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Thumbs Up/People power: The power of consumer rage was clearly demonstrated last week when the Dundrum Town Centre was forced…

Mon Oct 23 2006 - 01:00

Thumbs Up/People power: The power of consumer rage was clearly demonstrated last week when the Dundrum Town Centre was forced to abandon the ridiculous fees associated with its gift cards after a brief but exceptionally effective e-mail campaign.

An e-mail which highlighted the card's €3 monthly fee started doing the rounds at the beginning of last week and within hours, it seemed, everyone was forwarding it to everyone else. Within three days the Dundrum centre had been forced to issue a statement announcing that following negotiations with the card's operators HQGiftFlex, the recurring €3 fee had been dropped.

If only the centre acted more swiftly when PriceWatch contacted it on behalf of an angry reader to complain about the issue in early September it might have been spared last week's embarrassment. Still, at least the centre did respond to the campaign and scrapped the charge ahead of the Christmas rush.

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