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Consumer's Telegramm European Edition
If you wish to be informed monthly about European consumer news, just subscribe our free newsletter.DECEMBER 2004
Editorial office: Centro Europeo Consumatori(European Consumer Centre, Italy)
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Gift circles: no gifts at all!
A gift circle consists of 4 levels and 15 members:| 1 22 3333 44444444 |
The 8 people on the bottom pay 5,000 euro each (that is 40,000 euro altogether) to the initiator of the circle on the top, hoping to get on the top position once themselves and get the ‘gifted’ money. After receiving the gift, the initiator retires from the game, the circle is divided into two new ones and you have to look for new people willing to pay. In best of the cases the first eight people who paid will get their money after 4 rounds, that is to say, however, that already 127 participants must have paid 5,000 euro each.
If you get in the game only in the 7th round, for example, the system already needs 7,168 payers in order to provide every player of the 7th round with the ‘gift’. In round 16 you will need 524,287 paying people, that is to say, the entire population of Southtyrol and so on.
Those who are able to add up figures will soon realise that 88% of the participants are to remain without any money. Who does not want to believe that should visit the following websites:
www.ecclesiabz.com/rfw/
www.mlm-beobachter.de/mlm/schenkkreise.htm
www.schenkkreise.org/
COMPARISON OF PRICES
Express or snail mail ... observing parcel post!
A special sampling inspection. 13 European Consumer Centers from all over Europe tried to send two parcels to each other, one was posted as an ordinary parcel, the other one sent by airmail.The results of this spot test were very contradictional. An example: the transportation by express from Brussels to Vienna lasted 51 hours and 15 minutes, the other way from Vienna to Brussels the parcel took 144 hours and 15 minutes to arrive.
It is difficult to draw generally valid conclusions from this minitest. However, in just about 50% of the cases the airmail was really faster than the ordinary way. For more information: www.euroconsumatori.org
EUROPE
A new EU-Website: ’Dialogue with citizens’
The European Comission has created a new EU Website called ’Dialogue with citizens’ on the page http://europa.eu.int/citizensrights/. It provides citizens with clear information about how the can claim their rights within the EU Common market. If users are not able to find the required information there is the possibility to get individual advise directly by phoning or mailing.The Website contains vade-mecums on ten different issues of the EU rights and more than 1300 information sheets in different languages with handy tips as a print out version. In collaboration with the authorities of the single states a series of information sheets for the 10 new member states are about to be worked out.
The Case of the Month
During a holiday stay in Italy an Irish tourist bought a coat at a shop of the company ’United Colors of Benetton’. After a short time, however, the colour of the coat were fading on some spots without having been washed.The responsible manager of Benetton in Ireland advised the consumer to send the coat directly to the headquarters of the company in Italy, so that they could examine the tissue. The consumer did so, but she did not get any answer for several months.
After the ECC of Bolzano had asked the company again to answer the claim, they declared themselves ready to remunerate the coat or to pay back the full price. And they did so even if the examination of the coat had shown that it fulfilled the quality standards.
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ECC
via Brennero 3
I - 39100 Bolzano
tel.: ++39 0471 980939
fax: ++39 0471 980239