Reports by Consumers

Speaking on behalf of consumers, Gene Kimmelman, policy director at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, has been quoted as saying that the merger "will lead to the end of the era of falling prices for telephone and cellphone service." In addition, fees for Internet service may rise, particularly in areas with limited high-speed choices and perhaps with the introduction of a "tiered" system of fees for content providers (as discussed above), probably ultimately passed on to consumers.

Someone I work with just recently found out she's pregnant. She's 18. She is neither emotionally or financially ready, and she just bought a $27,000 car. Meanwhile she seems to barely pay her rent. Situations like this baffle me. Even more shocking is when she said she would try to get as many credit cards as she could to build credit. It doesn't take a scholar or financial guru to realize she's going to land herself in a deep hole. Sadly, too many people are like this.

Of course it doesn’t help that I’ve been getting stuff in the mail addressed to me saying things like “On your next birthday, why not give the gift to your family and buy life insurance” or the one asking me to join AARP! giggle. Ok it’s kind of funny. Somewhere there is a hugs place that does nothing but track people’s 50th birthdays and sells the info to places like those, so I can get stuff like that.

Renewable resources are a help, but only a stopgap measure in the mid-term. We cannot jump to renewable resources to power cars right away because there simply isn't enough of it to make it happen. That's where the conservation comes in. Having a sensible conservation effort includes improving gas mileage on cars.

Imagine going through a tramatic period in yout life and turning to a service which you thought was confidential, only to find your personal data and details of your personal crisis being stolen on a tiny disk. That data could be used against you either through identity theft, blackmail, or even just suddenly appear on a website somewhere.

Did you know that your friendly refrigerator has a voracious energy appetite? It is, by far, the single biggest consumer of electricity in the average household, responsible for 10-15 percent of the electricity you use each month. Older refrigerators, as a rule, are far less efficient than the newest ones – as much as 50 percent more efficient in many cases. But buying a brand-new, energy-efficient refrigerator is almost certainly not in the cards for most of us. Fortunately, other things will help. Don’t set the thermostat too high. Even 1 degree will make a big difference. If your refrigerator is near a heating vent, or always in the sun, then change the location, cover up the heat vent near it or drape the window.

So, in a world where the US faces over $67 Billion in cybercrime and $52 Billion in identity theft, the US is budgeting $265 Million to the Justice Department for cybercrime while total US spending for fighting the "war on drugs" totalled over $6 Billion.

I recently read an article in the Washington Post discussing, an issue facing many individuals today, credit cards. The article describes a birthday party in which the guest of honor recieved, at age 11 no less, a prepaid credit card. Understandably the author and her husband, denied their young daughter’s request for a credit card of her own. When the author goes on to state that it is equally as irresponsible to give a credit card to a high school or college aged young adult that I begin to question her rationale. It got me to thinking about what constitutes a sound financial upbringing.

She was young and in her late twenties when I was her student. She was a strong advocate of pro-environmentalism. A lot of the things our class used to develop our creativity, our tactile, and counting skills were from reuseable or recycled everyday household products such as butter containers, various lids of cream cheese or yogurt lids, newspapers, milk cartons from the cafeteria, etc. And Earth Day was the best when it was approaching. Even in months prior to Earth Day she encouraged us to become more conscious of the products we used or how much electricity we consumed in our households.

The one gaping hole I note, and you can drive a train through it, is that they don’t make any real effort to address how many passwords and PINs we need to maintain. Consider how many different systems you log in to from home.Especially if you pay bills online. Ten? Twenty? More? Now think about work. How many more? Identity management is a hot topic, and for good reason.

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit www.ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

In the April 2006 issue of Consumer Reports magazine, they reproted for the first time in the magazines history the top 10 automobiles were all made by japanese companies.

A few weeks ago, a company called Pulsar Advanced Technologies announced that they had developed a microwave-powered tankless hot water heater. The idea is an intriguing one: rather than maintaining and heating a 50-gallon tank of water 24/7, simply replace the tank and heater with a microwave-powered unit. When the unit detects a pressure drop, it powers up the magnetron and rapidly pumps microwaves into the passing water.

Joe sat in his small office chair with a very tiny window that barely permitted the afternoon sunlight from warming his office on this cold wet April Spring day. He lived not far from the Consumers Union complex, a few miles east, outside the Yonkers, New York, city limits, but his ride in today was particularly uncomfortable when his boss called him on the cell phone and advised that he would be meeting with the woman who at that moment sat across from him. She was more gorgeous and more striking than even her best photos. She wore a leather bomber jacket over a white tank top, flowered skirt, and rhinestoned cowboy boots. Her legs were crossed, her foot air tapping, and she was chewing gum. Normally gum dumbed-down a beautiful woman, but not Naomi Campbell. Her long hair, clean look, and very sparkly eyes clearly reflected a very healthy lifestyle, and the gum chewing accentuated her large lips. Or so Joe was thinking when Naomi interrupted his reverie.

A brief article on Sustainable Review reports that a recently signed law will now award tax credits to American households with tankless water heaters. The credit award can reach amounts up to $300.

Having just turned two years old, my Nikon D70 camera now seems to be suffering from the affliction known to other Nikon D70 owners as BGLoD - the Blinking Green Light of Death. Apparently, early model D70’s suffer from a problem which, although known to Nikon, hasn’t caused them to issue a product recall notice (as they did with dodgy batteries).

There are certain household products (like my coffee maker) that tend to have a long service life. So, when it comes time to replace them, you're not likely to find one just like the one you had. There will be all sorts of new bells and whistles (timers, digital clocks, RFID, and god knows what).

Joel P. Bruckenstein at Morningstar wrote an excellent article on what Fidelity are doing with their Fidelity Labs initiative. I’d encourage you to read it but in a nutshell, they have taken inspiration from Google Labs to set up a unit that experiments with applying new technologies to their core business of distributing retail financial products and services.