Rip off Christmas hampers

July Rain

There is this company that has been selling food hampers door to door in my area the last year, Basically people pay €12 for 45 weeks and at Xmas they get a hamper. Well I calculated the goods in this hamper at my local supermarket and the grand total was €172.57

Bepolite

July Rain wrote: »

There is this company that has been selling food hampers door to door in my area the last year, Basically people pay €12 for 45 weeks and at Xmas they get a hamper. Well I calculated the goods in this hamper at my local supermarket and the grand total was €172.57

Shock Horror!

If you pay for something on tick you always, ALWAYS pay more.
If you buy from the door you are likely to get a crap deal.
Sales are rarely bargains.

It amazes me the amount of people that can't do basic maths and control their finances. At least you've coped on.

Surveyor11

Couple of points -

Never buy stuff from your doorstep, as it's usually opportunistic

Bit like buying those kits you see for sale on TV, you know the ones where you build up a ship or a car over 50 odd weeks, or some magazine collection you build up each week - you'll be reamed in the long run

Classic case of buyer beware

coylemj

Those hampers involves multiple layers which contribute nothing to the value of the goods shipped. The door to door agent gets commission which is probably significant given the number of calls they have to make to each house, the hamper company has to make a profit and then they have to purchase the goods, probably from a supermarket. With two layers of profit providing no value-add, the punter is getting crap value for money and that's if they even get a hamper, didn't one of those companies fold a few years ago leaving a load of people with nothing?

sandin

Unfortunately companies like this dress the deal up and hoodwink those who may not be able to work out the calculations.

Personally I think all door to door selling should be banned as "sales people" or "agents" will tell a huge amount of BS to get their commission and don;t care that they are ripping off the people who need the value.

Surely this is an opportunity for someone like Centra/Supervalu to look at with a form of electronic payment card that can be topped up in any centra/supervalu store with back-up if the card is lost.

wmpdd3

There's a Christmas savers club in Tesco, you just hand in your club card. and you can top up at the till, the vouchers go to your house so its grand if you lose the card.

sandin

wmpdd3 wrote: »

There's a Christmas savers club in Tesco, you just hand in your club card. and you can top up at the till, the vouchers go to your house so its grand if you lose the card.

I think what is needed is a specific package deal and this gets delivered. Too easy for the vouchers to go towards the wrong stuff at the last minute if it is just to go toward shopping on a day in december.

Sam Kade

Why not put the €12 week in your bank account and then buy a hamper at Christmas.

maringo

One of my friends has been paying into a club weekly for years for a Christmas hamper. She was doing it because she knew she would have her Christmas supplies sorted and delivered. Says the quality of the meat last year had gone down and wasn't very good. I've been telling her for years what bad value it is and to put her 10 into the post office every week - no risk of someone doing a legger with the money and she can do all her shop in one go and buy exactly what she wants and taxi back home with it saving a fortune in the process. But some people just can't seem to see that they are paying way over the odds for these hampers.

C.K Dexter Haven

Are people really this thick? Buying into some "hamper" gig with goods you don't have a say over?

maringo

In a word "YES"

C.K Dexter Haven

maringo wrote: »

In a word "YES"

We'll, in that case "Recession is Officially Over"! Wooowhoo!!!!

keithclancy

Fool

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Money
........^^............
......Parted..........

coylemj

I guess the attraction for certain people is that once you make the weekly payment, the money is outside your control so you can't succumb to the temptation to blow it long before Christmas. There's also the issue of putting the money out of reach of a bullying husband/partner who might feel that the money would be better spent down in the local or in Paddy Powers if it was saved in a tin in the house. Lots of people live from hand to mouth and have no bank or PO savings account, this type of savings scheme probably holds an appeal for them, even if the rest of us can see that the value for money is abysmal.

Del2005

coylemj wrote: »

I guess the attraction for certain people is that once you make the weekly payment, the money is outside your control so you can't succumb to the temptation to blow it long before Christmas. There's also the issue of putting the money out of reach of a bullying husband/partner who might feel that the money would be better spent down in the local or in Paddy Powers if it was saved in a tin in the house. Lots of people live from hand to mouth and have no bank or PO savings account, this type of savings scheme probably holds an appeal for them, even if the rest of us can see that the value for money is abysmal.

With so many of these companies going bust over the last few years they are the worst way to save for Christmas. At least sticking money in a bank, post office or CU offers protection.. If they've no account just buy saving stamps from Dunnes or any big retailer.

If you have to give money to an unregulated industry to save you have big problems which these companies aren't helping you solve.

Skid X

Del2005 wrote: »

With so many of these companies going bust over the last few years they are the worst way to save for Christmas. At least sticking money in a bank, post office or CU offers protection.. If they've no account just buy saving stamps from Dunnes or any big retailer.

If you have to give money to an unregulated industry to save you have big problems which these companies aren't helping you solve.

Very true - there was a huge mess in the UK a few years ago when Farepak went bust leaving their customers with no recourse.

It could easily happen again here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6124406.stm

JimsAlterEgo

with the profit margins these are making how the hell do they go bust?

Carlos Orange

JimsAlterEgo wrote: »

with the profit margins these are making how the hell do they go bust?

If only the answer was in the article posted...

monkeysnapper

Over the years I've been bought hampers , baby born/xmas gift from boss/ and as nice as they are, there's always a load of crap in them that end up rotten in the press, its like, who the hell bought this, oh yeh it was in that hamper.