Paul Annett

There’s been a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind several times recently, when refuelling my car. At the petrol pump I fill up to, say, £15.00. But by the time I reach the cashier, it mysteriously costs me £15.01.

The first few times I let this go without a second thought. Fair enough, it’s easy to misjudge and not spot the pump ticking over that extra penny. But tonight my suspicions were raised. I caught a glimpse of the cashier’s screen, and every person who had refuelled had a total price of £XX.01.

Could petrol stations really be stealing 1 penny from every customer? Some may notice, but 1 penny isn’t worth complaining about.

But in the course of a day, if this speculation were to contain any truth, the petrolium companies would be stealing thousands of pounds straight from our wallets.

Has anybody had similar experiences? Please click here and leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

A week and a half ago we moved to our new flat with a lovely garden, ideal for Toby’s first birthday party last weekend. So as soon as we moved in we ordered a gazebo from Wilkinson Hardware Store’s online shopping site, Wilkinson Plus, to provide a little shelter for the festivities. They said it should arrive by courier within two working days, so assuming the order was processed on Monday we should have received it by Wednesday, in plenty of time for Saturday’s party.

By Friday it still hadn’t turned up, and aside from the original confirmation email we had heard nothing from Wilkinson, so I gave them a call. It turns out that although they had the correct shipping address in the confirmation email, they’d managed to send it to our billing address (our old flat). The new tenant then gave them a wrong phone number for us, so they “couldn’t” get in touch to arrange re-delivery (despite having both our email address and corrent telephone number on the original order). All this wouldn’t be such a problem if it weren’t for the fact that we’d ordered it specifically for Toby’s birthday party!

A very helpful lady called Keira in their call centre accepted that it was their fault, and was very apologetic. She promised to refund the delivery cost and give us a third off the price of the gazebo, and looked into ways of getting a delivery to us in time for Toby’s birthday. The nearest Wilkinson store with stock was 46 miles away in Epsom, and she proposed getting it taxi’d from the store to us at their expense. She called the Epsom store, but I was told the store manager was unwilling to take the expense of such a long taxi trip (a cost he could later claim back from the web department, and which they had already approved)*. There was no other way of getting it to us in time.

I explained that this was an opportunity for them to turn what was essentially a really bad customer experience for me into an example of great customer service. I’d be telling the story one way or the other, so it’d really go in their favour if I had a positive story to tell. Unfortunately they didn’t want to take that opportunity so I was left with no gazebo for Toby’s first birthday, and Wilkinson Plus accepting responsibility and with the ability to correct it in time, but, at the whim of one store manager*, refusing to do so because of their own internal procedure.

In a further development, Wilkinson had arranged re-delivery for us today (Wednesday) and my wife changed her plans so that she could definitely be in to sign for it. I called Kiera to check that it was definitely being delivered today and she chased up their chosen courier, Amtrak. Keira was once again very apologetic, as it turns out that now it’s Amtrak’s turn to mess up, and they haven’t got it out for delivery today, but will try to get it out to us tomorrow.

Incompetence all round. We’re not holding our breath. But we are holding a housewarming party this Saturday, and they’ve still got two business days to get it to us.

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UPDATE Thursday July 5th - I called Keira again today to check that its definitely on its way. It had been arranged that Amtrak would deliver it today but if we weren’t in they would leave it in the back garden. The decided that they didn’t want to have to leave it in the garden, so they didn’t even pack it on the delivery truck in case we were in! The ineptitude of these companies is unbelieveable.

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UPDATE Friday July 6th, morning - The gazebo has finally arrived. Thanks to Kiera for being very helpful, apologetic, and friendly all week. Its a shame the order fulfillment ability of your employer, and the customer service skills of the Epsom store manager aren’t up to your standards.

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UPDATE Friday July 6th, afternoon - Debbie, a manager from Wilkinson Plus, called to apologise and to say that they would be sending a letter of apology and some vouchers in the post to make up for the inconvenience.

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* I’ve now been told that this was incorrect information given to me at the time. The decision not to send the gazebo by taxi was not taken by the Epsom store manager, but was made at the customer service centre. No alternative explanation for the decision was given, although once the gazebo was delivered it was apparent that it wouldn’t have fitted into a standard sized car anyway (they hadn’t realised this when they’d offered to taxi it out).

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We received a T-Mobile phone bill yesterday, delivered and addressed to someone we don’t know, but at our flat. Being a good-natured chap I decided to call customer services to do them the favour of correcting the information they held on their database.

I gave them our address and the name of the account holder, careful not to give them my own name for fear of the outstanding balance somehow becoming my responsibility. I explained that I’d never heard of this person, and if they could remove my address from their account then that would be great.

As far as I was concerned that was the end of the conversation and I could get back to a busy morning feeding the baby. They had different ideas, and got quite stern with me when I tried to end the call.

Firstly, they wanted me to declare that I didn’t know the person named on the bill. That was fine, as I don’t.

Secondly I had to declare that I have never entered into an agreement with T-Mobile. The thing is, before I switched to Orange they were my mobile network of choice, so I couldn’t declare this truthfully… but I did want to get to the end of the call, and after all they didn’t have my personal details, so I agreed.

Lastly, they wanted me to agree to them storing my personal information in their databases and sharing my data with other parties to prevent fraud! And that information would include my name, address, and mother’s maiden name!!

What kind of madness is this? To “prevent fraud” I have to give them my mother’s maiden name (obviously, the answer to a common security question), and in return they’ll give me nothing. I could understand them needing some kind of security question if, perhaps, I was becoming a T-Mobile customer, but not in this scenario.

Needless to say I refused, and just sent the bill back to them marked “not known at this address”. Serves me right for trying to do the right thing.

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A footnote about security questions: I registered with Game today. Rather than asking for your mother’s maiden name, they allow a completely free choice for both your security question and answer. Inspired by PaulyG’s hilarious blog post on setting appropriate security questions, I now can’t wait to phone their helpdesk just to hear their confusion!