look UNDER your yogurt or drink container. they make the bottle wide but leave a large gaping hole in the center to reduce the amount of product they are giving you.

anyone remember the time when 1.5 liter bottles of coca cola hit the supermarket shelves?

Bank Of America online bill payment paid my electric bills late 4 times out of 22. I was expecting the manager of my local branch to take care of that for me... you know, to provide that elusive "customer service". Instead she was rude and would only give me a 800 number to call...

I spent 72 minutes on the phone to get a $50 credit for the prejudice that the electric company would no release my $140 security deposit for another year because of the late payments.

Over a two month period having to set up numerous appts with Comcast cable because of intermittent service. Waiting at home for the tech to show. A couple of times the tech was a no show saying *I* wasn't home when I never left the house! So what do we have here?

Numerous phone calls with a minimum time of 15 minutes.
Waiting for the tech.
And poor internet service.

I'm a registered nurse so I'd say with benefits I'm probably in the 50/60 dollar/hour catagory. I can't begin to total up the hours, days, perhaps over a week of my time that was lost, but hey! They did credit me for two months of service.

Marlo furniture has stolen a huge amount of my wife's time. We purchased a sofa less than a year ago, and the seams on one of the seat cushions began to tear. My wife spent hours over more than a month to get Marlo or the "warranty company" to respond, and after several months we finally got a new cover. Now a second cushion is starting to tear, and my wife wants to tear out her own hair rather than have to deal with Marlo again.

Bring on the inflation! After paying more than $220,000 in loans for my education, I will pay more than 1/2 million over the life of the loan. I am in my late twenties and don't anticipate ever having a successful relationship because, unlike most of my peers where I've went to school, I come from nothing and have very little to offer. I can't even afford to take a date out to dinner, let alone afford a half-decent apartment, car, or smile when I walk in the park. Just more debt and dredge. Inflation, ironically, is the only saving grace I have available to me (even bankruptcy is out of the question: thank you private lender lobbyists and Congress for making me want to jump off a building every morning that I wake up). Bring it on, and bring it fast (before the prime rate can be jacked up).

Why don't you pose a simple question like, "When the Federal Reserve injects money into the economy, where does that money come from." Instead of creating a diversion, maybe you could educate people.

Verizon wired phone service. 5 Hours on the phone trying to get to someone who could set up to terminate the service, then 4 emails. Still waiting to see if they will follow up. Just seemed expensive to spend $64 per month to allow telemarketers a chance to iggy the DNCL, since verizon does not offer nore do the have plans to in the future offer high speed in my exchange. All of the advertising dollars they spend on the quality of customer service and the newest high speed offering but the service is just not there. I know that they cut 3 of the 13 technicians working in the area (5 counties) in the last year, which shows how much they care about service.

Agree. Noticed the "quantity shrink" years ago with containers of juice, yogurt, etc. Interestingly enough, I was just thinking the same sorts of things about "quality shrink" the other day - how companies have offloaded customer service onto the consumer, the "a la carting" of everything, the endless time spent on hold to work out a problem. Glad I am not just imagining it.

Microsoft customer support… AARRGGHH.

I have work in customer service for over 15 years and would have been fired years ago for this type of customer support… Please pardon my rant but here it is…

As a flight sim junkie, I purchased the latest Microsoft FlightSim product offering (Flight simulator X) last October of 06’or somewhere there about. This product still has numerous problems after well over a year into being released. (It is endlessly frustrating when a company releases a new product version for retail that clearly should still be in Beta, and thus uses their entire customer base to do their beta testing for them, unbeknownst to the customer… Enter Microsoft customer support.)

Anyway, after I had researched the minimum PC system requirements for this new product and having more than enough processor speed, RAM, video, etc. I purchased and installed this software. After many hours attempting to get the performance up to an acceptable level, I contacted Microsoft customer support and after approx. an hour long wait on hold finally got to speak to someone who clearly was not speaking English as their 1st language. She sounded like she was from India. As is typical of 1st tier customer support the questions were feeble attempts to pretend like they new what they were looking for and clearly did not. At the end of the conversation and having made no improvements to the situation, I was instructed to re-install the program. Out of frustration I did just that and got the identical performance.

At this point, I determined that PC requirements were such that I needed to upgrade my PC which I did. Over $800.00 dollars later, I installed the simulator again and was locked out by anti piracy software that only allows you to install the software twice. After this you have to call… you guessed it! Customer support. Another hour plus on hold and I finally get a live human, albeit with the same taxi driver / 7 Eleven clerks accent from the middle East. After explaining that I had, at the request of the last customer support recommendation, reinstalled the software only to get the same result, I had upgraded my PC and had to re-install yet again.

To make a long story short, I guesstimate that I spent over 6 hours on the phone over the next 4 days being passed from one incompetent moron to another and out right being hung up on, on one occasion from a person who couldn’t even answer the most basic of questions about the product. In the end I wound up screaming expletives at the top of my lungs into the phone to finally get transferred to the correct person (in Nova Scotia of all places) to finally give me the unlock code to enable the software.

After all this, I still only get marginal performance out of the software and ultimately I don’t use it. I went back to the previous version which works just fine for my needs.

In the future, I will not be among the 1st in line to purchase Microsoft Flight simulation products as I have always done in the past. And I certainly expect nothing but aggravation from the foreign twits that Microsoft has placed in the role of customer support personnel.

As a direct result of this experience, I have not, nor do I have any intentions of upgrading to Vista OS anytime soon.

Blockbuster Video stole my time. They offered a "rent 11 and get the 12th rental free" promotion. After the 11th rental, the store manager said, "We don't honor that card any more." Although it took me a year to rent 11, there was no expiration date on the card. I carried that card for a year, made sure it was updated at each rental; then they refused it. I sent it and my rental card with a note to headquarters in complaint. There was no response from Blockbuster.
I've never been back.

Store coupons steal my time in two ways:
1. I get to the store and look for the specific item that applies to the coupon and find it is now out of stock because of the sale. Do I waste more time for a raincheck?
2. I carry the coupon until I'm ready to make the purchase, then find that it has expired. Or I bought the product then realized I left the coupon at home.

It's not worth it; I don't waste time bothering with coupons anymore.

I have been fighting AT&T for over a year about a rebate of $50.00 and the resulting late charges that have been tacked on to my bill, now a whopping $119.00. I have spent at least 40 hours on the phone trying to get it fixed and being told, "Its ok now we gave you a credit and all you have to do is Pay $40.00 a month for the next four months and it will be ok. You can never talk to the same person twice so you never get listened to and to date I still have not paid it off and they add $5.00 each month to make sure I never do. I am on a small pension and it hurts to pay extra and not ever get ahead.

There are times when terrible custumer service warrants the attention of a supervisor. Such was the case a week ago when I had an appointment at a Midas store for an oil change. I made it a point to tell the manager who was signing me in that I was quoted at 45 min., to get the job done, on the phone. When I arrived, I mentioned that I had to leave in 1 hour to go to work. He insisted that I reschedule and was very rude about it. I find this kind of service unacceptable and should have complained to a boss of his, but didn't have the time. Under normal circumstances, I would have.

Cans of regular tuna, packed in water.

I went a long time without buying tuna, a couple of years (no reason, just didn't do it) and when I moved out on my own, I noticed that there didn't seem to be as much tuna - I used to be able to make 3-4 sandwiches from one 6 oz can.

I weighed the next can, before and after draining the water, and sure enough there was almost a 2 oz difference! (the cat was pleased with his tuna juice bounty, however.)

This only seems to apply to regular tuna; for now they seem to have left the Albacore alone... but I image in time they'll get to that as well.

Look at your Sprint bill. I have had the same plan for a few years, yet my bill have never (Never ever) been the same. I have not gone over in minutes all year, and text and internet has always been off.

Sprint fee's and surcharges (Not state and federal taxes) have been different every month, and as an average, over the last year, it is a dollar higher then it was.

Also, Anyone ever notice a .14 cent charge for hitting the wrong button on your phone and connecting to the internet? This happened for months before I finally just shut it all off. 14 cents from a million customers aint too shabby if you can get away with it.

So many examples... Home HVAC systems used to last 30 years, now 10 years, Zero parts availability for new electronic items under warranty then months before getting a replacement, The inability of service personel to actually repair your "Newer and Better" Car, Computer, Washer, Fridge, etc., the cost or repair of that "Better more Reliable" device as in it used to cost $39 for points, plugs and oil change but now you need a $750 tune up (wires, water pump, timing belt, etc...), Everything needs an immediate firmware or software upgrade right out of the box so you get to connect everything you own to your computer, adding more unwanted drivers and software to slow it down, just to get your new device to work correctly after you buy it.... I am getting mad and tired so that will have to do.

AT&T recently hiked their DSL internet fees without notice. I called and asked what I was getting additionally for my money, and their reply was that it allows them to continue doing virus-scanning blah blah blah. Well guess what : I don't USE their email services, so what good is this to me? I was tempted to cancel my caller-ID just to reclaim the difference on my bill.

What these companies don't realize is with their greedy little price hikes customers are just going to buy less features. Its not like cancelling my caller-ID is going to save them a cost either.

It's kind of interesting to note that a pound of roast coffee is now 12 oz. That mentality is starting to permeate every level of our customer experience. Airlines, cell phone carriers, and credit card companies are no longer offering a competitive choice. They are cartels. The concept of a "free market" in the US is pretty much a joke these days and joke's on us. Why aren't you laughing?

About 2 years or so ago, Verizon started added a new fee to my phone bill. (land line, not wireless, although I wouldn't be suprized if they do this to their wireless customers as well) They call it a shortage charge and it went up again after the 1st of the year.

When I called in to inquire about a 7 dollar charge for dialing some supposed 10 10 number for directory information, I got a customer support person who I will not name, who was nothing but condescending and rude. When I asked what the shortage charge was all about I was told it was because I was not making the minimum dollar amount of long distance calls monthly and what they are doing is charging me the difference up to their maximum shortage fee.

So there you have it… I was being charged for calls I was never even making.

Needless to say, I reduced my monthly phone bill from about $50.00 a month to $24.99 by switching to Vonage. The service (so far) has been excellent. All local and long distance in the US and Canada are at no additional charge. Also, for only an additional $6.99 (or $7.99.. I don’t recall exactly) I am able to call Europe for no additional charges.

Last time I made a 20 minute long distance call to Germany through my former Verizon service, they charged me over $60.00.

I was in France 2 years ago and got an emergency call from my son that came in on my friends cell phone. His charges were over a hundred Euros and my charge for the same call from Verizon was over $110.00.

Good riddance to Verizon!!!! If you haven’t looked into Vonage yet, I would greatly encourage you to do so.

I work as a cashier at a grocery store. There are fewer of us all the time which means you spend more time standing in line waiting to give us your money.

The degradation been going on for decades.
I remember hearing my Dad complain about this stuff.... years ago. The corporations own the government. Of the people, by the people is a nice centiment but the reality has been for years now, of the corporation, by the coprorations and for the corporations. The people have no voice anymore.

I have read all of the comments here, they are all well and true, to fact, but there is one that has not been mention by the columnist's or any of the people above.
What about the time spend with a customer rep, that you are dealing with that says that you are wrong and they are right for it is in (on their computer screen), I beg the difference, that computer only puts out what a human mistake maker puts in it, and true the computer does not make mistakes, but we the humans that put the information in "do".
Again the hours lost and the moments of furstration, and the lost of not only time but the lost of a paycheck for over a year, how do you account for this, but once you reach the right person to help correct the mistake in the computer system (of Social Security) and you get your checks back, what about the lost of the check for a year, that you had to fight to get back, do you get that back, not-- they do not pay you the back pay that was yours rightfully, but keep it and then to your surprise lower the amount in what you recieved to start with.
what can you do about this, nothing, stop and think you are dealing with the very government that governs us to start with.
but to go farther in this matter, like the kid with the education loans, wanting jump off the tallest building about it, I to would like to just give up, but I can not, for in the process of getting the reduced check back, I had to file bankruptcy in the process, which ruined me for a long time.
But again, after seven years later, I am dealing with it again, about the records, due to the fact that they again have my records mixed up with another person of the same name, birth month and year, and just a slight difference in SS#, again.
So where does this leave me --to spend more money to change my name and all that comes with it, in expenses to do so, just so that Social Security will not get me mixed up with this person on records again, the biggest fear of all this is the medical records, what would happen if i can not say that is not me, and they treat me for a medical problem that i do not have????
i have already ran up against this problem already and had to tell the person at the hospital that that was not me.
I can not begin to say the hours, lose of time, the furstration, the hair pulling, and upset, that all this has cause me over a period of years, but it is another form of infuritation of what is lost in the human aspect of customer relation, customer services, and pure and simple people dealing with another human being.
But all the facts that can be put in this about how bad the situation is in our "ME WORLD" today, it will not change a single thing for any one of us, all the complaining and out right fussing about it, where does it gets us, just a bit more of the same ole same old stuff. In the name of progress, right ---progress for whom???

I was surprised to find that Macy's in downtown Seattle no longer has a customer service and credit department. Now you must go to any register and talk with a clerk about your problem. They get on the phone to a central office. It takes longer and is more embarrassing to deal with credit problems on the sales floor.

Food at McDonalds has changed. They now send out many of their buns untoasted. This changes the consistency of the burgers and Egg McMuffins, but makes them faster to assemble.

The recipe for drinks at Starbucks has also changed. The process is streamlined and more fully automated. The result is that you get a good beverage every time, but you never get a great beverage. You are no longer penalized by a bad worker, but no longer get the benefit of a well trained worker.

Also, you'll find that the recipe for many products you've been buying all your life have changed. Products such as mayonnaise now use soy bean oil rather than other vegetable oils. Coca-Cola and other soft drinks use corn syrup rather than cane sugar. You can pay more in some cases in order to get a return to the recipe and flavor that you remember from when you were younger.

Power tools often used to come with a nice case that would last as long as the tool, but now come in disposable packaging or a cheap plastic case. Also the pack-ins can change. You get a really cheap blade with a saw and need to buy a usable blade for more than the most casual of use.

However, computers really are a better deal. Televisions are a great deal, but they want to upsell you on a much bigger size. DVDs are cheaper than VHS tapes. Downloads are cheaper than CDs. I think these consumer electronics improvements are masking the fact that just about everything else in our life is getting more expensive while the products are being degraded.

But of course there is inflation! And the Fed isn't helping by making money cheaper! Money is now worth less!

DUH!

The U.S. Postal Service encapsulates it all!

I had Charter until about a week ago. They came to disconnect the first florr apartment, but disconnected mine instead. It took a week, 30 phone calls, to rude, condescending reps, and half of them could barely speak english. The guy that fist came out said he would not fix it because I was not home. They said I had to take time off from work to be home so they could fix their mistake that they did when I was not home. I immediately ordered DirecTv. Now I get the best TV I ever had, like 300 channels, and 95 of them HD.. Verizon will be have their DSL hooked up in a coulle of days, and I will be rid of Charter for good.

Yes, this has been going on for years. What do you think "cost reduction" meetings in all businesses do? It isn't just trying to be more eficient(ala, no operators, no receptionists, no humans, dial 1 for yata, yata), how much can be taken out of products and still be safe or get away with it, substitutions of cheaper items, etc. I used to refer to it as "insidious inflation". Now I call it "Walmartination" or Wal-Martians, whatever. We definitely don't control anything but, hoepfully, a small part of our lives.

You don't have to look any further than the US Post Office to see this kind of stupidity in action. I cannot count the number of times I've gottena "sorry we missed you" slip from the mail carrier when I was home. They were just too lazy to even try to deliver the package.

I also learned another valuable lesson: Don't complain about your Post Office service. Ever. You will start losing mail... bills lost... packages vanshing.... items showing up weeks or months late. Just suck it up and suffer.

The real problem we have here is the Federal Reserve, wake up people! The more money they print the less it's worth! Like a previous post mentions ask where does this money come from? That system needs to go away we are at the brink of economic collapse. I don't know about you but I do not want to be a part of canada much less mexico, if we do not wake up we will find our selves in the north american union with un elected corporate thieves running everything. Both parties in our political system are working towards the goal of merging us with mexico and throwing our constitution out the door.

Comcast! Wow! That is one of those companies that will never get it. This month I saw my cable bill jump from $47 a month to $69! When I called "customer service" I was told this is because I had a "special" rate from the first of the year (we have had the service for 3 years) Can I get that "speical" rate again? NO -- only for new customers; the phone rep had nothing to offer after being on hold for 20 minutes. She told me to search the website for "special" rates....so far, nothing. I would love to cancel but since I work from home and have my internet connection bundled with Comcast, I am hesitant to do so. When I have an extra hour to spare I will go on the website to see if anything has change or call "customer service" again. (this is on top of many service issues, defective equipment and no-show service reps to the house over the past 3 years....

Sears. I purchased a new LG refrigerator from Sears. The fridge part froze food and the freezer defrosted food. I called and eventually agreed to receive a new one. The second one did the same thing. During the 3 hours of calls to Sears I was given the option of a service tech from 8am to noon or 1 pm to 5 pm. Noevening hours. For delivery I could get it on a weekend, but it would take 2 weeks. The second one arrived and it did the same thing.

At this point my fiance went back to Sears and they arranged to send a Kenmore fridge. It arrived with a broken handle and a dent. They sent a replacement handle, which was white instead of balck. We are still waiting for the correct replacement.

The original purchase was November 15, 2007 and it is now May 6, 2008. I called every Sears number and was consistenetly treated poorly with no acknowledgement it was a new purchase.

Please do not support or purchase from Sears unless you are masochistic.

I went to PetSmart to purchase my usual 37.5lb bag of Purina ONE and noticed that the bag was square instead of rectangular. I thought at first it was to make it easier to stack on shelves. Then I noticed that the bags are now 30lbs! That is over a 20% decrease in the amount of dog food for the same price.

Cry-babies! Welcome to unregulated capitalism. In most instances, you still have the choice to not give them your hard-earned dollar. Are you really buying $4.00 coffees? Or $5.00 Mc-food? Barnum was right - there IS a sucker born every minute!

How about having to assemble everything you buy now, from toys to furniture (which by the way is rarely made of real wood these days).

The Post Office. Need I say more? Stamps are being hiked another penny next week and I've never, ever been treated so poorly by the staff at any other organization. Mail comes sporadically, if at all. Calls to complain are referred to their own internal oversight division which, basically, refers them back to the post office in question. Monopoly, much? Grrr...

To save money I learned to do most automotive repair and maintenance jobs on my family's 2 vehicles. As energy prices rise so do the cost of parts which consume this energy in their mfg. process. I tried finding cheaper sources of parts but there are so many colatteral materials (i.e. fluids, seals, fasteners, etc.) that are consumed by the disassembly/reassembly process that for most jobs it's cheaper to use the better parts. Still, in the past year and a half many suppliers of the higher quality parts have been using cheaper suppliers so I run into the same problems. Not only are my colatteral material costs going up but I'm spending more time re-doing jobs because a part either didn't fit, was mislabeled, or was simply defective.

I SURE WASTED A LOT OF TIME READING THIS ARTICLE HOPING TO FIND SOMETHING I DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW. DON Q

Anyone had to deal with Dell Support or Dell Financial Services? Haha, enough said already. Their customer service outsourcing has wasted countless hours of my time in the mere 3 months I have owned my computer. Their last "trick" was to "forget" my teaser finance rate of 0 percent for the first 6 mnths. I brought it to their attention and they "corrected" the problem. But what's scary is that I had to ask.

Dial Soap. Having been a loyal customer of this product for 30 years, I can tell you that they have become artists in deception. How much can you hollow-out a bar of soap keeping the corners intact so that wrapped up it still appears to be a full bar of soap? They started with printing their name, then hollowed out that area, then went to the back of the bar, now they are hollowing out width wise between the corners. In an paper wrapping it still appears to be a full bar of soap thanks to keeping the corners large. But pick it up and the paper wrapping crumples to feel a bar about half the size of the wrapping. And I can still remember when you grabbed a full bar that filled the packaging. Ah for the good old days when what you see is what you get...

A slice of cheese no longer covers a slice of bread in a sandwich; dish detergent and laundry detergent have been watered down and takes twice as much to do the same job! Went to Wal-Mart last night... 8 lanes open for "10 items or less" but only two lanes open for those with more than 10 items.. What's the logic in that? Wouldn't they WANT to sell more than 10 items? (I left behind one can of dog food to get in express lane)

I've got one more, if they can shrink the package size, get the customer to use more unknowingly. Take powdered laundry soap. I use Tide. Over the years I have noticed that the measuring cup that they include has gone from one scoop for one load, to double scoops, to double scoops with extra space for very dirty clothes. Now of course the shape of the scoop has changed also so that the change in scoop appearance does not equate to an obvious increase in volume in the scoop. Hence the user who is in a hurry to do their laundry will grab a scoop and where that scoop was once the correct amount, today those not paying attention will actually use about 2 1/2 times the amount they need, hence the box will be used up more than twice as fast. I personnally cut down my scoops to only the recommended scoop size. If I have an extrememly dirty load then I will just dip a second scoop as needed.

I also noticed how packaging has gotten smaller and smaller. I thought maybe as a kid it just "seemed" larger, like for instance something silly like an oatmeal creme pie. They were probably triple the size they are now and the price was less! It's unbelievable that every time I food shop, I am spending more and more money and getting less and less for my money! My income certainly isn't going up and up that's for sure!

Dial Soap. Having been a loyal customer of this product for 30 years, I can tell you that they have become artists in deception. How much can you hollow-out a bar of soap keeping the corners intact so that wrapped up it still appears to be a full bar of soap? They started with printing their name, then hollowed out that area, then went to the back of the bar, now they are hollowing out width wise between the corners. In an paper wrapping it still appears to be a full bar of soap thanks to keeping the corners large. But pick it up and the paper wrapping crumples to feel a bar about half the size of the wrapping. And I can still remember when you grabbed a full bar that filled the packaging. Ah for the good old days when what you see is what you get...

Even my pre-teen daughter noticed the dosing on cough medicine increased from 2 to 3 teaspoons. Same size package, but they watered it down so you have to use more. It's maddening to keep up with all the packaging and recipe tricks.

Speaking as a former rep of one of the Baby Bells, I can understand peoples' frustration with wired phone service. But I urge you not to take it out on the reps! We don't like a lot of the things the companies do any more than you like them.
Our managers can't do more for you than we can. Managers are less likely to give credit than a rep you're nice to... they are rated based on the amount of credit they give. And the reps get in trouble when they get too many escalations... so you're hurting a working person like yourself for no good reason.
Also, listen to what the phone reps have to say. I can't tell you how many people I talked to who were angry because their high-speed internet (linked to their land line) went down when they ported out their number to Vonage. People couldn't understand (and Vonage reps didn't care as long as they made a sale) that the high-speed internet is necessary for Vonage to work, and when you port out your number your entire account goes down, including your DSL.

North Carolina (along with much of the southeast) is experiencing a severe drought. Here in Charlotte, the water company asked us to conserve, conserve, conserve. They told us we only had 80 days worth of water left in our reservoirs. Well, we did such a damn good job of conserving that the water company saw a drop in their profits, so they hiked the water rates on us! We never realized that four months of serious conservation and ONE month of dropped profits gave them just cause for a utility rate hike.

Aside from the financial impact, what kind of a lesson does that teach the public about conservation at a time when conservation is so desperately needed? I wish people would think twice about the long-term effects of their actions, instead of the short-term condition of their wallets.

Although we get less for our money, in some instances, this could be a benefit. Let's shrink that candy bar, that cola product or any unhealthy snack so we'll eat less junk and shrink the waist line of us Americans. Of course, we'll find an easy way around this by buying 2 of the same item.

I first noticed this shrinkage about about 1986 when purchasing Campell soup. Toilet paper companies have been at it for years too. Remember 240 sheets per a regular role. Now it is 170 sheets. That is the same as getting less than 3 roles per 4-role package n comparison. Are corn cobs in our future as in our past, except nicely packaged?

The only cause of inflation is an increase in the money supply, which controlled by the government. Inflation is a tax on savings as a saved dollar is worth less for every dollar put into circulation. PERIOD.

It's absolutely hilarious that it is business that takes it on the chin for "inflation" and the government (wiping away a tear) is praised because it sends out "armies" of people to keep an eye on those dastardly folks. Perhaps the only solution is everyone works for the government? Because you NEVER get less for more when it comes to government programs.

I would also like to see an article published on the Federal Reserve. More specifically how the Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express. Also, how a large portion of our tax dollars goes toward paying interest.

How about the Federal Reserve's inflation. By bailing out wall street they claim that the federal reserve is helping the economy. But you and I are paying for the bailout of wall street in higher gas prices. They cut intrest rates which make the dollar go down and oil prices go up as a result. Yes you and I are bailing out wall street not the government. Look at how the price of bread and milk have gone up with overall food prices. You can thank the government for that one too. Corn for gas. Corn goes up and so does the rest of the commodities. Wheat goes up and so does bread. The falling dollar only makes matters worse. Lets face it we, the consumer , are all paying for any losses on wall street and the housing mess.
Just food for thought,
thats still free.
Dan from Arizona

I just had a cup of Kroger brand yogurt. It says on the cup "6 oz."

I opened the cup and the yogurt was a full HALF INCH below the top of the cup.

I measured the yougrt and it was 5.7 oz. However, the cup itself can hold 8.3 oz!!!!

So, they are making the package more enticing by making it BIGGER, but actually selling you LESS yogurt!!!

Grrrrr.

Just so happens went shopping last night and wanted to treat ourselves to ice cream. Went to buy Dreyer's because it was so cheap, then noticed that it wasn't a half gallon! So we looked at Blue Bell and they actually had printed on their carton 'still a half gallon'.

There are hundreds of examples of the public getting fleeced, but the one I hate the most is ATM fees. The banks are saving mucho dollars by cutting tellers and substituting ATM's yet they have the nerve to charge you for doing so. I realize if I use my own bank's ATM I don't get charged, but every once in a while there is an emergency. I got 20 bucks out the other day and the bank's ATM charged me 3 bucks and my bank charged me 2. That's 25%. If I loaned someone 20 bucks and charged them 25% interest for using that money for a short period of time I would go to jail. Instead the bank execs are getting bonuses because of all the money they're making.

"Commodity shrinkage" is the logical successor to "monetary shrinkage" because the latter has been so successful and has gone unnoticed and unchallenged by the people. Nothing will change until Americans put an end to their apathy and ignorance, and take charge of their duty to educate and govern themselves.

Jefferson warned, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Without sound money there will always be shrinkage, OF EVERYTHING OF VALUE, and future generations will pay a horrible price. Why do Americans hate their children so much?

You cannot understand commodity shrinkage until you understand monetary shrinkage. Start here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=638447372044116845

I remember when a Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger was actually burger sized. Over the years I noticed the downsizing of it in order to keep it 99 cents.

Now you can practically eat one of these tiny things in three bites. The meat on the burger doesn't even cover the smaller bun they use, you get a sliver of lettuce, and instead of the 3 full-strips of bacon that came with the burger at one time, now you get one strip cut in half (if your lucky)

Bunch of B.S. "WHERES THE BEEF"

In a related item:
Sometime compare "regular" Wheat Thins and "Reduced Fat" Wheat thins.
The only difference is that the serving size (in grams) is smaller on the "Reduced Fat" kind. They are the same thing you just get fewer wheat thins in the "Reduced Fat" version.
Check it out sometime!

Verizon: I recently lost my wallet, requiring new credit card # on my mobile auto-pay. Verizon sent me a frantic text message about my credit card being invalid, and I called them with the new number. After wading through countless recordings of the choices, all pushing sales, I got a clueless human, who I got no where with. I just hung up, kept calling, and after talking to 4 lethargic morons who I hung up on, got a woman who fixed me up in a matter of seconds.

Time and aggravation to pay them!

Our current economy is consumerism based. It's all about being happy with consuming. Business knows this and also knows that we will continue to consume goods and services because we are searching for happiness in the product and not the customer service. Also, it is in the interest of product advertisers and marketers that the consumer's needs and desires never be completely or permanently fulfilled. It is smarter and more profitable for the marketer to sell the consumer a flashy trinket that will wear out and break quickly. It is even better for the product to be part of a continuously changing market (iPods, cell phones, video game consoles, even the music and movie industry) where items in a nearly-new and good condition must be replaced to stay current with the latest trend. In this way steady profits are assured, but consumers are not comfortable or satisfied for very long with what they have. Flip it around...and it's called profit & greed.

John Doe from NY, I feel ya

The comment from the person who went to Macy's and found that there was no longer a Customer Service and Credit department and it was embarrassing to have to deal with the clerk on the store floor who had to phone an 800 number. This is a DELIBERATE strategy to coerce fewer people into complaining. Have you noticed at the bank that there is now a "concierge" with a desk placed out front when you arrive to "help" you with any problem? This is so that you'd have to speak in public about financial matters if you have any problem with the bank. Since few people are willing to do so, the number of complaints they have to deal with goes down. The customer just has to live with whatever went wrong.

Well, well, well.....the phrase more for less has now turned to LESS FOR MORE. We have all been lulled into becoming dependent on products and services that are supported by the "outsource" generation who may indeed be less educated and less trained to work. The perception that we are getting a good product or service is just that...a perception. Recently noted in the media Toyota has surpassed GM in cars sold. Surpised...one ought not to be. More money for an American auto product that, in parts and as a whole, has a life cycle of a cheap lawn mower. People, much like 25 years ago, as this cycle of inflation rifts through our time period, HOLD ON TO YOUR DOLLAR. Put this same degradation/shrinkage mentality to use as your advantage. Buy less, add water and filler, put the pinch in the pocketbook of corporations. HOLD ON TO YOUR DOLLAR...MINIMIZE, QUANTIFY, JUSTIFY...HOLD ON TO YOUR DOLLAR...THE QUICKER THE BETTER. Imagine what life will be like in a few years when this pendulum swings back the other way and we begin to emphasize, educate, and train the next generation on the benefits of better products and service!!! If it happens in our lifetime, and we have saved some money, then we should be able to get a great deal on a new car??!!

The way our government agencies determines the rate of inflation is and always has been a catch 22 scenario. Their formula in most cases, always seems to excludes most necessaties of life. Thereby providing the data results they desire. Should anyone even consider the possibily that any government agency would consider publishing the true inflation rate, they would be dreaming beyound all belief.
But then just look at the total lost time and untold $$$$ waisted by all our elected so called officals.
One can only wonder if the true inflation rate, the looming 'R' word and/or the dreaded 'D' word, will only take our nation on the Hwy to self distruct.

Also, feminine products have reduced the amount that are in a package. "Always" used to have 20 in a package. They reduced it to 18, then to 16 and the price is still the same.

Has anyone noticed that the cereal box you buy has gotten smaller but the price has stayed the same?

Ridiculous!

The worse thing about cell phone companies is their ability to offer the worse service and yet force you to pay a "early termination fee" usally about $250.00 if you cancel your subscription. I took a position with another company in another city but kept my service with Sprint and had my number changed, signing up for a new "promotional" plan with extra minutes and getting a new phone. (Conincidentally my plan I previously had was due to expire in two months.) From the time I signed up for the new plan and the time I moved into my new house was about 3 weeks. When I arrived, I immediately noticed I had absolutely no service inside my house. I had to go outside in the back alley (or up on my two story roof)to talk to anyone on my phone. I went to Sprint and explained the situation and asked if they had an antenna or more powerful phone. They informed me that there was no such thing but they had never had any complaints about reception in that area.
(In other words, they didn't believe me that I had no reception). I asked them to send someone out if they didn't believe me. They said they were planning on putting in a tower in the next year.(Hmm as if they had heard this about this area before). I am in sales and use my phone on average 20 times a day, and could not wait a year for a tower to be built. I was told that there was nothing they could do at this time. I of course asked to cancel my service so I could switch to a service that did work. They informed me that I would have to pay a $250.00 early termination fee. I had just received the phone I informed them and it doesn't work, why am I paying $250.00? They said because I signed a contract for two year plan. I said well my old contract was due to expire in a month, so I will keep that and just let it run out paying the $125.00 for the month. They said I had already switched and received a new phone at the discounted rate. They also informed me that they give a 2 week trial period to make sure coverage is good in the area and you can cancel your plan with no penalties. I informed them that I had moved across the country and the two weeks expired. "Well you should have thought of that before you signed up". (And people wonder where "road rage" and "going postal" stems from) So that is what I get for "thinking ahead". I had been with Sprint for 3 years and never missed a payment and back then my plan was $125.00 a month. Anyway, it was finally resolved 3 weeks and about 6 hours of phone calls and emails later to different reps of the customer service "reps" and managers. I am tenacious when it comes to things like this and wouldn't rest until I got some satisfaction. Sadly, most people would have given up and just accepted it. (Which most of these corporations know people will do and bank on that fact).

I recently went to Petsmart to look for Purina One 37 1/2 dry dog food on sale. The sales manager told me that they were on sale but that when the bags in stock were gone the next batch were coming in at a 34 or 35 pound weight at the same price so I will be getting either 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 less pounds of dog food for my money. Another way of big busines cheating the consumer.

To John Doe: Why in the would world you take out over $200,000 in student loans. How much of that actually went to tuition and how much went to "living exepenses" as a college faculty member I see students using loan money for Game Consoles, Car Customizations and all sorts of unneeded luxuries.

One thing that you did not mention is that a lot of manufacturing cost has been shifted to the consumer. It is almost impossible to purchase anything that does not require some amount of assembly by me the consumer. If an economist would like to look at something that is cutting into the consumers time, look at the amount of time that is used assembling products that that are partially manufactured in foreign countries, shipped in bulk and sold in every store in the United States of America. Once purchased by the consumer these products are them assembled by the consumer relieving the "manufacturer" of any liability for manufacturing defects. I don't want this to turn out sounding like a rant, but if anyone wants to look at inflation by degradation. This is the place to look.

I'm sure that the customer service folks in Pakistan, Bangledesh and India are very nice, and they are very courteous when you call. But my old ears have a hard time understanding them. I know the economics of outsourcing. Gosh, wouldn't it be great to hear a customer service rep speak in a nice, clear American English voice?

People who favor govt over private enterprise - here is your opportunity. Get govt agencies to be accessible, responsive, personal, honest and efficient (friendly???) and we will be inclined to let govt serve our needs. I can't believe it, but lately I have had better communications with govt (soc sec, medicare, dr bureau) than with private business.

Saturday I went to a Sears store to buy an advertised lawn & garden item. After waiting around in lawn & garden for 15 minutes, I got an employee in tools to page lawn & garden to get a salesperson. Three pages and 20 minutes later, nothing. So I went to the cashier station and pointed out in the ad what I wanted to buy. Two more pages to lawn & garden and twenty more minutes, nothing, so I left. Customer service? There isn't any.

One thing that you did not mention is that a lot of manufacturing cost has been shifted to the consumer. It is almost impossible to purchase anything that does not require some amount of assembly by me the consumer. If an economist would like to look at something that is cutting into the consumers time, look at the amount of time that is used assembling products that that are partially manufactured in foreign countries, shipped in bulk and sold in every store in the United States of America. Once purchased by the consumer these products are them assembled by the consumer relieving the "manufacturer" of any liability for manufacturing defects. I don't want this to turn out sounding like a rant, but if anyone wants to look at inflation by degradation. This is the place to look.

Why doesn't the government track total minutes on the phone with customer service rep phone#s. Those lines are only used for business and you can bet your last dollar that the company itself tracks those calls on hold and off to say "you're spending too much time talking with one person and keep customers on hold longer so more calls will drop". I wouldn't be surprised if they have deals with the phone companies to use up more of your minutes and get kickbacks for those traced calls. Doctors aren't the only ones given the 10-minute service limit, I'm sure.
All company phones in my office, and its a small one, are monitored via computer so the data is out there. They just have to have the funding and manpower to set it up. Then keep it going by fining all the poor service companies with both a monetary fine to the government and a price reduction for customers. Eventually those companies might learn. Of course I think it's doubtful considering I just heard on the radio that Capitalism specialists now have a new term "Individualism" instead of "selfish, greedy me-first at the cost of anyone and everyone else" mentalities.

How do you suppose the Bureau of Labor Statistics guys account for “mail-in rebates”? Surely they don’t consider the “after rebate” amount as the official price, but that’s how everything from cars to televisions are advertised, promoting the illusion of lower prices.
I say ‘illusion’ because (A) you have to add the cost of your time to apply for and process the rebate, and (B) about half the time now, I never even get the check, just a phony letter about how I did something wrong on the application.

Yeah, the Low Fat Wheat Thins are smaller. So if you eat ten of each the 10 Low fat ones will have less fat but that's ony because they are smaller. You get less cracker for the same price.
But hey, if it makes you feel better to think your eating healthy ...
If you want to be healthy why not just eat a carrot instead.

Direct TV customer service is absolutely awful. Different answers depending on who you talk to or where they are (India, Philippines,etc.). Received a bill with a late charge for NHL center ice - when I called customer service, the girl said she saw on the computer where I had called to cancel it a month prior, but no one had removed the charge from my account. Then they expected me to pay a late fee for it! A few months after that fiasco, I decided to use the automatic bill pay. Got a statement in the mail telling me not to send any money as the bill would be paid automatically starting at the end of the month. A couple days later I received an email from DTV customer service telling me my service was about to be cut off due to non-payment. I emailed back and received a response to disregard the email - that my account was in fact set up for automatic payment. A couple days after that, there's an automated message on my machine when I got home from work - call Direct TV immediately regarding my account! Same thing all over again. They even promised me 2 months of free Showtime for my problems, but it never happened.

A half gallon of ice cream (2 quarts/64 ounces) changed to 1.75 quarts/56 ounces over the past couple of years. The packages may have gotten even smaller but I'm not sure as I have spent the past six months defending the multinational corporations' CEOs right to earn 368 times the average American worker and ruin the future opportunities of my children (unless they join one of the military services).

I remember first coming across the product shrinkage a few years back when Frito-Lay changed a 14.5 oz. Doritos bag to 13.5 oz. I used to buy a bag once a week, and somehow I immediately noticed the difference when i picked it up (don't ask me how). It annoyed me a little bit, but at the time it was no big deal. Then, not long after, I read an article about it. The CEO had the nerve to say that most consumers wouldn't even notice the difference. Then they did it again from 13.5 to 12.5 oz. I again noticed the difference. I understand that cost cutting sometimes has to happen, but don't assume we are complete idiots. You know what happens when you assume.....

Can anyone tell me what are the inclusions and exclusion in the inflation numbers? Are the exclusions different now that they were 30 years ago? I am fighting intagables such as college, insurance (Home, Car, health), property tax, etc.

Let's not forget about product cheapening. It is noticeable in everything that costs a few dollars to tens of thousands. I've had an O'Cedar broom that I paid about seven dollars for at Walmart five years ago. I replaced it with an O'Cedar broom from Walmart this weekend. The new broom cost about the same as what I paid five years ago. The broom from five years ago is well made with a thick handle, very dense bristles, heavy plasitic head...it served me well for five years. The new broom is smaller, the metal handle is made of much thinner metal, the plastic head is thin and fragile looking, and you can actually see the spaces between the bristles. Worse yet, I'd be happy to pay more for a broom with the quailty of my old one, but I can't even find one.

I bought a new SUV last summer. Sticker price was over $36,000. While leather seats became "leather seating surfaces" some time ago, my $36,000 SUV has leather seating surfaces but they don't even fill the rest of the seat with heavy vinyl, it is now carpet on the sides of the seat cushions. The first time I washed the SUV, I was stunned that you could see the engine completely behind the front wheels. I figured the factory forgot to install the wheel wells. Not the case, I went back to the dealer and was shown that they are all like that, not even a chaep plastic wheel well liner is used! Pretty soon, they'll probably be charging extra for doors on your car.

My wife has commented repeatedly about canned foods being reduced in content i.e. 15 1/2 oz instead of 16 etc. doesn't seem like much but you still are paying like before. As far as customer service goes I can't count the hours i spent dealing with Cincinnati Bell Wireless about their poor service. I was continually fighting roaming and out of area charges. The only way I could get satisfaction was by playing "Climb the Corporate Ladder". I would talk to customer service reps until the first time they told me that they couldn't do anything about my problem at which point i would ask to talk to their supervisor. If that person couldn't resolve the person i requested to talk to THEIR supervisor. I figured that sooner or later i would get to someone that had the authority to correct the issue or would be upset by being bothered with what their subordinates should be able to handle. It worked.
The only reason I can figure that all companies get away with this is because of the BWC clause: Because We Can. WAKE UP AMERICA!!

Haven't all of you realized yet that Corporate America doesn't care about service. You are a number on a computer screen, not a real person. Once they have you seperated from your hard earned money, they could care less if you're satisfied or unhappy. There are plenty of other suckers out there waiting to be seperated from their hard earned money. Those customer service surveys aren't used to improve service, they are used to increase revenue. Corporations spend billions on advertising and how to make you think you can't live without a particular product. Wake up and learn to live without and use your brain; critical thinking is seriously lacking in our country. Either buy used, live without it, or shut up and live with it. Corporate America is not going to change because there's no profit in doing so.

I can't tell you how pleased I am to read this article. For about 2 years now I've been complaining (to my poor wife whom I'm sure is getting tired of it) about how the manufacturers and service providers must think we're fools and don't notice any of this. I can imagine how these corporate meetings go: "Just make the packaging smaller instead of raising the price. It will take a while for the consumer to figure it out, if they ever do, haha. By the time they figure it out everyone else will be reducing their product sizes too and the consumer won't have any incentive to stop buying ours. Nice par on the last hole, by the way."

I, too, have noticed the reduction in package sizes. But the sneakiest moves that I've noticed are: keeping the packages the same size and reducing contents; reducing the size of the packaging and changing its shape in order to distract the consumer from the size change; incorporating more air into the product, thus reducing it's weight but not so much its volume (ice cream, for example). I just bought a large Mitchum deordorant gel that had a huge air pocket inside the gel chamber that I had to push out before I could get the gel to come out.

These are no accidents. A lot of thought has to go into this deceit. Consumers are no fools and it's nice to see articles like this one helping the corporations see that we aren't. Now what are we all going to do about it?

I remember when a 5 pound bag of sugar became a 4 pound bag of sugar. Took me a while to notice but that is what they wanted. Also, paper towels and toilet paper--rolls got smaller, prices went up. Hmmm. Not much we can do I suppose.

Where I live, there are alot of credit card call centers. These provide health insurance and flexible hours for me to care for my family too.---I quit one of those cards that charges the outrageous fees for opening an account--couldn't take it anymore after several years. I switched to a more respected card company--our training truly sucked and I was put on the floor to answer phones when half the time I had no idea how to answer the customers' questions. Because I had previous experience, I knew more than the rest of the trainees, but even so, I know bad info is given out all the time. THere is no supervisor available to get help from and our "help" desk is so short-staffed, I've only reached them three times in 6 weeks. We are told it is more important to appologize than to be accurate. There are no where near enough reps to answer the phones, we usually have 40-50 calls on hold waiting for a rep, the average hold time is 40-50 minutes. Then the customer, not surprisingly, is already pissed off when we get to talk to them. They are then told inaccurate info and if a sup callback is requested, most of the time, the sup does not reach them or does not even try. Disputes are a joke. I am dismayed==I need this job to support my family, but I know our service sucks. The conglomerate that owns us doesn't care--we get in trouble if we have too many long calls, so reps do hang up on troublesome customers.

I can't tell you how pleased I am to read this article. For about 2 years now I've been complaining (to my poor wife whom I'm sure is getting tired of it) about how the manufacturers and service providers must think we're fools and don't notice any of this. I can imagine how these corporate meetings go: "Just make the packaging smaller instead of raising the price. It will take a while for the consumer to figure it out, if they ever do, haha. By the time they figure it out everyone else will be reducing their product sizes too and the consumer won't have any incentive to stop buying ours. Nice par on the last hole, by the way."

I, too, have noticed the reduction in package sizes. But the sneakiest moves that I've noticed are: keeping the packages the same size and reducing contents; reducing the size of the packaging and changing its shape in order to distract the consumer from the size change; incorporating more air into the product, thus reducing it's weight but not so much its volume (ice cream, for example). I just bought a large Mitchum deordorant gel that had a huge air pocket inside the gel chamber that I had to push out before I could get the gel to come out.

These are no accidents. A lot of thought has to go into this deceit. Consumers are no fools and it's nice to see articles like this one helping the corporations see that we aren't. Now what are we all going to do about it?

If you want to get to the bottom of inflation then consider this previous comment:
"Why don't you pose a simple question like, "When the Federal Reserve injects money into the economy, where does that money come from." Instead of creating a diversion, maybe you could educate people."

Why was M3, total money in circulation, dropped from government statistics? Why has it exploded over 50% in the last 3 years? What happens when more money is introduced into the economy in a manner that vastly outstrips increase in real, available wealth/assets? Whos fault is it? Why are they doing it? Dont they understand what it does to the average person?

I worked grocery retail for 30 years. I saw many of the package sizes shrink over the years. The one I noticed most the diaper section. Also another is your time wasted for the customer waiting a long time in two to three long lines. The easiest way for retail to cut cost is to cut labor. I was so ashamed at how much customer service was cut.

Dear Bob,

I enjoyed your article, and felt you made several good points, but I think there is one very important factor you failed to mention when talking about inflation (or didn't quite touch on). That is that the products we buy today are simply inferior to the same products we could purchase in years past.

As companies watch their bottom lines (and attempt to boost their profit margins), they continually turn to cheaper components and less expensive manufacturing methods. The end result is a cheaper product, but does the consumer see those savings? Not quite. More often than not we are basically paying the same price, if not more, for a less durable and usually poorly constructed product - and we may never know it.

For example, let's think about televisions. Any repairman will tell you that a television made in 1985 by company "X" is likely to outlast any television you can purchase today from the same company. And this has nothing to do with new technologies not being as durable (LCD, plasma, etc.) - it has to do with the fact that the companies are using cheaper components and methods to build the products. They are just not designed to last, yet we're not paying any less for these items. Think about it, when shopping for a television, you can't open it up and compare it's insides to an older model to see all the places where something that used to be solid metal is now plastic, or that the internal parts are now looser or not installed correctly. (do NOT attempt to open a television by the way - it is extremely dangerous!)

Also, somewhere along the line companies must have discovered that if they make an item that only lasts for a few years, the consumer will need to buy another one to replace it. And because they are all cutting the same corners, they no longer need to make a superior product that lasts to attract business - they only need to make sure you know their name and think about their company in a positive way when you walk into the store (which is one reason why there is so much money put into building brand identity and what not, but that's a bit off topic.)

And this has happened with just about every product on the market today from childrens toys to electronics and automobiles, and even food (yes, all those ingredients you can't pronounce are usually there to save the manufacturer money).

Think about this: Will you ever know that under the hood of your brand new car there are a bunch of parts that are significantly cheaper in price AND quality than the ones used in the same model car from two years ago? Not until you're in the repair shop being hit up for hundreds of dollars to fix them you won't.

Anybody use UPS?

I won't anymore.

It seems that even if you purchase insurance, they have several "outs" that allows them not to cover breakage or even pilferage if they don't want to. And they don't want to most of the time.

They give you specific guidelines on how to pack breakables, but even if you follow them, they won't pay up. They simply pull out one of their excuses and go on their merry way, while you get left with garbage, poor handling, and poor service.

You have to let them package the item(s) for a huge fee, before they will honor any claims, even if it is obvious that they mis-handled the package or stole out of it. I had one package of 30 or so items that showed up open with 6 items missing. They still won't pay the claim!

Never again UPS!

I recently purchased a new laptop from HP. I started this process online and finished it on the phone where I was dealing with a very bright woman who spoke impeccable english. The connection was clear as if she were speaking from her own office and it was a very satisfying experience. Break to me making a service call for said computer. I am funnelled through a labrynth of automated systems only to be put on hold for 20 minutes, when I finally reach a human the person barely speaks english ( BTW i know this is not a crime, but since that is what I speak and HP is a US company I expected my native language). Also the connection is so bad because it appears this person is answering my call from a boiler room in India. Just a perfect example of how companies pull the bait and switch. When about to purchase a perfect experience, after the purchase a joke. I was not able to get or understand any info from that service line, so I paid another company to fix my issue. I hope HP feels great about the money they saved by taking customer service offshore, I will not purchase another one of there products.

What about the ever shrinking toilet paper rolls. The ‘double sized’ rolls are now the original size that rolls were when I was growing up.

In January the LCD TV I had been looking for was on sale at Circuit City, but had to pick it up at the store to get the $200 store rebate. I wanted to order it online so all I had to do was pick it up. After about 20 minutes of trying to fill out the online form the $200 couldn't be applied. Called customer service to see how to do it or if they could help me. After 10 minutes of pushing buttons and being on hold I was able to talk to a person. She was very helpful and filled out the order. While we waited for the order to be processed I said I didn't know how cold it was there, but I was in the middle of a snowstorm and it was about 10 degrees. This was about 10:00 pm my time. She said it was morning and she had just gotten to work and was 72. Where was she at? In the Philippines! The next day I went to the store about 45 miles away, showed them my order number and it took them only 40 minutes to fill my order, another 20 minutes to get it out of the warehouse and into my vehicle, then another hour to get back. I upgraded my Charter broadband to digital, total including phone and internet as a PACKAGE deal was $90. The first bill I received was almost $115 with upgraded digital box rental, end users fee (thought I was the only user), local city fees, and of course all the Federal taxes and fees, what a rip-off!

i got a good one: comcast. first, i had an appointment for them to come install cable. the guy didn't show up and i kept calling and they said the service tech was at the front gate and to call to let him in. called the gate, the tech wasn't there. back to the customer service and again with the abbott and costello act saying he was at the gate. so needless to say he had to come back another day. so that was 2 days lost. then i needed them to come back after i got a new computer to install the modem for the internet. the appointment was for 11-1 but the tech didn't show up until 5! then, he didn't want to touch my computer because it was a mac so i did all the work myself! then, when i get the bill for the internet service they charged me for a different package so back to customer service. they said the deal i asked for was an internet only price. so i needed the internet for the internet only price to get the internet installed on my computer. huh?! after numerous calls and complaints, i finally got a lower price. the ironic thing was that, after i literally hung up the phone with comcast complaining for like the 4th time, i got a call from comcast asking me to take a customer satisfaction survey! can you believe the nerve of them?! (and for the record, i wouldn't have chosen comcast if i had more options in my area.)

I have probably spent 30 hours over the last 8 months trying to correct interruptions in my DSL service. It would drop off approximately 24 hours at a time. I initially just made accommodations, but got tired of not being able to do banking, check e-mail, and so on. My local ISP contracted their DSL service through AT&T. When I would call them, they would run me through the same routine everytime, ie, "What are the lights on the modem doing?, Did you turn the modem off, wait twelve seconds, and turn it back on?, Did you try turning everything off? Your phone line sounds like there is a little static - have you had AT&T check the line?" - The list goes on and on. When I tried to get service from AT&T, after about ten minutes on the line pushing buttons, they abruptly hung up on me - it seems I had not purchased the service directly from them. At one point I got an AT&T work order through the ISP. The problem was that they could never come to the house during the service interruption. Scheduling would not allow a prompt response. This meant that if they came when the signal was working and checked the lines outside the house and they were ok, I would be stuck with the fee for the house call. Essentially, this system was nothing more than a punitive fine for bothering my ISP, disguised as help in the form of a service call.
During this whole period, I completely rewired my in-house phone lines and replaced two cordless phones since it was suggested that that was the problem. Now I wonder when I will lose service next. My contract with a punitive cancellation fee is up in August, and I am looking at other alternatives.

A "half gallon" of ice cream has only been 1.75 quarts for a long time, and now it is appearing as 1.5 quarts...same price of course.

Just read the above comments and you can see how our education system has short changed us. If these people's time is so valuable you would think they should at least have a command of the English language. I don't know how to calculate the loss for lack of education, but it is probably safe to say this leads to a lot of the problems mentioned here.

When considering inflation or other measures of economic growth or success, one should explicitly account for the uncompensated loss of environmental goods and services that were once available to the general public. The natural function of our forests, wetlands, lakes and rivers (just to name a few) have been disrupted or eliminated completely without factoring these losses in measures of inflation or Gross Domestic Product.

I would like to remind readers that they own a stock in the world in which we live. These resources provide the basis for our economic success and they should be valued as such.

What about college loans. talk about lack of service. I remember a professor telling us in college that the shifts in the government's approach to helping students go to college shifted in the sixties, from a system where the government gave SIGNIFICANT grants (ever heard of one of those?)which were forgiven for some measure of community service( the government reqarded good citizenship once-choosing to adjust to the present system, minimal student LOANS, forcing most students to take these exorbitant (at least for a recent grad)fees (mine average $1000/month)...but back to the inflation/lack of customer service.I mail in the paymetn regularly on-time. And it yet they call me every month, saying that I haven;t paid, under payed, or paid wrong accounts, all of which are impossible becuase I send one check. Then I come to find out that it takes them 3weeks to process my payment, so for at least 2-3 weeks each month, I have to argue with these people about the fact that they've been paid, and any accounting errors are on their side. This has gone on for over a year...and they won't get it right. So I lose hours every month arguing with people who mismanage my accout regularly (don't get me started on my concerns over my credit rating) and I'm paying $1000/a month for the next 20 years to do so...God Bless America

Most companies make it incredibly difficult these days to find out how to contact them in a meaningful way. Web sites rarely list a phone number at all, and many now no longer post a useful physical address or even an email address. All you get is a web stie where you can fill out a form online that rarely receives any response. This is not only a service degradation, it is also a time sink spending hours trying to find a way to make a contact that can't be simply ignored with impunity. There's no way you can even prove you ever even tried to make contact with those lusy online forms. I've learned that for publicly traded companies I can sometimes got to the SEC web site and look through the corporate paperwork and find a way to get someone's attention, but for other companies we are usually just SOL. These days I try to make sure that I know how to contact a real person before I buy something, especially online.

The current target of my ire is Symantec Corporation. They seem to now have a policy of allowing me to fill out the online form, ignoring it for a month, then sending me a message apologizing for the current heavy load of messages and saying that they consider the issue closed unless they hear from me again by replying to the message. Replying to that message is useless, because it never receives any response at all. Symantec seems to now have no useful tech support at all. They will never get another dime of my money since they blew me off the last 4 times I tried to get help. McAfee isn't much better, either. They both want our money, but refuse to be responsible to support their customers. Time to look elsewhere, like maybe Trend Micro and see if they are any better.

Cavalier Telephone. I just received a laptop for xmas so I wanted the whole "bundle" package; internet, phone, cable. Cavalier had the best prices. I was scheduled 3 times to have the service set up, all with a 8-5 window, which means that I have to take the day off from work in order for them to install service. ALL 3 TIMES THEY DIDN'T SHOW UP. It took me 5 phone calls to cancel the service because apparently they don't keep customer notes, so no one knows the history of the customer. Well, 1 month later I start to receive bills for service that was never even rendered. 2 phone calls later to supervisors, I have a confirmation number of my cancellation and a promise that I will not be receiving any more bills. A month later, I have a bill from 2 months worth of service, including late fees. I refuse to pay the bill and I refuse to spend hours on the phone recapping my whole life story to some joke of a company who doesn't even listen anyway.

Just a nitpick, but reducing a package-- at steady price-- from 48 oz to 45 oz is a 6-2/3% increase, not a 6-1/4% increase; it now costs you 6-2/3% more to purchase the same amount of product.

It would be helpful to any discussion of inflation to note that the rates being reported today and compared to rates in the past are not computed the same way as those in the past. 'Core' inflation, which is reported today, excludes much of what people must buy -- food and fuel. Of what use is the fact that, for example, HDTV's have substantially dropped in price if the cost of wheat, corn, butter, milk and eggs and beef, i.e., stuff that people need to live, has risen.

The inflation computation methods changed in 1983 and 1998 (I believe); to compare 'core' rates to rates which occurred before those years is misleading and misinforming at best.

Constantly 'bailing out' private corporations with (borrowed) public money to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars also is inflationary, particularly since this administration has removed the former requirement to report the supply of money in the economy. If a corporation has gotten too large to be allowed to fail then our anti-trust legislation needs to be re-examined. The two, infusions of cash to companies deemed too large to fail and the lack of money supply reports, are likely related.

GE Money Card stole my time and would have stolen my money, too, if I had let them. About two weeks ago I received a letter from GE Money, verifying my change of address (it was nice of them to include the old and new address on the letter). Problem was, I didn't change my address! I immediately called the 1-866 number on the letter and promptly waited 25 minutes to get a live person on the phone (5 minutes of teleprompts and 20 holding for a rep). The person I finally spoke to was polite enough, but insisted that the address was changed due to a National Change Of Address form being received by the U.S.P.S. I immediately closed the account (verified the balance and wrote a check to clear it the same day as well) and began contacting Experian and my other CC companies, mortgage co., utilities, etc. to alert them to the "identity theft" problem I thought I was experiencing. None of them reported having received a change of address form from the U.S.P.S. ! I went to my local post office the next morning and they advised me that there was no form filled out and no mail change order. So far, I have recieved all my bills and have had no other problems. So, thanks GE, for causing me such a waste of time and stress over an issue that apparently was created by their internal keypunching error and blaming the U.S.P.S. for it. Needless to say I have not called to activate the "replacement credit card" they mailed me after I asked them to close my account. Don't have the time............

how about self serve gasoline? $3.61 national average for self serve.
How about self serve refreshments at the movie theaters?
We do the work and pay way too much for the food.
How about self check out at the Grocery store 1 person watches 4 lanes. We bag the groceries and do the work.

have been railing against the "shrinkage" of products for many years. manufacturers such as pepperridge farm shrink their cookie packages but boost the price, most snack food makers do the same. ground coffee makers, cereal makers, frozen food makers, the list is nearly endless. it's a sneaky and under-handed practice and am glad the fact is being brought to light. as for the loss of time, one big culprit is the mail-in rebate. rarely do you actually get the rebate promised when buying an item. it seems the rebate clearinghouse uses that 4-6 weeks as a stalling period, knowing that a large percentage of people either completely forget about the rebate or get frustrated having to wait on the phone when they inquire about the whereabouts of the rebate.

If you actualy read all the comments you need a job to fill up your time. Get off government assistance and stop stealing my tax dollars

You don't consider the 11:45 entry an attack on the comments of others? Give me a break.

Why done we all do something about it, vote..........

It isn't just at the auto repair shops, grocery stores and computer companies.....I've noticed it in clothing, and not just the price increases. I buy Vanity Fair pajamas. The last pair I bought (at a $4.00 increase)was so thin that I could see my hands (all of age spots etc) through the material. I still have old pair that I've had for about 5 years. Guess how heavy the material is....not see through in that pair. Now, about toilet paper....those double rolls are NOT double rolls. I could go on and on and on and on............but most have already been covered. I noticed all of these several years ago.....but everyone said I was just being paranoid. Oh yeah? Well, guess "we" showed "them" didn't "we"!

I'm 68, soon to be 69. I struggle every month to make ends meet.....why are there people out there who want to live to be 100? I'm tired.
Linda Strain

Dreyer's Ice Cream. I was at the store recently and noticed they reduced the size on all their offerings from 1.75 qts to 1.5 qts. but kept the same price. What a rip off.

It isn't just at the auto repair shops, grocery stores and computer companies.....I've noticed it in clothing, and not just the price increases. I buy Vanity Fair pajamas. The last pair I bought (at a $4.00 increase)was so thin that I could see my hands (all of age spots etc) through the material. I still have old pair that I've had for about 5 years. Guess how heavy the material is....not see through in that pair. Now, about toilet paper....those double rolls are NOT double rolls. I could go on and on and on and on............but most have already been covered. I noticed all of these several years ago.....but everyone said I was just being paranoid. Oh yeah? Well, guess "we" showed "them" didn't "we"!

I'm 68, soon to be 69. I struggle every month to make ends meet.....why are there people out there who want to live to be 100? I'm tired.
Linda Strain
mastershag@msn.com

We tried to return a pair of jeans to 579 that we only had for a week. We had the receipt. The jeans had never been worn. The sales manager and cashier were rude and said their policy was not to accept returns. They had a tiny little sign on the counter that was turned away from customers and hidden behind a clothes rack to boot. It was not printed on the receipt. I had to call the 800# and speak to the district manager who basically said that we were right and the sales manager was wrong. We had to return to the store. We lost a lot of time and had wasted fuel. I will never go back there again.

All of this is getting worse. I don't even eat yogurt anymore because I have to pay a higher price for 6 oz than I used to pay for 8 oz. Spaghetti sauce used to be about 30 oz to a jar now i think it's 27.5 oz. It's so sneaky of these crookorations to steal from the consumer like this. Lately I have to be a kamikaze shopper to keep food in the refrigerator. Lisa New York, NY

We tried to return a pair of jeans to 579 that we only had for a week. We had the receipt. The jeans had never been worn. The sales manager and cashier were rude and said their policy was not to accept returns. They had a tiny little sign on the counter that was turned away from customers and hidden behind a clothes rack to boot. It was not printed on the receipt. I had to call the 800# and speak to the district manager who basically said that we were right and the sales manager was wrong. We had to return to the store. We lost a lot of time and had wasted fuel. I will never go back there again.

Macy's telephone "customer service" is lousy. I had to wait for three separate automated message menus just to request a billing statement. Am still waiting several weeks later for the statement to arrive (the automated message said it would take 7-10 business days). I would rather not have to call and wait for the automated messages yet again, but there doesn't seem to be much alternative. After listening to the three automated messages, there didn't seem to be a connection to a live person.

With regard to food, the price of milk and dairy products seems to keep rising every week (did the cows go on strike?). Also, bags containing potato chips, pretzels, etc., seem to have more air in the bag than the snacks. In many cases, the bag seems to be half full. The manufacturers will no doubt charge find a way to charge for the oxygen volume (oh, wait, they already are!).

Cars being advertised as more "dependable" is somewhat of an oxymoron. You get what you pay for. The lower the original price of the vehicle, the more quickly it depreciates, so any added value for dependability is consumed by the deflated value. The only way to get a car that may balance out depreciation for dependability is if the car is $15,000 or more (not including taxes, title, fees, loan interest rates, etc.). Plus, whenever there is a problem with the vehicle, it takes an $80.00+ computer diagnostic just to determine the problem. No guarantee that the computer will even be able to diagnose the problem -- and if the computer doesn't find a problem, the "mechanic" doesn't seem to be able (or willing) to do a visual check of the car (sometimes making the customer feel like he/she is imagining the problem). My parents used to be able to bring t