READERS' FORUM HAVE YOUR SAY: Anne Higgins's daughter has an iPod which stopped working some months ago.

She contacted Apple and was told to open her iTunes account and click “Restore” to fix the problem. Unfortunately this didn’t work, so she rang Apple again last month and was told that if she paid an extra €40 the company would send a new iPod and extend the warranty for another year. “My daughter said no to this offer and the Apple rep said, ‘okay, we’ll send you a new iPod but it will have only the two months warranty remaining’. Apple also insisted on credit-card detailsso as to take €147 if the damaged iPod was not returned. This amount would be frozen until January 21st. My daughter was happy with this.”

The Apple rep said an iPod would be delivered by UPS on January 17th. When there was no sign of it she rang Apple and was told it would be delivered on January 19th. Higgins contacted Apple herself on January 20th. “The rep I spoke with was extremely helpful and agreed that the iPod should have been delivered by now. I was given a track-and-trace number, contacted them and the track-and-trace number was an outbound number for the damaged iPod only. They had no details of one to be delivered to our house.”

Higgins rang Apple again and the rep tried to find out where the new iPod was. “He asked me to ring back the following day as he was going to check with a dispatch manager. I rang on January 21st and was told it appeared as if the iPod had been lost. I was put on to another Apple rep in Greece, was asked a few questions about the whole fiasco, got a phone call back a few minutes later and was put on to an Irish rep. He was very apologetic and told me a new iPod was being dispatched via Royal Mail and would be delivered by An Post. I was again reassured that the €147 was frozen until the iPod was delivered and the old one returned. I asked for his e-mail or phone number so I could contact him to say the iPod had arrived.”

By the middle of February, there was still no sign of the iPod. “During the last few weeks my husband and I have made sure one or the other of us are at home in case the iPod has been delivered. I would appreciate your help on this matter as it’s being going on way too long now and I am getting no satisfaction from Apple.”

The hills are alive with the sound of rip-offs

Joe Connor got in touch with Ticketmaster to book tickets for two adults and three children to see an April matinee of The Sound of Music at the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin (above). It wasn’t as simple as it should have been. “I was told that I could only get a reduced-rate children’s ticket with each adult ticket bought. Therefore, to attend, I would have to buy three adult tickets and two children’s tickets. Rip-off Ireland is well and truly alive,” he writes.

This seemed ridiculous to us. We contacted Ticketmaster and the theatre to see if this was actually the policy and, if so, why. In a statement the Grand Canal Theatre said it aimed to offer good value on major West End productions “and, wherever possible, to be more affordable than visiting the West End, with all of the additional expense that incurs”. It said that last Friday the top prices at five West End theatres averaged £61 (€72). “Our top average ticket price for major West End productions visiting the theatre is about €58, with lower ticket prices available.”

A spokeswoman said she was “happy to confirm that the show has given a special offer on the full-price adult ticket, where you can buy a ticket for a child for half price per purchase. This is a special offer on the adult ticket price similar to a buy-one-get-one-half-price offer. The description of this offer on our website may have been open to misinterpretation and we have now rectified this and apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers.”

Paying for someone else’s stopped cheque

A reader recently received a refund cheque from an insurance company for €25.77. She lodged it into her building society account. A few days later another cheque for the same amount arrived. “Thinking this was probably a mistake, I rang the insurance company,” she writes. “They told me that several cheques had been issued by the wrong department, so they had put a stop on them and reissued new cheques to all the customers concerned. I was told to go ahead and lodge the new cheque, as the other one would be coming back to me.”

She went into the building society to make the lodgement, told staff about the stopped cheque and was informed that there was a €10 charge to the payee in the event of a stopped cheque. “I thought this must be a mistake, as this payee was totally innocent, but in a few days the cheque arrived in the post, with a letter saying that the account had been debited with €25.77 plus their charge of €10. This seems unfair as the payee had nothing to do with the first cheque being sent from the wrong department. And €10? Too much.”