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Consumer Action, 21st Century Style

felix

felix

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Apr 30, 2005
Messages
38,248
Location
❎ Scotland ❎
This year, let me count the ways I have leveraged my consumer power to my benefit so far:

Successes:
1. Morrisons gave me a £9 voucher after I complained about some dry tobacco I'd bought (which I managed to revive with some damp paper towels anyway).

2. ASDA gave me a £15 voucher for a pair of dodgy ASDA-brand ink cartridges that wouldn't work with my HP printer. No receipt either, but they apologised profusely, not realising that I'd got them on a buy-one-get-one-free deal and the £15 more than covered it.

3. Merrell trainers. My current pair of beloved 5 year old Merrell trainers were the second pair to snap at the upper lace holder, so after a brief exchange of emails (no receipt), they gave me a 50% discount on my next pair of Merrell shoes from their website.

4. Plus Net. After being a customer for 13 years, this year they renewed my contract for what amounts to £150 less per year for the same service, plus I've just received a £50 cheque in the post for sticking with them.

5. O2 have unlocked all our iPhones for free after a simple webchat, so we could switch to GiffGaff on a Pay As You Go basis, for far less money per month.

5. Scottish Gas boiler cover. One or two phone calls reduced our yearly payment by £47.70, just for staying with them.

6. PELI Products gave me a warranty replacement for a broken headtorch, no questions asked. No receipt.

7. Maglite gave me a warranty replacement for a broken AA torch's switch, no questions asked. No receipt.


Failures:

1. Timpsons. Tedious long story I shan't bore you with, but suffice to say their customer care is shit and I won't be entering their premises any time again.

2. Carlton luggage. Suit carrier plastic hook mechanism (i.e. the main load-bearing component) broke after light use. No spares available, so no luck.


In Progress:

1. Remington hair clippers. Adjustment lever snapped after a few months. I've emailed them in the past couple of days but no response yet,

2. Canon. The kit lens that came with my beloved 450D DSLR has stopped firing when in auto-focus mode. I emailed them via their website and await a response.


I do not for one second encourage the vexatious piss-taking of any companies in an attempt to get freebies. But I encourage all to hang onto their receipts, and to politely get in touch with them if you have a problem with anything. And definitely don't accept whatever you're quoted at renewal time by any insurance or utility companies. I'm sure I've missed out more examples.

All that is expected is a nice message on their social media presence in return. It's a brave new world and I love it.

Less money spent on this shit is more money for drugs & booze. :D
 
That is quite impressive.

Thank fuck I no longer work in a call centre.

I have a bottle of Club Orange here that, before opening, I noticed a little black piece of material floating in it. I've yet to get in contact with them but I do intend to do so. I did get £40 refunded for overdraft charges yesterday (also facilitated getting a greater quantity of drugs) but it's a kind of 'everybody gets one' situation so no real victory.

I remember a few years back there was a thread to see how much free stuff we could milk from companies. I got nothing from anyone but there were quite a few people that had good success with Innocent smoothies.
 
I got a refund for some MDAI I ordered that wasn't MDAI.

ASDA gave me a free bottle of milk when I complained that one had gone off before it's use by date, I didn't have the milk or the receipt.
 
i have 11 pages of notes from a customer service nightmare my girlfriend and i endured at the hands of american airlines when we had to change plans because my mum died last year. hours on the phone over months and months.

i would post it but if you read it you'll just want to shoot yourself in the face.

i will never willingly fly american airlines again. they lost a customer forever and couldn't have cared less.

alasdair
 
Don Luigi said:
That is quite impressive.

Thank fuck I no longer work in a call centre.

I have a bottle of Club Orange here that, before opening, I noticed a little black piece of material floating in it. I've yet to get in contact with them but I do intend to do so. I did get £40 refunded for overdraft charges yesterday (also facilitated getting a greater quantity of drugs) but it's a kind of 'everybody gets one' situation so no real victory.

I remember a few years back there was a thread to see how much free stuff we could milk from companies. I got nothing from anyone but there were quite a few people that had good success with Innocent smoothies.
Click to expand...

My two stepsons work in call centres, so I know what the culture there is like.

The best way to get good customer service is to be a good customer. If you're nice and reasonable to them, they'll bend over backwards to help you, unless they work for a toxic company.

You should definitely speak to that Club Orange company. Did you get a photo? They always help. As do receipts, where possible. :)

Let me reiterate that this is not about getting undeserved freebies. This is about us paying good money for products and services that don't come up to the expected quality. My eyes have been opened with this stuff this year. :D
 
alasdairm said:
i have 11 pages of notes from a customer service nightmare my girlfriend and i endured at the hands of american airlines when we had to change plans because my mum died last year. hours on the phone over months and months.

i would post it but if you read it you'll just want to shoot yourself in the face.

i will never willingly fly american airlines again. they lost a customer forever and couldn't have cared less.

alasdair
Click to expand...

If I told you my Timpsons story, it would make you want to firebomb every Timpsons shop in the UK. Mine was over a much more trivial matter than yours; but yeah, I can empathise a bit. It's good to name and shame.

American domestic carriers make BA look like Gods, and I have had issues with BA that I can't be arsed going into.
 
felix said:
My two stepsons work in call centres, so I know what the culture there is like.

The best way to get good customer service is to be a good customer. If you're nice and reasonable to them, they'll bend over backwards to help you, unless they work for a toxic company.

You should definitely speak to that Club Orange company. Did you get a photo? They always help. As do receipts, where possible. :)

Let me reiterate that this is not about getting undeserved freebies. This is about us paying good money for products and services that don't come up to the expected quality. My eyes have been opened with this stuff this year. :D
Click to expand...

This part is so true, I wish others would recognise this. I can understand that you're pissed off about being bundled from one wrong department to the next, but we're also pissed off about getting the wrong calls coming through. It really makes me cringe hearing my da trying to sort something out on the phone. After two transfers and 10 minutes on hold, he's pulling out the watchdog card haha. I tried to make him realise that he got off lightly. In my last call centre job, there was a woman who'd been on hold or with wrong departments for almost two hours. This was after she'd been robbed and raped and needed to get cards cancelled etc.

I didn't take the call but my mate beside me did so I heard the whole conversation from his end. It's shit that most call centre jobs are so poorly paid whenever the staff are often put in the position of being a counsellor for the customer. When taking calls for a bank, especially in fraud prevention (more so for collections I would imagine), you get lots of tears, anger, threats of suicide and violence. It can be a lot to take for someone who is not trained to deal with this stuff.


End of unrelated waffle
Anyway, that's off topic so I will return to relevancy as best I can.

I still have the offending unopened bottle of club, which I will gladly send in a pre-paid jiffy bag. My attempts to get free stuff always started with praising the company and the product but it always ended in asking me to send the product back to them.

Most products that I'm disappointed have tended to be drugs but I was never in a rush to see if the merchant's customer service helpline was good with a lot of them :| If I'm friendlier with the person then there's no problem with me protesting. I don't, knowingly, buy from any scary people anymore anyway.
 
I don't think I could work in a call centre. Those people should be paid as much as fucking doctors or policemen/women.

I hope you don't ever spend money sending a defective product back to a company. The only way I would do that is if it's well out of warranty, or if I'd lost the receipt.
 
alasdairm said:
i have 11 pages of notes from a customer service nightmare my girlfriend and i endured at the hands of american airlines when we had to change plans because my mum died last year. hours on the phone over months and months.

i would post it but if you read it you'll just want to shoot yourself in the face.

i will never willingly fly american airlines again. they lost a customer forever and couldn't have cared less.

alasdair
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that your mam died.

It's wrong the way some large companies treat customers because they know they've a lot. They ought to remember they started somewhere n it was customer who aided their growth. Some compsnies are too quick to forget that.

Evey
 
Evey, hello. :)

You're probably paying money to a dozen companies who will reduce your bills if you just ask them. Why don't you write out a list of them all, and see what you can do? :)

It might amaze you. If you've also got any broken things kicking about, deal with them too.

More money for us poor people. Less money for rich people. Let us know how you get on. <3
 
Had a couple of corkers last year.

1) Paid a ridiculous amount of money in travel insurance due to my age, cancerousness etc to CHURCHILL. There was a 28 day cancellation clause, where I could cancel for free. After 29 days my bank got in touch and offered insurance for £300 less. Expecting nothing, and pulling my hair out, I contacted Churchill who couldn't have been nicer and refunded my money within an hour. Not quite the same thing as being sold a duffer but shows the value of "if you don't ask you don't get".

2) Took my car to be serviced by the dealer I bought it off. Vurtual, you'll know who, they practically own your town. They gave it back to me with the back seat covered in Hoover dust. I swapped a few 'outraged' emails with them, then they forgot about me. Two months later I got back to them via the MD, explained the dust, explained being forgotten about, and was given some free windscreen strengthening thing I don't quite understand but is apparently worth £200.

I'm good at this and do it all the time (when necessary). I got 25% back off the cost of a safari in Sri Lanka coz they fucked us about a bit, 10% off a hotel bill again in Sri Lanka coz they had no hot water (I've been to a million hotels without hot water but this was a particular circumstance where it was required and promised). My local co-op probably hates me but regularly gives me free stuff because they fuck up so much. Henry Weston gave me 4 free ciders because I bought a half full bottle. Tons more I can't be bothered to think of right now.

Regarding AA Alasdair. Not at all surprised. My gf flew with them on a school trip to New York. She said they were the rudest cabin crew ever. First they spilled coffee over a passenger and swore at the passenger rather than apologise, intimating it was the passengers own fault. Then my gf's friend, a fellow teacher, collapsed in the walkway bit due to a medical condition she has. As my gf kneeled down attending to her she was told "Get her off the floor! She can't lay there!"

Gotta love New Yorkers.
 
kingsmill mill bread, I got a burnt loaf and phoned them up with details I got £12 in vouchers sent to me.
I phoned up john west tuna and bitched about a scale found in a tin, they sent me out a goody bag with post it notes a teddy bear a couple of pens and 4 x £5 vouchers.
I phoned up ariel soap powder and said I was suffering allergic reactions to a variety of soap powders and asked if they had sample sizes so I could find out which ones I could use they sent £15 in vouchers so I could buy them as they no longer send samples.
I phoned up about broadband having problems, ok it was down to weather and there was not much that can be done, but still I got a weeks worth returned on my bill.
I ordered a new computer just before christmas and they sent out a pack but it was the wrong monitor for the computer package, phoned up and complained they sent out another monitor, was the wrong one again finally they decided I was to keep the two useless monitors and they refunded me £100 onto my account for my inconvience and then I sold the monitors for 50 each :) so I basically got 200 off of my new computer.
I also ordered a new single bed for my spare room and they sent 2, and argos sent me 2 microwaves I sold the spare ones I frequently get duplicates sent to me and when I phone them they say they cant find it so I just sell them :)
 
Haha, great stories; that's the spirit. Keep it up. :D

1. Remington hair clippers. Adjustment lever snapped after a few months. I've emailed them in the past couple of days but no response yet
Click to expand...

Update: they don't have the specific spare part in stock any more (it's an old model, and was made in China of course, so fair enough), but they have offered me a 40% discount off any similar replacement item from their website. No receipt for this item.

2. Canon. The kit lens that came with my beloved 450D DSLR has stopped firing when in auto-focus mode. I emailed them via their website and await a response.
Click to expand...

Canon have directed me to an authorised repair centre in Glasgow, along with links to support help pages on their website. The problem is possibly user error or something trivial I can fix myself, so perhaps I was a bit hasty contacting them before properly researching the problem. Watch this space. :)
 
Just had to get a refund on a Greggs steak bake, which was literally inedible for want of salt. I did not want a refund; I just wanted a few crystals of sodium chloride. However, the shop staff -- who at first did not seem to understand my request -- claimed they did not have any. In a takeaway food outlet, for crying out loud? They tried to tell me they had not changed anything, but that was not the point; the point was that this particular steak bake, out of all the ones in the oven, was sufficiently short of salt that being hungry was preferrable to eating it; and that this situation should have been within their power to remedy, just by fetching a bit of salt out of the kitchen.

Anyway, it looks as though Birds have gained a new regular customer.
 
BecomingJulie said:
Just had to get a refund on a Greggs steak bake, which was literally inedible for want of salt. I did not want a refund; I just wanted a few crystals of sodium chloride. However, the shop staff -- who at first did not seem to understand my request -- claimed they did not have any. In a takeaway food outlet, for crying out loud? They tried to tell me they had not changed anything, but that was not the point; the point was that this particular steak bake, out of all the ones in the oven, was sufficiently short of salt that being hungry was preferrable to eating it; and that this situation should have been within their power to remedy, just by fetching a bit of salt out of the kitchen.

Anyway, it looks as though Birds have gained a new regular customer.
Click to expand...

Of all the things to whinge about, I think this must be the most ridiculous. "Excuse me kind Sir, I do believe this steak bake is woefully under-seasoned. I demand to speak with the Head Chef..."

I hope you're joking?
 
No, I'm deadly serious. This steak bake was more than "woefully under-seasoned" -- it was totally in-fucking-edible.

I didn't want to speak to the head chef. I just wanted a bit of salt on my steak bake. I don't think that is a remotely unreasonable request, either. I didn't even mean some fancy Atlantic Ocean salt, harvested by hand using traditional wooden and stone tools by the light of the full moon from the salt marshes of the Pays de la Loire, either. Just some ordinary kitchen salt. And for them not to have a salt cellar, in a takeaway food outlet of all places, well, that was just un-fucking-believable.

It has left a bad taste in my mouth, literally as well as figuratively.

Oh, I am aware that I could have taken it home, warmed it up in the oven and eaten it with some of my own stash of salt. But by then, the moment would have passed. If I was going to go to that much effort, I might just as well have gone to the butcher's stall on the indoor market, bought some stewing steak, taken it home, cooked it up with some mushrooms, onions, herbs, spices and Business As Usual, drained off the excess fat, added that to the margarine and flour I was using to make a simple pastry, rolled it out thin, folded it in half, repeated the rolling and folding process several times, folded the pastry around the cooked meat, crimped down the edges and baked until golden brown.

But I shouldn't have to do any of that. They should have had some salt.
 
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