Greyhound Dublin City Council

pmooney1

Just got a letter today from DCC & Greyhound looking for €100 upfront to open an account and a card I've to top up (€6 black bin / €2 brown bin) in order to have them collected.

Changing the rules of the game as and when they please. Is there alternatives and any competition?

Not going to bother using my brown bin anymore. The idea of me sorting my waste into and then charging me €2 only to go on and sell it off themselves. We should be charging them.

rod flanders

I work for DCC and I was told it would be a seamless transition. Well €100 up front even is not what I was expecting. My loyalty could cost me. There is another thread discussing the alternatives.

pmooney1

Apparently there's no alternatives on the Northside.

No competition, no alternatives, no choice. No democracy.

Plus, this idea of pre paying for services yet to happen is disgraceful. What if I'm not happy with the services when it finally comes, not to mention the fact that I have to now keep tabs to make sure I received my bin lifts.

theres a land and asset grab taking place.

Lawrence1895

rod flanders wrote: »

I work for DCC and I was told it would be a seamless transition. Well €100 up front even is not what I was expecting. My loyalty could cost me. There is another thread discussing the alternatives.

Somebody from work told me, she only paid 60 Euro. She lives in Lucan. What is going on now?

rod flanders

Lars1916 wrote: »

Somebody from work told me, she only paid 60 Euro. She lives in Lucan. What is going on now?

Lucan is in South Dublin CC and she is correct but in Dublin City it will be €100 annual standing charge paid within 30 days of today.

Lawrence1895

rod flanders wrote: »

Lucan is in South Dublin CC and she is correct but in Dublin City it will be €100 annual standing charge paid within 30 days of today.

Meaning, Greyhound have the right, to charge different amounts, even for the same service?

Maybe they have the choice between different companies in South Dublin CC, and Greyhound has to make some compromises...

Dodge

SDCC used to charge €10.50 while DCC charged €6

A 40 kilo bin in Greyhound SDCC costs €12.40 to collect, while it'll cost €6 with Greyhound DCC

So while the standing charge is €40 more, the costs to bin collections is substantially less

Oh and they're a private enterprise offering you a service, so yea, they can charge different prices in different areas

Lawrence1895

Dodge wrote: »

SDCC used to charge €10.50 while DCC charged €6

A 40 kilo bin in Greyhound SDCC costs €12.40 to collect, while it'll cost €6 with Greyhound DCC

So while the standing charge is €40 more, the costs to bin collections is substantially less

Oh and they're a private enterprise offering you a service, so yea, they can charge different prices in different areas

...and use their monopoly in Dublin CC to raise their prices whenever they want?

Dodge

They don't have a monopoly in DCC area. Thornton, ozo and Panda already exist in some DCC areas.

pmooney1

Dodge wrote: »

They don't have a monopoly in DCC area. Thornton, ozo and Panda already exist in some DCC areas.

None of them collect in the D11 area.

If you live with the DCC region but outside of the city itself, you're stuck with Greyhound.

Dodge

yes, but they will still try and be competitve with the other companies that serve DCC areas so they won't completely act as a monopoly in raising prices

(Although they absolutely will raise prices, of that there's no question)

Raytown Rocks

I was onto them at the weeknd myself

I live in the Ringsend area.
Firstly we received the wrong pack in the post for our bins, we got the update for bin tags for plastic bags and not for Black/Brown bins.
Means I have to have this sorted before Thursday for the bins to be collected this week.
Once I contacted them they said the new pack would be sent out.

In the mean time
Its €100 to be paid within 30 days, but does not have to be 100 lumpsum, so 25 a week for 4 weeks or whatever you like to get to €100
I was told that it was a one off payment and not annual?
Its €6 for a black bin and €2 for the brown bin
Green bins are free.

Still found the fact that they want €100 in 30 days a bit much, especially in mid Jan.

Lawrence1895

Dodge wrote: »

They don't have a monopoly in DCC area. Thornton, ozo and Panda already exist in some DCC areas.

Greyhound seem to be the only ones who serve the Nortside of the city, so I call it monopoly

hohohaha

Lars1916 wrote: »

...and use their monopoly in Dublin CC to raise their prices whenever they want?

Just rang a company in the golden pages and they will do it for 3 euro a black bag with no up front fees or lifting charges (seek and you shall find):

pmooney1

hohohaha wrote: »

Just rang a company in the golden pages and they will do it for 3 euro a black bag with no up front fees or lifting charges (seek and you shall find):

would u mind sharing...?

hohohaha

Will post details shortly as I am not at home.

Sigourney

pmooney1 wrote: »

would u mind sharing...?

Would that be Abbey Waste? A friend of mine in Dublin 7 switched to them lately for bag collection. Very satisfied so far.

bigroad

I saw a greyhound bin truck the other day on the m50.It was had greyhound colours but had a big panda waste sticker on the side.Are the two companies working together .

pcworldisajoke

jst to clarify, for the three euro, is that black BAG, or black BIN?

Emma1980

chef wrote: »

I was onto them at the weeknd myself

I live in the Ringsend area.
Firstly we received the wrong pack in the post for our bins, we got the update for bin tags for plastic bags and not for Black/Brown bins.
Means I have to have this sorted before Thursday for the bins to be collected this week.
Once I contacted them they said the new pack would be sent out.

In the mean time
Its €100 to be paid within 30 days, but does not have to be 100 lumpsum, so 25 a week for 4 weeks or whatever you like to get to €100
I was told that it was a one off payment and not annual?
Its €6 for a black bin and €2 for the brown bin
Green bins are free.

Still found the fact that they want €100 in 30 days a bit much, especially in mid Jan.

Its an annual charge

Customers need to prepay Annual Charge 2012 before 15th February 2012.

I've not received anything from Greyhound as of yet and my black bin is due to be collected this week - i can't figure out if its to be picked up Wednesday as per normal or Tuesday as per Greyhound website - it does say that there would be no change to the schedule so i haven't a clue but i guess it doesn't really matter seeing as i've not received anything from them yet!! I will presume i won't be getting my bin collected this week!

zacseph

Got the same letter this morning - really annoyed me I have to say.
I was wondering what was taking them so long to pick up the brown bin (it's always done about 7 in the morning) and when I got back I saw this.

Now, the brown bin is full and ready to go, and the new schedule is for it to be collected on wednesday, but there's no way in hell I can pull €100 out of nowhere by then - I wouldn't mind so much if i'd known about it, but the letter came through the door today/ It was dated Jan 1st, but I don't believe for a second it was sent then - it takes a max of 2/3 days for a letter to get from one part of dublin to another, not 2 weeks...

Does anyone know were these annual charges due with dublin city as well, or is it just greyhound that charge it?

pmooney1

zacseph wrote: »

Got the same letter this morning - really annoyed me I have to say.
I was wondering what was taking them so long to pick up the brown bin (it's always done about 7 in the morning) and when I got back I saw this.

Now, the brown bin is full and ready to go, and the new schedule is for it to be collected on wednesday, but there's no way in hell I can pull €100 out of nowhere by then - I wouldn't mind so much if i'd known about it, but the letter came through the door today/ It was dated Jan 1st, but I don't believe for a second it was sent then - it takes a max of 2/3 days for a letter to get from one part of dublin to another, not 2 weeks...

Does anyone know were these annual charges due with dublin city as well, or is it just greyhound that charge it?

Its just Greyhound. They have the contract for Waste now.

hohohaha

Yes these guys seem to be upfront no hidden agenda as it goes. wise men say only fools rush in so I`m not paying greyhound 100 euro up front to collect my bin

SPDUB

zacseph wrote: »

/ It was dated Jan 1st, but I don't believe for a second it was sent then - it takes a max of 2/3 days for a letter to get from one part of dublin to another, not 2 weeks...

The letters only started going through the Delivery offices in the last week .

Meauldsegosha

zacseph wrote: »

Got the same letter this morning - really annoyed me I have to say.
I was wondering what was taking them so long to pick up the brown bin (it's always done about 7 in the morning) and when I got back I saw this.

Now, the brown bin is full and ready to go, and the new schedule is for it to be collected on wednesday, but there's no way in hell I can pull €100 out of nowhere by then - I wouldn't mind so much if i'd known about it, but the letter came through the door today/ It was dated Jan 1st, but I don't believe for a second it was sent then - it takes a max of 2/3 days for a letter to get from one part of dublin to another, not 2 weeks...

Does anyone know were these annual charges due with dublin city as well, or is it just greyhound that charge it?

DCC had a quarterly fee of €24. Greyhound have rounded that up to €100 and asking for it to be paid in full up front.

Dyr

Be interesting to see if dublin city councils budget is slashed to reflect them going out of the waste management business. Or if any of the desk fillers they employed to manage it are let go rather than being redeployed to another desk

Turpentine

Bambi wrote: »

Be interesting to see if dublin city councils budget is slashed to reflect them going out of the waste management business. Or if any of the desk fillers they employed to manage it are let go rather than being redeployed to another desk

Oh I'm sure they'll probably be well utilised in a new department set up to catch perpetrators of the inevitable extra fly-tipping and illegal dumping that's going to happen.

Or something.

Dodge

Bambi wrote: »

Be interesting to see if dublin city councils budget is slashed to reflect them going out of the waste management business. Or if any of the desk fillers they employed to manage it are let go rather than being redeployed to another desk

Didn't they claim they were losing money on it? So if anything it should help their budget situation. if that keeps people in jobs, all the better

JosDel

What's going to happy to the DCC binmen ? redeployed ? sacked ?

I know these binmen years.

Dodge

Presume greyhound will take them on. Not sure about their employment contracts etc

Its not like greyhound had 100+ lads waiting to start on Monday

Dyr

Dodge wrote: »

Presume greyhound will take them on. Not sure about their employment contracts etc

Its not like greyhound had 100+ lads waiting to start on Monday

Greyhound hired about 100 people last summer i think

ooter

I am a DCC binman and we are being "reassigned."
They are holding meetings with us all this week and we will be told our new jobs on Friday,it looks like we are going to lose €60 a week from our wages and we are going to lose our task and finish arrangement (that we fought tooth and nail to hold on to) without any compensation.
Absolutely disgraceful the way we are being treated but it seems they can do what they like Thanks to the good old croke park agreement.

Dyr

Dodge wrote: »

Didn't they claim they were losing money on it? So if anything it should help their budget situation. if that keeps people in jobs, all the better

Given the way DCC run themselves they can't help but make loses on anything...you could give them a monopoly on all the booze in this city and they'd still manage not to turn a profit

Anyway its okay if the customers being rode up the jacksie so long as employees of DCC keep their bums on seats? Nah, not really. Problem with this country is that we get the worst of both worlds..all the problems of public sector admin and privatised monopolies but none of the benefits.

Dirk Gently

ooter wrote: »

I am a DCC binman and we are being "reassigned."
They are holding meetings with us all this week and we will be told our new jobs on Friday,it looks like we are going to lose €60 a week from our wages and we are going to lose our task and finish arrangement (that we fought tooth and nail to hold on to) without any compensation.
Absolutely disgraceful the way we are being treated but it seems they can do what they like Thanks to the good old croke park agreement.

reassigned within DCC I assume?

Pawwed Rig

Greyhound didn't collect my bins yesterday. We only got the letter last Friday which said there was 30 days to pay it.

I have been trying to contact the numbers all day but there is no answer.

Don't need this hassle:mad:

Dyr

ooter wrote: »

I am a DCC binman and we are being "reassigned."
They are holding meetings with us all this week and we will be told our new jobs on Friday,it looks like we are going to lose €60 a week from our wages and we are going to lose our task and finish arrangement (that we fought tooth and nail to hold on to) without any compensation.
Absolutely disgraceful the way we are being treated but it seems they can do what they like Thanks to the good old croke park agreement.

Is task and finish a "finish ASAP so we can do our nixers" arrangement? I'd some sympathy for binmen given the wages and that but this now means that DCCs customers are now paying for two sets of binmen. Worst of both worlds

Dirk Gently

Bambi wrote: »

Is task and finish a "finish ASAP so we can do our nixers" arrangement? I'd some sympathy for binmen given the wages and that but this now means that DCCs customers are now paying for two sets of binmen. Worst of both worlds

Well I reckon it will be more one set of binmen and one set of council clean up crews clearing up fly tipping.

I also cant see how the private operator would be more expensive considering his wage bill would be lower than the councils wage bill and they wont have to absorb waivers beyond this year, unless of course it was a private monopoly and they charged what ever they liked. DCC were losing customers southside to private operators because of pricing already.

ooter

No bambi,its an incentive to do your work on a particular day as quickly as possible and once you have it done you can go home.you start at 6am,take no breaks and finish around 12 if you're lucky.
Now we will be asked to work a full day (granted,with breaks) which will mean working longer hours for €60 a week less,go figure.
I could do with a few "nixers" to make up that shortfall,do you know of any going?

Pawwed Rig

Finally got through to them.
The customer service seems pretty good but there are long waiting times to talk to anyone. Apparently the change over 'didn't go as smoothly as they thought it would'.

Also to register isn't exactly intuitive

Psychobabble

Our black bins were collect weekly by DCC; Greyhound will only collect them on alternate weeks from Green bins, which is a total pain, as we used put them both out every two weeks; which is awkward, as we live in a terrace and bring them out the back gateway along the lane ... bit of a rigmarole. We're even being charged a higher service charge, for a poorer service :mad:

zacseph

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Finally got through to them.
The customer service seems pretty good but there are long waiting times to talk to anyone. Apparently the change over 'didn't go as smoothly as they thought it would'.

Also to register isn't exactly intuitive

Did they say if they'd pick it up or not in the meantime?
Based on the letter I read, you have 30 days to pay the annual charge, but they won't be collecting anything until you do.
And if it works the way I think, you'd need enough balance on the account for the bins to be picked up (for me, €8) and I checked the site last night and I have a balance of -€100.
Seems like until I pay at least €108, my bins won't be lifted... which probably won't be for about a month, to be perfectly honest.
I don't see why they can't use the same scheme as DCC - send an invoice every so often throughout the year - would be essentially the same price and surely the system is already in place they could just take over from DCC...

Dirk Gently

The reason they wont use dub citys payment method is because it's easy for people to fall into arrears. pre pay means no bad debts. Of course introducing pre-pay with no notice in the middle of January and messing up collections means they'll be dumped if/when any competition enters the market.

I'd still love to know the particular conditions of the transfer and if greyhound have sole rights to north Dub. I know if a big new market opened up like that for my company we'd be all over it like flies on shite. Refuse collection companies seem unwilling or unable to enter north dub though.

Pawwed Rig

zacseph wrote: »

Did they say if they'd pick it up or not in the meantime?

She said she would organise someone to take the green bin but only as a once off. There is a commitment to call me by tomorrow with the pickup details. Seems that they have been swamped with people whose bins weren't collected.

zacseph wrote: »

Based on the letter I read, you have 30 days to pay the annual charge, but they won't be collecting anything until you do.
And if it works the way I think, you'd need enough balance on the account for the bins to be picked up (for me, €8) and I checked the site last night and I have a balance of -€100.
Seems like until I pay at least €108, my bins won't be lifted... which probably won't be for about a month, to be perfectly honest.

That is correct. you need to pay the €100 up front but they won't collect your bins until you have more than €112 (I think) as €12 seemed to be the minimum balance allowable judging by the letter I got.

zacseph wrote: »

I don't see why they can't use the same scheme as DCC - send an invoice every so often throughout the year - would be essentially the same price and surely the system is already in place they could just take over from DCC...

Cashflow reasons and arrears as another poster mentioned.

Wonder what happens if I don't pay the outstanding charges with Dublin City Council?;)

Dirk Gently

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Wonder what happens if I don't pay the outstanding charges with Dublin City Council?;)

I'd say as soon as those bills are processed you'll find your next grey hound top up will be your dub city arrears + 12 euro and if you put 12 euro in it will just come off the dub city account.

Lets face it, dub city wont get paid any other way. I certainly wont be paying my last quarter bill with them unless greyhound dock it from their account before lifting another bin.

Pawwed Rig

Dirk Gently wrote: »

I'd say as soon as those bills are processed you'll find your next grey hound top up will be your dub city arrears + 12 euro and if you put 12 euro in it will just come off the dub city account.

Lets face it, dub city wont get paid any other way. I certainly wont be paying my last quarter bill with them unless greyhound dock it from their account before lifting another bin.

Only one way to find out!!!!:D

hohohaha

pcworldisajoke wrote: »

jst to clarify, for the three euro, is that black BAG, or black BIN?

Its for a bag but there is no sign up fee and they give weekly collection.

RedRaven

Just to be clear are they asking that you pay 100 euro annual service charge and then 6 euros per lift there after? Or is it you pay 100 euros and 6 euros is deducted from that initial 100 euro in the account.

Its not very clear.

The old fee from DCC was roughly 150 odd per year.

These guys are potentially charging 265 euros per year for the same service Hope somebody tells me Im wrong on this.

Emma1980

no ur wrong, your account will start and minus 100euro and your first collection will be when ur account reaches plus 12euro!

The Scientician

Dublin City Councillors have demanded a special meeting of the council and publication of the terms of the contract with Greyhound Waste after privatisation of the bin collection service.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0118/dublin.html

Gloomtastic!

The Scientician wrote: »

Dublin City Councillors have demanded a special meeting of the council and publication of the terms of the contract with Greyhound Waste after privatisation of the bin collection service.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0118/dublin.html

Seemingly the DCC managers are refusing to divulge any of the financial arrangements to the Councillors.

Why do we have Coucillors when the unelected managers make all the decisions?

Dirk Gently

I'd be very interested to see those terms and how greyhound managed to get at least 1 year free of competition by railroading everyone in north dublin into going with them. Also gives them free reign to charge what they like in the absence of competition after 6 months. There needs to be transparency and the full terms published.