CCPC not up to scratch.

Aviationreg.ie sorted it for me - refund was in my account two weeks later after sending email to them with details.
 
I don't think that they have the powers.

But they have the power to advocate on consumer issues and they never do.

Could you name anyone involved in the CCPC without looking them up?

Have you ever seen a spokesperson for the CCPC speaking about consumers' rights to airline refunds? Have you ever seen them speak about the high mortgage rates in Ireland? They have made submissions to the Central Bank about how cash backs hurt consumers, but they are not proactive.

Brendan
 
They suggested that I write to Ryanair about my issue......I had done so several times and that was why I was looking for help from the CCPC.

This was the help they gave me...

"Failing a satisfactory response from Ryanair, and where you feel you are at a financial loss, a final option that may be available to you is the Small Claims Procedure (SCP). The SCP is designed to deal with consumer claims up to €2,000 and the current fee for making a claim through the Small Claims Procedure is €25." 
 
It's not the role of the CCPC to process complaints.

But they should advise customers and they should advocate on behalf of customers.

I don't know if they have a role to take a "group" action against Ryanair in this case.

Brendan
 
Here you go, the do-nothing charter from their website:

"How we decide to take action

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission’s (CCPC) mission is to make markets work better for consumers and businesses. We are obliged under the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014 to carry out certain functions, such as merger analysis. In addition to these duties, we have discretion in relation to taking action in areas where we think we can most improve consumer welfare. With a very broad mandate and limited resources it is not possible to investigate every consumer contact that we receive, nor can we pursue every issue. Therefore, we must prioritise our work.

By prioritising our work we can focus our resources in the areas which will result in the greatest benefits to consumers, businesses and the economy.

For example, prioritising helps us decide on the types of enforcement actions, advocacy issues, public awareness initiatives or other activities the CCPC might choose to carry out in order to improve consumer welfare."

Jobs for the boys and girls.
 
And is it reassuring to know this :

"Innovation is vital in order to help us solve the challenges that Ireland faces both now and in the future. As part of the ‘Our Public Service 2020’ initiative, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has signed a declaration on Public Service Innovation. This declares the CCPC’s intent to build a culture of innovation. We will:

  • Further endorse innovation as the responsibility of every public servant;
  • Enable, support, inform and equip our public servants to innovate in their roles;
  • Cultivate new partnerships and involve diverse views in problem solving and designing and delivering our public services;
  • Generate multiple options for existing and potential problems through exploration, experimentation, iteration and testing;
  • Provide insights into our experiences, best practises and lessons learned with other public servants in Ireland and abroad;
  • Share knowledge and data with citizens in an open and transparent way.
A copy of the declaration is available here."
 
In another life, I was unfortunate enough to have had dealings with the CCPC who were empowered to issue certain statutory authorisations. The outfit I then worked for required one such authorisation to conduct a certain type of business (which would in fact have improved competition in the relevant sector) and had fulfilled all of the relevant statutory criteria.

However, after applying and much procrastination on the part of CCPC, the CCPC made it clear that it was not going to issue this authorisation “as it wasn’t comfortable doing so”. In a subsequent meeting, officials indicated that were we minded to proceed formally with the application, it could “take weeks or months” before anyone in there would be in a position to even getting around to reviewing the application.

In civil service speak, we took this to mean “don’t even bother applying”.

So, they do have powers they don’t use. The very definition of useless.
 
It took three emails from me to the CCPC to get them to even understand my complaint about Ryanair. I was complaining about their Ryanair Gift Cards....they thought I was complaining about their replacement vouchers for cancelled flights. They kept referring me to the Commission for Aviation Regulation. They kept fobbing me off.

Eventually I got them to understand my complaint and I received this last October from them...

"On further review of your information provided in your emails, we would like to refer the issue raised to our Consumer Protection Division (CPD) for examination and review of any potential breach of the Gift Vouchers legislation in relation to the expiry date on the new/second gift voucher. However, in order for us to refer the issue, we would require further information or evidence. In this regards, we would be grateful if you could forward a copy of the original voucher / confirmation of purchase of the gift voucher if available, confirmation of the new gift voucher & terms and conditions attached and any correspondence with Ryanair to  [email protected]  quoting reference number xxxx."

Needless to say I organised copies of the original voucher, confirmation of purchase, conformation of new gift voucher, terms and conditions and all correspondence with Ryanair. You can imagine that this took several hours to collect and I was lucky that I keep copies of most items. I even had to contact a family member who originally gave me the Gift Voucher to get a copy. It wasn't an easy task. I believe that they made this as difficult for me as possible, hoping I would go away. I sent all these items to them as requested.

Needless to say, eight months later and I have heard absolutely nothing. I have contacted them by email and they haven't even had the courtesy to reply to me....

They are the absolute pits of an organisation.
 
I was complaining about their Ryanair Gift Cards....they thought I was complaining about their replacement vouchers for cancelled flights.
Well done for persevering with them to at least get them to understand.

They obviously think "Ah airline - we don't need to do anything, send them to the CAR"

Brendan
 
We had a complaint against an airlines when they refused to refund full fare of cancelled flight due to change in schedule and new timing didn't suit us. CCPC were useless but aviation regulator sorted it out for us.
 
Just saw this ad on the back of the bus, so they are doing something.

1623503188949.png

I suspect that they have a comfort zone and won't go outside it.

They won't do any active advocacy.

They probably come from the monopolies and competition background, so they have a set of legislation which they can check to see if people are breaking the rules.

So they don't bother doing anything proactive.

Brendan
 
.....and I get a regular email from them. Basically a back slapping exercise.......but they cannot even reply to my email sent, looking for any updates on my investigation of Ryanair and their treatment of their Gift Cards sold to their customers.
 
They’ve always been the pits. I am a solicitor advising on this area. I often have to write advice along the line of “... the sanctions are x, y and z, but to our knowledge they have never been enforced by the regulator”. I thought that they might improve when they joined up with the competition people, but no.
 
Back
Top