Such Treasures

I began today by writing letters to companies with whom we do business or have  considered doing business.

I wrote to Azure Standard. In spite of being pretty happy customers for more than 2 years, we lately have been unhappy about their delivery times. They’re getting later and later. Last night, the truck driver pulled into town at 8 pm. We live 1/2 hour away, and half of that drive is on a dark and windy road. (Thankfully, a member of our church picked up the order for us, but we’re not willing to ask them to carry that burden continually.) Two years ago, the truck arrived between 3 and 4 pm on delivery day. I wrote to Azure to let them know that we feel they should deliver during business hours in consideration of their customers. I have a feeling the deliveries are getting later because their business is growing and the truck has more stops to make. But growth should also stimulate care for existing delivery routes; no need to stretch our times out to the middle of the night to accomodate for the growth — we’d rather they wait a day and deliver the next morning! I suppose their response will determine what we do. It is for certain that if things continue the same, with no assurance of improvement, we will be making other arrangements and very soon.

I wrote to Carhartt. Jeff considered buying jeans, and in particular, their new 1889 series jeans that are advertised as loose fit/straight leg — with a leg opening of 20″. We went to a store so he could try them on. Every single pair on the shelf had the regular leg opening of 19″. We are sure because we got a tape measure and checked every one! I wrote to Carhartt to let them know that they disappointed us with their false claims. It baffles us how jeans could be shipped all over the country, claiming to have that wide leg opening when they don’t measure up.

Finally, I wrote to a memory foam bed manufacturer. We considered purchasing a bed from them. We saw on their website that they claimed to be the “only memory foam mattress with the Orthopaedic Research Institute Seal of Approval.” When you hear that, what you do think? Do you conclude, like we did, that through independent testing against other memory foam mattresses, a conclusion was reached that they have the best one available? That’s what we thought. Then Jeff dug deeper; he went to the ORI website and read the test abstract. The ORI tested this company’s memory foam mattress, as compared to conventional mattresses. While that is good information, it doesn’t prove what this company suggests on their website — that the ORI tested all the memory foam mattresses and found theirs to be superior. A blatantly misleading claim. Our motivation in writing to them was to let them know that even though we were inclined to consider making a purchase from them, we feel we can’t trust what they say, and therefore can’t make a purchase. I would love to think that they’ll change the wording on the website, but I’m not holding my breath. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they would?

We’re not out to make trouble. We are consumers. We should be able to trust companies and the claims they make. They claim to care about us. We’d like them to know that if they do care about consumers, they should treat us with integrity, honesty and concern, in the forms of courtesy, honest advertising, and truth in the reporting of research conclusions.

I think it is important to voice these concerns and I’d encourage you to do the same if you have legitimate issues with the companies where you do or may consider spending your family’s hard earned money.

I do wonder what kind of responses we’ll get to the letters of this morning.