Complaints

By Natalie Feulner, Town Correspondent The latest development in the saga of a Quincy police officer who is suing the police chief and the city continued Friday with a private disciplinary hearing regarding the officer's employment status. Officer Joseph McGunigle, a 15-year veteran on the squad, has been serving a suspension assigned by Mayor Thomas Koch for personal conduct issues, since March 9 and had his firearms license revoked on March 13. Police Chief Paul Keenan told The Boston Globe in late March that the license revocation resulted from numerous...

By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent A dean at Brookline High School who claims he was passed over for the headmaster position because he is African American has filed a discrimination complaint against Superintendent of Schools Bill Lupini. Adrian B. Mims Sr., who has worked at the school as a tutor, teacher or administrator since 1994, filed the complaint on April 6 with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination after Lupini appointed Newton North High School's Deborah Holman as the next headmaster of Brookline High School.

PITTSBURGH -- A US Muslim civil rights group received its largest number of complaints last year that Muslims were being harassed at work, in school, and in their communities, a new report found. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it received 1,019 claims of physical and verbal attacks on Muslims, of on-the-job discrimination, and of racial profiling by law enforcement. In 2002, the organization received 602 such complaints. The report cautioned that the jump partly reflected an increase in the number of regional offices opened by the Washington-based advocacy group, which allowed more...

PEABODY - Patriots receiver Wes Welker demonstrated a very good backpedal when he played defensive back against players at his camp Saturday morning at Bishop Fenwick High School. It got better in front of the media. Welker backtracked from comments he made two days earlier to the Boston Herald in which he voiced his frustration that talks over a new contract with the Patriots had "gotten worse. " Now? Everything is fine and dandy. "That was probably a bad choice of words saying they've gotten worse," Welker said.

NEW YORK - Intelius Inc., a start-up that launched online directory assistance for cellphone numbers, has shut down the service after complaints from consumers and Verizon Wireless. Intelius had 90 million numbers in its database, according to its website, and was selling them for $15 each to anyone who had a name and wanted a number. The company said Friday it has discontinued the directory service due to "consumer feedback. " Several TV stations and MSNBC.com publicized the directory last week.

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. on Friday said its new method of managing Internet traffic may sometimes result in slower Web surfing for subscribers who use their cable modem the most, yet the company has not received a single customer complaint in trial runs in five areas. The new system is set to replace the current one, which drew a sanction from the Federal Communications Commission. Comcast said the new system kicks in only when Net traffic approaches congestion. It then identifies a customer's bandwidth and slows down their Internet traffic until the jam...

Cranston police officials say they've discovered another 25 complaints against officers that weren't properly recorded and they're trying to figure out why. The Providence Journal reports ( http://bit.ly/x9WK0A) that the complaints include allegations of excessive force and misconduct that were not properly recorded between 2006 and 2009. That brings the number of missing complaints that have been found to 66. The additional 25 complaints were found in the two years since an audit of the police department's internal affairs office.

NEW YORK — Complaints against banks are soaring, suggesting that new laws and regulations put in place since the financial crisis two years ago are not dampening Americans’ anger over overdraft fees and foreclosure practices they view as unfair. If the trend continues, analysts say, it will set banks on a collision course with their customers and lead to tougher rules that will hurt their earnings. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency estimates that complaints from customers of the 1,500 banks it regulates will hit 80,000 this year.

The attorney who represented Casey Anthony is the subject of two complaints to the Florida Bar stemming from the case. Bar officials said Tuesday that the complaints against lawyer Jose Baez have gone to a grievance committee. Bar attorneys previously concluded there was enough evidence of a possible violation to warrant further investigation. The exact nature of the complaints and who filed them is not made public unless the committee makes a probable cause finding. There are a wide range of possible punishments.

The City of Boston filed a formal complaint against a prominent labor lawyer Thursday, saying that what they termed his vulgar and vitriolic behavior at the negotiating table on behalf of the firefighters' union has gone too far, even in the contentious realm of labor negotiations. At a meeting Tuesday at the union's Florian Hall, lawyer E. David Wanger allegedly berated city officials with obscenities and repeatedly interrupted by saying "Blah! Blah! Blah!," according to a letter to the state Division of Labor Relations.

By Natalie Feulner, Town Correspondent The latest development in the saga of a Quincy police officer who is suing the police chief and the city continued Friday with a private disciplinary hearing regarding the officer's employment status. Officer Joseph McGunigle, a 15-year veteran on the squad, has been serving a suspension assigned by Mayor Thomas Koch for personal conduct issues, since March 9 and had his firearms license revoked on March 13. Police Chief Paul Keenan told The Boston Globe in late March that the license revocation resulted from...

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said Friday she is joining her counterparts in 32 other states in alleging that technology giant Apple Inc. engaged in the price fixing of e-books with publishers Penguin Group and Macmillan. "We allege that through their actions, the defendants and their coconspirators collected more than $100 million worth of overcharges from consumers across the country," Coakley said in a statement. Attempts to reach Apple and Macmillan were not immediately successful.

An organization created to address online fraud says scams in which criminals impersonate FBI agents were one of the most common types of Internet crime complaints last year — a total of 14,350 nationwide. The Internet Crime Complaint Center says it has handled over 300,000 complaints in each of the past three years. The 314,246 complaints in 2011 marked a 3.4 percent increase over 2010, when complaints totaled 303,809. The amount of money lost by the victims last year: $485.3 million.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party today filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee, arguing that Senator Scott Brown abused public resources by using video shot by a government employee to promote his reelection campaign. The Globe reported last week that the video - of Brown sinking an underhanded, half-court basketball shot - was recorded by his Senate communications director, during an official event, and after that employee had flown to and from Massachusetts on an airline ticket bought by the taxpayers.

WASHINGTON - Nokia Oyj, the Finnish mobile phone maker, said it has filed complaints in the United States and Germany against HTC Corp., Research In Motion, and Viewsonic, alleging the companies infringed on 45 patents. The complaints include one with the US International Trade Commission against HTC, as well as lawsuits against HTC and Viewsonic in federal court in Delaware, and suits against HTC and RIM in Germany and Finland, Nokia said Wednesday. "Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products," Nokia's chief legal officer, Louise Pentland, said...

City officials say the Worcester apartment building in which a veteran firefighter lost his life had been the subject of three housing complaints and several code violations in the last year. Jon Davies was killed Thursday and his partner injured when a portion of the burning building collapsed while they were searching for a missing resident. The complaints were to be the subject of a Housing Court hearing later this month. The building manager, Michael Chan, told the Telegram & Gazette (http://bit.ly/v1xEZJ)

WASHINGTON -- The government is fielding more than 1,000 complaints a day from people who say telemarketers continue to call them even though they are on the do-not-call list. The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have received more than 18,000 complaints since Oct. 1, when the government's list took effect. Companies are required to obtain the list's phone numbers every three months; so far, 53.7 million numbers have been registered. The government expects to block about 80 percent of the telemarketing calls to people who join the list.