Value Ireland Card - Leading the Way, for Free    

First Published October 10th, 2005.

Recently, our attention has been drawn to a new website which is very similar to the Value Ireland Card, which we launched in September 2004. This site was discussed on the AskaboutMoney Forum as well as on the Boards.ie RipOff Ireland bulletin board.

Given our aim of helping Irish consumers identify value for money, and our slogan of “Better purchasing decisions through better information”, Value Ireland decided to follow up and investigate.

The "RipOff Card" was available to purchase on this website for €4.67 for 20 cards. You could pay by PayPal or by cheque, and the cards would be delivered to your door.

While we welcome anything that helps out the Irish consumer, we are wary of such an attempt to, we believe, further rip off Irish consumers.

Why charge Irish consumers for such a facility? The Value Ireland Card has been available for free download for over a year now. It provides in a simple single card the ability to either compliment or criticise a business based on value, quality and service. To date, we've had over 25000 Value Ireland Cards downloaded.

However, as we say on our Value Ireland Card page, we believe that the Value Ireland Card should only be used as a last resort to actually complaining or commenting in person.

To this end, we present Tips On How To Complain where we believe all consumers will find ways to help them get their point across to Irish businesses.

It is essential that Irish consumers become more comfortable and used to making their views known to Irish businesses. This should be the case both when consumers are unhappy, but also when they are happy with what they've just experiences.

Value Ireland has been pleased to read comments on both the Forums mentioned above regarding the Value Ireland Card being a better, and free, alternative to this "RipOff Card".

We notice now that the promoter of the "Ripoff Card" is now willing to make the card available for free.

This smacks of an even bigger ripoff now. For the exact same item, the promoter behind this site will now charge some consumers for the "Ripoff Card", while providing others with the card for free.

A number of weeks ago, out of curiosity,  Value Ireland requested a free copy of this "Ripoff Card". Eventually, we received a copy of the card. Bearing in mind that this "Ripoff Card" is copyrighted to the promoter of that particular website, but also bearing in mind that he is making it available for free on his website, if you wish to get a copy of this card, please e-mail us and we will send you a copy, for free.

Yet again, Value Ireland guides you towards how to get the best value for money possible, and facilitates "better purchasing decisions through better information".