warehouse club warning

[Ron Hunter]

Don't know about the USA but in Australia and most other civilised countries
there are laws to protect consumers from such deception. If I were you, I'd
start at the better business bureau and go from there. If you have described
the events faithfully here then Wal-Mart have engaged in deceptive and
misleading advertising. If you were in Australia, you could get some help to
expose this practice and get the companies involved into court.

Like I said at the start, the US might allow this sort of behaviour. They
allow plenty of questionable business activities that are illegal in
civalised countries. I recall a similar incident in 1968 where a bread maker
got a contract to supply sliced bread to the Australian Army at a regional
barracks. To save changing the wrapping machine and resetting it, the
American owned baker wrapped the Army's bread in a wrapper from the last run
which was for a lighter loaf.

The wrapper said one weight but the bread was actually heavier. This
encouraged the delivery driver to substitute day old returns of (light
weight) bread for the fresh army bread. The upshot was the American owned
baker claimed they could package their product anyway they wanted. Not so
said an Australian court. The baker tried to get the case moved to the US
where they claimed the practice was not illegal. It didn't work but the
moral of the story is that you might get away with substitution packing in
the Good old US of A.

God bless America,
land of the free,
home of the brave and you better not say otherwise or they'll bomb you off
the face of the Earth!

Your misconceptions of laws in the US are downright amusing. Such
practices ARE illegal here, and any company who did what you describe
would be in big trouble. Mislabeling food products can result in some
ugly legal problems.

And you are WAY out of line with the last sentence.

 

[Ron Hunter]

did the wrappers look similar,
or were the product numbers the same?

many products come in multiple flavors for different buyers.

The FULL ENTIRE NINE WORD name is the same. The packaging is very similar but
not identical, but as we all know, packaging is updated all the time.

I contend that if you are going to call it the same thing -- to that level of
sameness -- it had better BE the same thing [try this trick with prescription
drugs, I dare you...]

Go to the Sams Club website -- look up Ilford. Then open a second window on
Ilford's website.

As Ilford only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo Range Smooth
Pearl Paper" and Sams Club only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet
Photo Range Smooth Pearl Paper", what am I supposed to expect?

Sounds like Ilford was scamming Sam's as well as the end user.

 

[Ron Hunter]

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

If I buy a Toyota from a Toyota dealer, then I buy from from Walmart, I
expect to get a Toyota. It's labeled a Toyota, has the same window
sticker, etc.

I do not expect to get a Ford engine and cheaper seats for the
IDENTICALLY LABELED Toyota.

Ilford wrapped materially different paper inside the same wrapper as
what they use for their dealer stuff. That's just plain WRONG.

When you label them identically, the consumer has every expectation that
the same stuff is inside.

did the wrappers look similar,
or were the product numbers the same?

many products come in multiple flavors for different buyers.

The FULL ENTIRE NINE WORD name is the same. The packaging is very similar but
not identical, but as we all know, packaging is updated all the time.

I contend that if you are going to call it the same thing -- to that level of
sameness -- it had better BE the same thing [try this trick with prescription
drugs, I dare you...]

Go to the Sams Club website -- look up Ilford. Then open a second window on
Ilford's website.

As Ilford only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo Range Smooth
Pearl Paper" and Sams Club only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet
Photo Range Smooth Pearl Paper", what am I supposed to expect?

the same.
ask sams why they mislabeled an ilford product.
note that both are 250/260 g/m weight
sams does not define brightness.
ilford does.

I hate to tell you this, but Sam's doesn't make, or pack, the paper.
They specify the paper specs, and the supplier supplies them packaged as
specified, and at the agreed upon price. I seriously doubt Sam's even
examines actual shipped material to verify quality (they SHOULD).
So, who do you blame here?

 

[measekite]

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

If I buy a Toyota from a Toyota dealer, then I buy from from
Walmart, I
expect to get a Toyota. It's labeled a Toyota, has the same window
sticker, etc.

I do not expect to get a Ford engine and cheaper seats for the
IDENTICALLY LABELED Toyota.

Ilford wrapped materially different paper inside the same wrapper as
what they use for their dealer stuff. That's just plain WRONG.

When you label them identically, the consumer has every expectation
that
the same stuff is inside.


did the wrappers look similar,
or were the product numbers the same?

many products come in multiple flavors for different buyers.

The FULL ENTIRE NINE WORD name is the same. The packaging is very
similar but
not identical, but as we all know, packaging is updated all the time.

I contend that if you are going to call it the same thing -- to that
level of
sameness -- it had better BE the same thing [try this trick with
prescription
drugs, I dare you...]

Go to the Sams Club website -- look up Ilford. Then open a second
window on
Ilford's website.

As Ilford only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo
Range Smooth
Pearl Paper" and Sams Club only lists one "Ilford Galerie
Professional Inkjet
Photo Range Smooth Pearl Paper", what am I supposed to expect?

Sounds like Ilford was scamming Sam's as well as the end user.

I can't see that. These stores provide the manufacturers with
specifications that lead into a contract. Big stores have departments
that inspect the goods and see that the products they buy do meet the
specifications they pay for. If Ilford was doing that kind of stuff
then I am sure they would intermittently short their own dealers and
sooner or later they would get caught.

 

[Ron Hunter]

designer may look


in the material and



I would claim that this is RARELY the case for other kinds of products -- at
least when they are from the SAME maker and LABELED with the SAME LABEL.

Very often a large chain of stores will order a product, such as a
computer, built to their specifications, and it will have a model number
specific to that chain. This prevents direct comparisons of pricing
between store chains, and makes claims of matching prices on 'identical
merchandise' a safe bet. A wise purchaser keeps aware of such ploys,
and does his homework, examines products, and KNOWS what he is buying.
To do less courts disappointment.

 

[Ivor Floppy]

Pete wrote:


On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:29:28 GMT, SamSez wrote:




I recently noticed that Sams Club was carrying "Ilford Galerie
Professional
Inkjet Photo Range Smooth Gloss Paper" [sic] in 100 sheet boxes, and
through
their web site you could also order "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet
Photo

Range Smooth Pearl Paper" [sic], so I bought two boxes of the gloss and
one
of

the pearl.

Only when I went to make a print on the pearl, I saw immediately that
it was
different than the "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo Range
Smooth
Pearl

Paper" that I had used previously. It had a lower base brightness, a
duller
finish and felt thinner despite the box being apparently the same size.

Here's Ilford's response:

"Many thanks for your email. We are sorry thqat you are dissapointed.
the
Sam`s

Club version of our media is NOT the same as the general brand found in
Pro
dealers and is NOT covered in the sample pack. The description of the
media
in

the sample pack at 280gsm is correct for the media supplied via our
dealer
channels where the sample pack was purchased. The packaging is very
different

for the Sam`s media and sorry to say that you should have purchased the
media

via the same dealer route as the sample pack. Your comments will be
passed
over

to our marketing group, but the Sam`s media although to the same
standards
is

very different and is why the media is cheaper. We do not include the
Sam`s
version in our sample packs as this is the only outlet for this version
generally. "

Kind of interesting that the name on the box is exactly the same for
two
"very

different" products.

Sigh....



Any company that pulls tricks like this deserves to go bankrupt.
Ooops...
Ilford IS bankrupt. Justice?



Ilford did not pull tricks. They just sold a reduced quality product
based on a customers specifications and packaged it differently.
Hopefully they gave it a different name. The tricks are from Walmart.


Pete

In case I didn't make it clear enough in my original post, they did NOT
give it
a different name. That is my point.

In that case they misrepresented the product. Many times over a few year
period the same product changes packaging but the name is the same. You
then have a right to assume that the product is identical. I have on many
occassions see the same product on the shelf with different packaging
during the change over. Sometimes the product says it is new and
improved. Sometimes it is and other times it is just marketing bullshit.

You'll find the only 'rights' you have relate to the product being as
advertised. If the paper sold as "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo
Range Smooth Gloss Paper" [sic] in 100 sheet boxes" was as described *on the
pack* then there's no comeback.

The fact it's not the same paper as sold elsewhere is irrelevant.

 

[SamSez]

Very often a large chain of stores will order a product, such as a
computer, built to their specifications, and it will have a model number
specific to that chain. This prevents direct comparisons of pricing
between store chains, and makes claims of matching prices on 'identical
merchandise' a safe bet. A wise purchaser keeps aware of such ploys,
and does his homework, examines products, and KNOWS what he is buying.
To do less courts disappointment.

Sorry Ron, but when the name on the box is ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL, what more can
you 'know' short of opening the package? If you bought a box of Kellogg's Corn
Flakes at a warehouse club, what would YOU expect to be inside -- seriously?
Something different than what you buy at Piggly-Wiggly? I doubt it.

 

[Douglas]

Douglas wrote:
snipped

Your misconceptions of laws in the US are downright amusing. Such
practices ARE illegal here, and any company who did what you describe
would be in big trouble. Mislabeling food products can result in some
ugly legal problems.

And you are WAY out of line with the last sentence.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but hasn't the USA gone to war against that
little country in the middle east where they get their oil from in same
manner Hitler did towards Germany's neighbours in the '30's and bombed the
shit out of the people of that nation for disagreeing with the USA?

Now George Bush is telling everyone he'll get Australia to help bash up one
of Australia's largest trading partners (China) because they (China) want
the island of Taiwan to re-join the unified China and you lot don't think
that's a good idea because you get a major portion of your car parts,
chemicals and electronic components cheap from them because it's too costly
to comply with US environmental laws and make them in your own country.

What is about Americans that makes them so aggressive towards anyone who
disagree with them? And you have the cheek to tell me I'm out of line for
stating the truth. These are not the actions of civilised people or a for
that matter, a civilised nation. China is a nuclear nation with as much
military capacity and the ability to use it as the USA. What are you lot
trying to do? Bring on another ice age? Not a Red Necked, flag waving Yankee
yourself are you?

Get on over to Australia and witness first hand how US companies are
behaving before you get on your high horse and pass judgment on one of their
victims for stating the truth.

 

[measekite]

New Zealand has better lamb chops!

Correct me if I'm wrong here but hasn't the USA gone to war against that
little country in the middle east where they get their oil from in same
manner Hitler did towards Germany's neighbours in the '30's and bombed the
shit out of the people of that nation for disagreeing with the USA?

Now George Bush is telling everyone he'll get Australia to help bash up one
of Australia's largest trading partners (China) because they (China) want
the island of Taiwan to re-join the unified China and you lot don't think
that's a good idea because you get a major portion of your car parts,
chemicals and electronic components cheap from them because it's too costly
to comply with US environmental laws and make them in your own country.

What is about Americans that makes them so aggressive towards anyone who
disagree with them? And you have the cheek to tell me I'm out of line for
stating the truth. These are not the actions of civilised people or a for
that matter, a civilised nation. China is a nuclear nation with as much
military capacity and the ability to use it as the USA. What are you lot
trying to do? Bring on another ice age? Not a Red Necked, flag waving Yankee
yourself are you?

Get on over to Australia and witness first hand how US companies are
behaving before you get on your high horse and pass judgment on one of their
victims for stating the truth.

 

[Frank ess]

Correct me if I'm wrong here

stating the truth.

The formerly respectable Douglas has degenerated into a hysterical
soont. Some folks can't believe they exist without excessive amounts of
adrenaline and bile coursing through their systems, and if no
appropriate occasion arises, they will manufacture one out of whole
cloth.

Never mind embarrassing himself and all his country-mates, he's
asssuring himself of constant discomfort and early incapacitation and
demise. He should take my earlier advice: leave these groups and relax.

 

[leo]

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

If I buy a Toyota from a Toyota dealer, then I buy from from
Walmart, I
expect to get a Toyota. It's labeled a Toyota, has the same window
sticker, etc.

I do not expect to get a Ford engine and cheaper seats for the
IDENTICALLY LABELED Toyota.

Ilford wrapped materially different paper inside the same wrapper as
what they use for their dealer stuff. That's just plain WRONG.

When you label them identically, the consumer has every expectation
that
the same stuff is inside.



did the wrappers look similar,
or were the product numbers the same?

many products come in multiple flavors for different buyers.




The FULL ENTIRE NINE WORD name is the same. The packaging is very
similar but
not identical, but as we all know, packaging is updated all the time.

I contend that if you are going to call it the same thing -- to that
level of
sameness -- it had better BE the same thing [try this trick with
prescription
drugs, I dare you...]

Go to the Sams Club website -- look up Ilford. Then open a second
window on
Ilford's website.

As Ilford only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo
Range Smooth
Pearl Paper" and Sams Club only lists one "Ilford Galerie
Professional Inkjet
Photo Range Smooth Pearl Paper", what am I supposed to expect?

Sounds like Ilford was scamming Sam's as well as the end user.

I can't see that. These stores provide the manufacturers with
specifications that lead into a contract. Big stores have departments
that inspect the goods and see that the products they buy do meet the
specifications they pay for. If Ilford was doing that kind of stuff
then I am sure they would intermittently short their own dealers and
sooner or later they would get caught.

Still Iiford should use a different name when they have that much
difference in materials. Like many mattress companies selling basically
the same mattress with different names and patterns. Ilford's liable to
make such a confusion. I seriously doubt Sams Club would care if it's
called something else as long as the big Ilford name is there. And most
people working there and shoppers don't know much about paper, unlike
us, the educated consumers.

 

[Matt Silberstein]

Interesting. Wal-Mart has about the best profit sharing arrangement in
US industry. I wouldn't feel too sorry for their employees.

Do you get it if you work part-time? Because they try very hard to
ensure that their employees don't get enough hours to get health care,
so I wonder if they make it easier to get profit sharing.


--
Matt Silberstein

All in all, if I could be any animal, I would want to be
a duck or a goose. They can fly, walk, and swim. Plus,
there there is a certain satisfaction knowing that at the
end of your life you will taste good with an orange sauce
or, in the case of a goose, a chestnut stuffing.

 

[Jer]

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

If I buy a Toyota from a Toyota dealer, then I buy from from Walmart, I
expect to get a Toyota. It's labeled a Toyota, has the same window
sticker, etc.

I do not expect to get a Ford engine and cheaper seats for the
IDENTICALLY LABELED Toyota.

Ilford wrapped materially different paper inside the same wrapper as
what they use for their dealer stuff. That's just plain WRONG.

When you label them identically, the consumer has every expectation
that
the same stuff is inside.


did the wrappers look similar,
or were the product numbers the same?

many products come in multiple flavors for different buyers.

The FULL ENTIRE NINE WORD name is the same. The packaging is very
similar but
not identical, but as we all know, packaging is updated all the time.

I contend that if you are going to call it the same thing -- to that
level of
sameness -- it had better BE the same thing [try this trick with
prescription
drugs, I dare you...]

Go to the Sams Club website -- look up Ilford. Then open a second
window on
Ilford's website.

As Ilford only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo
Range Smooth
Pearl Paper" and Sams Club only lists one "Ilford Galerie Professional
Inkjet
Photo Range Smooth Pearl Paper", what am I supposed to expect?

Sounds like Ilford was scamming Sam's as well as the end user.

Considering that Walwart (Sam's) is notorious for flexing their discount
muscles with their suppliers, it seems that both could be complicit in
this deception. Walwart demands lesser quality (to force a lower price)
and Ilford complies because they're being courted by a retail discounter
with hundreds of stores full of bargain hunters and staffed by underpaid
wanks.

 

[Jer]

Ivor Floppy wrote:

You'll find the only 'rights' you have relate to the product being as
advertised. If the paper sold as "Ilford Galerie Professional Inkjet Photo
Range Smooth Gloss Paper" [sic] in 100 sheet boxes" was as described *on the
pack* then there's no comeback.

The fact it's not the same paper as sold elsewhere is irrelevant.

We realise that Walwart believes this, the issue is we don't.

 

[Douglas]

New Zealand has better lamb chops!

Yeah... At least they had the good sense to ban the bloody minded yanks from
bringing their Nuked ships of death into the country.

 

[Douglas]

Never mind embarrassing himself and all his country-mates, he's asssuring
himself of constant discomfort and early incapacitation and demise. He
should take my earlier advice: leave these groups and relax.

Thank you for that Frank... Our prime Minister has done the embarrassing. I
often feel ashamed to be an Australian when I see what he has done in
concert with the US.

Unfortunately if you speak up against it you get branded an embarrassing
troublemaker and if you do nothing you just become one of despicable
mongrels. Which are you Frank?

Douglas

 

[Ron Hunter]

Correct me if I'm wrong here but hasn't the USA gone to war against that
little country in the middle east where they get their oil from in same
manner Hitler did towards Germany's neighbours in the '30's and bombed the
shit out of the people of that nation for disagreeing with the USA?

No. It went to war against that country for repeated violations of UN
mandates, and a previous invasion of a peaceful nation, and harboring,
and promotion of international terrorism. BTW, Australia has been one
of the most loyal supporters of that action, and has some very capable
troops involved in the same war.

Now George Bush is telling everyone he'll get Australia to help bash up one
of Australia's largest trading partners (China) because they (China) want
the island of Taiwan to re-join the unified China and you lot don't think
that's a good idea because you get a major portion of your car parts,
chemicals and electronic components cheap from them because it's too costly
to comply with US environmental laws and make them in your own country.

Hogwash. You have a very distorted viewpoint.

What is about Americans that makes them so aggressive towards anyone who
disagree with them? And you have the cheek to tell me I'm out of line for
stating the truth. These are not the actions of civilised people or a for
that matter, a civilised nation. China is a nuclear nation with as much
military capacity and the ability to use it as the USA. What are you lot
trying to do? Bring on another ice age? Not a Red Necked, flag waving Yankee
yourself are you?

If you think China has as much military capacity as the US you are in
for some ugly shocks.

Get on over to Australia and witness first hand how US companies are
behaving before you get on your high horse and pass judgment on one of their
victims for stating the truth.

If you can't control the companies in your country, don't come whining
to me.
This is a photography NG, not a venue for your anti-American whining.

 

[Ron Hunter]

New Zealand has better lamb chops!

Douglas wrote:

Could be, but if my sources are correct, isn't NZ overselling them? It
seems that NZ had 6 times as many sheep only 15 years ago as they do
now... At that rate, they will be as extinct as the Moa.

 

[Ron Hunter]

Yeah... At least they had the good sense to ban the bloody minded yanks from
bringing their Nuked ships of death into the country.

Douglas,
Please keep your anti-American trash in appropriate newsgroups.
You are getting annoying.

 

[Ron Hunter]

The formerly respectable Douglas has degenerated into a hysterical
soont. Some folks can't believe they exist without excessive amounts of
adrenaline and bile coursing through their systems, and if no
appropriate occasion arises, they will manufacture one out of whole
cloth.

Never mind embarrassing himself and all his country-mates, he's
asssuring himself of constant discomfort and early incapacitation and
demise. He should take my earlier advice: leave these groups and relax.

Well, I used to be almost as excitable, until I was diagnosed with HBP.
Perhaps he would live longer (and happier) with medication. Actually,
I suspect he is just a product of the distorted view of the US
engendered by news media both here, and in other countries.
Funny thing is, in this case, his OWN government is very much on the
side of the US.