My daughter’s first phone was very basic - it did voice calls and text only. No music or games. She really wanted games. After a few years we decided to get her a new phone for her birthday, and of course we chose one with games.

I bought the LG KS360 from my local Orange store. The staff member assured me that I could “get the balance from her old Sim card transferred, no problems”. Yes, she actually said the words “no problems”.

So my daughter’s birthday came and she unwrapped the phone. A leaflet says you must transfer the old Sim card balance before you put the Sim card in the phone. That’s why I had been unable to fully test the phone before giving it to her.

I phoned the number provided (freephone, thankfully) and got through. The operator complained that the old Sim card was never registered (which is true, as it’s not compulsory). Anyway he took my daughter’s details and asked me for a 4-digit passcode. He asked me to call my daughter to the phone, so that he could check the details. At no point did he convey to me that he was doing anything other than transferring the old balance.

We put the Sim card in, and everything seemed to work except the games. Selecting Games just makes the phone reboot. Every time. When you click “Games” the Java logo flashes briefly then the phone shuts down and restarts. My daughter was so disappointed.

The next day I took the phone back to the store and demonstrated the problem. The staff are presumably sales rather than technical staff, and they phoned the Orange call centre.

The call centre operator then told me that he wasn’t going to fix the problem; that my daughter had to sort it out herself. What am I supposed to do, take her out of school to bring her to the store? Set a schoolchild loose to battle the multiple confusing options of the Orange call centre?

I explained that I was the buyer of the phone, and that I expected to be sold a working phone, but the operator wasn’t interested. He tried to invoke the Data Protection Act, claiming that this somehow prevented Orange from fixing the phone. How bizarre, considering that I hadn’t asked them to divulge any personal information, and in any case the only information they held was that which I had supplied to them myself the previous day.

We went round in circles a few times, but it was obvious that the call centre operator had no interest in solving the problem. I then asked the sales assistant for a refund, but she refused, saying it was impossible. She didn’t offer any positive suggestions, nor did she seem the slightest bit sympathetic.

I left as a very unhappy customer, trembling with anger, £98 out of pocket and with a non-working phone. I hope this story is going to have a happy ending for my daughter; it’s already too late for it to have a happy ending for me.

When you visit amazon.co.uk, you can buy things that are supplied by Amazon, but you can also buy things that are supplied by their associated Merchants. Amazon keeps track of the process, but it can cause you to receive a lot of confusing emails.

I bought a tap recently, and received these emails (greatly abridged here, with my annotations in green):

11 December - Thanks for ordering from Amazon.co.uk. Your purchase information appears below … Dispatch estimate for these items: 12 Dec 2007 - 13 Dec 2007 … Sold by: S.N.H. Tradecentre …

11 December - … Thank you for your order … Payment Method: Amazon Checkout … Sincerely, S.N.H. Trade

11 December - … Thank you for your purchase from S.N.H. Trade. Please note that your payment has been received today and your order will be processed as quickly as possible … We will let you know shortly, when your order has been moved to the packing dpt. (sounds like my order will be on its way soon then) … If you don’t receive an Email to confirm this in the next 3 days, please call us to let us know (Hmmm, maybe they don’t sound so confident) … so we can chase your order up (you mean their own systems can’t prompt them to chase it up?) … Payment Method: Amazon Checkout. Payment Status: Payment Received … (so I’ve paid, then)

12 December - … Please note that your Order … is being prepared to be shipped shortly (sounds like my order will be on its way soon then) … We will inform you the day before delivery (but not very soon) …

13 December - Hi, thankyou for your order,unfortunately the BE307 will not be available until approx 11.8.07. We will keep this on order for you (hmm, 11.8.07 is four months ago!) …

16 December - We have tried to dispatch your goods within our normal 2-3 day delivery time. Delivery on the outset for your goods will be within 14 working day from order, unless we contact you to let you know we may have a problem. If you have recieved this e mail it usually means that we have had a lot of orders and has a small back log. Usually this will delay your delivery by a couple of days. We apologise in advance for this dalay and are working hard to deliver all items as quickly as possable. (all these spelling and grammar errors were theirs, by the way) … If you are in a real hurry for your goods, and this is to long, please call 01843 842727 … and our sales team will do everything thay can to dispatch your goods as quickly as possible. (how will they speed it up? And why should I need to nag them for this to happen? Again, all the spelling and grammar errors are theirs.)

7 January - The following order, placed on 11-Dec-2007 with S.N.H Tradecentre, will be canceled if the order is not ship-confirmed by 12-Jan-2008. (Merchants on Amazon must ship products within 30 days from the date when the order was placed; otherwise, the order is automatically canceled.) … Your credit card has not been charged for the order. (S.N.H. already told me that they had received payment, and now Amazon tells me that I haven’t yet paid?) …

9 January - Thank you for your purchase from S.N.H Trade. Please note that your Order 150524276 has been shipped today …

9 January - Today S.N.H Tradecentre shipped item(s) in your order, placed on 11-December-2007.

10 January - (The parcel arrived, and was correct. Yay!)

A good eventual outcome, but not a smooth transaction.

Recently Mrs Penditure bought a sturdy-looking bicycle combination lock. On its second use, it jammed up, trapping the kids’ bicycles to the school bicycle rack until we found someone with a tool that could cut the cable.

I took the severed lock back to Wilkinsons where they were quite happy to refund my £5.

“I suppose you won’t want another one the same”, said the cashier. Too right!

This shampoo (Natures Organics “fruits”) works well enough. It:

• cleans my hair
• doesn’t cost too much
• has an Apple flavour that’s not too objectionable

It is also an example of what must be the pinnacle of consumerism - a container that won’t dispense a small quantity. I don’t have as much hair as some people, and I don’t need to use a lot of shampoo. A drop or two is enough.

The people who produce this product have found a way to thwart people like me who don’t use enough shampoo. They put a large hole in the top of the bottle, but give the shampoo itself a jelly-like consistency.

If you just squeeze the bottle a little bit, as soon as you release your squeeze the bottle just sucks the blob of shampoo straight back into the bottle!

Instead, you must squeeze enough to dispense a big blob of shampoo - big enough that its weight will overcome the force trying to suck it back into the bottle.

Clever people, those who work in consumer product design.

A strange kind of reminiscence this one, back to the days when the local supermarket (in Sydney) stocked a brand of toilet paper called Thousand Sheet Roll.

I was living by myself at the time. I would install one of these, and wouldn’t have to worry about changing the roll for months and months at a time. The roll started to seem like a fixture rather than a consumable. It was only single-ply paper, but it was decently strong and perfectly functional.

Even the ordinary rolls of the time (early 1980’s) held 500 sheets.

But then the manufacturers realised that most people instinctively buy toilet paper “by the roll”, not “by the sheet”. So they reduced the rolls to 400 sheets at first, then to as low as 180 sheets (although 220 seems to be pretty common nowadays).

The manufacturers ran ads claiming that their paper was softer than ever. Always, the ad showed someone squeezing the roll. Well that doesn’t illustrate anything except how loosely the roll has been wound. If you wind the roll with lots of air, the roll as a whole appears more squeezable even though the paper is the same.

The manufacturers aren’t stupid. Why put 500 sheets on a roll if people are just as happy to buy rolls of 220 sheets (and to buy more than twice as many of those rolls)?

So now, the multi-pack rules. Four, six, eight, twelve rolls at once, with all the extra shelf space costs, transport costs and extra cardboard cores that this implies.

Oh for the old days when life was simple, and Thousand Sheet Roll ruled the little room.

The kids were keen to go ten-pin bowling so we phoned Morecambe super-bowl and reserved a lane for an hour for £20 including shoe hire.

It was a mixed experience.

The lighting above the pins wasn’t working on our lane, but we bowled on. It soon became clear that the automatic scoring wasn’t working properly either, as it was frequently recording more pins downed than had actually been hit.

At one point, the scoring system decided that Mrs Penditure had bowled two balls when she had only bowled one, and we decided we’d had enough. We brought this to the attention of an “operative”. She said that all she could do was to reset our game, but if the problem persisted we could move to another lane.

The light above the pins was now working, and the scoring seemed to work OK for a while, but then it started to go haywire again. We complained again, but the person we had originally spoken to was no longer available.

The lady who attended our lane said that all she could do was to change the score for us - and indeed it turned out that we could edit the score from our own console. But the scoring errors continued, and it was impractical to edit the score every time, so we just bowled on.

It was still good fun, but the time we spent sorting out the problems took a big chunk out of our playing time, and we were only able to complete one game within our hour. On checking the website after getting home, I saw that we could have paid “by the game” for £14.80, saving more than a quarter.

Now I suppose I could write a letter of complaint and chase it up. But wouldn’t it be better if the staff were sufficiently empowered and motivated that they could just do whatever is needed to make sure that the customers have a good time out?

I’ve been ten-pin bowling elsewhere before, and the equipment worked perfectly every time. I hope this was just a one-off.

I recently discussed the notion of price discrimination, where the same product is sold to different people at difference prices, with the aim of extracting the maximum profit for the seller.

Another form of price discrimination can be found in many supermarkets. It’s price discrimination by variation of packaging.

For example, at Sainsburys at the moment, Granny Smith apples are £1.05 per kilogram loose. Or, you can buy them in a pack of seven for £1.05.

I weighed some of the packs, and they were around 800 or 900 grams. It’s clear that you get a better deal buying the loose apples and having them weighed at the checkout - plus you can pick and choose the better quality apples. The shopper in a hurry, picking up the prepacked bag in haste, doesn’t realise (and may not care) that they are paying more.

The same thing applies to other fresh foods, such as broccoli. It is consistently cheaper bought loose from the boxes, than pre-wrapped.

Strictly speaking, these differently-packed products are not absolutely identical. They may come from different batches, different distribution centres, or even different countries. But from the consumer’s point of view there’s unlikely to be any practical difference.

So remember - if price is important, the loose produce is probably the better bet. If convenience is important, go for the pre-pack, but realise that you may be paying a premium for it.

(photo by Linda Huber)

Twice a year or thereabouts, the Continental Market sets up in the pedestrianised part of the city. About twenty stalls sell a wide range of delicious foods, plus toiletries and crafts. Best of all is surely the mobile bakery which turns out fabulous food.

I always look for the stalls that sell French jams, which are always luscious and packed with delicious fruit. Why, in comparison, are most English jams pretty much like jellified flavoured sugar?

There is a fascinating range of jams available, including apple jam (with or without calvados liqueur). It’s £3 per jar, and worth every penny, but I can usually persuade them to sell me four jars for £10 or £11.

You can possibly see from the photo that the jam jar is really beaten around. The lid is stained and full of dents. This whole batch was like that. But inside … beautiful!

When you’re out-and-about, the available fast food can often be really dismal. But at many orienteering events, and other outdoor functions, Wilf’s mobile catering offers fast food that’s really different.

There are pasta bowls, vegetarian chilli bowls with optional cheese and pita bread, baked potatoes with various toppings, tomato-rich pizzas and more.

Even the kids are keen on this food.

A wide range of home-made cakes is available too, and you can buy things like Mars Bars and fizzy drinks if you really want to.

Most of the food is reasonably-priced, although I suspect they’re doing alright on the pasta bowls at £3 which seem to include pasta, some kind of white sauce, mushroom and sweetcorn plus cheese.

By comparison, a chilli bowl with cheese is £2.50 and I would have thought it uses more expensive ingredients and uses more labour.

Now, if only they would use tongs to dispense the grated cheese instead of their fingers…

A loss leader is a product sold for less than its cost. This pricing strategy aims to lure customers to the store, with the hope that they will buy other more-profitable products.

I suspect that these Sainsbury’s Basics Sliced Peaches are a loss leader, at nine pence per 411gram tin.

I can’t imagine that the peaches can be grown, harvested, canned and transported to the supermarket for nine pence, even before considering the supermarket’s own overheads.

Anyway, they taste fine and seem to me to be as good quality as any other tinned peaches, so I’ve bought plenty of cans to stock up. Unlike some stores, Sainsbury doesn’t seem to put maximum-quantity limits on their promotions.