ValueIreland.com

I’m off to Limerick soon for a few days to go to the wedding of a good friend. There’ll be no posts until Sunday. We’ve a couple of nights in a hotel which offers “luxury accommodation (in superbly appointed bedrooms) and an award winning restaurants (which offers a fresh approach to Irish and international cuisine”. Lets see how that works.

The report into the fiasco that was the Barbara Streisand concert last July is due to be published any minute now - click here for the site where it will be available.

I have just tried to access it now, so hopefully whenever the site is fully launched, you won’t need the login and password that it’s asking for at the moment.

The Consumer Association of Ireland have said that MCD didn’t meet their contractual obligations for the many concert goers who didn’t get their allocated seat after paying €500 for it. On the basis of the relevant legislation, that means that the possible resolutions to this are as follows:

• Repair
• Replace
• Refund

I wonder if any of these remedies are going to be proposed by this independent committee. Since they can’t fix things now, and there’s unlikely to be another Barbara concert, that just leaves refund. Chances???

An interesting link today via Damien Mulley to Despod’s Photo and Comment Blog where there’s some pretty damning evidence of the uselessness of the National Consumer Agency.

First of all, how many employees are there in the NCA? And they still can only come up with a pre-written bog-standard generic unhelpful PFO e-mail reply to a complaint?

In almost a carbon copy of the response I received from the similarly useless Office of Director of Corporate Enforcement the NCA say that they wish to “work with” retailers.

What I don’t get is the fact that in this complaint to the NCA, and in my complaint to the ODCE, there is documented proof that laws, regulations, whatever have been broken by the companies concerned. When I get a speeding ticket, can the Gardai hold off giving me a speeding ticket and points to “work with me” and ensure I don’t speed again?

Can anyone tell me who’s actually working with the consumers to actually have their rights enforced if the NCA and the ODCE are working with retailers and businesses and not actually bringing the law to bear?

That I’ve heard, there’s been very little comment about the Your And Your Money Exhibition With Eddie Hobbs which happened again in Cork over the weekend.

There were many unhappy exhibitors after the Dublin exhibition (as discussed here), so I wonder was Cork any better - it was expected that the locals would be more drawn to their own than in Cork.

Though, if this post on www.askaboutmoney.com is anything to go on, it was no more popular in Cork than it was in Dublin.

Irish Times, you and your www.myhome.ie employees may not be able to read this having firmly inserted your heads in the sand, your recent efforts to stifle the flow of information regarding house prices on your website are ridiculous.

As reported here, and here, www.myhome.ie have changed their web development to display house prices as images, rather than as text.

This is now preventing excellent analysis of the falling asking prices for houses which used to be reported weekly on Trees don’t grow to the sky.

So, house prices are falling, everyone knows house prices are falling, but www.myhome.ie seem to think that by preventing any reporting of that fact that the opposite might actually become true and the general public might not find out. But hang on, aren’t these the people who’re selling the houses, and who can actually see on a daily basis that house asking prices are falling.

While I appreciate that this information on www.myhome.ie is proprietary information, the only positive thing about their action is if they’re going to publish their own reporting on the falling asking prices for houses. If they don’t, and if daft.ie follow the same course of action, it absolutely stinks!!!

In 3 years, that’s the sum total of the cost and scale of overcharging admitted by Irish business. You should check out the details on our website where we detail every overcharging confession.

Just to show the sort of companies involved, check out the table here. How many of these companies do you deal with on a regular basis? How often do you check the bills or invoices, or receipts they provide you.

Given what these companies have admitted doing, don’t you think you should keep an eye on what they’re charging you and how much money you’re actually giving them.

My folks arrived in Paris yesterday morning for a few days away. After a 4am departure from Dublin they landed in the last place an Irish (rugby supporting) person wanted to be after the Friday night before.

When they checked into their hotel, the manager/owner realised they were Irish and immediately upgraded them to a “superior” room. As he said, “to make up for last nights disappointments”.

See what happens when you break the rules. The bet on Saturday should have been Liverpool to win (no draw bet) - a stake of €51.60 odd, with odds of 50/1 on. Terrible odds - win €1 on a €51 bet - hardly Value Ireland.

So I broke the rules and bet all the money (€103.68) on Liverpool to win at 2/9. Better odds, bigger return, and there was no way Liverpool weren’t not going to win against the newly promoted Birmingham. Until Rafa stepped in and picked a crap team.

But my own fault. As my ma always said, nothing good ever came from breaking the rules. And Rafa, nothing good will ever come from not picking your best team.