Reader's Queries

Supermarket bag charges are a bags

Mary from Clare got in touch with a “small issue” involving our friends in Dunnes Stores. Over the last 12 months she has been collecting vouchers which she planned to use for her grocery shopping in early January as she does every year.

“I had approximately €100 saved, and presented them at the check-out earlier this month and was told that two of them, to the value of €23 were just a couple of days out of date,” she writes.

It was, she says, January 7th and her vouchers had expired on December 31st. “I pleaded my case, as they were only just barely out of date, and they said there was no way they would be accepted,” she writes.

She rang the company’s voucher department on Monday January 9th but was told her pleas for an extension would not be entertained. “I feel fairly aggrieved about this as I consider myself a good, consistent customer and in the interest of keeping the customer happy, they were not prepared to bother with any concession, even to add them to my account, and get the little bit of credit the next time they issue vouchers.”

She asked if we could offer any assistance and suggested that she would not be the only person “to accidently not notice the expiry date” on a voucher. With a heavy heart we called Dunnes Stores. In all the time Pricewatch has been alive, the retail giant has only spoken to us once and that was to give out about our assessment of its processed cheese slices which we had reviewed with the word “yuk”.

They did not respond.

Cents and sensitivity

Just before Christmas James Carroll bought a 75ml tube of Sensodyne in a chemist in Stuttgart and it cost him €3.25. Last week he bought a 50ml tube of Sensodyne in Lidl in Newbridge. The price? €3.49

Charged for changing her home insurance

A reader called Helen received a letter from KBC Homeloans last week saying the bank was charging her an “administrative fee of €30 for changing her home insurance company. The letter said KBC was going to add it to her next month’s mortgage payment.

“I’ve had a mortgage with KBC for about four years and I change my house insurance most years as I’m obviously looking for the cheapest offer,” she writes. “However, this is the first year I’ll be charged for doing so. I haven’t received any forewarning that KBC were going to charge me for changing and if I had known beforehand I would have possibly not changed insurance providers.”

She asks if KBC can do this and goes on to say that although money is tight for her family, “we’ve always made our mortgage on time and €30 is a lot of money to us.”

Sorry, what? A €30 administrative fee? Really, KBC? That kind of ridiculous charge makes absolutely no sense to us.

Badly served by restaurant voucher

A reader called Liam has a query that, he says, may become more relevant in these hard times. “I recently purchased a restaurant voucher through a ‘deal’ website. The deal was simple: €20 for €50 worth of food in a particular restaurant. I booked and arrived at the restaurant as instructed; however, the restaurant turned out to be a lot less than satisfactory,” he says, adding that it was “one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had.”

He and his girlfriend ended up eating no food and having two drinks at the restaurant. “Clearly, in a normal case, we could have just left. However, the voucher complicated this somewhat. When I complained I offered to pay for the two drinks, but I wanted the money I had paid for the voucher returned as I had not received the service I had paid for,” he writes.

“The restaurant refused and told me my issue was with the website (they told me that they receive no money from the website). The website has informed me that it only acts as a marketing agency for the restaurant and has no responsibility. Can you please clarify who in fact my complaint should be taken up with, and who is responsible for refunding the voucher to me, or alternatively, if there is nothing I can do.”

The first thing he can do is never go back to the restaurant again. The second thing he can do is tell all his friends about his experience. But in terms of financial comeback his options are limited. He is right, though: it raises an interesting question and we would like to hear from people who have had less than brilliant experiences with deals via online offers sites.