Sales numbers come in much weaker than expected. Bellwether macys cut the forecast. Will retailers start slashing prices to get you in the door . Football season is coming up. Fantasy football will cost employers billions of dollars in lost productivity. But there is some good news too. Well explain that. The new threat emerging that is having a serious impact on folks Financial Health in retirement. The willis report where consumers are our business starts right now. We begin with the flight of comcast customers. This latest video with comcast forgetting about customer all together. Ive been on hold with comcast for 3 hours and 20 minutes. Watch what happens when i call another phone to that number . Im sorry, but our offices are now closed. Our regular Business Hours are weekdays from 8 00 a. M. , to 9 00 p. M. And saturday that is how long ive been on hold and theyre closed. If youre going to use any. Im pissed. Nicole rightfully so. Imagine you are on hold for over three hours and then find out it is closed . Tonight a different comcast customer fought back an actually won. Here to tell us his story is tim davis. That is not his real name. Notice he is in silhouette. He asked us to obscure his identity because of his work in the tech industry. Were happy that tim is able to join us here today. Weve got his shadow. He will tell us his story. Tim, first and foremost, what do you think about the guy who was on hold for three hours and then comcast says, sorry, were closed . What do you think of that . Ive got to tell you im not surprised. As a matter of fact, when i was dealing with my situation with comcast, there was a point at which a tech, said that he put me on hold or transferred me to another number, or something, i forget. I ended up on a line where i was on line longer than kure times. I believe there is line they transfer you to that puts you on hold forever. Nicole makes you so aggravated even to just be on hold and talking to robots basically. Yeah. Nicole tell us quickly, what happened to you and how you really gave it back to comcast. Well the short version is, i called up and activated my line at new house. Did selfininstallation. Everything worked fine a couple weeks. After a couple weeks it stopped working so well. I had to have another technician come out. I called up, hey, the line to my apartment is not working so well. We did a bunch of troubleshooting of the tech was able to verify the problem was with the line going into my apartment. That is comcast owned line. So he said would send technician out for free. Nicole free a f, r, e, e. That is not what happened at all. Not at all. Nicole you got charged. I got charged. I called back, hey, you have charged me for this thing that you said was going to be free, here is bunch ways verify free. What the tech said he did is not legal unless he had written permission from my landlord to verify that. They werent willing to give anything back for me until i played the call i recorded where technician said the agent said the technician would be free. Nicole i wanted to say, we had up your actual bill which showed what really happened there. And on your bill, you were not supposed to have this. Instead you had some fees there, including yourself install you were not supposed to be charged for. That selfinstall is 100 bucks. A wireless setup. That was about 40, almost 50 bucks. The whole thing was 108. You gave it back to them because you recorded this whole thing. I think we have sound of that. Are we able to go ahead and play that. Every time we send out a technician there is 50 charge for that. Well i have a call recorded where the agent tells me in no Uncertain Terms there will be no charge. So employee can give feedback to employee but there is no way to this is recording of the call where i scheduled the technician to come out. Are you listening . Yes, go ahead. So just to confirm, i wont be charged for having a technician out to check the line, right . For outside voice i, no. We already credited the 82 on the account. What charge for eight hours. That credit will appear on your ledger. All right. Well are you satisfied, tim . I mean i know you had to play back your own recording of this whole thing and thank goodness you did that. You certainly are up poored consumer. We should take a lesson from you but are you satisfied with comcast the fact they reimbursed you . Are you going to continue to be a comcast customer . Well, as to whether or not im satisfied, i would have to say no. Of course i got my money back and that is great. The amount of time i spent getting it back was worth more than the money itself. According to, if i were to break my job out into hourly wage. But, even so, you know, they did refund it and good on them for finally doing that. Nicole right. But the fact that they were referred to their lying as negotiating, and outright said if i hadnt recorded the call they would never have given me my money back, it is just as sound stownding to me. Astounding to me. Already or not i would be comcast customer. Unfortunately in my area i have no choice. Comcast has statesanctioned monopoly. Nicole thanks for sharing your story with us. We appreciate your time. We heard the authentic phone call and shows how you empowered to consumer. Here is what comcast said. Agent on call did a lot we training them to do. It was painful to listen to this youca. We can and will do better. We appreciate. That. We want to know what you think. Here is our question for tonight. Is Customer ServiceGetting Better or worse . So log on to gerriwillis. Com and vote on the righthand side of the screen. Share the results later in the show of the we want to hear from you. So please be active, get on there and tell us, better or worse, Consumer Service. Consumers may be willing to fight bad Customer Service but they are cautious when opening their wallets. Retail sales stalled in july to the weakest level in 60 months with more on this, we have brian with us of cantor brian, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate this. Great to be here, nicole. We heard the consumer is stalled. Everybody is pinched in the wallets. We heard the job market come back from the Great Recession but what are you finding . What we see is probably two things, first of which, if you put retail sales in context theyre probably not as bad as to think they are if you look yearoveryear which is way we do instead of month to month, retail sales are up 4 versus this time last year. A little less than it was in the previous month but not so much. What youre finding that consumers are spending money on Different Things and this is where nicole what are they spending on . Particularly retailers, sectors with strength yearoveryear like automotive. A lot of people are spending on durable goods. Nicole maybe people were waiting. Automotive and durable goods, anything that falls on your foot really hurts like washing machine that lasts years and years. Maybe People Holding off. We went through tough economic time and buying those things. Men versus women. Athletic wear, footwear, back to school. What do you think will give retailers bit of a boot . You will see couple different, more brand than categories. You will see great Consumer Brands like underarmor doing very well. Brand selling things that consumers really want today are doing, disproportionately well. That is what we see in the retail landscape. Some retailers like costco that continue to significantly outperform the market. They sell a range of things growsries and nonfood items. They are doing well across the board. Some not doing well as expected. Nicole retail sales and trending over last several years. What do you think about some retailers gear towards specific locations . Trying to know their market . More relevant to the trading areas theyre in. If you think about it, think what you want on line. Nicole retailers takinged about emotional environment. Kate spade. Even as they have done great. Outpaced michael kors and. Cutting prices. Do you think that is trend youre going to see. I think you will see certain retailers and brand selective where they cut price. We think the retailers nicole wick question or no. Brickandmortar, going to the store versus online. Yes. Brickandmortar retail will continue to be major part of how people buy things. Nicole got to in there. Touch the, feel it, know if you want it. Thanks, nicole. Nicole thanks for breaking that down. Macys struggled today, amazon shares jumped more than 2 after the Online Retailing giant introduce ad new product. A new credit card device designed to help small business. Fox businesss jo ling kent has all the details from the newsroom. Jo . Hey, nicole. Amazon launched their local register. It is 10 credit card reader that plugs into phones and tablets and hooks up with businesses with the amazon app for business. Like in most other areas amazon is undercutting competition with 1. 57 per swipe card fee until 2016 if customers register before 31st of october. Otherwise 2. 5 on fee with all transactions. Compare that to squares 2. 57 flat rate. Paypals 27. 7 . 2. 7 . Intuit, go payment, 2. 7 if you dont pay their monthly fee. The device works on apple and Android Devices and kindle fire but ironically not on the amazon fire phone which came utterlier this year. Amazon will collect all interesting new information, from these users. So lets take a look at the amazon chart one more time. Shares were up nicely today as you mentioned, but yeartodate amazon is down more than 19 . Sampson amazon posted 126 milliondollar net loss in the recent quarter. Theyre still very much hurting nicole. Nicole seems like the wave of the future jo. How is consumer affected . What can Small Businesses expect from amazon . They can expect all their businesses will be available from amazon. There are a lot of interesting features that allow them to collect data and, things like that to really improve and beef up accounting. But overall youre revealing all your data to amazon which of course can use it for their own purposes, nicole. Nicole that somehow doesnt surprise me. Thanks, jo, we really appreciate it. Great report. Thanks. Nicole still a lot more to come this hour, including your voice. During the show we want to you us out on facebook or tweet me, gerri willis fbn or n pettiledes, send them to gerriwillis. Com. Well read them at the bottom of the hour. Are you ready for fantasy football . It is so popular businesses across the country may see lack of productivity from workers as the season kicks off. All the details are next. Nicole fantasy football is sacking productivity. According to new study, fan at this football may cost employers 13 billion in lost productivity as employees spend the season managing their pretend roster. It is really important, right . With more on this julie bueller, host of radio show buehlers day off. She is with us right now. Julie, what do you think of this. Latest report from challenger, Gray Christmas talking about lost productivity. 13 billion likely to be lost because everybody will be managing their Fantasy Football Teams. I know it seems absurd but it is a true thing, right . It is true. Hi, nicole, good to see you. Just a matter of passionate sports fans that get to invest in players that they choose. So whereas, generally sports fans grow uprooting for a single team, in fantasy sports, specific fantasy footballs they invest in players they think will do the best and help them win a championship. So as week progresses, they become more and more curious whether or not they were correct in their own predictions. Just fuels the already, furious fire of sports fan dom. Nicole what do you think . They say it is about two hours a week that people will be looking at this and, its a 15week period that people are adjusting their fantasy Football Players somebody is hurt. Got to quickly get on roster, replace the player on your team. Does that sound about right, or do you think it is a lot more than that . It is a lot more than that, even if youre Buffalo Bills fan, if you have maurice jonesdrew, newly acquired by Oakland Raiders on your team, you not only have to worry about maurice jonesdrew and worry about the offensive line blocking for hill. There is a lot of Research Going into being a fantasy football owner. Ownership of a Fantasy Football Team becomes so important to people. They become truly invested like their own predictions. Players all across the nfl. So whereas, it used to be the invest in one team, now you may be invested in 10 different teams to make sure your players are doing well. Nicole this is serious bragging rights. This is some serious watercooler, friend, family, bragging rights. As a matter of fact, i have two boys who are current at camp, made their camp phone call to tell dad, guess what, dad any already know what players were going to be putting on the Fantasy Football Team. Women are getting involved. Children. It could be fun for the family. We talked about the lost money at work, right . We talked about 13 billion. Over 30 Million People are investing time and in some cases money. There are actually pools, trophies, there are prizes. Women are involved. It is certainly a growing fa many no none. Some, one, companies if they tried to shut it down at work, listen, dont do that, it actually ruins productivity and ruined morale in the office. What do you think of that . Thats right. Well, everybody, especially in the office, everybody wants to get involved in the Fantasy Football League for the brag rights you mentioned, potentially to win money. Just to add to that, nicole, fantasy football alone, 11 billion with a b, a 11 billion industry. There is a lot at stake for not only individual fantasy football owners but industry, on national level. There is a lot that goes into it. Give us a couple quick tips before we wrap it up, julie. Tell us. I am predicting Colin Kaepernick will have breakout season. I might be a huge niners fan. That could add to that i think he will be great with stevie johnson. Go with the old guard, peyton manning. He will be awesome again this year. Nicole one of my sons favorites. Julie, you were great. A lot of people enjoy fantasy football. It is a lot of fun. Instead of hollywood gossip or shopping online at work people can manage those teams. I think would keep a lot of brain cells. Thanks very much. Later in the show you video chat with your friend and your family, hey, how but face time your doctor . And next we answer the question, how do you do that . Well have advice on managing your debt and retirement which unfortunately a growing problem for retirees. Please dont go away. Nicole dont let debt weigh you down in a he retired. From mortgages, Credit Card Debt, student loans, todays retirees are saddled with hefty burdens in their golden years. How do you keep your finances from losing steam in your retirement right . Youre supposed to be having a good time. Lets bring in the principal of fregaso financial advisors. Tell us what you think about the fact that were talking about people getting older and yet they were saddled with even more debt than a decade ago as they have, theyre just taking on some of the brunt of what their kid are even having, right . Student debt, things like that . Thats correct. Thank you, nicole, having me on your show. That is correct. There is myriad of debt that preretirees and retirees assumed and it has gone up quite a bit over last couple decade. Nicole what kind of a to toll is taking on them . Any money to debt service is not available for living or productive servicing. Nicole retired debt among homeowners 75 years older, weve seen that on the rise. 21 have debt, double the 8 1 2 rate back in 2001. There is Credit Card Debt loads. Those average balances have been on the rise. Some cases have zero to these levels. 6,000 for 65 and older. 75, over 4600. Taking on student debt that is something importants well. Americans age 60 plus, still owe 43 billion in student loans. And are delinquent on top of that. Which is the worst . What do you pay off first . We, the credit card deb is the worst debt nicole. And youre correct. The, mortgage debt has gone up. In fact there is great increase in reverse mortgages where seniors are taking equity out of their home to live. That has gone up 20 just in the past year. That is in the billions. 15 billion i believe was placed in the past year. And the student debt, as you said has a high default rate and falls on the parent who may have guaranteed it or who chosen to pay it off for their student. Credit card debt is the worst. It is high interest and not tax deductible and usually incurred for consumed goods and services. As opposed to longterm debt like a mortgage or auto loan, that may have a productive use. You talk about reverse mortgages. So disconcerting to an older person who invested so much of their home debt to take money out in order to pay for things. How about 401 k s and the like . Is it a good idea to take it out of some Retirement Fund in order to pay off some of these things or recommend that or not necessarily . No. Disrecommended for two reasons. First the money taken out of 401 k is no longer available to grow. If it is invested properly to help provide for secure retirement. But worse, that makes it easy. And we tend to look for the easy pill. That is an easy pill. So if the debtor taps the 401 k to pay off the debt, that does nothing to solve the debtors behavior that got him, her, them into debt to begin with. Nicole that is another point. You have to really need to know what your lifestyle is and have, be stringent what youre spending and frugel, right. I would offer to you, nicole, there are three kind of households. Those that spend less they make and accumulate assets. Those that spend all they make and accumulate nothing. And those that spend more than they make and accumulate debt. Unfortunately we have been sold debt as a way of life. I mean sold. It is true. Robert, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me on. Nicole were glad youre here. Coming up next we take exclusive behindthescenes look at one of the hottest properties in manhattan, t