I just love freebies don't you? Would you like some? I think if most people were to be totally honest the answer would be yes. But how about freebies and cash to go with it... does that sound even more interesting? Well you can have both on a very regular basis, and what's more it's your right to receive it, and the people who give to you will be extremely grateful, in fact they have a department set up with cheque book to hand waiting for you to drop them a line.
Ok, it will take some effort on your part, but not a lot, you see you are about to become a professional food critic. Let's start with the simplest and most basic mistake the food manufacturers make ...misrepresentation. Producers of food know how to make you buy a product, they take a wonderful picture in fantastic colours of a dish of food, this is then displayed like some icon on the box to tempt you in to purchase...and it often does Of course when we get it home and drag it out of the box it rarely resembles the picture shown on the outer cover. Now we could, and you would be well within your rights, take it back to the shop and ask for your money back, and I'm sure they would reimburse us... We wont, already we have a good reason to complain, but let's try the dish and see if a taste as good as it should... this is when we become a professional food critic. In some rare cases the food is better than it looks, but let's remember we are a critic so let's criticise. Put it this way what do you think Gordon Ramsey's comments would be? Right, now you get the idea, but we had better leave out the four letter words.
Well so far we have bought a product that was falsely displayed to make us buy it, we have eaten it, and while it may have been palatable our expert taste buds detect that some improvements must be made if we are ever to purchase it again. Now we must write to the manufacturer with all our comments, we'll enclose the package to show proof of purchase and pop it all in the post, then while we wait for the cheque, postal order or vouchers to arrive, (usually to a value more than you spent, with a letter of apology and thanks for helping them to improve) we might as well mosey on back to the supermarket to find our next critical assignment...
Actually this is only the tip of the iceberg; sometimes you have to be a bit more forceful. Here is a perfectly true example. After purchasing, from a well known supermarket, a pre-packed packet of ham and making a sandwich from it, my wife chipped her tooth (well almost, she thought she had, it did make her gum bleed) on a piece of bone in a slice of ham. I took the remaining pieces (which also contained slivers of bone) back to supermarket explaining what happened, they offered me a replacement or my money back.
I refused both and asked for it to be sent to head office for an explanation. To cut a long story short, I reused an offer of £25 and settled for £75, not bad for a packet of ham costing 95p and it was done through their insurance and that always makes me happy... Which brings me to another little story for you to check out.
Insurance companies are very clever with small print, so if you can play them at their own game it's a bonus. My wife's nephew had a new mountain bike; he came home for lunch and locked the bike to railings outside the house. Within an hour it was stolen by someone using bolt cutters. My wife's sister had insurance which covered the bike, however the insurance company stated as the bike had not been locked away, it was not covered and therefore they would not pay out. On reading all the small print I found the ruling to be ( the bike should be safely secured )not necessarily locked away, after writing a carefully composed letter, stating their own ruling... the company paid out in full.
