Last week, the Orange County California district attorney’s office and other DAs settled a consumer lawsuit against Goop – a lifestyle brand and website created by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The suit contended that Goop made health claims for various products but did not have substantiation to back up those claims.

For example, Goop touted “Inner Judge Flower Essence Blend” this way:

You can either mix this stuff in water and drink it, or apply it externally to your body “over the liver.” It supposedly would help you get rid of guilt and shame, replacing those feelings with compassion and forgiveness, so as to prevent a spiral into depression. Oh please. What is this, a psychologist in a bottle?

For this crock of **** and unsubstantiated claims about two other products, Paltrow’s company agreed to pay $145,000 in settlement, without admitting any wrongdoing. So much for the company’s statement of values:

We test the waters so that you don’t have to. We will never recommend something that we don’t love, and think worthy of your time and your wallet. We value your trust above all things.

The case against Goop arose because our friends at TruthinAdvertising.com cited more than 50 unsubstantiated health claims made by Paltrow’s company, and sent them to some of the California DAs.

Here are some of the claims made for other flower essence products previously available on the Goop website. They include products to help “cure”: a broken heart such as from death of a loved one; emotional trauma from divorce, OCD, or bad dreams; infertility; auto-immune conditions; writer’s block; perfectionism, talking too much, etc.

Scroll down the list.

For more about the case against Goop, here is an ABC Nightline story.

Ever on the hunt for a good deal to promote as Consumer World’s “bargain of the week,” MrConsumer electronically thumbed through the Lowe’s Labor Day sale circular late last week. He found a sale on Bosch dishwashers, which usually have very good product reviews from shoppers, and tend to be rated very highly by Consumer Reports. Making the deal even better — almost unbelievable — was the fact that Lowe’s was advertising free installation via a rebate.

Here is part of their Labor Day print circular featuring five Bosch dishwashers as low as $449. And the free installation rebate is smack in the middle of all these models. All the asterisks and other symbols just below the green arrow concerning the rebate shed no light on the actual restrictions.

Taking a closer look at one of the cheapest Bosch models at $449, the Bosch SHE3AR72UC, which grabbed Consumer Reports’ highest rating of any dishwasher (though only lukewarm reviews by Consumer Reports readers), the Lowe’s website provided the following product listing, and noted the availability of two rebates on this model.

When clicking to get the details of the installation rebate, the shopper is presented with a surprising catch:

*MOUSE PRINT:

It said that the rebate only applies to Bosch dishwashers $799 or higher! But the rebate form doesn’t say that. The newspaper circular doesn’t say that. And the big print description of the rebate on the website doesn’t say that.

So we wrote to the PR folks at Lowe’s to ask which was correct: that the rebate offer only applied to dishwasher models $799 or higher, or that it applied to all models listed in the circular, shown on the website, and listed on the rebate form.

Less than 24 hours later, an inconspicuous change was made to the website — they removed the $799 minimum purchase language!

*MOUSE PRINT:

A Lowe’s spokesperson confirmed to Mouse Print* that the promotion in question did not have a minimum purchase threshold and all references to it were removed from their website. The company said that the $799 minimum purchase requirement was never intended to apply to this sale.

Incidentally, in the Boston area, Lowe’s charges $239 for installation. So getting that free is seemingly quite a savings. But, before you run to Lowe’s to buy a Bosch dishwasher because of this great deal, understand that Lowe’s plays by the book in terms of obtaining a local plumbing permit if required by your city or town. In my town, for example, Lowe’s will add a charge of $170 for the permit!!! Since this seemed rather high, MrConsumer contacted the city’s inspectional services department and found out that the actual cost is only $60. Lowe’s is charging an additional $110 for the time it takes a third party contractor to wait in line at city hall, it appears. And Lowe’s says that homeowners CANNOT get the permit on their own to save money. The Lowe’s spokesperson could not get a formal response by publication time as to why the company has such an anti-consumer policy.

In addition, Lowe’s, like other appliance sellers, does not include in the advertised price of the dishwasher the drain pipe, necessary adapters, and the electrical cord. That’s another $50. And haul away is yet $20 more.

So, what started as a great bargain is turning out to be a very expensive proposition unless you do the installation yourself.

This week’s story questions whether a druggist who believes that a patient is not taking their prescription should squeal on them directly to their doctor.

A couple of weeks ago, MrConsumer got an unexpected letter from his primary care physician (PCP). It said:

Say what? My mail order pharmacy, CVS/Caremark, wrote to my PCP to tell her I might not be taking my medications properly, urging her to be in touch with me (hence she sent the letter above).

Here is the fax they sent her:

Apparently, this is what happened. For years, I have been taking simvastatin to help lower cholesterol. I get 90-day prescriptions filled via mail order from Caremark, and the last time I ordered it was January 15th. Sometime shortly after April 15th, when I had not yet reordered it from them, CVS/Caremark took it upon themselves to notify my doctor. In turn, she sent me the above letter expressing concern.

No, MrConsumer is not having a problem taking the drug daily. He simply had several weeks of pills left over since prior prescriptions were received in advance of them actually being needed. We have all experienced the practice of pharmacies telling us way in advance that it is time for a refill when we still have plenty of pills left from the last one.

On one hand, maybe Caremark should be thanked for putting the patient’s health ahead of privacy concerns. But on the other hand, it feels like the company was overreaching, going behind the back of the patient to his PCP to tattle on him, without asking the patient first if he was having a problem. Of course, they did send me refill reminders.

A quick review of CVS/Caremark’s terms and conditions and privacy policy on its website did not reveal any specific disclosure that such contacts would be made. However, in its HIPAA policy, it made this broad disclosure:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Uses and Disclosures of Your PHI for Treatment, Payment and Health Care Operations

We may use and disclose your PHI for treatment, payment and health care operations without your written authorization.

PHI is information about you that we obtain to provide our services to you and that can be used to identify you. It includes your name and contact information, as well as information about your health, medical conditions and prescriptions. It may relate to your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition, the provision or health care products and services to you, or payment for such products or services. [Definition inserted to guide readers.]

The following categories describe and provide some examples of the different ways that may use and disclose your PHI for these purposes:

Treatment: We may use and disclose your PHI to provide and coordinate the treatment, medication and services you receive. For example, we may:

Use and disclose your PHI to provide and coordinate the treatment, medication and services you receive at CVS Health. Disclose your PHI to other third parties, such as pharmacies, doctors, hospitals, or other health care providers to assist them in providing care to you or for care coordination. In some instances, uses and disclosures of your PHI for these purposes may be made through a Health Information Exchange or similar shared system. Contact you to provide treatment-related services, such as refill reminders, adherence communications, or treatment alternatives (e.g., available generic products). [Emphasis added.]

This says that your personal health information, including your prescriptions, can be disclosed to third parties, such as doctors, to assist them in providing care to you. However, it says Caremark may contact YOU, the patient, with “adherence communications.” It doesn’t explicitly say, however, that they can contact your doctor with respect to your staying on your regimen.

Mouse Print* contacted CVS/Caremark to get an explanation of their practice of contacting doctors to report patients who may not be adhering to their prescriptions. Here are excerpts from their response:

Taking medications as prescribed is one of the most important things patients can do to get and stay on their path to better health. Non-adherence to prescribed therapies comes at a significant cost to patients’ health and finances, as well as to the entire health system.

One of the ways we encourage adherence is through our clinical program that reviews members’ prescription refill behavior for maintenance medications, including drugs prescribed to help manage a patient’s cholesterol. Through this program, we send refill reminders and late-to-fill outreach to plan members and engage prescribers when members are past due for refills.

Our adherence outreach program is consistent with HIPAA and our own privacy policy… -Mike DeAngelis, Senior Director, Corporate Communications

I really have mixed feeling about this, as expressed above. What do you think? Do you want your druggist to notify your doctor when you don’t get a timely refill of a maintenance drug?

This week in Consumer World we featured an offer from Discover to get a free copy of your genuine FICO credit score. Before you sign up, however, you may want to check their privacy policy, which might better be described as their “not much privacy” policy.

*MOUSE PRINT:

First, hats off to Discover for finding an easy way to convey a complex privacy policy without pages and pages of dense text.

But that is where the good news ends. Discover clearly says that at least for a “short time” they are going to market their services to you. But they are also going to share much of your information, like name, email, and your online activity with both their own affiliates and with companies they are not affiliated with. And they are going to share your birth date and social security number with companies that service or market their products.

This all made MrConsumer a little uneasy — an unusual feeling for someone who is generally privacy insensitive.

You have to decide if the reward of a free FICO score is worth the price of your personal information being shared with others.

Playing off of Amazon’s wildly successful “Prime Day” last July, Wayfair.com declared its own holiday savings event last week called “Way Day.” In TV ads, they claimed to offer the lowest prices since Black Friday on that day.

To see if “Way Day” was hyping more discounts than they were actually providing, MrConsumer “randomly” chose 10 items from their various merchandise categories the day before Way Day, April 24, so they could be compared to the discounts offered on the same items the following day. We had no idea which items would be on sale and which would not be.

“Way Day” arrived, and here are Wayfair’s prices for the same items during their big sale.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Obviously, only checking 10 items is not a scientific, projectable survey. Nonetheless, the results of this spotcheck are interesting. Half the items were the same price or virtually the same price on “Way Day” compared to the day before. For example, the Price Pfister faucet was $82.86 on Way Day compared to $82.99 the day before. The GE dishwasher, however, didn’t even budge a penny from its $803 price.

But there were significant savings on some of the other five items. The pair of lamps dropped from $75 to $60.99. The rug went $277.99 down to $182.06. But the barbecue grill was only $6 less.

In total, the 10 items in our cart were selling for $1923.69 the day before the sale, but dropped to $1773.90 — for a “Way Day” savings total of $150.

So it looks like if one picked and chose carefully on “Way Day” and were familiar with Wayfair’s everyday prices, you could save some real bucks. Otherwise the savings might have only been slim or none.