AIBU to crave for a honest transparent pricing system in this country that doesn't make me lose the will to live.

[mumsfretter]

I don't want to calculate everything in the supermarket to get the best deal, decoding grams to oz and pounds to quantity.

I don't want to spend my weekend mornings on the phone to energy companies trawling comparison sites for the best deal.

I don't want to re check all the fucking deals on my mortgage and insurance every year or end up paying more.

AIBU to crave for a honest transparent pricing system in this country that doesn't make me lose the will to live.

AIBU to want my loyalty to a brand to count for something other than getting my spending habits, name and address sold on so I can drown under a sea of junk mail and cold calls.

Trills i had exactly the same issue with my now ex power supplier who asked if there was anything that they could do to make me stay, and when I said 'treat a loyal customer with respect rather than thinking we've caught them now we can rip them off' the sales lady admitted she could see my point.
I've also just changed my home insurance. Bog standard 2 bed house, no claims made for 8 years (then only for less than £500) and not in a flood plane - went from £220 to £660 ffs!!!! On ringing to cancel that one the stupid bloke at the other end didn't want to register a complain as he didn't see how it could be resolved................but then admitted NEXT year the software would allow people to be shown their cheapest quote......[hmm)

YANBU
It drives me crazy. Companies make it complicated so they can rip people off. Going to the supermarket involves much to much mathmatics for me. I don't want BOGOF, I don't want 'specials', i dont want 'multibuys' and i dont want prices that fluctuate all the time. I just want to pay a reaonable and consistent price for things.
Ripping off people who are 'loyal' is very irritating. It targets people like my Mum who pays British gas their 'standard' rip off rate.

That is how angry I am.....

A simple system will not change the profits companies make or the overall cost for everyone in the country less. What it will do is reduce the cost for people who do not make any effort and increase the price for those that do. At the moment, people who are time rich but money poor can make savings and people who value their time more, pay more.
Changing it will penalise poor people who have the time to shop around and only benefit those who don't/can't be bothered.

There is a cost to shopping around and comparing prices. Some people just are not very good with figures. Honestly I do shop online for my groceries and look very carefully at prices per unit and it is astonishing how much they vary between pack sizes. Indeed, sometimes smaller pack sizes have lower unit prices than large 'economy packs' - not what most people think.

youngermother
I totally disagree with you.

The people these complicated pricing systems effect most are people like the elderly who do not have access to the internet to use price comparison websites, people who don't even understand basic maths and therefore can't see what the best deal is etc.

Yes, there are some people who can't be bothered but there are many more who just don't have the ways to be able to trawl through the complex systems.

You are really incorrect in your assumptions IMO

Which assumptions? Unlike you, I do not assume the poor are either elderly or stupid or both

I think you're searching for a non-existent nirvana.

Rather like democracy, a free market is pretty much the least worst system there is.

[Note: The energy market is a cartel not really a free market]

youngmother

I have not said the elderly or mathematically challenged are poor. I was responding to your ill thought out assumptions when you said "people who are time rich but money poor can make savings and people who value their time more, pay more"

I do not agree with this assumption because the elderly are often time rich but they are the least likely group to have access to the internet and price comparison websites. And people who find maths challenging are not necessarily time rich or time poor but they will have less ability to work out the deals.

These are just 2 examples showing your assumptions are wrong. You also state that poor people are time rich!!!!! Where on earth did you draw that conclusion from. Many poor people work ridiculous hours on minimum wage and are not time rich at all.

Unlike your post, mine does not make assumptions about the poor being time rich. Try reading my post before you accuse me of making assumptions and you'll see I have not even uttered the word poor in the whole post!!

I agree with you to a point but, why are you converting to pounds and oz to do comparisons? Everything now has to be labelled in grams, surely that makes comparing easy?

If you look at the label on the shelf it tells you the cost per 100g or kilo for everything whether it's coffee, chocolate or vegetabkes. It is very easy to compare prices.

Bruffin You are right but the per 100g price doesn't not include offers like 5 for 4 and other such offers which in many supermarkets is on a large percentage of products thus making the price per gram/kilo useless.

bruffin that's not true - take pink lady apples in tesco as an example. Loose they're priced by weight (but no scales in the veg section anymore), in packs of 6 they're priced by apple (no weight on the bag). How does one work out what's cheaper?

Another example is deli section, the weight of the actually product is on the bottom of the box, so you have to lift the, say coleslaw, up and read the small print to see the actual weight of the packaged item.

Yes, fluffyjaws, I'd noticed the sly disappearance of customer scales from fruit section - there may be one set somewhere but they're not on every aisle - making it hard to price-compare things sold by number (prepacked apples) vs weight (loose apples). I sometimes think it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the marketing meetings where these things are hatched - I bet they don't openly describe it as how best to fleece the customer!

I take the bags of fruit labelled price per fruit and weigh them. And then guess whether they are more or less than the bags per kilo. Usually it's a huge difference so quite easy, but still a considerable mental arithmetic challenge.
Not to mention the tiny print of say the prices of vitamins per tablet - last week they were 3 for 2 in sainsburys but tubs of 180 were over twice as much as tubs of 60! Luckily I have perfect eyesight and dd.was sleeping so I took the time to read all the prices.
Which meant I didn't buy two packs of the biscuits that were £1.09 each, 2 for £2.50...

What I'd really like is companies phone messages to be forced to tell you who they aren't good for, so you don't waste time on them. So you could hear "blah insurance. We do not cover any houses with a lodger, non-family tenant, or houses with more than 6 bedrooms. Please try elsewhere. If you meet our criteria, please hold the line..." Would reduce the hold time too.

great post notcitrus So true about the on hold options, it took me 3 minutes yesterday to actually get to the point to start pressing buttons then a further 7 on hold.

I think Youngmother has made a good point. Of course, this is only one aspect of a complicated issue, but if it takes an hour to work out the best deal and save £10, then people who place a monetary value on their time of less than £10 will make the effort, while those who don't (say, for example, someone who earns £30 an hour) won't. So complicated pricing arrangements are (to some extent) a way of charging more to people who can afford it. Not that simple of course, as the time taken to identify the best deal may be affected by/correlated with income/wealth - e.g. as mumsfretter suggested, poorer people less likely to have access to price comparison websites. But that doesn't invalidate the general argument.

sevenfourseven
I just want to make it clear that I have NOT said poorer people are less likely to have access to price comparison websites I said older people.

And I think it does invalidate the argument that it's people who are time rich that are more likely to check for the best deals because the retired are surely the most time rich demographic!

mumsfretter - yes - you said older people not poor people. Apologies.

Re your post of 10:26 - the point is not that certain people have lots of spare time, it's that people place different monetary values on their time. As I took pains to point out, this is not a simple issue, and there may be several reasons why there is not, in a particular situation, a simple relationship between this value and someone's behaviour. But the underlying logic of Youngmother's argument is sound. As another example, when I was 20 it made sense for me to spend hours flicking through clothes in charity shops whereas now it makes sense to pay more in a mainstream shop where I can quickly find what I want in the right size.

sevenfourseven

I do understand what you are saying and agree with you especially your point about time value of money. For example the wealthier are more likely to shop in Waitrose than Aldi and negates any argument about shopping for deals.

However, I just vehemently disagree with the sentiment of youngmothers post. I am not sure why she thinks that poor people are time rich unless she's referring to the unemployed because the working poor in general are certainly not time rich. Many middle class mothers who can afford not to work are time rich.

There is a difference between saying, as you did, it's not important enough to wealthier people, than saying a transparent system would hit the poor the hardest. I totally disagree with this idea as I have already highlighted, more transparency would help the large population of aged folk and those with mathematical difficulties, neither of which group belong to one class or income level.

Also fundamentally why should one group support the other because they either a) don't have the mental capability to understand c) are too old to use the equipment needed to price compare d) are not that way inclined to seek a bargain.

I believe a fair price for all and that is why I totally disagree with young mothers post.

mumsfretter - sorry i misinterpreted your post. I understand your argument about the poor, I meant the unemployed.

You said:

Also fundamentally why should one group support the other because they either a) don't have the mental capability to understand c) are too old to use the equipment needed to price compare d) are not that way inclined to seek a bargain.

This reads to me against your argument, because a single price for all would mean these groups are supported by the other groups who would like to make an effort to get a reduced price.

Also, the number of people unable to use a calculator or too old to use the internet is minimal. Of the 3 dozen or so people I know over 65, only one is not a regular internet user and they can use it if they want to.

As for the third group, if they are not inclined to seek a bargain, they pay more - perfectly reasonable.

With youngermother1 on this.

People who can be arsed to learn how to shop around/compare prices effectively will get the better deal.

I fail to see anything wrong with this tbh.

For those without the skills to do this, there are a wealth of organisations who will assist you (I work for one of them). The arguments put forward for not being able to don't really hold much water and are essentially excuses.

Yanbu. That's why I don't use loyalty cards, i prefer lower prices. Cant be faffed with points, coupons etc.
Totally agree re. energy and utilities too - you just want tranparency and a clear pricing strategy. Ok so they aren't charities, I think we all knew that - but ustomers shouldnt have to waste time checking the tariffs for fear that you are bwing ripped off. The onus should be on the xompany to provide an honest service at an affordable price (and make a profit while doing so).

youngmother

No my point supports my argument that I think there should be one price for all.

Your anecdotal evidence of over 65's having internet is far from the norm. I found some accurate stats which show

There are 10 million over 65's in the UK.
49% of them do not have access to the internet which rises to 76% for the over 75's.
Also only 54% of lowest class according to standard demographics have internet as opposed to 88% of A/B categorised households.

So around 6 million people over 65's don't have access to the internet (taking a mean from the over 65 and over 75 stats)