Copy right?
Reporter: Phil Vine
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But
surely, that depends on how sincere the imitation is.
In this case it involves a $360,000 sculpture, a labour of love,
built by a kiwi artist over three years. Then to his great surprise
the work turns up on a $16.99 t-shirt without his
permission. There was no consent, no consultation and no form
of payment. Well that's the sort of flattery you can live without.
Fair Go joins Auckland artist John Radford and his fight against
clothing giant Hallensteins.
No entry
Reporter: Hannah Wallis
Emma Felton has been working as a marketing consultant for the
past three years - she loves the job but was ready, at almost 20,
to go to University.
In January this year she applied to Massey University's
Albany campus in Auckland, to do a BA majoring in psychology and
sociology. She applied on-line and her application was acknowledged
by email on the same day, along with her student ID number and pin,
but after three weeks she checked with Massey as nothing seemed to
be happening. They said it didn't look like she'd applied, and told
her there was a problem with the on-line enrolments.
Three calls to three different staff people later, she finally got her application through, but a couple of days later - just a week before her course was due to begin, Emma was told by Massey that her NCEA results weren't good enough for entry, and she was also told there had been a glitch in the system which meant no-one had raised this difficulty earlier. Emma was lucky enough to get her job back after resigning, but says the whole experience has robbed her of her confidence and she can't understand why it took a month to find out she wasn't accepted.
Dr Pat Sandbrook, Massey's director of national student
relations told us the original email application hadn't gone
through - they say this happened to a number of students because
they hadn't pushed the "submit" button. But Massey sent out an
email saying the application had been received. Massey were chasing
this mistake up but hadn't told Emma - when Emma contacted Massey a
month later, they finally realised that she did not have sufficient
NCEA qualifications, and unfortunately this wasn't picked up by the
staff members Emma spoke to. Emma can't be accepted as an adult
student because the cut off date for that acceptance is March 3,
and Emma doesn't turn 20 until three weeks later -there's no
wriggle room.
The Vice-Chancellor of Massey has apologised to Emma and said
changes will be made to the system to try and sort things out -
Emma says she's happy that will happen. She is going to University
as an adult student starting in June - but to AUT, not
Massey.
Click here to
watch this story.
Chips
Reporter: Ruwani Perera
Evan Connor from Rangiora wrote in after spotting a grocery item in his shopping which had shrunk in size, but not in price. Evan's noticed that Bluebirds new Better Than Ever crisps are 40 grams lighter than the old packets (from 190grams to 150grams). The smaller packets have also shrunk from 45 grams down to 40 grams, but in both cases, the price is the same.
Evan's fed up with companies disguising price increases with new branding and packaging.
Bluebird hasn't increased their chippie prices since November 2006, but Fair Go reckons shrinking the packets, without down-sizing the price, is effectively a price hike. For a standard retail price of $2.95 for a large 190gram pack, that's almost a 30 per cent price increase and for the smaller packets at around $1.50 that works out to a 12.5 per cent price rise.
Bluebird say the change in bag size is to bring them in line
with their competitors and add that they have had to cope with
increases in the cost of raw materials as well. The potato chip
manufacturers also claim the new chips are the best ever for
freshness and taste.
Kumara update
Reporter: Hannah Wallis
Last week an anonymous viewer told us about being
charged three cents by their local Pak n Save for 10 grams of
kumara. Fair Go checked out 10 grams, it was just a sliver - so
obviously a mistake. Pak n Save said yep, we'll refund
the three cents, give the viewer the rest of the kumara they
missed out on - plus give them a grocery voucher. Our viewer got in
touch - said, thanks very much but I'd like to remain a mystery,
can you please give the voucher to the SPCA - so that's what's been
done.
Click here to watch this story.
