ValueIreland.com

If you haven’t done so already, it’s worth subscribing to the ECC Dublin Consumer Monthly e-bulletin - do so here. Their Consumer Query of the Month is as follows:

I’m planning to travel to a European Championships match this summer. I’m hoping to be able to get a ticket -what should I look out for?
You should be extremely careful when purchasing tickets for any major event, especially if you decide to buy a ticket from a non-authorised agent, a course of action not recommended by the European Consumer Centre.

Applications for tickets for Euro 2008 via the official website closed in March 2007, but understandably, many consumers still wish to buy a ticket and are prepared to pay high prices to ‘ticket resellers’ in order to secure same.

While many ticket resellers offer a legitimate service, problems such as severe overcharging, lack of refunds, non-delivery of tickets and counterfeit tickets have been reported to the European Consumer Centre in recent years.

If you buy from a ticket reseller you risk being denied entry to the stadium so exercise extreme caution. Check the terms and conditions of the official UEFA site very carefully along with the terms and conditions of the ticket reseller’s site. Proceed very carefully, or you could very easily experience loss of money and disappointment.

Having just finished Twenty Majors The Order of the Phoenix Park, I’m moving onto another book by a blogger. I’ll leave the introductions to the authors journalistic colleague Paul Cullen, also of the Irish Times, from Saturdays Irish Times Magazine (sub required):

For more than five years, the PriceWatch column in this newspaper has been guiding readers through the pitfalls of shopping, as well as seeking out the best in value and quality for consumers. Now that its editor, Conor Pope, has distilled his wisdom in book form, there’s really no excuse for not making some changes to your finances that can result in serious money savings.

Stop Wasting Your Money promises to cut your bills by anywhere between €1,000 and €3,000 in a year, simply by following Conor’s month-by-month advice. It’s a mixture of the so-obvious-we-don’t-do it, such as shaving hundreds of euro off your insurance or health bills by one phone call, to the oh-really!-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-before?

In the latter vein, I didn’t know you could access freeview TV satellite stations including all the BBCs and ITVs for the price of a €100 dish and a bit of wiring. Or that chicken pieces with the skin on are half the price of skinless pieces. Ok, maybe I did know the last one but just don’t want to get my hands dirty.

Written with a light touch, Stop… isn’t hectoring or judgmental (as Conor writes, “that’s what Eddie Hobbs is for”). At the end of your year’s belt-tightening, he reckons you deserve to blow the savings on a nice holiday. That we like. A snip at €9.99.

According to the Labour Party it is anyway, and it seems quite likely that the reason why the garage in Limerick who was recently caught clocking cars may well have gotten away with the of offense because of “bad law”.

According to the press release from Senator Brendan Ryan:

My advice is that the drafting flaw is fatal to the prosecution of the pyramid scheme offence in the District Court under the Consumer Protection Act, and would also appear to prevent the prosecution in the District Court of a number of other offences including misleading commercial practices; aggressive commercial practices; prohibited commercial practices; and contravening maximum prices order.

Wednesday March 12th, 2008, from Cian McCormack in RTE

This year Ministers will jet around the world representing Ireland for St Patrick’s Day. Last year Taoiseach Bertie Ahern went to the US, while ministers and officials went to Italy, Russia, Singapore, Vietnam and other places.

How much did all this travel cost? And what kind of things did the ministers and their entourages spend the money on? Cian McCormack found out using the Freedom of Information Act.

The total cost to send the Taoiseach and 27 junior ministers and officials abroad to represent Ireland for St Patrick’s Day was more than €560,000.

However, that figure itself could be higher because the cost of the Government jet - which was used by the Taoiseach, Minister Mary Harney and Minister Seamus Brennan - was not included in any response to the FOI requests that were submitted by Morning Ireland.

Also, Minister Frank Fahey’s trip to India was not included in the Department of Justice response.

Also, other departments did not include accommodation costs because they could not. For example, when Minister John O’Donoghue was at Cheltenham his accommodation was paid for by Horse Racing Ireland.

The most expensive trip taken was Noel Dempsey’s to the US from 13 to the 23 March. It cost almost €75,000 for Mr Dempsey, his wife Bernadette, his press advisor, the Assistant Principal and Executive officer of the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources to travel to Atlanta, San Francisco and San Antonio. Flights for the five people cost €42,000.

Based on the costs missing from the above, it’s not unrealistic to increase this to maybe €650,000? And then lets add 5% inflation to see how much they’re going to waste by getting the same jollies again this year.

So, I’m adding two more incidents to the count in the banner, and a total of €1,332,500. And that’s just for 2 year. That’d do a whole lot of good in the Health Service, or for ABA teaching in our schools.

And finally, I loved the comment texted into The Last Word on TodayFm which has probably made the most sense in all of this. If we really wanted to advertise ourselves and our country to those in other countries, shouldn’t we be bringing the decision makers here, rather than sending over our less than impressive politicians (who’re more likely to only be meeting our own Irish ambassadors and ex-pats than anyone else anyway).

It looks like another independent Irish consumer website has bitten the dust and gone the way of many before it.

From their website, IrishFuelPrices.com is for sale. According to the text on the site:

IrishFuelPrices.com is for sale

Thank you for your support over the last 7 years. The great success of the site has been to make consumers more aware of prices but the site needs to be up to date and due to time constraints on our part, this is no longer possible.

Interested parties can contact us on info@irishfuelprices.com

This is a big pity. I wonder will anyone fill their shoes - will the National Consumer Agency maybe take up the mantle and have a petrol price survey in the same way they do their grocery price comparison, or maybe the Consumer Association of Ireland fill the gap.

I posted last week as a follow up to the publicity about Galway being the most expensive place to stay in a hotel in the country - and that at a time when more than 30% of hotel rooms were left empty during 2007. Then, the next morning, I received this offer in my e-mail - I think it’s because I’d stayed there previously though, and not a direct response to my post.

Nice to see that some businesses are actually working to attract our custom. Seems like pretty good value though (and no, I’m getting nothing for this) - and I can recommend the hotel. Don’t forget to mention the flyer that you got in your e-mail

Blink, and you might miss it.

According to this Europa - Consumer Affairs website, the following are the activities planned for European Consumer Day in Ireland.

For Consumer Day, a Consumer Consultation Seminar will be held at the representation in Dublin, at which the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment will take part. In addition, a number of newspaper supplements will be published, with information on the ECC and shopping across borders. A press release will also be issued highlighting the advantages Irish consumers have by also being European citizens. The press release will take the form of a ‘story’ detailing a person’s day from morning to evening and all the things that occur where EU consumer legislation comes into play.

Anyone see any of this? I did see mention of the seminar mentioned above, but no sign of the press releases. If the National Consumer Agency wouldn’t keep republishing 200 odd press releases every night on their RSS feed, it might be easier to see if it was there. Nothing on their Press Releases link, nor on the ECC Dublin site either. Nothing on the Consumer Association of Ireland website either.

We’re told that we should be encouraged when a powerless regulator like the NPSRA actually does get it’s powers. Because then, apparently, they’ll be able to use those powers to protect consumers - in that case, home buyers and apartment residents for example.

Then people wonder why I’m skeptical about how positive any of these government regulators will actually be for consumers, even when they do get their powers.

Here’s why.

Apart from all my comments here about the National Consumer Agency, the Public Inquiry website today has a fantastic example of just why I think these government organisations are a huge pile of stinking doo doo. And to think, the employees of the NCA are so proud of their inaction in this situation, they’re going on national radio.

Apart from the quotes mentioned about the inaction of the NCA, here’s the most galling comment from their press release today:

The NCA chief also urged consumers to contact the Agency if they had suspicions that their car was clocked. “We will investigate all complaints. The Consumer Protection Act gives us wide ranging powers to take action.

This is truly unbelievable. “Please tell us about companies doing bad things, and we’ll do nothing about it”. Somebody, please, tell me what’s the point in having a regulator such as the NCA at all?