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Post subject: Re: It's not really really free!
Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 9:21 pm
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Rock Star
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I sometimes miss living in parts of the world that have consumer protection.
Where the advertised price has to be the out-of-pocket price. Including "free", which means gratis.
Where an X Mbps advertised internet plan has to deliver X Mbps and not "up to, perhaps, if the planets align and all your neighbors are on vacation".
Where unlimited data does not allow for "unless you use more than we like".
Where warranties follow the product, not the buyer. I.e. "first sale" applies to the warranty too.
Where you can't say "20% off" unless you actually sold items at the old price.
Where you can't say "you save 33%" implying vs. MSRP, if no-one sells it at MSRP, and you don't really save anything. (Guitar Center would look very different.)

There are many great things about the US of A. Consumer protection and honesty in sales and advertising are not some of them.


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Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject: Re: It's not really really free!
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:09 am
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Roadie
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One complaint I get from people from outside the US: why don't your prices include all taxes? The official answer is "because the tax depends on the locality of purchase and possibly, the residence of the buyer." Fine, they say, but they could give you the price with *their* local tax ... they know what that is. And unless it's an unusual shop, they also must know that most of their customers are likely locals.

They're right -- no reason the McDonalds near me couldn't have the price including tax on the menu board.

As for misleading advertising -- it makes money for the companies that mislead. Most people won't bring an item back or cancel unless the promised and actual results are far apart and the item is relatively (to them) expensive. But we have a few "only game in town" situations too. If I don't like the speed of Time-Warner's Internet service ... then what? Start my own ISP? If my cell service is below par but the other two competitors are generally said to be even worse ... now what? String and tin cans at each end between me and people I call?

Our general lack of competition for many vital services puts the companies in the driver's seat. That and some well spent money in Washington and Sacramento (or Albany or ...) and there's not much consumers can do. There seem to be few staples with significant competition in most areas of our lives. But not everything's a necessity, and that leads to the great consumer side abuse tool --

-- the class action lawsuit. They tend to occur with mass marketed products with at least reasonable competition and no way to perfectly and exhaustively describe a product's features. At one time PC monitor makers were sued because they didn't mention that monitors were measured diagonally (just like TVs). The makers contended that was a minor omission, they all measured the same way, so no harm. But the class action succeeded in large part because of the reference to TVs having long had to tell you that fact.

I'm not saying class actions are always wrong. For example, Iomega was aware that their early Zip drives would work only on their proprietary SCSI card or Adaptec's then most expensive board. They were also aware that the alternative parallel Zip was much slower. Even so, they never advised retailers and then several large chains, who'd figured that out on their own, kept selling the drives but with SCSI boards they knew wouldn't work. Their hope was that you'd either trade up to the $399 Adaptec or that they could just keep putting you off until Iomega finally got supplies of the custom board in. So it's a different case when you *know* there's a problem and you and your downline actively conceal that.

How about this: I bought a Fender Yngwie Malmsteen Strat -- had to return it after two days because I didn't sound at all like him. So instead, I got the Gibson Angus Young SG and ... man I'm getting steamed ... I had to return that too. Didn't sound at all like AC/DC. So I get the Joe Satriani model Ibanez and ditto ... my playing still comes out sounding like soft Jazz. FRAUD I say: we need a class action saying that a signature model implies that I can sound like the artist in question but that's just not working out.

Totally frivolous? Maybe but on the other hand, I've heard tell of music store sales types who won't try too hard to convince mom and dad that "Sorry, Junior or Sissy will not sound like their favorite Metal Hero just because you're buying them $3,500 worth of gear today. No ... I'd say ... get em the $499 starter kit until they learn how to play and what does make music sound like this or that." It's this grey area dishonesty that's prime for class actions, along with the knowledge that big companies will usually give in if they can't easily disprove the allegations.


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Post subject: Re: It's not really really free!
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:44 pm
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Rock Star
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philipk wrote:
One complaint I get from people from outside the US: why don't your prices include all taxes? The official answer is "because the tax depends on the locality of purchase and possibly, the residence of the buyer."

That's the same in Europe too - even more so because of the value added tax system, where anyone buying something for resale or production materials are exempt - the taxes only applies to the final sale[*].
But they manage to print the price including local taxes when advertising to consumers.

[*]: The "outrageous" sales tax you may see in Europe isn't as bad as one might think - in the US, the sales and use tax is usually added at every step, and while the consumer only gets to see the last tax added, they end up paying them all. The final price includes the sales tax the distributor collected from the retailer, the manufacturer from the distributor, the parts suppliers from the manufacturer, and what everybody paid sales taxes on for transport, energy or other hidden costs. It adds up, quickly.

philipk wrote:
They're right -- no reason the McDonalds near me couldn't have the price including tax on the menu board.


The main reason McD would fight this beak and talon is the dollar menu. If they still wanted to advertise a burger at $1 in a state with 7% sales tax, they would have to reduce the price before tax to 93 cents 5 mills.
But could they do it? Surely. McD manages to state the final price in Europe and other places that require the total price to be listed. It's not that difficult, and it even saves time because the final prices can be better rounded to avoid unnecessary coin exchange.
Unadvertised sales tax (and for sales tax "free" states like NH, "meals and rooms tax") is probably the main reason why we still have the penny in circulation, despite it not buying anything except stamps.


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