WHAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH

We now live in a world where moral principles have been reduced to ‘what you can get away with’. We should like to think that ‘they’ are keeping an eye on things to make sure that we are treated fairly. I think that once they were but now they are not; they can’t because there are just not enough hours in the day. So we have to be vigilant and when we see sharp practice we do our best to tell our friends, perhaps write to the papers, perhaps write to the perpetrators and tell them that what they are doing offends you. For those that choose the latter option be warned that you are likely to be wasting your time. The art of ‘Consumer Relations’ or ‘Public Relations’ has now reached its highest point of achievement – they know exactly how to wriggle off the hook. There are probably seminars entitled ‘How To Make The Best Out of A Bad Job’, ‘The Customer is always Wrong’, ‘Never Reply Directly To The Question Asked’ and ‘Let Obfuscation Be Our Guide’, being held as I write.

Here are a couple of examples of where I believe that companies are getting away with it.

A few months ago my local supermarket ran a promotion on wine. It featured a wine produced by the French company J.P. Chenet. It was a half price promotion and the cost of a bottle, to you, to take away now, was £4.99. That must mean the original price was £9.98 per bottle. Now the rules governing this kind of promotion say that the wine must have been on sale at £9.98 at some time, for a certain length of time, and I am sure it was. I’m equally sure that it wouldn’t have sold very well if at all. But hey look! It’s half price! Half price! Do you realise how cheap that is? Now as a regular visitor to France I know the wines of J.P. Chenet and good as they are (they really are not bad at all: they just can’t be described as ‘fain wain’) - they are cheap, cheap, cheap. Two euros forty cents a bottle would be a typical price – although I have seen it on sale for far less. Let us say it costs £1.90. And that is the retail price. Wholesale, the price at which my supermarket chain would buy it would definitely be no more than half the French retail price so it might be bought for 95p per bottle – and that is erring on the side of caution and I’m ignoring French excise duty which is minimal. Excise duty in the UK is £1.90 per 75cl bottle. We arrive at £2.85. So, if it is retailed at £4.99 there’s a mark-up of £2.14, or 75%, on every bottle. That is, to my eyes, a high mark-up but it is not untypical. You may sell your J.P.Chenet for £4.99 and you are not cheating us but you are bloody well cheating us when you say, by implication, that it is ‘worth’ £9.98.

Of course we sophisticated types (we who know their ‘wain’) won’t be fooled but I think the marketers know that there are plenty of people around who are not all that bright and they accept what the supermarket says. Is it fair to exploit your customers’ naivety?

Within an atmosphere where we have come to accept rising prices as the norm the price of wine has escalated enormously and, I believe, disproportionately to the other increases that have created an inflationary atmosphere. It was not so long ago when a bottle of cheapish wine could be bought for around £3.00; now the price starts at £5.00 and you are more likely to have to pay more than £6.00. And the ‘half price’ scam is to be seen in supermarkets wherever you go. They are basing their pricing on what they can get away with, make no mistake.

Here’s another example of ‘what you can get away with’. It is not very serious but it worries me and it may well worry you. Olive oil. Take a look at this bottle label.

Napolina. Aah! Think of Naples. Aah! Think of Italy. Aah! It’s Extra Virgin. Aah! See the colours of the riband? Green. White and Red. The colours of the Italian flag. You know what comes into your mind when you think of Italian Olive Oil? It is the best in the world isn’t it? Yes some of it probably is and that is probably in your mind when you take it down from the supermarket shelf and put it in your basket.

Turn the bottle round and read.

 Napolina is a registered trademark of Napolina Ltd. Produce of the EU Packed in the EU for Napolina Ltd, Royal Liver Building, Pier Head, Liverpool L3 1NX, UK 

Superior Category olive oil obtained directly from olives and           solely by mechanical means

Well, Italy is in the EU but … I think that if this olive oil actually came from Italy Napolina Ltd, that famous Liverpool company, would say so, wouldn’t it?

It is my humble and considered opinion that this is a con. The olive oil probably comes from Greece and the irony is that Greek Olive Oil is really very, very good. And if I’m right then no real harm has been done … but it does mean that someone selling Greek Olive Oil as such, genuinely as such, has been done out of selling a bottle.