READERS' FORUM: HAVE YOUR SAY:In response to our piece on growing your own vegetables last week, a reader who has been doing just that for 32 years got in touch. Anne Cullen says it is a great past-time "if you are into it, and it provides the grower with a hobby and a great variety of wonderful fresh produce". She does, however, have concerns.
“With the start-up of the GIY movement I was very interested in what I thought it would be all about (to simply encourage people to grow their own) and meeting other enthusiastic growers. But it has not been kept simple or cheap. To begin with, people were led to believe that all this growing had to be done in ‘raised beds’ – no one promoted the simple cultivation of the garden soil they already had at hand,” she writes. “Instead people rushed out to buy old sleepers, timbers, bricks etc to construct these beds – oh and gravel paths to surround them. Then the hunt for topsoil began – and I have seen some of this so-called topsoil inexperienced people were duped into buying – so bad in some cases weeds would not even grow in it.”
She says that although people needed to be encouraged to educate themselves about growing and to access information from local libraries and the like. “They were being told to attend costly courses. What started as a positive ‘dig for victory’ type movement may in the long run discourage some people from ever growing their own veg and fruit, and what a shame and loss that will be – especially as the know-how had been lost to a generation or two and this experience and knowledge if established would be passed on to coming generations.”
Too rigid about receipts
Unfortunately we left another reader “outraged” last week. Ian Kavanagh got in touch after reading about Kathleen Murphy’s experience of being forced to wait an unacceptably long time for Aer Lingus to make contact with her and provide her with adequate compensation after it lost her bags on a flight from Dublin to Rome. Aer Lingus said that the “items for which receipts have been provided will be reimbursed when bank details are made available”. But as Kavanagh sees it, we “missed the bleedin’ obvious question. What precisely have Ms Murphy’s bank details got to do with paying agreed compensation? Surely the information sought is private and no business of Aer Lingus. To reimburse her they need only know the address to which to send the cheque. Without delay Ms Murphy must be advised to withhold such sensitive information.”
He does have a point and space constraints prevented us from teasing out the issue in full last week. Another element of the story which struck us was the issue of receipts. Is it really acceptable for an airline to insist on receipts for all items? Who keeps receipts for every single thing they buy and then pack into a suitcase which an airline goes and loses. We do accept that if someone is claiming for a lost Picasso then they should probably have proof of purchase. We decided to go back to the airline and find out why it needed her bank details and why it was so rigid on the issue of receipts. A spokeswoman explained that as our reader is a resident of another country, the airline wished to settle the claim via bank transfer “for security purposes” and to help her “avoid any related bank charges that may apply to the lodgement of Irish cheques abroad”.
In relation to the receipts, she said that Aer Lingus asked that customers provide receipts to substantiate claims in line with standard industry practice. “We seek receipts not only as proof of purchase but also as a way of estimating the value of the item. We are flexible in our approach to the assessment of such claims and where receipts are unavailable we accept value estimates from reputable sources as to the replacement cost.”
Shrinking gigabytes
A reader was browsing 3 Mobile’s website recently when he spotted a customer notice stating that the company intends to decrease all 15 gigabyte subscriber’s traffic allowance to 10 gigabyte effective from tomorrow. “This will be done without any decrease in the fees they charge.” He points out that under EU regulations companies must give all subscribers not less than one month’s notice of such a change. “I have received no such notification and pointed this out to a supervisor in their customer care department. The supervisor insisted that the change would go ahead citing the publication of the notice on the website as being due notice. Is this fair? No such notification was included in my last monthly bill. How many businesses operating in the present climate are in a position to decrease their service by one third while maintaining their prices? And how many can afford to ignore their customer notification responsibilities?”
We contacted 3 Mobile and last Friday they said that they have reviewed their policy and have decided to continue to stick with the 15 gigabyte limit.
