OT - Update on nasty cereal

This is an update to my OT saga about buying a box of cereal only to discover that it was infested with moths and droppings of some sort... for those who are interested...husband sent scathing letter to the manufacturer along with samples of the cereal, packaging, and photos. He asked for $5,000 per person ($15,000 total) for the aggravation and disgust following our consumption the nasty cereal. We got a call today from a rep at Constitution State Services asking hubby how he arrived at the figure and requesting more information. He said he would call us back with their settlement offer and he told hubby he'd need our SSNs. Is this for 1099s? Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. I'm going to try to find some case history regarding defective/infected product settlements.

Poochie

 

I think they want them so that if they offer us some financial settlement they could report it to the IRS as income so we'd have to pay taxes on it. i can't think of any other reason they'd want that info. We haven't given it to them - I want to see what they have up their sleeves first.

 

blah blah blah - if you've bothered to read my posts you'd see that extorting money from anyone or anything is low down on my list of priorities. Yes we consumed the cereal, yes we were all sick, (who wouldn't be when you see what you've just swallowed) and no we don't expect them to offer that much - it was just an opening gambit and frankly we're not expecting more than a case of free cereal. I'm hoping they've taken this opportunity to track down the batch numbers and see what the nature of the contamination might have been and if necessary recall that batch. There's clearly something wrong with the manufacturing of that batch of product that it contained that amount of contaminant. Yes, if we get the millions we've asked for we intend on pocketing all of the money resulting from my 2 year olds diahrrea that day, as well as the money we get when we send him out onto the sidewalk to beg with a tin cup and a fake eye patch, and the money we expect to net when we rent him out to the circus to perform with the flying monkeys. It will help to fund the casts and bandages for injuries we're intending to fake as the result of a bizarre collision with an escaped band of ravaging penguins from the city zoo. Watch for it on the news - that one should be worth billions!

Sheesh.

 

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ROTFLMAO!!!!!

That's great LBrown!

No, I didn't report it to the health department but I should. Problem is I don't know which jurisdiction - as I said, the infestation was inside the sealed bag, which makes me think that it left the factory that way, in which case I should report it to the health department in the city where it was manufactured. But since the manufacturer is not a public enterprise (meaning like a restaurant) I'm not sure what the locals could do...I checked the FDA website and there has been no recall so I don't know the extent of the problem. Theoretically, if they are processing numerous kinds of cereal from the same plant the contamination might be found across numerous brands. I can't imagine how one box got so completely nasty - maybe the strawberries were infected or something (no telling what country those are from). Anyway.

 

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Look all y'all - this isn't about extortion or get rich schemes.This is about the fact that my family ate a really disgustingly dirty product, we all were sick, my son had nasty diapers for two days. I have no idea what's going to happen but we wanted to get their attention and we did. I have no way of knowing WHAT we ate - I recognized the moths, larvae and webs, I have NO idea what the black specks are and no chemical analysis to figure out what else might have been there. I don't care if we get $50, $5000 or nothing. The amount that we asked for (which we pulled out of thin air) was an amount we hoped would get our case noticed. I can't force them to give us anything at all. I am not the least bit ashamed of what we've done - THEY should be ashamed of putting out something so gross. I'm not talking about a moth or two (which I'd probably just pick out!!)- I 'm talking about the whole box being riddled with crap. We sent them a sample of the cereal, and we retained the rest of the box. I want them to know that they are putting out some seriosly NASTY stuff that more families might have in their shopping carts. I hope that by providing all the information from the box they'll be able to investigate and determine whether there's somthing really wrong in there. True - we didn't die or have to have our stomachs pumped, but that doesn't mean that it's no big deal. They should be held accountable in some way for releasing this product.

I have tried to be consistantly supportive to the people I've posted to on this board and I appreciate all the humor, advice and support I've received. There's a phenomenan I've noticed on this and other boards for people to leap to judgement about those they'll never meet, never have a cup of coffee with, never hang out in the back yard with. There are definitely those on this board that I'd like to do that with. Those that rush to judgement are probably the same ones that back stab their neighbors in church, laugh at other people's kids at the school play, and get off gossiping about their friend's divorces. Now if y'all don't mind, I'd like to get back to offering positive assistance to the extent that my VERY limited knowledge allows, and I'd ask y'all to do the same.

 

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LOL! well, I grew up in an area where we got a lot of pantry moths so it was kind of a fishing expedition to sift through cereal, flour, spaghetti and other pantry staples to see if anything was lurking there. Even if there was a moth in the bottom of the bag I wouldn't want to eat anything that MIGHT have been in contact with it! Despite our attempts to purge the pantry I'm sure I've ingested a fair number by accident, not to mention the ants that would creep into the sugar bowl, etc. I probably wouldn't actually pick them out of a new box of cereal (I prefer to eat my own, thank you very much!), but if I knew it was clean when I bought it and I found one on the box (not IN the food) then yeah, I'd flick it off and continue figuring there was a relatively small chance that it had done anything yucky to my breakfast. But if there are cobwebs, meaning eggs and larvae - forget it! You make a good point about the time frame - that's why hubby sent the letter less than 24 hours after he bought the box. We want to make it clear that the infestation didn't happen in our pantry. Maybe monday am he'll call and ask the liability case manager where he'd like us to turn in the box - to the health inspector, FDA or CDC.