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Scott Toilet Paper: Here We Shrink Again

In the continuing retail race to shrink the size of a sheet of toilet paper to that of a postage stamp, Scott 1000 sheet rolls have been downsized again.

Exactly four years ago, we reported on Scott shortening each sheet on the roll from 4 inches to 3.7 inches.

Now, they are making each sheet narrower too.

*MOUSE PRINT:

It went from a full 4.5 inches wide to just 4.1 inches wide. A four pack now has almost 42 square feet less paper — a reduction of nine percent.

When the company was asked why they narrowed each sheet, a customer service representative replied:

This makes Scott “comparable with other brands on the market shelf” … and that there was “a slight improvement to make it thicker.”

How much thicker are the sheets now? Probably not too much as the new package weighs a full five ounces less than the old one.

Scott has a long history of downsizing its 1000 sheet rolls: 

Original: 4.5 inches by 4.5 inches

Pre-2006: 4.5 inches by 4.0 inches

9/2006: 4.5 inches by 3.7 inches

9/2010: 4.1 inches by 3.7 inches

The cumulative effect on consumers of all this downsizing is significant. Today’s roll is a full 25% smaller than the original.  Maybe they need to rename the product Scott 750.

As with all products that are downsized inconspicuously, it is a sneaky way to pass on a price increase because the customer is paying the same price, but getting less.

Thanks to eagle-eyed Mouse Print* reader Karen S. for this submission.

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Capital One’s 10% Savings Bonus Catch

Capital One Bank has just begun a major national advertising campaign on TV with comic Jerry Stiller and in full page newspaper ads touting its high interest savings rate compared to “bupkus” [nothing] paid by competitors.

In addition to paying 1.35% interest, you also get a 10% quarterly bonus on the amount of interest earned in the previous quarter.

capone

If you click the above ad, you will see unreadable mouse print under the bank’s name. Even looking at the original ad, the text is almost unreadable because of its size, faint color and weight of the font, and the fact that it is printed on a striped background doesn’t help either.

What does the fine print say?

*MOUSE PRINT:

Besides requiring a $1000 minimum balance to get the advertised interest rate, it also imposes some unexpected conditions in order to receive the advertised bonus interest:

“To receive the bonus, your account must be open and you either must maintain an average balance of $10,000 each month in your account or own an active Capital One credit card in good standing with at least one transaction per calendar month.”

This is a pretty significant requirement to bury — that you need $10,000+ to earn the bonus interest. And it is not like they didn’t have enough space in this full page ad to disclose it upfront clearly.

So, how much will MrConsumer deposit at Capital One because of this deception? Bupkis.

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CVS: From Ad to Checkout, Promised Discounts Disappear

Last Friday, CVS sent out an email to customers offering “20% off your entire purchase in store or online*”.

*MOUSE PRINT:

“The 20% sale cannot be combined with another product sale running at the same time. You will receive the larger discount.” — disclaimer for online coupon use.

“*Excludes sale items.” — disclaimer for in-store coupon use.

Those exclusions are pretty limiting considering your “entire purchase” really is not covered.  What makes them worse was the fact that those disclosures were not made anywhere in the email itself. You had to visit CVS.com to find them out.

Still worse were the seeming 40% off discounts promised off the regular price of “Red Hot Deals” featured on the landing page of CVS.com:

cvs

MrConsumer placed those three 40% items in his cart, but when checking the cart, the 40% discounts had completely disappeared. Well, maybe the right sale prices only show up when you are about to checkout?

*MOUSE PRINT:

Nope. Even on the very last page of the ordering process after providing a credit card number, all the 40% off items remained at full price. Had MrConsumer clicked the “submit order” button there, he would have been charged $42.47 for items that had been advertised for $25.47. That’s an overcharge of $17.  This is the online equivalent of a scanner error where the store sign promised 40% off, but the items scanned regular price at the cash register.

CVS subsequently corrected their error, but who knows how many people might have been overcharged in the interim.

The lesson here is that just because an item is advertised on a website for a particular price, you must double-check to see whether that is the price that is actually charged once the item is in your cart and you are at the checkout.

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