Very unhelpful supplier

[Huge]

This is called "theft". That tyre belongs to you.

[Huge]

WH Smith, Zurich Insurance, AGS Taxis of Bedford, Tesco Bank, Natwest ...

I have mixed feelings about BT. I've had both brilliant and dire service from them. Thinking about it, I think the excellent service has come from individual employees and the dire from the corporate guff (IVR systems, web sites, etc.) that surrounds them.

The service we got from Heritage (I sent the base unit for the sink back three times) was OK, but the quality of the bathroom was not that good - I wouldn't use them again.

As far as Churchill Insurance goes, I hope their dog dies.

[Mark]

And CO-OP bank can be added to the list.

BT kept overcharging me and it took threats of legal action and the Ombudsman to sort it out.

Heritage stuff is s**te and they refused to honour their warranty.

+1

[The Other Mike]

On the subject of Mercs and oil, I recall seeing the oil on dipstick of a Merc

190E in the early 80's. Coming up to its first service at something like 10000 miles, the oil looked 'new' when wiped on a some white kitchen paper, something I'd not seen before or since.

[polygonum]

Are people not told that with a new Merc, you should absolutely thrash it for the first few thousand miles. Then it will run sweet and long. (That from a Merc dealer - not rumour.)

[Bob Eager]

Their T&Cs actually say that they expect to keep the tyre, I noticed.

[Steve Firth]

writes

very annoyed with a local tyre dealer, excellent I other respects but the charged me £2 per tyre for disposal. However I had asked them to put the part worn tyres in the boot. Only comment was "standard charge, no refund".

[Steve Firth]

Add eCar to that list.

[Steve Firth]

Appliances Direct, British Gas, Magnet, Southern Electric ...

[David]

writes

I'm not happy with a local tyre shop too. They charged £20+ for a puncture repair and denied that balancing was necessary afterwards.

Won't go there again.

David

[Huge]

writes

My standard response to such being "Look at this face very carefully, you're never going to see it again."

[Huge]

Ooh, yes, I'd forgotten about them. BG charged me £260 on the final meter reading when I moved out of my last house and refused to admit it was a mistake, even though I'd been paying by DD and had never owed them more than £25 in previous years, and the kitchen designer in Magnets made a "sotto voce" rude remark when I went "backstage" to fetch a member of staff to serve the queue of people waiting patiently at the till. Hopefully she laughed on the other side of her face when I cancelled the units for my utility room.

[bert]

What they charge for labour bears no relationship to the cost of said labour - and the customer was paying for it in any case.

[ARW]

I believe that the trye was legally repairable. I wanted to take it to someone who knew what they were doing and would have disposed of it legally for me if I was wrong.

[Steve Firth]

I hope but my experience with Magnet staff is that they are so stupid and self destructive that losing customers doesn't make an impact on them.

[Steve Firth]

Best option, and they won't. Sadly a crisis of conscience means that I may also lose the garage that services the car, best place I have ever used, because they take cars next door to the tyre shop to get the tracking done. OTOH I will probably just tell them not to do the tracking, I will take the car elsewhere and tell them why. The garage owner is really keen on good customer service and will understand.

[Steve Firth]

The Money Programme on R4 today had an interesting bit about "carbon credit" trading. Oh heavens and above it turns out to be yet another giant Ponzi scheme. How totally unexpected.

[Bob Eager]

What he actually said was that *some* of the operations did a *bit* of Ponzi to keep them going longer, but others just delayed paying out at all and then legged it.

But yes, all a con!