Retail

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The Touch, The Feel of Cotton — NOT

One of those daily deal sites recently sent out an email offering a “Queen-sized Egyptian sheet set” from Pulse TV for 75% off — only $20. MrConsumer has never seen an Egyptian cotton sheet set for such a low price.

When clicking through to the seller’s site, this is what you see in part:

The name of the product is “Egyptian Comfort 1200”. Wow, 1200 thread count sheets. What luxury! A little further down, however, the true nature of the offer was disclosed.

*MOUSE PRINT:

So these are really NOT Egyptian cotton at all, but rather microfiber. We asked the customer service department what the actual fiber composition of these sheets was — cotton, cotton-blend, polyester, nylon, etc., and what the thread count was.

Their response was “The Sheets compare to a 1200 thread count” and to view this video on their website:

The spokesperson in the video says, in an uncharacteristically candid way, wincing:

“I wanted to address a couple of issues. First of all, it says it compares to a 1200-sheet count, I am sorry, cotton thread count. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think so. I’d say it is more along the lines of between a 400 and 600.”

In a newer video, the spokesperson says:

“They say on this that it compares to a 1200 thread count cotton. Simply not true. I’d say it is more like a 300 to 400 count.”

Did I hear right? The spokesperson is saying don’t believe what our company just said about 1200-thread count!

When we asked customer service to once again tell us what fiber these sheets were made of, and what the actual thread count was, since neither question was answered in the video, we never got a subsequent response.

Microfiber sheets are cheap, but very soft feeling. At Kmart last year, a queen set was only $9.99, and made of 100% polyester.

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$500 Off Watches and Sunglasses?

Red Star US Airways’ inflight magazine had an unusual advertisement offering a free $500 prepaid giftcard good toward the purchase of watches and sunglasses. MrConsumer thought that they must sell really expensive products to be offering $500 off for nothing.

It turns out that some fine print on the back of the card explains their little trick:

*MOUSE PRINT:

With your PREPAID gift card code, you’ll receive $500 of suggested retail and sale price products! You pay only a 9% Service Fee for your selections. Service Fee includes: First Class delivery, customer service, order processing, labor, materials, goods, profit, marketing, free exchange & full refund programs. Fee is based on suggested retail price of the product and is separate from your Gift Card. Some products carry a minimum Service Fee.

In other words, it says they will charge you a fee to cover the cost of the watch or sunglasses.

On their website, there were a number of watches like this:

watch

The fine print next to the watch explains some unusual terms like “proposed price”, indicating that they plan in the future to sell this watch for $90. Sure. And the sale price is now $54.00. Sure. (You don’t even pay the sale price because you have a giftcard, remember, but the giftcard does not apply to the service fee.) You only pay a $12.90 “service fee.”

Poking around online, MrConsumer found some similar watches of the same (not so) famous brand, “Passion Time”, selling for not $90, not $54, not even $12.90.

watch

So basically, all this stuff about giftcards, and $90 prices, and $54 prices seems like nothing more than smoke and mirrors for a company selling cheap watches.

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“Up to” Savings Claims Mislead Many

Advertisers are very fond of promoting the best case scenario in advertisements, such as sale ads that say “Save up to 50% on sofas” or “Sofas as low as $199”.

The careful reader will or should recognize this trick that not all sofas are discounted 50% or priced at $199. But what about the average person who is exposed to advertising? Do they only recall the 50% savings claim rather than the “up to” part of the claim?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wanted to know, so they commissioned a study to out. Over 350 people were shown one of the three ads below, and asked about what they recalled.

The first ad makes an “up to 47%” savings claim. The second makes a straight 47% claim. And the third makes an “up to 47%” savings but with a fine print disclosure that the average savings are 25%.

*MOUSE PRINT:

When asked what the ad said about how much you would save on heating and cooling bills with these windows,

Ad 1 (with “up to” claim): 46% said they would save “47%” and only 26% said “up to” 47%

Ad 2: 58% said they would save “47%”

Ad 3 (with “up to” claim and disclaimer): 37% said they would save 47% and 30% said “up to” 47%

The study suggests that many consumers are blind to fine print disclosures, and that the use of “up to” claims misleads sizeable numbers of consumers. This certainly appears to support the notion that sellers should not be allowed to use either “up to” claims nor to put clarifications in fine print footnotes.

Massachusetts law, for example, does not allow “up to” claims in advertising. The ad must state both the smallest discount and largest discount in equal size type (such as “save 10 – 50%”), and at least 10-percent of the items being offered for sale must be available at the biggest discount offered.

Not a bad model to follow in the other 49 states.