Posts Tagged ‘complaint’
£10bn need to fix potholes that are ruining Britain’s cars
March 14th, 2013 • 13 Comments
According to statistics, one in three cars have been damaged by potholes on Britain’s dreadful roads. The cost of fixing that is around the £10bn mark.
A study has deduced that the number of potholes has gone up by nearly a third to more than 2.2 million, or, one in five of all roads. This has resulted in compensation pay-outs reaching an eye-watering £32million.
£113million was spent last year filling in the potholes and this year is worse, thanks to heavy rainfall, floods and cold-snaps. The investigation by Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) concludes that there’s “a crumbling road crisis of increasing concern”, signing off with a delightfully hysterical notion that this is a “ticking time-bomb”.
The report thinks it is time to “stop the rot” and for politicians to start making some money available to sort all this out, moving on from a policy of “patch and mend” in favour of a “planned, preventative maintenance programme.”
The report said: “The cost of filling the estimated 2.2 million potholes across England and Wales came to £113million, while £32million was paid out in compensation claims and the cost of staff time spent on claims amounted to over £13million. Councils have paid out 50 per cent more last year than the previous year in compensation claims from road users for damage or injury due to poor road condition.”
The AA added, in their own report, that they’ve had to double the size of the team who deals with pothole damage and that: “As spring arrives our patrols are reporting potholes appearing faster than daffodils,” and after polling their members, found that a third have rated the overall surface condition of their local roads as ‘poor, very poor or terrible.’
What do you reckon?
Dead bird found in Tesco salad (no, it wasn’t a chicken salad)
February 25th, 2013 • 11 Comments
A couple bought a Tesco salad of babyleaf rocket and to their surprise, found a rather large portion of meat in it. By ‘large portion’, we actually mean ‘a whole dead bird’, which is nice.
James and Jasmine Watson bought their salad online for £1.50 and found a five-inch corpse amongst the leaves. Bird enthusiasts will be thrilled to learn that the dead body belonged to a Blackcap warbler and they look like this.
“We couldn’t believe it,” James said. “We stood there, completely amazed, for at least two minutes.”
AT LEAST.
He added: “I opened the bag, tipped it into a salad bowl and cut up some other salad bits and put them on top. Then I served the salad on some plates. We sat down at the breakfast bar and only had a few low lights on, so we were effectively eating by candlelight.”
How romantic.
“I took three mouthfuls and then saw it. My first reaction was, ‘Why have I got a soggy fishcake on my plate?’ But this was a full-size dead bird.”
Tesco promptly offered the couple a £200 gift card as compensation, with a spokesperson saying: “We were concerned to learn of this issue and have investigated thoroughly with our supplier. Both we and our suppliers have robust measures in place to prevent incidents such as this, and our salad leaves go through complex filtering and washing systems.”
But greedy ol’ James wasn’t happy, spitting back: “If it was a maggot or something I could almost understand it, but how a whole bird was not picked up – I have just been gobsmacked by the whole thing. The magnitude of this was disgraceful, and I find the offer of compensation a bit of an insult.”
This comes on the back of a human tooth being found in some Tesco sausages. It is almost a treasure hunt at the minute with Tesco!
Idiot religious people complain about Pret’s crisps
February 4th, 2013 • 21 Comments
Christianity is so feeble and fragile that it can’t cope with anything. So weak is the Christian spirit that Pret A Manger’s ‘Virgin Mary’ crisps caused them to actually make a complaint.
As such, the crisps have been withdrawn from sale.
Now, of course, there’ll be people out there who will say ‘there’d be uproar if they were called Mohammed crisps!’ or some such, but they’re idiots as well. That’s because we’re talking about crisps. Crisps called ‘Virgin Mary’. They’re not called ‘Buddha Jizz’ or ‘Ramadanadingdong’ or anything.
Either way, weedy Pret have decided that these spicy tomato crisps (hence the name – it is a play on a Bloody Mary cocktail) should be taken off the shelves because they don’t won’t to make Jesus’s followers cry all the holy water out of their faces.
A company spokesperson said: “It didn’t take many complaints. It’s the strength of feeling that’s behind them that’s important. For the sake of a particular flavour of crisps, we don’t want anyone offended.”
Pret put out a statement too, saying: “Clive [Schlee, Pret's CEO] has taken your advice and decided to remove all of the crisps from our shops,” the complaint response said. “We will be donating the unsold crisps to homeless charities that we support across the country. We do listen and we have tried to react quickly.”
Jesus wept.
Thomson tell holidaymaker to “shut the **** up”
November 29th, 2012 • 19 Comments
Gemma Fish spent £3,000 on a holiday to Mexico with Thomson, but alas, it wasn’t up to scratch. Not over-emoting at all, Fish and her fiancé were disgruntled by the ‘prison cell’ room they received. Obviously, she complained.
However, what followed wasn’t exactly protocol, with Thomson staff sending her a series of sweary messages, including one that told her to ‘shut the **** up’ and go book with Thomas Cook instead.
Gemma says: “When I arrived at my hotel, the room looked nothing at all like what was advertised on the Thomson website and not what I had expected given the price I paid. Quite frankly it was more like a prison cell than what you would expect after paying £3,000 for a holiday. It was just horrendous. I was appalled that they could do this to us.”
Instead of going outside and enjoying what Mexico had to offer, she preferred to contact Thomson through their 24-hour ‘holidayline’ service. This was a complaint that couldn’t wait ’til she’d got back, clearly. That said, she was moved to a better room but she still found time to complain about the noise, poor food and the beach.
Then, a month later, the emails kicked in. She says: “I don’t swear myself, so I was absolutely gobsmacked that they were even able to get through the system with that language in.” One email read: “Gemma do u really think we give a ****? Because we dont so shut the **** up with ur moaning and book with Thomas Cook coz we dont want ur custom lol and the hotel have said u r one MOANING bitch.”
A spokesman said: “Thomson would like to apologise to Ms Fish for the unacceptable emails she received. An employee interfered with a number of internal email accounts, sending inappropriate emails. We carried out a full internal investigation, as well as supporting the police in their investigation, the issue was dealt with immediately and the staff member was dismissed.”
Odeon complaint gets 100k Facebook likes and 10k comments!
August 30th, 2012 • 37 Comments
People love complaining on Facebook about things. It’s like wandering into the Women’s Institute by accident. The latest gripe concerns a post about the Odeon cinema.
The complaint revolved around the cost and quality of going to an Odeon and appeared on the official Odeon Facebook Page on Friday… and remarkably, it has generated more than 100k of ‘Likes’ and 10k+ of comments.
The complaint focuses on overpriced tickets, food and drink, bad customer service at the food and drink stand and their film being disrupted by the cinema screen next door which was showing The Dark Knight Rises. Signing-off with a flourish, the complainant flicked the Vs up at the piracy warning, saying “your little advert about piracy killing film was the final straw though. Between us in the group we paid you over £45 so four of us could get the ‘cinema experience.’”
Sadly for the Odeon, their social networking team seem to have gone to sleep and haven’t managed to deal with the issue.
Of course, the person making a complaint is a thunderous dimwit because all cinemas are a depressing experience. It isn’t just a problem at the Odeon. Overpriced tickets, awful expensive food, trailers, the smell of bleach and, ultimately, having to watch a film with other people, has always ensured that the cinema is a miserable, miserable experience. What were they expecting? Fools. Slagging the massively underpaid staff off is cheap too. They’re the only people more browbeaten and depressed than the customers that attend an Odeon cinema.
That said, there is a point in all of this. While this whining wimp had a wickle twouble at a notoriously dreadful activity, it seems there’s a swell of people who don’t see the point in going to the cinema. Is it a dying industry?
You can read the complaint here.
Adidas scrap ‘slave’ trainers
June 19th, 2012 • 7 CommentsHave you heard of the adidas JS Roundhouse Mid? Well, it’s pictured below, obviously. And they’ve caused something of a kerfuffle. Not because they’re ugly hi-tops, but rather, the orange plastic cuff that comes with them.
Made in collaboration with fashion designer Jeremy Scott, the trainer ”is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott’s outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery,” adidas have had to say in a statement.
“Since the shoe debuted on our Facebook page ahead of its market release in August, adidas has received both favourable and critical feedback. We apologise if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace,” the statement continued.
It turns out that these trainers are even more irritating when you find out what they were inspired by. The Roundhouse Mid was apparently designed with ’80s toy My Pet Monster in mind. “My work has always been inspired by cartoons, toys & my childhood,” Scott said in a statement. We eagerly await his Monster Minds biotech underpants.
HSBC system fault killed credit cards
May 21st, 2012 • 4 Comments
Poor, poor HSBC customers were destitute and broken after an error left them unable to take out money or make card payments after a computer breakdown at the bank! Those stupid computers, ruining everything! HOW DARE THEY? KILL THEM WITH FIRE!
Of course, HSBC customers are a force to be reckoned with and flooded the bank with complaints and demands for compensation. Some swearing was even involved. Typical HSBC customers really.
One student called Perry Kennedy posted on Twitter: “Nothing like trying to pay for the petrol you’ve just put in your car to have your card declined. F*** you HSBC.”
Another person with a vaguely amusing name, almost like we’ve made it up, Michael Le Silk, said: “I felt like a right prat when I couldn’t pay for petrol. I had to wait for someone to come and lend me some money to pay for it!”
The bank got their systems working again around 7pm. Sheepishly, the company tweeted a mealy-mouthed apology, saying: “Sorry for the inconvenience. Please call customer services if you need further help.”
Relying on computers is, of course, an excellent way to save a business money, however, when you cut 14,000 jobs in Britain alone, you’ll almost wish those staff were on hand to fix a problem like this. That’s because computers are evil and not to be trusted.
Anyway, if you’re a customer of HSBC and you were trying to buy Chinese lovebeads and your card didn’t work, feel free to try again today as it was only a glitch that stopped you fulfilling your perverted ways.
Hotels4U loses a tremendous £120,000 after social media campaign
April 25th, 2012 • 6 Comments
Hotels4U have decided to suspend a terrifically ill-thought out one-day discount campaign after haemorrhage upward of £120,000 within the first few hours of its launch.
The Thomas Cook owned company told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that it had underestimated the amount of bookings they’d get via Facebook and Twitter. A classic case of not understanding how these things work, leaving their behinds well and truly bitten.
The offer launched in the hope that it would persuade people to book on Christmas Day, offering customers £50 off hotel bookings made that day. Hotels4U reckoned on around 570 bookings, but alas, they got swamped with more than 2,600 by 6.30 am on Christmas Day.
The majority had a sales value of less than £10 after applying the £50 discount, which meant that Hotels4U had totted up a lovely £120,000 loss. By 7am, the promotion was suspended and the company decided to investigate. By 10am, they found that ”a significant” number of customers had made duplicate bookings, which was in breach of the t&cs. They suspected that a large number of the bookings were fraudulently booked by users in the Far East.
The promotion was reinstated at 11am, but again, another 1,000 bookings were made within the hour. Hotels4U said it couldn’t possibly continue to operate the promotion for fear of losing even more money and closed it permanently. As such, they were under the impression that it was viable to implement measures to prevent multiple bookings for the purposes of a one-day promotion, since the overall cost of altering the website booking system “would have far outweighed any financial benefits gained from the promotion”.
The ASA investigated following complaints. Hotels4U said it regretted ending the promotion early, but the ASA upheld the complaint. Their reason was that the number of fraudulent or duplicate bookings did not justify ending the promotion early, therefore, Hotels4U were ordered to be more careful with future promotions, and to see that they were administered fairly and not to end them early “unless under circumstances outside their reasonable control”.
ASA rules Vodafone’s Siri ad wasn’t misleading
March 5th, 2012 • 7 Comments
You know Siri, Apple’s voice-controlled personal assistant for the iPhone 4S? No, it isn’t sentient mercifully. It can swear at children though, which is great.
Vodafone were keen to show off this latest smartphone gimmick which left the general public (them again) complaining about the company’s claims about Siri. Alas, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has disagreed that the Vodafone commercial wasn’t misleading at all.
The advert showed location-based weather reports but not the maps-based features you can’t use, noting that there’s a difference between Siri in the UK and in the US. They said that in the US, “Siri interacted with the maps application to provide more location-based functionality.”
The ASA also acknowledged that Britons may have known what Siri was capable of in the US, and “might read into the ad that Siri users in the UK would benefit from similar maps-based functionality,” but that didn’t really represent “the average consumer in the UK.”
The wording that brought about complaint was: “[Siri] can even use information from your iPhone – such as your location, contacts and contact relationships – to provide intelligent, personal assistance.”
It doesn’t exactly underline shortcomings, but then again, what company advertises like that?
Of course, these complaints could be commonplace soon as Google are working on their Google Assistant competitor, potentially launching at the close of 2012. However, Google’s sheet isn’t exactly pure as the driven snow of late.
TalkTalk ad banned for claiming to be “UK’s safest”
January 4th, 2012 • 7 Comments
Not content with losing a bumload of customers and being frequently complained about, TalkTalk have now irritated the Advertising Standards Authority.
The ASA have told TalkTalk that they’re not allowed to claim that their new internet security system – HomeSafe – is the “UK’s safest broadband” after BT snitched on them and won a ruling from the watchdog who determined that it offers only “basic security”.
BT took umbrage with a TV spot, posters and national press campaigns that made the claim.
TalkTalk argued that the claim was legitimate as they’re the only home broadband provider in the UK to apply security features at a “network level”. Basically, they’re the only ones providing alerts to us when we visit to sites with potential viruses as well as putting a parental lock on certain sites.
Alas, TalkTalk admitted that its claim of being the “safest” only related to where the broadband connection enters a household and not wireless connections to devices around a house. Basically, they had to concede that they aren’t providing “the UK’s safest online experience” at all.
The ASA said that the claims used in TalkTalk’s advertising implied that users would have the safest online experience of any provider and, with that, customers would assume safety from viruses and hacks. The watchdog also noted that most people wouldn’t understand what the term “network level security” meant. As such, the ASA said the campaign was misleading and banned it.
Don’t forget – TalkTalk are one of the finalists in our Worst Company in Britain 2011 poll – you’ve got until midnight tonight to make your vote count.
Don’t mess with a ‘retail superstar’
September 29th, 2011 • 19 Comments
Sometimes it’s great to come across a company that are so far up themselves that they don’t even know where the normally-accepted levels of customer service begin, end or even exist. That’s the case here in a reply to a complaint to the exclusive GASP clothing store in Melbourne, Australia.
Shopper Keara O’Neil had a bad experience with sales assistant ‘Chris’ when shopping there for bridesmaid dresses for her forthcoming wedding. She explains the scenario in her complaint letter…
I had the privilege of shopping at your brand new Chapel St store on Saturday 24th September with my three bridesmaids in tow. On the hunt for bridesmaids dresses and a hens dress for myself we walked into the store and were automatically pounced on by a male staff member, I understand that this is protocol for many retail outlets and ours is no different.
The staff member was initially funny and extremely helpful with sizes etc. I chose a bright pink dress to try on but was unable to do the zip up so asked for the size up, when I eventually got the correct size and came out of the change room I was unable to discuss the likes or dislikes of the dress with my bridesmaids as the sales assistant kept saying “you should just get it”, when I told him I would think about it, he pulled me aside and whispered “Is it the price your worried about”. By now I was extremely frustrated, and again told him I’d think about it, I walked back into the change room and closed the door behind me, only to have it pushed open with the sales assistant half standing in my change room, again whispering “I think you should just get it”, when I gave him attitude and said rudely, “I already told you I would think about it”, he then replied, “With your figure I really think you should buy it”.
I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, but considering the attitude used to deliver such a statement I can only imagine that it was an immature dig in relation to my healthy size 12 frame. I got changed in a hurry and walked right out of the change rooms and out of the store, I could hear the sales assistant yelling out to me, but I just ignored him and continued to leave, assuming my bridesmaids would follow. After waiting down the road for my bridesmaids to come out of the store I was told by one of them that the sales assistant yelled out “Have fun finding something at Supre”, when one of them approached him in regards to his comments, he replied “I knew you girls were a joke the minute you walked in”. When my bridesmaids walked out of the store another two customers walked out with them, they too could not believe the immaturity of the sales assistant.
I have worked in retail for 12 years and have come across an array of customer complaints over the years, none of which come even close to what I encountered on Saturday at your store, I wish I was exaggerating but unfortunately for your company this person actually exists and is working in one of your stores. I am pretty laid back and was quite happy just leaving your store, it was my bridesmaids who felt the need to say something to him………I dread to think how many customers he has not only offended but how many customers have left your store due to the pressure placed on getting the sale, and then to be harassed when that sale hasn’t taken place.
Ring me, don’t ring, not fussed………I’m just one retailer notifying another of an extremely inappropriate sales assistant.
Keara O’Neil
Sounds grim. You’d expect that GASP would be falling over themselves to rectify the situation wouldn’t you? Nope – here’s their reply, from area manager Matthew Chidgey…
Dear Keara O’Neil,
Having now had the privilege of having both version of events, I am now in a position to respond to your complaint.From the very outset, one thing that you should be mindful of is; Our product offerings are very, very carefully selected, so to ensure that we do not appeal to a broad customer base. This is something which is always at the forefront of our minds when undertaking buying duties.
The reason for this is to ensure that we only carry products which appeal to a very fashion forward consumer. This by default means that the customer whom is acclimatised to buying from “clothing for the masses” type retailers, is almost frightened by our range, sometimes we have found that this type of customer, almost finds our dresses funny, and on occasion noted comments such as ‘it looks like a dead flamingo’. When we receive comments like this, we like to give ourselves and our buyers, a big pat on the back, because we know we are doing our job right, and modus operandi is being upheld.
Our range is worn by A list celebrities to the likes of Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry to name only a few. Now, as one might appreciate, the style counsel for these types of celebrities are not ones to pick “run of the mill” type clothing, and they do so on the basis to ensure that the styles are cutting edge, and only worn by a select few. Similarly these items are priced such that they remain inaccessible to the undesirable.
Insofar as our employee goes; Similar to our product offerings, our employees are selected with a similar approach. Chris whom served you is a qualified stylist whom has a sixth sense for fashion, and Chris’s only problem is that he is too good at what he does, and as I am sure you are aware, people whom are talented, generally do not tolerate having their time wasted, which is the reason you were provoked to leave the store.
Whilst I concede that you work for chain retailer, unfortunately that does not make us like for like. It is probably fair to assume, a lot of what I have said in this email, either doesn’t make sense to you, or you totally disagree with it all, which is what I would expect (unless of course I have you totally wrong – which I doubt).
Let me guess, you would never, ever hire Chris in the course of your duty, would you? This is the very reason, why your comment “from one retailer to another” is so disproportionate, it’s almost as though we are in a totally different industries. Chris is a retail superstar, who possess unparalleled ability, and I am sorry you feel upset by him, but he knew you were not going to buy anything before you even left your house.
So if you would like to do us any favours, please do not waste our retail staff’s time, because as you have already seen, they will not tolerate it. I am sure there are plenty of shops that appease your taste, so I respectfully ask that you side step our store during future window shopping expeditions.
Thank you for your enquiry.
Magnificent. Not unsurprisingly, the emails have gone ‘viral’ and GASP have been forced to shut down their Facebook page following the outcry from enraged consumers. We’re on GASP’s side – you don’t mess about with ‘retail superstars’ like ‘Chris’.
ASA uphold complaint against Virgin Media’s ‘con’ advert
June 30th, 2011 • 3 Comments
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have slapped the wrists of Virgin Media eight times (or, if you prefer, upheld eight out of eight complaints) after BT and Sky were angered by Virgin Media’s ‘Stop the Broadband Con’ advertising campaign.
Basically, Virgin wanted to point out that ISPs don’t deliver the broadband speeds they claim, taking umbrage with the whole ‘speeds of up to’ get-out clause so frequently used.
Not wholly unreasonable you might think. However, the ASA objected to Virgin’s continued statements that consumers are being “conned” and the implication that ISPs deal with customers dishonestly. In addition to that, embarrassingly, the ASA also judged that Virgin were exaggerated claims.
Basically, don’t talk yourself up and shoot your mouth off about everyone else or people will get angry and grass you up to the ASA.
If you’d like to read more about BT and Sky complaints, as well as Virgin’s attempts to justify their claims, then visit the ASA website here. Warning. It is very, very dry.
[reg]
Room with a chew – who stays in a hotel like this?
November 9th, 2010 • 6 CommentsAccording to their review on TripAdvisor, this person wasn’t a fan of their stay at Halswell House in Somerset. But who is it that’s moaning like your nana?
It’s a review by none other than tuneless dullard Chris de Burgh, venting his spleen about his £180-a-night stop in a stately home. He appears to have registered on TripAdvisor solely to complain, as well as sounding off on Twitter, describing Haswell House as having the worst guest rooms he’s encountered in 25 years.
Not that the hotel owner cowered in the face of millionaire mediocrity. In fact Glenn Bond stuck it to the little man in his response on TripAdvisor, pointing out that yes, there’ll be mud due to the house being in the middle of the country, and if you’re kept awake by an all-night party, it can only be your own family responsible for it, since the whole estate can only be rented out in its entirety. For the wedding of de Burgh’s niece, for example.
The Tube complainer who got a fuller response than he hoped for…
September 7th, 2010 • 3 Comments
The London Underground, today
If you’re a Londoner, you might be feeling some pain today thanks to the Tube strike. Perhaps you haven’t bothered even trying to get to work, such is your reliance on the capital’s network of underground metal snakes. If that’s the case, you might like to spend part of your day off reading about an email battle between a man and London Underground.
That man is writer Stan Cattermole, or Graham Pond as he was calling himself at the time of the correspondence, back in 2001. Graham was stressed at the time, and sick of the incompetence of the Tube network, he fired off a long, long email of gripes to London Underground. Choice phrases include…
“I was on one of your cattle-truck trains this morning and I screamed.”
“…you are driving me mad, you are bleeding me dry and you are making me want to kill”
“The poor quality of your service is a serious problem and one which sooner or later will lead to violence”
In reply, Graham received some vaguely humanistic replies to his gripes from Patrick Green at the London Underground customer service centre and a vaguely humorous game of email tennis ensued.
That was until Green accidentally replied to Graham while also including a series of emails to his friends and colleagues, all about the ongoing battle of wits he’d been enjoying with the irate passenger.
Graham (clearly a man with too much time on his hands back in 2001) then called out each and every one of them in an email sent to the entire group. Much ignoring, covering up and back-tracking then followed as Graham’s subsequent emails were more or less stonewalled.
That was almost a decade ago, but Graham has only just decided to recount the tale, as much for the amusement of frustrated Tube passengers as anything else. Happily, the post has gone viral and there is talk of the guilty email gossipers involved being smoked out by the good citizens of the internet. The fearsome name of 4Chan has even been mentioned.
Watch this space for further developments – or at the very least have a seat and enjoy some beautifully-crafted complaint emails from a man who was on the brink of cracking up.
Telecom companies moan at Google for people using the internet
April 12th, 2010 • 14 Comments
Google have become something of a bogeyman to some people. They facilitate illegal activity (for those looking for it, mind you) and China hates them. Now, some of Europe’s biggest telecoms groups are irritated by Google for… well… something perfectly legal and you’d think, something that they’d be rather pleased about.
See, these companies are moaning about what they perceive to be YouTube’s ‘free-ride’ with Google.
Telefónica, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-gobbling content such as YouTube video over their networks. Some of these groups are concerned that Google is reducing them to nothing more than “dumb pipes” because the internet search and advertising company pays the network operators little or nothing for carrying content. In fairness, they are nothing more than dumb pipes – dumb pipes that people pay money for to use the internet all the time.
César Alierta, chairman of Telefónica, said Google should share some of its online advertising revenue with the telecoms groups:
“These guys are using the networks and they don’t pay anybody,” he said.
Mr Alierta said that if no revenue sharing agreement was possible between the internet search engines led by Google and the network operators, regulators should supervise a settlement. Presumably, they’ll want to strike out a deal with every other search engine as well, who also provide shit-loads of traffic for the multitude of video-streaming sites?
[FT]
