SOUNDING OFF:Tesco has just announced its latest round of long-term "price cuts", but a Rathfarnham reader called Darragh is less than impressed .
“What your readers should be aware of is that these cuts amount to nothing more than a huge marketing gimmick,” he says before giving a few examples. “A 500ml bottle of Listerine Coolmint mouthwash cost €5.19 late last year. In January the price climbed to €6.90, and Tesco recently announced ‘long-term price cut’ is €5.19. A 150ml Dove deodorant spray cost €3.39 in 2008, before climbing to €3.66 and then falling back to €3.39. A 500ml bottle of Sanex shower gel cost €4.40 late last year and €4.75 in the first part of this year before falling back in price as part of Tesco’s price cuts to €4.55. A 250ml bottle of Dove shower gel was €2.99 in late 2008, €3.29 earlier this year and €3.10 now.
“At €3.04, a 250ml bottle of Nivea shower gel costs the same as it did late last year, although it climbed briefly to €3.35, while it is the same story for 250ml bottles of Pantene shampoo, which cost €3.49 late last year before climbing to €3.77 and then falling back to €3.49 as part of Tesco’s new long-term ‘price cut’.”
He cites several more examples. “Don’t even get me started on the razor blades and razors, which had all seen ridiculous price increases, decreases and then increases again over the past few weeks but have now all miraculously been reduced again. There are literally dozens more examples,” he says. He is calling for the NCA to investigate “this blatant false advertising”.
We contacted the retailer to see what it had to say. In a statement the company said it did not increase prices “with a view to taking them down for promotional purposes. Price rises were due to a combination of higher supplier prices and costs.” It said it was “currently working to overcome the high wholesale prices charged in Ireland for international products including the health and beauty items included in your list”.
“The changes we are making have now started to drive price reductions across a wide range of products which will become increasingly evident in the coming months. We have reduced 1,900 prices in the past few weeks. Of these 1,900 reductions, 1,400 are now lower than last year. It is hoped to reduce these prices further in the coming months along with many others as the changes in our sourcing of international brands becomes effective.”
Foaming at roaming cost
A Pricewatch reader was in Berlin last month for a week and he brought his iPhone with him. It was, he says, automatically set to push data on to his phone, so it downloaded e-mails unbeknown to him. “This setting was the default factory setting when I bought the phone and I received no warning from O2 about roaming charges with this setting on. They charged me €4.50 per MB. I barely used my phone while away, but my data bill was bumped up by almost €60. I refused to pay this, and O2 have refused a full refund, saying that it was up to me to check the roaming charges before I left even if I wasn’t really using the phone and I only brought it with me in case of emergency.”
We got in touch with O2 and a spokesman presented a markedly different side to the story. He said that the company had “proactively” contacted our reader to advise him that his data charges for the month were unusually high as soon as staff noticed the amounts climbing. A spokesman said the company telephoned him twice and left messages to that effect and also sent him a text message saying the same thing.
The spokesman said that when they spoke to our reader, they were willing to show a degree of flexibility in connection with the charges because of the confusion. He said that the data-roaming function was automatically switched off as the default setting on the iPhone and when it is turned on by the user they should get an automated text message alerting them to the fact, although he did concede that data roaming could still be inadvertently turned on.
If nothing else, the story highlights the fact that roaming data charges remain ridiculously high – something which is not unique to the O2 network. This incident highlights how people need to be completely on top of how their phones work and how easy it is to inadvertently rack up charges.
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It would be helpful if you had cast your net wider in your surveys of libraries and not just focused on Dublin. In Cork, the annual membership fee for an adult has been increased from €12.50 to €23 since January, a rise of some 84 per cent. Likewise membership of the music library has been increased from €30 to €40. These fee increases were imposed at the behest of Cork City Council without any real consultation with library staff as a means of plugging a hole in its budget by setting its sights on one of the softest targets available.
– Tony
