Not the first time a roving pasty muncher has picked up on stupid price promotion – see Supermarket Swizz – No Deal where our wandering eye spotted Tesco taking the little in  every little helps to the minimum of price cuts – a penny off a litre of whiskey and Sainsbury’s shelf edges announcing that the promotion price of a pack of Hobgoblin Ale was exactly the same as before – no change.

Somerfield have now taken a step futher in a bizarre ploy to confuse bargain hunters even more.  Possibly working on the premiss that if a price is enlarged on a shelf edge label then shoppers will assume it to be a bargain.  All Bottled Ales Priced at £1.69 (various sizes) now
£1.72.

Either the marketing people had done no research in the effect of adding 3p to the existing price or considered the 69 to be a bit of a mouthful.

Stethoscope Swizz

Its not just in supermarkets and on the high street buyers need beware – online retailers too can bowl the odd googly.

This panel form an online medical supply website was found during the peak season for stethoscope sales to the fresh intake of medicl school students somefound this disappointment when Discount Nurses announced their sale on leading models of stethoscopes.  One aspiring Doctor said “I’d read that Littmann Stethoscopes were amongst the best stethoscopes for medical professionals – what I wasn’t expecting was to see the prices increase before my very eye”

After further searching the same stethoscope was found on Amazon.com a little cheaper.  In the UK Amazon only appears stock stethoscope

Sometimes it all goes wrong

Who can’t forget the online giant Amazon closing its operations when it was notified that it was selling hand held Asus eee pcs for a fraction of the correct price £7.32 instead of £197!

Amazon has a book – image on right for those who want to read about many other crap jobs.
crap jobs

Just how crap are these crap jobs?

Some years ago I signed up for work with a Mystery Shopping Agency – Grass Roots (who coincidentally headed the list of Mystery Shopping UK Job Sites and was thrilled when an e mail arrived detailing my first assignment.

The jolly message was along the lines of “Your mission – if you were to accept – is to visit a branch of the [highstreet bank] and simply ask for information about opening an account. Pretty straightforward so far – money for old rope – so I pressed the accept link.

Then came the crap

Next day a bulky A4 envelope arrived packed with forms and detailed instructions. What was a simple job of popping into a bank for a couple of minutes had suddenly become a major review of the branches and its staff.

A strict script had to be adhered to and specific questions asked, the answers noted along with the names of who you had dealt with.

It Gets Worse – Double Trouble

Not only was the sheer volume of paperwork off putting but the job required visiting two branches in different villages. I planned to do them both in the same afternoon but imagine my surprise to find that rural branches don’t open through the week and only one could be visited on this occasion. I performed the duties as requested and completed the paperwork and checked the opening times of the second branch in order to return another day. Two days later I made my second journey and having had a dress rehearsal stepped into0 the bank and asked at the counter if I could talk to someone about opening a new account at the branch. “Yes of course Mr errr Muncher” replied the Tiller ” please take a seat and someone will be with you presently”

Identity crisis

When the solid wooden door opened and the same woman I had talked to early that week entered I almost evacuated my bowels – which would have been a truly crap job. She greeted me as though nothing was amiss but did apologetically and politely enquire if I had been at another branch previously. Such a professional.

“Nah – that’ll be my brother – thats why I’m here he was really excited about opening his first bank account. He said he was made to feel really important buy [highstreet bank] at [other village] but they aren’t open today”

“Thats right my team and I run both branches” she explained and we continued.

Anyhoos – the same questions and surprise surprise the same answers but it all still had to be recorded on the second job sheet.

After posting all the paperwork for both jobs I calculated the rate of pay. I spent a total of five hours traveling 40 miles, visiting the two branches and writing up reports and for this I received a cheque for twenty pounds. Now I’m no book keeper – accountancy jobs are for sandwich nibblers – but four pounds per hour less petrol is crap. I still receive occasional emails with the latest vacancies

Mystery Shopping – CRAP JOBS!

Tesco penny off a litre of Bells’ Whiskey

What a saving this is and well timed following the booze unfriendly budget. 1 whole new penny off £14.99 that’s a massive 0.06% saving – cheers Tesco – every little really does help.

Next we have Jamie O’s mates Sainsburys who risked shareholder wrath and had profit warning statements prepared when they decided to SLASH their multipacks of Hob Goblin’ Ale by nothing at all – nowt, zip, squat diddly.

Ever thrifty I checked the prices of available pasties online on Savebuckets –  UK’s latest price comparison shopping site but was disappointed to find they were only able to offer the Cornish Pasty from Wiltshire Farm Foods at £1 hmm not much comaprison there – hobsons choice I’d say.

Since I’d taken the trouble to visit Save Buckets I wondered what else can I check up on??

As a keen gardener with other green fingered chums imagine my delight to come across an entire category dedicated to alan titchmarsh gifts!

What next? Well my broadband internet contract is up for renewal so lets search for a better deal.  I’ve always been nervous that cheap packages from Tiscali and the like are a flase economy and thought it prudent to stay with bigger broadband providers such as BT. My internet search for “cheap broadband” actually displayed the BT Total Broadband packages which include their wireless wi fi broadband ”home hub” and for the moment a free digital tv recorder.

The best of both worlds – a trusted UK Broadband provider (BT) Free gifts and a choice of “Options” to suit my needs and budget.

Finally I couldn’t resist, the child in me searched for “wee” pis-smelling of nintendo’s Wii – hilarious.