Latest news with #JessicaWalker
Scoop
4 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Consumer NZ Is Stoked To Learn Surcharges Will Be Banned
From May 2026, New Zealanders will be able to tap their card or phone without being charged those pesky, excessive and sometimes hidden surcharges. An amendment to the Retail Payment System Act will put an end to excessive, hidden and unavoidable surcharges, which cost New Zealanders an estimated $65 million a year. Jessica Walker, acting head of research and advocacy at Consumer NZ, is thrilled to see surcharges scrapped because it will put millions back into the pockets of New Zealanders, and make accepting payments much simpler for merchants, too. 'We've received close to 300 complaints about excessive surcharges (over 2%) in the last few years. In some cases, card payment surcharges were as high as 25%. We've even had complaints about surcharges being applied to EFTPOS transactions. 'We've been calling for surcharge regulation since 2017 and, recently, urged the Commerce Commission to consider an outright ban. Although surcharge guidelines were in place, they clearly weren't working. "The whole surcharge situation here in New Zealand is currently a mess. Surcharges for debit and credit cards are banned in the United Kingdom and European Union, and the Reserve Bank of Australia recently proposed a surcharge ban – so this brings us nicely in line with other countries," says Walker. 'The ban is a no-brainer. These new rules will bring an end to a very messy situation!' What consumers need to know The ban will only apply to debit, EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard payments, so if you're paying with another card, such as an AMEX or foreign-issued card, you may still have to pay a surcharge. The ban also won't apply to prepaid gift cards. Online payments are excluded. This is disappointing because your flight or accommodation booking or any other online purchases could still attract a surcharge. Australia is considering making online payments part of its surcharge ban. We'll be calling for similar rules here. The cost of your coffee shouldn't increase by that much, if at all. If merchants choose to increase their prices to cover their payment costs, any increase should be very minimal because interchange is being lowered which will reduce the cost to businesses of accepting payments.
RNZ News
10-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Consumer NZ on CC charging two Pak'nSave operators
Consumer New Zealand says penalties under our fair trading laws may need to be tougher to deter bad behaviour. Consumer NZ head of research and advocacy Jessica Walker spoke to Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Scoop
03-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
The Sale Of A Top-Rated Power Company Signals A Shrinking Market
Flick Electric has been named New Zealand's top-rated power company in Consumer NZ's latest energy retailer survey - but the win comes with an unexpected twist. Flick achieved a standout satisfaction score of 71% (very satisfied), earning a People's Choice award. Flick was recently sold to Meridian Energy – the parent company of Powershop, which failed to meet the People's Choice standard in 2025. In contrast to Flick, Powershop, a seven-time People's Choice winner since 2015, has seen a notable drop in satisfaction – from 67% in 2024 to just 60% this year, pushing it out of the top tier for the first time in years. 'Flick has consistently rated well in our surveys, so it's disappointing to see it absorbed by a larger player,' says Jessica Walker, Consumer NZ acting head of research and advocacy. 'Flick customers have been typically among the most satisfied. We don't know what the future holds for Flick customers, but there is a risk it will be consumers who will bear the brunt of reduced competition.' The poorest performers this year are Pulse Energy (41%), Contact Energy (44%) and Mercury (47%). Contact Energy and Mercury are two of the largest energy providers in the country and are known as 'gentailers', electricity companies that both generate and retail electricity directly to households. Meridian Energy was the third-best performing power provider in the survey results and notably the highest-ranking of this country's four gentailers. Frank also earns People's Choice, but sector-wide ambivalence is up Frank Energy joins Flick in receiving a People's Choice award, with 65% of its customers reporting high satisfaction. However, broader trends across the industry point to a decline in overall positivity and a rise in customer ambivalence. 'More people are rating their power providers as 'just OK' rather than great,' says Walker. 'It's a clear sign that satisfaction is softening, and the market isn't delivering the value or the service that New Zealanders expect.' Frank's parent company is also a gentailer, Genesis Energy, which falls into the middle-of-the-pack category. Key findings from the 2025 survey Value for money scores have dipped across much of the sector. Fewer problems were reported. Amongst those who did, there was a slight drop in satisfaction with the retailers' handling of issues. Confidence in the electricity market is low. 36% say it's working poorly for New Zealanders. Signs of hardship are rising. More missed payments, overdue fees, borrowing to pay bills and disconnections. Loyalty won't lower your bill - shop around Walker urged consumers not to stay loyal to underperforming providers. 'Power is the same no matter who you buy it from – but price and service vary widely,' she says. 'There's no reason to stick with an expensive or unhelpful provider.' Powerswitch, Consumer NZ's free and independent power comparison tool, helps people find better plans and providers. On average, people who check power options through Powerswitch can typically save around $500 a year. 'With satisfaction falling and pressure on household budgets rising, take action now,' Walker says. 'More than half a million New Zealand households in the past year alone have used the Powerswitch service. It's quick and easy to switch!' Note: Consumer NZ energy retailer survey data is from a nationally representative survey of 1,985 New Zealanders, aged 18 years and over, carried out in March and April 2025. Satisfaction rating shows the proportion of respondents who scored their retailer 8, 9 or 10 on a scale from 0 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (very satisfied). Ratings are for retailers that had 30 or more responses in our survey. View the results here.
New York Post
28-05-2025
- New York Post
Girls groomed online as teens reveal shocking tactics used
It couldn't have been more obvious that Jessica Walker was a vulnerable 13-year-old. The anorexic teen was a religious follower of the unfathomably thin YouTuber Eugenia Cooney and regularly posted on Discord servers dedicated to her fandom. That's where the Strasburg, Virginia, teen was contacted by a 29-year-old man, who she now realizes worked out her vulnerabilities and set out to sexually groom her. Advertisement 'When we first started talking, he was totally normal, and we were just friends. I would tell him about my life and some secrets,' Walker, now a 21-year-old senior at Kutztown University, told The Post. 10 Jessica Walker, pictured at 14, was the target of internet groomers. Courtesy of Jessica Walker 10 Walker was contacted on forums dedicated to Eugenia Cooney's fandom. Tiktok / eugeniaxxcooney Advertisement But gradually, things took a dark turn: 'He would just slowly switch topics to talk about sex, and at first what I thought were innocent jokes.' When she was fourteen, they started sharing explicit photos and messages. 'By that time I felt trapped … By the time you feel endangered by a groomer, you feel like they already have too much on you,' Walker said. The predator threatened to show up at her home if she ever went to the police so, out of fear, she kept her mouth shut and was kept up at night, terrorized by a stranger her parents had no idea even existed. 'I was too ashamed to tell my parents about it,' Walker said. 'Groomers just prey on that shame and lack of knowledge, and they make the children feel like it's their fault that adults are attracted to them.' Advertisement 10 Now 21, Jessica Walker realizes she was groomed when she was a young teen. Courtesy of Jessica Walker After a year of torment, she finally built up the courage to block her abuser, but the memory of the manipulation still haunts her. 'They're nicer than people in school or your parental figures, but then they end up taking a position of power … and then they start very slowly making it all sexual.' Grooming — the process by which a predator gradually builds a relationship with a minor in order to sexually manipulate them — is becoming ever more common as people use the internet from an ever younger age. Advertisement The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline experienced a 300% increase in tips about online enticement from 44,155 to 186,819 between 2021 and 2023. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom recorded 6,350 Sexual Communication with a Child offences in 2023, a number which has increased 82% from five years ago. 10 Predators began contacting Kayla Bryant when she started her YouTube channel in 8th grade. Courtesy of Kayla Walker Michael Aterburn worked as a detective investigating internet crimes against children in Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 2008 to 2014. He encountered a new case of internet grooming at least once a week. The perpetrators were always men, ranging from teenagers to senior citizens, but typically between twenty and forty years of age. 'Most of the time the child is at risk to begin with, and they have some kind of need to be filled, and now somebody is telling them all the things that they want to hear: 'You're smart, you're pretty,'' Aterburn told The Post. 10 Kayla Bryant said her groomers normalized sexual abuse for her. Most often, he says teens will be contacted on social media or through video games like Roblox, then the predator will move the child over to a private messaging app, like Kik, WhatsApp, or Signal. Advertisement Kayla Bryant was lured into sexual relationships with men in their 20s after they found her on YouTube, also when she was 13. Bryant started making videos in 8th grade and sometimes talked about struggling with her home life in them. 'Older people would [reach out online and] say that they wanted to provide that security for me, and so I would pursue it,' Bryant, now a 22-year-old college senior from Cincinnati, Ohio, told The Post. '[That led to] extreme codependency issues.' By age 14, she started to meet up with men a decade older than her, who claimed to offer shelter from her turbulent home situation. 'It would be real adult men … I would stay at their houses, be treated with gifts, but then the sexual abuse became regular to where it no longer [seemed like] abuse but something that I was used to.' Advertisement Often, Aterburn would be deployed on the internet to pose as a 13-year-old girl to entrap pedophiles and get them off the streets. 10 Michael Arterburn was a detective investigating internet crimes against children for eight years. Courtesy of Michael Arterburn 'The prosecutors wanted me to get the guys to physically meet so they can rule out whether this was an online fantasy, but I've only had a handful that didn't want to meet,' he recalled. 'I've had the perpetrators show up with handcuffs and rope and tape and Valium and sex toys.' Aterburn says grooming red flags parents should look out for include gifts in the mail or a child who is hesitant to hand over their phone: 'If they turn off their game or they minimize their window on the computer when you walk in the room, that's a huge red flag.' Advertisement He also recommends parents use the parental control platform Bark to monitor cell phone activity and ban electronics behind closed doors. 'Never punish your child if they come forward and tell you about something, because if you take that electronic [device] away, which is almost every parent's knee jerk reaction, all you've taught them is not to come to you,' Aterburn advised. Alicia Kozak, another grooming victim and anti-exploitation advocate agrees: 'What is probably most important is that your child knows they can come to you with absolutely anything at all, and that you'll remain calm and you'll solve the problem together.' 10 Alicia Kozak was the first known abductee from online grooming back in 2002. Courtesy of Alicia Kozak Advertisement Kozak was thirteen when she became the first known victim of internet child abduction in 2002, when a 38-year-old man coaxed her from a Yahoo chat room into his car and ultimately held her captive and sexually abused her on livestream for four days before being busted by authorities. Kozak, now 37 and author of 'The Internet Safety Guidebook: Protecting Kids in the Digital Age,' often speaks about her experience, and says without fail she has young women approach her after every talk to say they've been groomed online. 'People say, 'Well, my kid's a good kid. My kid doesn't do those things. My kid isn't curious.' But anybody can be a victim, including the kid that you think is the most well behaved and trustworthy,' she said. Naomi, a now 22-year-old nurse from Wales, UK, was contacted by a 26-year-old predator on Snapchat when she was 15. 10 Alicia Kozak was just 13 when a predator contacted her on a Yahoo chat room. Courtesy of Alicia Kozak 10 Kozak was missing and sexually abused for days before being rescued by police. Courtesy Alicia Kozak 'It seemed quite normal at that age for someone to just add you, and you'd add them back,' she said. Naomi, who asked to withhold her last name out of fear of retribution, says her predator keyed in on her turbulent relationship with her parents, who alienated her after she rejected their Jehovah's Witness faith. 'I was just searching anywhere else I could find a close adult connection, and when he came along, it was like two pieces of a puzzle that fit together,' she recalled. Several months into talking, he proposed she run away with him — and booked a hotel and a train. However, after a week, money ran out and her predator, who claimed to be a lawyer, took Naomi to live on the streets with him. 10 Incidents of grooming have shot up thanks to the internet and the pandemic. Ellionn – 'It turned violent quite quickly, but at that point I was so engrossed, and I just thought that was my only opportunity to have a different life than what I had before,' Naomi, who recalled having a knife held to her neck during sex, said. Three weeks in, the cops discovered them on the street and threw the man in jail for child abduction. Though she says her decision to run away was 'extreme,' she warns grooming is not and she knows many people who were groomed to some extent online. 'There were a lot of other girls at school who were groomed at some point, whether it was being talked into sending nude pictures or having flirty conversations online with people they don't know. It was so normalized,' Naomi recalled.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Yahoo
Multiple people injured in Fort Lauderdale boat explosion, Fire Rescue says
Several people were hospitalized after a boat exploded in the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale on Monday, according to the Fire Rescue department. The boat, which was near the New River Triangle sandbar, exploded around 5:45 p.m., said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Third Class Jessica Walker. Frank Guzman, a Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue spokesman, said 11 people on the boat were injured, including two children. Emergency dispatcher communications tell of a chaotic scene with several people in the water and people suffering burn injuries. The injured children are around 5 years old, a paramedic told dispatchers on scanner audio reviewed by the Herald. Witnesses Bret Triano and Marisa Toomsen said they were hanging out at the sandbar when the boat exploded. 'There was this boat trying to leave the sandbar and when they went to start their boat up, it just exploded,' Triano said. 'It was a huge fireball and people were kind of falling off the boat, so we were at the sandbar too, and we just tried to go help out.' After getting a friend to call 911, the two got in their dinghy and pulled a man who was in his 30s out of the water. He was screaming, and his skin was burned 'pretty badly,' Toomsen said. 'He was saying, 'Save me, please don't let me die,'' Triano said. The two strangers got the man to shore, where the Coast Guard was waiting. Triano described the boat that exploded as possibly a 40-foot motorboat. Guzman told reporters at the scene that all 11 people on the boat were taken to Broward Health Medical Center. Some of them were then taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's burn unit in Miami, he said, although he did not have the exact number of patients sent there. 'A lot of them had burns to much of their body,' Guzman said. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Guzman said he was not aware of any fatalities. As of Monday night, it was unclear exactly what caused the explosion. Guzman said Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue had a fire investigator on scene and that the Fort Lauderdale Police Department and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission would conduct a joint investigation. Josh McCarty, who lives in an apartment nearby, said he saw one child and two adults being treated by first responders. The man that he saw appeared to have been burned. 'He was moving around and talking, but it seemed like he had severe burns on his arms because they had it wrapped in gauze and everything,' McCarty said. This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
