WELCOME TO CONSUMER TIGER

Ever felt that companies no longer care about you?

Left hanging on the line for an eternity and then fobbed off, your questions unanswered, that's if you ever get to speak to a real person at all?

Being an aggrieved customer can sometimes feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall.

I've been there. Many times. Until my head is sore from all the banging.

For the last five years, I've felt a burning need for Irish companies to be more accountable to customers.

I've sat back and watched people get treated like pondlife.

My conclusion: there is little in the way of decent customer service in this country - yet Irish citizens seem to accept that's ok, heck we're all tightening our belts aren't we?

NO!

It's time to stand up and be counted.

It's time to kick them back when they treat customers poorly.

It's time to make them realise we have consumer rights.

We're spending our hard-earned money on their services and products so they need to start listening to us when we're not happy with their sub-standand services.

Phone companies take note - I can imagine this site could end up being a forum for complaints about mobile companies in particular, because everyone always has so many problems with them.

So come on, this is your website, your forum to vent your frustrations with companies. Send me your gripes, grievances and complaints, and I'll post them on here and tell the companies to respond. Email consumertiger@gmail.com

Don't worry, I know what I'm doing, I used to do this for a living years ago when I worked for the Daily Mirror and Daily Express as a consumer editor.

Now, I'm a full time mum-of-3 who is trying to get back to writing because I love writing and it makes me feel normal again. See my other blog The Daily Muttering

I don't know the Irish market as well as the UK, where I lived and worked, but this blog wiill help me sink my tiger teeth into it.

I'll let you into a wee secret, I like giving companies hell! I've missed it. It's great to keep them on their toes. Watch them squirm when you embarrass them for poor customer service.

In my experience, companies only move to help people when they know they might be embarassed by negative publicity. So in the absence of a newspaper behind me, which means I don't have to kowtow to advertisers (yes newspapers won't go after companies who advertise with them, did you know that?), I'm going to do this all for free via a blog.

I earned the nicknamed "little tiger" when, as a consumer journalist, I used to argue a customer's rights with giants such as BT, NTL and Tesco in the UK. Hence the name of the blog is Consumer Tiger.

Perhaps we'll finally put the negative connotations of the name (Celtic) Tiger to bed for good.