New Bin Charges - Will you Pay More or Less

Alf Veedersane

Putting the pay by weight cost of your waste on your bill is something that was supposed to be in place for the last year or more.

Fiskar

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Putting the pay by weight cost of your waste on your bill is something that was supposed to be in place for the last year or more.

Correct, however in AES's case it would be using the old service charge rate of 75 euro per 6 months and not the new €90 euro per 6 months they tried to push in. A bit of addition required to whatever figure AES provide will be required to get the true cost of pay by weight.
I had numerous conversations with AES, did not like their tone (take it or leave it) so have cancelled the contract. I will manage the waste myself and doing nicely enough once it is done every few days. A lot of recycling material falls into our bin.

ryanduffycountydublin1975

If any of you read the citybin defensive response to the new waste charges, you probably felt dropping them like a hot potato given that it's owner Gene Browne, Citybin tried to justify the 300% increase in the service charge and massive overall price increase.

(1) Citybin like most Dublin based Waste companies are registered as unlimited status in the Isle of Man to conceal their profits. Why? Because they realise there would be a furore by the general public if they could access and see how much they made per household. If Citybin really cared about Irish consumers, it would openly publish the profit they make per customer.

(2) He tries to justify pay per weight by claiming better recyclers would pay less. However, he fails to point out that the better recyclers and larger waste producers will both pay more under pay per weight than they will currently under their current system.

(3) Dublin Waste charges are less than others outside Dublin but is only because of the density of householders in Dublin that makes it cheaper to collect from hourseholders

(4) Recyclers do in fact get paid for their recycling. It is just that citybin dont operate their own recycling facility and provide to panda, who reap the main rewards. If citybin operated their own recycling facility, they would sell the cardboard and plastics that are separated and baled

(5) Gene also fails to mention that Citybin deceived consumers into joining them when they first entered the Dublin market with the offer of cheaper rates. Everyone in the industry knew their €99 offer was below cost and only did it to gain market share with the full intention of increasing waste charges massively in year 2, 3, 4 etc. Citybin are very much responsible for the introduction of the pay per weight charges as the government wanted to stamp out below cost selling.

KoolKid

Did I read the Greyhound email correctly. You need to opt in to stay with current plan otherwise you will switch to pay by weight??? :eek:

alexonhisown

KoolKid wrote: »

Did I read the Greyhound email correctly. You need to opt in to stay with current plan otherwise you will switch to pay by weight??? :eek:

Yes, and good luck trying to get through on the phone, i was on hold for 25 mins, i gave up. Says we can choose online, but no one can find where to do that on their website, i sent them an email to cancel, because every few days i get an email saying something different, they are confusing customers so much they will just cancel

KoolKid

The email simply links to email address.
Got an automated acknowledgement.

Baby01032012

KoolKid wrote: »

Did I read the Greyhound email correctly. You need to opt in to stay with current plan otherwise you will switch to pay by weight??? :eek:

This made me angry when i read it. Can we refer Greyhound to the consumer protection authority?

This is not what other bin companies are doing or what all bin companies agreed to with the government.

You have to explicity say you want to stay on your current plan. All phone lines are busy no answering or queuing service, auto email that it may take weeks to respond to emails when you email them to cancel.

To stay on the current plan you also need to put €250 onto the account. My parents are low usage, have paid their service charge for the year and are being asked to put the equivalent of nearly 2 years charges upfront on to their account.

The majority of greyhound customers are elderly who were automatically switched from SDCC.

Baby01032012

Also i noted after looking at my parent account

They pay €60 service charge and 9 per black bin. They have low usage so only had 4 collections this year totally bin charges of €36. However they are on €12 auto top up, so far this year Greyhound have taken €12 by 7 = €84. This does not Tally. They took the €60 service charge seperately.

Ive emailed Greyhound. Im very worried that there is something very underhand here.

Delta2113

Time to remove Licence from Greyhound as Cowen from FF hinted at. Coveney is "not happy" with Greyhound but what will he do - kick another can down the road?

steamengine

Baby01032012 wrote: »

Also i noted after looking at my parent account

They pay €60 service charge and 9 per black bin. They have low usage so only had 4 collections this year totally bin charges of €36. However they are on €12 auto top up, so far this year Greyhound have taken €12 by 7 = €84. This does not Tally. They took the €60 service charge seperately.

Ive emailed Greyhound. Im very worried that there is something very underhand here.

It might help a lot if Greyhound did customer account statements like the banks for example. In other words show both credits and debits along with the balance.

At the moment their on-line statements don't show service charge debits, only lift charge debits.

A current total/balance is shown separately, also the last credit/top up into the account, again separately. Unless you work out your own statement then one can see immediately how doubt and suspicion can arise.

In the interests of transparency one comprehensive statement show all credits and debits plus a running total/balance would be helpful, to say the least.

greasepalm

recent message from greenstar stating no changes in service charges as things are suspended of the rollout of pay by weight and to ignore recent letters of new charges.

Crimsonforce

Note from city bin to cistomers

I would like to begin with an apology. I co-founded The City Bin Co. on a clear principle of customer service and a mission of improving standards in this industry. We’ve been doing that consistently for almost twenty years. However, during the recent pay-by-weight debacle we got caught up on what our competitors were doing and what the government was saying. Instead, we should have been focused solely on you. A lesson learned and I sincerely apologise.
I appreciate that there is still a lot of confusion as to what will happen next. There has been an agreement between the government and the waste industry and revised legislation is being drafted. I have tried to simplify the main thrust of the agreement below:

July 2016: You can ignore the recent pay-by-weight plan you received from us. You will automatically remain on your old price plan. Please note that the price freeze assumes that you don’t produce more grey and brown bin waste than you did before.


If you read into the first paragraph, he got greedy and thought he could make a fortune...

WishUWereHere

Crimsonforce wrote: »

Note from city bin to cistomers

I would like to begin with an apology. I co-founded The City Bin Co. on a clear principle of customer service and a mission of improving standards in this industry. We’ve been doing that consistently for almost twenty years. However, during the recent pay-by-weight debacle we got caught up on what our competitors were doing and what the government was saying. Instead, we should have been focused solely on you. A lesson learned and I sincerely apologise.
I appreciate that there is still a lot of confusion as to what will happen next. There has been an agreement between the government and the waste industry and revised legislation is being drafted. I have tried to simplify the main thrust of the agreement below:

July 2016: You can ignore the recent pay-by-weight plan you received from us. You will automatically remain on your old price plan. Please note that the price freeze assumes that you don’t produce more grey and brown bin waste than you did before.


If you read into the first paragraph, he got greedy and thought he could make a fortune...

Also the last paragraph: How will anyone know if they 'produce any more grey or brown waste than before?'

ryanduffycountydublin1975

Crimsonforce wrote: »

Note from city bin to cistomers

I would like to begin with an apology. I co-founded The City Bin Co. on a clear principle of customer service and a mission of improving standards in this industry. We’ve been doing that consistently for almost twenty years. However, during the recent pay-by-weight debacle we got caught up on what our competitors were doing and what the government was saying. Instead, we should have been focused solely on you. A lesson learned and I sincerely apologise.
I appreciate that there is still a lot of confusion as to what will happen next. There has been an agreement between the government and the waste industry and revised legislation is being drafted. I have tried to simplify the main thrust of the agreement below:

July 2016: You can ignore the recent pay-by-weight plan you received from us. You will automatically remain on your old price plan. Please note that the price freeze assumes that you don’t produce more grey and brown bin waste than you did before.


If you read into the first paragraph, he got greedy and thought he could make a fortune...

Gene Browne has some nerve. Citybin's deceptive sales tactics are largely responsible for the introducton of pay per weight in the first place . They misled consumers into thinking that their €99 per year charge for real value for money for consumers, but it was nothing more than a tactic to gain market share with the full intention of bumping up rates in subsequent years. The 3 x bins themselves including delivery and tagging cost €25 euro per piece (€75 in total), so €24 euro was never going to cover waste disposal, collection and admin costs.

The waste industry in badly in need of a regulator. The government should also incentivise new operators to enter the market place and create real competition

gaius c

I paid Greyhound for 12 months bin collection back in January (€250). Because of the new bin charges being delayed to next year, I was told that I would have to top up by €250 and I'd be refunded pro-rata for the period from August to December of this year.

Noticed no refund forthcoming, contacted them and discovered that the refund is to my Greyhound account. What good is that to me? They are going to hold onto my money for a whole year before I can actually use it as credit!!!

Anyone else have this problem?

Also, their habit of replying to emails with a brand new email thread means it's very hard to keep track of what they are saying.