Business

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Staples Charges for Staples!

MrConsumer is not fortunate enough to have a copy machine, so whenever he needs copies, he goes to his local Staples store. They have self-service machines where copies are now 12 cents each. Whatever happened to three-cent copies?

As most users of copy machines know, you have to select the number of copies, whether you want the machine to collate multi-page documents, staple them, etc. Choosing all those options, MrConsumer was surprised to learn that a new charge was placed on his bill.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Staples receipt

For my six-page document that I made three copies of, I was charged six cents for three staples — two cents apiece. Traditionally there was never an extra charge if you wanted your copies stapled at these machines. And yes, there was a manual stapler nearby that I could have used instead. And yes, the two-cent charge was disclosed on the copy machine payment screen for the job.

But the cost of a staple is so minimal that it baffles MrConsumer why any company would charge extra for one — and comparatively, a lot extra. At retail, Staples sells boxes of 25,000 staples for $6.79 — or 0.0002716 each. Put another way, Staples is charging customers at least 74 times its cost per staple.

We asked the company why it was doing this, and whether they thought this was a bit excessive. A Staples media representative responded:

Staples has recently rolled out new and improved self-service copy machines that are focused on ease of use and convenience, and provide a range of services that were not easily available before – scanning, printing from email and the cloud, stapling and faxing. This allows the customer to pick and choose how they want to print something, best fitted to their needs, with add on services such as stapling for a nominal fee, similar to other retailers.

Alternatively, customers can collate and staple their documents themselves free of charge. There are always staplers available and free to use on the counters near the copy & print area.

Here’s my two-cents-worth: I’m sorry, sometimes companies go too far in their penny-pinching practices.

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Is It a Story or Is It an Ad in the LA Times?

Every week, MrConsumer searches through thousands of consumer stories trying to find the most interesting and useful ones to present to Consumer World readers.

In a Google news search last week, this story about store brands came up and I thought it might be a candidate as a “Consumer Quickie.”

Google story

Clicking through, here is the story that came up.

LA Times "story"

Use scrollbar above on right to view.

The L.A. Times story was actually kind of boring and was not put in Consumer World. But, upon closer inspection, another reason for rejecting it became apparent (yellow highlighting below added).

*MOUSE PRINT:

LA Times disclosures

This is not a real story but rather an advertisement made to look like a news story. It is called “native advertising.” Under the recently adopted Native Advertising Guidelines of the FTC, this content had to be clearly labeled as a “paid advertisement” or “sponsor paid content” or similar wording. Indeed, it is so marked but is it really conspicuous enough? The “story” is so designed to look exactly like an LA Times story that one has to wonder whether two small disclosures can overcome the overall impression created by the webpage.

And why is Google indexing advertising and listing it as a news story?

We raised this exact issue two years ago with the LA Times (see original story), which at the time said:

“…the advertisement in question is clearly labeled as such and the only path for readers to find that content was intended to be via an latimes.com panel that is also clearly labeled as advertising. However, your inquiry brought our attention to the fact that although this ad and others of the same ilk is not included in our News SiteMap and the page has “noindex nofollow” directives, there appears to be a technical glitch with Google News. We are working with Google to find out why the content is indexed incorrectly and have the issue fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, we have removed the advertisement from our site to eradicate potential for further confusion.” — V.P. Communications, Los Angeles Times

We did not recontact the LA Times, but clearly, two years later the problem still exists.

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“This is Not a Bill”

Most people have no idea when their newspaper or magazine subscription is set to run out. So when you get a bill in the mail like this, it must be time to renew, right?

People around the country have been receiving bills like this:

Invoice frontClick to enlarge

Not so fast. The back of the invoice says the following.

*MOUSE PRINT:

“This is a magazine subscription offer, not a bill or invoice. You are under no obligation to either buy a magazine or renew at this time.”

And despite the appearance of this “bill,” the front bottom left hand corner says in small letters “RENEWAL OFFER – NOT A BILL.”

If it looks like a duck, it’s a duck, no matter what the fine print says. That’s the opinion of the Federal Trade Commission which recently filed a lawsuit against a web of companies for sending out these notices to subscribers of newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times, The Denver Post, and over 350 others.

The notices claim that that the price is one of the lowest available rates and is authorized by the publisher. In fact, the FTC alleges the defendants do not have the publishers’ authorization and they charge up to 40 percent more than the newspapers typically charge. Purchasers often overpaid, got the wrong publication, and had difficulty getting refunds.

We say: go get’m!