Misleading special offers still on supermarket shelves

Do you eat shower gel ? what is this about ‘ flavourings’ ?

wavechange, presumably each biscuit weighed 100g (one broken)? No wonder obesity is on the increase.

Maybe the chocolate ones stuck together. 🙂

Just another example of why we need an effective Trading Standards organisation to clamp down on this malpractice.
In the meantime perhaps Which? could organise as many willing subscribers / members as possible to routinely report these “errors” to them for Which? to take action. Who else is there to act on behalf of consumers?

I am losing faith in Trading Standards, Malcolm. My own experience and that of friends has not been positive and they seem to bee grossly underfunded, so my problems and yours will probably not receive appropriate attention.

In the absence of a consumer minister, I’m still not sure who we can push at government level.

Agreed wavechange. Perhaps we should press Which? to put this at, or near, the top of its agenda when it talks to the government?

In response to their latest campaign – “What would you like to see Which? prioritise in our meetings with Ministers in the new government?” giving just three choices – Pension safeguards, NHS complaints and energy prices – I did suggest they added Consumer protection. The reply was they had thought about adding a “something else” button.

Perhaps a campaign just aimed at Consumer Protection – including an active government minister and funding trading standards properly – might address a lot of the issues raised in these conversations?

Incidentally, Trading Standards at local level could be funded by a levy on traders through business rates. It is traders who benefit from our custom, and in their interests to see that unfair trading is properly dealt with.

Perhaps the issue of Consumer Protection should also be addressed in the context of quitting the European Union. Whatever our occcasional criticism of the EU, the way things are going now in the UK it might be our only bulwark against the power of big corprations and if we stepped out from under the European umbrella what would the future hold for protecting consumers in this country?

I wish we could focus on core issues of consumer protection on these pages rather than the quality of supermarket bread and the seat pitch on aircraft, but I imagine such topics help attract new readers.

I agree that we should push the issue of the current inadequacy of Trading Standards.

I think Which? has become less combative in the last decade and seems to be moving towards a non-campaigning role. you may say look at all the signature driven sign-ups but then is this simply a reflex to deal with 38 degrees and other on-line pressure groups,

We now have the corporate hub part of the Which site, the charity accepts money – currently up to £30,000 a year – for use of the Best Buy logo. And as you may know from my frequent mentioning of the Logiks Steamer review and its Best Buy status our testing or subsequent reviewing of status following customer complaints is suspect.

I also feel that Which? has increasingly looked for the easy pickings from the shallower end of the consumer scene. I can understand why that might be – there are a number of internal and external reasons. To some extent it reflects the changes that have taken place in society and the perceived change in consumer values and priorities. While moving in line with those changes I hope Which? will keep its eye on the bigger picture. It think this particular topic is right on target and gets to the heart of consumer concerns. Despite higher gross incomes in real terms for many, household budgets nowadays have to carry a huge ballast in the form of non-discretionary committed expenditure [mortgage/rent, energy, utilities, transport] plus all the discretionary but contracted expenses [phone, ISP, satellite TV, etc] so shopping for food and cleaning materials is under much more of a squeeze. The statistics tell us that goods are cheaper and going down in price every day (!), but the experience of many is at odds with that. Keeping a close watch on the price:value equation of everyday goods is vital.

https://www.gov.uk/find-local-trading-standards-office

I notice that a lot of items are shrinking. Is the packaging staying the same size? Or are we again going to have massive boxes with less in them – and should be contacting Trading Standards because of overpackaging. There are regulations about excessive packaging..

Actually in a way I’m pleased that we will be getting smaller amounts as what was happening in the past was that we were getting bigger and bigger packets of everything and more was getting wasted and we were eating more as a result. Perhaps inadvertently we will decrease our waistlines as a result. Wouldn’t it be good if it wasn’t so underhand though.

Has anybody seen any advertisements saying “NEW – SMALLER SIZE!” ?

In fact we all have.

The smaller boxes of washing powder proudly trumpeted as concentrated and using less packaging and transport. Which the giants like Unilever and P&G used to burnish their green credentials!

It was also the EU who prosecuted these two firms and a German one for operating a cartel when this requirement was introduced. It makes rather chilling reading when you go through the full report.

“P&G, Henkel and Unilever “took the opportunity” to organize a cartel while coordinating on the environmental program, said Joaquin Almunia, the commission’s vice-president in charge of competition policy.
“They sought to ensure that no one could use this initiative to gain a competitive advantage over the others, so they agreed to protect their respective market shares,” Mr. Almunia said. “They agreed also not to decrease prices when decreasing the size of packages, and afterwards, they even agreed to a price increase.” April 2011

I think Which? missed a major trick in alerting and educating consumers on what household names are prepared to do. And it is not just the EU who have been busy as a similar case in wash products occurred in Australia and was in 2014 making its way through the courts. And France also for a variety of consumables involving a large number of companies.

Very interesting dieseltayler.

I have just gone to the kitchen and now have in front of me 2 lenors – one old bottle and one new super concentrate.
Old one – 1.5L 42 washes
New one – 1.1L 44 washes

Now, I would imagine most people automatically add a full cap of fabric conditioner to their normal wash.

But, the caps on both bottles are EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE.

The old bottle tells you to use a full, third or two thirds of a cap depending on the wash.

The new bottle has some vague levels on a picture of a cap.

How many people read the instructions of something they have been using for years? How many people continue to put a full cap of conditioner in their washing? How many people are only getting 31 washes per bottle? And, I haven’t noticed anything over conditioned.

What a rip-off !!!

Sorry dieseltaylor, my finger missed the “o” by a mile !!!

Good point Alfa. I think most people just fill the conditioner receptacle in their machine and take no notice of the blurb on the bottle. People who are more sensible than us probably don’t use fabric conditioner at all – it’s a product imagined from nowhere and marketed intensively on the back of a fabricated concern.

Sensible people must love ironing and rough towels then !!!

The Fench cartel judgement is recently decided – December 2014. The list of those involved is interesting.

“Vu les observations présentées par les sociétés Topaze, Unilever France, Unilever France
Holdings, Procter & Gamble France, Procter & Gamble Holding France,
The Procter & Gamble Company, Henkel France, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA,
Colgate-Palmolive, Colgate-Palmolive Services, Colgate-Palmolive Company,
Colgate-Palmolive venant aux droits de Sara Lee Household and Body Care France,
Hillshire Brands Company, SC Johnson SAS, SC Johnson & Son, Inc., Reckitt Benckiser
France, RB Holding Europe du Sud, Reckitt Benckiser PLC, Bolton Solitaire SAS, Bolton
Manitoba S.p.A., Procter & Gamble France venant aux droits de la société Groupe Gillette
France, The Procter & Gamble Company venant aux droits de The Gillette Company,
Johnson & Johnson Santé Beauté France, SCA Tissue France, Johnson & Johnson
Consumer Holdings France, Vania Expansion, Lascad, L’Oréal, Beiersdorf SAS,
Beiersdorf Holding France SARL, Beiersdorf AG ”

My own opinion is that whilst heavy fines are handed out the “Court of consumer opinion” is poorly advised and in fact that any personal boycotts and loss of company reputation is minimised by consumer organisations not mentioning it.

Alfa – I thought it was recommended not to use fabric conditioner for washing towels as it reduces their absorbency. We never do and they come out alright. Washing powders and liquids themselves have become gentler. We use fabric conditioner for most other laundry, however, but I bet we get nowhere near the stated number of washes out of the bottle! Fabric conditioner does make things a little bit easier to iron but good washing and drying practices can achieve the same results.

Maybe it is a combination of hard water and “not that new” towels, but they sure are nicer when we use fabric conditioner.

Thanks Andrew. With towels, I think the correct washing liquid dosage and a good rinsing action are key to the results but I would also recommend (a) not putting too many towels in the machine at a time so they have plenty of room for the washing and rinsing actions to get in amongst all the thread loops, (b) taking them out of the machine as soon as the cycle has finished, and (c) hanging them outside if possible for a spell to allow the breeze to fluff them up a bit with fresh air. Obviously, towels don’t get ironed so that particular property of fabric conditioner is irrelevant. I think any roughness in towels, and hard water effects, are as likely to come from the moisture absorbed when people use them for drying themselves as from any part of the laundry process. Frequent changing and renewal is a way of reducing the problem.

The weight of the contents of a product is only normally reduced by a few grammes and the packet stays the same size so you have no idea at a glance what the producer has done; but if you consider that they may make perhaps 100,000 of this item in a day those few missing grammes add up to a hefty lot.
It is being done all the time now.

Fabric conditioners go in the final rinse water so are never rinsed off.

I have not used fabric conditioners because they contain a bunch of chemicals that would remain on my clothing and bedding. Apart from skin irritation, which Dieseltaylor mentions, some chemicals can pass through skin. As an everyday example of this, creams containing ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory chemicals. Every year we withdraw chemicals from household and garden use because hitherto unknown risks are discovered.

Having rougher towels and shirts that take more ironing seems a very small price to pay for avoiding possible skin irritation or something more serious.

malcolm, will you be making a complaint to Action Fraud and Trading Standards, or a claim in the small claims court?

wev, I haven’t tried any of these products, so no. I think it is a general issue that Which? could take up.

Whether you personally can work out the best deal is not really the point, Bill. The fact is that many offers and promotions are misleading, and possibly against the law in some cases. And another fact is that many shoppers are being duped, or at the very least falsely drawn, into making a bad buy. It is in the interests of all consumers that we tackle misleading pricing claims in order to protect the integrity of the market place and to protect all shoppers, many of whom might not have your ability to quickly pick out the better price. If we do not clamp down on the this type of market misrepresentation where will the malpractice stop? And what other tricks and deceits will traders come up with in order to baffle the public?