In this weekly segment of bite-sized chunks of useful information, consumer journalist Wendy Knowler summarises news you can use:

Are you shopping for stage 6 load-shedding?

When Eskom shifts us to stage 6, the blackouts can last four hours which puts the food in our fridges at risk, especially if we’re opening the door often during those times.

Food such as meat, milk and cheeses are particularly prone to becoming contaminated when the fridge temperature rises above 4°C, with potentially horrible consequences when we eat it.

So now is the time to invest in a fridge thermometer if you haven’t already, says microbiologist Prof Lucia Anelich.

Her advice is to buy food in smaller quantities, avoid soft cheeses — sticking to hard cheeses such as cheddar — and steer clear of pre-cut fruit and veggies, because without their protective skins they are far more prone to contamination. That means buying a whole butternut vs those peeled, chopped pieces, for example. As a bonus, it’s far cheaper that way.

If you opt to put your milk in a cooler box with ice bricks to avoid opening the fridge during blackouts, make sure you use a thermometer to monitor the temperature — if it gets warmer than 4°C in the cooler box, it’s time to add more ice.

“The good news is the food in our freezers will be fine for 48 hours as long as we don’t repeatedly open that door or that chest freezer lid,” Anelich says.

But if you see things are starting to defrost, do not refreeze — cook it as soon as possible.

Is there such a thing as an 'obvious' price mistake when something’s on sale?

We all love a bargain, but the law protects retailers from what’s referred to as “consumers snatching at a bargain” — in other words, knowingly taking advantage of a price that has to be too good to be true.

According to the Consumer Protection Act, if the price is an obvious mistake the company has an “out” and doesn’t have to honour it, such as a TV advertised for R500 instead of R5,000.

Peter’s experience of this “price mistake” scenario was complicated because the item was marked as heavily discounted.

He bought a wireless headset which appeared on Incredible Connection’s website marked down from R2,000 to R345.

“Then I received an e-mail saying there was a pricing error on the website and they wouldn't be able to honour the deal at the price I had already paid. Instead they want to refund me.

“Can I demand the item at the price I paid?” he wanted to know.

That depends — can a price of R345 for a headset which usually sells for almost six times more be regarded as an obvious mistake? Well, yes, to be fair, it probably can.

Incredible Connection’s customer relations manager Ankia van der Pluym said such errors happened “from time to time”, due to human error, as the prices are manually entered.

“However, as soon as the error is picked up it is immediately disabled and updated with the correct pricing.

“In the grand scale of changes done daily and weekly, these errors are very limited and a small fraction of the total adjustments done. But we do understand that in most cases these errors are disappointing for our customers and we always regret it when it happens.”

So, before you rush to take advantage of that seemingly huge saving, it’s worth checking whether the price is a mistake.

About those tech and appliance boxes

The question Lisa asked me this week is a fairly common consumer query: “For warranty purposes, does a person need to keep boxes for small appliances and gadgets?”

The answer is: “That depends.”

If whatever you have bought becomes defective within six months of purchase, you have the right to return it for your choice of a refund, replacement or repair. And that right is not dependent on you being able to return the product in its original packaging, according to the National Consumer Commission.

But from month seven, the manufacturer’s voluntary warranty takes over and they can — and almost always do — insist on the box.

It’s a good idea to hold on to those darn boxes.

• GET IN TOUCH: You can contact Wendy Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler.