| Volume 95 Number 3 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Extended warranties, or service contracts, are usually not a good buy or even necessary. Stores make a large profit selling these contracts and often pressure consumers into buying them. Take your time and think carefully before you buy an expensive item that you don't even need.
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Hotel Chains Face Security Breach
As Target continues to try to win back customers after a massive data breach exposed sensitive personal and credit card information, Marriott and other hotel chains are just now starting to deal with a similar problem.
Brian Krebs, a security researcher who first reported on the Target breach, elaborated on the problem. According to Krebs, White Lodging, a company that maintains databases for Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, and other popular hotels, suffered a breach that exposed guests' credit card information. However, unlike the Target breach, the White Lodging breach appears to only affect hotels in select cities. Hundreds of the cards used at those locations have already been identified with fraudulent activity.
Did you stay at a Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, or other brand name property in 2013? Could your credit card information have been exposed?
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Chips to Replace Swipe & Sign Credit Cards
Believe it or not, credit card theft isn't as big of a problem in the rest of the world as it is in the United States. That's because unlike the "swipe and sign" cards used in the States, other countries are using chip based cards with an associated pin code. As a result, it's much more difficult to clone the cards for fraudulent use. Currently, the United States makes up half of the world's credit card fraud and is the last remaining major market to use the "swipe and sign" method of payment.
With the recent string of massive security breaches exposing sensitive consumer credit information, pressure is being lobbied by the government and the public against the credit card companies to make the switch.
MasterCard and Visa already have plans to unveil chip-based credit cards in October 2015.
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CVS to Stop Selling Cigarettes
Starting October 1, CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the United States, will stop selling cigarettes. The sale of cigarettes currently accounts for $2 billion of the company's sales. The move will make CVS the first national drugstore to stop selling cigarettes, marking a dramatic shift in direction of the company. According the CVS executives, cigarettes, which have significant health consequences, have no place in a facility that delivers health care products. Under it's reasoning, CVS operates to help treat many conditions that are only made worse by smoking.
Will other drug stores follow the lead of CVS?
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Your Money
How much life insurance do you need?
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For the Lawyers
Law school tuition not paid for personal, family or household purpose was primarily for the purpose of operating a business.
The Sixth circuit held that the Michigan Consumer Protection Act did not apply to law school graduates action against law school. The court relied on the students’ complaint that stated they intended to use their law degrees to better themselves, “through the attainment of full-time employment in the legal sector.”
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