Pricewatch: readers’ queries

Berry confused about frozen fruit contamination warning

Peter Mooney contacted us about the recent food scare connected to frozen berries. "We use a lot of frozen soft fruit to make smoothies etc," he writes "so the warning of possible hepatitis infection concerned us."

The warning he refers to is regarding fruit from Italy. He bought two packets of fruit in Lidl. He checked the packet but there was no information about the origin of the fruit.

"I rang Lidl and the very helpful woman at the end of the phone said they had heard about the warning but had heard nothing from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland [FSAI)].

“She took details of the packets’ bar codes, batch number etc and phoned me back to say they still had no details but that I should dump the two and they would send me a voucher. All of which is fair enough. The only guidelines from the FSAI were to boil the fruit for a minute but this essentially boils away all the benefits of frozen fresh fruit.”

Because he uses frozen soft fruit a lot, he is "now in a bit of limbo as no one has any guidelines as to what brands are safe. Even ones packed in Ireland don't give the country of origin of the fruit. Seems a bit much for the FSAI to issue a warning and then leave it hanging in the air. Could you dig out some more info as to what frozen fruit might be safe and what might be suspect?"

We contacted the FSAI and while its spokeswoman was very helpful she was not in a position to shed any more light on the nature of the contamination or how long its advice on boiling berries would be in place.

"We are working hard to locate the source of the contamination as are the authorities across Europe and in the US, but it is like finding a needle in a haystack. Until we know more, the only advice we can give people is to boil the fruit for one minute before they eat it. We can't force people to do that and it is your reader's call but it is the best advice we can give."

Conflicting accounts about bank's arrears policy
A woman in Galway has a mortgage with Ulster Bank, and she has fallen into arrears. She called the bank to discuss options and agreed that the best way forward was to extend the term of the mortgage, because paying extra each month was not possible. She is about €5,000 behind in repayments.

“It was at this point I asked if there would be a possibility of me restructuring my monthly mortgage payments,” she writes. She says she was told she would have to complete a Standard Financial Statement. “I told her that I still had personal debt and it was then that she told me that, under their policy, I would only be able to look at restructuring the mortgage if I was only paying €1 per month towards any unsecured loans.”

“When I asked her to send me this in writing, she said she was not able to. I asked why and she just said no, they couldn’t send it out to me. She said she did not have the facility to do so and I asked her if she had access to a PC and printer. She said no. I then asked to speak to her supervisor or manager and we got cut off. I called back immediately and was told there was a problem with the phone lines. I asked the girl to pass on the message that I had called back and could she please return my call. I was told that she did not know when that would be and I have not heard anything since.

“She did say at the start of the conversation that the call was being recorded, so I presume under the Freedom of Information Act I am entitled to have a transcript of the phone conversation.”

We contacted the bank to ask if it was insisting customers in arrears would have to burn all other creditors before the bank would enter discussions about restructuring a mortgage.

The bank issued the following statement: “We are committed to working with any of our customers who are experiencing difficulty and who engage with us on a genuine basis to find a solution on a case-by-case basis. Our core objective is to keep as many engaged customers in their homes as possible. While working with customers to prioritise the mortgage which is secured against their home, Ulster Bank does not have a policy of instructing customers to withhold payments to unsecured creditors.”

We then contacted our reader again. “It cracks me up that they are denying this,” she said. “I thought this was nuts and for the first time ever I noted everything.”

So, our reader says one thing, the bank says the opposite. If you have had any dealings with this – or any – bank in which a requirement to burn all unsecured creditors has been discussed, we would like to hear from you.