ValueIreland.com

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.

Tonight is the 6th and last in the Buyer Beware series on RTE1 with Philip Boucher Hayes. Tonights programme has a taster of what it’s about up on their mini-site:

We look at one specific very low calorie diet (VLCD) - Lipotrim, available over-the-counter in over 120 Irish pharmacies. We interview several people who have taken it, and ask whether closer medical monitoring of patients and sales regulation of these types of diets is needed.

Reporter Philip Boucher-Hayes looks at water safety and tests lifejackets and other types of personal flotation devices (PFDs), and discovers that a relatively new device, costing only €5-should probably be added to the list of must haves for all of us when we head out onto the water.

From a personal perspective, I think that the last item about water safety will be the most beneficial of the whole series for anyone who is watching.

The Irish News of The World picked up on my post last week criticising the programme for not really addressing the major concerns of the Irish consumer:

Rip-Offs TV Anger

RTE’s Buyer Beware TV show has been criticised by a consumers group. Diarmuid MacShane of ValueIreland.com said the show concentrates too much on foreign conmen.

He said: “They’ve taken the easy way out. If you look at the rip-offs by big first here, that’s where most people have problems”. “Not the Mickey Mouse operations from the show”.

An RTE spokesman said: “We are very surprised. We regard it as a very successful show and everyone in RTE is delighted with it”.

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they. They’d hardly come out and say they were sorry they put the money into it because it hadn’t gained the success of other short consumer series, like those from Eddie Hobbs for example. I thought that was a stunning comment in its arrogance from RTE when I read it first.

I think that the best barometer on the success, or failure as I see it, of the show is the overwhelming silence and lack of coverage following each episode - no one really cares about the show or the contents.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzz!!!! I don’t know why I’m bothering any more, but remember to check out Buyer Beware! tonight on RTE1 at 8.30pm. Even RTE aren’t bothering to update their mini-site for the programme, so it seems that even they’ve lost interest in it as well - this is the 5th episode but the site hasn’t been updated since episode 3.

Overall I think the programme is disappointing in its irrelevance to the majority of Irish consumers. Philip Boucher Hayes isn’t addressing the main reasons for consumer calls to the National Consumer Agency for example, and they don’t address the scams, ripoffs and consumer issues caused by Irish companies.

Instead they’ve taken the easy option of addressing peripheral ripoffs that most people should already be aware of. They’re focusing on scams carried out here by people based outside the country, and haven’t looked much at all at Irish ripoff artists. Obviously RTE wouldn’t want to be annoying anyone in Ireland that might be paying their tv licence, voting for the government parties, or more importantly, paying for RTE advertising.

Anyway, for the 5th episode, this is as much as I can find out:

Consumer series in which Philip Boucher Hayes investigates companies and individuals who have left customers feeling dissatisfied.

Maybe the true scam in all this is that RTE paid money to have this programme produced in the first place?

Don’t forget that Philip Boucher-Hayes is on again tonight on RTE1 at 8.30pm with the 4th in his Buyer Beware! series. According to the RTE schedule, this is the sparce detail of what tonights show is about:

Consumer series in which Philip Boucher Hayes investigates companies and individuals who have left customers feeling dissatisfied.

I did manage to watch the full programme last week. In case you missed it, this is what was covered:

The feature story in Episode 3 of Buyer Beware! looks at the activities of a British-based company Community Concepts which has approached Irish businesses for money which, it claimed, would go to publish a drug awareness booklet for Irish schools. And, as we come into the Christmas shopping season, the second item examines the burgeoning phenomenon of online shopping, and looks at some do’s and don’ts for purchasers in the light of some cautionary tales.

To be honest, I found the programme quite disappointing. While there was probably some entertainment value in watching the presenter chasing around a dodgy geezer in the UK, its all a little bit abstract and a little bit irrelevant to Irish consumers.

Wouldn’t it be much more interesting and relevant if Philip was chasing Brian Goggin of Bank of Ireland or Eugene Sheehy of AIB around their housing estate (or leafy suburban roads) trying to find answers as to why they rip off Irish consumers so much, or chasing the Financial Regulator Pat Neary around and around the Central Bank on Dame Street trying to find out why he lets them away with it all the time.

Not sure I can even promise to watch Buyer Beware! again this evening at 8.30pm on RTE1. It won’t be creamy pints distracting me this week though. I’ll be attending some consumer affairs related meetings following on from the bombshell this morning that one third of the Consumer Association of Ireland directors Executive have resigned.

Check out the RTE1 website here to see what they might be covering this week. At the time of writing, it hasn’t yet been updated. The best I can find is from their programme guide:

Consumer affairs series. A company which claims to have the best interests of children at heart is found to be offering dangerous drugs advice.

They’re still not covering anything that’s appearing in the top in the top listing of consumer complaints to the NCA. Nor have they covered anything to do with the systematic theft of money from consumers by some of Irelands biggest companies.

Let us know back here if you have any feedback on this evenings show.

The temptation, and subsequent reality, of some creamy pints of Guinness on Thursday evening prevented me from watching the 2^nd episode of Buyer Beware on RTE1.

And unfortunately, this isn’t one of the programmes that RTE allows you catch up on by providing it online. However, based on the topic of bogus modelling agencies, the following Top Tips might be of use to those who may be targeted by such scams.

Did anyone see the programme? Any comments?

As a matter of interest, I was doing some recent research where I was reading through the 2007 Annual Report for the National Consumer Agency. Page 52 of the report shows the top 6 reasons for complaints and information requests to the NCA (78,000 in total during 2007). So far, none of the 4 items covered in Buyer Beware! appear in the top 6 problems for Irish consumers.

Tonight, 8.30pm on RTE1, is the 2nd episode of the new series Buyer Beware!. Here’s what’s on tonights show:

Episode two talks to unsuspecting girls who paid up to €300 to a modelling agency which failed to deliver on promises made.

The programme also takes Boucher-Hayes from the east to the west coast of Ireland to hear from Irish businesses who gave monies to British company, Vardis, in the belief that their companies would receive publicity through wall-planner calendar ads, where proceeds from the cost of the ads would be sent to The Laura Crane Trust, a British-based cancer charity. Boucher-Hayes goes to the North of England to see if he can get some answers from those behind Vardis.

Hopefully I’ll get home in time to get to see it all this evening. Come back here aftewards to get my thoughts, maybe some useful tips in response to the issues raised, and leave your own thoughts as well.

I only made it home in time last Thursday to catch the 2nd half of the new Buyer Beware programme. That section of it looked at some dodgy tradespersons who seem to have scammed a whole neighbourhood in west Dublin (I gathered) by installing second rate guttering.

The show came across as essentially “Joe Duffy but on the TV” - people futilely complaining about stuff with a “somebody should do something” feel about it. The people concerned, unfortunately for them, fell foul of a scam that is well known and easily identifiable.

Invoices without letterheads and only mobile numbers as contacts are well known signs that you should be on your guard. Given how hard it used to be to find a tradesperson to do any work in the last few years, having tradesmen actually calling to your door offering to do work should have been immediately suspicious.

I can’t top the review from Pat Stacey in the Evening Herald on Friday morning:

Since the gardai are currently powerless to do anything about it, the programme ultimately had a half-hearted feel and you couldn’t help thinking that if some people are gullible enough to fall for such obvious scams, they can’t complain.

For future reference, our Top Tips on Hiring a Tradesperson is available here, plus this article from the You And Your Money magazine might help you to not get caught out like our west Dublin friends with the gutters.