It’s normally the length of time that countries give before judging new leaders but Asda have set themselves up to have the piss hauled out of them by their customers by extending the length of time that customers have to return clothing to a whopping 100 days.

It’s a poke in the eye to Marks and Spencer, who recently reined in their own returns period from 90 days to 35. Asda have said they will allow customers to return any item from their George clothing line up to 100 days after purchase, regardless of how many times it had been washed or worn.

The supermarket recently trialled the 100-day period on their school uniform range, with £900 worth of returns and refunds against a total of £9 million worth of uniforms sold.

Fiona Lambert, brand director at George, took a deep breath and blah-blah-di-blahed: “Even though officially it’s the end of the recession, the attitudes we have developed towards being less wasteful are here to stay. Although we all want to make do and mend, the reality is that the busy mum just doesn’t have time. The George 100-day quality guarantee now means that our customers should be just as happy with a George garment after washing and wearing as the day they bought it.”

Carla from Corrie - her knicker factory returns policy is unknown

What do you lot reckon to all that then? Are you already peacock-proud of the fact that you dress from head to toe in George clobber or would you rather set fire to your own arms than be seen in such tat?

Maybe you previously dismissed the range as a poor man’s Primark but will now head in the direction of your nearest Asda and deck yourself out in George finery?

Or perhaps the name George makes you make about that horrible old bastard of the same name who is trying to steal Peter Barlow’s son on Coronation Street and therefore puts you right off wearing anything with that name on the label?

Yes, let’s talk about Corrie instead. That Carla, eh fellas? Hard boiled egg through a hosepipe we reckons.

Game on! The banking revolution promised by Metro Bank is HAPPENING after they finally received their licence from the Financial Services Authority.

Co-founder Vernon Hill has already promised extended opening hours and a 15-minute no-fuss account-opening procedure – and now they’re planning to take care of your dog as well!

Metro Bank chairman Anthony Thomson says: “With the FSA authorisation of Metro Bank we are entering a new era of banking, one where we go back to a more traditional banking model where customer service is key and there is deposit based lending. We believe that by providing unparalleled service and convenience, Metro Bank will stand out from other High Street banks.”

Then, as a contradiction to the ‘traditional banking model’ which Thomson speaks of, the bank adds: “A friendly welcome to dogs and their owners, with water bowls and dog biscuits on hand for man’s best friend – dogs rule at Metro Bank!”

If you like their style, the good news is that Metro are aiming to have 200 branches by 2020 – the bad news is that they’ll all be in Greater London… and possibly managed by Great Danes.

Banks? Wanks more like – hur hur hur.

Yeah. Everyone hates banks don’t they. Even people who enjoy working for a bank hate banks. They’re all a shower of remorseless bastards, cackling as you drop deeper into debt after you gleefully accepted one of their acts of goodwill like a loan or an overdraft.

Not many people know this, but everyone in the banking world gets coal for Christmas from Santa every year… so you can blame the lack of our Earth’s resources on those cockshafts as well.

But who is the worst?

Well, according to figures released today, the Lloyds Banking Group attracted more complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service in the second half of 2009 than any other financial firm. In the last 6 months, the FOS received 20,190 complaints about ‘em, including 9,952 concerning Lloyds TSB which just happens to be the highest number of complaints about an individual bank.

This is almost double the number of disgruntery than those in second place – Barclays.

The two have switched positions at the top of the complaints table but both attracted considerably more complaints than in the first six months of last year.

The ombudsman found in favour of the consumer in a higher proportion of Barclays bank complaints, upholding 65% of the total claims against them with only 51% finding favour concerning Lloyds TSB. It’s still a bit shit for both though.

During the last six months of 2009 the FOS received a total of 82,136 new complaints across the board, meaning an increase of 18% on the 69,841 cases received in the first half of 2009. The main offenders were the aforementioned, as well as Royal Bank of Scotland (with a total of 7,098 complaints), Abbey (4,918 complaints) and HSBC (3,881).

An average of 53% of complaints were upheld across all the financial groups. Not exactly ‘top box service’, eh?

David Thomas, interim chief ombudsman, said it was encouraging to see that some businesses were committed to handling complaints better, but added: “The data we have released today clearly shows that some businesses still need to do more to ensure that they deal with their customers’ complaints effectively and fairly – so that consumers do not then need to escalate their dissatisfaction to the ombudsman.”

In a statement, Lloyds Banking Group said it took all complaints seriously and was committed to ensuring that they were dealt with fairly, quickly and consistently.

“With over 30 million customers, the group has the largest customer base in the UK. The vast majority are happy with the service we provide and this is reflected in the low number of complaints we receive in relation to the high number of accounts we hold.

“We encourage our customers to share their views with us and we use that feedback to help us to provide a high quality of service. We are focused on developing a long-term and strong relationship with our customers, and the complaints and feedback process is an essential part of that relationship.”

Have you had a bad time with Lloyds? Or any bank for that matter. Slag ‘em off in the comments. Or indeed, slag anything off that takes your fancy, including this article. We’re needy for attention… even the negative kind.

[Guardian]

A while ago, we highlighted the oncoming charge of Metro Bank, a brand new kind of retail bank that is heading towards the UK. The boffins behind it spoke excitedly of long opening hours and a strong emphasis on customer service. Ooooh!

There was only one snag however – they hadn’t been granted a banking licence. Gah!

Now the Metro head honchos are back with more big talk about their revolution in banking, and they reckon we’re just weeks away from getting a taste of it.

As well as the aforementioned long opening hours (including most bank holidays), they’re also boasting customer toilets, a 15-minute account opening procedure which will see new customers walking out with their new debit and credit cards there and then, and face painting. Okay, maybe not face painting, but they’re keen to rewrite the rules of retail banking.

Metro are focussing on the Greater London area initially but aim to have 200 branches by 2020. It sounds mightily impressive and surely there’s nothing getting in the way of their imminent dominance of 21^st century banking.

Oh, apart from the fact that they STILL haven’t got a banking licence. Doh!

Big fat Kevin Smith on a plane yesterday. We're not sure if it ever got off the ground...

Now and again, the issue of fat people on aeroplanes rears its bulky head and we all make a few jokes about salad-dodgers. Whether it’s Ryanair’s (aborted) plans to levy a fat tax against chunky fliers or AirFrance-KLM’s decision to make airbound Billy Bunters pay for, and sit in, two seats instead of one, it’s all good for some light debate and a bit of a chortle.

But the debate just went nuclear – yes, you guessed it, a celebrity got involved. Kevin Smith, director of Clerks, Dogma and Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back has been booted off a Southwest Airlines flight in the USA after the plane’s captain deemed him ‘a safety risk’ something which the not-all-that-fat-actually Smith denies being.

What Smith is though, is an active Twitter user, with 1.6 million followers on the internationally-recognised communication service. And once he’d informed his legions of fans about the incident, all online hell broke loose, culminating in a swift and full apology from SWA.

This didn’t please Smith either, calling SWA out for only apologising to him because he’s a celebrity and has a voice that is listened to. He tweeted…

“Fuck making it right for me just ’cause I have a platform. I sat next to a big girl who was chastised for not buying an extra ticket because “all passengers deserve their space.” Fucking flight wasn’t even full! Fuck your size-ist policy. Rude…”

We get the feeling that the flying fatties debate is only going to escalate from hereon in. A bit like roly poly director Smith’s waist measurements…

First Stelios, then Usain Bolt...

You might not like his airline or his business tactics but there comes a time when you have to just stand back and admire the balls on Ryanair’s Sky Marshall Michael O’Leary.

Faced with a legal threat from Easyjet’s Sir Stelios over a Ryanair ad, O’Leary has said that he’ll pull the ads if Stelios will take him on in a ‘Chariots Of Fire’-style race around Trafalgar Square. No, really.

Sir Stelios claims that Ryanair have made “baseless and grossly defamatory” statements about him in the ads, which focussed on Easyjet’s reluctance to publish their punctuality figures and featured a photo of Sir Stelios with an elongated Pinocchio nose. Classy stuff Sky Marshall.

The Easyjet boss wants an apology and damages for what his lawyers say are causing: “ongoing and escalating damage to our client’s reputation.” But all the Sky Marshall wants to do is pull on a pair of trainers and settle the feud like a pair of seven-year-olds.

O’Leary adds that if Sir Stelios doesn’t fancy a race to settle things, he’ll be happy to sort it with a Sumo fight, saying: “As long as he provides the nappies, bring it on.”

Data protection – it’s hard work, isn’t it? Having to find somewhere safe to keep all that customer information, and then making sure nobody inadvertently emails it back to the customers. For example, if you’ve contacted Orange through their website recently, you may have received a short email from the service provider, because Orange are wanting customer feedback to improve the experience:

Hello from Orange

Thank you for your recent email enquiry. In order to improve our service we would like to take the opportunity to ask you a couple of questions regarding the way in which you have contacted Orange.

In the pursuit of improving service provided to our customers, Orange are intending to update and modify the ‘Contact Us’ section of the Orange website that our customers use to email their queries to our Customer Service Representatives.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could reply to this email with your thoughts on the ‘Contact Us’ section by answering the following questions.

How easy was the ‘Contact Us’ section of the Orange website to navigate?

Was your query included in the options available?

Did you find it easy to locate the ‘Contact Us’ section?

Do you have any suggestions or comments on how we can improve this service?

Your feedback is important to us and will be passed on to our Development Teams, so thank you for taking the time to reply.

Kind regards

Orange Online Services Team

Avid Bitterwallet reader Mark knew he wasn’t alone in receiving the email – partly because it wasn’t personalised and the contents were generic, but mostly because the address field contained over one thousand email addresses aside from his:

Those on the list are already emailing one another wondering why Orange has sent their email details to a big ol’ bunch of strangers. And despite the data protection gaffe, users are yet to receive an apology from the company. At least you’ve all made some new friends for Google Buzz, eh?

A price comparison site user, yesterday.

Dealing with price comparison websites is like crawling through a minefield covered with broken glass with a squirrel in your trousers and a Mynah bird squawking obscenities in your earhole. Or so they say.

It can be a living nightmare with no way of knowing how comparisons are made, who is paying for enhanced listings and the frustration of that finding the price you are quoted isn’t always the price you pay. Which is why it would be a good idea for an official watchdog to appear that would police the oeuvre and sort out the cowboys from the good guys (if indeed there are any).

The good news is that a proposed code of conduct for price comparison sites has been under discussion for the past few months. The bad news is that discussions have collapsed and what was going to be a voluntary watchdog will now not be created.

Sean Gardner, former managing director of the Moneyexpert website and head of the Comparison Consortium until its demise, says: ‘Trying to bring many of these people together felt like herding a group of angry cats. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that many consumers will continue to be misled. It is immensely frustrating.’

If you do buy any financial product through a price comparison, sit down in a well-lit room, turn the TV off and unplug the phone and make sure you’re wide awake. Then read all of the small print. All of it – otherwise you could quite easily find yourself signing up for a product that could be useless in the future, eg; insurance that is null and void because you skimmed over some of the details at the application stage.

Would you even use a price comparison site given the shady reputation that they’ve picked up over the years? Or do you treat them as a guide to where the best bargains are before dealing directly with the company in question? Tell us. In the little box.

Your Yaris, tomorrow.

Toyota have finally announced the UK-based cars that will be recalled due to a faulty accelerator pedal. If you own any of the following vehicles, you’d better start clearing out the glove compartment because it will soon be wrestled from your grip and pulped into a cube.

• Aygo (Feb 2005 – Aug 2009)
• iQ (Nov 2008 – Nov 2009)
• Yaris (Nov 2005 – Sep 2009)
• Auris (Oct 2006 – 5 Jan 2010)
• Corolla (Oct 2006 – Dec 2009)
• Verso (Feb 2009 – 5 Jan 2010)
• Avensis (Nov 2008 – Dec 2009)
• RAV4 (Nov 2005 – Nov 2009)

Obviously we made all that stuff up about the cars being pulped because we’re a bunch of scaremongering morons but if you do own any of the cars in question, Toyota have more info for you at their website, where they say they will be contacting affected customers.

Pedestrians, if you see a Toyota coming down the road in your direction, dive into the nearest hedge as it is almost certainly out of control and headed straight for your precious bones.

Sorry, more scaremongering there.

A telephone, yesteryear.

Scores of you nominated BT in our recent Worst Company In Britain 2009 competition, and the widely loathed company have just snuck out another reason for you to nominate them at the end of 2010.

From April 1^st, the beginning of the period when customers can make free evening calls will move back an hour, from 6pm to 7pm in a move that is bound to enrage millions of BT customers.

According to The Guardian, the announcement will be tucked away at the bottom of a letter and email sent out to customers this week entitled “Important information about your BT service.” You know, the sort that most of us rarely bother to read. Those who don’t bother to read it will find out all about it post-April when their plumped-up bills arrive full of charges for calls made between 6pm and 7pm.

But we don’t want you to think that BT are a gang of cack-eyed time thieves because they’re not. They’ll be pushing back the free evening call period, which will now end at 7am instead of 6am. Great news for those of us who like to wake up at 6.05am and ring up a chum for a good natter.

In a weak attempt to justify the cash-grabbing move, a BT spokesman blah-di-blahed “We’ve looked into it and 6pm to 7pm is a busy time for calling, but it’s the time when people make short, organisational calls. It’s between 8pm and 9pm when they sit down to have a chat.”

Oh. That’s alright then.

Time, as ever, for some consumer-based news. Just a quick heads-up courtesy of some HotUKDealketeers who are unhappy about the recent level of service, or rather non-service from online memory card and computer accessory ‘specialists’ Zoombits.

HUKD member subserviantdude has spoken out about them, saying:

“I appeared to have been scammed by zoombits.co.uk.

I placed an order about 4 weeks ago and after 2 weeks had no item. I emailed them and they said “oh yeah we don’t have that in stock”. I asked for a refund and they said they would refund me. I had an email saying it would be back with me within days to my Paypal account. It’s been over 9 days and still nothing. I emailed them again and they said that they sent my money back to me 8 days ago, into my Paypal. This is a lie as i have checked.

I have looked into my payment details in relation to the zoombits transaction and when you pay zoombits.co.uk the money seems to be redirected to a hotmail account. Which doesn’t seem legit at all for a big company.

I have lodged a complaint with paypal and want my money back!”

Two other HotUKDealketeers quickly jumped on board with similar tales of woe including the very reliable ‘thesaint’, and the message seems to be, if you’re planning to order something from Zoombits in the near future, proceed with caution.

If any of you have any good or bad news to share about the company and their levels of customer service, spill it in the box below. We’re a community around here and we like to think we’ve all got each other’s phone numbers backs.

On a lighter note, here’s the sweet soulful sound of Zoom by Fat Larry’s Band, who are in no way affiliated with zoombits.co.uk…

Best Buy are on their way to shake up the UK’s electrical retail industry, taking the fight to the doors of DSGi and John Lewis. They’re recruiting staff, their stores are being built and soon there’ll be more big bargains and outraged customers. Or will there?

Imagine a retail giant that listens to what you want from them. It might just be that all they do is fob you off with pleasantries, but it’s an alien concept nevertheless. See, they’ve decided to embrace customer service and have opened a Get Satisfaction account – the online service that allows companies to seek and act upon feedback direct from their customers:

The site claims to be managed by Best Buy staff, so it’s up to you – it’s your job to put Best Buy to the test. What would you like to see Best Buy do differently when they open their doors later this year? Whatever you want from a new electrical retailer, tell them. They’ll probably stick their fingers in their ears and whistle, rendering the whole exercise completely pointless, but let’s see if Best Buy are prepared to walk the walk. Avid Bitterwallet reader Nathan has started the ball rolling, so get stuck in.

Avid Bitterwallet reader David Littlewood is also an avid fan of the cool refreshing water that spews out of his taps with the help of United Utilities, but he’s a little bit less than happy with the fairness of their service.

As you’ll see from the bill he forwarded to us, the United Utilities water isn’t cheap. David says: “I received my water bill today. They will continue to charge me £30-40 a month for water.”

But while they do that, David feels as though United Utilities are simultaneously taking his money AND taking the piss.

He goes on: “They added a leaflet clearly stating they could provide water to a different family somewhere else for £2 a month… and they even have the nerve to send me this and rub my nose in it.”

Take a look – he’s possibly got a point…

Just saying.

The only Liverpool FC-related pic on the internet. Seriously. Do a search yourself if you don't believe us.

Football’s a funny old game Brian. Sometimes, in the case of Angola v Mali from yesterday, it’s hilarious. But football fans are more than just paying customers; there’s a strong emotional bond inherent in following a club.

So, if you emailed a complaint to a your local DIY store and received a reply from a senior staff member who called you an ‘idiot’ while adding, “Blow me, fuckface. Go to hell, I’m sick of you,” you’d probably brush it off and choose to shop elsewhere.

But when those words come from one of the senior directors of the football club that is close to your heart, you could be forgiven for being a tad miffed.

That’s what happened to Liverpool FC fan Stephen Horner when he emailed Tom Hicks Jr, son of the Merseyside club’s co-owner and a senior board member. Stephen had emailed Hicks with his concerns over the direction of the club following allegations that manager Rafa Benitez wouldn’t be allowed to reinvest the proceeds of player sales this month.

Hicks later showed vague contrition, saying: “I apologise for losing my temper and using bad language with you. It was a kneejerk reaction.” That’s okay then, because emails are usually kneejerk aren’t they – there’s rarely time for reflection or editing before you send one off. Hmm…

Mr. Horner said: “Hicks Jr should resign with immediate effect and it is time that Gillett and Hicks sold up and handed the reins over to people who understand the Liverpool way. They are not welcome at Anfield and should name their price and begin negotiations with more suitable investors who can take this great club forward.”

Gerald Ratner perhaps?

BREAKING NEWS: Liverpool FC have just announced that Tom Hicks Jr has left the board of the club. Bitterwallet – we get things done! (Ahem…)

[Times]