Pricewatch

  • Carbon labelling

    May 31, 2007 @ 7:25 am | by Conor

    The British government is developing a new eco-label to help shoppers work out the affect the food they buy has had on the environment. According to the Guardian this morning the new labels will contain info on the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the production, transportation and disposal of food. While Irish shoppers will be able to piggy back on the move as a lot of the new labels will find their way on to shelves here, it would be nice to see our own Government be similarly proactive when it comes to indigenous products. It won’t be, however, as it is not the best at issuing directives aimed at improving the labels on the stuff we eat.

  • Are we there yet?

    May 28, 2007 @ 7:19 am | by Conor

    How far will your dinner have travelled before it finds its way on to your plate this evening? And does it really make any difference if it has come from the other side of the world or the other side of the garden? More and more people are becoming convinced that the miles your food puts in are of singular importance and, in an unlikely alliance, environmentalists and some of the biggest retailers in the world have started working together to bring production closer to home.
    (more…)

  • Online purchase, offline delivery

    @ 7:18 am | by Conor

    Last week’s article on difficulties with online shopping prompted a Killiney reader to get in touch. He said we didn’t mention another barrier to internet shopping - An Post.

    “On at least three occasions this year, An Post have made no attempt to deliver items I’ve ordered online and merely dropped a card though the letter box asking that the item be collected from the sorting office during their working hours,” AJ Rous writes. He points out that the sellers are of course charged full postage, which they pass on to us. He’s tried to contact the customer service department, but his most recent correspondence remains unacknowledged.
    (more…)

  • A sweet tooth bites

    @ 7:17 am | by Conor

    A reader from Leitrim contacted us drawing our attention to ridiculous prices she was charged on the Dublin-Sligo train recently. “A bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate costs €1.75 while a muffin costs €€2 and a tea is €2,” she writes. To put these prices into perspective, a similarly sized bar of Cadbury’s chocolate costs 73 cent in your local Tesco.

  • Phoney insurance

    @ 7:17 am | by Conor

    Aoife Kane read our recent article on mobile phone insurance and found herself agreeing, and so cancelled her policy last week.

    “Imagine my surprise when I woke on Sunday morning to find my apartment broken into and my handbag, containing my newly uninsured mobile phone, gone,” she writes.

    She figured it wasn’t the end of the world, as she knew she was due an upgrade. She called O2 and blocked the stolen phone and Sim card but when she asked about her upgrade eligibility she was told it wasn’t due until June 1st. This date was non-negotiable, despite the fact that she had been an O2 customer for more than eight years.

    “Unfortunately mine wasn’t the only phone stolen from the apartment. My partner’s (insured) mobile was also taken,” she writes.

    They both threatened to switch providers, and O2 relented and agreed to upgrade her phone two weeks early. After the upgrade was agreed, Kane received a call from an O2 customer service manager who asked how she felt about the way she was dealt with.

    “I told him I was none too impressed and felt that two weeks wasn’t a lot to ask after so many years. By way of making amends, O2 has waived my line rental for one month, a saving of roughly €28 ex-Vat, which almost cancels out the cost of the upgrade I paid for. I’m undecided as to whether I’ll insure the new phone or not.”

  • Paying for phantom texts

    @ 7:16 am | by Conor

    A reader who occasionally enters a newspaper text competition contacted us to complain about the ultimate rip-off. Each time he enters a competition it costs him €1 and each time he enters he gets a confirmation text.

    “Last Friday I sent an entry but got no reply. On checking my phone I found my message was undelivered so I re-sent it.

    “Later, I checked the status again to find the second message was undelivered. I re-sent, and it was acknowledged as correct.”

    Days later his mobile service provider - which he does not name - told him he’d been charged for the non-delivered messages, and that this was their regular practice.

    “Are mobile service providers allowed to charge for services they don’t provide?” he asks. “If my local postman cannot deliver a parcel to me, he leaves a note to arrange collection or call back at a later date with it. He does not take the parcel home and keep it for himself.”

  • Heroes of the housing market

    May 26, 2007 @ 12:52 pm | by Conor

    Sherry FitzGerald is to increase the fees it charges for selling houses by 50 per cent because, it says, that the property market “has changed so much over the past year that it is only possible to continue a high-quality service with increased fees”. The average increase from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent of sale price will add €2,000 to the cost of selling a €400,000 house. Initially, I was absolutely outraged by this incredibly shameless and completely indefensible price hike but then I read a letter in The Irish Times which showed me the error of my ways. I can’t link to it here - at least I can’t without charging you to access it! - so I will paste it below.

    Madam, - I was surprised to hear that one of the country’s leading estate agents had raised its commission on residential sales by 50 per cent. Only 50 per cent? Surely, with the massive and long-running downturn in the Irish housing market, estate agents must be experiencing extreme hardship. Is an extra 50 per cent really enough?

    For the past decade, estate agents have worked tirelessly to persuade a sceptical Irish public that having shelter is more than just a lifestyle choice, and have received scant remuneration. Imagine how unrewarding it must be to show up at a new development and wait, hand extended, to receive only 1 per cent of the €350,000 that miserly people have queued for days to pay for their new luxury bedsits.

    I myself am not yet a home-owner. But I hope, 40 years from now, when I may be able to afford a cosy, mature property in a rural setting only four hours from Dublin, that I will be able to throw a few coppers their way in appreciation of the trojan work they do.

    Chins up, estate agents, you are all heroes. - Yours, etc,

    JOHN HEALY, North Brunswick street, Dublin 7.

  • Who’s worst?

    @ 12:44 pm | by Conor

    I was interested to read that Ryanair accounted for 60 per cent of the complaints made by passengers to the Irish aviation regulator last year despite the fact that the airline is responsible fror just 35 per cent of the flights from Irish airports. Complaints are concentrated around flight cancellations and delays, according to the Commission for Aviation Regulation. Aer Lingus, meanwhile, attract more complaints from people denied boarding because of overbooking.

    .

  • Are singles next?

    May 23, 2007 @ 4:27 pm | by Conor

    A couple of weeks ago a major British retailer announced it was to stop stocking cassettes. Could it be tha the single is to b next for the chop? A British supermarket chain certainly thinks so. Asda is to is stop selling singles in the wake of the success of digital downloads Asda will. It said dwindling customer demand for singles sold in-store was down to
    cheaper album prices and the popularity of digital downloads.

  • Waste not

    May 21, 2007 @ 11:43 am | by Conor

    I have always suspected that the all those bundled and supposedly free calls and text messages that mobile companies offer phone users were not as worthwhile as they might have had us believe and research published today appears to bear that out. Apparently phone owners leave on average 20 hours of their “inclusive” calls each year unused which amounts to €73.30 every year. The Uswitch.com survey also found that an average of 73 “inclusive” texts go unsent every month.

  • Sick of the price of coffee

    @ 11:37 am | by Conor

    Sick of the price of coffee

    A Dublin-based doctor has contacted PriceWatch to express his concern and frustration at what he believes to be the excessively high prices being charged in hospital cafes, particularly in the two cafes operating at St James’s Hospital where he is based. These cafes have a largely captive market and are, he believes, taking advantage of their position to the detriment of some of the most disadvantaged members of our society.
    (more…)

  • Anywhere but here

    @ 11:35 am | by Conor

    It was depressing to learn that another door into the world of internet bargains seemed to have closed on Irish consumers, with last week’s news from a reader that online travel company Expedia.co.uk had stopped taking bookings from customers in the Republic of Ireland.
    (more…)

  • eircom’s phone watch

    May 19, 2007 @ 1:22 pm | by Conor

    Red faces all round at eircom then after the company was forced to admit it had charged people who had tried but failed to get through to a Late Late Show competition hotline. Thousands of viewers were overcharged by an average of €1 a pop after trying to connect to premium rate phone lines on the three most recent shows before last night’s programme. Some viewers dialling from mobiles could have faced even higher charges. “The problem appears to be the result of a software upgrade in Eircom’s network, implemented by one of the company’s key suppliers. This upgrade may have resulted in some customers being charged for attempted but uncompleted calls,” eircom said in a statment filled with completely unnecessary conditional words. “May have resulted in” “appears to be” - Pah! Eircom assured affected customers that they would be “fully rebated”. That’s nice of them. What about a little compensation too to teach the company a lesson. And I wonder was it only the Late Late Show that was affected by the software glitch given the increasing prevelance of premium rate phone lines across TV and radio schedules.

  • Real free flights

    May 17, 2007 @ 7:25 am | by Conor

    In excess of 4 million people logged on to the Ryanair website yesterday to take advantage of the company’s offer of free flights. As part of the “sale” the airline has agreed to pay all taxes and airport charges as well, a move which will cost it more than €7m. Apparently the airline’s website had its busiest day yesterday and was brought to its knees a couple of times in the first few hours after the offer went live such was the demand for freebies

    “This is about getting bums on seats. We are paying to get passengers into our planes - we’ll be paying the tax that they would normally have to pay. There’s no point in flying planes empty,” a Ryanair spokesman said. The company is banking on recouping its costs through the sale of add on such as car hire, hotels and in flight food and drink. While consumers clearly liked the move, eco-campaigners were less pleased and called the sale “grossly irresponsible”. “Passengers may be getting a free ride, but the planet certainly isn’t. It is unbelievable that Ryanair is resorting to such tactics,” a Friends of the Earth spokesman said. Friends of the Earth are unlikely to make many friends with the complaint and anyways, if the planes are going to be flying anyways does it make any difference to the planet if they are half empty are full?

  • Look, no hands-free

    May 14, 2007 @ 12:20 pm | by Conor

    A reader from Dublin e-mailed us to complain about Vodafone’s failure to honour a promise made to her when she decided to upgrade to a new phone last October. She has been a Vodafone customer for nine years, and when she went into an outlet in Dublin city centre in search of a high-end phone that would give her access to her e-mail and enable her to surf the internet, a salesperson suggested the Nokia E61.
    (more…)

  • Connection Protection

    @ 12:18 pm | by Conor

    What’s the story with phone insurance?: Mobile phones are stolen every couple of minutes in Ireland, the mobile phone companies like to warn us. And if they’re not being thieved, they are being lost in the pub or dropped in the toilet - which is why we should be eternally grateful for the peace of mind we get from the insurance policies we are artfully persuaded into when we buy a new model.

    Or maybe we are just being conned into buying products which have little or no value and are just another example of big business making money out of consumers while purporting to act in their best interests.
    (more…)

  • Cassette death

    May 9, 2007 @ 8:30 pm | by Conor

    Ah well. It has been doomed for a long time but it finally looks like it is the end of the road for the cassette tape following the announcement that Curry’s in Ireland is to stop stocking the format which defined the 1980s and 90s. The first cassette I bought was Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam and the Ants a long long time ago. It cost a fairly hefty £4.99 and lasted just three months before being swallowed by a knackered old cassette player. Good times. Experts have predicted that tape decks will also be history within 18 months. The Independent has a nice piece about its passing.

  • Fly club class

    May 7, 2007 @ 9:36 am | by Conor

    Max Wilson from Co Kerry sent us a mail after reading last week’s piece on airline rip-offs. He points out that while an Aer Arann spokesman was critical of other airlines’ charges, it is not above imposing some of its own. The airline increased the charge for carrying golf clubs from €15 to €30 per trip earlier this year, he writes. He was told this was because “golf clubs and other sporting equipment are not viewed as general baggage and require special screening and handling from our baggage handlers”. He questions the notion of “special screening” and points out that the handling is the same now as it has been for the past six years.

  • Package plunder

    @ 9:33 am | by Conor

    Claire Anderson from Dublin got in touch looking for help after a travel company cancelled her summer holiday because the package she had chosen had been overbooked. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the company was then unforgivably slow in issuing her a refund. The story begins in early February when she and her boyfriend booked and paid in excess of €2,000 for their summer sun holiday. In early April, however, they received a letter from Direct Holidays saying that, as their holiday package had been overbooked, they were the unfortunate ones who were being bumped off it.

    The couple were given two options. The first, to pick another destination from the company’s brochure, seemed like a good idea.

    However, when they looked at the choices on offer they found that all the places they liked the look of had already been booked for the dates in question. “The other option was a refund,” she writes. “With reluctance, we decided to get our money back. You can only imagine the trouble we are having trying to book elsewhere, and the increased cost.”. She says this will most likely mean no sun holiday for her this year as both she and her boyfriend don’t have a whole lot of flexibility and need to give their employers notice of their holidays early in the year.

    “The last contact I had with Direct Holidays was on April 19th, when I mentioned I was taking the issue further. I was immediately contacted and promised that I would have the refund in the next ‘couple of working days’.” It is now May, however, and she has still not got her money back. “We are left in the situation where we have to take our leave and holiday probably in Ireland and without the €2,312 we paid up front! I can’t tell you how upset we are.”

    We contacted the UK headquarters of the company to find out what was going on. A spokesman for the company was quick to hold his hands up and agreed that there had been an unacceptable delay in issuing Anderson with her refund. He apologised for the delay and assured us that it was being dispatched as we spoke (last Thursday morning).

    He also said that as “a goodwill gesture” to our reader the company had agreed to offer her an additional €300 - a sum which, hopefully, will go some way towards helping her and her boyfriend find a holiday in the sun this summer. Although, if the glorious weather we experienced here over the past few weeks is repeated in June or July, she might be well advised to stay at home to catch some rays instead.

  • Drive an easy bargain

    @ 9:23 am | by Conor

    While it might sound unlikely, there is a way to get your hands on a top-of-the-range car for nothing, and it doesn’t involve theft or being appointed to ministerial office. All it takes is a little research, a weekend away and a fairly long road trip home and you can drive for thousands of miles at little or no cost to yourself.

    In fact, if you’re really cute about it, you can actually make your car earn money instead of costing you a packet. At least that is what Donagh Regan from Co Kerry believes, and, listening to him talk, it is easy to be convinced.

    Regan’s strategy for profitable motoring involves a short flight to London each year to visit the Car Giant, one of the largest car showrooms in Europe, where he buys a new motor. It costs him up to €10,000 less than it would at home and, even after he has added 20,000 miles, the cost of a few minor repairs, and crippling Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) he can still sell it after 12 months for almost exactly what he paid for it.
    (more…)

  • Fewer wrinkles

    @ 9:22 am | by Conor

    The tumble dryer which promises to cut ironing time by half has arrived in Ireland.

    Electrolux’s “Iron Aid” machine is said to be the first of its kind in the world, and features steam cycles which help remove wrinkles and reduce the need for ironing. It can apparently sense if your laundry is wet or dry and then selects the right steam cycle.

    It also has a “refresh” cycle, which is suitable for dry-clean-only garments that need freshening up rather than cleaning.

  • No more wrinkles

    @ 9:21 am | by Conor

    It might (might!) sound a little crazy, but at one point last month some, by all accounts, magic Boots face cream was selling for nearly €150 a pop on eBay, despite having a RRP of closer to €25 in shops.

    Once the BBC’s Horizon TV programme described it as an anti-ageing cream that actually worked, demand went through the roof and sales increased 60-fold overnight.

    For weeks, Boots has been completely sold out of its No7 Protect & Perfect beauty serum, hence the eBay demand.

    The good news is that it is back on the shelves, or at least it was on Saturday. Boots said it was “bracing” itself for a rush, and that waiting lists were possible. The eBay prices have fallen too.

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