Following up on our story last week about J.C. Penney putting new higher “fake” regular prices on goods on their website (most likely so they could offer them “on sale” in the near future), consumer reporter John Materese of WCPO-TV in Cincinnati did his own hidden camera investigation at J.C. Penney stores.

He visited two JCPs and found that many goods were restickered with higher prices. How did he know that? He peeled off the new stickers to see what price was below!

*MOUSE PRINT:

In the above example, a new $18 sticker covers up an old $13 price.

Click picture to watch story or click here.

Poor Ron Johnson. He became J.C. Penney’s CEO a little over a year ago and promised to get rid of the admittedly “fake prices” that the company slapped on goods to make their many sales seem more deeply discounted than they really were. The public didn’t take well to his elimination of sales and coupons, and the company lost millions.

In April 2013, Ron Johnson was ousted, and the company is now apologizing to customers in a commercial acknowledging that they made mistakes. They are asking customers to “come back to J.C. Penney… we heard you.”

How are they going to get customers back in the door? They are probably going to reintroduce deep discounting. To start running 50% off sales again, however, they will first have to raise their regular prices to an artificially high level. To see if this was happening, Mouse Print* undertook a little spotcheck of their prices. Here are five examples of the regular everyday prices the company charged during Ron Johnson’s tenure, and how they have now been jacked up as a possible prelude to being offered “on sale” again.

*MOUSE PRINT: Example 1

*MOUSE PRINT: Example 2

*MOUSE PRINT: Example 3

*MOUSE PRINT: Example 4

*MOUSE PRINT: Example 5

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In some of the cases above, the new “sale” price is already in effect showing seemingly significant savings, but it is virtually the same as the previous everyday regular price. In other cases, the item has not yet gone “on sale,” but the higher regular price has been established which could facilitate the company offering a seemingly deep discount from it.

Shoppers will likely flock back to their stores because, unfortunately, everyone loves a bargain even if it is a phony one. Lucky for J.C. Penney too, state Attorneys General will probably let them get away with it because of lax enforcement of local laws that prohibit fictitious discounts under certain circumstances.

Note: It is not known how many of JCP’s items have had their regular prices marked up.

If you don’t read the fine print, particularly in ads from cable companies, you could get snookered.

Example 1:

Cox advertised high speed Internet for only $19.99 per month for two years.

*MOUSE PRINT:

When you clickthrough, you realize that you have to buy cable TV service for an unstated price, but if you only want Internet service, it is $10 higher — $29.99 but only for three months.

Why couldn’t Cox simply advertise in the first place: “Buy cable TV service, get high speed Internet for only $19.99/mo for two years” ?

Example 2:

The promotion of triple plays (TV, Internet, and telephone) is common among cable companies so one always seems to try to outdo the other. Here’s a deal from Charter: HDTV, Internet and Phone for only $29.99 a month. Wow, sign me up.

*MOUSE PRINT:

If you look carefully, in tiny print, you can see the word “each.” So the real price is $89.97 a month. Word has it that Comcast in the recent past had a similar ad that conveyed the impression to some people that you got all three services for only $29.99 a month.

Example 3:

It is common to see triple plays advertised for $99, but during special promotions you can sometimes find even lower prices. Just last week, Verizon FiOS advertised a really low price — $69.95 for all three services.

When MrConsumer clicked through, he discovered there was no such price.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The lowest price shown was $79.99, and the $69.99 was nowhere to be found. Now it is possible that the $69 price was only for certain parts of the country, but there was no fine print in the original ad suggesting that.

The bottom line is that these companies should play it straight. Tell the consumer what the real offer is upfront, without having to resort to fine print or trickery.

Disclosure: MrConsumer is a member of Verizon’s Consumer Advisory Board.

One of the most powerful but misused words in marketing is “free.” And here is a perfect example.

Saveology.com sent out an email promoting another company’s offer to give recipients a free gourmet chef’s knife, and as a bonus, a free salt and pepper mill.

It says “save 100%” and that the price is $0. Of course, one has to expect that there will be some high shipping charge that in essence will cover the real price of the knife.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The fine print at the bottom of the ad says that shipping and handling is $8.95. Not horrible, but the deal really isn’t free then.

On closer inspecton however, there is a another small tab down their explicitly labeled “fine print.” Clicking it reveals the real story.

*MOUSE PRINT:

If you do nothing, this company is going to send you an additional knife every month for between $50 and $90 plus shipping and handling.

Consumers who decide they want the free knife then click the “buy now” button and are taken to the company’s page with the offer. There is absolutely no disclosure on this page that this is in essence a “knife of the month club.”

How deceptive can you get?

Sears and Kmart run a rewards program called Shop Your Way Rewards, giving you points for purchases. They are now expanding it to other retailers. In a joint marketing promotion with Visa, they are promising to give you $7 in rewards credit, if you register your Visa card. MrConsumer was tempted by the free $7.

On the registration page, they ask for your cellphone number. That should always be a warning flag that you may be getting calls or texts on your mobile phone. The little question mark near the mobile phone field, however, doesn’t say that.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Whewwww. That’s a relief.

Well, not so fast. Toward the bottom of the enrollment form, there is a bunch of fine print.

*MOUSE PRINT:

I agree that the SYW Link Program may send me SMS messages to my registered mobile phone number confirming each time the program identifies a potentially qualifying SYW Link purchase, as well as additional SMS messages (approximately 8 per month, which may vary) with SYW offers or updates. Msg&Data Rates May Apply.

Your Visa card’s historic (up to past 13 months) and future transaction history (including air travel itinerary information and location of the merchant where you used your card) may be used to deliver you with offers and messages from the SYW Link Program based on your purchase behavior. [color emphasis added]

In plain English, you are authorizing Sears and Visa to send you eight text message ads a month, in addition to texts each time you make a qualifying purchase. Further, you are allowing the companies to review over a year’s worth of your purchases so they can better profile you.

MrConsumer decided that a lousy $7 payment was not a fair trade for getting a bunch of unwanted text message ads about who knows what, and allowing them to see his purchasing habits. While one can later opt-out of the text messages, the invasion of privacy was too high a price to pay.