If you buy a plane ticket and your flight is cancelled, you are protected under European law. The airline has to either give you a refund or reroute you on a flight of your choosing. If you are overseas when the cancellation happens, the airline has to look after you until it can bring you home. And if it – rather than, for example, the weather, war or a pandemic – is to blame for the delay, then you might be able to get some compensation too.
If you buy something in a shop and it breaks before you get it home, or is otherwise not fit for purpose, or not as advertised, the place you bought it has to look after you with a refund or a repair or a replacement with the bottom line being you should not be left out of pocket if it fails to live up to its side of the contract, or if it overpromises and underdelivers.
But when it comes to matters of the heart, many of the protections we take for granted seem to vanish, or at least that was the experience of a reader by the name of Paula.
Last summer she signed up to a matchmaking service and paid about €1,000 to go on the company’s books. And what did she get for her money? Obviously a successful relationship is not something that any agency could have promised, but she was promised that suitable introductions would be arranged between her and other agency clients.
And Paula was happy enough with that. But she didn’t get her happy ever after. Or even happy for a few weeks.
Paula was, to put it mildly, less than pleased with the company’s matchmaking skills and when she complained “not once but three times” she found that she “had no rights and protections even under Irish [or] EU consumer law. I got in touch with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission [the CCPC], and they told me all I could do is go to the small claims court, which I don’t have the time or willingness to do.”
So, what happened to get her to that point?
Well, Paula joined the dating agency last summer and paid the pretty hefty joining fee. “Once they took my money, I didn’t hear anything so I contacted them in September. They told me they were very busy so I gave them the benefit of the doubt, they then found a match a week later. I had not one thing in common with this person.”
Paula says this was in spite of promises made at the outset that matches would be based on a particular set of elements to ensure a certain level of compatibility. “They claimed they put a lot of effort into the matches, which was not my experience.”
More time passed and “again I heard nothing from them, so I contacted them again at the start of December. They told me they don’t contact people unless they have a match and told me to read the terms and conditions. I said one bad match in over four months isn’t a very good service.”
A few days she heard back from the company to say it had a match, and Paula said okay.
Then she heard the new match “was away and I would have to wait till the new year. I replied to say that wasn’t good enough and they said it had been a match, so they had fulfilled their contract.”
“The company said it would ‘do me the courtesy’ of arranging another match with another man who was more polar opposite than the first one. Again I heard nothing from them and contacted them at the start of March, eight months on from when I signed up, for them to tell me they had fulfilled their contract of three introductions and it wasn’t their fault that one was unavailable.
“I told them I wanted a refund due to their misleading information about their services and they told me that they don’t give refunds and if I wasn’t happy with their service that was my problem . . . [They said] they have many happy customers on their books and their success rate has even risen since Covid started.”
Paula says she was told that the company had “found you three matches so far, and I understand that it was not up to you that one was unavailable, but it is also not our fault as we cannot control when people are and aren’t free”.
She says the company can apparently “just take your money and interpret their contract to [suit] themselves. I told them I could no longer deal with them as their service was shocking and unprofessional. I was wondering if you have heard anything like my story from others and is there anything I could do besides go to the small claims court?”
Well we had not come across this before so we contacted the the CCPC to find out what, if any, protections Paula and people like her had in circumstances like this. After all, €1,000 is a lot of money to part with without any comeback on behalf of the purchaser.
Response
The CCPC said that under Irish law Paula had the right to expect that the service was “carried out with proper care and attention” and that the “business providing the service has the appropriate skills to do the job”.
A spokeswoman for the commission said that if someone believes a service provider did not meet these standards, “for example, if they felt that the proper care and attention in finding suitable matches was not given, the consumer is entitled to go back to the business and negotiate a suitable redress option. Depending on the circumstances, this could either be a full or partial refund of the service fee or an alternative option that the consumer would be happy to accept.”
The spokeswoman noted that Paula had already been in touch with the business and said that “in such circumstances, we would suggest that the consumer sends a formal written complaint to the business, outlining the difficulties they are experiencing and include the above information in relation to their statutory rights under the Sale of Goods & Supply of Services Act. They should also clearly set out how they would like the matter to be resolved.”
Unfortunately, the law does not specify what a consumer is entitled to in such cases, so it’s up to the consumer to negotiate a suitable redress option with the business directly.
“We suggest referencing any specific sections in the T&Cs that may support their case for redress and outline how they would like the issue to be resolved,” the spokeswoman said.
*****
Elaine Fahy felt she had no choice but to make contact with Pricewatch over the “terrible time” her father has been having with Virgin Media. She says that despite the fact the company was unable to provide him with much by way of service over the course of the lockdowns – a time when he, like the rest of us, needed a decent way to communicate with the outside world – he kept paying his bill, and even after he moved out of his home following the death of his wife, he kept paying the bills.
The last came in the form of a text from the company to him demanding a further payment.
“I am a 76-year-old pensioner and recently a widower living alone and am blind in one eye,” his letter to the company started.
“During lockdown, I lost all reception in my house in Dublin 6 that I was partly living in whilst caring for my wife, [who is] now deceased, [who was] undergoing medical treatment.
“I now no longer live there. I lost phone and internet reception during lockdown and contacted Virgin Media – without much success. After several further phone calls, long holds, much cost and highly confusing attempts to reroute me to platforms I do not understand, I called to notify that I was leaving Virgin Media.”
His letter says that he has “not been able to live in the house since then for a variety of health and other reasons. I had notified Virgin Media that I had no reception for a very long time and that I was unable to deal with such woeful customer service at such a difficult point in my life, in addition to lockdown. I have not received any bills or statements of account from Virgin Media since August 2019 but kept on paying nonetheless over the years €108 per month regularly without fail, which I regret very much, thereby accepting the disgraceful, unaccountable and non-transparent customer service of Virgin Media.”
In January he received the text message looking for payment. “I am disgusted to be sent such a demand as the letter of January 21st, 2022. I am shocked also to be treated this way and will not pay any threatening letter accusing me of wrongdoing. I hereby request a refund of all services since August 2019. Please note I am hereby notifying the relevant regulator and will go on social media to expose this threatening and upsetting behaviour and failure to provide customer service. I will not be held liable for the woeful customer service of Virgin Media under any circumstances.”
We contacted Virgin who immediately started looking into the matter for our reader. But in the meantime he got a letter from a debt collection agency demanding immediate payment of just less than €400.
“We’ve been attempting to engage with you in an attempt to arrange payment of the outstanding amount you owe Virgin Media,” the correspondence started. “Unfortunately our attempts have been unsuccessful and so we’re considering legal action to recover the balance.
“The next step involves passing your account to our solicitor for legal action. Any claim that is issued will be for the full outstanding amount in addition to any additional interest that is still to be added under the terms of your loan agreement. We’ll also seek to recover all costs, and any approved court legal costs. The result of this will be an increase in the amount which you’re required to pay.”
Response
We contacted the company who investigated the matter and subsequently confirmed that it has been resolved “on good terms with our former customer. The account has been cleared, there are no monies owed and debt collection has been cancelled. Most importantly we have apologised for the length of time it took us to respond and correct this."
*****
“I have a query about a television that I purchased three years ago,” starts a mail from a reader called PJ.
The television was bought in November 2018 and just after Christmas this year it started to malfunction. “I went to the shop where I bought the television to find out what they could do for me.
“They said I did not purchase an extended warranty and there was nothing they could do for me as they only have a two-year limit on fixing problems that arise. I was looking on the consumer website and on this they said it was six-year period over which a problem could be raised. I informed them about this and was told they would get back to me. I had to go back three times and talk to three different people over a three-week period before I got an answer.”
And what was the answer? He was told that “they could not do anything for me as it would cost them money to fix the problem. I was told that I could go to the small claims court and I would more than likely win the case but that is all they would/could do.
“This seems like a lot of wasted time and more expense to me when they think they will lose the claim.”
So, what PJ wants to know is if there is a six-year limit to bring a problem to their attention in which they need to fix the problem? If so, do they need to fix the problem free of charge? Who does he need to contact to get the problem resolved?
Well, under EU law consumers across Europe have the right to seek redress when a good is faulty for a period of up to two years. It is better if you live in the Republic of Ireland. Under Irish law, the limitation period is actually six years.
If a fault arises within the first six months of purchase, it is presumed to have existed at the time of delivery and it is up to the seller to prove otherwise or provide remedies. After six months, the consumer may be requested to show that the lack of conformity (for example, a hidden defect) already existed at the time of delivery. The seller should first offer a repair or replacement (liaising with the manufacturer if necessary) and provide this free of charge. If this is not possible or fails to correct the problem, then the consumer may request a refund.
But that six years depends on multiple factors. The amount you pay for a product and the reasonable expectations as to how long it lasts are key here. If you spend €3,000 on a sofa and it falls apart after three years through no fault of your own, you can most likely seek redress under the Sale of Goods Act. Similarly, if you spend €1,000 on a smart phone that just stops working after 14 months, you can seek redress. If the digital watch you bought for a fiver in a discount store breaks after five years, 11 months and 29 days and you wander in looking for a refund, you can most likely whistle for it.
So, it depends on how much PJ paid for the telly. He would not be entitled to a free repair or a replacement. And as with many products, it might end up costing more to repair the television than it is actually worth. But at the very least he should expect a significant percentage of the price of the television to be knocked off the purchase of a new television.
*****
A reader called Sinéad contacted us after dealing with a particular company took a heavy toll on her.
“I have recently had a miserable experience attempting to resolve an erroneous request for payment and fixed penalty arising from the M50 eFlow toll,” her email began.
“I am currently resident in the UK, and drove my GB-registered car to Ireland in October 2021 to visit my family for the first time since March 2020. In the course of my stay, I passed under the M50 electronic toll sensor three times. For each trip, my partner paid the toll online within 24 hours, as per the terms and conditions, and we thought no more about it.”
That is not, obviously, where her story ends, as she made clear when she contacted us last week. “Last Saturday, I received a standard payment request from eFlow stating that I owed the toll fee for all three journeys along with an STR penalty for unpaid fees, to be paid to Euro Parking PLC, which is apparently their preferred UK debt collector.”
Sinéad “naively” thought that this would be easily cleared up once she forwarded payment confirmation. “However, after four days of circular online chat ‘help’ and emails bouncing back from their only complaints point of contact, I am not so sure. I have written a formal complaint, and will make one to their governing body TII, but there are multiple tales of woe online, especially for company cars, rental vehicles and non-Irish registration plates.”
She says that surely the main functions of an electronic toll system “are to accurately identify the registration number of vehicles using their service, and correctly correspond the recorded journeys and payment references. The amount of time spent trying to resolve the issue has been infuriating, but I am not inclined to pay a fine I did not incur.”
Response
We contacted the company and received the following statement: “eFlow is aware of recent payment and service difficulties experienced by an M50 eFlow user. The user correctly paid for their eFlow journey upon completion and within the required timeframe. However, due to an isolated system error, the payment was not registered correctly which led to the user being issued a fine.
“When the user queried this fine with eFlow customer service, they did not receive a satisfactory resolution or customer experience in line with our service expectations. eFlow has addressed the user’s issue and has apologised to the customer for the inconvenience caused. Customer service is a top priority for eFlow, and we are committed to continuously working and improving to benefit our service users.”
*****
Next up we have a reader called Susan who was fortunate enough to receive several gift vouchers for Christmas for various high-end restaurants and a spa hotel.
She says she was “delighted with life until I tried to use them”.
She tried to make restaurant bookings but was told by one place that it was fully booked for the next six months and the system had been closed for new bookings until June. She said that even then she would be lucky as the online booking system was a lottery.
Then she comes to the spa hotel. “My daughter is getting married in April and was planning to do a spa break,” she writes. She says the spa hotel advertises “lovely packages” including dinner and treatments for €335 for two nights.
“I have a voucher purchased in December for €500, so happy days,” she writes. Not so fast. Susan has been online in recent weeks trying to book a stay but can’t find availability.
“I emailed the hotel and was told that it was best to call as they often have cancellations. So I called the hotel today and looked to book a package of some sort, even the midweek B&B and dinner rate, but I would have preferred the spa package. The only option I was given was a date midweek in April, B&B only at €169 per person, with no packages available until next year.”
She spoke to a manager but came away from the conversation unsatisfied.
“I understand the service industry is suffering staff shortages but the hotel knew this back in December when they took my hard-earned money and expect me to wait a year to use it. I was constantly listening to radio and television presenters asking people to purchase vouchers to help this industry get through and back on track, but I really feel ripped off. That’s without me having to wait until June to see if booking opens for [the restaurants].
“So much for me hoping in my 60th year I would get to enjoy the so-called finer things in life. Think from now on I’ll stick to my local cafes and bars. Rant over. I hope my stress levels return to normal soon as it is only a first-world problem I know, with all that’s going on, but it still upsets me.”
It is an interesting issue and raises a question as to whether or not priority in bookings should be given to voucher holders who have – effectively – already paid for the hotel or restaurant. It is not something that is covered in law but, from a moral perspective, it would seem like the right thing to do. While we understand that demand for popular restaurants can be high, it surely is not beyond them to even set aside a percentage of tables when bookings open for those with vouchers to ensure no one is left feeling hard done by.
