Consumer News Weekend Short Stack
It’s Valentines Day. Whatever you’re up to, hopefully you’ve a great weekend.
- Cronyism according to FinFacts.ie - “The NCA has a board of 13 and a staff of about 20. It cannot afford to provide an online price comparison service but the body charged with encouraging consumers to get value for money, is part of the Rip-off Ireland and cronyism culture, that board member Eddie Hobbs had railed against. It’s enough to make a dog strike his father, as my mother used to say!”
- This Gruntled Public Servant - This is a new blog to me, and whomever is behind it sent me a link to their most recent post – referring to a recent PriceWatch article discussing the woes of the Consumers Association of Ireland in particular. I was particularly amused by the comment “so it is with the CAI, who have splintered into two different organisations with a breakaway membership setting up of http://www.valueireland.com/ with an altogether more activist agenda.“
- Newstalk Breakfast Show Bargains – Has anyone been tuning in to the Newstalk Breakfast show to get details of their daily bargains, or been getting their daily e-mails? I haven’t seen the details myself, but I have signed up this week to get the updates from now on. There’s mixed reaction that I’ve seen around with regards to the bargain information provided – good and bad. The best I’ve seen though, was from Shane Hegarty on Twitter – “Newstalk Breakfast Show asking listeners to send examples of good bargains … to their 30 CENT TEXT LINE. Another reason that show fails.”
- Irish Blog Awards Longlist - It was great to see that ValueIreland made it to the long list in it’s selected category for the Irish Blog Awards – Best Specialist Blog – Sponsored by iQ Content. Many thanks again to those that nominated the site in the first place and to those who chose it to go one step further.
- Golden Pages Advertising – Have you heard the recent advertising from the Golden Pages about using a mobile version of their site on your mobile to look up numbers and information. They claim that it’s free, which I suppose it technically is, but it ignores the fact that you have to pay for the data usage on your phone when you’re connected to the site. The least they should be saying is that “Operator Charges Apply” to indicate that there is some cost involved.
