Pricewatch: Readers’ consumer queries answered

Charged for calls made after phone was stolen
Emma Gleeson has "a traumatic consumer story" that involves being held at gunpoint in Peru and having all of her valuables stolen, including her iPhone. "After going through all the proper channels, I finally managed to cancel my account with 3 Mobile, or so I thought. I had just been held up at gunpoint but I still managed to clarify, with the woman in 3 Mobile, that my phone had not been used for calls and internet," she writes.

“This conversation was recorded by the company. I am a seasoned traveller, so I never make phone calls or use internet while abroad due to the huge charges. The number of text messages I would send would be very limited. My two-year contract was to finish on August 1st, so I understood that, even though the phone was gone, I had to pay my last €60. This was not a problem.”

"The problem occurred on August 26th, when 3 Mobile took €540.94 out of my account," she continues. "I was unable to stop this direct debit as I was not in the country, and this type of transaction cannot be done on online banking. These charges were not incurred by me. I am currently back in Ireland for a few weeks before returning to South America. I would love to rectify this situation while I'm at home.

“When I have tried to contact the company, they have given me the complete runaround. It seems to be impossible to contact anyone in this company in Ireland. Every time I contact them I am put through to Mumbai, and can never be put on to someone who can help me. And when I’ve tried to contact the company by going into their store in Wilton Shopping Centre, Cork, the staff here have been unhelpful. I am at my wits’ end, and can’t see how else to handle this case. I would really appreciate your help.”

The company gave this statement: "In this case, calls were made in the time between the phone being stolen and the phone being reported stolen. As the calls were made in the intervening period, they were correctly charged. However, given the dreadful situation our customer was in, and as a result of the unusual circumstances, we have decided as a gesture of goodwill to fully refund the charges."

Standing room only on some trains as carriages cut
A reader by the name of Frank Neenan thinks that our train service is going off the rails. "They are currently engaged in an exercise to save money. Of course, they are doing this by treating their customers poorly and hoping to bluff a way out," he says. "Specifically, a lot of trains that used to run with six carriages are now reduced to four. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if the original train was more than two-thirds full, it is now overcrowded."

The train he takes home is the 5.35pm from Heuston Station in Dublin to Waterford, “which was close to full most days with six carriages. You can imagine the overcrowding now. I counted 21 people in the lobby between two carriages last week, and couldn’t see far enough up the carriage to count all the standing people.

"I complained and was told 'they are monitoring the service' and are 'doing passenger counts'. The logic of counting the passengers after rather than before the change escapes me, and in any case I have seen a person counting us on only one occasion. In an era when it is Government policy to encourage people to switch from private to public transport, this exercise is baffling. Apart from the discomfort, I cannot imagine large numbers of standing passengers is a safe way to travel."

Chicken dippers that double in price from shelf to till
A reader called Marie-Clare was shopping in her local Tesco recently and bought Big Al's Chicken Dippers. The shelf price was €3.99, but she was charged €7.99 at the till.

“I spotted this before leaving the store and showed it to customer service. To give them their due, they refunded the full €7.99 charge,” she writes. “But how many other products are they doing this with without it being spotted?”

We contacted the company and were told that the issue was isolated to a single store “where the product in question came off a half-price promotion on October 14th.

“Unfortunately due to human error, the shelf-edge label was not changed to the new price. This has now been corrected and any customers impacted will be offered the appropriate refund in the store.”