The price of cheese.

[Northern Soul]

After a small victory in reclaiming the majority of my business bank charges, I thought I would have a think about what I could do next by way of reclaiming my rights as a consumer.

 

I have a lot of time to do such things as I have a young son and my wife works at night, so i spend a lot of time in the house on my own once my son is in bed.

 

I had an idea the other day though, which i thought might be worth pursuing for a laugh if nothing else. My wife and I were talking about how much more we seemed to be spending on shopping all the time nowadays and we both agreed that cheese in particular seems to be much more expensive. We both thought that this was funny as there used to be a saying about pensioners not having anything else to talk about than the price of cheese, we thought it might be a sign that we were getting old

But then we both wondered what would happen if we wrote to our local supermarkets to complain about just that. I decided we should find out as I'm sure they will be obliged to reply.

 

I've formed what I think is a convincing argument about so-called "loss leader" products and have started to convince myself that if they can afford to make a loss on luxuries to entice people to spend more on necessities, then they could absorb some of the cost of rising commodities without having to pass them onto consumers. On the surface it is a very serious letter which doesn't seem at all tongue-in-cheek surprisingly.

 

I know that they may well not take it very seriously and that I'm not likely to receive any compensation, but I thought their reply would at least make entertaining reading.

 

Like I say, I have too much time on my hands, so I was wondering if anyone had any other ludicrous suggestions for letters I could write to the many companies out there to wind them up, if nothing else it would give us all a good laugh.

 

I have considered writing to BT for my next one to suggest that I would be prepared to install a network of paper cups and string in my street at my own cost in return for a discount on calls to my neighbours

 

Moderators feel free to move this thread if you feel it is in the wrong section.

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

And then you can publish them and make a fortune in the manner of Henry Root!

[gyzmo]

Is that the guy who wrote "the time watser letters"? I suppose a good letter could be how daft supermarkets think customers are by introducing self service checkouts (I.E - not only do you pay us for the goods but now we've got you doing the things tht we used to actually pay staff for doing!). Perhaps they could introduce self-verification (a la weights and measures) for alcohol sales rather than having some machine tell you to call a staff meber over (eventually). or maybe that there is no problem with my items - just the stupid damned machine!

 

I can recant some complaints I received that could posibly be turned into letter form.

 

There was the guy who called to complain about how long he spent queueing to get through to complain about, err, queueing (he wasn't a customer nor did he want anything else except to complain).

 

Of course, you could always find a job advert for a particular company, cut it out and send it to that particular company for distribution to staff as a reminder....

[Spiceskull]

You sound like Tom Locke...mind you, he did get some wonderful responses...

[gyzmo]

Wow! Just shows - don't ask, dont get! Can't say I've got the guts though. I'd probably get the following response:

 

"Dear My gyzmo (sir)

 

If you walk down the high street you will find things called "shops". If you go into one, you can PAY for the product you have asked for. What do you think we are? A charity?

 

Yours,

 

D. Smith,

Oxfam

[Weird Al Yankovic]

This is odd.

 

I have rarely heard people discuss the price of cheese, including old dears, but the price of bread always seems to be a hot topic.

 

Indeed, the price of bread was always used to gauge the cost of living even by governments.

[gyzmo]

Not that I am one o them, but who remembers the Milk Board?

[poppynurse]

I thought it was the price of bacon....

[389shell]

Why don't you ask your council if they will do you a deal with your council tax. Tell them that the night before collection days, you will patrol your street and check that no one has left their bins on, or overhanging on the pavement. Whilst you are doing this, you will also make sure that nobody has been tempering with the 'bugs'.

 

This way they will save money by employing someone to do this for them, and will be able to hand out severe penalties for your thoughtless neighbours who dare to remove or vandalise their bin bugs, never mind the shameless ones who actually put their bins out early!

 

Ask for a 10% reduction.