My University is Selling Counterfeit Candy

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Horus
What you should have done.

10x rolls of Mentos

20x bottles of Diet Coke

Empty Mentos into Diet coke in middle of university commons. Hilarity ensues. Even moreso than when the pro-lifers threw cupcakes at the pro-choicers.

lol FTW!

 

[atybimf]

Originally posted by: Alprazolam
quit your bitchin'

 

[Neurorelay]

Whatever.

 

[mugs]

Narc

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Alprazolam
quit your bitchin'

quit your thread crapin'

 

[mugs]

Also, you're retarded for calling them counterfeit.

 

[axelfox]

Originally posted by: TechnoPro

Originally posted by: axelfox

Originally posted by: TechnoPro

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
At my university, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, your meal plan gets you a certain number of meals/week along with a certain number of spendable dollars "Plus Dollars" that you can use pretty much all around campus (except the bookstore).

Everyone always ends up with an excess of these "Plus Dollars" at the end of a year and they expire if you don't use them after the Spring Quarter. So I had about 300 Plus Dollars that I had to spend (or else they would go to waste) my last weekend at Poly. So I went to the Campus Market and bought $300 of over-priced items (probably have a retail value of $100 or less). Among the items I bought, were 10 rolls/packs of Mentos.

Today, while having one of the packs (I just finished unpacking, procrastination++), I noticed that the Nutrition Facts were not in English and at the end off the roll it says, "For Sale in Indonesia Only."

Picture

I obviously have never been to Indonesia and bought these in the United States. Since I bought these at a more than average price ($1.25 / roll - I told you, over-priced), I am pissed that these weren't even supposed to be sold in Indonesia.

Who should I call? Cal Poly is profiting on the sale of goods not meant to be sold within the United States. I wouldn't really care, except they've shafted me on a lot of things and I want 1. my money back and 2. real, american candy. (Plus, these Indonesian ones taste stale, despite the marking of what appears to be good until December 2007).

I've already emailed Mentos, using their "Contact Us" form, is there anyone else I should contact before contacting Cal Poly? I bought these two weeks ago, so maybe just one box was bad or maybe the entire shipment? I smell international scandal!

Sometimes, a product will be marked for export but will never make it to the final destination. Rather than destroy the items, the manufacturer will sell to a wholesale liquadator, since they typically will not be purchased by normal retail channels (i.e. full price gorcery stores, pharmacies, etc.). The wholesale liquadator will then sell to dollar stores, Christmas Tree shops, mom and pop stores, and similar.

As for how they landed in your university, that would surprise me since they are being sold at full retail prices. Someone is making a tidy profit somewhere on the food chain.

This is probably the case here; they are called "grey market goods." Usually a company will sell the same product in a foreign country for much cheaper. A company buys the excess inventory and sells it in USA for usually cheaper than the USA version. Some have stopped the importation of such goods on a copyright or TM infringement theory.

Perhaps I am naive, but I would have a hard time thinking gray market goods would make their way onto the shelves of a campus store. Then again, greed and stupidity often go hand in hand.

The company that runs the campus inn or whatever that sold you the Mentos probably had a contract to buy those Mentos and they were probably much cheaper than buying FOR USA Mentos.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding Mentos. We appreciate hearing from our consumers. You have purchased what we call " diverted product ". It is manufactured by us for sale in another country however someone other than us is bringing it into the USA. I will forward your information on diverted products to our Sales and Marketing Department. I will send a replacement to the address in your email.

HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES!

 

[jessicak]

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude

Originally posted by: ariafrost

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
Yeah, Cal Poly shafts you for pretty much everything. At the beginning of the year, there was only two places you could use your meals and one of them was a sandwhich shop open from 10am to 4pm. Luckily, the student government petitioned to add another place with the ability to use "meals."

Similar thing happened here... With freshmen living on East Campus we were given 12 meals/week on the freshmen meal plan at the "Marketplace" which was mediocre cafeteria food. After agitation from the student government we've progressed from a 1) meal-equivalency plan (missed breakfast = discounted lunch) to 2) ditching our old food service provider to 3) now incoming freshmen only have to eat 5 meals/week at the Marketplace... lucky froshies...

Student government is a joke though. Especially at Cal Poly. The candidates who ran for positions had to be some of the most worthless twats I've ever encountered.

Funny you should say that, because I was actually one of the people that made this change happen. However, you are pretty much right about them being useless--I hated that organization so much that I dropped out after Winter Quarter (and then they had to officially "vote" me off).

*edit* you also should NOT have had that many plus dollars left--when I was a freshman I took older friends out for food and only had 20 dollars left on the friday of finals week (with which I bought 20 bagels for some reason).

 

[BigJ]

To get them back, pay your tuition with "counterfeit" money.

 

[Kelemvor]

I get Mentos at Samsclub. $8 for a whole box of like 30 rolls.