KitKat Chunky
I used to love these when they came out. There was a certain batch that had fucked up in the factory and was pretty much all chocolate but with maybe an inch of wafer at one end. Being the young antagonist I was, I phoned up the freephonee number and told them about it. They sent me a cheque for 2 quid!

I did this 3 times too, as it happened to me 3 times. The best part is I preferred the chocolate only kitkat hahahahahhahahahahahahahahaa!!!!!!

I opened my first account with those cheques, too. Wicked.
(Mr_Lew, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 16:41, 1 reply)

Paid to watch the Peep Show DVD
So I already had season 1 & 2 on DVD from when they came out, but then I saw the three season box set due to go on sale on Amazon. Region 0 it said, which for me was perfect - having just moved to the states I could use it in my UK laptop, and show it to people at their house (I'm good like this; forcing my limey comedies unto others)

So I ordered it, and it was region 2 - UK & Europe! Also, disc 3 wouldn't play in my laptop which was odd. I thought it must have been broken but checked it in my region free DVD player and it did so must have been some kind of data protection/anti-piracy device. Didn't tell them that bit, though.

Still, it said on Amazon it would be region 0, and region 0 I wanted! I called them up and was told it should in fact have been region 0 and they'll send me another one. "Do you want me to box this other one up and send it back?" "No", she said, "if it's broken you may as well throw it away". Well, series 1 & 2 worked so I thought I may as well keep it.

The new box set turns up and without even needing to take off the shrink wrap I can see it's the same as before so I call them up to complain "Oh I'm sorry about that, we'll give you a refund"

So I now have 2 three series box sets, for free! Flogged one on ebay as this was just before crimbo 2006 so in effect had the one box set and about 30 quid!

Length? 3 series of 6 episodes at 1/2 hour each - about 4.5 hours I reckon...
(Mr_Lew, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 16:39, 3 replies)

Bunch of clowns

I sent a drunken email to richjerk.com after receiving the 1000th spam mail from them touting their ebook or whatever at about 4am. It basically revolved around them ceasing hassling me and if they wished to continue they could make themselves useful and act as a clown at my son's birthday party (I don't even have a son).

Anyway, someone replied (to which I had to check my outbox as I didn't even remember sending anything) saying they could do that and paypaled a small amount to cover the cost of a clown.
( Regger, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 16:36, Reply)

I have an home office
And for a period of almost 5 months, I would get a call from a disgruntled purchaser of some penile erectile tablets that he had purchased from me and had not been delivered. He would call every fortnight, and rant into my voice mail about how dissatisfied with the the serive he was (and by the nature of the purchase, he probably wasn't the only one).

Now, I'm in IT. I don't sell blue pills or their herbal equivalents. Never have, and probably never will. But it was a pleasure to see a call on my business line every other week, and I would listen to his rant, and amuse my friends and family by playing it for them.

He sounded quite an old chap (ha ha!), and although he left his name and number, I couldn't be arsed calling the sad fucker back. That is until...... The last call I ever got from him was a thank you, to say the pills had arrived, but there were no instructions as to how many to take.

At this point, I rang him back, had a pleasant chat, and advised him to take half the packet, give it twenty minutes, and if no pan handle take the other half.

Very irresponsible I know. He never called back. He either OD'd, or fucked himself to death, or hopefully went to get medical advice and stopped buying massive drugs on the internets.

Apologies for prolonged lack of length.
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 16:34, 3 replies)

When I worked in customer service
If you threatened to take your complaint to 'Watchdog' (who, according to all 'would be very interested to hear about this problem, very interested indeed) I would leave your complaint until as late as possible and only offer you the exact amount of help you needed, rather than the usual service of trying to do everything I could to get you back up and running ASAP.

The reason?

I quite fancied Julia Bradbury who was one of the presenters on the show at the time, and if Watchdog did decide to investigate, there was a chance I might be able to meet her.

That, and the fact I'm lazy and most people who deal with customer complaints are in a position of no authority, low wages and maximum aggro. The only bit of 'power' they have is how they choose to deal with your complaint. So be nice!
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 16:21, 2 replies)

I used to be the technical support for an audio company.
Most of the time, complaints were evenly expressed, usually had a point and were distinctly ordinary. There is, however one titanic complaint that stands above all others. It was technically an email rather than a letter but I believe still encapsulates the genius we sometimes find ourselves dealing with. It arrived at 2.17am on a sunday morning and its author was obviously upset not to find me at my desk ready and willing to take his call.
Name: Bert
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 999
Country: UK
Dealer: I Don''t know
Serial: Are you joking
Model: R50
Year of purchase: Heaven only knows* Problem: I have a pair of R50 stacks and need a pair of bass drivers.
Please tell me the cost inc. P&P and VAT.And please do not tell me that you will not supply spare parts; I am sick of seeing perfectly good equipment thrown on the scrap heap simply because the capitalist manufacturers refuse to supply spares knowing full well that this will force the person to buy all over again. Ever since that psycho thatcher got her clammy claws on power the psychopaths of capitalism have been finding ever more esoteric ways of trying to force us to part with a our cash. Even this contact is made as difficlt as possible. Why ask for the bloody serial number when you don''t put one on the gear to start with**. And there is no way that I am going to send my telephone number across the internet. Once again the psychopaths of capitalism have no regard for others. I value both my security and my privacy but you want me passing sensitive personal data across what is effectively an open communications system; and worse, the sick psychopaths of State are monitoring everything now (or at least their capitalist cronies the internet service providers are).

Bert ********

*We think about 1975
**This product was old enough to predate our use of serial numbers

Nevertheless, I located a pair of replacement drivers on ebay, guided him through his first auction and even received a grudging thanks for my troubles. I still envisage him sitting there picturing Thatcher sabotaging the quality of his driver surrounds in between shafting miners and taking milk off kids. I don't mind saying it cheers me up usually.

Length?- twenty years of hurt in his case it seems.
(Leonard Hatred briefly did some work on, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 15:57, 1 reply)

The "Beaver Dam" complaint letter
Edit: I've shoved the bastard into a reply as it's mahoosive.
(Tighthead, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 15:25, 2 replies)

I'm a material scientist, so there!
I once bought a very large picture frame from Ikea: one of those where it's just a large sheet of glass with a backboard, no actual frame round the outside.

I put it on my trolley, paid for it, took it to my car, and then noticed that it had a big crack across it, probably caused by me loading it or lifting it inexpertly. I immediately took it round to the customer service desk and asked for a refund.

The customer service lady said no, I must have cracked it putting it in my car, so they wouldn't give me a refund. So I, to my shame, put on a pompous voice and said "I've got a degree in material science and I can tell from the crack that it's clearly been initiated by damage to the edge, which must have been caused before I bought it. The stresses caused by moving it may well have caused the crack to lengthen, but the initiation site is your fault, not mine."

The lady stared at me for a moment, then sighed, shook her head, and handed over the money. I felt a momentary thrill of success at getting my 15 quid back, and then realised what a tosser I was.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 15:14, 9 replies)

Nestle sell penis shaped smarties
Back at university in the twilight of the 21st century, I opened a tube of smarties to find a 'rod' rather than the saucer shaped chocolate delight I'd wanted to find.

Being a little drunk at the time, I proceeded to word a letter to the nice peeps at Nestle about how disturbed I was to have come across a phallic shaped piece of confectionery. "I could have been a five year old girl finding this filth" I exclaimed "just imagine if I were?"

Carefully posting back the tube with the naughty chocolate in it, I promptly forgot all about it - until a few weeks later a deeply apologetic letter came through the letter box. Hoping my experience had not ruined my love of their product, I received a £25 cheque in compensation...
(paulplex erm, hi..., Fri 3 Sep 2010, 15:10, 2 replies)

Cycle journey planner is deliberately misleading me
Apologies in advance for this not being a missive chock-full of the perspicuous wit and playful humour of my fellow B3tans.

It is a real complaint letter that I wrote today, though, so that should be enough to justify my contribution to this week's QOTW.

Dear TFL,

I am sorry to complain about such a stirling resource as the cycle journey planner, but it has irritated me one too many times for me to stiffen my upper lip, grin, and bear it.

I would like to know more about the machinations of this mysterious and powerful force, and more specifically, how it decides the route.
It is a useful tool, and I particularly like the detailed step-by-step map.
However, the journey planner seems to give me abnormally long routes, which is very frustrating.

It has got to the point where I no longer want to look at the journey planner, as I fear that it will try to make me exercise more than I need to by putting unnecessary, albeit scenic, via-points into my route.

For example, this morning I had to go from Hyde Park Corner to Moorgate.
TFL's suggested route took me immediately SOUTH.

Google provide an excellent route planner for walking which generally accommodates cyclists very well, giving several different options (perhaps you could follow suit?). On their map, were you to look at it, you may find that Moorgate appears to be somewhat NORTH EAST of Hyde Park Corner. "So according to TFL, to go north I must go south? REALLY?"

Furthermore, I have no desire to cross the river, so why am I told I should cross it TWICE? My destination is on the north bank of the Thames, as is my point of departure. Why do TFL want me to take a brief sojourn on the south bank during my journey? The view from Westminster bridge and Blackfriars bridge is admittedly very nice, but that is not what I am asking TFL's cycle journey planner to help me with.

I can only assume that the journey planner was trying to take me along a route with less traffic, but if so it was unsuccessful (as well as being a further distance) – I encountered just as much congestion and heavy vehicles such as construction lorries, refuse collection trucks, and of course buses.
On my return journey I ignored your advice and came a more direct way. It took the SAME TIME even though I got lost for 10 mins - in other words if you had given me a more direct route I would have got to my destination slightly earlier.

Anyway, long story short, I don't demand a quicker suggested route, but I would like to know what the intention of the programmer was when he/she wrote the algorithms that I assume dictate the routes given out by the cycle journey planner!

I hope this goes some way to explaining the "incident" and that one day I will understand the deeper mysteries of Transport For London.

Yours, as ever,

Mr IdlePeAcEsign

Length? A damn sight shorter if you draw the line straight between two points.
(IdlePeAcEsign if trouble were my mistress, i'd send her to them, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 15:01, 3 replies)

The wisdom of dirty dentistry...
Back when I was a 19yr old banana, all my wisdom teeth started coming in at once, impacting like crazy.
So, I took me along to the dentist down the road to have them all pulled. Together. At the same time. As I was a poor unemployed punk at the time, I negotiated to pay the anaethsetist up front, and then pay the dentist off.
Upon awakening from the general, the silly man then proceeded to argue the point. Groggily I disagreed, and he finally conceded, advising me, very kindly, to take aspirin* if I had pain.
Thank fuck one of my mates was a gainfully employed pharmacy assistant.. I'd only bled HALF to death by the time she found me passed out on my bed in a widening pool of mine own ichor.
I payed the dentist the money, as I'd arranged, waited 6 months and bricked his shopfront windows (which I could see from my 2nd floor bedroom window).Then waited for him to get them replaced, and sign-written, and then broke the left side only. Waited yet again, and then proceeded with only the right side. He spent a lot of time with wooden panels, thought he was in the clear.... and I did both sides again.
Nowadays I write letters. *shrugs*

(For the viewers at home, aspirin is an anti-coagulant. After having teeth pulled, the hole needs to have a good clot set in to staunch the bleeding and is VITAL for healing. It is NOT recommended for post-dental-work pain. Fucker tried to kill me, I think he got off easy, looking back)
(1Banana not fit for human consumption, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 14:57, 6 replies)

Yellow buses in Bournemouth
I sent the following email (fo' real) to the Yellow Bus company in Bournemouth after a particularly stressful ride to work a couple of years back:


Dear Morons,

which part of 'rush hour' do you not understand? Having had the misery of enduring a number of your services running between 8 and 9am from Southbourne, I would like to place on record my displeasure at having to share my personal space with a-the public in general and b-loads of sweaty grumpy miserable people with their heads in each other's armpits because your ingenious forward planning department somehow neglected to put a big enough fricking bus on the route. You're the people that I see legging it round Asda at 9.30pm on December 24, amazed that Christmas has crept up on you again, aren't you?

Admittedly, I have made some new friends thanks to your service - to be honest, I have been more intimate with people on that bus than I have been with most of my ex-girlfriends - but it is becoming slightly tiresome. It is only a matter of time before one of us becomes pregnant, dead, or worse.

To aid you, I have come up with an invention all of my own, and have attached a basic prototype sketch of it to this email. I am calling it the 'double decker bus'. It is like a normal bus, but with an extra layer (or 'deck', if you will) added to the top. You may notice in my picture I have drawn people with SMILEY FACES and also added in some EMPTY SPACE. Please forgive me if this is an over-use of artistic license, but hey - it's my drawing and I want to live a little.

Anyway, I have to go now - I've just discovered that the small mexican man who gets on in Boscombe is still in the pocket of my suit and I need to make sure that he gets to work okay, which is more than you twunts can be bothered to do.

Hugs and kisses,

Bappage

Picture which was attached:

3.bp.blogspot.com/_R2KwVSpjB-8/Rp6TxRHdIjI/AAAAAAAAAAU/rGIuRUI3KKU/s1600-h/doubledecker.JPG

They emailed me back to say 'We do not respond to puerile and childish emails'

I responded one last time to say: 'you just did'.

End of correspondence. I never got a refund :-(
(Bappage, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 14:46, 9 replies)

Chemistry camp, beer and bird poo
For those of you who don't know me, which is most of you, I'm a bit of a geek. I'm also a sucker for punishment. For both of these reasons I ended up volunteering at this year's chemistry camp at Sussex university. My duties mainly extended to making sure the 15 year olds didn't blow themselves up while trying to impart some sort of wisdom into the fertile and otherwise occupied teenage minds that make up "the future of our country". As for my success rates, well, they all went home in one piece. Whether they're any wiser, well, pfft. 50% ain't bad!

Anyway, I digress. As you can imagine, this week is rather hectic and stressful for all concerned, so when we finished re-setting the lab at 5.30 there was a quick dash to the union bar for a quick pint before we got our free dinner at 6. One particularly sunny afternoon my friend, who we shall call Andy, for that is his name, had purchased a pint of good old Ireland's finest Guinness. A rather fine choice, in all respects. We were sat outside on the picnic benches with our various beverages chatting when all of a sudden there was a quiet "plop" and a few drops of Andy's full pint of Guinness gracefully leapt onto the table. He was talking to someone else at this point so didn't notice.

"Um, Andy, mate, I think a seagull may have just pooed in your Guinness..."

He held it up to the light and peered in through the bottom. The top looked just as foamy and undisturbed as before.

"Nah, I can't see anything, I'll risk it," says he, taking a swig. The expression of relaxed nonchalence changed rapidly to one of revulsion and disgust as he spat the mouthful out all over the table while spluttering "Urgh, something solid just went in my mouth!" The foam then definitely looked more suspect. A seagull had managed to poo in his pint, without getting any on the table around it, a shot in a million, as I'm sure you'll agree.

"Why don't you go and ask for another one? It's not exactly your fault mate, if you tell it well and bat your eyelids at the pretty barmaid they might not charge you."

To cut a long story short Andy did have to pay for another pint cos the bar manager is a tight fisted bastard. Shame really, like we said, it's not like they're exactly going to lose a lot of money for replacing drinks that birds have pooed in and it would have been decent of them to give him a free pint for a good story. Oh well!

The moral of this story, ladies and gentlemen, is that somewhere out there in Brighton is a seagull with scary aim that leaves no trace of its stealthy bum manoeuvers. If you're outside and take your eyes off your drink for a second, who knows what will happen...

Length? Only just relevant and about half an hour.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 14:26, 2 replies)

The Life and Times of a Sainsbury's Customer Service Assistant
I used to work on the customer information desk at Sainsbury’s, as such it has been my pleasure to listen to and deal with a lot of customer complaints. Mostly they can be divided into a few simple categories, those than have genuinely been wrong and require a replacement product/refund etc, those than are just looking for an excuse to rant and complain with little or no real reason and those that are looking for something from nothing. Needless to say I have plenty of stories; the following three are my favourites:

The Miscarriage Lady

There was a lady who used to come in with a load of baby related products, they used to vary, maybe formula milk, sometimes a breast pump often it was simply a few baby dummies. She would dump them on the customer information desk and promptly burst into tears about how she'd bought all these products and had had a miscarriage and as such needed a refund. This would have been all the more effective if she a) ever had a receipt for any of the items b) occasionally got mixed up which supermarket she was in (some of the equipment would be Tesco branded) or indeed c) she didn’t try this trick every few months over the course of a year. She occasionally would catch a newbie unaware and get most of it refunded but more often than not she would be thrown out by security. Overall Verdict 6/10, probably wanted the money for drugs.

The TV Man

He strolled up to the customer information desk and plonked down a TV, insisted on a refund as he had bought the TV only last week and was now moving to Australia and wasn't about to take it with him. Fair enough, but he didn’t have a receipt and he just looked suspicious (you develop an idea of this sort of thing.) The store manager however was new and keen to make a good impression on the locals and gave the man a full refund (a few hundred quid) he walked, nay sprinted out of the store. Examination of the stores CCTV footage later showed he had simply walked into the store, picked up the TV and walked straight over to the customer information desk. Verdict 9/10, excellent scamming skills.

The Crisps Man

I think he must have snuck up on me but I remember turning around after attending to something else and he simply thrust an empty crisps packet in my face and demanded that I 'LOOK AT THIS!' this as it turned out was an empty packet of crisps, I’m sure you've all seen it occasionally a crisps packet which has been inflated with air at the factory but has no actual crisps in it. I apologised and offered him a refund for the entire multi packet of crisps. He seemed insulted and demanded to see the manager. The manager arrived and was told how every evening himself and his wife enjoy a brandy and a packet of crisps by the fire but last night when (as customary) he threw her the packet of crisps the lack of crisps seriously affected the aerodynaminicity of the packet resulting in the crisps falling short of the intended target, reaching for the crisps his wife dropped and smashed her brandy goblet, and so Mr Manager of Sainsbury’s you will now please provide me by way of compensation the money for six new cut crystal brandy goblets. He was told in no uncertain terms that we would not be indulging his fantasies. Verdict 3/10, too ambitious with demands.
(Psymon_Spark Jesus Saves! The rest of you take 4d6 damage, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 14:14, 4 replies)

Angry Public
As part of my chequered career in public service, I worked for a time in the correspondence unit on Whitehall. Just off Whitehall, actually. First on the left after the FCO if you're coming from the southern end.

Anyway, as these things go, people generally only wrote when they were at the end of their tether. Car clampers, debt collectors, police, drugs, neighbours from hell, illness, europe, war, justice. Some real, heart-rending stuff, and no mistake.

Of course we had the inevitable 'persons with a slightly different world view'. There was the lass who sent us 3 letters a day telling us how she was getting on, her trials and tribulations with a train driver called 'Dave', the woman who wrote to tell us all about the evil machinations of 'Natural England', plus the usual smattering of freemason lizards in high places.

'3 letters a day woman' was the best, though. I was starting to look forward to seeing how she got on, but apparently some uniformed gentlemen were asked to give some gentle advice on how it might be best if she addressed her concerns and thoughts to her mental health practitioner instead.

Thing is, there is very little that can be done from that office. The majority of work was acknowledged and transferred out to departments. But there was some humanity there- when we got letters from the elderly or those clearly unwell, the boss'd ask the local nick to go around and check on them. Kid's letters, as well, got special attention. We had a dedicated officer dealing with them and a whole box of colouring in sheets and other branded doo-dads to send back.

Now my correspondence role is a bit more tangential, but I still deal with that and other public comment. It may surprise you to know that if you send stuff to government (and I include the fail that is 'your freedom'!), it is read. Given the reams of correspondence that comes in, it's unlikely that you'll get an especially substantive reply, but we do try and it is taken on board, and does shape some policy.

Just don't write in green ink. I've yet to see a letter written in green ink that isn't, at the very least, barely skimming the bounds of reality.
( multijoy, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:50, 5 replies)

Straight to the top
Ages - about 20 years - ago I added a second car to my insurance policy for a week. When I got the renewal documents about eight months later I realised that they had actually changed the covered car and I had in consequence been driving about uninsured for eight months.

Luckily I had access to the work telex machine. "What's that?" I hear the kids ask. Look it up on Google, you lazy sods. The important bit, though, is that because it was secure it could be used for all sorts of legal things, like contracts and in consequence arriving telex messages were always treated very formally and carefully.

So I sent a telex message to the insurance company, to the company that owned the insurance company and to the managing directors of both. I explained the problem, succinctly, and said that I would be phoning at 9.30 the following morning for an apology and to hear how matters had been rectified.

I rang the usual customer services number at 9.30 sharp. The answering voice said, nervously, "Is that Mr Ubergeek?" "Yes" I replied. "We're terribly sorry" he said "We've just posted the formal letter of apology and your cover has been backdated to the time of the error."

Best customer service I've ever had, bar the original cock-up.
(ubergeekian, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:33, 1 reply)

Bloody For'ins
Coming over here, stealing our jobs and our women, and acting like they own the fecking place.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:28, 13 replies)

customers complaint
i can see there might be a couple of posts like the above. this is how it is from the other side of the bar.

i work as a barmaid and one of the most frustrating aspects of the jobs is that the 100 or so people who visit the pub regularly expect you to have impeccably memorised what drink they have, what glass they have it in and how much head they prefer (no pun intended).

i have much better things to think about and if someone is there on a DAILY basis as they drink themselves into a semi-comatose state, then the words 'half a point of casssk' have probably been branded permanently into my brain, never to be removed. for the rest of the customers, if you have a specific preference, tell me! don't just stand there glaring at me. otherwise, i will pour the pint you asked for, into a branded glass and stick half an inch of foam on the top of it, the legal amount. (don't ask me how i know this... bar managers are pernickity people).

moreover!!! im sick of being whinged at by customers for things that are completely out of my hands. if we have run out of a particular drink then i cannot go down to the cellar and start brewing it myself.
(ladyintheradiator, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:23, 1 reply)

Not had the courage to use this one yet....if given a short pint
Customer: "Excuse me barman, any chance you could stick a wee whisky in my pint?"

Barman: "Certainly sir."

Customer: "Good. Any chance you could just top it up with beer instead?"
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:11, Reply)

A friend of mine once worked for a certain historical publication.
They would often get letters of complaint, but this guy was one of the best and woulld write in from Australia after any WWI/WWII article with this sort of thing:

www.tonykeenebirds.co.uk/nutter1/p1.html
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:08, 3 replies)

the other side
I have worked in the complaints departments of two very large companies, one a multinational insurance firm, the other a UK based tour operator. I have in equal measure been appalled at the service people have recieved which has led them to complain, but also by the things people will complain about. My all time favourite is from the tour operator when in the early nineties I received a letter from a family that went on holiday to Costa Dorada. Along with the usually uncleanliness and noise that most people complain about they had in all sincerity complained that when they turned on their television in room, all the programs were in Spanish. Costa Dorada is in spain.

I photocopied it and kept it for years.
(gaylord stinchcomb Ridicule is nothing to be scared of. AIDS is., Fri 3 Sep 2010, 13:02, 1 reply)

Cadbury's let me down
You know the double Wispa bars? And the left bar/right bar adverts? (If your left bar tastes like a right bar, you're eating it backwards, that sort of thing).

I took a photo of one from the end and sent it to them with a letter explaining how I was looking forward to trying both bars to see if I could tell the difference, but was worried to see that my Wispa seemed to have a front bar and a back bar; would it be safe to eat, would it fight with a normal Wispa if I put them in the fridge together, that sort of nonsense.

A few days later I was extremely disappointed to get an email saying "We're sorry you're unhappy with the confectionery you've purchased. Please return it to the address below for a full refund"

Bah...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 12:54, 2 replies)

I Like Beer

I like beer. I like it a lot. (Possibly too much, but that's a different story for a different QotW.)

Having drunk a lot of it over the years, I can tell the difference between beer I'm not a fan of, and beer that just doesn't taste like beer should.

People ought to complain if the beer doesn't taste right.

A while back, I met a chap in a slightly swanky bar/restauranty place for drinks on his tab, and it being lunchtime, I started with a pint of Greene King IPA - just about drinkable, but dull (well, that's GK IPA for you). Next to it was a pump for Old Speckled Hen, a good tasty pint, so I was planning on trying that next. As I'm finishing the last of my IPA, two suits wander up and ask for two pints of the OSH - good timing thinks I, as that'll mean mine won't have been sitting in the pipes for hours.

The pints are poured, suits take a sip, and wander off, ostensibly happy. I get a pint of it. It's Sarson's, utterly rank - sharp and horrible, easily detectable from a casual sniff, so naturally I have a moan and switch back to the IPA. Boo.

However - what on earth were the two suitmonkeys playing at? I think it's highly unlikely the beer went from nectar to gnatpee in two pints, so they must have been drinking stuff that'd take the enamel off your teeth. WTF?

Again, another pub, with a mate of mine, I plump for Hobgoblin, he goes for a different pint.

Mine's good, I ask how his is, and he replies that it's not really that good. (We're nearly a quarter of a pint in by now.) I ask to taste it, and sure enough, it's properly off. I take it back and get a replacement, no problem.

Folks - if you're going to drink beer, do it properly. Also, complain properly. Sometimes you might not want to if you're in a pub you're not used to, but as a landlord mate of mine observes, he can't taste every pint he serves.

Beer is a bit of a living creature, and will vary in quality over the course of an evening. The staff will usually appreciate you giving them a warning that the barrel might be getting towards the end. (Or certainly ought to - and if they get funny, you want to find a different pub to drink in.)

Life is too short for bad beer, and by complaining nicely and at the right time, we'll be affected by it less.

Cheers!
(BrianHequator was stretching owls, on, or around, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 12:48, 4 replies)

Netgear let me down.
In February 2008 I bought an inexpensive Netgear ethernet switch from Amazon. It's worked without fail ever since. I wonder if there's an inverse correlation between how much tinkering with something I can do, and its eventual lifespan.

A couple of weeks ago the power supply started buzzing. It's one of those factory-sealed "wall wart" blocky things, liberally covered in all sorts of foreign hieroglyphics, like some sort of electrical Rosetta Stone. Current UK legislation puts the retailer, not the manufacturer, on the hook for six years from date of purchase, so I prepared to telephone Amazon to get a repair or replacement arranged.

Then I stopped for a few seconds and realised that calling Amazon might be technically correct, but probably an exercise in frustration. Amazon would most likely not have spare power supplies in stock, but would instead either contact Netgear on my behalf, or suggest none too subtly that I might want to contact Netgear directly. So I didn't bother with Amazon after all, but went straight to Netgear.

After wading through interminable IVR menus I eventually got through to the inevitably Indian call centre, and my spirits sank. I could expect to be treated to a barrage of irrelevant and unnecessary questions while the sub-minimum wage staffer on the other end robotically followed his ridiculous script without any consideration for what the caller was saying. I mentally geared myself up for the witheringly scornful letter of complaint I'd be obliged to scribble. Or so I thought.

The chap on the other end listened to my description of the problem ("the power supply is buzzing today. It wasn't buzzing yesterday. I've removed it from the device it powers and it's still buzzing") and, without subjecting me to any unnecessary interrogation, agreed that yes, my power supply was indeed faulty and a replacement would be shipped directly to me, at no cost.

A replacement duly arrived two days later.

How dare Netgear offer decent customer service without a legal obligation to do so? How dare Netgear employ intelligent people in its foreign call centres, depriving me of my right to have my prejudices confirmed with each phone call?

Bah. Bloody Netgear let me down.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 12:42, 1 reply)

letters not available
When I was a kid we used to get some candy (that weird extra dense refresher type candy) letters in little boxes, for some reason in West Country we could only ever get the numbers so with the help of my secretary (mum) I scrawled out a letter to who ever the company was asking why they only did numbers and wouldn't it be a good idea if they did letters as well as you could get letters in spaghetti.

Being an impatient little snotty kid I'd rush to the door every morning when the postie deposited his load through our slot. This went on for a few weeks before I got bored and refused to buy any of the letters on the principal that if they couldn't be bothered with me, I wouldn't bother with them.

One day a knock at the door and a parcel for little hamster, not only did they send a letter but a kilo...yes a whole KILO of letters to make up for the absence of said product in my local sweetshop, not only this but another whole kilo of the numbers!

The upshot of this is I had far too many to cope with but refused to share them with friends or family, happier than Gollum with his ring I hoarded my precious candy and pigged out on them for what must have been the whole summer holiday. By the time I returned to school I was sick of the damn things and to this day haven't eaten another one.

So good marketing ploy there losing a customer by being nice.
(bluehamster, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 12:31, Reply)

Dodgy dodger
Two top halves stuck together with only a mouse's jamrag smear of jam to hold them together. It is an abomination, and an affront to the biscuit eating classes.



Sending this pic of it off to Burtons with a tongue-in-cheek cheeky email netted me an amusing response and £5 in biccy vouchers.
(posthumous mince is tiptoeing through the tulips, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 11:45, 16 replies)

Approximately a year ago...
...I forked out some notes for PC components with a well known UK supplier (name withheld to protect the retarded). I was building an i7 rig, so a fair amount of money was spent and a fair amount of splooge ended up in my boxers when the components actually arrived.

So, the assembling of said components began, went by without any real trouble and I was up and running within a couple of hours.

The system lasted 2 days before it would not post 9 times out of 10. After finally troubleshooting that the problem was with the PSU I contacted the company to arrange a return/exchange for a new PSU.

Now, here's where it gets tricky:

According to the DSR, I have a 7-day 'cooling off' period in which I can, quite simply, demand a refund for my purchase irrespective of condition i.e faulty or not. They had decided in their infinite wisdom, to arrange an RMA for the item. This can be a painful experience - I send it back, they test it, then they replace with another repaired item or repair it themselves. It basically means that I could end up with a second-hand or repaired component that I had effectively paid full-price for since the original PSU had only lasted 2 days!

They were totally not budging on this, even after my threatening them with the info found in the DSR, so I decided 'fuck them' and printed the relevant section from the DSR pdf found on oft.gov.uk, highlighted the applicable parts, then decided to wait until Sat morning and drive for 3 hours to Stoke to sort this shit out in person.

Whilst waiting for Saturday morning to arrive, I had also found information related to another issue with the motherboard socket.

Basically, some of the contact points from the pins found on the Foxconn socket were missing from the CPU, some appeared to be doubled-up also. It's almost as if the socket on the m/b was manufactured faulty and the contact pins were missing the contact pads on the CPU - there's actually documented tests with the i5 1156 sockets where the CPU has burned out after extreme overclocks because of this issue, so I had decided to get another m/b under the same DSR regulations that would secure me a new PSU.

Anyway, I arrive, extremely pissed off internally, but sporting a calm manner because, you know, no use starting a big argument or I might get fuck all. I explain the situation to the customer service monkey at the front desk who gets one of the warehouse boys through to check my issue.

The PSU situation is fine - obvious fault when they test it, but the m/b issue is another matter altogether. "They're all like that" says the dickhead from the warehouse.

"Don't care," says I, "I want a replacement under the DSR regulations." as I slap the PDF on the counter. "It's under the 7 day cooling off period and I want a new motherboard."

Now, bear in mind that the i7 m/b socket has 1366 contact pins in an area not much bigger than the size of a matchbox, and is precision engineered to nth degree of a millimetre and would require some serious instrumentation to build, test, and repair.

I showed them that some of the CPU contacts were doubled up and some were missing. I even showed them another i7 CPU that had all 1366 pin marks smack-fucking-bang in the middle of the CPU contact pads.

This ass-muncher looks at the motherboard socket from 3 or 4 different angles, scratches his chin, holds up the motherboard one more time, looks at it again, then says: "looks alright to me."

If he can see a discrepancy that small, he's in the wrong fucking job and I told him, in no uncertain terms that there's absolutely no fucking way on earth that he'd be able to tell just by looking at it.

I couldn't hold it any longer - I went mental and demanded a replacement. It must have been the scary (and very, very loud) Scottish accent, along with the fact that I was redder than a spent tampon and there were a fair few customers gathering around to see what the fuss was about, but the warehouse cocksucker suddenly disappeared and the customer service jobby printed off a return/exchange invoice without another word being said.

I'm not buying from them again.

Cunts.

Length? About 250 Miles.
(god_is_a_ghoti Carpe Deum., Fri 3 Sep 2010, 11:38, 5 replies)

Casablanca Towers
i have written many letters of complaint in my time and have had successes and failures. one time i was in morocco, in an ok-ish hotel and they gave me the shittiest, cockroache ridden dump of a broom cupboard situated somewhere in the depths of the hotels many floors. as my arabic wasn't up to scratch the only was i felt i could complain was to turn the place upside down, wank furiously many many times over the floor and leave the tap running with the plug in
(slipmatt Thats sooper dooper, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 11:36, 3 replies)

Love film
I rent from love film, mostly for video games I'd not buy, and they do an ok job most of the time. Then they got slow. I'd send a disk on Monday morning, the next disk would arive Tuesday-wednesday the next week. I wrote a letter the politly but firmly stated my annoyance and threatened to cancle my account if things didn't improve.

I got a very nice e-mail back, they sent me 3 disks to say sorry and they now get back to me much faster. Result!

Just a shame of the 3 games, only one was worth playing.
(Mong goose, Fri 3 Sep 2010, 11:28, Reply)