SOUNDING OFF: Last month, Brendan O'Sullivan was in Canada and the USA for 10 days. Last week he got a mobile bill of €532.90 for the month of November, of which €409.81 was for calls made while he was in the US.
He says a call of just over an hour to a Toronto landline number which he made while in Canada cost €90.66.
"I was in Toronto Airport and joined a company conference call which had given me a local access number to keep the cost down. On calling customer service at Vodafone they confirmed that the charge was in line with the published charges of €2 per minute to a local landline number while abroad."
He believes this charge "is extortion" and says he has "no idea how this revenue is shared between Vodafone, the local provider (Rogers Wireless) and any other "participants".
He says this charge of €2 per minute is in stark contrast to the local and EU rates. He goes on to say that in Ireland a mobile-to-landline call costs €0.25 per minute while an international call from Ireland to Canada is €0.15 per minute. "This is a new . . . policy to encourage more calls internationally from mobiles."
When he complained, the company agreed to credit his account with a month's rental - "a nice gesture".
We contacted Vodafone to see how it could possibly charge €2 a minute for a call made to a Canadian number by one of its customers travelling in Canada while a charge of just 15 cent would have applied had he made a call to exactly the same number from Dublin.
A Vodafone spokeswoman said it was "unfortunate" its customer had this experience but said it was a feature of the Canadian telecoms market. She said that when a Vodafone Ireland customer makes a call in Canada, Vodafone is charged a wholesale rate by the Canadian operator for that call.
"Vodafone adds a small margin to that call for managing the connection and then charges the customer. We have no control over the wholesale rate charged by the Canadian operator and there is only one GSM operator in Canada. Consequently the rate is very high compared to European or US operators where we can offer Vodafone Passport rates based on lower wholesale rates."
She said she could not make the wholesale rate public as it was subject to confidentiality, "but we can confirm that it makes up the bulk of the final cost of the call to the customer and we are charged on a per minute basis - not per second by the other operator. When a Vodafone Ireland customer calls Canada from Ireland, we do have more influence as they are local costs. We route the calls through international carriers who offer us the lowest rates (at acceptable quality) to terminate calls in Canada. Consequently, we can offer calls for 15c per minute."
What bargain?
Caroline has been in touch to talk about what she calls "fake sales" where there are no real savings. She says large, usually British-owned stores having 20-25 per cent off sales are just reducing the price to what it should be in the first place.
"They are making no effort to pass on the currency differential and when questioned they just say it is being addressed . . . If the currency was going the other way you can bet the consumer would be paying the difference in jig time."
Caroline cites examples of price differences: Marks Spencer juice two for £3 or €4.50; Debenhams small kitchen appliance £21 or €30; Brown Thomas Laura Mercier makeup £32 or €48. She says that where possible she avoids buying items such as these. "I think they have thought for years that there is so much money in Ireland they can charge whatever they like."
Jacket packet
"On November 22nd Davern's of Cashel were charging €469 for a Basler jacket," writes Miriam Lambe. "When in Luxembourg on December 5th, I enquired in Voog Boutique, Rue des Capucins, as to the price they charged for the jacket. It was €273."
When she told staff there what the jacket cost in Ireland she was told she should go to the police.
"Brown Thomas has the jacket on sale today [December 8th] at €455. In the meantime, Davern's has dropped the price to €355."
