Deals not what they seem to be...

[slim_boy_fat]

You’d have to be born yesterday to believe a lot of marketing.

This. A nephew who worked in one of the 'big shed' electrical retailers [no names, no pack drills, but @Parm would love them ] in his University holidays told me they used to adjust/tune the TVs, so that those with the highest profit margin showed the best combination of sharpness and colour rendition in the display area, irrespective of whether they represented best performance/real-world value or not.

 

[Cobbler]

On a similar vein, one of my old bosses went to looks at a show house with his nephew. He was being shown around & realised something wasn’t quite right, so got out a tape measure & found all the furniture was 10% undersize. When the sales person spotted what he was doing he got in a huff & refused to deal with them. I understand that this is standard practice, there are companies that make special undersized furniture specially for show homes to make it look more spacious.

 

[Parm]

This. A nephew who worked in one of the 'big shed' electrical retailers [no names, no pack drills, but @Parm would love them ] in his University holidays told me they used to adjust/tune the TVs, so that those with the highest profit margin showed the best combination of sharpness and colour rendition in the display area, irrespective of whether they represented best performance/real-world value or not.

This is true

My uncle was a service manager at Comet in the days of CRT TVs. they regularly fiddled with stuff to make it appear better

 

[droopsnoot]

My uncle was a service manager at Comet in the days of CRT TVs. they regularly fiddled with stuff to make it appear better

I recall there used to be a bank of four identical TVs in my local Currys showing the difference in picture quality by using their different cables - SCART, RGB-SCART, something else and HDMI. Presumably they were expecting that people don't realise that only the latter sends a HD signal from the Harry Potter Blu-Ray that they were using as the picture source, and that their £79-odd gold-plated SCART cable probably won't give as good a picture as a pound-shop HDMI cable for that very reason.

 

[Parm]

I recall there used to be a bank of four identical TVs in my local Currys showing the difference in picture quality by using their different cables - SCART, RGB-SCART, something else and HDMI. Presumably they were expecting that people don't realise that only the latter sends a HD signal from the Harry Potter Blu-Ray that they were using as the picture source, and that their £79-odd gold-plated SCART cable probably won't give as good a picture as a pound-shop HDMI cable for that very reason.

Snake oil springs to mind, but it makes some folk feel better when the have waste stupid amounts of money on cables .....

 

[BarrieJ]

On a similar vein, one of my old bosses went to looks at a show house with his nephew. He was being shown around & realised something wasn’t quite right, so got out a tape measure & found all the furniture was 10% undersize. When the sales person spotted what he was doing he got in a huff & refused to deal with them. I understand that this is standard practice, there are companies that make special undersized furniture specially for show homes to make it look more spacious.

I have a relative who works for Thomas Lloyd furniture, they make suites and chairs for show houses that are reduced in size. He tells me that after a while you get to spot the other wheezes too, doors removed and the same colour carpet throughout. It all adds to the sense of space, albeit there isn't much.

 

[optima21]

I got a letter from three today to advise me that my 24 month mobile broadband contact which is £8.33 a month for 20GB is coming to an end. they say I can continue once it ends or take out a new 24 month contact for £16.00 a month. somehow I think I wont be taking up the new contract.

 

[Pete.]

We got some of their 5" thin cutting grinder discs in at the moment. Bloody awful. They are very hard and very brittle. Slow cutting and brittle so they snap real easy if you even put the grinder down too hard.

 

[Mick Annick]

I bought my Femi saw here from an online retailer, price was fair compared to buying it from the UK or direct from Italy, so placed the order on the Sunday after weeks of dithering.

On the Monday morning I got one of their marketing emails saying it was now on offer at 15% off . I emailed them to complain and was surprised to get a reply offering a voucher for the difference, valid for a year.

 

[Mick Annick]

You did well, I bought a saw, when it came it was not the same as the specifications listed on the site,
I informed them, and asked if they would send me the correct bar sprocket and chain, they said to send
the saw back that it couldn't be done, I even asked if they wanted to refund my account for the price of
the items and I would buy them myself as this would cut out two shipping transactions, and again no.
Sending the saw back would have meant someone else would have got a saw that I already started and run,
and I never seen any second hand saws advertised on their site, so there was the distinct possibility of someone el se
getting a used saw instead of a new one, I just kept it as I did not want any bad vibes knowing I had a part in it.

I even bought another saw after that from them.

I was very lucky with mine, when the Femi turned up they’d shipped a higher specification machine than than I’d ordered. Being the honest chap I am I emailed them pointing out the error and asking if they wished to swap it. Got a reply saying that their system couldn’t have shipped the wrong machine so nothing to swap!

 

[Robotstar5]

On a similar vein, one of my old bosses went to looks at a show house with his nephew. He was being shown around & realised something wasn’t quite right, so got out a tape measure & found all the furniture was 10% undersize. When the sales person spotted what he was doing he got in a huff & refused to deal with them. I understand that this is standard practice, there are companies that make special undersized furniture specially for show homes to make it look more spacious.

A friend bought a new build house in the 80's, his wife didn't like the kitchen so they ordered exactly the same number of units but of a much better quality, when they arrived they were too big for the kitchen, that's when they found out about the undersize units scam.

 

[northwest]

My mother in law worked evenings for a soft furnishings company, linen ware manufacturer. When it was getting close to "sales" time for some pretty big names in London and Manchester they would swap the cotton for the bedsheets to a lower spec and make a couple thousand of those instead of the Egyptian cotton they usually used for the sheets and pillow cases.

 

[redlig]

On a similar vein, one of my old bosses went to looks at a show house with his nephew. He was being shown around & realised something wasn’t quite right, so got out a tape measure & found all the furniture was 10% undersize. When the sales person spotted what he was doing he got in a huff & refused to deal with them. I understand that this is standard practice, there are companies that make special undersized furniture specially for show homes to make it look more spacious.

That and the wide angle lenses that make the gardens etc look huge .

 

[badabec]

'Get them out by Friday', Genesis, Foxtrot LP, written by Peter Gabriel

'This is an announcement from Genetic Control
It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on
Humanoid height'

 

[droopsnoot]

I got a letter from three today to advise me that my 24 month mobile broadband contact which is £8.33 a month for 20GB is coming to an end. they say I can continue once it ends or take out a new 24 month contact for £16.00 a month. somehow I think I wont be taking up the new contract.

You did well there, my contract with them for the same 20Gb is ending in January, and I started with that (Jan 2019) paying £10 a month for the same thing. I think it's had an inflation rise so it's an untidy price now. I wonder whether they'll do the same to me. I switched to it because on my previous Three mobile bb, I was paying £15 a month for 10Gb and happened to ask in the shop if there was anything better.

 

[pedrobedro]

And just in case any of you are looking at the Makita petrol chainsaws, Makita end production of
petrol saws at the end of this year, they should be getting cheaper, but instead they are marked way up,

Dolmar make the same saw so why bother.

'This is an announcement from Genetic Control
It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on
Humanoid height'

This is contrary to a chap I worked with who's opinion was that anyone under 5' 8" should be shot at birth.

 

[james butler]

check out kenco coffee in shopping centres
the "eco" bag refills are 150g for around £3.45
the glass jars are 200g for £4 making it cheaper per gram
so the reward for being eco is?

 

[Seadog]

The reward is being ripped off. The same with most of this Eco rubbish being spouted

 

[Bobupndown]

Not having to recycle glass jars??

 

[Seadog]

If they were a truly "Eco-friendly" company you'd be getting a bag at 400g and a jar at 350g for those prices, in my opinion.