Thrift.ie

The Best of Ireland’s Consumer Advice and News

Entries for the ‘Consumer Protection’ Category

Make your Manky nominations for shoddy Irish products and services

Recently, I wrote about the Australian Consumer Choice Shonky awards. In the absence of anything similar here in Ireland, I thought we could come up with our own Manky Awards.
You can click here to read the rest of yesterdays post.
Is there any product…

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Make your Manky nominations for shoddy Irish products and services

Yesterday, I wrote about the Australian Consumer Choice Shonky awards. In the absence of anything similar here in Ireland, I thought we could come up with our own Manky Awards.
You can click here to read the rest of yesterdays post.
Is there any produc…

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Australian Consumer Organisation awards “Shonkys” for substandard products

Every year, the Australian consumer organisation, Consumer Choice, awards what they call their Shonky Awards. A Shonky is awarded to companies who provide Australian consumers with substandard products and services throughout the year.
You can see a re…

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What’s the “Consumer Consultative Panel” doing these days?

Short answer – not a whole lot.
During the course of the meltdown in the Irish banking system last year and the revelations regarding the actions (or inactions) of the Financial Regulator, the supposed consumer representatives within the “syste…

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Competition Authority and National Consumer Agency. A marriage made in hell?

I wrote previously, Are the Competition Authority happy to be merged with the National Consumer Agency?, about how it was unlikely that the Competition Authority of Ireland were unlikely to be happy about their proposed merger with the National Consume…

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Top Tip when booking online for anything

In this post last week, I referred to this thread on Conor Popes Pricewatch blog where there was some discussion on the pros and cons of Ryanair.
One item that was mentioned that deserves to be highlighted as a Top Tip came from someone calling themsel…

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When will we see Ticketmaster.ie pull this stunt in Ireland?

I was recently online on Ticketmaster.com buying some tickets for Cirque du Soleil in New York in December when, at the very end of the purchase process, I was presented with this extra option:
Get Event Ticket Insurance for an additional $7.00 per tic…

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What garages are doing to get customers in the door

Talking to a colleague of mine during the week, he had a story that made him pretty angry the previous weekend.  He’s in the market for a “people carrier” to cater for his expanding family so had been doing some internet searches around Dublin g…

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Incorrect advice on Travel Agents in the Evening Herald

Recently in the Evening Herald, Dan White provided some incorrect advice in response to a readers question about the safety of using travel agents given some recent high profile closures and the difficulties experienced by Budget Travel and Sunway Holi…

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Self Regulation – MEAS proves that it’s really a waste of time

Two recent rulings by the organisation MEAS in response to complaints (details here) show the problem with self regulating industries.
One complaint was upheld against the Portobello pub where they had special offers on drinks, selling them for €4, b…

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Do you know what the Dolceta Project is?

Dolceta is an online consumer education website, or the Development of Online Consumer Education Tools for Adults. According to the website:
Consumer Education is one of the declared objectives of the European Union (EU) [1]. Political strategists are …

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