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Hyundai Assurance: Lose Your Income, Return the Car

Hyundai AssuranceIn early January, in order to stimulate car sales in a weak economy, Hyundai announced a novel program called Hyundai Assurance.  According to the TV commercial :

“Right now, buy any new Hyundai. And if, in the next year, you lose your income, we’ll let you return it.” (There is unreadable mouse print in the ad when those words are spoken.)

While this may sound like a refund program to some, it is not.

*MOUSE PRINT:

This is actually a lease cancellation or loan cancellation program, and does not apply to customers who buy their cars outright.  In essence, they will let you return the car, under six specific circumstances, and will cancel your continued indebtedness.  There is no refund of any money.

In particular, they look at what your car is worth when you turn it in, and compare it to what you owe.  Hyundai will waive up to a $7500 difference, and you have to pay the rest.

Under what circumstances can you return the car?  These are the six reasons:

Involuntary unemployment, physical disability, loss of driver’s license, international employment transfer, self-employment personal bankruptcy, and accident death.

Written like an insurance policy, each of these reasons has a list of limiting qualifications. For example, to qualify for the unemployment benefit, you have to be employed full time for at least three months before and after the policy begins; you have to be approved for state unemployment insurance (or an alternative option); you can’t be self-employed, have retired or resigned, or have gotten a new job; etc.

How does Mouse Print* know all these deep details?  Certainly not from watching Hyundai’s television commercial or reading their website set up specifically for this program.  When Mouse Print* asked the plan administrator for all the terms and conditions and legalese, we were directed to go to any Hyundai dealer.  Calling a nearby dealer, the sales manager acknowledged he did not yet have the terms and conditions to give to customers and only had a flowery brochure.  Even initial contact with Hyundai’s press relations folks turned into a dead end.  Finally, a copy of the terms and conditions  [pdf] was provided by the plan administrator’s PR person.

No potential customer who is going to spend $15,000, $20,000, $30,000 or more should have to beg and grovel with company officials to learn the details of a program being promoted via a multi-million dollar ad campaign.  In the end, if you meet the nitpicky qualifications, this is a good bit of free (non) insurance to have when buying a new car given our uncertain times.

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Kleenex Tissues Downsized

Paper products like toilet paper and paper towels have been downsized frequently. Now tissues are getting smaller too.

*MOUSE PRINT:

kleenex184

Kleenex has narrowed their tissues by two-tenths of an inch, from 8.4 inches wide to 8.2 inches, but the boxes are the same size. That is over 300 square inches less per box.

In addition, an eagle-eyed Mouse Print* reader (MaterialGirl) noticed that on the 120 count boxes the company made each tissue smaller AND reduced the number of tissues in the box to 110:

kleenex120

What does the company have to say about the downsizing?

In recent months, we have been faced with escalating prices for pulp and rapidly changing energy costs. Similar to other manufacturers, we cannot absorb these increased costs indefinitely without making an adjustment. While one of our competitors recently increased their price by six percent, we chose to maintain our existing price but decreased the number of sheets in some cartons. This direction allows us to offer lower promotional prices.

Also, we recently adjusted the sheet to a size equal to other tissues currently on the market, standardizing the sheet size in the facial tissue category. —Kimberly-Clark Customer Service

Although most shoppers won’t miss the two-tenths of inch from each tissue, for the company, the savings are nothing to sneeze at.

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Buy $500 of Furniture, Get $500 in Groceries Free?

berngroceriesA local furniture chain in Massachusetts has just begun advertising what seems like a too good to be true offer: “buy at least $500 in furniture and get back $500 in free groceries… get one [$100] giftcard a month for five months.”

Here is the TV commercial they are running.

The fine print in the commercial is virtually unreadable, but says that the offer does not apply to previous purchases, is subject to terms and conditions, and to see the store for more details. Based on what is said in that commercial, however, one would think this was a very straightforward offer. Not.

*MOUSE PRINT: What the commercial doesn’t tell you is that in addition to the $500 in furniture, you must also purchase at least $1000 in groceries in order to receive the five $100 giftcards. In fact, you must purchase at least $200 of groceries each month at the same store for five consecutive months, and send in proof of purchase on no more than two receipts monthly. (This means that most grocery purchases under $100 won’t qualify toward the total.) If you shop somewhere else, or miss a month, the rest of your giftcards are cancelled. [See offer details.]

When the store was asked how come the commercial left out the key fact that an additional $1000 purchase of groceries was also necessary, the response was that the ad said to see the store for details.

The offer sends up all kinds of red flags because of the financial impossibility of every customer being given $500 having only spent $500. For argument sake, let’s say a customer buys a lounge chair for $500, which cost the store $250. The store had to pay MPell Solutions (the fulfillment house for the grocery incentive) some amount of money for each $500 certificate, right? Given that the gross profit on the chair is only $250, how much of that is the store going to pay for an incentive? Let’s say they did spend 40% of their gross profit — $100 — for each grocery certificate. How in the world can MPell turn that $100 into $500 to return to customers over a five or six month period? (Only Bernard Madoff can do that.) Clearly, the math does not seem to work. Even if some customers fail to follow through, the worry is that some diligent customers may not get what they were promised. That’s what happened in a similar gasoline promotion recently.

The gas promotion, previously reported in Mouse Print*, promised customers who spent $1000 on electronics that they could get back $500 in gas giftcards. As it turned out, that meant that customers had to mail in receipts totaling $100 a month for 20 months, in order to receive a $25 monthly gas card. That electronics chain is now out of business, participants in the promotion are now complaining about slow fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the offer, and the Florida Attorney General is investigating.

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