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Carrefour and Walmart branded as cheats in China

January 31, 2011

Xinhua reports that Carrefour and Walmart have damaged their own reputations by trying to cheat Chinese consumers by overpricing. With the New Year to be celebrated on 3rd February, they are being seen as trying to exploit the traditional Chinese generosity during the festival holiday:

Carrefour and Walmart swindle Chinese consumers

Over the crowds of holiday shoppers in China’s big stores this Spring Festival lingers an atmosphere of suspicion. With charges of price deception hanging over the big chains of Carrefour and Wal-Mart and local authorities moving to levy fines, many Chinese — normally averse to be pinching pennies during the Lunar New Year — are checking their receipts at the tills.

The New Year, which falls on Feb. 3 this year, is normally a time of largesse and excess — all the more reason why many shoppers feel so betrayed. Customers can be seen recording label prices in notebooks or calculating their final bill on their mobile phones as they walk the aisles. At outlets of Carrefour and Wal-Mart in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, the check out queues have grown as customers doublecheck prices at the tills.

“I would never have imagined global firms would do this intentionally and I have to be cautious,” said a woman surnamed Wang, after shopping at a foreign-owned supermarket in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

From KamCity:

Carrefour and Walmart have issued public statements of apology to their customers in China, after local regulators found that several of their outlets were overcharging customers. The National Development and Reform Commission had found several instances of overpricing at 11 Carrefour and three Walmart outlets, on products including tea, underwear, and household products.

Carrefour said it “sincerely apologises” for the errors, and offered to refund customers five times the difference between the price charged and that on the label. Meanwhile, Walmart also expressed its “sincere apology” to those affected, adding that it has “launched self-examinations” and “will strengthen its price monitoring.”

The NDRC ordered local authorities to fine the individual outlets and confiscate their “illegal income”, with fines amounting to five times the amount confiscated, or up to 500,000 yuan if the amount cannot be calculated.

In the Chinese government’s battle against inflation, the Western retailers are building up a reputation for being a significant part of the problem.


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Somali piracy: How does it continue?

January 30, 2011
Bathymetric map of the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean: Image via Wikipedia

Two contrasting stories about Somali piracy today which makes me wonder whether it continues because technology is not up to it or because of a lack of will or because of legalistic uncertainties on the high seas, or because of something else ?

The Indian Ocean is large and pirate craft are small and Somali war lords are greedy, but is it beyond the capability of all the world’s satellites to detect them and beyond the power of all the world’s navies to put a stop to this? Or are the reported ransoms of many millions being paid out far too readily and far too quickly by  the ship owner’s?

And where does the money trail really lead? And are there any insurance frauds also involved?

Something does not add up.

The Indian Express reports about the sinking of a pirate “mother ship”:

KOCHI: Giving a big blow to Somali pirates, Indian coastal security forces sink Prantalay, a  mother vessel used by the pirates, off the Laskhadweep coast. In a first-of-its-kind mission against pirates in the Indian waters, the Navy and the Coast Guard rescued around 20 fishermen from Thailand and Myanmar, the original crew of Prantalay.

The Coast Guard and the Navy, which had been keeping vigil against the pirates, had identified two skiffs off Lakshadweep coast on Friday morning. It was while responding to a call by MV CMA CGM Verdi, a Bahamas-flagged container ship on Friday morning, that a Coast Guard Dornier aircraft located two skiffs attempting an attack. Seeing the aircraft, the skiffs immediately gave up their piracy attempt and dashed towards the mother vessel Prantalay which hurriedly hoisted the two skiffs on board and set a westerly course to escape from the area. This action cleared all doubts of Prantalay being used by pirates as a mother vessel. While the Coast Guard and the Dorniers continuously tracked Prantalay, Indian Naval Ship Cankarso, a recently commissioned Water Jet Fast Attack Craft which had already been deployed in the area for anti-piracy patrol, was directed  to intercept Prantalay. Around 5 pm, INS Cankarso closed in on Prantalay and made all efforts  to establish communication on the international Mercantile Marine Band, but the vessel did not respond and continued to proceed westwards in its effort to escape.

In keeping with internationally accepted norms, Cankarso fired a warning shot well ahead of Prantalay to compel the ship to stop. Instead of stopping, Prantalay suddenly opened fire on INS Cankarso, which retaliated. Then, a fire broke out on Prantalay and crew were seen jumping overboard. In addition to the fishermen, 15 pirates were also apprehended. INS Cankarso was subsequently joined by INS Kalpeni and CGS Sankalp. Naval and Coast Guard ships and aircraft present in the area searching for any other fishermen/pirates.

And from Germany comes the story of of pirates capturing two ships and attacking a third:

Two sailors on a German ship have been found in a lifeboat after pirates took control of their vessel last weekend in the Indian Ocean. The pirates attacked the Bremen-based Beluga Nomination around 800 sea miles north of the Seychelles, prompting reaction from a Seychelles patrol boat and a Danish warship in the area.
The Seychelles patrol boat fired on the ship killing two pirates and two crew members, reported Der Spiegel on Saturday. Yet it was unable to gain control of the Beluga Nomination, and most of the surviving crew locked themselves into a safe room. At least two others jumped into the free-fall life boat and activated it, plunging into the sea. The day afterwards the Beluga Nomination stopped as the daily fuel ration was seemingly exhausted. A few hours later another captured ship, the York gas ship arrived, and the two ships were last seen heading towards Somalia.
The two men in the life boat were picked up by the Danish frigate and are said to be in as good a condition as could be expected under the circumstances. A Beluga shipping company spokeswoman confirmed that the fate of the rest of the crew remained unknown.
On Friday Somali pirates attacked another German ship, the New York Star tanker which belongs to the Hamburg firm Chemikalien Seetransport. It was attacked by pirates in a speedboat, a firm spokesman said on Saturday. The captain tried avoidance manoeuvres while the crew locked themselves in a safe room. The Dutch frigate De Ruyter came to its aid and soldiers boarded to check for pirates before giving the all-clear. New York Star will continue its journey from Saudi Arabia to Singapore with its load of naphtha.

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Posted in Behaviour, Business, Piracy | 1 Comment »

Shocking! Study claims IKEA is confusing customers into submission!

January 24, 2011

Alan Penn is Professor of Architectural and Urban Computing at The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, and Director of the VR Centre for the Built Environment. He has studied IKEA’s London store and draws the (un)remarkable conclusion that the layout has been cunningly designed – horror of horrors – to get customer’s to buy more.

Duh!!

(I hate that word but cannot find a better one)

The Scotsman reports:

IKEA Wembley store

Study claims Ikea’s ‘maze’ is selling ploy

Professor Alan Penn, director of the Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment at University College London, studied the Swedish firm’s north London store and came to the conclusion that their success, in part, is down to confusing their customers into submission by designing their stores like a maze.

Unlike John Lewis stores, which have a grid layout to create an open and accessible environment, Ikea stores require customers to enter and follow a path through the entire store to reach the exit.

“It is so well done and so cunningly done that I have little doubt that it is intentional,” said Penn, whose team has previously studied retail strategies and monitored how consumers respond.
In his study of the Ikea store in Brent, Penn found that the weaving yellow path quickly leaves customers disorientated. It only takes minutes before they have no idea where the exit lies, he found. Although all stores are required to include shortcuts for fire regulations, he said these were always positioned outside the customer’s normal field of vision.
Penn said the only comparable shopping environment he knew of was the Bazaar in Isfahan, a medieval Iranian marketplace. “The way to the exit is always behind you,” he said.

Obviously  John Lewis and other proper UK stores would not stoop to such despicable tactics ! In the words of one of the comments to this article:

I do think it is important for customers to stand up to the evil nordic fascist monsters who run Ikea.

Footnote from the Wall Street Journal:

Swedish furniture giant IKEA, the world’s No. 1 furniture retailer by sales, said Friday it benefited from cash-strapped consumers trading down in a continued challenging economic climate, as it reported higher sales and net profit for fiscal 2010. The company, famous for its low-cost ready-to-assemble furniture, said net profit for the fiscal year to Aug. 31 rose 6.1% to EUR2.7 billion. Revenue rose 7.7% to EUR23.1 billion.

Prices were unchanged in fiscal 2010 although Ohlsson said the company has been able to reduce prices by 2.6% in the current fiscal year and sees the possibility of further prices cuts next fiscal year. IKEA’s improved supply chain is key to maintaining low prices while also bucking the trend of other retailers by boosting margins. Gross margin rose to 46.1% from 44.6% a year earlier.

I wonder who funded this study? A competitor to IKEA? or could it be IKEA?

IKEA is still a privately held company – so I won’t be buying shares after this study – but I would if I could.

Related: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/the-ikea-phenomenon/

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“Set a thief to catch a thief”?

January 22, 2011

Earlier posts have dealt with the case of Jatinder Ahluwalia – a pharmacologist – who was found to have deceived his colleagues and probably sabotaged other’s research whose paper published in Nature was retracted. Ahluwalia was then at University College London but is now employed at the University of East London.

Retraction Watch now points out that he has published a new paper – not on pharmacology this time but about plagiarism! The paper appears in Bioscience Education, “Students Turned Off by Turnitin? Perception of Plagiarism and Collusion by Undergraduate Bioscience Students.”

Ahluwalia and his co-author, Andrew Thompsett, did the study

to provide qualitative data on the perceptions of plagiarism and collusion of final year Pharmacology students.

That he is no longer at UCL is understandable but that he is employed in the position he has at the University of East London is less understandable – not least from the perspective of the University. East London University has a history going back to 1898 as an educational institution but only became a University in 1992. It is the 3rd largest university in London in terms of student numbers and the 18th largest in the United Kingdom. But it ranks around 108th of the UK’s 115 Universities. I have difficulty to see how this University (which clearly needs to improve its ranking) could enhance its reputation by employing Ahluwalia. But perhaps Ahluwalia is a good teacher even if his reputation as a researcher in his own field is irrevocably tarnished.

The subject of his latest publication being more a social study rather than hard-core pharmacology is also understandable. And unlike many other sociologists he may have some unique qualifications to study plagiarism.

The paper itself is somewhat negative about a particular commercial product (Turnitin) and therefore of some benefit to its competitors – and that itself rings some alarm bells.

Unfortunately for Turnitin,

The results from the pilot study suggested that students did not find Turnitin (UK) easy to use neither did they perceive it as a useful learning tool.

But some questions also arise as to the the publishing Journal’s wisdom of publishing such a study  – which could be considered  “negative advertising” – and by such an author. Especially since they say that one of their objectives is to disseminate “good practice”.  Even consumer magazines are wary of reviewing just one product in isolation without also subjecting competing products to the same tests. From their website:

Bioscience Education is an online, bi-annual electronic journal owned and published by the Centre for Bioscience. Its aims are to promote, enhance and disseminate research, good practice and innovation in tertiary level teaching and learning within the biosciences disciplines.

Set a thief to catch a thief is a well tried concept but it does require some modicum of common sense.

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, scientific misconduct | 3 Comments »

When plagiarism is not plagiarism : part 2

January 17, 2011

Plagiarism has never been considered misconduct in the political arena. And it would seem it is not considered misconduct when purported science is used in a political or religious cause.

I posted earlier about how plagiarism is not plagiarism in the eyes of a journal editor when it is done in his own journal.

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/ethics-of-journals-when-plagiarism-is-not-plagiarism/

Steve McIntyre reports on another case where science is subordinated to political and religious beliefs.

http://climateaudit.org/2011/01/16/trenberth-and-lifting-text-verbatim-2/

Apparently plagiarism is not plagiarism when carried out by Kevin Trenberth in support of his religious beliefs. But the actions reported here to hastily introduce attributions wherever plagiarism had been detected, suggest that Trenberth realises that if his scientific misconduct is shown then his religious positions are undermined and discredited.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Ethics, Science, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on When plagiarism is not plagiarism : part 2

Beijing introduces number plate lottery to cut car sales by 75%

January 16, 2011

Last year 890, 000 cars hit Beijing’s streets contributing to the city’s legendary gridlock and traffic emissions.

Gridlock in Beijing: image care2.com

From 1st January this year a lottery for number plates will provide only 20,000 winners each month restricting sales of both new and second-hand cars in the city to 240,000 this year. 210,000 people have applied for the 20,000 licenses available for January. Winners must buy a car within six months. Losers in this month’s lottery will be included in next month’s drawing along with all new applicants.

CRIenglish reports:

Car dealerships in Beijing may opt to shift their focus on boosting sales to neighboring cities after the municipal government imposed an annual quota on new car license plates as part of efforts to ease traffic gridlock in the capital city.

Some car dealerships, especially of domestic brands, are making plans to expand sales to areas outside Beijing where the policy restriction does not apply, the China Business Times reported. The new limit means buyers will favor high-end and luxury types of cars once they obtain the hard-to-get licenses. Domestic brands and small cars, which sell mostly at below 100,000 yuan, will see lower sales in Beijing, the newspaper article said.

The policy stipulates that buyers of secondhand cars must go through the monthly lottery system to obtain a license and sellers of used cars will see their license annulled in a year if they make no new purchases. That puts dealers of both new and used cars to compete in the same arena for the annual 240,000 new car license plates.

The combined factors have driven many companies to stock up cars, including used cars, in preparation for the coming hike in rental businesses. Car dealerships are tapping into this market, putting types of cars idling for sale ready for renting….. Meanwhile, industry experts predict the big automakers will likely adapt by focusing more on smaller cities further inland, the China Daily quoted Zhong Shi, an independent analyst in Beijing as saying.

“The best and most efficient way for automakers to offset the declining sales in Beijing and maybe other first-tier cities in the near future is to shift rapidly their dealer network expansion inland,” said Zhong.

Besides easing traffic jams, the new policy will help address serious air pollution problems in the Chinese capital city. Car emissions account for around 50 percent of the air pollution in Beijing.


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At least one woman required to be brought for every 4 men! – WEF Davos

January 13, 2011
DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 17JAN08 - Aerial Photo of D...

Hotel Steigenberger, Davos: Image via Wikipedia

The World Economic Forum is requiring its strategic partners to bring along at least one woman in every group of five.

I am not sure whether this is a blow for or against gender equality. Coming as it does from the World Economic Forum for the meeting in Davos to be held in 2 weeks, I suspect that it is primarily about having a good time rather than about gender equality!!

From The Guardian:

Each year, prime ministers, bankers, business tycoons and other movers and shakers of the global elite gather at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos. And each year, one key thing has been missing: women.

Now, in an attempt to improve the traditionally dismal gender balance at this month’s event, which starts a week next Tuesday, the WEF has for the first time imposed a minimum quota of women.

The forum’s “strategic partners” – a group of about 100 companies including Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank – have been told they must bring along at least one woman in every group of five senior executives sent to the high-profile event. Strategic partners account for 500 of the 2,500 participants expected this year at a gathering where David Cameron will rub shoulders with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, historian Niall Ferguson, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, at least one member of the Saudi royal family and countless business supremos and members of the academic elite.

“The World Economic Forum annual meeting engages the highest levels of leadership from a variety of sectors and participation figures are a reflection of the scarcity of women in this external pool,” said Saadia Zahidi, who heads the gender parity programme at the WEF and came up with the quota plan.

At Davos, the world’s most powerful men (and a few women) broker multimillion-pound deals behind the scenes of the conferences. The forum’s black-tie dinners, cocktail parties and other less formal encounters are the ultimate networking events and those present follow the old “contacts lead to contracts” motto.

But so far, relatively few women have benefited from this high-level schmoozing. Women made up only 9-15% of those present between 2001 and 2005.


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Corruption in the European Union is alive and well

January 12, 2011
Constituency for the European Parliament elect...

Image via Wikipedia

Transparency International’s work and its Corruption Perception Index are both important and necessary, but they are just a small contribution to trying to restore ethics and integrity into public life. It mainly addresses the public sector and takes little account of the lack of ethics in the commercial world. Another problem with the CPI is that is skewed and as a perception index tends to be overly representative of the petty but widespread corruption (the so-called “facilitation fees”) in public services and among government employees. These are more common in developing countries and newly “democratised” countries where wage levels are low and institutional processes are still under evolution. But what the CPI does not address properly is the high level of corruption and fraud among politicians and bureaucrats in the developed world (Europe, the US, Japan, Korea for example) – which are not as numerous as in developing countries  but where the monetary values involved are huge. If we distinguish between petty bribery and corruption on the one hand and “grand” fraud and corruption on the other, I have little doubt that the US, Europe and Japan continue not only to lead the “grand” fraud and corruption stakes by a long way but are also the most innovative in finding new ways of being corrupt.

Politicians in the European Parliament and bureaucrats in the European Union are particularly venal and are subject to even less scrutiny than the national parliaments of the member countries (where padding expenses, influence peddling and basic corruption are also well established). The latest example of institutionalised corruption in Europe comes from The Telegraph:

The EU’s financial watchdog has systemically “sabotaged” investigations and caved into intimidation from countries including France and Italy to cover up fraud, according to a senior official.

Maarten Engwirda, a former Dutch member of European Court of Auditors for 15 years, who retired 10 days ago, has alleged that abuse of EU funds was swept under the carpet by an auditing body that was supposed to expose wrongdoing.

“There was a practice of watering down if not completely removing criticism,” he told the Dutch Volkskrant newspaper yesterday.

Slim Kallas, the European Commission’s vice-president, who was responsible for anti-fraud measures from 2004 to 2010 and who is now the EU transport chief, is accused of putting “heavy pressure” on investigators to tone down findings of abuse.

Mr Kallas also clashed with the Court of Auditors over its use of strict accounting standards which meant that the EU’s annual accounts have embarrassingly never been given a clean bill of health. Mr Engwirda, 67, also described an endemic “cover-up culture” within the court and wider EU institutions that had prevented the true extent of fraud from being disclosed.

Marta Andreasen, a Ukip MEP and a member of the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee, that she had come under “huge pressure to conceal the truth about EU expenditure” before being sacked as the commission’s chief accountant for whistle-blowing in 2002. “I witnessed the arm twisting of the Auditors each time they attempted to reveal the failures in the EU accounting and control systems. They came under huge pressure to keep the accountancy fraud hushed up,” she said. “Sadly the auditors did not support me when I stood up in defence of European taxpayers. In my opinion the court is not an independent body.”

Pieter Cleppe, the Brussels spokesman of the Open Europe pressure group said: “This insider story should serve as a warning not to give in to EU demands for more money until the culture of financial irresponsibility is being dealt with more fundamentally.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8252958/EU-financial-watchdog-systemically-sabotaged-fraud-investigations.html

There is little doubt that European politicians have received their pay-offs whenever a “fraud” investigation has been “sabotaged”.

Related: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/chief-risk-officer-of-bayerische-landesbank-arrested-for-50-million-bribes/

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/widespread-corruption-within-turkish-customs-bribes-pool-of-125-million/

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Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, Ethics, European Union | 1 Comment »

EasyJet has much to learn: Incompetence compounded by “threats of arrest”

January 11, 2011

From the Daily Mail:

Dozens of Easyjet passengers were ordered off a plane and threatened with arrest if they refused – because the overloaded jet was too heavy to take off.

The flight from Birmingham to Geneva was over-filled with 10 tonnes too much fuel so the captain asked the last 37 customers to get off the plane. When some passengers refused to budge they were informed that three police officers were waiting in the airport terminal and would arrest them if necessary.

I have experienced this once on an SAS flight from Copenhagen to Norrköping. We had just seated ourselves when my son cried out “Dad, they’re taking our bags away”. Sure enough they had overfilled the plane with fuel and off-loaded baggage to compensate. But the Captain came out and apologised personally to each affected passenger, explaining that the ground crew had over-filled with fuel according to his instructions which had been based on a passenger manifest which was about 2 hours out-of-date. He acknowledged it was his fault publicly on the loudspeakers and that he had no excuses.  He promised that all baggage would come out on the next flight and would be delivered to our addresses (which did happen). By the time we had landed, the stewardesses had taken down the addresses of the affected passengers and when we landed the kids were plied with toys, puzzles and 2 weeks worth of chocolates and we were given carrier bags full of bottles of wine and champagne left over from the meal service.

What I was particularly struck by was that all the irritation and anger of the passengers was completely neutralised as soon as the captain made his public acknowledgement, admitted the mistake and took responsibility. The mood on the plane palpably changed and by the time we had landed my boys actually thought it was all part of an adventure  organised especially for them. Needless to say they still have a deep seated loyalty to the SAS brand even though SAS has fallen on relatively hard times and we usually have to fly Lufthansa to reach the destinations we need to get to. That Captain had a touch of class.

EasyJet has a lot to learn about what taking responsibility actually means.

If at all possible EasyJet and RyanAir are airlines I avoid like the plague.

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Posted in Aviation, Behaviour, Business | 1 Comment »

Widespread corruption within Turkish customs: Bribes pool of $125 million

January 9, 2011

In Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, Turkey ranks together with countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Slovenia but somewhat better than Italy.

image: http://www.worldbulletin.net

A bribery ring composed of customs officials in Turkey and including the Director of the Istanbul Region has been revealed. It appears that the 34 arrested shared a bribes pool which in the period of the 6 month investigation is estimated to have contained about $125 million.

From the magnitude of the bribes pool it would seem that Turkey is well qualified for membership of the European Union and the monetary value of this case compares “well” with the Formula 1 bribery case in Germany – though that involved just one individual(?).

It was announced today that:

Thirty-four individuals serving at the İstanbul Customs Regional Directorate have been detained in a major investigation into bribery and corruption allegations at the customs department. The suspects include the chief director of the İstanbul Customs Regional Directorate.

The operation was carried out on Friday.

The allegations against the suspects include the collection of money paid in bribes in a pool and then the distribution of this money to İstanbul customs officials every Friday on the basis of rank and seniority. The investigators claim Chief Director Lütfi Ekinci was aware of this practice among his staff. Ekinci was detained in Mersin, where he was vacationing in his summerhouse.
The suspects allegedly relied on three methods to take bribes from companies importing goods to Turkey. One was to force companies that had all their documents in order to give money, calling this a “donation.” The other method was showing the value of an imported good to be nine-tenths less than the actual value on paper. In other words, an item that would normally cost TL 10 would be recorded as costing TL 1. A third method the officials used was falsifying documents and showing those products that are subject to higher taxes — such as cigarettes — as if they belong in another taxation category. The difference would be taken by the customs officials and added to the bribery pool. Investigators estimate the amount channeled into the bribe fund was TL 200 million ($125 million)…….. The center of the raids was the İstanbul Atatürk Airport Customs and the Ambarlı Customs Zone, but the raids were staged simultaneously at 20 different addresses. Hayrettin Eker, the İstanbul Atatürk Airport Customs Directorate Cargo Terminal chief, and Smuggling Intelligence and Narcotic Department Chief Coşkun Cihanoğlu were also detained in the operation. Documents and computers in the offices of the two men were seized by the police.

The police found TL 20,000 inside an envelope in Eker’s office. A total of TL 150,000 was found on other customs officials detained in the operation, which the investigators claim was taken in bribes. Investigators say the operations will extend to the companies that were involved in the customs bribery scheme.

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Posted in Behaviour, Business, Corruption, Ethics, Turkey | 3 Comments »

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