From the Connecticut Post, May 18,2011: A Connecticut federal judge has rejected as "meager" the proposed settlement of a nationwide, class-action lawsuit against DirectBuy Inc. for fraudulent pricing practices. "The court cannot conclude that this settlement falls within the range of reasonableness," U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall said yesterday in a written opinion. Judge Hall explained her decision by noting that the proposed settlement called for DirectBuy to provide free memberships worth some $3,000 each to approximately 800,000 class members. "The best possible recovery...may amount to well over $2 billion," Judge Hall wrote. "In light of this best possible recovery, the Settlement Agreement -- which the court has calculated as being worth, at most, between $15 million and $27 million -- appears quite small." In late April, the attorneys general of 27 states, as well as those from the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, objected to the proposed settlement, arguing in a 36-page amicus curiae brief that it "offers no real benefits to consumers. "The proposed settlement is, in essence, a sales vehicle for defendants designed to drive current and former customers into membership renewal contracts and to the same manufacturers and suppliers from whom defendants have acknowledged receiving kickbacks and incentives," the brief stated. DirectBuy promotes itself as an insider's buyers' club where members can purchase brand-name goods directly from manufacturers at wholesale prices. In addition to annual fees, members pay anywhere from $3,000 to $7,000 to join the privately held company's "clubs." The 2009 lawsuit (Wilson et al v. DirectBuy, Inc., et al) accused the Indiana-based company of fraudulent misrepresentation, alleging it received tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks and incentives from suppliers and manufacturers, inflating the cost of its goods well above the advertised wholesale prices. The lawsuit accused DirectBuy of failing to disclose this arrangement to customers until early 2009. DirectBuy spokesman Mike Georgeff told Consumer Ally in April the company was confident Judge Hall would approve the settlement. While yesterday's decision was disappointing, he said it wasn't completely unexpected. "We were disappointed to learn of Judge Hall's decision, but not entirely surprised given the great deal of publicity that has surrounded this case," Georgeff told Consumer Ally. "We were hopeful for a quick resolution to this matter which would have ultimately benefited class members. While we disagree with the decision, we look forward to successful closure of the matters at hand, and will continue to work with the attorneys general of any state to ensure we remain compliant with all state consumer protection laws," he added. The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, which represented a class member who objected to the terms of the proposed settlement, applauded Judge Hall's decision. Had the proposed settlement stood, the group said a statement, more than 836,000 class members would have been forced to relinquished "a broad set of claims" against the company in exchange for extended DirectBuy memberships. "We are pleased that the judge agreed with our argument that the proposed settlement was essentially a coupon of little or no value to the class," Michael Kirkpatrick, the Public Citizen attorney representing one of the objecting class members, said in a statement. "Absent class members should not have valuable claims released in exchange for so little." Public Citizen also cited other class-action suits against the company, which alleged a number of abuses, including high-pressure sales tactics to pressure consumers into spending thousands of dollars on DirectBuy memberships, as well as prices that often result in little or no savings compared to traditional or online retailers. "Within the last several years, a number of lawsuits have been filed in addition to this one, accusing DirectBuy of misrepresentation, fraud, and coercion, " Judge Hall noted in her decision. Consumer Ally wrote about several of the lawsuits in an October 2010 feature on the company.

Yes, I've been looking at the colors at ALL times of the day... morning, noon, night, sunny days, cloudy days, lights on, lights off... :-) I went to the paint store today, and they were pretty helpful. They said if too much red is showing to look for a color that has more green. (the green cancels out the red... makes sense now that I think about it...) So the two colors that seem to be standing out are Fresh Butter and Hawthorne Yellow. I'm also debating Barley and Vellum. BTW, they gave me a great tip at the paint store: to grab several of the little paper strips of the color I'm interested in (say, Fresh Butter) and cut out the color I want from all the strips, and then tape the little squares together to make a bigger square. This will give me a chance to see the color in a bigger "swatch" before committing to the little $4 sample pot of paint (yeah, $4 doesn't seem like much, but I've already bought three and the colors, once "big," looked SO different from the little chip that I could probably easily go through 4 or 5 different sample pot colors, and it's going to really add up!) Thanks for all of your help and tips!!!

Milgard Ultra fiberglass only has single hung, no double hung; I went to their Simi Valley factory/showroom. Their Tuscany line has double hung. I was impressed with how easy it was to pull it in to clean the outside of window as compared to the Pella vinyl I tested at a Pella showroom. I was impressed with Pella’s wood with aluminum clad exterior but everything else, vinyl and fiberglass, looked very low end. The finish on the Pella fiberglass had a wrinkly texture that looked cheap. I am concerned with comments about the Milgard Ultra fiberglass finish peeling. Has anyone else experienced this? We are planning on replacing all the windows and frames on our stucco house in SoCal so I want to get this right. We have white trim inside and out so color not an issue.

When my husband and I were selling our house last year, we went through a string of bad luck. We staged our home and put a lot of stuff in his office (he had his own business). Needless to say the building the office was in burned down and we lost a lot of pictures, but mostly just junk. We finally sold the house only to have the first buyers back out 4 days before the closing, but we were locked into buying our new house. We then put our home back on the market and prayed we would sell it in a newly SLOW market. Anyway we had many potential buyers come back and view the house 3 and 4 times but after 5 weeks still no offer. With the stress of holding 2 mortgages we were desperate. One day when my husband was commuting home from work it just so happened he was sitting next to a realtor. They got to talking about our house and she mentioned to him when ever she needed to get a house sold she would burn sage leaves to ward off evil spirits. That weekend we were holding an open house. Unbeknownst to me, as we were leaving the house my husband ran back in to "get something." He was taking a really long time so I ran in to find out what in the world he was doing. I saw him running through the living room with a smoking piece of aluminum foil and the overwhelming smell of burning herbs which smelled very illegal! I wanted to kill him. At the same time our realtor arrives and was nearly knocked back at the smell. At the time I didn't think it was funny and I was fuming. Needless to say, we got an offer that day, and we closed in 4 weeks. The ironic thing was our buyer was a Drug Enforcement Agent. He must of knew it was sage and not something else.