Have Your Say
Smart savings at Ulster Bank counters
Recently we carried an item about bank charges and mentioned the fact that while Ulster Bank was, generally speaking, better than the rest when it came to free banking, it imposed swingeing charges on people for services that are not considered normal, just like all the rest.
We pointed out that if you need a duplicate bank statement from Ulster Bank you can expect to pay handsomely for it. Customers of the bank who need a hard copy of a statement are charged €3.81 for the first page and €2.54 for the second page – a lot of cash when you consider how little it must cost the bank to generate the pages.
There is another way, as Gary Branigan points out. He says that if you go to the bank counter at an Ulster Bank branch, “they will print out as many pages as you like for free and put their official stamp on each one, which is the same thing as getting them on letterhead in the post. I got stung on this before I found out!”
If this is true, and we have no reason to doubt our reader, then the bank is to be commended. Unless of course they change their in-bank policies upon reading this, in which case we will roundly condemn them.
Sterling exchange does not compute
DJ O’Connor was in the Limerick branch of Maplin when he saw a book on computers which he wanted. “There was only one copy remaining and the price printed on the back cover was £6.99,” he writes. At the cash register he handed it, together with €10, to the assistant but was told the price was €11.49.
“I asked what exchange rate they were using and was told ‘it doesn’t matter, that price is only a recommended retail price.’” He really wanted the book, so paid up. When he got home, he looked up a currency converter and found that, based on current rates, £6.99 should equal €8.09. “An extra mark-up of 42 per cent on the currency, on top of their usual profit is very nice for them. Needless to say, they gained a sale but lost a customer.”
Full marks for appliance mender
Mary Dowey will be familiar to many readers, having written about wine for this newspaper and elsewhere for many years. She has also contacted us on a number of occasions. “Having moaned about various things in the past,” she writes, “I’m delighted to be able to tell a tale with a happy ending which I think Pricewatch readers may find cheering.”
A couple of weeks ago, the door lock on her Hotpoint washing machine jammed. She wasn’t impressed with the two deals on offer from the Hotpoint service desk: a call-out charge of €139 (irrespective of whether the problem could be fixed or not, with a three-month guarantee if it could), or a monthly payment of €19.98 for 10 months, bringing a 12-month guarantee if the problem was fixed and a free visit if it wasn’t. “Both deeply unattractive, especially for a nine-year-old machine.”
“Then I found irishappliancerepair.com. This operation, covering Dublin, Wicklow and Meath, typically charges €50 for a south city service call. It promises a response within 24 hours; service visits outside normal working hours are offered at no extra charge and new parts come with a 12-month guarantee.” She says the “experienced repair man who runs it” looked at the machine at 10.30pm on the evening she phoned him.
“Having checked out several possible causes for the non-opening door, he fitted a new lock and stayed to make sure it would release at the end of the cycle. The bill for a 40-minute visit? A mere €20 – because he was ‘in the area anyway’. A bargain which makes appointed service agents look even more rapacious!”
She says the site fixes domestic appliances of all sorts – and also flat-screen TVs. “I wish I’d found it ages ago.” Us too.
Spend and give to charity
We like the look of Barnardos’ new prepaid charity chip-and-pin MasterCard, available in any of Barnardos six shops or at rubycard.ie/barnardos for €12.95. A percentage of the transaction fees will be donated to the charity at no extra cost to the cardholder.
Cardholders have the option of obtaining up to three companion cards for family members, aged between 13 and 18. Companion cards can be topped up individually and usage can be managed through the cardholder’s account online, or by telephone or text. Cardholders will also benefit from not having to pay the booking fee when buying a Ryanair flight. That’s a saving of €10 per person per round trip.
