I joined Dublin Chambers thinking it would help me and my business. I was wrong and found it not worth the membership fee.
7 Months after joining Dublin Chambers I had still not been added to their web site. I phoned and asked why on a few occasions during that period to be told that they out source this and the database had not been updated. For seven months?
However after emailing and asking that they cancel my membership they had kicked me out of the LinkedIn chambers group with two days. Slow for getting any benefit and quick to disconnect.
After each telephone call to them I became more disillusioned and questioned the return on my membership fee. I went looking at the annual accounts and was stunned.
Given the amount of employees within Dublin Chambers the salary levels appeared to be very high. One place I could see membership fees going to. Another was the reserves, more than a million Euro, while at the same time ripping off members – more of this later.
I went after one phone call and checked out he cost of membership of Chambers in the UK, it was around £250 per year compared to the €600 here. Quite a difference; do they work on our behalf three or twice as much?
I called once and spoke to their events person. I was interested in giving a talk to one of the Chambers meetings. Yes I could, not an issue – but only if I was willing to pay the Chambers €2,500!
I asked why they charged so much money for giving a talk to chamber members, where members were already pay €45 to come along to the talk. Well we get maybe ten requests like this a week, so we charge for it.
So in reality Dublin Chambers is just a money making machine to rip off its members.
