Samsung’s sour Note and scams by text: The Marketplace consumer cheat sheet
Have you had a busy week? Don’t worry. CBC’s Marketplace rounds up the consumer and health news you need.
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Noteworthy
Here’s a flame-retardant box to return your defective phone. (YouTube.com/xdadevelopers)
The Galaxy Note 7 was the hottest Android phone on the market. Now, they’re all being shipped back to Samsung in flame-retardant boxes.
If you’re behind on the whole phones-catching-fire thing, here’s what’s going on. Smartphone users are usually loyal to their brand, but the whole debacle means some might walk.
Total recall
Loyalty and points programs work by keeping track of your purchases. This can have an unexpected benefit: it means stores can alert you when a product you bought has been recalled.
Whether you find that convenient or creepy is up to you.
Scam alert: Delete these texts
Delete this text. (Dennis Cleary/CBC)
Watch out for this texting scam that exploits bank delays to pass counterfeit cheques, leaving victims out thousands of dollars. One 19-year-old Montreal student who got scammed for $4,000.
So, when you get a text offering to pay you $300 a week to wrap your car in advertising, it’s best to ignore it.
Hey, sugar
Would a sugar tax make you think twice? (Seth Perlman/Associated Press)
We know sugar is bad for us, but do we need a tax on pop to stop the cravings?
A World Health Organization report says yes. It suggests a 20 per cent tax on sugary drinks would result in lower rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes and tooth decay. The lobbying group for the Canadian soft drink industry respectfully disagrees.
And in other news…
Poisonous “death cap” mushrooms are spreading in Vancouver, Victoria and B.C.’s Fraser Valley. A three-year-old boy in Victoria died after eating one.
Toyota is recalling about 3,000 2016 and 2017 Prius hybrids in Canada because of faulty brakes.
One man nearly died in a motorcycle crash, and then almost went broke because of the resulting medical bills. Had the crash occurred 12 hours earlier, before insurance rules changed, he would have been entitled to more than twice the compensation he received.
On TV: Get satisfaction from customer service
Canadians pay some of the highest prices in the world for cellphone service. But when we have a problem, customer service can sometimes give us the runaround.
We talked to insiders about how to really get your cellphone problems fixed. Really.
Watch it on TV this weekend or online now.