Mouseprint – Reading the Fine Print on Deals That Are Too Good to be True
26 September 2006Via The Red Tape Chronicles, I found a great blog called Mouseprint that you might want to take a look at. It’s a consumer advocacy blog that goes through random special offers and reads the fine print for you, showing when they turn out not to be such a great deal. For example, it points out that Scott Paper has been gradually shortening the length of toilet paper, even though they claim “1,000 sheets” – they’ve gone from 4.5 inches to 3.7 inches long. A car dealership will sell you a $20,000 car for $10,000 – with a $9,000 down payment. Tide keeps the same package size – but puts less detergant in there.
I’m not sure you’ll actually find that many scams for products you’re using on a day-to-day basis – I found a few, but some were warnings for things I’d probably never look into anyway. But the reason I think it’s really useful is because these tricks often come in categories. I may not be buying a Chrysler – but it’s useful to know that when a car company has something that sounds really great like a 30 day return period, it might just be hype. And it’s also useful to know that with various kitchen products, they will try to trick you by using different measurements you might not be familiar with – or refering to “uses” when they just reduce the scoop size, etc.
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