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LAST UPDATE
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\n 24 Aug\n <\/p>\n
HOME AND GARDEN store Rathwood, which entered examinership earlier this year, was the most-complained about retailer over the past six months, according to\u00a0the Consumer and Competition Protection Commission (CCPC).<\/p>\n
The Carlow-based faced action from the CCPC in March of this year<\/a> for failing to reimburse applicable customers, and last year it was second only to Ryanair for consumer complaints<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, it has now beaten Ryanair into second place in the top five list of complained about traders to the CCPC so far in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n Overall the CCPC which received queries from 22,724 people in the first half of this year.<\/p>\n The top issues were faulty goods, pricing and contract performance, with faulty goods and services comprising 20% of the calls.<\/p>\n The sectors that were the most cause of concern were vehicles and transport, utilities and fuel, and home building improvements.<\/p>\n In the last 18 months, they have prosecuted six major retailers and two second-hand car dealers for misleading consumers.<\/p>\n So far this year, 737 calls were made about Rathwood, with around 200 calls made about Ryanair, Sky and Currys.<\/p>\n In update today, the CCPC also said that it had\u00a0secured the return of \u20ac250,000 in unspent gift card credit to Irish consumers by JD Sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n Consumers also reported spending an average of \u20ac6,473 on the product or service they contacted the CCPC about.<\/p>\n There was also an increase of 34% of calls relating to online purchases.<\/p>\n The current law stipulates that the CCPC must prosecute a business in court, where it is the judge imposing the fine.<\/p>\n But the CCPC is welcoming a commitment by government to give the CCPC powers to issue fines themselves.<\/p>\n Previous fines have been around \u20ac1,000, but the CCPC wants the fines to be higher to \u201cdeter businesses from breaking the law\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aoibh\u00edn de B\u00farca of the CCPC said: \u201cIt\u2019s important that consumers know their rights if they buy something that turns out to be faulty. Regardless of whether you had a warranty or a guarantee, it\u2019s up to the seller to resolve your issue, not the manufacturer.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201c91% of consumers took action following calls to the helpline and nearly 40% were resolved.<\/p>\n \u201cBut almost half of consumers had to contact the retailer more than five times and the issues still weren\u2019t resolved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For consumer queries and complaints, contact the CCPC helpline on 01 402 5555 or email ask@ccpc.ie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAST UPDATE | 24 Aug HOME AND GARDEN store Rathwood, which entered examinership earlier this year, was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,8969,4585,69190,277893,18,19,17],"class_list":["post-657404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ccpc","tag-consumer","tag-consumer-watchdog","tag-credit-where-credit","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117161806274867070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}