OFF TOPIC

Here are a few phrases that are primarily used in radio and tv advertizing that indicate the advertizer is not being entirely honest.

1. Free Shipping

Shipping is not free. Call Fedx, UPS, and the post office and ask about free shipping. Vendors who offer free shipping merely include the cost of shipping in the price of the product they are selling. Sometims that price is still fair but not always. So, when you see an on-line store offer free shipping be sure and do a price check. You might find the same product for less if you buy it at a local brick and mortar store and avoid the need to have it shipped.

2. No Obligation

You sometimes hear this phrase at the very end of a radio or TV ad. The advertizer is attempting to use reverse psychology to guilt the prospective customer into feeling obligated. Of course there never is any obligation to do anything after viewing or listening to a commercial. Vendors who want you to think otherwise are deranged, insane, or sick. It is best to avoid them altogether because they may be confused on other matters as well.

3. Unlimited

No it is not unlimited. There are limitations on everything. Those things that may be truely unlimited will also have unlimited cost.

4. Buy one get one free

Sounds like a good deal but there is a good chance you are being charged two prices for the first item. When you run into this scam, offer to let them keep the free item if they allow you to pay half price for the first item. If they refuse, shop elsewhere.

5. Trust me

Trust has to be earned. People asking for your trust may be telling you that they might be doubting their ability to earn it. Untrustworthyness is a common malady.

6. Guaranteed lowest price anywhere

A common unsubstantiated claim. You might want to make sure the store making the claim is not selling seconds or recected merchandise.

7. We will match our competitors price

Yes, I bet they will too. There is also an outside chance that thier price is the highest in town. You have to be dumber than cotton to go back and try to negotiate a lower price at the high dollar store after you find the stuff you need at a lower price elsewhere.

8. I can’t save you any money if you don’t come see me.

Maybe. I have a better idea, how about I stay home and keep all my money.

9. Pay for cleaning carpets in one room and the next two rooms are free.

See item 4.

10. Call your doctor if your heart stops after taking this medicine.

If you don’t take the medication in the first place, your heart may stay beating and you will not have to call your doctor. Is it really possible to use the telephone after your heart stops? Drug companies that think this is possible might be confused about other things as well.

We have been involved in two of these suits and have vowed not to ever be involved in anything this stupid ever again.

The only people who make any money on these nuisance suits are the lawyers.

These things are a waste of time for the people who have reason to expect compensation for the damages they have incurred. There is far more damage done by the lawyers who invade your privacy and hound you for information.

If you are approached to participate in a class action law suit, tell them sure, then demand a minimum of $1000 non-refundable ernest money before beginning any participation.

It was declared to be the most transparent administration in history.

Unfortunately they confused transparency with invisibility.

Invisibility allows the most corrupt administration in history to avoid shouldering any responsibility.

Some time ago a TV ad had a vendor declare that if you don’t come see him, he can’t save you any money.

While it could be argued that if you were in need of his product you could save by buying the item at his discount, it completely ignores the fact that you could save ALL your money by ignoring his offer assuming your need was not immediate.

In short, you can’t save money buying things you don’t need regardless of how large a discount is being offered.

Ignore this trueism and you may end up going broke saving money.

When I was a freshman in college I took a course in personal finance. One of the main topics was life insurance. The main point that was made about life insurance was that the very young and very old don’t normally need need life insurance because they seldom have any burdensome financial obligations.

So guess what we see the unscruplious trying to sell the unsuspecting. Yup a well advertized seniors group is trying to defraud seniors and a well known baby food producer is trying to insure the lives of infants.

I guess maybe these people did not go to college or take a personal finance course.

Recent media ads indicate that there are people who claim to be in the paint business who have no business being in the paint business.

The handy homer place advertizes a paint that they claim has the ‘primer’ already mixed in. In this way they unwittingly admit that they have no idea what a primer is or how it is used.

Primers are thicker, more agressive paint formulations designed to prepare virgin surfaces to accept a top coat and make the paint job look professional. In some cases primers are sandable to ensure a smooth nearly perfect surface for the top coat.

For a paint manufacturter to claim the top coat contains a primer is to declare their complete ignorasnce of paint products and painting.

The second eye sore of an ad is an auto repair facility claiming their superior sensitivity to the environment by the use of water based painting products.

Water based paint does not work on automobiles.

About a decade ago GM ans Chrysler tried using water based paints and created a whole fleet of autos with peeling paint.

Environmental friendliness is not intrinsic to materials. It is dependent the propper use of materials. Vendoers who need environmentally friendly products to be environmentally friendly should not be allowed to be in business.

Seems you can’t listen to the radio for more than a few hours without hearing ads from some contractor offering to replace existing windows and doors. They claim such replacement makes sense because it can save up to 30 percent on energy costs.

About 20 years ago we had storm windows installed. The installer also claimed a 30 percent reduction in energy costs due to the storm windows. We actually experience about half that or 15 percent.

Lets assume tha new windows and doors will actually save us 30 percent on energy costs. Our average yearly energy costs are $2400. Thirty percent of that comes to $750.

We have 10 windows and doors. For a one year payback we can afford to pay $75 for each window and door replacement.

Then we find that each replacement window and door will cost $1000. We need to spend $10,000 to complete the job. That comes to a 13 year payback based on several unfounded assumptions.

So when I hear a vendor offering new windows and doors, I say no thank you, my house came with windows and doors.

I recently ordered a 500gig USB expansion drive. This is the second drive of this type I have purchased. The price is right ($80 on Amazon) and the 500gig capacity seems to be a well established technology with more reliability than the newer, larger capacity drives.

I don’t remember seeing any embedded software on the first drive but this second drive wanted to call home , register itself and offered some utility software that I did not expect or ask for.

Now I learned a long time ago that businesses do not give ‘stuff’ away. There is always a catch and once caught, the buyer soon regrets accepting freebees.

As far as I am concerned, all suplications for registration are bogus. The manufacturer just wants to add to his data base for future sales promotions. Some of us do not care to play that game. I am allergic to receiving unsolicited e-mail.

Some say registration is useful should there be a problem with the product. If that becomes evident the drive goes back under waranty or gets trashed if the warenty expires and the drive quits. Problems and premature failure may also indicate need to buy the replacement from a different manufacturer.

Since there was no documentation on the ‘free’ software, there really was no way to determine what it did or if I wanted to use it. A pig in a poke. So I formated the drive. I guess I could have investigated by seeing if the manufacturer had any information on the software on his website, but that takes time and I don’t need an additional pain in the ass project. Beides, it was obvious that the manufacturer did not consider the software worth the trouble of documentation. Software not worth documenting is not worth using.

This tendancy to offer undocumented features might be universal. I had a similar experience with a recently purchased USB thumb drive. It got reformatted too.

There appear to be an ever increasing number of articles on the internet proposing to educate people in ‘how stuff works’. Some of these articles are informative but an all too many appear to be written by individuals in need of an education themselves. Very few of these articles provide anything useful and appear to be an attmpt by the writers to impress the unschooled and ignorant by introducing high foluting theories whoes credibility is supposed to be accepted by their use of an endless supply of technobabble.

This is the stuff academics thrive on. Its all they know. It is why they are academics. They have no respect for matters of a practical nature because that requires real work. They find it much easier to live in their fantasy land of theory and supposition.

On the other hand, you have folk like me who really don’t care how stuff works. We are more interested in what it does. Specifically, what it does for us. If we find it does something usefull we might investigate further to determine how to use it. We are content in knowing that it works and keeps on working. The ‘how stuff works’ question is just a time wasting diversion because we are not interested in speculation and invention. We find it is much more productive to spend our time using the inentions that are already out there.

I was comparing usb memory sticks to memory cards to see which was a better buy. Turns out that the memory stick is still the better buy. A 16gig memory stick sells for about $13 with free shipping usinf amazon prime.

The memory cards are about the same price or slightly higher but they need a card reader/writer to be used like a memory stick. Make sure you get a card reader/writer. There is an attractive deal out there offering a memory card and reader. The reader that is offerd does not write.

Buyer beware.