There is a price to be paid for convenience, as anyone who’s ever bought anything at a “convenience” store can tell you. This whole Slap-Chop odyssey started a few weeks ago in our home, when, lured by the seductive TV commercial, my wife and I decided we could no longer exist without having a small food processor.
We have a top-of-the-line Cuisinart food processor, complete with enough attachments to slice, dice, process, blend, or otherwise deal with just about anything you can cram into it. But it’s a pretty hefty piece of kitchen equipment. When you just want to chop up some onion or tomato to toss onto the salad, it’s like using a sledgehammer to drive a nail to drag out the big unit. Each day that passed convinced us more and more that we needed the Slap-Chop device.
The first mistake we made was to spend twenty bucks at a local store to buy a tiny food processor. Oh, it worked, all right - but when my wife tossed a chunk of onion into it, it pretty much turned it into puree. Should have purchased the Slap-Chop.
Sunday, as we were out and about, delivering a batch of my wife’s home-made Italian meatballs to our son at his off-campus home, we decided to make a swing over to a grocery store where my wife was convinced she’d seen the original Slap-Chop device.
Couldn’t find it.
Later in the day, as I was doodling around on my laptop, I thought I might as well buy the thing online. It was easy to find the official Slap-Chop site on the internet, and I knew it was the spot, because as soon as the site loaded up, that infomercial guy (NOT Billy Mays, but some other guy named Vince) started his spiel about the virtues of the Slap-Chop.
They never let you buy one. You could get two for $19.95, plus $7.95 for shipping and handling, and they’d throw in two “free” cheese graters (a device which, let’s face it, would never make it on its own). Oh well - our daughter has just set up housekeeping at her new apartment in McFarland, so I’ll get two, and we’ll give her one. Not intolerable, for $27.90. But still more than I’d want to pay.
Somehow, in the process of ordering the two-for-one deal, things went horribly wrong. Either I missed the fine print, or inadvertently checked some box, but AFTER I’d entered my shipping address and credit card information, I got the “confirmation” page.
My $27.90 purchase had suddenly become $63.65, and I was also getting some damnable “folding chopping board” I didn’t want. Who needs a chopping board when you have the Slap-Chop? I couldn’t go back. The site wouldn’t let me. The confirmation page listed my purchase of the two-for-one Slap Chop plus two “free” cheese graters plus the “folding chopping board” at $39.95.…with a line-item for shipping and handling at $23.80. TWENTY-THREE EIGHTY for shipping and handling?
How did $27.90 suddenly become $39.95, and who on earth charges 24 bucks to handle and ship a box that can’t be bigger than the average dictionary? And even though they tried their best to sell me on a deal to buy some Sham-Wows, and other stuff that I summarily dismissed and rejected, they got $63.65 out of me when all I really wanted was one Slap-Chop.
There’s one born every minute, I guess. And I hate to admit I’m one of them.
Yo! Vince!
ReplyDeleteIt's the slap chop remix ...
http://tinyurl.com/cml699
BTW ... I had an Oxy-Clean moment some years ago when I discovered that a lot of the glues and gizmos and nostrums these guys pitch can be had at your local Walgreens.
I noticed a charge of $63.65 on my checking account from slap chop on 9/8/2009. Not sure if the fraudulent charge is from slap chop, or if someone stole my checking account/debit card numbers. Nevertheless, I informed my bank yesterday, they are investigating the charge.
ReplyDeleteI too was excited to order the Slap Chop. I too could not go back and undo the enormous charges but it got worse. I ordered August 16, 2009. I called September 20th and was told it was being shipped that week. When my credit card billing came the first of October there was a charge for $4.96. Apparently I have purchased a dining discount program as well. I contacted the Credit card company and they will erase the charge. Unfortunatly that small amount is not recoverable by the Credt card company. So I called the dining discount company and after 15 mins of How sorry they are and how they are going to up my program for free. This charge will keep coming until November unless I call them November 21. I had the credit card company reissue a new card. Then I received a card from Slap Chop my order is being backordered! No problem because a week later I get a note that there is a problem with my credit card! You bet there is. I can buy slap chop from bed bath and beyond for $19.95. They won't scam my credit card!
ReplyDelete