Dear Orwell,

Have you heard complaints about being a captive audience? Well here is one about captive consumers; we do not have choices about buying poor quality chinese products. The stores do not give product variety from other countries.

The low prices of chinese's products have significant hiding costs. They are so poor quality that they have high probability of braking soon, thus consumers need to buy warranties.

The products are very difficult to use; often consumers cannot use them immediatly.

They cause frustration and bitterness in the consumer; they will ruin your day.

Often they are unfinished; the consumer has to finish the programing.

They take valious time from the busy consumers.

They are "throw away items;" our landfills are being filled faster (thousands of one- year-used printers, almost new useless computers, cheap-made-clothing that looked pretty but after a wash they became trash.), etc. more trash, more trash! Who does pay for the trash service? What about our landfills filling faster?

Consumers pay the fixing or shipping of the easily broken items. Example, I bought a recording system FOUR MONTHS AGO. It was too complex that I could not make it work. When I had my vacation and time to make it work. I could not.

In the store where I bought it, they did not know. I went to other store where the same items are sold; the workers could not make sense of its instructions.

One day, I called manufacture. After I went for minutes pressing telephone bottoms, I was placed on hold listening music. Finally the costumer assistant tried to help me over the phone. He could not and put me on hold many times while he investigated. His instructions (I had tried them before) could not do it; the system was not recording.

I was asked to send it by mail. So who was going to pay the shipping? the costumer! Waw! Business people can be very smart when the government allows them. Anyway I asked to talk with a supervisor who seem to be in India. I talked with her, we went again and again on the instructions, after one hour we were able to make it work. The instructions were poorly written do to the fact that manufactors were trying to save money and put all their models' instructions in the same instructions ("one almost fit all"). They expect that the costumer has to be finding which step to follow was for his/her recorder.

Consequently, They Made a Mistake! It was not only poorly written but incorrect. To save pennies, the manufactors made me spend hours.

I would have prefered pay $300 or more for a costumer friendly good instead of the $170.00 I pay, plus time, frustration, anger, and sense of having not choice.

sincerely,
All silent costumers

Greetings Silent Customer,

I think from seeing your name on the email that you are Spanish, perhaps from Mexico. Plus, your accent sounds Spanish.

Thank you for taking the time to express your frustration with cheaply-made Chinese imports. You made some very valid points that most of us have experienced at one time or another.

At first North Americans were upset because high-paying jobs went to workers in Mexico who earned less. Then Mexicans were upset because their high-paying jobs went to workers in China.

Customers AND workers are suffering all over North and South America because of the out-sourcing of good jobs to the third-world.

As you say, there are high hidden costs to these cheap Chinese products, and actually, they aren't that cheap anymore. The price tags have gone up significantly, in more ways than one.

All the best,
Jackie Jura