FW: You better be careful when we're shopping...

Another one from the Inter-web...

After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.

Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from our local Target.

Dear Mrs. Smith,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Smith, are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away'. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he would invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' EMTs were called..

9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'

And last, but not least:

15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, and then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.' One of the clerks passed out.

I kinda like this guy :-)

Too Hot To Handle!

So apparently Farberware, a fairly well-known brand of cooking pots and pans, can't really handle the heat.

According to their website,

...the Farberware®name has stood for value, quality and durability. This commitment to the customer continues to this day. All of the Farberware®family of products are designed with the consumer in mind and manufactured to the highest standards.

I beg to differ...in a big way!

First a little back story. My wife and I are by no means gourmet chefs, but we do like to, and have to cook on occasion. Over the years, we've had quite a mishmash of pots and pans handed down from family that replaced theirs, odds and ends that we've picked up as needed, etc. Over time the frying pans that we had had lost their non-stick coating and it was time to replace them. It happens. No biggie.

We also collect Coke Rewards points (well nowadays we get most of them from my step-mom as we're down to tea mostly). Feel free to save your unused caps for us :-). Anyway, as our points accumulated, we noticed that one of the rewards was a set of frying pans. Perfect. It was a set of three or four different sizes. Made by Farberware (not Joe's Fry Pan Heaven) - a well-known and, until now, respected brand. We cashed in our points and awaited their arrival.

After a little shipping snafu, we got the set and thought we'd be all set. NOT.

One of the problems with the inexpensive pan we had just tossed was that it had warped on the bottom so it didn't sit flat on the glass cook top. This led to very uneven heating. I was glad to be rid of it because it would wobble as I tried to stir the ham and eggs my kids have become so fond of.

After just a few uses, the Farberware pans seemed to have warped as well. I was shocked. It's not like we cook in a blast furnace. It's a standard consumer-grade electric cook top. Why would a frying pan not be able to stand cooking scrambled eggs?! I thought surely this was a defect. Farberware? Maybe they were the low-end 'cuz Coke was giving them away (well not really, but "offering them as redemption options."). In any case, I decided to call Farberware and ask -- "What's up with not being able to use your pans to scramble some eggs?!"

I had the "pleasure" of speaking to a $10 phone rep named Allegra when I called Farberware's consumer hotline. I explained my situation, received the pans via a Coke promotion, the pans had warped after just a few uses, and I wondered if this was expected behavior or if I just got a "bad batch" of pans.

Her response? "You can't cook on high with those pans sir." I said, "uh, can you repeat that? I thought you just said that I can't use my pans on a consumer cook top on a normal setting to cook food." She repeated her stance that they are not designed to be used on a high setting. "If you had followed the directions for care included with the cookware they wouldn't have warped sir." So I repeated that I was using these on a consumer cook top, not a commercial gas blast furnace. I stated that in my opinion, before this incident, Farberware was a trusted, quality brand that I had grown up with. Not at all perceived as a cheap piece of crap that I could pick up at the Dollar Store. Showing no care nor concern for any damage to their reputation, nor explaining the possibility that there might have been cheaper quality that other items in their line that might be more suited for my needs, she simply repeated that I should've followed the instructions for care.
I don't know about you, but after reading the dishwasher safe, don't use metal objects to stir because they'll strip the non-stick coating, I pretty much assume that cookware is for cooking. Forgive me for missing the fine print about COOKWARE not being suitable FOR COOKING! This must be another one of those disclaimers that some high-paid lawyer made them put in...."blah blah blah, caution, contents may be hot. don't use this cookware for it's intended purpose as it might become destroyed in such usage..."

Well, I guess I know what's going on my birthday list this year -- a set of NON-FARBERWARE frying pans that can stand the heat!

Feel free to tweet, forward, link, fax, email, blog, call, or generally harass FARBERWARE about such a ridiculous product as one that can't be used for its intended purpose. What a shame.

I suppose I should call them again and see if I can get ahold of someone that cares, but Allegra ticked me off so much, I'm not sure I want to even give them a second chance.

Bring it on...

I'm gonna try something I think might be interesting starting next week. I'm going to keep a log of every commercial product/brand that I use during the course of one week. Then at the end of the week, I'll seek out the customer contact form on the web for each product, say something nice about the product, give them my email address and home address, and ask for coupons if available. I'll keep track of the initial list of products and then record what response, if any, I get. I think I saw something similar done before, but I can't find the link at the moment.

I'm curious not only what "financial gains" I might achieve (every coupon helps, and if they add me to a list for future mailings, even better), but also how companies are treating such requests these days. Are they reacting to more and more people trying to "milk the system," or are they seeing this as an avenue to reach more customers, instill brand loyalty and get them to purchase their product more often? Do they only respond via email, or will they respond via snail-mail as
well? Will they say "Thanks, we're glad you enjoy our products," or will they say, "If you liked that product, try this new product that we've just released."

My initial thought was to just pick a single day (weekday or weekend day), and use that list. I'm sure that there would be plenty of companies to contact. I'm talking about the alarm clock, the toothpaste, cereal, TV, car, cat food, bulk-goods store, grocery store, furnace, gasoline, lunch meat, "Tupperware-esque" containers, vitamins and everything else that I actually utilize in a day. I'm not going after stuff I don't use, just to get stuff. I'm communicating with companies with whom I already have a relationship of some kind. Then, I realized that over the course of the week (all seven-days), the number of companies added each day would dwindle geometrically as I use mostly the same things each day, so I decided to stretch it out for a whole week.

I'm sure it will generate more email. I'm sure it will generate more snail-mail. I recycle both, so I'm not worried too much about these increases. There are some things that won't necessarily justify a coupon, or "reward" of some kind. I'm thinking that the furnace manufacturer might deal only through dealers. The same thing with my car manufacturer. I might get a few cold calls from them, but with my Google Voice account, I can stop those as spam if I need to.

I might throw in a couple of brands I regularly visit or use, but just didn't hit during this period -- some fast food spots, etc. - just to see what happens as well.

There is definitely a selfish angle to this (the coupons, samples, etc), but I am very curious about the responsiveness of the companies as well.

I'll keep you updated on the experiment as it progresses.

Purse Snatcher Strap

I know, as does every parent, that my kids are very smart and will go far in life. In fact, I'm counting on it. Someone will have to pay for me in my old age.

I hadn't really thought about how early my oldest son had started showing his brilliance until the other day, though. Yes, he started reading early, walking early, talking early, etc, etc, etc, yada, yada, yada, but I didn't realize how inventive and smart he was at such an early age.

For quite a number of years, when my wife goes shopping and uses a cart, she takes her purse and actually buckles it into the "child seat" in the cart. I don't think it's because she got in the habit of strapping the kids in and just kept with the flow. She is a creature of habit, but I don't think she would carry it that far.

She told me the story awhile ago, but it didn't stick (or I didn't have a blog at the time to use to brag). Apparently, when my oldest son, then two years old, was out shopping with my wife and step-mom, he used to take the second seat belt and strap my wife's purse into the cart. He might have been amusing himself and his ability to be so in control, but when my wife went to remove her purse -- "WAIT! Why is my purse buckled into the cart! Hey, wait a minute. That would keep someone from walking by and taking my purse while I'm not paying close enough attention. Cool idea, son. Thanks." She locks her purse into the cart every time she goes shopping now.

OK, so maybe my wife deserves the credit. But my son certainly receives a co-author on the idea. And it sounds cooler to say my 2-year-old came up with the idea :-)

Home Depot

This weekend is another free kids event at Home Depot -- first Saturday of every month, 9am-noon usually. The projects are usually pretty cool and usually only take about 15 minutes or so, but it's a fun time and the kids get to practice their carpentry skills as well. We've been going to these for several years now (Lowes tried to copy them, but are of no comparison at all!) and have really enjoyed them. Did I mention that they're completely FREE?! My youngest has been participating in them since he was 3 and went with us even before that.

On a similar note, isnoop.net has a blog post about his recent Home Depot experience. It points to the excellent customer service that Home Depot is working even harder at now. It's paying off. Way to go Home Depot.

Coupon site

Here's a site you can use to save a little green this holiday season.

There's still time to give your money away!

"The Official Black Friday Ads Site"

Google beat me!

I'll still look for some of the shopping and coupon sites when I get a moment or two, but I just noticed that the Google Ads on the right are already reflecting the Black Friday advertising. I "tell" them each time I create a new post here. Their ads are not placed real time, but are updated pretty quickly obviously to keep the ads relevant to the content on the site. Feel free to use those links until (and after) I get my set of links up. Time's running out for the Black Friday links, but my links will help the whole holiday season -- and beyond... And don't forget the jump off point for you Amazon shoppers over there too!

Happy Shopping!

Black Friday is coming

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the US, is the busiest shopping day of the year. A lot of stores depend on the Christmas season to make or break their business for the year. Cyber-Monday is the following Monday when people return to work and take advantage of the their company's high speed Internet access to do their shopping online. With analysts predicting a flat or only modest gain in sales this year over last, a lot of stores, online and off, are offering some great deals to move merchandise. A lot of online stores are offering free shipping again.

I don't do a lot of shopping online, but if you're heading out to Amazon to grab your share of the deals, I've included a couple of jumping off points for you on the right side of this blog. A Deals widget will showcase some of Amazon's current deals, and a search widget will help you find anything else.

I'll try to locate a few coupon codes and sites that you can use to save even more and post them here as well for you. Got a site of coupon code t share? Pot a comment here and share the savings!

Happy Consumerism!

Coupon sites: <-- Got more to add? Add a comment!
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