Ripped off? Stunned by good value? Write, text or blog your experience to us

Ringing out

A Co Kildare reader contacted Pricewatch after her father's very new and very fancy phone first went on the blink and then went missing altogether. In January her father bought himself a Nokia 6021 Bluetooth-enabled phone to use with his car's satellite navigation system. After a couple of months, the phone's battery suddenly stopped charging so he brought it back to the Newbridge shop where he had bought it. The shop - which, she says, was an O2 outlet - took his phone without any problems and said it would be ready for collection within a couple of days.

However, when he went back to collect the phone days later, the shop had closed. "We tried another branch in Naas which had also closed. The only phone number we did have was on the receipt," she writes. "We tried phoning this loads and loads of times and when we finally did got through we were told to give them our address so they could send the phone back to us." Three days later, a phone arrived - but it wasn't the cutting edge Nokia, it was an ancient Siemens C45. "My father has no phone at the moment and it is really annoying as we have nobody to contact about this."

We called 02 and a spokeswoman said the shop in which the phone was bought was an independent retailer completely unconnected to the mobile phone operator. She said O2 could not take responsibility "for negative experiences encountered by customers when purchasing phones from independent retailers" which is fair enough. To O2's credit, however, she did say they would like to help our reader and have offered to replace the missing handset.

No sit-down protest

A very annoyed reader from Galway got in touch early last week to complain about her shabby treatment at the hands of Irish Rail last weekend as she and her four children were returning home from a trip to Dublin last Saturday evening. Concerned that they might not get seats together, she took the precaution of getting to Heuston Station at 4.50pm, a full hour before her train was due to depart. She was second in the queue and pretty confident of getting seats.

With just 10 minutes to go before her train's scheduled departure, the queue had swelled to about 50 people when her well-laid plans fell apart. An Irish Rail staff member appeared and brusquely ushered the entire queue in the direction of a different platform telling them that the Dublin Galway train was merging with the train bound for Westport. He said that those bound for Galway would have to change at Athlone.

The changeover wasn't the problem, however. "We got on the train and walked through every carriage searching for a seat," she writes. "Eventually I found one single seat but three of my four children had to stand all the way to Athlone and the youngest had to sit on my lap. They just squashed everyone on. It is scandalous."

We contacted Irish Rail and a spokeswoman told us that the two trains had to be merged at very short notice for operational reasons, something she assured us was a very seldom occurrence. While she was quick to apologise, she was even quicker to rule out a refund or compensation for our reader. She said refunds could be offered only when trains were delayed.

Saltwater

Deirdre Daly contacted us in connection with our article on the sodium content of processed food. She says it would be interesting to survey the sodium content of the various bottled waters on the market. "In my experience you have to buy an imported brand to get a low sodium level. As people are being encouraged to drink more water and as the sales are increasing, it must be becoming a significant part of a person's sodium intake."

Blog on here

Supermarket shopping

If "atmosphere" is noisy music and advertisements, spare me. And brace yourselves for three or four months of Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph et al. Step into Aldi or Lidl and feel the peace and quiet as you concentrate on getting the shopping done. Hunting and gathering as it was meant to be. - Fidelma

Cheap MP3 downloads

The tone of this article implies that it's okay to sell music at a deep, deep discount like this. Do you think this Russian guy was doing the artists any favours? In a time when not just teens but adults are happy to boast that "I never pay for music, man, I get everything from peer-to-peer, me," I suppose it's okay to expect The Irish Timesto join the "why should I pay for it?" brigade. - Martin Finke

It is not [allomp3.com's] job to be doing the artists any favours. He is selling music legally and without infringing copyright, and that is what matters. - Notnem

There are lots of cheap but legit websites if you search - what about mp3stor.com or mp3sale.ru or emp3world.com or emp3finder.com? The list goes on. - Bob