***This Post is CLOSED for ENTRIES. Please go to the new Giveaway Post linked on the right sidebar to Enter. thanks!
This is the 4th Sluggy's BORING BLOG BOX GIVEAWAY for 2010!
It's time again for a Boring Giveaway.
I run a Boring Blog here so why not giveaway boring stuff, right?
Just to recap, I put things in the box(mostly what I have gotten for free or almost free)each week and when the box is filled we draw a winner from all the entries received. The stuff can range from HBA, food, toys, collectibles, home decor or books. Someday if enough people click on enough ads and this blog makes some cold hard cash, I may add a gift card, so get to clicking already!!lol
Here is what went into the Box today.....
1. Star Trek Sticker Book-this is filled with all kinds of Star Trek insignia stickers
2. Star Trek First Contact bubble bath
3.Star Trek Party Hats(visor type)
4. Star Trek Party Blowers
If this is your first time, please go read all the rules for these Giveaways on THIS POST.
Please NOTE--You MUST be a follower to enter the Giveaway. If you aren't one, just click on the "Follow" button on the right hand side of my blog to become a follower---->
TIME TO ENTER.....
Just put a comment on this POST for your entry. Easy Peasy!
When I post again about this BORING BLOG BOX GIVEAWAY, entries on this Post will be CLOSED and you can post on the New Giveaway Post and enter again. I hope this isn't too confusing. ;-)
Here are the ways to get UP TO 2 EXTRA entries PER POST.....
1. Put my blog on your blog's Blogroll. Leave an extra comment for this entry on THIS POST only with the URL of your blog. If I'm already on your Blogroll, say so in an extra comment.
2. Blog about this Giveaway on your blog or on a Message Board. Leave an extra comment for this entry on THIS POST only with a link to your blog post or the message on the board.
You can do each of these 2 things once per post, so that's a total of up to 3 entries per person per post.
Again, you can enter on this post until I put another Giveaway Post up and then you need to enter on the NEWER Post.
FYI if you are new here....it generally takes 4 weeks to fill the box, so there will be 4 posts(give or take)about this Giveaway where you can enter to win up to 3 times.
Any questions? Just email me at slugmama@yahoo.com
Oh yah, I pay for all the stuff in this giveaway and nobody(business or person) gives me stuff or pays me to hold them or promote their products. I even pay the shipping just because I loves ya'll and....and.....that's how I roll! ;-)
So I found about about a great freebie back in the Spring from one of the big Deal Blogs. This particular freebie was for a coupon for a free container of Simply Smart milk, made by the Hood brand of dairy products, which was available if you signed up through Facebook. I am all about the free(if it's something I am going to use or can give to someone else who will use it), so I signed up for the coupon to be mailed to me.
When that letter arrived, is when I discovered that there is a Ginormous DAIRY LOBBY within PA. Not only do we have state regulated minimum milk prices here in PA but companies located outside of PA are not allowed by PA law to send residents of PA free dairy product coupons.
Don't you just love government monkeying with the free trade system in this country?
So along with the nice letter explaining why they can't mail me a coupon for a Free Container of Milk, was a check for $5.00.....to make up for the injustice of not being allowed to get free milk. I could use it to go buy my own milk.
Also enclosed with my check from Hood was a coupon for a free container of Hershey's Milk or Milkshake.
The Hershey's FREE item coupon is perfectly fine since Hershey's is a huge corporation located within PA.
FYI--Hood LCC and Hershey's partnered to produce this line of chocolate milk drinks...Hood supplies the milk, Hershey's supplies the chocolate. But if Hershey's(the PA company)is NOT supplying the milk that means Hood is so how come this free item coupon is allowable but not the coupon I sent away for?
Me thinks that not only is the PA Dairy lobby humongous but the Hershey Company lobby is just as powerful.
Hmmmm.....
I find it funny(as in weird)that Hood can NOT send me a free milk product coupon but if the Hershey's name is attached, it's A-Ok.
Just another example of government intruding into & screwing with your day-to-day life folks......
So the moral here?
If you are within PA, go ahead and send for those dairy product freebies anyway!
You won't get the freebie(unless it's a PA dairy or connected to Hershey) but you just might get something just as good OR BETTER(aka CA$H!)for your troubles. ;-)
Sunday I harvested the garden and here is what I got.....
I just don't know WHAT I am going to do with all this???lol
Oh wait!
Here's what I'm doing.....
Adding him to his little green friends I harvested last week, blanching them all and stuffing them into the freezer. ;-)
And remember this pic......
I finally got around to processing them and they now look like this....
3 lovely quarts of tomato sauce!
I also got lucky this week when I called the courthouse and they said I had finished my Jury Duty Service.
I hadn't actually had to report to the courthouse any of the weeks this month but oooookay! 8-)
That meant I was able to participate in my 1st paid online video focus group earlier this week.
Let me get this.....you're going to pay me to sit at the computer and give you my opinion on something?
Oh, they just don't realize the monster they have unleashed upon the "focus group world"......
I am off now to run some errands that have been neglected thus far this week, including mailing off the latest Boring Blog Box Giveaway Winner their box of prizes. I've got another Boring Box of Stuff set to launch in the next day or two so don't touch that dial! ;-)
At my advanced age....cough, cough.....I would hardly consider myself a shrinking violet when it comes to speaking up about something.
True, when I was younger I may have let problems slide and not made an issue of something just for the sake of "not making waves". It was easier to just let problems with products and companies go.
Who needs the hassle of having to write a letter to complain that a food product wasn't fresh or edible even or that some houseware broke the first time you used it?
It was easier to just move on and mentally make a note in the back of your brain not to EVER buy that item again or even to blacklist the entire company that provided you that defective product.
But, that was many years ago.....back before I racked up many many MANY incidents of products that didn't live up to what they were suppose to be and companies that didn't provide what was promised.
Eventually we all get to that point in life, when dealing with companies, where we become Howard Beale and get fed up with the status quo and just let them know how we feel about the situation....
(I love this movie! Even back in the '70s it was so ahead of it's time...)
Ok, so yelling out your window won't get you much except a case of laryngitis when it comes to getting satisfaction from a company.
You need to practice a little thing called "Effective Complaining".
Here are the steps I use...
*Seek out a venue for communicating with the company.
Use the internet to find their website. From there navigate the site for any contact links(email, telephone, mailing address, etc.)they provide to communicate with the company's representatives.
*Present your complaint.
Be factual. Don't let your emotions run wild and just call them names and tell them they suck.....even if they DO suck and the little man in your head won't shut up saying that. The person taking your complaint is not the one who has wronged you. They are the one who may HELP you get satisfaction so be cordial or even nice to them. I like to open with saying something positive about the company or product but that I am disappointed in some way. Then lay out what is making you unhappy and why. Give pertinent details.
*Suggest ways in which they can rectify the situation to your satisfaction.
If you are unhappy with a company, they want you to make you happy. Happy customers give them more money and dah!...businesses want your money. Letting the company know what specific things will turn you from an unhappy consumer to a happy one makes their job easier and will help you ultimately find satisfaction quicker. Do you want a refund, a replacement, an apology? Be realistic about your expectations. Asking a company for an all-expense-paid trip to Paris because their ballpoint pen leaked in your shirt pocket is a little over the top.
*Escalate if your needs are not met.
If your first contact about your complaint brings about no satisfaction, try again. If you emailed, try a telephone call. If you called first, try another telephone call, as you will probably get a different customer service rep. who might be having a better day and is more willing to make you happy. If that rep. can't help you, go up the "calling food chain" and ask to speak to the supervisor or to their manager. Or try an email if you called first. If neither an email or phone contact bring results, mail a letter.
If a mailed letter doesn't kick-start someone to respond, you can consider contacting outside sources to help you beat them into submission, er.....help you get some resolution. There is the Better Business Bureau, among others, as well as your local newspaper or tv investigative reporter. For serious issues, these outside sources can put pressure on a business on your behalf. There is always the A-Team but calling them will only help you rescue a hostage or blow something up.
*Follow-up goes a long way.
When your situation/complain is resolved let the company(customer service dept.)know that you are satisfied. If you contacted via email or mailed letter, send a "thanks for resolving my issue" email. Just a couple of sentences is enough. If you go on & on, they may flag you as a nut job, and avoid future emails you may have to send them. If your interaction is via telephone and they resolve your problem then and there, just thank the customer service rep on the other end for their help before you hang up.
Let me illustrate the process with a situation I had at Chez Sluggy.
See this bottle of juice?
I purchased it at KMart late last year during one of their Double Coupon Events, using a coupon. It was on sale and with the coupon doubling, I paid maybe $.10 for it.
When I went into my stockpile to use it some months later, I found that this had happened.....
The glue holding the spout to the paperboard container had crapped out. Yes, crapped out is my technical term, what of it?
My first thought was to find the receipt and return this bottle to the store for a refund or replacement.
Well, it was well past the 90 day KMart Return Policy period so that option was off the table.
Since I had only paid .10¢ for the juice, I considered just chucking the bottle in the garbage and moving on with my life.
But.....I couldn't do that.
This "juice malfunction" ate at me. Ok, so tell me I 'need a life'!
Knowing I was letting this company off the hook and NOT being satisfied as a consumer drove me to contact them and attempt to find relief from my sleepless nights.
My first plan on attack was to see if the company had a customer service email address.
The company website had a contact form so I filled it all in, including complete product information(size, type, UPC any other code I could find on the container,etc.), when and where the item was bought, and then I laid out the problem (container malfunction). I added what steps would satisfy me(a refund or replacement)and closed with the fact that my family has been a consumer of their products for many years without encountering any problems.
Had I received no response(after 1 week had passed), I would have tried a phone call, as the company supplied a customer service phone line on the website as well. I prefer to go the email route first since I am not a big fan of the telephone.
The next step, if a phone call had not gotten me what I wanted, was to drag out the BIG GUNS and write an honest-to-goodness letter.
A letter takes a bit more effort than an email or phone call. Popular wisdom is that companies believe that for every complaint letter they receive there are scads more unhappy customers out there that don't bother to write that letter. Every letter represents many more disgruntled consumers, therefore companies seriously don't like to get complaint letters! Because of this, I have found that writing the company a "I'm mad as hell & I'm not going to take it anymore!" letter will at least get you a response & an attempt to placate you, if no other form of contact does.
Luckily for me, the email did it's job, so I didn't have to escalate this and spend any more time to communicate my displeasure.
And fairly quickly, a response arrived in the mail....
A free replacement item coupon plus a $.75/1 Coupon good on my next purchase of this item, good until mid December.
So, a few more high value coupons would have been nice but for the amount of time I spent on my complaint, this was a decent outcome.
I did follow up by using the contact form on the company's website to let them know that my coupons had arrived and to thank them for taking care of my issue.
I had asked them when I had contacted them initially if there was a known issue with the glue holding the spout onto the container. They never did address that part of my inquiry so I have no clue whether this is an ongoing problem or just an isolated incident I experienced. Because of their unwillingness to response to this issue, I will be avoiding these types of containers in the future, so they have lost me as a consumer of this particular product.
In closing, I'd give Nestle a B- for their customer service.
Good response and follow-through but they lost the A by avoiding my glue question.
Do you contact companies when their products don't live up to your expectations?
If not, why don't you pursue a resolution?
Do you have an interesting story about a product complaint issue?
Let us know!
Since I hadn't been to Rite-Aid since a week ago Sunday, I was due for a trip.
There are lots of yummy deals at Rite-Aid this week that will net you items for free or cheap out of pocket costs.
I decided to concentrate on the J&J deal, which is 'Spend $30 on specific Johnson and Johnson branded items and get a $10 +Ups Reward'. Many of the qualifying items are on sale AND also give an individual +Ups Reward as well so a true Double Dip opportunity! Add in a $X off $XX purchase coupon and individual items coupons and you have the making for very little out of pocket or for Moneymakers after figuring in the +Ups that you'll receive on the purchase.
Here is what I bought....
4 x Johnson Baby products(shampoo, lotion, baby wash)on sale $3.99 but $3.83 with my 20% wellness discount=$15.32
1 x Desitin on sale $3.99=$3.99
2 x Reach Toothbrushes on sale $2.99=$5.98
2 x Listerine Pocketpacks on sale $2.99=$5.98
SubTotal.....$31.27
Coupons Used
1 x $5/$25 Adperks/VV IPQ=$5.00
4 x $1/1 Johnson's products(some Peelies, some IPQs)=$4.00
1 x $1/1 Johnson's or Desitin product IPQ=$1.00
1 x BOGO Reach Toothbrush ManuQ=$2.99
1 x $1/1 Reach Item IPQ=$1.00
1 x $1/1 Reach AdPerks/VV IPQ=$1.00
1 x $1/2 Listerine products(Pocketpacks)ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $1/$10 any Oral Care purchase Wellness CRT Q=$1.00
1 x $1/1 any Desitin/Johnson item Adperks/VV IPQ=$1.00
Coupon Total....$17.99
$31.27-$17.99=$13.28
+Ups Used....$4/$2/$2/$2/$1=$11.00
$13.28-$11.00=$2.28 OOP put on free Rite-Aid gift card
And here are the +Up Rewards I received.....
Ok....here's a different shot of the bottom half of my receipt.....
Unfortunately, my arm was not long enough to get the receipt far enough away from the camera to get all 4.8 ft. of it in the photo!lolol
1 x $10 +Ups for buying $30 of Johnson products in 1 transaction=$10.00
5 x $2 +Ups for each of the Johnson baby items=$10.00
3 x $2 +Ups for 3 of the 4 Reach/Listerine items=$6.00
Total +Up Rewards received.....$26.00
Since I bought 4 Reach/Listerine items and only got 3 +Ups I guess the limit on this deal is 3.
I was only planning on buying 3 of these items but my Listerine/Pocketpacks Q was a $1 off 2, not $1 off 1. Oh well....I'll have to suffer with $26 instead of the $28 if I had been able to buy one less Pocketpack and 1 more Baby Shampoo. ;-)
THIS TRIP
Total Spent....$2.28 (put on free Rite-Aid gift card)
Value of Items....$43.61
SCR qualified for...$0.00
+Up Rewards earned...$26.00
MONTHLY TOTALS-September Rebate Period
Number of Transactions......4 Total Spent....$13.86 put on free Gift Cards/Certificates so ZERO OOP Value of Items purchased....$159.45 SCR qualified for....$0 in cash and $0 in Gift Cards Other Cash....$0 Additional Non-Cash Rewards....$0 +Up Rewards spent....$29.00 +Up Rewards earned....$42.00
Total 'Spent'...$13.86 on gift cards Total Cash I'm getting Back=$0 Total Gift Cards I'm getting=$0 +Up Rewards left to spend=$26.00
I might go back in the next couple of days to do another deal or two. Nothing planned out yet but I'll study the sales flyer again later today.
What deals did you do or do you plan to do at Rite-Aid this week?
