No coverage for lost mobile phone

SOUNDING OFF:A reader from Newbridge recently found out when he was travelling home from a trip to Australia how little cover his mobile phone insurance policy gave him. While waiting for his connecting flight home in Singapore airport, he left his phone down at a food counter while he signed for a payment.

He brought his tray to table, realised he’d left his phone behind and went straight back to the counter and his phone was gone.

As his flight was being called he had no time to report the loss or theft, but when he touched down in Dublin he contacted his phone provider Vodafone and was told it would not be an issue. He called in to a Vodafone store where an agent managed the filling of the claim form.

But his claim was subsequently denied because he had breached one of the terms and conditions of the clause.

“I did not expect to be getting into a splitting of hairs over ‘lost’, ‘left’ and ‘stolen’,” he writes. “Apparently letting something fall out of your pocket is acceptable while briefly leaving something down incorrectly and it disappearing is not.”

When it comes to mobile phone insurance – with all the providers – there are so many restrictions that it is hard not to conclude it is a waste of money, particularly when replacement handsets are so cheap. Amongst the terms and conditions in the small print of the Vodafone contract that preclude payment are: loss or theft following wilful misconduct; the loss, damage or theft of the phone in the first 60 days of the policy being taken out (unless the insurance is taken out as part of your first contract); or its theft if left unattended anywhere public.

So if you think you may have left your phone in a taxi, restaurant, pub or bus, you’re not covered.

Easing the pain

Gavin Freeman visited his dentist in Dublin last month and was told he needed a crown and four fillings. He was told his crown would cost between €950 and €1,300 while the fillings would be €70 to €90 each. The total bill, had he gone ahead with the procedures, would have been somewhere between €1,230 and €1,660. “On a cousin’s recommendation I went to a well-known dentist in Belfast and had the crown and all four fillings expertly done for a total of £395 ,” he writes. “No further comment needed, I think.”

Pump it up again

A number of readers have been in touch to complain about the recent increases in the price of petrol and diesel. One reader expressed surprise that price hikes of five or six cents on a litre hasn’t created much of a stir. “Or am I missing something in that, as long as it’s not back up to €1.20, everybody’s happy?”

Another reader said his local garage had been “sneaking the price up for the past while and it now stands at 99.9 cent for a litre of unleaded. This surprised me as I was of the impression that oil prices were falling.”

We contacted Topaz, one of the companies referred to by our readers. A spokesman said that prices at the pumps had risen in recent days “due to an increase in the price of refined product since Christmas and a strengthening dollar”. He said that retail prices were actually the lowest they have been since 2005 but prices remain high because now, at €1 per litre, the government tax take is over 70 cent. He also pointed to the National Consumer Agency report issued before Christmas which found that at national level petrol and diesel price changes are passed on to the consumer in good time.