Complaints

The Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland is warning that Commerce Energy representatives are using "strong-arm tactics" when going door-to-door selling residential electric services in some neighborhoods. "According to complaints, sales representatives visit the same house repeatedly even after being asked to leave, not solicit, not come back or even when told the resident is ill," the BBB said Thursday in a release. The group suggests consumers screen solicitors at their front doors.

The Justice Department's secret review of Associated Press telephone records gives advocates for federal employees one more reason to doubt the Obama administration's full commitment to protecting whistleblowers, particularly those in national security agencies. Revelations about the department's broad prying into the work, home and mobile phone records of AP journalists in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn., sent a chill through news organizations. Perhaps that was the point.

A New Jersey doctor accused of crossing into Maryland to perform late-term abortions denied many of the allegations against him Tuesday and asked that a complaint against him be dismissed. The complaint by the New Jersey Attorney General's office this month called Dr. Steven C. Brigham negligent in his care of several patients, some of whose abortions were begun in New Jersey and finished in Maryland. One woman required emergency surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, according to the complaint.

Baltimore County officials gave proper notice of its meeting where residents could testify about a new stormwater fee, according to state panel that rules on open meeting complaints. In an opinion this week, the Open Meetings Compliance Board said county documentation shows it met legal requirements to advertise a County Council work session where the public could comment on the fee, as well as the legislative meeting where the council voted to adopt it. Both meetings were held in April.

The Baltimore Department of Transportation has made changes to the signals controlling pedestrian traffic in Fells Point after hearing complaints from local residents, a city official said. Jamie Kendrick, the city's deputy transportation director, said Tuesday that Fells Point residents complained to the city last week that pedestrians were not getting "walk" signals unless they pushed buttons installed for that purpose. He said the city has reprogrammed signals so that they automatically flash periodic walk signals at several busy Fells Point intersections.

Two years ago, the Sun's Arthur Hirsch profiled Baltimore County resident Mike Pierce and his obsessive drive to fight illegal signage . At the time, Pierce was responsible for a third of the county's complaints about nonpolitical signs. The Kingsville man is still on the case today. Pierce emailed me about today's article, “ Baltimore County cracks down on nuisance road signs .”  He said he was responsible for the complaints that led to fines against two of the businesses mentioned in the story - Cash for Cars and All-Star Automotive.

Black scuff marks line the staircase at 922 N. Charles St., left there by frustrated tenants kicking the wall in a vain attempt to make their neighbor, the Museum Restaurant and Lounge, quiet down. Most nights, tenants say, the sound of DJs hyping up the crowd rattles china cabinets and nerves alike. "It's thump, thump, thump from the music," said Will Penn, 48, who lives in one of the apartments next door. Penn, like many other Baltimoreans who live near bars, said he has filed complaints using the city's 311 system but has seen nothing change.

Auto information and pricing company Edmunds.com took a look at the number of complaints drivers have filed about carmakers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and compared them with the number of autos the companies have on the road. By that measure, Toyota Motor Corp. looked pretty good. According to the database, which Edmunds noted consists of complaints from individuals and is not checked for accuracy by NHTSA, Toyota was the subject of 9.1 percent of the complaints from 2001 through Feb. 3. During that period, Toyota had a 13.5 percent slice of the U.S. auto market.

Baltimore County's citizen sign crusader is on the case. Rolling down Eastern Boulevard in his 1994 Volvo, Mike Pierce swings into the parking lot next to Essex Liquors to point out the latest turn in one of his continuing battles against visual clutter. Orange paint had been used weeks ago to cover offending signs painted on the wall, but the wall has since sprouted many signs printed on rectangular plastic sheets: Yuengling, Pabst, Bud Light, Corona, Smirnoff. "The code says 'paper or soft material,' " says Pierce, who settled in Baltimore County when he moved to Maryland in 1995, and now lives in Kingsville.

A locksmith who was accused by dozens of consumers of overcharging and other unfair business practices must offer estimates before doing work or face contempt of court, an Anne Arundel County circuit court has ruled. Judge Michelle D. Jaklitsch granted a preliminary injunction against Around the Clock Locksmith and owner Joseph M. Horton at the request of the Consumer Protection Division of the attorney general's office, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced Thursday. The injunction enforces an order the office issued in April to protect consumers while an administrative proceeding against the company and its owner is pending.

In the Dunloggin, Beaverbrook and Font Hill neighborhoods of Howard County, residents say they've spent thousands on home generators and on food to replace the stuff that spoils when the power goes out for days. There have also been other expenses, they say: motel stays, flashlights, lanterns, gas hot plates and long, heavy-duty extension cords - the kind used to hook up to a neighbor's generator. "You see people running across the street with extension cords," said Cathy Eshmont, who lives in Dunloggin, one of several Ellicott City neighborhoods where residents say they've contended for years with frequent power failures.

A Pikesville man has filed an Open Meetings Act violation complaint against the Baltimore County Council, alleging that citizens didn't get proper notice of a meeting where they could have testified about the county's new stormwater fee. The council voted 5-2 on April 15 to approve the fee, which they discussed at a work session the week before. County officials say they properly advertised that work session, where the council also discussed other bills. In his complaint to the state's Open Meetings Compliance Board, Ralph Jaffe said four people testified about the fee at the work session - a fact that he said indicates people didn't know about the meeting.

When the NCAA tournament was unveiled late Sunday night, Dickinson - one of just two teams left in Division III with undefeated records - was the only team in the South region with a first-round bye. Roanoke got the next seed, and Stevenson was third, falling in line with the most recent regional rankings . It was what Mustangs coach Paul Cantebene anticipated. “It's a fair bracket,” he said Monday morning. “We're going to see good teams no matter what. So from what we did this season, we're in a very fair place.” Stevenson (17-2)

Southwest Airlines was fined $150,000 Wednesday for failing to respond to consumer complaints in a timely fashion, the Department of Transportation announced. Federal enforcement officers found that the Dallas-based airline did not answer "a large number" of disability-related and other consumer complaints filed on its website from June 2011 through January 2012. Further, the agency said, when the airline did respond, it was late and it did not include information specifically required by transportation department regulations.

Three members of an anti-speed camera group have filed an open-meetings complaint against a task force appointed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to study Baltimore's troubled automated enforcement system. The complaint, filed April 1, alleges seven violations of the state Open Meetings Act. Several stem from a closed-door session March 20, at which task force members were briefed by the city's new vendor, Brekford Corp., inside the company's Anne Arundel County headquarters. The head of the task force, Transportation Department lobbyist Barbara Zektick, referred questions about the complaint to an agency spokeswoman, who declined to comment.

Amid complaints over what critics dismiss as a "rain tax," some powerful lawmakers in Annapolis are mounting a last-minute attempt Monday to delay state-mandated storm-water fees that Baltimore city and Maryland's nine largest counties are about to assess their property owners for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. State Sen. Joan Carter Conway , chair of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, said Sunday she plans to propose...

Phillip White is the newest member of the BlueHippo-Wronged-Me-Club, but his beef with the Woodlawn-based retailer that sells computers and other electronics to people with poor credit is nothing new. Like so many others before him, White saw a TV ad, called BlueHippo, spoke to a sales rep and then agreed to pay the astronomical price of $2,178.48 for an HP Desktop computer through biweekly electronic debits from his bank account. Like the others, White said he was led to believe he would receive free products and his computer once he established a good payment history.

Some health plans generate a lot more consumer complaints than others - and the Maryland Insurance Administration released yesterday its first-ever report comparing complaint rates for different insurers. Insurance Commissioner Steven B. Larsen said the report was designed to help consumers choose health plans, but his department might also use the data to examine the "market conduct" of insurers with high rates of complaints. The report divides complaints into two categories: disputes over whether a given service is medically necessary (if it isn't, the insurer doesn't have to pay)

Black scuff marks line the staircase at 922 N. Charles St., left there by frustrated tenants kicking the wall in a vain attempt to make their neighbor, the Museum Restaurant and Lounge, quiet down. Most nights, tenants say, the sound of DJs hyping up the crowd rattles china cabinets and nerves alike. "It's thump, thump, thump from the music," said Will Penn, 48, who lives in one of the apartments next door. Penn, like many other Baltimoreans who live near bars, said he has filed complaints using the city's 311 system but has seen nothing change.

A dispute between the owner of an 11-acre site in Remington and the developer that plans to build a Walmart-anchored shopping center there has thrown the project's future into doubt. Twenty Fifth Street LLC, the property owner, filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court asking a judge to declare that it legally terminated sale agreements with WV Baltimore-24/Sisson LLC, a development team led by Rick Walker. Twenty Fifth Street is controlled by Bruce Mortimer, president of Anderson Automotive Group, which has operated car dealerships on the site.