On being totally grumpy

Grumpy old observances - watch the pennies as the pounds will NOT take care of themselves (warning, this is a long read)

All around us, there are companies that appear to do their level best to fool us, if not con us altogether. And we fall for it hook line and sinker. Continually. Reliably. Helping the owners of these businesses to maintain their position on the Sunday Times Rich List.

National lottery

The odds of winning the National Lottery (Lotto) are 1 in 45 million. However, it used to be 1 in 7.5 million, before the National Lottery added another number to the ticket and increased the ball pool from 49 to 59 numbers. The odds of winning EuroMillions are 1 in 139 million. So, entering Euromillions offer a significantly lower chance than that of winning than the National Lottery.

You would have had a 1 in 39 chance of winning the Grand National in 2023 (admittedly not such a big prize as Lotto, but still a far better return for your fiver), and a 1 in 26 chance of picking the Eurovision winner.

Camelot advertises the lottery across the entire medium spectrum as if paying for advertising is running our of fashion.

Expedia (and Trivago and EBookers and Horels dot com)

Hotels dot com advertise as a first point of call for hotels. Expedia also advertise hotels (along with other travel services). e-Bookers will also book your various travel and hotel accommodation needs. Trivago says it beats the lot for hotel prices.

Trivago, hotels dot com and eBookers are all owned by Expedia.

This means that they are batting their own brands against one another in their advertising. Why on earth are they doing this? Not out of the goodness of their hearts. Peter Kern, CEO of Expedia Group was the highest paid CEO in the Standard and Poor 500 list in 2021, receiving an annual package of $296 million in total.

We believe

Advertisers who use the term “we believe” do so because both the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards do not allow them to make claims which may be proven to be unsubstantial. Some brands, especially beauty products, claim their products do wonderful things, based on their research, However, the observant will notice that along the bottom of their advertisement, they will say “according to 72% of 84 respondents”.

There are some 28.8 million females over the age of 14 in the UK. You work out how representative a sample of 84 female respondents is.

Also, when you make a justifiable complaint about a product or service (especially if it puts you out of pocket through no fault of your own), do not accept the stock “we take ‘such-and-such’ very seriously” as the response. Let them “take it seriously enough” to do something about it and to compensate you for your inconvenience or disappointment.

Trainline

The Trainline ticket booking engine and National Rail’s ticket booking engine ostensibly do the same job for UK rail travellers. Trainline charge you a commission for something that National Rail offers for free. Why on earth then, would you ever use Trainline?

Insurance comparison websites

According to the Association of British Insurers, there are “914 authorised general insurance companies in the UK, of which 340 are UK authorised and 563 are headquartered in another European country and passport in under Solvency II.” Some are internet-only based, which allows them to be very competitive in price when compared with traditional brick and mortar-based institutions. Their terms, conditions and exclusions can be a lengthy minefield to navigate.

When using one of the popular comparison websites, those with lower fixed costs will of course triumph. Those appearing the cheapest (at the top of the list) will have a combination of lower costs and often lower benefits should you need to claim, together with trickier terms and conditions to adhere to.

What all the insurance companies on comparison websites have in common is that when you take out a policy, they receive a commission, varying from around a £30 lump sum to a hefty commission. So, negotiate yourself directly and in theory you should pocket some of that commission in savings yourself!

Top Cash Back

My late uncle, when making a large purchase or booking a holiday in the 60’s and early 70’s always asked “Do you accept Diners’ Club?”. When they replied “yes”, knowing that the charge to “retailers” was in those days around 6-7%, he always asked “will you discount by 5% for cash instead”. They inevitably replied “yes”.

However, my uncle never owned a Diners’ Club card!

While Top Cash Back (and other sites) are essentially generating a commission by customer referral, many purchases would be made irrespective of their involvement. In other words, should you want a fridge, TV or vacuum cleaner, you generally search by price for the brand you want, identify the most suitable retailer and make a purchase. While Top Cash Back (and others) share that commission with you, if the retailer is attached to the Top Cash Back scheme, just sake them yourselves for a discount a couple of points below what it would cost for their partnership with Top Cash Back. You may even get more of a discount than you would through Top Cash Back alone if the retailer wants your business.

The joys of shirt haul flights

Short haul flights using one of the “bucket” airlines. We have all fallen into the trap of a cheap end-to-end flight that by the time you’ve added in all the extras, is not much cheaper than flying with one of the national carriers. The world’s favourite budget airline with its world’s most reviled billionaire CEO is a case in point. The extras can push you to the point of despair.

A chap I sat next to on a flight to Lisbon via RyanAir was complaining to me that by the time he paid for priority boarding, seat, luggage, meal and drinks, his £59 flight had cost him £138. TAP was £124 (I had checked, but I chose RyanAir because I had a £50 voucher that needed to be used before it expired).

There are a few hacks you can employ with budget airlines. Firstly, NEVER purchase any of the extras offered on their website such as car hire (go direct to a recognised brand with clear terms and conditions), day trips (purchase those locally) or insurance (try your own car/home insurance provider first).

Secondly, for a short-medium flight such as Manchester-Lisbon, taking around three hours, especially if you are on your own, shave £10 off the cost (£20 for a couple) by not booking priority boarding. You can sit in the terminal for 30-40 minutes rather that scrimmage for a place in the priority queue (where you will stand for 15 minutes) before then sitting on the ‘plane for a further 15-2- minutes while the remaining non-priority cattle scramble into the barn. Then you can shave another £7-£15 (£14 to £30 for a couple) off the cost by not booking a seat. If a couple, and perhaps one of you sleeps the moment your rear hits the seat, do you really need to sit next to one another for just the flight when you have the entire holiday ahead of you? Don’t take two suitcases if one will do - that saves £70 which will buy you several t-shirts and shorts in the destination’s equivalent of Primark and leave you with the cost of a meal out! And don’t buy anything on board - for a mere three hour journey, everything will be cheaper at the other end.

It is also worth remembering that now the Civil Aviation rules rules regarding what you can take on board have relaxed, your Marks and Spencer premium sandwich will leave the budget airline far behind in terms of both quality and price. Sandwiches (the unopened shop-sealed variety is recommended), cake, fruit and vegetables (in essence “solid foods) are now allowed in hand luggage, but don’t arrive as if you have been at a grocery sale, or you may get raised eyebrows and questioning. And remove them from your bag at airport security, as they don’t X-ray well in a hand-luggage bag.

The internet scammers we don’t know, yet really love

As a rule of thumb, never pay for anything on the internet via direct bank transfer. Make sure it goes through a credit card, PayPal or debit card in that order.

Despite the advance in AI and the likes of ChatGPT making it much easier for criminals to engage with you as if they are genuine article, be suspicious or anyone emailing you using the terminology “Dear Beneficiary” or “Greeting of the day”. And if it’s a phone call from a supposedly UK STD landline (identified by caller ID), any delay over 1 or 2 seconds in connection time means it’s a scammer. UK national VOIP (“over the internet” calls) phone calls now connect almost instantaneously. If you don’t believe them, and they contacted you, ask them to email or snail-mail you - DO NOT give them your email address or home address - if it’s genuine, they will have it on file and write to you. And never give your bank details or other personal information out over the phone. Tell them to give you their name and you will call back yourself, then put the phone down (look up the number yourself and then you phone them back if it is urgent).

Going “Pro” or opting for a “Limited Edition”

The two marketing wheezes designed to get customers to part with their money is designating the most mundane and “non professional” products as “Pro”. This was started by the toothpaste and shampoo products and has now spread like a virus throughout the retail world. All smartphones now have a “Pro” version (“Smartphone and “Pro” is somewhat of an oxymoron!), which when you take a moment to think about it, it utterly ridiculous.We are now seeing mass-produced production line products being flashed as “limited editions”. Chocolate, sweets, crisps, household cleaners, canned foods. Utterly ridiculous. Especially when the “limited edition” product costs around £1.50. This is just adding a fake value to an otherwise valueless product.

Free offers where the free item is said to be “worth”

Don’t be misled by “worth”, as many brands don’t appear to know the difference between the words worth, value and retail price. When smartphone brands give away “free earbuds worth £209” they are lying. They have a “suggested price” of £209, are often discounted to around £150 in shops, but as mass-produced items from the far east, are actually “worth” no more than about £15. The same applies to the odd bits of plastic that household vacuum brands offer as “free accessories worth £50”. No they are not, they are “worth” no more than £10. Ironically, the word “worth” in this free gift context is worthless.

“Pre order”

The nonsense that is “pre-order” has become a non-medical pandemic. The term “pre-order” means “order before you order” which is complete nonsense. And more so when computer games, new smartphones, music and books are now all available to “pre-order”. You won’t get it any sooner than by waiting until it hits the shops at the same price as you have paid that otherwise allows the brand to bank your money and earn interest on it (and before the products start to go into over-supply and are offered at a discount it a few weeks later). With interest rates rising, you should be receiving the interest on your money yourself, not the brands banking your money so unnecessarily far in advance.

Social influencers

Pay attention to social influencers at your own peril. These are fame-seeking representatives of the “me-me-me” culture being paid to promote products they have no real understanding of, and in many cases, don’t actually use themselves. Yes, for those of a certain age before the scourge of Instagram and TikTok, we had genuine, talented celebrities of the day endorsing products (remember the appalling Fairy Liquid advertisement seeing Nanette Newman discussing the merit of soft hands with her 4-year-old child), but these current social influencers are nether useful to man nor beast. They are solely for the gullible.

If a UK cricketer is promoting a cricket ball oil (if there is such a thing!), it has somewhat more gravitas. But when some duck-lipped nonentity with a fake tan covered in garish tattoos with a bull-ring through her septum and who can’t even pronounce her basic words correctly starts with her “Hi guys”, it’s time to switch off. Pah! She will witter on about things she knows absolutely nothing about (the same of course applies to male “influencers”). Just because she has a flock of 1 million extremely gullible sheep, who for some inexplicable reason “follow” her and hang on every (mispronounced) word she utters, this is no reason to assume what she is saying has any relevance. Do yourself and society a favour and stop helping to create and maintain these fake celebrities.

And finally. . . .

Home delivery services

When you order that £7.00 Chinese take away (often having to spend more to reach a minimum order), there is usually a service fee and a tip, the latter which you feel mean just giving 10% for a meal for one. This means you can end up spending around £14! So if it’s relatively local, take a trip to the local take away yourself or just pop down to the supermarket and, as they say on TV, “eat fresh”. Just 10 replacement “DIY” or “GIY” (get it yourself) meals can keep between £60 and £100 in your pocket depending on what you order for yourself.