ValueIreland.com

PAUL CULLEN, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Sat, Nov 22, 2008

THREE LEADING members of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland have resigned in a row over policy issues and internal operations.

The three, Diarmuid MacShane, Mel Gannon and Enid O’Dowd, were all members of the association’s council and had raised their concerns about the running of the organisation at recent meetings.

They had also called for fees payable to association representatives on other bodies to be passed to the organisation itself rather than the individuals themselves. However, they were outvoted by other council members.

Mr MacShane, who operates a consumer website, ValueIreland.com, said he had resigned because the association was not working effectively on behalf of consumers.

“They aren’t doing anything. They’re a magazine publisher rather than a consumer advocate, producing soundbites for the media but no initiatives.”

He also criticised the flow of information within the organisation and claimed it had taken almost a year to get a list of association representatives on outside bodies.

The association’s chairman, James Doorley, rejected Mr MacShane’s criticisms.

“As a small NGO, we’re doing as much as we can to represent consumers. I’m not claiming we’re perfect.

“Given that we have limited financial resources we have to focus on certain issues,” Mr Doorley said.

Membership of the Consumers Association of Ireland, which is effected by subscribing to its magazine, Consumer Choice, has halved in the past decade, to about 5,000.

Its €700,000 annual turnover compares to the €10 million budget of the State-run National Consumer Agency.

This includes a grant of €66,000 from the Department of Enterprise and Employment.

The latest accounts, described by the council as disappointing, record a loss of €41,000. They also show that CAI members were paid a total of more than €50,000 in return for representing the association on outside bodies.

Mr Gannon and Ms O’Dowd ran for chair and treasurer respectively in previous years but were unsuccessful.

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.

We received this press release earlier this week - a campaign by the Dublin station Q102 against the dual pricing and exaggerated sterling to euro price conversion rates.

We in ValueIreland.com have always advocated that consumers should always vote with their wallets when it comes to where to spend their money. While it’s great to see a campaign of any kind to raise awareness of consumers, ignoring a store completely might not be completely in the interests of consumers.

As an example, what if a particular store that is “named and shamed” actually provides the best value going on a particular item - cheapest in the country. There’s no reason why consumers should ignore the whole store. Ignore the expensive items by all means, but take advantage of the value - wherever it’s available.

Dublin’s Q102 launches ‘Ignore That Store’ campaign to name and shame retail outlets who mark up prices when converting from sterling to euro

‘Ignore That Store’ initiative launched in conjunction with The Consumers’ Association of Ireland

Free Christmas advertising campaign on Dublin’s Q102 promised to first store which undertakes to convert sterling to euro accurately

Tuesday, 25 November 2008                For immediate release

‘On The QT’, the flagship current affairs programme on radio station Dublin’s Q102, in conjunction with The Consumers’ Association of Ireland, has launched a new innovative on-air campaign called ‘Ignore that Store’. The campaign is naming and shaming the many retail outlets that are ripping off consumers by marking up prices when converting sterling to euro on labels.

‘On the QT’, which is presented by Scott Williams, has discovered that certain stores are overcharging consumers by astronomical mark up’s when it comes to converting sterling prices to euro prices, in some cases by as much as 45%. In addition, some stores are going as far as blacking out the original sterling prices or ripping the sterling tag off in a bid to cover up the incorrect conversion rates.

Since announcing the campaign, ‘On the QT’ on Dublin’s Q102 has been inundated with texts, e-mails and calls from concerned listeners naming shops who are exploiting customers with unfair prices. Dublin’s Q102 has also visited some of the shops repeatedly mentioned by listeners to check their conversion rate, and found that many items were marked considerably higher than the actual sterling price shown.

Below are samples of the e-mails sent by listeners to ‘On the QT’ offering their support for ‘Ignore That Store’:

• “My partner went to Claires Accessories to buy 2 baby headbands at 2 pounds sterling, and was asked for 7.60. I brought them back. Total rip off. Thanks for highlighting this.”
• “I saw a dress in M&S for 105 euro, it was however only 55 sterling. That’s a huge mark up.”
• “I was in Monsoon in Liffey Valley last night and was bowled over to see that a dress, marked £180 sterling was being sold here for 280 euro - disgraceful, Name & Shame!”

The ‘Ignore That Store’ project has already garned support from politicians across all parties including:

• Chris Andrews TD, Member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
• Dr. Leo Varadkar, Fine Gael’s Spokesperson for Enterprise, Trade & Employment
• Senator Brendan Ryan, Consumer Affairs Spokesperson for the Labour Party
• Mary White, Green Party Deputy Leader and Spokesperson on Enterprise

The ‘Ignore That Store’ initiative follows hot on the heels of the extremely successful ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign run by Dublin’s Q102 earlier this year. That project was focused on not only abolishing small print but making it BIG print, clearly highlighted, easy to read and in plain English to ensure consumers avoid getting trapped into agreements through the use of obscure and unwelcome terms and conditions. Furthermore, Scott Williams, CEO of Dublin’s Q102, was called to make a presentation about the ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign to the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment sitting at the Oireachtas.

Scott Williams, CEO of Dublin’s Q102 and presenter of ‘On the QT’, believes that the ‘Ignore That Store’ endeavour will be as successful as the ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign and he has promised free Christmas publicity to the first store which stops inaccurately marking up their prices.

“After the recent success of the ‘Make small Print BIG Print’ campaign we believe that we can do more for the Irish consumer and stop stores marking up their prices. The response from our listeners to the ‘Ignore that Store’ project has been astounding. We have received a flood of calls, texts and e-mails on this topic confirming that this is a huge problem for consumers. We hope that our offer of free advertising in the run up to Christmas to the first store which undertakes to use accurate prices will encourage the stores to do so!”

Dermott Jewell, CEO of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland, has expressed his committed support for the ‘Ignore That Store’ campaign:

“The actions and attitude adopted by many retailers in adding exorbitant, unrealistic and undeserved profit margins to Irish consumers needs to be highlighted. But - more importantly - consumers must acknowledge that this is unacceptable, that they are being fleeced and that they do have the power to do something about it and that they must do something about it.”

“The Consumers’ Association of Ireland, together with Q102, wants every consumer who sees anything more than 10% added to the euro exchange value of a £ sterling price to leave the goods there, to walk away and to tell their friends and family to Ignore That Store. Then, they should take their money to a retailer who values their custom with reasonable prices.”

“This is the one simple way we, as consumers, can send the message that until we see fair pricing we will not spend and we will leave products on the racks and shelves of the profiteers.”

And no, the irony of the CAI launching a campaign this week isn’t lost on me either.

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.

Last weekend, I delivered my letter of resignation from the Executive and Council of the Consumers Association of Ireland to the Chairman (James Doorley), Chief Executive (Dermott Jewell) and to my fellow Council members.

In my letter of resignation, I communicated my two key reasons for leaving which I will return to here in a future post.

Update 1: Since I originally composed this post, two more directors have resigned from the Consumers Association of Ireland. That’s 20% of the Associations Council (or one third of the Executive) resigning before even the first Coucil meeting of the new term.

Update 2: Paul Cullen, the Irish Times Consumer Affairs Correspondent, has covered the 3 resignations from the CAI in Saturdays edition - click here to read more. You can see some of the reasons for the resignations there, but I will return to this again soon also.

• Members receive a magazine which effectively costs €8 per month – twice the cost of the Eddie Hobbs’ “You and Your Money” magazine. Is that it? Are there any other benefits available from being an association member?

• The aim of the Association is “To independently protect, promote and represent the interests of consumers”. Where is the primary focus of effort and time of the Association staff and Board – is it on consumers in general (non-members) or on the interests of the Associations members paying their €96 per year?

• Is it 5,500? (Based on published accounts for the year ended May 31 2008, membership income was €518,165 which indicated a membership of approximately 5,500. Given that corporate and other membership is available at a higher fee, the actual membership is possibly lower than that).

• Or is it 8000? (According to James Doorley, Chairman of the CAI, in the Sunday Business Post, in December 2007).

• What is the rate of membership growth over the past 1, 3 and 5 years? How much was spent on marketing in each of those time periods?

1. FAS activities since 2000 with an emphasis on spending - September 23rd, 2008 - Comptroller and Auditor General
2. FAS Expenses - October 10th, 2008 - Dail Public Accounts Committee
3. Funeral Expenses - September 26th, 2008 - Consumer Association of Ireland
4. Price of Petrol - September 22nd, 2008 - National Consumer Agency
5. O2 Upgrades issues - September 26th, 2008 - National Consumer Agency
6. 1890 Call Costs - September 25th, 2008 - Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland and ComReg