What if your Subway footlong sandwich turns out to be only 11 inches, an inch too short, a teenager argued, did he have a court case? Did these litigants have a valid argument concerning the energy drink "Red Bull gives you wings?" They claimed it did not give them wings, even figuratively speaking, they did not feel energized whatsoever, did they have a justifiable case? A husband sues his wife over having an ugly baby, did he have a solid argument in the courtroom? Are these frivolous lawsuits? Stay tuned! In a recent episode, my guest, a well-seasoned investigative reporter, who was awarded the Peabody and duPont which are comparably considered the broadcast TV equivalent of the meritorious Oscar and the coveted Pulitzer Prize spoke of consumer protection or should I say the lack thereof.
Incidentally, a “consumer” by law is defined as a person who purchases any goods or services. But it does not include a person who acquires a product or service for resale for commercial purposes. For example, let us say you purchase a jar of chili, love chili, from the market for personal use is defined as a consumer whereas, if you invest in chili for resale to make a profit is not a consumer. However, for most of us, we fall into the former definition, we are consumers. So, what are your rights as a consumer? Every one of us as consumers has the right to be protected against fallacious marketing especially from products which may be hazardous to life and our property. There are many risks involving the consumption and use of products such as in tainted food, excluding a Subway sandwich, but it can be found in drugs, in harmful toys, in dangerous electrical appliances, etc. Again, you and I have the legal right to get protection against potential precarious products. Products should not cause any physical danger to us customers or put us in an arduous position for any reason. Therefore, we must have assurance regarding its quality, its reliability, and its performance. But sometimes it falls short from the above, so, what have some unhappy consumers done for customer satisfaction? When smacked on the kisser with indifference or with a do not care attitude, or just receive blatant bad customer service, some customers immediately phone to complain and insist courteous treatment, others show their ire via emails. Still others get a little creative and artistic in getting their juices flowing for customer satisfaction. Of course, I do not endorse the following where some go beyond and above of what is customary, their interesting complaints are to embarrass the company's CEO or the organization that did them wrong by shaming the customer service into correcting the situation. What if every customer had the phone number of executives' moms on speed dial? Can you imagine the improvement of customer service this would create? This happened, where a customer decided to call the mother of the CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, and tittle-tattle about the horrible service his company was guilty of. What was the net result? After a truckload of exasperation of phone calls, this potential subscriber, who had previously been frustrated by fourteen bungled Comcast appointments ended up with his home invaded by Comcast trucks in a matter of hours. Going up the food chain and pouring his heart out to mom worked! The principle of receiving good customer service is something to behold such as making a musical video. How about the incident with United Airways and musician Dave Carroll and his guitar when broken after he checked it in as luggage on a United Airlines flight? The most famous viewed video of artistic creativity of complaint in all modern time, viewed more than fifteen-million times on YouTube. his song and his accompanying video of the nightmare he experienced watching airport employees toss his musical instruments on the tarmac, not to mention the manner United workers showed complete indifference towards him went viral. This incident even inspired him to turn the experience into a book, containing the subtitle "The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media." Or, for the purpose of getting his Best Buy reward account working as it should, one Best Buy customer made a beeline to the hierarchy to get customer satisfaction. He located the email addresses and phone numbers of several Best Buy executives. And proceeded to use this information to get a modicum of customer satisfaction for himself and sent this contact list to the consumer advocacy site Consumerist, in which they did not hesitate to publish it in its entirety. Forgive me, I must admit, I cannot help but chuckle and cheer them on a bit for their tenacity. The fact of the matter is, it is the responsibility of the manufacturer and seller of services to inform you of all the details about an item including its ingredients, dates of expiration if any, technical specifications if any, and much mor. This information should enable you and I to intelligently decide to purchase a product or service. This is designed to protect us consumers from misleading advertising, deceptive labelling, and warranties, etc. But at the end of the day, the onus falls on you to protect yourself, it is your duty as a consumer, my guest said, and I agree. I must tell you, there is an interesting fact which most consumers do not know, therefore, fail to take advantage of their right to haggle or negotiate on the Manufacture Retail Price (MRP) as this price is fixed by only the manufacturer and not by dealers or distributers providing you some wiggle room to haggle on the price. That said, every willing and able consumer has a right to decide the type of product or services of his liking. Sellers have no right to twist your arm let alone break it to make you purchase the product or any service. This is called Capitalism providing free competition for all in the commercial market. So, if you have enough available products and services at competitive prices, we consumers can negotiate the best price, and the worst the seller can say is no. To circle back around to the outset, it began in 2013, when a precocious teenager measured his footlong Subway sandwich. Much to his surprise, the sandwich was only 11 inches, obviously an inch too short. Three years later, the Subway company was ready to settle a class-action lawsuit, assuring to make the sandwich 12 inches long. Of course, the only ones to benefit were the attorneys, who were poised to receive over half of a million dollars in attorney fees. Therefore, because of this imbalance of benefit, the judge ruled to dismiss the settlement and the cased was thrown out. From what I gather, the point is, no one sustained physical or financial damaged, with the exception and much to their chagrin, attorney pride. The second case, Red Bull's famous catchy phrase "Red Bull gives you wings" got the corporation in hot water. A class-action lawsuit charged the company with deceptive advertisement and making erroneous claims. The plaintiffs exclaimed that the energy drink did not make them grow wings, even figuratively, they did not feel energized. They claimed the company lacked evidence that the beverage would improve clarity of mind, The long and the short of it, Red Bull settled the case out of court and assured to pay almost three quarters of a million dollars. My personal observation in this case, it helps to argue your point as a class-action lawsuit, interestingly enough, with clarity of mind. Then, there was the case where a husband sues his wife over their ugly baby. Would you like to know the Result of this lawsuit? Would you believe the husband won? Traditionally, a boy meets a pretty girl and falls in love, hence, they marry, and they have children . However, in one similar story, it did not have such a Hollywood ending. Omitting the names of all parties, when the husband and father saw his newborn daughter for the very first time, he was taken back and exclaimed, "what an incredibly ugly baby!" He Claimed that the baby did not resemble either one of them accusing his wife of infidelity. Due to the husband's good argument, the wife admitted she had multiple plastic surgeries prior to meeting each other. His lawsuit was on the grounds of false pretenses, claiming she deceived him by hiding her cosmetic history. The judge ruled in his favor, and his wife was mandated to pay him over a hundred thousand dollars. Would you like to know my thoughts on this case? As the title of this article implies, all of us have the duty as consumers to know what we are getting ourselves into. That said, before you find yourself in this same scenario, make certain ASAP to shove her into the nearest body of water and wait to see what floats. And of course, it also goes vice versa.
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