A body that clears ads before they go public has refused to clear an animated one for Iceland stores that features the destruction of rain forests for palm oil and highlights the fact that an estimated 25 orangutans die every day as a result.
Iceland responded by stating its commitment to removing palm oil from 160 of its products by the end of the year and placed an animatronic orangutan on the streets of London, to remind people of its cause.
o A customer who entrusted her BMW to Manchester Airport Parking Services Ltd while she was abroad came home to find 500 extra miles on the clock, the fuel tank nearly empty and a fine of £70 from a supermarket car park 20 miles from the airport with a photograph showing her car being driven by an unknown man.
The firm was dubbed “the world’s worst parking company meet and greet” by the Daily Mail last month after one family with a baby claimed that it crashed their car into a tree, and refused to pay for it to be recovered, or for a replacement. Others have accused it of losing their cars and racking up speeding tickets.
o A meet and greet parking firm run by a convicted fraudster has been caught parking its customer’s vehicles for free on public roads, rather than the “fenced and secured parking facility” customers are promised on its website.
Legacy Parking, which operates at Gatwick is run by accountant Vimal Patel, 35, who defrauded a former employer out of £155,000 to feed a gambling habit five years ago, but escaped a prison sentence.
Those booking airline seats as families and want to be sure they sit together are being squeezed by the airlines for extra charges, amounting to £390 million.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) 22 million passengers paid extra to reserve seats together
The CAA is currently investigating passenger claims that families are deliberately being split up to generate charges for sitting together.
Research by consumer champion Which? into Black Friday “Bargain offers” has found that in 87% of cases the item featured could have been bought more cheaply at other times in the year.
Which? monitored the 2017prices of 94 popular products on Black Friday, as well as six months before and six months afterwards, on the websites of Amazon, Currys PC World, Argos andJohn Lewis, all heavy promoters of Black Friday “bargains”. In one of the most misleading
We have to confess admiration for Tim Martin, the chairman of pub company Wetherspoons.
Martin has prepared his 880-pub firm, and his customers for the looming eventuality, some would say inevitability, of a no-deal Brexit. “FREE TRADE MEANS LOWER PRICES” is the message in all his pubs, and the claim is supported by offers of drink items that Martin has already replaced EU products with. These include 750ml bottles of French champagne being replaced with Hardy’s Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir from Australia at £10.99, and Denbies Sparkling Whitedown Brut and Whitedown Rose Brut, both at £19.99, and both from England.
Also from England, rather than the EU are 330ml bottles of Blue Moon Belgian-style Wheat Ale and Thornbridge Versa Weisse Beer, both at £1.99, as are 500ml bottles of Adnams Ghost Ship Low-Alcohol (0.5%ABV). For £2.99 are 500ml bottles of SA Brains Atlantic White from Wales. Sweden is another non-EU choice of Martin, with its Koppaberg fruit ciders at £2.39 for the 4% ABV varieties and £1.99 for the Alcohol-Free (0.05%) one.
Time for some others in our business community to stop grovelling to the EU and get on with replacing it then?
Following the £700 million fine recently handed down to Audi for selling cars rigged to cheat on diesel emission tests the motor car sector continues to underwhelm with news that Carlos Ghosn, chairman of the Renault-Nissan alliance, which also includes Mitsubishi, has been sacked after being arrested on suspicion of under-reporting income of £34 million between 2011 and 2015, to cut his tax bill. Also arrested and sacked was senior Nissan executive in the US Greg Kelly, 62, on suspicion of collaboration in the fraud.
Ghosn, 64, enjoyed corporate superstar status in Japan since he turned Nissan around from near-bankruptcy in 1999.
Readers are advised that blackmail emails are circulating demanding £500 to not send details of the victim’s alleged use of adult websites to the victim’s contact list.
An example follows.
Hello!
I have very bad news for
you.
11/07/2018 – on this day I
hacked your operating system and got full access to your account.
It is useless to change the password, my malware intercepts it every time.
Continue readingA woman golf fan who was blinded by a wayward golf ball whilst watching the Ryder Cup championship is considering legal action against the organisers.
Corine Remande, 49, was struck in the right eye by a ball mis-hit by US golfer Brooks Koepka, 28 into a crowd of spectators at the sixth tee. The impact fractured her eye socket and caused her eyeball to “explode”, leaving her writhing in agony on the ground.
Remande has blamed organisers PGA European Tour for her injury saying that no-one shouted the normal “FORE” warning as the ball hurtled towards the crowd. Officials for the organisers, and Mr Koepka, say that several warnings were shouted.
A British birdwatching exhibition, Birdfair, has cancelled its sponsorship agreement with binocular manufacturer Bushnell over the manufacturer’s strong support of the American pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA)
Bushnell is owned by Vista Outdoor, the American manufacturer of ammunition and assault rifles and sponsors the NRA as part of its marketing to gun owners.
The cancellation follows a campaign by Ethical Consumer magazine to get organisations to better consider their own ethical values before accepting money from sources with very different ones.
Airport bars in the UK, which can sell alcohol round the clock, may soon be subject to the same licensing laws as high street bars, that is, no alcohol to be served before 10.00am.
The Home Office are giving consideration to the clamp-down based on the number of passengers who board their flights already drunk, and the dangers to others this presents. Reportedly union Unite has found that 87% of staff from British-based airlines had witnessed drunken passengers at UK airports, or on flights from the UK in August 2017.
Meanwhile Club 18-30 organised its last booze-fuelled break last month and the company is being wound up due to lack of consumer interest in the culture of wet tee shirt competitions and ready sex.