Does fine print drive you crazy? Like me, do you find yourself wading through 63-page credit card agreements — trying to understand the legalese but often failing? Don’t you wish there were a site that highlighted the lunacy of this stuff? Well, there is.
Mouse Print is a blog devoted to “exposing the strings and catches buried in the fine print” of all sorts of offers and agreements. Here’s what Edgar Dworsky says about his site:
“Mouse print” is the fine print in advertising, in a contract, or on a product label, often buried out of easy sight. In the worst cases, the mouse print changes the meaning of, or contradicts the primary claims or promises being made. Sometimes, the catch is not even disclosed. In other cases, the fine print is merely an unexpected surprise for the reader. Fine print is not inherently illegal. But, advertisers are not safe from false advertising claims merely because an ad discloses the truth in some minimal manner.
MousePrint.org turns advertising on its head by focusing on an ad’s asterisked fine print footnote rather than the headline. It also examines the often overlooked small print on product labels and contracts. A new ad, product, or contract is featured every Monday. The goal is to help educate the public about the catches or “gotchas” in disclaimers, and to encourage advertisers to abandon the motto, “the big print giveth, and the little print taketh away.”
Here are some examples of the sorts of “gotchas” that Mouse Print highlights:
- You know those ubiquitous IQ tests on Facebook and other sites? Mouse Print warns that by completing some of these IQ tests, you are agreeing to a $9.99 monthly charge. Yikes!
- An extra “shipping and handling charge” required to subscribe to ShopSmart magazine. To make this one especially egregious, ShopSmart comes from the publisher of Consumer Reports. Yikes!
- Staples stores claim they’ve made their “easy rebates” “even easier”. What they’ve really done is change the rebates from an instant discount to a rebate in the form of a Visa debit card — one with a $3 monthly maintenance fee. Yikes!
- It wasn’t enough for General Mills to be able to claim that its Cheerios cereal could help you lower your cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks. No, instead they paid for and co-authored a new study that conveniently found that Cheerios actually lowers cholesterol 10% in one month. Yikes!
Mouse Prints has been featuring one new example of fine print shenanigans every Monday since March 2006. It’s fun to leaf through the archives to read examples of the stuff some companies try to pull. My favorite, though, is the entry on the unreadable gibberish at in TV show credits, which takes a light-hearted look at the “vanity cards” of producer Chuck Lorre.
GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals.Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate.Find the highest savings interest rate from Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Everbank, and more.
This article is about Consumerism, Marketing, Odds and Ends
Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.
Discover is a paid advertiser of this site. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. See the Discover online credit card application for full terms and conditions on offers and rewards.
SEARCH FOR RECENT ARTICLES
I think that if I read this site regularly I would end up hating the world and trusting no one. Interesting….but not for me!
loading....
I have one of those “easy” rebates coming, I guess I better spend it fast! Thanks.
loading....
That’s interesting about the Staples thing because I was fairly certain such a fee was made illegal at the beginning of this year under Oregon law. So maybe just the rest of the US is screwed.
loading....
Yeah, this stuff is insidious. I’m very vigilant about these things, but I know it’s easy to get tricked into entering information — especially when you’re already entering your credit card info for a legitimate purchase.
My girlfriend was buying flowers for her grandma for Mother’s Day, and she filled out a form for a “discount.” Turned out, it was some kind of scam service purporting to offer more discounts — yet they charged every month for it!!
It’s unfortunate that these con artists have structured their business to rip people off. Bad Karma. That’s not exactly serving anyone, is it?
loading....
Sounds like a very useful site- will definitely check it out- thanks for the heads up. Most people, myself included, find it difficult to read the fine print in most cases- I guess since it is written by lawyers most of the time!
loading....
Sounds like a great site to check out. We’ve gone so over the edge with legalese these days that we need more lawyers to protect us from the lawyers.
Ridiculous, but that’s the world we live in until a
politicianstatesman stands up for tort reform.loading....
My fiance got taken by that Facebook IQ quiz thing. We were both very new to Facebook, and he saw the ad that said – Untruthfully, may I add – That I had challenged him to the IQ test. If my name weren’t on it, he wouldn’t have done it. He immediately knew something was wrong when he mentioned it to me and I had no clue what he was talking about. I joked that he failed the IQ test, but I digress. He was able to get all charges removed, but it was a big hassle. These practices should be illegal.
loading....
That’s pretty good!
I had a “mouse print” like experience yesterday actually, I hope you don’t mind my sharing it.
It’s about groceries.
I was shopping for cocoa powder and looked at the no Name brand (yes, that’s the brand name) 500g box, and looked at the contents (I became vegetarian relatively recently and realised there is animal flesh in things you wouldn’t expect, so I just check everything now).
That’s how I realised the sodium content. The ingredients listed “cocoa, sodium”.
I looked at their smaller box (250g), which did not have any sodium whatsoever.
The 500g box listed a content of 35mg salt for 3g (3000mg) of their powder (so, about 1,2%).
Now, you’re going to tell me, that’s not that much. But that still means that in their 500g box, there is 6g of salt that they added as a filler.
They don’t have any in the smaller box, with no other indication anywhere on the label that the two products are different.
The smaller box was more expensive (relatively), but that’s what we took. We don’t need any salt in our cocoa powder.
It might seem nothing to you (barely over 1%), but I’m wondering how much money they save up that way, over the thousands of boxes they must sell.
loading....
Yay! Big Bang Theory is my favorite show. We’re always trying to freeze frame on those vanity cards, but the DVR hates that instant, for some reason. Now I can read them all!
Also, people fall for that IQ Quiz scam? I thought everyone knew never to enter your phone number/CC#/SSN/mailing addy unless it was a trusted site.
loading....
Why would someone ever put their CC# into Facebook?
I’m gonna check out that Big Bang Theory one, love that show.
loading....
I got an email from Jet Blue this morning touting the benefits of their new and improved frequent flyer program.
It said, and I quote: “Points don’t expire. Just fly JetBlue or use your JetBlue Card from American Express® at least once within a 12 month period.”
So in other words… points totally expire. Ugh. Strangely enough, the weasely wording made my desire to fly JetBlue plummet!
loading....
We just got done putting out that $9.99/mo Facebook scam last night! They hooked one of my kids, and I think that’s most of who they target.
From many years in the mortgage business I’ve learned that fine print DOES matter, even and especially if the people you’re doing business with tell you it doesn’t.
For this reason, I think credit cards are becoming increasingly dangerous for the average consumer. That 63 page cc agreement is no joke. There’s no way to know what most of that means, and that means you’re at a disadvantage in the event of a discrepancy.
loading....
@ Bethany #1:
“I think that if I read this site regularly I would end up hating the world and trusting no one.”
Relax Bethany, we’re not world-haters here. We just believe that it pays to “trust, but verify”.
I remember the first time I bought a house, and insisted on seeing all paperwork at least 24 hours prior to closing. When I questioned some of the paragraphs, I was told “Those are boilerplate from the form we use. We can take them out if you like.” Needless to say, I had them taken out and didn’t give up my right to rescission post-inspection (which led to a $10,000 price reduction when it was discovered the finished basement had been completed without County permits) or right to final walk-through the day before closing (to check for vandalism and to ensure fixtures hadn’t been changed or removed), just to give a few examples.
I’ve had much the same experience with car purchase contracts (which may include extra costs for services you may not need/want). If you read the mouse print, and ask to have things changed or deleted, a lot of the time the answer will be “yes”.
You gotta read the mouse print, to avoid mouse droppings.
loading....
Reading and understanding the fine print can make all the difference in the world. Unless you are used to it and can skim very quickly it will eat up a large portion of your day.
Just think about all the software agreements you have clicked I Agree too over the year. Read the fine print in them? Focus on the details can make or break you
Glad to see a company making it easier.
loading....
Thank you for posting this. I know another blogger who pointed out that privacy agreements can really say whatever they want, because people agree to them no matter what without reading them. They could say they have a right to all your private information, to do whatever the heck they want with it and no one would notice. This blog definitely covers a niche that is much-needed.
-DC
loading....
Very interesting…thanks for sharing!
loading....