Non-Support

Epic Micro-P, Gainward And Abit Support Failure

2009-04-01T14:04:00.004+01:00

Now that it is finally over, I can write up the massive problems I had RMAing a Gainward graphics card and an Abit motherboard I purchased through Micro-P. It took two and a half months to reach a rather unsatisfactory conclusion. It is such a long story I've actually had to structure it. This is the story that inspired me to start this blog.

Introduction

In October 2007 I purchased the components to build my PC from Micro-P. They have a one year return to seller warranty, and a two year return to manufacturer warranty. Among the components was a Gainward GeForce 8600GT graphics card (with a three year warranty), and an Abit AB9 Pro motherboard (with a two year warranty).

Fast-forward to January 2009. I'd just purchased a new HD Asus monitor, so I set it up as my main monitor and left my old monitor as a secondary monitor. I then tested the new monitor by playing some Grand Theft Auto 4. About a week later, on the 16th of January, unsatisfied with the performance of GTA4 on the resolution I had set for the new monitor, I decided to install the latest Nvidia drivers for the GeForce 8600GT chipset. I started up GTA4 again and, literally 90 seconds into the game, my computer switched off. It tried to restart and failed. It did this five or six times, until I switched it off completely. My first thought was that I'd suffered a power surge, but my PC and all peripherals are plugged into surge-protected outlets. I then considered something may have overheated, although this was highly unlikely as the computer had been switched on for 20 minutes, and running the game for only 90 seconds. Regardless, I left the computer alone for 6 hours before trying to restart again. It still wouldn't start up.

By this stage it was clear something had died. I checked the POST codes on the motherboard as it started up to see where it failed. It seemed to fail at different points:

C5 - "Call chipset hook to copy BIOS back to E000 & F000 shadow RAM"
03 - "Initial Superio_Early_Init switch"
10 - "Auto detect flash type to load appropriate flash R/W codes into the runtime area in F000 for ESCD & DMI support"
25 - "Early PCI Initialization:
- Enumerate PCI bus number
- Assign memory & I/O resource
- Search for a valid VGA device & VGA BIOS, and put it into C000:0"
52 - "Test all memory (clear all extended memory to 0)"
FF - "Boot attempt (INT 19h)"

Everything indicated to me that the motherboard was fried. I posted in the Abit support forums to ask what they thought. I got three responses, all of which said the likely culprit was the graphics card.

This is where the nightmare started.

Part 1: Gainward And Micro-P's Apparent Concern

Monday, 19th of January

Satisfied with the replies from the forum, I check the Gainward site for a contact address to initiate an RMA request. I find a support address, support@gainward.de, and e-mail them:

Hello.

About 15 months ago I purchased a Gainward GeForce 8600GT 512Mb (1xDVI, 1xRGB, 1xHDMI, 1xVideo-out) (all components for this rig were bought at the same time). About 3 weeks ago I purchased a new monitor and connected it via the DVI connection, leaving my old monitor as a secondary display via RGB, and configuring them as Dual View. My setup:

PSU: Win Power ATX-450
MB: aBit AB9 Pro
CPU: E6850 (Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3GHz)
RAM: 2 x 1GB 800 MHz DDR2
GFX: Gainward GeForce 8600GT 512MB
HD: WD Caviar SATA II 250GB
DVD: Samsung SATA DVD/RW
Monitor: Dual View - Asus 22'' WS @ 1920x1080 on DVI | AOC 17'' @ 1240 x 1024 on RGB
No additional cards
PS2 Mouse & Keyboard
USB: VoIP phone, scanner
No overclocking

With the new monitor I found GTA IV to be sluggish at a relatively low resolution, so I decided to try the latest nVidia drivers (181.20). On Friday I installed the latest drivers, restarted, and tested GTA IV on what I felt was an acceptable resolution (1152x864 or something like that). The configuration screen of GTA IV told me this was an appropriate setup. I ran the game, and after 90 seconds my computer shut down and tried to restart. It kept starting up and shutting down almost immediately. My first thought was the problem was power-related, but all my computer equipment is plugged into power-surge protected outlets. I then thought it might be simple overheating (a little strange after only 90 seconds of play, but still) so I left it for a little while. I came back later and tried to restart the computer, but it failed to boot. I checked the POST codes on the motherboard, and it didn't seem to stop at one particular code, so I posted on the Hexus aBit support forums for some feedback. The general consensus was the problem was likely to be with the graphics card. I am unable to test this as I don't have an alternative card to install in my computer.

So to my questions:

1. Does this sound to you like a problem with the graphics card?

2. Could I return this for RMA, even with the card having been purchased 15 months ago (I'm not entirely sure how RMA works)? The card has not been overclocked, modified, mishandled, mistreated or damaged in any way.

3. Could the new drivers be at fault here? I'd had absolutely no problems until now, and I even had the Dual View setup running for close to 3 weeks with no problems (including playing GTA IV), so I'm a little suspicious that there should be critical failure of any component minutes after installing new drivers...

Thank you.

Regards,

Wednesday, 21st of January

Still no reply from Gainward, so I check the website again and find three new contact e-mail addresses for support, prasanna@gainward.de, ronny@gainward.de and zhu@gainward.de. I forward my e-mail to them again:

Hi.

I sent the below e-mail to support@gainward.de on Monday and am yet to receive any sort of response. Can you help? Thank you.

Regards,

I immediately get back an out-of-office auto-reply from Zhu, which tells me they won't be back for while.

Thursday, 22nd of January

I still have no reply from Gainward, so I check their site once again to get the e-mail address for RMA requests, rma@gainward.de, and skip the support step:

Hello.

I require an RMA number to return one of your products. I have already tried to get support via e-mail - I have e-mailed the message I've attached below but have received no response or acknowledgement. Thank you.

Regards,

Friday, 23rd of January

I still haven't even received an acknowledgement of receipt for my e-mails, so I google for support issues with Gainward and find I'm not alone. My search turns up another e-mail address, eitan@gainward.de. I e-mail once again, copying in all the e-mail addresses I have now collected for Gainward, already rather irritated, but this time enable return receipts to check whether they're actually reading them:

Hello.

This is the fourth time I e-mail with regards to this problem. The least I expect is a response acknowledging receipt. I require an RMA number to return one of your products. I have attached below the original description of the problem, in case you're actually reading these, although I suspect you're not.

Unbelievably, 15 minutes after sending the e-mail, I get a read receipt from three of the e-mail addresses. Clearly, they are simply ignoring them. I fire off another e-mail:

Having received the read receipts to my last e-mail from:

rma@gainward.de
support@gainward.de
ronny@gainward.de

It is now very clear to me you are purposefully ignoring my e-mails, failing to provide me with any support, and breaching your contractual obligation to provide me with a 3 year warranty. You are therefore breaking the European Union Product Warranty Directive. Failure to respond to this e-mail will result in further action from my solicitor, via the appropriate court of law.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the legal threat, I now get a response. It is, however, a really lame response:

Hii,,

The graphics card 8600GT does not support latest drivers from NVIDIA. The 180 series drivers from NVIDIA are specially designed form 9000 Series graphics card.

Please uninstall your previous drivers and install the drivers from the CD provided along with graphics card or your can download 163.75 series drives from below link.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_163.75.html.

Use Nvidia control panel to configure your second monitor.

Best Regards
Technical Support
Gainward Europe

How I'm supposed to install the drivers when my PC won't even boot up is beyond me. All that effort and they haven't even read the e-mail to see what the problem is. I reply again, by now royally pissed off:

Funny how you only respond once I threaten with legal action.

In any case, your response doesn't help me one little bit - the graphics card is dead and I can't even boot up the computer, so obviously I cannot install some completely outdated drivers (and I've been using the 178.46 drivers for months without a hitch). The drivers I installed (181.20) *are* listed as drivers for the 8600GT chipset (see here, under "Products Supported": http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/winxp_181.20_whql_uk.html), they are not only for the GeForce 9 series , but I will gladly install a previous version if you either:

a) Replace my current card (I still need an RMA number to be able to do this)
or
b) Send me a new card

When you're responding to a support request you may find it actually helps if you read the request.

A closer inspection of the Gainward site (by checking a PDF with the warranty details) reveals that RMA requests must be made through the reseller. I then e-mail enquiries at Micro-P, explaining the non-responsiveness of Gainward, and asking them about the process to initiate an RMA request.

Monday, 26th of January

I receive a response from rma@gainward.de:

Hi,

Where did you purchased this product?

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Best regards

I don't know this yet, but this is the last e-mail I will receive from Gainward RMA requests for a very long time. I reply immediately and tell them I purchased it from Micro-P.

Tuesday, 27th of January

I'm now not getting responses from Gainward or Micro-P. I e-mail Micro-P again, this time copying in Customer Services:

Hi,

I sent the message below last Friday but have received no reply or even acknowledgement of receipt. Could someone help please?

Regards,

This time I get a response, apologising for the lack of response, telling me that my previous e-mail doesn't seem to have reached them, and letting me know that Customer Services should be getting back to me the next day to provide some feedback. In actual fact, I get a reply the same day:

Hi

We no longer supply Gainward graphics cards, you will need to speak to your account manager if you wish to return it for an alternative product. The Gainward cards we sold all had a 12 month RTB warranty with an additional 12 months return to manudacturer. If you can get an RMA number from Gainward then we would be able to accept it back.

Regards

N

Micro-P Technical Support

Hmmm, I thought I'd explained all this already. I e-mail back to explain again:

Hi N, thank you for your reply. I have copied L into this e-mail in order to merge all correspondence with yourselves into a single thread.

As I say, I purchased the card 15 months ago, so the card is no longer under RTB warranty. Regarding RMA, and according to the Gainward website:

"Warranty claims regarding GAINWARD's products can only be carried out by representative parties to GAINWARD Europe GmbH; these meaning distributors, resellers and other cooperative partners under legal contract with GAINWARD Europe GmbH.

Direct claims from end-users towards GAINWARD will no longer be handled directly by GAINWARD. End-users with warranty claims, support issues or other technical enquiries regarding GAINWARD's line of products are therefore required to directly contact their place of purchase. These places will forward any enquiries, claims or other errands to the correct representative within GAINWARD. Direct handling of warranty claims with GAINWARD can only be carried out if the product has been purchased directly from GAINWARD, eg. Via GAINWARD's Webshop or under similar circumstances."

See http://www.gainward.com/support/docs_uk/warranty_new_en_20051007.pdf

You will see from my e-mail that I have tried contacting Gainward multiple times, but I have not yet received any satisfactory reply. As an update, Gainward support has contacted me to tell me to install old drivers (which I obviously cannot do as I cannot boot the computer with no graphics card), and Gainward RMA requests has replied to ask me where I purchased the card, but have not gotten back to me since. The last contact from them was last Friday, and I fear they are simply ignoring all my requests.

How can we proceed from here? Thank you.

Wednesday, 28th of January

I get another reply from Micro-P Customer Services:

Hi

If it is the updated graphics drivers that are causing the problem it should be a simple matter of rolling back the drivers for the card in device manager. Alternatively you could uninstall the driver software, reboot the machine and install the earlier drivers.

My concern would be if this is a driver related issue then Gainward would not class it as faulty. From my experience both Nvidia and ATI quite often have issues with their latest drivers that can sometimes take a while for them to fix.

Regards

N

Exasperated (seriously, are they actually reading the e-mails?), I reply again, rather too arrogantly for my own good:

Hi N,

Sorry, perhaps you didn't read through my e-mail fully. The graphics card is dead - it is completely and utterly unresponsive, kaput, kicked the bucket, it is no more. Because the card is dead I cannot even boot up my computer. The drivers are loaded after boot up, so clearly this is not a driver-related issue. Just to clarify: this has nothing to do with drivers. The only mention about drivers is from Gainward support, who failed to actually read through and understand the problem I am having.

I suspect N didn't like my response:

Hi

As I said in my original reply, you will need to speak to your Micro-P account manager as I cannot replace the card. Your account manager will be able to either source an alternative card for replacement or authorise a return for reduced credit. Of course you still have the option of sending it back to us for repair but I have been advised the turnaround time is in excess of 2 months for us to receive the repaired unit back..

Thanks

N

I decide to take his advice, but I don't have contact details for our account manager, so I reply again:

Hello again N,

The reason I didn't contact our account manager is that I bought this card more than 12 months ago and is therefore no longer under RTB warranty. In any case, do you happen to have a contact e-mail address for our account manager? There is now a great deal of correspondence with regards to this issue, and it would be easier for me to e-mail than to phone as I can then copy/paste the story behind this saga, rather than try to explain everything again. Our sales contact at the time of purchase was R, but I'm not sure if this is still the case. Thank you.

Regards,

I get no reply. Thankfully one of our sys admins managed to get some contact details, so I now send a very long e-mail to our account manager, Luke, explaining the whole story, step by step.

Thursday, 29th of January

No reply from Luke, so I e-mail him again:

Hello Luke,

I e-mailed you yesterday with the below e-mail. I was wondering if you'd had a chance to read it? If you haven't, an acknowledgement of receipt would really put my mind at ease. Thank you.

Regards,

He replies and puts my mind at ease:

Hello

Sorry for the delay

I did receive it, and passed it to my Components team.
Is there any chance you could tell me the invoice/PO number for the order.

Thanks

I reply to Luke again and give him the details he requested.

Friday, 30th of January

Towards the end of the day, I still haven't been contacted by Micro-P, so I e-mail yet again:

Hello Luke,

Sorry to bother you again, but I have not received any further communication regarding this issue. Is there someone else I should be contacting directly regarding updates on this? I ask because N's last e-mail gave me the impression that there was a clear-cut process I could now follow. Is this not the case? Thank you.

Kind regards,

Tuesday, 3rd of February

Still no contact from Micro-P, so it's time to e-mail again:

Hello Luke,

Sorry to be a pain, but I still haven't received a reply to my e-mail below, sent last Friday, or any other communication from Micro-P. It's now been almost a week since N told me to contact the Account Manager, and I seem to have progressed no further in this enquiry. Could I please get an update on this? Thank you.

Luke, the Micro-P account manager, calls me, apologises for the delay, and informs me he has been talking to P at Gainward (one of the people at Gainward I've been e-mailing all along), and they want me to contact them directly. He tells me this is because Micro-P no longer deal with Gainward products, and they are no longer returning items to them. The guy seems helpful, but more on this later. Tired, I tell him that's fine, I just want the problem resolved.

I call the phone number he gives me. It rings. And rings. And rings. No one answers. It is 15:50 CET and no one is answering the phone. I cry a little. Then I e-mail P again:

Hello.

About two weeks ago I tried contacting you, and your colleagues, with regards to a broken Gainward GeForce 8600GT. I gave you a full account of the problems I was having, and I received no reply. I then requested an RMA number to return the card. I received no reply. Eventually, after contacting your company four times, I got a timid response asking me to install older drivers. Obviously I couldn't do this, as the card is broken and my computer will not start up without a graphics card. I replied to this, and have received no response. On the same day, I got a response to my RMA number request asking me where I purchased the card. I replied, letting them know I got it from Micro-P, in the UK. Since then I have received no further communication from anyone at Gainward. Further inspection on the website revealed that, apparently, Gainward will not deal with RMA or support requests from end-users. Instead, I should contact my point of sale to address these issues.

Although I question the legality of this (what should I do if the shop is now out of business - who should I contact then? or if, as in this case, the shop no longer deals with Gainward products?), I did contact my point of sale. I contacted Micro-P last week. I believe Luke from Micro-P has been corresponding, or talking to you with regards to this issue. It has now been two and a half weeks since the card broke down, and still it hasn't even begun to be resolved. Luke called me today (that's right - unlike Gainward, Micro-P actually respond to e-mails, and phone their customers), and let me know that he'd been talking to you, and that he was told you now want me to contact you. Is this right? Am I now allowed to contact you directly?

Well, I've tried. Luke gave me the following contact phone number to get in touch with you:

[phone number]

Is this the right number? I ask because I've called, but no one will answer the phone.

Can I get an RMA number now? And if I send in the card, what will happen then? Will I get a replacement card? How long will the RMA process take?

I am getting extremely annoyed with the level of customer support that Gainward has displayed so far, so please contact me. You can reply to this e-mail (come on, responding to an e-mail doesn't take more than a couple minutes - let me know you're listening) or you can phone me on:

[phone number]

Losing hope,

In the evening, I get a reply:

Hi,,

You can call us on [same phone number] number between 10AM to 4PM in week days.

Best Regards

P

Gainward Europe

I sigh, and let it be for yet another day.

Wednesday, 4th of February

I call the number again. In the morning. At 10:40 CET. I get a recorded message, telling me to call at X times on Monday and Thursdays, Y times on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and Z times on Fridays. Apparently, the phone should be answered right now. I check their website, and it gives me different times to both the times given by P in his e-mail, and the recorded message. Quite an achievement. By now I am absolutely furious:

Is this a joke?

1. I have just called the number, at 10:40 AM CET, and received an answering machine message to tell me what times I can call - which by the way doesn't match what you told me by e-mail. According to that it should have been open - why am I getting an answering machine?

2. I called yesterday at 15:50 CET, and no one picked up the phone.

3. I have now e-mailed you six times - you have all the information I can give you. Why do I need to call a phone number to get some customer support? I am not going to be able to give you any more information just because I'm on the phone.

Now please, GIVE ME AN RMA NUMBER SO I CAN RETURN THIS PRODUCT. I have had ENOUGH.

That evening, I get a call while driving home. I call back when I get back home, as I couldn't pick up the phone while driving. I proceed to have a 45 minute discussion with P about this issue. During the course of the phone call, I am told they never received my e-mails (so I collect them all and forward them on to P again, so he can see just why I'm so annoyed). I am also told they never told Micro-P to get me to contact them directly. I am also told they still receive RMAs from Micro-P. I am also told I am a liar. I am also told if I'm not getting any help it's probably because I'm "annoying". This, of course, just enrages me further. I can only assume that it is due to my vitriol and my rebuttals to their ridiculous accusations that I finally get him to agree to an RMA directly from me. I send off another e-mail to finally get an RMA number to return the card.

Thursday, 5th of February

I get not one, but two RMA numbers! I don't know which one to use, so I use them both, just to make sure, and send off the card.

Wednesday, 18th of February

P calls me to tell me they have tested the card on two computers and it works fine. I'm unconvinced. He tells me they will swap the card for a new one, as they have plenty in stock. He will send if off himself, apparently.

Tuesday, 24th February

A missed call from P (he always seems to call when I'm driving). He doesn't e-mail or call again, so I assume it's nothing important.

Wednesday, 4th of March

Still no sign of the replacement card, so I e-mail P to ask him where it is:

P,

You phoned me a couple weeks ago to tell me you would send back the graphics card, but I still haven't received it. Is this going to take much longer? I've now been 6 weeks without a working computer.

Thursday, 5th of March

P replies:

Hi,,

Sorry for the delay,, it has been dispatched by today's UPS shipment.

It got delayed due to insufficient stock of the specific model we
wanted to replace you.

Best Regards
P
Gainward Europe

This despite the fact that he had previously told me they had plenty in stock. Still, at least it's been sent by UPS, so it should be here shortly.

Monday, 9th March

Still no sign of the card, so another e-mail goes off:

Do you have a tracking number for the package? Still no sign of it.

No reply.

Wednesday, 11th March

I finally get the card! I open the package and... Oh for the love of god. I sent off a GeForce 8600GT with 512MB DDR3 memory and HDMI output. I get back a GeForce 8600GT with 512MB DDR2 memory and no HDMI output. I've gotten back a lower spec card. Another e-mail gets sent:

P,

I have now received the card. Let me tell you I am VERY annoyed. I sent you:

Gainward GeForce 8600GT PCI-E 512MB DDR3 HDMI DVI

You sent me back:

Gainward GeForce 8600GT PCI-E 512MB DDR2 TV-OUT DVI

So, no HDMI, and DDR2 memory instead of DDR3! You've effectively downgraded my card for no good reason. This is simply not good enough. How do we proceed from here?

To P's credit, he calls me back immediately and tells me they will replace the card immediately. He explains they wanted to upgrade me to a fan model, but they had none in stock, which is why it took so long, but that the fan model has DDR2 memory. In any case, I haven't even got the fan model. Apparently there was a mixup in the stock room (I thought he was preparing it himself?). An exact replacement will get sent the same day.

Monday, 16th of March

I now receive a replacement card. Support from Gainward was awful, but at least I got a replacement. I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking it's over. It's not.

Part 2: Abit And The Truth About Micro-P

Monday, 16th of March

I install the new card and find the computer still won't boot up. I got so caught up with Gainward's terrible support, I totally lost sight of the issue. Some further testing confirms the problem is with the motherboard. In order to get a working PC as soon as possible, I buy a new motherboard instead of waiting any longer. I will deal with RMAing the motherboard later.

Wednesday, 18th of March

With a working PC, I now set about getting the motherboard RMAd. I check Abit's site, but find very little info there. I e-mail support@u-abit.eu:

Hello. I purchased an Abit AB9 Pro about 17 months which has now failed and I wanted to get it RMAd. How would I go about this as I could find no useful information on the UK website? Thank you.

Regards,

In order to save myself some trouble, I e-mail Micro-P Customer Services at the same time:

Hello.

About 17 months ago I purchased an Abit AB9 Pro motherboard through you, through the company I work for. The board recently failed and I would like to initiate an RMA procedure. I believe the RMA procedure with Abit requires the vendor or reseller to initiate the request. Could you let me know how I should proceed please? Thank you.

Regards,

Thursday, 19th of March

I get a reply back from Abit:

Dear Customer,

Please go back to your reseller there you have your warranty and Service duties, not with the manufacturer.
The Manufacturer is only responsible if the reseller doesn't exist anymore.

God help me.

Friday, 20th of March

I try Micro-P again, as they still haven't replied:

Hi,

I sent the below e-mail last Wednesday but have no response or acknowledgement of receipt. Can you help me please? This is the e-mail I got in response to my query from Abit:

Dear Customer,

Please go back to your reseller there you have your warranty and Service duties, not with the manufacturer.
The Manufacturer is only responsible if the reseller doesn't exist anymore.

Thank you.

Regards,

Monday, 23rd of March

Still nothing from Micro-P, so I decide to e-mail Luke again:

Hello Luke,

If you recall I contacted you a little while ago regarding a problem with a Gainward graphics card. You directed me to speak to them directly. I did, and eventually managed to convince them to allow me to proceed with an RMA request direct, though they were quite insistent that Micro-P does still return products for RMA. Anyway, I've now had it checked and the graphics card is fine, so I've run my own tests. I can conclusively state that the problem is the motherboard. I contacted Abit to get the motherboard RMAd.
Their response:

Dear Customer,

Please go back to your reseller there you have your warranty and Service duties, not with the manufacturer.
The Manufacturer is only responsible if the reseller doesn't exist anymore.

Sorry, but it's back to Micro-P again. I e-mailed customer services and enquiries last Wednesday, and then again on Friday, but have not received any response. Can you let me know how to proceed? How do I return the motherboard to you? Thank you.

Regards,

Luke calls me back. He tells me they will make a straight replacement and send a new motherboard, and will collect the broken one. This is surprising, but I'm happy things are moving along quickly.

Tuesday, 24th of March

I receive the replacement motherboard. It is not a straight replacement. It is an MSI P43 Neo-F, which, though it has a newer chipset, has no eSATA or Firewire ports, fewer SATA ports, etc. As far as I'm concerned it's a downgrade. I call Luke and explain the problem. He passes me on to R in sales, as apparently he's not really sure about the procedure. R then tells me I should not have been sent that motherboard without being asked - I should have been given a choice of motherboards to select from. I ask why I didn't get a straight replacement and he tells me they no longer deal with Abit. I ask him why that is the case. He tells me they no longer trade in the UK. So that's two out of two companies they no longer deal with. In any case, you can still purchase Abit products in the UK. I explain that eSATA is one of the things I really want, and he looks through their stock to check which motherboards have it. After a few minutes of unsuccesful searching, he tells me he will look through them and call me back. He doesn't. I call him some hours later. He tells me he forgot, and makes a show of searching for a motherboard again. He then asks me whether this needs to go out that night. I say it's not essential, but it would be good. He says he will get a list of motherboards which have an eSATA port from the manufacturer and call me back the next day.

Wednesday, 25th of March

I call R as he didn't call me back. He still doesn't have the list.

Thursday, 26th of March

Another call, still no list. I tell him I still haven't been contacted about collecting the motherboards either. He will sort that.

Friday, 27th of March

R calls me at 9:30 to tell me the transport is sorted, and to call when they're ready for collection. He tells me he will call back by 11:00 to sort out a replacement. I call him at 13:30 when he still hasn't called. Still no list. "Funny how they never get back to you when you really need them", he laughs. A stony, uncomfortable silence greets him from my end. He then tells me the problem is the new exchange rate makes it difficult to find a replacement. The AB9 Pro would be about £80 if they sold it today, he tells me. In the middle of the call, the list magically appears in his inbox. He looks up a Gigabyte card, which he tells me is £85. Would I be willing to pay the difference? Of course not. I want an RMA procedure, why should I pay if they're not willing to do that? Additionally, it's only a £5 difference - surely they can take that loss? Apparently R is not authorised to make any loss. So if they still traded with Abit, I wouldn't even be able to get the same card again! I ask the list price for the MSI. It's £53, or £14 less than I payed for the Abit, but they never offered a refund. R refuses to deal with this point blank - I should never have been sent that motherboard, so the refund on the difference is apparently a moot point. I disagree. The only option left to me is a refund. He then tells me that's better than anyone else would offer - mostly I'd just get 50% back. I disagree with this also - most companies would allow me to proceed with an RMA. He then tells me he might be able to find me somewhere to buy the same motherboard for a similar price to what I payed. What the hell? I thought he was under the impression Abit no longer traded in the UK? I give up, tell him I'll get back to him, and hang up.

I e-mail Abit again, hoping they'll let me proceed with an RMA direct:

Hello again.

I've been talking to the place where I purchased the motherboard (Micro-P), who told me they no longer trade with you. They say they will take the card back, but will only give me credit for it. They will return the card to you and get credit for it, but will not proceed with a repair or exchange. This is not what I want - I want the card repaired or exchanged, as credit for the board will not cover the expense of buying a new card today with the current exchange rate. Is there any way I can proceed with the RMA directly with you, as essentially Micro-P no longer exists as a company that trades with Abit?

Regards,

Later, I get a call from Micro-P to arrange collection. I arrange collection for the MSI, but tell them I will not send the Abit until the issue is resolved.

Monday, 30th of March

I get a reply from Abit:

Dear Customer,

To see if your still have warranty and to check what kind of RMA procedure you have to follow, please answer the following questions.

1. What is the name of the company where you bought the ABIT product?
2. What is the purchase date?
3. What is the serialno? (the serialno. always starts with the modelname)
4. Do you still have the purchase invoice? ( only answer this question with yes or no, don't attach any invoice to the email)
5. what is your adress (this for calculating what the shippingcost would be)?

Best regards,

Encouraged, I reply:

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. The answers to your questions:

1. Purchased from Micro-P, UK
2. Purchased on October 17th, 2007
3. [Serial number]
4. Yes
5. [My address]

Thank you.

Regards,

I get two replies back from Abit:

Hi,

Just want to let you know, MircoP still send defective board to us for warranty service and they is no any agreement between MircoP en Abit for return for credit.
All RMA shipment are regular process.

Best regards,

So, that's the second time Micro-P tells me they no longer do RMAs because they no longer trade with the company, and the second time that company has told me that's not the case. Two distinct lies from Micro-P.

Dear Customer,

In the attachment you will find a PDF-file, with 2 pages.
(A PDF reader you can download from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html )

If you want a new BIOS-chip, or extra USB-cable, you fill out the Payment form (sheet 2).
When you want your Abit product to be repaired, please also fill out the Application Form (sheet 1) and send it back to us with a copy of your invoice.

I have to pay. I have to pay €25 for a repair to a product which is still under warranty, for a manufacturing defect that they are responsible for. I can understand that it's up to Micro-P to initiate the RMA, and Abit can't do anything about it, but I was rather hoping they'd see the situation I was in and help me out. No such luck. They passed the buck, much like Micro-P. So I reply again:

Hello again.

I've been talking to Micro-P for over a week now and they keep telling me that the only thing they'll do with Abit cards is return them for credit. They insist that they won't get cards fixed or replaced. The problem is, I don't really want an MSI or Gigabyte card (the only cards Micro-P offers now), I'd much rather have an Abit. But if I get credit from them I get £67 (what I payed), whereas the AB9 Pro would be £80 new today (because the pound has dropped in value so much since I bought it). So if I get credit I can't even get the same card back!

Regarding the PDF documents you've sent, it looks like I have to pay for the repair. Is this correct? It's just I thought there was a 2 year warranty, so I don't understand why I'd have to. I just wanted the standard warranty service. If I have to pay €25 for the repair, that's about £23, so I might as well just get credit from Micro-P - it would work out cheaper overall (£80 - £67 = £13, for a brand new card, instead of £23 for just a repair).

Could you help me clarify these issues? Thank you.

Regards,

Their reply:

Hi,

Yes, you've to pay EUR 25,00 to cover postage returned the baord. Repair costs own cost.
From my point of view, the best way for you is to return the board to MircoP for credit.

Best regards,

Wow. Just wow. The usual, I thought, was for me to pay for postage to get the board there, and them to pay for the cost to get it back to me. That's the experience I've had until now. It is, after all, their defect that has forced me to send it back in the first place. So, giving up on Abit, I return to Micro-P:

R,

I got this from Abit Europe:

Hi,

Just want to let you know, MircoP still send defective board to us for warranty service and they is no any agreement between MircoP en Abit for return for credit.
All RMA shipment are regular process.

Best regards,

Swee-Chong Lee
RMA Europe service center

What the hell is going on? Now Abit are telling me MicroP DO return Abit cards for the regular RMA procedure. You're telling me you don't. This is getting ridiculous.

And R's reply:

Morning,

It may be that we can return a board back to Abit, get it repaired, and have it shipped back to us. However, due to the administration and logistics of this, it will be virtually impossible to track. It would be a gamble whether or not you would even get the board back.

Please accept full credit for original price paid for the board, and I will do my best to find you a comparable board for you to purchase.

Thank you,

"Due to the administration and logistics of this"?! How complicated is it to send a package and receive another? I've just been told they're still doing this, so why is it that my particular request is so complicated? By this stage, it is clear that no one is willing to step up and take care of their responsabilities, so I try to limit the damage and get a refund - I'm certainly not willing to purchase anything through Micro-P again. I send a final e-mail:

Afternoon R,

I'm sorry, but I'm really not interested in store credit. If I can't follow a standard RMA procedure and "it would be a gamble whether or not I would even get the board back", then, to be honest, I'd rather just have a refund. I have no interest in getting another board from Micro-P, as I'd then have no guarantee that I wouldn't be in exactly the same situation in the future. Additionally, I don't particularly want an MSI or Gigabyte motherboard - as far as I'm concerned I'd be getting a lower-spec board (regardless of your thoughts on the chipset).

For the first time in all my dealings with Micro-P, I get a reply within minutes:

When the board is back in our warehouse you can arrange with your credit controller what you want to do with the credit.

Thanks,

I guess they were just waiting, holding out for me to finally give up. Congratulations Micro-P, you saved yourself £20 at the expense of my time, your time, the loss of a customer, bad PR, and several calls. I hope it was worth it.

Conclusions

In the end, the only thing that Gainward, Abit, and especially Micro-P, have managed is to ensure that I will never use their services again, and that I will recommend to my friends and family to do the same. In fact, I may just point them to this blog post and let them make their own minds up.

I will never buy a Gainward product again because, although they did eventually do what I'd always expected them to, it took me such a gigantic effort to get that, and support was generally so terrible, I simply wouldn't want to be subjected to that ever again. Replying to my first e-mail with a quick, simple and to-the-point response stating that RMA requests must proceed through the reseller (like Abit did) would have saved us both a great amount of grief.

I will never buy an Abit product again because, although they followed their guidelines to the letter and responded appropriately and quickly, they showed a level of callousness I'd rather not have to encounter ever again. Clearly, it is not their fault that Micro-P wouldn't do an RMA, but I really hoped a company of their caliber would have seen the predicament I was in and helped me out. They simply weren't willing to take that small final step. At least Gainward managed that much (if with a lot of coaxing).

I will never, ever, under any circumstances, purchase anything from Micro-P ever again. They were unresponsive, they flat-out refused to follow a standard procedure, they lied to me, they refused to help me out, they wasted my time, and they refused to make a slight loss to cover for all of that. In other words, in their eyes it is acceptable to lie to a customer, it is acceptable for the customer to make a loss through no fault of his own, and it is acceptable to ignore their own guarantees, but it is never acceptable for them to make a loss. That, to me, is a sure sign of lack of customer support.

This story is a perfect example of what I call our new culture of non-support. Policies and procedures implemented so a company can shrug off their responsabilites to their customers. Ignored requests for help. Warranties not worth the paper they're printed on. The height of callousness.

Uncontactable Adobe

2009-03-25T11:26:00.003+00:00

Apparently the easiest way to contact Adobe (if you want a useful answer) is to publish an open letter. Shortly after this was published, Adobe contacted the customer in question to resolve the situation:

Dear Adobe, I have paid for software which your system is designed to prevent me activating. What you think is for your protection is actually for my frustration. Now the "trial period" has expired, I cannot use the software I have paid for. And it's all because your systems don't work.

I am a customer. I am a customer who has paid you money. I am a customer who has paid you money for software that you are preventing me from using.

Actually, paying you money was difficult - your systems rejected my UK credit card unless I gave you a UK address. But I don't live in the UK, I live in Malaysia.

So, I used the address of one of our group companies, and was able to download Macromedia (remember them? Dealing with them was nice) FlashPaper 2.

Shortly after I bought the software, my PC was trashed by a total disk failure. I didn't need the software for several years, then when I did need it I found that the back up of the download was trashed, too.

After several attempts to find out from your website how to get a replacement, which I never did, I phoned the UK number - where someone was extremely helpful and talked me through the process, even going so far as to send me my order number and serial number by e-mail.

That was the only pleasant experience of this whole nightmare.

The software launched in trial mode. I have tried, repeatedly, to activate it but the activation link in the software is dead. I know I have the correct serial number because there is a big green tick next to it.

There is an option to activate by phone. I called the activation number given. It has been disconnected.

I went to your website to find alternatives: it gave me a different telephone number for customers in Malaysia. An automaton asked me to input my serial number.

I did.

Repeatedly.

It repeatedly told me that my number has an incorrect number of digits.

It doesn't.

After several tries, the system transferred me to an operator who will assist me, it said.

He didn't.

In fact, he said he couldn't. Your system, he said, had transferred me to an office that could only deal with enquiries from the USA and Canada. He could, he said, give me a number in Malaysia. Given that I had explained all of the above, it does not inspire confidence that he wanted to put me back to the very system that had sent me to him in the first place.

So he decided to give me a number in the UK. I don't want to phone the UK from Malaysia when the only reason I am doing so is that your system doesn't work. So I told him so, and I asked him why the machine in Singapore (for that is where the Malaysian freephone number diverts to) transfers me to someone whose only response is to tell me to phone someone else. He recited from a script. He kept saying the same things over and over, robotically. "I give you UK number. I cannot help you." He flatly refused to answer my question as to why I was transferred to someone who could only tell me to get lost and to put me to even more work than I had so far suffered.

I swore at him. Well, not at him exactly, more about his ****ing stupid script." He hung up.

So, I wrote, using the reply button, to the nice man who had sent me the registration details in the first place.

But your system is designed to prevent me doing that. This was your reply:

Adobe recently received an e-mail, from this e-mail address, that we are unable to process. Additional actions may be required to fulfill your particular comments or request.We have provided some information (below) to help you reach the appropriate Adobe contact.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL, as the e-mail address used to send you this e-mail cannot respond to any issues or requests. To help you address your particular question or comment, please visit the applicable sites, below:
Contacting Customer Service:
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/
Product Information:
http://www.adobe.com/software/
~~~~~~~
Thank you for your continued interest in Adobe. Best regards,
Adobe, Inc.
http://www.adobe.com

I am rapidly losing my continued interest in Adobe.

So, Mr Adobe, if there is such a person, this letter is for you. I've tried for several days, in many ways to contact your company so that I can use the software I have paid for. It is impossible unless, I assume, I spend even more time trying to understand your utterly muddled website and make yet more phone calls to dead numbers, machines that can't count, diversions that send me to people that can't help, etc.

Perhaps one of your staff will read this. And if so, find time to let me know how to activate this software in the face of such total obstruction by your systems.

And yes, to contact me please use the Feedback Form on this site.

Because when you do, it will reach me. And, like every other form that comes into our office, it will receive prompt and proper attention.

Or, if you feel like providing some customer service, you could call. The numbers are at the foot of this page. Just remember: I'm in Malaysia. We are at GMT +8 hours.

Original is here.

Verizon Can't Do Math

2009-03-08T10:34:00.003+00:00

Apparently, Verizon has real trouble telling the difference between dollars and cents. The video is an extract from a much longer call:

You can listen to the whole call and read more about it on the blog set up specially on the subject, VerizonMath.

A Useful Presentation

2009-03-05T14:49:00.003+00:00

Another old one, but again very good. These people decided to make a presentation [PDF] out their complaint when their guaranteed hotel reservations were not held.

Canadian Bank's Approach

2009-02-23T13:28:00.003+00:00

It appears employees at the Royal Bank of Canada have a unique approach to customer service. The higher up the food chain, and the more responsability the employee you deal with has, the less likely it is that you'll get any sort of resolution. One of their customers decided to make a Flash animation about it:

Royal Bank of Canada Customer Service

Ups, red ring of death!

2009-02-20T13:02:00.002+00:00

Here's a non-support story relating to the Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death, Microsoft and UPS all at once. You can read the original here with added pictures to illustrate the situation.

Like many of you, I have a shiny new copy of Halo 3 begging me to skip work and abandon family. The graphics are amazing, the game play liquid smooth, the sound design without peer, and the online gaming puts the Halo franchise firmly back on top, or at least that's what I've heard. For, sad to say, my personal Xbox 360 is gone, abandoning me in my time of need.

It all started on the 21st of August. I purchased an HD-DVD drive for my 360, complete with a free copy of 300, from my local and moderately incompetent Best Buy (they tried to charge me for the copy of 300 until I corrected them). After installing the software for the drive on the 360, I popped in 300 and sat back to enjoy all the highly-defined heroics. And it was glorious! For 10 minutes. Then the screen froze. Was Microsoft's HD software so poor it crashed just like Windows? Nope. For when I restarted my 360, I saw the inevitable:

Three red flashing lights (aka la red ring of death). The sign of a general hardware failure.

@%$@! So much for high def movies or gaming. But it was still over a month until Halo 3, plenty of time to get my system fixed. Microsoft had wisely extend my original warranty from 90 days to a full year, then tacked on another 2 years for this particular problem. Wisely I say because we Americans have this thing called a class-action lawsuit and 360s have been dying a rate far beyond the norm. From my personal circle of friends, 3 out of 6 360s have failed so far. The three oldest. The other three people are not optimistic.

So I called up Microsoft to get the system repaired. Mike (a supervisor) said they would mail me a prepaid box to return my console in (by ground), it would be repaired or replaced in 2-3 days once it arrived at the repair center in Texas and mailed back (by ground). I asked about a cross-shipping a replacement (many companies have this option if you are loud enough; some better companies like Dell even use it as a standard practice). Apparently it was not an option. I asked about upgrading the shipping at my cost, also a no go. So I requested that Mike email me the address to ship my system to (as to shave off one of the ground transit times).

I never did receive that email. Instead I got the prepaid box off the UPS truck several days later. Fine. I packed up my console and dropped it off at my local Staples. It got to the repair center on the 31st of August.

On the 5th of September, 3 full business days after they had received my console, I called and spoke with a supervisor by the name of Tom. Tom told me that my console had not been taken care of yet, that Mike had erred in promising a 2-3 day turn around. A Microsoft employee providing false information? I was shocked. It was not to be the last time. At any rate, Tom promised (with a confirmation) that it would ship within 7 days of its arrival at the repair depot. Lovely. Still plenty of time before Halo 3 though.

On the 8th of September, 8 days since they had gotten my 360, I called again and spoke with a supervisor named Tyler. Tyler was smart / honest enough not to make any promises. He merely stated that Tom and Mike should not have done so and that the total processing time for the whole repair/replacement cycle was currently 3-4 weeks. I inquired if Microsoft was planning on making good on either of the earlier promises I was made. It was not. I requested to be sent up another level or transferred to someone in the complaints department. I was denied, though he did suggest I write a letter to the legal department. I declined.

For your personal reference, filing a Better Business Bureau (BBB) complaint online is both easy and therapeutic. I recommend it to anyone frustrated with customer service (or lack thereof). My complaint was based on the failure of Microsoft to honor either of the promises I had been made. Slow is one thing, lying is entirely different.

So I called them again in a couple days, the 12th I think, to see if anything had happened. To my great surprise, nothing had happened. I was given some excuse that they had so many consoles to replace that they were waiting on new units from China. My amusement factor was very low. I casually mentioned that I had filed a BBB complaint on my customer service experience so far (complete with names). This seemed to spark some interest.

Enough interest that Microsoft actually called me two days later, on the 14th. I'm still not sure which unit inside Microsoft it was (the upper echelon of Xbox support, legal?), but they had good news, my 360 had been send out (by ground) that very day! Of course they didn't admit any fault on Microsoft's part, but she was very apologetic about the amount of time it had taken and assured me that I should not have been promised anything in the first place. Whatever. It was in the UPS system with a scheduled delivery on the 19th. Well before the launch of Halo 3 (the biggest media launch to date) on the 25th.

This is the point at which events went from annoying to absurd.

UPS lost my Xbox. That's right. It was moving in a timely fashion from Texas all the way up to the New England sorting center in Massachusetts. The anticipation was growing. I ordered a couple HD-DVDs to celebrate. Then I noticed something odd. 8 hours after the arrival scan of my console in Massachusetts, it was out for delivery. Not in Bangor, Maine where I happen to live, but in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. There was no departure scan from Massachusetts or an arrival scan in Hawaii, but there it was, out for delivery in some tropical paradise while I was rotting, 360-less, in near-arctic Maine.

This inspired me to call UPS. Their support person admitted that it looked like something had clearly gone wrong, but they couldn't do anything until the package had missed its delivery date. I called back after midnight. In the mean time I had called Microsoft and let them know of the situation (my most frustrating call of the whole lot, 90 minutes and I was never sure they got my request). I finally conned the UPS person into letting me speak with a supervisor and getting a tracer (UPS lingo for an oops-we-screwed-up) put on my package. She also called Hawaii to confirm if they had the package. They did not.

This brings us to the 26th of September. Halo 3 has launched, I even own a copy. My Xbox is still somewhere in UPS limbo (no tracking updates since the 18th). I called Microsoft again to explain the situation. The first person I spoke with had never heard of UPS losing a system (yeah, I'm special), so he bumped me up (after about 40 minutes) to Janet, a supervisor. Janet could do nothing for me (this seemed to be a trend for all the low level customer support people). She did setup a "call back", which, to my understanding, means that after waiting two more days, someone with the authority to actually send me out another unit will call me. Yippie.

So, after something over 6 hours of my life spend talking to badly qualified customer support personal, what have I gained? I still don't have my Xbox back. No one has admitted any fault. I cannot even speak to a human with any authority to get my case moving. I'll update this as new news comes in. Someday I may even have a 360 to call my own.

Least my PSP is still functional. Jeanne D'Arc might not be Halo, but it does dull the frustration.

Support Now With Wings

2009-02-13T13:50:00.005+00:00

Another complaint letter, sorry, last one (maybe). This time, there's issues with sanitary towels.

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the Leak Guard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts.

But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from ‘the curse’? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body.

Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call ‘an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.’ Isn’t the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying, jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy!

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants… Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: ‘Have a Happy Period.’

Are you ------ kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James?

FYI, unless you’re some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything ‘happy’ about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don’t march down to the local Walgreen’s armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say something that’s actually pertinent, like ‘Put down the Hammer’ or ‘Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong’, or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull sh*t.

And that’s a promise I will keep. Always!

Best,

Must be that time of the month... Don't kill me!

Even The Police

2009-02-10T13:23:00.002+00:00

Even the police have demonstrated lack of support. Here's some correspondence which made me giggle.

Dear Sir/madam/automated telephone answering service

Having spent the past twenty minutes waiting for someone at Leith police station to pick up a telephone I have decided to abandon the idea and try e-mailing you instead. Perhaps you would be so kind as to pass this message on to your colleagues in Leith by means of smoke signal, carrier pigeon or ouji board.

As I'm writing this e-mail there are eleven failed medical experiments (I think you call them youths) in West Cromwell Street which is just off Commercial Street in Leith. Six of them seem happy enough to play a game which involves kicking a football against an iron gate with the force of a meteorite. This causes an earth shattering CLANG! Which rings throughout the entire building. This game is now in it's third week and as I am unsure how the scoring system works, I have no idea if it will end any time soon.

The remaining five walking abortions are happily rummaging through several bags of rubbish and items of furniture that someone has so thoughtfully dumped beside the wheelie bins. One of them has found a saw and is setting about a discarded chair like a beaver on speed. I fear that it's only a matter of time before they turn their limited attention to the bottle of calor gas that is lying on it's side between the two bins. If they could be relied on to only blow their own arms and legs off then I would happily leave them to it. I would even go so far as to lend them the matches. Unfortunately they are far more likely to blow up half the street with them and I've just finished decorating the kitchen.

What I suggest is this. After replying to this e-mail with worthless assurances that the matter is being looked into and will be dealt with, why not leave it until the one night of the year (probably bath night) when there are no mutants around then drive up the street in a panda car before doing a three point turn and disappearing again. This will of course serve no other purpose than to remind us what policemen actually look like.

I trust that when I take a claw-hammer to the skull of one of these throwbacks you'll do me the same courtesy of giving me a four month head start before coming to arrest me.

I remain sir, your obedient servant

He got a reply to that too:

Mr ----

I have read your e-mail and understand you frustration at the problems caused by youth playing in the area and the problems you have encountered in trying to contact the police. As the Community Beat Officer for your street I would like to extend an offer of discussing the matter fully with you. Should you wish to discuss the matter, please provide contact details (address / telephone number) and when may be suitable.

Regards

PC 387

Community Beat Officer

Unfortunately, not the kind of response he was looking for:

Dear PC 387

First of all I would like to thank you for the speedy response to my original e-mail. 16 hours and 38 minutes must be a personal record for Leith Police station and rest assured that I will forward these details to Norris McWhirter for inclusion in his next book.

Secondly I was delighted to hear that our street has it's own community beat officer. May I be the first to congratulate you on your covert skills. In the five or so years I have lived in West Cromwell Street, I have never seen you. Do you hide up a tree or have you gone deep undercover and infiltrated the gang itself? Are you the one with the acne and the moustache on his forehead or the one with a chin like a wash hand basin? It's surely only a matter of time before you are head-hunted by MI5.

Whilst I realise that there may be far more serious crimes taking place in Leith such as smoking in a public place or being Muslim without due care and attention, is it too much to ask for a policeman to explain (using words of no more than two syllables at a time) to these t***s that they might want to play their strange football game elsewhere? The pitch behind the Citadel or the one at DK's are both within spitting distance, as is the bottom of the Leith Dock.

Should you wish to discuss these matters further you should feel free to contact me on *** **** If after 25 minutes I have still failed to answer, I'll buy you a large one in the Compass Bar.

Regards

---------

P.S If you think that this is sarcasm, think yourself lucky that you don't work for the cleansing department.

Inconvenience Banking

2009-02-09T13:55:00.004+00:00

Who hasn't wanted to do this? Banks, like other companies, show us they can offer non-support like the best of them. This guy decided to clarify his feelings.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his depositing the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly transfer of funds from my modest savings account, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty-one years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has recently become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status form which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Please allow me to level the playing field even further. When you call me, you will now have a menu of options on my new voice mail system to choose from.

Please press the buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.

2 .To query a missing payment.

3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact.

8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7.

9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee of $50 to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. Please credit my account after each occasion.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client,

Seat 29E Stinks

2009-02-03T12:58:00.004+00:00

Another airline complaint letter, this time from a passenger unhappy about sitting next to the toilet.

12-21-04
Flt #888 / SDO - HOUSTON
SEAT # 29E

Dear Continental Airlines,

I am disgusted as I write this note to you about the miserable experience I am having sitting in seat 29E on one of your aircrafts. As you may knwo, this seat is situated directly across from the lavatory, so close that I can reach out my left arm and touch the door.

All my senses are being tortured simultaneously. It's difficult to say what the worst part about sitting in 29E really is? Is it the stench of the sanitation fluid that is blown all over my body every 60 seconds when the door opens? Is it the wooosh of the constant flushing? Or is it the passengers asses that seem to fit into my personal space like a pornographic jig-saw puzzel? [sic]

I constructed a stink-shield by shoving one end of a blanket into the overhead compartment - while effective in blocking at least some of the smell, and offering a small bit of privacy, the ass-on-my-body factor has increased, as without my evil glare, passengers feel free to lean up against what they think is some kind of blanketed wall. The next ass that touches my should will be the last!

Putting a seat here was a very bad idea. I just heard a man GROAN in there! THIS SUCKS!

DEPICTION OF MANS BUTT IN MY FACE.

Worse yet, is I've paid over $400.00 for the honor of sitting in this seat!

I am picturing a board room full of executives giving props to the young promising engineer that figured out how to squeeze an additional row of seats onto this plane by putting them next to the LAV.

I would like to flush his head in the toilet that I am close enough to touch, and taste, from my seat.

Does your company give refunds? I'd like to go back where I came from and start over. Seat 29E could only be worse if it was located inside the bathroom.

I wonder if my clothing will retain the sanitizing odor... What about my hair! I feel like I'm bathing in a toilet bowl of blue liquid, and there is no man in a little boat to save me.

I am filled with a deep hatred for your plane designer and a general dis-ease that may last for hours.

We are finally descending, and soon I will be able to tear down the stink-shield, but the scars will remain.

I suggest that you initiate immediate removal of this seat from all of your crafts. Just remove it, and leave the smouldering brown hole empty, a good place for sturdy/non-absorbing luggage maybe, but not human cargo.

You can find the original hand-written letter here.

Unhappy Chrysler Neon Owner

2009-02-02T12:59:00.002+00:00

Here's another top-notch complaint letter, this time from the owner of a Chrysler Neon who is less than pleased about his car.

SCOTT CLIFTON FURROW

January 21, 2000

DaimlerChrysler
Customer Relations Department
1000 Chrysler Drive
Auburn Hills, Michigan 48326-2766

Dear Chrysler:

I own a new Plymouth Neon. Actually, most of it is new. In five years, I’ve had to replace most of the car because of faulty parts and second-rate engineering and inferior workmanship. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were. The fact is that I’ve had several mechanics and dealers literally laugh at me for buying this Neon. “You should have bought Japanese!” they say. I don’t think that’s funny. Do you think its funny? I don’t think its funny. Mechanics are generally not funny people.

In 1999 alone I spent over $2000 trying to fix stupid problems on this car, not including some expenses that you paid for! This is a typical year. Only one towing this year, which is an improvement over past years. However, I’m happy to report that I still have the original air bags in the dash and steering wheel! Since my car is in the shop much of the time, there’s less of a chance I’ll get into an accident. So, you’ve at least built a safe vehicle. Bravo!

There isn’t much on this car that hasn’t failed yet. It’s quite remarkable. The only thing that works well is the “check engine” light. It’s on most of the time: bright, yellow and warm. It lights up the whole cabin at night, advertising to passengers what a fine machine I drive.

Actually, I’m so accustomed to the “check engine” light, it’s kinda spooky whenever its not on – I must be a little afraid of the dark. Incidentally, the cabin is even darker than usual now since the dome light is fly-by-night, and the lights in the dashboard flicker and don’t work half the time. Oh, the bulbs aren’t out; I’ve checked that. But, if I give the dashboard a good thump, sometimes I can get the lights to come back on. It makes me feel like the Fonz!

All this being said, the car does look nice on the outside. Very shiny, a rich blue color. That’s because all of the original paint peeled right off the car. Lucky for me, all the paint peeled off while one of your wayward dealers was washing it. “I’ve never seen one this bad, usually there are signs of bad paint, but yours lost all of its paint at the same time” he said. Thanks, I like being unique!

I had two weeks left on some paint warranty as it turned out, so you repainted the whole car. Thanks! It only cost me some dubious $200.00 deductible – one of the many amounts I’ve paid that I feel Chrysler should have paid. I don’t think defective paint should cost me anything. That’s crummy customer service. How long have you been painting cars anyway? Seems like paint is something you should have down by now.

Lots of other peculiar things have gone wrong with the car. The reservoir that holds excess coolant developed a hole and drained itself, causing my car to overheat in a seedy neighborhood. That was a neat experience. Naturally, the Chrysler mechanic told me he’d never seen that happen before in a car that wasn’t in an accident. That part took several days to get since no one keeps them in stock, so I was told. Also, its wasn’t covered by any warranty since its never supposed to need replacing. I got to pay for that one too! My car has lots of firsts; your research and development department should give me a grant.

Glue oozes out of the rear window on hot days. It’s very hard to clean that sludge off the side of the car. I’ve heard different cockamamie stories from you why this happens; I don’t buy any of them. I don’t think you really know why this happens. I’ve noticed this problem on many early model Neons. I would think you’ve been putting rear windows in cars almost as long as you’ve painted them. I guess it takes a while to get that down though. I am expecting the rear window to fly out eventually. For this reason, I don’t drive behind other Neons.

The trunk latch mechanism at the driver’s seat broke, the turn signals stick, the trunk won’t stay open on its own most of the time, among other kooky things. Thinking these are only small, insignificant defects? Au contraire, mes amis! They just exemplify the lousy construction of this vehicle, which has resulted in thousands of dollars in major repairs, both to you and to me. Pardon my French.

This year, I blew a head gasket. That only cost me $1300. The mechanic told me it’s a common problem with Neons. In fact, I have a friend who had the same problem with her Neon a couple months after mine. It’s important to have common bonds with other people. Thanks! By the way, this mechanic suggested I should inquire to see if I could recover my expenses from Chrysler for that, since it is the result of a defective engine. Should I look into that on my own or can you help me there?

I’ve replaced 4 batteries already in 5 years. Once, you folks told me you found defective wiring that caused batteries to die too soon. You replaced the wiring. But since then, I’ve replaced two batteries on my own. I’ve replaced the battery cables too. This is bad. With the Franklin era electrical design of my Neon, I’m concerned I may have a major electrical failure soon, perhaps a fire.

My dad had a car explode one night on its own due to defective wiring (unfortunately for my argument here, it was not a Chrysler product. But I bet you wondered for a second, huh?). I don’t want the car to explode while I’m in it. Frankly, I do want it to explode when no one is in the car or within 100 yards of it. Then I might get enough insurance money to buy a second-hand Schwinn.

I’ve had four major brake jobs on this car. Most of the original brake system components have been replaced by Midas at substantial cost to yours truly. I have the Midas extended warranty on the right front wheel, because for some unexplained reason, that side wears out completely every year or so. I don’t drive like a loon. I do all the necessary maintenance on my car. The Midas guy blames Chrysler and so do I.

I’ve replaced the starter, oxygen sensors, and some other major components. Did I mention the car has been towed 7 times? Can you imagine how inconvenient that has been for me? I have nothing against tow-truck drivers; they are usually better conversationalists than cab drivers, so the many rides I’ve had from them have at least been affable. But I want to drive my own car places. It’s a special privilege I think I deserve.

Perhaps you could pay me for some positive advertising. I did buy the extended warranty on this car, which in fact did pay for most of the major repairs in the first 4 years I owned it, before the dreaded 70,001st mile. I am the poster boy for extended warranties! The warranty more than paid for itself on my behalf. Nevertheless, the warranty didn’t cover some things it should have, like an $80.00 towing bill because the problem turned out to be a dead battery – a battery that Chrysler replaced only a few months before and supposedly fixed the problem which had caused its premature demise (see the above section on faulty wiring and Benjamin Franklin).

One of your way too busy regional folks declined my request for a refund of that amount, reminding me that towing is not covered by the warranty for dead batteries. Since by this point, the car breaking down was not unusual and I was very familiar with your roadside assistance program, and because I knew the problem was (and is) more than just a dead battery, I wisely in my view took the car in to be fixed. The dealership and your regional guy didn’t seem to find it odd that batteries keep dying and treated my like I was out of line to ask for a refund. So I tried to complain to you directly. I never did hear back from you on a letter I sent regarding this situation. I didn’t follow up because you obviously don’t care to keep me as a customer anyway, or you are too busy dealing with all the other Neon owners’ troubles to get back to me.

I’d like to sell the car, but I can’t because I can only drive it about 30 miles before something else goes wrong. (This has been my recent experience as the car has been in and out of the shop over the last few weeks. They can’t even find what’s causing the problem this time.) Plus, if I sold it, I’d probably get shot by the guy I sell it to after he walks 30 miles back to my house. Can’t be too careful these days you know. I’ve wanted to sell it for almost 3 years now, but the value of the car was dropping faster than I could pay it off. Now it’s paid off, but not worth as much as the computer I’m typing this letter on.

So I could drone on for a while on this car. As you can tell, this car has not been friendly to me. I have been shown no courtesy from Chrysler so, at this point, there is no need for me to ever test-drive a Chrysler again. And I’ll make sure that no one I know does either. Everyone I know sees me driving borrowed cars all the time, and they know why, so they are already unlikely to buy a Chrysler.

I want to get rid of this car. Will you buy it back? This car has given me nothing but problems. It has cost me thousands of dollars, in repairs and rental cars and time. It has been in the shop for months cumulatively. Hardly something to be expected from a good car company such as yours.

If you buy it back for a generous price, I would seriously consider trading it for a used Honda off one of your lots if it’s a really, really good deal. What do you say? I’d have really good things to say about you in my really high profile public profession. It seems like you could do something here. Its annoying to me that if you add the money I paid for the Neon to the money I’ve spent fixing extraordinary repairs to the lemon, I could have bought a top of the line Honda Accord. That’s what I would have liked in the first place, but I couldn’t afford it, and I thought buying American was the right thing to do. With a Honda, mechanics wouldn’t be laughing at me because they wouldn’t be seeing me. That would be nice.

I look forward to your enthusiastic and prompt response. Since I didn’t get one last time from you ninnies, I’m also sending this letter to a few other people, just to see if they might care more. I’ve got nothing to lose and nothing better to do, since I don’t have a car to get out.

Sincerely,

Scott Furrow
Plymouth Neon Owner

CC: Martha Stewart, David Letterman, Al Gore, George W. Bush, Richard Simmons, Donald Trump, Lee Iacocca, A.J.Foyt, Prince Charles of Windsor, Regis Philbin, Pamela Anderson Lee, Bill Gates, Jay Leno, Florence Henderson, Robert J. Eaton, Better Business Bureau

My Own Virgin Atlantic Story

2009-01-30T13:13:00.007+00:00

Yesterday I posted a hilarious complaint letter addressed to Sir Richard Branson regarding the food and in-flight entertainment on Virgin Atlantic flights. This reminded me of my own experience with Virgin Atlantic.

In August 2008 I got married, and of course we went on honeymoon. We'd settled on going to Zanzibar, but package holidays were just too expensive, so we booked our flights and hotel without the 'aid' of a travel agent.

Our flights were with Virgin Atlantic. Apart from the atrocious picture quality of the in-flight entertainment screens, on the way out everything went fine - even the food was fine (apart from some horrible cheese wrap which tasted like dirty socks). We flew from Heathrow to Nairobi, and from there took a smaller plane to Zanzibar. On the return journey, however, it all went a bit pear-shaped.

We took the Zanzibar-Nairobi flight back. When we landed, those of us taking the connecting Virgin Atlantic flight back to Heathrow headed to the transfers desk we'd used on the way out. We queued there for one hour, getting increasingly anxious about how long it was taking. We had been hoping to do some duty-free shopping, but there really wasn't much chance for that now.

We were next in line when a Virgin employee came over and asked if any of us were flying to Heathrow, as check-in was about to close. What? I knew we'd been waiting for a while, but there was still an hour and a half until the flight was scheduled to leave.

We dutifully chased after him as he raced over to a counter half-way around the airport. Apparently we'd all been standing at the wrong counter. We'd been misinformed.

The employee had at least had the decency to do a preemptive check-in for us all, so that the flight wouldn't leave without us. He tried the computer. Nope, can't do - they'd closed the flight. We now headed over to the boarding gate to be checked-in manually. After another half hour or so, we got our boarding tickets, went through the security screening, went through another security screening, and boarded the plane.

The return flight was fairly non-eventful, but this time we did get to sample some excruciatingly bad food. It came as a bit of a shock after the amazing food we'd been enjoying at the Langi-Langi Resort in Zanzibar.

Back in the UK, hungry and tired, we waited for our luggage at the carousel. As it turned out we didn't have to wait long. My bag came out first. The lock was still on it, but the zipper had been ripped open. Damn it! I headed straight over to the Virgin Atlantic office, while my wife waited for her bag.

I explained to the disinterested attendants that my bag had been broken and showed them the damage. They asked me to check whether anything was missing. There was. I was missing the only two souvenirs we'd managed to purchase (two small sandstone "snake-boxes"), among other things. My wife now came over. Her bag had been opened, but not ripped (she didn't have a lock, but we could tell they'd opened it from the belts having been done up at a different hole). She was missing stuff too. The bag of toiletries and perfume she'd purchased for the wedding, worth well over £100, was gone.

The attendant started writing up the report.

"Do you have travel insurance?", he inquired.

"Yes I do."

"Will you be making a claim on the travel insurance?"

"No, I won't, I'll be making it with Virgin."

After all, why should I pay an excess to make a claim through my travel insurance, when this is something that should be covered by the airline responsible?

When it came to the damage on the bag, the attendant took a look at it and then, unbelievably, undid the zip and did it back up. It held. Just.

"The damage isn't covered because it's not permanent."

"What do you mean it's not permanent?!?"

"Look, I fixed it."

"No you haven't! You've done up the zip, which is still frayed at the bottom! I can no longer secure it with a lock because it can be opened at any point, and the treatment the baggage handling crew will undoubtedly give it means it will split open at some point in transit. I no longer have guarantees that the contents of my bag won't spill out!"

"My assessment is that it's ok, so it's not covered!"

"My assessment is that it's not!"

My wife, wanting to avoid a pointless confrontation, asked me to just let it be. I did. The attendant finished the report and handed a paper to me.

"They'll contact you within a week. If they haven't contacted you in 10 days phone this number."

The other passengers that had taken the Zanzibar-Nairobi-Heathrow flights were also getting reports filled out - exactly the same thing had happened to them. One of them told me:

"They'll try to get out of paying. Don't let them - keep insisting."

We left.

10 days later, I still hadn't received any contact from Virgin Airlines, so I phoned them up.

"Hello, I'm calling regarding damage report LHRXXXXXXX. It's been 10 days and I still haven't been contacted. I was wondering what is going on with it?"

"Yes sir, let me see... It's closed."

"What do you mean it's closed?"

"It's closed sir, it says here you would claim through travel insurance."

"What? That's the opposite of what I said! Can you please correct that and re-open it? That's wrong."

"I'm sorry sir, we can't do that from here."

"What?!?! OK, how can I get this re-opened?"

"You can either write or e-mail customer relations."

I decided on the e-mail address - it would, I hoped, be quicker than writing a letter.

Here's the e-mail I wrote:

Hello,

I am writing regarding damage report LHXXXXXXX. I made this report at Heathrow Airport on the 26th of August 2008, when I retrieved my baggage after my ZNZ-NBO-LHR flight. I found my bag damaged - the zip broken and torn at the seams, meaning it can no longer be secured properly - and contents missing from my bag. I informed the people at the desk of this, and reported that two soapstone boxes from Zanzibar (value $6) and a bag with toiletries and makeup (value over £100) were missing. They made the above referenced report, and asked me whether I had travel insurance. I replied that I did. They then asked me whether I was going to claim on my travel insurance. I replied that I would NOT, since this was something that the airline should be covering. Today I phoned up to enquire about the status of this report. I was told that the report stated I was going to claim on travel insurance.

I am not particularly impressed with this. I don't see why I bother answering questions at the airport if they're going to write down something else in the report. I would like Virgin Atlantic to reprocess this damage report with the correct information, and further information on reimbursement. Thank you.

Regards,

Patrick

To my horror, I received the following automated reply:

Thank you for writing to us.

If your comments are about a flight you've taken, one of our customer relations people will be in touch in the next 21 days.

We'll forward any other comments/suggestions on to the relevant people.

Please don't reply to this email. If you need more information, our website tells you everything you need to know about the customer relations and baggage claims service. The address is http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/customerrelations/index.jsp.

Kind regards

Customer Relations
Virgin Atlantic

21 days? Christ, this will take forever.

18 days later I finally got a reply:

Dear Patrick

Thanks for your e-mail. I'm sorry that your baggage was mishandled following your flight with us.

We take our baggage handling seriously and do everything we can to make sure your belongings arrive in the same condition you gave them to us in. Unfortunately accidents do sometimes happen, though I'm glad to say it's very rare.

Like all international airlines, we work under the Montreal Convention (1999). In line with this, you need to report your lost or damaged baggage to us in writing within seven days of your flight.

As this requirement hasn't been met I'm afraid we're unable to assist you with your claim on this occasion. I'd suggest that you contact your travel insurers in order to recoup your costs from them directly.

Once again, I'm really sorry for what happened and I hope it won't put you off flying with us the next time you travel.

Yours sincerely

Jane Doe
Baggage Claims Department

I couldn't believe it. I immediately responded:

I'm sorry, but that's simply unacceptable. I DID claim within seven days - in fact I claimed the very minute I saw the bag was damaged. However, your employees chose not to process my claim as I directed. I therefore request that you process my claim as I asked.

Since I couldn't reply to the sender, I had to send it to the same generic address again, so I got another automated reply. The terms had apparently changed in the last 3 weeks:

If your e-mail is about mishandled luggage, from a recent flight you’ve taken with us, you’ll be contacted by our Baggage Claims Team. This may take up to 28 days.

So it's 28 days now instead of 21? 19 days later I got a letter:

Dear Patrick

Thank you for your most recent correspondence, from which I'm sorry to learn of your disappointment following my colleague's response.

I have to re-iterate that claims of this nature do have to be made to the airline in writing within 7 days. This is a rule set out by our governing body the Montreal convention. I can only apologise if you were not advised of this previously.

Please be assured that I can fully appreciate your comments regarding reporting it to our staff at the airport. However, the Property Irregularity Report is issued as proof that damage occurred on the flight, or in the case of loss, serves to help locate the baggage and return it to the owner. It does not constitute as written notification to the airline.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain and apologise. I do hope you have not been discouraged from travelling with us again, and that future flights are enjoyable and trouble free in every aspect.

Yours sincerely

Janet Doe
Virgin Baggage Claims

Obviously, this was not a satisfactory resolution. I tried again:

Firstly, let me assure you that qualifying my reaction as a "disappointment" is a huge understatement.

I fail to see how I could claim in writing within 7 days without, in the first place, receiving proper information from the airline. I contacted the only point of contact for Virgin Atlantic at baggage reclaim of Heathrow immediately. They not only misinformed me, but also fellow passengers on the same flight who had suffered the same problems. From this I can only assume that this must be your standard practice - tell them nothing, misprocess their claim, and presto, no need to reimburse your paying customers.

Additionally, I was told Virgin Atlantic would contact me. It was only after 10 days of no contact that I was forced to contact you. At this second point of contact I was once again told at no point that I had to make the claim within 7 days. I was only told I should contact in writing, via e-mail or by writing to a given address, because my claim had been misprocessed. I decided e-mail would obviously be the faster alternative. But of course, the automated reply when I did e-mail (the same day) states that:

If your e-mail is about mishandled luggage, from a recent flight you’ve taken with us, you’ll be contacted by our Baggage Claims Team. This may take up to 28 days.

So, contact via e-mail can take up to 28 days - that's 21 more days than I have to make a claim!

It was only when I got a response to this e-mail, 18 days later, and a full 27 days after my flight, that I was told claims had to be made within 7 days.

If the claim was not made accordingly, it is obviously through no fault of my own, but that of your employees. Given the information I was given, I cannot see how anyone would have acted in a different way to how I did. I should not have to mount an investigation in order to find out how to process a claim - your employees should provide that information clearly. This, I think, is especially true in the case of your mishandled baggage offices at the airport.

Quoting your governing body and the Montreal convention does not discourage me in any way from requesting, once again, that you process my claim as I originally directed. This is a matter of common sense: had I been given the opportunity to make the claim in the correct way, I would have. However, I was not given that opportunity.

Let me also assure you that I have been thoroughly discouraged from flying with you again. If this is the way you are going to treat your customers I will obviously take my business elsewhere.

I will restate the above one final time, in order to make it absolutely clear: I see absolutely no reason why I should not be given the opportunity to have the damage to my bag, and the losses to my luggage, reimbursed by Virgin Atlantic. The problem lies with your employees, not with me, and I would be astounded if a company like Virgin Atlantic really can't do anything else in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Patrick

Another 20 days, and I finally had the answer I was looking for:

Dear Patrick

Thanks for your further email form [sic] which I'm sorry to learn of your continued disappointment.

I'd like to explain that it's important to note that claims arising in the course of international carriage by air, are dealt with by our governing bodies and their conventions. The liability of all airlines is clearly defined under the conventions and is supported by 'Conditions of Carriage'. When purchasing a ticket to fly with us you agreed to abide by these terms.

That said, as a gesture of goodwill on this occasion we're willing to consider your claim. So that we can put your claim through for you, you'll need to download a baggage claim form from our website (www.virginatlantic.com). Once you've filled it in, please send it to us with the following documents (though it's a good idea to take photocopies of them before you send them):

· your original ticket
· your original baggage receipts (plus any excess baggage receipts)
· your original 'property irregularity report'
· your original purchase receipts (or proof of ownership) for all the items on the claim form.

The Conditions of Contract on your ticket refer to the airline's limitations of liability. These amounts are not automatically payable, but reflect what the maximum compensation might be.

Even if you don't have a receipt for a piece of luggage, as a gesture of goodwill we'll pay you 50% of its value (after deducting 10% for every year that you've owned it). Unfortunately, we can't pay any claims for valuables. If you have private travel insurance, you could make your claim directly to them. The kinds of valuables we don't cover include:

· jewellery
· money
· keys
· perishable items
· electronic equipment
· fragile items
· metals
· silverware
· business documents
· stocks and shares
· medication
· medical documents
· passports
· other pieces of ID.

Should you have taken out private travel insurance prior to your journey I would suggest that you submit a claim to them.

We thank you for your co-operation and understanding.

Yours sincerely

Jayne Doe
Baggage Claims Executive

The list of items they don't cover seems incredibly long to me, but thankfully in my particular case it didn't matter. I submitted the form and some weeks later received a cheque in the mail. Win! So thank you, Virgin Atlantic, for seeing sense and processing my claim.

Hilarious Virgin Food Complaint Letter

2009-01-29T13:15:00.019+00:00

This complaint letter to Sir Richard Branson has just been in the news, and it reminds me of my own woes with Virgin Atlantic.

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

XXXX

Apparently, the passenger has now been offered the chance to taste-test the food.

Epic NTL Rant

2009-01-28T13:45:00.011+00:00

I thought I'd kick off this blog with an epic complaint letter to NTL which has been doing the rounds for some years now, but which still manages to bring a smile to my face.

Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website....HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.

I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.

I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration's in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.

British Telecom - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver - any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day - may it be the last in you miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twats.

John

Welcome

2009-01-28T13:38:00.002+00:00

Hello!

Welcome to the Non-Support blog. Here I hope to keep you updated on stories of bad customer support. Some will be my own (not funny, more of a warning), and some won't be (these should be funnier). Enjoy them!