Tesco.com Grocery Non-Delivery

Published on 6 January 2010 in Syndicated, Tesco, excuses, groceries and wrong kind of snow. Closed

Well thank you very much!

I put through an order for a load of groceries from Tesco.com for delivery tonight between 8.00pm and 10.00pm.

At 9.30pm, I had a quick look online for my order to check the delivery slot and the website said I could not change it as they were currently filling the order.

No sign of the delivery by 10.00pm.

At 10.04pm, I get a text telling me that they have had to cancel my order due to bad weather. It’s not actually snowing and the road between my flat and the store is passable. Of course, if they’d have cancelled my order earlier and told me then, I could have gone out myself and got my groceries earlier this evening!

I am not a happy bunny and I’m waiting in a long telephone queue now…

[later] Well they’ve apologised and are sending me a £10 e-voucher to use for my next shop. Off I now have to trot to get my essentials…

Candy Tumble Dryers – Summer Use Only!

Published on 6 January 2010 in Stores and Syndicated. Closed

I recently needed to buy a new tumble dryer. After the horrendous service I’d received from Currys, there was no way I was going there again, so Comet it was. They had a Candy GOV58F vented tumble dryer at a reasonable price, so we bought it and I connected it up.

When we actually came to use it properly, it started but within a few seconds stopped and all the lights flashed. Nothing in the manual helped and it was the same whether we were using the sensor drying programmes or timed drying. So we rang the 24 hour service number which is only working from 9 to 5…

Eventually we spoke to them today: apparently when it’s cold, the sensor gets too cold and refuses to allow the dryer to run. It’s a known fault. And the remedy?

“Try using the dryer when it’s warmer.”

Like? When it’s not winter or when we’d be pegging things out on the line? Ah…

Currys – Avoid At All Costs

Published on 6 January 2010 in Currys, Stupidity and Syndicated. Closed

I don’t think I have ever experienced such terrible ’service’ from any company in my life before!

A few weeks ago, I decided to buy a new dishwasher. After looking on the John Lewis web site, I found a suitable model but it was out of stock. Currys’ website indicated they would price match as they were overpriced in comparison. Ringing them elicited the response that yes they would price match and take a further 10% off but no, we couldn’t order one until Friday as it was out of stock, but maybe we could find one in store.

Off to Grimsby Currys on the Saturday afternoon. After looking around at what they had in store, I eventually had to go and break up a cosy chat between four of their staff to get one of them, Jenny Noble, to actually sell us one as they were apparently uninterested in serving us. She graciously allowed us to make a purchase of an integrated dishwasher but as it was now 3.01pm, they wouldn’t deliver it on Sunday, as we’d missed the 3.00pm deadline…

We were told that delivery was free but that we could pay extra to have it delivered, installed and the old one disposed of. We were charged £20 extra for this.

So today it was delivered but we were told that the delivery man was only dropping the new one off as he had 5 minutes only and 30 deliveries to do.

We rang Currys who eventually said they would get Rob, the manager, to check with Jenny and ring me. They didn’t. I rang back and was told that no, she wouldn’t have made a mistake and the additional money we were charged was for … something else. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I was told that installation would cost another £100 but Rob would allow us 20% off that. I argued that we’d already paid for installation and after Curry’s Customer Services hung up on me after refusing to put me through to a supervisor, we were told that Rob had withdrawn his generous offer and if I wanted installation it would cost another £100.

I told them to come and collect it: it would be on the driveway.

In the meantime, my partner was telephoned and it was agreed that they would refund the £20 … but I’d have to go to Grimsby from London to get the refund! Eventually a few days later we actually got the refund.

So thanks to Rob at Curry’s Grimsby, we’re never, ever buying anything from Currys again, anywhere in the country. I already don’t buy from them online as Currys’ online prices are much more expensive than Amazon’s anyway. Oh and that will also extend to PC World who are part of the same group of companies.

Oneplace: Your Guide to Public Services

Published on 9 December 2009 in Syndicated, fail and government. Closed

So the Government has launched its new service, oneplace, so that taxpayers can log onto a site to see how the various public services in their area to see how they perform.

But the irony:

The Oneplace website is busy

Unfortunately the Oneplace website is experiencing high volumes of traffic, please try again later.
We apologise for the inconvenience.

Successful Turnaround CEO?

Published on 30 November 2009 in Syndicated, ezboard, orly and succesful?. Closed

ORLY? {snigger}

1&1 Internet – Lying and Billing for Services Not Provided

Published on 23 October 2009 in 1&1 and Syndicated. Closed

I received an invoice the other day for the renewal of three of the many domains I registered with 1&1 a while back.

The trouble is, they’ve also billed me for renewing a domain name that they haven’t actually renewed and aren’t likely to renew: I transferred morrisclients.com away a while ago to a different hosting company and this year decided not to renew it. If you do a WHOIS lookup, you’ll see that the domain name is controlled by DreamHost and expired on 11 October 2009.

So despite these facts, 1&1 are billing me for the domain renewal and refuse to accept they’ve done wrong by doing so. In a conversation with Eshan Azim in 1&1’s billing department, he repeatedly told me that they had indeed renewed the domain name. He lied. I asked him whether the call had been recorded and he told me it had, so they can show that I at least am not lying.

So no, 1&1 aren’t issuing a credit note for these services they’re not providing and indeed have no intention of doing so.

I am now in the process of transferring away all of the hundreds of domains I host with them now and closing down my hosting accounts. This will cost them hundreds of pounds a year.

Good call 1&1!

Windows Live Messenger for Mac – Longest Beta Ever?

Published on 19 October 2009 in Applications, Internet, Mac, Microsoft, Software, Syndicated and live messenger. Closed

You know, sometimes I wish that Microsoft would simply grow up and get over its childish hatred of Apple and because of that its reluctance to embrace (and potentially embrace) Mac users.

A fabulous example of this is Microsoft’s Live Messenger and their long running and unresolved failures to actually support audio-visual conversations for users running a Mac.

I use both a PC (actually a Tablet PC) and a Mac and I have just bought another laptop running Windows Vista (with an upgrade to Windows 7 coming in due course). On the Windows platforms I can run Live Messenger and hook up a webcam to have a face to face conversation with another Windows Live user.

If I’m at my flat on the Mac, I cannot.

Back in December 2008, Microsoft announced a forthcoming beta release of Messenger for Mac which would offer A/V support in 2009. Now, some 10 months later, there’s still no sign of it on the horizon, far less a final release version.

Pathetic!

CIOB Selling e-mail Addresses?

Published on 8 October 2009 in Spam, Syndicated and Work. Closed

Well that’s very disappointing: I’ve today received a Spam e-mail from Karnack Books sent to an e-mail address I set up and use solely for the Chartered Institute of Building.

I’ve checked my profile on the CIOB website and have specifically opted out of third party mailings, so no consent has been given.

So either their membership records have been hacked or they’ve gone against my wishes.

Insurance Settlement

Published on 7 October 2009 in Insurance and Syndicated. Closed

Just to bring everything up to date, whilst I was on holiday, eBike Insurance’s loss adjusters wrote to me offering a settlement of £3,500. I decided to mull this over whilst I was away again, but on my return I found a cheque from them for that sum in full and final settlement.

This amounted to quite a substantial loss to me but when I went through the policy and the small print, I realised they were actually being fair. I’d stated the value of the bike as £4,000 – eBay adverts the week of the theft showed that was under-stated – and whilst I was aware there was a £250 theft excess, I’d ignored/overlooked the clause that says if the bike isn’t garaged at the time in a locked garage, the excess rises by £250.

So quite a loss to me, but I can’t fault them for the speed with which they settled my claim. Recommended.

Bid Rigging and Price Fixing in the Construction Industry

Published on 7 October 2009 in Levis, News, OFT, Syndicated, Tesco, Work, bid rigging, cover pricing and price fixing. Closed

As usual, it’s the construction industry getting a hard time for dodgy dealings: first there was the issue about cover pricing that was then somehow translated into bid rigging in the media. A lot of hot air over what was practically nothing…

Now there’s news that the OFT has fined six recruitment agencies £39M for fixing fees.

I wonder when we’ll see similar fines for agencies working in other business sectors?

Or how about some massive fines to the banks for price fixing both in relation to bank charges and interest rates?

Or what about members of the BPI for price fixing? You’ll remember they sued online retailer CD WOW! for daring to sell legitimate CDs in the UK that had been sourced from Hong Kong for less than the prices they were being sold for in the UK. Much the same as the lengthy dispute between Levis and Tescos over parallel importing.

I won’t hold my breath.





overtone