ValueIreland.com

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be publishing our series of Top Tips for Irish consumers as kindly supplied to us by some higher profile Irish consumers (offline and online).

We hope you’ll get some benefit from a different perspective to that provided by ValueIreland.com in the past. We have a series of our own new Top Tips planned for 2009 to help you through the times we’re experiencing.

In the meantime, enjoy the Top Tips for Irish Consumer, from Irish consumers in the coming days.

A few consumer news points for you for the weekend:

• Busy busy week for ValueIreland.com and particularly our Overcharging in Ireland, Check Your Bills, and SayNoTo1890.com initiatives. Following an appearance in the Irish Times on Saturday, there was Pricewatch in the Irish Times on Monday, and the Irish Examiner on Tuesday. There was also George Hook on Monday evening, TV3 on Wednesday morning as well as Radio Kerry and C103 in Cork. Finally, there was Q102 on Friday evening.

• “Go Local” Campaign - We’ve talked many times about buying Irish here in the past month or so. We’re now coming to the end of a week long “go local” campaign led by community organisations across the country - the IFA, the churches, the vintners and the GAA. Did you see any of this campaign in your region? Did it cause you to change your normal buying habits?

• Financial Services Ombudsman complaints – During the week, the Financial services Ombudsman announced that complaints to his office had increased 28% in 2008. 21 example complaints were provided – where 11 were upheld and 10 rejected. Wouldn’t it be nice to have seen who the complaints were made against – particularly where complaints were upheld? A bit of name and shame wouldn’t go astray. Tell us consumers who’s been bad and we can choose better where we can put our business.

• Annual Travel Pass Cost Increases – Lots of comments at work these days where colleagues are suffering from up to 25% increases in their yearly train travel passes – despite possible service cutbacks. I was in Pearse and saw the great incentives from Iaranrod Eireann to entice customers to apply for even these more expensive annual pass tickets. Assuming you just wanted a single or return somewhere, there was only 1 out of a ridiculously insufficient 3 ticket machines working, and it looked like the queue for the ticket kiosk was winding out onto the street it was moving so slowly. And with all that, there were no trains running!
• I received an e-mail this week promoting an apparent new EU consumer awareness campaign - Is It Fair? The e-mail I received had all the hallmarks of being a spam message, though the site looks legitimate upon first viewing. I’ll be following up more on this after I (hopefully) receive a response from whomever sent me the e-mail in the first place.

• I’ve meant to write about this before, but if you’re ever around the Kildare Street / Molesworth Street area and need a coffee and sandwich, then make sure you avoid the BusyBean Cafe on Molesworth Street and head straight for the Petit Cafe Food Co. on Kildare Street. Apart from the food and coffee being a whole lot nicer, the service is unbelieveably better - a pleasure to go there.

Don’t forget that you can send us in your Top Tips that you use in your own lives that we can share with everyone here starting in December.

We’re hoping to get a few well known people to give us their own personal tips as well that we’ll share with you through the coming month.

Click here to read more.

It’s a week or so now when there were a number 0f calls to Joe Duffy about management company issues. You can find a lot of similar sentiments raised on the Management Company forum on AskAboutMoney.com - problems with with management companies and management agents. The National Consumer Agency have even provided a website that you can reference to find out more.

However, the key question with regards to all of this is:

Are you and your fellow residents in control of your management company - has it been handed over by the developer to the residents?

Yes, we are

If you are in control of your management company, then happy days - you have full control over what your management fees will be and who your management agent is and what they should be doing for you as residents. In fact, if you’re in charge of your management company, you could even decide that you don’t need management agents if you can get a strong enough group of people to carry out the agents tasks instead. You could simply change your management agents to another company if you’re not happy.

No, we’re not

Then tough! It’s most likely that you have no control at all. If the developer of your estate is still in charge of the estate, and therefore the management company, you’re most likely going to be outvoted at any management company AGMs. Like where I live, the developer maintains a block vote that will always outvote the wishes of the residents - even if every resident did show up to an AGM and voted together.
Even getting rid of the management agents in this scenario is likely to be impossible. Chances are, as in the case of where I’m living, the management agent and the developers that are in control of the management company are very closely tied together. One would never agree to the other being changed.

Holding back on management fee payments isn’t really an option either - your contract to purchase your home includes a clause that you’ll continue paying whatever management fee is charged.

So, what can you do?

If you’re in control of your management company, you can pretty much do what you like.

If you’re not, then you’re pretty much at the mercy of the developers and their management agent buddies.

We received this press release earlier this week - a campaign by the Dublin station Q102 against the dual pricing and exaggerated sterling to euro price conversion rates.

We in ValueIreland.com have always advocated that consumers should always vote with their wallets when it comes to where to spend their money. While it’s great to see a campaign of any kind to raise awareness of consumers, ignoring a store completely might not be completely in the interests of consumers.

As an example, what if a particular store that is “named and shamed” actually provides the best value going on a particular item - cheapest in the country. There’s no reason why consumers should ignore the whole store. Ignore the expensive items by all means, but take advantage of the value - wherever it’s available.

Dublin’s Q102 launches ‘Ignore That Store’ campaign to name and shame retail outlets who mark up prices when converting from sterling to euro

‘Ignore That Store’ initiative launched in conjunction with The Consumers’ Association of Ireland

Free Christmas advertising campaign on Dublin’s Q102 promised to first store which undertakes to convert sterling to euro accurately

Tuesday, 25 November 2008                For immediate release

‘On The QT’, the flagship current affairs programme on radio station Dublin’s Q102, in conjunction with The Consumers’ Association of Ireland, has launched a new innovative on-air campaign called ‘Ignore that Store’. The campaign is naming and shaming the many retail outlets that are ripping off consumers by marking up prices when converting sterling to euro on labels.

‘On the QT’, which is presented by Scott Williams, has discovered that certain stores are overcharging consumers by astronomical mark up’s when it comes to converting sterling prices to euro prices, in some cases by as much as 45%. In addition, some stores are going as far as blacking out the original sterling prices or ripping the sterling tag off in a bid to cover up the incorrect conversion rates.

Since announcing the campaign, ‘On the QT’ on Dublin’s Q102 has been inundated with texts, e-mails and calls from concerned listeners naming shops who are exploiting customers with unfair prices. Dublin’s Q102 has also visited some of the shops repeatedly mentioned by listeners to check their conversion rate, and found that many items were marked considerably higher than the actual sterling price shown.

Below are samples of the e-mails sent by listeners to ‘On the QT’ offering their support for ‘Ignore That Store’:

• “My partner went to Claires Accessories to buy 2 baby headbands at 2 pounds sterling, and was asked for 7.60. I brought them back. Total rip off. Thanks for highlighting this.”
• “I saw a dress in M&S for 105 euro, it was however only 55 sterling. That’s a huge mark up.”
• “I was in Monsoon in Liffey Valley last night and was bowled over to see that a dress, marked £180 sterling was being sold here for 280 euro - disgraceful, Name & Shame!”

The ‘Ignore That Store’ project has already garned support from politicians across all parties including:

• Chris Andrews TD, Member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
• Dr. Leo Varadkar, Fine Gael’s Spokesperson for Enterprise, Trade & Employment
• Senator Brendan Ryan, Consumer Affairs Spokesperson for the Labour Party
• Mary White, Green Party Deputy Leader and Spokesperson on Enterprise

The ‘Ignore That Store’ initiative follows hot on the heels of the extremely successful ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign run by Dublin’s Q102 earlier this year. That project was focused on not only abolishing small print but making it BIG print, clearly highlighted, easy to read and in plain English to ensure consumers avoid getting trapped into agreements through the use of obscure and unwelcome terms and conditions. Furthermore, Scott Williams, CEO of Dublin’s Q102, was called to make a presentation about the ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign to the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment sitting at the Oireachtas.

Scott Williams, CEO of Dublin’s Q102 and presenter of ‘On the QT’, believes that the ‘Ignore That Store’ endeavour will be as successful as the ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign and he has promised free Christmas publicity to the first store which stops inaccurately marking up their prices.

“After the recent success of the ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign we believe that we can do more for the Irish consumer and stop stores marking up their prices. The response from our listeners to the ‘Ignore that Store’ project has been astounding. We have received a flood of calls, texts and e-mails on this topic confirming that this is a huge problem for consumers. We hope that our offer of free advertising in the run up to Christmas to the first store which undertakes to use accurate prices will encourage the stores to do so!”

Dermott Jewell, CEO of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland, has expressed his committed support for the ‘Ignore That Store’ campaign:

“The actions and attitude adopted by many retailers in adding exorbitant, unrealistic and undeserved profit margins to Irish consumers needs to be highlighted. But - more importantly - consumers must acknowledge that this is unacceptable, that they are being fleeced and that they do have the power to do something about it and that they must do something about it.”

“The Consumers’ Association of Ireland, together with Q102, wants every consumer who sees anything more than 10% added to the euro exchange value of a £ sterling price to leave the goods there, to walk away and to tell their friends and family to Ignore That Store. Then, they should take their money to a retailer who values their custom with reasonable prices.”

“This is the one simple way we, as consumers, can send the message that until we see fair pricing we will not spend and we will leave products on the racks and shelves of the profiteers.”

And no, the irony of the CAI launching a campaign this week isn’t lost on me either.

Don’t forget that Philip Boucher-Hayes is on again tonight on RTE1 at 8.30pm with the 4th in his Buyer Beware! series. According to the RTE schedule, this is the sparce detail of what tonights show is about:

Consumer series in which Philip Boucher Hayes investigates companies and individuals who have left customers feeling dissatisfied.

I did manage to watch the full programme last week. In case you missed it, this is what was covered:

The feature story in Episode 3 of Buyer Beware! looks at the activities of a British-based company Community Concepts which has approached Irish businesses for money which, it claimed, would go to publish a drug awareness booklet for Irish schools. And, as we come into the Christmas shopping season, the second item examines the burgeoning phenomenon of online shopping, and looks at some do’s and don’ts for purchasers in the light of some cautionary tales.

To be honest, I found the programme quite disappointing. While there was probably some entertainment value in watching the presenter chasing around a dodgy geezer in the UK, its all a little bit abstract and a little bit irrelevant to Irish consumers.

Wouldn’t it be much more interesting and relevant if Philip was chasing Brian Goggin of Bank of Ireland or Eugene Sheehy of AIB around their housing estate (or leafy suburban roads) trying to find answers as to why they rip off Irish consumers so much, or chasing the Financial Regulator Pat Neary around and around the Central Bank on Dame Street trying to find out why he lets them away with it all the time.

It’s now 4 weeks since the redesigned ValueIreland.com website was published. Many thanks to all those who sent in their feedback on the site! And yes, thank you for the negative comments also. We’ve been very happy with the results of the website redesign ourselves, but we’ve been thrilled to get your positive feedback also.

We are however also following up on your comments and suggestions, a couple of changes have already been made to the site since re-launch, with a few more to come.

Thank you to all those who have subscribed for the RSS feed or e-mail updates! And welcome back to those who have re-subscribed here from the old Value Ireland Blog. We hope you’re all enjoying the redesigned site. Please contact us if you have any further feedback or comments.

ValueIreland.com is now up to over 600 published posts with more than 50 top tips, research articles and consumer resources. We hope that we’re helping you in some small bit to look after yourself better in the Irish consumer landscape we find ourselves in today: helping through drawing your attention to what is being done right, and what’s wrong, with regards to consumer affairs issues we’re experiencing (or are being subjected to), and by providing you with hints, tips and advice on how to better look after yourself.

We have some exciting consumer resources planned for release in the coming months. If you haven’t subscribed for updates already, please use the links to the top right now to do so now. You’ll get our daily consumer updates, plus will be the first to get access to these new resources.

If there are any items that you think should be covered here, please contact us with details and we’ll do our best to follow up.

Many thanks again to all of you,

Diarmuid
Editor, ValueIreland.com

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

I wrote this morning about a certain persons “buy American” perspective. Did you see the front page of the Irish Times on Thursday last week? Brilliant!

This was sent to me last week. I can’t find a definitive reference that the statement is actually accurate, but I thought it was amusing, particularly in the context of the Buy Irish discussions recently here on ValueIreland.com, and the recent campaign launched by various different local interests.

Legendary economist Dr. Marc Faber concluded his monthly bulletin (June 2008) with this:

“The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India.

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in the US. I’ve been doing my part.”

I read with interest this piece from Conor Pope in Pricewatch on Monday morning regarding one of his readers observations about the dual-pricing that we experience in many stores at the moment.

A reader by the name of Helen was shopping in Wallis recently when she noticed they had torn off the sterling price, which had been attached to the price tags on the clothes along with the euro price - not the only shop operating in both the Republic of Ireland and the UK that has adopted such a policy in recent months.

“We all know that we are being ripped off in the Republic - the mark up between the sterling price and the euro price is blatantly obvious, even though the euro-sterling exchange rate has been trading consistently at around €0.78 for the past year. By tearing off the sterling price, does Wallis think that we won’t notice we are being ripped off?”

I was in a Boots store on Sunday where I saw a different perspective to this euro/sterling dual-pricing problem.

There was a small kid in the queue in front of me with some sort of Christmas present for his mother. He had his change counted out, and re-counted it a couple of times before he got to the top of the queue.

When he got to the cashier, he popped the gift on the counter, and unloaded his bundle of change for the cashier.

The cashier smiled at him, scanned the item, and asked him for €10.

“But it’s €8 on the label, I checked it myself” said the little lad, visibly gutted.

“No, it’s £8 I’m afraid. So that’s €10″ said the cashier.

I don’t think we’re teaching our 6 and 7 year olds about dual-priced labels and exchange rates, are we?