Have Your Say

Hard to smile for the camera at these prices

Garreth Mellett contacted us with a mysterious pricing story. “Last December, I was walking through Blanchardstown Shopping Centre with my baby,” he writes. He happened upon a stand emblazoned with the words, Venture Photography. A sales girl approached him and told him that vouchers were for sale for €40 and they would include a photo session valued at €75 and would also give him €75 off pictures should he decide to buy them.

“So the €40 voucher was to the value of €150. There was a large choice of different frames/picture settings etc, but at no point was the price of the final product mentioned,” he writes.

He was told the company would be in touch and when they rang, they arranged a date for the photo session. They asked for a €50 deposit, taking his total spend to €90. “Myself, my girlfriend and the baby arrived and were shown downstairs for what was, as far as I could tell, a decent photography session. No prices were mentioned. The photographer said she didn’t handle that side of things.” He was asked to come back and view the pictures two weeks later.

“The showing of the photos became a very big deal. Darkened room, music and photo-shopped photos that I’ll admit looked impressive. We were told that a previous customer had cried when he saw the pictures of his children. To get the photographs on a memory stick was €1,200. Any picture set that was mentioned was working out at anything from €1,200/€1,300 or €1,500 upwards. Not until I mentioned that I have a mortgage and a child to feed did a product become available for €450.”

For €450 he was offered three desk photos, about 15 cm high. “What do you think? Isn’t this a case of been completely misled? Do I have an argument to get the pictures or at least a picture?”

We contacted Venture Photography and a spokesman vigorously rejected all our reader’s criticism. “This is someone who loves what we do, wants more and has got angry” when he saw the prices, he suggested. He said the “vast majority of people have a great experience” with the photography company. He said the voucher alluded to by our reader was worth €220 and not €140 and insisted that the company was always very upfront about pricing. He said all staff on the stalls in places like Blanchardstown are instructed to tell potential customers about the price ranges. He also said that once the photographs are taken, customers get a detailed price list. “We are very upfront about pricing. The last thing we want is for customers to get a shock.” He accepted that the prices were high but said that the end results were “very high-end and completely bespoke”. We asked why none of the prices outlined above are mentioned on the company’s website and were told that most of the site was controlled by the UK parent company and only a small portion is devoted to the Irish franchise and that price lists cannot be accommodated there.

Consumer prices must include VAT

Padraic De Búrca sent us an e-mail in connection with utility companies. Last week we wrote that the ESB’s standing charges are €92 a year for electricity and €60 for gas, the same as Bord Gáis Energy, while Airtricity has a standing charge of €104 for electricity and €72 for gas.

While these are the prices the companies quote and are fine for drawing comparisons. they are not the actual prices, in that they do not include VAT. “These are the prices that they quoted over the phone to me today but these are ex-VAT,” he writes. “The real cost to the consumer for electricity is €104 and €118. Just wondering if they should have quoted me the price including VAT as I thought there was some rule about having to quote prices including VAT for consumer related products which I would guess residential electricity was.”

Keep your prizes and get back to business

A reader contacted us after noticing a prize draw from AIB on Pigsback.com. “Drawdown a variable rate personal loan from AIB and you could earn 2,000 PiggyPoints,” the ad runs. “Now AIB are giving you the chance to win a brand-new Apple iPad. To be in with a chance to win this superb prize, simple click here and answer an easy question,” it continues. “I know they need to attract new customers somehow,” says our reader, “and that the quicker they return to profitable ways, the quicker we all get our money back (fingers crossed on that one BTW). But iPads? A day after they announce all those job cuts? And losses. BIG thumbs down from us!”