Bureaucratised
Posted: Mon 2 January, 2023 Filed under: Accounting, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 4 Comments »One of the things that always surprises me when it comes to dealing with my accountants is how gob-smackingly disorganised a lot of their clients must be. They send out reminders through the year for people to get their receipts in order, to make sure they match what’s in the online portal, and keep on saying about when the deadlines are, when everything has to be ready by.
Personally, I hate being like that – all the stuff I can do for my accounts for last year is already done. My receipts are scanned and linked, my bank statements and transactions files are all completed, all the expenses and so on are logged, it’s basically done. When my accountant sends out their request for everything, I can supply it all by return of email.
It’s still a frustrating experience, though. They’re really geared towards the late submitters, the last minute merchants – so even though I submit rapidly, I still have to wait ’til the processes are done and so on, and that seems to be reliant on the disorganised ones.
I’ve said repeatedly to the accountants that they should have a team that specifically deals with “easy” clients, the ones who are organised and who just get stuff done. Nothing in my accounts is complex – I already know what my 2022 Corporation Tax will be, because the prediction on the online portal is (for me) rarely out by more than a couple of quid. So sorting out clients like me should be at most a week’s work, just get the files in, agree them with what’s been submitted, calculate the figures, and job done. It really can’t be difficult.
But while they always say “Oh yeah, we could do that“, they never do. So I’ve done what I can, and I’ll just wait for the accountants to catch up. It’s deeply fucking annoying, but at least I know I’m on top of things and have done what I can.
Handbrake
Posted: Sun 27 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, KwikFit 1 Comment »When the car got its MOT recently, one of the upcoming issues was that the handbrake was set too high, and not being particularly effective. Not awful, not dangerous, but not great.
In fairness, it’s been similar since I got it. Every year at Service/MOT time the Kia place I used would fuck around with it a bit, but it was always high, and I just figured that’s how it was for that car. It’s never slipped or caused issues, so *shrug* what the hell, it’s fine.
Anyway, last week it stopped being fine. It was still working, but once released the handle would “bounce” back up enough to trigger the “brake still on” idiot light on the dashboard, and was showing all the signs that it now needed replacing. Like, soon.
So anyway, I rang up the KwikFit where I got it serviced and MOTd this time, booked it in (for yesterday) for the work, and that’s all fine. These things happen.
Once they’d looked at it, it turned out that it wasn’t ready to break (pardon the pun) but there was something in the run of the handbrake cable that had jammed, which they released and checked the entire thing (including a re-check of handbrake efficiency) and all sorted. Additionally, it now doesn’t need to be set as high when engaging it. (I assume because I’m not fighting against whatever the jammed piece was doing)
And the price for this? Absolutely nothing. I tried to pay, I wanted to – even if there weren’t any replacement parts, they’d spent workshop time on investigating, sorting, and re-testing – but nope, they insisted it was fine. OK, then – but they’re definitely getting any return business from me.
UPS – Utterly Pathetic Service
Posted: Fri 18 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »Ages back, I ordered a cool thing from the US. I knew it would take some time (it was backed through Indiegogo) so that wasn’t a worry.
About six weeks ago, I got notification that it was finally pretty much ready for sending out. I made sure they had my new address and so on, and was told when it had been sent out, although they didn’t let me have a tracking number, which was a problem.
Sadly, it was sent by UPS. Who are, in my experience, utterly fucking useless at least 90% of the time. And this was no different to usual.
Because it was coming in from the US (and emphatically Not Cheap) I knew it would get held up at Customs etc., and that was expected and fine. (Well, not fine, but… just the way it is)
What was not expected was that UPS would take three weeks (Three. Fucking. Weeks!) to send me the invoice for the VAT that was due to be paid. With no notifications, not even a “we tried to deliver, please contact us” card. Maybe I’m meant to be telepathic and to Just Know when things are wrong/waiting.
Allegedly they tried to deliver the parcel (which is a noteworthy achievement, considering it was being held by Customs/UK Border Force until the VAT was paid) but considering I was working from home and no card was left etc. (and the delivery man agreed that he hadn’t been here before, when it finally did arrive) so we know that as well as being fucking incompetent, they’re also useless bastard liars.
Anyway, it all got sorted out in the end – although not with any help at all from UPS, despite contacts from both the sender and myself to ask what the hell was going on, and why they were being so useless. All those messages went into a black hole of incompetence, never to be responded to again.
Thankfully though, despite the length of time it took to get the invoice, I did finally get the thing this week, and I’m pleased with it.
But again, dealing with UPS has been an absolute ball-ache. And now, because it’s finally been delivered, any customer service effort ends at “But you’ve received your package, so everything’s OK”. Ignoring completely the fact that it eventually took more than a month from being despatched to being delivered. Apparently that’s fine, and I should probably just be happy that it finally arrived. Nothing else matters.
So, in conclusion, yet again UPS are shite, and I wouldn’t ever give them money for anything.
Energy Bill Saving – A Followup
Posted: Sun 13 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Utilities Leave a comment »I forgot to update about this! If you’re still reading this rubbish, you’ll know that back in June eonNext Energy tried to bill me for energy used before I left them fifteen months prior. That ended up not working well for them (due to an awareness of OfGem’s rules about back-billing) and they soon effed off.
Anyway.
At the start of October (see, told you I’d forgotten to write about it!) I got a letter – thankfully I’m still old-fashioned enough to make use of Royal Mail Redirection, even though most of what I get in the post is absolute shite – from eonNext. Including a cheque as an apology for their abysmal customer service.
Anyway, yes, the cheque got paid in straight away, and all is good. It just amused me that eonNext took three months to even process an apology…
Yet another MoT
Posted: Wed 5 October, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, MK Kia, Thoughts Leave a comment »This week the car’s been in for its MoT test – it’s October, so it’s been time to renew Insurance, pay Road Tax, and sort the MoT. For the first time with this car, I didn’t bother using the proper dealership (the car’s on 200,000 miles, and I no longer give a sod about service histories and so on) alongside which, the dealership I was using were… less than professional on a number of occasions, so I wanted to try something else and see what they had to say.
I chose (on the basis of other positive experiences) to use KwikFit , albeit a branch/location I hadn’t used before. I booked a service at the same time, just to get everything done in one go.
As it turned out, it did fail the first MoT, and needed a couple of things doing. Which was fine, KwikFit sorted everything on the same day – although obviously it made it a long day all told – along with recommendations of what I need to do (in their words) “sometime in the next year”, which I’ll get sorted at some point soon.
But all told, that little Kia has done pretty well – I’ve put about 130,000 miles on it since I got it in 2016 (just under 22,000 miles a year on average!) and it’s still really running fine. (Mind you, I’ve been very clear to it on what will happen when it becomes unreliable, so no-one’s under any illusions) That was definitely a good buy.
Moved
Posted: Thu 15 September, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 1 Comment »So, it’s finally happened – and all went really smoothly in the end.
I’m still not a fan of having a removals company doing the packing/driving/delivery – I don’t like telling people what to do, and feel uncomfortable just directing things to where they should be. But the guys on the day made everything easy and efficient. They turned up on time at 9am, and everything was loaded into their van by 10:15. They had a break and then drove up to the new house, whereas I just drove up, they arrived by 11:30/11:45, and it was again all unloaded and sorted by 13:30.
Obviously there’s now a lot of unpacking and organisation to do (as well as construction of things like wardrobe, bookcases, and office desk/chair) before I feel properly sorted, but it’s all gone well so far.
Today I’ve been out and on-site, so not much happened.
Tomorrow I get broadband and Sky installed, and various odds and sods will be delivered through the day.
Mostly though, I’m just happy that the move itself went OK, and that it’s all looking positive so far!
Making More Work
Posted: Fri 12 August, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, I Don't Understand, People, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »As part of my preparation for moving (about which another post sometime soon) this week I ordered some decent moving boxes from SafeStore. Yes, I’m sure there are other sources for them, and so on, but I was happy with the stuff on offer, and they’d deliver it, so *shrug*, it’ll do.
For cost-effectiveness (within the provisos of “I’m sure I could get it better somewhere else, but CBA to hunt”) I got one of their “kits” – 4 each of small, medium and large box sizes for considerably less than individual prices – and also added in some bubblewrap, tissue paper, and a mattress cover. All well and good.
It got delivered this morning, as expected and on-time. Two boxes – one the ‘kit’ box, and one for the bubblewrap roll etc. Except… there’s no mattress cover, no tissue paper. So I called them up to let them know, and the lady went off to check with the despatchers. And that was where it got weird.
“Have you checked in the Kit box? They say they might’ve put the extra things in there, to keep it all together“.
And it turned out that was exactly what had happened. But that boggles my mind.
Now, I assume (and I’m aware it’s an assumption and thus could be utterly flawed) that the kit boxes are exactly that – they come as a sealed box with the kit contents in. That makes sense to me. (Otherwise they’d be assembling the kit from box stocks for every order, which seems… odd)
So, if that’s the case, the despatchers opened a kit box, put the extra bits in, sealed it up, and then put it with the other box that already had bubblewrap etc. in it. Why go to that effort when there’s an unsealed box (with space in it) right there? Why make even more work for oneself?
I despair.
[Note : I actually did better than expected out of this deal – because they didn’t send me the kit box I’d ordered, and instead sent one that’s larger, and should’ve cost about £10 more!]