In this report
Overview

Selling it

Last reviewed: February 2010
February 2010 issue cover This article appeared in
February 2010 Consumer Reports Magazine.

Short-sheeted

When a Michigan reader put a new roll of Northern toilet paper on the roller, she said, "I couldn't figure out why there was so much room at either end." Northern has gone south, shrinking each sheet from 4.5x4 inches to 4x4 and the number of sheets per roll from 300 to 286. A customer-service rep at Georgia Pacific blamed "the cost factor in today's economy" and said the shrinkage prevented a price hike.

Quilted Northern toilet paper has shrunk from 4.5x4 inches to 4x4.

 

So you'll pay...more

Inside the envelope, CenterPoint Energy said it had filed to raise rates an average of $5.79 per month.

Outside of envelope says gas prices are lower, but inside it says rates were raised an average of $5.79 per month

 

Purrs for paté

What's with the upgrade from mere Loaf to Classic Paté? "It's just a word change," said a customer-service rep at Nestlé Purina. "It's to sound, I guess, a little fancier."

Purina Friskies Seafood Variety Pack Classic Loaf is now called Classic Paté to sound fancier

 

French elegance, poor English

The flip side of the flyer says the service cleans owens and removes cabwebs.

Ad for European maid service has multiple spelling errors

 

Tobacco juice would work, right?

Etobicoke mom finds cure for white teeth

 

A matter of gravity

Someone restrain this woman before she floats off to Mars.

Reclining massage-chair offers a zero gravity, weightless experience

 

Time warp

Let's see: An armed, blond robot-man is packaged with a totem pole. Nearby are a Native American man in headdress and a Native American woman riding in a covered wagon with a bonneted settler. (Neither woman is holding the reins.) A reader asks, "Who says the Chinese don't understand American culture and history?"

American Indians action figure of a blonde-robot man with a totem pole and packaging shows a Native American man in headdress and a Native American woman riding in a covered wagon with a bonneted settler.