As I've said (I think) twice before, there are a few "US" companies that don't try and rip off the public by using covert premium rate numbers here when they use 1-800 numbers in the US. It is nice to see yet another company that isn't trying to rip off the British public .

Atleast they aren't trying to profit from that negligence like many companies we know  .

According to BBC News this morning a Mattel representative stated they were putting an 0800 freephone number in place. Did not appear it was up and running yet.

Initially, I often judge an organisation by the telephone numbers it uses: if it uses 0870 or 0871 I mark it down as a shady organisation out to fleece me; if it uses a geographical number, it starts of in a favourable light.   Mintell appears to be using a normal geographical number, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt in the recent toy recall.  As NGM points out the matter is a disgrace.  I feel a major portion of blame lies with others.

In taking over the responsibility for product standards – of which "toy safety" was a flagship programme - the EU Commission has enforced the dismantling of national safety monitoring programmes and prevented member states from carrying out their own local checks – such as routine sampling of products in the shops.

Instead of this, in came a system of EU-wide harmonisation, "based on the simple condition that the producer guarantees that its products are safe." It requires manufacturers to carry out a battery of procedures, which must be verified by an independent agency, on completion of which they could affix the coveted

CE

 [this should be a curved 'E' but I can't do one] mark to goods, which effectively guaranteed immunity from official inspection.    

UK borders have been forcibly opened to a torrent of cheap, often substandard imports. And, as long as they carried the  CE mark and had the correct paperwork, local port inspectors were effectively prohibited from examining the goods.

What were termed "technical inspections" were condemned as "barriers to trade", on the basis of which the commission rigorously pursued their agenda of dismantling port controls, with over 1000 references to the European Court of Justice.

kk wrote on Aug 18^th, 2007 at 10:07am:


I think one has to be careful about judging just by phone number used in terms of product quality.

For instance several of the best value travel policies at moneysupermarket.com are from very reputable insurers like AXA and Europ Assistance but sold through a small middle man supplier who ramps up his small margin by listing what I have found is clearly his 0845 or 0870 number (rather than that of the undelying insurance company) as the contact number for the 24 hour European assistance centre.

Now this shows incrdible stupidity and selfishness by the middle man (as 0845 numbers usually cannot be called at all from overseas and 0870 are violentyly expensive to call) but nonetheless the policies are virtually identical to those being sold for 3 or 4 times the price by big names like American Express and the Post Office.

A product itself can often be fine but sold through someone with a ripoff number.  Equally a product can be shoddy but sold by a retailer who does not use 0870.

Only when a manufacturer entirely makes and sells directly its own product to the public does the phone number used tell you very much.

That is not to say that one shoud avoid 084/7 numbers where suppliers use these numbers and, all things being equal, a product of the same quality is available at the same price from a supplier using an 01/02 number.

kk wrote on Aug 18^th, 2007 at 11:15am:

I believe the tv series The Amazing Mrs Pritchard featured a plane crash on East London resulting from the consequences of an East European airline operating to safety standards lower than would previously have been accepted by the CAA being allowed to continue to fly in to London despite known unsafe and deficient operating practices.

From the Mattel website (http://service.mattel.com/uk/contact.asp):

Quote:


Atleast the one digit that changed wasn't the third one  .