Starting October 26, Ford will recall 4.5 million cars to fix a leaky cruise control switch that may lead to car fires. Below is a complete list of new recalled cars, as read in the Detroit News:

Ford Windstar: 1995-2003
Ford Excursion diesel: 2000-2003
Ford F-Super Duty diesel: 1993-7 and 1999-2003
Ford Explorer: 1995-2002
Mercury Mountaineer: 1995-2002
Ford Ranger: 1995-7 and 2001-3
Ford F53 motorhome: 1994
Ford Econoline van: 1992-2003

If your vehicle is affected, bring it to your local Ford/Mercury dealer on October 26. Call them to make sure if/when they can fit you in.

The Detroit News has complete coverage.

Here at Business Pundit, we read a number of stories about companies acting nasty. For example, credit card companies canceling accounts without prior notice. Or broadband companies slowing customer connections when they use more bandwidth than the company wants.

The business world can be a mean place–especially when it comes to consumers. That’s why we’ve decided to start a new series called “Shame on You!” Every time a company does something sneaky, we want as many people as possible to know about it. We hope, with your help, that we can make it harder for companies to get away with deviant practices.

If you’ve had a company scam you, take your money, or cheat you in some other way, please write to us through this contact form. Tell us your story. If appropriate, we will publish it on our site anonymously, bringing it to the attention of thousands of readers.

Our first Shame on You! cheater is Best Buy. A reader named Rick wrote in with his story:

I bought a new laptop to deal with a server emergency while on a business trip. I picked one out that I thought my wife would like since she needed a new laptop anyway.

The Best Buy salesman went back to look and came back to tell me “the only one we have left is optimized. It will cost you an extra $40. Is that OK?”

I told him that I didnt like being forced to by a service I didn’t really want. So he came back and said “we can lower it to $20. Is that OK?”

“What does it include?” I asked.

“We did all your windows updates and removed all the junk from your computer that gets pre-installed,” he said.

I figured that for $20, if they really did all that stuff, it was worth my time.

After buying the laptop, I went back to my hotel room. I turned on the laptop. It told me it needed to go through 11 Windows updates. There were still half a dozen bloatware offers from companies like AOL and Norton.

And maybe worst of all, the computer had been de-Googlized in favor of Bing. It was like Microsoft had paid
them off.

In other words, i was paying best buy an optimization fee so they could justify turning the computer on to get a kickback from Microsoft. It was disgusting.

Upon investigating the case above, we discovered a couple of things:

1) This isn’t the first time Best Buy has acted sleazy around customers. In 2004, the state of Ohio sued the company for selling used products as new.

In 2007, it was accused of bait-and-switch tactics by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

More recently, there’s word of Microsoft training Best Buy employees to discredit the Linux operating system.

2) Best Buy knows about this. There have been many complaints on Best Buy’s official forum.

Recommendations for Best Buy:

1) Offer the service, but don’t shove it down people’s throats. It is not necessary.

2) Be clear about what exactly you’re doing. Give the details. Don’t say you’re doing something, then let customers be surprised when they find that you haven’t done what they thought you promised.

If you feel scammed by Best Buy–or you have a good defense for their practices–please comment below.

Do you have a Shame on You! story to share? Email us here, and we’ll consider it for publication.

Massachusetts’ Georgetown Country Club, a championship golf course and country club, declared bankruptcy on September 11. Now, the organization refuses to refund couples’ wedding deposits, despite cancelling their reservations. WCVB Boston has more:

Sarah Crow is supposed to renew her wedding vows and hold her reception Saturday at the The Georgetown Country Club. Crow is out of her $9,000 deposit, saying she believed the owner intentionally deceived her family.

Tee time was still advertised but there was no answer when NewsCenter 5 called the office seeking comment. As of 10 p.m. Monday, doors remained unlocked but the staff was on the way out without work for the morning. (They found out this morning that they were out of a job.)

Once the club files for bankruptcy, it is anticipated that customers can file as a “debtor” to whom the club owes money. It was not immediately known whether Attorney General’s Office plans to investigate.

This has to be one of the more painful bankruptcies to affect people during this recession.

Pfizer has to pay the government $2.3 billion for a series of drug marketing suits, including marketing the painkiller Bextra “with intent to…mislead the public,” a felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. FindLaw has more:

(T)he criminal charges against Pfizer come from “off-label” marketing of…Bextra, an anti-inflammatory which Pfizer yanked from the shelves in 2005. According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Pfizer marketed the drug for a variety of uses which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifically refused to approve due to safety concerns.

In addition to the honor of largest criminal fine of any type from the feds ever (according to the DOJ), Pfizer will also pay the largest civil fraud settlement ($1 billion) ever forced on a pharmaceutical company in the US.

BusinessWeek has this to say about the fine:

“It’s an ugly blemish for Pfizer, but at least it’s essentially over. And while $2.3 billion ain’t chicken feed, it’s affordable,” said Carol Levenson, research director at Gimme Credit, a corporate-bonds research service. The settlement had little effect on Pfizer’s stock price—shares closed 10¢ lower on Wednesday, at 16.28.

The affordability of the fines is a problem regulators face in deterring such activity, say industry critics. If a drug generates billions of dollars each year in sales, fines totaling even $1 billion do not offset the money to be made from off-label marketing. “Time will tell” whether the Pfizer fine will stop other companies from unlawful promotions, said Scott Simmer, an attorney with Blank Rome who represents three of the whistleblowers involved in the settlement. “I do believe these practices are endemic throughout the industry.”

The chances of winning such a David and Goliath battle are usually small. But once in a while, a single person manages to stick it to the man–and win. We collected five true life stories of people who succeeded in facing down larger entities, often using nothing but a set of iron-clad values.

1. The Fed Up Artist
A New Zealand artist forces a big bank to give him all his savings–in $20 bills.

Image: MARTIN DE RUYTER/The Nelson Mail

In late July, New Zealand artist Roger Griffiths applied for an $80,000 mortgage through Westpac, a multinational bank he had patronized for 25 years. Griffiths had more than enough collateral to meet the bank’s required 20% deposit.

The self-proclaimed successful artist was disappointed when Westpac rejected the loan, citing Griffiths’ lack of regular income. However, when he heard about the bank losing $111 million after taking receivership of clothing manufacturer Lane Walker Rudin Industries, he decided to get even.

Griffiths withdrew his entire savings of $190,000 from the bank–in $20 bills. The bank had to count the money in front of him, then place it in a large carry bag. It took some effort for the bank to get all the cash in one location before Griffith’s 9 a.m. deadline.

“It’s about time normal people took a stand,” Griffiths stated in a media report.

(Source: Stuff.co.nz)

2. The Irish Bread Baker
An Irish food expert earns her way back into the country by selling bread.

Image: The Daily Green

Tessa Fowler knows a lot about Ireland. The Wyoming native has written about Ireland for magazines, and is an expert on Irish food. That’s why she was stunned when, on her sixth trip to the country, Irish immigration officials refused to let her into the country. She didn’t have a return ticket, so she had to make her way back to America.

Fowler won’t be let down easily. She plans on returning to Ireland. Lacking funds, she is financing her trip by selling gourmet Irish breads around her hometown. By selling soda- and Guinness breads door to door, she hopes to raise $2,000 for her next attempt. Judging by the publicity she is receiving, her plan should be on track.

(Source: Michael Lavery, Herald.ie)

3. The Christian who Stood by Sundays
A devout Christian wins an eminent sports announcer job, despite never working on Sundays.

Dan Walker is a devout Christian. As such, he refuses to work on Sundays. Yet this soccer show host landed a job on the BBC’s Football Focus, despite the fact that important games happen almost every Sunday.

“I don’t even watch football on a Sunday,” Walker said in an interview. “Obviously as a professional I keep abreast of the scores but I spend Sunday at church and with my family.”

He claims to have been denied other jobs because of his firm Sunday stance. But the BBC hired him anyway.

“To be given it means even more for me because I’ve made my stand but still been handed this opportunity. I’ve grown up watching Football Focus, so now to be presenting the show really is a dream come true.”

(Source: Ananova)

4. The Middle-Aged Woman with the Big Voice
Susan Boyle vs. Society

Image: Wikipedia

Susan Boyle could be the quintessential underdog. The Scottish singer endured nicknames like “Simple Susan” growing up. She never married, and didn’t have much of a career. At the age of 48, she still lives in her family home.

However, Boyle has one serious singing voice. Until she appeared on Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year, not that many people knew about it. When she first walked onto the stage, Simon Cowell almost rolled his eyes. The audience did the same when she informed them that she wanted to be a professional singer.

Then, Boyle sang. Her rendition of Les Miserables’ “I Dreamed a Dream” won her global acclaim. She became an instant celebrity. As a result, the media–which earns part of its keep by pushing stereotypical images of young, beautiful women–was forced to question why people didn’t take Susan Boyle seriously when she first walked on stage. Whether she intended to or not, Boyle taught the world a lesson about judging a book by its cover.

(Source: Wikipedia)

5. The Standalone Bidder
A moneyless college students wins land at a BLM auction–and saves it.

Tim DeChristopher sees oil drilling as a threat to the future of the environment. That’s why this former University of Utah seniorsat in on a BLM auction in December 2008. There, he started bidding for drilling and oil rights on Southern Utah land. He ended up winning about $1.7 million worth of rights, on almost 22,500 acres near Arches National Park.

The catch was that he never had the money to buy all that land. Instead, he bid up the prices, keeping other prospectors away from the land.

BLM agents saw through DeChristopher’s fraudulent bid. They opened an investigation to figure out whether he had violated any federal laws.

Meanwhile, the BLM planned to put the land back up for auction. While the land rights were slugging through the adminisphere, the Bush administration left office, paving the way for the more environmentally-friendly Obama team. Obama Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ended up rescinding 77 of the auctioned leases, claiming they were too close to national parks, according to the LA Times.

In April, DeChristopher was charged with two federal felonies. But the land he bid on was saved, making his protest a success for the environment.

Honorable Mention: The Mouse in the ATM Machine
A mouse makes a nest out of $20 bills.

Image: Oregon Mouseworks

This Oregon mouse could be considered a regular Joe. Whether he stuck it to the man on purpose will always be a mystery.

A woman discovered the mouse living inside an ATM machine at the Chevron station where she worked. The mouse had set up a nest made of chewed $20 bills.

“The mouse had chewed up two bills and damaged another 14 to make his nest, but the bank replaced all the money that wasn’t extensively damaged,” according to Fox. The mouse escaped with his life, though the bank salvaged the remains of his nest. The little critter is the only Joe on our list to stick it to something (the bank) while being stuck inside something (the ATM machine).

(Source: Fox News)

The Harvard Business Review’s Umair Haque discovered that a Made-in-USA, “fair labor” iPod would cost only 23% more than its Made in China counterpart:

…how much would it cost to produce a “Good iPod”? One not produced in a sweatshop, but under decent labour conditions. Like, for example, one produced in the USA — hardly a paragon of labour standards, but a starting point.

The results are surprising. An American made iPod Classic costs just 23% more than a Chinese made iPod Classic: $58 more, to be precise. The same relationship holds across the iPod family (price differentials in the 20-30% range) The iPod is a durable good, so that’s a difference — but smaller than one might expect.

Haqu claims that charging $58 more for an iPod is not only a reasonable expectation, but necessary to preserve innovation and rebuild the American manufacturing sector. He concludes:

If goods cost what they should, we would consume what we could authentically afford, instead of overconsuming what we couldn’t. If their prices reflected real human costs, perhaps yesterday’s unsustainably large macro imbalances wouldn’t have built up in the first place. And that, from an economic point of view, would be good for everyone.

Not everyone. What about the Chinese supply networks who would go out of business? Or the American consumers who couldn’t afford that extra $58? Or Apple, if it gave up its current competitive advantage by sacrificing a level of affordability?

The bottom line is still, well, the bottom line. Companies should bear responsibility for fair labor practices, but I can’t see Apple, or any other market leader, opting to put itself in second place as a result.

How do we bring out the best in employees? Provide them the right tools to do their jobs? Optimum working conditions? In professional sports steroids get the job done. How far would corporations go if we had legal performance enhancing drugs? In a story for the Conference Board Review, Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, asks how far a company should go to improve its workforce.

From the article:

“You may soon be forced to rethink everything you thought you knew about improving talent and bringing out the best in people. All over the world, the best-performing people in the best-performing organizations always look to get better at getting better. In tomorrow’s global markets, being the best will increasingly depend on ready access to the best technologies, the best (and presumably legal) drugs, and the best coaching and mentoring money can buy.”

If you don’t believe corporate America will embrace they types of technology Schrage refers to, consider the case of coffee. Caffeine is a stimulant that has been provided at no charge to millions of workers for decades. (I once knew an office manager who spiked it with sugar at the brewing stage to squeeze extra energy out of his employees.)

It’s not all about the drugs. How much pressure will executives receive to participate in self-improvement techniques such as counseling and coaching?

More from the article:

“Employees looking for an edge personally purchased the drug or the surgery or the technology or the coach. The firm allowed — encouraged? — employees to effectively subsidize the organization through their own portfolio of performance-enhancement investments.”

Schrage also ponders independent drug use by individuals:

“Is popping a pill to stay up all night to meet a deadline a leadership choice to be celebrated, accepted, ignored, or discouraged? Does it depend on the talent, or on the result?”

Extremely intriguing stuff. All the more reason to shore up those business ethics.

Check out the full article here.

Image Credit: rodrigo senna

US Disctrict Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernie Madoff, 71, to 150 years in prison for his more than $13 million Ponzi scheme. Bloomberg has more:

Madoff has been in jail since his guilty plea. At today’s sentencing, none of his family members appeared in court to lend support. A crowd of hundreds waiting outside the lower Manhattan courthouse as the sentencing was pronounced. Nine of his victims told Chin how their lives had been devastated.

“I know I did a great deal of harm,” Madoff said in a gruff accent of the New York City borough of Queens, where he was raised. “Nothing I can say can correct what I’ve done.”

The courtroom erupted in applause and shouts after Chin imposed the sentence. Several victims brushed away tears, as Madoff, who wasn’t handcuffed, was let out a side door by two U.S. marshals.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Ashby Jones, “applause broke out in the courtroom when Judge Chin announced the sentence.” However, Judge Chin did not dish the maximum possible sentence, says Jones, citing two recent examples of smaller-scale fraud that landed perpetrators 845 and 330 years in jail, respectively. Judge Chin reportedly claimed that none of the counts “to which Madoff pleaded guilty carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.”

It would have been nice to see a life sentence. Remember Junk Bond King Michael Milken, who in the 1980s was sentenced to 10 years in jail on counts of securities fraud and racketeering? He ended up serving less than two years.

Madoff is 71. He will probably die in jail, but you never know what kind of magic expensive lawyers can work.

And, please, no Club Fed.