Image credit: Lancome

Rorie Weisberg, an Orthodox Jewish woman in Monsey, N.Y., takes advertising claims seriously. So when she read copy for Lancôme’s Teint Idole Ultra 24H foundation, which is supposed to stay on for an entire day and night of “lasting perfection,” she believed it.

In April, Weisberg shelled out $45 plus tax for a one-ounce bottle on Lancôme’s website, she says in her suit. When her face didn’t remain fresh and dewy for 24 hours, she got so upset she sued Lancôme and its parent company L’Oreal.

Lancôme’s “advertising and marketing campaign and labeling claims are false and misleading because the Product does not stay on the skin for 24 hours,” she alleges in her class action lawsuit. “In reality, the Product does not live up to the claims made by Lancôme.”

According to the complaint, filed April 30 in U.S. District Court on behalf of Weisberg and unidentified others who have been harmed by the “deceptive and misleading advertising messages,” Weisberg purchased the make-up specifically to wear to her oldest son’s bar mitzvah in June. Jewish law forbids women from applying make-up from sundown on Friday until nighttime on Saturday. Weisberg had hoped the long-lasting make-up would help with her “dual objectives of compliance with religious law and enhancement to her natural appearance,” the suit says.

After testing it out from sundown Thursday to sundown Friday, Weisberg was decidedly unimpressed. The product made her skin look “cakey,” and by Friday morning, her skin was shiny, “particularly around the nose,” the suit maintains. By 3 p.m., the suit claims, no foundation remained on her skin, which she discovered when she tried to remove it with a white cotton ball.

This, she claims, was distressing on many levels. Weisberg and others “have been damaged and suffered an ascertainable loss by purchasing the Product, which is sold at an inflated price,” the suit, which seeks unspecified damages, claims. 

Neither Weisberg nor her lawyer returned interview requests.

But Stacy Mackler, a spokesperson for Lancôme, told ABC News that the company “strongly believes that this lawsuit has no merit and stands proudly behind our products” and will “strenuously contest these allegations in court.”

t return requests for comment.

Pickup truck sales are really picking up. Ford is adding 2,000 jobs at a Missouri plant just outside Kansas City to keep up with growing demand for pickup trucks. The company says it will add another shift with 900 workers in the third quarter of this year. That’s on top of 1,100 workers it’s adding in the fourth quarter to build its new Transit van.

Ford’s F-Series is the best-selling vehicle in the US, with more than 228,000 sold through April. Sales jumped 24 percent in April compared with the year before. Chrysler says Ram pickup truck sales soared 49 percent. GM’s sales of the GMC Sierra and Silverado rose more than 20 percent. A big reason for the rise is the recent revival in construction jobs with tradesmen and small construction firms replacing their old trucks.

We love our tablets. As sales of personal computers slide, International Data Corp. reports a surge for the tablet market. Global shipments of tablet computers more than doubled in the first quarter of this year, says IDC. The worldwide total of more than 49 million tablets was more than the number of tablets shipped in the first half of 2012. Apple is the world’s largest seller of tablets with nearly 40 percent of the market.

A bold prediction about tablets from BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins. “In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore,” said at a conference, according to Bloomberg News. “Tablets themselves are not a good business model,” said Heins. Certainly not for Blackberry, which had very disappointing sales after launching the PlayBook.

The first Chinese-owned vehicle manufacturer in the United States has announced plans to build as many as 1,000 electric buses a year at a refurbished RV manufacturing plant in the Mojave Desert. BYD officials in California said the plant should produce the first 10 of its plug-in buses next year. The buses will be powered by BYD’s own rechargeable batteries.

Wind energy turbines are getting smarter. The new “brilliant” turbine announced by General Electric will communicate with the power grid, and each other, reports the news site qz.com. The turbines can “adjust electricity production while storing and releasing electricity as needed.”  The first three GE turbines are to be installed at a Texas wind farm operated by Invenergy. “The turbine’s software captures tens of thousands of data points each second on wind and grid conditions and then adjusts production, storing electricity in an attached 50 kilowatt-hour sodium nickel chloride battery,” says qz. If the wind dies down the electricity can be released from the battery and sent to the power grid.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC News Radio abcnews.com Twitter: daviesabc

After this week’s upbeat reports on surging home prices and reasonably solid consumer spending, ADP, the payroll firm, released gloomy numbers on job creation just two days before the Labor Department’s April employment survey.

According to ADP, private employers added just 119,000 new jobs in April “which is a meaningful weakening in job creation,” says economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. The number of new jobs was the fewest in seven months.

“I think the key reason for the slowdown is the fiscal headwinds that’s the tax increases the expiration of the payroll tax holiday, for example, and the spending cuts the government spending cuts and sequester,” says Zandi. He predicts that the sequester will take a bigger bite out of the economy in the months ahead.

“Right now the Defense Department has been very aggressive in cutting. Big declines in defense outlays and so that’s starting to ripple through the economy.”

The people who do the buying for American businesses say factory orders rose at a slower pace last month as manufacturers cut back on hiring and their stockpiles. The index from the Institute for Supply Management was down.

Spending on construction projects fell in March as the biggest drop in government projects in more than a decade overwhelmed strength in home building. The report is from the Commerce Department.

On the plus side, Ford, GM, Chrysler and Nissan are all reporting double-digit U.S. sales increases last month, signaling the best April for car and truck sales in six years. The only laggard was Volkswagen, with a sales decline of 10 percent. The gains are another sign that Americans continue to buy cars and trucks despite high unemployment and mixed economic signals.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC News Radio abcnews.com Twitter: daviesabc

Gas prices usually head higher during the spring and summer but not this year. The American Automobile Association’s new forecast says drivers are likely to pay less this summer, with prices dropping to below $3.40 a gallon in most states by July, down from today’s average of $3.55. As long as there aren’t what AAA calls “refinery problems or significant international news events,” the trend of lower prices is likely to continue. Ample refinery production and weak demand are reasons for the expected price drop. April gas prices are at their lowest since 2010. West Texas crude is close to $93 a barrel on oil futures markets. The decline in gas costs could lead to a busier summer driving season.

Apple is selling $17 billion in bonds – the biggest corporate bond sale in history. It’s part of Apple’s effort to raise money it plans to give to shareholders through dividend payments and stock buybacks. Apple is sitting on $145 billion in cash, more than enough for the $100 billion cash return program it announced last week. But most of its money sits in overseas accounts, and the company doesn’t plan to bring it to the US unless the federal corporate tax rate is lowered. Raising the money through a corporate bond sale gives Apple a tax benefit, since interest payments on corporate debt are tax-deductible. Market participants say the $17 billion is spread across six types of bonds, including a three-year note and a 30-year bond.

Six years after the iPhone went on sale, Apple is declaring the original device virtually obsolete. From next month most owners of first-generation devices will no longer be able to get them repaired or serviced. The original iPhone will be labeled “vintage” by Apple, according to the blog site 9to5 Mac. Introduced in June, 2007, the first iPhones led to a revolution in mobile computing.

The housing recovery is accelerating right across the country. Average prices are rising at their fastest rate since 2006. According to S&P/ Case-Shiller and other surveys some of the local markets with the biggest bounce are cities where prices plunged 50 percent or more during the slump. One reason for the rise in house prices is more expensive rents, says Craig Lazarra of Standard & Poor’s. “Rents in many cities are quite high so as the cost of renting goes up that people gives people an incentive to think about buying houses.” If you have a good credit score home loan rates are very low and that can make buying cheaper than renting. “The cost of financing is at lows for my lifetime,” says Lazarra.

One week after hackers broke into The Associated Press‘ Twitter feed and shook financial markets, federal regulators say they need to find ways to deal with the impact of social media. No action has been taken yet by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Commissioner Bart Chilton suggested that regulators should consider imposing tougher cybersecurity rules for investment firms and others that trade.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC News Radio abcnews.com Twitter: daviesabc

Image credit: Courtesy Kristi Rifkin

Kristi Rifkin had been working at T-Mobile Call Center in Nashville for four years when she got pregnant with her third child. She says she loved her job.

“I had a great run,” Rifkin, 40, told ABC News. “I was making bonus. T-Mobile was good to me. I never had a problem getting a schedule I wanted. I enjoyed it. I had even left another company to work at T-Mobile because they had great benefits.”

But her good will toward the company changed once she got pregnant.

According to Rifkin, the pregnancy–her second (she has one stepson)–was a difficult one, and she was going to the doctor twice a week, seeing both a regular obstetrician and a high-risk obstetrician. She was also required to drink “tons and tons” of water – which, in turn, resulted in frequent trips to the bathroom. This did not sit well with T-Mobile, she said.

“They give you two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch,” said Rifkin. “If you can’t take care of your biological needs in that time period,  you don’t go.”

Before her pregnancy, this wasn’t an issue. But as she explained in a blog post on MomsRising.org, frequent jaunts to the bathroom would cut into what was known in the call center world as  ”adherence” — a metric that measures the degree to which employees meet their quota for being on the phone.

“You have different numbers you have to meet each month, and if you don’t meet them they can fire you,” she said. “The thinking is that if you’re off the phone and you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, then there are customers waiting to talk to you.”

She tried to hold off on eating and drinking; she needed the health insurance the job provided. But the baby was suffering, Rifkin said, and she had to start drinking water again.

Finally, she said, her supervisor pulled her aside and told her to get a note from her doctor explaining that she needed to go the bathroom often.  ”At that point, I thought my head was going to launch off my shoulders,” said Rifkin. “‘Are you serious? I need to get a note from my doctor to go to the toilet?’ This is a basic biological need.’”

But Rifkin did as she was told; she got the doctor’s note and cleared it with Human Resources. She was told that she could use the rest room any time she needed to, she said, but that she would have to clock out. When she returned from that bathroom, she would have to clock back in. “This meant I was out of work for five minutes,” she said. She had to write the hours down and turn it into her supervisor, just to make sure she wasn’t taking advantage of the situation.

“I ended up using my vacation time to use the bathroom,” she said.

But she still wasn’t eating and drinking as she was supposed to. Her blood pressure skyrocketed. She was stressed and anxious.

She finally went on the Family Medical Leave Act, which requires employers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to eligible employees,  seven weeks before her son, Ian, was born, on May 14, 2010. A month and a half after she returned to work she was fired, she said.

The reason?  Rifkin says she was summarily fired after she failed to remove an extra-charge feature from a customer’s account, the commission for which was 12 cents. She says the rare error occurred when she either forgot to remove the charge or removed another charge instead.

She got no severance, she said, and now pays for medical expenses out of pocket.

Rifkin said she has no plans to sue the company; it’s too expensive, and Tennessee is an at-will employment state. “They can fire you for any reason,” she said

The US. Department of Labor reports that only eight states require paid rest periods and Tennessee is not among them.

“There is no specific legal requirement that requires employers to let their employees use the restroom,” Paula Brantner, the executive director of Workplace Fairness, which provides legal information about workers rights. However, “If a pregnant woman is the only employee being forced to clock out, and they don’t require males or non-pregnant females to do so, it would seem to me that would be pregnancy discrimination.”

In an email statement to ABC News, T-Mobile spokesperson Glenn A. Zaccara said that he could not comment on a specific individual. But “T-Mobile employees enjoy generous benefits including paid-time-off and short and long-term disability coverage,” he said. “The company has leave of absence policies in line with regulatory requirements.”

Rifkin was not impressed. “I’m done with T-Mobile,” she said. “I don’t want anything to do with them anymore.”

Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Washington Wizards center Jason Collins’ jerseys got a boost in online sales after he became the first openly gay athlete on a major U.S. team sport.

Team spokesman Scott Hall told ABC News that 100 percent of custom jerseys ordered from the team’s online store bore Collins’ name and number, 98, on the back, after Collins revealed his homosexuality in an article published on Sports Illustrated’s website on Monday.

Collins began the first-person article, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”

READ: Jason Collins Says ‘It’s Mind-Boggling’ To Be First Openly Gay Athlete

While Hall could not reveal how many custom Collins jerseys were sold, he said that the team’s general merchandise sales and online traffic spiked following Collins’ announcement.

In a statement, the Wizards said they were proud of Collins and “his decision to live his life proudly and openly.”

“He has been a leader on and off the court and an outstanding teammate throughout his NBA career. Those qualities will continue to serve him both as a player and as a positive role model for others of all sexual orientation,” the statement said.

“I know that I, right now, am the happiest that I’ve ever been in my life,” Collins told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview Monday night. “A huge weight has been lifted. I’ve already been out to my family and my friends, but just to, you know, sort of rip the Band-Aid off and come out on my own terms.

“I hope that every player makes a decision that leads to their own happiness,” Collins said.

READ: Gay ESPN Host Reacts

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It’s not unusual to go on Yelp to find  reviews of restaurants or stores, but now the online review website includes  posts about prisons  from around the country.

Purported inmates, employees and visitors are using Yelp to rate and review institutions from Rikers Island in New York to San Quentin State Prison in California.

The reviews include complaints, advice and, occasionally, praise.

“One time I was arrested in Chicago on a case of mistaken identity. I understand that the police make mistakes and I don’t hold that against them. Overall, the jail was pretty miserable,” one person wrote of the Cook County Jail in Illinois. “The beds were very uncomfortable and my bunkmate was frequently rude. The only reason that I’m giving it two stars is because of the food; it was great and very reasonably priced. I suggest chicken mole, boeuf bourguignon, or cannelloni ricotta e spinaci.”

A Rikers reviewer began by saying the inmates  had “a terrific getaway on this luxurious island retreat,” but then went on to describe the jail’s less-pleasant conditions.

The review ended with, “Thank you, Rikers Island:  it took me just a few weeks to realize I would never drink and drive again.”

A detailed food review of the L.A. County Jail concluded with the line, “So there it is … free place to stay, free food, free services … and a 0 star rating on Yelp.”

“OK so of course its not great. It’s jail! Just don’t do any crime. I never will,” another Yelp user wrote about the L.A. County Jail. “But I can’t believe that people write reviews about jails on Yelp.

A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told ABCNews.com that it was  aware of Yelp reviews but did not devote a lot of hours poring over them.

“Who has time? I don’t know anyone in the department that does,” the spokeswoman said.  “We’re under enormous challenges right now and, frankly, don’t have time.”

She said it’s possible that someone in the hierarchy of thousands of employees reads the reviews, but she is not aware of anyone who does.

“Inmates have formal ways to make complaints. There’s a process for that,” she said. “There are mechanisms in place for people to launch any issues or concerns they have.”

She said inmates could make complaints through the facility, through local elected officials, the office of the inspector general or other avenues. She said the complaints can be made anonymously and said that retaliation is illegal.

“These types of reviews demonstrate the desire of the community to share their personal experiences with all types of businesses, services and places,” Yelp said in a statement to ABCNews.com.

(Image credit: Charitybuzz)

The charity auction for a coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook is back on after the highest bid was discovered to have been made with a stolen credit card.

The date with Tim Cook, along with 137 other experiences, benefit the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The auction closes on May 14 but the highest bid was already $605,000 as of last week. The highest bid dropped to $600,000 on Monday after it was discovered that the previous top contender had bid with a stolen credit card, as first reported by Fortune.

Read more: Apple CEO Donates Coffee Date With Himself for Charity

Glenda Luft Felden, spokeswoman for Charitybuzz, which is hosting the online auction, said as soon as the bid was placed it was brought to their attention and immediately resolved.

“The current highest bid is a legitimate bid and we’re excited to see where the auction goes,” she said.

The second highest-priced item is a tour of SpaceX Center in Los Angeles with founder Elon Musk at $7,500.

Charitybuzz is still adding new packages to the auction. One of the most recent experiences is the chance to meet designer Marc Jacobs backstage during a fashion show.

Other packages are a training camp with NFL football player Peyton Manning and the chance to be in a movie scene with “Thor” star Chris Hemsworth in a film directed by Michael Mann.

For the first time since 2007 – before the recession – the US Treasury is planning to make a down payment on the federal debt. The budget deficit has been shrinking more than expected. Thanks to government spending cuts, and higher tax receipts The Treasury says it expects to pay off $35 billion of debt in the second quarter. That compares to an earlier forecast that it would have to borrow $103 billion. Usually this time of year is the best for government cash flow because annual tax returns flood into the Treasury in April. But the return to at least one quarter of debt paydown is a clear sign government spending cuts and tax increases have helped lower the deficit.

Twinkies and Ho Ho’s are on their way back. The new Hostess Brands says it will open bakeries in Indiana and Illinois, following announcements last week that it will reopen bakeries in Georgia and Kansas in its effort to bring back the popular snack brands. Private equity groups Apollo Global Management and Metropolis & Co. – now doing business as Hostess Brands – paid $410 million to buy the Hostess and Dolly Madison snack cake lines from the previous owners of Hostess Brands. The investment firms are now trying to revive operations to get Twinkies, Ho Ho’s and other popular snack cakes back on shelves by the end of July.

A Las Vegas-based social gambling company says it will launch the first legal, real-money poker website in the United States. Ultimate Gaming will only accept wagers from players in Nevada for now, but the site may represent the shape of things to come for gamblers across the country. Internet poker has been banned in the United States since 2011. More recently, the federal government softened its stance on Internet betting and three states — New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada– have legalized some form of online wagering. With today’s launch, Nevada wins the race to bring Texas Hold ‘em back to the Internet.

Despite repeated claims by many skeptics, the stock market continues to climb higher. The S&P 500 – the market’s broadest gauge of big stock performance – is now at an all- time high of 1593. The Dow Jones index gained 106 points yesterday. Two tech stocks Microsoft and IBM were among the best performers, rising more than 2 percent each.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC News Radio abcnews.com Twitter: daviesabc

(Credit: Stephen Yang/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Mobile phone users who purchased T-Mobile equipment and financed the purchase using T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Plan may be eligible for a refund after the company settled alleged a suit over “deceptive advertising” of its “no-contract” plans.

On Thursday, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a court order agreement with T-Mobile to correct advertising that promised consumers no annual contracts but which had hidden charges for early termination.

The agreement was signed by T-Mobile and is effective nationwide, ensuring the company “clearly communicates the limitations” of its new “no-contract” wireless service plans. The agreement also allows customers “duped” by the deceptive ads to end their contracts in which they financed their phones with no penalty, according to Ferguson’s office.

READ MORE: T-Mobile’s New No-Contract Plans Explained

Jeff Blyskal, senior editor with Consumer Reports, said he was surprised by the agreement because T-Mobile has positioned itself as the “un-carrier” phone company that did not have contracts. But still, Blyskal said T-Mobile has better terms than other phone carriers because they eventually halt phone subsidy repayment fees after about two years.

“The whole bit about contracts, cell phones and cell phone service is very confusing, because it’s been made confusing by cellular service carriers,” Blyskal said.

T-Mobile agreed to pay $26,046  in attorneys’ fees and costs to the Washington Attorney General’s Office.

T-Mobile USA, based in Bellevue, Wash., recently launched a wireless service plan that claimed to offer “no restrictions,” “no annual contract” and no requirement that the consumer “serve a two-year sentence,” the Washington State Attorney General’s office said. The plan does not include a phone but T-Mobile gave the option for consumers to use their own phone, pay for a phone up front, or buy a phone at a monthly rate over a two-year term.

“After an investigation of the company’s practices, the Attorney General’s Office learned that the company failed to adequately disclose that customers who purchase a phone using the 24-month payment plan must carry a wireless service agreement with T-Mobile for the entire 24 months–or pay the full balance owed on phone if they cancel earlier,” the AG said in a statement.

Customers who purchased T-mobile service plans and equipment under this plan between March 26 and April 25, 2013 may be able to obtain a full refund by calling T-mobile at 1-877-746-0909 or dial 611 from their T-mobile phone for more information.

“While we believe our advertising was truthful and appropriate, we voluntarily agreed to this arrangement with the Washington AG in this spirit,” said T-Mobile in a statement to Consumerist.com.