Carrefour outed as rip off merchants par excellence

Carrefour
Originally uploaded by KahaDidi

Customers of the huge supermarket chain Carrefour had better start reading the small print of any in-store special offers, as this shot from Carrefour Warsaw demonstrates. No prizes for guessing that the corporate giant has been slapped on the wrists again and forced to cough up a poultry sum (45, 000 euros) following a court ruling that upheld a complaint by a disgruntled punter.

This time its that old chestnut of the price at the till not matching the price on the shelf, which is officially known as 'publicité mensongère', a blunder which was investigated by the Fraud bureau, or 'Direction générale de la consommation, de la concurrence et de la répression des fraudes' (DGCCRF). And what do you know, the source of their discontent was in the promotional items, where the 'Buy one get the second one free' incentive was in reality 'Buy two for exactly the same price as usual'.

Although 45, 000 euros is akin to a slap on the wrist from your grandmother, the bad publicity does tend to make people think twice. Especially if you Google 'Carrefour' and 'amende', you will find that the chain is in and out of the courts so often they are probably on first name terms with the entire French judicial system.

To name but a few......a record fine of 2 million euros in 2007 for 'publicité mensongère', dodgy promotions, shifty contracts with suppliers, not to mention another hefty fine for price fixing on kids toys and school calculators.

Maybe you have also noticed discrepancies between prices, but I must admit to having a particular gripe against Carrefour, following a misguided purchase of a cheap mountain bike back in 2005. To cut to the chase, the bike was obviously faulty as the chain repeatedly fell off, causing me to swerve dangerously across the road on a number of occasions. The chain-smoking assistant at the ironically named 'service après-vente' insisted on sending it away to be 'repaired' and scoffed at my Anglo-Saxon idea of a 'refund'. 'Un quoi?'

It wasn't until death was narrowly avoided and I threw the bike at her and demanded my money back in no uncertain terms (my ability to speak French under duress being severely diminished incidentally) that a small sober man in a suit appeared from nowhere brandishing a cheque. Not a hint of 'I'm terribly sorry to hear of you nearly being crushed under the wheels of a 10 ton truck because of our bad attitude and patent lack of customer service skills, sir'.

On a one man mission to drive the corporate superpower into liquidation, I refused to enter the building for a while and devoted all my energy and cash into a new, cheaper shop called 'Ed's' (although strangely they don't call it Ed's, it's 'uh-day'), only to later discover that this shop is............... owned by Carrefour.

Big business in France is no doubt a clique of portly Sarkozists, but, as my old grandad used to say, 'Don't let the bastards rip you off!'

What's up with the French?

French protest 8
Originally uploaded by La Rock

You have to take your hat off to Mr Sarkozy. He must have heard the knives sharpening across the channel, as Gordon Brown fights for his political career like the tired fly buzzing sporadically, and hopelessly in the spider's web.

Sarko, the king of Sarkozia (the country formerly known as France) is not about to suffer the same fate. Au contraire. He is, in fact, riding high on much improved poll ratings which come at a time when you would most expect the French to be ready to shout 'off with his head'. It's almost enough to make Maximilien Robespierre turn in his grave.

Somehow, and with a dash of extreme cunning worthy of at least a tail or two, he has managed to buck the politician-hating trend that always accompanies a recession.

This sudden surge of popularity occurs at a time when 59% of French people are saying that, having thought about it, they'd rather not work more to earn more (Sarko's famous 2007 election rout), property prices are on an inevitable decline, unemployment is once again on the up, the economy is flirting with recession while the price of everything is driving the pouvoir d'achat even lower.

Sensing the inevitable discontent, King S. takes a break from his summer holiday (the first Frenchman to do this in history) to sort out a war in the old Soviet block - no mean feat, undoubtedly. But in doing so, he cleverly side-steps responsibility for domestic affairs by pretending to be a normal French president (ie. mostly looking after international affairs). And anyway, the 'global' market always gives him a swift exit from any blame, as everyone's in the same boat.

But with even greater spin, he manages to avoid the unavoidable question that should follow any attempt to pass off France's problems as being 'world' problems. And that question is 'Should the careless greed of the already rich be allowed to endanger the quality of life of their own fellow citizens?'

And the answer? Well, so long as the already rich are sitting around King Sarko's round table, they've got nothing to fear.......

Has the spirit of '68 gone forever?