California home sellers getting piece of $62M Opendoor settlement
Nearly 2,500 homeowners in California who sold their homes to Opendoor Labs are getting payments from a $62 million settlement after the FTC found they were deceived by the company's marketing claims.
The Federal Trade Commission's online settlement tracker shows California home sellers are getting a median refund of $1,553 after the company “tricked them into thinking that they could make more money selling their home to Opendoor than on the open market.”
An FTC investigation found that home sellers who used Opendoor actually lost money.
“In reality, most people who sold to Opendoor made thousands of dollars less than they would have made selling their homes using the traditional process, and many paid more in costs than what sellers typically pay,” the FTC said in a statement Wednesday.
The FTC complaint said Opendoor charts marketed to prospective sellers “almost always showed that consumers would make thousands of dollars more by selling to Opendoor.” Instead, sellers spent thousands more on service fees and their home's market value often “included downward adjustments.”
The premise of Opendoor's marketing was that homeowners could skip the costs of fixing, listing and showing a home by selling it to Opendoor using an online app instead. The owner would get a cash offer after the company determined the home's value using its own algorithm. The price would go down after Opendoor evaluated repairs and
service fees.
Minneapolis Fed official floats idea of no rate cuts
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said interest rate cuts may not be needed this year if progress on inflation stalls, especially if the economy remains robust.
Kashkari was among more than half a dozen Fed officials speaking Thursday in moderated discussions or speeches. Others included Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and St. Louis'
Alberto Musalem.
The wave of commentary from officials follows remarks by Chair Jerome Powell just a day earlier. Powell emphasized the Fed has time to assess incoming data before reducing rates, signaling policymakers are willing to wait for clearer signs of lower inflation to act.
It's not yet clear whether the pickup in key price gauges at the start of 2024 is a temporary blip on the path to the central bank's 2% inflation goal or a sign that progress has stalled.
In projections released after the Fed's March meeting, officials penciled in three rate cuts this year — but just narrowly. Nine of 19 officials anticipate two or fewer reductions.
Black & Decker clothing steamer recall expands
About 2 million Black & Deckerbranded clothing steamers are now under recall after consumers reported dozens of burn injuries that resulted from hot water spewing out of the devices.
Empower Brands is significantly expanding a previously announced recall of Black & Decker Model HGS011 Easy Garment Steamers, according to a notice posted Thursday by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Nearly 520,000 of these steamers were recalled back in November 2022. At the time, a repair remedy was offered — but there have been continued reports of burn injuries involving the repaired units since, the CPSC said. Empower Brands now is recalling an additional 1.6 million steamers to cover all units of the model, including those that were previously repaired, and offering full refunds instead.
The recalled steamers can spray or leak out hot water during use, posing burn hazards, the CPSC said.
To date, Empower Brands has received 317 reports of hot water expelling from the steamers, resulting in 82 burn injury reports, seven of which were second-degree burns. Ninety-four of these incidents —including 19 of the burn injuries — involved repaired units or models that had an updated design, the CPSC said.
Consumers are instructed to stop using the impacted steamers immediately and contact Empower Brands, a subsidiary of Middleton, Wisconsin-based Spectrum Brands Inc., for a full refund.
To do so, use one of the following:
Website: prodprotect.com/recall
Email: hgsrecall@brandprotectplus.com
Phone: 800-990-5298