Chris McMeen, a Deputy Water Superintendent with Tacoma Water, was just trying to find new ways to test for lead.  The utility tested water in four homes at the service pipes before the meter and not in the home.

”We did that with the intent of finding out if that water quality testing approach would identify if there was lead in the pipe. We sampled it in a way to purposely find lead,” explained McMeen.

Tacoma Water found lead, lots of it.  Test results showed some lead levels 25 times higher than the allowable amount.  However, KIRO 7 has learned the state Department of Health was not directly involved in the details of the initial four home sampling protocol.

Now the state is asking, did busting into the water line to collect samples actually create the contamination?  The utility said it’s seeking that answer.  It did speak to an engineer with the Department of Health to provide technical help.

“So if this would be the kind of thing that would be communicated throughout the entire department, I would doubt. It was a technical communication and conversation,” said McMeen.

Federal standards require Tacoma and Seattle to test for lead every three years.  But utilities also go above and beyond, like in this situation, testing whenever they feel necessary. Sometimes it’s without direct guidance from state agencies.  The Department of Health told me it does not have to be involved with testing beyond federal and state requirements.

”I think it’s important for all utilities to be examining the question is there lead in our systems that we didn’t know about that we haven’t addressed and that’s what we are trying to do here,” said McMeen.

Tacoma Water is testing 10 more homes with the Department of Health directly involved.  In the meantime, the follow-up testing of the four original homes is encouraging, showing the water flowing to the homes is safe.

Do you have a story you want me to check out? Call 1-844-77-JESSE (53773) or send me a message here. I’ll be part of KIRO 7 Eyewitness News most weekdays at 5:15 p.m. You can also check out my Facebook page and click here to follow me on Twitter.

It’s a consumer alert that that you should know.  Some used Canadian vehicles are being sold in America with voided warranties.

Greg Thompson from Everson, Washington, own a Canadian 2010 Honda Crosstour — and now it’s a car without a country.

“I definitely wouldn’t be buying another car from Canada that had been brought down here for sure,” Thompson said.

Thompson purchased the car last year in Bellingham. Soon after, the car started having engine issues.  Thompson took it to a mechanic.

“They said that the plugs were bad and supposedly there was an excessive amount of oil being burned through the car.  They had to add two quarts and we hadn’t even had our first oil change yet.”

After some research he thought the problems with his car were actually part of the Honda engine misfire class action settlement.  Thompson went to a local dealership and was told it was a Canadian car and they couldn’t fix it. Then he went to Canada where he got more bad news.

“They said that you’re an American and it’s a Washington car, we cannot fix it.  So I’m sitting there with a car that cannot be fixed by anybody,” recalled Thompson.

I called Honda of America and Honda of Canada and the law firm administering the class action lawsuit. It turns out, only vehicles from Honda of America are part of the settlement. So the extension of Thompson’s warranty is void.

With the dollar doing well against the Canadian looney, Canadian vehicles are financially attractive.  Chris Basso with Carfax says more Americans are going to Canada for to save money on a car. But you have to do your homework before making that kind of decision.  Get an auto vehicle report, like CarFax, and find out where your car is coming from. Then you can contact the automaker to find out if your warranty is still legit.

“The warranty policies differ from automaker to automaker.  So it underscores the importance of knowing if the warranty for that particular car you’re about to buy will carry over, if you’re bringing it across the border from Canada to the U.S.,” said Basso.

But if you really like a Canadian vehicle, you can find an extended warranty that will cover it.

Do you have a story you want me to check out? Call 1-844-77-JESSE (53773) or send me a message here. I’ll be part of KIRO 7 Eyewitness News most weekdays at 5:15 p.m. You can also check out my Facebook page and click here to follow me on Twitter.

A Snohomish County teenager found part of a raccoon in a local brand of trail mix.

She’s not sick, but it begs the question: How did the end up in there?

Jesse Jones spoke with the local manufacturer and a food safety expert about what you should do if you find something foreign in your food. Check out the video above.

If you have a Google, Yahoo or Microsoft email account, it’s time to change your password.  In an exclusive report on Reuters, a security expert said hundreds of millions of hacked user names and passwords for emails and other sites is being traded on the Russian blackmarket.

Alex Holden, founder and Chief Information Security Office of Hold Security, said 272.3 million accounts were stolen. The majority were users of a popular Russian email service.  A smaller portion were Google, Yahoo and Microsoft email accounts.

According to Holden, this is one of the biggest thefts uncovered since the cyber attacks on U.S. Banks and retailers two years ago.

Holden was key in uncovering some of the world’s biggest data breaches including Adobe, JPMogan and Target.  He made this latest discovery after a Russian hacker was seen bragging in an online forum about more than a billion stolen records he was ready to give away.

“This information is potent. It is floating around in the underground and this person has shown he’s willing to give the data away to people who are nice to him,” said Holden, the former chief security officer at U.S. brokerage R.W. Baird. “These credentials can be abused multiple times,” he said.

Interestingly, the hacker was asking just 50 roubles – less than $1 – for the entire collection.  But when Holden and his crew offered to post favorable comments about the hacker in an online forum, he gave up the information for free.

Click here to read the entire Reuters article.

A state audit exposed the flaws in Washington’s tolling system that could cost them unbelievable amounts of money.

The state is owed nearly $60 million.

Just after that report was released Jesse Jones went to work to find out what lawmakers are going to do about it. One lawmaker tells him there is a fix and it needs to happen now. Watch the video above.

Army veteran Solomon Sanders has been fighting for his benefits for years.

“Emotionally it makes me very, very upset. And not just for myself,” Sanders said. “Because I know I’m not the only soldier out there that this is happening to.”

Sanders served in Iraq as a mental health counselor.
But he, like many other veterans, is finding the Veterans Administration’s system of distributing benefits dangerously slow.

“As of right now, I’ve been waiting five years to get all of my benefits,” Sanders explained. “I’d thought it’d be a quick thing. We were told it’d be a quick process, maybe a year at the most. But that didn’t happen at all.”

Sanders is entitled to more than $14,000 in benefits. It’s an adjustment to add his children to his compensation award.

So Sanders asked me to help him get what he is owed by the VA.

One of the first people I spoke to was Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

“Well there is no excuse for this, no matter what the reason is,” Murray said.

According to the VA’s own statistics, in fiscal year 2015 it completed more than a million rating decisions for disability benefits.

And its backlog of cases, which are more than 125 days old, now stands at 77,000.

Murray says the VA has to do better. “So that means more than just a thank you for your service,” she said. “That means that our country is there for you.”

For its part, the VA says a unique set of circumstances created the false impression that Sanders was already being paid for his dependents.

As a result of this situation, the VA is providing training to its regional office employees so this error doesn’t happen to any other veteran. The agency has also compensated Sanders for $14,000 in retroactive benefits. It has also apologized to him by telephone for what it calls an oversight.

For Sanders, personal compensation isn’t enough. It’s about all veterans being paid in time and in full for what they’ve earned. He says it’s time the VA answers its call of duty.

Taking a look at Charles Williams and his large frame, you know he is very much alive.

But to the credit reporting agencies, he is dead. Williams discovered the issue when he moved his family from overseas to Kent. He was able to get an apartment but nothing else.

His apartment is sparse, “So this is my living room, and as you can see, there’s no furniture because I can’t get credit to get the furniture,” Williams explains.

“I’ve gone to the bank.  I tried to open an account. They said I was dead. You know, I tried to get credit. They said I was dead. What am I to do?”

Williams issue isn’t a lack of money. He’s a retiree, a veteran who gets disability and Social Security every month.

So if Uncle Sam knows he’s alive why don’t the creditors?

He’s dead tired of fighting, “So you know I can feed my family.  I can live in an apartment.  But as a veteran, you know, I can’t get furniture, and I can’t get them off the floor until I can get credit or save enough money to buy it, straighten it out.”

Williams called the three credit reporting agencies – Experian, TransUnion and Equifax.

All admitted he was marked as dead. And while it wasn’t his mistake, it was his problem to solve.

“No they just told me, they don’t give out any information unless you write them and prove that you’re not,” the frustrated father said.

Credit reporting issues aren’t uncommon. A recent study by the Federal Trade Commission found one in five people had a credit error corrected by a reporting agency. Twenty percent of those saw a subsequent increase in their credit score.

Becky House from with American Financial Solutions says these cases are tough on families, “People literally cry over the situation because it makes everything in your life so much harder to do.”

House says it’s important to check your credit report every year and catch the issues early.

Then start the dispute process right away.

“So they have 30 days to look everything over and come back and give you a decision.  They can potentially have, extend that time if they say need to investigate it further but they can only extend it by 30 days.  So really, the outside time is 60 days,” House said.

As for Charles, we contacted Experian, Equifax and TransUnion about his issue.

Citing privacy issues they wouldn’t give us any information.

But when I caught up with Charles a few weeks later he got new furniture and a great pickup truck.

Charles was ecstatic, “It’s good to be alive huh?  Came back to life and when I woke up I got a truck.”

To get your free annual credit report go to annualcreditreport.com

Click here to file a dispute with Experian

Click here to file a dispute with Equifax

Click here to file a dispute with Transunion

Nearly every new car has an internal computer known as a black box. In some cases, it can be helpful. But as is the case with all computers, the information can also end up in the wrong hands.

There have been documented cases of vehicles being taken over by hackers. Computer security expert Christopher Burgess said this is because black boxes are the brains of our vehicles.

“The backbone of the vehicle had been connected to the sound network of the phone onboard, and thus, they had proximity, they loaded the malware, they now control the vehicle,” said Burgess. “When they started adding additional things, such as cellular, Bluetooth and other hotspots to your vehicle, then they were attaching to it the network, the control network, that wasn’t designed for this.”

The boxes can potentially broadcast and track your every move.

“For example, if your GPS is hooked up there, it might have everywhere you’ve ever traveled and thus a competitor might be able to siphon off your information to determine what your route is, where you’re going, target you for robbery, and anything else,” explained Burgess.

Law enforcement officials have a different perspective. They feel the computers can help with safety. For law enforcement, black boxes mean safety.

“I think they’ve saved a heck of a lot of lives. And frankly I don’t think in most cases they don’t have anything to worry about as far as downloading information,” said King County Sheriff Detective Jay Moloney.

Black boxes can check brakes, speed, seat belt use and air bag deployment. And the information can be saved and used to help other drivers.

“You’re driving down the road and somebody pulls out from the stop sign. The first thing they say is, ‘Well he must have been speeding because I would have seen him if he wasn’t speeding.’ We can take a look at the box and say, ‘No, I’m sorry, he wasn’t speeding. You just weren’t paying attention,’” explained Detective Moloney.

Washington State law says that black box information can only be accessed with the owner’s consent, by a court order for vehicle safety research or to dispatch emergency medical personnel. Regardless of the law, Burgess said before buying a new car, carefully read the owner’s manual.

“Understand who has control of the data, under what circumstances can someone access your data, whether or not you have the option of turning that data on and off. Often times you don’t, it’s just built in,” said Burgess.

Do you have a story you want me to check out? Call 1-844-77-JESSE (53773) or send me a message here. I’ll be part of KIRO 7 Eyewitness News most weekdays at 5:15 p.m. You can also check out my Facebook page and click here to follow me on Twitter.

For the third year in a row, health insurance providers in Washington are proposing a statewide increase in premiums and it’s not small. On average it’s a 13.5 percent.

“Of course I’m concerned. I want to hold those premiums down for consumers any way we possibly can,” said Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler.

Thirteen insurers have filed more than 150 individual plans for Kreidler’s approval. Premera proposed the biggest jump at 20 percent. Regence of Oregon, Asuris, Group Health and Regence of Washington are also part of the group.

A look at details of the insurers requests shows they all expect an increase medical costs next year and some are trying to cover profit losses. All of this may be a learning curve with the Affordable Care Act.

“It was very difficult in the first year to make a prediction because you know where to set your rates based on what your real cost exposure was going to be,” explained Kreidler. “Pharmaceutical drugs, they’re not going down. They’re only going up, as all consumers can tell you. And as a result of that, it’s having a direct impact on the medical cost component of health insurance.”

Washington’s uninsured rate is 7.5 percent and a million more people in the state have health care because of the ACA. Kreidler said our state also has more coverage options than other states — which should drive competition among insurers.

“People are going to say, ‘hey, you’re too expensive, I’m going to go over to another insurer.’ With that kind of threat over the companies it really incentivizes them to get a really sharp pencil,” said Kreidler.

Kreidler has 60 days to review the proposed increases. As part of that, his office also considers feedback from the public. So if these rate increases seem unfair, he wants to hear why.

“We’re going to go through with a fine-toothed comb making sure consumers aren’t paying one cent more than they should,” said Kreidler.

Click here for details of each insurers proposed rate change.

Click here for a chart of requested and approved rate changes since 2010.

To have your voice heard as part of Mike Kreidler’s review process, go here.

Do you have a story you want me to check out? Call 1-844-77-JESSE (53773) or send me a message here. I’ll be part of KIRO 7 Eyewitness News most weekdays at 5:15 p.m. You can also check out my Facebook page and click here to follow me on Twitter.

A CenturyLink customer saw very slow Internet speed and was frustrated with the price his family was paying.

It was so slow, he said, the family thought about going to Starbucks to finish their work with high speed Internet.

Neighbors also had problems. CenturyLink said there were no plans to fix the issue. Jesse called the company in March, and he was told a fix was expected in the next four months.

Ten days after that, CenturyLink told the FCC there was no upgrade planned for the area.

So which story should we believe? See Jesse’s full story above.

Before Glenda Holden took a three-month vacation to Australia, she got taken down under by a driver from Orange Cab.

“I was shocked, first of all.  Just I thought, oh Lord,” Holden said.

The 78-year-old called the cab company to take her from Madrona to Sea-Tac airport. It cost $48.50.

When she returned, Holden checked her credit card bill — and discovered that cab ride had cost 248.50.

“You know, I cannot imagine that there is a pickup point within the Orange Cab radius of activity where they could drive from one place to another and charge $248.50,” Holden said.

Holden’s credit card company denied her dispute because 60 days had passed since the charge. So she called Orange Cab and sent them all of her documentation and she didn’t hear anything back for weeks.

“No”, Holden said, “not a word. They have never called me.  Ever.”

Well I hopped to it and contacted Orange Cab. The company said the delay was caused because it couldn’t find record of Holden’s trip.

They couldn’t find the trip because the driver put the ride on his own personal Square account.
So the money went straight to him and not to the company.

Orange Cab doesn’t have a Square account.

The driver has been suspended by the company.

Mystery solved and refund sent, followed by a phone call from the company.

It’s a picture painted perfectly by Holden, “I just picked up the message and it said, Mrs. Holden we will be sending you a check for 200 dollars.” Click. I said ‘wow.’”

Here’s your bottom line, make sure you get receipts or set yourself up for email or text receipts on Square.

Because even if you can’t get to your bill, you should be able to get to your email or your phone from anywhere in the world.

Ron Oyer’s Christmas-time ride was jolted by an expansion joint.

“It woke us both up. It scared the daylights out of both of us,” Oyer said.

He had hit a bolt that brought a piece of the joint through his tire and wheel. Oyer filed a $2,000 claim to the state for repairs and it was denied.

He still can’t believe it. “Things happen, so you own up to it. If it’s replacing somebody’s window playing baseball, or breaking something of somebody’s, you just take care of it. That’s the way it is.”

But Streator Johnson from the Washington State department of Transportation says the state won’t pay a claim unless it has prior notice of the issue before the incident.

“Let’s say it had popped up three days ago and nobody had done anything about it, and somebody hit that joint,” Johnson said. “That would be prior notice and we would probably pay on that claim, absent other circumstances.”

But the state has known for years about problems with its expansion joints. More than 60 expansion joints on I-5 from Everett to Tacoma have been rated as poor. But to the state, that information is not considered notice.

“We know that there’s been problems with the expansion joints. So they know that it happened. I had the evidence, they can come and inspect it, and all they did was say I didn’t give them forewarning that the expansion joint was going to fail, so I was not covered,” Oyer retorts.

From January 2013 to February 2016, there have been 13 claims for cars damaged by expansion joints on I-5. Six of those claims have been denied. Six were settled and one remains open. Anne Forster’s case is one of those denials.

“I come around the corner on the freeway doing 60 mph, and all the sudden there’s a metal piece sticking up out of the freeway and I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, and I hit it right on with the front end of my car,” Forster said.

Forster says she hit the expansion joint on I-5 in May of last year. She called authorities but kept driving to work. The next day on her way to a mechanic her car caught on fire. Anne filed a claim and the state sent an investigator to look at her car, but she says the inspection was less than complete.
“He never looked underneath my car. Never looked underneath it. Never,” Forster explained. “And it would seem to me that that would be what he would be worrying about.”

The state first denied her claim, then offered her $250 for a front end alignment.

“I’m really angry. I’m very, very angry. Very angry. Because they don’t have that right to do that. If I wreck something of theirs I have to replace it and take care of it. And they have no right to do that to me. Or anybody. They need to be responsible.”

I asked for a copy of the investigator’s report. Bruce Lemon with the Department of Enterprise Services, the agency that investigates these cases, says all investigatory reports are protected by law from the Public Disclosure Act.

So Anne will have trouble making her case, and Ron’s got no shot at all. For now drivers on I-5 will have to take their chances, hoping they don’t hit an expansion joint, and then praying the state will pay their claim.

And that doesn’t sit well with Oyer.

“The state doesn’t seem to want to play by the same rules, or just own up to me, something that seems so basically right. Again, I didn’t ask for any fear, or scaring me or my wife to death, I just asked for what was damaged, period. It just seems so basic.”

It’s a high tech crime where consumers can’t find out who’s the culprit. We’re talking about data breaches.

KIRO 7’s Jesse Jones tell us why it’s next to impossible to find out who stole your personal information.

For more information follow this link Data Breach Notification

The parents of Seahawks All Star Richard Sherman had a problem —

Someone was very late with a special delivery for the family.

Their Mother’s Day flowers were two days late.

And when the bouquet arrived, the family says the driver said something insensitive to Richard’s great-grandmother.

KIRO 7’s Jesse Jones has the story.

FTD Response:

“Each year, FTD and its network of thousands of local florist members deliver millions of beautiful arrangements to our customers with the vast majority of those orders delivered on time, to our customers delight. We take tremendous pride in sending the highest quality, freshest flowers available.

Occasionally, like any business, something can go wrong and expectations are not met, but we are 100% committed to our customers satisfaction. In this instance one of the orders was delivered late due to a delay with our local florist. However, we issued a full refund for their order and actually sent a free replacement bouquet to the customer, in addition to the one they received, albeit late.

We back our commitment to delivering fresh, beautiful floral arrangements with the FTD “Good As Gold” seven-day satisfaction guarantee. If our customers are not satisfied, we encourage them to contact us. Customer Service for FTD can be reached at 1-800-736-3383.”

It’s called the Blacklight Slide, where hundreds of people pay between $20 and $50 to coat themselves in glow gel and slip and slide everywhere.

But Blacklight Slide management has postponed tonight’s event, and they’re offering no refunds.

Jennifer Davidson from Auburn calls the move slimey.

What happens when Expedia cancels your hotel reservation, without you knowing?

A family arrived in Canada ready to vacation, but when they arrived they had no place to stay, along with their 7 month-old child.

Gary and Joan Broughton used Expedia to make their travel plans. After finding out that their hotel reservation was canceled the hotel they were supposed to stay in was full because of Memorial Day weekend.

After investigating the families situation and contacting the travel agency, Expedia gave them a full refund of the canceled hotel reservation and refunded the unexpected expenses the family paid at a different hotel stay.

We’ve seen the surprise marriage proposal take place almost everywhere.

But 18-year-old Jack Graham took the whole proposal game to his high school graduation at Meadowdale High School.

The Edmonds school district held his diploma until he apologized for stealing the spotlight of other high school graduates walking across the stage after him.

Here’s both sides of the story.

Donna Neely works in the incident management office at Western State Hospital and she hurt her back moving boxes.

“I lifted one to slide it over to a table that was next to me, and I felt a pop in my back”, Donna said.

That quickly, Donna had an incident that needed managing.

So she filed a Labor and Industries injury claim.

“So when I got approved I was ecstatic. I was really glad and happy about it. I wanted to start getting better right away.”

Donna went right out and got physical therapy.

Donna said, “They told me like the fourth week is the key where you really start feeling better and start getting better. The beginning of the fourth week, I received a call from some lady at L&I telling me oopsie, we made a mistake.”

It was a very costly mistake. L and I had changed its initial ruling and denied Donna’s claim. Plus, the agency said it wouldn’t pay for the $3,000 worth of medical treatment it had already approved.

“It’s not right. You can’t treat people like that. You can’t say oh, you’re good. We’re going to pay and you’re going to get well. And then say oh never mind. You’re going to stay where you are and we’re not paying nothing, and you get to eat all the back bills,” Donna said.

Tim Church says the state has 60 days to give final approval of a claim. In this case, he says a new employee took over her file and on the 57th day, they denied it.

“For sure, I can completely understand why she was unhappy with us,” Church said.

And that doesn’t make Donna any happier.

“But the bottom line was that L&I was supposed to cover it. It shouldn’t have gone back on me. And I just didn’t think it was fair.”

Donna contacted me and I spoke to L and I, that had decided to stick with its denial of Donna’s claim. But it would pay her $3,000 of medical bills.

“We felt horrible about it, and we still do. We let her know that we were covering the health care that she incurred during the time that she thought it was approved,” Tim Church said.

Donna’s case isn’t over. The state closed its file saying she didn’t appeal in time. Donna believes the state had moved its appeal date since it had approved her payments. We will keep you updated.

All it takes to open a PayPal account is an email address and a credit card number, but several documents are required to close an account.

Pamela Penning, a Lynnwood widow, tried closing her late husband’s PayPal account, but didn’t quickly receive the help she needed.

After calling PayPal several times, PayPal still refused to close the late husband’s account. The company requires a death certificate, copy of will, a letter from the executor of the estate, along with the executor’s ID.

However, the state of Washington is a community property state, so there is no will and no executor.

A few months later the account racked up more than $200 worth of fraudulent charges.

After speaking with the family and PayPal they eventually shutdown the account and offered a refund for the fraudulent charges.

Paypal Response:

“We understand that losing a loved one is an emotionally stressful time, and that navigating through a loved one’s financial affairs can be challenging. When an account holder passes away, PayPal needs a few standard legal and identification documents, which are listed on the PayPal website, in order to close the account. Once all necessary documentation have been received and reviewed, the account can be closed.”

A local car dealership, Doug’s Lynnwood Mazda, mailed 100,000 contest flyers to local residents.

The flier consists of playing “The King of Cars” with grand prizes ranging from a $25,000 cash prize to a $25 gift card. One needed to match three cars in a row of the same color in order to win a prize.

Everett resident Iesha Paschal-Nzelu played the game and thought she won a $5,000 grand prize. When she arrived to receive her prize she was astonished by other local residents waiting to claim their prizes.

Paschal-Nzelu only received a $25 dollar gift card from shoppingdough.com.

The contest flier wasn’t designed to be misleading, but to generate traffic into the dealership, according to the dealership General Manager Andy Bryant.

After speaking with the general manger and Paschal-Nzelu, we spoke with a representative from the Washington Attorney General’s Office.

The lack of disclosure could make this advertising deceptive and the chance to win isn’t clear on the flier, according to Washington Attorney General Office representative Shannon Smith.

“My final message to the dealership is pay up, or shut up,” said Paschal-Nzelu.