Beware of using credit cards at trade shows

Family Money's recent account of the difficulties experienced by a reader in arranging for the cash payment of a refund he was due from Debenhams's department store reminded Mr and Mrs J from Dublin about a problem they had with another British company. This one is based in the North, but exhibited at last year's Ideal Homes Exhibition at the RDS.

"Using our Access card we bought some floor mats worth £35.98," Mr J says. "When we got our monthly bill we were charged slightly more than £40. There was a sterling conversion as the company selling the mats came from Northern Ireland. If we had paid in cash or by cheque, also accepted, we would have been charged £35.98."

Mr J was unable to contact the company concerned, but now wonders if it is legal to post an Irish pound price, but give no indication that if a credit card is used another price will apply. "I was in the process of moving house at the time so I never followed the matter up further, but I would still like an answer."

Mr and Mrs J are not alone in encountering this problem. According to Ms Anne Hynes, who runs the Dublin-based European Consumer Information Centre, associated with the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs, it has investigated a number of complaints concerning trade shows, at which credit card payments have resulted in a price higher than the published price.

Her office has raised the issue with conference organisers, she says, to ensure that vendors from outside the State who accept Irish pounds also erect signs "which clearly indicate whether the price is in Irish pounds only and that it will be subject to currency exchange rates if the payment is by credit card".

An increasing number of people are shopping across European borders, says Ms Hynes, and one of the reasons her office was set up was to try and cope with complaints and secure replacement of faulty goods or refunds. "We approach a company informally at first, but if that doesn't work, we use the equivalent EU consumer agency in that country to assist us settle the case."

One new development which, it is hoped, will speed up the redress and compensation process is a pilot scheme underway in a number of EU countries in which existing small claims courts will be allowed to hear an appropriate case involving an inter-EU dispute.

There will undoubtedly be difficulties associated with enforcing judgments, but the idea is that the parties, will come to some agreement before such a case comes to court.

The European Consumer Information Centre can be contacted at (01) 809 0600 or by email: ECIC@indigo.ie