Weekend Consumer News Short Stack
This is the last weekend short stack of consumer snippets before Christmas – so a little longer than normal.
- Consumers Association of Ireland Membership Drive - I see that my old friends in the CAI have started their 2009 membership drive. This involves the dropping off of about 7000 December issue Consumer Choice magazines around different parts of Dublin (the nicer even numbered parts so far that I’ve heard). So, 7000 magazines (as announced at the AGM) are given away for free at a cost of €56,000. If normal direct mailing response rates are achieved (lets assume 2%), then that’s 140 new members who’ll pay €96 in membership – a return of €13,440 – a loss on the campaign of over €42,000. Just as well they’re a “non-profit organisation”.
- Paying executive bonus’ or corporate looting – This interesting post from the naked capitalism blog on Thursday had the following statement: “Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations”. The angle of this article was that it applies to the American financial institutions having to be bailed out by the government – same could probably apply to our Irish banks as well.
- Aer Lingus Fuel Recharge Refunds – It seems like I’m not the only person to find absolutely ridiculous the suggestion from the Consumers Association of Ireland that people who bought flights prior to the ending of the Aer Lingus fuel surcharge but flying after that date should have their surcharge refunded. I believe that Joe Duffy devoted a full programme to this non-issue also. Where would this end? I bought a TV last week and it’s now been reduced by 20% in a sale – can I have the difference back? I bought my house a year ago, but the value has dropped 15%, can I get my money back as well? What utter nonsense!!!
- You’re our only customer, so tough shit - I was told a story this week of an English businessman who was staying in a B&B in Sutton Park on the northside of Dublin. When he came down for breakfast in the morning he was told by the land lady that since he was the only person staying there for the night that she wouldn’t be making the full Irish breakfast that is normally provided. He was simply provided with tea and toast, and not even offered a refund for the lack of breakfast. What a great way to treat customers when you most need to keep them happy and coming back.
- Looking for Value over price - Following on from the incident in Sutton Park, here is a great post from Piaras Kelly from earlier in the week – Focus On Value Rather Than Price During The Downturn. As the last line of the article goes: “Instead we should take a hard look at ourselves in the mirror and ask why customers should place a higher value on our good/service and purchase it ahead of a rival or substitute offer”.
- Conor Pope and “Service with a Snarl” - The Prime Time Investigates programme from Monday night generated a few comments on this original post. There’s been some interesting, and not always positive, feedback on the programme on Boards.ie (here and here) and on AskAboutMoney.com. The more that I’ve been running ValueIreland.com, the more I’m beginning to think that we do actually need programmes like this, and Buyer Beware! (despite my criticisms). While most people who are online and making comments about these programmes (me included) might consider themselves fairly consumer rights savvy, there are many many more people out there who aren’t. And programmes like these need to bring consumer issues to their attention – we maybe do need to teach people to suck eggs in some consumer situations. However with that in mind, both Buyer Beware! and “Service with a Snarl” missed fantastic opportunities to give some basic advice to these consumers on what to do, what not to do, and who can help, and who can’t help out in different situations.
One Comment
Re Consumer Association membership drive.
I received one of the magazines but I didn’t initially realise it as it was buried under a pile of other reading material for homedelivered pizzas/indian meals, conservatories, etc
Think you have your costings wrong Value Ireland. If the subscription is €96 pa then the monthly cost to the subscriber is €8.
But the cost to Consumers Association is not €8 per issue (you have costed 7000 distributed @ €8 = €56,000) the correct cost is 7000 x printing costs + distribution costs.
But I agree the takeup particularly when people are cutting back will be small and it is likely there will be a big loss. I hope CAI are not getting taxpayers money to fund this marketing campaign. The magazine is pretty irrelevant now given the availability of information on the internet and good consumer coverage in the media.