Oh this sounds fun...
I sent this to First Great Western back in 2007...

"Dear Pointless Office Person

Guess what I did today.?

I went on a little trip from Weston-super-Mare to Bath Spa on a train. From Weston it was lovely. Had one of those Class 158’s you cascaded from Northern Spirit and aside from the awful vinyl treatment you have given the outside it is still a classy train with plenty of airy internal space and a fair amount of tables.

I had to change trains at Bristol and… what is this.?? Oh an HST. I like those because they don’t have the underfloor engine noise of the Adelantes or (God keep them away from me) a Virgin Voyager… but oh dear.!!! Some idiot has redesigned the inside. Now there are only two tables per carriage and everyone else (including myself, I am six foot four inches tall by the way) is cramped up in to one of those disasterous airline style seats with a back so high you have bugger all vision except left and right. It is like sitting behind someone with an enormous back.!

Please tell the designers that the internals on a Mark three carriage are perfectly laid out as it is. We are people, not cattle. The airline industry can keep it’s seating on it’s planes, I would prefer it if you did the same on your trains.

On the way back thankfully we boarded the old style HST interior (from when GWT ran them, before you, a company that had some clue about customer satisfaction (oh yes, I know all about you and your lack of that, you run all the buses around here as well)). Trouble is when we changed again at Bristol we boarded a Pacer which should have been withdrawn years ago. Standing room only it was and a friend of mine who gets that service regularly tells me it is like that every night. Why don’t you make it a bigger train. Or spot hire a few Mk2’s and a loco.? Can’t be that difficult surely.?

Maybe I should consider fare dodging.? Seems easy enough as on all four journeys (Weston-Bristol, Bath. And return) I did not have my ticket checked ONCE.! But I would never do that. I am too law abiding.

Let us all pray that, like the hairy chinned Mr Branson, you quickly lose your franchise for the GW lines and maybe then we will get a company that DOES give a toss about our views and DOES understand what PASSENGERS want from a rail service.

Oh nice big profits you made last year btw.

Byeee.!

(cc’ed to various news papers, the Rail Watchdog (heard in the Times you are having a few problems with them.?), Rail Magazine and also sent to the Pope because I truly think only divine intervention will help you understand how to run a railroad.)"

EDIT - and no it didn't work. The only reply I got was repeatedly bounced back between myself and some twat in the "customer annoyance department" that basically said "Fuck you, you just use our service what would you know?"
(elfinpunk Touching Cloth Since, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 17:22, 8 replies)

The swines at Vodafone,
I'll get straight to it, Vodafone were sending me about 4-5 text messages a day trying to sell me various plans... after a few weeks I e-mailed them this:

Dear Vodafone people.

I am emailing you to thank you for your repeated inquiries regarding my mobile phone. However I am going to have to refuse your offers, as I already have a mobile phone contract that covers my needs perfectly. That’s why I chose that particular package. Whilst I am sure sending unsolicited texts selling mobiles is an honorable pastime, I am confused as to why you chose me to inundate with these adverts. You do not need to sell me anything, I already have a mobile phone, you sold it to me. You CHARGE me £25 every month for the service. However, seeing at harassing people with unsolicited offers is acceptable to you, I have compiled a list of items I think your may be interested in:

1987 Ford Fiesta: Black, 1.2L 120,000 miles, minor case of rust around wheel arches and door sills. Tartan seats, non runner, sold as seen £200 – there is a slight stain on the boot carpet, I’m not saying its blood exactly but you may want to give it a bit of a scrub.

A pair of work trousers I bought in a sale, black. Never worn, took them home to find that I am no longer a size 34, I was too embarrassed to take them back, which as I am sure you agree, is the same as tattooing “I’ve really let myself go” on ones forehead. £10

A “Fatboy Slim” album I bought solely on the basis of the song “weapon of choice” (Christopher Walken dances in the video, great video, you may not have seen it as you spend all your free time texting me adverts), however the rest of the album’s pretty rubbish. £2

Half a Batman DVD box set. £2.00 Bought for a tenner in Tesco’s. You can have Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Because I will never watch them on account of three things, 1) Val Kilmer’s head is the same shape as a horses 2) Batman and Robin is garbage, the line “you’re not sending me to the cooler” makes me want to gouge out my eyes and stick ice picks in my ears 3) With these two classic DVD’s to watch, hopefully you won’t have the time to text me a never ending stream of adverts.

Let me know if any of these items appeals, if not, can you please stop texting me, unless you want me to come around to Vodafone towers and slap you around the head with an octopus. My mobile number is 010101010101

Thank you

Evilamnesiac

P.s. “Fone” is actually spelt Phone, I just thought I’d let you know before you put the typo on any letterheads, websites, handsets, adverts or as the name of a large publicly traded company. Because the other kids would laugh at you.

They never replied.
( evilamnesiac says fuck you Prince, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 17:13, 3 replies)

Guns N' Roses
A workmate of mine is big into metal, music that is. Because of this he was at the Guns N' Roses concert last night, after Mr. Rose had his hissy fit and left the stage my mate waited like most people for him to return, no such luck.

The lights went on and people assumed the show was over, he approached a security guy to ask if he know what was happening, the guy did not speak english, same for the next security guy. He then sees an older chap who looks like he might be a bit more aware, the following exchange takes place -

Mate "excuse me, is the show really finished?"
Security "Yeah"
Mate "they only played twenty minutes, do you know if there is anyone from the promoters here?"
Security "I told you the shows over, now fuck off!"

To be fair I was always told the best way to deal with a complaint is to be honest and direct.
(cname, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 17:07, 6 replies)

Not sure if you still get them ....
but car batteries often used to contain a small glass marble under the cap on the vent/filler cap and for some reason one day I had a couple in my pocket.

In a fit of irresponsibility I dropped one into a bottle of Irn Bru on the temporarily absent secretary's desk. When she came back from the bog or wherever and poured her Irn Bru the foreign body made its inevitable appearance - she was aghast. I too feigned outrage and insisted she phone Barr's to complain. However as she was of a somewhat timid nature I did it for her and a rep was despatched to the scene pretty damn quick.

The upshot was Barr's were understandably mystified as to how this potential choking hazard could have found its into the bottle but bought our silence with a few crates of some of their juicy favourites; Irn Bru, American Cream Soda, Pineappleade etc .... not to mention a couple of boxes of crisps.

Result !
( Ramsay Tupper, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 17:01, Reply)

Him Next Door
My parents house is a terraced house and next door is where Betty lives. Now growing up I discovered that Betty is the type who knows everyone elses business and if she doesn't then she'll find out.
The past few years Betty has started to go a little crazy and watching everything her other neighbour does. Not too long ago he moved into the house on the other side of Betty's. He's in his early 50's,
nice enough always say hi to me when he sees me. But according to Betty he is the neighbour from hell and she won't rest until everyone knows that. Every little thing he does makes him a terrible person.
For example:
He has a table and chair in his garden
He doesn't work, the fact that he can barely walk doesn't matter.
He sits outside and has a cig in his own garden! What a fiend!
So you get the idea, every little thing he does is somehow terrible to her. Now to the complaint part of the story.

Betty keeps on complaining about how at night she hears tapping.
The tapping never stops and its that "Him next door!" deliberately out to get her because he knows she doesn't like him. Now if any of you have ever lived with anyone who plays the drums you know
they can't resist drumming on any available surface. Until my sister was born my dad had a kit in what became her bedroom.Whenever he's on the computer he drums his fingers on the desk.
Despite this happening way before he moved in, Betty is still convinced its "Him next door!" and won't hear otherwise.
(FootOfTim, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:51, 3 replies)

My jelly...
One of my best friends complains the best I have ever know... he got annoyed when his local Sainsbury put up the price of jelly, so he wrote a letter of complaint... he's not a simpleton, he just liked to complain

Subject: Jelly
Comments:

Is someone able to offer an explanation as to why the price of Sainsbury’s Basics Jelly has increased in price by 100%?
Last month I enjoyed a flush of well-timed good fortune, when the cost for a packet of Basics Jelly decreased by £0.01. I mentioned as much in a letter to my mother, saying how it's not all doom and gloom and maybe we can weather the financial storm. I chose not to contact you seeking an explanation as, rather selfishly, this was clearly in my favour and b) the decrease in cost is fairly small. So imagine my incontinent rage on recognising the once £0.07 Sainsbury’s Basics Jelly is now the £0.14 Sainsbury’s Basics Jelly. I could only purchase one packet of Sainsbury’s Basics Jelly. I usually buy three. I haven’t been had jelly for two weeks. When jelly was £0.08 I would purchase three packets a month at a cost of £0.24. The earlier mentioned price decrease provided a financial boon, three packets at a cost of £0.21. Now, even using my original budget of £0.24 (which would once stretch to three packets) will now only buy me one.
If fuel increased in cost by 100% there would be some kind of explanation. So why not with jelly?

I look forward to a swift and accurate response.
Mr Ben

Subject: RE: Our Products - General information

Dear Mr Ben

Thank you for your email. It is important to us that every email we receive is fully investigated before we reply. I hope you will understand and accept my apologies for he time it has taken to respond.

I am sorry you are unhappy with the price of our Basics jelly. I understand how disappointed you must be that the price has risen by 100%.

We know how important it is to offer our customers high quality products at great prices and we work very hard to make sure we achieve this. We continually review our prices and check over 15,000 prices against our competition each week to make certain we are always competitive.

In the current climate, prices are moving up and down quite quickly and many raw material and production costs have also increased. We have held the price of the jelly for a substantial period. While we try to absorb the increases for as long as we can, we have now had to pass some of these costs on to our customers. I am sorry this means you can now buy only one jelly each month.

When raw material costs move down, we change our prices immediately so that customers can enjoy the benefits as quickly as possible. We passed on the VAT reductions early in December for this reason. We are working hard to make sure we always offer a good mix of offers at any time. I hope that you will spot a deal that suits you on your next visit to our store.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. I hope I have been able to explain the reasoning behind our price increase. Further to this, I hope the price of the jelly comes down as the global financial position improves and you are able to enjoy three jellies each month.
Kind regards


Customer Manager
(CornishStanley can't post hyperlinks, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:44, 4 replies)

Sorted...
In days of yore kinda pre Y2K...and a bit... I wrote a letter enclosing a bill i couldn't pay to the venerable BT.
The letter was my shortest ever, it said "In error, kindly credit." and they did!
(wazzzer, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:43, Reply)

Hoisted...
Like everyone else in the country (world?) I have had trouble getting telecomms companies to realise that actually being able to communicate with the outside world is kind of what I am paying for. The usual litany of cockups, lies, incompetence and poor service.

But once, just once, it was all worth it...

We moved house, and had cable TV / phone installed. Over the next week we had lots of problems with the phone, and managed to get the company to send someone over to fix it. Somewhat surprisingly, the engineer did actually turn up when they said he would.

He started doing the usual prodding and testing, and went outside to have a look in the junction box on the wall. "Fahkin' ell, this is a total mess!" he exclaimed, "What cowboy installed this pile of crap?".

Resisting the urge to giggle, I replied "You did. Two weeks ago."

He went very quiet and got on with the job.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:34, Reply)

NTL - Not so much plagiarism as providing a template
I'm sure a lot of you will have seen this already, but for those who haven't, don't read it whilst you're on a conference call.

Length? it's too big, I'll put it in the reply (but be patient).
(RTFM May your god go with you, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:32, 15 replies)

Ah! Spleen's post below reminded me of a story of complaints and flats.
My old close had two doors on each landing, opposite each other. For a long time we didn't know who lived opposite us, due to keeping wildly different hours to the guy.

The one thing we did know was that he didn't like when we left our rubbish on the landing before taking it down. Not because he ever told us, or even left a note - that was apparently beyond his talents. He was apparently quite inventive in areas other than verbal communication though, because on various occasions we found that bin bags outside our door had been:

-moved around and rearranged to no apparent effect except being *slightly* closer to the wall.
-soaked in bleach (that melted the bag and made it near impossible to clean up. Also, the place stank of melty rubbish and chlorine gases for a week).
-pissed on? Or maybe another, less effective, probably extremely cheap cleaning product? We were never sure.
-taped to the door handle, even though I'd just stuck it outside while getting my stuff before taking it out and heading into town.

This last one prompted me to nip back inside and write the foulest piece of sarcasm I have ever committed to paper. I can remember it pretty much exactly, or at least the main points. I drew a diagram that looked a bit like this:

______________
||us..................you||
||____---------------||
stairs

and on the other side of the paper I wrote:

"Hi! :)

Your neighbours from 2/1 here. We're really sorry about the inconvenience we're clearly causing you by leaving our rubbish outside for whole minutes at a time. It must be a terrible drain on you to think up new ways of pointing this out without actually confronting us, and I'd like to offer to repay you for the financial costs incurred in your use of tape and bleach.

It did occur to me that maybe the reason you've never said anything is that you have trouble working out where we live, so I've included a map showing the relative locations of our flat and your flat.

Armed with this information, perhaps next time you have a problem you could actually try talking to us like a fucking adult and mentioning there's a problem, rather than sneaking around and engaging in such pathetic passive aggressive* behaviour.

You fucking twat :)"

I posted it through his letterbox and departed about my business, which included going home to Embra for the weekend. On the bus along the M8, I got a phonecall from my flatmate.

He'd found our door alright.

He'd found it. He'd spent the past hour banging on it and screaming insane threats at the top of his voice. He'd flung the rubbish from the bags at it**, and down the stairs, and around most of the general area. He'd banged and screamed and threatened and screeched some more, and eventually one of the other residents had called the police and he'd been given a caution.
It turned out after the dust had settled, that the guy was well into his fifties and the reason we'd never seen him was that his job as a barrister took up most of him time. That's as in 'respectable lawyer', not 'coffee dispenser'. And it was beyond him to make a sensible complaint to his neighbours.
I suppose given his profession, we're - okay, I'm - lucky we didn't get anything legal thrown at us.
Then again, given his personality, we're lucky we didn't get human faeces thrown at us.



*I am fully aware of the staggering irony of writing this in a sarcastic note. My justifications are that I was on my way out the door in a rush, I was colossally angry at his behaviour, and at least I was actually communicating. Slim moral high ground indeed. Mostly, though, I was in a hurry and determined to make him as angry as possible.

**I was so pissed off I'd neglected to actually remove them in the end.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:30, 3 replies)

Do I have a case?
This happened over the phone recently:

Me: Hello, council, I've just had a final demand for council tax payment with an extra £80 court fee thrown into the mix. I didn't get the first letter(s), however. I'd like to pay my tax without the legal fee, please.

Council: But the first two letters explained the legal fee.

Me: But I didn't get them. I clearly want to pay you, though, as you only have my name and address because I called you the first day I was in the house to give you my details.

Council: Not our fault.

Me: Did you send the reminder by recorded delivery?

Council: We don't have to. Our computer says we sent them.

I'm quite a fan of letters, and I will write one if there's one that could beat these gits. Any thoughts?
(gobsh, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:25, 23 replies)

i will have lots for this qotw
but let me start with the instruction i was given by my old boss to complain to a garden centre near him. my letter went along the following lines.

dear sirs

five years ago, i bought a monkey puzzle tree from you. it has now died. as i spend lots of money with you every year, give me some of it back or a new tree.

i was almost too ashamed to pp the letter, but they did actually cough up a new tree, unbelievably.

the same boss also made me sue the drycleaners for losing his handmade dinner jacket trousers. only after they had given in and paid up did my colleague confess to me that she had taken them to the charity shop instead by mistake...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:17, 2 replies)

B fucking T
I'll keep it short this time to keep gibbleh happy.

about 5yrs ago I required broadband on my home line, was told I couldn't get it due to having a DACS box on my line, BT refused to admit there was one on it even though one of their engineers admitted there was at a later date (I knew this as I was looking at the fucking thing when I called them).

I had to get a new line, which during the install they cut through the original line leaving me with no phone for the best part of a week.

The letter to them was along the same genre of the Vodafone one mentioned earlier on here, but I'll spare you the details.

Funnily enough the DACS box has since disappeared??


(Kip, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:11, 2 replies)

So to keep things balanced
on of my collegues bought a pair of Timberland boots. He had them for 18 years before they started to fall apart.

They were well loved and comfortable. He realised they were probably done for, but just on the offchance, he sent them to Timberalnd with a polite note saying he realised they were very old, but was it was possible to get new soles and heels on them.

A few weeks later he got them back, soled, heeled, reconditioned and looking immacualte. They were accompanied by a letter saying they hoped he would get many more years from them, and apologies for the inconvenience. No charge.

Top marks for Timberland.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 16:00, 8 replies)

old as the hills and possibly glasscock
nevertheless this a genuine reply to what must must have been a real belter of a complaint letter...

(from The Guardian, Saturday 27 September 2003)

Dear Mr Addison, I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more-than-prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise.

I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a "begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we, at the Inland Revenue, have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer, I would cautiously suggest that their being from "pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies" is at best a little ill-advised.

In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin" or, come to that, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing whores", whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, "that box-ticking facade of a university system".

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:
1. The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system;
2. You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India" you would still owe us the money. Please forward it by Friday. Yours sincerely, H J Lee, Customer Relations.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:54, 4 replies)

Everyones scared of their mum really
Many years ago we'd ordered a towel rail from B&Q and been waiting months. The details are bordering on the extreme of stupid and I won't go on about it.
However I still have to laugh about our visit to the customer service desk.
My Mum, is on the face of it a nice quiet grey haired lady in her early sixties.
Her, my Dad and I are stood at customer services. The pimply faced youth calls us forward as the next problem he has to deal with. Mum briefly explains the problem. He picks up the phone mutters for a few seconds, presumeably summoning someone who could possibly help, puts the phone down and then calls the next in line over, without a word to whats happening with our problem.
My mum gets that serious face on... "Excuse me, but you're dealing with us at the moment." "Oh shit", my Dad quietly mutters, we look at each other and both turn and walk away having decided to get away from ground zero. As I clear the orange waiting barrier I glance back at the pimply faced youth on the desk who looks at me with that "I'm in trouble arn't I?" look that we all remember from school.
Caught up to dad looking at lawn mowers around the corner about 5 mins later, he was giggling as we could still hear the harrowed tones of Mum making her views known at the desk.
She's normally so quiet.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:53, Reply)

I recieved a complaint just the other day!
How relevant this subject is!

Me and 3 friends have recently rented a flat in London, it's a 4 story building with 4 flats on each floor. The flat itself is very nice (Although a bit expensive!) and I think we are going to have a very good time together student-ing it up.

We went to the flat a couple of Mondays ago (23rd) to pick up the keys, signed on the dotted line, saw a few of the buildings other tenants on our way up the stairs, said hello etc and all seemed well. The agency said they would keep in touch via email about any matters (Scheduled work, delivery date of a new sofa, etc)

Unfortunately we got an email on Tuesday (31st) to say that the tenant in flat 5 (The one directly underneath us) has been in contact to say that they have been kept awake for the past several nights due to "loud noise, laughing and shouting and people stomping around" and could we please try to keep the noise down between 11pm and 7am for the benefit of other tenants, parties to a minimum and let other tenants know in advance if we plan to have one.

Of course, ordinarily we would have been very apologetic and assured that we would indeed keep the noise to a minimum, after all, we wouldn't want to annoy our new neighbours......

....except we were left slightly confused by the fact after we signed the documents on the 23rd, none of us have been back to the flat since, are currently each staying a minimum of 30 miles away in various directions and will continue to do so for the next week before actually moving in......

If the noise of an empty flat is bothering them now then I dread to think how unbearable it will be once people actually are living there! I foresee a fun year ahead!
(The_Mighty_Spleen, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:48, 13 replies)

Spa break at the Langstone hotel? Don't bother
If you're tempted to book a Spa break at the Langstone Hotel on Hayling Island, think twice.

Simply because at their "relaxing spa suite" you may, as me and my lady did, that the steam room is broken, the jacuzzi is close for repair/renovation/thorough cleaning etc which basically means the "relaxing spa suite" is in fact a small pool and a poor quality sauna shed. Ironically both of which are features available at most gyms for a few quid per visit.
If we'd have known that we wouldn't have spent a couple of hours driving a long way for a packed hotel with faulty facilities in what turns out to be a pretty crappy part of Britain.
Incidentally the weekend was made that bit more perfect by repeated fire alarms sounding for several minutes a time during the night as the pissed up guests at TWO simultaneous wedding receptions forgot you can't smoke in your bedroom. Never mind, at least there was a huge queue for the expensive breakfast in the morning which was picked bare by the hoards of hungry hungover guests who couldn't sleep either and seemed to get there before me.
Also they don't bother to acknowledge or reply to any letters you may care to send them detailing your experiences.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:40, 10 replies)

Instant results
I live in Weymouth, where virtually every main road into the town is being dug up in advance of the 2012 Olympics (we're hosting the sailing events). When Dorset County Council announced yesterday that yet another road was to be closed from next week, I snapped. Fair play to them for the instant result I got in my inbox not ten minutes ago:

Dear Mr Weymouth Transport Package

You're doing this as a dare, aren't you? It's all a huge social experiment called "How many roads can we dig up in Weymouth at the same time before people are reduced to foraging in hedgerows because the Waitrose van can't get through," isn't it?

Go on - admit it: You've got men in white coats from the country's foremost higher educational establishments making notes on clipboards every time they see a driver, trapped in a jam, rocking back and forth like the bears you see on adverts for animal charities they put on during Countdown, the people of Weymouth and Dorset trapped like so many mice in some cruel psychological experiment to see how much a community can take before we all go Lord of the Flies.

If this is the case, I dare you to reduce Preston Beach Road to a single lane with Stop/Go boards for six months pending the construction of a 300-foot statue of Cheryl Cole. I double-dog-dare you with no returns, in fact.

I am not mad.

Your pal,

S Duck

And their reply: "Thank you for your feedback. We have forwarded your planning requests re: said cultural monument to the relevant department"

And their immediate response: Another press release in which the main bridge into the town centre is to be closed for a month. I'm onto them
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:34, Reply)

At the Bulldog Bash
There was a guy selling the Oxford Bike Mike, A helmet to helmet intercom. They were dirt cheap and he was quite obviously making up complete units from boxes with missing bits. I bought one and we used it on the ride home, it worked but it just wasn't very good. I wrote to Oxford and told them the 100% truth of how I bought it and how I understood that they were in no way obliged to give me any sort of refund or replacement I just wanted to let them know that I thought the microphone was very poor on their product and they might want to consider making it better on future products. A few months passed and a package arrived. It was from Oxford and contained the latest model of the Bike Mike with a letter thanking me for my feedback and they hoped that I find the new model to my satisfaction. I left it sealed and sold it. It was probably loads better but I needed the money.
( Peej, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:33, 1 reply)

I'm extremely bad at complaining, whether in person or via missive.
For several reasons.

One: I become incoherent when angry. Or indeed on any occasion I don't have three-quarters of an hour to think through and edit my responses. Thus an initial complaint from me would be something along the lines of "What the hell? Deal with this bollocks now you stupid...what the fuck are you on about? Why can't I...you know what, cock off. I'll be...I'm going elsewhere. And give me my money back."

Unlikely to produce any sort of positive result, I think you'll agree.

Two: I swear. Loudly. And a lot. Let's amend that previous statement.
"What the shitfucking rectal discharge? Deal with this utter fucking bollocks now you cross-eyed badger-buggerer....what the festering fuckhell are you wasting your stupid, rancid breath on? Why can't... you know what, shove yourself up your own arse. I'm going anyfucking where the fuck else, you cunt of a moron of a fucking rectal boil. And give me my money back"

Any minimal results from before, subtract.

Three: I have a very short attention span for anything that involves negotiating with officialdom. In the time it takes me to think this sort of thing through, I've already stopped caring. Final edit: reduce the complaint I detailed to a single internal monologue, saying
"God cocking damn it...actually, whatever. It's only £1.27 / £94 / £1,138.50. I'm off to have a cigarette."
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:31, 9 replies)

Stamps!
I received a card through the post saying there was a 'package' which couldn't be posted waiting for me at the sorting office. I hadn't ordered anything so was intrigued.
Turned out to be a wedding invitation which was 1mm too thick for a first class stamp and they charged me a quid to pick it up. I was on the dole so 'every little 'elps' and so emailed the complaints dept. After a bit of email tennis they sent me a book of stamps - result.
( Geoff the Clownfish You know Myra, some people might think you're cute, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:27, 4 replies)

This actually happened (tesco)
I work in a respectable bar in the centre of town. Unfortunately my ice machine has recently fallen into a state of disrepair, thus i needed some ice for the bar, before it opened for business.

Unfortunately when i came to purchase the ice from the sthelens branch i was confronted by a problem, namely the prohibition of sale of bags of ice to a minor.
Firstly, i am not a minor, I am 27, six foot four, i have a beard and was wearing my work uniform.
At the till the particular cashier refused to sell me the ice as i was not in posession of any identification. So i spoke to the manager and he told me he would 'let me off this once'. He told me it was Tesco's new policy to refrain from serving ice to minors (which i'm not).
So may i ask.... WHY on earth would you class ice as a nefarious product?
You may or may not know, Ice is water that is cooled below 0°C (273.15K, 32°F) at standard atmospheric pressure. It can also deposit from vapour with no intervening liquid phase, such as in the formation of frost.
If so... would i need ID to buy fish fingers?

Maybe it's because Ice can be used as an addition to alcoholic beverages, so in this case will you now place draconian measures upon lemonade, cola or other soft drinks that have the potential of being mixed into an alcoholic beverage.
What about paper cups and plastic stirrers and dare i say coctail sticks?
As you can imagine i'm thoroughly baffled as to why this draconian measure was put into operation within your stores, and can only assume that some one, somewhere has not had their tablets or is playing an immeasurably cruel joke upon human kind.
Kind Regards,
Mr Lizard

P.s - The ice was satisfactory.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:15, 17 replies)

Complaint letter to the UK porn channel - television X

[email protected]

Dear sir / Madam (probably Sir)

I write to you with the best of intentions.

It has come to my attention (no puns intended) that the porn (or Adult entertainment) industry is severely lacking in cinematic delivery.

This is not good enough. The British public are not that easily satisfied, we DEMAND better actors and set-pieces - not just fresh faced young bimbo's and cardboard studios, we WANT exciting and witty dialogue, intricate storylines and recognisable talent.

Instead, this seems nothing more than trashy copulation, that to be quite frank, I could perform with my eyes closed. We are not interested in big-boobed women talking utter smut to the camera - we want black and white long shots of post-war industrial ruins, metaphors for consumerism and how Britain strives to find its own identity in a fast paced corporate world.

Your 'characters' such as Kerry Louise performing as Nurse are terribly unbelievable. Being totally honest, if she were a real NHS employee , i would have had her sacked a long time ago. The same goes for 'power girls' - none of these women resemble the super hero's of my youth, if a REAL antagonist was to threaten the UK, then i'm pretty sure these girls wouldn't last five seconds.

Thus, i propose you allow me to re-write some of your scenes and if possible provide your company with some REAL narrative structure , engaging dialogue and the occasional car chase. You don't even have to pay me much, just a few hundred quid or so.

So please... please.. please... Stop trying to 'dumb' us down with trashy scenes and fake lust - we the British are not stupid - all we ask is for a little more cinematographical thought and less smut.

Kind regards

(Mr Lizard)
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:12, 1 reply)

My letter to the masters of the fox hunt
Greetings!

Forgive my intrusion M'lord but i request a few moments to share a few ideas of mine.

First of all. I don't think fox hunting is cruel enough. From what i've read a fox can be slaughtered in a time frame ranging from a matter of minutes to a few hours (and occasionaly days, if a wounded fox escapes your jolly chaps and retreats back to its habitat to die of painful infections and trauma induced from wounds endured upon the chase).

So first may I suggest you replace all your dogs with Komodo dragons, which are a superior species in every way and form. First of all their toxic bite is never meant to be instantly lethal. The toxin from the Varanus komodoensis has evolved to a stage were its prey will ONLY die over a period of days, due to the inherent bastadry of such a species. Then, still twitching you can satisfy your violent and sexual urges with the imagery of several huge lizards tearing a small mammal to pieces.

This means you can extend your hunt for quite a time and engage in what ever hanky panky you wish to choose alone in those woods with your men and horses. Just remember to get your servants to rustle up more sandwiches and oysters.

Secondly, those hats you were look utterly preposterous. They don't even look slightly menacing (except maybe to the terrified lone creature you are driving to exhaustion and agony), but to the common man - they make you look like uppity berks and are slightly, ever so slightly gay. And not in the jovial sense of the word either.

Perhaps i'm missing the point here, but i think you should all wear Spartan-esque helmets or at least smear yourselves in blood or take your tops off and show your battle scars. Sorry, i forget you'll probably have no scars as you are engaging in quite possibly the tamest hunt in the history of the human race.

Actually, to spice things up even more - I think there should be a kind of invisible lottery system were you don't actually know what prey you are hunting. One minute you could happily be pursuing a lone Vole for many miles before smashing it to pieces with your (new) tridents and maces. The next minute one of your lot, could be plucked randomly from his horse by some sort of giant Boa constricter or maybe your Komodo dragons would turn-table and gnaw you in the loins (probably sick of seeing your furious displays of upper class hanky-panky with your man-servants).

Sorry, i'm going off track here. Forgive me M'lurd. I will punish myself later, to avoid giving you the burden of wasting any further time on my peasantly soul.

Lastly, why do you only smear the foreheads of your children with a little bit of fox blood. I'm thinking some entrails would make real men out of them (even the girls).

So yes, keep up the good work. All of the UK are fucking proud of you, for ridding us of this terrible scourge of foxes that have been terrorising our fine isle since the days of ancient Babylon.

Remember - Komodo dragons, spartan-esque helmets, tridents and maces, and prey that might actually fight back to give you some manly scars that you can constantly show off to your fellows in the smoking lodge and on occasion your wife.

Keep up the impossibly good work.

x
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:11, 10 replies)

My complaint letter to newline cinema regarding sex and the city II
[email protected]

Dear Sir and more importantly Madam(S).

The idea behind this pleasure explosion is so unbelievably erotic, that I cannot thank you enough. For one thing i bet I have seen this movie more times than you! That's by the by though, and something which will only make you jealous into your mouth.

For another thing i (prior) and (during most) of 'sex and the city part one', i had terrible impotence (and god only knows), but by the end of 'sex and the city' (part Zwei) [II] after my first screening, i had made a life-affirming decision to become and am sort my 'little' problem out.

I decided to watch it again, based on the stirrings of the monster that had previously lain unsettlingly dormant. Sadly (and almost 88.4% tragically) I had slept (due to an incident in which i didn't manage to get any sleep) during the first screening, although i have since punished myself on a nearly daily basis - But since then, rain or shine - I have driven myself to a feverish state of post-nausea (ecstatic some would say) in a bid to become the only man on the planet to watch this film almost continuously - excluding blinking and weeping - and eating only cinema related snacks and occasionaly howling at the images in front of me.

* Including the common hot dog.

* (and popcorn) etc.

Anyhooooo, let me get to my 'review'. I consider myself the only man on the planet to have watched this more than any other man or woman (etc) to have watched this film [more than anyone else basically!]. Thus i am claiming all rights under the 'intellectually property' because my mind has absorbed it completely.

Please surrender all copies of this film within a time frame that we can all agree on [in (court)] and then we can get down to the nitty gritty.

27th may 2010

Basically, I am translating this film via my 34 year old son, as i sit mesmerised by the cheeky indecency being splashed into my eyes on the BIG screen. All those jokes about sex have no doubt claimed me a long time ago, but as the redhead would say 'well don't let that stop you!' - (incidentally she might have said that in the first film, not the second film, but if she hasn't said it yet, i suggest you use it in the prequel).

I am quite proud to admit that myself am more post-modern than anyone, except maybe Lady Gaga. But the whole liberation aspects of this absolute hoopla-stinger of a movie, penetrated my fat soul like the hotdog in my greasy palm. I am currently shaking (with laughter) at its shrieking nonsense, it's unengaged idiocy has forced me to reconsider my whole life. You have SOLD me on my 32nd screening.

28th May 2010

I must have drifted off for a bit, but my son awoke me by with a gentle poke. He translated back at me (from his mouth) the few scenes i had missed. Sarah Jessica Parker is now laughing snyly at someone in a dress.........

A life that consists (completely) of living in a dark cinema [all costs to be covered by you lot when we eventually get to court] , whilst shitting in a bag and snaffling buttered sweets is slowly becoming acceptable. But i can't talk. Not for long anyway. I'm mesmerised. The scene with the bed post moving..... The redhead's teeth.


29th The cinema owner keeps asking if 'i'm alright', but my son is a good lad. He looks after me. My son gave him some notes, told him to keep it rolling. I have to admit the (medium) blonde lady is looking less and less attractive, but i'm still hooked. The narrative is a joy (a fucking joy), the editing is influential and top notch.

I keep phasing in and out of this world. I keep thinking i'm having sex with a city.

30th May 2010

The stench has become overwhelming, and my son has crept off into the corridors to get 'coke'. But i refuse to budge. I have lost track of the amount of time that has passed, except for the fact i'm on the opening scene again. It's overwhelming.

I have formed a routine. I can now brush my teeth whilst shitting and i can swirl the residue into a paste that can then be used for a shave. I then scrape most of it off with the paper pop corn bags and burn them to keep warm. I can't even hear the film anymore.

My shirt is ripped, i'm covered in crumbs and kernels and seed. The seat in front of me has been tarnished by my gleeful writhings and i think i've bitten my tongue.

Thankfully i've made a crude shelter out of some old seats in which i can conceal myself from all but the brightest of torches, but i think it's getting to a point where enough is enough. There is only enough cackling and banshee sex a man can take. I think i'll watch it three more times just to get 'the jist' and then i'll plan my escape.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 15:08, 2 replies)

I've been complained about
The school I went to between the ages of about 12-15 was reached after a 40 mile train journey every day. Since the school was mediocre, and most of the pupils inbred wankers, I spent this time generally listening to music or reading. This gets boring after a while of course, and after a couple of months I began joining in with the daily poker game. Since there were very few of us from the same school the age range was pretty much from me at about 13 to a couple of sixthformers. About six or seven of us in total.

The poker game was very innocent. We were all broke teenagers, the general raise was about five pence, and the pot was very very rarely more than about a pound. It whiled away the time though.

While in class, I got a summons from the headmistress. Arriving at her office I was informed that an old lady had complained to the school about the gambling, prostitution and filthy swearing that took place on this train journey, and had made known she suspected alcohol imbibage. The way she made it sound, it was a den of iniquity rather than just a poker game. Of course no matter how I protested, the headmistress was having none of it. Guilty I was. I was the only one identified because I still had very blond hair and at that young stage of my life wore a black leather trenchcoat over my uniform.

The next morning, having duely passed the warning on, the poker was stopped. Knowing it was an old lady I had a quick look around, and sure enough the old fucker was staring at our table with beady eyes. A really miserable looking bag she was. I was far too young and shy to either confront her or take proper revenge, but satisfied my need to do something by stepping hard on her foot in three inch heels.

Taught me a valuable lesson though. Some people will complain about absolutely anything at all
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 14:56, 2 replies)

Toyota Europe's Chief Exec
was at my old boss's beck and call last year. She was one of the first to have her Yaris be knackered and the dealership weren't playing ball. She had her MP, her MSP, the dealership's manager and the head of UK complaints for Toyota being copied into the email exchange between her and the chief exec. Her car was fixed within a few days and will be getting a sizeable discount on her next car.
(Clashrock is being stalked by his brother on, Thu 2 Sep 2010, 14:31, Reply)