Metro grocery store guilty of deceptive packaging practices

The Metro grocery store (formerly LOEB) on March Road in Kanata is guilty of deceptive marketing & packaging practices, resulting in people believing they are receiving more product for their money than they might otherwise think they should be getting.

Here is what happened to me on July 22, 2009. I had breakfast at home that morning, but I was still hungry by the time I got close to where I work, so I detoured to the local Metro grocery store to grab a little something to nibble on, as I need to get a few other things there as well eventually, so I figured that I could do both things at the same place. Consequently, I found myself at the deli counter, looking at the sandwiches and the like. I came across a container with two seafood wraps in it, and that looked like it would be a nice snack to hold me over until lunch. I cheerfully grabbed it and the rest of my items, and cheerfully paid for them and continued to the office to eat this tasty-looking new snack. Here is a picture of what I purchased.

This looked pretty tasty to me! I was really looking forward to sinking my teeth into these two wraps. However, when I opened them up, I was greeted with a little surprise of the immorally deceptive kind. Here is what I discovered upon removing the paper surrounding the wraps:

As you can see, the scum-suckers at Metro’s deli counter, likely under the direction of management, took a single wrap, cut it in half, and then wrapped each half in such a way as to make it appear as though I was going to be able to purchase two separate wraps. Needless to say, I was most unimpressed. It should also go without saying that I will never purchase another wrap from Metro ever again.

It is bad enough that they feel the need to charge me $0.05 for a frakkin’ plastic bag, but they now feel the need to rip off the customers with the quantity of food they deliver too? I would have had no problem with a single wrap packaged in a single piece of paper, showing me exactly what I was getting. Then, I would have known that there was just one wrap, and I could have made the decision on whether or not I wanted to get one or two of them, based on my appetite at the time. Those scum-sucking frakkers took that choice away from me, and for that, and their disgusting lying ways, I will not easily forgive them. I know times are tough all over, but there is really no excuse for this level of customer abuse!

Maximum age to be a student?

It seems that in the city of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, there is a new rule for student bus passes. Apparently, OC Transpo, Ottawa’s public transportation agency, only considers a person under the age of 28 to be a “real” student, so any full time student over the age of 27 will be required to buy a pass at full price, regardless of income or scholastic status. This reeks of ageism against mature students and students going for Masters and Doctoral degrees. After all, being a full time student over the age of 27 is deemed to be a different class of full time student as one who is 27 years of age or less.

OC Transpo representatives claim that other transit systems around the country have a student cut-off age of 25, so they are being magnanimous by setting their cut-off age to 27. Isn’t that like saying that other places in Canada discriminate against many races, but here we only discriminate against a few? Being less wrong is not the same as being right, or even better. If we as a country want to have a more educated society, we need to stop placing artificial barriers in the path of those who want to expand their knowledge, and start to tear down as many of these artificial barriers as we possibly can.

For screwing over mature students, and for thinking less bad is the same as good, I have to rate OC Transpo’s student pass policy an EPIC FAIL!!