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The Case of the Disappearing Charity Donation

Those who watched the Apprentice a week ago Sunday saw a competition to promote the sale of Symantec’s Norton 360 computer protection software that is packaged along with Lifelock’s identity fraud protection service for $79.99. The commercial that immediately followed the selection of the winner promised to give $10 of each sale to a particular charity.

What probably went unnoticed by most people was a fine print disclaimer that flashed on the screen momentarily, limiting the donation.

*Mouse Print:

“up to $25,000”

While certainly any donation to a charity is a kind gesture by these companies, and $10 is a good percentage of the selling price, the cap on the donation really means that only the first 2500 orders will trigger it. If your company had in essence a two hour commercial for a product on national TV, wouldn’t you expect that tens of thousands of orders would be placed? If you then ran a commercial the following week on the Apprentice (last night) and said the charitable donation offer was being continued, wouldn’t you expect even more people to sign up? And wouldn’t you expect some goodly percentage of people watching either week might erroneously believe that they were helping a charity when in fact they may not have been?

To add insult to injury, if someone visits the Apprentice website at NBC.com, to find out about the offer, they would have seen the ad above. When clicking it, the user is taken to this descriptive page:

In neither place is there any mention of a $10 donation. In fact, in order for there to be a $10 donation, one of two promo codes have to be filled in on the order form (and they are not mentioned at all on the NBC site).

*MOUSE PRINT:

To make matters worse, a promo code that does not trigger the charitable donation is already filled in on the ordering page.

*MOUSE PRINT:

To their credit, both Lifelock and Symantec mention the charitable donation limit of $25,000 on their websites (albeit in small type), and pre-fill-in the proper code on their ordering forms. Mouse Print* wrote to NBC and Symantec to point out the problem, but no explanation or fix has yet been made.

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Comcast’s 2-Year “Guaranteed Rate” Increases

There is a change in the way “triple plays” for TV, Internet, and phone service are being marketed by major cable companies. Advertised promotions used to be limited to six months or a year at the most. Now many of them are for two years. This can be good or bad, depending on the details (which of course are not always immediately obvious).

Comcast/Xfinity is currently running a TV commercial touting a “guaranteed rate” (in large type) of $99 a month. The announcer even says:

“We’ll guarantee your rate for two years.”

One might come away with the impression that the $99 rate is guaranteed for two years, but that is not so.

*MOUSE PRINT:

In surprisingly large type, but much smaller than the $99 rate, Comcast discloses that the rate  jumps up $16 a month in the second year. Does that disclosure really overcome the other representations in the ad about the $99 price and the oral promise guaranteeing the rate — not “rates” — for two years?

It is unclear whether one would be allowed to cancel the deal after the first year, or if the customer is bound to a two year contract (and possible early termination fees).

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Sears Makes Good Despite the Fine Print (Part 2)

When last we left this saga, MrConsumer had ordered a Sears gas range based on a picture on their website. The stove that was delivered, however, was not like the picture in several respects, including coming with glossy instead of matte finish grates. Executives at Sears, once contacted, bent over backwards to right the situation by agreeing to replace the stove with the pictured model at no extra cost.

For a period of five days, however, MrConsumer had two new Sears ranges in his kitchen because of coordination problems between the delivery and installation departments at Sears. Worse, the replacement stove also came with glossy grates.

This discrepancy was predictable because of mouse print on the Sears Parts Direct website which indicated the part number for the grates on both the original range and the replacement one were the same.

Undaunted, and with a little research by MrConsumer, the correct part number for the matte grates was discovered, and the folks at Sears headquarters ordered a set of matte finish grates. What arrived? Two sets! Why? Another error on their parts site made it appear the grates were being sold individually rather than in sets.

From the start, the Sears executive who wanted to right the situation and the person at “executive resolutions” who did the heavy lifting to make it happen, were determined to see this through to a successful conclusion. The correction cost Sears, in retail dollars, over $700 (higher priced replacement stove, delivery, installation, removal, and grates cost). That is an amazing amount of money to spend to satisfy one customer… and this customer is very grateful to them for the effort. Old fashioned customer service, at least in this instance, is a live and well and living at Sears.