Monday, February 26, 2007

 

Just another manic Monday

I know rants are rubbish - people stop listening when you rant, so rants are wrong, right? But I’m feeling so ranty that I’m going to indulge myself with just a teeny one, because I need to get it off my chest. A few months back Stanfords were advertising The Ultimate New York Sticker book - perfect for two young grandchildren going to New York, but when the books hadn’t arrived after six weeks, I phoned Standfords, who said they were out of stock and not expecting any more in. Well thanks for telling me. Never mind, there’s always good old Amazon, but I didn’t get the choice that usually pops up of used or new – only one used book was available, but as the condition was described as good I ordered it. It was waiting for me when I got back from holiday and ALL THE STICKERS WERE ALREADY STUCK IN. Ok, it did say used, but surely we don't have to deliberate on how used do we? A used cookbook with tomato sauce spilt on the lasagne page doesn’t mean you can’t make lasagne again, but a set of puzzle books with the puzzles all completed, or a DIY book with the diagrams missing? Why would a child want a sticker book if he doesn’t get to stick the stickers in? And in any case, who on earth would sell a sticker book, especially a really, really thin one, which costs £3.99 new, for £14.35, (including shipping costs) without the stickers? But you know the most frustrating thing? I can’t decide what to do about it. I want to complain, but you know that old customer services trick of letting you rant your heart out and then explaining very politely that unfortunately they didn’t quite catch what you said, so would you mind repeating it, knowing full well you can’t summon up that amount of energy again. Well that's what's happend to me - I've blogged away my anger and now I feel I can’t do it again. But if I don’t, they’ll think I’m enjoying the book and that they’ve done me a favour.

Yes I know I promised just the one rant, but this a BOGOF (buy one get one free). Why do companies or banks make you complete yards of information online before they tell you, on the very last click, that you can’t do whatever it is you’re trying to do? So there I was trying to give some money to someone. It’s my money after all – well sort of – Rob left it to me to pass on to a friend – so I only needed the bank to honour the cheque I was sending, but it was returned with some incomprehensible reason given for being refused, as was the second one. So I tried an online transfer, patiently entering my details, the recipient’s details, codes, passwords, my favourite dessert etc. each entry accepted and inviting me to click ‘next’ – until the final one, when up popped a notice telling me that in order to protect me from fraud it wouldn’t allow me to do this. It turns out that the amount exceeded the limit, for a single transaction, but the bank knew right from the beginning that they weren’t going to authorise a cheque or an online transfer for that amount, so why didn’t they tell me that to begin with? Well why would they when it’s much more fun having their clients visit their local branch begging for their own money.

Comments:
Rant on sister !

p.s. good to have you back (hopefully de-frosted) ... dare I ask how the heating engineers are getting on?
 
Thanks Gillie and welcome to blogland. The heating's not yet fixed but the engineers have gone home with a confident look on their faces - should I worry?
 
WElcome home;)
 
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