Consumer queries: ‘Greedy’ mark-up on generic drug

A few weeks ago a reader from Dublin went to her GP suffering from a suspected chest infection. She was prescribed a branded antibiotic and off she went to her local pharmacy.

There our reader was told she was getting a generic version of the drug and was not too pleased about it, although she accepts that “sometimes generic versions are fine and are a lot cheaper than the branded medicine, and so one would think that that cost saving would be passed on to the consumer”.

That was not the case. “I paid the pharmacy €22.38 for the antibiotic – pretty expensive for a generic medicine, since generics are supposed to be about 50 per cent cheaper than branded medicines.

She knows just how expensive it was because she happens to work in the pharma industry and has access to a wholesale drug-price list for healthcare professionals.

“I have researched the law on pharmacy mark-ups,” she writes, “and I can’t seem to find any price ceiling on how much pharmacies are allowed to mark up. I think it is generally a 50 per cent guide plus a €5 dispensing fee.”

But when she checked the cost of the generic drug, she realised it was is €8.15, which is €14.23 less than she paid.

“That is almost a 200 per cent mark-up. How can that be ethical? Even taking into account a prescription charge of €5, it still works out at about 100 per cent mark-up for a generic medicine.

“I understand pharmacies are businesses and have to make money, but that mark-up is just greedy. Retail pharmacies are making medicines unaffordable for patients. They can basically charge what they like. I’m very surprised there is no consumer protection out there for such things.

“We’re not talking about the mark-up on a luxury fashion item; medicines are a necessity for people’s health and wellbeing and should be affordable to all.”

She says the best practice to save money “is to definitely shop around. I believe some pharmacies actually don’t even charge a dispensing fee, which could be a cost saving of €5 right there.”

Caught unawares by roaming charges

A reader, Margaret, contacted us to query Vodafone Red Roaming. She signed up last year so that she could continue to use her phone allowances and data, and therefore Whatsapp, when in the UK for a daily charge of €2.

“I was in Portugal for two weeks in January. I had access to wifi where I was staying, so didn’t use any data and I didn’t make any calls. However, I have one friend who doesn’t use Whatsapp and I texted him a total of 52 texts over the two-week period. I was expecting a charge of 7 cent per text, total €3.64, as I had mistakenly thought I had to use data on my phone to activate Red Roaming.”

In fact she was charged €3 for each day she sent a text, 10 days in all: the total charge came to €30. “Some days I only sent one text, making it a very expensive way to communicate,” she says.

She rang Vodafone to see if they would be willing to make any sort of goodwill gesture of credit to her account. “I fully acknowledge my mistake. I now realise that Red Roaming is activated as soon as I make or receive a call, send a text or use data. I have been told that they cannot make an exception, that the mistake was mine, but I am hoping that a supervisor will ring and be more sympathetic. When I rang I had to listen to “the best way to reduce your roaming charges is to activate Red Roaming”. No it’s not, well certainly not in my case! And I’m sure others have been similarly caught.”

We contacted Vodafone and received this statement: “We value our customers and appreciate that sometimes errors are made in good faith, so we are happy that this issue is now resolved to [Margaret’s] satisfaction. Red Roaming offers the best roaming rates in the Irish market. However, the package is designed to allow customers to use their phone as they would at home with unlimited calls and texts and 200MB of data per day, without the worry of bill shock. Customers who only want to make one call or send one text per day while abroad, should ensure that Red Roaming is deactivated.”