The Consumer Manifesto – a model from elsewhere to be admired

April 30, 2013 in Your Rights with 0 Comments

A while ago I wrote about putting together a “consumer manifesto” – a declaration of the intentions, beliefs and demands that would represent Irish consumers in 2013. My rough draft at the time was as follows:

If you provide us with what we ask for at a fair price, with acceptable quality and service with a smile, we’ll pay you what you ask, on time, and we’ll thank you kindly and move on.
If things go wrong, we’ll politely ask your help, so we’d like you to sort things out as quickly as possible.
And assuming we’re straight with you, please don’t always be sneakily trying to get one over on us.

In my research on what others might be doing along the same lines, I did come across something called “The Social Customer Manifesto”:

The Social Customer Manifesto

• I want to have a say.

• I don’t want to do business with idiots.

• I want to know when something is wrong, and what you’re going to do to fix it.

• I want to help shape things that I’ll find useful.

• I want to connect with others who are working on similar problems.

• I don’t want to be called by another salesperson. Ever. (Unless they have something useful. Then I want it yesterday.)

• I want to buy things on my schedule, not yours. I don’t care if it’s the end of your quarter.

• I want to know your selling process.

• I want to tell you when you’re screwing up. Conversely, I’m happy to tell you the things that you are doing well. I may even tell you what your competitors are doing.

• I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner.

• I want to know what’s next. We’re in partnership…where should we go?

I think this is great. There are potentially one or two items I’d remove, but in general I think the tone and content is brilliant. So, back to the drawing board with me and my rough draft maybe.

PS: If you like that Social Customer Manifesto and you’re interested in customer care in general, you might be interested in the rest of the Social Customer blog in general. Read more here and sign up.

 

Northern Ireland Consumer Council produces very useful table of “Airline Charges at a Glance”

April 25, 2013 in Watch Out with 0 Comments

Recently, I warned of the potential issues for licencing and bonding for Irish consumers choosing to fly out of Belfast where their travel agent isn’t licensed by the UK Civil Aviation Authority. You can read that post here again – Dubious advice for prospective holidaymakers in The Irish Independent.

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of the consumer council airline charges comparison table.That advice still stands.

However, what I’m highlighting here is an excellent, yet very simple, table of airline charges on flights into or out of Northern Ireland. This table was produced by the Consumer Council of Northern Ireland, and is available for download here.

In a very simple presentation, that would be great if one of our supposed consumer advocacy organisations could replicate for flights in and out of Ireland, you can see for example that the charges for pre-booking seats ranges from free with British Airways to £16 with Flybe.

It goes through other charges such as baggage charges and weight limits, cost of airport or online check-in, and booking charges. One thing it seems to be missing though, is how much passengers would be charged for reprinting of boarding passes.

Even if you’ve no intention of flying out of Northern Ireland any time soon, it’s worth a look at the table just to see the huge variety of charges imposed by airlines, and the differing terms and conditions that will apply for nominally the same particular charge.

Taxi driver customer service – Dublin style

April 24, 2013 in Other Stuff with 0 Comments

He’s pretty much saying all there is to be said:

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of a taxi driver saying thank you

 Interestingly, later on in the discussions surrounding the photo and the taxi driver concerned, it seems his taxi licence might be out of date as well. Probably won’t end up being a good day for him.

 

It’s not illegal to sell multi-pack items individually

April 22, 2013 in Your Rights with 0 Comments

The tweet below shows this being done in a Centra store, and the obvious displeasure of the tweeter. And it shows the lengths that some shops will go to in order to squeeze the last cent out of us consumers. I wrote about this back in 2009 – What happens when a multi-pack is broken up and sold separately?

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of multi-pack Coke being sold individually.

From my post linked above, we can see that a retailer is really only breaking rules imposed by their suppliers, rather than any legal requirements (probably):

By doing this, shops aren’t breaking any kind of “multi-pack” laws or regulations, so there’s no reason why they wouldn’t do this.

In fact, in many situations, they may actually be making more money from us poor consumers by doing it as multi-packs may have been sold to the shop at a cheaper cost than if they’d bought the items separately.

The shops, however, may risk losing the good will of their suppliers who gave them the discount in the first place – though, in these difficult times, suppliers might not care as long as they’re still selling their products.

The only problem that might occur is if the legal labelling is incorrect – not meeting the requirements for nutrition and ingredient information. If this information was on the wrapper for the multi-pack, and isn’t on the individual items, then the shopkeeper may fall foul of the law.

 

 

 

Government proposal to have NCT checks catch clocked cars is a joke

April 19, 2013 in Watch Out with 1 Comment

Though published on April 1st by Fiach Kelly in the Irish Independent, his story under the headline “NCT check will uncover ‘clocked’ cars in new plan” doesn’t appear to be an April Fool. I do think, however, that the proposals from the Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar, will be about as useful as an April Fool prank.

According to Mr. Kelly, the Irish Independent has learned that 10% of cars checked by the NCTS have been clocked, and that the Department of Transport has helpfully “suggested there is a problem”. This means that their response will be that:

Under new plans, cars will have their mileage cross-referenced with their NCT history every time they go in for the test.

The aim is to have the system rolled out within around two years, and motorists would be able to check mileage history.

Effectively, they will check your mileage each time you send your car for its NCT, and if the mileage is less than the previous NCT check, you – the car owner – will be prosecuted. According to the article:

And it would become a crime to have your car clocked. At the moment, it is a crime only to sell a clocked car.

Bear with me here, but I don’t think that these proposals are going to have much effect at all. And worse, they have the potential of penalising consumers a whole lot more than garages who clock cars who may actually do the car clocking.

Won’t work in all instances (1)

Let’s take an example car, owned by Joe Bloggs, a travelling salesman, who does 100k miles every year selling widgets to €1 stores. Joe has the car for 2 ½ years and has put up 275k hard miles on the car. He trades it in for the newest model, and the car is taken in and tidied up by the dealer.

“Tidied up” just so happens to involved rolling back the mileage to somewhat more than the average annual mileage for a car in Ireland – 60k miles (2.5 times 10,837, plus change for good measure). That’s still a damn site less than the actual mileage, and something that the NCT won’t catch after the car was bought by Mick Smith, driven only 5k miles for 6 months, and subjected to the first NCT.

Won’t work in all instances (2)

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of the odometer in a carLet’s assume instead that Mike Smith buys the car first. He owns it for 3 ½ years, and does his usual circa 5k miles per year, and decides to upgrade after successfully passing the first NCT on the car. The car is sold with 20k miles on the clock to Joe Bloggs who drives the wheels off the thing for 2 more years, putting up his circa 100k average each year before deciding to upgrade the car before the next NCT is due after 6 years.

Now, the car has circa 220k on the clock, is 5 ½ years old, and in “tidying up” the car, the less than scrupulous garage owner decides that he could only ever sell the car and make money on it if there’s less than 100k miles on the clock, needing to wipe off over 120k miles.

And like magic, Mary Murphy who bought the car next, submits it innocently for NCT, and successfully passes the test with flying colours. There’s 95k miles on the clock, there was 20k on the clock at the last NCT, and no one is any the wiser.

Useless NCA must change approach too

Let’s now say that the car hadn’t passed the NCT, and Mary Murphy is told that the car she bought had been clocked. She’s now in possession of a clocked car, for which she’ll be liable for prosecution. By whom, we don’t know yet.

And for selling the car, the unscrupulous garage is also liable for prosecution. By the National Consumer Agency. Who rarely prosecute garages who clock cars, merely settling on “working with them” to make sure they don’t do it anymore.

So, there we have it. Yet another scenario in the making where big business, or any business for that matter, in Ireland will get away with anything, while it’s we, the ordinary punters, who always end up paying the price.

 

Dubious advice for prospective holidaymakers in The Irish Independent

April 18, 2013 in Watch Out with 2 Comments

Under the headline “Holidaymakers can save €140 each by flying from North“, Aideen Sheehan relays to us statements from an online travel agency telling us that:

Sluggish demand in the North means flight prices there are currently cheaper than from Dublin, resulting in significant savings for identical holidays.

SUN holidays can be up to €140 cheaper per person if you fly from Belfast instead of Dublin.

Presumably coming from a press release, the story is from travel operator ClickAndGo.com and is effectively free advertising for them through the remainder of the article.

Buyer Be Very Careful

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of the clickandgo.com logoWhat Ms. Sheehan fails to tell her readers is that anyone in Ireland booking their holidays with ClickAndGo.com and flying out of Belfast won’t have their travel covered by the normal licencing and bonding arrangements they’d have if flying out of Dublin, for example.

According to the Commission for Aviation Regulation website, who oversee licencing and bonding:

Under the Transport (Tour Operators and Travel Agents) Act, 1982, (the “Act), Tour Operators and Travel Agents are required to be licensed and bonded in respect of the sale and offering for sale, of travel originating within the State to destinations outside the State.

You’ll see that this says “within the State”. For the purposes of licencing and bonding, no matter what your politics are, flying out of Belfast means you’re not originating your holding from “within the State”, and therefore you’re unfortunately not covered.

Independent Newspapers has “form here”

Back in 2009, Dan White gave travel advice in the Evening Herald which necessitated this warning post from me for consumers, Incorrect advice on Travel Agents in the Evening Herald. The key advice at that time, which is again relevant in light of this more recent article, was as follows:

If you book a holiday with an Irish travel agent, but if you’re departing from an airport outside the Republic of Ireland, then you are not covered by the Commission for Aviation Regulation bonding scheme. You would be covered by the UK Civil Aviation Authority scheme – assuming your travel agent has signed up to it (and many Irish travel agents don’t).

So, if you book your holiday from a Dublin travel agent but fly out from Belfast, you’re not covered by the Commission for Aviation Regulation scheme.

Another thing to be careful of – the Commission for Aviation Regulation only covers anything booked from a travel agent that includes travel (i.e. flights). If you book a villa in the south of France, but decide to book your flights with Ryanair, then your villa booking isn’t covered by this scheme either.

Update 18/04/2013, 13:33 - I meant to add this when I originally published the post, but when checking the ClickAndG0.com website, it doesn’t look like they’re covered by the equivalent UK Civil Aviation Authority scheme, thereby meaning any travel booked through them, flying out of Belfast, isn’t bonded at all.

 

If we were to have a “consumer manifesto” in Ireland, what should it contain?

April 17, 2013 in Your Rights with 3 Comments

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of the consumer manifesto poster, sort ofIn some recent reading, I came across different writers stating their aims, or those of their group, organisation, or campaign, in the form of a manifesto. From Wikipedia:

A manifesto is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus and/or promotes a new idea with prescriptive notions for carrying out changes the author believes should be made. It often is political or artistic in nature, but may present an individual’s life stance.

I thought it might be fun to put together a “consumer manifesto” – a declaration of the intentions, beliefs and demands that would represent Irish consumers in 2013.

I’m definitely not talking “Communist Manifesto”  here, but more something that would set out in clear and concise language what is that Irish consumers want, how we will behave, and what we expect in return from business and government. Even though we have the Consumers Association of Ireland (assuming it survives insolvency), and the National Consumer Agency (the government quango), no one is really standing up and putting forward a strong defense and advocacy for Irish consumers.

I’m still doing a little research on what such a “consumer manifesto” might contain – though, my first draft might need a bit of changing:

If you provide us with what we ask for at a fair price, with acceptable quality and service with a smile, we’ll pay you what you ask, on time, and we’ll thank you kindly and move on.
If things go wrong, we’ll politely ask your help, so we’d like you to sort things out as quickly as possible.
And assuming we’re straight with you, please don’t always be sneakily trying to get one over on us.

What do you think? Should anything else be included?

Will “naming and shaming” financial institutions make any difference to their behaviour?

April 15, 2013 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Short answer, as I wrote about in detail back in 2010, Are Irish business so brazen that “naming and shaming” doesn’t matter any more?, is a big fat resounding no.

This topic has been around for a number of years now, and still the proposed “naming and shaming” powers have not been given to the Financial Services Ombudsman. The Ombudsman, Mr. Bill Prasifka was on the RTE “This Week” programme back in March when he reiterated a call for his office to be granted powers to release details of complaints against individual banks.

In the interview, Mr. Prasifka specifically said that:

Making the complaints record of individual banks public would influence how they behave.

Earlier this month in response to this call from Mr. Prasifka, it was reported by the Irish Examiner that he would soon get his wish. According to the article, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will, on April 24th:

Bring forward an amendment at committee to provide the Financial Services Ombudsman with the power to name, in certain circumstances and subject to certain conditions, financial service providers about whom the FSO has upheld complaints.”

Never mind that the “certain circumstances” and the “certain conditions” will probably water down any proposals to a status of “let’s make it look like we’re doing something without actually doing anything”, I don’t believe, as I argued in 2010, that this will make any difference to how financial institutions will behave.

As I said back then, taking Allied Irish Banks (AIB) as a case in point:

Last week, I wrote about AIB admitting for the eighth time in 6 years that they’d stolen money from their customers. That’s them admitting to having unjustly taken nearly €34m from over 250,000 of their customers – an average of about €137.50 each. So why does AIB still have 4m customers when so many of them are being treated this badly?

Even with being named and shamed 8 times in 6 years for stealing money from their customers accounts (not to mention the balls they’ve made of their involvement in the property market in Ireland), they still have 4m customers.

How can that be? Do people never learn?

Why now then would any naming and shaming by a captured regulator in limited circumstances as allowed by a captured Minister for Finance make any further difference to consumer behaviour when having money directly stolen from their accounts isn’t?

The Bank of Mattress – a new take on an old way to hide your money

March 29, 2013 in Other Stuff with 0 Comments

Via The Big Picture Blog:

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of a safe secured in a mattress

ValueIreland.com ar Raidió na Gaeltachta

March 28, 2013 in Other Stuff with 0 Comments

If you're reading this, you're probably on a PC with internet filtering, or a poor connections, so you're missing a picture of the Radio na Gaeltachta logLe Andy Caomhanach ar clár Barrscéalta.

Éist anseo. Ó nóiméad 25 go 34.

 

 

 

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