Would you argue with a large company?

[Draggletail 61]

In the past we have taken on The Woolwich buiding society and Npower. After many letters and phone calls to the call centre, about eight weeks later we got satisfaction, but not before getting abuse and belittlement from a supervisor of the call centre.

It was worth it ( about £2000 of our money was at stake)

 

Regarding Npower -

Same story as the Woolwich - Poorly trained staff at the call centre, no continuity regarding the complaint ( have to go through it All again every time you phone up) nothing ever gets done about the complaint despite promises to the contrary

 

MY advice would be to always get the name of the person you are dealing with, make notes of the conversation you have had with them/what they said they would do about your complaint.

Note the date of the conversation

If you cannot get any satisfaction ask to speak to a supervisor or manager

Stick with it, be tenacious.'

Have something harmless to hand that you can hit with a big stick when you come off the phone

[Ginger_Kitty 10]

I'm currently having lots of arguments with BT over my lack of broadband service. I'm not gonna give up, so far its cost me more in phonecalls and dialup (pay per min) in 3 weeks than I was potentially saving by moving to BT... but I won't rant for now, I'm saving that energy for BT themselves

[Cols 10]

Fighting back ....

Many years ago I ordered some furniture from a famous store. A couple of weeks later the company went into liquidation but the store was taken over and carried on trading as normal but I was told I would lose my £100 deposit. After many useless phone calls I managed to obtain the Freephone 0800 phone number of the store and starting phoning them - "this is the 1st of 1000 calls - it doesn't cost me anything to phone and won't get me my money back but it makes me feel better".

After 8 calls they relented and I got my money back.

[Draggletail 61]

I also used to do work for a leading Sheffield estate agent. They would never pay me on time. Eventually I got so fed up I phoned and said if I did not get a cheque sharpish, I would park my truck outside their office on Campo Lane and attach 10 foot by 4 foot plywood panels to the sides bearing the slogan '********* do not pay their private contractors'

 

I got a cheque the next day

[DanSumption 10]

Originally posted by caprice

The thing with mobile phone companies is that there is so much competition, so to get your own way, a threat of leaving them usually works...

In theory, yes, in practice it's usually so hard to get through to anyone with the power to make a decision (and big companies are making this harder and harder all the time) that you just end up speaking to an endless row of numpties with no real power to help you. In my experience, even when you do get through to someone in authority they often take the same attitude, that it's not worth dealing with your complaint properly.

 

I'm currently in dispute with my ISP, Demon Internet (actually, I say "currently" - I have a letter from them here that's 6 months old that I've still not got around to replying to). A long time ago, they offered to reduce my monthly rate to the same rate that new customers joining them would get. I didn't take them up on it immediately because I was waiting for more information from them, which they never provided. When I finally did take up the offer, I asked them "are you going to refund me back to the date when you originally offered this". They said they couldn't find any earlier emails offering me the discount. I have the emails here, but they are basically calling me a liar - this has gone up to the supervisor and he just says the same thing. I'm inclined to just leave them, especially as there are so many ISPs offering much cheaper service nowadays, but having been with them for over ten years, through thick and thin (in fact, almost certainly for longer than all of the staff now there) I feel sad about doing this. It really annoys me that I feel genuine "customer loyalty" yet they're treating me as a liar.

 

My second current rant is with Choices DVD rentals on Crookes. A long time ago, they said I hadn't returned a DVD when I know I had (I remember it very clearly). They were OK about this, and took it off my account. A couple of weeks ago, I had lost my card and asked for a new one. Their reply was "we haven't got any in, keep asking when you come in". The next time I was in, the shop was very crowded, I took some DVDs out and, not having a card on me, they asked me my address and name. Any of the dozen-or-so people in the queue could have overheard. Six days later when I returned the DVDs, the guy in the shop said "have you got the other one that you took out". I told him I didn't have any others out, and he showed me one (a film which I have not the slightest interest in seeing, which ironically is called "Cheats") that had been taken out later on the same night I took my three out. I said that somebody must have overheard my details and used them fraudulently, he ridiculed this idea and said "if somebody'd wanted to use your details to take out a DVD, they wouldn't have taken a £2 one, they'd have chosen a more expensive one". I left it at that, and a couple of weeks later got a letter telling me to return this DVD that I didn't have. I called the manager, explained the situation, he looked on my account and said "wait a minute, this has happened before hasn't it?" From then on, he didn't believe a word that I said, treated me like a common thief. So again, that's one company I don't think I'll be using any more (a shame, as there's no other handy shops nearby, although I suppose I could always sign up for Screenselect), which I'm really gutted about because I actually quite like it there and most weeks I would take out 3 DVDs.

 

Hmm, sorry about those little rants, I just had to tell someone

 

Sympathy/advice, please?

 

PS. What Kristian says is right, never ever lose your rag. It pays to be sickeningly nice.

[sccsux 10]

Originally posted by DanSumption

County Court proceedings can be a lot of fun - I used to represent a fairly large company in CC proceedings. As long as it's for an amount under £1000, the judge has a fair amount of discretion.

 

 

 

My "debt" is for the pincely sum of ........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait for it........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hang on......

 

 

 

 

 

£76.64!

 

 

 

I wouldn't mind so much, but it cost us over £150 to connect to BT when we first moved here (which was paid @ the PO, in cash), as there was no line installed. In fact, maybe I should bill them for the use of my home (connected to their pole) and for rental of my wall space by a plastic box that has only ever been used for incoming calls for the first couple of months we were here;).

[jackieb 10]

We are currently in the middle of a rangle-tangle over our electricity bill.

 

We moved last August and naively believed our letting agent when she said she would pass our details onto the supplier. To cut a long story short, we heard nothing until November when we got a sizeable bill addressed to the previous tenant and then the fun and games started.

 

To date we still haven't paid a penny for electricity because they managed to take 6 months just to get an account set up and then failed to correct our details on the account in spite of being told several times that they had our name address and postcode wrong - all this was faxed to them in November.

 

We made arrangements to pay the outstanding balance in instalments over 3 months by direct debit which all seemed fine until we got a letter from them in April saying that the DD had been cancelled because they spelt our name wrong. The debt now stands at almost £500.

 

We sent a stiff letter of complaint but got no response (other than a threat to send debt collectors round) so we have been in contact with Energywatch for help. Just playing a waiting game now really......

[jackieb 10]

On a happier note I got a reply from Asda today with a £5 gift card. I complained (rather flippantly) by letter because 3 varieties were missing from their (cheap) chocolate box assortment!

 

I was not really expecting or wanting a response but they sent a letter which sounded genuinely apologetic.

 

Well done Asda!

 

[*Twinkle* 10]

Originally posted by jackieb

On a happier note I got a reply from Asda today with a £5 gift card. I complained (rather flippantly) by letter because 3 varieties were missing from their (cheap) chocolate box assortment!

 

I was not really expecting or wanting a response but they sent a letter which sounded genuinely apologetic.

 

Well done Asda!

 

 

I got burnt off a dangerous ASDA product what exploded and splurted hot substance all over me. I have a scar on my hand and the burn hurt for ages... I sent a letter, with receipt attached and didn't hear anything about it for ages... So I rang them to find out why a serious complaint was not being dealt with and apparently they never received my letter. I forwarded them photographic evidence of my injury and the scene of the crime lol and was eventually awarded £30... However, if the letter *had* turned up, the case was to be sent to the insurance company, and asda claimed to admit all liability for my injury... But oddly enough, it never did turn up. (Hmm...) I was happy with the £30, it was nice of them to at least say sorry for it... Mind you, it serves me right not sending the letter by recorded delivery, or I could have been in for a couple of hundred quid compo!

[jackieb 10]

Originally posted by caprice

I got burnt off a dangerous ASDA product what exploded and splurted hot substance all over me. I have a scar on my hand and the burn hurt for ages... I sent a letter, with receipt attached and didn't hear anything about it for ages... So I rang them to find out why a serious complaint was not being dealt with and apparently they never received my letter. I forwarded them photographic evidence of my injury and the scene of the crime lol and was eventually awarded £30... However, if the letter *had* turned up, the case was to be sent to the insurance company, and asda claimed to admit all liability for my injury... But oddly enough, it never did turn up. (Hmm...) I was happy with the £30, it was nice of them to at least say sorry for it... Mind you, it serves me right not sending the letter by recorded delivery, or I could have been in for a couple of hundred quid compo!

 

Perhaps satisfaction is only gained when the complaint is as trivial as mine was? Not so well done Asda!

[*Twinkle* 10]

Originally posted by jackieb

Perhaps satisfaction is only gained when the complaint is as trivial as mine was? Not so well done Asda!

 

lol you had every right to complain! You might have got stuck with all the crappy flavour chocs if they left all the good ones out!

[spiffymonkey 10]

Originally posted by savbaby

also please post any stories of taking on these companies and winning!

 

I always fight big companies who seem to just expect me to get frustrated and go away. One specific case was with changing electricity companies. I was with N-Power and switched to Scottish Power. It did work out much cheaper, too. However, customer service was seriously lacking from both companies. Inept is not strong enough a word!

 

Anyway, after getting thoroughly PO'd with them both, and as I was moving house, I switched to British Gas at my new house. Neither of them deserve my custom. Anyway, after about 6 months a letter arrived saying that I owed NPower just over 11 quid. Now, I definitely knew that was wrong, especially seeing as I had been with 2 power companies since then and had paid up when moving each time.

 

Anyway, many weeks and many angry shoutings from me (I started off nice, but sometimes you have to yell at the poor operator just so that they give up and put you through to a manager) I managed to get information about the npower->scottish power handover. I got all the details off them, including what meter readings they had, what had been passed over, what payments had been received, etc.

 

Guess what; they didn't match. Not even close. The meter inspector must have been drunk or something, it was so far off. Anyway, I supplied the correct (as per my bills and the fact that I had the forethought to write the readings down) information to both companies and they reviewed their records. It turned out that NPower actually owed me £50, and Scottish Power owed me a tenner. Which was nice