Have Boots produced the ideal present for those with a keen love of world beers, choosing only the most exotic examples to tantalise the palette of a loved one this Christmas – or is it one of the most half-arsed attempts at extracting money from desperate relatives on December 24th? It’s a tough call:

Boots aren’t the only high street brand to roll out unimaginative gifts at this time of year; can you find better examples of even worse store-led Christmas presents? Let us know in the comments, or send them with a glass of milk and a carrot to bitterwallet@gmail.com.

[Twitter]

Should companies pay you for being their customer? We don’t mean reward you with pointless points and worthless exclusives; we mean should they give you hard cash? Paul McCrudden thinks they should, so he set about invoicing businesses for time he spent as their customer. Using a data collection website called Daytum, the hapless chancer recorded the time and cost of all his interactions as a consumer over a six week period:

“The way I see it, my time on this planet is limited and as such I want to spend it as wisely as possible. It frustrates me therefore that every day of my life I have to waste time standing in queues waiting to buy some product or service that, in the big scheme of things, I don’t really care about. Take the Post Office for example. Whenever I go in there (and I try not to) I end up queuing for about five times as long as the actual time I spend at the counter sorting out those trivial things such as a parcel’s size and weight. That’s time that I’d prefer, in my limited, lucky period on earth, to be doing something else.

“What riles me is that all this time ultimately helps the company’s bottom line and market share – and I get nothing back for my time as a result. The fact that I’m in Pret a Manger and not EAT on any particular day results in the former having my attention – and wallet – dedicated to their brand, as opposed to their competitor’s.”

After applying a generous 75% discount to his standard hourly charge-out rate (based on his rate at work) since his time spent with these companies was less productive than with his employer, McCrudden set about invoicing all the businesses and sat back to see what happened next.

So far, plenty have responded: one chain of cafes that McCrudden has frequented for a decade didn’t get the point of it at all, Boots expressed delight at the 75% discount they received but failed to pay the bill, while the founder of Pret A Manger spied a chance for good PR and made with the cash:

There’s a serious point, or at least one that attempts to justify the idiotic nature of it all:

“I did this for two main reasons: firstly, to further understand how I spend my life as a consumer, and secondly to challenge the basic assumption that consumers are subservient to brands.”

Brands receive a great deal from us in terms of loyalty, word-of-mouth promotion and return business and we rarely, if ever, receive anything above and beyond the material goods we pay for. It’s interesting to see a consumer  attempting to balance out that relationship, especially when it works.

[Paul McCrudden]

If you’re thinking about getting into the data theft business, you might want to start making long-term plans for your fiendish deeds and get a job in Boots or Snappy Snaps.

That’s because they’re among the companies that the government are aiming to charge with the task of collecting data when voluntary ID cards are introduced later in the year. The scheme (and it is a scheme) will be piloted in Manchester with the city’s residents applying online before attending the Passport Office in order to have their photo taken for their ID card.

But once the ID cards are rolled out across the country, post offices, pharmacies and photographic shops will be doing the work instead, which has led to fears that, as more personal information is collected, there will be a greater chance that it will fall into the wrong hands.

The government are determined to press ahead with the introduction of ID cards, claiming it will help in the fight against criminals, illegal immigrants, terrorists, rabid ghosts and out-of-control robot prostitutes.

Helpfully, to reiterate just how real the terrorist threat is, some new stop and search figures have just been released. Stop and searches under section 44 of the counter-terror legislation rose from 37,197 in 2006-07 to 117,278 in 2007-08.  The number of black people stopped under these powers rose by 322%, compared with an increase of 277% for Asian and 185% for white people. In the London area policed by the Met, eight out of the 8,222 people searched were arrested for terrorist-related activities.

Don’t have nightmares Britain. Seriously, don’t – there’s really no need to at all. Unless you belong to an ethnic minority of course.

[Pet Shop Boys]

Due to circumstances beyond our control, Deals Of The Day went astray yesterday. The howls of protest in what were almost literally THOUSANDS of emails mean that it will never happen again.

Back on track then, with our pick of the bargains from the last few hours. Plenty more where these came from at HotUKDeals – the site that won’t be buying Kaka thank you very much.

Apparently, there’s a monster sale on at Boots. Up to 75% off a whole heap of stuff and talk on the HUKD forums of in-store brawling and hair-pulling.

The sodding website has been out of action for most of the morning though, so my £25 gift card continues to burn a hole in my pocket.
(deal found by lynne1966)

Another ridiculously cheap item here – a Jamie Oliver chopping board that’s almost as big and fat as the perpetually annoying chef’s own tongue.

It’s just 97p so if you’re an Oliver fan, snap it up. If you’re an Oliver-hater, get one anyway, knowing that his royalty payment will be titchy. Then stick a pic of his face on to a pumpkin and use the board as it was intended.
(deal found by Jakejakejake)

Lastly, a behemoth of a USB memory stick – 32GB for just £32. That works out at… erm… thirty, forty, no, we haven’t got enough fingers in the office to work it out.

God knows what you’ll store on there though. If e2save’s ad is to be believed, you could probably get every top 40 single since 1955 on it. But that is a matter for yourself and your squalid conscience.
(deal found by taylope1)

Here at Bitterwallet, we’re not just about doom and gloom. Like The A-Team’s Hannibal Smith, there’s nothing more we enjoy than chomping on a fat cigar after a wronged consumer has got a result. That’s what happened to little old me earlier today when I received an unsolicited email from Boots.

Keen-eyed readers might remember me having a post-Christmas rant against Boots following the last-minute cancellation of an online order that they themselves had said could not be cancelled.

As a result, gift-giving plans were thrown into disarray and three poor female relatives ended up with decorative coat-hangers draped in tinsel. All was gloom.

Being the lazy sod that I am, I took it all on the chin and plain forgot to follow through with my plans to (a) write a stiff letter to the Boots top brass and/or (b) invade the shareholders’ AGM and carry out a nearly-nude protest.

But back to the email this morning, which was actually addressed to my partner, which eliminated any possibility that Boots might be reacting after reading my Bitterwallet diatribe.

It read… “I am contacting you about your order xxxxxxxx which you recently placed with boots.com. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties we were unable to process your order and therefore had to cancel it.

We sent an email at the time of cancelling to advise you of this however, we wanted to let you know again how genuinely sorry we are. We hope you will agree this is not our usual standard of service.

I appreciate how frustrating this will have been and I’d like to offer you a £25 gift card which you can use to treat yourself in store. I hope that this will go some way towards making up for the inconvenience caused and that you’ll continue to shop with Boots in the future.”

Good work Boots – hopefully there’ll be a lot of other disappointed customers getting the same email today. Let us know if you’re one of them.

Purveyors of arse-creams

Boots. A curious sort of company. Some would say they’re like Woolworths but with a wider range of arse cream. Others would describe them as an amateurish, backwards-looking hotch-potch of a business model, selling loads of stuff under one roof that you can get cheaper elsewhere. So, like Woolworths but with a wider range of arse cream then.

Like Woolies, for a supposedly massive company, Boots have spectacularly failed to get to grips with e-commerce. Their website is littered with glitches and if you’re looking to take advantage of a particularly hot deal, you can face a trying ordeal of error messages and on-screen gobbledegook.

My partner and I went through that very experience on December 19th as we attempted to snap up three No.7 ‘Ultimate Skincare’ sets as Christmas gifts for three lovely lady relatives. After much web-snarlage, the order was accepted and the confirmation email arrived.

Thanking us for our order, and quoting a delivery date of 23rd December (close, but just the right side of Christmas), the email warned that, “We are now unable to change or cancel this order for you.” Good. Very reassuring. Thanks.

On the 22nd December, another email arrived from Boots. Not good. Very unreassuring (maybe not a real word). Shite. It breezily said, “As requested, we have cancelled your www.boots.com order.” Eh? C-c-c-cancelled??
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How do you treat a pensioner who wants to buy a new plug for his bathroom sink? The same way you treat a man caught with a suitcase stuffed full of headless torsos, that’s how. Quickly, call the police and slap the handcuffs on:

B&Q has racked up a depressingly impressive list of complaints over the years, from misleading advertising to neglecting health and safety rules. Two years ago, B&Q acknowledged a surge in complaints regarding its kitchen and bathroom installation service. The cause of such spectacular dissatisfaction? Obviously, the company put the blame squarely on… a warehouse fire. Er.

(more…)