Recently we told you that JC Penney was doing away with phony price comparisons in its stores. Other sellers, however, still need to clean up their act.

A little over a year ago, Mouse Print* spotlighted a number of grocery items at Amazon.com that they claimed were 90% off, when they were not. The company used grossly exaggerated “regular” prices to make it appear that the goods were 90% off.

After we called them on the carpet, influential blog that Mouse Print* is, the company cleaned up its act, right? Well, not quite. A quick look through their listings turned up hundreds of questionable discounts.

Here, they are claiming that 24 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese normally sell for $791.76 — or $32.99 a box.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The actual regular price at a local supermarket was $1.59 a box, or $38.16 for 24, not nearly $800 as Amazon claimed.

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Here are some more examples of wildly exaggerated regular prices used to provide an illusory discount of over 90%:

*MOUSE PRINT: Supermarket price is $2.50 a box; with four boxes costing $10, not $239.

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*MOUSE PRINT: Supermarket price is $1.34 a box, not over $140.

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*MOUSE PRINT: Supermarket price is $4.69 a box, not over $90.

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*MOUSE PRINT: Supermarket price is $1.89 a bottle, not over $47.

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*MOUSE PRINT: Supermarket price is $1.79 a can, not almost $45.

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*MOUSE PRINT: Supermarket price is $1.59 a box, not $55.

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*MOUSE PRINT: And in one of the craziest savings claims ever, how could a single small package of licorice ever cost over $72, thus forming a basis for a $2599 regular price for three dozen?

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In many of these cases, a third party seller has established the regular and sale prices, apparently with little oversight by Amazon. So, a word to the wise is to ignore Amazon’s savings claims, and do your own comparison of actual selling prices at a variety of stores.

You can see more wild price comparisons scattered here.

We’ve often complained about misleading subject lines in email used by marketers to make you think you are being offered a better deal than you really are.

Back in March, TGI Friday’s sent an email with a subject “Coupon Inside – Free Entree on Us!”. But that was not what they were really offering.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The offer is really buy a meal, get one free, and that is far different from being given a free entree coupon as the subject suggests.

Fast forward to January 2012. The company sent another email promising a free entree:

Here we go again. But this time, it wasn’t even a buy one, get one free coupon.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Buy one entree, get HALF off another? How is that a “free entree”?

Enough of this foolishness. Mouse Print* contacted the PR company for TGI Friday’s to point out the misleading nature of their January offer, and ask what the company was going to do about it. The spokesperson replied:

Thank you for calling our attention to this matter. T.G.I. Friday’s is aware that there was a discrepancy between the subject line and the message of an email that was distributed to Friday’s email subscribers on Friday, January 13th. T.G.I. Friday’s sent an email today clarifying the offer and apologizing to its guests for the mistake.

Less than 30 minutes later, an email entitled “Accept Our Apology” was received from the company, complete with bright red type:

We sent you an email on January 13, 2012 with an incorrect email subject line. The subject line stated “Free Entrée and MORE Savings Inside”, however the coupon is valid for “Buy One Entrée, Get the 2nd Entrée Half Off”. We hope you will accept our apology and still use the coupon below.

Thanks to the company for doing the right thing. I wouldn’t hold my breath, however, expecting them to ever send an email with a really truthful subject like “Buy 1, Get 1 Free Coupon Inside”. Maybe they will surprise us.

Two consumers contacted Mouse Print* and Consumer World this past week complaining that Office Depot’s current tax software promotion was misleading and a “scam.”

The offer promised $1300 in free software — 24 different titles — if you bought certain tax preparation software like TurboTax Deluxe or H&R Block Deluxe. All you had to do was pay for the free software and fill out rebate forms to get your money back. Not so simple, as it turns out because of a conflict in requirements for many of the rebates. And to add insult to injury, some rebates are debit cards instead of cash back.

For example, if you buy TurboTax, you can get a starter edition of Quicken free, as well as several Norton security products among others.

*MOUSE PRINT:

To prove you bought TurboTax and Quicken, you need to enclose:

Quicken and TurboTax UPC labels (shown below) for the eligible software products, located on the product boxes (photocopies will not be accepted).

And in order to receive a rebate on a Norton combo-pack when purchasing TurboTax, you need to enclose:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Enclose the original UPC code from Norton Internet Security 2012/Norton Utilities Premier Edition and any Turbo Tax, H&R Block, or Tax Act software or tax forms. The UPC code is a 12-digit bar code found on the bottom of box. Photocopies will not be accepted.

Oops. The same original UPC has to be included with the rebate requests for multiple companies and products. Oops. This scenario is repeated for some of the other free software products which also require the original UPC from the tax software. What is a consumer to do?

Our two consumers contacted Office Depot, but were initially given the runaround. One consumer ultimately got the store manager to lower the price of one of the software packages to compensate him for the $15 rebate card he cannot obtain. The other consumer had to jump rank and contact “executive resolutions” to get satisfaction, and was told that Symantec (Norton) was adjusting their rebates to not require the original UPC. She even followed up with Symantec and their rebate fulfillment house to ensure they would accept copies of the UPC. They said yes, but none of the PDF rebate forms have been updated to eliminate the requirement of an original UPC.

Mouse Print* asked Office Depot’s PR folks for an explanation of how they intended to handle this mess, but they did not respond.

Thanks to William-Andrew and Rebecca for contacting us about this issue.

A friend recently called MrConsumer wanting him to look at an infomercial airing for a product called CarMD. Apparently this device claims to be a consumer version of the computer that dealers plug into your car in order to read the diagnostic repair codes. He said it costs about $120.

Checking their website, rather than calling the 800 number, seemed to reveal much lower prices online:

He was astonished to hear how much cheaper the device was on the Internet. But a closer look revealed the truth:

*MOUSE PRINT:

What? Multiply the price you see by three? Who has ever seen a price next to an “add to cart” button that was not the actual price you pay?

Sears recently reported the 19th straight quarter of declining sales. Maybe these declines explain why the company had taken to engaging in a practice more common at new car dealers: option packing.

As reported in Consumer World this week, Sears.com was found adding expensive five-year service contracts automatically to customers’ shopping carts as soon as the customer added a major appliance to it.

Here is a little closer look at what MrConsumer discovered. [See MrConsumer on KOMO News.]

As an example of what was going on at Sears.com, here is a relatively inexpensive conventional refrigerator:

When you click the “Add to Cart” button, it shows the refrigerator has been added to your cart (click picture to enlarge):

But, until last Friday, you would also see this:

You seem to be given an option to add a service plan to your purchase, but it has been pre-checked with the most expensive one — one for over $200. And, a quick look to the right, shows that Sears has, on its own, already added that five-year service plan and a water hose to your order automatically, raising the total price you pay by nearly 50%.

*MOUSE PRINT:

On a $400 refrigerator purchase it is easy to notice the big bump up in total price and easy to remove the protection plan. But on a more expensive appliance, or on an order with multiple items, customers may easily have overlooked the fact that Sears added on expensive service contracts on its own to your bill.

To their credit, Sears.com abandoned this nasty practice one day after we made a stink about it:

“Since this complaint was brought to our attention, we have had a chance to review our complaint records. In the time period it’s been in effect, we received very little negative customer feedback. Nonetheless, now that it’s been pointed out as an item of concern, we’ve made a decision to provide customers with the default choice of declining the protection agreement. This change will take effect tomorrow.” — Sears PR Director for Hardlines

What do you think? Should a company be allowed to just add extras to one’s shopping cart without being requested to do so even when they are easy to remove? Would you have caught the addition of a service contract to your order? Do you want to be forced to scrutinize every online order you make to ensure the retailer hasn’t pulled a fast one on you? Enter your thoughts in the comments.