Amazon has heavily marketed the final Harry Potter book due out next month. But it's not going to make the company any money.

CEO Jeff Bezos said today that even though the online retailer has taken more than a million pre-orders for the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows,” it won’t make a profit.

Amazon’s handling of the book — a $17 discount off cover price, a free shipping offer and guaranteed on-time delivery — showed yet again that the company is willing to take a hit to cement customer loyalty, The Associated Press reports.

Bezos hammered on Amazon’s “customer-centric” approach during the company’s annual meeting in Seattle.

A Seattle lawyer has sued Avvo.com, a Seattle start-up that rates lawyers on a scale of 1 to 10. (Avvo launched its site last Tuesday.) The suit, according to a press release, claims the rating methodology is prone to error and manipulation.

Avvo CEO Mark Britton, also a lawyer, told me Thursday afternoon that rating attorneys is a First Amendment right. "Assuming the Constitution is still alive and well and the idea of serving consumers is a good one, we will continue," he said.

In defending the site (and its subjective ratings) last week, Britton said good lawyers would love it. Steve W. Berman, the lawyer who filed the suit, is about as good as it gets at Avvo. He has a rating of 9.3.

Avvo pitches itself as a consumer tool, though the potentially controversial ratings get pretty big play (kind of like Zillow’s Zestimates) on a lawyer’s profile page. What do you think? Would a rating help you find a lawyer? Have you looked up your own lawyer yet?

Compared to the rest of the country, we borrow more to buy a car around here and we’re better at paying-off our loans.
Therefore, our credit score is higher.

Credit bureau Experian reported this week that the average credit score for Washington car-loan borrowers without any late payments was 714; and 613 with at least one late payment.

Nationwide, the average for on-time borrowers was 703; and 605 with a late payment.

The average car-loan borrower in Washington had $16,644 on the books, while the nationwide average was $15,654.

The Foremost properties, a complex of four buildings at a key downtown Tacoma intersection, is under contract to be sold to a new buyer.

The sale has not yet closed, said Laura Fox of GVA Kidder Mathews, who listed the property, but the new buyer has put down a substantial amount of earnest money and intends to carry through with the purchase.

The new buyers have commissioned Fox to seek tenants for the building.

"It's a highly visible building right where the Link (light rail) turns off Pacific Avenue," she said. The buildings are located at South 25th Street and Pacific Avenue, directly across Pacific from the downtown Jack-In-The-Box fast food restaurant.

"I can see it being office and retail, maybe a brew pub, but we're open to all uses," she said.

Powder Coating Systems Inc. occupies about 16,000 square feet of the 60,000-square-foot complex. Powder Coating President Gregg Taylor said he's had indirect contacts with the prospective new owner about staying in the building.

Fox didn't disclose the new owners' identity or the price they've offered. The buildings were on the market for $3 million.

The dairy building, which features large floor-to-ceiling windows facing Pacific Avenue, was built in 1928.

The prospective buyers have until next March to close the purchase, but Fox believes the sale will happen much sooner.

I've been getting a call on my wireless phone from an 866 number several times a day.

I don't recognize the number so I never pick it up. But after the number showed up on my phone again today, I did an online search for it. And I found an interesting site: whocalled.us

The site tracks unknown phone numbers and reports what other consumers find out. I can't quite tell who's behind the site, but it's pretty interesting.

It turns out my regular caller is a persistent telemarketing company selling magazine subscriptions. Who Called Us has 98 reports on this phone number.

Jones Soda might get kicked out of Starbucks.

The coffee giant wants to make room on its shelves for more food offerings – something its customers have been asking for.

Jones Soda investors and analysts didn't take the news well. Shares of Jones Soda Co., which makes pop in crazy flavors such as bubblegum and strawberry lime, fell on a report that Starbucks Corp. will stop selling its sodas.

Jones Soda gets 3 percent of annual sales of $39 million through Starbucks and benefits from “high visibility” at the coffee shops, Mark Astrachan, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co., wrote in a note today.

Shares of Jones Soda fell 74 cents, or 4.7 percent, to $14.94 in early trading. They have gained 21 percent this year.

Starbucks may end ties with Jones Soda to free up space for drinks made by PepsiCo Inc. or its own food, said Astrachan.

PepsiCo and Starbucks have a joint venture to make bottled Frappuccino and DoubleShot espresso, and some cafes sell PepsiCo’s Izze carbonated fruit drinks.