormously expensive undertaking. In an interview with Axios just hours after the Justice Department greenlighted the merger, Ergen said he hopes to be providing 5G service in at least one market by the end of 2020.

Dish stepped into the role of wireless provider as a condition for regulators to allow Sprint and T-Mobile to merge because of worries the combination would reduce competition and hurt consumers. Both merger partners provided assets to Dish, including spectrum, to help it get up and running.

Part of the problem facing the satellite TV provider is that it currently has no existing wireless network. It will have to build a 5G network from scratch while its competitors will build on top of their existing 4G LTE networks.

Getting a boost from Boost

Dish is acquiring Sprint’s Boost Mobile as part of the deal and Ergen said one of the first steps the company will take is to make the prepaid service more competitive, even expanding beyond the prepaid market.

The deal approved by the government requires T-Mobile and Sprint to open up dozens of retail locations to Dish, as well as more than 20,000 cell sites. Dish will also get “a seven-year wholesale agreement allowing it to sell T-Mobile wireless service under the Dish brands.”

While that most likely will help, Dish still faces significant challenges in leaping into the wireless business. However, it has strong incentives to do so. Satellites are aging technology and 5G could prove to be a much faster and more efficient way to distribute video programming.

Keeping pace with DIRECTV

Dish competitor DIRECTV is owned by AT&T which is currently building its own 5G network. For Dish to remain competitive it may have to bite the 5G bullet.

Roger Entner, a telecom analyst and founder of Recon Analytics LLC, told Bloomberg News that Dish will likely have to spend at least $20 billion dollars in the short term to build a network that could make use of the massive amounts of spectrum it owns.

And that may be just the beginning. More spending will be needed to establish a retail network and market the new service, competing with the huge ad budgets of Verizon, AT&T, and the newly combined Sprint and T-Mobile.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) recently undertook a project that can help prevent and treat diabetes cases as early as possible.

Though physicians tend to use multiple methods to confirm patients’ diabetes -- such as a plasma glucose test, an oral glucose tolerance test, an HbA1c test, or a fasting glucose level test -- a routine blood test can detect diabetes five years before the disease manifests.

“Although screening and treatment for prediabetes and diabetes could permit earlier detection and treatment, many in the at-risk population do not receive the necessary screening,” said lead researcher Dr. Mary Rhee. 

The power of early detection

To see how a routine blood test could be effective in predicting diabetes, the researchers utilized data collected from over 900,000 VA patients, none of whom had been diagnosed with disease. 

The researchers explained that many physicians will wait until a patient shows other diabetes symptoms to perform a plasma glucose test, but VA patients randomly get the test three times per year, and many patients get them as part of outpatient procedures. The plasma glucose test is preferable for patients over other diabetes tests because it doesn’t require them to stop eating for any extended period of time, which is precisely why many physicians don’t solely rely on it for any clues to diagnosis. 

However, the researchers of this study sought to understand how the test can be useful for both patients and doctors in detecting diabetes. 

When doctors administer a plasma glucose test for patients who could be at risk of diabetes, they typically look for a reading that is 200 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter) or higher. But in this study, the researchers found that patients who had elevated numbers but didn’t meet that 200 mg/dl mark were at an increased risk for later developing diabetes. 

The study revealed that patients who had plasma glucose levels as low as 115 mg/dl and as high as 130 mg/dl, numbers that typically wouldn’t be cause for concern with this test, were diagnosed with diabetes up to five years later. 

The researchers hope that these findings inspire more patients to have plasma glucose tests as early as possible, and more frequently, as doing so could help their physicians detect and treat diabetes before it becomes life-threatening. 

“These findings have the potential to impact care in the VA and in the general U.S. population, as random plasma glucose levels -- which are convenient, low-cost, and ‘opportunistic’ -- could appropriately prompt high-yield, focused diagnostic testing and improve recognition and treatment of prediabetes and diabetes,” said Dr. Rhee. 

Nissan North America is recalling 91,319 model year 2017-2019 gasoline, light duty Titans.

The alternator harness may have been damaged during the engine installation process, possibly resulting in an electrical short.

An electrical short may cause an engine stall, increasing the risk of a crash. In addition, it increases the risk of a fire.

What to do

Nissan will notify owners, and dealers will inspect the alternator harness for the proper routing and any damage. The harness will be clipped into the correct position or replaced as necessary free of charge.

The recall was expected to begin July 23, 2019.

Owners may contact Nissan customer service at 1-800-867-7669.

Stokke of Stamford, Conn., is recalling about 4,500 Stokke Steps Bouncers.

The Stokke Steps Bouncer can detach from the Stokke Steps Chair, posing a fall hazard to the child in the Bouncer.

The company has received one report of a consumer having difficulty attaching the Steps Bouncer to the Steps Chair. No injuries have been reported.

This recall includes Stokke Steps Bouncers.

The bouncers are a part of Stokke Steps all-in-one modular seating system and can be used in combination with the Stokke Steps Chair from birth up to the age of about six months.

The Stokke Steps Bouncers have a plastic arm and fabric seat and measure about 31 inches by 25 inches by 21 inches. Stokke is printed on the care label and the law tag on the bottom of the recalled bouncers.

Only Stokke Steps Bouncers with one of the following item numbers and with a serial number found at https://reclamations.stokke.com/stepsbouncer are included in this recall:  

Check for recalled serial numbers at https://reclamations.stokke.com/stepsbouncer

The item and serial numbers are printed on the tracking label found underneath the bouncer seat plastic frame.

The Bouncers, manufactured in the Netherlands, were sold at juvenile product stores nationwide, online at www.stokke.com and www.Amazon.com from February 2014, through December 2018, for about $200.

What to do

Consumers should immediately stop using the Stokke Steps Bouncer in combination with the Stokke Steps Chair and contact Stokke for a free repair kit. Visit https://reclamations.stokke.com/stepsbouncer to check if the bouncer is included in the recall.

Once confirmed, consumers should register on the site to receive repair instructions.

Consumers may continue to use the Stokke Steps Bouncers and the Stokke Steps Chairs separately.

Consumers may contact Stokke toll-free at( 877) 978-6553 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (ET), by email at info-usa@stokke.com, or online at www.stokke.com and click on “SAFETY RECALL NOTICE” for more information.

Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) is recalling 11 model year 2020 GLE350 and GLE450 4Matic.

In the event of a crash while the temperature in the passenger cabin is very high, the passenger front airbag deployment may be delayed or may not completely deploy.

An air bag that does not deploy as intended can increase the risk of injury in the event of a crash.

What to do

MBUSA will notify owners, and dealers will replace the passenger air bag module free of charge.

The recall is expected to begin August 13, 2019.

Owners may contact MBUSA customer service at 1-800-367-6372.

As if Facebook hasn’t had enough bad news, how about some “stranger danger” to add to the pile?

According to The Verge, Facebook has been tiptoeing around and quietly reaching out to users of its Messenger Kids app to let them know about a security flaw that allowed children to chat with unapproved users.

Facebook’s message to the impacted users reads as follows:

“Hi [PARENT], 

We found a technical error that allowed [CHILD]’s friend [FRIEND] to create a group chat with [CHILD] and one or more of [FRIEND]’s parent-approved friends. We want you to know that we’ve turned off this group chat and are making sure that group chats like this won’t be allowed in the future. If you have questions about Messenger Kids and online safety, please visit our Help Center and Messenger Kids parental controls. We’d also appreciate your feedback.”

Facebook owned up to sending the message, telling The Verge that the alert had been sent to “thousands of users” and couching the issue as a “technical error.”

“We recently notified some parents of Messenger Kids account users about a technical error that we detected affecting a small number of group chats,” a Facebook representative told The Verge. “We turned off the affected chats and provided parents with additional resources on Messenger Kids and online safety.”

Facebook’s admission appears to be private and only given out when a comment is requested. ConsumerAffairs could not find anything related to the matter on Facebook’s own Messenger Kids page.

The bug’s backstory

The bug appears to have been a result of how the Messenger Kids’ unique permissions were applied in group chats. 

In a normal one-on-one chat, children can only start a conversation with other users who have been approved by the child’s parents. “Those permissions became more complex when applied to a group chat because of the multiple users involved,” The Verge reported.

“Whoever launched the group could invite any user who was authorized to chat with them, even if that user wasn’t authorized to chat with the other children in the group. As a result, thousands of children were left in chats with unauthorized users, a violation of the core promise of Messenger Kids.”

Best laid plans?

Facebook’s original intent for the app was to create a safer experience for a younger crowd. At least that’s what Facebook would have its users believe and what a Facebook spokesperson told ConsumerAffairs. 

But health experts waved the red flag on that. "Messenger Kids is not responding to a need - it is creating one," the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood wrote in an open letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. 

"It appeals primarily to children who otherwise would not have their own social media accounts," the letter reads. Another passage criticized Facebook for "targeting younger children with a new product."

A number of recent studies have shown that many college students are questioning the value of a higher education. Not surprisingly, the doubts are largely driven by high levels of expensive student loan debt.

In a new report, Student Loan Hero looked at the impact of that debt. It found that nearly 8 of 10 recent college graduates said their student loan debt had held them back in life in some significant way.

Forty-six percent of those in the survey expressed regret about how much they borrowed and what they majored in. That high number likely had to do with the fact that many of them weren’t employed in a field that had anything to do with what they studied in college.

Limits on life

Fifty-five percent of college graduates working in a field related to their major expressed confidence that they could handle their college loan payments without it adversely affecting their lives.

However, nearly 78 percent of recent college graduates said student loans were placing limits on what they can do in life. Forty-four percent said they had given up travel, 31 percent had postponed saving for retirement, and 30 percent had curtailed their social lives.

Student loans also are a source of worry. Only 44 percent of respondents said they were “fully confident” they could keep up with their monthly payments. Twenty percent said they were "not very" or "not at all" confident they could make their next payment.

For young people considering where to go to college and what to study, the report might prove helpful in avoiding mistakes. For example, it found that for 55 percent of graduates, the starting salary of their first job was less than what they owed in student loans. Forty-six percent said they still owe more than they make in annual salary.

Too much debt

Nearly half the graduates in the survey -- 46 percent -- said they now wish they had taken on less in student loan debt by finding alternative ways to pay for their education.

Previous studies have suggested that many college students who took out loans don’t believe college was worth the cost. A 2016 study found 45 percent of those who were still paying student loan debt felt that way.

Cengage, a textbook publisher, reported last year that 41 percent of students said they skip meals in order to pay for course materials. When asked to rank the financial stresses of going to college, paying for textbooks is a close second to tuition. Some students said they cut back on the number of classes they take in order to reduce the cost of books.

A California judge on Thursday gutted a significant portion of a $2 billion Roundup verdict, deeming the amount awarded to be in excess of constitutional limits. 

Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith reduced the damages to $86.7 million but did not concede to Bayer’s request to have the punitive award dropped altogether. Smith also upheld the jury’s decision that the herbicide was “a substantial factor” in causing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in long-time Roundup users Alva and Alberta Pilliod. 

The plaintiffs would receive $17 million in compensatory damages and $69 million in punitive damages if they accept the reduced awards. 

“While we believe the reduction in damages does not fairly capture the pain and suffering experienced by Alva and Alberta, the overall result is a big win,” Brent Wisner, a lawyer for the Pilliods, said in a statement. 

Bayer denies cancer-causing claims 

Bayer, which owns Monsanto, called the decision to reduce the damage awards “a step in the right direction.” However, the company said it stands by its conviction that its weed-killing product is safe to use. 

“We continue to believe that the verdict and damage awards are not supported by the evidence at trial and conflict with the extensive body of reliable science and conclusions of leading health regulators worldwide that confirms glyphosate-based herbicides can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic,” Bayer said in a statement. 

Bayer says it intends to file an appeal.

More than 13,000 lawsuits have been filed against Bayer-Monsanto. In February, California resident Edwin Hardeman won a lawsuit alleging that the active ingredient in Roundup caused his cancer. Six months prior to that, a jury found Bayer responsible for causing non-Hodgkin lymphoma in Dewayne Johnson, a former school groundskeeper who regularly used Roundup.

Each jury said Bayer had failed to warn consumers about the risks of the product and its controversial main ingredient, glyphosate. 

“In this case, there was clear and convincing evidence that Monsanto made efforts to impede, discourage, or distort scientific inquiry and the resulting science,” Smith said.