Here are several representative snippets:

"I have two preschoolers (ages 2 and 4) and this pool is just the right size for them."

"It is the worst product I'd ever bought from Toys R US and I'll never go to Six Flags! Don't buy it."

"One person can't slide down the slide while one person is in the pool let alone have 2 people sitting in it! The slide is so small and when you turn on the hose to let the sprinklers come down the orange top collapses and has no use!"

"As every one else has said this pool is tiny maybe good for 1 or 2 toddlers. Picture on the front is NOT accurate. A 6 year old can't go down the slide with his legs out because they hit the wall. My 3 year old hardly fit. Buy a sprinkler for $5.00 my kids had more fun with that."

The box admonishes buyers "product may not be as appears on image;" a gross understatement for a gross distortion.

SPIN SPIN SPIN [Popper Font] (Thanks to Paul!)
Banzai Complete Water Park [Amazon]
(Photo: davehwng)

Logan writes:

I bought some toothpaste last night as my wife an I had been surviving on tiny, dentist-issued travel tubes for the past couple weeks. We're lazy, so to save ourselves the trip after the next big tube was gone, I decided to buy a double pack of toothpaste. Thinking that the marginal savings of bundled toothpaste was the way to go, I grabbed a healthy sounding combo and was one may way. When I got home though, I was in for a big surprise. When I pulled the "Bonus" tube out of its box, it was actually in another, smaller box. Whaaaaat? Why the double boxing? Was it for packaging reasons? Or was it to hide the widespread reach and effectiveness of the the product shrink ray?

This isn't the feared Grocery Shrink Ray. This is deception, pure and simple. The weasels running Colgate's marketing team stuck to the law by printing the net weight on both boxes, but they clearly want consumers to assume that the boxes are the same size.

Way to waste an extra box, Colgate!

Our house uses Skippy Peanut Butter, but i just found out they changed their jars from 18 ounces to 16.2 ounces for the same price. I know 2 ounces is not a huge amount of peanut better, but still.

I have noticed this same thing with Quilted Northern. I don't know what the price used to be but i noticed while shopping at sams club now you get less quilted northern than you used to.

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"Brawny Paper Towels Shrink By 20% While Price Goes up 6%"

Today at the store I picked up some Brawny paper towels. Specifically, the 8 roll pick-a-size ones. I try to use paper towels only for really messy stuff like coffee grounds and stuff. These are nice since the area of each towel is smaller than most other ones, so I don't have to use a big towel for a small spill. Anyway, I noticed they changed the package design, as well as that the price increased from $5.98, which is what it's been for the 6+ months I've been buying this brand, to $6.36.
 
After I got home I compared the dimensions listed on the package to those listed on the previous package of Brawny 8 roll pick a size paper towels that I purchased. On the previous package of Brawny paper towels that I purchased it says that each roll has 110 2-ply paper towels and a total area of 403.3 square feet. On the new package of Brawny paper towels it says that each roll has 88 2-ply paper towels and a total area of 322.6 square feet. So the price went up 6%, while the number and area of the paper towels on each roll decreased by 20%.
 
On the package of the new Brawny paper towels it claims that they're now softer & thicker. I don't know who cares about the softness of paper towels, and if anything the new ones seem less soft. They do seem slightly thicker, though, although the difference is minimal.

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"Charmin Rolls Out Shorter Ultra Big Rolls"

I received a call yesterday from my newspaper (the San Diego Union Tribune). The nice young man on the phone told me that I had an unpaid bill, and if I liked, he could take care of that over the phone with me right then. I take a certain amount of pride in paying all my bills promptly, so my first impulse was to go ahead and get it taken care of asap. But after the first few seconds of surprise and confusion, I got suspicious.

Usually you pay for subscriptions like this up front, so I asked the young man if this was really a past due bill, and he had implied, or a subscription renewal. He sheepishly admitted that yes, he was trying to get me to renew my subscription. I immediately declined, and silently vowed to never subscribe to their paper again (we get most of our news on the internet anyway, so no big loss).

At first I thought it was just some kid free-styling with the script a little to try to bump his numbers, but then later that same day I get another call, this one from a young woman, using the exact same script. The newspaper folks must be getting desperate to sink to such tactics. It's just sad to see such devious tactics from such a large and respected company.

Ask for an itemized bill if a company makes a questionable request for payment. Don't forget to mention that sending baseless requests for money constitutes mail fraud, a federal crime.

(Photo: stickywikit)

According to our tipster:

Not that anyone should be surprised, but Best Buy is still at it.

My wife spent several hours at home researching digital picture frames online, and Best Buy actually had the best price on one, as well as being the only way to get it in time for Christmas. Last night we went to our local Fairfax, Virginia, Best Buy. They didn't have the frame at first, and I actually have to commend the staff, they searched for about 30 minutes because one of them thought he had seen it somewhere. They finally came up with one, the Kodak EasyShare EX1011. I took it to a different station and asked them to price check it, and it came up at $255.99, well over the $234.49 that was listed online.

We went to one of their public computer terminals and searched it and it came up at the $255.99, no surprise.

iPhone to the rescue. At first it was showing the $255 price on my iPhones browser, then I realized it was connected through WiFi, so they have it blocking the external Best Buy site and feeding the fake one. I disabled WiFi and searched again and bam, there it was, $234.99.

The electronics department said I had to go to customer service for such a thing, and they promptly took care of the price change.

Keep up the great work, Consumerist.

[Sue Busch, a Best Buy spokeswoman] said the kiosks were never intended "for price-match purposes," but admitted that "a small percentage of customers did not receive a price match when they should have due to errors in policy execution."

"Every day we get at least one person asking why he can't find a price he saw online," the salesman replied.

I said I was looking for a DVD player I'd seen online that was selling for $71.99. I said it wasn't on the kiosk site.

"Here," the salesman said, "let me show you a secret."

He switched to a different screen, typed in his employee I.D. number, and the real Bestbuy.com came up. "Try now," the salesman said.

I asked why the real website wasn't available to everyone.

He shrugged. "I wish I knew."

Maybe that's something California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown should also be wondering.

Downsizing is a sneaky way to pass on a price increase because you are getting less for your money but may not catch the change. As is typical for many downsized products, the manufacturer diverts your attention from the net weight statement to something else "new". In this case, they are calling it a "new grip bar" because ridges have been carved into it.

Dial Soap: The Incredible Shrinking Bar [Mouseprint]

The orchard is in its second year of transition to organic, but the fruit will be sold under Stemilt's Artisan Naturals label, promoting its naturally farmed history.

"On produce, food safety is an expectation, and I think the organic sector has higher expectations and we understand that, but we think for naturally farmed products, the first expectation is flavor," said Roger Pepperl, Stemilt director of marketing. "We get a little more because it's a premium product, and we position it as being a premium product.

"But people assume good things when they hear natural, naturally farmed," he said.

Almost-organic fruit may still fetch a pretty penny [AP]
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Uniliver, in its response, contends that the Women's version is the same as the unisex one Josh loved. But Josh has tried that one, and his nose knows different.

The heated exchange between the erstwhile lovers, inside.

Related: Sure Deodorant Is The Same As Secret

Unliver's response:

Hi Josh,

Thanks for writing!

We apologize for the difficulty you are having in locating the product. It is still manufactured and can be made available to any store willing to carry it in the Women's line only. According to our records, we have not changed the formula.

We have now designed our Degree Women products specifically for Women, and our Degree Men products specifically for men. This is also true of our fragrances. While we design Degree Women fragrances for women and vice versa, there is nothing preventing a Women from using a Degree Men product or a Man from using a Degree Women product.

Please inform your store managers that you are interested in the product. Urge them to contact their distributor, so they can carry it on their shelves and make it available to you and other consumers.

Thanks for your interest!
Your friends at Degree

pm

Moral of the story: Marketers are liars. Josh either needs to buy his deoderant from random people with cache piles on Ebay, or find a new product to cleanse his armpits.

Secret's tagline tells it all: "Strong enough for a man. But made for a woman."

But is it really? A look at the products' ingredients and patent numbers, tells a different story.

New Secret tagline: Strong enough for a man, but marketed for a woman.

"Lessons From Armpits" [Killian and Company] (Thanks to Meghann!)

We understand where we were coming from, but we've since read enough reader horror stories to understand that we can't expect a fair shake from any company, and going off to a competitor for lower rates just ends up with you getting reamed with a more alien protuberance. Consumers need to use every tool at their disposal — including lying, cheating and manipulation — to get good service. The days of Geneva Conventions and conscientious objectors when dealing with Corporate America are behind us: we're at war, and if a company isn't willing to give you fair service through diplomatic means, you'd better be ready to open their gullet with your teeth.

Having changed our minds, it's good timing that the Personal Finance Advice Blog has updated their advice on lowering your cable bill through the art of misleading feints and strategic deception. 15 minutes on the phone with a CSR can net you the same amount that $4,500 in a 5% account will earn in a full year. Let's all abandon our morals and just do it: at the very least, calling up and trying to cancel all our monthly bills in pursuit of discounts ought to supply us with prime 'Readers' fodder.

50% Off Cable TV Bill [PFAdvice]
Previously: How To Lower Your Cable Bill And/Or Self Respect

We re sure tamigachi691987 and syb3rgramm1e123456789 (and, you know, our pops) will be thrilled to bits to know they re paying not just for lollipop connectivity but also to be harassed by Hollywood s prince of jackasses and his minions.

AOL Content Deals [PaidContent]