Consumer News Weekend Short Stack
A few items for the weekend – hope it’s nicer wherever you are. Sunny south east, ahem!
- ValueIreland.com milestone – It passed unnoticed earlier this week, but I went past the 1000 posts on ValueIreland.com. The milestone post was McDonalds and Burger King – show me the special offers.
- Irish Independent rip-off story – The Irish Independent went big on Rip Off Ireland yesterday, Friday. Their front page story was It’s a rip-off as many prices keep on soaring. The main gist of the story was that despite the CSO reporting a fall in prices of 5.4% in the country as a whole in the past 12 months, the cost of government provided services continues to rise. Hardly rocket science really though when we’re getting hosed at every turn by our esteemed leaders trying to shore up the massive hole in their finances brought about by massive waste and money mismanagement during the good times.
- News Of the World – As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I finished up writing my weekly piece for the Irish News of the World after 6 months. It was interesting to see that my replacement is Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers Association of Ireland – Ireland’s newest “Money Saving Expert”.
- New Irish Bargain Websites – I’ve highlighted before the growth in Irish “bargain” websites recently. It’s amazing the numbers that have been springing up in the past 12 months. While no one can argue with the benefits of getting a few quid off here and there, I do think that the Irish consumer should be aware of how these work – and how limited the information they provide may actually be. Many of these websites are set up with the sole aim of making money (and nothing wrong with that either), but that then means that when it comes to highlighting where bargains might be available, only those companies that pay for links will be featured rather than all companies that provide bargains. Check out my recent post here to learn more.
- Protecting the consumers – The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) announced during the week that it had issues 6 enforcement orders on Irish food businesses during the month of June. What is great about what the FSAI do is the fact that they publicly name the businesses that these orders are made against – the consumer is informed and they can then make the decision in future as to whether they can go back to these premises, or avoid them in future. It’s unfortunate that the Financial Services Ombudsman, Joe Meade, doesn’t do likewise when he finds against financial institutions for shafting Irish consumers. It’d be nice to have financial institutions named and shamed in the same way as food outlets in order to give consumers more information to allow them make better purchasing and investment decisions.
