Consumer Protection

Orange County should give itself an F for the way it informs the public about health conditions in restaurants, according to a grand jury report released Thursday. Most residents are "in the dark" about whether a trip to a restaurant will result in a memorable meal or a stay at the hospital. The report's recommendation: Follow Los Angeles County's example by implementing a grading system that assigns each restaurant an A, B or C. "Studies . . .

"Recent substantial increases in the price of crude oil and other commodities have put considerable strain on American families, farmers and businesses," said Walter Lukken, acting commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "We share public concerns about the need for the utmost transparency and integrity in the energy futures markets." It's a time-honored Washington ritual. When the price of oil goes up, so does the blood pressure of politicians.

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown told CVS pharmacies Thursday to stop selling expired products, including baby food and over-the-counter medications, that he said investigators found recently in the chain's stores in Southern California. Brown took the step after investigators found 48 expired products on the shelves of 26 CVS stores in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties in March, he said in a statement. In some cases, the "sell by" dates were covered with price tags or other store stickers, the statement said.

EBay Inc. is expanding the protections available to people who use its PayPal payment service for transactions on EBay's Internet marketplaces. EBay executives said buyers who pay for items with PayPal would be eligible for full refunds if a seller failed to deliver an item. Previously a buyer's coverage was capped at $200, or $2,000 if the item's seller enjoyed a good reputation on San Jose-based EBay. EBay sellers who accept PayPal as a payment method -- as nearly all of them do -- will also get unlimited protection against a charge being reversed.

When Jody Costello and her husband, Don, set out to add 700 square feet to their San Diego hillside home, they thought they knew what they were doing. They made sure their contractor was licensed with the state and that no complaints were filed against him. They checked his references. They even went to his job sites. But they slipped up when they forked over nearly a third of the job cost upfront.

When Pierre Omidyar founded the EBay auction website in 1995, he built it around a simple core value: "People are basically good." Ah, the good old days. Although most transactions come off without a hitch, anyone who regularly uses EBay knows that fraud is a danger on a site that depends to a great extent on trust, both for buyers and sellers.

A congressional committee wants the nation's largest telecommunications and Internet companies to explain whether they target online advertising based on consumers' search queries and Web surfing habits. In an expanding inquiry into the state of consumer privacy on the Internet, House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders sent letters Friday to more than 30 companies, demanding to know whether they track where their users go online and use that data to deliver personalized advertising.

Consumer groups are asking the Federal Trade Commission to protect shoppers from losing money on gift cards when retailers file for bankruptcy protection. The agency should require merchants to segregate funds from gift card sales in a trust account and to honor the cards if the stores are open unless a bankruptcy court orders otherwise, said the petition from Consumers Union, Consumers Federation of America, National Consumer Law Center and the advocacy group U.S. PIRG.

These are perilous times for customers of airlines, cruise lines and tour companies that may be financially wobbly. When Aloha Airlines, ATA and GrandLuxe Rail Journeys this year stopped operations, thousands of travelers were stranded -- and collectively lost millions of dollars. Although still rare, industry bankruptcies are growing in a tough economy that has driven Americans to cut back on travel. How do you protect yourself? The single best step is to pay with a credit card.

You've got to love the banking industry. As our friends in the financial sector were passing the hat among taxpayers last week for $700 billion in bailouts to cover their crappy mortgage investments, they were simultaneously condemning the House of Representatives' passage of a "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights," which aims to crack down on some of the industry's more troublesome practices.