Take your Ts and Cs and...

By Vanessa Dante 

Arggghhh! It really irritates me when you hear a commercial on the radio and at the end, after making all these promises about how great their services or products on offer are, they tack on a gigantic catch…"Ts & Cs apply". It’s being abbreviated more and more these days.

No advertisers, no, that's just wrong. It's wrong that there are terms and conditions as it is, It means that nobody actually gets a good deal at all, because there will be some catch that makes you ineligible. So Terms and Conditions are very bad news for us consumers. To shorten them to Ts and Cs is even more wrong. We only give initials like that to things at work or actual things we like. For instance, M&Ms, KFC,     We also usually only shorten a person’s name if we like them, For instance, BJ, Mr C, Mrs H,  So only good things get to be shortened like that. Terms and Conditions are not good things. We do not like them. We don’t want them! They don’t deserve to be given a nickname.

What you are doing, advertiser, is attempting to sugar coat crap. You are trying to spray paint a dog turd golden and hope it will be taken as real gold. Oh you bet your pink lacey knickers you are!  You are taking something which is going to destroy your good deal and assigning it a friendly nickname. Just stop that. It’s wrong, it sounds stupid and I don’t give a damn if you only have a 30 second spot for your irritating commercial. Say what has always been said for decades... “Terms and Conditions apply”. Yes, there is clearly a catch with your so-called great deal, but be honest about it. Don’t try to turn it into something it’s not. 

To put it as politely as possible. Take your Ts & Cs and shove them where the sun don’t shine!  Thank you.