Giving Up the Ship

A Customer Service Representative at Best Buy suggested to Charles Yu that he change his name in order to join the Best Buy Reward Zone program. Reward Zone is one of those free programs that allows people to accumulate points through purchases towards rewards.
However, the online sign up form would not allow him to sign up because it doesn’t allow a name of less than three characters. Best Buy was also unable to override this and sign him up over the phone. KGO-TV of San Francisco contacted Best Buy on his behalf. They claim they have already made a decision to correct this, but they have no definite timeline for the fix, and are sending Charles a gift card that is meant to tide him over.

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The Kavalaris family gathered round the table on Christmas Day to celebrate a double-birthday…Jim, age 37, and his grandmother, age 96. The cake, purchased by Jim’s mother, was was decorated with the words, “Happy Birthday, Mom and Jim.”

After the candles were blown out, Jim tried to chisel out a piece, finding it strangely hard to do. He thought about putting it in the microwave, thinking it was frozen. When he finally separated out a piece, he discovered it was not a real cake, merely a styrofoam mold covered in frosting.

The Lansing State Journal contacted Sam’s club on his behalf, and the manager theorized that an employee must have picked up a styrofoam display cake thinking it was real. He issued a refund for the cake, a fresh cake decorated like the original, and a hundred dollar gift card. Kavalaris donated the card to charity.

Happy Birthday to Jim and Mom…may all your future birthday cakes be biodegradable.

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In Mentor, Ohio, firefighters were surprised to discover shoppers in a Dillards South store kept buying even as thick smoke filled the store from an electrical fire. They had to block the door to prevent customers from entering.

We know that Christmas sales can be cutthroat…but are people really dying for a good deal? “Daddy can’t be here this evening, little Timmy…because he is in the hospital burn unit…How did he get there? He almost got out in time…but he spotted the last Tickle Me Elmo and refused to leave a good deal behind.”

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Recently, we were shopping at our local market and discovered that Barilla pasta sauce had redesigned its jar. While the new jar is rather nice, it is two ounces smaller and costs the same price. We decided to email them to see why…
To: Consumer Relations
Subject: Re: Barilla Pasta Sauce in Jars

I am distressed to discover that the reason Barilla has been absent from the shelves of my local supermarket is to liquidate the old style of jar in favor of the new, which, while aesthetically pleasing, contains 2oz less of sauce and is being sold locally for the same price.

Having been a loyal Barilla customer for years, I am a bit disappointed at this tactic, which disguises what is effectively a price hike, as the new jars will cost as much as the old but will contain less product. I would much rather that you retained the 26oz jar and, if you felt it necessary to adjust your pricing, did so.

While I will likely continue the purchase of Barilla sauce, as it is currently the best pasta sauce I have found, this change may encourage me to sample the products of your competitors to see if any of them are now up to my standards.

Their response:

Thank you for your recent inquiry to Barilla America, Inc. Barilla is the best selling pasta company worldwide, and we take pride in our product, right down to every last package. For over 125 years, four generations of the Barilla family have maintained the tradition of producing the finest pasta and sauces in the world.

We developed a new jar which consumers have told us better reflects our Italian heritage. This new jar is more expensive for us to produce than our original design, and we chose to decrease the size of our jar rather than increase our pricing. We came to this decision after conducting research in our test kitchen comparing the performance of 26 and 24 ox of sauce in a variety of recipes. In these tests, we found the two quantities performed the same.

Thank you for taking the time to let us know your thoughts. We hope that you continue to purchase and enjoy Barilla Pasta & Sauces.

Regards,
Consumer Relations
Barilla America, Inc.
www.barillaus.com

So…Barilla’s hypothesis is that promoting their Italian heritage is something we the consumer should pay for. We are all for being proud of one’s heritage…but we personally don’t think that we should pay for it. We’d rather have our two ounces, which certainly benefits most of us more.

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