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T-Mobile tops J.D. Power customer satisfaction study - again

J.D. Power and Associates have , which attempts to measure customer satisfaction with mobile operators based on responses from over 9,700 mobile users who contacted their providers customer service departments from July through December 2010. And, for the second year running, number-four mobile operator T-Mobile earned the top ranking, with an overall score of 758 on a 1,000-point scale. Verizon Wireless came in second with a score of 743; the industry average was 739.

J.D. Power also found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that customers are generally more satisfied with their support queries if they interact with a human beingwhether over a phone or in-person at a storeas opposed to dealing with automated response systems via phone or the Web.

As more companies encourage customers to contact them on the Web to save operating costs, they run the risk of increased customer churn if the number of contacts needed to resolve a complaint or issue rises, said J.D. Power and Associates senior director for wireless services Kirk Parsons, in a statement. Switching intent is four times as high among those who rate their wireless carrier below average in customer care, so the challenge for wireless carriers is to offer an easy and efficient customer care transaction experience.

The study, currently in its ninth year, found that just over half (51 percent) of telephone contacts in the industry are resolved primarily by a service representative, rather than via automated systems. Where the industry average satisfaction level was 739, the satisfaction level for Web-based contact was just 684 out of 1,000, and automated response systems only did a little better, averaging 704. Reaching a live human being, however, had an overall satisfaction rate of 774.

The study also found customers are most satisfied with their customer service experience if they spend only a short time using automated systems, and quickly move on to a live representative. The study found T-Mobile did a particularly good job at handling calls that move through automated systems to live representatives, as well as direct calls to customer service, although T-Mobile also lead all wireless carriers amongst users seeking help online.

Jackson Hewitt sues H&R Block over "false" ads

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc sued H&R Block Inc to stop a new advertising campaign that it said misleads customers about tax refund loans and disparages Jackson Hewitt's competence.

Monday's lawsuit comes on the eve of the main U.S. tax filing season, a crucial period for the largest U.S. tax preparation companies because the February-to-April quarter accounts for roughly three-fifths of annual revenue and much of their profit.

Kate O'Neill Rauber, an H&R Block spokeswoman, in an email said: "This lawsuit was filed without any requests for substantiation. H&R Block stands behind our advertisements and will vigorously defend our claims."

Jackson Hewitt's lawsuit relates to "refund anticipation loans" -- short-term loans secured by taxpayers' expected tax refunds. Such loans carry fees and are popular among lower-income taxpayers.

Last month, H&R Block suffered a setback when the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ordered a partner, HSBC Holdings Plc, to stop making tax refund loans to H&R Block customers.

Jackson Hewitt said that unlike its larger rival, it also offers taxpayers access to as much as $1,500 within one day.

According to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, H&R Block falsely claimed that its "Second Look Review" program, which reviews past tax returns prepared by rivals, found that two-thirds of returns prepared by Jackson Hewitt contained mistakes.

"H&R Block's 2 out of 3 claim necessarily implies the false claim that two out of three Jackson Hewitt customers who are entitled to refunds have been short-changed due to Jackson Hewitt errors or incompetence," the complaint said.

Jackson Hewitt also said H&R Block gives its agents a script designed to deceive them about its loan service.

Saying the campaign is causing "irreparable harm," Jackson Hewitt is seeking to halt the alleged improper advertising. It is also seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

H&R Block's advertisements "are designed to undermine trust in Jackson Hewitt," Jackson Hewitt Chief Executive Philip Sanford said in a statement.

Jackson Hewitt, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, said it prepared 2.53 million U.S. tax returns in 2010. H&R Block, based in Kansas City, Missouri. prepared 20.1 million U.S. returns in its 2010 fiscal year.

In afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Jackson Hewitt shares rose 1 cent to $1.58, and H&R Block shares fell 7 cents to $12.43.

The lawsuit is Jackson Hewitt Inc v. H&R Block Tax Services LLC, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-00641.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, editing by Tim Dobbyn and John Wallace)

NY man admits killing daughter, 9, and baby sitter

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – A man admitted in court Wednesday that he fatally shot his 9-year-old daughter and her baby sitter — after telling the girl's mother over the phone what he was about to do.

Darrell Evans, 51, of Mount Vernon, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in exchange for a sentence of 40 years to life in prison, District Attorney Janet DiFiore said.

The killings occurred a year ago on a tree-lined street of private homes in Mount Vernon, a New York City suburb, where Evans lived with the girl and her mother, Joan Whitfield. The city's mayor lived a few houses away.

On Jan. 9, 2010, Evans called Whitfield while she was at work at a hospital in the city, prosecutors said. They argued, and Evans told Whitfield he was going to kill their daughter, Ayanna Evans, and her baby sitter, 42-year-old Lorna Williams, the district attorney said.

A worried Whitfield called Mount Vernon police, who went to the home. As they approached, Evans emerged from the house and surrendered, saying he had shot "everyone," the district attorney said.

Inside, police found Ayanna dying in her bed. She had been shot several times in the chest. Williams was in another bedroom, dead of a shot to the head.

Police found a handgun near the front door. Tests showed it was the murder weapon, DiFiore said.

Evans had been charged with first-degree murder, which could have meant a sentence of life without parole if he were convicted at trial. Under his plea bargain in Westchester County Court, he would get two consecutive sentences of 20 years to life.

Sentencing was scheduled for March 11.

Jury orders J&J to pay $482M in patent lawsuit

MARSHALL, Texas – A federal jury in Texas on Friday ordered Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary to pay $482 million in damages to an inventor who claimed the health care giant infringed on his patent for a cardiac stent.

Jurors hearing the case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas deliberated for two hours before returning the verdict against Johnson & Johnson and Cordis Corp.

Heart stents are mesh-wire tubes that prop open coronary arteries after surgery to remove fatty plaque. The dispute centered over Cordis' Cypher drug-eluting stents, which release a drug to help keep arteries from becoming blocked.

Bruce Saffran, a doctor from Princeton, N.J., sued the two companies in 2007, claiming the Cypher stents infringed on his 1997 patent covering technology to deliver injury-healing medication inside the body. Jurors concluded that Saffran proved that the Cypher stents infringed on his patent and that Johnson & Johnson and Cordis did so willfully — opening the door for the court to potentially triple the amount of damages.

Cordis officials said the company is "disappointed" with the jury's ruling.

"The company believes this is contrary to both the law and the facts set forward in the case. We will ask the judge to overturn this verdict and if unsuccessful, we plan to appeal the verdict," Cordis spokeswoman Sandra Pound said in a statement.

In 2008, another federal jury in Marshall awarded Saffran a $431.9 million patent infringement judgment against Boston Scientific Corp. U.S. District Judge T. John Ward later raised the amount to $501 million.

The company agreed in 2009 to pay $50 million to settle the dispute.

"We are gratified that a second jury has found that Dr. Saffran's patent was valid and willfully infringed and that it constituted a significant medical advancement allowing the development of the drug-eluting cardiac stent, as recognized by the $482 million verdict," said Paul Taskier, a member of Saffran's legal team.

Shares of New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson slipped 67 cents to close the regular session at $60.01. On Tuesday, the company reported 2010 net income rose 9 percent to $13.33 billion on $61.59 billion in revenue.

Krauthammer on debating Palins use of blood libel: Have we completely lost our minds?

Read more stories from The Daily Caller

It has been over four days since a shooting in Tucson that claimed six lives and injured 14, including Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. However, one of the dominating themes of the day is a debate over former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s response.

On Fox News Channel’s Wednesday broadcast of “Special Report with Bret Baier,” syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer questioned the sanity of this debate, which“journalists and pundits” of manufacturing “a blood libel.”

“[T]he fact is that even the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League in expressing a mild rebuke to Palin for using this admitted itself in its statement that the term ‘blood libel’ has become part of English parlance to refer to someone falsely accused,” Krauthammer said. “Let’s step back for a second. Here we have a brilliant, intelligent, articulate, beautiful, wife, mother and congresswoman fighting for her life, in a hospital in Tucson, and we’re having a national debate over whether the term ‘blood libel’ can be used appropriately in a non-Jewish context? Have we completely lost our minds?”

But he also questioned the wisdom of Palin using her celebrity to spark this debate. He argued by the time she released the video, it was a moot point.

“I found her speech unobjectionable, unremarkable but unnecessary,” he said. “Of course, anybody who is attacked as she was has the right to defend herself in public. However, it wasn’t as if others hadn’t counteracted the calumny about her and others being responsible in some way for the massacre in Tucson. By the time she had the video on her website, the debate was over. The left, which had launched the accusation, had been completely defeated, ‘refudiated’ if you like, and disgraced over this. There wasn’t a shred of evidence and the battle was over. I mean, it was a rout to make the Pickett’s Charge look like a draw.”

Watch:

To back up his theory, Krauthammer referredthat he wasn’t interested in news, political speech or talk radio.

“Case closed – it’s over,” he continued. “It was unnecessary her speech because she then re-injected herself in this and made herself at the center of this. Restarted the debate and started the debate on the irrelevancy on the ‘blood libel.’ It was unfortunate, I think — and unnecessary.”

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