What not to buy this week. Choice magazine listed the top ten products that should not be bought. The worrying thing for me is that I came very close to buying one of those robotic vacumn cleaners. And, I don’t mind Black and Gold pies, I think that they taste better than some of the more expensive brands. Perhaps one of the more disappointing items is the purely fish that has lots of other stuff in it as well. Or, when you think that you are drinking Gin and Tonic when it is really Vodka. I haven’t purchased an iPod yet and I probably won’t now. Who has time to sit down and listen to music? I have always been suspicious of magnets and now they are confirmed absolutely useless when it comes to helping with the washing. And, who would fall for the idea of oxygen drops? Well some people are hoping that there are suckers and have created a business out of it.
1. Life Miracle’s Magnetic Laundry System, which featured two magnetic balls that you put in your washing machine instead of detergent. They cost $80.
Choice said: “Washing with balls and plain water had about the same cleaning effect as washing in plain water alone. Why you’d want to add $80 worth of magnetic balls is one of life’s true miracles.”
2. Nuk Starlight Silicone Soother, a dummy that was considered a choking hazard for children.
“We’ve received a number of reader stories of horrified parents finding their distressed baby with the dummy fully in their mouth,” Choice said.
After taking a look at the dummy, Roy asked: “Has A Current Affair looked at this?”
3. Oxygen4life Oxygen Therapy in a Bottle. Ten millilitres a day of the product’s “bio-available oxygen” purportedly “enhanced quality of life”.
Choice added: “Or you could breathe – which is widely regarded as the best way to take in oxygen.”
The product cost $55 for a 250 millilitre bottle of de-ionised water, Atlantic sea salt and bio-available oxygen.
Roy said he felt “enhanced just holding [the bottle]”.
4. Seagers Gin and Tonic with a squeeze of lime. Sounds quite good, except there is no gin in the ready-to-drink can. There is vodka though, which kind of makes up for the lack of gin, except for the fact there is no quinine [which makes tonic water “tonic”] or lime either.
H.G. said: “So it’s a fantastic product. If you are into binge drinking, this is the one for you.”
5. Mean credit cards. Choice said eight major credit card providers were playing nasty tricks with interest rates on their customers.
6. Lean Cuisine “Purely Fish” range. The only thing this product was lean on was its fish content – just 48 per cent.
A disappointed Roy asked: “So what’s the rest? Oxygenated water?”
Choice said that “to call your product ‘Purely Fish’ is so fishy you’re asking for a Shonky”.
7. Apple iPod. Choice said it had received several complaints about the popular gadgets having cracked screens, faulty batteries and problems with sound production as well as difficulties when it came to getting them repaired.
“An iPod is a significant investment, so you don’t want your Apple to be a lemon,” Choice said.
H.G. was more blunt. “In other words, the thing is a complete dud … We buy them and mail them straight back. It saves a lot of disappointment on the kids’ faces.”
8. Black And Gold Meat Pie. When is a meat pie not a meat pie? When it has 25 per cent meat content. The Black and Gold meat pie had just 17 per cent meat, “which is not only shonky, but unAustralian”, Choice said.
9. Aldi Mezzo MWM7 and Homemaker HMWM7 washing machines. These two washing machines cost less than $400 each but Choice said they were the worst they had tested in 30 years when it came to actually cleaning clothes. But it did note that “at least the machine is very gentle on clothes”.
Roy said it was basically “a white box you put in your laundry”. He said the magnetic balls would go well in the machine.
10. iRobot Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. Choice said this gadget, designed to vacuum your house by itself, was almost useless on carpet, ridiculously slow on hard floors and annoyingly noisy. (Stuff)