TopTips.ie – A Euro Saved is a Euro Earned

In the coming weeks, I hope to finally publish a new website as part of the reorganisation of the ValueIreland.com set of websites. Currently there is the ValueIreland.com original, plus this Value Ireland Blog, as well as the SayNoTo1890.com. I’m planning on combining the blog in with the original ValueIreland.com site to get rid of the .blogspot.com web address.

The final step of these changes will be the launch of the TopTips.ie website. The tag line will be, with deference to Benjamin Franklin, “A Euro Saved is a Euro Earned”. The original aphorism “a penny saved is a penny earned” came from an almanac published by Franklin under the guise of Richard Saunders called “Poor Richard's Almanack”. This was published from 1732 and 1758 and sold upwards on 10,000 copies per year.

These aphorisms and phrases in “Poor Richards Almanack” were later combined in an essay produced by Franklin called “The Way to Wealth” in 1758 – though the “penny” phrase didn’t make it that far. Some of those that did, and which we still use today include:

There are no gains, without pains

Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise

These are wise words that Franklin did give us. He did not, as populary thought, give us “God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy.”

TopTips.ie will be Irelands equivalent of the “Way to Wealth” - or at least it will help you avoid the way to poverty. It will save you money every time you spend money, or help you not spend any money at all. Whether it's grocery shopping, paying your energy bills, driving your car, paying for your insurance, mortgaging your house, using your credit card, going on holidays, avoiding unnecessary charges or just having a good time, the tips that the site will provide will help you mind your hard-earned cash.

As a teaser, here’s something I discovered in the last week that saved me about $400. Briefly, if you’re planning on a “one way hire” it may be cheaper to pick up and drop off at major airports (while incurring the airport charges) rather than paying the “return fee” charged by car rental companies which may cost you 4 or 5 times more.

I was looking to hire a rental car in California for a week, but on a “one way” trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. For my initial search, I had planned to pick up and return the car from two “local” car rental offices close to the original and destination hotels. This was primarily as you’re told sometimes to avoid hiring a car at airports as some companies add a premium charge to do so.

Based on that original enquiry, there was a $500 “return fee” since I wasn’t returning the rental car to the original office – basically a fee for the hire company to drive the car themselves back to the San Francisco office from the Los Angeles office.

I did a different search where I would pick up at San Francisco airport (SFO) and drop off at Los Angeles airport (LAX) – neither of which were majorly out of my way. The rental fee for the week was approximately $100 more because of the use of the airport offices, but there was no drop off charge at all. In all, the by going through the car hire offices in both cities, I was able to save myself $400.

Something to watch out for - just like the forthcoming www.TopTips.ie.

Sale. Discounts. Special Offers. Bargains. Money Off.

In the last couple of weeks there’s been lots of talk about downturns and recessions and businesses finding things tough. We’re being told that they’re offering us all sorts of discounts to entice us to spend our money with them. And of course, for any of us that might still have some disposable income, that’s great news.

I do have one word of caution though. I’ve noticed a lot of newspaper advertising, and some radio adverts too, that are offering consumers bargains and discounts and money off, but not specifying what actually is on offer. It may just be that I’m overly cynical, or that I just have a little understanding of how Irish businesses operate, but I would be very cautious in following up on such vague offers.

Why? Because such vague offers give the businesses involved the opportunity to potentially charge you more depending on when you ring and depending on their current bookings. It does obviously give them the opportunity to change less as well, but when did you ever see an Irish business less when they could get away with charging more.

Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t have a problem with businesses doing business. However, doing business in the way that’s being suggested here isn’t as clear as it could be from the perspective of the consumer.

What should you do? If you do see such unspecific advertising, and you’re drawn to the product or service being offered, by all means give them a call and get as much detail as you can. And then call again at some later point the next day, or a couple of days later. Ask the same questions, and see if you get the same answers and the same offer. You could also compare the alternatives available from other competitors. Once you’ve get full information on availability and pricing, make your decision.

Car Clocking - To undertake or not undertake!

In the last few months, the fuckers* have pursued three garages for the offence under the Consumer Protection Act of car clocking - technically a misleading commercial practice. For those not familiar with the term, car clocking is the practice of reducing the mileage on a car in order to make it a more attractive purchase for consumers.

In March 2008, instead of being convicted of an offence under the Act, Orange Motors in Limerick “gave an undertaking” not to sell clocked cars as well as to compensate consumers who had purchased 4 clocked cars from the garage concerned.

This month, Arch Motors in Galway gave a similar undertaking in lieu of a conviction. As part of the National Consumer Agency investigation, Arch Motors had been found to have sold 3 clocked cars to consumers. Again, as well as the undertaking, compensation was provided to the consumers concerned.

According to the NCA press release, compensation can be “reimbursement of money received from consumers in connection with the sale of clocked cars, or taking back the cars.”

However, in June, also in Galway, Kilgarve Cars in Ballinasloe was convicted of selling a clocked car. Following a consumer complaint, the owner of Kilgarve Cars was fined €2000 (though the maximum is apparently €3000).

According to Ann Fitzgerald of the National Consumer Agency, undertakings are preferable to convictions for the following reasons:

• Puts a stop to this misleading practice by the dealers concerned
• Ensures that consumers get redress, and
• Sends a clear message to other dealers that they cannot mislead consumers by selling them clocked cars and expect to get away with it

But obviously this isn’t working. Since their first press release and media coverage earlier this year, two further garages were caught clocking cars – clearly not putting a stop to the practice and obviously the garages concerned in Ballinasloe and Galway aren’t getting the message.

I’m intrigued though as to how one garage was convicted for selling only one clocked car, but the other two essentially got away with (giving an undertaking for) selling three and four clocked cars. Are there two different ways in which this same Consumer Protection Act is being applied?

Or did the garage in Ballinasloe simply refuse to give the undertaking not to do it in the future? I can't imagine a garage not giving such an undertaking if it meant that they could avoid a conviction and a fine.

According to this RTE article, Ms.Fitzgerald had the following to say after the most recent "undertaking":

Chief executive Ann Fitzgerald said this was the second such undertaking from a car dealer this year, and sent a clear message to other dealers that they cannot mislead consumers by selling them clocked cars and expect to get away with it.

And according to this RTE earlier story:

The National Consumer Agency says it believes the practice of altering mileage readings on second-hand cars is widespread.

Yet they don't prosecute the garages that are caught cheating their customers in this misleading fashion. No wonder the practice is still widespread - if you're not going to get prosecuted and fined when you break the law, where's the incentive to abide by it, especially when the profit incentive exists if you keep breaking it.

I wonder did the garage owners who gave Ms.Fitzgerald the undertakings have their fingers crossed behind their back.

P.S Come back over the weekend, or subscribe via the links above and right for automatic updates, for some ValueIreland.com Top Tips on how to check if a car you're thinking of buying was clocked.

NCA and consumer legislation nothing more than a charade

In a freaky sense of timing, this article was published in todays Irish Times, available here on the new free Irish Times on the web. I was particularly drawn to Dr. Caseys last line:

In any case, we don't need costly institutions to give us advice our grandmothers used to give us for free. It seems as if taxpayers' money will continue to be spent without achieving any return.

Which is awfully close to the title of my post yesterday, and the closing sentence of the first paragraph about the National Consumer Agency:

National Consumer Agency Surveys – Tell us something we don’t know…… Did we really need our National Consumer Agency to spend our money on a survey to tell us what we already knew?

I can confirm, despite some people wondering, that I am not writing for the Irish Times opinion section under the pseudonym of Dr. Michael Casey. And with deference to Carlsberg, I don’t do national newspaper opinion pieces (sadly), but if I did, it might go something like this:

NCA and consumer legislation nothing more than a charade
Wed, Jul 09, 2008

The law, as interpreted by the National Consumer Agency, completely safeguards monopolies, writes MICHAEL CASEY

THERE IS A tendency in this country to bring in what looks like state-of-the-art legislation and to set up lots of institutions with statutory underpinning. The outsider observing Ireland Inc might well conclude that we have quite sophisticated and comprehensive institutions, legislation and governance. There is only one thing wrong with this view. Fundamentally there is no desire to change anything.

The laws and institutions look good on paper but there is no real intention to implement the purported reforms. It is all part of our peculiar approach to governance by spin. It's like the old Hollywood recipe for success: If you can feign sincerity you've got it made.

Like many others, I welcomed the introduction of what looked like up-to-date consumer legislation and the establishment of the new National Consumer Agency, which, despite political appointees, seemed like a body that meant to do business.

Like thousands of other commuters I had suffered the tender mercies of Dublin Bus, a State monopoly which treats passengers (aka consumers) with indifference. One bus route attracted so many complaints that, instead of trying to improve the service, Dublin Bus scrapped the route entirely. Not infrequently, buses leave early so as to avoid picking up any passengers. Individual acts of kindness are shown to older people, but in general the bus service is way below what is needed in a modern economy.

The new consumer legislation seemed to provide reassurance that bus users could at last do something to effect improvements in the service. On many routes buses are often less than half as frequent as the timetable indicates - ie passengers have to wait over twice as long on average as they should. On some routes the lateness factor is far worse.

The new legislation offered some prospect of getting Dublin Bus to bring out a timetable which was not a work of fiction. This was because the legislation outlawed descriptions of services, including timetabling, which bore no relationship to the actual services provided.

Urged on by fellow sufferers, I brought a case to the NCA about huge discrepancies between bus timetables and actual arrivals. This was after several recent experiences of waiting in pouring rain at bus-stops for buses which time after time failed to arrive even within 20 minutes of the appointed time.

To make matters worse, the State has given a huge national asset free gratis to this transport monopoly - ie about half of the road space in Dublin for its exclusive use. Has the provision of bus lanes made any difference to the service provided by Dublin Bus? Little or none. It merely reinforces its monopoly power by forcing more private cars off the road without providing a reasonable alternative.

For about four months the NCA tried to pass the buck. It said that the matter was one for the Department of Transport. The department said it would be happy to pass on the complaint to Dublin Bus. I pointed out that I had already contacted Dublin Bus without success.

The department admitted that, in that case, there was nothing it could do since Dublin Bus is an autonomous body. (Incidentally, this is always the answer you get from any Government department - you're referred to the semi-State body in question, which is described as autonomous. This means that the Minister can't be held responsible for any mistakes the semi-State body might make.)

I went back to the NCA and asked it again why Dublin Bus was beyond its remit. If it really believed that, didn't it mean that all of our 800 public bodies were outside the remit of the NCA? How could this be since it was clearly intended that the new consumer legislation was to be fully comprehensive?

I finally got the answer I most feared. The new and much-hyped consumer legislation and the NCA are a charade.

Section 43 of the Consumer Protection Act 2007 defines a misleading commercial practice as one which would be likely "to cause the average consumer to make a transactional decision that the average consumer would not otherwise make".

The NCA then goes on to say: "As the average consumer would not stop using the Dublin Bus service because the bus does not arrive on time, this would not be considered a breach of the Act." This is quite extraordinary.

I'm not sure that the NCA's interpretation of the Act is correct but if it is, it is bizarre. What it is saying is that Dublin Bus can do what it likes because the average consumer has no alternative. He or she cannot make any other "transactional decision".

It is impossible. And why is that? Because Dublin Bus is a monopoly. There are no alternatives for consumers. As a monopoly, Dublin Bus has complete carte blanche to continue treating passengers with indifference and all the other State monopolies have the same divine right.

The much-vaunted consumer legislation and the much-heralded NCA have absolutely no bearing on the matter. In fact the law, as interpreted by the NCA, completely safeguards monopolies in this country. This proves, if proof were needed, that consumer rights do not exist - and there's no point in asking Ministers to intervene since they accept no responsibility in these matters.

Then, in a final desperate attempt to pass the buck, the NCA states: "As I'm sure you understand, consumer issues are wide- ranging and there are many departments and public bodies that assume some responsibility in area (sic) of consumer affairs."

Out of the mouths of babes. In my innocence I had thought the NCA was now the main agency, deliberately set up to look after the interests of consumers. Not a bit of it; fragmentation and duplication and buck- passing are all still alive and well in the public sector.

No doubt the NCA will intervene in some cases, especially those which attract media attention, especially those involving the frail and the elderly. No doubt the NCA will publish a nice glossy annual report, but like many other public bodies, there is little committed effort to make significant improvements.

The oft-repeated advice to consumers to "shop around" is banal and irritating. Mary O'Rourke is right: how can hard-working women with young children shop around?

In any case, we don't need costly institutions to give us advice our grandmothers used to give us for free. It seems as if taxpayers' money will continue to be spent without achieving any return.

• Dr Michael Casey is a former senior official with the Central Bank and a former member of the board of the International Monetary Fund.

National Consumer Agency Surveys - tell us something we don't know

Right! Let’s get one thing out of the way here. I don’t think we needed the fuckers* to tell us last week that things were cheaper in Northern Ireland relatively speaking than they are down here. We’ve been travelling north for our shopping in our droves. We’ve been stocking up on our Christmas treats and booze, and our all year round weekly shopping in Newry, and Derry, and Enniskillen and all points just over the border for years. Did we really need our National Consumer Agency to spend our money on a survey to tell us what we already knew?

I had this composed immediately after the initial press release and newspaper coverage, but I decided to hold fire just in case something different happened after this recent survey compared to the non-events that followed the other press releases telling us the blatantly bloody obvious from the National Consumer Agency.

Well, there were a couple of days of hoo-haa, people shouted, there was gnashing of teeth, and general disquiet. And then, nothing. Nothing changed. No one did anything. Everything stayed the same. I’d have to agree with An Fear Bolg who commented on Pricewatch earlier today – “the NCA seems to be on a crazed campaign that may yield little or no results.”

So, we didn't really need the National Consumer Agency to travel to Newry or Enniskillen or Banbridge to buy baskets of 42 items and compare their prices to the same 42 items bought in Rathfarnham, Blanchardstown and Finglas. This is the same useless regulator who has 70,000 calls to their complaints line in 2007, yet only made 7 prosecutions during that year.

The full details of this pointless research is available here if you want to read more.

There is some useful background information on the application of VAT and Excise rates both here and in Northern Ireland. There is also some interesting information on the differences in rates applied to different products covered in the survey. However, it should also be noted that the price comparisons were made after the exclusion of the impact of VAT and Excise rates.

I just have a few of observations:

• On the same day as the fuckers* released their research results, it was revealed by the CSO that an average basket of goods costs 5% more in Dublin than it does in the rest of the country. All of the Northern based supermarkets chosen for this current research can easily be described as “country based” – Newry, Enniskillen and Banbridge. Yet all the supermarkets visited down here were Dublin based. I guess it’s reasonable to assume that a similar city (Belfast) vs country divide is just as applicable up there as it is down here. So, let’s assume we add 5% to the northern prices so that we’re comparing like (city = Belfast) with like (city = Dublin) – the “headline” figures from the National Consumer Agency now drop by 5%.

• Now, let’s look at the price of wages down here compared to Northern Ireland. There’s no mention of this comparison of this in the National Consumer Agency report. Lets assume that the majority of employees in these stores on a fulltime basis are aged 22 and over. The minimum hourly wage in Ireland is, as of July 2007, €8.65 per hour. The equivalent national minimum wage in Northern Ireland is £5.52 per hour. That’s a Euro equivalent of €6.99. Therefore the cost of labour in Ireland is 24% more expensive than it is in Northern Ireland. I guess that'd be a good reason for things to be more expensive down here than up there.
  

• What about the price of property – to either buy or rent? Do you think the cost of having a retail premises in Finglas, Blanchardstown or Rathfarnham is equivalent to having one in Banbridge, Enniskillen or Newry? If we look at house prices, which everyone is familiar with – a 4 bed, 2 bath detached house with garage in Newry would cost you upwards on €650k while a similar type house in Rathfarnham would cost you double that. A recent CBRE survey on the cost of renting office property showed that Belfast had a rate of €304 per sq metre, while Dublin had a rate of over twice that amount at $860 per sq metre. And on top of that, our comparison shops up north are based in areas there are probably even cheaper to rent – and all in a market where rental rates are falling in the north, while they’re pretty stable down here, over the past 12 months. Again, a legitimate reason for prices to be more expensive down here.
  

However, we also know that Irish shoppers are more strongly tied to branded items than many of our European neighbours, and as such, we will naturally pay a premium for wanting these branded items. But that’s our choice – we’re not forced to buy these items, but we like them and we chose to.

I’ve written many times before about this whole euro sterling pricing differential, and each time my message is the same – no matter what retailers or regulators or governments are telling us, the one main factor that will in the long term influence the prices is the shopping behaviour we ourselves follow.

Irish based retailers will claim that the cost of doing business in Ireland is what causes the price differential we all know and see. While not trying to become an advocate for these businesses, I think that above 3 examples show how this can be somewhat justified.

Shouldn’t this type of information also have formed the basis of the research these fuckers* are carrying out in order to give us the full picture of what’s going on and the reasons behind the price differentials.

Unfortunately, we already know that all this is going to yield no results after the comments of John Shine, the NCA director of commercial practices “admitted there is little the organisation can do to help consumers get better value." Well, apart from wasting time their time doing half arsed, incomplete and pointless research for crowd and press pleasing press releases.

Taxi receipts - have you ever been given one?

I don't think I've ever received a receipt from a taxi driver since it became the responsibility of taxi drivers to provide a printed receipt upon payment for a taxi journey. Nor have I asked for one either.

Have you ever been given one automatically? Have you ever asked for one? What was the response - was it given or was the machine "not working at the moment"?

Just so you know, if you have a complaint against a taxi driver, you'd be much better off providing a copy of your receipt - it's the best way to identify the taxi in question, and confirm that you actually used it on the time/date in question.

This taxi spotted yesterday obviously doesn't hand out receipts. (Apologies again for the crappy N95 pictures).

Neat trick by hard pressed greedy Dublin hotel

A couple of weeks ago, a Canadian contractor was working in my office for a few days. Being over from Canada, away from his family, he obviously wanted to call home in the evenings from his hotel room.

On the advice of his manager in Canada, my colleague bought a ZapTel Absolute World Card which is supported in Ireland through SkyTel.

His first evening back in the hotel, he tried ringing the 1890 number on the card, but nothing happened. He checked the "dial 9" and so on, tried again, but nothing. There was also a 1850 number on the card, but this too didn't work.

He contacted the SkyTel support e-mail address on the card the following day and they provided a local 01 number. That next evening, he tried to call the 01 number as well, but with no joy.

Confused, he checked with us in work the following day to see if he was doing anything wrong. We tried the numbers from the office and all 3 of them worked perfectly. That evening, for one final time, he tried all the numbers again, but without success.

The only conclusion we can come to is that the hotel has blocked the numbers to prevent their clients from calling these numbers. Obviously, nothing strictly wrong with this, but it strikes me as extremely cheap and grabbing by the hotel. It's not like they won't make a few quid on the calls to the 1890 or 1850 numbers, but it's hard to believe they'll go to this lengths to screw a few quid more from their clients.

Where's the electricity competition?

In case you didn't know, way back in February 2005, the Irish electricity market for residential consumers was deregulated. At that time, we were told in an enormous amount of hype that we'd all be able to choose our electricity suppliers - removing our dependence on the ESB.

At that time, I did some research on what the options were for consumers - the original article is available by clicking here.

Back in 2005, there were 6 possible electricity suppliers other than the ESB. At that time, none supplied (or had any plans to supply) residential customers. A couple of months later though, it was reported that Airtricity would be entering the residential market - which they did for a while, backed out for a while more, and re-entered the residential market again in 2007.

As of today, more than 3 years later, Airtricity are still the only competitors to the ESB for residential electricity consumers. The market for alternative suppliers of electricity is still pretty shocking. Of the original 6 possible options, 2 have now been taken over by one company (Scottish & Southern Energy has taken over both Airtricity and CH Power). One other, Direct Independent Energy, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The remaining 3 - Bord Gais, ESB Independent Energy, and Energia - still won't supply electricity to residential customers.

There are now, according to this list from EirGrid, 14 customer supply companies in the electricity market. However, none of the 8 new participants will supply electricity to the residential market - their focus is only on business customers.

So what's the competition like between Airtricity and the ESB? Well, I'd like to be able to show you the comparative costs - however, that I'm able to find, neither company provides the cost of electricty on their websites. However, back in 2007 when I did the last research, the prices were exactly the same.

Some competition!

Oh, and by the way, you should be thanking the Commission for Energy Regulation - "The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) is the independent body responsible for overseeing the liberalisation of Ireland's energy sector."

Who's really to blame for "Rip Off Ireland"

On Thursday last week, only a few days after I wrote this post about whether it was consumers or businesses that were at fault for the perception of "rip off Ireland", Michael Ring, the Fine Gael TD for my home county of Mayo came up with a doozy.

According to this breaking news item on the Irish Times site, Deputy Ring had this to say:

“This issue has been discussed on TV3 and RTÉ and I want to know can we have a debate in the Dáil. It’s in relation to Tesco and Dunnes robbing the people of Ireland.” He added: “It used to be ‘rip-off Ireland’ and now it’s ‘rip off the Irish’ ”

Another classic from the Fine Gael party. I respectfully suggest that Deputy Ring contact An Garda Siochana if Irish consumers are being "robbed".

On the other hand, if Irish consumers are willingly handing over cash to UK retailers who may be charging more in Ireland than they are in the United Kingdom, maybe Deputy Ring should use his Dail time a bit more wisely rather than jumping on the National Consumer Agency bandwagon.

Shops charge what consumers are willing to pay. If Irish consumers pay the amounts charged by UK based retailers, then they'll continue to charge that, and possibly more. On the other hand, if Irish consumers become a little more discerning about how and where they spend their money, then such retailers will have to rethink their pricing policies.

How come we haven't heard anyone seriously talk about a boycott if things are as bad as we're being told?

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

Directory Enquiries - Now available via text

At the start of June I published some research on the ValueIreland.com website regarding the relative costs of the different directory enquiry options available across the different phone service providers.

This article recently in the Irish Examiner details a new text service which will provide directory enquiries on your mobile. The service is called Text Express and can also be accessed online at www.53939.ie.

According to the article, Mark Flanagan who is behind the service said:

Text Express replaces the waiting and expense of phoning premium directory enquiries numbers by providing a text service that costs just 60c as compared to as much as 71c with 11890, 96c with 11811 and 1.14c for 11850.

As above, this service costs €0.60 per text (though it's not clear if that includes the operator text cost as well).

I've tried the service a couple of times. I've found it most useful when you just need a generic service and don't really care who you're going to use, as highlighted in the website - "taxi Limerick" or "pizza Galway". I did find that trying to find a specific business took 3 attempts to get the number I was looking for.