Sales are great, because not only can you save bags of money, they validate spending what little you had in the first place. Kids going hungry? Never mind, you’ve bought a new bathroom suite! Red letters worrying the doormat? Don’t worry, there’s a plasma television mounted on the living room wall!

Not all sales are born equal, however, and not all sales are as breathtaking as they may first appear. Bitterwallet reader Ducky contacted us to enquire about the Halfords sale, with particular regards to two products on offer in “the “better than half price sale”, or the “sale with better than half price deals”, depending how you read their rather confusing graphics.

The two items in question are the Navigon 1200 and Navigon 2200 sat nav units:

Quite a deal, you’ll agree; those prices would mean savings of £80 and £110 respectively. Except both units were on sale in Halfords during December for just £10 more than their current sale price; the Navigon 1200 cost just £69.99 and the Navigon 2200 was £99.99 immediately before the sale began, as stated in reviews by PC Advisor and Pocket Lint and subsequently confirmed to us by Halfords themselves.

So what’s going on? Halford’s are comparing the current sale prices to the product prices in October and November. Since both products were sold at the higher prices for 28 consecutive days within the last six months, there’s no breaking of consumer law according to Consumer Direct. That doesn’t stop the price comparison being unclear to customers - you might be led to think the substantial savings are a direct result of the sale, which is untrue since the sale reduced the immediate price of each product by just £10, not £80 or £110.

So it looks like a massive saving, so long as you don’t take into account the prices immediately before the sale began. Oh, and you if don’t know about the manufacturer’s RRP for the products when launched in August:

To summarise, then; Halfords charged up to a third more than the manufacturer’s RRP on these two items, then reduced them significantly to cash in on the pre-Christmas market, and have now reduced both items by just £10 in the sale. Despite this minimal reduction the items are being advertised as “better than half price” deals by comparing them to the original prices that were up to a third higher than the manufacturer’s RRP. Phew.

Consumer Direct advised us this was within their guidelines and when we contacted Halfords they stated that the small print of insert ads notes this is compared to the “was price”.

Them’s the facts, kids. What say you?

You’d rather have your eyes plucked out than be seen in your new Christmas jumper, the hostess trolley you bought is on the fritz and your new Alexandra Burke CD appears to be blank. You may have got lucky on the last one, but what can you do about the others?

If you’re after a refund this Christmas, your rights on the high street depend on whether you bought the goods or they were a gift. The general rule of thumb is that you’ll have an easier time of returning goods you bought, than if they were a present from somebody else. Still, here are the basics you need to know:

When it comes to goods you paid for:

• Plenty of shops don’t want the hassle of dealing with refunds and the like during the sales, because it gets in the way of them earning more money; any shop sticking up signs to the effect that refunds and exchanges are not available are breaking the law, so don’t be afraid to ask

• You don’t always need a receipt to return goods, just proof of purchase; a credit card or bank statement should be acceptable

• Regardless of store policy, you do not have to accept anything less than a refund if goods are faulty or not as described; don’t let them fob you off with a credit note or replacement if you really want your money back

• If you didn’t buy the goods - if they were a present from a loved one (or even somebody you really don’t like) - then everything changes. Shops don’t have refund or exchange for gifts you don’t want, although plenty do because it’s Christmas, after all

There’s more good advice from Vince on refunds here, and Consumer Direct have plenty of tips for Crimbo refunds.

According to Silicon.Com, almost “half of all airlines plan to offer in-flight mobile phone connectivity for passengers by the end of 2008″, with a majority of 59% of airlines planning to offer internet and email access by the end of this year (Airline IT Trends Survey). 

So when should we expect to have this here in the UK?  Well, it’s already happening.  BMI sets the trend here in Great Britain as the first British airline to allow passengers to use their mobile phones on planes, joining forces with in-flight mobile tech company OnAir in a 6 month trial, specifically for the LHR and Moscow route, until other routes adopt this ‘later this year’.  

But… there is one caveat: you cannot make any calls. Nope, for real.  According to Which?:

BMI will only allow passengers to use mobile phones to text or to access the internet.  The price of texts or internet access will be set by the customer’s mobile operator and will be in line with their roaming charges.

I suppose being able to text pepople and browse the web with a ridiculously slow and inconsistent GPRS signal would still be more entertaining than crushing your legs in economy.

Some things in life, like good eggs and ham, just go well together.  And Japanese video game giant Nintendo’s other half appears to be… litigation.

After announcing last week that complaints against a collaboration between the broadcasters on Project Kangaroo, a few of you raised how typical of UK regulators this is. And in true form, Ofcom this week released a public service broadcasting review that includes order for the BBC to open up the iPlayer platform to all the other major UK broadcasters. 

As a result, Channel4, ITV, and Channel 5 would have free and unlimited access to the technology, with Sky, Virgin, and Tiscali possibly being invited at a later stage.

If the BBC opens the platform it would create an open IPTV standard, which  would increase competition by making it easier for new broadcasters to enter the market. It’s quite possible that the technology could become a standard complementary service to media websites such as Youtube, making iPlayer an online Freeview, which is exactly what Kangaroo was looking to become.

[IT ProPortal and Techradar]

A travelling HUKDer is often willing to put up with a bargain flight in exchange for a long, sleep inducing journey to a piss poor airport, like Stansted. But according to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Stansted will have to work on raising its customer service levels, or airport operator BAA could face fines of up to £9m a year.

Stansted will have to pay rebates of up to 7 per cent of total airport charge revenues if goals for passenger security queues, cleanliness, baggage reclaim and other services are not met. These requirements for Stansted were published alongside the CAA’s five-year price controls plan which also determines what BAA can charge airlines for the use of the airport. 

Similar schemes at Heathrow and Gatwick have caused BAA to be fined £4.3m and £3.6m respectively. But how often do those of you near London actually fly out of Stansted anyway?  Now, if only RyanAir could move its European flights to Gatwick…

[The Independent]

Thanks to the Freedom of Information act, you can find out all sorts of juicy titbits about public organisations. Indeed, the FOI has become the journalist’s best friend in recent years, but the downside is that there’s some paperwork involved. That, and you have to bother thinking of a cheeky question to ask in the first place.

Thank the Hammer of Thor then, for WhatDoTheyKnow.com, which helps you effortlessly search through a selection of FOI requests, specifically those made through the site. Alright, there’s still some effort involved - you might have to type a word or two - but work with us here, will you?

What can you find out? There are restrictions on certain types of information, but reading through the correspondance is like rooting through the bins of a famous celebrity. Not that we’ve done that. Obviously. Anyway, some stuff we now know after an hour nosying around: (Read more…)

It sounds like something out of new Hollywood flick ‘Eagle Eye’, but a £40,000 bank error caused one Barclay’s customer to be locked out of her account for over a week.  And no, it was not the doing of the government.  Just utterly incompetent staff.  That’s all.

Alison Meeks of Sandy, Bedfordshire, was at a petrol station, when she discovered that her credit card was declined.  When she called Barclay’s to inquire, Meeks learned that a withdrawal worth more than her annual salary had been made from her account, placing it in arrears.

One might think such an obvious bank error would be resolved quickly; however, it took eight days for the bank to fix the error and unlock Meeks’ account.  It took a further two weeks for the bank to apologize to her.

However, Barclay’s did deposit a £50 ‘goodwill gesture’ in her account as well as £30 to cover the cost of phone calls.  Interesting, considering that if we go £40k into overdraft and apologise, the £100k in interests is unlikely to be resolved with a simple apology now, is it?

[This is Money]

We can comprehend a one year warranty for a household product, and we can process the length of time a three year warranty on a car might last. But 20 years? Can anyone get their head round a point in time that far in the future? Nope. Boo, said Schott Solar, who provide a two decade warranty with their solar panel products.

So how does the company help customers envision just how invaluable and long-lasting such a warranty is? It calls in the marketing boys and girls, who proceed to come up with a bloody good idea:

Of course we’re referring to the calendar, not the suspiscious-looking gentlement presenting it in an entirely lacklustre manner, that more suited to an adult bookstore. Yes, the calendar is good for 20 years, just like your solar panels, plus you have something to limbo under on your way in and out of the office. And your company gets talked about for a very simple marketing gimmick that catches the eye. Perfect.

[likecool]

When we highlighted the saga of the latest Littlewoods promotional vouchers, we thought we may be opening a whole can of worms with ants in their pants. Plenty of you told us how unhappy you were with the looming threat of having to refund discounts awarded by Littlewoods, because the vouchers were only applicable to particular people and new customers.

We heard from several of you who’d had dealings with Littlewoods in the past, we discussed the matter at length with a solicitor on Friday, and ultimately we couldn’t find a definitive answer for those who had made purchases using the promotional codes. Bugger.

So thank goodness for Littlewoods then, and thank you to a senior manager at the Shop Direct Group for letting us know the following good news:

Further to your article I can confirm that with regards to this voucher code, we will not be reclaiming back from customers, regardless of whether they were eligible or not.

So those of you who frequent the HUKD forums, rejoice and rest easy, safe in the knowledge that both your goods and your bank account are safe and sound.

Oh yes.  You’re not the only one with a broadband connection slower than you expected. According to Ofcom, about 25% of homes in the UK aren’t getting the speeds we damn well paid for.  This often leading to a goose hunt with some customer rep in India reading template responses off a screen that not only does not resolve your problem, but often aggravates the situation with the same patronizing answer I’m sure you’ve heard before: “Sir, please just disconnect your cable, wait 30 seconds, plug it in again.” Look mate, I’ve already tried that. It still doesn’t frickin work!   “Oh sir… <pause> I’m sorry, but you have to call our tech department.  They are closed now.  Try tomorrow. Thank you, come again.”  Oh, sod off!

 Thankfully, Ofcom has attempted to take a step towards new ‘regulation’ in the industry as a new code of conduct came into force yesterday.  The new ‘code’ means that UK ISPs now must provide ‘accurate estimate’ of the maximum speed your individual line can support at the point of sale.  Providers have also been asked to move you into an ‘alternative’ package should your speeds be ‘alot lower’ than promised. 

But isn’t this all a bit bullshit in practice?  What do they mean by ‘a lot lower’?  Like when you go to LIDL and back, and the page still hasn’t loaded yet?  Or like Apple, arguing that only a fool would believe that their 3G iphones are really as fast as the ads appear to be?  Yes, we consumers must all be really thick.  So would the stacks of paper making up the class action lawsuits coming your way.

But, being the Type A personality that I am, I shall personally stick to threatening my ISP to leave.  It’s worked with my girlfriend (and vice versa), so I don’t see why it shouldn’t work with them.

[Ofcom] via [PC Pro]

The UK launch of ‘Amazon MP3′ is the content e-retailer’s answer to Apple’s iTunes, means that digital consumers now have a choice for digital downloads.  But not before Amazon also gets a rival of its own in the form of a Firefox plugin released yesterday called ‘The Pirates of the Amazon’, .

Albums via Amazon start at £3 and songs at 59p, compared to iTunes songs at 79p each.   Amazon negotiated for the 3 million songs available with 4 big recording companies to be free of DRM, or Digital Rights Management.  This means that once you’ve paid up, you can move the songs to any device you own, a flexibility that most customers would appreciate. 

However, Amazon’s mp3 downloads having only 256kps quality as opposed to 320kps mp3s offered by some competitors, which includes the latest Firefox add-on, ‘Pirates of the Amazon’, which not only links to potentially higher quality of the songs, but cheekily integrates a ‘Download 4 Free’ button using the Firefox Greasemonkey script.

The plugin allows users to get any songs they want without paying a single penny by linking to ‘free’ copies on torrent website The Pirate Bay. In fact, according to website TorrentFreak, this even works even with CDs, DVDs, games, books, and any products that can be converted digitally.

The plugin site has currently been taken down, announcing that “The Ship was hit. We’re offline”.  However, not all hope sank with it, as TorrentFreak has provided a backup copy of the xpi file add-on. 

Bitterwallet has no affiliations with this offshore download website due to, ahem, potential legal implications. 

[The Register] and [TorrentFreak]

To paraphrase Dame Shirley Bassey - you’ve seen it before, and you ‘ll see it again, yes you’ve seen it before - just little bits of history repeating. In this case we’re talking about Dame Shirley’s least/most* (delete where applicable) favourite Liverpool-based catalogue shopping empire - Littlewoods - because once again, their online discount vouchers are causing a lot of people sleepless nights.

In July of last year, Littlewoods offered a £25 discount code that was eventually used by 3,000 customers ineligible to use it, according to the company. Over two months after customers had paid for goods and received them, Littlewoods demanded the discount back. Eventually Littlewoods backed down in most cases (although not all), pointing out they would not be so forgiving in the future.

And here we are. HUKD forum member Slash has been in touch with Bitterwallet to tell us Littlewoods recently repeated a similar offer; an online promotional voucher that gave customers £50 off purchases with no minimum spend (the voucher also worked in combination with existing 3 for 2 offers). Seemingly the code was meant for friends and family, and new customers only, although that didn’t prevent it from working for many existing customers. And of course, it’s very simple to set up a second account to take advantage of what was a spectacular offer (the voucher has now expired).

Many people have already received their goods at the discounted prices. So why the sleepless nights? Because nobody is sure whether Littlewoods will attempt to reclaim the £50 discount from customers they believe to be ineligible. Worse still, if they behave as last year, Littlewoods won’t attempt to reclaim the rebate until two months after goods have been dispatched, meaning the date for returning items has long since past; their policy states goods must be returned within 14 days.

The customer seemingly has no choice to pay full price for goods they can’t return and (the more cynical observer might suggest) were baited into buying. (Read more…)

As of yesterday (December 1 2008), the EU has put out new duty free regulations,  permitting travellers outside the EU to bring in up to £300 worth of goods, duty-free.  This doubles the old allowance of £145 since 1994.

The rules apply not only to non-EU states, but also to territories where EU rules on VAT and excise don’t apply, such as the Canary Islands and the Channel Islands.

We have assembled the ‘hit list’ for eligible items from various sources such as Which?, The Irish Times, and HM Revenue and Customs for your viewing pleasure:

(Read more…)

If you’re a single mom with young toddlers, you better get prepped up.  According to reports of a Government announcement to be made today, you could soon be forced to get back to work as soon as your youngest child turns 1, or face benefit cuts.

Ministers are desperate to change the “something for nothing” welfare culture in Britain.  With 8 million ‘economically inactive’ (i.e. unable to get work, or a CV photo so bad that it goes right into the ‘reject’ pile) people claiming weekly income support of up to £57.45, they believe that a large number of people are claiming benefits when they don’t even need them.  As a result of this proposal, approximately 300,000 of 770,000 unemployed single mothers may be required to be spending their 9-5s looking for work or undertaking community service.

Professor Paul Gregg, the author of a Government-commissioned report, said that this move will tackle the growing trend of people seeking incapacity and job benefits. Only those with severe health conditions or disabilities will be excluded from the clause, as well as carers and lone parents with children under the age of one.  The idea is that almost everyone on benefits should be looking for a job, or face it being removed for up to 4 weeks if they repeatedly refuse to cooperate.

The report was ’strongly welcomed’ by James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, adding “The approach that virtually everyone should be doing something in return for benefits is the right one”.

[Daily Telegraph ]