Pricewatch »

• Bad news on Budget

  November 26, 2009 @ 12:02 pm | by Conor Pope

  A couple of very distraught people with Budget Travel vouchers have been in touch overnight to see if they had any chance of getting their money back following the announcement yesterday evening that the company is to be wound up. The bad news is no. Unless they paid with a credit card (in which case they can apply to their company for a chargeback) all anyone with vouchers can do is join the list of creditors and hope that some of their money is returned once the liquidation process is concluded. And the chances of that happening are very slim.

  If I had gone into Budget yesterday morning and paid in full for a holiday or paid a deposit I could now realistically expect to get a full refund through the Commission for Aviation Regulation but if I went in and bought a voucher for the same value I can expect to get nothing. Seems crazy to me but that’s the law.

• Gutted

  November 19, 2009 @ 12:03 am | by Conor Pope

  Henry’s hand has just condemned us to four more years of gloomy depression. Thanks a lot buddy. Going to go have a little cry, now.

• Bah, humbug or sanity prevailing?

  November 18, 2009 @ 2:09 pm | by Conor Pope

  Are we starting to see some sense? Earlier this month, an annual survey from Deloitte confirmed that Ireland had surrendered its place at the top of Europe’s Christmas spending chart to Luxembourg and reported that we will spend an average of 22 per cent less on Christmas this year.

  The cost of an Irish Christmas will fall to an average of €1,110 per household. Presents are likely to take the biggest hit and according to the survey households will spend €660 on gifts down 30 per cent on last year. Christmas food will set households back an average of €265, just six per cent less than last year, while households will spend €185 on socialising – down nearly 22 per cent on last year. Three quarters of people polled had less to spend while 61 per cent will do up a budget for their Christmas shopping this year, many of them for the very first time.

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• Musical interlude

  November 16, 2009 @ 1:39 pm | by Conor Pope

  

  I was listening to the radio this morning and there was a degree of, er, unhappiness, following Usuf Islam’s – Cat Stevens – concert in the 02 last night. Some of the crowd were raging that the singer played a set filled with new songs and then followed it up with a musical based on his own life. The way Gerry Ryan tells it, tempers frayed, blood was spilled and the audience – which was made up of mostly mellow Cat Steven’s fans, presumably – were just a hair’s breath away from ripping up the seats and starting a full-on riot. There have been a lot of calls for refunds but, if I were a disgruntled fan, I wouldn’t be holding out much – or indeed any – hope.

• Three strikes…

  November 9, 2009 @ 11:48 pm | by Conor Pope

  A Ray Darcy Show listener sent me a mail about 3 Mobile which sounded wearily familiar. She’s been a customer of the company for years and pays her bill by direct debit. Here’s what she wrote:

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• Phone Bill makes refunds trickier

  November 5, 2009 @ 1:29 pm | by Conor Pope

  I don’t get premium rate services at all. The idea that people will spend over a euro a message to get lame jokes or horoscopes sent to their phones fills me with bafflement. The only time I’ve used a premium rate service was for a Pricewatch article earlier this year when I had my fortune told by Irish Psychics Live. I paid nearly 30 quid to be told that by the end of the year, I’d have me a new job, a new wife with some new children on the way.
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• Social sites have real bite

  November 2, 2009 @ 12:36 pm | by Conor Pope

  The old truism that people who are treated well by a business tell one or two others while those who are treated shabbily tell 20 has never looked as old-fashioned as it has in recent months thanks to the social networking revolution and the power it has placed in the hands of ordinary consumers.

  With the help of Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, Twitter, the ever-expanding blogosphere and countless bulletin boards and discussion forums, people with access to a computer can complain to a potential audience of millions if a company displeases them.
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• So, sue them…

  November 1, 2009 @ 5:00 pm | by Conor Pope

  We all know that companies sometimes make ridiculous claims about their products to convince us to buy them, right? Maybe we should just sue the bejaysus out of the ones that most spectacularly fail to deliver on their promises of whiter teeth, shinier, thicker hair, flatter tummies and hypnotic sex appeal. Just like Vaibhav Bedi is doing. The 26-year-old single man from India is demanding nearly €30,000 from Unilever to make up for the “depression and psychological damage” caused by the absence of any Lynx effect in its products of the same name. According to Ananova the poor fella failed to land a single girlfriend despite using Lynx for seven years. Who would you sue first?