.........saving £x

The big price saving scam brainwashed in to everyone’s daily thoughts so aggressively that it is now psychologically embedded and unquestioned by the vast majority of people.

Have you stopped to consider that when making a purchase, of anything whatsoever, the word saving is introduced as a matter of course. Nothing you buy is left as a single price. The claim of a saving against a similar product sold elsewhere, a claim of a saving against higher price at some point in the past, a multiple purchase of the same product making a claim of a saving against a single purchase of that product.

The scam is this. You are not actually saving anything at all. What you doing is spending money. That’s it. Whether you spend £40, £50 or a £1000 you are spending that amount. The claim of a saving is a tag-on mathematical misconception.

Take this simple everyday advertisement of any product. The price you are going to pay will be displayed alongside a crossed out higher price and another price claiming a saving.

£69 Pay £59 a saving of £10.

You are just paying £59. There is no saving; the price no longer exists and you are spending less. This is the truth. You are SPENDING less. Spending is a true statement, saving is a psychological lie.

Now consider a purchase of £20,000. It is often clearer to explain something looking at extreme situations.

Scam one. The recommended retail price or RRP. Lets make up a recommended retail price. This is a completely misleading price because it will never be charged and it can be anything at all.

The scam: RRP £30,000. You pay £20,000 a saving of £10,000.

This is a complete nonsense and a misleading scam. You would never be paying £30,000 in the first place and the rrp is never actually charged, this is just a recommended price. The price you will pay is £20,000 and that is it. You save nothing, you SPEND £20,000 and worse you are not getting the product £10,000 cheaper either because the higher price is never charged.

Scam two. A product is charged at an unrealistically high price, too high for anyone to realistically want to pay it, for a short time, say a month, and then the price is lowered.

The scam: Was £30,000, now £20,000 save £10,000.

This is a false claim. The price is £20,000. The price was artificially raised by a ridiculous amount for a short time and probably nobody actually purchased it anyway or just a tiny percentage of people did. The lower price is actually the real price and the one which is always the price it was going to be charged at so the saving doesn’t exist. This is totally misleading as well as false marketing.

Scam three: The multi-buy. £3.00 for one or £5.00 for two, saving £1.00.

This is a little more difficult to accept. The marketing of mult-buy savings is another form of fictitious higher price. The seller is able to increase sales volume and make more profit by conning people in to buying more than they need. The saving is not there, the buyer has spent more than they needed in the false belief they are saving money. They are in reality spending more money.

My question to you is this. When are we going to wake up and stop this daily mal practice. If everyone is saving money where is it? It doesn’t exist!

 

Thanks JJ. I call it nothing at all. I accept I am not getting a bargain just paying the price. What I strongly object to is the retailers brainwashing the mug public in to believing they are getting bargains when they aren't. Bargains used to be bargains 40 or so years ago but my point, which I hope I am getting across, is that everything we buy is somehow a bargain, not just the genuine bargains that are few and far between. See where I am coming from? Comparing prices is not the same as being duped in to thinking you are already getting something cheap. its the word "saving" that also gets my goat. Retailers use a positive word like saving instead of negative words like spending. The saving word is far too liberally used now. Virtually every advertisement on TV uses it where prices are concerned. It is not a saving. Its the misleading lies that the retailers use to make something look more of a bargain than it actually is.

 

Here's another way of demonstrating the savings rubbish. I didn't buy anything. So I saved my money. On the other hand, had I purchased something for ten pounds with a price tag claiming I am saving two pounds I am spending ten pounds and saving nothing.

 

Very good, Thrudgle. I don't get how so many people correlate savings when spending. The false claim is tantamount to fraud.