10 tips on how to complain

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  • gmb45

    #1

    10 tips on how to complain

    MAKING a complaint against a big company can be a nightmare. Endless phone calls, ignored emails ? it?s so tough many of us simply give up.

    But being persistent can pay off, according to online complaints outfit Disputer.com.

    Here are their Top 10 tips on making a successful complaint.

    1. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: As a customer you have more rights than you may realise. Often staff you talk to may know less about them than you.

    Do your research and read the small print of your contract before calling. Then make it clear you know exactly what you are entitled to.

    For example, if your water company does not respond to your email or letter in ten working days you are entitled to ?20. Companies dread a well-informed complainer because it makes you harder to ignore.

    2. RECORD EVERYTHING: Every time you contact the company, write down times of all chats and get the full name of the person you are speaking to. This way you can put together a complete case file to back up your complaint.

    3. DON?T BACK DOWN: Give the company sufficient time to reply ? ten working days at the most ? then if you do not get a reply or are unsatisfied take your complaint to more senior levels. Remember they?ll be hoping you will get fed up. Make it clear you are not going away until it?s resolved.

    4. DON?T GET MAD: Losing your temper is the worst thing you can do. Don?t give them any chance to turn the blame on you for being unreasonable.

    5. SUMMARISE: Keep written complaints short, on one page if you can. Mention all the points and issues and include any supporting evidence from your complaints file.

    6. DON?T MAKE THREATS: Never tell the organisation you will never use them again because they will see you as a lost case and not worth their effort. ( not always true i complained about the price of something to wilcos in their shop and they sent me ?7 in gift vouchers, i also said i wasnt shopping with them anymore, they even phoned me twice apologising )

    7. TELL YOUR FRIENDS: If you get bad service then tell as many people as you can. Companies don?t like it if they get a bad reputation.

    8. TRY WRITING: Letters can be better than emails or phone calls because you have time to make your argument clear. Firms often respond positively to this approach. Humour can be very helpful.

    9. KEEP IT REAL: Be realistic about what you can claim for. But don?t forget direct costs such as postage you have incurred because of the issue.

    10. BE PATIENT: Complaining is frustrating but if you don?t get an immediate result, persevere, even if it means a letter to the managing director. You will usually get there in the end.
  • dik
    DK Veteran
    • Apr 2009
    • 955

    #2
    Here is an axample of how to complain, it's been around a few years but some of you may not have seen it

    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 or notice, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive at all, 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 to some small degree by playing with my testi*les 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 several further telephone calls (actually 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks) my modem arrived ... a total of six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it. I estimate that the downtime of your internet servers is roughly 35%... these are usually the hours between about 6pm and midnight, Monday to Friday, and most of the useful periods over the weekend.

    I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 telephone calls on my mobile to your no-help line this week, 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 who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (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 frustrations 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 - ****ers 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 do likewise, and 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 - although these feelings will quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps a small measure of 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 it's 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,

    Yours psychotically ....................
    Last edited by dik; 7 July, 2009, 10:33.
    sigpic another happy customer

    Sent from my keyboard using fingers to type

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    • Mr Pumpy
      DK Veteran
      • Jan 2009
      • 1467

      #3
      Good post Mr B, if more people complained about service then maybe it'll get better.
      I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I do not know the answer.

      Comment

      • opsmonkey
        V.I.P. Member
        • Nov 2008
        • 5379

        #4
        this too is old but a cracker..

        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.

        Yours Sincererly

        XXXX
        Paul Charles, Virgin?s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his ?constructive if tongue-in-cheek? email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was ?award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.?

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