In short:

We believe Amazon found a way to charge a few extra pennies to an enormous number of transactions, adding up to over $20 billion in
illegal charges.

This is about how something becomes a "Sponsored product."

Amazon lets businesses bid to be "Sponsored" and it runs digital auctions to collect the bids.

But Amazon told businesses that the highest bid would only pay slightly more than the second-highest bid.

For example: If you bid $1 to have your product “Sponsored” and the next-highest bid is $0.50, you should pay about $0.51.

But we believe that Amazon would run the auction, see those bids, and then secretly raise the second-place price so it could charge the
winner more.

It was a gradual strategy based on concealment.

Internal Amazon documents show they tested how much they could raise those hidden charges without advertisers catching on, then raised them
more when businesses didn’t react, then gave false answers when businesses started asking questions.

Those higher costs on sellers can filter down to you, as consumers, through higher prices, and our initial estimate is that this impacted thousands of small businesses in North Carolina.

This is a bipartisan case, and I appreciate my fellow AGs in both parties joining. More to follow.

- AG Jeff Jackson

Are there any genuine old-time jams happening? I want to hear some real Appalachian music played by old folks on a porch somewhere.

Edit to say THANK YOU EVERYONE!! 🪕🎻

AVL Scarefest is a three-day, horror-themed role-playing games convention in the beautiful mountains of WNC. We’re just seven weeks away, so the time to get your tickets is now!

What games can I play, I hear you ask? 

We’ll have lots of terrifying offerings: D&D, PFS, and SFS will all be there, along with a wild variety of others, like Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, OSR, Daggerheart, weird indie games, and more.

Did we mention the Vampire LARP (Sabbat this year - whoohoo!), the Goblin Market, yetis, ghosts, and more? We didn’t? Then let us also offer on-site lodging, meal plans, prize draws, and everything else you’d expect from a top-notch gaming convention.

Storytellers and Volunteers Needed! Get your discount!

We’re still looking for gamemasters and volunteers to come along and run your own games. We pride ourselves on providing great support to our gamemasters and volunteers, Plus, you get 1/3 off a Weekend Pass for every game you run or every shift you volunteer! So please don't procrastinate. Get your games in now!

You can signup to run games right here and you can volunteer to help out at Scarefest here - we’d love to have you. 

Come join us from October 16 - 18 2026, at Lake Junaluska. Buy your tickets here: http://avlscarefest.com/shop/

Any questions, feel free to email us at: [info@avlscarefest.com](mailto:info@avlscarefest.com) 

Looking forward to seeing you there.

[Posted with the kind permission of the mods of this subreddit]

Nabor’s was famous as a business in Swain county and serving surrounding counties and all manners of tourists. As a child it was an experience to watch the river, the live peacocks (before 1990s), and sweet little Dixie, and other servers, car hopping those delicious cheeseburgers to our car. I finally made my way to Boxcar Cafe this past weekend, as they touted that they have the famous Nabor’s burgers. I did not expect it to taste anything like Nabor’s nostalgia BUT, it was amazing. I would gauge it at 95% closeness to Nabor’s. Has anyone else tried it? If you go, don’t forget to order the cherry lemon Mountain Dew! (Pics Nabors burger first followed by Boxcar)

Taken on 8/22/26 in the tunnel of A Road to Nowhere, A Broken Promise.

Looking to take a weekend trip in September and looking for some recommendations on free places to camp. Thanks!