Current Events in August 2023

David Oppenheimer and Company is recalling all one-pound clamshells of Zespri brand organic green kiwifruit.

The product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

No illnesses have been reported to date.

The recalled, grown in New Zealand, exported to North America and repacked locally for sale, carries UPC code 8 18849 02009 3, and fruit stickered with the GTIN bar code 9400 9552.

The kiwifruit was shipped between June 14, 2023, and July 7, 2023, and sold at retail locations in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Oho, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Zespri organic green kiwifruit sold in other states is NOT being recalled.

What to do

Customers who purchased the recalled products should not consume it, but discard it immediately.

Consumers with questions may contact the firm at (866) 698-2580, Monday-Friday, 9am-4:30pm (PDT), or by email at contact@oppy.com.

According to a new study, Americans consider that about 55% of their purchases are worth every penny and a significant 64% of respondents keep their fingers crossed, hoping that every single thing they buy makes them at least a little happy. 

Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of the financial app Chime for National Finance Awareness Day, the survey also inquired about spending habits – impulsive or budgeted purchases, self-indulgence or necessity purchases.

Food and beverage tops the sought-after list with 51% of the consumers surveyed suggesting that they could probably live without those if need be. After food and beverages was clothing and accessories (39%), gifts for others (23%), beauty and self-care products (20%), as well as experiences like vacations or concert tickets (20%). 

'But, shopping makes me happy'

The problem is that consumers tend to lean on retail therapy maybe a bit too often. Respondents said they engage in these activities approximately four times a month on average, with a notable 66% agreeing that shopping and spending hold the potential to completely alter their mood, especially when they’re finally able to get something they’ve had their eye on for a while or on sale. However, this emotional high tends to last just about four hours. 

“Finding a little joy or satisfaction in their spending means a lot to people right now,” explained Chime’s chief experience officer Janelle Sallenave.

“When it's a gift or surprise for someone else, that tells us consumers are being extra thoughtful to ensure they’re investing in places and on things that matter most to them.”

Eyes on the real prize

When asked about their most valuable purchases, many participants highlighted transportation items like "cars," "vehicles," or "motorcycles."

Other purchases they pat themselves on the back for making are the ones that simplify their lives – like a "washer and dryer" and "airfryer." Interestingly, some personal investments were also mentioned, with one respondent even asserting that "major surgery on the family dog" was truly worth the expense, or in extreme cases, "my marriage license."

Consumers share how they make the best decisions

The consumers in the survey admitted that they are plagued by doubt no matter if they’re shopping in-store or doing it online. The in-store shoppers who struggle to make a decision usually verify that the item they want is exactly what they want four times.

Conversely, online shoppers check the size, price, and materials four different times.

Respondents typically plan their budget about three months in advance, but they will inevitably make about three unplanned purchases each month.

Where is retail taking a hit? Purchases like fast fashion and cheap clothing (26%), expensive decor and furniture (25%), subscriptions like meal kits or streaming services (25%) and toys and collectibles (25%) have been moved to the “maybe someday” category because in today’s economy, the respondents said those items just aren’t worth spending money on anymore.

"When you work hard for your money, you want to feel good about spending it. ‘I love paying for overdraft fees,’ said no one ever,” Sallenave remarked.

“That’s why we believe everyone deserves affordable and fair financial services. We do our best to help everyday people with basic fee-free services so that even when their spending doesn’t delight them, at least their experience spending does.”

A report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows total credit card debt in the U.S. has reached $1 trillion for the first time. 

Credit card balances surged by $45 billion in the second quarter of the year as more Americans apparently relied on expensive credit to make ends meet. That 4% increase pushed total indebtedness to the highest gross value in Fed data, extending back to 2003.

Another report – this one from the credit bureau TransUnion – shows many of the consumers running up large credit card balances are student loan borrowers, whose monthly payments have been on hold since April 2020.

Unfortunately for them, however, those payments are set to resume within weeks. In addition to resuming those loan payments, many will also have to find a way to pay their credit card bills.

The burden of additional debt

“The majority of consumers with a student loan have not been required to make payments for the better part of three years,” said Liz Pagel, senior vice president and consumer lending business leader at TransUnion. “Payment amounts will vary, but many of these consumers have taken on additional debt since the last time they had to pay their student loans. It’s important for both lenders and consumers to be prepared for this new payment shock.”

The TransUnion report shows that 53% of student loan borrowers, relieved of having to make loan payments during the last three years, opened new credit card accounts. Thirty-six percent also took out auto loans.

“These additional credit products mean additional monthly payments, the accumulation of which may pose added challenges for households attempting to reintegrate student loan payments into their monthly budget,” Pagel said.

While the Department of Education has offered a 12-month moratorium before student loan delinquencies will have an impact on consumer credit files, interest will begin to accrue immediately so Pagel says it is in the best interest of consumers to resume payments right away.

What to do

Faced with a tighter budget, many student loan borrowers may be tempted to make only the minimum payment on their credit card bill, but personal finance experts warn that’s a costly strategy, especially with interest rates north of 20%.

The quickest way to put a dent in your credit card balance is to apply for a balance transfer credit card that offers 12 to 20 months of 0% interest. That means the entire monthly payment goes to pay down the balance.

The ConsumerAffairs research team has analyzed current offerings and selected these seven balance transfer cards as among the best. All seven charge a balance transfer fee, but the fees charged by the Quicksilver from Capital One and SavorOne Rewards from Capital One may be the lowest.

Once the interest-free period ends, borrowers can pay off the remaining balance with a personal loan because rates are generally lower than credit card rates. Learn more about personal loans here.

As anyone who’s ever tried to book a flight knows, the prices they pay for airfare are anything but consistent. As luck would have it, wanderlusting travelers can now enjoy some very cheap flights both domestically and to Europe. 

To determine which cities in Europe are among the cheapest for Americans to reach right now, the researchers at Going.com looked at metro areas with a population of at least 700,000 people and collected data on how many economy-class deals to those cities the site sent to its Going Premium members in the last year.

The Top 10 cheapest European destinations

Here are the top ten cheapest European destinations from the US. The ranking is based on the volume of deals Going’s analysts found departing U.S. airports.  

1. Paris - $230

2. Dublin - $249

3. Barcelona - $241

4. Milan - $332

5. Rome - $358

6. Madrid - $279

7. Copenhagen - $249

8. Amsterdam - $174

9. Zurich - $365

10. Stockholm - $275

The average fare is pretty good, too. Analysts at the travel booking app Hopper told ConsumerAffairs that its Q3 Consumer Travel Index shows that overall, U.S. to Europe airfares are running, on average: $813 round-trip. For the U.S. to Asia, a round-tri fare averages $1,417. 

“There are several factors contributing to lower domestic airfare prices including lower jet fuel prices, recovered domestic capacity and a return in airline competition,” Hopper’s lead economist, Hayley Berg said.

“International demand has also recovered to pre-pandemic levels – marking a return to an equilibrium following the last three years of COVID-era travel restrictions. Though travelers have looked internationally this summer, Americans' focus will soon shift domestically as the holiday season approaches.”

How does domestic travel look? 

Hopper analysts think that traveling within the U.S. is still the better deal, especially because we’re moving into fall when the kids are back in school and most people have put their vacation plans back in the closet until next summer.

Below are the key findings and what Hopper says consumers can expect for flights, hotels and rental car prices in the coming months:

Flights:

Domestic (U.S.): $257 round-trip, down 11% from 2022 prices and down 10% from 2019

Hotels:

• Hotel prices in the US are averaging $183 per night, up 11% compared to this time in 2022, but down from summer peaks over $100 per night. 

Car Rentals:

• Rental car prices are averaging $45 per day, down 12% from this time last year.

Trending destinations for fall (destinations rising in popularity):

Domestic

1. Melbourne, Florida

2. Manchester, New Hampshire

3. Reno, Nevada

4. Buffalo, New York

5. Charleston, South Carolina

International

1. Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

2. Sapporo, Japan

3. Tokyo, Japan

4. Osaka, Japan

5. Taipei, Taiwan

Got your passport?

The federal government has been mum since March regarding its timeline for processing passports, but reading between the lines, the passport agency is full-tilt on remedying the issue.

When ConsumerAffairs looked for an update on the agency's site, it was hosting a large number of special passport acceptance fairs across the United States to help people apply for their passports.

In August and September, about 50 of those fairs are scheduled. Most are one-day events and reservations are required for some. If you need a passport anytime before the holidays, this might be your smartest move short term.

The good news for car shoppers is used car prices have finally started to come down. But only to a point.

If your budget limits your choices to vehicles priced at $20,000 or less, a new study by iSeeCars.com shows your options are extremely limited. Before the pandemic, things were very different.

Used cars priced under $20,000 made up 49.3% of the market in 2019. The study shows that today they make up just 12.4% of the market.

In 2019, about 50% of used Honda CR-Vs and Toyota RAV4s, popular and affordable choices, cost less than $20,000. Today, only 2% are priced under $20,000. And if you are lucky enough to find one, the study shows it’s likely to have twice as many miles on the odometer than in 2019.

Victim of the pandemic

“Among the pandemic’s many casualties is the affordable used car, which has nearly vanished from the used car marketplace,” said iSeeCars’ Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “In 2019, used car shoppers with a budget of $15,000 could afford over 20% of the late-model used car market. Today that budget only gets them access to 1.6% of the market.”

In fact, for some of the best-selling cars, the study found buyers are faced with used models having over twice as many miles compared to the pre-pandemic market while paying 25% to 50% more.

The automotive publisher analyzed over 10.8 million one- to five-year-old used cars and found the average used car cost $22,493 in 2015, with a slight bump to $23,351 in 2019. Over the last four years however, used car prices have exploded – ballooning to $34,491 in 2023, which is a 47.7% rise, averaging more than 10% each year.

The reason is closely aligned with the new car market. For the first two years of the pandemic, there was a shortage of new cars. Manufacturers had to scale back production because of a serious shortage of computer chips. That created more demand for used cars and resulted in significant price increases.

Compared to 2019, some of the most popular vehicles have seen huge price increases in the used market. The price of a used Ram 1500 is up nearly 57%; the price of a used Toyota Corolla has gained nearly 50; and a used Toyota Camry costs 49.3% more.

It’s a prospect that fills an airline passenger with dread. No, not an emergency landing, but the discovery, once you’re safely on the ground, that the airline has lost your luggage.

It’s happening more often, especially this summer with a huge increase in air travel. It’s happening so often that many travelers are investing in Apple AirTags to track their bags. And it turns out the bags are not always lost.

According to CNN, Sandra Shuster and her 15-year-old daughter Ruby were flying home to Denver from Baltimore with a stopover in Chicago, when they were told at their destination their suitcase was lost.

Using her AirTag, Sandra was able to locate her bag at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. After she informed United Airlines she was promised the bag would arrive the next day. Then the day after.

“I told them I could see it at Terminal 1 baggage reclaim in Chicago, and they said ‘We have no record of it,’ Shuster told CNN. “I asked them to call Chicago, and they said ‘No, we’re not allowed.’ They said they’d put notes in the system and the baggage team would take care of it.”

Then the airline told her the bag was in Baltimore. Frustrated, Shuster boarded a plane and traveled to Chicago to pick it up herself. 

Traveler’s aid

This doesn’t appear to be an isolated case. A TikTok user named Sarah posted to the social media site that Air France reported her luggage was lost. But she too had placed an AirTag inside her bag.

“It’s literally in the airport,” she reported, saying she got her luggage back but claimed the airline was of little help.

Why are so many bags getting mishandled? CNBC reports airlines have a shortage of baggage handlers as well as other staff. At the same time, summer travel has surged.

Frequent fliers might consider investing in an Airtag, which Apple developed to help consumers keep track of things that often get misplaced, such as keys. 

A single AirTag starts at $29 and Apple sells a four-pack for $88. They not only locate things around the house but can also find things hundreds of miles away.

Hyundai Motor America is recalling 52,008 model year 2023-2024 Palisades, and model year 2023 Tucsons, Sonatas, Elantras & Konas.

The electronic controller for the Idle Stop & Go oil pump assembly may contain damaged electrical components that can cause the pump controller to overheat.

An electric oil pump assembly that overheats increases the risk of a vehicle fire.

What to do

Owners are advised to park outside and away from structures until the recall repair is complete.

Dealers will inspect and replace the electric oil pump controller -- as necessary -- free of charge. Notification letters are expected to be mailed to owners September 25, 2023.

Owners may contact Hyundai customer service at (855) 371-9460. Hyundai's number for this recall is 246.

Ever searched for yourself on Google? Find something you thought was posted with the intent to harm you? A photo of your signature? Your medical record?

Until now, there wasn't much you could do. But Google is following up on its Results about you tool – the one designed to make it easy for people to request the removal of search results that contain personal phone number, home address or email – and it's got step number two ready.

Now, the company says it’s “significantly updated and improved” the tool, enabling people to keep track of their personal contact information in Google Search and having Google ping them when it finds anything so they can have it removed.

“In the coming days, we’ll be rolling out a new dashboard that will let you know if web results with your contact information are showing up on Search,” Danielle Romain vice president of Trust at Google, said.

“Then, you can quickly request the removal of those results from Google — right in the tool. We’ll also notify you when new results from the web containing your contact info pop up in Search, to give you added peace of mind.”

How to access the tool

Google says people can access this tool in the Google app by clicking on their Google account photo and selecting “Results about you,” but when ConsumerAffairs tried that method, it was a dead end.

The better method we found was google/resultsaboutyou. ConsumerAffairs also found that the experience on mobile devices is different, too. Google provides a quick animation of what that process looks like, here.

From there, it’s a matter of clicking on the three dots next to the search results you want removed and filling out a simple request form. Google says it’ll take things from there, but with the tool barely out of the box, there’s no word on how long that will take.

What you can and can’t have removed

Google does have a lot of power, but it does have limitations on what it can and can’t remove from search results that contain personal information.

“The contact information displayed on the result has to be your personal, not professional, information,” is the company’s stance. “As Google Search seeks to provide users with useful info, it won’t remove info that’s valuable to the public.”

Personally identifiable information (PII) that people can request to have removed from Google Search results includes:

• Confidential government identification (ID) numbers, like US Social Security Number
• Bank account numbers
• Credit card numbers
• Images of handwritten signatures
• Images of ID docs
• Highly personal, restricted, and official records, like medical records
• Personal contact info (physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses)
• Confidential login credentials

But if you’re listed in an obituary or a directory listing or a post about you from 30 years ago when you streaked the homecoming game, well, sorry, but you might have a problem.

As ConsumerAffairs understands it,  the search results must show your contact info “with an intent to harm you” or must “contain illegal info.”

Google does give that “intent to harm” caveat serious consideration, though. To request to remove professional information that’s been posted with that intent, all one has to do is use the detailed request form. 

Don’t like a social media post you’re in? Not Google’s problem. Nonetheless, if you want anything like that done, the company lists the steps necessary to make that happen.

To request to remove professional information that’s been posted with the intent to harm you, use the detailed request form. 

Families get more protection, too

One of the most daunting problems parents have in sitting their child down in front of a computer is all the who-knows-what that the child could encounter. If the child isn't careful, one mistyped keystroke or domain name version put put all sorts of explicit imagery like violent or adult graphic content right before their very eyes.

Google is updating that safeguard and those types of graphics will now be blurred by default when it appears in Search results. Of course, if you’re big enough to handle such, you can modify the settings SafeSearch blurring setting or turn it off at any time, unless a parent or someone at school has locked the setting.

Romain said the company is also making it easier to find parental controls directly in Search. “Just type in a relevant query like ‘google parental controls’ or ‘Google family link’ and you will see a box with information on how to manage your parental controls,” she instructed.

Vehicle owners reporting problems to federal regulators last month singled out airbags, stalling, steering and acceleration problems, according to a ConsumerAffairs analysis of complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The agency studies consumer complaints as part of its process of asking an automaker to issue a recall. It can be a lengthy process. Here are some of the issues consumers reported:

There were reports that airbags deployed without collision. There were also reported problems with faulty airbag sensors. 

Owners of several models across different brands including GMC, Toyota, Infiniti, Volvo, BMW, and Nissan have reported issues related to airbags, suggesting this is a widespread problem across multiple brands and models, posing safety issues.

 Owners of models from Genesis, Jeep, Chrysler, and Acura reported their vehicles lost power sometimes and would stall. These issues often occur while the vehicle is in motion, leading to a sudden loss of power, steering, and braking capabilities, posing a significant safety risk.

Some Ford, Chevrolet, Volkswagen and Honda owners reported issues related to power steering failure, erratic acceleration, and steering wheel sticking. These issues can also lead to loss of vehicle control, posing a significant safety risk.

Specific complaints

Some brands had more complaints than others. The five brands with the most NHTSA complaints are:

1. Hyundai    43

2. Chrysler    32

3. GMC        15

4. Subaru      11

5. Ram          11

Among Hyundai complaints, the most common safety defect reported is related to the 2017 Sonata, with owners reporting that the vehicle burns oil at a high rate. This issue has led to instances of the vehicle running out of oil before reaching the recommended oil change mileage, posing a significant safety risk. 

In some cases, owners said the vehicle stalled and abruptly stopped in the middle of traffic, nearly causing accidents. The defect has been reported in at least five complaints, indicating a common issue among this specific make, model, and year. The defect may draw NHTSA attention due to the potential for sudden vehicle failure and accidents.

Cracked windshields

The most common complaint among Chrysler owners was stalling while GMC owners reported various airbag issues. Five Subaru owners reported their windshields cracked for no reason.

The most common safety defect reported by Ram owners is the failure of the ABS module and HCU in the 2018 Ram 2500. This issue results in the loss of stability control, antilock braking, cruise control, and trailer braking, making the vehicle unsafe to drive, owners said.

If you have an issue with one of these vehicles or any other one, NHTSA would like to hear from you. Report the problem here.