August 22, 2025 • 39 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
What general tricks do companies use to get you to purchase something or sign up for something you don't want? Kevin Brassler, the Executive Editor of Consumers’ Checkbook joined us to discuss consumer red flags. In addition, Kevin can give examples of throwing away money on services and items that, while marketed as useful, are bad buys as well as worthwhile services and products that you could get for free.
What general tricks do companies use to get you to purchase something or sign up for something you don't want? Kevin Brassler, the Executive Editor of Consumers’ Checkbook joined us to discuss consumer red flags. In addition, Kevin can give examples of throwing away money on services and items that, while marketed as useful, are bad buys as well as worthwhile services and products that you could get for free.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice size with Dan Ray, I'm going Easy Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks for being with us on Nightside. Has been a
great week so far. I expect the night will be
no different, especially with that fantastic first guest, Kevin Bressler,
executive editor of checkbook dot Org. It's a nonprofit consumer
at advocacy group, and what they do is they make
sure that you avoid trouble when you're purchasing stuff, save money,
(00:29):
and keep you from wasting money, and they will give
you unbiased ratings on local services. Kevin's been in the
biz for thirty years and we're going to get some
top tips to help you save money and protect yourself
and get a good deal. So thank you for being
with us. Kevin.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
That's great to be back. Thanks for having me back.
I've missed this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Kevin has been a guest many times. I'm sure you'll
remember him, and I'm looking forward to getting into the
top ways to protect yourself. And there are a lot
of very specific things. We spent half an hour before
the show really scraping the corners of our minds to
get actionable stuff, and so consumer red Flags is one
(01:13):
way to put it. But top tips, top yes, protection
tips is another way to put it. And at the
very very top of the pile is something you brought
up a couple of times, is beware when people are
trying to rush you. Can you talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That if anybody is ever trying to rush you into
make a decision, if somebody's trying to tell you, oh,
this price I have for you, it's only good for
today or only good for this week, if anyone is
ever you know, making you think if you don't act quickly,
then you're going to lose out on something, or if
they're trying to rush you to make a decision because
(01:50):
there's some danger, there's something you know, giving you know,
we'll talk about this later, but you know, a lot
of companies these days, legitimate companies, try to induce a
lot of anxiety into us and to the equation that
if you don't do this thing, if you don't buy
this thing to protect yourself, then all these all these
things might happen to you. And here's a solution in
the form of an insurance policy. But I think the
biggest red flag is if somebody's trying to rush you
(02:12):
into making a decision, it's a big red flag. So
A good example of that is home improvement companies. If
you have someone out and they're giving you a bit
on a new roof or new you know, furnace or whatever,
do repairs, and they say, I can here's my price,
but I can give you this big discount if you
sign on quickly. Sometimes I say, oh, we have crews
in the neighborhood, or I have an open slot next week,
(02:34):
or my boss said, because you're a nice guy, I
can give you this special price, but it's only good
right now or for this week. It's a red flag.
They know that doing that, it's very powerful, will get
you to sign quickly because you think, oh, this person's
being so generous in offering me this special deal or
warning me that this deal won't be around long. Big
(02:57):
red flag.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay. And by the way, folks, as we go through
this list of things, you may realize that you've had
an experience like this, and I'd love you to share
the story. I'm all about stories. Also, if you have
a question, Kevin will be happy to answer, and we're
going to cover things, and you can ask questions even advanced,
even in advance. You don't need to wait for us
(03:18):
about things like Should I get that car insurance when
I rent a car? Should I get that travel insurance
that the airline is offering me and you can't even
buy the ticket without actively denying it. Should I get this?
Should I get that? Ohso, how are you getting work
done in the home? Are you looking for a contractor
(03:40):
that's a I've gone through that recently, I'm going through
it now and it's stressful because I don't know what
I'm doing. But there are certain standard practices that will
help you. And so next the rush. The rush is
a big red flag. If they say it's a limited time,
it's probably, it's probably. Why would it be a limited time? Right?
(04:03):
Do you want you want to sell me something? You
don't want to sell it to me next week? Okay? Fine, Right,
that's unlikely. Okay, And now you mentioned discounts, and right,
it's good for a short time, so you need to rush,
but any discount, yeah, I mean the suspect, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Related to this is that uh. And you know, pretty
much every retailer these days do this where uh they say, oh,
we're going to have a you know, a big sales
event for whatever, Labor Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Memorial Day,
and you know, it just goes on and on, and
it used to be that. So what they're doing usually
(04:42):
is running just continuous sales, right Uh, they're just coming
up with some other excuse for for for giving you
some some supposed discount. And for a long time, it
was just like department stores that did this. Anybody who's
ever shopped at Macy's regularly or Coohle's knows that, Yeah,
just seem like they're running continuous sales, because they pretty
(05:02):
much are. But it's such a powerful way to get
people to buy stuff, to tell them that something's forty
percent off or two hundred dollars off that pretty much
every retailer now does this. What they do is they
show you a price. They say it's the list price
or the regular price, and they put a line through it.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I was going to say, I say that all the
time online they give you a discount.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
For me, it's very powerful.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The shirt was sixty five this this Polo shirt was
sixty five bucks, and now it's fifteen dollars.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
WHOA. It's very powerful because they show you this price
that's crossed out, and you know, maybe it's it makes
you think that's the prevailing price for this item, and
that's what the value of the item is. And therefore,
because it's sixty percent off, for forty percent off or whatever,
that you're getting a great deal. Right, And again it's
so powerful. The problem is that list price, that regular price,
(05:59):
is rarely, if ever charged by most retailers. That what
they do is they just run these continuous deals, and
they don't even these days ever, you know, come up
to an excuse for it. A lot of websites just
you know, have everything, almost everything with a slashed out
price and a lower price next to it. What happens
is if somebody tells you and you're in a store
(06:20):
online that something's forty percent off, right, it makes you think, Okay,
this is a special price you're offering me, and if
I don't jump now, this might go away. I might
lose out on this, right, and so I'd better jump
on it now. You better not shop around. You have
time for that. You know, it's two hundred dollars off,
it's sixty percent off. They're practically giving it away. Why
would you shop around? Why would you discuss it with
your spouse?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
You better jump on this. And it's so powerful, they've
all learned over the years to do this, and so
pretty much every retailer now does this. The exceptions are like,
you know, Apple doesn't usually discount stuff it sells. Some
luxury brands don't allow any discounting because they don't want
to quote unquote cheapen their brand. But it used to
be that, you know, just certain retailers tried to do this,
(07:04):
mostly department stores. But now everybody's doing it. It's actually
illegal this behavior. The FTC has a rule, and the
rule's been around since nineteen seventy four that says, if
you show somebody a price and you represent it as
the prevailing price is in the list price of the
regular price, it's got to be your prevailing price, which
(07:24):
means that it's got to be a price you charge
fifty percent of the time or more. And all these
retailers are in violation of and the FTC just hasn't
prosecuted or enforced its own rule, as I said, since
nineteen seventy four, just doesn't bother anymore. And it's really
kind of too bad because I think consumers really are
harmed by this. They don't shop around and they are
(07:45):
pressured into making a decision thinking this special price will
go away. But we've tracked prices at major retailers for
six months, for nine months. We've done it several different times,
several different cycles, and we've found that for the most part,
they just keep running these discounts. But they're not discounts.
I keep saying the word discount, but they're not discounts
because they're not, you know, giving you a break off
(08:05):
or prevailing price at all.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
All right, my friends, time for you to join us
six one seven, two, five, four ten thirty, six one seven,
two five four ten thirty or six one seven, nine
three one ten thirty and UH get some information. Well,
you have a lot of information on as I mentioned,
kile rental airline, UH ticket purchase. Oh, and this is
something I want to ask you about. I don't know
if you know this. If you don't, I'll still tell
(08:28):
the story because I've heard it's true. If you look,
we're not going to talk about this now is we're
going to address it later. If you'll look at an
airline price more than once, the algorithm will see you
want it, or the demand will go up and the
price goes up. Don't answer that yet, because we do
need to take a break, you know, if you have
some consumer question and this is the time to ask it.
(08:51):
Six one seven two, five, four thirty WBZ It's Night.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Side with Dan Ray on WBZZY Boston's News.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Ready, we're here with Kevin Bresler, and we're talking about
consumer protection, how to get the most fear money, how
not to get ripped off. There's all kinds of angles.
There's car insurance, rental car insurance, there's home construction contracting,
things like that, and airline ticket purchase, all kinds of
(09:20):
loopholes and things like that. So, uh, the number was
six one seven, two, five, ten thirty. Let's continue. Let's
get into home contracting. I'm going through that now. And
I put it off for a long time because I
didn't want to deal good luck. But gotta do it now.
If it's not going to get done now, it's never
going to get done. So okay, I just got to
(09:41):
do it. And we did go to three. You've got
three estimates, and we had good luck. We did even
ask for references. Does anybody do that anymore? You got
references and the references were good.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
So last they just don't contact the references. I think
that's what that's what happens, right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So we contacted the references. But now, what are some
of the tips when a person like myself is trying
to fix their home a little bit and you got
to trust somebody, You got to find somebody to trust.
So walk us through the process. And again, if you
have any questions or more even more interestingly, if you
have a story, if you if you bought that insurance
you didn't need, or if you didn't buy the assurance
(10:28):
insurance and you did, if you had a contractor nightmare,
if you yourself have any tips that you learned the
hard way. Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty. Okay, Kevin, Yeah,
well you know.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I mean I think the first step is to do
what you did, which is make sure you talk to
multiple contractors and before you have any contractor out, check
into them, right. I mean, there's these days, there's lots
of sources of ratings. I think some can be trusted,
some can't. I happen to produce ratings of local services.
We don't get paid refer fees by the businesses for
(11:02):
companies you know, customers to them, which happens a lot
these days. We're here just to provide consumers with with
unbiased ratings. And then we do so by surveying our members.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Right and we as checkbook dot org. And that's how
you can say that you supply unbiased consumer advice.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, I make sure, you know, check to see how
many complaints they have file against them with the Better
Business Bureau. That's easy to do. I'd say these days,
anything more than two complaints, it's a big red flag.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I think also you can, you know, check to see
if any lawsuits have been filed against these businesses. And
for contractors, most should be licensed by the state. Not
all contractors have to have a license.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
But they have the word there's somebody that does right.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Or some types of contractors don't have to have license,
but most here in Massachusetts, most contractors working in homes
have to have some type of.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And if but if they if they're not licensed, then
they do something wrong, cause a flood in your home.
Then you're more on the hook.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
You're more on the hooky. It's it's you know, well,
if you talk to consumer protection authorities and ask them
what are the biggest you know, the biggest source of complaints,
it's unlicensed contractors it's it's businesses that you know, because
if they're unlicensed, that they haven't bothered to jump through
the hoops to even get licensed. And sometimes there's not
many hoops. It's just you know, file some forms, make
(12:18):
sure that you have proper insurance. Sometimes they have to,
you know, purchase a bond which really protects them more
than you, but but that they have to have you know,
they have to and that they're paying their taxes. I mean,
if they're not jumping through those hoops and they're not
likely you know, willing to carry the not really into details,
not into the details, so you know, make sure they're licensed.
But beyond that, you know, even among equally qualified contractors,
(12:41):
those that you've once you've spotted some and you said, okay,
these companies they are going to be good companies, still
get several proposals from them because what you'll find is
massive price differences to company to company. We at Checkbook,
we have our own group of undercover shoppers. We are
always shopping prices for things, calling plumbers, electricians, window installers,
(13:02):
installation companies, asking them for a prices because we report
a price rating for the businesses that we run.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Right, you need in the undercover shoppers in Boston, right,
we might, so who do you stack? So you send
them here? No?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
No, they just over the phone. Sometimes we come here,
we're shopping supermarkets. Just a few weeks ago, we had
a bunch of people here shopping stores in person.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Sometimes when we shop other things like hardware stores, all
kinds of things, we'll send people in person. But usually
it's over the phone via email. And it's so so
get several prices because you'll see these huge price differences
from company company for the exact same work. You'll see
huge price differences.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
All right, let's talk to Joe and Hyde Park.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Hi, Joe, Hi, Bradley.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (13:47):
I wanted to ask one quick question. I've been dying
to ask this for years because I see it and
I never hear anybody talk about it. And that is
when advertisers are advertising on TV, they put that caption
at the bottom of the screen that no one can read,
that they leave on there for a few seconds and
it disappears.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Okay, and you say that that is the so called
fine print, and you're wondering why that counts, why is
that legally buying?
Speaker 6 (14:15):
Well, yeah, the reason I'm saying it leads into crisis
is because you can get two phones for thirty dollars.
You can get two of these for this or that.
And then at the at the bottom of the screen,
they got this long caption and it doesn't matter whether
it's a lawyer or cellular phones, it doesn't matter what
it is. They put that caption on there. And I
weren't just wondering how they can get away with that, Okay, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, what they're doing is that usually that that small
print says limited time only, certain exclusions apply, certain restrictions apply.
You know, usually it's taxes aren't included. Things like that.
You think that's bad. Go into the terms and conditions
for the websites of any major retail or any major
website in general, and it's thousands of thousands of words,
(14:58):
and often the word you need includes things like, if
you buy anything from us, you can never sue us,
you have to go to binding arbitration, you can't join
a class action suit, you can't you know, it's a
limited time purchase. My favorite small print is we were
looking at a big retailer that basically just runs continuous sales,
and we looked at the terms of conditions and under pricing.
It said, our regular list price is the price we
(15:22):
might have charged in the past or might charge in
the future future, or it's a price one of our
competitors has charged in the past or might charge in
the future. And it's like, what are you a time machine?
What's going on here?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So these Yeah, they put these up there because they
legally have to. But shouldn't part of that legal be
it has to be up there long enough for a
normal human to read it.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, I agree, or or you know, especially you know,
the terms and conditions in some of these websites not
include things like if something goes wrong, we bear no
responsibility for anything we sell or any of the services
we've ever provided. And we see that a lot, especially
in the travel industry.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
And it couldn't say, yeah, and what happens when you
don't check the box with terms and conditions and you
want to buy software?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh, I was going to say that no one reads.
I couldn't read that. No one reason. And it could
say in there, we have the right to come in
your home and take your refrigerator and your stove anytime
we want, and you would never.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Know, right, And so if you have a home, if
you're getting if you're contracting for work in your home,
when they slide a contract across to you, you can
go through it with them and you can even potentially
cross things out of the contract you don't like or
change them. But you can't do that online. You can't
go online, and you have to either accept the terms
and conditions and do business with that company or not.
And if you don't accept it, then you can't do it.
(16:37):
And they all these businesses have these lengthy, especially these days,
these clauses that say, essentially, if something goes wrong, you
can't assume me. You have to go to arbitration and
you can't join a classic. Yeah, it's a biggie because
private enforcement through lawsuits is the way consumers these days
really get protected. You can't assume the.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
Right. I was just curious about that caption thing because
it's like abra cadabra. Here is ten seconds, okay bye,
and you know two poonts for the oh you can
do this and that you know, they got all these
background people that are that are saying this is a
wonderful deal. Yeah, I switched, I did this, and all that.
They got the caption at the bottom and you go
to try to read it, Boom, it's gone.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, that's a good one. And related to software, everyone,
this is important when you're buying software. I almost made
a mistake the other day. If you're buying software, make
sure it's compatible with your computer, not only your computer,
but the pro program that you're going to use it with.
Some some softwares are made to plug into other software
and you need to ask. I actually email their tech
support and say, are you sure this will work with
(17:41):
this computer within this software. So, because once you buy
some software, I don't I don't think in many in
many cases, I don't think you can return it.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Maybe right, exactly? All right, No, I kind of agree
to you know, once they once they get your money,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Joe, great call, So glad you joined. Thank you.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
Yeah. I just thought that that was an interesting point, Bradley,
because I've never heard anybody mentioned. And I see these
captions all the time. I says, how come when someone
calls Dan Ray or something else, they don't they don't
mention this thing about the captions when they're talking about
commercials and over what they never heard it. So I says,
I'm going to call and ask.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Well, good, you got it in there, you got it done.
Somebody had to Bradley, you did it. And hello to
everyone in Hyde Park. I love Hyde Park. Let's go
to Frank and Denham. I like denhim pretty well too.
Frank in Denham. You uh, you're on WBZ with Kevin
Bresler from consumer excuse me from checkbook dot Org.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Yes, good eating the both is I just pulled in
and I don't know where your guest is from, Bradley,
but you might want to tell you listeners that if
they have any problems with consumers or retailers or card dealers,
they can sometimes recover their damages if they familiarize themselves
in read Chapter ninety three A Mass General Laws. That
(19:00):
is the Consumer Protection Law ninety three a mass Consumer
Protection Law. You can google that during your break and
you'll be able to pull it up and it's it's
a little lengthy, but it has a lot of good
information there.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So you've read it. Is there like the cliff notes
on that can you give me one thing?
Speaker 5 (19:19):
It says it's about returns, perceptive practices. Gift cards. You know,
I think they're good for six years, gift certificates, but
if you've been duped. You can sometimes write what they
(19:40):
call a thirty day letter of demand and recover your
damages or the full amount if the retailer or the
company is in violation of the consumer protection law.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Excellent, well, thank you man. What is the statute number again?
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Three? Mass consumer protection yet? Nine three A.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That's something that maybe I'll go home and.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I will say that that that the consumer protection laws
in Massachusetts are generally better favor consumers more than they
do in other states. The problem is the problem is enforcement.
I will say that I think the enforcement staff at
the Attorney General's Office here in Massachusetts are are more
(20:28):
proactive and do a better job of trying to protect
consumers than in other states also, but the problem is
that it's it's a pretty small staff and they're overworked.
And so you can complain to the Attorney General's office.
There's a consumer protection division there. They have investigators that
will look into things. They will even you know, reach
out to companies on your behalf and try to get
them to do the right thing. But the problem is
there are so many companies out there that don't care
(20:51):
what the law is that they often intentionally or not
will dupe you into doing things, will do things like
have fake sales, which is also a deceptive advertising, and
that the Attorney general staff can always, you know, reach
out to these companies can always take up your your
problem and so you really kind of it's one of
(21:13):
the things on our list here to discuss during the show.
As a consumer, you do have to protect yourself and
you do have to just assume that you're on your own.
No one's going to swoop in and rescue you. And
then the companies, bad companies are not necessarily going to
care at all about what the laws. I've always said
that you could drop a contract with a home improvement
(21:33):
contractor and cover everything, right, you know, if this goes wrong,
then this is the you know, the what you can
do about it? Right if you know, these are the
when you're going to send in payments. But no contract
can protect you from a bad contract or if somebody
has decided to deceive you or try to trick you,
or to sell you something you don't need. I mean,
(21:55):
it's just on down the line. They're not going to
care so much with the lasses. Even though the law
says you can't deceive people when selling them something. It
happens all the time.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I guess because they know that the Attorney General's office
is busy and the chance that they'll actually have to
pay is small.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
It's just in most consumers they also know we'll just
you know, I guess, accept the fact that they've been
you know, for a lack of better words, screwed over right.
You know this happened to me. I'm just going to
move on. You can complain. There are other resources. The
Better Business Bureau, especially the Better Business Bureau here in Massachusetts,
very good out. You can go to small claims Court
(22:30):
if unless there's something in your contract that says behind
finding arbitration, which every website these days has, so they
do make it difficult. The problem is, what I've always
told people is you want to avoid trouble to begin with.
You don't want to have to fight your way out
of trouble later on. So you have to be very careful,
(22:50):
especially when it comes to work around your home. For example,
when you're getting car repairs, that you're dealing with reputable
places because a lot of the shady police, the shady
companies are really good at convincing you that they're gonna
do good work and all that and they're not intending
to do that all alone.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Okay, thanks a lot, Frank, I appreciate it. When we continue,
I will, you know, go through the process, my home
improvement process. So far, so far, so good. But I
did due diligence and I'll tell you how the results went.
And we have a lot more for you with Kevin
Bresler checkbook dot org helping you protect yourself, avoid trouble,
(23:28):
save money, and get good unbiased ratings on services in
the local Boston area. Check Book excuse me, yes, checkbook
dot org is not just a blanket thing. It is
separate for each market. So these will be Boston services.
That's coming up next on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It is correct Bradley Jay and for Dan ray tonight
on nights Side six one, seven thirty our number. If
you have questions, comments are even better stories about consumer issues,
whether it be construction, your head done, or something with
an automobile or insurance questions. A lot of the questions
(24:16):
you might have involved do I need to get this,
Do I need to get this insurance for this or that?
And we'll we will delve into them. We're with Kevin Wrestler,
who is the executive editor of checkbook dot org, helping
you avoid money, avoid trouble, and save money. We've gone
through some red flags. Let's move along. Oh, I promise
(24:38):
to tell you my situation at home, So everybody this is,
you know, could at some point, probably in some point,
will be your situation too. Needed. We have a sun room.
It needed to be upgraded. It's just not really completely
a real room, and we wanted to have a floor raised.
Mostly that's it. So we did what we heard we
(25:01):
were supposed to do. Contacted three people, and the first
one kind of pushed us to do stuff we didn't
want to do. It's like, you need to put you
need to reroute that pipe over here. He's like, no, dude,
we don't want that, and luckily I'm not. It's pretty
difficult to push me into doing something because I don't
trust anybody at all. So we're like, okay, thank you,
(25:23):
bye bye. And and he didn't even offer any recommendations
when we asked for him. So there's that. And then
there were two others and one of them was half
the price, very flexible, workable, and gave us recommendations, and
we called the recommendation. You got to call the recommendations,
(25:45):
and they were glowing. I suppose the recommendations could be
set up there could be relatives or something, but it
didn't seem like that. And they even had pictures of
the work. So at some point you got to pull
a trigger and have some trust. That's really actually why
not a home. I don't like owning a home because
I have to trust people. I don't know what's going on,
and I have to trust that they do. I'm a renter,
(26:08):
and that's one of the reasons why in general. But
this is an exception. So we haven't had the experience yet,
but we'll see. The person we've chosen. It's very flexible.
We changed our we changed what we wanted down a
couple of times ahead of time, changed the estimate, no problem,
and now I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping for
(26:29):
the best. Did not require all the money up front.
It was the standard I think half and half or
something like that. So here we go. We'll see. I've
never even done this before, not being a big homeowner,
so we'll see how it turns out. And if you've
had any work done and I'd like to know if
it went well or was there a problem? What was
(26:51):
that problem? Did you learn a lesson? What was that
lesson next?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Well, you know, I think I just want to say that,
I mean, you're doing things the right way, like get
multiple prices, because some companies, you know, even good companies, uh,
charge drastically different prices from one another for the same
work we se for thirty years now, I'm just continuously
astonished at the price differences we find when our own shoppers,
(27:17):
or my on my own when I collect multiple bids
from really good companies. So we got our you know,
are the xterior of our house painted several years ago,
and the highest price we were quoted was like eight
thousand dollars more than the lowest price we were quoted.
And these again are among reputable good companies. We would
we could expect to get about the same work out
(27:37):
of the the eight thousand dollars cheaper company than the
one that was really expensive.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Uh the other you're The short version of that is,
don't assume you get what you pay for it. Well,
don't assume the low price.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Don't assume a low price means means bad or you
should if you are worried about a low price, if
it seems too good to be true, that could be
something to worry about out But just know that that
the the when if you get multiple bids. You'll see
it yourself. Just about for any home improvement job, especially,
you'll see big price differences from company to company, and
(28:12):
it's and people always ask me why, and I'm like, well,
one reason is that home improvement companies know that most
people don't get more than one price. They just don't.
It's really a pain to get multiple prices right. You
have to have you might have to be home, although
for lots of types of work you don't have to
be If you need a tree removed or something like that,
you know want to be around. You could get ten
bids for the job. But for a lot of times
(28:33):
it's it's difficult. You have to meet with people. A
lot of these people they send high pressure salespeople to
your home and they you know, oh, you got to
sign right now, or you're not going to get this
special deal, or you know, they put the screws to you.
And also just people. Usually they have one person out
and the person seems like a nice someone to work with.
And they seem trustworthy and so they get the job.
(28:54):
And all of these companies know that. And also they
just have different pro profit motives. Some people they have,
you know, four partners in the company and they all
have to to live on the money they make. And
in others it's a single operator, and so sometimes they
just charge.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Speaking the high pressure, it just reminded me of something.
And then we'll get to Rick and Bill Ricca. When
my mother passed, there was a house. We had to
sell the house, so you have to find it real estate.
And one real estate agent came in and looked at
it and before they left just said, well, you know,
you have to sign this thing. You have to sign something.
And we didn't even tell them we're choosing you. They
(29:32):
just were trying to bully us into signing something. I
was so angry, so angry, I said, no, we don't
and get out.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Was this very recent?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I kicked them out and used bad language.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yeah, there is this a new rule for basically rule
for real estate agents to where for someone to show
you a home, you often have to kind of sign
on at least for the purpose of showing you the home.
It's really calm because it is this for a different.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Sign I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well, it's just you know, basically real estate agents and
all the brokerages got sued for anti trust behavior because
you know, it's always been that, oh, you know, if
you're buying a house, uh, you don't pay the commission,
but the sellers have to pay basically, you know, five
to six percent. They have to pay the listing agent
two or three percent, of the buyer's agents three percent.
(30:24):
And no one ever got to negotiate that. They often
didn't tell you, hey, this is an optional service. You know,
you have all these MLS listings and so basically all
the real estate brokerages and it's ongoing. There's this massive
class action suit for anti trust behavior. And that's why
now when you go to even want to be shown
a house, they might make you sign something just so
you know what the deal is, so you know that
(30:44):
if you're going to buy that house, what the commission
arrangements are going to be, and that they're they're negotiable.
You don't have to pay these things. That's what they're
basically having to sign.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I hate signing things because as so much vibrant, and
but you don't understand the way.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
You're describing is totally different. It's a it's an agent
that wanted to get you to sign them and their
degree to have them list that property before you and
then and if they sell the house, then you're going
to pay those commission. And usually those listing agreements say
that they're in force for sixty days or something.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Also, my you know, my mother had a financial advisor. Yeah,
we went to him after she'd passed. Oh yeah, I'm
going to be uh you know, continuing y oh yeah,
very all bully let Yeah, no, dude, you are not.
And again I was. I was angry and scary and
I'm pretty quiet until.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I'm glad you stuck up. He I mean you have
to in the end, as I said, you have to
take ownership of of your consumerism right that no one's
Sometimes people will jump in and rescue you, but usually
know if things go wrong, you're just going to be
left with the mestic cleanup. And again, bad companies don't
care about the fact that you're upset that things didn't
(31:57):
go well, that they're not going to just turn around
and make things right because you asked them.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I couldn't believe this person, this financial advisor thought I
was such a pushover that he felt he could say that.
I couldn't believe it. Let's talk to Rick and.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Hi Rick, Hey, Bradley, and what's your other guest's name, Kevin? Kevin?
Sorry about that. Yeah, I don't like signing things either, Bradley.
I don't like being pressured. I would have done the
same thing you did. And I'm I'm not aggressive. I'm
not aggressive, you know. I think we all have a
(32:32):
little passive aggressive. But yeah, I tend to be pretty chill,
and I think you are too. But yeah, especially after
your mom died and you had to sell the house,
I went through that. We had a friend of the
we had a friend of the family that did and
ultimately a contract a bought the house. But that's another
start for another day. I don't like contractors, or real
estate developers or real estate investors, but because I think
(32:55):
they try to pull fast ones. But but nevertheless, what
I wanted to first of all, this is.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
A great topic.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
You know. Recently I had some moss in the back
roof of mine. I ended up taking care of it myself.
My brother Chuck held the ladder for me and I
got right up there I sprayed some stuff in it.
But I had this guy come over, this roofing guy,
a legitimate roof and company, and I said, do you
can you just take a look and tell me what
it would cost to clean up the moss and maybe
(33:25):
trim some of the trees because it's caused by the trees.
And the guy comes, nice guy, comes up, walks on
the roof and he never he never gave me a quote,
and I just thought that I was weird. I called
him a couple of days later, I said, listen, I
did I do something? Did I give you the wrong information?
Wrong email? Because I don't got an information goes No,
(33:47):
I just haven't got the time. I hadn't had the
chance to send a quote. But ultimately he never sent
it at all. And I just thought, and I won't
bad Moulf the company. I'm not going to be yelp
or anything. I think that's a little over rate.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
I mean it is not.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
It can be helpful, it can be helpful, but I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna say anything bad. But I
just thought it was weird. Yeah, this is that you
wouldn't want to give me some sort of reasonable estimates.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Rick, we'll
answer this off air, finish up, and then go to
the break. Same thing happened to me with one of
the people. The third person the contacted never got back. Happened.
Actually it took months and we'd already made a decision.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Happens all the time, and our undercover shoppers when they're
calling companies for quotes, sometimes they have to I don't
say they badger them, but they have to call repeatedly
to get a price out of them. And I would
say about twenty five thirty percent of the time companies
won't quote. And part of it is that, you know,
you know well. Part of the problem is that really
good companies often don't need new customers. And that's a
(34:51):
continuing problem in that it's it just happens that way.
They have enough business already and they can't handle anymore,
so they just turn it away and they just don't
return your call or emails because they just can't be bothered.
Another big problem is a lot of companies just don't
want small jobs, and that's probably what happened with this
roofing business. Did he want to send a crew out
for an hour and a half to brush off this
(35:12):
moss and spray and treatment. Probably not he could, you know,
this roofer probably thought, you know, my business time could
be better spent on some other jobs.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I should tell you that, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Exactly, you know, but you know it's hard to say why.
And then some companies are just disorganized and don't get
back to you. And I think that's common also. But
you know, we've we've our shoppers, we've gotten you know,
bids for tree removal. You know, it's like half the
companies don't show up when they're supposed to, don't bother
and it's just a continuing problem I think for all homeowners,
(35:45):
or these no shows or no bids.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, the idea of being played for soccer just grinds
my gears. And that extrapolates to eighteen dollars cocktails. I
feel like if I buy an eighteen dollar cocktail, I'm
a sucker. We'll go to Steve next. On WBZ News
Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
News Radio Bradley for Dan, We're talking consumer protection with
Kevin Bresler of checkbook dot Org, and we have Steven Doorchester.
How do you do, Stephen, I'm really pleased that you
called this at six.
Speaker 7 (36:22):
Great Bradley and Kevin, thank you for taking my call.
I'm enjoying this topic. And two years ago, I got
a new roof on my house and it's a pitch roof.
It's I live in it to an ops family. So
I got the three estimates, like I'm listening to what
what Kevin said you should do? So I got one.
It was out of side. I couldn't believe how much
(36:42):
it costs. And then I got a low ball one,
and then I got like one in the middle, and
I thought to myself, so I didn't go with the
out of side one and I didn't go with the
low one. The reason why I went to the middle
one is because I liked the roof of whota talk
to me and explain things to me. Even though it
was a little bit more than the lowest one, but
(37:07):
I just felt and he did a great job. And
I was even able to recommend him to other people
that I because they see they'll put up a little
sign in front of the house, you know, and say
and then people would come to me and say, how
do you think he did? I said he was great.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
He was great.
Speaker 7 (37:26):
I do love, you know, when when it works out
great for you, and I'm able to tell my buddies
and friends and say, no, he was really good. And
even my son lives he needed a new wolf and
he used the same company that I did, like a
couple of years later, so it was it all worked out.
(37:50):
So sometimes word of mouth is sometimes the best thing.
I don't know what Kevin would say about word of mouth,
but sometimes if you have a good experience with the contract,
you know, that's probably the best thing.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's the best. And yes, I mean that's how you know.
As I've always said, you know, so we have ratings
of local businesses and people always say, well, who's your
your biggest competition? Well, now it's it's turning into you know,
Google has reviews, for example, but our biggest competition has
always been just people talking over the back fence, right
that that you know, people find companies from talking to
people they trust. I think the only danger I'm glad
(38:27):
everything worked out for you. I'm not, you know, And
I think, also, yeah, you should let other people know
that this company did great work, because those people trust
you and they know you have good judgment. Is always
a little dangerous to trust a sample of one though,
right that, you know, even even terrible companies sometimes satisfy
their customers, and even often do. But I do think
that you're what you're saying in terms of, you know,
you felt comfortable with the guy who gave you what
(38:49):
you thought was a fair price, even though it was
the lowest. Yeah, that's the way you go sometimes, I mean,
and that's the way I operate sometimes, right that I
want to make sure nothing's going to go wrong. That's
the big risk that there's some big problem that you
got to solve later on. And you can't assume he's
going to be help you. Somebody's going to be, you know,
to jump in and help you, because they won't.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
N Carl Stephen, Don'tchester. I'm gonna ask Kevin after this break.
Do you think that people charge you based on what
they think you can pay? Do they look at you?
Do they see how much money they think you have?
Had an incident with a barber. I asked him how
much for my beard trim? He looked at me up
and down, said twenty nine ninety five. I said, wrong,
I don't have that kind of money, you know, I
(39:28):
want to go nineteen. How's that. So we'll address that
when we come back, and we have a whole lot
more to cover on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
It's nice size with Dan Ray, I'm going Easy Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks for being with us on Nightside. Has been a
great week so far. I expect the night will be
no different, especially with that fantastic first guest, Kevin Bressler,
executive editor of checkbook dot Org. It's a nonprofit consumer
at advocacy group, and what they do is they make
sure that you avoid trouble when you're purchasing stuff, save money,
(00:29):
and keep you from wasting money, and they will give
you unbiased ratings on local services. Kevin's been in the
biz for thirty years and we're going to get some
top tips to help you save money and protect yourself
and get a good deal. So thank you for being
with us. Kevin.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
That's great to be back. Thanks for having me back.
I've missed this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Kevin has been a guest many times. I'm sure you'll
remember him, and I'm looking forward to getting into the
top ways to protect yourself. And there are a lot
of very specific things. We spent half an hour before
the show really scraping the corners of our minds to
get actionable stuff, and so consumer red Flags is one
(01:13):
way to put it. But top tips, top yes, protection
tips is another way to put it. And at the
very very top of the pile is something you brought
up a couple of times, is beware when people are
trying to rush you. Can you talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That if anybody is ever trying to rush you into
make a decision, if somebody's trying to tell you, oh,
this price I have for you, it's only good for
today or only good for this week, if anyone is
ever you know, making you think if you don't act quickly,
then you're going to lose out on something, or if
they're trying to rush you to make a decision because
(01:50):
there's some danger, there's something you know, giving you know,
we'll talk about this later, but you know, a lot
of companies these days, legitimate companies, try to induce a
lot of anxiety into us and to the equation that
if you don't do this thing, if you don't buy
this thing to protect yourself, then all these all these
things might happen to you. And here's a solution in
the form of an insurance policy. But I think the
biggest red flag is if somebody's trying to rush you
(02:12):
into making a decision, it's a big red flag. So
A good example of that is home improvement companies. If
you have someone out and they're giving you a bit
on a new roof or new you know, furnace or whatever,
do repairs, and they say, I can here's my price,
but I can give you this big discount if you
sign on quickly. Sometimes I say, oh, we have crews
in the neighborhood, or I have an open slot next week,
(02:34):
or my boss said, because you're a nice guy, I
can give you this special price, but it's only good
right now or for this week. It's a red flag.
They know that doing that, it's very powerful, will get
you to sign quickly because you think, oh, this person's
being so generous in offering me this special deal or
warning me that this deal won't be around long. Big
(02:57):
red flag.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay. And by the way, folks, as we go through
this list of things, you may realize that you've had
an experience like this, and I'd love you to share
the story. I'm all about stories. Also, if you have
a question, Kevin will be happy to answer, and we're
going to cover things, and you can ask questions even advanced,
even in advance. You don't need to wait for us
(03:18):
about things like Should I get that car insurance when
I rent a car? Should I get that travel insurance
that the airline is offering me and you can't even
buy the ticket without actively denying it. Should I get this?
Should I get that? Ohso, how are you getting work
done in the home? Are you looking for a contractor
(03:40):
that's a I've gone through that recently, I'm going through
it now and it's stressful because I don't know what
I'm doing. But there are certain standard practices that will
help you. And so next the rush. The rush is
a big red flag. If they say it's a limited time,
it's probably, it's probably. Why would it be a limited time? Right?
(04:03):
Do you want you want to sell me something? You
don't want to sell it to me next week? Okay? Fine, Right,
that's unlikely. Okay, And now you mentioned discounts, and right,
it's good for a short time, so you need to rush,
but any discount, yeah, I mean the suspect, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Related to this is that uh. And you know, pretty
much every retailer these days do this where uh they say, oh,
we're going to have a you know, a big sales
event for whatever, Labor Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Memorial Day,
and you know, it just goes on and on, and
it used to be that. So what they're doing usually
(04:42):
is running just continuous sales, right Uh, they're just coming
up with some other excuse for for for giving you
some some supposed discount. And for a long time, it
was just like department stores that did this. Anybody who's
ever shopped at Macy's regularly or Coohle's knows that, Yeah,
just seem like they're running continuous sales, because they pretty
(05:02):
much are. But it's such a powerful way to get
people to buy stuff, to tell them that something's forty
percent off or two hundred dollars off that pretty much
every retailer now does this. What they do is they
show you a price. They say it's the list price
or the regular price, and they put a line through it.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I was going to say, I say that all the
time online they give you a discount.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
For me, it's very powerful.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The shirt was sixty five this this Polo shirt was
sixty five bucks, and now it's fifteen dollars.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
WHOA. It's very powerful because they show you this price
that's crossed out, and you know, maybe it's it makes
you think that's the prevailing price for this item, and
that's what the value of the item is. And therefore,
because it's sixty percent off, for forty percent off or whatever,
that you're getting a great deal. Right, And again it's
so powerful. The problem is that list price, that regular price,
(05:59):
is rarely, if ever charged by most retailers. That what
they do is they just run these continuous deals, and
they don't even these days ever, you know, come up
to an excuse for it. A lot of websites just
you know, have everything, almost everything with a slashed out
price and a lower price next to it. What happens
is if somebody tells you and you're in a store
(06:20):
online that something's forty percent off, right, it makes you think, Okay,
this is a special price you're offering me, and if
I don't jump now, this might go away. I might
lose out on this, right, and so I'd better jump
on it now. You better not shop around. You have
time for that. You know, it's two hundred dollars off,
it's sixty percent off. They're practically giving it away. Why
would you shop around? Why would you discuss it with
your spouse?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
You better jump on this. And it's so powerful, they've
all learned over the years to do this, and so
pretty much every retailer now does this. The exceptions are like,
you know, Apple doesn't usually discount stuff it sells. Some
luxury brands don't allow any discounting because they don't want
to quote unquote cheapen their brand. But it used to
be that, you know, just certain retailers tried to do this,
(07:04):
mostly department stores. But now everybody's doing it. It's actually
illegal this behavior. The FTC has a rule, and the
rule's been around since nineteen seventy four that says, if
you show somebody a price and you represent it as
the prevailing price is in the list price of the
regular price, it's got to be your prevailing price, which
(07:24):
means that it's got to be a price you charge
fifty percent of the time or more. And all these
retailers are in violation of and the FTC just hasn't
prosecuted or enforced its own rule, as I said, since
nineteen seventy four, just doesn't bother anymore. And it's really
kind of too bad because I think consumers really are
harmed by this. They don't shop around and they are
(07:45):
pressured into making a decision thinking this special price will
go away. But we've tracked prices at major retailers for
six months, for nine months. We've done it several different times,
several different cycles, and we've found that for the most part,
they just keep running these discounts. But they're not discounts.
I keep saying the word discount, but they're not discounts
because they're not, you know, giving you a break off
(08:05):
or prevailing price at all.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
All right, my friends, time for you to join us
six one seven, two, five, four ten thirty, six one seven,
two five four ten thirty or six one seven, nine
three one ten thirty and UH get some information. Well,
you have a lot of information on as I mentioned,
kile rental airline, UH ticket purchase. Oh, and this is
something I want to ask you about. I don't know
if you know this. If you don't, I'll still tell
(08:28):
the story because I've heard it's true. If you look,
we're not going to talk about this now is we're
going to address it later. If you'll look at an
airline price more than once, the algorithm will see you
want it, or the demand will go up and the
price goes up. Don't answer that yet, because we do
need to take a break, you know, if you have
some consumer question and this is the time to ask it.
(08:51):
Six one seven two, five, four thirty WBZ It's Night.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Side with Dan Ray on WBZZY Boston's News.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Ready, we're here with Kevin Bresler, and we're talking about
consumer protection, how to get the most fear money, how
not to get ripped off. There's all kinds of angles.
There's car insurance, rental car insurance, there's home construction contracting,
things like that, and airline ticket purchase, all kinds of
(09:20):
loopholes and things like that. So, uh, the number was
six one seven, two, five, ten thirty. Let's continue. Let's
get into home contracting. I'm going through that now. And
I put it off for a long time because I
didn't want to deal good luck. But gotta do it now.
If it's not going to get done now, it's never
going to get done. So okay, I just got to
(09:41):
do it. And we did go to three. You've got
three estimates, and we had good luck. We did even
ask for references. Does anybody do that anymore? You got
references and the references were good.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
So last they just don't contact the references. I think
that's what that's what happens, right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So we contacted the references. But now, what are some
of the tips when a person like myself is trying
to fix their home a little bit and you got
to trust somebody, You got to find somebody to trust.
So walk us through the process. And again, if you
have any questions or more even more interestingly, if you
have a story, if you if you bought that insurance
you didn't need, or if you didn't buy the assurance
(10:28):
insurance and you did, if you had a contractor nightmare,
if you yourself have any tips that you learned the
hard way. Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty. Okay, Kevin, Yeah,
well you know.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I mean I think the first step is to do
what you did, which is make sure you talk to
multiple contractors and before you have any contractor out, check
into them, right. I mean, there's these days, there's lots
of sources of ratings. I think some can be trusted,
some can't. I happen to produce ratings of local services.
We don't get paid refer fees by the businesses for
(11:02):
companies you know, customers to them, which happens a lot
these days. We're here just to provide consumers with with
unbiased ratings. And then we do so by surveying our members.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Right and we as checkbook dot org. And that's how
you can say that you supply unbiased consumer advice.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, I make sure, you know, check to see how
many complaints they have file against them with the Better
Business Bureau. That's easy to do. I'd say these days,
anything more than two complaints, it's a big red flag.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I think also you can, you know, check to see
if any lawsuits have been filed against these businesses. And
for contractors, most should be licensed by the state. Not
all contractors have to have a license.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
But they have the word there's somebody that does right.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Or some types of contractors don't have to have license,
but most here in Massachusetts, most contractors working in homes
have to have some type of.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And if but if they if they're not licensed, then
they do something wrong, cause a flood in your home.
Then you're more on the hook.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
You're more on the hooky. It's it's you know, well,
if you talk to consumer protection authorities and ask them
what are the biggest you know, the biggest source of complaints,
it's unlicensed contractors it's it's businesses that you know, because
if they're unlicensed, that they haven't bothered to jump through
the hoops to even get licensed. And sometimes there's not
many hoops. It's just you know, file some forms, make
(12:18):
sure that you have proper insurance. Sometimes they have to,
you know, purchase a bond which really protects them more
than you, but but that they have to have you know,
they have to and that they're paying their taxes. I mean,
if they're not jumping through those hoops and they're not
likely you know, willing to carry the not really into details,
not into the details, so you know, make sure they're licensed.
But beyond that, you know, even among equally qualified contractors,
(12:41):
those that you've once you've spotted some and you said, okay,
these companies they are going to be good companies, still
get several proposals from them because what you'll find is
massive price differences to company to company. We at Checkbook,
we have our own group of undercover shoppers. We are
always shopping prices for things, calling plumbers, electricians, window installers,
(13:02):
installation companies, asking them for a prices because we report
a price rating for the businesses that we run.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Right, you need in the undercover shoppers in Boston, right,
we might, so who do you stack? So you send
them here? No?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
No, they just over the phone. Sometimes we come here,
we're shopping supermarkets. Just a few weeks ago, we had
a bunch of people here shopping stores in person.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Sometimes when we shop other things like hardware stores, all
kinds of things, we'll send people in person. But usually
it's over the phone via email. And it's so so
get several prices because you'll see these huge price differences
from company company for the exact same work. You'll see
huge price differences.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
All right, let's talk to Joe and Hyde Park.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Hi, Joe, Hi, Bradley.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (13:47):
I wanted to ask one quick question. I've been dying
to ask this for years because I see it and
I never hear anybody talk about it. And that is
when advertisers are advertising on TV, they put that caption
at the bottom of the screen that no one can read,
that they leave on there for a few seconds and
it disappears.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Okay, and you say that that is the so called
fine print, and you're wondering why that counts, why is
that legally buying?
Speaker 6 (14:15):
Well, yeah, the reason I'm saying it leads into crisis
is because you can get two phones for thirty dollars.
You can get two of these for this or that.
And then at the at the bottom of the screen,
they got this long caption and it doesn't matter whether
it's a lawyer or cellular phones, it doesn't matter what
it is. They put that caption on there. And I
weren't just wondering how they can get away with that, Okay, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, what they're doing is that usually that that small
print says limited time only, certain exclusions apply, certain restrictions apply.
You know, usually it's taxes aren't included. Things like that.
You think that's bad. Go into the terms and conditions
for the websites of any major retail or any major
website in general, and it's thousands of thousands of words,
(14:58):
and often the word you need includes things like, if
you buy anything from us, you can never sue us,
you have to go to binding arbitration, you can't join
a class action suit, you can't you know, it's a
limited time purchase. My favorite small print is we were
looking at a big retailer that basically just runs continuous sales,
and we looked at the terms of conditions and under pricing.
It said, our regular list price is the price we
(15:22):
might have charged in the past or might charge in
the future future, or it's a price one of our
competitors has charged in the past or might charge in
the future. And it's like, what are you a time machine?
What's going on here?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So these Yeah, they put these up there because they
legally have to. But shouldn't part of that legal be
it has to be up there long enough for a
normal human to read it.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, I agree, or or you know, especially you know,
the terms and conditions in some of these websites not
include things like if something goes wrong, we bear no
responsibility for anything we sell or any of the services
we've ever provided. And we see that a lot, especially
in the travel industry.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
And it couldn't say, yeah, and what happens when you
don't check the box with terms and conditions and you
want to buy software?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh, I was going to say that no one reads.
I couldn't read that. No one reason. And it could
say in there, we have the right to come in
your home and take your refrigerator and your stove anytime
we want, and you would never.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Know, right, And so if you have a home, if
you're getting if you're contracting for work in your home,
when they slide a contract across to you, you can
go through it with them and you can even potentially
cross things out of the contract you don't like or
change them. But you can't do that online. You can't
go online, and you have to either accept the terms
and conditions and do business with that company or not.
And if you don't accept it, then you can't do it.
(16:37):
And they all these businesses have these lengthy, especially these days,
these clauses that say, essentially, if something goes wrong, you
can't assume me. You have to go to arbitration and
you can't join a classic. Yeah, it's a biggie because
private enforcement through lawsuits is the way consumers these days
really get protected. You can't assume the.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
Right. I was just curious about that caption thing because
it's like abra cadabra. Here is ten seconds, okay bye,
and you know two poonts for the oh you can
do this and that you know, they got all these
background people that are that are saying this is a
wonderful deal. Yeah, I switched, I did this, and all that.
They got the caption at the bottom and you go
to try to read it, Boom, it's gone.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, that's a good one. And related to software, everyone,
this is important when you're buying software. I almost made
a mistake the other day. If you're buying software, make
sure it's compatible with your computer, not only your computer,
but the pro program that you're going to use it with.
Some some softwares are made to plug into other software
and you need to ask. I actually email their tech
support and say, are you sure this will work with
(17:41):
this computer within this software. So, because once you buy
some software, I don't I don't think in many in
many cases, I don't think you can return it.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Maybe right, exactly? All right, No, I kind of agree
to you know, once they once they get your money,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Joe, great call, So glad you joined. Thank you.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
Yeah. I just thought that that was an interesting point, Bradley,
because I've never heard anybody mentioned. And I see these
captions all the time. I says, how come when someone
calls Dan Ray or something else, they don't they don't
mention this thing about the captions when they're talking about
commercials and over what they never heard it. So I says,
I'm going to call and ask.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Well, good, you got it in there, you got it done.
Somebody had to Bradley, you did it. And hello to
everyone in Hyde Park. I love Hyde Park. Let's go
to Frank and Denham. I like denhim pretty well too.
Frank in Denham. You uh, you're on WBZ with Kevin
Bresler from consumer excuse me from checkbook dot Org.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Yes, good eating the both is I just pulled in
and I don't know where your guest is from, Bradley,
but you might want to tell you listeners that if
they have any problems with consumers or retailers or card dealers,
they can sometimes recover their damages if they familiarize themselves
in read Chapter ninety three A Mass General Laws. That
(19:00):
is the Consumer Protection Law ninety three a mass Consumer
Protection Law. You can google that during your break and
you'll be able to pull it up and it's it's
a little lengthy, but it has a lot of good
information there.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So you've read it. Is there like the cliff notes
on that can you give me one thing?
Speaker 5 (19:19):
It says it's about returns, perceptive practices. Gift cards. You know,
I think they're good for six years, gift certificates, but
if you've been duped. You can sometimes write what they
(19:40):
call a thirty day letter of demand and recover your
damages or the full amount if the retailer or the
company is in violation of the consumer protection law.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Excellent, well, thank you man. What is the statute number again?
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Three? Mass consumer protection yet? Nine three A.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That's something that maybe I'll go home and.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I will say that that that the consumer protection laws
in Massachusetts are generally better favor consumers more than they
do in other states. The problem is the problem is enforcement.
I will say that I think the enforcement staff at
the Attorney General's Office here in Massachusetts are are more
(20:28):
proactive and do a better job of trying to protect
consumers than in other states also, but the problem is
that it's it's a pretty small staff and they're overworked.
And so you can complain to the Attorney General's office.
There's a consumer protection division there. They have investigators that
will look into things. They will even you know, reach
out to companies on your behalf and try to get
them to do the right thing. But the problem is
there are so many companies out there that don't care
(20:51):
what the law is that they often intentionally or not
will dupe you into doing things, will do things like
have fake sales, which is also a deceptive advertising, and
that the Attorney general staff can always, you know, reach
out to these companies can always take up your your
problem and so you really kind of it's one of
(21:13):
the things on our list here to discuss during the show.
As a consumer, you do have to protect yourself and
you do have to just assume that you're on your own.
No one's going to swoop in and rescue you. And
then the companies, bad companies are not necessarily going to
care at all about what the laws. I've always said
that you could drop a contract with a home improvement
(21:33):
contractor and cover everything, right, you know, if this goes wrong,
then this is the you know, the what you can
do about it? Right if you know, these are the
when you're going to send in payments. But no contract
can protect you from a bad contract or if somebody
has decided to deceive you or try to trick you,
or to sell you something you don't need. I mean,
(21:55):
it's just on down the line. They're not going to
care so much with the lasses. Even though the law
says you can't deceive people when selling them something. It
happens all the time.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I guess because they know that the Attorney General's office
is busy and the chance that they'll actually have to
pay is small.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
It's just in most consumers they also know we'll just
you know, I guess, accept the fact that they've been
you know, for a lack of better words, screwed over right.
You know this happened to me. I'm just going to
move on. You can complain. There are other resources. The
Better Business Bureau, especially the Better Business Bureau here in Massachusetts,
very good out. You can go to small claims Court
(22:30):
if unless there's something in your contract that says behind
finding arbitration, which every website these days has, so they
do make it difficult. The problem is, what I've always
told people is you want to avoid trouble to begin with.
You don't want to have to fight your way out
of trouble later on. So you have to be very careful,
(22:50):
especially when it comes to work around your home. For example,
when you're getting car repairs, that you're dealing with reputable
places because a lot of the shady police, the shady
companies are really good at convincing you that they're gonna
do good work and all that and they're not intending
to do that all alone.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Okay, thanks a lot, Frank, I appreciate it. When we continue,
I will, you know, go through the process, my home
improvement process. So far, so far, so good. But I
did due diligence and I'll tell you how the results went.
And we have a lot more for you with Kevin
Bresler checkbook dot org helping you protect yourself, avoid trouble,
(23:28):
save money, and get good unbiased ratings on services in
the local Boston area. Check Book excuse me, yes, checkbook
dot org is not just a blanket thing. It is
separate for each market. So these will be Boston services.
That's coming up next on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It is correct Bradley Jay and for Dan ray tonight
on nights Side six one, seven thirty our number. If
you have questions, comments are even better stories about consumer issues,
whether it be construction, your head done, or something with
an automobile or insurance questions. A lot of the questions
(24:16):
you might have involved do I need to get this,
Do I need to get this insurance for this or that?
And we'll we will delve into them. We're with Kevin Wrestler,
who is the executive editor of checkbook dot org, helping
you avoid money, avoid trouble, and save money. We've gone
through some red flags. Let's move along. Oh, I promise
(24:38):
to tell you my situation at home, So everybody this is,
you know, could at some point, probably in some point,
will be your situation too. Needed. We have a sun room.
It needed to be upgraded. It's just not really completely
a real room, and we wanted to have a floor raised.
Mostly that's it. So we did what we heard we
(25:01):
were supposed to do. Contacted three people, and the first
one kind of pushed us to do stuff we didn't
want to do. It's like, you need to put you
need to reroute that pipe over here. He's like, no, dude,
we don't want that, and luckily I'm not. It's pretty
difficult to push me into doing something because I don't
trust anybody at all. So we're like, okay, thank you,
(25:23):
bye bye. And and he didn't even offer any recommendations
when we asked for him. So there's that. And then
there were two others and one of them was half
the price, very flexible, workable, and gave us recommendations, and
we called the recommendation. You got to call the recommendations,
(25:45):
and they were glowing. I suppose the recommendations could be
set up there could be relatives or something, but it
didn't seem like that. And they even had pictures of
the work. So at some point you got to pull
a trigger and have some trust. That's really actually why
not a home. I don't like owning a home because
I have to trust people. I don't know what's going on,
and I have to trust that they do. I'm a renter,
(26:08):
and that's one of the reasons why in general. But
this is an exception. So we haven't had the experience yet,
but we'll see. The person we've chosen. It's very flexible.
We changed our we changed what we wanted down a
couple of times ahead of time, changed the estimate, no problem,
and now I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping for
(26:29):
the best. Did not require all the money up front.
It was the standard I think half and half or
something like that. So here we go. We'll see. I've
never even done this before, not being a big homeowner,
so we'll see how it turns out. And if you've
had any work done and I'd like to know if
it went well or was there a problem? What was
(26:51):
that problem? Did you learn a lesson? What was that
lesson next?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Well, you know, I think I just want to say that,
I mean, you're doing things the right way, like get
multiple prices, because some companies, you know, even good companies, uh,
charge drastically different prices from one another for the same
work we se for thirty years now, I'm just continuously
astonished at the price differences we find when our own shoppers,
(27:17):
or my on my own when I collect multiple bids
from really good companies. So we got our you know,
are the xterior of our house painted several years ago,
and the highest price we were quoted was like eight
thousand dollars more than the lowest price we were quoted.
And these again are among reputable good companies. We would
we could expect to get about the same work out
(27:37):
of the the eight thousand dollars cheaper company than the
one that was really expensive.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Uh the other you're The short version of that is,
don't assume you get what you pay for it. Well,
don't assume the low price.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Don't assume a low price means means bad or you
should if you are worried about a low price, if
it seems too good to be true, that could be
something to worry about out But just know that that
the the when if you get multiple bids. You'll see
it yourself. Just about for any home improvement job, especially,
you'll see big price differences from company to company, and
(28:12):
it's and people always ask me why, and I'm like, well,
one reason is that home improvement companies know that most
people don't get more than one price. They just don't.
It's really a pain to get multiple prices right. You
have to have you might have to be home, although
for lots of types of work you don't have to
be If you need a tree removed or something like that,
you know want to be around. You could get ten
bids for the job. But for a lot of times
(28:33):
it's it's difficult. You have to meet with people. A
lot of these people they send high pressure salespeople to
your home and they you know, oh, you got to
sign right now, or you're not going to get this
special deal, or you know, they put the screws to you.
And also just people. Usually they have one person out
and the person seems like a nice someone to work with.
And they seem trustworthy and so they get the job.
(28:54):
And all of these companies know that. And also they
just have different pro profit motives. Some people they have,
you know, four partners in the company and they all
have to to live on the money they make. And
in others it's a single operator, and so sometimes they
just charge.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Speaking the high pressure, it just reminded me of something.
And then we'll get to Rick and Bill Ricca. When
my mother passed, there was a house. We had to
sell the house, so you have to find it real estate.
And one real estate agent came in and looked at
it and before they left just said, well, you know,
you have to sign this thing. You have to sign something.
And we didn't even tell them we're choosing you. They
(29:32):
just were trying to bully us into signing something. I
was so angry, so angry, I said, no, we don't
and get out.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Was this very recent?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I kicked them out and used bad language.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Yeah, there is this a new rule for basically rule
for real estate agents to where for someone to show
you a home, you often have to kind of sign
on at least for the purpose of showing you the home.
It's really calm because it is this for a different.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Sign I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well, it's just you know, basically real estate agents and
all the brokerages got sued for anti trust behavior because
you know, it's always been that, oh, you know, if
you're buying a house, uh, you don't pay the commission,
but the sellers have to pay basically, you know, five
to six percent. They have to pay the listing agent
two or three percent, of the buyer's agents three percent.
(30:24):
And no one ever got to negotiate that. They often
didn't tell you, hey, this is an optional service. You know,
you have all these MLS listings and so basically all
the real estate brokerages and it's ongoing. There's this massive
class action suit for anti trust behavior. And that's why
now when you go to even want to be shown
a house, they might make you sign something just so
you know what the deal is, so you know that
(30:44):
if you're going to buy that house, what the commission
arrangements are going to be, and that they're they're negotiable.
You don't have to pay these things. That's what they're
basically having to sign.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I hate signing things because as so much vibrant, and
but you don't understand the way.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
You're describing is totally different. It's a it's an agent
that wanted to get you to sign them and their
degree to have them list that property before you and
then and if they sell the house, then you're going
to pay those commission. And usually those listing agreements say
that they're in force for sixty days or something.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Also, my you know, my mother had a financial advisor. Yeah,
we went to him after she'd passed. Oh yeah, I'm
going to be uh you know, continuing y oh yeah,
very all bully let Yeah, no, dude, you are not.
And again I was. I was angry and scary and
I'm pretty quiet until.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I'm glad you stuck up. He I mean you have
to in the end, as I said, you have to
take ownership of of your consumerism right that no one's
Sometimes people will jump in and rescue you, but usually
know if things go wrong, you're just going to be
left with the mestic cleanup. And again, bad companies don't
care about the fact that you're upset that things didn't
(31:57):
go well, that they're not going to just turn around
and make things right because you asked them.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I couldn't believe this person, this financial advisor thought I
was such a pushover that he felt he could say that.
I couldn't believe it. Let's talk to Rick and.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Hi Rick, Hey, Bradley, and what's your other guest's name, Kevin? Kevin?
Sorry about that. Yeah, I don't like signing things either, Bradley.
I don't like being pressured. I would have done the
same thing you did. And I'm I'm not aggressive. I'm
not aggressive, you know. I think we all have a
(32:32):
little passive aggressive. But yeah, I tend to be pretty chill,
and I think you are too. But yeah, especially after
your mom died and you had to sell the house,
I went through that. We had a friend of the
we had a friend of the family that did and
ultimately a contract a bought the house. But that's another
start for another day. I don't like contractors, or real
estate developers or real estate investors, but because I think
(32:55):
they try to pull fast ones. But but nevertheless, what
I wanted to first of all, this is.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
A great topic.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
You know. Recently I had some moss in the back
roof of mine. I ended up taking care of it myself.
My brother Chuck held the ladder for me and I
got right up there I sprayed some stuff in it.
But I had this guy come over, this roofing guy,
a legitimate roof and company, and I said, do you
can you just take a look and tell me what
it would cost to clean up the moss and maybe
(33:25):
trim some of the trees because it's caused by the trees.
And the guy comes, nice guy, comes up, walks on
the roof and he never he never gave me a quote,
and I just thought that I was weird. I called
him a couple of days later, I said, listen, I
did I do something? Did I give you the wrong information?
Wrong email? Because I don't got an information goes No,
(33:47):
I just haven't got the time. I hadn't had the
chance to send a quote. But ultimately he never sent
it at all. And I just thought, and I won't
bad Moulf the company. I'm not going to be yelp
or anything. I think that's a little over rate.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
I mean it is not.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
It can be helpful, it can be helpful, but I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna say anything bad. But I
just thought it was weird. Yeah, this is that you
wouldn't want to give me some sort of reasonable estimates.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Rick, we'll
answer this off air, finish up, and then go to
the break. Same thing happened to me with one of
the people. The third person the contacted never got back. Happened.
Actually it took months and we'd already made a decision.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Happens all the time, and our undercover shoppers when they're
calling companies for quotes, sometimes they have to I don't
say they badger them, but they have to call repeatedly
to get a price out of them. And I would
say about twenty five thirty percent of the time companies
won't quote. And part of it is that, you know,
you know well. Part of the problem is that really
good companies often don't need new customers. And that's a
(34:51):
continuing problem in that it's it just happens that way.
They have enough business already and they can't handle anymore,
so they just turn it away and they just don't
return your call or emails because they just can't be bothered.
Another big problem is a lot of companies just don't
want small jobs, and that's probably what happened with this
roofing business. Did he want to send a crew out
for an hour and a half to brush off this
(35:12):
moss and spray and treatment. Probably not he could, you know,
this roofer probably thought, you know, my business time could
be better spent on some other jobs.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I should tell you that, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Exactly, you know, but you know it's hard to say why.
And then some companies are just disorganized and don't get
back to you. And I think that's common also. But
you know, we've we've our shoppers, we've gotten you know,
bids for tree removal. You know, it's like half the
companies don't show up when they're supposed to, don't bother
and it's just a continuing problem I think for all homeowners,
(35:45):
or these no shows or no bids.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, the idea of being played for soccer just grinds
my gears. And that extrapolates to eighteen dollars cocktails. I
feel like if I buy an eighteen dollar cocktail, I'm
a sucker. We'll go to Steve next. On WBZ News
Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
News Radio Bradley for Dan, We're talking consumer protection with
Kevin Bresler of checkbook dot Org, and we have Steven Doorchester.
How do you do, Stephen, I'm really pleased that you
called this at six.
Speaker 7 (36:22):
Great Bradley and Kevin, thank you for taking my call.
I'm enjoying this topic. And two years ago, I got
a new roof on my house and it's a pitch roof.
It's I live in it to an ops family. So
I got the three estimates, like I'm listening to what
what Kevin said you should do? So I got one.
It was out of side. I couldn't believe how much
(36:42):
it costs. And then I got a low ball one,
and then I got like one in the middle, and
I thought to myself, so I didn't go with the
out of side one and I didn't go with the
low one. The reason why I went to the middle
one is because I liked the roof of whota talk
to me and explain things to me. Even though it
was a little bit more than the lowest one, but
(37:07):
I just felt and he did a great job. And
I was even able to recommend him to other people
that I because they see they'll put up a little
sign in front of the house, you know, and say
and then people would come to me and say, how
do you think he did? I said he was great.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
He was great.
Speaker 7 (37:26):
I do love, you know, when when it works out
great for you, and I'm able to tell my buddies
and friends and say, no, he was really good. And
even my son lives he needed a new wolf and
he used the same company that I did, like a
couple of years later, so it was it all worked out.
(37:50):
So sometimes word of mouth is sometimes the best thing.
I don't know what Kevin would say about word of mouth,
but sometimes if you have a good experience with the contract,
you know, that's probably the best thing.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's the best. And yes, I mean that's how you know.
As I've always said, you know, so we have ratings
of local businesses and people always say, well, who's your
your biggest competition? Well, now it's it's turning into you know,
Google has reviews, for example, but our biggest competition has
always been just people talking over the back fence, right
that that you know, people find companies from talking to
people they trust. I think the only danger I'm glad
(38:27):
everything worked out for you. I'm not, you know, And
I think, also, yeah, you should let other people know
that this company did great work, because those people trust
you and they know you have good judgment. Is always
a little dangerous to trust a sample of one though,
right that, you know, even even terrible companies sometimes satisfy
their customers, and even often do. But I do think
that you're what you're saying in terms of, you know,
you felt comfortable with the guy who gave you what
(38:49):
you thought was a fair price, even though it was
the lowest. Yeah, that's the way you go sometimes, I mean,
and that's the way I operate sometimes, right that I
want to make sure nothing's going to go wrong. That's
the big risk that there's some big problem that you
got to solve later on. And you can't assume he's
going to be help you. Somebody's going to be, you know,
to jump in and help you, because they won't.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
N Carl Stephen, Don'tchester. I'm gonna ask Kevin after this break.
Do you think that people charge you based on what
they think you can pay? Do they look at you?
Do they see how much money they think you have?
Had an incident with a barber. I asked him how
much for my beard trim? He looked at me up
and down, said twenty nine ninety five. I said, wrong,
I don't have that kind of money, you know, I
(39:28):
want to go nineteen. How's that. So we'll address that
when we come back, and we have a whole lot
more to cover on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
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