Consumer Central - Times Online - WBLG

Planned Obsolescence (can you crack the holy grail of consumer scoops?)

Ahhhh! Our vacuum cleaner has broken down again. Sorry, correction: the third vacuum cleaner I have bought in the last 10 years has just packed in. It was a Meile. Before that we had two Dysons whose motors burnt out. We then got a Henry - which everyone said would go on forever - but ours died, age three and a bit. It joined at least three Nuki family washing machines, two dishwashers and a tumble drier in that great electrical scrap-heap in the sky. Each of these was just a few months over five.

A run of bad luck? I'm not convinced. I've long suspected electrical manufactures connive with insurers to build obsolescence into household goods but ....

Big Mac Update

Oh dear, lots of complaints that my table of things containing more calories than a Big Mac was a bit confusing. As Tom, our communities ed, said right at the start we should have gone for something much more straight forward ...

Well here we have it: courtesy of Rebecca Walton at weightlossresources,  13 snacks which - portion for portion - contain more calories than a Big Mac.

Food (full portion)	Calories	St. fat	Salt
Big Mac	492.4	9.9	0.86
BLT Sandwich, Tesco	519.7	6.9	1.01
Egg Mayo & Tomato Wrap	591	--	--
Sainsbury's
Sausage Roll, Ginsters	551.6	17.2	0.7
Egg & Salmon Baguette	526.7	4.4	0.59
Pret a Manger
Cheese & Pasta Layered	688.9	10.1	0.79
Salad, Waitrose
Vegetable Pasty, Greggs	580	--	--
Just Cheese Sandwich	494.9	17.1	0.78
Tesco
Pasta with Chicken/Ham/Veg	534	7.2	0.69
Bird's Eye Steamfresh
Quarterpounder Flamegrilled	556.7	--	--
Micro Burger, Rustlers
Meatball, Cheese & Salad	526.2	--	--
6" Sub, Subway
Chips Shop Chips	956	4.4	0.14
Popcorn Chicken KFC	575	3.5	1.49
Butter Toffee Popcorn	495	16.6	0.27
Marks & Spencer

Bank Charges Ruling Delayed

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

The OFT has delayed giving its opinion on whether it is legal or not for the high street banks to whack consumers who slip only a few pence into the red with penalty charges of up to £30 or more. Instead it's going to mount a full investigation (read Paul's earlier post for an explanation of the issue).

Now, let me declare an interest before I spout forth on this: I'm one of the guys behind the reclaim the charges campaign. No fewer than 2,150,000 free template letters have already been downloaded from the bank charges article on my site, so I'm party pre.  Yet in the interviews ...

Mine's a pint... of Wrinkle Reducing Coke

Cleopatra would have killed for some... the US website BrandWeek is reporting that Coca-Cola and L'Oréal have teamed up to create a drink that that makes you look young again. The functional or "nutraceutical" drink is called Lumaé. Still in the early stages of development, sources claim it contains ingredients that will help women care for their skin.

Says BrandWeek: "Lumaé is expected to target active, influential, image-conscious women over the age of 25 who embrace health and wellness. Coke is interested in marketing and distributing Lumaé like a beauty brand instead of a soft drink."

Coke is already knocking out similar products overseas. In Japan, says BrandWeek, it has already launched a beverage called Love Body, which it claims not only burns calories, but contains an ingredient said to jack-up your bust size. "Pretty soon there will be a drink for every part of the body and every mood you're in," it quotes a chap called Larry Trachtenbroit, head of Brain-Twist, New York, as saying.

Sounds like Larry might have downed a pint or two of the hard stuff already.....

Object of Desire No.1

We don't want to be all negative here at Consumer Central, so we thought we should have a regular slot featuring must-haves. Our objects of desire will all be wonderful things, new or old, blokey or girly, that we think will forever make you (or someone you know) happy. The first is this strawberry pendant recommended by my Sunday times colleague Olivia Cole. It was first modelled in the '60s by Edie Sedgwick, muse to Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan and was designed by the New York costume jeweller Kenneth Jay Lane, who as become an bit of an obsession for modern day fashion-types. You won't find a more funky and beautiful pendant for under £100. But you can't buy one new, so get hunting on E-bay...

PS. If you have any ideas of objects of desire, just email us at: consumer@timesonline.co.uk

Nine Snacks with More Calories* than a Big Mac

When Prince Charles, that tireless champion of healthy eating and paragon of organic virtue, called for a ban on Big Macs last month it came as little surprise.

What was perhaps more interesting, however, was the fact his Duchy Originals pasty contained more calories, saturated fat and salt and than the average Big Mac.

Here, courtesy of weightlossresources are a few other surprisingly calorific snacks.

*Note, all the measures are for 100g of each food. A Big Mac actually weighs about 215g, while a typical serving of breakfast cereal comes in at about 45g. This means you would need to eat 2.3 servings of the Kellogg's Corn Flakes, for example, before you scoffed as many calories as are in a single Big Mac. The other foods are more similar, portion for portion. 

Food Type (100g)	Calories	Sat. Fat	Salt
Big Mac	229	4.14	0.93
Duchy Originals Pasty	264	5.5	1.25
Coffee Republic, Ham/Cheese Toasted Sandwich	268	-	-
Benjys, Baguette Tuna Mayo/Tomato	247	-	-
Kelloggs Corn Flakes	372	0.2	0.7
Asda, Hot Cross Bun	317	2.5	0.3
Kellogs Special K Cereal Bar	400	3	0.4
Tesco Finest Melton Mowbray Pork Pie	373	8.7	0.6
M&S, Panini Mozzarella/Tomato	275	-	-
Benjys, Sandwich Chicken/Bacon, Brown	240.4	1.4	0.4

Reach for the Skies (not excuses)

Oh, I do love it when big corporations start citing the national interest in order to get their way. And no British company does it better than BA. Whenever it's in trouble (think Concords with doggy fuel tanks, price fixing enquiries, striking caterers...) it's always someone else's fault. And unless the company gets its way, it's not just the airline but the whole of Britain and most of the known universe that will go up in smoke, we are inevitably informed.

And so it has been with the "open skies" negotiations, a new deal between Europe and America which means that real competition will soon be injected into the transatlantic air travel for the first time. From 30 March next year, any airline will be able to carry passengers between Heathrow and America, breaking an impasse, which, for nearly 30 years, has allowed just four carriers (currently: BA, Virgin, American and United) to divide the spoils of most transatlantic air travel between them.

The result has been higher prices. As this excellent piece in the Belfast Telegraph shows, a typical business-class return between Heathrow and JFK currently costs around £4,000. Compare that with flying from Heathrow to Bangkok, where Qantas and Eva Air compete with the “home teams” of BA and Thai Air and you'll find the Club World fare is some £200 less for a journey that is nearly twice as far.

So what has BA had to say on the open skies deal?  Well, a couple of weeks before the deal was done, BA chairman, Martin Broughton, said it was "lousy agreement" which was of "fundamental importance to BA and the UK economy". It would do nothing positive for you and me but would "bolster US interests" over our own. It should be dropped, he said.

And after the government decided that BA was crying wolf and signed up to the deal, what did BA have to say then?  How badly would BA and Britain be effected? The answer came this time from BA chief executive Willie Walsh who was a tad shorter and more muted than his chairman. The company (and presumably the country) would "not be impacted at all", he said.

Five Ways to Crack the Great Train Robbery

Overcrowded, overpriced and underserviced. Life for passengers on Britain's railways has never been particularly pleasant, and above inflation hikes in ticket prices earlier this year made it even less so. Canny commuters, however, can get cheaper tickets by taking advantage of Britain's labyrinthine fare structure. By booking early, buying singles instead of returns and splitting journeys into smaller segments the commuter can emerge the winner. Here, courtesy of ticketing expert Barry Doe are a few top tips...

Get Your Own Back

Our delightful high street banks are in the process of announcing yet another round of humongous profits. Barclays went first this year clocking up a stonking pre-tax profit of £7.14bn in 2006 - up by 35%. By the time all the other results are in, the total take is expected to be a whopping £38bn. Yet all this comes at a time when the banks are pulling one scam after another. Old favourites include:

• Taking an age to clear cheques despite the technology having long been available to do it instantaneously
• Whacking us with exorbitant exchange rate charges when traveling abroad
• Pushing up mortgage rates the moment base rate rise while taking forever to lower them when base rates move the other way
• Flogging us "quality" insurance and investment products that are available at half the price elsewhere
• Suckering us into savings accounts with good rates only to slash them quietly once we're in

But now it seems Britain's banks may have met their match. One of my heroes, the money saving expert Martin Lewis, has launched a campaign ...

KrazyDad Spins Wheel of Lunch

Wow! A near perfect invention. Called the Wheel of Lunch, it saves you the terrible trouble and stress of having to decide for yourself which restaurant to eat in. Just click on the wheel, type in your post code and it decides for you, randomly selecting from the best scofferies in your area. Alas, the Wheel only works for the US at the moment. But if you lobby it's inventor, a chap called KrazyDad, I'm sure he'll come up with a UK version....

Them and us: The 'adversarial consumer society'

My bank-bashing friend Martin Lewis says in the Sunday Times that we British consumers need to harden up a bit. We live in an “adversarial consumer society” in which big business will take us for everything it can unless we stand up for ourselves and fight back. The notion of “corporate responsibility put about by politicians is nonsense and works only to lull consumers into a false sense of security”, he adds.

I agree. With only a few exceptions, British consumers are a bit of a pushover. We are not assertive enough in demanding our rights and we do not kick back anything like hard or accurately enough when we find ourselves being ripped-off. American friends and colleagues are ...

Fashion's Brave New Trend: 'Ready-to-Build'

Who says fashion no longer has the power to surprise... This is one of a number of ready-to-build outfits shown by the construction firm Viktor & Rolf at the Paris fashion show. Is it just me or did Hannibal Lecter come up with something similar in Silence of the Lambs?

Crimes Against Consumer Service

Ahhhh! The stupid, stupid receptionist at Hackney Council has just transferred me through to the wrong number again after listening to only the first syllable of the name I was after. It's the second time she's done it in the space of an hour. It used to be that receptionists just never answered but then they introduced those special 'must answer within so many rings' targets. So now they cut you off mid-sentence so they can get on to the next one.

I'm tempted to say it's the single worst crime against consumer service being committed in Britain today but then again, there are others - LOADS of them. Here are my top eight moans: