Food/Groceries

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Thanks for Nothing, 2019 – Part 1

“Thanks for Nothing” spotlights advertising that seemingly promises a great deal, and then lets you down big-time, or makes a product claim that proves untrue, or just makes you scratch your head and laugh.

Example 1:

Buy Dig is an online seller of electronics and other goods. Recently they advertised a pretty high-value coupon online, $50 off.

$50 off

However, if you click-through to see the actual deal, you would no doubt be disappointed.

*MOUSE PRINT:

$2000 purchase required

To save that $50, you have to make a $2000 purchase, saving a mere 2.5% off. Thanks for nothing, Buy Dig.

Example 2:

The problem with this Aunt Jemima syrup doesn’t even require you to read the fine print ingredients statement.

Butter syrup

What? Contains no butter? Thanks for nothing, Auntie.

Example 3:

Nothing turns shoppers off like high shipping costs, but this example takes the cake.

high shipping costs

A cheap, small plastic bottle costs over $18 to ship and the tax is three times the item’s price? Thanks for nothing.

Example 4:

Finally, if you want a quick meal, ramen noodles are about as fast as you can get, and dirt cheap in this offer. The trouble is you could starve before your order arrives.

ramen noodles

Thanks for nothing, Amazon

If you find an offer suitable for a “Thanks for Nothing” mention, please submit it to edgar(at symbol)MousePrint.org .

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A $2-Million Coupon Surprise

Have you read any good coupons lately? If not, you are in for a surprise courtesy of the folks at Kimberly Clark, makers of paper products like Kleenex, ScotTissue, and Viva paper towels.

Most people don’t read the fine print of anything, let alone cents-off coupons. But maybe they should, particularly if they are trying to pull off some coupon monkey business.

*MOUSE PRINT:

$2-mil penalty

That’s right. Kimberly Clark is threatening those who commit coupon fraud with up to $2-million in criminal or civil penalties or jail if you try to rip them off. This addition to coupons was instituted four years ago but has gone largely unnoticed.

According to the Coupon Information Corporation, the industry group that fights coupon fraud, losses from counterfeit coupons and coupon misuse cost manufacturers (and in turn consumers) millions of dollars a year. In the largest case to date, the head of a coupon clearinghouse was sentenced to 10 years in jail and ordered to pay $65 million in restitution to companies, including Kimberly Clark, after being convicted in a massive coupon fraud case.

The warning on coupons is meant as a deterrent. But for those who ignore it and get busted by the feds by surprise, they may have wished they had actually used this Kimberly Clark coupon:

Depends

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When It Comes to Yogurt, Size and Ingredients Matter

Have you read any good yogurt labels lately? You may be in for a surprise.

Here is the 6-oz. container of Yoplait Original strawberry banana yogurt:

Yoplait 6-oz

It is made with real strawberries and bananas, just as the front label depicts.

Thrifty shoppers, however, may find it more economical to buy the quart size container of Yoplait Original strawberry banana. But, they will get less than they bargained for.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Yoplait 32 oz

Checking the ingredients, all the real strawberries and bananas disappeared! While it does say “smooth style” on the front of the label, one might have reasonably assumed that they merely blenderized the fruit into the yogurt to create a uniform, smooth texture.

Nope. And the fine print of the front of the label doesn’t help much either. It says, “flavored with other natural flavor,” which might to the average shopper merely convey that other flavors are also mixed in.

Not to be outdone by this bit of yogurt trickery, once upon a time, Yoplait made a line of Yoplait Whips for the Girl Scouts evoking the flavors of some of their bestselling cookies.

Here is Yoplait’s Girl Scouts “peanut butter chocolate” Whips… but something is missing.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Yoplait peanut butter

According to the ingredients, there is no peanut butter in Yoplait’s peanut butter chocolate yogurt.

We asked General Mills, the maker of Yoplait, about the labeling of these two products. In particular, why different sizes of seemingly the same product did not have the same contents, and why they don’t more accurately describe the product on the front of the container. The company did not respond.

FDA regulations unfortunately allow manufacturers to play games with how product flavors are labeled, even to the point of permitting none of the depicted ingredient to actually be present in the product.

(i) If the food is one that is commonly expected to contain a characterizing food ingredient, e.g., strawberries in “strawberry shortcake”, and the food contains natural flavor derived from such ingredient and an amount of characterizing ingredient insufficient to independently characterize the food, or the food contains no such ingredient, the name of the characterizing flavor may be immediately preceded by the word “natural” and shall be immediately followed by the word “flavored” in letters not less than one-half the height of the letters in the name of the characterizing flavor, e.g., “natural strawberry flavored shortcake,” or “strawberry flavored shortcake”.

This is called consumer protection?