Consumers Group Consumer Protection

Gabriella V asked:


My daughter hurt her knee, could not walk. As it was Sunday we went to the emergency room. We told she has no health insurance yet (just moved here) and asked in advance - repeatedly - how much will it cost. We did not get a straight answer. The doctor took some questions, took her temperature, then gave her a brace ($40 value) and let us go. Her knee got better on its own after a week of suffering.
Some days later we got a bill of $290, which I found outrageous, but what can we do? Begun to negotiate with them about a monthly payment. (By then she had a job and health insurance as well). a week later we got a second bill almost $300 dollars; called in that we already have an agreement, they said this is a different bill! $600 for basically nothing. Is there a consumer protection authority to turn to?

Roberta

Jill asked:


Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says scrutiny of racial and ethnic profiling by incoming President Barack Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will not deter his get-tough approach to illegal immigration.

“I’m not stopping,” said Arpaio. The Republican sheriff said he plans to continue crime sweeps and raids aimed at illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them.

The Obama administration and Holder are expected to increase the focus on racial and ethnic profiling by police. Critics of Arpaio’s immigration enforcement argue the sheriff’s office targets Hispanics and such actions take away from more serious investigations.

Arpaio said his immigration sweeps are nondiscriminatory and if people have complaints they can contact federal authorities. “Go ahead and take them to the FBI,” said Arpaio, who just won reelection to a fifth term.

Arpaio said another immigration sweep will soon occur.

The U.S. Justice Department under Obama is expected to put a greater focus on discrimination, corporate corruption and consumer protection cases compared with the Bush administration’s priorities in national security, child pornography, *** rings and immigration.

Public opinion polls generally show support in Maricopa County for Arpaio’s get-tough policies.

There are an estimated 579,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, most coming from Mexico, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. The U.S. recession and housing troubles have reduced the flow of migrants and sent some undocumented workers back to that country.

Arizona also is a key entry point into the U.S. for drug traffickers and other smugglers as northern Mexico cities are besieged by drug cartels, which reach into the Phoenix area with gun purchases and other activity.

Herman

K_Alejandro asked:


I was surprised to notice that this website:

http://www.elevayta.net/fghdjertjy.php?

requires that you pay a 90 cent bandwidth fee for downloading a rather small program.

Now I’m no internet expert, but I have a tremendous amount of disbelief towards the idea of something that small costing that much in bandwidth unless the company is running off of a cellphone on a 3G network on a plan that still charges for bandwidth.

Far more likely would be that this company is running off of a rather decent server…

What tweaked my curiosity regarding the legality though is the fact that this specifically mentions that this charge is specifically for bandwidth costs.

From what I learned in school, this would be illegal in Canada on the terms of the Consumer Protection Act since it is illegal to charge far more for something than it is actually worth.

yeah it is also greedy and lame, but how wrong am I regarding the legality?

Charlie

StripedLife asked:


On August 29, 2005 my home and belongings washed away in the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. Prior to the storm I had financed a computer purchase through Dell. This computer was destroyed in the storm. I now have a collection agency threatening legal action to collect for the balance of the computer plus about 2000.00 in finance charges and late fees. My federal flood insurance proceeds did not include any contents coverage at all, only structure damage and loss. I have been told by several people that items lost in natural disasters are exempt from collection action as stated by the Fair Trade Consumer Protection Act. However, I can’t find information on this particular issue anywhere. Can anyone help me, provide assistance, or guidance? I have been all over the FTC website to no avail. Thank you!

Clarence

Reggie asked:


We experienced errors with the disc reader, contacted the warranty company, shipped it back(the body was not damaged–just the disc reader was defective). It took them over two weeks to finally call and say ‘ it was tampered with” then said”the body was damaged”–the only problem the WII had was the disc reader. We have been going around in circles with Target guest services on this. Today they called and said they would not honor the warranty. We are trusting folks and didn’t think we needed to photograph the unit–we should have. I will be pursuing this with Michigan’s Consumer Protection Department as well as with Target President Gregg Steinhafel I just need to know has anyone else had warranty problems with either Target or their electronics warranty company? Need some help or advice.

Jennifer