Readers' forum have your say

How to prove to Aer Lingus you’ve Electron

Taragh O’Kelly sent us a complaint about Aer Lingus and a charge for using his credit card. He has “a virtual Visa Electron card” which attracts no credit card fees and had booked flights up to August without any problems. At the beginning of September he tried to make a booking but got a message saying that his card number could not be processed online. He contacted the airline and was told his card was not an Electron card. “I explained that it had always been accepted as an Electron card and asked why this had changed.” He was told Aer Lingus had not accepted these cards as Electron cards since 2009. “When I pointed out that it had been accepted on August 25th 2010 Aer Lingus claimed that effective from August 30th, 2010, it was no longer accepting these cards as Electron cards and would only process them as regular Visa cards, thus incurring the credit card charge.” He was told his bank should have informed him of this change.

O’Kelly pointed out that there no change of status of the card from the provider side, only from the Aer Lingus side. “This is nothing short of sharp practice. Aer Lingus should have clearly posted a notice on the website stating that effective September 1st, 2010, Electron cards would attract the normal credit card charge. I would really appreciate if you would contact Aer Lingus and ask them to explain this latest stealth charge and why, in this day and age, there is no e-mail address for Aer Lingus customer service.”

We contacted the airline to find out more and recieved this less than illuminating response. “Aer Lingus send details of payment cards transactions through our Payment Service Provider (PSP) and on to the banks. They PSP identify the card type to ensure that they comply with the individual card schemes. Visa Electron cards that are recognised by our Payment Service Provider are exempt from charges.”

Reader dropped in it

A reader called John contacted us after breaking his new phone. He bought a Nokia from an O2 shop for €140 two weeks ago but after just five days dropped it and cracked the screen. Part of the screen is now obscured and he can’t read or write text messages. “I dropped into the same shop to check if they would replace it.” They wouldn’t. “The manager told me that physical damage was not covered under the warranty and the only option they would offer was to repair the phone for €60. Having bought the phone just five days ago I find this extremely hard to comprehend,” he writes. “I was wondering if you might know whether I would be entitled to a free replacement or refund given the short time between my purchase of the phone, and its decline, given that, to my mind at least, this does not sound like fair wear and tear?”

Unfortunately for our reader, dropping and breaking the phone is not generally considered fair wear and tear and the store is perfectly within its rights not to offer a replacement phone. He dropped it and he broke it, so it is a little unfair to expect the retailer to take responsibility for it. There are very few – if any – warranties that cover an item damaged in such circumstances so we would advise John to accept the offer of the €60 repair and resolve to be more careful with his phone in the future.

Lipsmackingly expensive

Catherine Griffin sent us a mail about pricing in Tesco. She was in a branch in Clearwater in Finglas last week and was taken aback by the price of their Carmex lip balm. “It comes in two forms: a 7.5g pot and a 10g tube,” she writes. The pot had a price of €8 (or €1,066.67 per unit) while the tube was almost three times cheaper at €3.15 (or €315.00 per unit). “I know for a fact I have never paid more than €4 for a pot of the lip balm. (Carmex can be purchased in Superdrug in the UK for £2.49 [€2.82] a pot). I would love to know the Tesco logic behind that pricing!”

We got in touch with Tesco and a spokesman said there was an error in pricing and the wrong price had been displayed for the past two weeks. He said the error was currently being “rectified and added that if anyone who had bought the product at the wrong price brought it back to a store with a receipt they would be given a refund.