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Black Friday Madness; Amish Girl Missing

Aired November 29, 2013 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The holiday shopping season is off to a pretty brisk start, not just for the retailers, but for the bargain hunters, too.

The shoppers have been arriving in droves today. They snatched up the door busters on Thanksgiving night. Then they came back today for a second helping of all the deals. And as we have all come to expect on Black Friday, there have been some serious moments of mayhem. Take a look.

Yes, that's kind of what we have now been used to, the video. This one, this fight that broke out over a stack of TVs, was at a Wal-Mart in Elkin, North Carolina. We're not exactly sure where the next skirmish happened, but it does show the level of security at some stores.

Oh, man, all of this over just buying stuff cheap. Speaker of security, you might want to really watch it when you leave a store. One shopper at a Las Vegas Target store was shot in the leg last night as he tried to stop a man who was stealing his big-screen TV. So please be very careful out there of your fellow shoppers and the possible robbers.

But for the most part, the holiday shopping is actually off to a pretty good start, a roaring start. We're getting first reports from the big stores. Target is reporting -- quote -- "unprecedented" numbers of shoppers in stores and online. Wal-Mart says it rang up $10 million in transactions in four hours just last night.

But the shoppers aren't the only people lining up at Wal-Mart. There are some other people showing up, too, protesters, about 1,500 protests scheduled today at Wal-Mart stores across the country. They're organized by a group of people called Our Wal-Mart, which is pushing for better working conditions at the big box chain.

Our CNN's Kyung Lah is outside a Los Angeles Wal-Mart, where one of the protests is getting under way there.

And, Kyung, I know you have been watching all morning. We're always very wary to make sure we know who are protesters, who are organizers, and how they compare overall to the number of employees and their satisfaction. Can you wrap that up for me?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's really difficult to tell exactly who is a Wal-Mart employee or who is just a community member or a union organizer. Just walking through the crowd a little bit, it does appear there are some Wal-Mart employees both current and former, but what we're looking at here, primarily, is a community event. And this is being staged here just outside this Wal-Mart on a Black Friday, so that they can make a point about wages. You can see a lot of these people like the woman who is speaking on the stage right now. She has the number 25,000 on her chest.

That number resonating here because most employees will not make $25,000 a year. And this protest has been repeated throughout southern -- throughout California. There was another one just west of Los Angeles, in a city called Ontario. And there were some arrests there. There were 10 people who were arrested.

It was peaceful civil disobedience, trying to make a point about those wages, but we took the question to Wal-Mart's CEO, asking whether or not they could do anything about what the protesters are asking for. Here's what's he told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL SIMON, CEO, WAL-MART U.S.: We pay in the top half of retail. Our industry offers the opportunity for people to enter really at any life stage from 16 all the way to 76 if they would like to.

And then they work hard and they can build a career. Entry-level jobs are in our store. We have lots of opportunity for people to grow into management. And today, over half our folks make well above the amount that's being requested.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And so the lady you're looking at right now, you may be able to tell that she's actually holding a baby in a Babybjorn.

And that's really symbolic here because they say that despite what the CEO says, it's not really a livable wage. It's certainly not enough to raise a family or a child here in an expensive city like Los Angeles -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Kyung Lah watching that for us as it develops throughout the day. Thank you for that, Kyung.

I want to definitely tell our viewers right now, there are other ways to shop. You can certainly avoid protests and packed stores and parking lots. You can just go online and shop, and a lot of people do, Cyber Monday just days away. And the deals can be just as good online, sometimes even better.

But there are some tricks to saving even more money, stuff you may not have heard about. It's really simple. Coming up in about 20 minutes, we will talk to the man who runs this Web site. It showcases all of the best deals. We will have some Cyber Monday tips for you to help you keep some money in your wallet. Like I said, I'm a good online shopper, and I saw some stuff on here I did not know. Hopefully, we can pass that to you. Keeping with the online theme, a Utah couple is being fined thousands of dollars, and all because they went online and they wrote a negative review about a retailer. It started when the husband ordered some Christmas trinkets online for his wife. That was back in '08. Trinkets didn't show up, they got their money back, but the wife decided to go online and say it wasn't the best experience, my words, not hers, but effectively the same thing.

You probably have done the same thing, right? Seems kind of harmless. Not so much. This company now is fining this couple $3,500 because of the negative review. I know. I can't believe it either.

CNN's Pamela Brown tracked the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Palmer bought a few Christmas gifts for his wife, Jen, on the Web site KlearGear.com in 2008, never imaging he would still be paying the price five years later. The Palmers say the items they ordered never arrived. The transaction was canceled.

JEN PALMER, CONSUMER: After 30 days or so, PayPal said, hey, there is no activity here. They turned around and gave the money back into my husband's account and effectively canceled the sale.

BROWN: After repeated calls to KlearGear to find out what happened, Jen Palmer post posted this review on ripoffreport.com saying in part, "There is absolutely no way to get in touch with a physical human being. No extensions work."

Fast forward, 3 1/2 years, the Palmers received this e-mail appearing to be from KlearGear, stating this he would be fined $3,500 if the negative review wasn't taken down in 72 hours.

PALMER: We were shocked that somebody would attempt to do this because it's ridiculous that anybody would turn around and try to extort us like that.

BROWN (on camera): Have you ever heard of anything like this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have never heard of anything like this happening to the consumer, only because retailers mainly protect the consumer.

BROWN (voice-over): The e-mail cited this obscure non-disparagement clause and the terms of the use contract that says, "Your acceptance of this sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts KlearGear. com."

Legal experts warned more and more companies are adding this type of language in the fine print as protection.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: The First Amendment does not protect certain kinds of free speech. You can sign a contract giving away your free speech rights if it's a fair contract. This contract, though, is not fair and, frankly, it would be thrown out by any court.

BROWN: We found other examples of non-disparagement clauses in customer agreements, including this one from a vacation rental company threatening to charge customers up to $10,000 in damages if a post containing unreasonable negative sentiment isn't removed.

The company told CNN, it stands by its practice. The Palmers couldn't take down the review and refused to pay up. KlearGear apparently reported the bills as unpaid to a collections company.

PALMER: It was bad enough when we went to get our second car, it took them a month to find a bank that was willing to finance us, because of the huge ding this puts on our credit.

BROWN: CNN tried multiple phone numbers listed on KlearGear's Web site, all of them disconnected. KlearGear.com did respond via e-mail to our affiliate KUTV defending its actions. The Palmers say they are taking their fight all the way to court.

PALMER: We don't want them to get away with this. Apparently, we are not the only people they have done this to. We're just the only ones who are fighting back and we're not giving up.

BROWN (on camera): The better business bureau is now investigating and has put the company on alert. Now, to protect yourself during this busy holiday shopping season, retail analysts suggest that you read all the fine print and make sure a company is legitimate.

And if you do write a negative review, make sure that it's accurate, because a company can sue you for libel even if it doesn't have that clause -- back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: All right, Pamela Brown with some pretty good information for us.

And you just saw the gentleman on my right speaking briefly in Pam Brown's piece, CNN analyst Paul Callan. He joins me now.

Now, OK, here's the deal. I do this all the time. I just click, yes, I read it, and I move on and keep doing my business. Some of those contracts are 10,000-, 20,000-words long. You said some contracts aren't fair. What constitutes a fair contract?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean, the lesson obviously is that you have to be really careful about this and what you're agreeing to, because you could be agreeing to something that could lead to a lawsuit or a big nick in your credit rating in the end.

Now, what constitutes fair? This is unfair to the nth degree. Essentially, this couple is being punished for legitimately criticizing a company that didn't even supply the product that they ordered. You know what that means? In this case, this contract never even came into existence because part of the contract, of course, was to get the goods that you ordered.

For them now to be fined $3,500 is ridiculous. I think they're going to really whack KlearGear in this lawsuit.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: But this is the problem. So it's this couple's responsibility now to launch a lawsuit of their own just to clear their names?

CALLAN: Well, sadly, they have no other option. Usually, the marketplace takes care of companies that abuse consumers. And a lot of the states have consumer protection laws.

You can see the attorney general of a various -- various states jumping in to protect consumers who don't have the money to fight back. And I would expect that you would see that sort of action if this trend spreads.

But, bear in mind, and this is why I say you have to be careful. You can by contract limit your right to criticize. We can enter into a contract to do just about anything. It's a free country. If it's a legitimate contract that both sides understood and agreed to, the court will enforce it.

If it's a ridiculous contract like this one, which, by the way, the wording in this one is defective as well because its purpose is to avoid libel. Well, truth is a defense to libel. If their products are terrible, then it's not a libelous situation.

BANFIELD: Right.

CALLAN: This one, I think, they will win. But be careful out there when you're signing these things.

BANFIELD: And, look, whoever is right, whoever is wrong, you have to go through all this hassle. They tried to get a car loan. They couldn't get a loan. They got to get a lawyer. It's going to be -- it's really financially debilitating to have to go through this right from the get-go.

Paul Callan, can you stick around? I have other stuff I need to talk to you about.

CALLAN: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: OK, Great, Paul Callan live for us here in New York.

Coming up, an 11-year-old Amish girl who is suffering from leukemia is missioning and so is her family because they don't want her to get chemo. And gets this. Her grandfather says the treatment that's natural that she's getting is actually working. We will have that story and all the implications for you next.

Also, a man can control his bionic leg using just his mind and his thoughts. This is cool. And I will bet you it's more than $6 million, anyway, maybe not in finance, but in value -- new groundbreaking developments straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: An Amish is in hiding today effectively to keep their sick child out of the hands of court-appointed caregivers; 11-year-old Sarah Hershberger has leukemia, and doctors at Akron's Children Hospital say she needs to finish receiving her chemotherapy treatments or she will be dead within the year.

Doctors are saying that, and they say it's a certainty. But Hershberger's family, they said that the treatment made Sarah very sick, and they have chosen to use natural remedies instead. And last month, her father spoke by phone to our affiliate WEWF.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ANDY HERSHBERGER, FATHER: Our belief is the natural stuff will do just as much as what that does, if it's God's will. If we do chemotherapy and she would happen to die, she would probably suffer more than if we would do it this way and she would happen to die.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BANFIELD: In October, the court appointed a guardian to oversee Sarah's medical care. And according to "The Akron Beacon Journal," when Sarah was supposed to be picked up, the family was nowhere to be found.

With me now is CNN's Nick Valencia.

And, Nick, I understand you have just gotten off the phone with the family's attorney. What are they saying? Where are they?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I did.

Maurice Thompson would not comment on the whereabouts of the family, but he did say that the family also told him that their little girl Sarah is cancer-free. It appears that from CAT scans she's had over the course of the last couple weeks to couple months, that the cancer is out of her system, or if there is any cancer in there, he says there is very little evidence of it, according to the family.

I asked Maurice Thompson, what is this case about to you? He said this is about the parental rights of a family, the constitutional rights of a family to decide the health care for their family. He also interestingly enough, Ashleigh, said that this is not about whether or not they're going to refuse chemotherapy. He said they just don't want it as a first resort option. They don't want it forced on them. They want to go down this road of alternative medicine.

The daughter was treated outside of the United States. He would not confirm to me that report from the grandfather saying she was treated in Central America, but he did say that that alternative method, according to the family, is working. Now, the other side of this, the Akron Children's Hospital, they have discredited the alternative method as being successful in cancer treatment. They are saying there's no proven track record, and that if she gets chemotherapy, there's an 85 percent chance that she will survive. The chief medical officer of Akron Children's Hospital spoke to "NEW DAY" just this past summer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROBERT MCGREGOR, AKRON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: And the child did have some side effects, which would be certainly expected. And then the decision initially was they wanted to have additional complementary medicine, which is something that we would certainly be supportive then. And then the decision shifted that it would only be using the alternative or herbal medicine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: The last time the 11-year-old girl Sarah received chemotherapy was in June. That's five months ago, and as you mentioned, Ashleigh, doctors are convinced if she does not receive chemotherapy, there's a strong likelihood that she will die -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I hope she's going to be OK. I think that's the understatement. Nick, thank you for that. Appreciate it, Nick Valencia reporting live for us.

VALENCIA: You bet.

BANFIELD: Space meets social media. It's the new Instagram account that is giving people an unbelievable view of our solar system. It looks fake, it's so awesome. NASA is gaining followers, and the pictures have a lot of people following. We will show you more of these remarkable images coming up next.

And it could be a major breakthrough for thousands of Americans,an artificial leg that can actually read your brain signals. You're going to hear from the man who is testing out the new technology.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We always talk about how far technology has come, especially when you're on a smartphone, and you just can't believe what you can do. Here is something that is going to top pretty much everything that you may have, a bionic leg that reads your mind.

You think about your raising your leg and the leg goes up, just like that. Amazing.

CNN's Brian Todd is live in Washington.

You had an up-close and personal look at the technology. I keep thinking Six Million Dollar Man, and I don't know if it cost that, but it sure is worth it, right, Brian? BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sure is, Ashleigh. And it's incredible. We all remember that TV series in the '70s. And this is pretty much that come to life.

This guy's name man is Zac Vawter. He lost his leg in a motorcycle accident some years ago. And doctors at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago invented a special software and a prosthetic that allows the leg to read the signals from his brain. The prosthetic attaches to his thigh. There are electrodes which read the signals that his brain sends to the thigh. The electrodes are in that part that attaches.

Then a computer processes those signals and the mechanical leg then executes the signals and tells his leg what to do. You can see him there. He can bend his leg, he can extend it, point his toes up and down. He talked to us in just much more simple form, in real life, about what this is able to do for him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZAC VAWTER, USING BIONIC LEG: It's just reading the signals that my body is sending to walk, just -- just like walking. So there's nothing -- there's nothing special about it in the sense of what I have had to learn. I just get up from a chair and walk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: But again, it's the subtleties of walking where this is really coming into play here. He can go upstairs. You saw the video of him doing that. He can point his toes up and down. The subtleties of walking are what really set this apart, Ashleigh, and the people at that same institute are now working on bionic arms for people.

It's incredible technology and we're going to have a lot more about this in "THE SITUATION ROOM" later on.

BANFIELD: Good, because one thing I can't figure out, Brian, and just because I'm an idiot, I expected to see him wired to the hilt, if you're reading -- if the electrodes are reading the signals, et cetera. I'm not seeing any of that. He doesn't look like he has anything, other than just the leg.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: He doesn't. And he could have a pair of long slacks on and you would never know the difference. That's really the incredible part of this. They do have to tweak the technology a little bit, but it really is something that is exciting to watch. And he's just a test case, but they are developing this technology to help thousands of amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe even some of them could get back to active duty. That's according to the U.S. Army.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: OK. I like the first part of what you said, just helping them in the first place. I'm not so sure I want to see them going back into active duty, but, yes, the implications for all those returning injured vets.

Brian, I can't wait to see your piece later on. Thank you for that. You have been busy.

TODD: Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Brian's full piece, by the way, the report will air on the bionic leg tonight on "THE SITUATION ROOM" right here, CNN, 5:00 Eastern.

Trending right now, it turns out the comment that skimmed the edge of the sun, the comet ISON, it might have survived after all, at least in part. This time yesterday, ISON slipped behind the sun as expected, but it didn't reemerge. And that kind of had people thinking gravity would have destroyed it, but then the scientists noticed a little streak.

Can you see that little circle right there? That just might be a wee chunk of the comet ISON. It's being tracked right now. It might have actually brightened as well, but will it fizzle off, will it's veer off course? All those questions. There's no way to predict this, but we're certainly watching it.

And since we are speaking of the wild blue yonder, how is this for a selfie? I love it. It's a pic from NASA's Instagram page. This is a page that has topped 350,000 followers, and NASA just put it up in September. Old pics, new pics, pretty cool stuff, and a pretty nice piece that is running about it right now on CNN.com. Highly recommend you check it out.

You do not need me, lady in red, to tell you it is Black Friday.

And, sadly, scenes like this, you don't need me to tell you, are not uncommon, pushing, shoving, hitting, getting arrested and all that stuff just to get an item that is marked down. If you don't want to be in the middle of any of that, but you still want a great deal, the perfect solution, Cyber Monday. Next, we will be talking to a man who has online shopping tips that are going to save you a whole bunch of money and you can just sit there in your underwear. What could be better than that?

Also, a college freshman, unbelievable story. This guy spent four days in jail, all because of the spelling of his name. We will explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)