This is a follow-up to an earlier post about my awful experience with Post Office home and contents insurance.
The Post Office said they were sending me a leaflet with instructions for how to claim the lower premium offered. If I don’t follow the steps to claim that lower premium, I’m stuck with paying nearly £200 more for my home & contents insurance. It was supposed to be sent out “with your policy documents” and the covering letter I got with the policy documents said it was enclosed. But it wasn’t.
So I rang to ask where it was, and sat through the 1 minute 45 seconds of babble. But this time, I actually listened, because I wanted to see if I’d missed a bit about how paying monthly is effectively taking out a loan agreement, because someone in the call centre had previously claimed that the babble should have made me fully aware of the loan agreement I didn’t know I was taking out. But I still couldn’t hear any mention of loans or credit.
Anyway, I got through to a human and asked where my leaflet was. The man said it would be sent out separately.
“But the covering letter says it’s enclosed.”
“No, it’ll be sent out separately.”
Right. Whatever. I also had a minor amend to the policy, and the small print said I could do this without charge, provided it was within 14 days of receiving the documents. The minor amend was to do with how close my house was to the nearest watercourse. When I got the quote, I said I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was just over a quarter of a mile away. Then I got my husband to check and it turned out that the nearest bit of the River Windrush is actually bang on a quarter of a mile away. I didn’t want to invalidate my cover with false information, so could they just amend my details to say it was pretty much exactly a quarter of a mile away?
Much fetching-of-supervisors ensued and then the nice man returned to say that the Post Office can’t offer me insurance any more.
Why not?
“Because your house is right by the sea.”
“It’s not the sea, it’s just a river.”
“Right. Well, we can’t offer you insurance. You’re too high-risk.”
That was it. After going through all this crap with the Post Office, I had to find another insurer anyway. (And quickly, because my previous insurance policy lapsed today.) I said I wished I’d never had anything to do with the Post Office, because it’s been a nightmare from start to finish. He apologised.
Then I asked if I’ll get my money back. (I’ve already paid £64.14.) More fetching-of-supervisors.
The upshot is that I will get cover for the next ten days (until 23rd July) and only have to pay about £9 for this. The rest of the money I’ve paid will be returned, provided I send back the certificate. What certificate? A game of Twenty Questions established that they needed the schedule of home and contents insurance (although he originally demanded “the certificate of motor insurance” before I pointed out that this policy has nothing to do with cars). They will not accept a copy. It has to be the original. But once it’s returned, I get almost all my money back. The bit of money they’re keeping is to pay for the ten days’ cover which I now need as breathing space to put a new policy in place. Which would all be quite reasonable if I hadn’t already been through so much hassle.
To recap:
1. To take out Post Office home & contents insurance, or even get a quote for it, you need to have an occupation that’s already on their list, or pretend you have – but remember, any false information provided may invalidate your cover!
2. Any joint policyholders will also have to have an occupation that’s already on their list. But you may find out after giving all the other person’s details and having a big wrangle about their job that the policy doesn’t allow joint policyholders anyway.
3. The Post Office promises to “beat your renewal quote by £50”. But if they can’t actually beat it by £50, you’ll only get the renewal-beating price once you’ve taken out more expensive insurance, paid a chunk of money up-front and jumped through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops. There’s also a wait of up to 60 days. (Because I was eventually refused insurance, I’ve been robbed of the chance to find out how long the wait really is and how difficult the hoops really are to jump through. I would love to hear from anybody who got further than me.)
4. Paying monthly involves taking out a credit agreement with a company you’ve never heard of. You will only realise this if you are smarter and more observant than I am. If you’re as dim as me, you will take the question “Would you like to pay monthly?” at face value and say “Yes, please.”
5. The name of the company you have the credit agreement with will be spelled in two different ways on your surprise credit agreement, not improving your confidence with the whole affair.
6. The leaflet explaining how to claim your lower, renewal-beating premium will be enclosed with your policy documents, according to the people you speak to and the covering letter of the policy documents. But it won’t really be enclosed at all, and when you ring back you’ll be told it’s arriving separately.
7. If you ring up to correct what you think is a minor detail on the policy, you may suddenly and unexpectedly be denied the cover you thought you had in place. You will then be forced to sort out insurance with an alternative provider anyway, after wasting hours of your life jumping through Post Office hoops.
8. If the Post Office unexpectedly denies you the cover you thought you had in place, there are more hoops to jump through before they will refund the money you've already paid.
9. Every call you make to try to sort out the mess will begin with a recorded message that lasts 1 minute 45 seconds. By proceeding with your call after this message you are supposedly giving your consent to various things mentioned on the recording. If you, like me, tune out as soon as you hear a recorded voice, you could be giving your consent to the Vogons building a new intergalactic superhighway and you’d be none the wiser.
To recap the recap: Please don’t go with the Post Office for your home & contents insurance, however good the deal looks.
Friday, 13 July 2012
Thursday, 12 July 2012
The insurance deal that fails to deliver
The Post Office is currently offering a very tempting-sounding deal on home and contents insurance: “We guarantee to beat your renewal quote by at least £50.” Sounds good, right?
I decided to try it, so I went for an online quote. But it wasn’t long before I came up against the first problem:: my occupation. I’m self-employed as a freelance copywriter. This occupation wasn’t listed on the Post Office dropdown. And I couldn’t proceed with the quote until I’d selected something from the dropdown.
I’m not a screenwriter or a signwriter. I’m not a newspaper retailer. I wasn’t any of the things decreed to be valid occupations by the dropdown list. So I was forced to give up. There was no option to skip that step, or come back to it later, or get extra help on it. I just had to give up.
Obviously, I don’t give up that easily. So I phoned them for a quote instead. When you ring the Post Office for anything to do with insurance, you are forced to listen to an insanely long recorded message. I timed it. It’s 1 minute 45 seconds. But that didn’t put me off either.
I got through to a human... and came up against the “occupation” thing again. They managed to find something on their systems that vaguely matched what I do. But then they asked if I wanted to put someone down as joint policyholder, I named my husband and the whole process started again. He’s a web developer, and they didn’t have it on their list. No, not a web designer. No, not development in the sense of international development.
The lovely Geordie lady I spoke to called in her supervisor, who decided that my husband could be put down as a “computer analyst”. “But that’s not his JOB!” I wailed. Lovely Geordie lady sympathised. I asked what the hell his job had to do with getting a home and contents insurance quote anyway, and she explained that certain jobs are higher-risk than others. Fair enough, I said, but given that we’ve established he’s not famous or notorious or bringing wild animals home at night, why can’t you just put his real job down? Because it’s not on the list. She could sympathise but not help.
My biggest concern was that I’d been told any false information could invalidate future claims, and here they were forcing me to put down a fake job for my husband. I agreed to move on with the quote when she assured me that the call was recorded and they had noted on the system that this wasn’t his actual job.
So we moved on. I was hoping they could beat my renewal quote of £199.21. But the final quote from the Post Office was a jaw-dropping £347.44. But, said the nice Geordie lady, we have this “beat your quote by £50” guarantee. So we can offer you £149.21, it’s just that terms and conditions are attached.
It goes a little something like this. They guarantee they can beat your quote by £50. And if they can’t, they will beat it anyway, because that’s what a guarantee is. But in the latter instance, you have to take out the insurance with the higher annual premium quoted and only once it’s up and running do they refund you the difference. You have to photocopy your current renewal quote and send it to them as proof, then they refund you the difference within 60 days. (This is made clear on their website). If you’re paying monthly you have your monthly payments reduced accordingly (taking into account what you’ve already paid) and if you’re paying up front you get the difference refunded onto the card you paid with.
So... although they guarantee a cheaper quote, there can be a period of up to 60 days (and a bit of bureaucracy) between you and the savings. And in the meantime I would have to pay up a much bigger chunk of money than expected. We ran through the quote again, comparing it with my renewal quote. The Geordie lady confirmed it was a like-for-like comparison and we were entitled to get our insurance for £149.21, bureaucracy permitting.
I considered for a few hours before deciding to take out the policy, then rang back (and ignored the 1m 45s recording again). A different lady ran through my details and told me that the policy quoted for wouldn’t allow me to have a joint policyholder anyway, so all that fuss about my husband’s job was for nothing. She also explained that the £347.44 included a “monthly payment premium” which I hadn’t realised when I made the choice between paying monthly or paying up front. But hey, whatever.
Then another surprise. My first payment would be £64.14, followed by ten months at £28.33. Why was the first payment so high? Why were there only 11 months of payments? "That's just how home insurance is these days for the first year." But we get 12 months of cover, right? Of course; she seemed to think that was a very stupid question.
I asked her to clarify that they were definitely going to give me the cover for the renewal-beating £149.21 quoted originally. Yes, once they got the documents from me. A leaflet about what to do would be included in the policy details sent by post. So I paid the first instalment (which had to be paid straight away) and awaited my policy details. They came through straight away by email, with hard copies to follow by post.
Yet another surprise. My insurance policy documents included details of a “fixed-sum loan agreement” with a creditor called BISL Limited. (Or possibly BFSL Limited; it was spelt two different ways.)
WHAT? Needless to say, this was the first I’d heard of it and I hadn’t consented to take out any kind of loan. I rang the Post Office again, ignored the 1 minute 45 seconds of recorded crap again and spoke to a completely different nice Geordie lady. She said:
“But why didn’t anybody explain this?” I asked. Apparently it was all explained in the 1 minute 45 seconds of recorded blurb you get when you ring up, and proceeding with the call means you’re giving your consent to this. But nobody listens to the recorded blurb! Why wasn’t I given the option at the point where I was asked how I wanted to pay? Apparently I was told. “We have a big green screen here and we have to read out all of it, so there’s no way you weren’t told.”
Basically, it was my fault for choosing to pay monthly. But, I said, paying monthly was the sensible choice because I was quoted such a huge annual sum. Well, said the lady, not to be rude, but you shouldn’t have taken out insurance with us if you can’t afford it. And if you cancel with us, you’ll have the same problem with other insurers.
No, I said, I won’t, because the other quotes I got were for smaller sums [£154.60 from Swiftcover and £156.67 from Axa], which I would be happy to pay up front. But the Post Office offered the lowest quote of all at £149.21. Hence my willingness to jump through hoops and pay more initially. Hence also my desire to pay monthly – because two twelfths of £347.44 followed by much lower payments sounded like a better bet than paying £347.44 upfront (though of course the whole payment thing didn’t quite work out like that in practice). Oh yes, she said, don’t worry about that. You will get the lower deal if that’s what we’ve quoted you.
There wasn’t much I could do. Apparently I had consented to the loan agreement, though I didn’t have any memory of doing so. Oh, and if I do cancel with the Post Office within 14 days of receiving my policy documents, I’ll have to pay an “arrangement fee” of £30. (If I cancel after 14 days, I’ll have to pay £35 plus the cost for the amount of time covered – presumably at the higher rate.) Any changes to the policy will incur an admin charge of £20, and I assume this includes changes to how I pay, so there’s no point trying to escape the monthly payment premium by coughing up the whole sum now.
Because of the hefty get-out fees, and because of the effort I’ve already expended getting the cover in place, I’ve reluctantly decided to stick with the Post Office insurance, for this year only.
The policy documents came through by post today with a cheery covering letter: “We guarantee to beat your renewal premium by at least £50 – see enclosed leaflet for details of what you need to do now...”
If you’ve stayed with me through this epic tale, you won’t be surprised when I tell you that no such leaflet was enclosed. So my next task is to ring them yet again. I will be letting Restless Consumer readers know how I get on.
I decided to try it, so I went for an online quote. But it wasn’t long before I came up against the first problem:: my occupation. I’m self-employed as a freelance copywriter. This occupation wasn’t listed on the Post Office dropdown. And I couldn’t proceed with the quote until I’d selected something from the dropdown.
I’m not a screenwriter or a signwriter. I’m not a newspaper retailer. I wasn’t any of the things decreed to be valid occupations by the dropdown list. So I was forced to give up. There was no option to skip that step, or come back to it later, or get extra help on it. I just had to give up.
Obviously, I don’t give up that easily. So I phoned them for a quote instead. When you ring the Post Office for anything to do with insurance, you are forced to listen to an insanely long recorded message. I timed it. It’s 1 minute 45 seconds. But that didn’t put me off either.
I got through to a human... and came up against the “occupation” thing again. They managed to find something on their systems that vaguely matched what I do. But then they asked if I wanted to put someone down as joint policyholder, I named my husband and the whole process started again. He’s a web developer, and they didn’t have it on their list. No, not a web designer. No, not development in the sense of international development.
The lovely Geordie lady I spoke to called in her supervisor, who decided that my husband could be put down as a “computer analyst”. “But that’s not his JOB!” I wailed. Lovely Geordie lady sympathised. I asked what the hell his job had to do with getting a home and contents insurance quote anyway, and she explained that certain jobs are higher-risk than others. Fair enough, I said, but given that we’ve established he’s not famous or notorious or bringing wild animals home at night, why can’t you just put his real job down? Because it’s not on the list. She could sympathise but not help.
My biggest concern was that I’d been told any false information could invalidate future claims, and here they were forcing me to put down a fake job for my husband. I agreed to move on with the quote when she assured me that the call was recorded and they had noted on the system that this wasn’t his actual job.
So we moved on. I was hoping they could beat my renewal quote of £199.21. But the final quote from the Post Office was a jaw-dropping £347.44. But, said the nice Geordie lady, we have this “beat your quote by £50” guarantee. So we can offer you £149.21, it’s just that terms and conditions are attached.
It goes a little something like this. They guarantee they can beat your quote by £50. And if they can’t, they will beat it anyway, because that’s what a guarantee is. But in the latter instance, you have to take out the insurance with the higher annual premium quoted and only once it’s up and running do they refund you the difference. You have to photocopy your current renewal quote and send it to them as proof, then they refund you the difference within 60 days. (This is made clear on their website). If you’re paying monthly you have your monthly payments reduced accordingly (taking into account what you’ve already paid) and if you’re paying up front you get the difference refunded onto the card you paid with.
So... although they guarantee a cheaper quote, there can be a period of up to 60 days (and a bit of bureaucracy) between you and the savings. And in the meantime I would have to pay up a much bigger chunk of money than expected. We ran through the quote again, comparing it with my renewal quote. The Geordie lady confirmed it was a like-for-like comparison and we were entitled to get our insurance for £149.21, bureaucracy permitting.
I considered for a few hours before deciding to take out the policy, then rang back (and ignored the 1m 45s recording again). A different lady ran through my details and told me that the policy quoted for wouldn’t allow me to have a joint policyholder anyway, so all that fuss about my husband’s job was for nothing. She also explained that the £347.44 included a “monthly payment premium” which I hadn’t realised when I made the choice between paying monthly or paying up front. But hey, whatever.
Then another surprise. My first payment would be £64.14, followed by ten months at £28.33. Why was the first payment so high? Why were there only 11 months of payments? "That's just how home insurance is these days for the first year." But we get 12 months of cover, right? Of course; she seemed to think that was a very stupid question.
I asked her to clarify that they were definitely going to give me the cover for the renewal-beating £149.21 quoted originally. Yes, once they got the documents from me. A leaflet about what to do would be included in the policy details sent by post. So I paid the first instalment (which had to be paid straight away) and awaited my policy details. They came through straight away by email, with hard copies to follow by post.
Yet another surprise. My insurance policy documents included details of a “fixed-sum loan agreement” with a creditor called BISL Limited. (Or possibly BFSL Limited; it was spelt two different ways.)
“This Agreement is for a fixed sum loan to finance the cost of an insurance Policy ... The amount of credit provided under this Agreement is £256.60... The total amount payable under this Agreement is £283.30. ..The total charge for credit is £26.70, which consists wholly of interest. The interest rate is 10.41%. This interest is fixed for the term of this Agreement and interest will be calculated annually and applied monthly.”
WHAT? Needless to say, this was the first I’d heard of it and I hadn’t consented to take out any kind of loan. I rang the Post Office again, ignored the 1 minute 45 seconds of recorded crap again and spoke to a completely different nice Geordie lady. She said:
- It’s the same throughout the insurance industry: if you pay monthly, you effectively take out a loan agreement with the provider.
- But “It’s not the same as a normal loan, like financing for a car, and it won’t affect your credit rating.”
“But why didn’t anybody explain this?” I asked. Apparently it was all explained in the 1 minute 45 seconds of recorded blurb you get when you ring up, and proceeding with the call means you’re giving your consent to this. But nobody listens to the recorded blurb! Why wasn’t I given the option at the point where I was asked how I wanted to pay? Apparently I was told. “We have a big green screen here and we have to read out all of it, so there’s no way you weren’t told.”
Basically, it was my fault for choosing to pay monthly. But, I said, paying monthly was the sensible choice because I was quoted such a huge annual sum. Well, said the lady, not to be rude, but you shouldn’t have taken out insurance with us if you can’t afford it. And if you cancel with us, you’ll have the same problem with other insurers.
No, I said, I won’t, because the other quotes I got were for smaller sums [£154.60 from Swiftcover and £156.67 from Axa], which I would be happy to pay up front. But the Post Office offered the lowest quote of all at £149.21. Hence my willingness to jump through hoops and pay more initially. Hence also my desire to pay monthly – because two twelfths of £347.44 followed by much lower payments sounded like a better bet than paying £347.44 upfront (though of course the whole payment thing didn’t quite work out like that in practice). Oh yes, she said, don’t worry about that. You will get the lower deal if that’s what we’ve quoted you.
There wasn’t much I could do. Apparently I had consented to the loan agreement, though I didn’t have any memory of doing so. Oh, and if I do cancel with the Post Office within 14 days of receiving my policy documents, I’ll have to pay an “arrangement fee” of £30. (If I cancel after 14 days, I’ll have to pay £35 plus the cost for the amount of time covered – presumably at the higher rate.) Any changes to the policy will incur an admin charge of £20, and I assume this includes changes to how I pay, so there’s no point trying to escape the monthly payment premium by coughing up the whole sum now.
Because of the hefty get-out fees, and because of the effort I’ve already expended getting the cover in place, I’ve reluctantly decided to stick with the Post Office insurance, for this year only.
The policy documents came through by post today with a cheery covering letter: “We guarantee to beat your renewal premium by at least £50 – see enclosed leaflet for details of what you need to do now...”
If you’ve stayed with me through this epic tale, you won’t be surprised when I tell you that no such leaflet was enclosed. So my next task is to ring them yet again. I will be letting Restless Consumer readers know how I get on.
Monday, 25 June 2012
Daddy issues
It is a truth universally acknowledged that dads are a bit hard to buy for. So when I spotted something I knew my dad would like in a junk-mail catalogue, a week or two before Father’s Day, I was very pleased indeed.
The catalogue was from Culture Vulture Direct and came stuffed in the envelope with a gift I’d ordered from a different company. Culture Vulture Direct (not to be confused with the Leeds-based Culture Vulture) sells vaguely arty, cultural-sounding gifts. In the “Surrealism” section of the catalogue I saw the Hopside Down Glass, a beer glass with an inverted beer bottle inside it. It’s stretching the definition of surrealism a bit, but it’s a clever visual joke and it involves beer, so I immediately thought of my dad.
I could have ordered it by post, but I thought it would be easier and quicker to buy from the Culture Vulture Direct website. Here’s where I encountered my first problem: searching the www.culturevulturedirect.co.uk site for the phrase “hopside down glass” didn’t bring up the item I wanted. (Did you mean “her tan glass?”) Ditto “hopside-down glass” and “beer glass”. I started to wonder if the item had been discontinued between my receiving the catalogue and trying to buy the item. I tried the Glassware subsection of the Home & Garden category. Still no joy. I tried searching for the item number as given in the catalogue. No luck whatsoever.
So I left the site and Googled “hopside-down glass”. There were lots of results, with Amazon predictably at the top. But I don’t want to buy from nasty tax-avoiding Amazon! I want to buy from a small independent British business! I want to buy from Culture Vulture Direct, because they gave me the idea of buying this thing in the first place!
Then, in my desperation, I hit on the idea of Googling the name of the site plus the name of the item. So I searched for “culturevulturedirect.co.uk hopside down glass” and finally reached a page where I could see the item. Well, I couldn’t actually see it because the page was missing an image. But I knew what it looked like from the catalogue. So I just ordered it.
I received the order confirmation shortly afterwards. The delivery information says “Your order should arrive within 7 days.” It was the morning of Saturday 9th June and I was reasonably confident that it would arrive before I left to visit my parents the following Friday evening. The 7-days thing must be the absolute maximum, right? I arranged for it to be delivered to my husband’s workplace because I was away for part of the following week. Then I forgot about it.
When I returned home on Thursday evening and found the glass hadn’t arrived, I got a bit worried. Technically “7 days” would allow for it to arrive on the Saturday, which would be too late for my purposes because I would already be in Cardiff with my parents. So I crossed fingers and toes it would arrive on the Friday. It didn’t.
Father’s Day rolled around on the Sunday and I had nothing to give my dad but excuses. OK, so I’d bought a small back-up present. But it wasn’t much, given that this gift was supposed to be from my two sisters as well.
My order still hadn’t arrived the following Monday. That’s stretching the concept of “7 days” more than a nice beer glass stretches the concept of surrealism. On Tuesday 19th, I emailed them asking where my order was and saying I was very disappointed, because it had been intended as a Father’s Day gift.
They replied a day later saying sorry and asking for my name and address and order number. I supplied these. A day after that they replied saying that my order was effectively non-existent:
I supplied them with my name, address and the item I wanted twice: once when I placed the original order and again when I was trying to help them track down the non-existent order. But if I really want to buy it from them, I have to supply this information for a third time, along with my credit card details and delivery instructions, with absolutely no guarantee that it won’t all get lost again. Why on earth should I do that when there are so many other websites selling exactly the same item? I already feel as if I’ve expended way too much unnecessary effort on trying to buy from Culture Vulture Direct rather than the competition. They’re also not offering to look into the “system error” that lost my order once and could (as far as I know) lose it again with zero warning and the false security of an automatically generated order confirmation.
I’m the kind of person who’s easily mollified by a goodwill gesture. If they’d offered to waive payment, or even waive postage, or send me some kind of free gift with my new order, or look into what caused the problem and make sure it doesn’t happen again, I would be happy. In fact, I would be talking publicly about how good this business is at handling complaints. But the strong impression I’m getting is that Culture Vulture Direct really doesn’t care about my order. The hoops I had to jump through just to buy the item in the first place should have been a warning sign, but I was stupid enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. Now I have to conclude: if they cared at all about my business, they would have made everything so much easier.
Update (June 26th 2012): after I contacted Culture Vulture Direct asking to be removed from their mailing list on the grounds that I will never buy from them again, a minion replied to me saying: "It actually appears that you ordered using an older obsolete version of our website which you should not have been able to access." Right, but the fact remains that I did access it and order from it, and there was nothing to tell me that I shouldn't. If I was psychic surely I would have been ordering one of their floaty scarves instead of a beer glass. They have also offered free express delivery on my next order, as belated compensation for the Father's Day foul-up, despite the fact that I've already told them (in two separate communications) that I will never use their site again. They've also advised me to find the site in future by using the correct URL rather than googling it.
Second update (September 10th 2012): I've just received another catalogue from Culture Vulture Direct. That's after I explicitly asked them not to send me any further marketing communications. So they're sending me a catalogue after I've asked them not to... but they couldn't send me the actual item I tried to buy, or take my money. Great business model, guys.
The catalogue was from Culture Vulture Direct and came stuffed in the envelope with a gift I’d ordered from a different company. Culture Vulture Direct (not to be confused with the Leeds-based Culture Vulture) sells vaguely arty, cultural-sounding gifts. In the “Surrealism” section of the catalogue I saw the Hopside Down Glass, a beer glass with an inverted beer bottle inside it. It’s stretching the definition of surrealism a bit, but it’s a clever visual joke and it involves beer, so I immediately thought of my dad.
I could have ordered it by post, but I thought it would be easier and quicker to buy from the Culture Vulture Direct website. Here’s where I encountered my first problem: searching the www.culturevulturedirect.co.uk site for the phrase “hopside down glass” didn’t bring up the item I wanted. (Did you mean “her tan glass?”) Ditto “hopside-down glass” and “beer glass”. I started to wonder if the item had been discontinued between my receiving the catalogue and trying to buy the item. I tried the Glassware subsection of the Home & Garden category. Still no joy. I tried searching for the item number as given in the catalogue. No luck whatsoever.
So I left the site and Googled “hopside-down glass”. There were lots of results, with Amazon predictably at the top. But I don’t want to buy from nasty tax-avoiding Amazon! I want to buy from a small independent British business! I want to buy from Culture Vulture Direct, because they gave me the idea of buying this thing in the first place!
Then, in my desperation, I hit on the idea of Googling the name of the site plus the name of the item. So I searched for “culturevulturedirect.co.uk hopside down glass” and finally reached a page where I could see the item. Well, I couldn’t actually see it because the page was missing an image. But I knew what it looked like from the catalogue. So I just ordered it.
I received the order confirmation shortly afterwards. The delivery information says “Your order should arrive within 7 days.” It was the morning of Saturday 9th June and I was reasonably confident that it would arrive before I left to visit my parents the following Friday evening. The 7-days thing must be the absolute maximum, right? I arranged for it to be delivered to my husband’s workplace because I was away for part of the following week. Then I forgot about it.
When I returned home on Thursday evening and found the glass hadn’t arrived, I got a bit worried. Technically “7 days” would allow for it to arrive on the Saturday, which would be too late for my purposes because I would already be in Cardiff with my parents. So I crossed fingers and toes it would arrive on the Friday. It didn’t.
Father’s Day rolled around on the Sunday and I had nothing to give my dad but excuses. OK, so I’d bought a small back-up present. But it wasn’t much, given that this gift was supposed to be from my two sisters as well.
My order still hadn’t arrived the following Monday. That’s stretching the concept of “7 days” more than a nice beer glass stretches the concept of surrealism. On Tuesday 19th, I emailed them asking where my order was and saying I was very disappointed, because it had been intended as a Father’s Day gift.
They replied a day later saying sorry and asking for my name and address and order number. I supplied these. A day after that they replied saying that my order was effectively non-existent:
Dear Kate,
Thank you for your email.
Unfortunately due to a system error this order has not imported from the website onto our system that we use to process orders.
This means that we do not have a record of the order and because of this your card has not been charged. This also means that we are unable to process this order as we do not have any of the order details available. If you would still like to receive this item a new order will have to be placed.But what about the order confirmation email I got, the one that lulled me into a false sense of security because I took it as, er, confirmation that my order had been received?
Please discard the order confirmation email that was received, as these are automatically generated once the order is completed.
I would like to apologise for any disappointment that has been caused on this occasion and should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.It’s nice to get an apology, but Culture Vulture Direct aren’t offering any compensation for my failed order, any compensation for my wasted time or any help with re-ordering.
I supplied them with my name, address and the item I wanted twice: once when I placed the original order and again when I was trying to help them track down the non-existent order. But if I really want to buy it from them, I have to supply this information for a third time, along with my credit card details and delivery instructions, with absolutely no guarantee that it won’t all get lost again. Why on earth should I do that when there are so many other websites selling exactly the same item? I already feel as if I’ve expended way too much unnecessary effort on trying to buy from Culture Vulture Direct rather than the competition. They’re also not offering to look into the “system error” that lost my order once and could (as far as I know) lose it again with zero warning and the false security of an automatically generated order confirmation.
I’m the kind of person who’s easily mollified by a goodwill gesture. If they’d offered to waive payment, or even waive postage, or send me some kind of free gift with my new order, or look into what caused the problem and make sure it doesn’t happen again, I would be happy. In fact, I would be talking publicly about how good this business is at handling complaints. But the strong impression I’m getting is that Culture Vulture Direct really doesn’t care about my order. The hoops I had to jump through just to buy the item in the first place should have been a warning sign, but I was stupid enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. Now I have to conclude: if they cared at all about my business, they would have made everything so much easier.
Update (June 26th 2012): after I contacted Culture Vulture Direct asking to be removed from their mailing list on the grounds that I will never buy from them again, a minion replied to me saying: "It actually appears that you ordered using an older obsolete version of our website which you should not have been able to access." Right, but the fact remains that I did access it and order from it, and there was nothing to tell me that I shouldn't. If I was psychic surely I would have been ordering one of their floaty scarves instead of a beer glass. They have also offered free express delivery on my next order, as belated compensation for the Father's Day foul-up, despite the fact that I've already told them (in two separate communications) that I will never use their site again. They've also advised me to find the site in future by using the correct URL rather than googling it.
Second update (September 10th 2012): I've just received another catalogue from Culture Vulture Direct. That's after I explicitly asked them not to send me any further marketing communications. So they're sending me a catalogue after I've asked them not to... but they couldn't send me the actual item I tried to buy, or take my money. Great business model, guys.
Monday, 14 November 2011
The loyalty card that stretches loyalty to the limit
“Membership sits at the heart of The Co-operative Group,” says the blurb. As a member of the Co-op, you get to “have a say” and enjoy a share of the profits. There are no nasty capitalist shareholders, which means all the more for the rest of us. In other words, the Co-op membership card isn’t just any old supermarket loyalty card – it’s a sign that you’re part of something special.
In October 2008, I sent off the paperwork for a Midcounties Co-op loyalty card. I was warned it might take a while, but when January 2009 rolled around and my card still hadn’t arrived, I prodded the membership department. They replied saying that there was no record of me on their system, but they could do the application over email. There followed an exchange where I tried to extract an apology for my four-month wait from the employee who was dealing with my case, a young man called Matthew Isoo. He steadfastly refused to either
a) apologise,
b) acknowledge that I was asking for an apology, or
c) use any punctuation.
In February 2009, my membership card finally arrived and I could start collecting points. As you might expect, a Midcounties Co-op membership card gives you points for spending at the Co-op, and those points turn into rewards. At the time I was living in a small village where the main food shop was a Co-op, so they were getting a lot of my money and I thought it would be nice to get something back. And without greedy capitalist shareholders, the Co-op can afford to give something back – oh yeah, I’ve done this bit.
So I carried on spending. Then one day I noticed that my points total had been reset to zero. All my points earned up to July 2009 had been converted to vouchers. I’d already seen how slowly the Co-op moves, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that those vouchers were scheduled to arrive during November 2009. But I’d moved house and I didn’t want the vouchers to go to my old address! I’d spent months and a lot of hard-earned cash accruing those points!
I contacted the Midcounties Co-op membership department to give them my new address. Yes, they could update the address on their system, and no, the vouchers hadn’t gone out yet. So, I said, since I’ve contacted you in time, you’ll be able to send them to my new address?
It took four days and two people to give me the answer “No.” But why not? I thought they might find a multiple-choice question easier to answer, so I suggested:
I responded:
Nobody bothered replying to my little outbreak of petulance. I duly put a note in my calendar for December to contact them if the vouchers didn’t arrive.
Of course the vouchers didn’t arrive. I wrote to Customer Services again in mid-January 2010:
Four days later, I hadn’t had a reply. I tried again, with an email that ended:
Clearly the Midcounties team were going for the latter, because they ignored that email too. I waited until February, to be absolutely sure they weren’t just being slow. Then I found the personal email address of the Midcounties Co-op’s chief executive and emailed him with a more concise version of the whole sorry tale.
My email began
That did the trick. Within hours I had a very concerned phone call from Di Bateman, the membership manager, and we had a long chat. She told me she’d been through the emails on the system and was appalled at what she’d seen. She apologised profusely and told me that as a result of my experience, they would be overhauling their systems to make sure that kind of thing never happened again. Matthew Isoo would be receiving “retraining” and there would be a new system in place so that an email never went unanswered for more than a set period of time.
She explained that my spending that year might not actually have been enough to qualify me for any vouchers anyway, but that someone should have explained this to me. They sent me a £20 Co-op voucher just to say sorry.
I was delighted. Delighted that I’d succeeded in getting this incompetent but ultimately well-meaning organisation to permanently change its systems for the better. Delighted that someone was listening, and she'd actually said sorry!
Sadly, the postscript to this happy tale isn’t so good. Summer 2010 rolled around and I still didn’t get any vouchers, which seemed odd given that I’d bought home insurance through the Midcounties Co-op as well as using their pharmacy and making the occasional grocery shop. I figured it was because we’d moved out of the village and were mostly doing our food shopping elsewhere.
Then summer 2011 rolled around and I still hadn’t received any vouchers. My husband, who shops there roughly as much as I do, received a nice bundle of vouchers plus a magazine. I was starting to get suspicious. Surely even if I hadn’t earned many points they would still have sent me the nice fluffy magazine, right?
In November 2011 I contacted the membership department again, just to confirm that they had the right address for me. My message ended:
They looked my details up on the system. And guess what? IT WAS MY OLD ADDRESS. After two-and-a-bit years, multiple complaints, a direct message to the chief executive and the overhaul of their internal systems, the Midcounties Co-op membership department still hadn’t actually succeeded in updating my address details.
They didn’t offer to compensate me for all the vouchers that have gone to my old address, though they did offer to send me the value of the most recent voucher issue – a princely £4.
That £4 is my total reward for nearly three years’ membership. It’s my reward for persisting with my membership application after they lost it. It’s my reward for spending almost all my grocery budget at the Co-op over a period of years. It’s my reward for using their pharmacies, for taking out their home and contents insurance (and renewing it twice).
Not really enough, is it?
In October 2008, I sent off the paperwork for a Midcounties Co-op loyalty card. I was warned it might take a while, but when January 2009 rolled around and my card still hadn’t arrived, I prodded the membership department. They replied saying that there was no record of me on their system, but they could do the application over email. There followed an exchange where I tried to extract an apology for my four-month wait from the employee who was dealing with my case, a young man called Matthew Isoo. He steadfastly refused to either
a) apologise,
b) acknowledge that I was asking for an apology, or
c) use any punctuation.
In February 2009, my membership card finally arrived and I could start collecting points. As you might expect, a Midcounties Co-op membership card gives you points for spending at the Co-op, and those points turn into rewards. At the time I was living in a small village where the main food shop was a Co-op, so they were getting a lot of my money and I thought it would be nice to get something back. And without greedy capitalist shareholders, the Co-op can afford to give something back – oh yeah, I’ve done this bit.
So I carried on spending. Then one day I noticed that my points total had been reset to zero. All my points earned up to July 2009 had been converted to vouchers. I’d already seen how slowly the Co-op moves, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that those vouchers were scheduled to arrive during November 2009. But I’d moved house and I didn’t want the vouchers to go to my old address! I’d spent months and a lot of hard-earned cash accruing those points!
I contacted the Midcounties Co-op membership department to give them my new address. Yes, they could update the address on their system, and no, the vouchers hadn’t gone out yet. So, I said, since I’ve contacted you in time, you’ll be able to send them to my new address?
It took four days and two people to give me the answer “No.” But why not? I thought they might find a multiple-choice question easier to answer, so I suggested:
You can't send them to my new address because...Lisa Hughes, Member Benefits Manager, replied:
- The envelopes were printed weeks ago and have been sitting on somebody's desk all that time, and you can't possibly print a new envelope now.
- You need to go through your "security" procedures to confirm that I really have moved house and I'm not the victim of some master criminal who wants to steal my Co-op vouchers.
- Both of the above?
When we do a voucher mailing it goes out to over 150 000 people. The actual printing and production of the vouchers, magazine and everything that goes in the pack take around 2 months. This is why we are not able to change 1 record in that file of 150k once the process has started.
If the vouchers have not reached you (not sure if you have your mail forwarded from your old address) by 14th December, please get in touch with us and we can arrange for compensation of the lost vouchers.
I responded:
So it's a little bit of option 1 and a little bit of option 3: your business processes are so non-agile and slow that you need two months' notice to be sure of getting the right address on an envelope.
I have set up mail forwarding from my old address, but your mailing is exquisitely timed to arrive in the one-day window between me handing over the keys to the house and the postal redirect beginning. All the other organisations on my long list for address updates were perfectly capable of updating my details in time for any future mailings, which is why I foolishly thought that even the Co-op might manage this. (My address update list includes the National Union of Journalists, which has thousands of members but still managed to update my details in time to send me the bi-monthly union magazine.)
Mind you, I must say it's nice to actually get a response to a query out of the Midcounties Co-op for once. But it says a lot about your business that it took over two working days to get a simple answer to a simple question, and that the administrator I originally emailed couldn't answer it himself but had to drag in his supervisor. Still, I suppose he's a lot more polite and competent than Matthew Isoo.
Nobody bothered replying to my little outbreak of petulance. I duly put a note in my calendar for December to contact them if the vouchers didn’t arrive.
Of course the vouchers didn’t arrive. I wrote to Customer Services again in mid-January 2010:
...You therefore asked me to contact you again for compensation if I hadn't received [the vouchers] by mid-December. Well, of course I haven't bloody received them; as you know perfectly well, they were sent to the wrong address. But you refused to send anything to my new address until I'd contacted you a second time to confirm this.
I am therefore writing again to ask you to please send compensation to the correct address...
Four days later, I hadn’t had a reply. I tried again, with an email that ended:
...Are you going to send my vouchers out or are you going to continue ignoring me and thereby force me to make a complaint?
Clearly the Midcounties team were going for the latter, because they ignored that email too. I waited until February, to be absolutely sure they weren’t just being slow. Then I found the personal email address of the Midcounties Co-op’s chief executive and emailed him with a more concise version of the whole sorry tale.
My email began
Are you aware of how bad your Member Communications team is?and ended
Although I have spent plenty of money in your shops and accrued hundreds of points, I will never receive any reward for my loyalty because your staff were too incompetent to send my vouchers to the correct address and too lazy to respond to any of my messages. What, precisely, is the point of becoming a member of the Midcounties Co-op? It's been a lot of hard work for absolutely no reward.
I should make it clear that not once throughout this period have I received anything resembling an apology from any member of your Member Communications team. Nor have I seen any sign that they understand why I am frustrated with their incompetence.
That did the trick. Within hours I had a very concerned phone call from Di Bateman, the membership manager, and we had a long chat. She told me she’d been through the emails on the system and was appalled at what she’d seen. She apologised profusely and told me that as a result of my experience, they would be overhauling their systems to make sure that kind of thing never happened again. Matthew Isoo would be receiving “retraining” and there would be a new system in place so that an email never went unanswered for more than a set period of time.
She explained that my spending that year might not actually have been enough to qualify me for any vouchers anyway, but that someone should have explained this to me. They sent me a £20 Co-op voucher just to say sorry.
I was delighted. Delighted that I’d succeeded in getting this incompetent but ultimately well-meaning organisation to permanently change its systems for the better. Delighted that someone was listening, and she'd actually said sorry!
Sadly, the postscript to this happy tale isn’t so good. Summer 2010 rolled around and I still didn’t get any vouchers, which seemed odd given that I’d bought home insurance through the Midcounties Co-op as well as using their pharmacy and making the occasional grocery shop. I figured it was because we’d moved out of the village and were mostly doing our food shopping elsewhere.
Then summer 2011 rolled around and I still hadn’t received any vouchers. My husband, who shops there roughly as much as I do, received a nice bundle of vouchers plus a magazine. I was starting to get suspicious. Surely even if I hadn’t earned many points they would still have sent me the nice fluffy magazine, right?
In November 2011 I contacted the membership department again, just to confirm that they had the right address for me. My message ended:
I don't quite see the point of a loyalty scheme where I get absolutely nothing after three years of membership. Could you look into this?
They looked my details up on the system. And guess what? IT WAS MY OLD ADDRESS. After two-and-a-bit years, multiple complaints, a direct message to the chief executive and the overhaul of their internal systems, the Midcounties Co-op membership department still hadn’t actually succeeded in updating my address details.
They didn’t offer to compensate me for all the vouchers that have gone to my old address, though they did offer to send me the value of the most recent voucher issue – a princely £4.
That £4 is my total reward for nearly three years’ membership. It’s my reward for persisting with my membership application after they lost it. It’s my reward for spending almost all my grocery budget at the Co-op over a period of years. It’s my reward for using their pharmacies, for taking out their home and contents insurance (and renewing it twice).
Not really enough, is it?
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Can't buy me love: Groupon says it will return my money.
A follow up to this: After a further week with no watch, no communication from Groupon and no refund, I wrote to them again, yesterday, asking for a refund and pointing them at my last post.
Here's my email:
I have had no reply from you further than this email (apart from an automatically generated 'tell us about our customer service' form). You can imagine how I replied.
I have not had a watch from South Lane.
Please return me my money forthwith. This will be the amount I paid for an express delivery voucher (£13.60) plus interest plus payment for the time I have spent on this so far (about three hours at £20 per hour).
You may be interested in this website on which I have related the details of this interaction up until last weekend:http://therestlessconsumer.blogspot.com/2011/10/kind-of-thing-that-money-just-cant-buy.html
Yours faithfully
Online Blogger
I have just now recieved an email from the Slightly More Important Minion:
SMIMinion, Nov-06 16:29 (GMT):
Dear Online,
Thank you for your response. I would like to sincerely apologise for the trouble that you have experienced as a result of purchasing this deal. This is obviously not the kind of experience we wish our customers to have when they make a purchase from our site, and I have forwarded the issue to all involved parties - informing us of what happened will, I hope, help us to ensure this doesn't happen again.
I do understand your frustration with this situation; you have paid for an item and would of course expect it to arrive within the designated timescale, and I can only reiterate my apologies that this has not been the case.
As explained in our previous correspondence, we are not involved in monitoring the dispatch processes of the individual companies with whom we feature deals. This is because we feature deals with thousands of different companies, and it has never been part of our operations to manage them in this respect.
This, as pointed out previously, is stated in our terms and conditions which you have admitted to not reading. The terms and conditions offered by Groupon are in place to protect both our customers and the partners we work with, and we do recommend that prospective Groupon customers read these thoroughly before making a
purchase from our site.Given the circumstances, I am happy to process a full refund of the £13.60 which you paid to us for the voucher. This has been implemented immediately and you should receive the money back into your bank account within 5 working days.
Kind regards
SMIMinion
So, kudos to Groupon in that they have, finally, agreed to return the money that I paid to them for goods that I didn't receive.
There is no acknowledgement, however, that getting this money returned has taken me time and effort and Groupon have offerend me no compensation for my time and effort, either. I'd like to remind you all that all I have had back from them is the money that I paid for goods that I didn't receive.
All I have is exactly what I started with, minus a few hours of my time and a fair few calories burnt in crossness.
It shouldn't have taken two weeks for Groupon to decide to give me my money back - my money, not Groupon's money - and I think we should all heed the T&C, as advised by the SMIMinion; if you buy a voucher from Groupon for the purchase of goods from a different website, you are not guaranteed the delivery of those goods, and Groupon will say that they are not obliged to chase the other website for you, and you'll have to keep emailing them with increasing levels of crossness, to get that money returned.
I think they were obliged to return my money, which is why they finally did return it, when I pointed out that I had written the story of the non-delivery of the watch and Groupon's refusal to do anything about it, and published it.
I SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DO THAT TO GET MY MONEY RETURNED.
But thanks, anyway, Groupon. Now please take me off your mailing lists.
EDIT: I have now been emailed by the SMIMinion, very politely informing me that I have been removed from the mailing lists without me having to remove myself, in response to the comment made above, on my blog.
To be fair to Groupon, I need to record this example of excellent customer service - so thank you. There's not many companies that respond so quickly to requests on blogs.
It might now be a good idea if Groupon tried to introduce the same quick response time to emails complaining about the non-receipt of goods and asking for money to be reimbursed. One step at a time, though.
Time to draw a line under this. I'm really not into baiting the underlings. I suspect, if you dig deep into Groupon's hierarchies and structures, most of this debacle can be traced back to a lack of support, a lack of training of people hired to deal with cross customers such as myself, possibly an insecure work place so that people feel scared to escalate issues, and too much work for the customer service people in a company that is expanding too fast. That still doesn't excuse the T&C, though, but at least we all know what they mean, now.
_____________________________________________
Here's my email:
I have had no reply from you further than this email (apart from an automatically generated 'tell us about our customer service' form). You can imagine how I replied.
I have not had a watch from South Lane.
Please return me my money forthwith. This will be the amount I paid for an express delivery voucher (£13.60) plus interest plus payment for the time I have spent on this so far (about three hours at £20 per hour).
You may be interested in this website on which I have related the details of this interaction up until last weekend:http://therestlessconsumer.blogspot.com/2011/10/kind-of-thing-that-money-just-cant-buy.html
Yours faithfully
Online Blogger
I have just now recieved an email from the Slightly More Important Minion:
SMIMinion, Nov-06 16:29 (GMT):
Dear Online,
Thank you for your response. I would like to sincerely apologise for the trouble that you have experienced as a result of purchasing this deal. This is obviously not the kind of experience we wish our customers to have when they make a purchase from our site, and I have forwarded the issue to all involved parties - informing us of what happened will, I hope, help us to ensure this doesn't happen again.
I do understand your frustration with this situation; you have paid for an item and would of course expect it to arrive within the designated timescale, and I can only reiterate my apologies that this has not been the case.
As explained in our previous correspondence, we are not involved in monitoring the dispatch processes of the individual companies with whom we feature deals. This is because we feature deals with thousands of different companies, and it has never been part of our operations to manage them in this respect.
This, as pointed out previously, is stated in our terms and conditions which you have admitted to not reading. The terms and conditions offered by Groupon are in place to protect both our customers and the partners we work with, and we do recommend that prospective Groupon customers read these thoroughly before making a
purchase from our site.Given the circumstances, I am happy to process a full refund of the £13.60 which you paid to us for the voucher. This has been implemented immediately and you should receive the money back into your bank account within 5 working days.
Kind regards
SMIMinion
So, kudos to Groupon in that they have, finally, agreed to return the money that I paid to them for goods that I didn't receive.
There is no acknowledgement, however, that getting this money returned has taken me time and effort and Groupon have offerend me no compensation for my time and effort, either. I'd like to remind you all that all I have had back from them is the money that I paid for goods that I didn't receive.
All I have is exactly what I started with, minus a few hours of my time and a fair few calories burnt in crossness.
It shouldn't have taken two weeks for Groupon to decide to give me my money back - my money, not Groupon's money - and I think we should all heed the T&C, as advised by the SMIMinion; if you buy a voucher from Groupon for the purchase of goods from a different website, you are not guaranteed the delivery of those goods, and Groupon will say that they are not obliged to chase the other website for you, and you'll have to keep emailing them with increasing levels of crossness, to get that money returned.
I think they were obliged to return my money, which is why they finally did return it, when I pointed out that I had written the story of the non-delivery of the watch and Groupon's refusal to do anything about it, and published it.
I SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO DO THAT TO GET MY MONEY RETURNED.
But thanks, anyway, Groupon. Now please take me off your mailing lists.
EDIT: I have now been emailed by the SMIMinion, very politely informing me that I have been removed from the mailing lists without me having to remove myself, in response to the comment made above, on my blog.
To be fair to Groupon, I need to record this example of excellent customer service - so thank you. There's not many companies that respond so quickly to requests on blogs.
It might now be a good idea if Groupon tried to introduce the same quick response time to emails complaining about the non-receipt of goods and asking for money to be reimbursed. One step at a time, though.
Time to draw a line under this. I'm really not into baiting the underlings. I suspect, if you dig deep into Groupon's hierarchies and structures, most of this debacle can be traced back to a lack of support, a lack of training of people hired to deal with cross customers such as myself, possibly an insecure work place so that people feel scared to escalate issues, and too much work for the customer service people in a company that is expanding too fast. That still doesn't excuse the T&C, though, but at least we all know what they mean, now.
_____________________________________________
Sunday, 30 October 2011
The kind of thing that money just can't buy
Sometime around the middle of September, I joined Groupon by mistake - you click on one facebook ad, and then suddenly you're a member, sort of thing. I wasn't terribly happy, but had read some stories and the emails were easily deleted. So I decided to wait for a bit before classifying the emails as junk mail.
And then I needed a watch, and there was a watch to be had on Groupon, a bright, shiny, plastic watch like a giant boiled sweet, and I wanted it in red because nothing spells impending senility like wearing a giant, plastic, bright red boiled sweet wrapped around your wrist. This watch, from a site called South Lane, was something like £34.00 originally, but I could get it for £12.00 if I bought a Groupon Voucher, and if I paid something like £13.60 for express delivery, I could get it even quicker.
Now a saving isn't a saving if it makes you buy something you wouldn't buy anyway, but I needed a watch. So I dutifully signed up - I can't remember ticking a T&C box but apparently there is one, now, anyway, and received my voucher code by the end of that day. I can't remember the exact day that this was, but I rushed along to the South Lane website and, eagerly and chirpily and merrily and all other sorts of ilys, entered the voucher code; code not accepted.
I tried again and again. I decided to phone Groupon. "The code doesn't work!" I wailed. Silence. "Hello?" I asked.
Eventually the young lady came back to tell me that the codes hadn't been uploaded yet and that I should wait and try again. Retrospectively, I realise that the lack of care was a harbinger of things to come. I waited and tried the website again the next day or that evening; no luck. Eventually, I forgot about it.
A couple of weeks later - on 10th October, to be precise - I remembered the voucher plus code. I went to the website, the voucher code was accepted, and I was sent an acknowledgement email. I replicate that email underneath. Notice how the date of the acknowledgement email is clearly present, at the top.
Order ID: XXXX
Date Added: 10/10/2011
Order Status: Complete
Products
1x Red Lane (Red Lane) 39.00€
Order Totals
Coupon(F3A2DADB7E) -41.99€
Sub-Total 39.00€
Flat Rate 2.99€
Total 0.00€
To view your order click on the link below:http://link
Please reply to this email if you have any questions.
Remember, I'd paid for Express Delivery. OK, so I was buying the watch rather later than I originally intended but I still wanted it NOW! Giant boiled sweetie watch, water resistant to 30 m, what's not to die for?
On the 18th October, with no watch having arrived, I replied to the email as instructed above, with the following. The original email was addended, as shown underneath. Note that the date of the original email is still clear:
Dear South Lane
I have not yet received this watch - I was under the impression that buying it with the express delivery option meant that I would get it quite quickly. I wanted it as a birthday present for myself, and my birthday is tomorrow. What now? Do I need to take this further?
Yours,
Online Blogger#
On Mon, October 10, 2011 11:27 am, South Lane wrote:
> Order ID: XXXX
> Date Added: 10/10/2011
> Order Status: Complete
>
>
> Products
> 1x Red Lane (Red Lane) 39.00€
>
>
> Order Totals
> Coupon(F3A2DADB7E) -41.99€
> Sub-Total 39.00€
> Flat Rate 2.99€
> Total 0.00€
>
>
> To view your order click on the link below:
> http://link
>
>
> Please reply to this email if you have any questions.
Quite clear, don't you think? Unfortunately, after the automated response, I heard nothing further from South Lane, and to this day, have not heard anything from them. So, there's a company to avoid.
Now, that's the last time I'm going to print the whole of an email including preceeding emails, but you must imagine each new email getting longer and longer, with all the previous emails underneath.
Having heard nothing from South Lane, I decided to try Groupon. I've paid money to Groupon, and this money has disappeared into nothingness. I'm not going to spend more money hanging on the telephone to South Lane, trying to get someone who will answer; Groupon has taken money from me and they clearly have a contract with South Lane, so I'll ask them for help.
So I sent this email to Groupon on Saturday 21st October. This is actually three days after I first sent the email to South Lane, not two as stated in the email:
Dear Groupon
I ordered this watch from South Lane, using a voucher bought from you,some time ago (ten days). Your advertisement for this order said that delivery would be in seven days. I have not had the watch. I have sent the email beneath to South Lane two days ago, but have had no reply.
I'd like my voucher money back please, or the watch delivered, with the express delivery money given back to me, ASAP - which would mean by the end of next week.
Yours faithfully
Online Blogger
and underneath were the two previous emails, just as shown above.
I recieved an automated reply, and then, on the Sunday, this email back from Groupon:
Re: [Fwd: Re: South Lane - Order XXXX] (ticket #1047396)
----------------------------------------------
Minion X, Oct-23 17:44 (BST):
Hi Online,
Thank you for your email.
It states on the website that the express delivery is a wait of 7 working days. As you redeemed your voucher on the 18th of October, it is still within the expected delivery time. The 7th working day will be the 27th of October.
If you do not receive your item in this time then please reply to this email.
Regards,
Minion X
But I had written to SouthLane on the 18th and ordered the watch on the 10th (and it would have been earlier had Groupon actually uploaded the codes timeously) - and seven days for express delivery? Surely that's not right. Still, not going to argue with that, but I was pretty miffed that the Minion X hadn't even taken the time to read my email properly, and had assumed that I was lying, or making a fuss about nothing. It was pretty clear from the addended emails that I had made the order on 10th October.
So I replied, pretty crossly, with this:
Please reread the emails attached.
I redeemed my voucher on *10th* October, which is why I wrote to them on 18th October.
I am not impressed by your reply, in the slightest.
Please make sure that I get the watch by the end of next week, with the extra I have paid for express delivery returned to me, or refund in full.
Thank you
Online Blogger
That seems pretty clear to me. I mean, not only have I not had the watch I've paid for, I've definitely - even by Groupon and SouthLane's strange definition of 'express' - not had the express delivery, and I think I'm actually well within my rights to ask for my money back. I paid the money in good faith. I'm being fucked about. OK, it wasn't a huge amount of money to me, but that's not the point.
I get no answer from Groupon for a week. South Lane have still not replied after ten days. On Saturday 29th (no watch had turned up in the meantime, and meanwhile, I've just gone off the idea of this bloody, bothersome watch) I received this email from Minion X:
Minion X, Oct-29 12:17 (BST):
Hi Online,
Apologies for the confusion, my system states that the voucher was redeemed on the 18th.
I am in no position to make sure you 'get the watch by the end of next week' as we have no information on orders being processed and have no hand in posting them.
As you have paid extra for express delivery and they have not honoured this, you should contact them regarding a refund on postage as it was paid directly to them.
I urge you to keep trying to contact them
Regards,
Minion X
Right. This is way past my deadline, anyway - which is why, I suspect, she's replying now.
Let's have a think about what she's saying here.
First of all, there's that gobsmacking claim (in light of later claims that they don't know anything about what's going on at South Lane) that her system lists the voucher as having been redeemed on the 18th. The only way that got into her system was when she put it into her system as a result of not reading my first email properly.
Secondly, she wants me to carry on badgering South Lane for a return of the money I have paid to Groupon via credit/debit card. How, exactly, are South Lane going to return this money? All the financial exchange they've had with me is to check that I have entered the code of a coupon for which I've paid another company - Groupon - good money.
Furthermore, if Groupon are representing themselves as an agency for bona fide coupons from various businesses, I think that they probably do have some influence over SouthLane via their contract with them. And I think that I have a contract with Groupon, because they're the people I have paid money to.
Imagine my face.
Very cross.
I replied with this:
Dear Minion.
I paid the money to you. It is Groupon with whom I have the contract.
Groupon has another contract with South Lane. If you are willing to pay me (I will bill at £20.00 an hour) to pursue South Lane in order to make sure that they honour their contract with you by sending me a watch by 13th October (three days after the order was placed), then I am willing to do so.
I am taking advice from my legal friends on how to take this through the small claims court. I will also be making this story public.
Right now, as you have completely failed to honour this contract, I would like all of my money returned, please. If I have to spend any more time chasing you through the courts I will also be billing you for that time when I make the claim.
Yours faithfully
Online Blogger
And yes, throughout the week, various people have been giving me advice on how to take something through the small claims courts; a good starting point is here, for those of you who might be thinking of doing something similar. It's not so much the amount of money involved, it's more the principle of the matter. More on this in a bit. This blog, by the way, is me making the story public; and it's taking me over an hour to write. So I'll be billing them for that time when I go to court.
Anyway, the threat of legal action, or publicity, resulted in a very quick (by Groupon standards) reply. Within a couple of hours, I'd received this from a slightly more important Minion:
SMIMinion, Oct-29 15:17 (BST):
Hi Online,
Thank you for getting back to us.
As stated in our terms and conditions on our website, it is the responsibility of the merchant, and not Groupon, to provide the services or products as advertised in the deal. Thus if you have any queries regarding your order or have not received it,
then as stated by my colleague, you will need to contact the partner directly. Groupon simply offers a platform for other companies to promote their goods and services and therefore we are not involved in the dispatch of any products offered by our partners, and are unable to access their systems to track orders for you. Apologies for the inconvenience.
I have, however, passed your order details on to our partner managers, who talk to the partner on our behalf. The partner managers will investigate the situation, and we'll email you if we have any new information.
If you don't receive an email in the next week or so, or if you have any questions, just let me know by replying to this email. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
SMIMinion
Weekend Customer Services Manager
Right. OK. Deep breaths.
First of all - as I state right at the top - I can't remember being asked to do ticky-box for terms and conditions, but a friend went in and tested the Groupon website, and apparently they do ask you to agree to terms and conditions at the point of sale. I didn't read the T&C of course - who does? And if I had, I certainly wouldn't have agreed to the conditions which the Slightly More Important Minion is implying above are the standard Groupon conditions.
Because, what Groupon is saying here in effect is that they are not guaranteeing anything at all in exchange for your money. You're just giving them money. You may or you may not get some goods after some time, but if you don't, it's nothing to do with Groupon, who don't have to do anything about it. I think I'll just repeat that in a slightly larger font size, and emboldened:
This is what Groupon claims its terms and conditions mean:
What Groupon is saying here in effect is that they are not guaranteeing you anything at all in exchange for your money. You're just giving them money. You may or you may not get some goods after some time, but if you don't, it's nothing to do with Groupon and they don't have to give you the money back or do anything about it.
Are we all clear on that? Does Groupon seem like such a good deal now?
I most certainly haven't received the 'Express Delivery' for which I paid Groupon with my credit / debit card, and Groupon 'may' see what it can do to help me get the money back. OK, it's only a couple of quid, but, as I say above, that's not the point.
I still haven't heard anything from South Lane, by the way, so they are clearly a very shoddy outfit, but it is Groupon who has the contract with them. I hear that Groupon gets to keep 50% of the money you pay in these too-good-to-be-true money-off deals, incidentally.
Having taken legal advice from those friends of miney who have law training, it seems that Groupon may be on fairly dodgy ground claiming that, as the agent for South Lane, it bears no responsibility. This is why I will probably end up taking this to court. I'd be very interested in comments from other lawyers as to the solidity of the Groupon defense, here.
If Groupon is on solid ground here, and it can abrogate responsibility for when someone for whom they are acting as an agent fails to fulfil the contract, then I think we should all be clear on this. It's a giant confidence trick, and passing money over to Groupon does not guarantee you goods in return.
I will, of course, update this blog with future events, such as an apology or refund from Groupon or South Lane, should such a thing happen.
Oh, and to top it all, the day after I recieved the email outlining the fact that Groupon are not actually responsible for anything they sell you, I get this:
quest #1047396: How would you rate the support you received?
Hi there,
We'd love to hear what you think of our customer service. Please take a moment to answer one simple question by clicking either link below:
How would you rate the support you received?
You can copy the following URL into your browser to rate:
http://linky
If your query is still not fully resolved, we kindly ask that you reply back to the original email exchanges you have had with us rather than in your feedback comment. This is to help us ensure a speedy resolution.
I expect you can imagine my response to this.
And then I needed a watch, and there was a watch to be had on Groupon, a bright, shiny, plastic watch like a giant boiled sweet, and I wanted it in red because nothing spells impending senility like wearing a giant, plastic, bright red boiled sweet wrapped around your wrist. This watch, from a site called South Lane, was something like £34.00 originally, but I could get it for £12.00 if I bought a Groupon Voucher, and if I paid something like £13.60 for express delivery, I could get it even quicker.
Now a saving isn't a saving if it makes you buy something you wouldn't buy anyway, but I needed a watch. So I dutifully signed up - I can't remember ticking a T&C box but apparently there is one, now, anyway, and received my voucher code by the end of that day. I can't remember the exact day that this was, but I rushed along to the South Lane website and, eagerly and chirpily and merrily and all other sorts of ilys, entered the voucher code; code not accepted.
I tried again and again. I decided to phone Groupon. "The code doesn't work!" I wailed. Silence. "Hello?" I asked.
Eventually the young lady came back to tell me that the codes hadn't been uploaded yet and that I should wait and try again. Retrospectively, I realise that the lack of care was a harbinger of things to come. I waited and tried the website again the next day or that evening; no luck. Eventually, I forgot about it.
A couple of weeks later - on 10th October, to be precise - I remembered the voucher plus code. I went to the website, the voucher code was accepted, and I was sent an acknowledgement email. I replicate that email underneath. Notice how the date of the acknowledgement email is clearly present, at the top.
Order ID: XXXX
Date Added: 10/10/2011
Order Status: Complete
Products
1x Red Lane (Red Lane) 39.00€
Order Totals
Coupon(F3A2DADB7E) -41.99€
Sub-Total 39.00€
Flat Rate 2.99€
Total 0.00€
To view your order click on the link below:http://link
Please reply to this email if you have any questions.
Remember, I'd paid for Express Delivery. OK, so I was buying the watch rather later than I originally intended but I still wanted it NOW! Giant boiled sweetie watch, water resistant to 30 m, what's not to die for?
On the 18th October, with no watch having arrived, I replied to the email as instructed above, with the following. The original email was addended, as shown underneath. Note that the date of the original email is still clear:
Dear South Lane
I have not yet received this watch - I was under the impression that buying it with the express delivery option meant that I would get it quite quickly. I wanted it as a birthday present for myself, and my birthday is tomorrow. What now? Do I need to take this further?
Yours,
Online Blogger#
On Mon, October 10, 2011 11:27 am, South Lane wrote:
> Order ID: XXXX
> Date Added: 10/10/2011
> Order Status: Complete
>
>
> Products
> 1x Red Lane (Red Lane) 39.00€
>
>
> Order Totals
> Coupon(F3A2DADB7E) -41.99€
> Sub-Total 39.00€
> Flat Rate 2.99€
> Total 0.00€
>
>
> To view your order click on the link below:
> http://link
>
>
> Please reply to this email if you have any questions.
Quite clear, don't you think? Unfortunately, after the automated response, I heard nothing further from South Lane, and to this day, have not heard anything from them. So, there's a company to avoid.
Now, that's the last time I'm going to print the whole of an email including preceeding emails, but you must imagine each new email getting longer and longer, with all the previous emails underneath.
Having heard nothing from South Lane, I decided to try Groupon. I've paid money to Groupon, and this money has disappeared into nothingness. I'm not going to spend more money hanging on the telephone to South Lane, trying to get someone who will answer; Groupon has taken money from me and they clearly have a contract with South Lane, so I'll ask them for help.
So I sent this email to Groupon on Saturday 21st October. This is actually three days after I first sent the email to South Lane, not two as stated in the email:
Dear Groupon
I ordered this watch from South Lane, using a voucher bought from you,some time ago (ten days). Your advertisement for this order said that delivery would be in seven days. I have not had the watch. I have sent the email beneath to South Lane two days ago, but have had no reply.
I'd like my voucher money back please, or the watch delivered, with the express delivery money given back to me, ASAP - which would mean by the end of next week.
Yours faithfully
Online Blogger
and underneath were the two previous emails, just as shown above.
I recieved an automated reply, and then, on the Sunday, this email back from Groupon:
Re: [Fwd: Re: South Lane - Order XXXX] (ticket #1047396)
----------------------------------------------
Minion X, Oct-23 17:44 (BST):
Hi Online,
Thank you for your email.
It states on the website that the express delivery is a wait of 7 working days. As you redeemed your voucher on the 18th of October, it is still within the expected delivery time. The 7th working day will be the 27th of October.
If you do not receive your item in this time then please reply to this email.
Regards,
Minion X
But I had written to SouthLane on the 18th and ordered the watch on the 10th (and it would have been earlier had Groupon actually uploaded the codes timeously) - and seven days for express delivery? Surely that's not right. Still, not going to argue with that, but I was pretty miffed that the Minion X hadn't even taken the time to read my email properly, and had assumed that I was lying, or making a fuss about nothing. It was pretty clear from the addended emails that I had made the order on 10th October.
So I replied, pretty crossly, with this:
Please reread the emails attached.
I redeemed my voucher on *10th* October, which is why I wrote to them on 18th October.
I am not impressed by your reply, in the slightest.
Please make sure that I get the watch by the end of next week, with the extra I have paid for express delivery returned to me, or refund in full.
Thank you
Online Blogger
That seems pretty clear to me. I mean, not only have I not had the watch I've paid for, I've definitely - even by Groupon and SouthLane's strange definition of 'express' - not had the express delivery, and I think I'm actually well within my rights to ask for my money back. I paid the money in good faith. I'm being fucked about. OK, it wasn't a huge amount of money to me, but that's not the point.
I get no answer from Groupon for a week. South Lane have still not replied after ten days. On Saturday 29th (no watch had turned up in the meantime, and meanwhile, I've just gone off the idea of this bloody, bothersome watch) I received this email from Minion X:
Minion X, Oct-29 12:17 (BST):
Hi Online,
Apologies for the confusion, my system states that the voucher was redeemed on the 18th.
I am in no position to make sure you 'get the watch by the end of next week' as we have no information on orders being processed and have no hand in posting them.
As you have paid extra for express delivery and they have not honoured this, you should contact them regarding a refund on postage as it was paid directly to them.
I urge you to keep trying to contact them
Regards,
Minion X
Right. This is way past my deadline, anyway - which is why, I suspect, she's replying now.
Let's have a think about what she's saying here.
First of all, there's that gobsmacking claim (in light of later claims that they don't know anything about what's going on at South Lane) that her system lists the voucher as having been redeemed on the 18th. The only way that got into her system was when she put it into her system as a result of not reading my first email properly.
Secondly, she wants me to carry on badgering South Lane for a return of the money I have paid to Groupon via credit/debit card. How, exactly, are South Lane going to return this money? All the financial exchange they've had with me is to check that I have entered the code of a coupon for which I've paid another company - Groupon - good money.
Furthermore, if Groupon are representing themselves as an agency for bona fide coupons from various businesses, I think that they probably do have some influence over SouthLane via their contract with them. And I think that I have a contract with Groupon, because they're the people I have paid money to.
Imagine my face.
Very cross.
I replied with this:
Dear Minion.
I paid the money to you. It is Groupon with whom I have the contract.
Groupon has another contract with South Lane. If you are willing to pay me (I will bill at £20.00 an hour) to pursue South Lane in order to make sure that they honour their contract with you by sending me a watch by 13th October (three days after the order was placed), then I am willing to do so.
I am taking advice from my legal friends on how to take this through the small claims court. I will also be making this story public.
Right now, as you have completely failed to honour this contract, I would like all of my money returned, please. If I have to spend any more time chasing you through the courts I will also be billing you for that time when I make the claim.
Yours faithfully
Online Blogger
And yes, throughout the week, various people have been giving me advice on how to take something through the small claims courts; a good starting point is here, for those of you who might be thinking of doing something similar. It's not so much the amount of money involved, it's more the principle of the matter. More on this in a bit. This blog, by the way, is me making the story public; and it's taking me over an hour to write. So I'll be billing them for that time when I go to court.
Anyway, the threat of legal action, or publicity, resulted in a very quick (by Groupon standards) reply. Within a couple of hours, I'd received this from a slightly more important Minion:
SMIMinion, Oct-29 15:17 (BST):
Hi Online,
Thank you for getting back to us.
As stated in our terms and conditions on our website, it is the responsibility of the merchant, and not Groupon, to provide the services or products as advertised in the deal. Thus if you have any queries regarding your order or have not received it,
then as stated by my colleague, you will need to contact the partner directly. Groupon simply offers a platform for other companies to promote their goods and services and therefore we are not involved in the dispatch of any products offered by our partners, and are unable to access their systems to track orders for you. Apologies for the inconvenience.
I have, however, passed your order details on to our partner managers, who talk to the partner on our behalf. The partner managers will investigate the situation, and we'll email you if we have any new information.
If you don't receive an email in the next week or so, or if you have any questions, just let me know by replying to this email. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
SMIMinion
Weekend Customer Services Manager
Right. OK. Deep breaths.
First of all - as I state right at the top - I can't remember being asked to do ticky-box for terms and conditions, but a friend went in and tested the Groupon website, and apparently they do ask you to agree to terms and conditions at the point of sale. I didn't read the T&C of course - who does? And if I had, I certainly wouldn't have agreed to the conditions which the Slightly More Important Minion is implying above are the standard Groupon conditions.
Because, what Groupon is saying here in effect is that they are not guaranteeing anything at all in exchange for your money. You're just giving them money. You may or you may not get some goods after some time, but if you don't, it's nothing to do with Groupon, who don't have to do anything about it. I think I'll just repeat that in a slightly larger font size, and emboldened:
This is what Groupon claims its terms and conditions mean:
What Groupon is saying here in effect is that they are not guaranteeing you anything at all in exchange for your money. You're just giving them money. You may or you may not get some goods after some time, but if you don't, it's nothing to do with Groupon and they don't have to give you the money back or do anything about it.
Are we all clear on that? Does Groupon seem like such a good deal now?
I most certainly haven't received the 'Express Delivery' for which I paid Groupon with my credit / debit card, and Groupon 'may' see what it can do to help me get the money back. OK, it's only a couple of quid, but, as I say above, that's not the point.
I still haven't heard anything from South Lane, by the way, so they are clearly a very shoddy outfit, but it is Groupon who has the contract with them. I hear that Groupon gets to keep 50% of the money you pay in these too-good-to-be-true money-off deals, incidentally.
Having taken legal advice from those friends of miney who have law training, it seems that Groupon may be on fairly dodgy ground claiming that, as the agent for South Lane, it bears no responsibility. This is why I will probably end up taking this to court. I'd be very interested in comments from other lawyers as to the solidity of the Groupon defense, here.
If Groupon is on solid ground here, and it can abrogate responsibility for when someone for whom they are acting as an agent fails to fulfil the contract, then I think we should all be clear on this. It's a giant confidence trick, and passing money over to Groupon does not guarantee you goods in return.
I will, of course, update this blog with future events, such as an apology or refund from Groupon or South Lane, should such a thing happen.
Oh, and to top it all, the day after I recieved the email outlining the fact that Groupon are not actually responsible for anything they sell you, I get this:
quest #1047396: How would you rate the support you received?
Hi there,
We'd love to hear what you think of our customer service. Please take a moment to answer one simple question by clicking either link below:
How would you rate the support you received?
You can copy the following URL into your browser to rate:
http://linky
If your query is still not fully resolved, we kindly ask that you reply back to the original email exchanges you have had with us rather than in your feedback comment. This is to help us ensure a speedy resolution.
I expect you can imagine my response to this.
Saturday, 1 October 2011
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