xxxxxx Customer Service Department

Dear Sirs,

I refer to your recent letter offering a contribution to my phone bill, and my subsequent telephone call to your Mr xxx xxxxxxx. This refund is very welcome, and I look forward to receiving the cheque as soon as possible.

I do not accept, however, that this is in full and final settlement of my claim. Oh no… My claim hasn't even started yet. So far I have only been playing - finding an amusing way to pass these long dark nights (and obviously cause you some discomfiture). But now I am playing for keeps, cause this time you have REALLY screwed up…

I have told you before that in October 1999 you fixed my computer. This repair was so successful that my PC (which previously had an intermittent problem) would thereafter not boot up at all. Thanks guys.

When I phoned to ask about this I was told that this fitter (please don't use the term engineer because any professional qualified and chartered engineer would be expelled from his professional institution if he was as inept as this) was one of your best. This casts severe doubts on the others.

This repair involved the installation of a new motherboard. On Monday 24 April, I was trying to figure out why demonstration graphics software I was ordering for work, was slower on my "AMD K6-2 3D Now Enhanced Graphics, 333 Mhz with 96Mb of RAM", than it was on my old work PC, a Pentium I 200Mhz, 32Mb RAM. I ran a diagnostic check and found that my PC was only running at 220 Mhz. A different benchmark program confirmed this speed.

I was stunned. "How can this be?" I thought, "Is this a software problem?" No it wasn't. The motherboard couldn't recognise the CPU chip. Why? Well, forgive me, but since this was a hardware problem, and given my experience of the level of assistance evidently absent from the people manning your help lines, and remembering the completely wrong and misleading advice I was given about fitting a CD Writer into my PC when I bought it, my mind immediately leapt to the likely competence applied to the repair in October, the only time the computer has been opened apart from when I had the extra RAM added.

Now I am not a fully trained experienced PC mechanic so I logged on to a couple of web sites for advice and it soon became clear that my initial impression was right. "Motherboard" was the unanimous verdict.

But who should I contact about this? Your helplines are a waste of time. Your maintenance offshoot is a waste of time, if you ever get through at all (their phone lines are always really busy - people must be queueing up with problems with stuff they buy from you… makes you think eh?). So I went into the local branch of xxxxxx and had a quiet word (and yes it was quiet, because this wasn't his fault, I merely wanted his help to put it right).

I have to say that yyyyyy yyyyyyyyy, your local manager, and his staff were very helpful. Even though they hadn't sold me the PC, they took it in and checked it and came to the same conclusion. "Motherboard". It would appear that when the board was installed, the jumper settings were incorrectly set so that the board could not recognise the CPU chip. They obtained a manual, and reset the switch settings so that the PC is now running at 333 MHz again. I cannot thank them enough for their efforts in customer care and service - I was very impressed. I hope that you will pass on my appreciation to them.

Which brings me back to the helplines and your maintenance boys. Oh dear. What a mess eh? What a complete codswalloping cock-up they made eh? Do you wonder how I feel? Let me try to explain.

Suppose you save up all your pennies and performance bonuses and so on, and go out and buy a Porsche. Good car, goes like stink, envy of all your mates. Then you take it to be serviced and when you get it back it feels a wee bit slower, so you take it back and they say "Sorry sir, we couldn't get the spark plugs out so we swapped the engine for one out of a Skoda, but it'll still do 70 on the motorway and keep up with the traffic, and it still looks nice so we didn't think you would mind." And you shrug your shoulders and say "OK fair enough…"

I don't think so. You would go through them like a dose of laxative chocolate. You would take them to the cleaners (you would have to after the chocolate). You would phone that bird on the BBC… Anne Watch-dog-yer-call-it - Robinson!! That's it… You would go mental. And quite right too.

Or suppose you save up and buy a big huge house for all your family to live in, and then you get the decorators in, and they set up their stuff and paint everything then say "Sorry sir we forgot to put hardener in the paint, so it will take years to dry, and even then it might come off on your clothes… probably best if you don't use those rooms any more… but look you still have loads of space, more than some families have so that's OK and we didn't think you would mind." And you shrug your shoulders and say "OK fair enough…"

I don't think so. You would go through them like a dose of laxative chocolate. You would take them to the cleaners. You would phone Anne Robinson… You would go mental. And quite right too.

Or suppose you save up even more and buy a race horse from the Agha Khan (he must have made a fortune selling those iron cookers eh?) then it gets toothache so you take it to the vet and when you get it back he says "Sorry sir, but while I was pulling its tooth out it slipped and broke two legs, so I had to amputate. Still he has a lovely sense of balance and hops around quite nicely look." And you shrug your shoulders and say "OK fair enough…"

I don't think so. You would go through them like a dose of laxative chocolate. You would take them to the cleaners. You would phone Anne Robinson… You would go mental. And quite right too.

Or suppose you save up your money and go out and buy a PC, the best spec you can afford, knowing that they go out of date so quickly that you have to buy in front, just to keep up. You ask if it can be upgraded later by fitting a CD Writer. "Oh yes," they say, "no problem." You find that this advice is absolutely worthless. You have to spend £229 buying an external CD Writer that runs at about 1/2 of the speed of internal ones that are 1/2 the price. You write to them 3 times and point this out. They totally ignore this point, never even commenting on it in any reply. Would you shrug your shoulders and say "OK fair enough…"

I don't think so. You would go through them like a dose of laxative chocolate. You would take them to the cleaners. You would phone Anne Robinson… You would go mental. And quite right too.

Now let's say the PC base unit (excluding monitor etc) costs £570. Then within 6 months it needs repaired, and as a result it runs a lot slower, equivalent to a computer you could have bought for no more than £300 at the time. OK you might be lucky and get it fixed properly later, but would you not think that your original investment had been somewhat devalued? I think you would.

The seller might say "but it's fixed now so that's OK." And again, you would shrug your shoulders and say "OK fair enough…" I don't think so. You would go through them like a dose of laxative chocolate. You would take them to the cleaners. You would phone Anne Robinson… You would go mental. And quite right too.

And that, my dear friends, is exactly what I intend to do unless you respond by return of post and tell me exactly what compensation, upgrading or other benefit you intend to offer me to offset the ineptitude of your original advice and subsequent repair. If I do not hear from you with 7 days (not 8) I intend to exercise every single piece of consumer legislation I can draw upon, with the maximum publicity I can attract, to this comedy of errors you have perpetrated upon me. I intend to ensure that the consequences of your failure reverberate around the retail industry, if necessary by copying these letters to your competitors. My patience with your haughty, tardy and ineffective attitude to customer service is entirely exhausted. So please do not attempt again to avoid the issue of the original bad advice by not commenting on it at all. Please do not attempt either, to excuse the incompetence and consequences of the repair, which substantially downgraded my PC from the one I had bought.

An apology would also be nice but not essential… although you could never apologise enough for the mental torture your corporate ineffectiveness has put me through.

You all ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. Please have a go at proper customer service… by that I mean service to customers, past, present and potential future. You never know, you might get used to it. I know you have a mountain to climb, but it’s never too late to start, eh?

I therefore look forward to hearing from you, in suitable conciliatory terms, no later than 9 May. The next Watchdog programme is on 11 May so I need a day or two to compose my e-mail to them, if necessary. Obviously, if you choose not to reply by then, I shall have no choice, and viewers can draw their own conclusions.

Yours absolutely despairingly,

This was my reply: :

I would like to thank you for your letter of 10 May. But I can't. The reason I can't is because once again you have completely ignored the point. Once again I have a reply from a different person. Now I am sure that each of these people is very good, but because they are picking the case up fresh, you can offer no consistency in how you deal with the ongoing situation.

Your Mr xxx xxxxxxx wrote to me and promised me a refund of my telephone charges for your "no-help-whatsoever" line, within 14 days. Thank you for nothing because nothing is what you sent me. Yet another of your idle promises broken.

He should get a job as a sales assistant in one of your shops. They say anything that comes into their heads, just so that the daft customer will believe them and be tricked into buying. I was told that I could fit a CD Writer into my computer. I can't. This was a fundamental purchasing decision. You let me down. I have now raised this with you four times (that's one more than 3 but a lot less than the number of times I will keep raising this point) because I was misled and that is an offence under the Sale of Goods Act and you have totally ignored this each time. Own up. Go on, don't ignore it again.

On one point at least your letter is correct. My entitlement was to a free of charge repair. But I didn't get a repair. What I got was a cowboy attempt at changing parts that probably didn't need to be changed, that left me with a computer that wouldn't boot up at all, instead of the intermittent fault I started with.

Even worse than that, this so-called "repair" effectively downgraded my computer from the one I had saved up for and purchased with cash. All because the "repair" wasn't right. So I didn't get my "entitlement" there eh?

Nor was it free. No, it cost me a fortune in telephone calls etc, both when the "repair" was carried out, and when the "repair" was subsequently fixed. So I didn't get my "entitlement" there either, eh?

I didn't ask for compensation for loss of use or consequential loss. If I had you would be facing a bill of hundreds if not thousands of pounds, because I do use it to work at home. But please don't answer points I haven't raised. Just answer the two points above, regarding first the duff advice when I bought it, and second the duff repair once I owned it. That's all.

Now please stop hiding pathetically behind the pedantry of legal semantics regarding "entitlement" and admit that your organisation made a mess of this, and is willing to make at least some attempt to make up for the comedy of errors you have perpetrated.

(A customer - clarification of this term available on request)

What does that mean?

xxxxxxx Customer Service Department

Well guys thank you for your e-mail of 18 may... another week goes by and still no action eh?

I am still waiting for the cheque i was promised on 26 April (that's last month in case you missed that small point)

I also await a response to the points i made on 15 May about my "entitlement to a free repair" as you so quaintly put it, when i got something that was neither free nor a repair... where does it say i am entitled to an expensive botch-up?

I also await (yet again you ignored this!!) a response to my point that i was "entitled" to accurate advice at the time of sale.

I am tired of waiting, and i realise that i am getting nowhere, so what do i do?

I could write a book called "How to convince the xxxxx group that you have a real and valid concern, and not be palmed off by the standard disengenuous reply"... i think it would be a best-seller if you deal with all enquires with the same meticulous care, or lack of it. Readers would flock to buy it, storming the bookshelves.... problem is I don't know the bleedin answer, and i wouldn't want to mislead anyone eh? I could be done under the sale of goods act cos i can't hide as well as you lot can, evidently...

I could build a web site which is neither inaccurate nor defamatory... a web site where potential purchasers can read simple facts about how you respond (or not) to genuine customer concerns, before they make their purchasing decision... but I only have 15Mb available and that is not enough to catalogue the degree of complete disinterest you have shown...

I could resort to handing out leaflets at your shop doorways, and no doubt some of your staff would soon intervene... the salesmen who can't remember a thing about computers, but like lifting heavy things... the security man who got chucked out of the gestapo for excessive cruelty... so not much chance there either eh?

What am I going to do? Let's keep it simple eh? Please just reply properly, just once, that's not much to ask is it? Surely not. Go on.... You can do it....

Yours but only by default...

Their reply took another fortnight and said that the cheque was delayed because of a backlog and that I would have to contact the repairer about the fault because it wasn't their responsibility...

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