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Consumer News
07/04/2008 | Processed Foods And Your Health
As food prices rise, many of us are looking for the best deal, possibly at the exclusion of other factors that we once took into consideration. There are significant dangers associated with this approach, however, as fast food and processed food may be priced cheaper for a variety of reasons, including special promotions.
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06/27/2008 | The Benefits Of Sunscreen
Putting sunscreen on a child is like trying to pet a hummingbird. Good luck getting a kid to stay put long enough to let you lather it on, let alone with the coverage that the experts deem necessary. And it’s not much better with adults. Across Bermuda all summer long will be victims of the “forgot a patch” sunscreen crowd. Those with burnt backs but pristine white fronts, blistery noses beneath a sunglass-shaped white area around the eyes, and painful, aloe-covered calves.
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06/20/2008 | Disillusioned With Your Brand New Car
Are you disillusioned with your brand new car? Anticipated that you’d be paying off the purchase price for a while, but put back by the mounting costs of servicing all manner of electronic components just to keep it on the road? Wish you’d gone a bit smaller because your annual licensing fee is weighing you down?
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06/13/2008 | Getting Rid Of Electronic Waste
In every way, we’re a connected society; by internet, e-mail, Blackberry and pagers we communicate by a plethora of technological means. And when we’re not communicating, we’re enjoying our favourite TV shows, DVDs and electronic games. It’s a brave new world, and as consumers we love our electronic gadgets.
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06/06/2008 | Father's Day Gift Ideas
As Father’s Day fast approaches, a quick polling of friends who are fathers showed a great many of them had pretty fantastic ideas of what constitutes the perfect gift: from a wife who doesn’t demand he pitch in with household duties, to an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas with his buddies.
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05/30/2008 | Don't let bills balloon to outrageous heights.
Ignoring a cellphone bill is not an option, and could result in hundreds of dollars in late fees.
[By Laura Semos Article originally published in the Bermuda Sun]
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05/23/2008 | Packaging might be doing harm to you and your family
Harmful chemicals in plastic containers could be leaching into the food we eat. There is a toxic substance in your house, most likely seeping into yours and your children's hormonal systems.
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05/16/2008 | Reducing Waste Of All Kinds
It is estimated that families now need to spend approximately $2,000 more on groceries than last year. This is the recent finding of the UK Daily Mail’s Cost of Living Index.
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05/09/2008 | Read The Label On Foods
Recently, I went to buy some cereal and was stymied by the sheer choices at my fingertips. There was everything from organic whole grain to sugary, chemical-enthused wonders of modern processing.
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05/02/2008 | Buying Or Repairing A Car? Get It In Writing
Let’s say that you buy a brand new vehicle. It is running well and you are thrilled with its performance. In fact, you keep putting off going for service checks because there is no reason to. A couple years pass and a problem finally arises, so you make an appointment to see your mechanic. That’s when things start to go very wrong.
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04/25/2008 | Water, Water Everywhere...
There is a toxic substance in your house, most likely Did you know that the majority of Bermuda homeowners use bottled water for drinking, spending well over $1,000 per year for distilled water? And those households which require top-ups because their tank water does not meet household needs spend almost $300 per year on piped water or $1,100 per year for trucked water. In fact, 62% of Bermudians use an independent source for water besides their water tank.
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04/18/2008 | Healthy organic food - it's worth the price
Healthy organic food - it's worth the price Studies show that organic food has 40 per cent more vitamins than mass produced vegetables, so go and support Bermuda’s local farmers
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04/04/2008 | Second Hand Purchases - Know Your Rights
Each month Consumer Affairs receives numerous calls concerning secondhand purchases, mainly by consumers wanting to know their rights concerning obtaining redress in cases where a secondhand purchase turned out to not work properly or be as expected.
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03/28/2008 | Contracts: Read The Fine Print
The ad on the television screen is promising; a woman is first shown huddling inside her home with a red, itchy nose, clearly suffering from seasonal allergies. But thanks to a new pharmaceutical, relief is at hand! One pill later and she is running through a lush field, ecstatic at her new-found freedom to laugh in the face of her allergens.
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03/14/2008 | Protect Seniors From Scams
Having three grandmothers between my husband and I, my own being 96 years young this month, the concerns of seniors are a matter close to my heart. Last week I wrote of how my Grandma’s purse was stolen with all her identification in it by a man who came to her door seeking to use her phone, and how you can identify various scams and con artist scenarios to avoid this happening to others.
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03/07/2008 | Avoid Scams
A few years ago my Grandma had a man come to the door asking if he could use her phone. Happy to assist the man, my Grandma lent her phone and he left without incident. It was only much later that day did she realize that her purse was missing. It took several months for her to replace all of her identification (particularly her birth certificate, which was originally issued in 1912), but far longer for the rest of the family to feel comfortable again about her living alone.
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02/22/2008 | Boat Repairs And Maintenances Issues
With winter winds still blowing many days of the week, the bliss of boating and swimming this May 24th holiday seems so far away to most of us. In fact, in terms of boat repair and maintenance obligations, it’s much closer than you would think.
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02/15/2008 | Kids Can Learn Value For Money
Finding it hard to get into your kids’ heads lately? Here’s a quick question to get the conversation rolling: they see a shirt they really want listed on www.oldnavy.com for $24.99, but this same shirt is in a store downtown listed at almost $30. Which is the better deal?
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02/08/2008 | Your Fault Or Mine?
On New Year’s Eve I had a few drops of wine spilled onto my new dress, thanks to a friend’s glass tipping over. So, I brought it to a drycleaner downtown to get it cleaned. Unfortunately, something went horribly wrong in the cleaning process and my new dress came back with the stains gone but in their stead was a streaky discoloured mess from an abrasive brush scrubbing the silk fabric. It was the perfect set-up for a customer service disaster- much like the ones we see here at Consumer Affairs every day.
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01/28/2008 | The Ghost Of Christmas Past
Just last month our postboxes were filled with Christmas cards. Sadly, this month, they’re just full of bills. January is surely when the ghost of Christmas past comes to haunt us.
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01/18/2008 | Conscious Consumerism
Recently, I booked a flight to New York to attend a friend’s wedding in March. With my booking I was offered the opportunity to “fly green”, meaning I paid a small sum to offset the global warming impact of my flying by funding green energy and conservation projects. The TerraPass cost me $5.99 to cover emissions created by my plane flight.
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01/11/2008 | Giving Money Away
Have you ever considered giving a $50 bill to a local retailer as a gift? Just handing them some cash and walking away? Or mailing a favourite overseas retailer a wad of cash and expecting nothing in return?
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01/04/2008 | Returns and Exchanges - Know Your Rights
¬Barely has the Christmas season ended and the last of the holiday goodies been consumed and we’re onto to the next big event of the year. No, not the New Year’s celebrations, but something that is associated with an equally crazed countdown. Returns season! Yes, that special time of the year when everybody is off in a mad dash to the shops to return or exchange the presents that don’t fit quite right, don’t look right at all, we already owned, or don’t work as intended. And all within a time limit set out by each individual store.
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12/28/2007 | The Empowered Consumer: Bermuda Retailers Beware
In a most unlikely way, a 60-year-old retired salesman in the UK recently emerged a YouTube celebrity after posting a video of himself complaining about the horrific customer service woes he experienced in settling a billing dispute with his local telephone company.
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12/14/2007 | A Bright Idea
As we approach the new year, and are starting to consider what resolutions we should work towards in 2008, many of us are ruthlessly questioning what we need to change about ourselves and our environment- from quitting smoking, losing weight, to finishing work on the house. Unfortunately, most of us stop at our immediate environment instead of considering what we can do to help protect our beautiful Island’s environment and natural resources.
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12/07/2007 | Good Children's Toys
There is nothing quite like the excitement of a child waking up on Christmas morning, excitedly begging to open gifts, hoping that the toy of their dreams is waiting for them. Unfortunately, behind this universally appealing image is the equally potent one of parents struggling to find said perfect toy.
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11/30/2007 | The Gift Economy
The season is upon us. Not the joyful family-oriented Christmas season, which as you know won’t be for several weeks, but the manic, guilt-inducing, stressed out, harried and hurried buying season.
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11/23/2007 | Christmas Shopping - Know Your Rights
There was a time that I would start picking up Christmas presents in July. It wasn’t that I was terribly organized; to the contrary, I knew that the week leading up to Christmas would be a stressful time of last-minute shopping, hand-wringing over finances, and frenzied gift wrapping. So, if I happened to see something that was on sale and perfect for someone in my family I would pick it up and store it in a closet for retrieval at Christmas.
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11/21/2007 | Safeguard Your Children
In Bradford, England, Christmas will not be a joyful one for Donna Abrahams. Her beautiful little girl, Kelsey, just eight weeks old, died this fall. She was accidentally smothered whilst sharing a bed with other members of the family. They had been staying at her mother’s house and because of overcrowding, and not having a crib, the baby shared the bed with the rest of the family.
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11/16/2007 | Flammable Children's Clothing
Like many, I’ve always considered the excessive warning labels on clothing and other products that I buy more a nuisance than a help. I mean, it’s a bit ridiculous when my child’s clothes have been stamped “not to be worn as sleepwear” when they’re clearly pajamas! Or pj’s that aren’t marked with this warning are so tight that I have to buy a size two times larger than expected in order to squeeze them over my three-year-old son’s wrists. Other pajamas are just plain ridiculous- stiff polyester pairs that look and feel terribly uncomfortable. What is up with kids’ pajamas?!
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11/14/2007 | Parents should be vigilant against dangerous toys
As a parent of an active three year old whose favourite activity is roaring like a dinosaur while chasing after me - and a 15 month old who loves to climb - the more precarious the surface, the more I have my hands full.
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11/02/2007 | Ask Before You Buy
Seemingly all day long, every day, the crane sways back and forth moving crate after crate from shipping freight to waiting vehicle. The forklift and transport trucks’ beeps and motorized whirls are constant. It is no small irony that Consumer Affairs’ offices are right across the street from Bermuda’s commercial dockyard; for each crate unloaded represents a small percentage of consumers who will eventually wind up at our offices bitterly complaining about their experiences with the products that made their way from across the street, to store, to them.
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10/26/2007 | Consumer Affairs is Here for Consumers and Businesses
While out shopping recently with my husband we were chatting to the owner of the shop- a friend of my husband’s- and my new job came up. To my surprise, within seconds a bitter tirade about Consumer Affairs ensued…
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10/19/2007 | Trick or Treat? Ensure your Halloween Purchases are Safe
Halloween is a time of devilish fun and festivity for both adults and children, but to ensure a safe Halloween for your little goblin, safety should be a priority when purchasing costumes, treats and toys. Here are some easy tips to follow this Halloween:
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10/12/2007 | Consumer Affairs Wants To Hear Your Story
Have you recently hired a contractor to perform work on your house and were completely unsatisfied with the result? Tiles coming up, leaking windows, burst pipes? Perhaps the contractor took your money and didn’t even show up! Or have you been treated shoddily by a customer service representative? Swore you’d never put your foot in that store again. Spent a fortune on a brand new bike and it’s been a lemon since the get-go?
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02/28/2007 | Good Customer Service Is A Winner
Recently, a client filed a complaint at Consumer Affairs because a retailer had not supplied the service she expected in a timely fashion. It was a legitimate complaint so our enforcement officer was assured that the retailer was at fault for not providing the expected customer service and fulfilling the responsibilities of a contract. However, upon calling the store, the officer learned that the retailer had in fact been hoping to resolve the issue fairly for the consumer. However, when the client had voiced her complaint she started to wag her finger at them.
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