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THE NATIONAL CONSUMER Agency (NCA) last year brought 112 enforcement actions against business that breached consumer law.
The agency said in their annual report that they had issued 71 fines to traders who had broken legislation in relation to displaying prices and had issued 40 notices to businesses who had charged prices above what they had advertised.
The agency also brought two cases before the courts in 2012, both of which it won.
The first saw Associated Newspapers being forced to pay €15,000 to charity over a 2011 edition of the Mail on Sunday which had a wraparound cover, which the agency said “[mislead] customers into believing that the paper being purchased was a Sunday Tribune”. The court also awarded the NCA costs of €25,000.
The agency also brought a Compensation Order against a Galway car salesman, Oleksandr Tabachuk, who was found to have sold a clocked car. The court ordered Tabachuk pay €4,000 to the consumer who had purchased the car, as well as a fine of €1,200.
The agency also met with Ulster Bank during their IT failure, saying that they had referred consumers directly to Ulster Bank during that time. They also secured an undertaking from Greyhound Waste agreeing to change the terms and conditions of their consumer contracts.
In all, the NCA had 861,000 visits to their website and had received over 58,000 contacts to their helpline.
The Agency’s chief executive Karen O’Leary said that as consumers make less and spend more, the need for consumer protection has ‘never been stronger’.
She added that 2012 was a ‘challenging but very productive year for the Agency.”
The NCA is due to amalgamate with the Competition Authority, but there is currently no timeline on that move.
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It’ll be like all other government reviews – outcome will be a bunch of recommendations without any accountability for the failures
@Gordon Walsh: And someone will make huge money from carrying out such review.
@Dave Barrett: Yes likely one of the well known consultants whose names are acronyms
A review seems like a reasonable idea. I do think we need to stop making out that every LC student this year has suffered more than any human in history, the language used is way over the top and is unhelpful. Many actually liked not having to do the LC – and who could blame them – and more people are in Third Level than ever before so while some have genuine reasons to feel aggrieved, most got what they wanted or better with the bonus of not having to the LC.
@Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa: I feel the tactical repeat leaving certs got screwed – you know the ones who aim to repeat so they can drop certain subjects in favour of others that are easier to A1s in or get better bonus points.
I think we’d all be happy with a ‘simple sorry lads, but we messed up’ than a lengthy and costly review that will yield no meaningful results
Where did the legal advice for this omnishambles come from in the first place ffs.
The terms of reference for this review will be carefully crafted.
I hope there is a proper plan in place for 2021 leaving cert.Already these kids have been seriously disadvantaged missing three full months,sometimes being asked to leave the classroom because there are too many pupils,no parent teacher meetings,having free classes quite frequently,psychologically disadvantaged because they are not able to focus properly because there may or may not be a Leaving Cert exam.So Norma you better start talking about this now before there is another fiasco.
Review,commision.will take years.how long are them poor tuam babies left in the tank now since the government know about it
A shambles comittee investigating another shamble on tax payers money with no accountability on deadline or budget ceiling, give us shout I can do that
Will this included finding out how the contract was awarded?
Dog in pearls
Very suprised there is an independent review while there is ongoing legal action.
Another waste of time and taxpayers money. Calculated grade system was setup for failure and the result could never have pleased everyone… as a nation we would be better served just to move on and make sure LC 2021 goes ahead. Martin has a reputation of loving to commission a review ( see his time as Min of Health). Accounting firms will be falling over themselves to network for this work.
have your say