Last Friday, CVS sent out an email to customers offering “20% off your entire purchase in store or online*”.

*MOUSE PRINT:

“The 20% sale cannot be combined with another product sale running at the same time. You will receive the larger discount.” — disclaimer for online coupon use.

“*Excludes sale items.” — disclaimer for in-store coupon use.

Those exclusions are pretty limiting considering your “entire purchase” really is not covered.  What makes them worse was the fact that those disclosures were not made anywhere in the email itself. You had to visit CVS.com to find them out.

Still worse were the seeming 40% off discounts promised off the regular price of “Red Hot Deals” featured on the landing page of CVS.com:

MrConsumer placed those three 40% items in his cart, but when checking the cart, the 40% discounts had completely disappeared. Well, maybe the right sale prices only show up when you are about to checkout?

*MOUSE PRINT:

Nope. Even on the very last page of the ordering process after providing a credit card number, all the 40% off items remained at full price. Had MrConsumer clicked the “submit order” button there, he would have been charged $42.47 for items that had been advertised for $25.47. That’s an overcharge of $17.  This is the online equivalent of a scanner error where the store sign promised 40% off, but the items scanned regular price at the cash register.

CVS subsequently corrected their error, but who knows how many people might have been overcharged in the interim.

The lesson here is that just because an item is advertised on a website for a particular price, you must double-check to see whether that is the price that is actually charged once the item is in your cart and you are at the checkout.

In the CVS drugstore circular on August 1, the company promised to give customers who signed up for their email list a $4 coupon:

The unreadable fine print in the reduced size picture above only refers to the company’s privacy policy, and that people already on their list are not eligible.

Seemed like an easy way to save $4 to Linda D., a regular Mouse Print* reader. So she signed up at their website. She  filled out her name and email address on the page that contained this description (actual size):

So far, so good. Then she got an email from CVS with her coupon:

Excuse me, $4 off a $20 purchase? Where did that come from? There was no mention whatsoever about this coupon requiring a minimum purchase in the circular. Even visiting the CVS website on the page where you fill in your name and email address, there was no disclosure right on that page either [since changed as noted below].  If you were to click to see the sample coupon, you would have seen the $20 minimum purchase requirement, but few would probably have a reason to view the sample coupon.

Most people would only find out they’ve been hoodwinked after they had given CVS their personal information.

Mouse Print* contacted the PR folks at CVS to ask if they didn’t think this promotion was deceptive, and whether they would now provide people who signed up with a no-strings-attached $4 off coupon. They responded, in part:

“On the sign-up page, a sample coupon was displayed setting forth the details of the offer.

While we feel the information was available, CVS/pharmacy appreciates customer feedback and moving forward, we have enhanced the language for this ad to indicate more clearly that this is an offer for a $4 off $20 coupon. This change has already been made online at www.cvs.com/email. We have also made this change to our circular and it will be reflected on the online circular beginning on 8/22 and due to printing lead times, the new ad will begin running in the printed circular the week of 9/5.”

So, basically CVS decided against doing the honorable thing right away — offering those who signed up based on the misleading ad a no-strings-attached $4 coupon. And notice that they made no mention of running a retraction in newspapers across the country, as might be required by various state advertising laws.

For the past five years, ice cream manufacturers have been inconspicuously downsizing their containers of ice cream. What started out as the standard half gallon, became 56 ounces, and then went down to 48 ounces:

Now, believe it or not, one brand has decided to UPSIZE its containers back to the original half gallon size.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Funny how they very clearly call your attention to the fact that the product is now larger, but when containers were downsized, manufacturers did not label them, “Look — New Smaller Size”.

Of course, today’s half gallon is priced higher than the original.

Thanks to some eagle-eyed employees of the USDA for this submission.

We’ve got two stories this week, submitted by readers, all complaining about deceptive July 4th sales.

Story #1:

One of the most common forms of retail advertising is to promote a storewide sale on “everything.” Rarely is everything really on sale, but retailers still insist on using the word “everything.”

CVS Pharmacy is no exception. Just in time for July 4th, they sent out a mass email with the subject line: “4th of July Sale- 20% off EVERYTHING! 3 Days Only on CVS.com .” No exceptions, no exclusions, no asterisks. However, when you open the email, you see the graphic above with the small asterisk after “everything.”

The asterisk inevitably leads to a long list of exclusions.

*MOUSE PRINT:

*Offer available online only. Expires 6/30/10 at 11:59 PM EDT. To receive the 20% off sitewide discount enter coupon code JULY20 at check out. These products are not discounted: AeroGarden, Align, Alli, Acra Hair Removal Device, As Seen on TV products, Beauty 360 products, Belli, Better Body Solutions, Bodi Rocker, Burts Bees, Conair Infinity, Epilady, GHT, GoWear, Hormel, Ionic Pro, Jitterbug, Kelemata, Kidco, LaneLabs, LaRoche-Posay, Lierac, LipFusion, Maxoderm, Medela, Medical Nutrition Products, Olay Pro X, Omnilux, OXO, Philips Heartstart Home Defibrillator, Rapidlash, Resperate, Rock Hard Weekend, Sinupulse, Skin Doctors, Vector Hair Removal System, Vichy/Dermablend, Violight, Zanfel, Zeno. The 20% sale cannot be combined with another product sale running at the same time. You will receive the larger discount. The 20% sale excludes prescriptions and gift cards.

Thanks to Richard A. for the submission.

Story #2:

PetSmart sent out an email telling shoppers they could save up to $15 with coupons this weekend, both online and at their stores.

Here’s a part of their email:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Offer valid through July 4, 2010 at 6am ET

Nothing like having to get up early on a holiday morning — before 3am West coast time, and before 6am East coast time to use the coupon online before it expires. And the 6am time was not a typo, because trying to use it at 9am resulted in this error message:

Incidentally, their brick and mortar coupons were good all day at the store because they did not have a time of day expiration.

Thanks to Kelsey P. for the submission.

Our story on P&G and their promotion promising to give $1 to wildlife causes for every bottle of Dawn sold has been updated, based on new information provided by the company.

See update here, at the end of the original story.