Andrew Speakman

Another ‘Myspace Killer’ is likely to appear soon. My experience of myspace is that it is awkward to use and unreliable. But it’s got the most people on it, and is geared towards music, so I’m sticking with it for now.

Maybe it’s where I live, but we do get an awful lot of door to door sales (as well as illicit cold phone calls). Reading this article in the Times spurred me to write here. As in the Times article, I have had Talk Talk around trying to get me to sign up wit them, but I find Southern Electric a much worse culprit.

Only this weekend a man with braces (on his teeth) came knocking on my door. He started by telling me that I was paying too much for my electricity and that Southern Electric ‘supply’ the power to my home (which I know is not true, it’s EDF who maintain the infrastructure around here), which means that they can give me cheaper electricity. Apparently he had a ‘special’ deal for people in the area. I told him I wasn’t interested, not wanting to enter into discussion. He then persisted to ask me if he could have a look at my meter. ‘No!’ I told him, ‘Why not? We own it!’, he said. This is a blatant lie, it was British gas who came to fit a new meter recently, and it clearly states on it ‘Property of Capital Meters Ltd’. And even Capital Meters couldn’t just turn up on my doorstep to look at the meter. So I told him that he couldn’t come in whether he owned it or not, and sent him on his way.

In the past Southern Electric have used other tactics, like telling me nothing will change when I switch providers (yes it will, my money will go to someone else, and probably in different quantities), and that I should compare prices after I have signed up with them (before would be more sensible). What concerns me is that a more vulnerable person could be trampled all over by salespeople like this. My advice: Never sign up to anything from cold caller, tell them you’re not interested. If you want a better deal, do the comparisons in your own time.

Yet another rant about services / products that I pay for.

First the good. I bought a new camera from a web shop called cameras2u.com. It was a good price and it came the next day, and delivery was free. Plus when I called them to confirm that next day delivery was offered I didn’t have to wait long on the phone, and they had a very useful message when I was waiting telling me what number I was in the queue (I started at number 2). More companies should use this system on their phones, then you can get an idea of low long a wait you face from what number you are in the queue and how quickly it is going down.

 Now the bad. E&L pet insurance. Pleasant people when you get to speak to them, which is more of a challenge than you might think, see my previous post for an intro. I have now figured out that the best way to get to speak to someone at E & L pet insurance is to call, and if you don’t get to speak to someone within about 20 seconds, hang up and try again, eventually you’ll get someone answering almost as soon as it starts ringing.

Anyway, back to the story, I received a letter from E&L about my claim, asking for medical history. It’s been  more than three months since I placed a claim and they still haven’t sorted it out! I’d already provided E&L with medical history, as requested, over a month ago, with a covering letter explaining that our cat was a rescue cat. I had also called to check they’d recieved the information and it was OK. So I was angry. After the usual E&L phone frustration, I got through and explained what was happening, I was told to send a letter explaining that my cat was a rescue cat. I told them I had already done so, and the man put a note on the ‘system’. We’ll see what happens, but I am starting to wonder if my claim will ever see the light of day.

 It looks like I’m not the only one unhappy with E&L:

 http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-57547.html

Plus see my review of E&L at
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review193365.html

 http://www.bullyonline.com/insurance.htm 

In early November a piano fell on my toe, last week my toe nail finally fell off.

 

Enhance photo  in my picture editing software has really brought out the grimness.

I also saw this intaresting [sic] business card last week

I recently received a call to my Vodafone mobile from their customer services team. I was told they were ‘checking up on whether I was happy with the service’. As a matter of fact I did have some valuable feedback for Vodafone.

I was having trouble stopping them sending me regular text messages advertising expensive multimedia services. I pay for the service, I should have choice whether I get adverts for extras. I’d spoken to customer services twice, once I was told to go to their website and change an option, this option didn’t exist, the second time I was told I should no longer get the adverts, they kept on coming. I also never received a receipt for a replacement phone, I asked to be sent one, and was told it was in the post… It never arrived.

I gave Vodafone my feedback, they seemed pretty disinterested and told me I would have to speak to customer services about the receipt. The annoying adverts, well they were part of Vodafone live, I couldn’t do anything about them! So why were Vodafone calling if they weren’t interested in my feedback? To make a bit of extra money of course. I would get a whole £25 credit to my account if I agreed to extend my contract from 12 months to 18 months. A good deal? I think not! If I agreed to this, I wouldn’t get a free handset upgrade for an additional six months. If I terminated my contract after 12 months I could get a new handset and a reduced line rental.

OK, my experiences with Vodafone are nowhere near as bad as those with Three, but I’m making no commitment to staying with them longer than necessary. Maybe next time I’ll try Easy Mobile or Orange.

It happens to me regularly. I send someone an email containing either meeting minutes with actions, or important information that they need to act upon. They get the email and don’t read it, or at least not properly, no matter how much emphasis or explanation, they won’t read it.

I’m guilty of this, I’ll read the first few lines of an email, interpret them, and leap to action, only to realize that I’ve mis-interpreted. I don’t bother to read full reviews, I skip to the conclusion. If I read executive papers, I’d go straight to the executive summary. To read things and actually understand them requires concentration and thought, but with so many distractions, this can be difficult.

At university I remember getting frustrated going through my notes because I’d have to go over the same page lots of times to fully understand it. Everyone else was flying over their notes and getting out books containing more information, because the lecturers always said that the notes only contained the bare minimum to scrape through. This wasn’t true the notes were comprehensive as long as you actually read and took time to understand them.

 Maybe in my effort to make others understand I am over-explaining things. Perhaps leaving things hanging and open to interpretation will provide better results, but I doubt it.

 In a world where we think we need to do more, more, more, perhaps what we actually need to do is less – less action and more thought. Then we’d only need to do things once instead of three or four times.

 The boss is coming… Look busy.

Somewhere in America

After my initial problems with Barclays and the £100 offer, I submitted a complaint to them. It looks like it has done the trick. I got a letter in the post a week ago saying that my complaint was being dealt with, and a phone call today with a response to the complaint. The deadline for putting the required deposits into my account for the £100 offer has been extended. It just shows, if you actually voice your concerns you may get a pleasant surprise. I’ll follow up with the outcome.

I have a policy with E&L insurance for our cat. Earlier this year we needed to make a claim, we put the claim in, and received a letter asking for further information to proceed the claim. I called E&L at the beginning of Februrary to clarify what information they needed. It took me a long time and a lot of calls to get through, each time I called, I got a message telling me that they couldn’t take my call because they were very busy. This is quite frustrating when calling an expensive 0870 number, although, looking now, there is an entry on http://www.saynoto0870.com/, but I’m not sure it’s valid for claims calls. I then sent the further information required to E&L.

After three weeks we hadn’t had any further communication form E&L. I started to wonder what was going on, so, remembering that it had taken a long time to get through on the phone, contacted them via a form on their website. After a few days plus a weekend, I had no response, so when through the process of calling and calling back until someone answered. It turns out that E&L received my letter with further information on the 10th February and are processing my claim. Good. I was told that they currently have a big claims backlog, and are up to claims received on the 25th Janurary. I pointed out that it was also difficult to get through on the phone, and was told that they had just moved to a new office and hadn’t yet got enough phone lines.

The conclusion: be prepared for a wait with E&L.