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Do Verizon and AT&T Only Offer 55+ Discount Cell Plans in Florida?

In a surprising new T-Mobile advertising campaign, the “Un-carrier” claims that unlike its own discounted age 55+ cell plan that is available to seniors across the country, the ones offered by Verizon and AT&T are only for Florida residents.

T-Mobile 55+

Their ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek website tells seniors in the other 49 states the three ways to get a 55+ discount cell plan:

T-Mobile florida

All kidding aside, is it really true that Verizon and AT&T don’t offer discounted 55+ plans for seniors except those living in Florida?

*MOUSE PRINT:

Yep! Here is the Verizon’s 55+ plan for Florida seniors:

Verizon 55+ Florida

And AT&T’s 55+ plan is also only for Florida residents:

AT&T 55+ plan

So, it looks like T-Mobile is rightfully calling out its competitors for shortchanging seniors on their discount plans.

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Is Quaker Lower Sugar Oatmeal Really Lower in Sugar?

Alan B. recently wrote to us saying that Quaker Oats was promoting its lower sugar variety of instant oatmeal as having a 33% reduction in sugar. He suggested this was a bit of smoke and mirrors because while the ingredients were the same, the packets of the lower sugar version were simply about one-third less in weight than the regular version, so of course they are lower in total sugar.

Quaker Regular vs Lower Sugar

So, we launched a massive investigation to see if there was an actual reduction in sugar or if it was just a packaging trick.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Quaker comparison

The regular version had 11 grams of sugar per packet, while the lower sugar one had only four grams. But because the packets are different sizes, we have to look at the percentage of sugar in each. The regular version is 26% sugar and the lower-cal version is only 13% sugar. If the lower sugar version packet was the same size as the regular one, its sugar content would be 5.5 grams – exactly half the amount in the higher sugar version.

So you really are getting a product with significantly less sugar. And despite our reader’s assertion that the ingredients are the same, they are not.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Quaker ingredients

Since ingredients are listed in the order of predominance, there are actually more apples in the lower sugar version than sugar.

So Quaker appears to be under representing the reduction in sugar on the box. The lower sugar version has 50% less sugar, not the 35% claimed.

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Shopper Sues Target for Overcharging

An Ohio consumer was traveling in Illinois, and on August 2 he bought some groceries at a local Target store only to discover after he checked out that he was overcharged for two boxes of Ritz crackers. Instead of them being rung up at the $3.49 shelf price he was charged $3.79.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Target Overcharge

This must have been his lucky day because he found an Illinois lawyer who exactly one week later filed a class action lawsuit against Target.

The suit alleges overcharging by the company, misrepresentation, and unfair or deceptive business practices not just in Illinois but at its stores nationwide. To support this claim, the lawyer had done his own little survey in a handful of other states and found that checkout prices were higher than the shelf prices for a number of items, mostly groceries.

This case follows our reporting (see story) in March of an extensive investigation of Target by seven district attorneys in California for not only overcharging some customers at the checkout, but also advertising a lower price online than the consumer could obtain in the store. In that case, Target was fined $5-mil.

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