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Become a Personal Shopper, Earn $1000 a Month?

The email offer seemed enticing:

… you’ve been selected to become a Personal Shopper in the new SHOP YOUR WAY Personal Shopper program. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s profitable! (You’d be surprised at how easy it can be to earn $1,000 per month!)*

Well, since MrConsumer likes to shop, the opportunity to make an extra $1000 a month without a lot work seemed too good to be true.

The email went on to give a simple example:

When a client makes a qualifying purchase—for example, a new TV at $2000—you earn 1%, or $20 in this case.

Huh? If I am going to earn only 1% on purchases, how in the world is making an “easy” $1000 a month possible? I’d have to find 50 people who each want to buy a $2000 TV a month, every month for a year. Sure, that is real easy.

Actually, the mailer says once you get 20 clients, you earn 2% on purchases. Now I would only need 25 people a month to each buy a TV every month of the year. Whewww.

Put another away, I would have find people who collectively spend a total of $600,000 to $1,200,000 a year in order to make that “easy” $1000 monthly. Easy. Real easy.

Oh, did I mention the purchases must be made at Kmart and Sears?

An accompanying brochure gives another example of how easy it is to make money:

Personal Shopper

Lucky Susie, she only has to get her other eight clients to spend $94,400 a month every month to earn that easy $1000 monthly.

So what is Sears’ example of how to make $1000 a month? The answer is in a fine print footnote in the email:

*MOUSE PRINT:

*Make $1,000 a month when you get at least 250 of your friends and family to spend $200 a month in Qualifying Purchases with Sears, Kmart, Lands’ End, Sears Outlet, Sears Auto, mygofer and Sears Home Services.

Of course, now I only have to make 245 more friends and get each of them to spend thousands of dollars a year at Kmart and Sears.

easy

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Avis: $30 Off Your Next Rental?

Mouse Print* reader Marc D. recently got a mail offer promising $30 off his next Avis rental if he would give them his email address.

Avis $30 offer

What he didn’t realize until after he received his $30 coupon was the offer was really $30 off a weekly rental.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Avis coupon

Since Marc’s “next rental” was not going to be a weekly one, he felt hoodwinked.

Mouse Print* wrote to Avis, asking what happened, and whether they would honor the no-strings-attached $30 offer for those who received the original offer.

“As a result of a printing error, the promotional insert did not specify that the offer was for a “weekly” rental. However, “weekly” is mentioned in several other places, including the outer envelope (see attached), the website/page where the customer provides his/her information to redeem the offer (www.avis.com/email) and the subsequent email offer. The erroneous promotional inserts have been discarded. New inserts have been printed and are currently being used.” — Avis spokesperson.

Fair enough, the disclosure WAS on the webpage where consumers had to sign-up, but was not on the offer sheet they received by mail. Some consumer protection advertising rules, however, state that the subsequent disclosure of the actual terms of an offer does not diminish the deceptive nature of the original offer that did not disclose those terms.

And what will Avis do for consumers who felt mislead about this offer?

“The $30 offer is being accepted on weekly rentals.” — Avis spokesperson.

In other words, nothing.

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Oh Gee, Cell Carriers Fudge 4G Claims

If you just landed here from Mars and needed data service to phone home, you would be confused because most cell companies each make you think they have the biggest 4G data networks. Actually, earthlings might be experiencing the same confusion.

AT&T claims:

AT&T

Verizon claims:

Verizon

T-Mobile claims:

T-Mobile

How in the world can AT&T claim that its 4G network has 2000 more cities than Verizon at the same time that Verizon claims to have more 4G LTE coverage than all other networks combined?

The answer is simple (and deceptive): they all define 4G differently.

*MOUSE PRINT:

On AT&T’s website, they disclose that the company calls two different technologies “4G”:

4G AT&T

AT&T defines 4G as including its HSPA+ and LTE networks, while Verizon only counts its LTE network. Which one is fudging the numbers? According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s AT&T:

*MOUSE PRINT:

AT&T Pins 4G Label to Existing Network

AT&T Inc. flipped a switch and turned on its 4G wireless network Wednesday. The switch, however, was in the company’s marketing department.

By relabeling its existing 3G network, the country’s second-largest wireless carrier joined the noisy fray over so-called fourth-generation wireless technology, which promises mobile Internet speeds so fast that huge files can be downloaded in minutes and streaming video can be watched without the interruptions of earlier-generation technologies.

As recently as September, AT&T executives had referred to the company’s current network, which runs on a technology it calls HSPA-plus, as 3G. — WSJ, January 5, 2011

So, AT&T is making people think their 4G network is larger by simply rebranding its 3G network as 4G, and adding the 53 markets it offers 4G LTE to it. (LTE is commonly viewed as the truly faster 4G network, and the future of 4G.) Verizon, on the other hand, only counts its 4G LTE cities as part of its 4G network.

Our advice: forget the marketing labels. Find out what actual speeds the various networks in your area provide, and make your cell service choices based on real numbers. (Use SpeedTest.net at cell stores to check actual speeds.)

Note: MrConsumer is a member of Verizon’s Consumer Advisory Board (and often criticizes them for advertising missteps).