Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Order Your EpiPens From Canada

One solution that some families have used in response to the soaring cost of Mylan’s EpiPen, an essential product for people with life-threatening allergies, is to order the product from a cheaper pharmacy in Canada instead. While this might appear to be a solid plan, the problem is that “Canadian” pharmacies aren’t always necessarily what they claim to be online.

Real-life pharmacies in Canada aren’t the problem. Where consumers can encounter problems are online pharmacies that claim to be legit retailers in Canada or in another country with standards and laws comparable to the United States, but they aren’t. The problem with an emergency product like the EpiPen is that you won’t know that the product is counterfeit or compromised until it’s too late.

Our colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports discussed this problem with the executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, and learned that the NABP has conducted its own research on legit-seeming online pharmacies, finding that only 4% of sites that the organization reviewed were operating using U.S. standards.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Government Accountability Office have studied online pharmacies pretending to be legitimate foreign drugstores, and received medications that didn’t contain the stated dosages or that were contaminated with other substances.

There are legitimate online pharmacies and online outlets of existing pharmacies. What you should look for are sites that use the top-level domain “.pharmacy,” which means that the NABP has approved them, or membership in the NABP’s voluntary Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program.

As for the EpiPen, you have other options too: there’s a patient assistance program for patients without insurance coverage for the device, and the drug maker has a copay coupon program to lower the cost even for patients who do have coverage. These programs have their limits, though: patients on Medicaid, Medicare, or whose health insurance comes through the military aren’t eligible.

Other options include Mylan’s forthcoming generic version of the drug and the Adrenaclick, a competing epinephrine auto-injector that lacks the brand recognition of EpiPen but works in the same way.

Don’t Order EpiPens From Canada [Consumer Reports]

Kimpton Confirms Credit Card Info Stolen From More Than 60 Hotels

In July, boutique hotel chain Kimpton revealed it was investigating indications that its credit card payment system had possibly been the latest to fall victim to a data breach. Now the company has confirmed the bad news, announcing that the payment terminals at dozens of Kimpton hotels, restaurants and bars were compromised for nearly six months.

In an announcement posted on the Kimpton website yesterday, the San Francisco-based company writes that it first learned in mid-July of a series of unauthorized credit card charges on accounts belonging to people who had stayed at Kimpton hotels in recent months.

The subsequent investigation confirmed that cybercriminals had installed malware on servers that processed payment cards used at the restaurants and front desks of more than 60 Kimpton hotels. The company has provided a full list of affected properties here, along with the dates during which each location’s payment systems were compromised.

The breach appears to have begun in Feb. 2016. In some locations, particularly restaurants and bars, the problem lasted as briefly as a few weeks, while a number of hotels were affected by the breach for up to five months.

According to Kimpton, the malware collected card numbers, expiration date, and internal verification codes. The cardholder’s name may also have been compromised, in a “small number of instances.”

Kimpton says that customers who used their cards during the relevant dates, and for whom the company has contact info, will soon receive written notification of the incident.

As KrebsOnSecurity.com — the site that first broke the news about Kimpton — correctly points out, you have no liability for fraudulent transactions on your credit cards, so long as you alert your card issuer to the questionable transaction within a reasonable window of time.

Survey Says: Most Netflix Customers Would Be Willing To Pay More For The Service

Despite any grumbling customers might have done amid Netflix’s recent price hike, a new survey shows that the company could probably raise rates again and most customers would be fine with paying more.

A new survey from Digitalsmiths of 3,114 adults in the U.S. and Canada found that 21% of Netflix customers would pay $16 or more per month for the streaming service, Variety reports (h/t DSLReports.com).

Here’s how that breaks down:
• 8.4% were willing to pay $16-$19 per month
• 6.5% would pay between $20-$23
• 3% are cool with paying $24-$27
• 1.7% could go as high as $28-$31
• 1.4% got super crazy and said they’d be fine paying $32 or more

Another 39.1% didn’t go that high, but still said they’d fork over more cash than they do now and pay anywhere from $12 to $15 monthly. Netflix packages currently start at $10 per month.

There’s a limit to customers’ love, however: 29.3% of respondents said they wouldn’t be willing to pay a penny more than they do right now. The last 10.6% or so just didn’t answer.

This could mean Netflix has wiggle room to raise rates in the future, though it probably won’t risk doing so very soon, considering some of the customer reactions over the last price hike: as Variety notes, at least one ticked off Netflix customer is suing the company over the the price increase, claiming he was promised a lifetime guarantee that rates wouldn’t go up.

Could Netflix Raise Prices Even Higher? 21% of Users Would Pay $16 or More Per Month [Variety]

Feds Say Landlords Offering Reduced Rent For Sex, Evicted Tenants When They Refused

Tenants of homes owned by a pair of St. Louis landlords say the weren’t just subjected to inappropriate sexual comments, but that one landlord also offered to look the other way on the rent if tenants would sleep with him. When the renters refused these advances, they claim the landlords tried to throw them out on the streets.

Some tenants eventually filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the subsequent investigation found sufficient evidence to move forward with a discrimination action against the landlords.

Yesterday the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a federal civil action [PDF] against the landlords, accusing them of violating the Fair Housing Act by sexually harassing, and then retaliating against, female tenants.

The landlords live across the river in Illinois but run at least four rental properties in St. Louis. One former tenant claims that her brief tenure in one of their units was marked by repeated harassment.

According to the complaint, this unacceptable behavior ranged from the landlords pressing her for personal information about her sexual preferences: “whether she had a boyfriend, how she engaged in sex with her girlfriend, whether she and her girlfriend engaged in threesomes, and whether she and her girlfriend would engage in a threesome with [the landlord].”

The tenant says this landlord attempted to touch her breasts, and offered to forgive or reduce the rent if she would engage in sexual acts with him.

The landlords are also accused of repeatedly watching this tenant from outside her home without any legitimate business purpose.

After four months of this alleged harassment, the tenant says the landlords refused to accept her rent check. They claimed she had violated the lease through excessive noise and gambling, and then filed eviction papers alleging non-payment of rent.

She’s not alone, notes the complaint, citing claims from multiple tenants who also say they were offered rent discounts in exchange for sex, along with similar allegations of unwanted touching, inappropriate questions, and one landlord making “gestures indicating his sexual arousal.”

The DOJ says the one landlord “initiated eviction proceedings against female tenants in an attempt to coerce tenants to grant him sexual favors and in retaliation for refusing his sexual advances.”

While the suit is being brought by the government and not the tenants, it could still ultimately provide monetary damages to compensate the alleged victims. The DOJ is also seeking civil penalties and a court order barring future discrimination.

“Unwanted sexual advances or harassment make it impossible for a woman to feel safe in her home,” said Gustavo F. Velasquez, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

Tim Cook: EU’s Ruling On Back Taxes Apple Owes Ireland Is “Total Political Crap”

After the European Union antitrust commissioner announced earlier this week that Apple received preferential treatment in terms of taxes and owes Ireland €13 billion or so for 10 years’ worth of back tax, Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling the whole thing “total political crap.”

Apple has already said it will appeal the ruling, a process that could take years, but Cook is ready to talk about it all right now, saying he’d “love” to see Ireland’s government launch an appeal as well.

“No one did anything wrong here and we need to stand together. Ireland is being picked on and this is unacceptable,” Cook told The Irish Independent.

“It’s total political crap,” he added of the assertion by European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager that Apple paid just 0.005% tax in Ireland in 2014. “They just picked a number from I don’t know where. In the year that the Commission says we paid that tax figure, we actually paid $400 million. We believe that makes us the highest taxpayer in Ireland that year.”

Vestager disagrees with Cook, saying the back tax amount was calculated based on data provided by Apple itself, and evidence presented during hearings on Apple’s tax issues in the U.S.

When asked if she accepted Cook’s comments, she told a news conference, “ “No, I will not. This is a decision based on the facts of the case,” Reuters reports.

Sides are being chosen bot here in the U.S. and in Europe: France’s Finance Minister Michel Sapin has landed on Vestager’s side, agreeing that Apple’s Irish tax arrangements could be seen as abnormal state aid.

“The European Commission is doing its job,” he told a news conference. “It’s normal to make Apple pay normal taxes.”

Germany’s economy minister also sided with the Commission, but Britain (which voted to exit the EU in June) is staying out of it, saying it’s an issue between the EU, Apple, and Ireland.

‘No one did anything wrong here and Ireland is being picked on… It is total political crap’ – Apple chief Tim Cook [The Irish Independent]
EU ruling on Apple’s Irish tax is ‘total political crap’: CEO [Reuters]

Sports Authority Bankruptcy Judge Approves Bonus Plan After All

You may remember the news from earlier this month when the bankruptcy court judge handling the case of defunct retailer Sports Authority denied the company’s request to pay a total of $2.85 million in bonuses to remaining executives. The company proposed a much smaller package for fewer executives, and apparently explained the purpose better this time, since the judge approved the package this time.

In defending the payments, the defunct retailer explained that they are meant as incentives for a few company leaders to stay on and wind down its affairs. They won’t get the money if they accept another job and take off before Sports Authority is finally dead, for example, or if they fail to meet certain performance requirements.

Yet the Denver Post reports that the federal bankruptcy trustee assigned to the case calls the money set aside for executives unfair when the company’s suppliers will probably end up getting shortchanged. The remaining executives will receive bonuses for doing their jobs, pointed out the trustee’s attorney.

There are still a few hundred people working to shut things down at Sports Authority, but only three of them would be eligible for bonuses, with $1.5 million set aside for that purpose. The identities of those executives have been kept sealed, likely for their own safety after the retailer’s demise meant that 14,000 people lost their jobs.

The judge finally agreed with the company about the purpose of the incentive payments: to keep senior managers on the job until the end, when negotiations about the large amounts of money that the company took in during its liquidation sale will take place, and to make sure that they get fair deals that get at least some money back for lenders.

The retailer’s demise was especially difficult for suppliers that sold their merchandise on consignment, and will receive only a small share of the price that these items sold for at going-out-of-business sales.

Sports Authority execs win fight to collect bonuses after bankruptcy [Denver Post]

JetBlue Puts Kids On Wrong Planes In Unaccompanied Minor Switcheroo

It sounds like a classic movie switcheroo, but it’s one that gave the families of two five-year-old boys a bit of a real-life scare: JetBlue apparently confused the children, putting a boy who was supposed to go New York City on a flight to Boston, and a boy meant for Boston on a plane to New York City.

The NYC mom flew to the Dominican Republic on July 28 with her five-year-old son, returning to the U.S. after a week and leaving her child with relatives. She bought a return ticket for him for Aug. 17 and paid JetBlue’s $100 unaccompanied minor fee so someone would escort him onto his plane, reports the New York Daily News.

So imagine her surprise when a boy who was not her son was trotted up to her and presented as such.

“No, this is not my child,” she recalled telling JetBlue employees of the boy who was carrying her son’s passport.

Port Authority police in New York questioned the boy who’d arrived at JFK, while JetBlue tracked down the boy who was supposed to be there instead. But in the three hours it took to locate him, his mom said she lost her mind, and thought he was kidnapped.

“I was freaking out,” she told the Daily News. “I didn’t know if he was alive. I still haven’t stopped crying.”

JetBlue eventually found him in Boston and he was placed on the next flight to JFK, while the other boy also made his way back home. The airline didn’t explain how the switcheroo happened, despite the fact that the New York boy’s mom said he was wearing a wristband with his name on it.

“Two unaccompanied children of the same age traveling separately from Santiago, Dominican Republic, one to New York JFK and one to Boston — each boarded a flight to the incorrect destination,” JetBlue said in a statement. “Upon learning of the error, our teams in JFK and Boston immediately took steps to assist the children in reaching their correct destinations. While the children were always under the care and supervision of JetBlue crew members, we realize this situation was distressing for their families.”

The NYC boy’s mom said she never received any explanation or an apology, but JetBlue did refund her $475 for the flight and gave the family $2,100 in credit for future flights. She says the airline shouldn’t have bothered, since she will never fly on it again. She’s also hired a lawyer to take legal action against JetBlue.

“Any parent can understand the terrifying fear a mother goes through knowing that her child is missing,” her attorney told the paper. “This never should have happened and the JetBlue employees should be ashamed of themselves.”

EXCLUSIVE: JetBlue puts child on wrong flight, sends him to Boston as horrified mom waits at JFK; ‘I thought he was kidnapped’ [New York Daily News]