Summer's here and so are bizarre holiday phone charges and bar tabs that will have you weeping into a pint, writes CONOR POPE.

How roaming abroad can still prove costly

Although mobile-phone roaming charges have fallen dramatically in recent years, there are still high-priced communications pitfalls to be found when you travel abroad. Neil Cammish sent us an e-mail warning readers holidaying overseas this year of the perils of taking their modems with them.

He decided to bring his Three mobile broadband modem to France so he could check e-mails from his laptop. He only realised it was “a foolish mistake” when he got home, opened his bill and discovered he had been charged “the outrageous sum of €4 per MB downloaded.

“I phoned Three customer services and spoke to a helpful young man in India who proceeded to hang up on me. On the second attempt, I spoke with another helpful young man who agreed that the price was outrageous but is documented on their website. Needless to say they refused to charge me a reasonable amount for the 11MBs,” he fumes.

It could, however, be much worse. One German mobile-phone user downloaded a television programme to his phone while roaming in France and came home to a bill of €46,000. Under EU regulations introduced at the beginning of this month, operators will have to improve the transparency of data-roaming offers. The Information commissioner Viviane Reding says she wants all mobile operators to make sure “that consumers get warned by appropriate mechanisms so that they no longer risk receive ‘shock bills’ of several thousand euro for data roaming”.

A pint price that’s less than cordial

Brian O’Meara got a shock of a different kind when he was watching a Lions test match against South Africa in the Horse and Hound Pub in Cabinteely. He ordered two pints of blackcurrant – that’s tap water with a splash of blackcurrant cordial – to slake his thirst, along with a meal. “When I went to settle my bill, I was charged €4 for the two pints of blackcurrant. I queried this and was told that a ‘splash’ costs €2,” he writes. “Admittedly, there were ice cubes and a slice of lemon in each glass, which may add a couple of cent to the cost, but this is ridiculous.”

This charge might seem extraordinary but it is pretty standard in Irish pubs and readers have, in the past, complained about being charged more than €3 for a pint of the stuff, with not so much as a lemon slice in the glass. While many pubs have paid fortunes for licences and are reluctant to have people sitting around with free drinks in front of them, it seems excessive to charge someone €2 for a drink that costs so little to make. We reckon that a €3 bottle of blackcurrant cordial makes approximately 50 pints so a pub charging €2 for one will make around €97 profit from its initial investment.

Ice-cream prices to make you scream

And finally, a reader went to buy a Cornetto Classico at a kiosk outside the Dundrum Town Centre and was less than impressed to be asked for €2.10 (they’re usually under €1.50). When he asked the assistant if there was a mistake with the price, he was told he could take it or leave it. “Bring back Mr Whippy,” he says. We didn’t know he’d gone away.