Greyhound Waste Thread - MOD WARNING in Post 1

Gloomtastic!

Cancelled my Greyhound contract via Email middle of last month.

Got a reply last night saying I would be charged 40-odd euro for collecting the bins and further charges for not giving two months notice.

I emailed them back saying as no contract existed between us then I was not liable for any charges. (I hadn't paid any top-up fee and my account had only a couple of euro in it).

Got a reply back from them saying that the original email was just a generic response and I wouldn't be charged anything.

Looks like they try it on with the first one, or they're attempting to scare people into staying with them.

Chancers........

stoneill

Greyhound at it again:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/waste-firm-fails-to-get-case-thrown-out-after-being-accused-of-breaching-shipping-laws-29107823.html

Trying to ship off prohibited waste to China

Leroy42

Quick update. Received a full refund by cheque last week. Bins were picked up a few weeks ago. I was owed the balance on unused fees which they had auto topped up and the service charge for half of 2013 which they auto took at the end of December. I did not use the bins once in 2013 so demanded everything back.

Main thing is to keep at them. My parents are having a terrible time so I have taken it on for them. My feeling is that Greyhound hope that at least some of the people just give up and don'tn bother looking for the refund.

goz83

stoneill wrote: »

Greyhound at it again:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/waste-firm-fails-to-get-case-thrown-out-after-being-accused-of-breaching-shipping-laws-29107823.html

Trying to ship off prohibited waste to China

Something doesn't smell right about the councils failure to produce an affidavit. Wonder if it'll be repeated and then thrown out by the judge :rolleyes:

On another note: my GH bins were FINALLY recovered yesterday. It only took like 10 weeks from when I informed GH I was to cancel my service with them. Maybe they were waiting for an empty container to China :pac:

Kace

Leroy42 wrote: »

Quick update. Received a full refund by cheque last week. Bins were picked up a few weeks ago. I was owed the balance on unused fees which they had auto topped up and the service charge for half of 2013 which they auto took at the end of December. I did not use the bins once in 2013 so demanded everything back.

Main thing is to keep at them. My parents are having a terrible time so I have taken it on for them. My feeling is that Greyhound hope that at least some of the people just give up and don'tn bother looking for the refund.

Nice one re your own situation - which seems very clear cut.

Any chance you would elaborate on your parents' terrible time. I would have thought this should be starting to beome a straighforward process at this stage...

hitbit

Closed my account with Greyhound in early December. They have still not collected their bins.

Hitbit

hitbit

Bins still not collected. Any one know the legal situation here. Can I dump their bins.

Hitbit

Pigeon Reaper

Invoice them for storage.

The Hill Billy

If you wish to seek legal advice - contact a solicitor.

Legal advice is neither to be asked for, nor given on this site.

tHB

struper1

hitbit wrote: »

Bins still not collected. Any one know the legal situation here. Can I dump their bins.

Hitbit

no, I wouldn't dump their bins. just keep at them

goz83

GH have probably run out of storage for all the bins they have had to recover. They obviously still have not learned how to treat customers, whether staying, or going.

I strongly considered leaving their bins at their depot in clondalkin, but i did tell them that i was going to do that. Dumping them is a bad idea. You would be no better than GH if you illegally dump the bins.

vikingdub

goz83 wrote: »

GH have probably run out of storage for all the bins they have had to recover. They obviously still have not learned how to treat customers, whether staying, or going.

I strongly considered leaving their bins at their depot in clondalkin, but i did tell them that i was going to do that. Dumping them is a bad idea. You would be no better than GH if you illegally dump the bins.

I have been told that they make excellent storage containers for coal, just cut a little door at the bottom and save yourself the price of one of those expensive coal storage bins.

Hootanany

Any pic of that sound brilliant.

goz83

vikingdub wrote: »

I have been told that they make excellent storage containers for coal, just cut a little door at the bottom and save yourself the price of one of those expensive coal storage bins.

Only that most people don't have solid fuel fires these days. At least not in the cities. Hideous looking things....I would much prefer be rid of the bins than to keep coal in them. I can think of a certain DCC manager I wouldn't mind storing in a GH bin though.

Andrew Campbell

A couple of weeks ago a very nice man rang our bell and asked if we wanted to join the €99/year city bin deal. He explained that it would save us money from what we pay Greyhound. Like most people I resent Greyhound and the way they were foisted on us by DCC. There were already loads of red bins on the road so presumably most of my neighbours were happy with the deal.
i have a fairly good idea about how often we put our bins out so while he waited i went onto the Greyhound website to work out our annual cost with them. there were no list of charges on the website so based on the premise they had something to hide I decided to sign up with City Bins. The nice man explained that we would just have to notify Greyhound and they would call and take away our bins. He said they had tried to charge some people for doing this but recommended we just refuse to pay.
A couple of days later the new bins showed up and as mentioned on all the other posts/threads on the topic, it was put back exactly where it was left when collected. I am very happy with the service and the price.
Today I rang greyhound to arrange to get the old bins collected and spoke to an "agent with attitude." He explained that as we had paid €59.95 for a years service there would be a pro rata refund on the remaining months in the term and the account was also in credit €17.74 so they would deduct the €40.80 cost for collecting & sanatising our old bins from our account and refund the balance if there was any left. He also mentioned a notice period. I questioned the charge and said not to bother picking them up, i might sell them. he said they were greyhound property, so i offered to drop them to him and he said that wasn't possible.
I was a bit upset and contacted City Bins, they were very helpful and plesant. They told me that these were new terms and conditions of Greyhounds. I have no recollection of having being notified of these changes. City Bins then emailed me this information.

Here is some information available to you in relation to cancelling your Greyhound Account. You might please note that following Greyhounds recent undertaking agreement with the National Consumer Agency they have drafted new terms and conditions. These new terms and conditions should have been notified to you in and around the 18th January 2013.

The new terms and conditions require Greyhound to give you one month’s notice of any changes to the contract under clause 11.3. If you wish to cancel your contract because of the changes to the terms and conditions you are fully entitled to terminate the contact without paying any bin recovery charge under clause 16.3.

Furthermore under their terms and conditions they are not entitled to retain any of your remaining credit balance upon the termination of your contract in such circumstances. You should contact Greyhound specifying the above and request that your remaining credit balance be transferred to your bank account. If you encounter any difficulty in retrieving your entire credit balance you should contact the National Consumer Agency as soon as possible. The contact details are contained in link below:

http://www.nca.ie/nca/report-a-business or go to your local Public Representative.

So this post is intended to advise people of the problems you might encounter if you are considering leaving one supplier. Today I have read on the internet all about the "Turf War" between Greyhound and City Bins. I don't think i would have done things differently if I had known then what I know now, to be honest I'm just glad to be shut of Greyhound who (possibly even for no fault of their own) have left a bad taste in my mouth. I would have rathered not have so much credit in my account at the time of the transfer as it weakened my bargining position. I hope this information is useful to you

St. Leibowitz

Andrew Campbell wrote: »

So this post is intended to advise people of the problems you might encounter if you are considering leaving one supplier. Today I have read on the internet all about the "Turf War" between Greyhound and City Bins. I don't think i would have done things differently if I had known then what I know now, to be honest I'm just glad to be shut of Greyhound who (possibly even for no fault of their own) have left a bad taste in my mouth. I would have rathered not have so much credit in my account at the time of the transfer as it weakened my bargining position. I hope this information is useful to you

I was in a similar position to you, and would agree that having my account in credit was a big mistake.

I too was charged €40.80 for collecting and sanitising the bins. The fact that 4 months later, the bins have not been collected would make me wonder if this could be deemed a fraudulent transaction and/or theft. They withheld money from me to pay for a service which they have not delivered.

When I started reading your post, I thought you were going to have a complaint about CityBin, which would have surprised me. Greyhound on the other hand ...

bikr

don't get rid of those old bin and save the money they want to take by not closing the account, canceling the direct debit / do not top up your card and use the old bins for your own use.
here are few ideas:

Sound System
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wheelie_Bin_Sound_Systems_in_performance_mode.jpg
http://wheeliebinsoundsystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sunnystandupsetweb.jpg
http://wheeliebinsoundsystems.com/

Water harvesting system
http://deepgreenpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/picture-06-39.jpg
for full instructions http://deepgreenpermaculture.com/diy-instructions/recycled-plastic-drum-rainwater-tank/ just replace blue yoke with the Greyhound wheelie bin :P

lounge for your pet
http://petside.co.uk/petsideblog/2010/09/dont-forget-to-put-the-cat-out.php

Urinal
http://www.designboom.com/awareness/stephan-bischof-wheelie-bin-urinal/

Andrew Campbell

Just to add to this, i was at the bank today as i wanted to stop payments to them. it appears that they did not have a direct debit but instead had my wife's debit card details and were helping them selves to top ups as and when they wanted. Is this normal practice? i've no problem with one off permissions to pay a bill or indeed signing up a DD which you can stop but free access means they can help themselves when ever they wish...even after we are long gone.......but it appears the only option we now have to stop them taking more money is to ask for the card to be replaced........

kylith

I'd talk to someone regarding the legality of that. AFAIK a company can't just help themselves to money off your card without getting an OK from you. I used to work somewhere where we'd rebook people using a stored credit card number, but I had to text everyone a week in advance to let them know that we'd be processing payment on X date.

Andrew Campbell

Yes..spoke to the bank today and this is a practice that they know is going on but dont condone. They have recommended my wife to get her card replaced and not to do it in future.
She did give them the numbers but its all too easy for companies to intentionally or inadvertently apply a charge to your account.

pg17

As far as I can remember, GH did not operate a direct debit system but instead inisted that customers provide either a debit card or credit card number to allow GH take future top-ups when the credit on the account reached the minimum GH allowed.

Andrew Campbell

pg17 wrote: »

As far as I can remember, GH did not operate a direct debit system but instead inisted that we provide either a debit card or credit card number.

yes that seems to be what happened...so nothing to stop them helping themselves for payment for disputed charges like collecting and sanatising bins

RinDij

Today I discovered the hard way that Greyhound have changed their pricing policy.

My black bin was not emptied, even though my ac is in credit by €30. When I called to enquire I was told that my bin would not be emptied until I signed up to a new plan. I asked if the new pricing information was available on the greyhound website, but apparently not. The rep could only e-mail the information to me.

I explained that I had not received any information in the post and did not want to rush into a decision on the spot, but that I needed my bin emptied. This was not possible, according to the rep.

In my view this is a "strong arm" tactic on the part of Greyhound to force me to commit to them for another period of time. If I don't sign up it appears that I will be left with a bin full of rubbish.

I told the rep that if my bin isn't collected today or Monday I will switch to another provider. Greyhound's customer relations function is irrational, on the basis of prior experience with them, so I am waiting with interest to see what unfolds. From what I see in these postings it appears the Greyhound are getting their just desserts!

goz83

RinDij wrote: »

Today I discovered the hard way that Greyhound have changed their pricing policy.

My black bin was not emptied, even though my ac is in credit by €30. When I called to enquire I was told that my bin would not be emptied until I signed up to a new plan. I asked if the new pricing information was available on the greyhound website, but apparently not. The rep could only e-mail the information to me.

I explained that I had not received any information in the post and did not want to rush into a decision on the spot, but that I needed my bin emptied. This was not possible, according to the rep.

In my view this is a "strong arm" tactic on the part of Greyhound to force me to commit to them for another period of time. If I don't sign up it appears that I will be left with a bin full of rubbish.

I told the rep that if my bin isn't collected today or Monday I will switch to another provider. Greyhound's customer relations function is irrational, on the basis of prior experience with them, so I am waiting with interest to see what unfolds. From what I see in these postings it appears the Greyhound are getting their just desserts!

Yeah, they won't be collecting that bin mate. Just switch.

Johnny_Fontane

I got charged €28 for a bin that apparently weighted 92.5kg last week.

Its a smaller 140L bin aswell.

average weight is always 20-25kg.

I emailed them so lets see.
Anyone had any simiar problems recently?

Andrew Campbell

if the bin was full of water it would weigh 140Kg

hfallada

I have called them 4 times and each time they have promised to pick up my old black bin. I have emailed them and they still havent picked it up. What should I do?

lionela

I changed over from Greyhound to Thorntons @ €50 service charge....€9.00 per lift black bin...and €4,50 for brown bin. Green bin free.
No pay by weight. Reason for the change......Greyhound overcharged me on a pay by weight lift and I found them out.
I weighted my black bin empty....and I weighed the contents that were in a black bag separately and the total was 21 kilo's. My weight was recorded as 33 kilo's.

Pay by weight in my estimation is open to abuse...full stop.

If I had the time I would either design and make ..or source.. a simple weighting apparatus ( something akin to a bathroom scales or even a pillow like pressure pad ) for domestic users to weight their bins and keep a check on the pay by weight charges. Now there is a new start up business idea for an enterprising budding engineer.

hfallada

I have called greyhound 4 times and each time I was promised they would collect my old bin. I have emailed them and still havent collected the black bin ( they collected my other bins). What should I do?

hitbit

Oops, Sorry about the advice bit.
Good News Is Greyhound finally removed their bins.
14 months on and still a very happy Citybin customer. They really are on top of their game.

Hitbit:):):):):):)

goz83

Glad to see they finally removed their bins. I've been wit CB a couple of months now and I'm quite happy with them. Cheaper than Oxigen, who gave me no bother until I wanted to cancel and they sent a very snotty letter, threatening legal action if I didn't pay the €25 cancellation fee. I wouldn't mind, but I had only cancelled the contract a few days before I got the letter :eek:

Had every intention of paying it, but that attitude turned me right off them. :mad:

chinguetti

A lovely circular came through the door from Greyhound, telling us that they had given out the wrong email in a previous circular (we never got it) that we got to register for general waste bags with them.

I just bought the normal rubbish tags last week in the post office so are they phasing out the normal tags and leaving people with no option but to use their bags?

goz83

I got a letter from GH today with a €99 offer for a year of bin lifts with no extra charges. They were even so kind as to offer to pay any termination charges from my current supplier, to make sure I pay no more than €99. Will I take it? NO. Never again GH. Not a chance I will be returning!!! Offer it for free and I will still say NO. I am paying €15 per month to city bin. Sure, that's €180 for the year, but I don't care. They provide a good service and leave my bins back from where they took them. GH can start with an apology and then we'll talk. Instead they brag about the thousands of people who joined over the new year. No mention of the tens of thousands that left though

ranmac

Got exactly the same letter in this morning and must say I feel the exact same way. No way will I go with Greyhound again

Gloomtastic!

goz83 wrote: »

I got a letter from GH today with a €99 offer for a year of bin lifts with no extra charges. They were even so kind as to offer to pay any termination charges from my current supplier, to make sure I pay no more than €99. Will I take it? NO. Never again GH. Not a chance I will be returning!!! Offer it for free and I will still say NO. I am paying €15 per month to city bin. Sure, that's €180 for the year, but I don't care. They provide a good service and leave my bins back from where they took them. GH can start with an apology and then we'll talk. Instead they brag about the thousands of people who joined over the new year. No mention of the tens of thousands that left though

Letter came here offering same for €89.00

Desperate times at Greyhound me thinks. Should have thought about that when they had a monopoly.

I'm sure Business Study courses across the country will be using Greyhound as a classic example of how not to run a company.

goz83

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Letter came here offering same for €89.00
.

Funny, because they wrote "To avail of this offer and the lowest price you will EVER be offered for ALL your bins.................."

Why would my price be €99 and someone else be offered €89? Typical GH bull sh1t.

kevmcdonnell

I think my letter said 79 yesterday, must double check

goz83

kevmcdonnell wrote: »

I think my letter said 79 yesterday, must double check

And someone on the bargain alerts thread got one for €69. GH are just peddling sh1te if you ask me. Sure, people might join and might not even have any problems, but lets not forget that some people waited well over 6 months to have their old bins collected. Considering how much lies came out of one of the managers heads (earlier in this thread) I would not trust GH for a second. The guy couldn't even do basic math and misrepresented prices.

Meauldsegosha

I got a letter and a phone call from them yesterday with an offer of €79 for all my bins.

Today I reported them to the Data Protection Commission as I had emailed them last year telling they didn't have my permission to use my data and it should be erased from that date. I hope they get their a$$ kicked. :P

hitbit

Well Boys and Girls,

I got a phone call and a leaflet offering €69 no weight restrictions etc but no mention of next years costs unlike CityBin who offered €99 for the year and €15 a month the following year which meant I knew where I stood. Now I'll stick with CityBin because their service is excellent, their staff accessible, polite and helpful, their brown bin bigger with no fly holes and they have never once failed, in over a year, to put my bins back exactly where they found them.

Go On the Red Ones.

Hitbit:):):):):):):):):):)

ballooba

Meauldsegosha wrote: »

Today I reported them to the Data Protection Commission as I had emailed them last year telling they didn't have my permission to use my data and it should be erased from that date. I hope they get their a$$ kicked. :P

I tore the arse off them twice last week for the unsolicited calls and twice asked to be removed from their mailing list. The second time I conveyed my opinion that a company with an already bad reputation wasn't helping themselves by breaching data protection legislation. I got some rubbish about anew management team in the last number of weeks and I suggested they might not be doing a great job. The calls have ceased thankfully, maybe they got tired of the cold hard truth.

Ernest

ballooba wrote: »

I tore the arse off them twice last week for the unsolicited calls and twice asked to be removed from their mailing list. The second time I conveyed my opinion that a company with an already bad reputation wasn't helping themselves by breaching data protection legislation. I got some rubbish about anew management team in the last number of weeks and I suggested they might not be doing a great job. The calls have ceased thankfully, maybe they got tired of the cold hard truth.

I moved away from Greyhound to the City Bin Company as soon as the latter began offering an alternative service in Dublin and now find them very satisfactory indeed. Greyhound removed the old (Dublin City Council) bins from my house in due course.
Now I am getting phone calls from Greyhound, every few days, seeking to persuade me to return to them - I never chose Greyhound as waste disposal contractors in the first place - they were imposed on us by the City Council when John (Irish Water) Tierney was City Manager. Because of the manner of their imposition I will never voluntarily do business with Greyhound and I tell their cold-callers so.

They seem to have a large team of telephone salespersons hoping to swamp Dublin with unsolicited and unwanted sales calls. They must have a very large marketing budget. Personally I don't mind them wasting their money like this calling me and not cross-referencing my earlier expressions of disinterest. However I did not know I actually have the right to stop them calling me under Data Protection legislation. I am not sure how I would invoke this right.

Or maybe I'll just let them continue to waste their money on this futile effort to get me to switch back to them

Mr Simpson

You can either tell them on the call that you wish to be removed from their marketing list, or (probably better) email them to request they do so.

ballooba

Mr Simpson wrote: »

You can either tell them on the call that you wish to be removed from their marketing list, or (probably better) email them to request they do so.

They rang me again today. 4th time, third time asking to be taken off their marketing list. They are massively incompetent, stupid or unscrupulously persistent.

hitbit

Amazing how good they are at p*****g off their customers or even p*****g their customers off ????. What a sales strategy.

Hitbit

Mr Simpson

ballooba wrote: »

They rang me again today. 4th time, third time asking to be taken off their marketing list. They are massively incompetent, stupid or unscrupulously persistent.

Thats why I said you're better off emailing. Then if they ring again, send a copy of the email you sent with date and time to the data protection commisioner

SPDUB

Got a letter today from Greyhound , complete with account number, telling me as of 3rd March that the day of my collection is being changed to Monday's in line with Dublin Council bylaws

This letter is very odd mainly since I never have been a customer of Greyhound and also that Greyhound always was Monday around my area and Thortons , who I am with , had to change to Monday because of that new bylaw

spurious

Seems bag customers, who previously did not need to interact with Greyhound and instead bought their stickers from Post Offices, now have to register with Greyhound.

I want to check it with Dublin City Council as while I would have no problem registering with the council, I do not want a company like Greyhound having any personal details of mine.

Ernest

Yes, I do not understand this new regulation by Dublin City Council which seemingly requires all refuse collections in each area to be made on the same day of the week. Why? Is it to rid the streets of (unsightly??) wheely bins on all but one day or does the City Council want a single day of traffic noise and congestion as all of these very large refuse collection vehicles, from the different companies now competing, try to go down the same often narrow streets on the same day? God knows! Having washed their hands of their own refuse collection service, declaring it to be a "businsss", the DCC now want to keep their interfering fingers in the pie with this dubious new regulation about what day a refuse collection should be made.

In my own case, the otherwise excellent City Bin Company (to which I moved as soon as I could relinquish the unwelcome hands of Greyhound) have made their first bad move by issuing a totally confusing new schedule of collections (in response to the new DCC regulation) to apply from the start of March but for some reason, that makes no sense, backdated to the start of January.

Gloomtastic!

Ernest wrote: »

Yes, I do not understand this new regulation by Dublin City Council which seemingly requires all refuse collections in each area to be made on the same day of the week. Why? Is it to rid the streets of (unsightly??) wheely bins on all but one day or does the City Council want a single day of traffic noise and congestion as all of these very large refuse collection vehicles, from the different companies now competing, try to go down the same often narrow streets on the same day? God knows! Having washed their hands of their own refuse collection service, declaring it to be a "businsss", the DCC now want to keep their interfering fingers in the pie with this dubious new regulation about what day a refuse collection should be made.

In my own case, the otherwise excellent City Bin Company (to which I moved as soon as I could relinquish the unwelcome hands of Greyhound) have made their first bad move by issuing a totally confusing new schedule of collections (in response to the new DCC regulation) to apply from the start of March but for some reason, that makes no sense, backdated to the start of January.

It's to try and stop low life scum from dumping their rubbish on the streets. If you have bin companies collecting rubbish on three or four days of the week then fly tippers have been able to disguise their dumping. This is an attempt by DCC to prevent this. Not sure how successful it will be but at least they are trying something.