Not What It Appears

Not What It Appears was Originally Posted on November 25, 2009 by lavarock

Is it marketing, or is it a scam? Are you really getting what you think? Here are some suggestions that you are not.

Although we commonly call them two by fours, they are NOT 2 inches by 4 inches. The 2 by 4 name comes from the size of the wood BEFORE milling. The actual purchased size? 1and 1⁄2 inches by 3 and 1⁄2 inches.

When asked how much people are paid, they usually reply with the gross amount, which differs considerably fom their take home amount, which is more accurate.

Some people will list items on Ebay as being, for example, $3, but then there is shipping and handling of $10. Why? Well, people pay Ebay based upon selling price, not on selling price plus shipping. many stores do the same thing online, just showing a low price and then upping it considerably with shipping and handling. What is handling anyway? Shouldn’t that be a part of the companies overhead to do business? No, it’s a way to make a few extra dollars. By the way, I never charge customers a handling charge on coffee orders, and often I have free shipping.

Ever notice that the McDonalds Quarter Pounder is a quarter pound of beef (4 ounces) BEFORE COOKING, then it shrinks to 3 ounces after cooking?

Coke lists its sweetness component as sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup. Well, its high fructose corn syrup because it is cheaper. There is only one time a year when Coke contains sugar and that is around Passover when the old formula is sold in the Passover aisle of stores. You can actually feel your teeth rot again!

Some pet food companies are “using the system” as well as human food companies may. Look at the labels and you may notice that they have separated certain ingredients so they do not all appear in one place. The labels are supposed to show ingredients by weight in diminishing order. However they could take wheat for example and grind some and prepare it so they could have wheat, wheat flour and wheat gluten. So you would see 3 different items but when added together the wheat component would be tremendous.

Remember the old Monty Python SPAM comedy routine? “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam and eggs”. “But I don’t like Spam!”, “Well, it doesn’t have THAT MUCH Spam in it”. Well, I bought a Hungry Man dinner called “Grilled Bourbon Steak Strips”. You would think it odd tha there was chicken in a steak product, but pulling items out of the ingredient panels shows: dehydrated chicken broth, chicken fat, dehydrayed cooked chicken, chicken fat and chicken powder!

French toast is neither from France nor toast (it’s fried bread).

Mock turtle soup is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as a cheaper imitation of green turtle soup. It often uses brains and organ meats such as calf’s head, or a calf’s foot to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original’s turtle meat. I think I’ll pass of the original AND the runner up!

If you are not careful, you may buy an orange drink which tastes like juice yet contains less than 2% juice. You may also find that man yjuices contain apple juice as a filler. Go ahead and look at the container of 100% Juice and see if there isn’t apple juice in there. Apple juice is cheap and has little taste of itsself compared with other juices present.

We have the same problem with Kona Coffee where companies sell a 10% blend with 90% of the coffee coming from foreign countries.

Candy bars, coffee, detergents, cereals and so on have all been changing their sizes, even if the boxes or containers stay the same. I have seen Kona blends go from 8 oz to 7 oz to sometimes 6 oz, which makes it difficult for consumers to compare prices. candy bars in machines often seasaw between price and size.

The TV blares “Free Credit Report” but now must add the disclaimer that it is free IF you sign up for Triple Advantage, a product that if you don’t cancel will cost you $14.95 a month! The really free credit report is at annualcreditreport.com. Why doesn’t the really free site have ads? Well, that $14.95 a month is what pays for the guy to sing the ads and ride the rollercoaster and so on. The credit report companies also have quasi-free reports, but if you go to the real free site, it is all free (just don’t fall for any recurring fees).

In your December bills, you may have notices of increased fees and charges. Most people don’t look at bills in December and January, which is why the companies add the charges in those months. I recently was charged $40 a quarter because I was not trading stocks in my account. The company (E-Trade) showed that they did not want me as a customers, and I agreed. I cancelled my account immediately.

So as you go about your day, please kep some of this in mind. Things are not what you may think or expect.

For those of you who are searching for deals, I will have a Black Friday (secret) sale. Shhhhh!