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Greyhound Bins new annual charge

2

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    cupcakes15 wrote: »
    Having researched the bin collection market very well last week, i decided to move from Greyhound to City Bins on fri..i was led to this decision by the charge per kilo for both black and brown bins, the complete lack of customer care to a customer who has been loyal to the service for 15 years (including SDCC prior to takeover) and the very unhelpful girl the other end of the phone on fri morn..
    I paid 199 euro upfront to City bin for a years collection, which is a collection every single Tuesday ( Lucan area) of black bin one week and brown and green the next..the brown bin is the same size as the black and green..unlike greyhound little one...also the next day the new bins arrived at my house..very inpressed with the service so far.. as as far as i concerned its a win win situation for me..i think greyhound have shot themselves in the foot!!!

    I have literally just switched to City Bin too. I also live in the Lucan area. I'm delighted to hear such a good review of their service.
    I have one question that I'm hoping someone can help me out with. I have rubbish in my bins that now belong to Greyhound. City Bin won't collect someone else's bins which is fair enough but what do I do with my rubbish now until I switch? I have credit on my Greyhound account but haven't paid their annual fee, if I leave the bins out will they collect them? They're going to have to take them when they find out I switched anyway. :confused:


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭Tiocfaidh Armani


    I hate these annual fees, it's basically you paying them to be their customer and to give them business.:rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,488 ✭✭✭franksm


    Nope, Greyhound won't collect those. I am in the same boat - have lots of 'credit' with them but didn't pay the annual charge. Left the bin out last week (first time in about 2 months) - they put the bin on the back of the truck but I guess their system threw up a red flag there and then as they just wheeled it back unemptied to the front of the driveway. It's a bit crap that they didn't take it as I put the credit on well before they announced the new annual charge.
    I have literally just switched to City Bin too. I also live in the Lucan area. I'm delighted to hear such a good review of their service.
    I have one question that I'm hoping someone can help me out with. I have rubbish in my bins that now belong to Greyhound. City Bin won't collect someone else's bins which is fair enough but what do I do with my rubbish now until I switch? I have credit on my Greyhound account but haven't paid their annual fee, if I leave the bins out will they collect them? They're going to have to take them when they find out I switched anyway. :confused:


  • Registered Users Posts: 39 cupcakes15


    No they wont collect if you havent paid the annual fee, my husband had to transfer rubbish from Greyhound black bin to City Bin on sat morn, garden gloves and a rubbish grabber were used..in saying that i have still got old green bin full and will leave it out for collection on wed morn..it will be interesting to see if Greyhound collect it..will keep ye posted...


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    franksm wrote: »
    Nope, Greyhound won't collect those. I am in the same boat - have lots of 'credit' with them but didn't pay the annual charge. Left the bin out last week (first time in about 2 months) - they put the bin on the back of the truck but I guess their system threw up a red flag there and then as they just wheeled it back unemptied to the front of the driveway. It's a bit crap that they didn't take it as I put the credit on well before they announced the new annual charge.
    cupcakes15 wrote: »
    No they wont collect if you havent paid the annual fee, my husband had to transfer rubbish from Greyhound black bin to City Bin on sat morn, garden gloves and a rubbish grabber were used..in saying that i have still got old green bin full and will leave it out for collection on wed morn..it will be interesting to see if Greyhound collect it..will keep ye posted...

    Cupcakes, didn't Greyhound have to take their own bins back? If they were full of rubbish they were full of rubbish but they are meant to take their bins back are they not? :confused:


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  • Registered Users Posts: 39 cupcakes15


    They will only take them back empty i believe, a normal truck comes to get them instead of a bin truck!! City bins also said they are very slow to do it..bit of a pain i have 6 wheelies at the side of my house at the min!!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    cupcakes15 wrote: »
    They will only take them back empty i believe, a normal truck comes to get them instead of a bin truck!! City bins also said they are very slow to do it..bit of a pain i have 6 wheelies at the side of my house at the min!!!

    I'd love to just take the bins to the Greyhound offices and leave them, rubbish and all, outside with a note saying "yours I believe".


  • Registered Users Posts: 39 cupcakes15


    lol:p


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,488 ✭✭✭franksm


    lol

    especially true if you'd been filling the bin with "pre-annual-charge" waste and still have credit in your account !

    I predict Greyhound might show a nice bump in their profit this quarter (from all the 'abandoned' accounts which are in credit) and then a fall next quarter ( from all the people that have migrated to their competitors). Very, very short sighted of Greyhound.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    franksm wrote: »
    lol

    especially true if you'd been filling the bin with "pre-annual-charge" waste and still have credit in your account !

    I predict Greyhound might show a nice bump in their profit this quarter (from all the 'abandoned' accounts which are in credit) and then a fall next quarter ( from all the people that have migrated to their competitors). Very, very short sighted of Greyhound.

    Serves them right really.

    I will contact them re: collecting waste that they should collect, fight the good fight and report back.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,193 ✭✭✭liamo


    I'm absolutely furious with the new Greyhound prices and charges.

    I had been paying 10.50 per lift with Greyhound until this week.

    They introduced their new 60 Euro annual charge (which they took on Oct 1st) and claimed that
    "From 1st October 2011 our customers* can save and enjoy:
    - Reductions of 41% on the cost of black bin collections"


    However, my 80% full black bin just cost me 12.86 today.

    That's a price jump of almost 20% for a far-less-than-full bin (and that's on top of the 60 Euro charge). How on earth is that a reduction of 41%? It's not like I was loading the bin with bricks! It was normal household waste!

    They also say :
    "Black bin collection cost reduced from €10.50 to €6.20
    €6.20 charge based on 20kg average bin weight."

    What complete boll*x !! As mine was about 80% full, have other people really been putting out a bin that was 40% full and paying 10.50 each time for it? I don't believe that for a moment.

    I note Thornton's are in our area and although there is an annual charge of 50 Euro, they have a per-lift cost of 7.50. That's half the price of a full bin with Greyhound.

    Greyhound are losing another customer from tomorrow. I'm only sorry that I've given them my 60 Euro and that I didn't change before Oct 1st. That's what I get for believing their bare-faced lies about a 41% saving.

    As another poster said, this is a very short-sighted move by Greyhound and will result in a large loss of custom.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    Put the black (Greyhound) bin out yesterday morning and to my great surprise and delight found that it had been emptied when I got home.
    Put the green one out this morning so fingers crossed again. Its really the brown one that I want to have emptied as it would be the most disgusting one to have to empty:eek:

    Three brand new City Bins were also awaiting me when I got home too. :)


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 2,957 Mod ✭✭✭✭macplaxton


    Average weight of "20kg" that Greyhound claims aside. Their saving examples are the result of flaky maths and doesn't include the service charge. The pro-rata service charge is equivalent to €1.15 (€60.00/52 - and not 78 as there was no standing charge on the green bin). They should get a good skelping over these false figures as it's false advertising.
    Customer Savings

    Black Bin:
    • Black bin collection cost reduced from €10.50 to €6.20 €7.35
    • €6.20 €7.35 charge based on 20kg average bin weight plus €1.15 pro-rata service charge. You save €4.30 €3.15 per collection

    Customers who segregate waste into their green and brown recycling bins can reduce the weight of their black bin and save even more on black bin costs.

    Brown Bin:
    • Brown bin collection cost reduced increased from €5.25 to €4.80 €5.95
    • €4.80 €5.95 charge based on 20kg average bin weight plus €1.15 pro-rata service charge. You save €0.45 pay €0.70 more per collection
    • 23% 19% cheaper to put waste into brown bin than black bin
    From 1st October 2011 our customers can save and enjoy:
    • Reductions of 41% 30% on the cost of black bin collections
    • Reductions of almost 10% Increases of just over 13% on the cost of brown bin collections.

    Personally, I've had two bin collections done under the new pricing structure with Greyhound - 1 brown/1 green last week and 1 grey today.

    The brown one cost €4.39 (13.5kg including pro-rata annual service charge) - a "saving" of €0.86 / 16%.
    The grey one cost €8.12 (22.5kg including pro-rata annual service charge) - a "saving" of €2.38 / 23%

    Well it would have been a saving if I used to put the bins out every collection, but I didn't. Rammed 'em full to get my flat-fees worth. :pac: Projecting forward on the above, it'll cost €325 this year, compared to €244 the previous 12 months. So I make that an increase of 33% (or a third more) than last year. :(

    Time to do some shopping around.


  • Registered Users Posts: 36 dubmando


    Greyhound-worse company I have ever dealt with-have just spent considerable time (wasted) on the phone (over 30min on hold) bin was not collected, despite credited account on wed, when I telephoned Wed, I was informed it was a scanning error and was assured bin would be picked up Thur or Fri. Needless to say, this did not happen, resulting in having to waste more time to rude stupid staff today.

    Apparently it now is not a scanning issue, its SDCC fault!!! They obviously feel customers are as thick as the staff appear to be-anyway, i'm moving business to City Bin. If they do not collect my bin on Monday it will be returned to Craig avenue, with a sign on absolving me of any responsibility or further costs.

    Will update.


  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 12,909 Mod ✭✭✭✭iguana


    Is anyone else having trouble getting through to Access Waste? Whenever I call them I go through the IVR, get put on hold, wait in a queue for a while, then get put through to a different IVR, go on hold, then straight back to the second IVR, get put on hold, then back to the second IVR, etc.


  • Registered Users Posts: 29 Bigtalker


    All,

    When the new charging system was advertised by Greyhound we researched the 'new savings' we would be receiving and found that actually as a family of just two we are seeing a serious increase in our charges for the year. We tried through various mediums to contact Greyhound (phone, email, letters) and are yet to receive a reply. Today I rang at 5:04pm and got a machine stating that the office hours are between 8 and 5:30 and they were now closed. What a joke! Since we were unable to understand these new charges directly from the company we decided that based on our own understanding this was incorrect advertising and was misleading. I complained to the Advertising standards authority and received notification that they were investigating my claims.

    We have now moved to OZO. We received a 10% discount and the bins arrived the very next day. We have been contacting Greyhound daily (to no avail) to take our bins and are yet to get any reply. We now have 5 bins and are seriously considering dumping the bins and their waste at the front door of the company.

    If their marketing team are of any use they will be reading this thread and all other forms media on Greyhound. If we can not contact them directly maybe they will see this here.


  • Registered Users Posts: 29 Bigtalker


    dubmando wrote: »
    Greyhound-worse company I have ever dealt with-have just spent considerable time (wasted) on the phone (over 30min on hold) bin was not collected, despite credited account on wed, when I telephoned Wed, I was informed it was a scanning error and was assured bin would be picked up Thur or Fri. Needless to say, this did not happen, resulting in having to waste more time to rude stupid staff today.

    Apparently it now is not a scanning issue, its SDCC fault!!! They obviously feel customers are as thick as the staff appear to be-anyway, i'm moving business to City Bin. If they do not collect my bin on Monday it will be returned to Craig avenue, with a sign on absolving me of any responsibility or further costs.

    Will update.


    Any update?


  • Registered Users Posts: 954 ✭✭✭W.B. Yeats


    Quick question:
    We are changing to Access bins from Greyhound- I emailed greyhound to say that I would be changing to Access-
    Greyhound emailed me back and said that they would arrange for someone to come and take back our bins.....
    We have had those bins ever since we moved into our house 7 years ago, long before Greyhound came on the scene
    Question: who owns the bin? I thought that it was ours......


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    W.B. Yeats wrote: »
    Quick question:
    We are changing to Access bins from Greyhound- I emailed greyhound to say that I would be changing to Access-
    Greyhound emailed me back and said that they would arrange for someone to come and take back our bins.....
    We have had those bins ever since we moved into our house 7 years ago, long before Greyhound came on the scene
    Question: who owns the bin? I thought that it was ours......

    Officially I think the bin belongs to the company, somewhat in the same way that your ATM card, although yours, belongs to the bank. At this stage, 7 years on, I'd say the bins are yours though.
    That said, no other company will collect rubbish from bins that aren't theirs. I recently switched to City Bin and they delivered the news bins within 2 days but did confirm that they wouldn't be removing rubbish in bins that didn't belong to them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,193 ✭✭✭liamo


    I would say that, as SDCC owned the bins prior to selling on the business, ownership of the bins has passed to Greyhound.
    W.B. Yeats wrote: »
    Quick question:
    We are changing to Access bins from Greyhound- I emailed greyhound to say that I would be changing to Access-
    Greyhound emailed me back and said that they would arrange for someone to come and take back our bins.....
    We have had those bins ever since we moved into our house 7 years ago, long before Greyhound came on the scene
    Question: who owns the bin? I thought that it was ours......
    Officially I think the bin belongs to the company, somewhat in the same way that your ATM card, although yours, belongs to the bank. At this stage, 7 years on, I'd say the bins are yours though.
    That said, no other company will collect rubbish from bins that aren't theirs. I recently switched to City Bin and they delivered the news bins within 2 days but did confirm that they wouldn't be removing rubbish in bins that didn't belong to them.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,046 ✭✭✭wait4me


    I have changed to Thorntons and await the arrival of the new bins and the removal by Greyhound of the old bins.

    Going back into my memory, I seem to remember SDCC billing me (a deposit or something) for the black bin, way-way back. Irrespective of whether I paid this or not I will be insisting that Greyhound collect "their" bins. Its just a matter of managing the waste for the in-between time of receipt of the new, and the collection of the old, bins.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7 Pat_K


    Thanks for this thread confirmed what I already was thinking. Live in SDCC area and changed to Access today.

    RE: Who owns the bin? I asked Access about this when I switched, they say they are just going to put an Access sticker on it so I can keep using those bins. Really wasn't excited about moving garbage from one to the other. They also said that it will take about two weeks to get this done due to the high volume of new customers in the area.

    I think the earlier table in this thread is much more useful but I thought I'd include my simplified one for those that are interested.

    Company | Annual | Black: per Lift/Kilo | Brown: per Lift/Kilo
    Greyhound | €60 | €0.31 pK | €0.24 pK
    Throntons | €50 | €7.5 pL | €4.2 pL
    Access | €0 | €8 pL | €4.5 pL
    City Bin | €48 | €0.25 pK | €0.19 pK
    Panda N/A in area
    Greenstar N/A in area


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,046 ✭✭✭wait4me


    Pat_K wrote: »
    ... they say they are just going to put an Access sticker on it so I can keep using those bins....

    Now this is somebody using their brains! I just thought last night that if there is a major switch away from Greyhound to other providers, Greyhound is going to have to pick up a hell of a lot of bins, at a cost. Not good for the cash flow never mind the profit, read loss, line. Similarily Thorntons, for example, now have to order a shed load of new bins to supply to a fickle audience. That audience is liable to move elsewhere after a year if Thorntons (for example) don't maintain a cost competitiveness. I can see a lot of waste companies getting wasted in a short space of time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭Penny Dreadful


    Serves them right really.

    I will contact them re: collecting waste that they should collect, fight the good fight and report back.

    So I'm back and feel a little sheepish. I never told Greyound (until today) that I was leaving them and just put the bins out to be collected and each time they were emptied despite not having paid the annual charge.:confused:
    Anyhow, now to fill in the documents and say goodbye to Greyhound please come and collect your bins.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,539 ✭✭✭davoxx




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,046 ✭✭✭wait4me


    Just read that link and saw the following: Above prices are guaranteed until February 2012. So you could sign up now and find a price increase hits you in a couple of months.


  • Registered Users Posts: 72 ✭✭Paschcom


    Have tried to sign up with Access, but their link to sign up doesn't appear to be working, and I can't get through to them.
    Anyone else experiencing similar problems?
    Not a good omen for their service quality!

    Do you have to sign up for a year,or can you just cancel and switch to someone else if/when they put their charges up in February?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,193 ✭✭✭liamo


    Hi,

    I'm considering a taking a case in the small claims court against Greyhound for the return of my subscription.

    As part of that I'd like to produce their "reminder" flier which wasn't a reminder as it was the first indication that there was going to be a new charge (unless someone here can inform me otherwise?). Instead it was a demand for more money or have your service cut off.

    Anyway, I dumped my flier as I didn't have any reason to keep it at that time.

    If anyone still has their flier, perhaps they could PM me with a view to sending it to me?

    Thanks

    Liam


  • Registered Users Posts: 39 cupcakes15


    Liam sorry cant help you with flyer, but good luck anyway.

    To anyone asking if they own the black bin, the answer is yes, we would have
    paid an once of charge of 50 pounds about 14 years ago and i know from my neighbours moving out since the bin was automatically left for new people.

    I signed over to City bins in sept and am still waiting on greyhound to take back there bins, i have emailed them and phoned them many times and as recent as this morn, i was told i am now high priorty!!! :o


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1 Roubaix1


    I am currently moving from Greyhound. The reason being that when I rang them, after waiting 10 minutes, I had to speak to 3 people before anyone was able to answer simple questions on their charging structure.

    Now I have cancelled the service but they maintain they have no record of this - meaning they lost my cancellation letter. The person I spoke to was rude and incompetent. I would have been more successful with an answering machine.

    There is also rubbish in my greyhound bins - I have offered to pay the usual lift charge to allow them to take this and then take possesion of their bins. They have refused and said I need to empty the bins myself. To say they are unhelpful is a massive understatement, and did I mention rude.

    This is a company that seems to take pride in being unhelpful - move to anyone else if you can.


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