We've got mail:Ann Stapleton draws our attention to the unacceptable delay she has encountered with the Irish Rugby Supporters Club.

In December she sent a cheque and completed application forms for one senior and two junior memberships for her sons aged six and nine. She subsequently received a phone call to say that the packs would not be with her in time for Christmas but that she would have them within 28 days. Yet now, more than 80 days later, she is still waiting for her supporter packs. "I have made several phone calls to be told that there was a delay because our memberships had been overlooked in the system, but I was guaranteed that the packs would be with us very soon," she writes.

Then she received a newsletter on the eve of Ireland's game against France, which said that the problem was not unique to her and that there was a delay in memberships being processed due to high volume. "I phoned again to be given the same reason for the delay and was assured the packs would be with us very soon," she writes. "Am I the only person this has happened to? The Six Nations campaign is all but over and I am still waiting for what was a Christmas present for two young boys. Maybe I will receive them in time for the Rugby World Cup and then again who knows? Maybe there are other fans out there or maybe the Supporters Club thinks that they can get away with such incompetence because they have our money in the bank."

We contacted the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), under whose auspices the supporters club is run. We were told that the junior packs containing beanie hats and posters and the like had been completed and sent out "in early January" by the company which runs the club on the IRFU's behalf.

An IRFU spokesman said that An Post had been unable to deliver the items and that the Supporters Club had only received the battered packs back from An Post last week. We pointed out that this story was completely at odds with what our reader has been told by the supporters club on numerous occasions since the items were supposedly posted out. The spokesman blamed a "breakdown in communication" which he described as "totally unacceptable".

The spokesman said that the IRFU accepted full responsibility for the delay and said that the two junior packs would be sent out to the Stapleton brothers "immediately". He also said that he would put our reader in touch with the manager of the IRFU customer service department so a full investigation into the delay and the conflicting stories being told about the reason for it could take place.

Incidentally, the Stapleton clan can expect to wait even longer for the senior pack, as it has yet to be put together. The IRFU said not all the items intended for the senior pack were ready to go yet - more than three months after they were paid for.

When is a date not a date?

NTL's controversial decision to impose charges on customers who don't pay their bills by direct debit and to hit those who pay their bills late with hefty fines continues to draw flak from readers The company announced their intention to introduce the new charges in the run-up to Christmas, although it looks like it will have to rethink at least one element of its plans following the announcement last week that the Government is to ban extra charges on consumers based on how they pay.

Paul O'Mahony from Dublin has been in touch about NTL's billing system. "I regularly receive such bills a week or 10 days after the date they have on the top of their bill," he writes. On the most recent occasion his bill, which was dated February 24th, arrived on March 2nd with a due date of March 7th. Nowhere is there any indication as to when they actually dispatch their bills as they do not have stamps on their envelopes, but rather a pre-paid franking mark that has no date.

Aisling Foley, who has been in touch before about NTL's delayed bills, contacted us again recently to say that on March 12th she received her bill dated February 28th, which was due to be paid by March 14th. "You always have to allow 2 working days for payment to reach the recipient," she writes. "So even though I have made the payment (by AIB 24-hour banking), I can't guarantee that it will be paid in time." The last time she contacted us NTL told us it would look into why bills were taking so long to arrive.

We contacted the company again and a spokeswoman said it normally allowed 14 days between posting bills and their due date. She was unable to explain what the delay was in connection with O'Mahony's bill but said they would be willing to investigate the matter further and "provide an accurate explanation" to our reader. In connection with Foley's complaint, the spokeswoman said there had been "one delay with a bill run dated February 28th" and bills dues to be sent out on that date were delayed by three days. "We received not one complaint from customers within this bill run," she said. Until now.

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