Having done a massive survey it would seem that unless you go with Virgin-on the ridiculous-media most places have to go with BT, now BT are not all bad (I have my fingers crossed here) after all they did win awards for their customer service, hmmmm so did Virgin and I still cant see why, wonder who you have to bribe for that one? Apart from Hull ( and thats only because I know someone that lives there) BT 'own' all the phone lines, so no matter which internet provider you choose, if it is not cable, you have to have a BT line.

Now this in itself is not a major problem, apart from the amount of time that BT make your provider wait for an activation date when it can actually be done in a couple of days!

The problems arise when you ask them to do something more complicated than actuall fit a line or activate one, when I moved I gave them my moving date and asked them to transfer my phone line, a simple procedure? Apparently not, two weeks after moving in my phone line is still not on, now my sons line had been cancelled and though there was no phone service the line must have still been active as the internet was still on, sky were supposed to be reactivating my sky account at the new address, didnt happen.

Suddenly I have no internet and no phone, I went to the public phone (amid the most horrific smells, lord knows what they had been doing in there!!) After half an hour of being passed from department to department I was assured that my phone would be up and running in seven days, erm excuse me, seven days! They went through all this technical stuff and I argued that as the phone line had been ordered over two weeks before why was it going to take another seven days? Activation, I heard that word a lot over the next few weeks.

OK, I can live with that, just.

Now comes the complicated part, they turned off the phone line that was active two days before they reactivated the new line, which by the way was the exact same number as the one they had just turned off, at the same address? Two days later I have a phone line and the phone is working fine, erm, no internet, now as all BT lines are broadband ready this should have still been there, well in theory yes, but it appears when BT turned off the line Sky cancelled itself. Well thats Sky's excuse anyway!

After two hours on the phone with Sky, and again several different departments they agree that they will reactivate my sky, well actually it is not that simple, apparently because it cancelled itself this has to be a whole new order, which will then take fifteen working days, erm why? Because they have to get an activation date from BT, the thing is that it takes them ten working days to process the order.

OK so now it is another fifteen days to getting back on line, three weeks so far. I can live with that, mainly because I have no choice in the matter!

The day before my internet is due to be activated my phone line goes off! Back to the smelly phone box,
When I finally get through all the options, and the different departments, I am told that the line was cancelled by the customer? Erm I am the customer, dont you think I would remember cancelling my line? It turns out that my ex-landlord had phoned and cancelled the line, erm how? He does not have my account number nor has he been given permission to do so, and if anyone had bothered to look they would have seen that said line had been transferred to a different address the one that you have now cut off!!
Two hours of arguing and getting cut off! ( I am in a payphone , I have dialled a freephone number and it cuts me off as I dont have enough credit?!) and having to go through the whole process again each time I have to phone back (which was three times) I am finally told that despite the fact that it is their fault I cannot be reconnected for two days and it will be a different number?!! By this time I am beyond arguing with them, how can you reason with people that think you know nothing and treat you accordingly?

Ten minutes after I should have been at work I am stuck on the phone with a jobs worth that has a superior attitude, you know the 'I am really sorry that you have been through shit all morning but you are stuck with me now and I am going to make life as difficult as possible for you cos I want to go for my break' type of attitude.

The woman that had been on the phone previously was getting me back on that day, but no that didnt count, cant be done, you know activation!

Needless to say Sky was not connected the following day, when we called them on the friday (when the phone was finally back on with by the way the exact same number!) they told me that it had all been cancelled and it was now going to take another re-order and another fifteen working days! I very politely told them where to place their internet

I rang BT, they could have me on line the following friday, five working days.

So in the end they came through, but considering the whole shebang was their fault in the first place and they should not have allowed some random person to cancel my account, ll is not well that ends well and there will be one heck of a complaint letter going in.

Supermarkets, one of the main places where we spend our money, well we do all have to eat (supposedly) but which are the best value for money, well actually none of them, every one of them is out to make a profit out of you the consumer.

The difference between the different supermarkets is the competition, so depending on where you live and how many are in your area will dictate the 'bargains' that you can acquire.

Make no bones about it, when it costs only 5p to produce a tin of beans and they are being sold for 35p then someone somewhere is making a tidy profit, of course they will tell you that you have to take in to consideration the cost of transport and the labour for filling the shelf, we did, it cost 5p to produce and deliver the beans to the supermarket.

But beans apart (As not everyone eats these creepy little orange things) Supermarkets in some towns do hold a monopoly on what you buy and where you shop, take my town for instance, we have two main supermarkets, Sainsburys and Morrisons, (they froze out the Co-operative and all that remains of that is a couple of estate mini-markets) we do have a Marks -you have to take out a second mortgage to shop here- and Spencers, but the difference between the three can be marked by a saturday afternoon where both Sainsburys and Morrisons are heaving and Marks & Spencers is all but empty!

They are in the process of building an Asda right across the train tracks from Sainsburys (There are two roads that go over them as well so we do not run the risk of being swept away by the carlisle train whisking Mama off to Appleby!) That is going to be fun, let battle commence.

Of course the more supermarkets you have the more 'Bargains' you can obtain, as they are constanly in competition for your hard earned wages, and we must not forget everyones favourite bargain stores Netto and Aldi (no cringing in the back please, you can always take Morrisons carrier bags with you!) Stores that aim to bring you the same brands at bargain prices (except for the labels of course) did you know that Netto and Aldi beans are actually made by Heinz who also make the bettabuy beans that Morrisons sell?

People believe that these cut price stores are only for those that cannot afford to shop elsewhere, well actually they are selling the same products that you buy at the big supermarkets but because they dont carry a brand name you can buy them cheaper, all they have done is cut their profits, but in doing so they have actually increased them as they sell more. Clever aren't they? Did you know that the owners of Netto and Aldi used to be in business together, they opened the very first Netto store together and then fell out and became rivals?

Anyway, the name of the game is profit, the more people shop at a place the more they make the better bargains you get, erm, no, not quite. Bargains are what you get when you shop around for shoes and things, what Supermarkets do is surveys, they find the best selling item and put it's price up, then take the worst selling item and place it on a Bogoff or buy one get one half price scheme, thereby turning the worst selling item into a good sell because it is a 'Bargain'

90% of your bogoffs and get one half price are things you would not normally buy in an average shop, they will always throw in something you buy on a regular basis like margarine, to make it appear that normal household shopping is a bargain. So in fact rather than saving ex amount of pounds on your 'free' items you have spent ex amount of pounds on food you would not normally buy anyway!

Supermarkets will always be around, because we all have to shop, the trick is to look closely at the 'offers' in there will be some genuine ones that you can actually save money on, just dont be drawn in to the bogoffs and half prices unless you actually use the stuff, all you are doing is giving them what they want, a profit.

So the great white explorer Mr Richard Branson has been ousted or outbid or just plain told no, by the British Government.

Now I dont see the sense in the taxpayer, that is you and me folks, owning a bank that we dont actually own? Our money will run it and pay the wages of its workers and even go towards the lending of money from within its coffers that comes from, oh yes, the British taxpayer!

Does it make sense that we would take a failing bank that runs on high risk lending and try (I use the word optimistacally) to turn it around? Well apparently it does, though I have looked hard for it I cannot seem to find it. As much as I do not like our Mr Branson at least he would have used half his own money and borrowed the rest, which of course would have again come from us the taxpayer, but with the difference of he (or rather the Bank) would have had to pay it back.

So now we prepare for another hike in interest rates, taxes, and anything else they can think of to raise to accrue the money for this new 'Endeavour' .

All the rest of the high street banks and building societies have now decided to make life even harder for the poor beleagured first time buyer, they will no longer offer 125% mortgages and are even stopping the 100% ones, now you will have to find a hefty deposit before you can get your foot on the first rung of the property ladder, this is the result of the scare of The Northern Rock fiasco.

What a lot of people dont know is that Northern Rock have been making life that little bit more hellish for the people that it lent money to, thanks to a little known Government ruling Banks and Building societies can now take that unsecured loan/Credit Card/Debt to court and secure it on your property through a piece of paper called a charging Order, they can then go back to court for a force of Sale, most of the Banks have not carried out force of sales, until Northern Rock started floundering, within weeks it was taking people to court and making them sell their homes even though the debt itself may have been no more than six or seven thousand pounds!

Be careful when looking at that unsecured loan that looks really tempting, it may just cost you more than you realise!

Contrary to public belief Banks are not there to look after your money, they are there to make money for their shareholders, they take whatever you place into them, as little or as much as that may be, and they um, 'invest' it, doubling or tripling your little amount and creaming the profits from that to keep thier investors happy.

Are you happy? Well that doesn't matter, you apparently dont figure much in their scheme apart from placing your wages/savings/nesteggs in to their vaults you are for the most part nameless and faceless, Joe Public.

But should you decide to upset, for whatever reason, their image of themselves and decide that they are not the bank that you wish to be with, well, that is when the fun starts.

Have you ever tried closing a bank account? Not easy is it? Have you noticed how you suddenly accrue charges for money that is not there, was not there, and after you have closed the account?

Banks do not like you taking your business elsewhere and will do all they can to try to prevent this,apart from the things that you had asked them to do that is, which is the whole reason that you have decided to move to a new bank.

Did you know that despite the many names of Banks and Building societys that you see or hear about there are actually only four main banks in this country? All the rest are subsideries of these four, some of them are actually jointly owned by two or more of the main four.

Did you know that almost all credit cards are owned by those four banks and an American company called MBNA, for instance, the Alliance and Leicester credit card, MBNA, Virgin are MBNA backed, Abbey National credit card, MBNA.

Sainsburys and Tesco are owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland, who incidently also own Natwest.

Halifax is The Bank of Scotland

HFC are also the Beneficial and Household banks and they own Marbles.

The Clydesdale bank now belongs to Barclays along with Monument, they have also 'bought' The Bank of Scotland credit cards.

So when moving Banks be very careful, as you may not be moving at all?

If I were a Northern Rock customer I would have been withdrawing all my money and heading for the Blackhorse the minute that I heard the Intrepid Mr Branson was taking over, Richard if you want a piggy bank then go buy one from Argos like everyone else!

We all know about the Northern Rock Fiasco, did we also know that both Lloyds and Barclays are shareholders of said Rock? Both banks lost quite a bit of money, well quite a bit to us but only about one eighth of last years profits in real terms. So they didn't really lose this money it just cut their profits down somewhat.

Northern Rock is what is known as a high risk lender, and when you take risks there is the inevitable chance of an eventual fall, well not so much a fall as a slip and teeter, Northern Rocks teeter would have gone mostly unnoticed to us more ignorant of people the General Public had it not been for the sudden stance of the bank of England, which was silly really as they had always intended to lend them the money?

So what would have been backroom dealings became public knowledge and the people panicked and began taking out their life savings and rocking the boat even more, well it is only natural to want to preserve that which you have worked hard for.

Northern Rock has been unable to recover from this added blow, despite the might of its backers, so up steps the knight in shining arnour Mr Branson, whoa wait a minute, does this guy have aspirations to own England? Surely not! One cant help but wonder if he had a piggy bank when he was a child, but dont panic, as with everything else he attaches the Virgin name to, he will get bored and will then go look for something else to play with, a cable company maybe, oh wait he has done that one! And an Airline and Record shops and Record companies and credit cards, and so on and so on.

Northern Rock will be saved, it will be amalgamated into the Virgin Comapany, so in actual fact it wont be saved as it will no longer be Northern Rock but will be something more like Virgin Finance. Ah well, rest in peace Northern Rock, it was good while it lasted.

Virgin
For those who have been reading my blog and have been following the Virgin Saga you will know what I think of Virgin’s customer service, or lack of. Some of it has been laughable really, for instance sending an email to instruct me how to install a modem when they have stopped my internet services do they not know how to use a phone? They tell me that they do not recommend installing a modem any other way, yet their instruction CD that you use for installation tells you to install the modem the way it was installed?

They have moved their ‘Helpline’ to a premium rate line so if you want to call them to get help it costs you a fortune which is payable to them of course. It takes them six weeks to answer a query/complaint, this is done only after you have withheld payment, and then they tell you that your email is full, that’s it, no addressing the main issue, and no actual help. When their opinion was questioned they were arrogant and condescending. Once they decided to actually answer the questions raised they tell you to use a different email to read your mails and then down load them to your computer, erm, what is the point in even having their email If you have to use a different server to actually read the mails sent?

When the actual Customer service department condescends to contact you they are sympathetic, they totally understand where you are coming from, and no you should not have to use a different mail server to open your mails, and no you should not have to reinstall your modem twice a week, and they can understand why you are so frustrated at not being able to get any help, but they can do nothing until you pay them? You of course refuse, you tell them that they have broken the contract; they say no we have still supplied the TV and the phone.

Let us look at that shall we, the TV is the lowest package, in fact most of those programmes are available on freeview, I do believe there are only three channels that I had that were not on freeview. The Virgin boss took it upon himself to discontinue some of those programmes because he didn’t want to pay extra for them, he didn’t ask his customers he just went ahead and did it. Now in principle that is fine, he stood up for what he thought was right, except right up until a month ago he had not replaced those programmes with anything else, so now you were paying for a reduced TV package at the same rate as before, so in effect you were actually paying more than you should have been anyway so what difference would having to pay a little extra for those Sky channels have made?

And we have Virgin 1 and Virgin 1 +1 and what is this fantastic new channel, well it is old sitcoms and programmes like Knight Rider that were discontinued years ago. He has two I think, actual new programmes, but I could not say for sure as I have never been tempted to watch Virgin 1.

My phone was placed on incoming calls only when they decided that I had to pay despite my complaint, therefore I was not getting full service there either. I spoke to Trading Standards who told me that as all the services were included in my package if one was not of the standard expected then the contract was broken, it does not matter whether the other two were fine or not.

My fight with Virgin is ongoing, I have been offline since it began and I am now back on through a different company, I am not going to give in and apparently neither are they. Except I have something that they do not have, the Financial Ombudsman and The Trading Standard, not to mention Offcom. They all tell me that Virgin have broken the contract by not supplying the service paid for. I will of course keep you updated as to the outcome, eventual outcome, of the ongoing battle with Virgin.

British Gas
Now I do not actually have anything to do with British Gas, but I have heard many people going on about how bad their customer service is, and they have been on Watchdog a few times. I did however have the pleasure (Sarcasm intended) of experiencing their shocking customer service first hand, well sort of, last Sunday. And since then have been inundated with tales of just how appalling their service is.

It is Sunday, just past lunchtime and my Son is sat playing on his PSP and the daughter in law and I are sat on the other settee chatting, the child is playing in his room. A nice peaceful scene (big awws are permitted) then the lights go out, they discuss the fact that this cant be right as they just placed thirty pounds in the meter the evening before, so off they go to check the meter and to place it on Emergency until they can sort out what is wrong. Nothing is ever that simple with my lot!

The meter tells them it needs fifteen pounds and just keeps flashing at them, no emergency is available, so they have no electric. Their Electric and gas are supplied by British Gas, simple enough ring the Emergency line and get it sorted, or so you would think!

They get out the bill, which gives them all the numbers to call for all the different problems. Call the first one, now you have to remember that there is no electric do the house phone is not working, the first number is an 0800 number and guess what? Mobiles will not allow you to call 0800 numbers, so they tried the next one, oh we only deal with gas leaks, here call this number. This number is the 24-hour Helpline for British Gas, dials the number and gets ‘this number is no longer in service’? Goes back to the number where he actually got a person and not a machine and asks them if they have a number, they gave him the same one, he tells them, no that is no longer in service. They give him another, he dials this and gets a person who he says sounded like she just did not want to be there, he went through the whole thing about the meter, again, and she says we will get someone out as soon as we can, then she says I cant seem to find your supplier, so he tells her, British Gas and she says ‘Oh we don’t deal with those!’ and gives him the same discontinued number as he was given before.

We decided to go get some more money on the key thingy that they use to top up the meter, off we go and we put another twenty pounds on, only we find that the slip that tells you how much credit there is on your key now says there is fifty pounds on it, which meant that the thirty he had put on it the day before had not transferred to the meter, and wouldn’t again.

Eventually after many more phone calls they managed to get someone to come out to the meter, but only by threatening to take it further because they had a small child in the house.

It took them four hours to actually get anyone out to the meter; it was going on for eight at night before they finally got the electric back on!

I mentioned to a couple of people about what had happened and got a multitude of tales about British Gas and their appalling service, not least of which is the appliances maintenance. Apparently British Gas have a cover plan for maintenance of appliances such as Boilers etc, for this service cover they charge around thirty pounds a month, which works out at about three hundred and sixty pounds a year.

However if you ever want to use this cover and call them out you have to pay a minimum of a further fifty pounds for each call out. So what are you paying this money for? In case you need to get them out, if you have the cover they will come out within 24 hours, if you don’t, well most of the time they will come out within 24 hours depending on what the problem is, how old you are, and the time of year if you have children. So again why are you paying for the cover? Well British Gas tell me that the cover actually only covers the cost of service, it also covers the cost of parts up to a set amount, though for some reason they could not quote me that amount as it depends on what needs servicing. It does not cover call out fees and only covers service up to a set amount; again this depends, on what they could not tell me.

So the service cover doesn’t actually cover very much for what you pay and you will still find yourself with a bill at the end of it, I got a quote from a Corgi registered plumber who can and does service gas boilers and fires, and he was cheaper to call out than British Gas was?

You know when I started writing this I thought it may have been a draw, but I have to say that I think British Gas wins this one.

What do you think?

This blog is for you, the conumer, it is about businesses from the largest banks to the local plumber. Well it is about their customer services and how good, bad or indifferent they are.

You, the consumer can let me know about your run ins with the different businesses and how you rate them on the customer service list. Either by private meassage or by email, if you leave a request in comments I will let you have my email address.

I will write pieces about businesses, as I deal with the customer service of every bank in England, and many other financial institutions I can do those on a regular basis, for the rest, private businesses like the local plumber, I will need input from you and then I will investigate and post my findings.

I will post my first one in about five minutes