My finance view

Return policies aren’t what they used to be in the days of Timothy Eaton’s "goods satisfactory or money refunded."

Leon’s Furniture Ltd. has a policy that all sales are final on appliances and electronics products, as Bryan Richards found when he brought back his mother’s Toshiba TV within two weeks.

"The channels would not change, the screen would go blank and the controls would freeze," he said.

While he was told the return policy was printed on the back of the invoice, he said it wasn’t displayed prominently in the store or explained to him before the purchase.

Leon’s spokesman Bruce Bergeron said the store succeeded in getting a replacement through Toshiba.

"Thanks for your intervention," Richards said.

"We have learned a valuable lesson, which I will pass along to friends and relatives."

Peter Coutts was helping his parents with a Sealy mattress bought at Leon’s last year.

"I successfully got Sealy to replace one mattress because the defect met their criteria (a measured amount of sagging)," he said.

A few months later, the replacement was also sagging. His parents couldn’t get a good night’s sleep.

Bergeron said Sealy had agreed to "look after the consumer and offer a reselection," even though the second mattress did not meet the terms for replacement.

Coutts said his parents would follow through on the exchange of the old mattress, even though they had lost confidence in Sealy products.

"I would rate Leon’s a five out of 10 in after-sale service," he said. "They don’t provide direct numbers for service representatives (you must go through the main switchboard), nor do they provide email addresses."

Sandeep Nigam wrote to me when he was denied a refund of a $20 prepaid Rogers card that he purchased at a No Frills grocery store quick guaranteed personal loans.

The cashier had scanned the card – thereby activating it – after it had fallen onto the conveyor belt in error.

He did not want a Rogers card and did not notice the charge on his grocery bill until after he got home.

Although he came back within a half hour, No Frills said he had to deal with Rogers.

Meanwhile, Rogers said the prepaid cards were nonrefundable and he had to take it up with the store manager.

Things were resolved quickly when I forwarded his email to Loblaw Cos. Ltd., which owns No Frills.

"We have offered the customer a $20 gift card and he is returning the Rogers card," said spokeswoman Karen Gumbs.

Anne Hamilton asked for help with Air Miles.

Her father had booked a free flight to Phoenix this Christmas, but did not realize that he had a conflict with his curling team’s final games.

When he called to reschedule, he was told he’d have to pay a $209.50 change fee to the airline and declined to do so.

"Given that he has a personal commitment that cannot be moved to another date, Air Miles will absorb all the change fees charged by the airline so he is able to attend his event," said Shawna Rossi, a spokeswoman for the loyalty program.

Before you buy, always ask: Can I return this? Is there a deadline? Will I get a full or partial refund? This can help avoid surprises later.

Write to onyourside@thestar.ca or check the On Your Side blog at www.ellenroseman.com

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Asset bubbles are the No. 1 threat to financial stability in Asia, meaning policy makers should avoid an excessive focus on inflation, said Norman Chan, the head of Hong Kong’s de facto central bank.

Asia’s experience in the past 20 years shows the biggest threat “is from asset bubbles, rather than inflation,” Chan, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said in a speech posted on the organization’s Web site today. “I’m not saying that Asia does not need to worry about or guard against inflation, but I think we should focus more on the risk of asset bubbles forming and the associated damages.”

Chan said more than HK$640 billion ($82.6 billion) flowed into Hong Kong since October last year, helping to drive up housing prices for 10 straight months. Donald Tsang, the city’s chief executive, said Nov. 13 that he was “scared” that money flowing into Asia because of low interest rates in the U.S. could lead to another crisis in the region.

“Many Asian governments are concerned about asset-bubble risks,” said Irina Fan, an economist at the Hong Kong-based Hang Seng Bank Ltd. “Not only are low interest rates in the U.S. and the euro zone fueling concerns, many governments are also pumping money into their markets.”

Chan didn’t say that Hong Kong or Asia had bubbles. It’s difficult to assess when they’re forming, he said.

‘Extremely Loose’ Policies

“If it’s considered that bubbles have started to form, we should adopt appropriate and strong measures to prevent the bubbles from expanding too much,” Chan said in his Chinese- language speech.

Financial officials in Japan and China, Asia’s two largest economies, warned last month that the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policy risks spurring speculative capital that may inflate asset prices and derail the global economic recovery.

“The current extremely loose global monetary policies and huge capital inflows provide the ideal conditions and ingredients for Asian asset bubbles to grow, so the potential risk of asset bubbles is not small,” Chan said No teletrak payday loan.

Hong Kong’s monetary policy is limited by the local dollar’s peg to the U.S. currency, meaning that the city’s interest rates track those of the U.S.

Prices for existing Hong Kong homes rose 29 percent this year, according to the Centa-City Leading Index, a weekly measure developed by Centaline Property Agency Ltd. and the City University of Hong Kong.

Betting on Property

Hang Lung Properties Ltd. Chairman Ronnie Chan said Dec. 4 that Hong Kong’s home market is a “good bet,” joining billionaire Lee Shau-kee in forecasting rising prices. Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. Vice Chairman Raymond Kwok said Dec. 3 that property prices in Hong Kong are still “reasonable.”

In October, the city tightened down-payment requirements for luxury homes for the first time since 1991 to curtail speculation.

Hong Kong should consider tightening lending rules to stop rapid credit growth and asset-price gains from damaging the economy, the International Monetary Fund said Dec. 3.

“Strong capital inflows and the resultant large liquidity overhang in the financial system could potentially lead to rapid credit growth, fueling asset markets and creating macroeconomic volatility,” the IMF said. “Countervailing prudential measures could play a role in mitigating the credit-asset price cycle.”

In Hong Kong, consumer prices advanced at the fastest pace in nine months in October as the government ended subsidy programs and the city’s economic recovery encouraged spending. The increase was 2.2 percent from a year earlier. In China, consumer prices rose in November for the first time in 10 months.

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The European Central Bank may today announce plans to scale back its emergency lending while keeping interest rates at a record low to foster an economic recovery.

ECB policy makers meeting in Frankfurt will leave the benchmark interest rate at 1 percent, according to all 54 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. President Jean-Claude Trichet will say the ECB’s third offer of 12-month loans to banks on Dec. 15 will be the last and may also signal a reduction in other lending operations, economists said.

The ECB, which has been flooding banks with cheap cash to fight Europe’s worst recession since World War II, said last month it will gradually withdraw the extra liquidity to prevent inflation as the economy gathers strength. At the same time, officials don’t want to give the impression they’re moving closer to rate increases, people familiar with their discussions said. Any indication that the ECB could tighten policy sooner than the Federal Reserve may fuel further gains in the euro.

“This is going to be the big one,” said James Nixon, co- chief European economist at Societe Generale SA in London. “They need to very, very carefully set out a timetable for how liquidity will be drawn down, but they don’t want to plant expectations that the exit implies they’ll raise interest rates.”

The ECB announces its rate decision at 1:45 p.m. and Trichet holds a press conference 45 minutes later.

Global Stimulus

While Australia’s central bank has raised rates three times in as many months, the Fed and the Bank of England have signaled they’re in no rush to increase borrowing costs from record lows as their economies struggle to shake off the effects of the biggest global slump since the Great Depression. The Bank of Japan announced new measures this week, saying it will offer three-month loans to banks at 0.1 percent to combat deflation.

Trichet will today unveil the ECB’s new staff projections, including the first forecasts for 2011. Governing Council members such as Luxembourg’s Yves Mersch and Slovakia’s Ivan Sramko have said they expect the bank to revise up its outlook for the 16-nation economy, which emerged from recession in the third quarter.

In September, the central bank said it expected gross domestic product to grow 0.2 percent in 2010 after shrinking 4.1 this year. It projected inflation of 0.4 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year. The ECB aims to keep inflation just below 2 percent over the medium term.

‘Gradual Recovery’

The December projections will show “a gradual recovery and moderately positive inflation,” said Nick Matthews, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “They’ll be consistent with the view that the policy rate can remain low for a long time.”

The euro has gained 20 percent against the dollar since mid-February, rising above $1.51 yesterday, which is threatening to hurt European exports.

Some policy makers have nevertheless expressed concern that banks are becoming too reliant on ECB cash, and are pushing for the extraordinary lending measures to be withdrawn.

“Not all our liquidity measures will be needed to the same extent as in the past,” Trichet said on Nov. 20. “Eventually, the administration of painkillers must be stopped if patients are to get on their own two feet.”

Trichet signaled on Nov. 5 that the ECB is unlikely to renew its 12-month loans to banks after December’s offering and promised to give details today. He’ll also say whether the ECB has decided to alter the interest rate on the loans. People familiar with the deliberations said last week that policy makers were leaning toward keeping the rate fixed at 1 percent.

‘Balancing Act’

The ECB may announce plans to reduce the frequency of its three-month and six-month loans, which it currently offers every month. The “first steps of a gradual phasing-out of non- standard measures” may include “a lower frequency for three- month and six-month refinancing operations,” Belgian council member Guy Quaden said Nov. 16.

Trichet could also field questions about Dubai’s decision to seek to delay debt repayments, which roiled financial markets this week, and Greece’s ballooning budget deficit. ECB Vice President Lucas Papademos met with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou last weekend to discuss the issue.

With markets still jittery about the sustainability of the economic recovery, the ECB will be wary of upsetting the apple cart, said Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa Securities SMBC Europe Ltd. in London.

“The message Trichet wants to convey is that the ECB is well placed to remove its monetary stimulus and has a strategy for doing so, but that it’s not going to do it too quickly,” he said. “It’s a bit of a balancing act.”

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General Motors Co’s board of directors, citing a need to chart a new course, dismissed Chief Executive Fritz Henderson on Tuesday, a person with direct knowledge of the proceedings said.

GM Chairman Ed Whitacre will become interim chief executive as the automaker begins an immediate search for a replacement.

Henderson, a career GM executive, became CEO eight months ago, vowing to reform the slow-moving culture that contributed to the automaker’s collapse. The announcement of his departure came after a meeting of GM’s 13-member board in Detroit.

Henderson became CEO in March after his predecessor, Rick Wagoner, was forced out by the Obama administration as part of the U.S. government-funded restructuring of GM.

“The board decided — and Fritz agreed — that given where we are, it was time to make some changes,” GM spokesman Chris Preuss said at a hastily arranged news conference.

Whitacre, a former AT&T chief executive, became chairman of GM in July as part of a new board vetted by the U.S. Treasury and intended to safeguard the government’s $50 billion investment in the automaker.

The U.S. government has a majority stake in GM, but the Obama administration has repeatedly said that it is leaving oversight of the company to Whitacre and the board.

Preuss said the White House had been notified of Henderson’s departure, but was not part of the decision.

Whitacre appeared briefly before reporters at GM’s headquarters in Detroit but did not take questions on why the board had chosen to part ways with Henderson.

Reading from a prepared statement, Whitacre said Henderson, who helped GM through its July bankruptcy, had “done a remarkable job in leading the company through an unprecedented period of challenge and change.”

“While momentum has been building over the past several months, all involved agree that changes needed to be made,” Whitacre said.

With the appointment of Whitacre, all three U.S. automakers are now headed by outsiders to Detroit.

Ford Motor Co CEO Alan Mulallly left Boeing Co in 2006. Chrysler is now headed by Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne.

(Reporting by David Bailey, writing by Kevin Krolicki; editing by Patrick Fitzgibbons and Matthew Lewis)

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Consumer confidence in Italy unexpectedly rose in November after the economy emerged from its worst recession since World War II.

The Isae Institute’s consumer confidence index climbed to 112.8 from 111.7 in October, the Rome-based research center Isae said today in an e-mailed statement. Economists had forecast a drop to 111.5 for this month, the median of 13 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey showed.

“There is a widespread perception that the crisis is over and this is an encouraging sign,” said Luigi Speranza, an economist at BNP Paribas in London. “However, consumers are still cautious about the purchase of durable goods and the outlook for t employment, leaving a question mark on consumer spending in the months ahead.”

Italy’s economy emerged from its fourth recession since 2001 in the third quarter as the recovery in Europe boosted exports, and growth may accelerate to more than 1 percent in 2010, Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti said yesterday. Government stimulus measures, particularly car trade-in incentives, helped buffer the drop in consumer spending and benefited Fiat Spa, the country’s biggest manufacturer.

Those incentives are due to be phased out and unemployment is still rising, which may weigh on confidence in the coming months. The jobless rate may exceed 8 pay day advance.5 percent in 2010 from 7.4 percent in the second quarter, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said last week.

Holiday Spending

Those job concerns may slow consumer spending during the holiday season, hurting reatailers such as department story operator Coin SpA. A third of Italians say they will not buy planned Christmas presents this year, according to a survey released yesterday by retailers lobby Confcommercio. More than 11 percent said they still don’t know whether they will spend as much as last year on gifts, Confcommercio said.

“The pace of job destruction in Italy has started to slow,” Marco Valli, chief economist at UniCredit Mib in Milan, said on Nov. 23. “However, given the huge amount of slack in the labor market, genuine employment growth is a matter of 2011 at the earliest.”

Italian optimism contrasts with the mood in Germany. Consumer confidence in Europe’s biggest economy unexpectedly fell in November for a second month as households grew concerned about job security, a separate report said today.

Isae conducted its confidence survey between Nov. 2 and Nov. 17.

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U.K. house prices will rise in the next year, according to a majority of consumers in a survey last month by Rightmove Plc.

Fifty-four percent of respondents expect average house prices to be higher in 12 months, the U.K.’s biggest property Web site said in an e-mailed statement today in London. In the first quarter, more than 68 percent of consumers polled forecast lower prices in a year’s time.

House prices are rebounding from a rout that shaved about 20 percent off average values as demand for new property outstrips supply. Bank of England policy makers said this month that the outlook for the housing market’s recovery depends on the availability of mortgage finance.

“Those surveyed may feel that prices will increase, but that does not necessarily mean that they are willing or able to purchase themselves, especially given the tight lending criteria required to access the best rates,” Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said in the statement loans until payday.

The Bank of England said last week the outlook for the housing market “will depend, in part, on the supply of mortgage credit.” While U.K. mortgage approvals climbed to their highest level for 18 months in September, they’re still only half what they were when the credit crisis started in September 2007.

Prices rose for a third month in October after they had dropped as much as a fifth from 2007, Hometrack Ltd. said earlier this month.

Rightmove said more than 68 percent of respondents described now as a good time to buy while 5 percent said it was a good time to sell. The poll of 34,056 people was conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 19.

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Apple’s lips are sealed about its widely rumored tablet computer, but technology experts are giddy about the device, already exclaiming it will be the gadget to end all gadgets.

Executives at Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) never discuss products that are in the works, so there’s no confirmation that the thing even exists. But rumors are circulating that Steve Jobs and Co. have designed a magazine-sized, touch-screen, hand-held, all-in-one device that is half-iPhone, half-Macintosh computer.

It’s supposedly going to make its debut in the next few months, and you can have it for the low, low price of $600. Or $800. Maybe $1,000. No one’s really sure.

If the rumors are true, the tablet will be able to do basically everything a gadget could possibly do. It’s an e-reader, a gaming device, and a music player. You can watch TV and movies on it and surf the Internet (or so we’ve heard). And it will have thousands of third-party apps available for it … or maybe it will run Mac OS X. That’s all still unknown.

Coolest device … ever? Maybe. Some analysts are channeling their inner-Frodo, saying the Apple tablet will be the one gadget to rule them all.

"This will be the next big thing," said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "Apple is going to wow everybody with the tablet."

Any time Steve Jobs gets on stage, the expectations are incredibly high, but they are especially lofty for the tablet. Analysts and investors are saying that this device could revolutionize the handheld world in the same way the the iPhone changed the smartphone market.

"The tablet will change the game, because Apple will throw down the gauntlet at the competitors, and force them to follow along," DiDio said.

According to DiDio, the tablet will have a 10-inch to 12-inch screen and a high-end graphics card that will enable stunning resolution — even more so than the iPhone and iPod Touch. She said the device will come in several different models that offer varieties of Internet connections, such as Wi-Fi or 3G, perhaps through a contract with AT&T (T, Fortune 500).

Another cool feature will be the Web cam, which business travelers will be able to use for video conferencing on the go, DiDio said.

Some analysts say all of those features will kill other single-function handheld devices, making the Apple tablet the go-to handheld device for computing, Internet browsing, reading, gaming and entertainment low cost payday loans.

"Apple will come out with the tablet and blow everyone away," said Dan Ackerman, senior editor at CNET. "Instead of taking along a Kindle and an iPod, that [tablet] could become the device you carry with you."

The cheaply priced netbook market may also take a hit when the tablet comes out. Apple typically prices their products higher than competitors, because they install top-of-the-line hardware, but DiDio said Apple learned from its mistake of pricing the original iPhone at $599, pricing out many potential customers.

"The Tablet will be awesome, and my guess is that it will be an instant hit for people who loved Kindles and people who want netbooks," said David Wertheimer, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Technology Center.

Wertheimer said he finds it hard to comprehend how the tablet will replace all other on-the-go tech products. "But then again, what I can’t imagine, Steve Jobs often can," he added.

…Or the fizzle may fail. Not everyone thinks the Apple tablet will be the gadget to end all gadgets.

"What we’ve found in the past with these multi-function devices is that they’re better for ad-hoc purposes, like quick and dirty tasks," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee Group. "They’re not for any prolonged, high-performance use."

For instance, smartphones have cameras for quick snapshots, but when you go on vacation, you’re probably going to want your digital camera to come along with you for high-quality photos.

Kerravala said the same logic applies to the tablet’s other functions, including its e-reading capability: "If you want to sit and read a book, the ergonomics of a device that’s specifically designed for reading are going to be better."

Similarly, only 3% of people whose cell phones can play music say they use their phone as their primary music player, according to a Yankee Group study. Even if it means carrying around two devices, an MP3 player is bound to have a better user experience than a multi-function cell phone.

That doesn’t mean the Apple tablet — if it exists — won’t be cool. But you may want to hang onto your iPod, Kindle, Nintendo DS, portable DVD player and laptop for a while. 

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Hitachi Ltd, Japan’s biggest electronics firm by revenues, plans to raise up to 400 billion yen ($4.5 billion) by issuing new shares and convertible bonds to shore up its battered capital base, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The sources, who asked not to be identified ahead of an official announcement anticipated as early as Monday, said Hitachi plans to sell about 300 billion yen worth of shares and another 100 billion yen in convertible bonds.

The public share offering would be its first in 27 years.

No one could be immediately reached at Hitachi for comment.

Faced with its fourth straight year of losses, Hitachi’s shareholders’ equity ratio has slipped to just below 11 percent, roughly half that of rival NEC Corp, which earlier this month announced it would raise up to $1.5 billion.

The ratio is calculated by dividing shareholders’ equity by total assets and is a measure of financial strength.

Issuing 300 billion yen worth of stock at Friday’s closing price of 294 yen would boost Hitachi’s shares outstanding by about 30 percent.

Hitachi, a sprawling conglomerate with more than 900 group firms, is trying to restructure unprofitable businesses while shifting resources to its power operations, which include nuclear power plants, railway systems, elevators and batteries for hybrid cars.

Some of the funds raised would help pay for this group restructuring, the sources said.

Hitachi launched a $3 billion bid earlier this year to make five listed units, including magnetic tape maker Hitachi Maxell

and plant engineering firm Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd, wholly-owned.

Hitachi also must shoulder an investment of about 80 billion yen to pave the way for a merger of Renesas Technology — its chip venture with Mitsubishi Electric — and chipmaker NEC Electronics next year.

Massive losses have also taken their toll. Hitachi lost 787 billion yen in the past business year ended in March, a record for a Japanese manufacturer, and is forecasting a loss of 230 billion yen in the current year to March 2010.

The share and convertible bond offering will mark the first major step by Takashi Kawamura, a veteran of the power business who took over as president in April, to shore up the finances.

Hitachi will be joining a rush of Japanese companies raising money from the stock market following a recovery in the benchmark Nikkei average, which has rallied some 40 percent since hitting a low for the year in March. 

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Can you tell the difference between a plastic shoe and a luxury sports car?

Porsche, the famed German car company, is entangled in a legal spat with Crocs, the maker of rubber shoes. At issue: The shoe company’s use of the name Cayman for a line of footwear.

Porsche also has a product called the Cayman, and it claims that Crocs’ (CROX) use of the name infringes on Porsche’s trademark.

In Porsche’s case, the Cayman is a two-seat hard-top sports car with a starting price of about $51,000. Crocs’ Cayman is the familiar rubber clog with thick soles, holes covering its upper surfaces and a starting price of about $30 a pair.

The blog Footnoted.org spotlighted the quirky legal fight this week after finding it disclosed in the fine print of Crocs’ most recent quarterly report, which Crocs filed last week.

Crocs Europe, a division of the Niwot, Colo payday cash advance.-based shoe company, received a letter from Porsche on May 11 claiming that the Crocs’ use of the Cayman name violated Porsche’s trademark rights. Porsche demanded that Crocs immediately stop using the name, and also requested payment for the legal costs incurred in writing the cease-and-desist notice.

That was followed on July 30 by an injunction against Crocs Europe’s use of the Cayman name in Germany.

"The company intends to vigorously defend itself against these claims," Crocs said in its quarterly filing.

Neither Crocs nor Porsche was immediately available to respond to a request for comment on the legal spat. 

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Ukraine’s government must endorse a package of policy steps and veto a wage and pension law approved by lawmakers before it gets the fourth chunk of a $16.4 billion bailout loan, the International Monetary Fund said.

The eastern European nation was due to receive $3.4 billion after a mission from the Washington-based fund arrived in Kiev on Oct. 12 to review implementation of economic reforms.

The IMF is demanding an “agreed policy package, including assurances that the wage and pension law approved by Ukraine’s parliament, which is at odds with the objectives of the authorities’ program, will be vetoed,” the fund said in an e- mailed statement yesterday.

Ukraine is relying on the loan, approved in November, to stay afloat after the global recession and credit crisis undermined demand for exports such as steel and hammered its banking industry. The IMF program was suspended for three months this year because of government disputes over state spending.

“Ukraine is interested in getting the IMF money as soon as possible as part of it is likely to be used to cover the state budget gap,” said Olena Bilan, an analyst at Kiev-based investment bank Dragon Capital. “I think it may take between two to three weeks for Ukraine to solve the issue.”

The loan program was renewed in May after Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko pledged to narrow the state budget deficit. The country has received $10.6 billion in loan payments to date.

Failure to Comply

Since then, Ukraine has failed to comply with the loan’s terms, including raising natural gas prices for households and adopting laws needed to stabilize the financial system. At the same time, Ukraine’s parliament approved a law on Oct. 20 increasing social payments, including the minimum wage, in an effort to win voter support ahead of Jan. 17 general elections.

The IMF said in July that reducing the budget deficit would be key to releasing the next tranche. The government will run a budget gap equivalent to 8.6 percent of gross domestic product this year, the IMF estimates. That figure excludes the cost of rebuilding the financial industry.

“The mission found that the economic and financial situation in Ukraine is stabilizing as a result of policies under this program,” the IMF said yesterday. “Preserving these gains will require policy discipline and corrective actions in some areas.”

Wage, Pension Law

Timoshenko said on Oct. 21 she would ask President Viktor Yushchenko to veto the wage and pension law adopted by the parliament as it “undermines the budget and fuels inflation.”

Larysa Mudrak, the spokeswoman for Yushchenko, declined to comment when Bloomberg news called her yesterday.

The economy contracted an annual 17.8 percent in the second quarter, after shrinking 20.3 percent in the three months through March.

Yushchenko and Timoshenko have clashed over fiscal policy. The president has criticized the government running a “huge” budget gap, while the opposition has blocked the passage of legislation through parliament until its demands for higher social spending are met.

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