YOUR CONSUMER QUERIES:A READER called Fionn is currently shopping around for car insurance quotes – or at least he was when he sent us an email last week. He was running his details through Aviva's own website and a quote came out at €522.46. He left the site and forgot to note the quote number down.

“So today I entered all my details in again to get a quote and was quoted €700,” he writes. He figured that there must have been a mistake so he went back and entered the details again and up came the €522.46 quote. “Much better but what did I do differently?” he asked himself.

Then it dawned on him. One of the questions is, “Who is your current insurer?” When he answered Aviva, the quote was the high €700, but when he answered “Other Ireland”, the quote was €522 . “Now I ask what on earth is their justification for this rip off of their existing customers?”

Well, when Pricewatch read this we thought there must be some mistake. So, we went on to the Aviva website in search of a motor insurance quote.

We filled in all the details and said we were an Aviva customer. For a full comprehensive policy we were quoted a price of €608. Then we went back and repeated the process and said we were with another provider and guess how much the quote was? Did you guess €453? Correct!

A company spokeswoman acknowledged the price gap and said it ran “specific price promotions in particular channels to attract new customers” which could mean “these offers may work out cheaper than our renewal prices” Hmmm.

Aer Lingus takes drama out of change of flights

AISLING GARVEY sent us a mail about “a very positive experience” with Aer Lingus – and a less positive one with eBookers. She booked British Airways Washington-London-Dublin return flights via the latter recently, with the London-Dublin leg being with Aer Lingus through a code share deal.

“It turned out I need to spend a few days in London en route to Dublin, so I called eBookers to explain I didn’t need the London-Dublin flight on the way out,” she writes.

“I explained I wasn’t seeking a refund or flight change – I’d already booked my own new Aer Lingus flight on to Dublin three days later – I just wouldn’t be using that flight on my itinerary.

“eBookers were incredibly difficult. They told me I’d forfeit both return flights if I didn’t board the London- Dublin flight and, after literally hours on calls with them, they told me they’d make the change but charge me £1,499,” she says.

“They kept blaming BA. However, I did resolve it directly with BA when I arrived in London for a much lesser additional fee of $275 – they could change but not remove my flight – but then ended up with two onward flights to Dublin on the one date.

“When I arrived at the airport in London to check in for my flight to Dublin, and explained to Aer Lingus I had two flights to Dublin that day, they (without any drama or teeth- pulling) cancelled and refunded one of the flights.”

She says the lesson was “do not use a third party to book flights (particularly when there was actually no price difference) and appreciate the professionalism and simple cop-on Aer Lingus employees display. I’m a proud GoldCircle member and will fly with them whenever I possibly can.”

Sound man has it taped

HUGH ORAM sent us an interesting mail about an old school technology that is still beloved of some people.

“I much prefer the audio quality of tapes to that of any more modern recording technologies,” he writes. “Getting audio tapes is becoming much more difficult. Tower Records here in Dublin, for instance, have stopped stocking them.

“However, I’ve found an excellent reasonably priced alternative source, the Sound Store in Drogheda (soundstore.ie) and my order arrived in perfect condition by return post.

“I just thought this might be useful for any readers looking for audio tapes.”

Toothpaste price wipes smile off reader's face

A READER by the name of Siobhán has advised by her dentist to use Pronamel toothpaste which is, she writes, “much more expensive” than all other toothpastes.

Not long ago she was delighted to see that it was on special in her local Tesco store and was being sold at a discount of 33 per cent.

“However, the cost per litre for the 75ml tube was €39.20 and the cost per litre of the 100ml tube was €39.80.

“I drew the manager’s attention to this as I felt I should be paying the same cost per litre for the exact same toothpaste,” she writes.

“I could not understand why the 100ml tube cost more per litre. When there is no ‘offer’ on this product, the same anomaly exists,” she continues.

“Unfortunately, the manager did not really give me a satisfactory explanation,” she says.

All he told her was that “that’s the way it is” .

Siobhán thinks she should pay the same cost per litre for any product, no matter what the size is.

We would go further and suggest you should pay less for a larger package.