CHOICE CEO on GroceryCHOICE shutdown
Nick Stace shares his thoughts regarding the unexpected cancellation of the GroceryCHOICE website, and asks for your help.
CHOICE word cloud
Interesting isn’t it? The picture above represents some of the most frequently used words by CHOICE on Twitter. We’ve been using Twitter for almost a year now and it can be a fabulous way of keeping up to date with what people are thinking and what the organisation is doing – latest tests, reports, campaigns and so on. You only have 140 characters in which to write an update or reply, so you have to keep things short and sweet – just the way we like it!
And, like Twitter, this picture it does a great job of condensing ‘tweets’ – so you can see at a glance some of the issues that the organisation deals with on a day-to-day basis. The image was created using Wordle, which generates ‘word clouds’ from text. The clouds give prominence to words that appear more often in the text. It’s not only interesting but great fun – click on the image above to go to the site.
Clothing sizes
Pssst! Want to drop several dress sizes in less than an hour? Forget about dieting or exercise and simply go shopping for clothes. To test out just how much difference there can be between clothing sizes, I headed to Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall for a shopping expedition. My mission? To buy a straight black skirt. Sounds easy, especially in this winter’s range. Less easy was working out what size I was.
First stop was chain store Portmans, and in their range I fit perfectly into a size 14 skirt.
Deciding I must be a 14, I head a few doors down to Sussan and grab a 14 in their range. However, when I try it on it almost falls off, so I try a 12, which is also too loose, before finally zipping up a perfect-fitting 10.
Feeling good, I set off for Country Road, where their pencil skirts are labelled “small”, “medium” and “large”. The small doesn’t quite do up but the medium fits nicely. Later, the size 12 skirt at Witchery proves too small and the 14 too big, so I assume that makes me a 13 – but they don’t make half-sizes.
In the department stores, the body bamboozling continues. According to Sportscraft, I’m a 10 but Alannah Hill thinks I’m a 14. SABA and Lisa Ho split the difference, putting me in a 12. It’s a self-esteem rollercoaster as I teeter between feeling petite and plus size depending on who’s dressing me.
I then sample a few higher-end Australian designers.
Leona Edmiston pegs me as a “3” in her dress range, which according to the sales assistant is a “large 12” or ”small 14”, whatever that means. Australian designers Sass & Bide don’t even bother with Australian sizing on some of their labels, with one of their jackets informing me it’s a European size 40 and US 6.
Finally, a sample of Wayne Cooper leaves my self-esteem in the gutter. After trying on a size 2 dress, then 3 and finally 4 (which is still too small) I realise in his eyes I’m far too big to wear any of his designs.
Feeling despondent, I head for the door but decide to make a stop at Target on the way home and try on one more skirt, the best fit being a 10. The confusion continues…
Read the full report, Clothing Size Irregularities, at www.choice.com.au.
Takeaway food
It’s late, you’ve had a hard day at work and you want some tasty food fast - no wonder takeaway meals are so popular. On average, Australians spend 10% of their food budget on takeaways.
So CHOICE took a look at the nutritional composition of a range of popular takeaway meals:
- Chinese
- Thai
- Italian
The same meal cooked by different restaurants can vary widely in nutrient content, so we used average values from Australian food composition tables to find out which meals are the healthier options and which are packed with salt, fat and excess kilojoules. The report is available on the CHOICE website www.choice.com.au.
We’ve also listed some quick, easy cook-at-home recipes that are healthy, delicious and fast.
Got any tips for healthy food choices? We’d love to hear them!
Gym contracts
It seems the gym industry is efficient at signing up new members, but far less vigilant in explaining the price, contract and cancellation terms. We sent two ’shadow shoppers’ out separately to visit nine Sydney gyms. The findings: beware high pressure sales tactics and creative pricing. And don’t expect too much by way of information on how to cancel your membership.
The CHOICE report, Unfair gym contracts, offers some advice on your consumer rights when you embark on your gym journey, including a cancellation form letter that should make breaking up with your gym a little bit easier.
What to watch out for:
- Don’t succumb to high-pressure sales tactics.
Take time to shop around and carefully consider the memberships on offer at each gym. - Rights and responsibilities.
Read your contract carefully and be fully aware of your rights and responsibilities. Don’t be afraid to question anything in the contract that you don’t like and/or understand. - Check the cancellation terms of the contract.
Can you get out of it if you move house, get sick, lose your job or simply decide to give up? Don’t assume the contract finishes at the end of 12 months. Check your contract to see how to cancel your membership (and direct debit) if you no longer want to attend. - Don’t assume your direct debit will be cancelled when you cancel your gym membership.
If you have any doubts, contact your bank directly and request an immediate cancellation of the direct debit. Although, if you have any outstanding debt you will need to arrange to pay this by cash or cheque.
If you have a gym membership story to tell, we’re keen to hear it. You can leave a comment here or in the Your Say section of the report.
CI report names best and worst IP regimes
Global consumer advocacy body Consumers International (CI) has released its inaugural Intellectual Property (IP) Watch list, a global snapshot of how national IP and copyright laws serve or subvert consumer interests.
The report shows that Australian consumers suffer some of the greatest restrictions in relation to use of copyrighted material including music, DVD and published works. Australia comes in behind the United States and developing countries such as India, China and Indonesia.
The overall rankings of the 16 countries studied:
- India
- South Korea
- China (PRC)
- USA
- Indonesia Read more »
Ban Junk Food Advertising to Kids
The government is set to make a decision on what it will do to protect children from the unhealthy influence of junk food marketing and we want to give Australians the opportunity to tell the Health Minister that they support a ban on junk food ads when children are watching TV.
Children are exposed to around 10 television food ads every day and almost two thirds of these are for unhealthy foods.
Go to www.burgercorp.com.au and send an email to Nicola Roxon urging an introduction of a ban on junk food advertising to children (tell her your own story too). And feel free to send the link on to your friends and family.
Debt relief – how to beat the financial crisis
That R word – recession – just won’t go away. It’s looking gloomy out there, with unemployment steadily increasing and many Australians facing redundancy. At the same time, household debts are higher than ever.
So CHOICE has prepared a survival guide for the global financial crisis. We regularly put financial services and providers under the microscope, looking at everything from health and car insurance to the best (and worst) credit cards and home loans.
Steps to reducing your debt:
- Make a budget – Use our worksheet. Consider options to reduce your living expenses, such as selling the second car, as well as ways to increase your income, such as asking any adult children who still live with you to contribute to household expenses.
- Research ways to cut back on expenses; talk to family and friends and for useful websites, see Debt Relief Contacts.
- Get ahead – Once you’ve freed up some cash, make extra repayments, which can slash thousands of dollars in interest off your mortgage and credit card(s).
Already have a great money saving tip? Share it with us and read other consumer tips. And we also have the following money reports to get people ’Back in Black’
(with apologies to rockers AC/DC): 
National day of action: say ‘no’ to the wizard
Come and Protest against Motor Finance Wizard: Saturday June 28, 2008 at St Mary’s Dealership.
The Consumer Credit Legal Centre (NSW) is working with Consumer Action Law Centre in Melbourne, and other agencies throughout the country to organise a National Day of Action.
Most financial counsellors and consumer lawyers are aware of the practices of Motor Finance Wizard, a company that inflates the price of the vehicles it sells and then claims to give ‘interest-free’ loans. This practice not only misleads customers but allows the company to claim that they don’t have to comply with the Consumer Credit Code. The company also targets social security recipients and other low income earners, assesses ability to repay inadequately, and the cars are often in very condition.
People will be on hand to give out consumer information and material promoting their free, independent services and lawyers can join in giving free legal advice on credit, debt and related consumer issues.
And check out the photos of Consumer Action’s previous days out at Motor Finance Wizard in Melbourne (such as the one above).
