Savings

Posted: Mon 28 May, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness | 5 Comments »

Over the weekend, I was in Sainsbury’s, and saw a fine example of weird savings…

I’m sure I’ve waffed on about this before, but I can’t be chuffed to double-check. (Turns out, July 2009) Anyway, it’s hardly news.

In this case, a 4-pack of 2L Diet Coke bottles is retailing at £6.50. (And let’s not get onto the price-increase side of things – It’s not long ago that that 4-pack was £5)  As a 2L bottle on its own is around the £2 mark – I think it was £1.98, but who’s counting? – then £6.50 for four isn’t a bad deal.

Except – except! – that if you pay a bit more attention, they’re also doing “3 for the price of two” on the individual 2L bottles.

So you can get six bottles for £8 ( or £1.33 a bottle) , instead of four for £6.50 ( £1.62 per bottle )

Supermarkets are very strange places when it comes to saving money…

Smartphone, Stupid App

Posted: Wed 21 March, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, iPhone | Leave a comment »

Ah, RBS, I do so love the way you make life really complicated when it doesn’t need to be – and indeed shouldn’t be.

As I wrote before, I recently upgraded my phone to the iPhone 4S, which was a remarkably painless process. (I know, Apple stuff “just works”, but that’s not always been my experience, it’s safe to say – and there’s still a few niggles to sort out)  All the Apps I’d purchased on the 3GS came over smoothly, all the contacts, blah blah, all worked fine – except for one.

Yep, the RBS “Mobile Banking” app wouldn’t work at all. Fair enough, security for banking, I can live with that. And there’s a button for requesting a new passkey. Clicky. Oh. It’s going to come in the post, and might take seven working days. Sheesh.

Seven working days on, nothing has appeared. So I call RBS Mobile Banking.

“Oh yes, we don’t send those any more.”

“…”

“Yes, what you need to do is text STOP (and yes, it has to be all in capitals) to 87727, then uninstall the existing app, reinstall it from the App Store, and go through the setup process.”

“You’re kidding, right? This is how RBS ‘make things easier’?”

“Yes, this is the quickest process for getting things done.”

Fuck sake. Anyway, it’s been done – but what a total bag of bollocks.

London Police Corbett

Posted: Thu 2 February, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Corbett, Customer Services, Marketing, Stupidity, Technology | Tags: , | 1 Comment »

I see in today’s news that the Metropolitan Police have committed a Corbett, ‘inadvertently sharing the email addresses’ of ‘a number of’ victims of crime with each other. In total 1,136 emails were sent out on Monday, the Metropolitan Police said.

Yep, another case of CC: instead of BCC:

Of course, it’s not a Full Corbett, because the Met has actually apologised, and will write to the people involved, explaining what happened. Let’s hope they use BCC this time…

Ian Corbett and Toyota Ireland – Retraction Of Comments

Posted: Thu 8 September, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Toyota IE | 7 Comments »

On the 25th July 2009, I referred to the Marketing Manager of Toyota Ireland, in derogatory terms regarding his not knowing the difference between CC and BCC when sending out marketing emails.

Following a request from his legal advisers, I am retracting these comments forthwith, and have deleted the original post(s) to reflect this. I apologise for any harm caused.

 

Parking Weirdness

Posted: Tue 5 July, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 4 Comments »

At the moment I’m commuting to London on a daily basis, which is a bit of a killer. It’s an hour (ish) on the M11 down to Woodford, then catch the tube from Woodford to central London. All told, pretty much two to two-and-a-quarter hours, door-to-door.

Parking in Woodford though is – to say the least – weird.

The car-park on Chateris Road is owned and run by Redbridge Council, and it’s pay-and-display. I use RingGo to sort out the parking, and that makes things even easier – use the iPhone App to pay using my linked credit-card, and job done. £4.80 per day to park – that’s it.

Because the weird thing about the management of this car park is that the ticket machines don’t actually work at all ’til 9am. They won’t accept money, they won’t do anything. You can’t even pay online or by phone until 9am. I tell people this at least three times a week when they’re trying to get a ticket.

It’s the weirdest and most customer-hostile method of operating that I’ve ever seen. Although, on a more cynical note, I wonder if the reasoning is that if people think the machine’s broken, and don’t pay for a ticket, maybe it makes more financial sense (to the council) when they end up with parking tickets for £30 or £60, instead of paying the proper £4.80.

Ticket Insanity

Posted: Fri 20 May, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, National Express East Anglia, Travel, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »

At the moment I’m commuting between Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge by train. It works out for the best for me – the times work out OK, I’m really catching up on reading, and it’s cheaper than driving.

Currently, a weekly ticket costs me £45 , and parking at Bury Station is £12 for the week (or £3.50 per day…), so my weekly costs are £57.

Having looked around, the next station along, Thurston, is much the same distance from home, and the parking is free. So I thought I’d have a look at the cost of the ticket.

A weekly ticket from Thurston to Cambridge is – wait for it – £77. Yes, £32 more expensive for one station more. It’s not even that much of a distance…


View Larger Map

The actual route is the dead-straight run between the two, not the highlighted route.

Even more bizarrely, a weekly ticket from Thurston to Bury is – um – £14. Still more expensive than parking at Bury station, but less than half the price of the extended weekly ticket from Thurston->Cambridge.

I’m sure there’s some logic there somewhere. But damn if I can find it.

Clamper’s Contract

Posted: Tue 2 November, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Creativity, Customer Services | Leave a comment »

James Holden has come up with an ace way of combatting car clampers…

Parking Contract

Everybody is familiar with the notices displayed in car parks. The gist of them is that by parking you are entering into a contract which obliges you to pay a sum of money if you breach the terms of the agreement. These notices are enforced by contract law and are very different to the legitimate PCN (Penalty Charge Notice) tickets that public officials can issue, which you have to appeal properly if you think you’ve been ticketed unfairly.

This got me thinking. If I can be said to have entered into a contract by simply being near one of these signs, so can they. It should cover off enough of the angles of attack, fines, clamping, towing and so on

Excellent stuff.

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