BITS » Triad News

Multiple Cars Broken Into At Businesses In Clemmons

BITS of WS Admin — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:47:26 +0000

This just in, there have been at least three cars broken into that were parked at Lexington BBQ Friday night. The windows were smashed in the typical smash and grab and included both employee and customer cars. Sheriffs deputies were on the scene while other deputies were responding to calls at Lewisville-Clemmons Rd and Peace Haven.

Vitacost Charging Erroneous Sales Tax Rates?

Freedom 101 — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:09:57 +0000

Vitacost.com out of Boca Raton, Florida but with an distribution warehouse here in Lexington, North Carolina seems to not have a very accurate sales tax calculator. In fact it appears that it is so bad that they are routinely charging upwards of 10.9% Sales Tax for items shipped to Charlotte and over 10% for other various North Carolina zip codes.

Background: Vitacost.com is a vitamin and nutrition supplement online retailer out of Boca Raton, Florida. Vitacost sells national label items as well as items made for their own label using a distribution warehouse built in Lexington back in 2007 with expansion made possible in part by both local incentives as well as $450,000 from One North Carolina Fund in 2010. Listed as VITC on NASDAQ the stock is thinly traded and has remained in the $4.50 to $5 range since it was halted back in December of 2010 after disclosure by the company that it’s financial statements dating back to 1994 were unreliable. Legal action was taken by a group of share holders in 2010 claiming that certain Company officers and directors had “breached their fiduciary duties and unjustly enriched themselves.”

In reviewing a purchase I made with Vitacost I noticed the sales tax rate did not seem to add up and in doing the math I came up with a charge of just over 9%. I then pulled up older orders and found the sales tax rate charged had been incorrect on orders dating back for a year. I emailed the company about the errors and was told that yes they agreed the wrong rate had been charged and if I would provide background information on the orders they would take care of it. I did exactly that but I also stated I was not satisfied with the answer as it appeared this was not a single occurrence and that it looked like the company was charging the incorrect sales tax rates for all North Carolina residents. Needless to say I got no response and didn’t pursue the matter as we were talking about $3-4 so it really wasn’t worth my time. With several months of no response I decided to check their website again and not only were the sales tax rates incorrect but they had gone up to 10.2%! I again emailed the company stating I had pulled the computed sales tax rates for multiple counties in North Carolina and had found not only have they not refunded any money to me but continue to charge an incorrect sales tax rate, of course again I got no response.

So this time I decided to waste a little time and pull some information together for future reference and since I had that info I might as well post it here as well. Using zip codes pulled from Areaconnect.com and Sales Tax Rates from Zip2Tax.com I attempted to checkout using an address based in each of the following zip codes and found the corresponding tax rates being charged by Vitacost.com on a $10 item.

City/Zip Code	Sales Tax Rate	Vitacost Computed Rate
Charlotte, NC 28209	7.25%	10.9%
Winston-Salem, NC 28607	6.75%	10.2%
Raleigh, NC 27601	6.75%	10.2%
Wilmington, NC 28401	7%	10.5%

To show I am not just making this up below you will find the checkout form for each of the above zip codes. Does this look like a “math” error to you?

A New PACE Airlines Comes To The Triad?

BITS of WS Admin — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 22:19:07 +0000

Looks like a group is trying to repeat the game plan of PACE Airlines in applying to bring a charter jet service to Greensboro. Interestingly enough several PACE executives have signed on with the new company called Victory Jet LLC. The primary’s of the new company are Jeff Erickson and Christopher Barnes however word is a number of former PACE employees have joined on. Those listed were Eric Winberg, Herman Gillis III, Tom Cartwright, Michele Burdick, Ellis Nelson, Barry Blumquist, and James Brown.

The company objective is to take various jets, and outfit them for VIP charter services. The current jet listed is a single 737 outfitted with 64 First Class seats and plans to add a second 737.

Medical Records Stolen From Baptist

JamesB — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:03:53 +0000

Hundreds, maybe thousands of medical records have been found at the home of a Baptist employee. Rather than repeating the limited info already posted on several sites I will just give you the links. This seems to be at least the second time that Baptist has had issues with missing records.

But, police now say a Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center employee, Linda Turner, stole hundreds, possibly thousands, of people’s medical records.

They say she kept the files in the basement of a home she owned. The hospital fired her just last night— this is going beyond a job situation…

Baptist Hospital Employee Charged After Medical Files Found

Wake Forest Baptist medical records found in rental home owned by employee

Did The Mexican Drug Money Pullout From U.S. Banks Cause The Financial Crises?

JamesB — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:05:14 +0000

By now everyone should have heard something about Wachovia admitting they allowed Mexican drug cartels to launder almost FOUR BILLION dollars through their bank. What amazes me is how little this story was covered especially locally and what’s worse is it appears it takes a U.K. paper to tear down the story and present it in a clear timeline of events. Now even more interesting is this video from The Keiser Report. In this video they draw a clear line to the Mexican Drug Money pullout to the banks needing to go to the Feds for cash and thus the beginnings of the financial crises.

PART Ask For $3 Vehicle Fee

JamesB — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:02:34 +0000

PART has asked for Forsyth, Guilford, Davidson, Surry and Randolph County Board’s to approve a $3 per vehicle fee to offset 3.2 million dollar deficit. The fee would be imposed on each vehicle as part of the yearly tag renewal. The state would be responsible for collecting then disbursing the money collected. PART is also looking at reducing or changing services and routes however put off any decision on that in lieu of asking for added taxes to pay for the service.

10 Wounded During Live Fire Training At Fort Bragg

JamesB — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:40:35 +0000

Eight Marines and two Sailors were wounded last night during a Live Fire Training exercise at Fort Bragg. It appears a round exploded while in the barrel of a 155mm howitzer sending shrapnel flying. Two of the injured were flown to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill while the remaining eight were at Womack Army Medical Center. The extent of the injuries as well as the names of the wounded have not been released.

4Brothers to “Re”-Open Burger Joint

JamesB — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 17:20:46 +0000

Looks like 4Brothers is going to give BackYard Burgers another try on Lewisville-Clemmons Road.

Lexington BBQ Festival a Huge Hit

JamesB — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:36:35 +0000

Expectations were for around 100,000 and I’d say they hit that number if not well above it. This was one huge Saturday in Lexington this weekend, bigger than any prior year by a fair margin. This is a shot from the Kids area looking back downtown. Downtown itself was elbow to elbow. If anything Lexington probably needs to look at expanding the area they use for the Festival, moving some of the music further off main to get the crowds moving a bit more.

Antimicrobial Technologies Group Looking At Winston-Salem

JamesB — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:49:30 +0000

Antimicrobial Technologies Group recently visited Winston-Salem having meetings with Meridian Reality and Grande Peak Technologies. CEO Simon Johnston and the management team from ATG reviewed the area for potential sites and appears to have expressed a serious interesting in the RJR Whitaker site.

Antimicrobial Technologies Group makes anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-odor fabrics, fibers, plastics and paints. They are looking for a facility in the 100,000 square foot range however commented that they could easily outgrow such a site within a few years. ATG is a relatively new company derived from the research of a professor at the University of South Dakota. They had a ribbon cutting of their South Dakota facility just last year at which time they employed just a handful of people. Dr. YuYu Sun discovered a N-Halamine molecule which is claimed to fight germs, fungus, mold and viruses, a very bold claim I would think. ATG holds the rights to that molecule and looks to deploy it in everything from paint to textiles, textiles being where Winston-Salem comes in.

Information on ATG is pretty thin considering how new the company is not to mention their products have more or less not been marketed. For a NPR sound bite on the company you can hear the CEO and VP discuss their products and company below. Their website, http://www.antimicrobial.us/ isn’t much help for providing any more in depth information but it appears they probably have less than a dozen employees at this point.