26

Chrisco is for Losers and The Good Guys aren't – Part 2

by Whaleoil on November 13, 2009

The other day I did a post on the usury associated with Chrisco and The Good Guys in ripping off poor people. Now I was really a bit remiss in comparing the prices today with the price that both of them are charging for 2010 hampers. So I did a bit of digging and through the wonders of the Google cache was able to recover the 2008 catalogue of Chrisco. So this is a better comparison. It is the prices they were charging for their items a year ago that customers will be receiving shortly so that a closer comparison of their prices can be made.

So let’s see if they are still ripping customers as badly as they seem to be.

Again the interests of simplicity I have compared the meat pack offerings from Chriscos and The Good Guys and if you bought the same products from your local Mad Butcher outlet.

Chrisco

  • Mega Meat – Chrisco 2008 price = $598.00. Same products at Mad Butcher $424.77. 41% dearer at Chrisco
  • Maxi Meat – Chrisco 2008 price = $399.00. Same products at Mad Butcher $291.04.  37% dearer at Chrisco
  • Family Meat – Chrisco 2008 price = $269.00. Same products at Mad Butcher $179.09. 50% dearer at Chrisco

To be perfectly honest I didn’t expect these results. The actual gouging is less this year than it is going to be next year. Chrisco however have raised their prices substantially and so their usury will be even more.

I wonder though why the Labour Party has failed to take up the cudgel on behalf of what very clearly must be the core supporters. The very people that Chrisco preys on are Labour’s natural constituency. Yet David Cunliffe and others prefer to grandstand with an independent banking inquiry over fractions of percentage points when there is actual usury going on affecting their voters in the form of outrageous price gouging by Chrismas Hamper companies like Chrisco and The Good Guys.

In many ways these people have been let down by an archaic out-moded law that allows these companies to act under the guise of a lay-by scheme when in actual fact these are simply dirty, nasty finance companies ripping off the poor and unsuspecting and meanwhile bypass all the rules and regulations, such as they are, that govern Finance Companies.

They have been let down by the laziness of regulators like the Commerce Commission who still have not investigated properly complaints about Chrisco’s business practices and we still don’t have the court documents relating to the demise of Hopscotch Finance. Insider sources have told this blogger that the reason the court documents have been suppressed and not released regarding Hopscotch Finance is because to do so would show that the Chrisco empire is built upon quicksand.

Action needs to be taken against these cowboys.

Related posts

  • DONKEY

    good work again Whale – i agree on your "empire built on quciksand" comment – i suspect the hopscotch mess is sealed due to mass fallout that will occur if it unfolds – it all just does not stack up – Chrisco have your money coming every week all year, the operate under the lay by act which means you can go and see what your paying for, but they dont have it, they actually sold the distribution side of the business – so they are then taking deposits – where is the prospectus???? since they make one off purchases each year for the various products would it not be reasonable to assume they would get a massive discount on the goods? i have been told they are a lot of companies single biggest once a year order. given they are making out they are helping the less well off, would it not be the right thing to do to pass on the great prices they make? now i dont expect for a minute that they cant make any money – but when you see the massive mark up they have, carry NO stock – it all seems a little bit of a rip off to me

  • waxlips

    Chrisco web site says.
    How Chrisco prices compare with supermarkets
    The price you pay includes the cost of collecting your payments (charged to us by our bank), special packing, delivery, GST and is fixed for the year. We do charge a little more than some supermarkets because of all the extra costs, but thousands of customers think that Chrisco is great value and tell us they wouldn’t be able to manage without our help.

    Charge a little more! Please!!!
    Help!! what bloody help?
    Special packaging?? what's so special about a cardboard box?

    • Black 'mofo'

      what's so special about a cardboard box?

      A lot of Labour voters live in them

  • Michaels

    My only question would be what grade of meat Chrisco use. When it comes to beef there are 2 basic grades, Prime Steer and Prime Beef.
    Prime Steer is a castrated male calf or a Heifer, both raised for eating.
    Prime Beef is a cow or a bull, bred for mating, giving birth and milking. When a cow is not performing in the milk shed it is sent to the works and sold as meat. The Mad Butcher only sells Prime Beef and supermarkets mainly sell it but do have the odd bit of Prime Steer.
    Prime Steer carries a price of around 50% + more as you get the consistancy in quality, Prime Beef the quality is all over the place, one day you can get a lovely steak the next you will get something that represents a gumboot.

    • stoney

      Wow, did not realise that beef had two grades and that The Mad Butcher only sells second grade beef. Is The Mad Butcher just another dodgy retailer by playing on words and the general ignorance of the public when advertising his beef as "Prime Beef" like it's the best available. Will be avoiding his shops from now on.

      • Michaels

        Correct.
        Advertising is quite powerful.

  • mediatart

    Look, they choose to use the more expensive service, the same way some choose first class over economy.
    Anybody knows they can sign up to a Xmas club at Pak Save.
    But hey why not let someone do the work for you.

  • waxlips

    Do people choose economy or is that all they can afford?
    Who holds the money with these Christmas Clubs?

  • DLMMackie

    Shocking. Labour should be ashamed of themselves for not helping those they are claiming to represent. David Cunliffe, Annette King (can't worry about Goff as no one knows who he is) and Trevor Mallard need a good flogging for this.

    This now presents the Nats with a chance to show leadership by sorting this mess out. John Key could even take the focus away from Hone Harawira and show that National is actually doing something which was Hide's comment.

    This is all too easy

  • waxlips

    They will all run for cover when the shit hits the fan.
    $300 million industry, who will bail that out??

  • coge

    Bear in mind thousands of the payments to Chrisco get bounced every week. There are enormous administration costs associated with chasing these individual paltry sums. This is a fact you won't see advertised on their website. The clientele are the poor & those hopeless managing their own finances. Of course there will be better ways of aquiring similar goods for the rest of us.

  • naylor

    Here we go again with this dodgy outfit. What will it take for the authorities to act on this. This needs to be in the mainstream media to protect those people who clearly don't realise they are getting totally ripped off by this company Chrisco.

  • benh

    From sources at the Standard, Annette King is now involved.

  • waxlips

    And still we wait..

  • DONKEY

    lets hope Annete is a little more effective these days than she was for 9 years she held the tiller!

  • waxlips

    Have to be better than Heather Roy! Didnt she charge $30 for some breakfast speech?
    She would have had nothing to say. Hi my name is Heather and I have done……… well fuck all!

  • coge

    The reason you won't hear a boo out of Labour on this is that no one in that party understands numbers.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/The_Grizz The_Grizz

    Annette's biggest achievement as a health minister was to prevent a child's birth being spliced into a pornflick. Really good use of a Health Minister's time given that good DHB staff should have achieved this without media involvement.

    • DONKEY

      i thought it was covering up the story about the drug use of her daughter when she rolled the car and had class pills in it?

  • itsatrap

    I'm glad you're covering this issue Whale.

    And I'm hoping you'll turn you guns towards the Hampsta scam shortly.

    The crooks at Hampsta collect money throughout the year but they pay no interest on deposits, have high entry & exit fees, and restrict spending to a tiny number of retailers. It's a cynical ploy that targets clients who are typically poor and uneducated.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Whaleoil Whaleoil

      Actually trap, the Hampsta guys seem to follow finance company rules. They even keep your funds in a named account in the Public Trust which is more than can be said for th funds at Chrisco. Chrisco even lied when they said they keep the funds in a AAA rated bank. There are none in New except Rabobank but they don't bank with them.

      From what I can see the Hamspta Card has a far better offering than anything else in that you can use it at the mad butcher, Liquorland and toyworld and you get full benefit of the cash you have put aside and aren't charged effectively usury style interest rates.

      In fact from my look at this whole industry the other players would do well at looking at the Hampsta model.

      The other thing of course is if you ring the guys at hampsta and ask questions they return your phone calls and give you the answers to what you ask, not hide behind PR flunkies spinning the reason the boss won't talk is because of his s-s-s-s-speech impediment.

      Why don't you do your own research like I have instead of knocking like a the trolling c*nt you are.

    • DONKEY

      a few missing facts here ace! what ebtry / exit fees?? i checked it out and all i could see was a $35 account fee. sure they collect a little interest, but hey Chrisco collects all year to and then makes you pay upto 125% more than in a shop. the hampsta cards seem a bloody good option to me as you get all your cash back except for a shitty $35.00. then you can go an buy what you want in the new year sales – now that seems good to me. also by what i can see of those with a card they are a little more well heeled and just like to stay out of debt

  • waxlips

    Agree, Lets have a look at hampster Whale,
    hampster vs Chrisco Visa Debit card
    hampster vs hampers (who holds the money?)
    hampster vs hamper interest payments
    hampster vs hampers

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Whaleoil Whaleoil

      Good idea, I think I will do exactly that

  • waxlips

    Annette King is now involved.. what's happened?

  • Allang

    Comparing prices of meat is ridiculous as depending on quality the the price differential is more then 300%. If you were interested in doing a real comparison you would chose one of the food hampers which contain easily identified branded products and then add in the quite considerable costs involved in storin, sorting and assembling a hamper and then delivering that hamper to an address anywhere in the country, never mind the call centre costs. Anyone who contends that these costs are insignificant has never been involved in real business or have made the effort to undertake actual costings.