Rip-Off Ireland – You Have Been Warned!

Originally published November 15th, 2004

November 19th, 2007 -  1,501,973 Irish consumers overcharged by €113,709,000

Yet again last week, we were vividly reminded that as residents of what’s now widely known as “Rip-Off Ireland”, we as Irish consumers need all the help and protection that we can get to protect our hard earned euros. Despite the protestations of Minister John O’Donoghue, the revelations from both Vodafone and Eircom about their overcharging of customers only serve to show us that “Rip-Off Ireland” is alive and well.

Interestingly, in a climb-down by the Minister on December 9th, 2004, he is quoted in the Irish Times saying that there had clearly been "a marked deterioration" in price competitiveness in Ireland.
He said that this had often been for reasons beyond the control of the industry but that it had had an adverse impact on traditional markets such as Britain, France and Germany. "I cannot stress enough the need for the sector to take a long hard look at how it prices itself against ever-keener competition internationally", he said.

However, as we all know, this is merely talk from the Minister and his Government seem to be disinterested in doing anything for Irish consumers. We consumers appear to be all the time  looking towards our Government, the Consumers Association of Ireland, the Director of Consumer Affairs, and organisations such as IFSRA and Comreg to intervene on our behalves against those Irish businesses trying to overcharge and rip us off.

Overcharging revelations in Ireland today are becoming an almost weekly occurrence. And we’re always told that these “errors” are down to system errors, and maybe human error on the part of junior staff. Yet, as everyone asks, how is it that these errors are always in favour of the business, with undercharging being almost unheard of.

In researching this article, a search of Irish web pages on Google returned nearly nine thousand hits related to overcharging. There were only just about 300 hits returned related to undercharging. In 2004/2005 alone there were upwards on 16 companies, plus the Government itself,  involved in 35 different types of overcharging of their customers. There were only 3 companies who undercharged their customers.

In monetary terms, companies over charged over 1.1m Irish consumer, approximately 1,064,200, by an amount over one hundred million euros, approximately €103,743,000. This can be contrasted with approximately only 20,000 customers who were undercharged by a mere €2.5m, most of which will actually be clawed back.

Yes, these issues are reported in the media. The reports and revelations receive the veritable 15 seconds of fame, and then what. Nothing else happens. And why is this? Reviewing the names of the companies involved below, you’ll notice that they are some of the largest advertisers in all of our media in Ireland today.

And obviously these companies aren’t too keen on keeping a record of their admissions. Better move on and forget about things. A company such as O2, who proclaims in their 2003 business principles that “we are candid in our communications; we tell it like it is”, will not provide you any information on their website regarding their overcharging transgression. Similarly, Vodafone, the ESB, Bank of Ireland, NTL or Permanent TSB all do not provide any information for their customers on their websites regarding past overcharging, or what customers could do if they feel they have been overcharged.

There are checks and controls that many customers, commentators, investigations and overseeing authorities are proposing to put in place to protect the Irish consumer in future from such overcharging. However, in the battle against the rip off and overcharging businesses today in Ireland there is more important person we must depend on to look after us in our day to day dealings – ourselves.

If, as consumers, we ourselves don’t pay careful attention to where our money is going, how can we really expect anyone else to fight in our corner? The first defence against the rip off and overcharging businesses should be our own careful actions and attention to the information we have to hand in the media.

So far in 2004, our media has told us about 12 popular companies operating in Ireland, plus the Government, who have all admitted to overcharging their customers. In these shocking high profile admissions, these companies have told us straight out that they have overcharged their customers through exaggerated bills. No rumours, or feelings about rip offs here – straight facts.

Some of these overcharging and billing error admissions include:-

November 2007 - Ulster Bank - For the second time in four months, Ulster Bank has admitted that it stole money from it's customers. This time it was students it picked on, admitting that it took upwards on €950,000 from 26,000 of them - an average of €88 per student. The bank said an internal review discovered that it had applied the charges on the registered student accounts, which are not supposed to have any interest or charges imposed on them.

October 2007 - Allied Irish Bank has refunded €266,000 to 3,773 customers and apologises for stealing money from them. The reason this time was that over the past 10 years they took Stamp Duty from customers who had AIB credit cards, but were living abroad. Though, in this situation, AIB probably didn't benefit from this "mistake" since they would have been supposed to pass this money on to the Revenue Commissioners.

September 2007 - ESB - According to the Sunday Independent today (here) the ESB have been possibly overcharging up to 50,000 of their customers. The ESB has refused so far to refund these customers, many of whom may have been overcharged through the estimated billing process. According to the paper - "The overcharge arises when the customer pays the bill that reflects the exact number of units used. The ESB charges any customer whose bill runs over a tariff hike date for all the excess units at the latest, higher unit rate, rather than at the rate at the time when the electricity was used." Update 28th October: It's estimated that 100,000 customers will have been affected by this overcharging.

August 2007 – Ulster Bank has admitted that it thieved €4m from 25,000 of it’s clients by overcharging them when it didn't not refund borrowers who were owed money on insurance policies after they had repaid loans early. This “oversight” was discovered following an “internal review”. The bank said the average refund was €170. Ulster Bank said it had kept the Financial Regulator fully informed. In a surprising move, the Financial Regulator has said and done nothing.

May 2007 - Eircom - Today, Eircom have confirmed that 0.5m calls to free phone numbers and competition lines from land lines were incorrectly charged on the bills over over 100,000 customers between April 24th to May 17th this year. Calls were charged to customers even though no connection made. Apparently, it was a computer error that caused this problem. Eircom say that they'll be refunding customer immediately.

May 2007 - Irish Nationwide - At their AGM, the Irish Nationwide confirmed that the costs to the group for overcharging customers totalled €3m in settlements following several rulings against the group by the Financial Services Regulator. 

May 2007 - First Active - First Active will alert thousands of customers they are due a refund due to an overcharging error which actually occurred 3 years ago. The refund will be paid to consumers who bought mortgage protection. The average repayment is €40, but First Active have acknowledged that some customers will receive refunds amounting to hundreds of euros. First Active, which blamed a computer error, said that the affected customers will be refunded the amount they were overcharged, plus interest.

August 2005 - AIB - AIB has launched high-level investigations into new allegations that the bank altered foreign exchange (FX) rates to boost profits over a period of more than 15 years. The investigations, which are being conducted in conjunction with the Financial Regulator, are separate from last year's inquiry into the €34 million overcharging of customers on FX fees. The new inquiry relates to claims that AIB branches deliberately changed FX rates on a daily basis during the 1980s and 1990s at customers' expense.

June 2005 - Jamster - A German company selling mobile phone ringtones has been accused of overcharging some Irish customers. Reports this morning said the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs signed up to an offer from Jamster to receive six ringtones and six logos for €4 per week. The move followed complaints that the company was overcharging customers, sending texts in the middle of the night and not ceasing subscriptions when instructed to do so.

April 2005 - AXA Insurance - Insurance company AXA is to refund €1.7m to customers who overpaid for home or motor policies. A spokesman for the company said the number of customers affected is 130,000 and the average repayment is €10. Last December AXA wrote to the financial regulator, IFSRA, about its policies for charging for insurance. It informed the regulator that it had not been issuing cheques to customers who had overpaid by amounts of less than €25.

April 2005 - Bank of Ireland - Bank of Ireland has admitted not refunding customers who had overpaid on insurance products used to cover borrowings like car loans. It is estimated about 65,000 loans were affected by the errors. Bank of Ireland said all the customers who were overcharged would be refunded. It is understood the total amount of repayments will total €15m, including interest.

March 2005 - Meteor - Meteor announced that it is to reimburse up to 23,000 customers who were overcharged on their calls over a two-year period. Users on the network, both bill pay and call credit, have been notified that they will receive full repayment, plus 10%. However, with 16,000 people overcharged by less than €1 over 2 years, the total amount to be paid out will be less than €20,000.

March 2005 - AIB - AIB has written to about 4,200 customers telling them they were overcharged on their home loans for up to 12 years. The overcharging came to light as part of the bank’s lengthy trawl of customer accounts after last year’s foreign exchange overcharging scandal that will cost AIB €50m. AIB said the repayments would amount to €3.6m, although it has yet to tell individual customers how much they will get. The Surplus Builder product is no longer offered to customers.

January 2005 - VHI - The Voluntary Health Insurance company is to refund nearly 11, 500 patients because of underpayments for care cover. The total sum involved is €423,000 and covers the period 1996 to 2004. It was discovered that the VHI had failed to pay the minimum State benefit for care for Plans A and B.  Nearly 11,500 patients are to be repaid on average €37 each, which includes interest - a small number will receive up to €1,600.

January 2005 - Irish Life - Irish Life has written to around 25,000 customers to inform them that it had mistakenly deducted Government stamp duty from their life assurance policies between 2001-2004 and that their policies will be reimbursed. The life and pensions company said yesterday it understood a total of around €400,000 was deducted in error from the policies, which would have included certain pension and savings products containing life cover.

December 2004 - Vodafone - Admitted in late December that it had overcharged a number of its Ready To Go customers over the Christmas period. However, it said that the number of customer affected was "very tiny".

December 2004 - permanent TSB - The bank Permanent TSB is to repay more than €600,000 to mortgage customers it has overcharged over the past three years. The bank will be sending letters to 1,500 customers in the coming weeks with refund cheques averaging €400. The problem arose because the bank had applied the wrong interest rate on their mortgages. The bank identified the problem last summer and informed the Irish Financial Regulatory Authority.

December 2004 - Eircom - Eircom has apologised to thousands of customers who could be left with financial problems due to a billing error. The company said that due to a processing error in the direct debiting of the August/September bill, approximately 16,000 customers did not have their bills debited from their bank accounts. This amount was included in the October/November bill. The full amount would normally be debited from bank accounts within 21 days of receipt of the bill, but eircom have promised to refund 'arrears'. "When this error was highlighted, the billing process for October/November was already in place and unfortunately it was not possible to notify approximately 11,000 of those customers," eircom said in a statement.

December 2004 - O2 - Thousands of O2 Ireland customers are being refunded for roaming fees they were charged while travelling in Northern Ireland over the past six months.
However, the firm denied yesterday that it had overcharged customers, and does not plan to refund people who were charged the roaming fees before April.
O2 Ireland is refunding subscribers who signed up for its All Ireland tariff, which is meant to enable its customers to make calls without incurring roaming fees while in Northern Ireland.
However, the special tariff, which was introduced in September 2003 and costs €5 per month, does not work for any calls to numbers in Northern Ireland when the international prefix 0044 is used.

December 2004 - Irish Government - The Government admits that it knew a year ago that pensioners were being charged illegally in nursing homes, it was claimed today. Medical cards were given to all people over 70 years of age in 2001 but it emerged last month that nursing homes continued to deduct charges from patients' pensions. The Government confirmed yesterday that all full-time patients of public nursing homes, mental hospitals and residential units for people with disabilities will be entitled to a once-off ex gratia payment of up to €2,000 after the system used to take their contributions was found to be illegal. This repayment of overcharging is expected to cost the Government in excess of €50m.

November 2004 – Vodafone - admits overcharging around 550,000 customers a total of €2.65m because of billing problems for those making use of their WAP phone-based internet services.

November 2004 - ESB - The ESB confirmed that around 3,000 of its domestic customers have been overcharged by the company over the past six years. The company admitted that around one in every 500 of its 1.5 million domestic users across the country have been overcharged an average of €200 since 1998.

October 2004 - Eircom - Promised to refund any customers who have been charged for directory entries by the company since it sold its directories business more than two years ago.

August 2004 – Eircom - Admits overcharges 31,500 customers an estimated €409,000 though billing errors associated with its call management services.

July 2004 - ESAT BT - It came to light that approximately 1,900 ex-Esat BT customers were inadvertently sent a bill for €30 for a service they no longer receive.  These bills were sent in error, following the incorrect inclusion of an old customer database in a recent billing cycle. Esat BT wrote to everyone who mistakenly received such a bill to inform him or her of this error. The letter confirms that no charges have been applied and no direct debits have been presented for payment.

July 2004 – O2 - In its second admission, O2 confirms it overcharged a total of 136,535 subscribers were overcharged since February 2004. This involved a repayment of €721,892.

July 2004 - Bank of Ireland (BoI) - Refunded €1.8 million in fees to credit card customers as a result of a High Court decision handed down in favour of Director of Consumer Affairs Carmel Foley last in 2003 which related to fees that include monthly subscriptions, transaction charges, as well as late payment charges and over-limit fees.

July 2004 - AIB - Once again AIB apologises to its customers and confirmed its commitment to fair and honest dealings at all times. This is as a result of revelations of overcharging of approximately 170,000 accounts of upwards on €25m for foreign exchange transactions.

July 2004 - AIB - The bank is ordered to pay damages of almost €20,000 plus costs after overcharging a retailer on his current account after being over-charged by more than €9,000 over a two year period.

July 2004 - AIB - The bank confirmed to RTE News that it was to make refunds to 34,000 of its third level and graduate customers. The total amount involved, before interest compensation, is around €1.4m.

July 2004 - NTL - The cable company admitted over-charging its Irish customers by an estimated €30,000. The customers were reportedly billed for dial-up internet access at a cost of €15 per month even though they had upgraded to broadband.

June 2004 – Vodafone - The mobile phone company admits overcharging 22,000 customers a total of €147,000 through exaggerated roaming charges – applied to people who used their phone while traveling abroad.

May 2004 – AIB - The bank confirms that more than 500 mortgage customers may be due refunds because of incorrectly applying payment protection on top-up mortgages.

May 2004 – Bank of Ireland  - The bank repaid to €3.4m to beneficiaries of trust funds overcharged fees due to an error dating back to 1971. It was then also estimated that a further €2m was still to be repaid.

May 2004 - Bank of Ireland - The bank admits they have to refund €390,000 to second-level students who were incorrectly charged government stamp duty.

June 2004 - Permanent TSB - The bank confirms overcharged business customers in 1997 and is in the process of paying them back and giving them compensation. This would cost it about €100,000.

June 2004 - Permanent TSB - The bank admitted it had over overcharged customers on cheque retrieval transactions to the tune of about €33,000.

Oh, and for the record, the occurrences of undercharging were as follows:-

April 2005 - AXA Insurance - As part of revelations in April 2005 regarding neglecting to refund customers who had overpaid on policies, Axa revealed that it had also not followed up on customers who had paid less than they should have. The company decided to write off the discrepancies rather than issue and post cheques to those who overpaid.

January 2005 - ESB - The ESB says that it will not pursue the approximately 1,000 rural customers who were undercharged for years for their electricity service. All 1.6 million electricity customers pay what is known as a "standing charge", which is similar to the line rental charge in the telecoms industry. However, for several years, the 1,000 customers have been paying the cheaper urban form of this charge, rather than the rural version. The cost to the ESB is understood to be minor. From next month the customers will switch from the urban standing charge (€9.14) to the rural standing charge (€15.40), a difference of €6.26.

August 2004 – ESB - The ESB begins to pursue around 12,500 customers who owe €120, on average, money that will be collected over the next three years.

May 2004 – National Irish Bank - The bank is forced to recover cash from 5,000 credit card customers after a mix-up that led to the bank undercharging consumers on currency translations. All cash was retrieved by the bank within a swift 10 days of the error being noticed.

July 2004 – AIB - The bank uncovered cases where former students and graduates received discounts for longer periods and for larger amounts than advertised, but the bank says it will not seek to recover the €400,000 involved in these cases.

Given all of this startling evidence of overcharging by large well known Irish companies, widely reported in the media, it is confounding that upwards of 42% of the surveyed visitors to www.valueireland.com admit that they don’t check every bill they must pay.

Why then, when we have these companies themselves telling us that they are overcharging their customers, do we as consumers not check every bill that we get through the door to ensure that we are only being charged for the services we have received?

If we don’t take such a precaution as checking a bill to protect ourselves from overcharging businesses in Rip-Off Ireland, how can we expect others to protect us from these businesses?

Granted, this precaution may need a little effort. We will need to understand how are bills are laid out and broken down. We may need to take out the calculator. We may even need to make a phone call or two to request clarification or extra information from these businesses. But it’s our money – shouldn’t we make sure we only hand it over when we’re sure everything is above board?

Given that we know these companies have overcharged their customers in the past, we should therefore know what to possibly expect in the future. Can we then really expect any sympathy in that future if we ourselves are overcharged? We have been warned!!!

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