Surprised by a train booking feeCormac McCarthy from Waterford regularly takes the train to Dublin and frequently buys his tickets online. He has always used his laser card which has never attracted a fee. Not any more. He was dismayed last week to be charged a transaction fee of €2, or 20 per cent of the €10 fare.

“This transaction fee means I can’t access the €10 online fare which is advertised and the cheapest I can get it for is €12. They did not advertise this,” he writes “or at least I never heard Barry Kenny [Irish Rail’s spokesman] talking about this on the radio.”

We contacted Irish Rail and a spokeswoman said the €2 transaction fee was introduced five weeks ago and, we were told, related to the “costs associated with Iarnród Éireann’s online booking system”.

She said it had been introduced “in parallel with a phased change to our online booking system, which will greatly increase the availability of our cheapest fares to customers. The fee is per transaction, not per passenger, so a person booking six return tickets would be charged just one €2 transaction fee, as opposed to the per person system applied by other transport or retail sites.”

We pointed out this change meant that the €10 advertised online fares were impossible to get as there is no way to avoid this “transaction fee” and were told that the fare is €10, but “the transaction and credit card fees are additional charges that apply separate to the fare. This is a similar strategy to that employed by many other transport and retail websites.”

The puzzling case of the phantom iPhone

Recently Sinead Twomey tried to purchase a 32gb iPhone from O2 but was told the company was out of stock both online and in shops. “No one could tell me if or when they were going to be back in stock. I was told to just keep ringing and checking online.” She was told that O2 was at the mercy of Apple and there was nothing it could do about it. “The phone is fairly limited so I was told it would be very hard to get.” She happened to call into a Vodafone shop and asked what the story was with the iPhones. “I could have purchased the phone there and then.” She contacted O2 and told them “and they still had no response except to say check online and ring the stores. I was sick of it and to be honest all I wanted was to move to Vodafone. I can’t do this though because I have 11 months left on my contract.”

Two weeks ago she checked online and “amazingly the 32gb was showing in-stock. I placed an order and was told they would send me a confirmation e-mail. I got an e-mail off O2 later that day.” The mail was not what she expected. It said O2 was “unable to confirm your order. As such we will not be shipping your requested item(s). This is due to the fact that your card has not been authorised. Please contact your credit/laser card provider to verify the status of your account. “ She rang her bank and was told that the money had been taken from her account.

“I rang O2 customer care and asked what was happening. I was told that they would be passing the problem onto the tech department and that someone from there would get back to me.” She heard nothing and contacted them again and was told that her order had been cancelled as “a result of issues with your credit card. However, your card was charged for another order,” which O2 could not find on its system. O2 said “as this phantom/ghost order could not be processed, a manual refund will be actioned for you. It will take close to 10 working days for this money to reflect on your account.”

So, now she has to wait up to 10 days to get her money back, and has to start trying to order the phone again. “And my upgrade is gone from the O2 system as well.”

Not any more. We contacted the company and it issued a statement in which it apologised “sincerely for this less than satisfactory customer experience”. It said that the company placed an order for 32gb iPhones stock in accordance with customer demand with Apple, however this delivery was delayed causing a shortage in some shops. The delay was on the 32gb model only. The delivery has since come in. The statement also said that the difficulty encountered during the online purchasing process “was the result of a technical glitch on the system. This is an exceptional occurrence and we are investigating how it happened as a matter of urgency. We are dealing directly with the customer to ensure she is suitably compensated for this experience.”