Things you hate IV

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by hornmeister, Jun 25, 2019.

  1. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    My ex wife is into this. I’ve got them all over my house, she buys them for me for certain things, I’ve no idea what each one is meant to do but she regularly tells me to cleanse them under a full moon.

    I don’t bother challenging her on it, because I think if she gets some sort of comfort from it and thinks it actually works then is that such a bad thing. I fully agree it’s totally bonkers though.
     
  2. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Agreed. Just don't let the crystals hear you say that, that's all I'm saying.
     
  3. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Ex-wife?

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  4. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    My mum's exceptionally domineering sister continually spouts all that crystal-healing-holistic-energies crap (and my mum swallows it). When my uncle was diagnosed with suspected Parkinson's earlier this year, it wasn't Gandalf's Apothecary nor the gift shop of the National Geology Museum but BUPA* she first visited...

    *My suggestion of The Spires as the name "...was more suggestive of crystalline structures...." didn't quite get the reception it deserved.
     
  5. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    The fact that companies seem to have used Covid as an excuse to have no telephone contact with customer services available. The latest company is the Big Green Coach Company (providing transport to and from Wireless festival). This is the message on their website:
    “We have temporarily closed our phone lines to ensure that our customer service staff can answer more questions via email/Facebook. These are incredibly busy times.”

    Edit: So I have emailed the company my question and have received a reply that they will aim to reply “within 7 days but it may be longer due to current circumstances”. What “current circumstances” FFS? The question I have is about Saturday, so that’s really helpful you utter ****wits.

    So basically Covid is now an excuse for zero customer service?
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2021
  6. Hornpete

    Hornpete Squad Player

    This is mentioned a while ago in this thread. You will find covid has made it much harder to reply by telephone as people home working dont have the kit (a phone or a computer for interent dialling) at home to respond to calls. But they do have a computer to respond to emails.

    It is absolutely not a cost cutting exercise allowing call centres and businesses to save money whilst pretending they care. Not at all.
     
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  7. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    I had something similar with Blue Air (Romanian equivalent of EasyJet), who owed me a refund for a flight. They said it might take longer than 12 weeks to process the refund due to the "current circumstances", despite the fact that almost no one gets a refund off them (I only got it on a technicality as they moved the flight from Luton to Heathrow, which meant a flight number change and therefore a cancellation).

    After not answering calls or responding to web forms for 6 months I Googled their senior management and emailed them to ask where the hell my refund was. Next day I got an email from their customer services saying that because of the "current uncertainty", it was a case of waiting longer. The was no uncertainty about it - they owed me £600 and had said they would give it to me.

    After that I rang American Express (who I paid with and have the best customer service going) and they did a chargeback, so I got my money back that way.
     
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  8. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    It’s really annoying, I’ve also had it a few times when they’ve actually tried to guilt trip me over it, which is like a red bag to a bull.

    One was a service provider to our (small business) something went wrong which needed rectification ASAP as it was impacting our ability to function. I was on hold for at least 30 minutes, then when I got through to somebody they were just an operator who couldn’t help and just tried to fob me off with a call back later on from someone who could. Then the operator said something like “well Covid has caused big delays, some people have lost their jobs you know”

    Errrrr, how is that any sort of excuse? You expect me to care because you’ve laid people off that you clearly actually need, because your customers are now having to wait for an unacceptable length of time to be helped, whereas before Covid they didn’t? Where is the logic in that?
     
  9. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    "Current circumstances" = "sorry we are skint and have no cash to pay you"
     
  10. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    Many moons ago when my sister was travelling her room got robbed and all her money (?) in American Express Travellers cheques. She managed to contact home to tell us that the local office in Bankok couldn't do anything for 72hrs. My mum was furious because at the time the was an AMEX ad running on TV which showed someone in the same predicament getting their stolen cheques replaced, somewhere tropical, in a matter of hours (I can't comment as I was in Lithuania at the time). Mum managed to track down the details of AMEX's CEO and spoke to his PA leaving a message for him that contained:

    1. A précis of their current advert.
    2. Contact details and account of what happened to my sister in Bankok.
    3. A lot of Anglo-Saxon verbs in the passive and active voices.
    4. A promise that if any harm whatsoever happened to my sister my mum would be turning up at his office to "...do him..."
    Fast forward 2 hours, my mum gets a very nice hand-written apology couriered to her home and my sister gets her cheques replaced and three night's comp at some nice AMEX linked hotel to "...sort herself out..."
     
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  11. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    My bank (First Direct) did the same for me with Viagogo (NEVER use this company) after they refused to refund me money for a cancelled concert.
     
  12. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    Viagogo are scum
     
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  13. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    How were Viagogo trying to justify not refunding you??
     
  14. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    They initially said that the concert was “postponed not cancelled” (even though, at that point, no rescheduled date had been announced and I called the Wembley ticket office who confirmed that they were classing it as a cancelled event and issuing refunds). When the rescheduled date was finally announced and I again requested a refund explaining that I couldn’t make that date, Viagogo still refused to refund my money and said I could instead resell the tickets through their system. When I looked into this, though, I discovered that they charge you a fee for doing this! I hadn’t done my “due diligence” on Viagogo as, when I bought the tickets, there was no reason to think the concert would be cancelled as Covid wasn’t a thing at that stage. But I soon discovered the company had “form” for this and there’s a Facebook group called “Victims of Viagogo”. Looking at that, it seemed the best chance I had of getting a full refund was to get my bank involved, but that it depended on the bank whether they would take up the baton on my behalf. Luckily, mine did.
     
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  15. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    They are the absolute worst company, haven’t dealt with them for a while and never will again, but from memory they show the overall price of the ticket and then deliberately hide the breakdown of costs right until the very final step. Around 30/40% of the cost of the ticket is actually their fee which they deliberately hide as much as possible. I had a similar situation to you but it was pre-covid, I couldn’t make a gig due to a wedding (my issue admittedly) I couldn’t cancel my order, but instead I was told I could resell them on their website. The problem is as you say, they also charge you for this, so you basically pay their fee on the way in and pay it on the way out as well, so you end up taking a massive bath while they take 30/40% on both transactions.

    Ive no idea if the above has changed since as it was about three years ago, but it left a very nasty taste in my mouth. I just went on their website to try and see and there is no way to see the breakdown of costs until you get to the very last stage of putting all your bank details in, which I didn’t want to risk doing. I selected some Elton John tickets at £257 but there was nowhere that broke that cost down at any stage until presumably the payment confirmation.

    They also had crappy timers on their website to create urgency and fake waiting rooms for tickets that were simply just available.

    There was also a documentary on them a number of years back now and an undercover film crew filmed their employees using a huge folder of credit cards in different names to buy up gig tickets to be resold by them at higher prices, a truly nasty company.
     
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  16. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    My experience was in 2020 - the concert was cancelled due to covid.
     
    a19tgg likes this.
  17. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    The M1. Specifically the stretch near L*ton which attracted car crashes and big queues on my journies both to and from Watford today. Hate it.
     
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  18. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Same for M25, crashes on the western stretch every f***ing day this week.
     
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  19. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I’d like to know why people take their cars and lorries onto motorways and set them on fire.

    Traffic updates mention Lorry Fires as if it’s the most normal thing in the World. No it’s not, it’s effing shocking and shouldn’t be happening.
     
  20. Maninblack

    Maninblack Reservist

    I got stuck both ways as well. The proximity of that stretch of the M1 to Luton means there are more than your average number of morons using it at any given time. The variable speed limits are usually on no matter how dense the traffic, in recognition of this simple fact.
     
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  21. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    That stretch between getting on the Northbound M1 at Snorbens and Luton always scares me. If it's not the lane hoggers travelling of the 2nd and 3rd overtaking lanes at 50mph its those who decide to changes lane with nor indication at all or those who think that driving 1m from the back of car is acceptable. Thankfully most of journeys now end at the Redbourn/Markyate turn-off.
     
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  22. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    We also use that stretch regularly but, to be honest, it’s more irritating to me than frightening for the reasons you list. I sometimes turn off at J6 and go round the edge of St Albans instead. To me the stretch past L*t*n from J9 onwards is more scary with its horrible ‘smart’ motorway.
     
  23. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Smart motorways are fine. It's the non-smart drivers that cause the chaos.

    Take the 2 plums who'd had what appeared to be a low/no damage shunt approaching a well advertised queue just before J8. Do you both stop in lane 2 of 5 to exchange details and assign blame or move to hard shoulder?
     
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  24. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    Isn’t that the problem though, in that there are, and always will be thick people? So smart motorways provide more opportunity for people to do stupid things.
     
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  25. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    Agreed, but even for non-stupid people (and you won’t be surprised that I include myself in that group) ‘smart’ motorways are confusing and therefore, I think, inherently more dangerous.
     
  26. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    What's confusing about them?
     
  27. Davy Crockett

    Davy Crockett Reservist

    Agreed although it's not just thick people who cause mayhem on the roads . The arrogant areses
    are equally culpable . Whilst not all Beamer drivers are bellends or bellendettes there , IMO , is a disproportionate amount of nutters who drive those things .
     
  28. Hornpete

    Hornpete Squad Player

    I think I heard a statistic about broken down drivers being hit by another car due to there often being no hard shoulder.
     
  29. FromDiv4

    FromDiv4 Reservist

    Are more cars hit like this than cars hit in other lanes during stop start traffic?
    I think it is more down to bad drivers than the road layout. The lack of patience and concentration many drivers show on motorways is very worrying.
     
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  30. Hornpete

    Hornpete Squad Player

    Seems like it is where the inside lane aka hard shoulder is used in higher traffic levels.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.s...ked-to-more-accidents-and-fatalities-12263368
     
  31. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Yeah but that's not about them being confusing, surely? To me that's just a mixture of bad luck (to break down in the first place), other drivers not paying attention and probably some design issues too.
     
  32. Hornpete

    Hornpete Squad Player

    It's just that theres no safe place to stop. Smart motorways are only confusing when the lanes and speed change every 1/4 of a mile. I dont think they're bad but can see why the hard shoulder use is a potential problem.
     
  33. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Richer Sounds - the hi-fi people - are superb. In person, on-line or over the 'phone, their customer service and after sales support is always first class. If you're in the market for a new TV, stereo etc etc, don't go anywhere else

    This post was brought to you in association with Richer Sounds
     
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  34. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Had a TV that was literally weeks from it's 5 year guarantee expiring that went wrong. Richer Sounds replaced it with a brand new TV with another 5 year guarantee. Their service was just perfect. I won't go anywhere else now.
     
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  35. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    Yes, mostly the design issues. If you were designing it from scratch I think it would be better, but in the stretch around L*t*n the extra lane/hard shoulder comes and goes around the junction exit lanes and it’s clear they’ve shoe-horned it into the existing road structure. Apart from that I’m not convinced the refuge zones for those who do break down are adequate.
     

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