ValueIreland.com

On Sunday, with my girlfriend, I met with a long time friend and his wife for a “coffee” in the Dundrum shopping centre. The initial plan was to meet in Starbucks, but the queue was out the door.

The only place we found with seats was Brambles. Oh dear!!!

I suppose I could have taken the warning from the Value Ireland Forum, or even on the AskaboutMoney Forum.

€36 for 4 coffees and 4 slices of cake. Very tasty!!!

Does such a thing exist any more? I had a conversation earlier today with a lady on this very subject. It came up because of peoples positive comments about the work done by RTEs Prime Time, and particularly their programme last night about estate agents.

The conclusion was that outside of this, there’s not a whole lot of investigative journalism evident in Ireland these days - particularly in our newspapers. Why is this? Is it editorial or financial constraints? Or just laziness?

Many of our newspaper stories these days are copied and pasted from press releases. We in Value Ireland have had 2 incidents where journalists have simply copied and pasted parts of the Value Ireland website directly into newspaper articles - the Cork Evening Echo and the Athlone Advertiser - no credits given for either of them.

We’ve also had the situation where journalists have picked up on stories in one newspaper and then published their version of the exact same story the next day - quoting us even though they hadn’t spoken to us at all.

Something we’d never expected was where magazines have e-mailed us asking for interviews, and instead of speaking to us, they’ve e-mailed questions. We were caught out once where after e-mailing answers to the Irish Entrepreneur magazine, they simply copied our e-mail directly into their magazine article, word for word. Business and Finance approached us sometime after that looking for an interview over e-mail, and when we suggested that they call us, we never heard from them again.

Lazy journalists? Don’t even get me started on the journalist (so-called) who trawl the excellent AskaboutMoney.com for news stories. Twice I personally have been quoted anonymously in Irish National newspapers (Sunday TImes and Irish Independent) through comments I’ve posted on that website.

Speaking of shopping, I was in Hodges Figgis last Friday. I was just looking for a quick tour guide for Belfast (which I couldn’t find, by the way). I found something different instead and went to the counter to pay for it.

I came upon the absolute worst customer service I’ve ever experienced in Dublin - well, worst in that there was none. The lady there had a massive scowl on her face, made no eye-contact, didn’t say please/thanks or anything, and made no effort to be in any way polite at all.

Now, I know we can all have our bad days, but we all still have to do our jobs as well. And we’ve all experienced crap customer service in Ireland, but I was dumbfounded at this ladys demeanour.

I didn’t bother complaining - what can you really say - “that lady didn’t smile at me when I gave over my money”. But I don’t think I’ll be going back. My small little protest. Of course, that means I can’t go to Waterstones now either, seeing as their owned by the same company. Oh, and I suppose to be strictly correct in my little protest, I’ll find another place to go instead of HMV as well.

These companies, like Lemon in another post, will hardly notice my witholding of purchases. If only everyone who had a problem in shops would do the same though. Every little helps, and if businesses were to see their custom fall, eventually they’d start to try to find out why, and might then make a little effort to actually win back or deserve our business.

In the past week, in 4 different shops and restaurants, I’ve been short changed, or over charged on my purchases.

I can’t say whether any of these were deliberate or not, but given the crowds and rush that people are under when they’re making their Christmas purchases, it’s a perfect time for people to miss out or not notice such things.

In my experiences recently, I pointed out the error, and on each occasion it was resolved immediately. So quickly in fact, that you’d nearly be suspicious that the person concerned knew that something was up in the first place, and knew they’d been caught out - but that’s just my cynical side.

Always always check your change. Don’t feel rushed when you’re at the top of the queue. Count out your change, and make sure that only items that you’ve purchased are on your receipt.

Read here for more Value Ireland tips on what to watch out for when shopping and to make sure you’re not short-changed.

So much for value for money, or not as the case may be. Early on in this blog I gave PriceWatch in the Irish Times a thumbs up (wonder where they got that idea from), particularly because you could access it for free online.

No more unfortunately, as it has become part of the premium Ireland.com service. Having read the last couple of weeks installments, I don’t think this is any harm really. The feature has been full of people complaining about the terms and conditions of products and services, rather than the price or any kind of unfair or illegal activity on the part of businesses.

As we’ve always said on Value Ireland, if you read the terms and conditions up front, you have a choice. Take it or leave it. If you take it, why would you bother complaining afterwards- you had the choice. If you didn’t read the conditions, then more fool you.

I started working in the centre of Dublin in June of this year. It was a new experience for me, having mostly worked in the sticks of Sandyford since coming back to Dublin in 2003. One of my favourite new experiences was going to the Lemon pancake place on Dawson Street.

Unusually for me, I’d get into town early in the morning to have enough time for my breakfast before starting work. I’d get a traditional pancake and a tea for €5. For me, a fantastic breakfast. I’d go there maybe 3 or 4 times a week.

One thing I did have an issue with them at the time though was that they had a “Meal Deal” for exactly the same breakfast as I was ordering, but it cost €5.50. The exact same breakfast, but the “Deal” was 50c more expensive.

Then, in September or October last, their €5 breakfast was increased in price - to €6.30, a 25% increase.

I don’t watch the markets for the raw materials that go into pancakes and tea all that much, but I don’t think that flour, eggs and milk prices went up 25% recently.

Having said all that, I still like my pancakes. However, now I might go once every couple of weeks, rather than my previous rate. So, based on their increased prices, they’re losing over €40 per month on me alone.

But given how busy they are at lunch times at least (if not the mornings), people are obviously willing to pay the new more expensive prices for nothing different or improved at all.

In November I mentioned that I’d only just realised that the Dublin Bus ticket refunds that I’d been keeping were technically valueless because of their written terms and conditions. Read here for my original post. I’ve been keeping the full tickets since then, obviously.

I emailed Dublin Bus asking what the situation actually was, given that I’d been a mug and hadn’t read their terms and conditions first.

This is the response that I recieved -

Tickets can be still redeemed but in future you need to hold onto the full
ticket.

I’ve yet to try this out, but will be doing so next Tuesday in their office in O’Connell Street. I’ll be bringing along a copy of their e-mail. Further update to follow.

Insurance Companies profits soar thanks to the setting up of the PIAB while the motoring public get the crumbs.

Insurance company profits for the past few years are over thirty times higher than the average for the late 90s, yet premiums have only dipped slightly. “From a situation where profit was around 3% of claims paid towards the end of the 90s the average for the 00s is ten times that at 30% and it was a whopping 62% for 2005 with the indications for 2006 that it will go even higher” Cllr Murphy said and continued. “Relative to the numbers of cars on the road total claims paid have dropped due mainly to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) being set up, yet the Insurance Companies continue to just rake it in”.

The Deloitte & Touche report commissioned by the Government and published in October 1996 said “We found that the profitability of Insurance Companies appears to be comparable to companies of similar stature and market share in the financial services sector”.(last paragraph in the report). “I wonder what they would say if a similar report was published now” said Cllr Mick Murphy the National Organiser of MIJAG the Motor Insurance Justice Action Group who have been campaigning on the issue since 1999.

The PIAB have come out publicly and said we should all be paying half what we are paying now for Motor Insurance and MIJAG fully agrees. What is more MIJAG believes that the Insurance companies reserves are inflated by over €900m. “That money should be used to pay for a major national road safety initiative”. Cllr Murphy said.