Mouse Print* – Page 179 – Exposing the strings and catches buried in the fine print.

Updated every Monday! Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

This is How Sears Treats “Family and Friends” ?

November 10, 2015November 9, 2015 by Edgar (aka MrConsumer)

One of the best sales (historically) at Sears is their “Family & Friends” promotion, which began yesterday and runs until Tuesday night online.

Seems pretty simple. You get an extra 5-20% off even sale prices, plus an extra 10% back in points. But note that there is a little “see details” link at the bottom. Clicking it displays the following disclaimer:

*MOUSE PRINT:

For anyone counting, that disclaimer is over 1500 words and almost six feet long! No shopper has the patience to read that, and as a result may well wind up without all the savings or bonuses expected depending on what they buy and how they pay.

To make matters worse, the extra 10% back in points offer is potentially misleading. The big print is perfectly clear that Shop Your Way members get a bonus of an extra 10% back in points. On a large purchase, like a $1500 television, that is $150 in points, good for $150 in other merchandise. Nothing to sneeze at. And most of the small print reiterates the unqualified bonus points back offer. But, near the end, there is a mention that 10% back in points requires the use of a Sears credit card and is limited to only the first $500 of purchases.

A Shop Your Way representative said that the 10% back offer is for credit cardholders only. But, a Sears.com representative said that the 10% back in points promotion is a separate offer from the 10% back credit card offer, but warned that those bonus points do NOT show up when you checkout. Well, which is it? We wrote to a Sears PR person about this whole situation, and he responded just before midnight on Sunday:

“It appears there was an inadvertent error with a Sears friends and family online ad. The ad has been updated. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

And lo and behold, apparently sometime before midnight after the first day of the sale was over, Sears changed its website. All references to an extra 10% back in points in that ad were removed.

And they shortened their disclaimer to just under three feet!

A hat-tip to Sears for making the correction. But now the bigger question… for everyone who made purchases relying on that advertisement, will Sears make good and give them an extra 10% back in points as promised?

Stay tuned.

Share this story:

ADV

Updated every Monday! Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Lime-A-Way: Money Back (Not) Guaranteed

November 2, 2015 by Edgar (aka MrConsumer)

Recently, MrConsumer needed to clean some pavers that had a cloudy white stain on them. At the supermarket, he was attracted to Lime-A-Way bottles because of a sticker promising a full price rebate just to try the product. He could not read the terms of the rebate because the sticker was really a plastic envelope and one would have to tear along the perforation lines to remove the sticker and reveal the details that were inside.

After coming home, MrConsumer broke the seal to discover the rebate had actually expired about two months earlier. Drats.

*MOUSE PRINT:

MrConsumer then checked the Lime-A-Way website, and right there on the homepage was a money back guarantee if you were not satisfied with the product’s performance.

Since in fact it did nothing to remove the cloudy white stain from the pavers, MrConsumer enclosed the receipt and the guarantee form from their website and sent it off to the company. A few weeks later, a surprise came in the mail:

It said “Return to Sender. Offer Expired. Box Closed.”

In fact, according to the form that was mailed in, the money back guarantee didn’t expire until December 31, 2015.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Two refund attempts… two failures. So we wrote to the PR folks at Reckitt Benckiser to ask why they didn’t put the expiration date of the “try me” rebate on the outside of the package so shoppers could see it in the store, and how is it that their P.O. box to accept refund requests through the end of the year was closed. Their UK headquarters forwarded our request to their US office, and no further response was received from the company. However, curiously, the Lime-A-Way website has been changed, and no longer has a money back guarantee.

Share this story:

ADV

Updated every Monday! Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Reese’s Snack Sizes — Trick or Treat?

October 26, 2015 by Edgar (aka MrConsumer)

With Halloween just around the corner, what better time to examine some candy labels.

Nancy S. wrote to Mouse Print* about a strange situation she found involving Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. It seems depending on which “snack size” package you pick up, the size of the snack is different.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Reese 21g - 7 servings

Both bags are 10.5 ounces, but the top one says it has 14 servings in the bag, and the bottom one says only seven servings. Each individual package inside is 21 grams or 0.75 oz. The difference is on the nutritional label that that seems to have upped the serving size to two patties (43 grams) instead of just one.

But it gets more interesting.

As noted, in those 10.5 ounce bags above, each peanut butter cup is 21 grams. However, each individual “snack size” patty varies in weight depending on how big a bag it comes in.

*MOUSE PRINT:

So, the “snack size” peanut butter cups ranged from 15 grams each to 21 grams.

We asked the PR folks at Hershey to explain why they use the same term, “snack size,” for candy of varying sizes; and why the portion size was doubled to two peanut butter cups. They did not respond.

Share this story:

ADV