What's the deal with exorbitant prices?

From handling charges to baggage charges and confusing price tags to inflated drug costs, big business is increasingly savvy at extracting money from Irish consumers - here are 10 of our least favourite ways they do it, in no particular order . . .

TAG TRICKERY

You're in Gap and happen across a shirt you like. It's not expensive, so you join the queue and wait patiently for your turn at the till. When it comes, the cashier scans the item and does some natty folding before asking for a whole lot more than you expected. There's been a mistake but it's yours - you've been looking at the sterling price on the tag.

Gap, Dunnes, Top Shop and dozens of other multiples may not be intentionally trying to mislead their customers by displaying lower sterling prices so prominently, but it certainly feels like that sometimes.

'HANDLING' FEES

While no one disputes the right of companies such as Ticketmaster to make a profit, do they really have to make quite so much off the back of each of their customers? The long-standing practice of imposing handling charges on each ticket rather than each transaction is ridiculous and becoming more and more widespread as theatres, sports clubs and cinemas join the booking fee bonanza. Recently Ticketmaster introduced a Ticketfast booking system which sees it sending out e-mails in lieu of actual tickets. With no postage, printing or handling costs of any kind associated with the service, Ticketmaster is making substantial savings, which they've passed on to consumers. Only joking, of course - they haven't.

CREDIT CARD CHICANERY

Credit card surcharges have rightly been called anti-consumer, discriminatory and mean-spirited by the Consumer Association of Ireland and anyone else who has shelled out between one and five per cent extra when buying a ticket or booking a holiday with their credit card. The retailers involved claim they're just passing on the fees levied by the credit card companies, an assertion disputed by consumer lobbyists. The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Micheal Martin, is set to ban surcharges by the end of the year, by which time the service providers affected will presumably have worked out an entirely different way to make us pay that little bit more.

THE PERCENTAGE GAME

The property market may be in decline but estate agents' fees are not. Ten years ago if you sold a house in a leafy Dublin suburb for IR£100,000, you could expect to pay IR£2,000 to your estate agent. Today (but perhaps not tomorrow) the house is selling for a million, which means the estate agent is now making 20 grand for doing exactly the same work. Consumers could be forgiven for asking why they can't charge flat fees.

NO FAIR AIRLINES

While Ryanair is to be commended for doing more than any other company to bring down the price of air travel, it's to be condemned for taking the joy out of travelling. Readers routinely complain about obnoxious staff, ridiculous add-ons and the introduction of "weight police" who live to catch people travelling with a few kilos more than the meagre Ryanair baggage allowance permits. Flights with a price tag of a single euro can end up costing over 60 times more when taxes, airport charges, credit card surcharges, wheelchair surcharges and baggage handling surcharges are all factored in. Not to be left behind, Aer Lingus has been slavishly following Ryanair's charging policies and adding a few more of their own, including the ridiculous premium for certain seats on their planes.

CHAINSTORE CONSPIRACY?

The major supermarkets all claim to offer consumers great deals, but a National Consumer Agency survey published this summer revealed the lie in their advertising. It showed that there's almost no difference in the prices charged by the three main multiples, Tesco, Dunnes Stores and Superquinn. For a basket of 45 branded items, the difference was only €2.20, or 1.6 per cent, between the dearest and the cheapest. The kindest explanation is that they're all watching each other very closely in the race to the bargain basement. The reality may be that an absence of real competition means they don't have to bother lowering their prices on most items.

TALKING NONSENSE

Our love of mobile phones is costing us a lot of money: each of us is paying nearly €200 more a year for talking on them than everyone else in the EU. The average revenue per user across the Irish networks in the second quarter of this year was €44.07 per month while the average across the EU was €29.40.

The mobile companies like to say, "ah, sure, isn't it because we have the gift of the gab and love to talk?" Actually, no, it's not. The French, for example, spend more time talking on their phones than we do but still end up spending only €34.66 every month.

BAD MEDICINE

As the dispute between the HSE and the pharmacists over the price of wholesale drugs rumbles on, Pricewatch readers are left wondering about the high retail prices they're asked to pay for both over-the-counter and prescription medicines. Some everyday drugs such as low dose aspirin and antibiotics can cost as much as 75 per cent less in Spain or the US than they do in the Republic. The pharmacists, manufactures and the Government all say the higher prices are nothing to do with them while consumers are left with no option but to cough up.

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE

While a perfectly lavish wedding can be hosted in Spain or Barbados for less than €10,000, the average Irish one costs three times that amount. Hardly surprising when hotels force couples to buy wedding cakes at vastly inflated prices and then charge rental fees for the cake stand and the knife used to cut the damned thing. Then there's the "wedding taxes" which automatically add 20 or 30 per cent onto the cost of the flowers, transport, clothes, wines, food and almost anything else associated with the ceremony.

BAH HUMBUG

Not wanting to be a killjoy or anything, but Christmas in Ireland might be the biggest rip-off of the lot. It costs at least twice as much here as it does in other EU countries, according to a study published last year. The average household spend on all the jolliness was found to be €1,399, double the EU average; even that seems to be an underestimate. With some stores putting up their Christmas displays in September, nearly a third of the year is now spent extracting money from people in the name of good cheer.

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