What’s Miss Patty Ching’s problem? [br] [originaltext]Denis: Hello, everyone. W

Denis: Hello, everyone. Welcome again to Consumer’s Choice, which is the last program in our present series. Isn’t that right, Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, that’s right. But we’ll be back again after summer break with a new series. We’ll tell you more about that later. But, first, in today’s program, we start off with the missing photographs. The story of how a listener’s determination has qualified her for our Consumer of the Month award, Denis?
Denis: Thank you, Wendy. This is the story of Miss Patty China who went on a holiday to Europe last month. This was her first ever trip abroad and one for which she’d been saving for 10 years. Her tour took her around 12 countries in 21 days. And being a keen photographer, she took lots of photographs; ten rolls of films, to be exact. About 360 photographs. When Patty got back home, she gave all her photos to Top-class Photo services for developing. And they vanished. She never saw them again. Of course, she was furious with the company and complained. They apologized and offered her compensation: l0 free rolls of films. This made her angry as ever. And she rejected this completely inadequate offer and asked for 2,000 dollars. The company refused her request. So Patty wrote them a letter, telling them to pay up in ten days or she would take them to court. She received no reply. So she did take them to court. But 2 days before the case was due to be heard, she received a cheque for 2,000 dollars. Top-class had obviously made their minds up on how the judge would decide. Patty’s case provides a lesson to us all. If we want our rights as consumers, we’ve got to fight for them. So for her determination and spirit we name Patty our Consumer of the Month.
Wendy: Thank you, Denis. And now I’d like to deal with the problem that many of our listeners write about. Sale prices. When we go to a sale and see a sign on something saying 50 percent off or 300 dollars reduced to 100 how do we know the prices really have been reduced? One of our listeners, Mr. Alvin Lok tells his story:" In a department store where I sometimes shopped, I saw a leather belt priced at 100 dollars. Too expensive to me. But I liked it and thought I might buy it next time the store had a sale. The store did have a sale. And I went back to look for the belt. It was there all right. But the ticket on it now read 200 dollars reduced to 150. The sale price was actually higher than the normal price. What can we, as consumers, do in a case like this? The answer to Alvin’s question is that at the moment all we can do is to complain to the store’s management and bring these cases to the attention of the public. Bad publicity might help to put a stop to this dishonest practice. But Consumer’s choice will continue to press for the government to bring in laws similar to those in other countries to protect consumers by making it illegal to cheat them in this way. And now I’d like to tell you about our new consumer hot-line which came to operation Last month. So far we have received...