READERS' FORUM:Have your say

Paula Hickey has been a VHI customer for more than 25 years and has generally found the company to be efficient in dealing with claims and renewal. However she has just learned of an administrative practice, which she thinks is “ridiculous given the highly computerised age in which we live”.

She called the company on April 4th to cancel her membership as she has moved to another provider. “Unfortunately, I had missed my renewal date, which fell on Friday, April 1st and they had already collected the April premium via direct debit from my current account. The premium amounted to €298.07. Naturally I requested a refund. Today, April 14th, I called VHI again as I had still not received my refund. I was advised that as they only have four ‘administration days’ a month and I had called about my policy on April 4th, the cancellation didn’t become effective until the next ‘administration day’, which was April 8th.”

She describes this as “slightly bizarre” but says “the real objective of my call was to chase the money as every cent counts nowadays. The customer services agent I spoke with informed me that she could see an overpaid amount that was due to be refunded to me and mentioned a sum of €229 (not the €298.07 taken from my bank account).”

Hickey suspected the likely reason for the difference of almost €70 in the two amounts and asked “if I was being charged for the seven days that my policy was active until their ‘administration day’ rolled around and it could be cancelled. The agent confirmed that this was the case.

So, not only can it take between one and seven days for policies to be cancelled, but you will also be charged for the time it takes VHI to carry out the cancellation,” she writes. “Is it any wonder that they are haemorrhaging customers?

Please advise other readers who may also be considering cancelling VHI cover, to be sure to get their cancellation in as close as possible to one of the four administration dates which are the 1st, 8th, 15th or 22nd of each month. By doing so they will avoid being charged for this shoddy aspect of VHI’s administrative procedures.”

When the ‘best available’ seats are the worst

Following Leinster’s victory over Leicester Tigers in the Aviva Stadium earlier this month, John Murphy went to buy tickets for the semi-final as soon as they went on sale to season ticket holders.

“When you buy, you get the option of picking ‘best available’, and the obvious option is to pick them. When tickets went on sale the ‘best available’ were all in the corner of the stadium. These would generally be described as ‘sh*te’ seats,” he writes. “With no other option I (like all of my friends who are season ticket holders) had to buy the only seats offered.”

He says that 90 minutes or so later, it emerged that you could, at that point, pick your own seats, all of which are far superior to the ‘best available’ offered to season ticket holders.

“Surely this is a case of false advertising, especially as we received an e-mail from Leinster last night encouraging us to buy ASAP?”

He also has a piece of advice for Leinster rugby-loving readers.

“Advise them to pay for their season tickets by cheque. This avoids paying Ticketmaster’s obscene booking fee which is a minimum of €20 and goes up as high as €50-plus. If I buy a €200 concert ticket, I pay the same Ticketmaster booking fee as I would if it was a €20 ticket. However when it comes to Leinster tickets, Ticketmaster have some sort of amazing upward curve and seem to charge a figure of their own choice. It would be great if you could let people know of an easy way to avoid it,” he concludes.

Dáil deputy’s pizza deal

Mick Wallace scarcely needs any publicity right now, such has been the attention focussed on the Wexford-based property developer since he was elected to the Dáil six weeks ago.

Having said that, a reader contacted us to highlight a very good deal his Enoteca restaurants – which are dotted around Dublin – are running at present. For every bottle of wine ordered, a free pizza, worth anywhere between €9 and €14 is thrown in. And having eaten a couple of the pizzas in recent weeks, Pricewatch can testify to their excellence.