I'M GOING TO HAVE A GOOD OLD MOAN NOW...

Am I the only one getting really fed up with the shocking level of customer service these days??

The last 7 days have been a barrage of ineptitude, lies, rudeness and downright incompetence. And they ALWAYS blame the computer. I work in IT and if you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out. Similarly, if you pay peanuts...... And I was taking on three of the biggest organizations in the country.

For example, we collect our Airmiles through a certain well-known supermarket (and every other flippin market!) and we were trying to book a short break for someone's BIG birthday, only to find that said supermarket had not deposited any Airmiles into my account since last year. On investigation, they said it was because of a problem with my address, but - are you ready for this? - they couldn't tell me what the problem was. I know. Ridiculous. Once that was sorted (and I must have spoken to four people before I got them to accept that there actually was no problem), they then said they could only transfer the Airmiles in August as part of the quarterly cycle. They were rude too! So I persisted and ranted and eventually got a very nice Customer Relations lady to sort it out, so watch this space....

The second one was a well-known arts and crafts supplier to schools, who "lost" my parcel, replaced it but it was 'lost' in transit. They then sent it 24-hour delivery by ParcelForce, who also lost it. So they sent yet another one, only to have a different driver covering this area who "couldn't find" us. We live dead opposite a post office, too! As a "goodwill gesture" - what, for them having worked hard to mess me about??? - they are sending me a gift voucher... to spend with them!!! Fat chance.

Then, and most amusingly - NOT - was the complete ineptitude of a certain well-known motoring organization who also do loans. We tried to pay ours off early. They initially gave us the wrong settlement figure because, despite the rigorous hoops I had to jump through to prove who I was, they were still looking at someone else's account!! So I went to the bank and the manager transferred the funds to them. As an aside to this particular moan, we had already paid this month's instalment, but rather than deduct that from the settlement figure, we had to overpay them and wait for them to refund the month's instalment - WHY??? When the overpaid instalment did not reappear within 10 days I rang them to be proudly told by a rather dippy lady that "we probably have it but it's disappeared into cyberspace". It was sitting in a holding account, they were sending me strong letters because I'd cancelled their direct debit, and they still owed me £250!! Only when threatened with the police did they miraculously find it and we now have to wait ANOTHER ten days for our money back. WHY???

WHY do you have to fight for everything with these people?
WHY do you never get the same person twice and end up explaining it all over again?
WHY do I have to pay RIGHT NOW or they send snotty letters and late-payment bills and bailiffs, etc, when they can make me wait up to 3 months before I get back what's mine?
WHY am I penalised for not paying by Direct Debit? And I don't because of the number of cock-ups I've had to sort out.
WHY do I have to sit on the phone for ages listening to Vivaldi and being told my call is important but they're very busy, only to find that the person who answers either doesn't understand a word I'm saying or is the wrong department?
WHY can these ruddy call centres NOT call me back? They said it was because they were so busy taking incoming calls. Well.... duh! If you ring some of them back, your incoming call rate will drop........
WHY does no one accept responsibility for anything? What happened to taking ownership of something and sort it out?

In mitigation, I will concede that in each of these cases, a very nice and capable person has in the end sorted these out, but they still manage to make you feel like they're doing you a HUGE favour in their very busy day to stop you moaning.

COME ON PEOPLE!! You have a job to do. Do it. Or I'll start submitting bills for my time.

And after all the ranting, all I got on the day was blinding headache. I wait with bated breath to see if it is all resolved.

My favourite incompetent person was from the HMRC (tax office). I queried my ridiculously high tax code only to be told that it was because of my company car. This is some years back and I hadn't had a company car for over three years. So I told her that I had given it back when I left the job some years ago and therefore didn't have one. And she said - are you ready for this? Please do not be drinking or eating when you read the next bit. You have been warned! -



"ARE YOU SURE?"



I rest my case.